Adam and Michelle Carey on Undercover Recruiter and New Book
Adam and Michelle are top producers in their network marketing company, released a new ebook, and offer a lot of free MLM training. Here’s our interview.
I’m super excited to be interviewing the vivacious Adam and Michelle Carey! They are a power team in the network marketing industry and have recently launched a new product and new eBook.
So, let’s get to it!
Hey Adam and Michelle. Thank you for this interview!
So, you started network marketing and the first 6 months were a struggle. This is actually incredible because most network marketers struggle for years. What do you think was the recipe or dynamic for your early success in network marketing?
Well, when we first started our network marketing career, it was in the midst of the recession in 2007. Adam was in luxury boat sales and I was in retail management.
We lost Adam’s income almost overnight, because when people were getting foreclosed on their houses, there is no way anyone can get financed for a luxury boat.
A shopaholic should never work at the mall. The years of working in retail management, I ended up with a huge mountain of debt from my “lunch break” shopping sprees. So by the time we were introduced to network marketing, we were in serious financial trouble.
Ironically, when the lady called Adam to introduce him to her network marketing company, he was completely closed-minded.
He used to think that home-based businesses were for “soccer moms and people who had nothing to do” and this is what he told her. Now that we have a daughter, we realize that parents are the busiest people, especially soccer moms.
Despite his push back, she kept trying to convince him to join her company. Eventually, he hung up on her, and she called back all upset saying, “I’m your mother, how could you hang up on me!?”
Yes, it was his mother who introduced us to the network marketing company that we would build. Eventually, she dangled dinner in front of us, and we agreed to take a look at what she was working on. After that dinner, and becoming fully educated with our options, we fully jumped in.
We were excited and most of all, we had a renewed sense of hope. We just had a few obstacles standing in our way. The first obstacle was we did not have the money to get started. It might as well have been a million dollar investment, because we were selling things and doing any side jobs just to get by.
The second obstacle was we could not gather a customer in our own backyard. Our closest customer was 1564.6 miles away in Texas.
We made the decision to move to Texas, where we could more easily gather customers and build the business. We ended up packing our belongings into the bed of Adam’s old pickup truck, and everything else we sold.
Yes, the first 6 months were hard, and here are the 2 elements that made the rest of our journey a success.
The first element was that we were hungry and we had nowhere else to go. I remember a few moments, where we found ourselves at a crossroads.
We had to make the decision to keep pressing forward or move back home to mom and dad’s house, and let everyone know that it didn’t work.
Each time we decided that everything we were experiencing: the uncomfortable, awkwardness of stumbling through this business, and the rejection were better that option “B”.
The second element is we got a mentor. Our mentor pulled us aside one evening after a live presentation and she said, “If you are willing to be coachable, and to do the work, then I will help you.”
We agreed and that was the hardest we have ever hustled. Within 2 years, we were able to quit both of our full-time jobs and we reached the second highest level in the company.
We all need to learn the skills and we all need accountability. If it weren’t for those elements, we would have quit on our dreams.
I think about how different life would be if we chose to retreat. It makes my heart skip a beat to know that it was all hanging in the balance with a few key decisions.
What kind of struggles did you face in the first six months and what advice can you give struggling network marketers out there?
In the beginning, I struggled with self-belief. Adam has always been an extrovert, who can virtually talk to anyone.
He really has never had a struggle with self-confidence. I, on the other hand, came into network marketing with low self-esteem, fearful of rejection and I put all of my value into what others thought of me.
First and foremost I had to realize that my value should not be a projection of what others thought of me. This took a lot of internal work.
My stability now comes from realizing that my creator thought of me from before the beginning of time. That I am enough and I am loved just the way I am despite my imperfections, and that I was placed here for such a time as this with a purpose that is beyond me.
With that renewed perspective, it helped me get out of my critical, introspective bubble. It gave me the confidence to talk to people about what network marketing has to offer: which is freedom from financial stress, freedom to create memories with loved ones and freedom to create an amazing lifestyle. It was no longer about me, it became about the people who wanted that level of freedom for themselves and their family.
Our mentor also put us on a personal development plan that we still follow. We start our day reading and we end our day reading.
Throughout the day, we are listening to audiobooks and podcasts. We always teach people that they should be focused on 3 activities: growing yourself, sponsoring new business partners and gathering customers.
The second struggle we had in the first 6 months, was we did not know anyone in Texas. We had to get comfortable with meeting people while we were out running errands, and we also learned how to network at business events. We really had to hone in on our cold market prospecting skills.
In the beginning our results were lackluster because we went out hunting for prospects. People can sense that we had an agenda.
So, now we just go out with the intention to encourage people. Instead of recruiters, we are professional encouragers, and this is the foundation of all of our teachings in cold market prospecting.
