Liquidity & Liquor - Ray Urdaneta | How to Build The #1 Global Hair Care Company

Welcome to success story the most useful podcasts in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network the HubSpot podcast network has other great podcasts like marketing made simple hosted by Dr. J.J. Peterson marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work now. If any of these topics out interesting to you you're going to love his show how to write and deliver captivating speeches how to market yourself into a new job how design can help and potentially hurt your revenue and how to create a social media ad strategy that works. If these topics hit home in their things that you want to learn about go listen to marketing made simple wherever you get your podcasts. Today you're going to hear an episode of my new podcast liquidity and liquor I co host liquidity and liquor with Joseph Martin a serial entrepreneur who sold his last company boxy charm for over 500 million dollars on liquidity and liquor we have conversations about business money and life with some of the most interesting people in the world. You can download and subscribe to liquidity and liquor on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Ray welcome to our show we have Ray the CEO and founder not the co founder just a founder co founder with your father co founder. I know your father is your co founder or yes you and your father co founded Monet which is a very Monet Monet Monet Monet. I know there's a lot of confusion and we have to have a song about how to pronounce. I thought it's like a French name Monet. It's not from yeah it's more than a nation or yeah I don't think so. Monet Monet. Okay okay so you're the founder. You're not going to sing the song on the podcast. We have the mic that is the right mic okay so we have so it's fair to say you're a billionaire and I think you're the first billionaire on our show. Thank you for manifesting that and well I mean it is what it is you have to you have to celebrate your successes. I have I've met with you the first time in 2017 right. Yeah I think so right. 2017. Yes and I remember we met and later on we went to grab lunch at the end of 2017 and that was the third year of business for you and you made only 300 million in sales. Right. It's a pointer about it. Yes we're going to ask you a lot of questions how one comes to a point that does that on a third year of business making profit doesn't raise I guess and how you came about doing that what's important. I guess now when you're that height compared to high was before we have a lot of questions personal life. I want you to tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah well I'm from Venezuela originally so I moved to the US 22 years ago in 2000. I was with moved with my wife. We were the first people in my family to actually moved to the US completely alone 600 dollars in our pockets. Getting the boss in Miami with shocks right. Political deportation is not great. I worked for a few jobs. My wife worked at McDonald's. I worked at Sears in the hardware department with a part timer. I'm not a handyman by any means so it's terrible. But a lot of things pick up people at the airport to take them to Calle Vente to get the wholesale shopping. Anything anything. Calle Vente is a place where all the wholesalers are at least used to be. Calle Vente is a foreign one that's not from Miami or even if you're in Miami you don't know. That's a place where you find all the wholesalers if you want to open a business. People would fly down from Latin America mostly and they would know. A lot of Latinos would know about that so that's a known street for that. Yeah so I could go there drive people around for $100 a day. Then actually there I started buying perfumes, designer perfumes. And selling it to a door to door to friends. They don't kind of yops. And that's how we started our life here in America. Well that's, I mean if anyone has any doubt that you don't need to start with money here it is. Life example where Calle, I heard this good analogy and a podcast where you say listen when you play poker. You can have a good hand and still lose. You can have a bad hand and still win the good players. It's not about what hand they have, it's how they play. So it doesn't matter where you came from life. Actually I think I can always make it. Because I talk about this a lot. I think if you have more resources you're going to be the less efficient. Because you will waste so much. You don't have resources. You don't have to be smart about how you invest and spend a few dollars that you have. Especially at the beginning of a company, right? Absolutely. And also because so you come here you don't have anything you're trying to make ends meet. Do you think the like you said the hard work and the need to support your family? Do you think that gave you the edge? Almost like an immigrant edge? Right. Well I think it's like you have no option, right? I remember I was moved when I moved here. My dad who is my partner instead of amazing entrepreneur has always been. But he was one of the first that told me don't go. I do want to end up serving tables, watching cards. I was middle class in Venezuela. I wasn't but I was super young. But I always said no they have to be better things to do. They have to do something better in life. But then when you move here as an immigrant I think there is no plan B, right? This is the plan edge that you have. Would you have a plan B? You have to make work. Yes. And that's the thing that people have something to fall on. I feel that they don't go all in because you always in your mind, you always have a plan B. And your mind will always try to protect you, right? Your mind will always tell you the things and the reasons why you won't be able to make it. So that's I think what sometimes immigrants just give that extra mile. It was a statistic I heard that I think 89% of all entrepreneurs started from the bottom. And the other 11% had something to show for. So that's a different motivation reason. Sometimes you feel you've set down and I know few that came from money and made much more money. But it's not as much. First you don't have too many people with money. That's a first thing. Let's be fair about that. But then the ones that do find the reason it's just you like to build stuff. It's not because you're comfortable and they like to try something new. And if you sit down the table and everyone's kind of like contractors buying selling buildings. And you know on the on the dinner table all you hear all the men as a key talking about buildings. It sounds easy for you and you don't think you don't put barriers mental barrier. But that's why because you were raised in this mindset, right? Like you you're raised in entrepreneurial mindset. So I mean, for me, I had to break out of that because my family all had stable government jobs. They all had like, you know, on the nine to five and that's safe. And that's not it's not a high risk lifestyle. So I had to break out of that versus somebody who's grown up with it all the time. And then you grow up and you're like, okay, my whole family, we all build things. All my friends build how many people do you know that actually came from money and made more money than their parents? They can't not none. Okay, I know one. I only know one person. I don't know. I know a lot of people, but I only know one that had that story. I'm trying to think now I don't think I know any. They came from money and made more money than their parents. If anything, if anything, they lost money. That's the majority, right? And that's that's the idea. When you look at poker, you can have great hand and lose it all. You can have bad hand and still win. And it's second life where you see rich kids losing all the parents money. And then you see poor kids making all the money to their kids that would eventually lose a lot of that money. I don't know a person. I don't know a person. I don't know. I mean, I was busy. He keeps calling me bugging me. I just stopped. But yeah, that's where