Join Dan McCormick as he interviews this week’s Greatest Salesman, Ricky Villanueva. Ricky is a Millennial serial entrepreneur with 11+ years of experience in online brand awareness, consulting, and high-performance. He is considered a thought leader in the direct sales and network marketing industry and currently holds the record for the youngest and fastest millionaire in his company. From being born in Peru to being chased by immigration at age 13, and then a college dropout at age 20, and now the top income earner in his company, you do not want to miss this true rags to riches story.

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Becoming A Millionaire Young And Fast With Ricky Villanueva

I have an unbelievable guest. The greatest salespeople in the world get a chance to join us and share with us their dive into the world of sales self-help business. They enlighten us in many ways. He’s Ricky Villanueva from Utah. Ricky, how are you?

I am wonderful. I am lucky. I am blessed. I’m feeling good. I’m grateful for my health for sure.

You look fabulous. You’re energized. You’ve got beautiful people joining us. I’ve got Troy out in Chicago and there are Pam and lots of friends. We are going to have some amazing bombs drop on how Ricky became the greatest salesman in the world. He’s in the hot seat. Ricky, I wonder if you would share with us three things that you think put you in this chair. What are three things that have changed your life or each and every day of your life?

First of all, thanks for having me. Dan, I’ve looked up to you for many years. I found Dan McCormick on YouTube one day and he shared two books, and when he shared those two books, I went on and I got them, The Greatest Salesman in the World and Lessons from Great Lives. It’s been incredible to now be on your show. Thank you so much. The three things that have shaped me I think first and foremost is God. For a lot of us, but for me in my darkest moments in life where I felt there was no one else I can turn to, or there are questions that I don’t have answers to, or I don’t know exactly what to do in a particular situation.

It’s always those conversations that I have with God. When my business partner and I launched with our current company, it was one of the first things. I remember sitting early in the morning on a couch. I like to wake up early before my kids wake up and start tackling me and wrestling with me. It was one morning, and I felt there was a lot of internal struggle going on inside me because here I was again starting a brand-new venture. I didn’t know who I was going to talk to. I remember asking God to bring me some leaders. I remember asking God for help. He brought me exactly what I needed. God, first and foremost, that’s my partner, my business partner, my everything.

Number two I would say is my wife. My wife is my present and my future. We’re married. We worked together for all eternity forever. She’s the driving factor behind everything that I do. I wouldn’t be here without her. That drives me a lot, for any man that wants to take care of his woman or his significant other. I take a lot of pride in that and saying, “I can provide anything that you want in life.” That’s number two. Number three is my kids. My favorite thing in the world is being a dad. I identify with being a dad so much. There’s no greater joy for me than to play with my kids. Having a boy’s night with my boys, girl’s night with my girls.

Having a tea party, I think I’ve had hundreds of tea parties in the last years. My kids, they’ve grown up on my lap, me being a part of this industry. They hold me accountable, especially as they get a bit older. They see the company that I’m a part of. They see the goals that I have written down. It almost puts a bit more pressure on my end to make sure that I’m not creating dreams, but I’m also bringing those to reality. My kids are the third thing that drives me. God, wife and kids.

I think anyone that’s reading and there are a lot of people reading can relate to that. I think that one of the things that bring out people to the chair you’re in today being the greatest salesman is the fact that Og wrote in a way that brought in faith. In one of his books, The God Memorandum, and he talks about the Christ Commission. He has many amazing books, but we’re talking about specifically that one book that got into your hand, The Greatest Salesman in the World. That’s an amazing story. You also talk about your wife and we all marry up, us guys in the world. What our wives do or whatnot is beyond reproach from my perspective.

Interesting that you said kids, because Stephen Covey, who my wife had as a professor at BYU many years ago when he wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He was fond of saying that when you’re raising your kids, you’re raising your grandkids. There’s that in with the end in mind thing. That’s three things that I find to be very fascinating. We have a platform for you on three things that you find to shape your life. I can feel that you’re aligned with that. When and where did you feel the personal development journey started for you? When did you start diving deep into that area of life?