It’s amazing how much people need encouragement these days. When you can give a sincere compliment or really ask and find out how they are doing, doors open up. At times, it is not the right moment to bring up your business.
Sometimes we never see them again, but at least we can walk away knowing that we positively contributed to their day.
This focus makes building this business a lot more enjoyable and we have found that the more generous you are with your encouragement, the business ends up taking care of itself.
You guys have an awesome energy together. How does Adam compliment Michelle’s personality, and vice versa?
Thank you so much. It wasn’t always this way, we were newlyweds during the beginning seasons of our business, so it was tough at times.
Adam always inspires me to make deeper connections with people. He truly loves people and that makes me want to get out of my comfort zone and go into situations where I would normally be really uncomfortable. I was born an introvert, but now I have the confidence to talk to anyone.
He also has attention to detail, which is not a strength of mine, and that matters in our training platform.
I am the creative brain, although Adam is pretty creative but I think I bring it out of him even more. My mind is constantly thinking of new things, to the point of needing to create boundaries so we don’t lose focus on our current projects.
I’m always running up to him and overwhelming him with my next big idea. Thankfully Adam is more grounded in his approach to starting new projects or we would have too many unfinished ones on the table. We have a plethora of ideas that we will implement at the right time.
How old is your blog, how many posts are on it, and do you still blog regularly?
We released our first blog post in August of 2015. Because of our busy schedule, we committed to at least one new blog post a week.
All of our blogs have video. As of right now (October 2016) we have 61 posts on our blog. We still post once a week, but we are on Facebook Live at least 4 days a week. We call it the 4 at 4 (Monday thru Thursday at 4 pm pacific) make it memorable for our tribe.
If someone is new to MLM and wants to do everything through blogging, what would you tell them?
I would tell them to get started with a schedule that is manageable. To us, the name of the game is consistency and quality.
We were told to blog more, but we just felt that our quality would not be up to par if we tried to take on more than we could handle.
We focus on quality because there are a lot of choices for people to invest their time and attention in. To win their attention, it takes creating quality content with a different twist from what they usually see.
Don’t be afraid to be different. Standing out is the best way to gather a tribe of people who love you and will be really responsive to your content.
I would rather have a smaller list of followers who love what we are doing than have a large list of followers who think we are vanilla and can easily ignore the content we release.
You released a new network marketing book that’s doing incredibly well on Amazon right now with 95 5-Star reviews, entitled: “Don’t Be that Guy in Network Marketing: 21 Common Mistakes that will Label You as ‘That Guy.’”
Obviously, it’s a book on etiquette essentially for network marketers, is that correct? And, what are maybe 5 of the worst mistakes that new network marketers make?
Yes, that’s right. It’s a guide to network marketing etiquette. And our heart behind it is to accelerate success, alleviate rejection and elevate the profession.
We believe that if people can avoid these common mistakes from the beginning they will have less rejection. If they have less rejection, they will stick it out longer and have better results.
And most of all, if we can change the stigma of network marketing through our actions, our profession can one day get the notoriety it deserves.
The top 5 we see are:
1.) Social Media Spammer: Social media is powerful for network marketers if done correctly. Posting links everywhere saying, “Ask me how” is not marketing. And unfortunately this was the mistake I was committing the most when I first started.
2.) The Motor Mouth: We all get excited and want to explain everything in a scary enthusiastic way. Enthusiasm is important, but it needs to be matched with the correct posture to attract people.
Also, the less you say, the more you make. It’s important to pique interest and lead them to a tool instead of trying to explain everything under the sun.
It’s overwhelming and they usually make decisions based on their interpretation and not fact. The story I told with my mother-in-law when she kept pushing Adam until he hung up on her is a perfect example. Most people are just polite and endure the conversation instead of ending it.
3.) The Oh By The Way Phone Call: When we call our friends and people we haven’t talked to in a long time, have a long catching up session and then we say, “Oh by the way, I want to tell you about the business I started…” This makes people feel like the intention of the call was to bring up the business and not because you sincerely wanted to catch up.
Unfortunately we have done this and I regret making people feel less important than my agenda. It’s better to just come out with your intention of the call or just catch up and reconnect without bringing up your business. If you do mention it, just mention it and change the subject. It will give you an open door to contact them later to talk just business.
4.) The Bait and Slam: Which is when you have a meeting or when you want to meet for coffee, but you don’t tell them that you will be talking about business.
We invited a bunch of people one time for pizza and a pay-per-view fight. They were not excited when they walked into the room with a projector screen setup. On top of that, we did the presentation before anyone could grab a piece of pizza or watch the fight.
5.) The Secret Agent: So many people start a network marketing business and never ever tell anyone about it. The truth is, no one is going to tap you on your shoulder and ask to be your customer. Like anything else in the world, it takes work to be successful.