you say anyone can make it. But that's that's a perfect story how you came in cleaning tables. And now let's let's talk about what how do you get into it? Well, they have to that. So I was looking. Both my parents were very entrepreneurial, right? Or are very entrepreneurial. So they come from very, very, very, very poor minutes. And they did direct sales. They did top work, right? Top work parties. And that's how the God of poverty to better class gave me a middle class too. So when I moved here in 2000, a year or two years later, my father called me and he had retired from top work and had split with my mom, retired from top work and completely went bankrupt. And lost all his money. Because he started doing things that he didn't know about. Restaurants. A construction. And lost all his money. So when I moved to the United States, he was broke and was broke. And he called me, red legs. What do we owe on direct sales company? You know, not direct sales. And you're there. Maybe you can come up with something that we can sell in markets. And it's like that. You broke and broke. How do we do this? Like, no, I think some of our relatives want to invest with us. And with that idea that we have, with this idea that we have. So we raised initially we raised something like $80,000. We took that $80,000 from 2002 until 2010. And we're making it a $200 million company without outside financing. So our shipping products was making products here in the United States and shipping it to Latin America, mainly Venezuela, and distributed there through direct sales. And that was originally Monet? No, no, that was a company that was called a leading. It was called illusions initially. And then we expanded to other countries because of trademark, as my English was taking, which ended to looting. And that was the company that we have to show down in 2012, because the me, you know, they made the mess that happened in Venezuela. Yes. With the government and... So primarily you were selling in Venezuela? And share of the business was... $200 million selling into Venezuela direct sales. Where? Yeah, where the biggest direct sales company? Yeah, it was crazy. Interesting. We're shipping containers with products from here and we're doing a lot of promotions like appliances, and toasters, and TVs. We're shipping it from Asia. We're shipping something like 1,500 containers a year. But this is interesting. So you're saying your father was doing taprower, which he was working for an MLM company. He went out, cashed out, whatever, put all that money into something he doesn't know lost all that money. Right. Then went back to what he knows, but thought how can I actually make my own business like a taprower? Correct. And that's when you guys do golf and... Exactly. That's how we started doing it. We did it with $80,000. It wasn't nothing sophisticated. Our first character was a power per presentation. I didn't know what I was doing. I was 19, so I came to do a batting body line. And the first... You already married at the age of 19? I married at the age of 19. Yeah. Very interesting. Congratulations. That's amazing. Thank you. You're actually 18. Beautiful. Yeah, I've been dating Carolina since I was 16 years old. Nice. Yeah. So we did this business, and initially a rumor was started doing the products, lowering my first container myself. I have the pictures, actually, post it in my Instagram the other day. The first product was body lotion, in body mist. The first treatment, 20% of it lost because it was leaking on the... Yeah. The labels were wrinkling. But you know what? You need those errors in the beginning. It's never perfect. And I think that's another... If we want to talk about advice, I will still people never wait for the perfect moment because it's never going to happen. Right. I want to define some things as for the audience. So direct sales, network marketing, MLM. What's defined these? And are they the same? Are they different? It's kind of the same. Kind of the same. Right. I would say everything will fall into the direct sales, umbrella. It's a great question. Because even I ask myself, sometimes we are defined by network marketing, but we did direct sales. When we did our first company, we, in our mind, we were not in network marketing. We're in direct sales. No matter direct sales, it's more like a goal to a party. Maybe you have one person under me helping me or doing a team. And that's it. Network marketing, you have different levels. So it's a little bit deeper. And actually for me, network marketing was like the dark side. Like, I'll never be one of those. Network marketing. But what's in direct sales? But in reality, everything is direct sales. Right. What is the difference between a pyramid scheme that I'll say in a negative term versus the today's legal multi-level marketing known as M&M? It's very clearly defined by the FTC. So the FTC clearly says, the difference between a pyramid scheme in an actual legal network marketing company is that you have to have an actual product, a tangible product to sell. So what happened in the 90s, for example, is that a lot of these companies still exist in big companies could make a lot of money selling video cassettes with training. And that's not really a product. That's not really a consumable product. And the FTC made it legal. So you cannot be selling training. I don't sell an audio. That's not a product. You have to be selling something that people is going to use. But there's still have been MLM companies that have a product that still get into trouble because I feel like they don't push the product enough. And they make... Is there like an FTC definition of how much revenue can come from one versus another? It's not clear. And that's the issue with the FTC sometimes that they want to put all these rules but they don't black and white tell you what. Now there is some background on what happened with Herbalife. And I think what they told them, they're ruling what with Herbalife, you have to have over 60% of your revenue coming from customers. But there was a ruling that they made on Herbalife and it's like a guideline. So let me just... So the audience will understand. Yeah, you're basically selling company... You're selling people a business. They sell other people your product. So if I come to work from an MLM company like Monet or Herbalife, I go out, I pay a thousand dollars so I get a bunch of those products and now my job is to go and sell it. And if anybody ever wants to buy those products, they have to go through a guy like me to buy them. So you sell me a business, I sell your product. Is that correct? Is that a fair? And then they say, Well... This is early because you might come to Monet and many of our market partners come and say, in fact, we have a new program... So you can go and buy directly from Monet? We don't have a customer. A customer have to buy through an independent market partner. Okay, so that was my idea. So you cannot just go and buy it from the company or stores or online websites. You have to buy from a person that has their code, that you go on a website and you buy through their code or you buy from the person you're... Which is the same principle of an affiliate program. Yes. To buy through an affiliate. Yes. But a company doesn't have to sell their products through affiliates on an MLM. It must be distributed through your... Market partners. Market partners, correct? Okay. So at 60% would mean 60% of the revenue that you made would come from selling the actual replenishment product for them versus selling the business to people. They're selling the actual package for the first time or something. Exactly. No. Even better. Okay. Or even... Most of the revenue for a company, for example, in my case, in the case of Monet, over 70% of my revenue comes from treatment that I do directly to a customer that has nothing to do with the opportunity. And I'll tell you why we do this and how we do it. In the past, right, before technology, and still many companies do it this way, I would sell the product to the distributor