I started diving deep into that when I was 23 years of age. I met a couple of very successful networkers in the industry that I reached out to. I remember coming to them and saying, “I don’t know how to build these things. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know that I’m hungry and I’m willing to learn. You guys tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I don’t care.” I remember starting off with a lot of frustration because I was expecting them to teach me, “This is how you recruit. This is how you get customers,” the how-tos. Instead, I remember them asking me one question, and the question was, “Tell us a bit about your past.”

I remember diving into my past, my lack of self-esteem, my history, and a lot of things that shaped who I was and more importantly, that blinded me from who I could become. They said, “You need help. You need to create a brand-new story about yourself.” I said, “How do you do that?” I remember them giving me a few exercises, “Write down the person that you want to become. How do you see your business growing? Write it all down, obsess over it, visualize and read the books.” They turned me on to Bob Proctor and I became obsessed with that because for once in my life, I felt I had control over my future. I didn’t know about personal development.

When I got introduced to personal development and I’m like, “I’m in charge of that. My team’s not in charge of that. I can read as much as I choose to. I can visualize as much as I choose to. I can goal set, dream as much as I want to. That’s on me.” I became obsessed. I went on a journey. The journey took longer than I wanted it to, but it happened when it should have. I went on a lifelong mission at that point. I became obsessed. For example, The Greatest Secret in the World, the secret scrolls. It took me a while to dive into it because the moment I started reading it, and he talks about W. Clement Stone early on, and I’m sitting there thinking, “This man used this strategy to earn $400 million. Who is this guy?”

I remember going into Google typing W. Clement Stone. I got turned on to Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. I put this book down, I bought Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, I’m reading it. I find out everything about W. Clement stone. I’m like, “This is life-changing. I got to do this. I got to recreate a new program in my subconscious mind.” I went on a mission on that. I believe in self-growth, subconscious, creating a new story about yourself.

I love how you said that. For those of you who are not familiar with the program, the secret is the journalized version. Og learned the journalized version from Ben Franklin. He listed early on in his early books his favorite books. The autobiography of Ben Franklin was learning the thirteen virtues that Ben talked about and how he studied one of those every week for 64 years. Talk about showing up with consistency. When we talk about The Greatest Salesman, I hope everybody will go get a copy, begin your journey. You said something that Og says at the beginning of the story with Hafid, “The prizes of life are not at the beginning.” It’s not said how many steps we’re going to get. You said it took longer, but it worked out perfectly. It showed up when it was supposed to.

That’s right. What I used as my bookmark in this book was after I was reading Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, I kept reading and I hear about Benjamin Franklin and the thirteen virtues. I went out and purchased a book, but I couldn’t wait for the book to get there. I went onto Google. I’m like, “What are these thirteen virtues?” I remember printing off the thirteen virtues and going to Think and Grow Rich and printing of the seventeen principles of success. I condensed it into one list and I have the list in front of me where on one side I have my goal sheet and on the other side I have the virtues and I have the seventeen principles. As I would read the scrolls, I would pull this out and I’d work on one of those things. Sometimes it took a lot. Positive mental attitude, you can’t just read it. When you apply it, it’s a lot of effort to keep a positive mental attitude in certain situations. I studied, read, applied, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I kept going and going. I never quit.

There’s a lot of bombs dropped right there. What I did, because I know you had an incredible experience with this guy right here. I brought out my original copy from the ‘80s. This is way back in the day. Bob Proctor, obviously one of my favorites of all time, says this early on in the book, “People don’t feel comfortable about the money because they have it. They have it because they feel comfortable with it.” You’ve shared before about some difficult times. Bob Proctor showed up at a big important crossroads in your life. Why don’t you talk about that?

Becoming A Millionaire Fast: It takes a lot of effort to keep a positive mental attitude in certain situations.

I was at a crossroads in my life. You’re in the industry long enough, you hear enough stories and you want it bad enough, but you realize, “Where I’m at is not where I want to be.” After being in the industry for years, I’m like, “This sucks.” For me, it sucked only because I’m the guy that if I’m going to play, I want to win. Not only do I want to win, but I want to create a name for myself. It’s not about being a part of something. I want to be the thing. It was December, I guess, but it happened in January of 2019. I called the gentleman and I said, “What do I get to do to play bigger? I’ve been stuck at this level for so long and I’m not willing to have it take me another ten years to get here. I want to get here faster.” He said, “You need to go to the next Bob Proctor seminar. Purchase the most expensive ticket.” I was a bit nervous about that, but I always say if you’re going to ask for advice, you better go apply it when it’s given to you.