You also offer mentoring on your blog for possibly “those guys.” Can you tell us who you coach and what are the sessions like and is it daily, weekly or monthly?
As of right now, we are restructuring our mentoring process. We do have a private Facebook group that gets additional interaction with us for free.
In the future we will open up a group mentoring option where they will have dedicated and exclusive content released to them on a weekly basis, plus a monthly webinar with a 6 or 7-figure earner and other special guests, plus accountability.
Also, we are looking to mentor people who want to build a platform and need help with video marketing and branding and creating products. We are still creating these steps in the ladder. If anyone is interested in learning more about these programs, they can email us at The411@adamandmichellecarey.com and we can keep them in the loop as to when we will be launching these programs.
You also recently developed a new product, called “The Undercover Recruiter.” This looks exciting. Can you tell us what this product teaches and who its for?
Yes, it was a blast to create. Over the years of training cold market prospecting, we found that people were still hesitating to start. We realized that the fear of the unknown was the culprit.
So we wanted to film Adam in real situations. Of course, we blur out faces, and bleep out names and numbers to protect the identity of everyone. Overall, we want people to see how simple it is and how receptive people are when it’s done correctly.
This is for anyone who learns visually. It’s one thing to learn the scripts and tips, but seeing real life examples takes learning to a whole new level.
So many people come back and say that it’s easier than they thought. That everything they imagined would happen actually don’t happen.
Undercover Recruiter takes away the mystery and shows people that cold market prospecting can be easily added to their business building activities. Running out of people to talk to is a common roadblock for people in network marketing. This skill will enable people to generate leads so they never run out of people to talk to.
I spoke to Elizabeth Oliva lately and she mentioned that you’re going to be featured in one of John Maxwell’s books, is that right?
We were actually chosen to train with John and the Leaders Multiply organization. In September 60 network marketing leaders flew to Atlanta to film a training course with John Maxwell.
The training is The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth for Network Marketers. Adam and I trained on the Law of the Ladder, which states that character growth determines the height of your personal growth. To boil it down, we trained on the importance of integrity.
In January, people will be able to take the training course in an online university typesetting.
What’s your favorite business/entrepreneur book right now for both of you?
Adam: The John Maxwell Leadership Bible is the book that has influenced him the most. John takes the leaders in the Bible and extracts leadership lessons. Since success network marketing rises and falls on leadership, learning these lessons and principles influenced our business the most.
Michelle: Homerun by Kevin Meyers and John Maxwell. The reason why I chose this book is because I place a lot of importance in having an overall healthy lifestyle. We want success, but we are not willing to sacrifice our family on the alter of success.
Many people don’t believe you can have it all, when in fact you can, if you’re willing to do it in a way that is different from what the world tells us to do.
This book has given us the ability to focus on the right things so that our fulfillment doesn’t just come from career success or monetary things. We want a successful family, a healthy relationship with our daughter and the people we love and most of all we want to honor our relationship with God.
What are your goals for 2017?
Our goals are to continue to build a successful team in network marketing. We want to help families create more time, money and memories.
We have several projects that we are working on. One is a book, a mentoring course and a retreat called Living Bullet Proof and it will help people overcome the fear of rejection and realize their true value so they can confidently step into their destiny.
We also have a training course that will help people create video marketing campaigns that will make them stand out. This is called Divergent Video Marketing.
We also have mentoring programs that we are putting into place. Lots of exiting goals for 2017 and if anyone is interested in learning more about these programs, they can email us at The411@adamandmichellecarey.com and we can keep them in the loop as to when we will be launching them.
What is your favorite quote and why? (Both of you!)
Michelle: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
I was told this when I hit the very bottom of my life. This scripture gave me hope that I have a purpose and that I am not just here on this earth fending for myself.
This was the start of my healing process from anxiety attacks. And I am forever grateful for this turning point in my life that started with this quote.
Adam: “If you live by the praise of people, you will die by their criticism.” -Todd White
This quote helped both Adam and I stop placing our value in the praise of others. We got tied up in this when we started to gain popularity from what we did in our company. This was dangerous ground because once we experienced criticism it crushed us.
Now, we don’t place much weight in what people think which gives us a great sense of freedom to be ourselves and pursue what burns in our hearts.
Thanks so much for this interview, Adam and Michelle! This has been by far the biggest interview I have done. Wow! So much great information here.
For more information on Adam and Michelle, Please visit their blog HERE.
Other Awesome Interviews:
Randy Gage on Mad Genius
Jordan Adler on a Beach Money Sequel
Ace and Rich Make $72,020 with Super Affiliate
Kamil Migas on Perseverance in MLM
Demetri Benton on MLM Training Tips
Jeff Atkins on 24 Years Experience in MLM
Sincerely,
Erik Christian Johnson
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