and I would expect the distributor to resell that product to a customer. And no control. Right? Now, we'll take note of what we did differently is that if you come into Monet in June role as a market partner, I'll give you a website. It's called a replicated website. Right? So you get your website with your name, on the URL and everything, whatever you want to put. I'm wrong with mymonate.com. And you're going into Scots by my products. Scots will buy from your website through the shopping cart and everything on your website. The company will ship the product to Scots. You don't even touch the product. It's different. It's the very different. Because now I know for a fact that the product is going to remain consumer. In the past, I would give you all the inventory and what will happen is that maybe you wouldn't sell it and end up with your garage full product. Yeah. Right? So that's the difference. We ship directly to the customer. So we know... The sales went to a happy time. In 70% of my... So no one... Most people don't hold the product in their garage. Most people just can't tell you send it over. And then... But they still have to give you an amount deposit for products that you just get to hold in your facility, right? Not at all. When they subscribe. Not at all. Okay, so you're just saying up and you don't have to invest any money. Do you invest? Most people invest $200. Interesting. Right. So when you come to a role which you mention $1,000... Yeah. The steel company is doing that. We don't do that. I don't tell... We don't tell a new market partner buy a thousand dollars. I don't want you to front load a bunch of products. You believe in your product? And you said I can... Yeah, we're going to do that. There's a bigger packet. Package is called product pack. I think it's now $500. And we encourage you to try the whole line for $500. But you know what? Most, I think... Let's say 90% of the people will come with $200. And that $200... It's like $350 worth of products. So you're actually getting the product. You might use it for yourself... Or show it off when you're trying to sell it. Right. Or use it for yourself, whatever you want. Or use it at all. But it's not a big investment. That's all the investment you make. Interesting. $200. That's it. And then after that, you start selling products. This is turning into like a significant... This is almost like an affiliate program. Almost. Very, very close. Very close. Very close, in fact. I just launched... We did a convention last month. It was a lot of fun. With 10,000 people in San Luis. And I launched a new thing called affiliate program. And what we're telling you is that you can start a business in Monet. And you don't have to build a thing if you don't want to. You can just build your first few ranks, few of three ranks, based on just selling products. If you want. You still encourage you to build a team. But if you want, do it like that. Because it's so similar, right? To an affiliate program. I love people saying, oh, but we love the products. I mean, Monet's getting a worse. There are locations in L, in Fortune, in Glamour, Vogue. So I want to sell the product. I don't want to build a team. It's a lot of sell products. And we have a bunch of people doing that. So when you have 10,000 people coming to your show. Explain that. Because explain that. Like 10,000 people coming into one facility. Because you just... So we were having a conversation before. And you just had a big conference where... San Luis. San Luis and 10,000 people showed up. No. Actually, we arrested for 20,000. Okay. And we're less than that this time because... Plain tickets are very expensive. And you know, it's in post-mandemic. But yeah. But when we have over 20,000 registered... And they all make money. I assume because they flew down there, right? You have more than that amount. But then all those people actually turn... What's the highest paid type... Shake your paper month to one individual? Well, that's something I shouldn't say. Because the FTC say... Don't say. Don't say income claims. Now, there is an income disclosure statement. Right? Maybe I can mention it as a rash. There is an income disclosure statement, which is public. And you can go on monitoring of disclosure statement. You can see the average meaning income of each rank. I could say the highest pay would be something like... 3 million a year? Amazing. For one person. One person. And how many people grossed over a million dollar? You can't. No, no, no. How many people might... No, no, no. You can't say that. I don't know from the top of my head. You cannot mention that. You can't say that. You can't say that. I don't know. Maybe from the top of my head, maybe 20, 30 people, 40 will make about a million a year. Amazing. So you have... It's a significant amount of people over there. Like anywhere else, you always have the top 0% or so that the one that can. And that's the thing that somebody frustrates me, right? Because they say, wow. Everybody in their marketing fails. But it's only true... Point of thing. Every business... If you have 20, 30, 40 people that make over a million and the brand's done, the fulfillment's done, the products created, and they just have to market it. That's not a bad business idea in all seriousness. Because if you think about what you'd have to do to make a million dollars and even like dropshipping Amazon product, you have to do a lot of... You go to a flea market and you know people are coming to buy and you create the environment for everything. You create a space. You create... Okay, I know that I'll have multiple boots. I'll make more than a million a year. The flea market is going to have some winners, some losers. Some people are going to come lose their money, putting a boot, and then waste their time in money. Some people are going to be big, right? It's the same with Amazon. Some people can make it... You create a marketplace. You create the infrastructure. You invest in everything else. And let me ask you, in terms of tiers, how many tiers down? So if I brought Scott, Scott Broding, Jenna, Jenna Broding, Chanikwa, somebody, it just goes... How many layers down is allowed to you by the FTC to have... No, it's not. But everyone gets commission from the people underneath it. No, there's no rule for that. Every compensation blank is different. Okay, so you have a compensation. If I brought 20 layers down, so I brought one person, that person, Broding, that person. I'll keep going down and make commission on all the people with their work going on. Well, no, it's not infinite, right? And once again, depending on the... The higher is a rank, the deeper you can go. Right. So normally it's like five, six levels, depending on the rank. So eventually, it's less about how much you sell. It's about how much you solicit people to enter the program. It's both, right? Once again, if you... I mean, there are people making thousands of dollars a month just by retail commissions. Right. And there is people making tens of thousands by building a team. Right, so it depends. It depends. Interesting. But I was going to say about the failure because this annoys me a lot. It's like, most people fail. Yeah, but if you just Google SBA, where it's a small business association, it's in like 95% of companies will fail after five years. Yeah. Or something like that. So what's the difference, right? The difference is that here, you almost all only have to invest... 