When he said that, I got online and a ticket to attend a Bob Proctor seminar was $2,400. I didn’t have a lot of money back then and this was January 2019. I had texted him. I said, “Are you sure I got to be at the event? I can’t do a virtual event ticket because the virtual is $125.” He’s like, “No. When it comes on to success, the closer you can get to the fire, the more you’re going to burn.” I said, “Deal, I’ll do it.” I paid $2,400. My wife supported that decision. My wife’s always been my biggest believer. Whatever it took, she was willing to do it as well, along with the kids. We all drove out to California and I sat down with Bob Proctor and he asked me a couple of questions. The first question that was an interesting question was because you read about it all the time, but it’s different when you have someone tell you to write it out, he said, “Write down who are your five closest friends.”

I wrote them down, a big smile on my face. Next question, “About how much is their income and what is their occupation?” I wrote it down and he asked me the next question is, “Could it be that you’re the average of those five?” I looked at that list and I literally got up and walked out. I called my wife and I said, “I need new friends. Otherwise, I’m going to be stuck in this area.” I fired my friends, not like I called them and said you’re fired. I disassociated myself a bit. I went into an isolation mode and I said, “How do I get to the next level?” I started to immerse myself in the idea that, “I should have a call with one millionaire every single week for the next twelve months. Maybe that’ll help me.”

Ironically enough also at the time, Bob Proctor asked me, “What is it that you want?” There was an income goal that I wanted. It’s interesting how the universe works because a couple of weeks after that, I quit the industry of network marketing. I started dabbling into different things. Along the way, as I’m having a conversation with a millionaire every single week and I got a chance to meet a billionaire as well. They shared with me, “The people that are wealthy in life, not the ones that try to be cool about it because they make here and there, don’t talk about the money they make or the things they buy. They always talk about the amount that they give.” I was like, “That’s amazing.”

Here I was reaching out to millionaires that were willing to give me advice, willing to invest in me a bit. It’s interesting. That was my experience with Bob Proctor. I remember writing down on a goal card and I carried this goal card with me every single day and I read it and I visualized it. Even when I quit the industry, I still visualize myself earning seven figures in the industry, even though I wasn’t in it. I knew something would happen eventually. It happened exactly when I said it would, which was creepy in itself. That was my experience in 2019.

What a story. One of my favorite comments of all time, I think I may have learned from Jim Rohn and another mentor speaking about the word casual, and we got you in the hot seat here as the greatest salesman in the world. Everything you’re talking about here, you can see an intentional creation of your life, a very intentionally focused effort. I’m going to ask you next about when was it most difficult for you, but what was interesting about what you said here, in casual leads to casualties. Jim Rohn taught me that. I think I was on the beaches of Mazatlan or somewhere like that in Mexico. We had a small little millionaire group in the late ‘80s. Casual effort leads to casual results. You’ve got a very intentional approach here. Every single day, I feel you’re feeding your mind at a very focused level. There’s nothing about it that’s casual. It’s very intentional.

We’re thrilled. The company Og Mandino does sponsor us. Og Mandino is my sponsor, but you can see the free test that we’ll give you. The assessment will assess you in about fifteen minutes on whether your thoughts are aligned with principles that Og is teaching. If you’ll go to HabitFinder.com/podcast, 150,000 network marketers have taken this assessment. We know exactly what the high achievers, how they think and not what they think and that’s what you’re going to find out about you. Hopefully, you can go do that. Ricky, I know you’ve done that. I know that was a while back. We’re going to get you on the phone with Dave Blanchard, the founder of the company, and be able to debrief and break down how that brain works in the Ricky V world.

That’ll help because I don’t know how my brain works. I’m thinking way too much. I need some help in that area.

