When I was brand new and heard this expression, promoting events, for the first time, I didn't really know what it meant… At least I understood from everyone around me that our events were important if we were going to get trained.
Later Tim Sales told me that to promote means ”to make known”. To make known. To inform about. To market. It's about marketing the events! Selling event tickets. Selling is something most people shy away from, back away from, but it's really about explaining the value of being at a training so you understand what it is you're doing out in the field.
We're all selling things all the time. We sell the circumstances for why we shouldn't do this or that. We sell which lunch restaurant we should eat at. We sell our partner on what we should and shouldn't do. We sell our time to our employer, and even back when I worked on the factory floor I was selling my time to my employer (far too cheaply, if you ask me…).
Promoting the events is essential. You can't build a big business if you don't promote events. I just wanted to explain what this has really been about for direct selling historically… If you worked with this 50 years ago, it was more like taking on a franchise, just like opening a supplement shop. You bought in a stock of products for maybe 50,000 SEK.
That was normal. It was nothing strange. Back then. Then you were supposed to try to sell this stuff, and if you invested that kind of money it was no surprise that you wanted training in what you were doing. It became a different level of seriousness, because you really wanted this to turn into something when you'd put in that kind of capital.
Invest in your business
If you've put a couple of million into a franchise, going to the training isn't optional. In some cases it can mean six months in the US, not optional. The question is how seriously you take your business. Then again, I know we wouldn't recruit many people if it required us to spend several months in training after paying millions to start. I just want to explain the value of really learning to understand what you're doing.
As I said, 50 years ago a starter package could cost 50,000 SEK and the training wasn't optional. If you joined back then without buying a stock of products, you got a ”good luck” and were told to call the day you changed your mind and wanted to order some things. It's more or less impossible to build without having tried the products.
”Call the day you decide to become professional, because only then can we help you…” was not an unusual response, according to those who were around at the time. Today you start on a free licence and have the choice to bring home products for a few thousand. The more things you have at home, the better your starting position is, obviously. Not so you can sell the contents of the package these days, but so you can test the products yourself and lend out or hand out samples so people around you can try them. Extremely valuable. Without samples, nowhere near the same results. In that situation you can also lend things to new people while they wait for their own order to arrive, so they get going faster. It's undeniably a sign of seriousness that you've equipped yourself with products so you can make this journey for real. Your ambition decides.
Trainings
There's an expression, GPA, which in Swedish means go to everything! Go to every training! ”You're about to start a business that could give you 100,000 a month or more if you have ambition and do the work, but you weren't planning on getting any training?”
I went to every event when I was new. Back then I went to 3 international events down in Europe each year. Then I went to events several times a year in Sweden. I probably spent 50,000 a year on travel, hotels, event tickets and other costs. That's certainly not something you have to do today. We've built an infrastructure in Sweden that's extremely efficient.
A comparison
Let's compare with people who get a regular education. Those who decide to go on and study, they study for 5 years and have taken loans from CSN (the Swedish student loan agency) of a few hundred thousand to do it. Say you're going to become a doctor. I don't know exactly, but I think I'm being conservative if I say you wake up with a loan of 300,000 SEK after at least 5 years. You're 300,000 SEK in the red before you've even started working, because you chose to get an education. That's normal today. So why do you think you can start this business without educating yourself?
You need to learn things properly! Imagine running for 5 years. Not ”break even” but 300,000 SEK in the red after 5 years. Now, people rarely do that in direct selling, because either they ”break even” within a few months if they do what they promised themselves they'd do, or they quit after a while when they feel it's going slowly. That gives you a bit of perspective.
If you do the right things for 5 years, you could have built an income of 100,000 SEK a month after 5 years. I have several people in my organisation who started 5 years ago and have passed that income today. Nothing strange about it if you do what you promised yourself you'd do. If you go to the trainings, because without trainings results rarely come.
What does training cost if you go to a training company?
Take Success Resources. One of the world's biggest training companies, maybe THE biggest, what do I know. Most of the big gurus you know of sit under their umbrella. Anthony Robbins, for example. We went to our first Anthony Robbins event in 2008. We flew to London, we paid for flights, accommodation, food and other costs on top of the 8,000 SEK the ticket cost for the weekend. That was just the first step. The next step cost 35,000 SEK. For one weekend. Ticket only. Excluding flights, accommodation, food and costs. What's an event worth? Their philosophy is that you learn in a few days what most people don't learn in all their years at school. About how you can build your life, how you can think about wealth, not just money. A richer life.