200 bucks. And you're done. And you're done. Yeah. What's the world that will happen, right? And they say, oh, but do you want to... Do you scheme people for $200? No. Because the average median average income from my first rank is something like 1600 a year. So you're making something. And most people will make this as a side... A side, I saw a side. Right. Side job. The geek economy, right? Yeah. I don't know if you heard about the geek economy is growing. Or Uber. Uber Eads. The geek economy. So what are all people? One, it's an extra $500, $300. Ignits. It's two, three, $500. And that's what most people do. And they do. This is a part-time job. Tell us a little bit talking about people, no, like blaming you guys for. MLM has a whole called organization almost against anyone that has MLM. It seems like they don't even try the product. They don't know much. But they're already going to come with... It's MLM. Okay. Let's go and fry them. I didn't dive too much into it, but I've read so much. Tell us your experience with that. Well, when we started getting... We're calling the haters, right? Because that's all they do, right? They wake up every day to do a beautiful set-up like this, to hate some companies. It's like, how do you... Because it blows my mind. They do their homework. They know every detail. It's like, you wake up in the morning just to spread negativity, to try to bring some people... But they'll say, no, I mean, listen. We see people getting scammed and so on. They probably... I'm sure there's a lot of people that just want to go and get the views, to get a big account. I assume. That's mostly what happened. Okay. So you guys had something back in the day, but you went through this and it kind of like died. You were telling me about something. I know what happened when you get trolled. I know how it is when you run a company and it's big. Especially social media. Social media is brutal. Yes. So I can totally feel when it's just unfair, where people demonize the owner for a reason. Tell us your experience. What happened to you guys? Absolutely. So in 2017, we went from 40 million to 300 million, right? The company exploded. Thousands of people joined. We're everywhere, right? And we started the company based on the owner of Facebook. Right? Right? A lot of Facebook. Then we moved into Instagram in 2017. And started getting these trolls, right? Just demonizing the company. Talking about things that the product world were making that. There were the same things like that the hair... Our haircare products and shampoo would make you hair fall. We have to do hundreds of thousands of dollars in clinical testing to prove the contrary. We have a lawsuit, right? Because it's like, okay, well, you know what? Let's do a lawsuit, right? A class action and get money. And we have proven them again and again. A lawsuit again and again that it's not actually true. Through clinical studies and through the fact that that started in 2017, the company had double in size and now everything is solved by itself. Right? We never changed the formulas. We just show the power of social media for the positive, but also for the negative. You're saying that it was starting with a comment that then took off. And eventually, I had to get a private investigator. Because someone said, oh, my child loves his hair and then you find... Terrible. It was a false claim because they actually had cancer treatment that child. And that's why they lost their hair. Terrible. For me, it was mind blowing how people could do things like this. I think it's for attention or, I don't know, for money, I don't know how. But then the network marketing haters would get into the things. It really goes strong. In double down odds. So the trending story and network marketing, oh, another company. Exactly. And they still do. I mean, they still do. I don't know. I don't know. Are they still chasing you guys? Oh, yeah. I mean, all the time. And every time we get momentum. It's something I just show up. It's like, because I don't know, everything we get momentum. And we have one now. By the way, I don't pay a lot of attention to them because what I learned in 2018 is that they were draining all my energy. And when I learned is that the bigger you are, the more you will have. So I said, listen, I'm not going to solve this. It's going to keep happening. People will find a reason. Right. Yeah. So I just stop paying attention to them. I tell my executive, don't even show me. I don't want to know. Because literally they're just somebody in the basement, somewhere in the middle of the country. Just talking without knowledge. Yeah. And it was interesting that there was one reason to leave. That this, all this video and this, this, on analysis. And show all these numbers. And she misread all these numbers. Terrible. That girl wanted to be a market partner. A couple of years ago. I have the screenshots. I have the screenshots. If she's seen for the first time. I have never said this. I have the screenshots. And she wanted to be a market partner. Then she tried another company, failed in that company. And now it's her life mission to bad mouth network marketing companies. So you went, you failed in that you bad mouth companies. And that's all you do all day long. So for me, there is no point really, I mean, they're there, but I don't really pay attention to them. But I know it's a, they demonized the industry. Right. It's very unfair. Sometimes it's true, but it's very unfair. I was going to have to people go after you personally. Do you have issues on your Instagram? No, I really don't. I mean, I think they know that I'm not trying to hurt anyone. I really don't get in a fight with them. I really don't care. All I want to do is what I do. And I know I don't well. So I'm doing good. So I don't know really. So who's your biggest competitor right now? I don't, I don't think about competitors. To be honest, I have never half. I just don't know anyone else in the hearing industry on MLM. No, no, we were different. But you compete with like the regular. Yes, regular. I mean, I say regular, like direct to consumer or, or, or regular. The haircare industry. But I do, I do see. And watch and we, the team watch the trends of the hair industry. Right. What's out there? What's new? Biden's really see because. Never marketing is a channel. Social selling is a channel. Right. It's $130 billion channel. It's $40 billion in the U.S. But the only one really focusing on hair. Right. Where the first one is still the only one in the channel. Where the number one haircare brand in the world. Right. In size. In size. Yeah. The number one in the world. In the world. Wow. What are some other big, like, like names some other big ones. Make sure you're comparing competing. Avada. Avada is big. I could say car stars. All the flex is doing good. Is doing good. But very different approaches of what we do. They are not vegan. They are not natural based. But they're doing good in terms of revenue. They're just a Chinese one. I remember the name. But they're not here in the U.S. They're really big in Asia. But I was just curious because. You said you're bigger than all those other companies. Now I want to talk about how. We keep saying MLM, network marketing, direct set, whatever. How that type of company grows as quick as it did. So why do you think in your opinion, your company? I can't remember the numbers you just mentioned. For how did we grow? Yeah. How did you grow? Because you went from what was the number you mentioned? Yeah. From 40 to 300. That's insane. We won all the way to 800. In how many years? We will. We went to 800 in six years. So that's not normal for most businesses. No. It's not normal for regular marketing either. We're number 20, which is about number 20. Depending on the year, number 20 in the industry, in the network marketing industry. We were. We're set for the job by the WLD. .50 beauty brands in the world. So it's not normal. In the industry or in the industry or in the network marketing industry. In fact, they say that when you join and when you start a company, if you do well, you'll have 500 distributors year one. We had 500 distributors month one. Man. Actually, when will it be? Month one, yes. To how did it help? Well, I think we came up with a great marketing strategy. Right? We come up with a great story of her. I think was the right time when we did it in 2014. The premium healthcare industry was growing. Right? We were the first ones to come up with a skimification of the scalp. Nobody was talking about that. Nobody was talking about the fact that you hair ages. It was an interesting conversation that people said, I want to