That’s one of the things that we find. All of us high achievers are hyper-visual. We’re very stimulated by the next person we’re talking to, the next project we’re on. It’s a go-go world for us. We don’t sleep a lot. Mind over mattress is the first thing of the order at 5:00 AM. That’s a great thing. I wonder because Og had some tough times. Bob Proctor had some tough times. Jim Rohn had tough times. Dan McCormick had tough times. When do you find was most difficult and challenging for you and how did you handle it?

I’ve had multiple hard times. One of the things that Art Williams said that I caught on too early on, he was like, “It’s hard and it’s supposed to be hard. The harder it is the easier and the more money I can make.” I was like, “That’s crazy.” I guess it’s supposed to be hard. I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe some people have overnight success stories, but for me, it wasn’t that way. I’ve had multiple moments in my previous years where I’ve broken down and felt, “I’m a disappointment.” When I was twenty years old and I got started in the industry, nobody was there to say yes to me. It was all challenge after challenge. It was like, “Why are you dropping out of college? I don’t get it.” I felt this was going to be my path. I didn’t quit.

There were many tough moments, moments where I couldn’t afford that much food for the family. I’d have to go donate plasma maybe twice a week. That $50 was enough to buy more mac and cheese for the family for the week. One of the hardest moments was it was in November 2019. It was tough but it was one of those moments of clarity as well. I feel that you are led to certain situations in life, so you can learn from them as well. I had $800 left in my bank account. That was it. I have a mortgage that’s $2,000 alone. I have $800 stuff in my bank account, have a wife and four kids. Christmas is a few weeks away. I’m not sure how I’m going to cover Christmas and here I am years into the industry, nothing to show for it. My back is against the wall and I have no idea what I’m going to do.

When we go back to the beginning when you asked me what are the three things that have shaped your life, it was even a clearer at that point, because at that point I had to lean on God a lot more. I had to realize the promises that I’ve made to my wife that I hadn’t fulfilled yet. I could clearly see my kids understanding that I was going from this company to that company. They could see the goals and stuff. When I made that commitment back in November 2019 that it was going to change, my back was against the wall, I was going to work differently. I was going to think differently. The very first thing I did before we launched was I wanted to map out what I was going to achieve, not the how. I didn’t know how the heck I was going to do it because there was no proof. Ten years, if anything there was proof that it wasn’t going to happen. I wrote it out.

I said, “This is what’s going to happen in February 2020. This is what’s going to happen in May 2020, and this is what’s going to happen in October 2020.” We hit those goals. My life changed in the last months. It was a collection of the last ten years of all the books I read, all the experiences. I finally had a clear understanding of what I wanted to build, how I wanted to do it. I mapped it all out and I went to work. There was not one morning, one night, one day where I wasn’t insanely obsessed with closing my eyes in the morning, being grateful for the things that were coming. It’s one thing to be grateful for what you’ve got, but can you start to be grateful for the things that you don’t have, but you know that they’re going to come to you.

Every single morning, I had closed my eyes and I’d say, “Thank you God for all the blessings that are coming into my life.” As I would say those sentences, I would say it over and over again, I would visualize the things happening. I’d visualize my family at Disney World. I’d visualize all the success that I’ve ever dreamed of, then I would get to work. I compress timeframes. I think in the first seven days of December 2019, I talked to more people than I had talked to in five years. I went crazy. I mixed the mindset with the massive action, the massive belief, I didn’t let anything knock me off. There was no doubt. It was going to happen. It was intentional. It was not by accident.

When you’re going through that, I’ve got a lot of thoughts and a lot of follow-up questions for you. One of the things you mentioned is, I had Dave Blanchard and Paul Blanchard on one of my other shows. I put it on my personal Facebook page. Whenever I have one of those down moments, I turn on the podcast and I’m listening to The Greatest Salespeople in the World. I can go for hours during the day and listen to them. You said in those down moments how you began to compress time. The follow-up of Bob Proctor’s book, one of the brilliant things of his book is after he talks about the money consciousness on page ten early on in the book, he talks about how the reasons wealthy people have money is they have developed that state of consciousness that we will hear and after referred to as the prosperity consciousness. In those dark times for you, you said you had more reasons to disbelieve over the last ten years, than more evidence to believe. I’m guessing that prosperity consciousness was something you could feel, something you could touch, something you knew was there if all of the elements came together for your life.