We bought that course and went. Since then I've done several similar trainings abroad and in Sweden. What is training worth? It depends on what you do with it. For me it was EVERYTHING! Without all the training I've invested in, I wouldn't be where I am and have the results I have. The thing is, if you're sitting there wondering whether you should go to a training or not. Okay, what do you want to do with this? How badly do you want to build it? Do you think this is a fun thing, or do you think it's a nice hobby? Completely fine. If you go to events to get a bit inspired, that's completely fine! You're welcome. I know people who stay home because ”it's a bit much right now”… How something can be both ”a bit” and ”much” I don't know, but… it's a choice! In so many other organisations it's ”not optional”… it's essential. It isn't optional. You don't get to choose. If you don't train yourself, there's no point.
We as leaders: It's hard to work with people who don't educate themselves, who have the wrong attitude towards learning. I once heard a person say ”you can take notes and go through them with me when you get home?” That person had the wrong attitude towards learning. That person wanted to demand that I spend hours of my life retelling what I'd learned at a training. Why would I do that when the person could just as easily have sat next to me at the training?
As leaders we're always on the hunt for talent. The most important quality we look for is hunger. Or to quote my mentor Örjan: ”Agressiveness!” When you're aggressively hungry and thirsty for knowledge. Will is good. Hunger is better. That's what we're looking for. Someone who has the will, I'm prepared to invest anything in. Time, energy, money. This world needs more leaders. How badly do you want this? You can revolutionise your life if you choose to go for it.
Many people have built an income in a year that they could live on! Some have, in a few years, built an income twice the average or more! I just see so many advantages to working this way compared to everything else I've seen in my whole life. I'm passionate about this business and I'll work with it for the rest of my life. There's nothing that can match it. This is the coolest thing I've seen, and if you want to be part of this journey, go to the trainings. There's nothing that compares to this career!
Back to ”paying the price”
That brings us back to this thing about paying the price. Many people say ”I can't afford it but I'd love to…”
”There's nothing wrong with my attitude, I just can't afford it.”
Okay?
I know what it feels like to have no money. I know what it feels like to max out your credit card. I know what it feels like to drag unpaid bills along for months… I know what it feels like to get a text from a consultancy firm that wants to collect my car because I haven't paid the lease for several months. I know what it feels like to… I could go on…
I know it's about priorities, and yes… I don't have a family, so I only have myself to risk, but the thing is that in my world it wasn't risky! In my world it was an investment that made sure the future looked brighter!
”Sitting at home clinging desperately to what you have is the riskiest thing you can do.” Patric Nilsson
Doing something more is the safest thing you can do!
So what have you got in storage that you can sell?
How can you earn a bit more money?
Can you work overtime so you take home more?
Can you borrow money from somewhere?
Credit card? Bank loan?
I'm no big fan of consumer credit. I've gone down that road myself when I had bad habits. Spending habits. There's a big difference between an investment and consumer credit. One eats you up, the other plants a seed of your future abundance. It creates the conditions for building a generative economy.
Once, when I was going to explain to my sponsor Fredrik that I couldn't afford to go to the next event, he gave me a CD. Yes, this was before Storytel. Before that it was cassette tapes. I got to listen to a man who later became an important mentor in several ways, Mr. Randy Gage. He talked about the importance of going to events. He explained what he did to get himself there and get trained. He explained that this was absolutely decisive for his future career. He had to sell furniture to get to events.
He asked: Have you sold your bed yet?
It's so easy as a Swede to laugh a little and say: ”Yes, but…” no buts! How badly do you want this? At the end of the talk he said ”If you've planned to do this but you can't get the money together, sell your TV!”.
I was in exactly that situation at the time. I'd taken a bank loan and bought a car, maxed out my credit card, I had a new flat. New phone. New furniture… I wasn't in a position to go. I said I couldn't afford it. I listened to Randy and he said ”Sell your TV.” I had a fairly new widescreen (one of the bulky ones), so I sold it and bought the flight for a couple of thousand and the event ticket, which was close to 3,000 SEK. And we weren't going to Stockholm, we were going to Cologne in Germany.
How hungry are you?
That's what it's about. So if someone says ”Now Patric sounds so hard… If that's how it is, I'll stay home.” Sure, do that. I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to help you get results. I don't want you running insanely much faster than you can handle, but the trainings are important. I want you to go to events!
If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but I want you to do everything you can to get yourself there. ”I can't sell my TV, because then the kids won't have anything to watch their programmes on…”
I get that.
… but do you have something in the wardrobe? Something in the garage? Something in the attic you can manage without and sell to afford an event ticket? Where there's a will, there's a way.
How badly do you want to change your future?
If you're hungry, there are solutions. To get something different you need to do something different. Make a decision. Break the pattern. Act!
”Today is a unique opportunity to draw a line in the sand, step over it and say: now I'm going to change my life”.
Patric Nilsson