try, I want to try this. Natural based products have work. That's my mantra, right? I want to make natural based products that actually work. Not only organic products that don't do much. What is the price of one shampoo? About. Depending on the view by as a VIP customer, which our preferred customer is about $38. Okay. $38. But then when I started, a lot of people told me, nobody's going to pay so much. No, I would pay more than $10. But if you really show clinicals and real results, people's willing to pay. So do you have claims on the product? Yeah. Okay. And also why hair? Well, you know what? It's kind of a coincidence. It's kind of a study I did. It's scientific studies that I did going to grocery stores and CVS and all times say for them. But then we ended up when we started our first company, we showed the company in 2012. Right? So it's like zero. I have to let go of everyone. Started getting six employees. The one that's in Venezuela and dress sales. I have my head quarters in Miami already. Because we opened in Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia. It's smaller markets for us. But when it showed up, Venezuela was the biggest market. We started from zero again. And then we ended up acquiring the product label manufacturer that was doing my product. Because we're the main customers. It's like, we don't want you to go on there. We'll show down. There's so much potential from relations. There is a nice lap. I don't want you to go on there. We end up with inquiries. We end up inquiring. So when they're up acquiring, they said, what do we do? What do we do? I went to the lab. It's like, why is the best things that we do here? What's the expertise that we have here in this lab? I figured I was her. They're good. Do we have anything in her care? And then started talking about that, about the signification of this curve, her aging and all that. And just by that said, let's focus on her. And then I went to see the industries. Actually, nobody is doing her care. So it wasn't that I said, nobody is doing her care. I will do her. Actually, so first was my strength. And then by coincidence, nobody was doing her care. And then that's what we started. I think that also got a lot of attention because everybody does supplements, vitamins, things like her. So I think it was interesting. So it wasn't competitive, but it was in a business that just had the vacuum. No one was selling in MLM and MLM any hair. And that was making a lot of sense, right? And you had already expertise, so you were able to hit the ground running. Right. And then we started the company back then. I think you all appreciate this. I had no distributors in the United States. We were going to focus now on the United States as a market. I was living here, but it wasn't my market. We were focusing on the United States as the main market. And we have no distributors. So the husband of a friend said, you should do a paper click campaign. Do you remember those? It was that, right? Yeah, you can do a paper click campaign, targeted campaign. We started with $5,000 campaign. And that $5,000 brought me my first few distributors, and actually some of those few distributors are still with the company. Interesting. Wow. Well, the retention is good. It's kind of funny when you said, look, I already had something over here. I had to make it, make it do. When I said, I know one guy that came from onion did bigger than experience. That's a funny story with door in warehouses. One of the guys didn't pay his rent, and he just left. And he built a cremation business in it. He built everything. He put the oven, all that, and then just left. So he started a cremation business alongside that. And he had it for years, and eventually exit the business. Just make it do. I got it already. What else am I going to do? So it's cool. You took that and you move it now. If there was one thing you would have changed in the past. What's one thing you could go back and tell yourself, hey, listen, two days or what would it be? In the business? In the business? In AI to your younger self when you started the business. In this business. Yes, in Monet. You know, it's going to sound cheesy. But I do think that your journey makes you who you are. Yes. So you have to pay the mistakes. You have to make the right thing. So I don't really know if I could have done anything different in my life. One thing that helped me is I have always had sense of urgency. Since I was really young, was maybe 16, 17 already was doing businesses and doing all kinds of things. In terms of businesses. Like for example, say Monet, right? When you started Monet, Agu had maybe done, maybe do my do the links. What was the right things to do in terms of doing the claims? Right? Because I did not need clean cars. Right? I knew I was doing the right things. We tested. We tried. But when deeper in those kind of things. Yeah. But then I said, I didn't have the money. Yeah. Because usually when I get that question, I always say one thing. It says, if there was any doubt to let someone go, it's always about, I let him go too late. That was my thing. So I was an entrepreneur. I was talking to so what about that? Yeah. You don't fire quick enough? Well, I think I actually do. But you never feel like a regret over letting someone go because you don't just go chop off heights for no reason. But when you let someone go, you always find out later on that you should have let him go sooner. It would have been no matter how. Because many times you say, you know, the momentum keep him a little bit longer. No, no, no, no. Because it's the most unnerving thing to do as an entrepreneur. Yes. Especially like the one you hate. Nobody wants to fire anyone. Yes. It's a hard conversation to have. Right? Yeah. I think for me, it's not that it's at least hard because it is. Especially when there is sometimes, it's good people. It's more about, you're always in fear of, am I going to create a gap in the company, right? It's more too long. What happened? Who's going to do this? How many times did you feel like you fired a person and you should have kept him longer? Never. If you even had that. Never. And that's a great question. A conversation was having with my brother and it helped me his shift stuff. And I was talking to someone. And I said, I'm telling you, have it. 100% of the time that we have this conversation, 100% of the time will eventually say, why didn't we do this before? Yeah. The uncomfortable of letting that position be eliminated until you find another person doesn't weigh the fact that that person wasn't the right person. And you only find the holes after they leave because they're very good at covering them. And then you said, oh, damn, it should have been sooner. Right. And every time you go back to yourself and you said, next time it wouldn't happen and then it happened again because you know what you already know, the person you feel bad. It's like you know what you bring this up because another you're talking. Yes. I made that mistakes. Many, many, many. Many repeating, right? It's just you many times. Many times. And I keep doing the mistake. I can make that mistake all the time. And so what I've done is that I carry like a mental checklist. So number one that you want. And you will hear this from every big guy that's running bigger companies. It's culture. Number one thing. And you know it. Like you know that this person isn't the right culture. He's never going to work. Yeah. Sometimes we want to convince ourselves because they are capable. And they have the background. And they have the technical skills. And they don't have the culture. And just like, you know, we'll make it work. You will never. Never work. They will never work. And then sometimes suddenly they have the culture. Suddenly. But they don't have the skills. Yes. And then he's like, okay, okay, I want to try. Right. But sometimes you can, depending on the position, if it's a very senior position, there is no way to make it work. And also, if you let a B player or C player in the team, it's really an alienate