Even resorting back to Think and Grow Rich and The Science of Getting Rich in magnetizing your brain to something different, get your blood flowing differently. I didn’t have a good success consciousness. I hadn’t magnetized my brain. It’s so interesting. The answers are there, I’ve read them. I read them over and over. I’ve read Think and Grow Rich so many times, but it wasn’t until I made that decision that I was like, “I’m going to do it. I am going to magnetize my mind.” When he says, “When wealth starts to pour into your life, it pours in much abundance that you wonder where it’s been hiding from you your whole life.” I look at the last months and I’m like, “That’s the easiest money I’ve made.”

Becoming A Millionaire Fast: The real wealthy people in life don’t talk about the money they make or the things they buy. They always talk about the amount that they give.

My journey was spending ten freaking years trying to magnetize my brain with the idea that it was possible for me. That was the work that I had to do personally myself. I tell my team all the time, “If you wake up in the morning and you put your hand over your chest and you start beating on your chest and you start to feel different, you start to visualize your goals, your energy level, your vibration goes from here to here.” When you start prospecting right here, it doesn’t matter what you say. People feel something different and they want to gravitate towards that. That’s what we created back then. We were going to magnetize people. We are going to magnetize our goals. We’re going to magnetize a dream. It happened. It’s wild, but it’s amazing.

You’re deserving. You and I have a very similar story. I started at nineteen. I finished college in two weeks. I’m not sure how long it took you to finish, but most people call it dropping out. I said, “I’m finished. I’m going back to the entrepreneur world.” It was interesting for me, ten years for you. I would say it was seven years for me to totally trust. There’s an element of waiting for things to show up and you can trust in the systematic approach of building your business. I wonder if you look back now to The Greatest Salesman book or The Greatest Secret for you, was there a scroll that showed up in your life? Is there one of the phrases or scrolls, because I know you’re so well-read and we can feel how much work you’ve done? What scroll wakes you up?

There’s one scroll, but one of the things that caught me, it was interesting. It took me a while to get into the scrolls because I was so fascinated by the first few pages. One of the things that it says, I repeat the words daily, they will soon become a part of my active mind, but more importantly, they will also seep into my other mind, the mysterious source, which never sleeps, which creates my dreams and often makes me act in ways that I do not comprehend. When you magnetize your mind to something, it’s almost like you’re pulled in directions that you would normally not go or do or say. You’re gravitated towards it as well. That was powerful to me.

When it says that W. Clement Stone used this technique on himself to a massive personal and self-made fortune of more than $400 million, I was like, “I need to do this.” That alone, that page, that paragraph shifted my whole world. I’m like, “If that man did it and he made a fortunate $400 million, I think I can make $1 million at least if I apply this.” One of the scrolls for me was scroll number two, which says, “I greet this day with love in my heart. I praise my enemies. I love you silently to all I met. I love myself enough to protect my body from overindulgence and my mind from evil and despair.” It was a reminder to me. One of my biggest downfalls, one of my biggest mistakes is that I’m hard on people sometimes.

I feel like, “If you’re not vibing with me, I’m going to cross you off,” versus loving people where they’re at, loving them for who they are and say I love you silently to everyone that you meet. When I read that scroll, I was literally walking around town telling people I love them mentally. Someone would upset me. It’s cool. I love you. It’s a good reminder to read now. I love myself enough to protect my body from overindulgence and my mind from evil and despair. The mind is such a powerful thing, but it goes into so many different ways that if you’re not continually bringing it back to the things that you want, the things that you dream about, it’s easy to start thinking evil. For me, evil is not so much also thinking anything like you want to commit a crime, but evil is anything that’s not in alignment with the things that you want. It’s so easy to fall into those things. That was a good scroll for me. That was a reminder.

