What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you are listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So here's the real mystery: How do real MLMers like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends, who want to grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A-players into our downlines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.
Now, I want to go ahead and start off this very first episode just kind of, you know, a little bit raw. I want to swear for the first time on ... ever. Okay, here it comes. First time swearing, here goes. All right, brace for impact, I'm a little sad I'm publishing this, here it comes. MLM. Oh man, there it was, holy cow. Plug the ears of all the kids around you. That was nuts. Hey, but I really want to welcome you to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. This is the first episode. This has actually been a long time in the making, and I'm excited to finally be doing it.
A lot of people get uncomfortable with MLM, and it's kind of funny to ask somebody, "Hey, why'd you get into an MLM?" Sometimes that's a really scary topic for people, especially if they still think it's a pyramid scheme, or if they still think that it's something that you go bug other people in the mall with, or you go to home meetings or hotel meetings. And I want you to know, I hate those tactics, I think they're stupid. I think they're tactics that are stuck in the '90s, and that's not what I'm about.
The whole reason why I think you should listen to this podcast is because I am a marketer first, by trade, and what's funny about the multi-level marketing industry is that stereotypically, a lot of people get into it as their very first business venture, but they don't really know how to market. They don't know how to actually go out and actually market the opportunity, and so they lean back on the tactics of the people who are in their upline, which is, "Hey, write a huge list of all your family members and friends, and go bug the crap out of them, and hopefully, some of them will join." And I'm not about that.
When I first got started in MLM, it was actually kind of a ... Honestly, by accident. My wife and I, we've been married five and a half years now, we're from Denver, Colorado, but we live in Boise, Idaho, now. It's kind of funny, we've been married, like I said, five and a half years, and about a year and a half in, we were like, "You know what, we'd love to have a kid, we'd love to be able to bring a child into the world and start growing our family," and we were really excited to do so.
And I remember my wife comes running out of the bathroom one day, she's got, like, the little pee stick, right, and she goes running up, and she goes, "Stephen, oh my gosh, I'm pregnant!" And I was so excited, and I'm jumping around, I'm super excited, I'm going, "Oh my gosh, we have a kid that's going to come into this world. Oh, this is so fun, this is so amazing." And I was really, really excited, and we were jumping around, and I remember just this moment of just pure glee. Super, super special moment, you know? And you can imagine being there, how fun and happy that was.
And then all of a sudden, it's like as soon as there was this happy, cool, joy moment that came in, there was also this incredible, real kind of dampering fear that just suck inside of me, and reminded me painfully, "Stephen, you're broke. How are you going to pay for this kid?" And immediately, it kind of dampered all the ... And I wish that that feeling wasn't there, but it was, and I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, how do I pay for this kid?" You know? And how do I ... You know, I'm really excited, but how do you look at this child with love as a parent rather than as a big receipt, you know what I mean? From a hospital, and all the bills that come along with that.
And shortly thereafter ... So I set off, and I started doing all these different things, and I was doing stocks, and I was doing options, and I was doing real estate, both commercial and residential. We were doing cool stuff with big investment firms, investment from other people in big commercial things, and I did eBooks, and I went and I did door-to-door sales for two summers, and I did all this stuff, kind of leading up to that point of the MLM itself that got tossed in there. And what ended up happening was my buddy ... Shortly after we found out we were pregnant, I had a buddy who reached out to me, and he and I continually were trying to do just money stuff. You know, we were trying to be successful. When we were in college, we were trying to be that college story. You know what I mean. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, right? Be that college story of success, right?
And so he reaches out to me shortly after we find out that my wife's pregnant, and he reaches out and he goes, "Dude, I got this ... I know this great guy, just met him. Dude, what he wants to do, he's going to help us make a lot of money, it's going to be awesome." And we had had that conversation before, but I trusted my friend. I was like, "All right, that sounds totally sketchy, dude." Like, "Well, who is he?" I can find a whole bunch of people who are going to sell me that kind of story, you know what I mean?
And what ended up happening was I get on the phone, and it's a three-way phone call. You guys know, it's a classic MLM three-way phone call, and he calls me, and he goes, "Dude, what's up, Steve, man, like, this is awesome. You're getting in, this is going to be great. It's just $500 to join, and you're going to be up in no time." And I was like, "500 bucks to join? Are you kidding me?" I'm trying to raise money so I can, like, eat and live, and let alone go have a kid, and pay for that, and all the costs involved there, and I was like, "No." And I was like, "This is one of those pyramid schemes," and that's totally what my belief was.
And he came back to me, and he asked again, and I was like, "No." And my buddy called, and he called and he was like, "Dude, you're going to really like this. This is going to be a good thing, it's going to be awesome for you. I see you succeeding. Of all the people I see succeeding in this kind of thing, it'd be you." And I was like, "You know what, dude, fine. For you, for what you're saying, I trust you, I'm going to believe you. Let's do it." And I dove headfirst in, and I was like, "If I'm going to do this MLM, and fight all the inner beliefs that I have about what MLM is, and how to do it, I'm going to do it as hard as I can." Right? And I set off to do it with the most ferocious pace that I possibly could, and I literally went door-to-door, down Main Street on businesses, and I recruited some businesses, and I recruited some family and friends, and I went person to person, and I got told "no" like crazy, and I got told "yes" a few times.
And in my first month, I recruited 13 people, and I was like, "This is awesome. That's not bad." Honestly, 13 people in my first month ever, that's not bad at all, right? I was like, "Oh, it's not amazing, but it's not terrible either," and I was feeling kind of excited about it, and I got this little cool little trophy award for how fast I was going from the MLM I was in. I'm not going to say the name of the MLM, because you guys will all definitely know it, and so ... Just to kind of keep it the third party there.
But I was super excited in month two that I was in this MLM, kind of started to turn the corner there, and I realized that nobody else was doing anything. Nobody else was doing anything at all. I would go and I would call these other people, and I would say, "Hey, you guys, hey, so are you going...