those A players. Right. Because it's going to bring everybody down. Oh, so this is the standard. You can't sit in the bar. You want to keep the bar high. Right. And that's how you win. Yeah. One of the worst parts is to keep a B player in a managerial position because A's higher A's, B's higher C's. Because B's C's A's and B's as a threat. And before you know it, you get yourself a group of C's that are managed by a B that kills anyone that has a chance and eventually you keep them longer and they are masters of disguise. They know how to keep showing what you need to see and expect what you don't inspect and they keep you outside of the loop and for purpose. And the other thing I have in my checklist is passion. There is someone, this person was talking about just this week. I just don't feel that person had the passion. So even though we're a big company, I want to have the passion. I want the people around me to have the passion of a startup. When you're a startup, you have the passion. You want to make everything better. You want to make everything quick. And then comes those with bureaucracies. But next time you have to be patient. Right. I just do my job. But I can see in your eyes that you don't have the passion for the specific thing that you're doing. So if you don't have the passion, I don't want to... What are the ways to find them before they start? How can you... What are the questions you usually would ask those people to see okay, those are going to be those bureaucrats. And how do you eliminate them? Dig the resumes. Right. Yes. I learned that also the hardware. I would see the resumes like red. But then I learned because of Rintin. People who work in the company. And then we're posting Rintin. I worked at Monet and I did this and that. Not you didn't. But you were maybe a part of the team. But you didn't actually do that. It's like, how do you believe in a resume? So don't go back to the resume. Don't believe in the resumes. I had people, by the way, writing down their positions. When you would go and search my company, you would see all those employees. And you would see people that never worked for us and say that they're directors of XYZ. They have never worked on my company. And that's where it's... That's where it's yes. So you're saying dig the resume. But on the interview, how do you go and you talk to a person? What are the questions you ask to kind of tell us? Well, the one way for me to spot it is... Agging a project. Like, okay, what's been your biggest win? And they'll tell you a launch this product. Okay, tell me how you did it. Well, no, no. But how do you come up with that? So start digging... Tactical. Tactical questions? Yes. That's... Listen, I get sometimes people filter by human resources, department heads, and then they come to me. And in 20 minutes... You find out... What? I mean, you didn't notice that this person... They don't actually know what they're talking about. Because if you ask me about my business... Yes, you know what they do. I mean, how long do I have? And I mean, ask me about how to make a product. Or how many... I mean, anything about my business, I'll just tell you... How much do you want to know? Because you'll tell me... Yeah, I'll come here all day all night. And then you ask people, like, I do product development. Okay, tell me. What's the process? Tell me what's the hardest things about them. Tell me why are the hotels? And they'll tell you one thing. Because they have no passion. Or you really don't know the technical questions. Then you find that it's just a manager that doesn't touch the details. Well, that's another issue too. When somebody assumes all the responsibility and hasn't done the work. So they say they've done this, but it was really a team. I see all the time, I'm hiding and meet management position. I increase sales, it's 100%. And I tell it's like, you didn't. So tell me how you were part of a team. And maybe did something. In what part did you play on that team? So I think digging down, that's my number one thing. Which is, by the way, that's still valid. If the person built a team that accomplishes a thing, that's... But don't say aye. Don't say aye. Sometimes you're a part of a team. Someone or someone above you that build multiple teams. That's true. They decorate it. It's a very... No, you take credit for your role as an operator. Or if you have direct reports, that's what you can say that you built. And to be great, you have to be into the width. Right? Yes. So that's a number one thing. Right? So you have to be into the width. So if you are... If I hide in you to do events, I will ask you, why did you merge? Well, what are the companies that do the best events? If I hide you for products, and I'm talking about skincare. So tell me why the skincare brands are killing it right now. Which ones are those? If I'm asking you about direct sales. So what do you think are the direct sales companies that are winning? And why? And most times, most of the times they won't tell me. So you don't really... You really don't know the industry. Now, what happened that you did all that tactical questions to see that you came from the bottom, grew to the top. And you say, you know what the guy's tactical? Sounds like he knows what they're doing or she. And then they come in and then they're not. What are the indications for you? Like, when you say, okay, it's not gonna work like it. Like, how long usually it takes you and then what are the... Yeah, you know, it's hard. Because sometimes, how do you have to give it a chance? Yes. Of three, six months. And I mean, in my company, they go like that because we're really... You're fast. Dynamic. Yeah. Let me think. How do I... Did it ever happen though that the tactical person that was in a managerial position but very good in tactics wasn't the right one or usually they're usually performing? No, no. I mean, there was one case, was a year ago. Actually, it was before morning, in my other company. Daya Hart, a CFO, and he lasted one morning. True, sorry, right? One morning. One morning, yeah. How do you last one morning? Well, he started, we went to the conference room. Sexual harassment. Hopefully not. No, no, no. That was fast. Yeah. No, went to the room. We started going to a financial statement and I just did... I just saw that he didn't know the details of a P&L. Oh. Well, that's interesting. I mean, it's hard because this guy came from Haven, which is a multi-billion dollar company. But I turned to my... Because he was two CFOs, my older CFO for the Braille brand. It's like, he said, me or this guy is kind of weird. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I lost $10,000. I pay him $10,000 to leave. Because it's like, you know, I know when I work. Like, you know what I'm saying. It's not when I work out. Sometimes, to your point. I mean, most of the time after three months, you know, you just want to make it work. But then you don't want to be so harsh. Well, maybe they're just... You ask yourself, is it just me? Am I the crazy one? Are they right saying I'm too crazy? Yeah. But sometimes, sometimes people take time. I think it's wise for new people to come in ask questions, evaluate, do a recomb before coming too hard, too fast. Because they might be aggressive, too. But it also depends on the role, too. I come from a sales background and an enterprise sales. I mean, there's long sales cycles, too. So you have to look at the activity. You have to look at the leading indicators that will be measurable for success as opposed to lagging indicators. If I have an enterprise sales rep that's coming in that has a nine-month sales cycle. Okay, fine. Make sure that you do all the checks ahead of time. But they're going to be nine months till they close the deal. So you have to make sure they're doing the activities that we know are eventually going to lead to success. And that's what you have to measure on as opposed to the end result. I think that in some positions, sometimes you measure on the lagging indicators or the end result a little bit too heavily. That's