I’ve literally echoed those words virtually every day of my life since I was nineteen when I first wake up. I will greet this day with love in my heart. It wasn’t until Dave and Paul showed up and they taught me what was that love. It’s brotherly love, it’s Philia. Agape is Godly love. Eros is romantic love. You can greet everybody with brotherly love and your heart and care about them. It’s a valuable thing. There is nothing so powerful as Og teaching us in scroll two because we’re coming off of scroll number one. If you re-read scroll number one, think about Og as an alcoholic facing that pawnshop window, thinking about taking his life. “Today, I begin a new life, I will greet this day with love in my heart.” He meets none other than W. Clement stone and I got truth bumps popping out of my arms thinking about that meeting.

I love it when it talks about shedding your old skin and stuff like that. When you visually see that, anyone of us at any moment, no matter where we’re at, we can make that shift in our lives. You think just because you make money that you got no problems. There are always problems to solve. That’s why you continue to do personal development. You continue to move forward, but I think what’s most fascinating and sometimes what’s most frustrating when you’re talking to people and you’re saying, “If you could get into my mind and understand how simple it can be to make that shift and start to create a new life.” I wish I could have everyone get into my mind and say, “This is what you got to do,” but everyone’s got their own journey. I had mine and I learned.

You got to be grateful for the journey. You got to be grateful for everything happening because it’s literally your armor that you’re being given. Every piece that you go through is a part of your armor that you’re going to use to go to war. One of the things that I’m most proud of is that, if everything went away now and you put me in a different country, I could rebuild it again. I wouldn’t even have to learn how to speak a language, I just know I could rebuild it again. I would start off with this, mapping out my mind, what am I going to do, and I’d do it. It’s going to happen.

That’s what I’m most proud of. Everyone that’s reading this, you’re on your own personal journey. One of the things that caught me in this book too was he said this, “You are nature’s greatest miracle. To duplicate the computer that you possess called the brain would require sufficient electronic equipment to fill the entire interior of the Empire State Building.” When you realize how powerful you are, a lot of people will say, “You’re amazing. You’re this and you’re that,” but it’s like, “So are you, you just don’t realize it yet.” When you realize how powerful you are, how incredible your brain is, we’re all God’s highest form of creation, it should give you much confidence knowing that you can create anything you want in your life.

You struck the next chord for the next part of my questioning because everybody moves forward with two things: belief and confidence. You said exactly that you could rebuild it again because you have belief and confidence. Months ago, you were rocky on that. Og had a philosophy for living, for writing, for teaching in parable form, in ancient language form even. He had his system for self-help but you have a system for building a business. Talk about how you went from zero to hero when you created that systematic approach that everybody could dive into because somebody mentioned that success loves speed. When success loves speed, you can simplify, electrify and multiply a lot faster. Talk about having a systematic approach because you’ve shared with us your approach for personal development. How about being the greatest salesperson in the world?

Success loves speed. Ricky V loves speed. Let’s move fast. I believe that you can make things happen so fast. I’m a big student of Brian Tracy. He’s got an exercise where he says, “Take out a sheet of paper and write down the top twenty things that you can do now to move your business forward.” You write down twenty things and he says, “If you could only do three things out of these twenty, which are the three most important ones?” You circle those three, you throw away the rest of the seventeen. You ask yourself the third question which is, “If you could only do one of those three for the next 90 days, which one would it be? Circle that one and only do that obsessively.” For me, everything that I applied back in December 2019 was the teachings of all these amazing people. That’s what it was.

For ten years I spent my time trying to train distributors or trying to come up with more tools or, “Here’s a brochure. Here’s a website. I made the prettiest getting started guide for you.” It didn’t move anything for me. I remember in December 2019, as we started to grow, I also got a call from Larry Thompson and as I’m on the phone with him, I’m like, “While I have you on the phone, we should do a training for my team on Sunday.” He said, “If you’re already training, you’re already doing it wrong.” I was like, “Mind shift. Let’s get back and let’s keep working.” I identify with a few simple things. Number one is my systematic approach to being the greatest salesman in the world is realizing that sales are a numbers game.

When you realize that, for me back in December 2019, there were a few things I was going to do every day. I wasn’t going to do it all and I wasn’t going to be the best social media guy or the best attraction marketer. There were a few things that I was going to be in control of every single day. Number one, I was going to reach out to twenty people every single day. You don’t have to reach out to twenty. You don’t have to reach out to five. It’s up to you. You identify the number. Back then, in my first week, I talked to more than 400 people. After that, it was twenty people a day. We had so much momentum happening that there were moments where I’d wake up early. I’ve maybe reached out to seven people and I’ll be busy on Zooms and calls.

The next thing I know, it’s midnight. I’m getting ready for bed and I’m like, “I still have thirteen more reach-outs.” I’d open up the laptop. I wouldn’t go to bed until the full twenty were done every single day. It doesn’t matter what your team’s doing. Doesn’t matter who ranked up. None of that. What are you doing personally every single day to move your sales forward, to move your recruits forward? Every single day was my reach-outs. Number two, follow-ups. The people that join your team, that you’re going to sell a product to are recruited into the business, 80% of the people are going to join the 8th or 9th time that you follow up with them. I think it’s 2% that joins right from the beginning. One thing that I’m very adamant about as I’m following up. When people say, “When do you stop following up?” I’m like, “You stop following up when they block you or if they die, that’s it. Other than that, you’re still following up.”

Number three is I’m making sure that I have three new connections that I’m growing my database every single day. How can I have new people to talk to and follow up with if I’m not growing my database every single day? I lean on Facebook and I friend request a few people every day as I build those relationships. I put them on an Excel sheet from January 2019 to December 2019. I grew up with a brand-new database from scratch of 1200 new people on social media, there’s no excuse to not have people to talk to. That was it. If I could do those three things every day and believe that if those three things were done, that I would excel and move forward. That was it. I went to it. Those were the simple systems that we created in the beginning. We created an awesome social media platform where people can grow very fast and effortless.

The vision was to say, “The way you acquire a customer, the way you recruit a distributor, the way you launch a distributor is the same exact way.” Our vision was to say, “We can take a janitor, a lunch lady, a lawyer and a doctor and in spare time, we can teach them how to have a fast-growing business.” It came down to being an example. We can’t build the systems and talk about it. We have to go do it and so my business partner and our wives, we ran, and we didn’t look back. Even until now, when I do Facebook Live, sometimes I’m like, “What do you want me to talk about?” People say, “Tell us how to build a network marketing business.” It’s always the same thing, a handful of things that make all the difference. I’m grateful for that because college only lasted for me a few months as well.

Becoming A Millionaire Fast: It’s one thing to be grateful for what you’ve got, but can you be grateful for the things that you don’t have but you know are going to come to you?

I graduated once my art teacher gave me an F. I was like, “That was an inexpensive class.” I walked away and I joined network marketing for $500. It was life-changing. I’m not the brightest person in the world. If you give me 50 things to do, I may not do them, but you gave me a handful of things that make all the difference, I’m going to go to work on those few things. Create good habits and become slaves to those habits. You become a slave to that. That’s what I developed, and I still do to this day. Now It’s not twenty people. Now I’m reaching out to five new people a day. I’m making three new connections a day and I’m following up every single day. First thing in the morning, it’s still a systematic approach. Those things might take you an hour to do. Literally, in your spare time, you can get it done.

We’re here to inspire everyone that gets a chance to read. We’re here to dive into the mind because the world is out there ready and willing to beat you down at any moment in time. You quoted Og without even saying you quoted him, but you also mentioned Larry Thompson. I met Og before I met Larry, but I worked with Larry for many years. You said something about training. Larry was one of the greatest trainers in the world without a doubt, but training doesn’t work, work trains and you’ll get after it, and you do. I like the fact that you do and you keep doing, but then you refined your personal development approach and business approach to know what you were going to be recruiting them for. You had that systematic approach for doing it. Larry taught us in the early days in The Millionaire Training, for those that don’t have this in your library yet, you’re going to want to go to Amazon and get it.

You’ll see Ricky and Demitrius were featured in the book launch. It’s great to have you here to talk about that and all of the things that you’ve talked about. There’s so much to talk about because he taught us to talk about ten people a day. He was the first one to teach me about speed. We talked about these 90-day massive action plans. You go for 90 days because you can compress so much into a story that leapfrogs you forward. I wonder in closing, we have so many people that maybe haven’t got through those ten years that you went through yet. What would you share with some of those people that they can taste it, can see it, maybe they haven’t had the success yet? What would you say to those people in closing?