why you have to have those metrics in place so that you know if the results take a little bit of time. Great point. But in the meantime, what I've learned is to develop non-negotiables. Like I said, passion is a non-negotiable for me. Or attention to details is a non-negotiable. But if I go, you might even be a month-to-month thing if I endure on top of a project. If I go and I ask you something and you don't know the details, that's a big red flag for me. In a managerial position. Even at a senior position. No, no, no. If you're not managing anyone and you're new and you don't know certain details and you're just a coordinator. Now he's saying if you're on a project for a period of time. No, no, in any position. In any position. But you say therefore I'm a CEO, but have a partner and we have a board. I pride myself of saying if the board asks me 10 questions, I will have the answers of nine. Even if they are very detailed. Obviously, if you ask me, tell me exactly, I don't know. But listen, do you ask me how many orders that we cheaped yesterday? I'll tell you. Was the wedding times on customer service? I'll tell you. How many people did we sponsor yesterday? How many new customers did we bring? I'll tell you. I know those levels of details. And all of people get annoyed by that. But I will always tell them if you want to work with me, you have to be into the width. But you're micromanaging. You have to micromanage the thing that matters. So I'm asking you to micromanage the things that matter in your area. And you do, you do. Box me that. I don't want to sound like me, me, me, but hold on a minute. I'm overseeing teneters of the company. You are focusing one. I would expect you to know way more details than me. Yes. And then you find out that the person is not as technical as you that you manage all. By the way, just knowing doesn't always mean you're micromanaging either. Exactly. It just means you have a finger on the pulse of that piece of business. So I think it's good to know. I think that maybe an excuse is, oh, you're micromanaging. It's because they don't want to know. And you know what, pulse. That's so important. You have to have the pulse of what's going on. Because when you have the pulse, you know what to do. So another thing that I tell them is like, because I really want to be fast. Oh, let's buy all these reports and analysis. And mean tell and you don't monitor. It's like, that's fine. The company paid for that and we're using it. But when you really have the pulse of what's going on, of the beauty industry, of the direct sales industry, of the world today, you know what to do fast. You don't have really have to analyze a lot. Because you have so immersed to it that it's just like a nature or just instant that allow you to take the decisions fast without having to go through 10 reports. I think that ultimately the winners are making better decisions. And when you mentioned that your very urgency is very important for you. And I think that's what matters, right? You just keep moving faster than everybody else because you're taking the urgent. You know what's urgent and it's important, which means there's 99% of not important. There is 1% that's important. There is 0.1% that's very important. And there is that percentage that's very urgent. If you always tackle the very important and urgent and then still manage after that, the important and you weed out all the not important, the effectiveness of your business is going to put you as a unicorn. And that is the issue with large companies where they deal with so much not important. And then they touch tiny, tiny bit with important and a little bit on the urgent and very important. Was it happened? I mean, did it happen to you because it happens to me that executive will come with nice ideas, nice ideas that just like this nice, but it's really matter. Yes, I've seen this before where you sit down. I mean, it takes time to maneuver the company where you say, all right, our meetings are very, very focused on a couple of questions. What is our plan that look like from now until the end of the month in terms of balance sheet? What are the urgent matters which we had to know? Okay, this is shipping the boxes on time. If there are any delays, we need to go and inform the members before. If there are any issues with products not coming on time. We cannot learn after a while that how come we didn't inform the people in advance? Why is it coming to our desk when it's already on social media? So we get efficient, right? It takes time. So then eventually you isolate only what's important. And we're just doing one hour a week, manage a corporate meeting. One hour a week, that's it. Everything else was tactical meetings, just build, build, create, invent, be into the details. One hour just to connect all the branches and that's it. When we moved on and let on and became more corporate and I started stepping out, it was completely different. And you just talk about everything, but the important parts were not there. Things were shipped late. Nobody knows about this. No one talks about all those meetings. Well, it's interesting because I'm doing my strategy meetings for 23. Okay, let's have an initial. Now that we're talking, I'm thinking about things that have been better. Is that simplification? For next year, my work, I also have a work for a year. This year for relationships. I tell people you have to have a relationship because coming out of after COVID, we also could do everything in the Italy. It's like you don't build relationships or resume. The next year is simplification. How can we simplify? Because you start growing. It's like would you build a house, right? Would you build a house and then you start coming with ideas and then you have the kitchen is this side. And the bathroom is after the kitchen and everything is weird. It's like simplified. I have a question for you on that point. You mentioned before that you like to keep the company like a startup. Like innovative, fast moving. That's great. But when you have people that like a startup environment, they are also sometimes distracted with new ideas. They always want to suggest new things like you just mentioned. How do you balance that? How do you balance startup innovation company with staying focused and on tasks with what matters? The number one challenge that I've had in the company is bureaucracy. Right? The entrepreneur and you used to do startup is fast. And now everything has to go through legal, and PMO, and the software, and all the checkmarking, which is fine. You have to do that. So how can you still follow the process and be fast? So that's a number one challenge that we have. And then yes, all the initials. So I'm telling the team, let's be proactive. And then you'll see that you have 200 projects open. So what I start doing is, once again, going back to the basics. What are the basics things that we need? Is it helping my field? Is it helping my market partners? Is it good for my customers? Is it going to help my customers? Is it going to increase sales? Is it a legal thing that we need to do? Are compliance stuff that we really need to cover? So those are the pillars that you have? That's it. Yes. After that, everything has to be secondary. After that, we have time. The other projects. But if we're not doing one of those, let's put in a back burner for now. Yeah, that's something that I keep mentioning because that's something that in BoxHum is to have. We had one goal, which is to grow. While you're profitable, keep growing. Don't optimize your profit, just optimize your growth. While you're profitable, and then we had four pillars. Get the best product in the box, get the best experience for the members, get the best experience for the brands, get the best experience for the influencers. That's it. If you want to grow, follow those four. We would sit down, and you would say, you would hear managers, directors, VPs talking to their teams, and someone would come up with an idea to say, what pillar does it hit? So everything works, and