There’s so much I could say. First and foremost, it doesn’t have to take you ten years. It could take you less. It could take you longer. What I could tell you is, it could take you ten years or it can take you 10,000 invitations. What do you want to do faster? I changed my life because I decided that it wasn’t going to take me five years to talk to 500 people. I was going to do it in five days. The result is going to be the same. If you want to achieve it in five years, great, or you want to achieve it by next week, that’s a whole other story. You can compress those timeframes. I believe in that. You don’t get to stay stuck where you’re at so enjoy your job.

The next thing is, why do you want to compress timeframes? it? When you think about things, you have to also ask yourself, “What’s the purpose behind it apart from money?” You go talk to 500 people and the next seven days, who do you become in that process? I get the question all the time, “What do you say?” Does it matter? I can go right now and reach out to 100 people and say, “I’m not sure what you’re working on. Are you open to taking a look at something?” That might not be the best invitation in the world. If you say it to 500 people, do you think your confidence level is going to be a bit higher? Do you think your recruiting game is going to go up? Do you think your checks are going to go up? It’s not about just the money, it’s about who you’re going to become. When I walked away from the industry and Demitrius and I decided to sell Solar, I was back out on the street knocking door to door.

It didn’t matter because of all the skills that developed network marketing, I applied it out to the traditional business world as well. I became the top salesman for Demitrius’ team in Solar fast again. Why was it? I understood the numbers. I was handing out flyers. I was knocking on doors. I was doing leads. Whatever it took, we were going to get the job done. You can take so much from network marketing and the development of yourself and apply it to so many areas. Larry Thompson always says, “It’s not about making people do what you want them to do. It’s about making them want to do what you want to do.” I remember having a conversation with my daughter. My daughter is like, “Dad, I want to stay being homeschooled.” I wanted her to go to school because I could see when we’d go to the park and shouldn’t look at the kids coming out of school that I could see there was something in her eyes.

I remember I said, “Let me ask you a question. Why is it that you don’t want to go to school? Maybe you do, but you’re maybe scared.” She says, “I am a bit scared. Sometimes I feel I would want to go to school.” I’m like, “Great. You don’t have to go to school as long as you admit to yourself that you would like to and maybe one day you do.” Two days later, she was enrolled in a school. That was her decision that she made on her own. If Larry Thompson had not said that liner, I might have taken her to school crying, kicking or whatever. Instead, she went to school excited.

Everything that you learn here, it’s not to build a business, but it’s who do you become in the process. You become a better spouse. You become a better parent. You become a better friend. You become a better entrepreneur in general. Network marketing has done that for me because of the mentors that I’ve met like you, Og Mandino, W. Clement Stone, Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar. All the people that I’ve studied for over a decade, they’ve turned me into the person that I am today. Get excited about not just the money, but who you’re going to become. Compress those timeframes and believe that you are nature’s greatest miracle because you are.

What a close. Jim Rohn said it best, “Don’t make a million dollars for the money, make a million dollars for what will make of you.” That’s beautiful. I want to thank Ricky V for being here. You can go to HabitFinder.com/podcast. If you want to align those thoughts with the things that you want, the principles that are being taught on set and scroll number nine, I will act now. If we conclude, we’re going to let you act now and we’re going to go out and have the greatest day of our lives. Thank you so very much, Ricky. I know your life and your organization, your team, your systems demand your time. Thank you for sharing it with so many people here.

Thank you, Dan. I appreciate it. Thanks, everyone.

Important Links:

• Ricky Villanueva
• The Greatest Salesman in the World
• Lessons from Great Lives
• The God Memorandum
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Greatest Secret in the World
• Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude
• Think and Grow Rich
• The Science of Getting Rich
• The Millionaire Training
• HabitFinder.com/podcast

About Ricky Villanueva

My name is Ricky V & I’m a serial entrepreneur with 10+ years of experience in business start-ups, brand development, consulting, and high-performance. I’m considered a thought leader in direct sales, marketing, & brand awareness.