then you can glaze or focus into one. Every brain in the organization knows where to go to and how to get there. If you have 100 people, 100 brains helping you now, because they have a direction. So that's exactly what you guys did. You were just identifying what's important. But then you say, OK, OK, so still you have a bunch of ideas to increase ourselves. Still we're having a lot. So then you have to have the instant and the discussion is really going to matter. I mean, this is really going to move the needle. Sometimes many times you will try things that don't work. So I always tell the things that it's OK, right? If it doesn't work, what I want is for all of us to face the brutal facts fast. Because what happens is that we get so enamored with the project, and something that maybe with an executive with a project, and it's been six months a year, and you knew from month two that that project was not going to take off, that's IPA initially. And you keep investing time resources on that. So when I say, it's OK, you have to give it time, say you give it a quarter. So if after a quarter, it hasn't picked up, let's face the brutal facts. I mean, that's fine. Maybe it's your project. Hey, we're trying things that don't feel bad. I'm not putting it in our due, we try it. Focus on results, not the process. Yes. And you know the great things today is that you do so many things digitally, either on social media or through apps and platforms. That's really easy to measure. Yes. It's really easy to measure. You can see right away. You can tell the feedback from the people. It's not back then. You have to go and get focus groups sitting through a third party identity. No, now it's just right away. To your point, and sometimes the resources will take time. Same we're doing something. Say I launched a new program, right? I launched it last month, actually a month ago. And it's doing great. In many KPIs, it's a challenge in other KPIs. But I know it's working. I know it's moving masses. I know people are excited about it. I know the feedback. I know we've done things that have caused an app. That has caused us $200,000. After three, four, five months, you don't see picking it up. The numbers. The numbers are not picking up. It's like maybe we either have to reshape this. But many, many times people don't face the brutal facts. No problem. If it's not a product market fee, let's move on and try something else. Maybe it's going to work. And we have a couple of questions for you, by the way, because this is the first time we actually shot a story on my... A lot of questions. We're going to go and ask you those. Before I start, I'm going to go and say you're married. You have children. How many children do you own, currently? Of three. Three. Boys, girls. We have two boys and Vincent's 14, about 2, 15. Nicholas is 11 and Paula, who just turned 8. I don't know if you have two boys and a princess. That's awesome. Literally the princess. That's awesome. That's great. And how is... That's one of the questions, right? Are you single? Sorry guys, he's not single. His wife is gorgeous and she's amazing. I know she's very involved in the business. Yeah, she's... I'm proud of the development. Product development, yes. It's a beautiful thing to see you guys work together, travel together, doing everything together. I saw that you bring the family, the whole family with you. When you go to Bora Bora with all the influencers, you bring in the family, so you don't waste time with the kids. Yeah, we're really... I mean, I don't do this alone, right? My father is a chairman. He's not involved in the day today, but he's my partner, my advisor. In my family, right? My siblings are involved. My sister do culture. We... We not name her chief of culture. She'll see make sure that we have... Your sister? My sister. She's the head of the foundation, but she makes sure that we're doing proper recognition. We keep it in the form. In that culture that makes us different. In my brother's chief of staff, she's... He's involved in everything with operations. So, he's solved for my issues on the day to day. And my younger sister... Well, have a baby sister, but my younger sister is trying to get involved and she loves to sing, so now she's doing their jingles for the company. I just love the fact that you plagued in the company, that the family into the company, so everyone gets a piece of the experience, get that, understanding that you can build a business, look, we're doing this together, and you keep the family with the same experiences. You don't get to experience everything by yourself. It's very nice. Do you have any issues working with family? Ah, no. No, anybody else answers that? I think we have a high level of respect for each other, right? And I'm the CEO, so my siblings are my siblings, and they're my best friends, but they respect me as a CEO, and they respect them as the professionals they are at work. And no, we get along and we love to have fun together too, so I think that's good. We really connect as friends. And is there... I'm just one more family question. When you compare where your dad came from in direct sales, is there anything that you fundamentally disagree on and how you build a direct sales network marketing company? Yes. Many things. So fundamentally, we agree in most everything, right? Strategically, we don't, but we do now, right? So we have to trust me. We're allowing to do my own strategies. But for example, that part of creating a real brand, right? He wasn't in love with that idea. He said, okay, I don't think that was the key. And he allowed me, actually, my sister, to, like, let's focus on creating this cool brand, right? Initially, social media was like a secondary, and now he's loved to be in social media himself, right? But fundamentally, we know this is a business of people, so we believe in that strongly, and we have always focused on doing whatever is best for our people. So that fundamental, I think, has been the glue for our strategies. Beautiful. That's going to get questions there. And then I go to my dairy. Okay. The Canadians are going to read all the questions. Well, we've kind of gone into this. So someone asked, what is your business background? But more or less, you've answered that. So let's keep going. We're wiping tables before wiping tables. Well, I went to law school in Venezuela for a couple of years. I was going to be a lawyer. Really good at it. Really good at it. So what did you just say? I don't know what that means. A lawyer in Spanish. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Still, I'm really good at that. It's still right to the date. I'm really good at that. And I was going to be a lawyer, but I went to business schools, hearing FIUD. You went to business school? Yeah. Went to business school. All right. Look, me too. What years did you go? I ended up... What year did I graduate? 2004? Oh, really? I'm 2007. Oh, right? Yes. Look at us. No, look at us. Maybe there is something. I keep butchering them with... It's not going to work. It doesn't do anything. I know. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Business school. Do anything for you? Yeah. Yes. I truly believe that business school... School in general. Yeah. I know. And I would do mostly. Yeah. But I think business school gives you structure. All right. So it has allowed me to have some kind of structure. Okay. Around many... You did you master your bachelor? Bachel. A bachelor like me. Yeah. Fuck, master. What the hell do we need? Yeah. But nowadays, now there is different. Right? I mean, 15 years ago, you didn't have the level of information online. Online. Online that you have today for free, or maybe for the nominal investment. See. So I think it's different now. I do still think I would still encourage my kids to go to school. And to go to college. Now if you don't want to go, I say, okay, what are you going to do? And you're going to be the best at it? Just do something. You don't... Be the best at that. Exactly. I think curiosity. And I think that makes us different. You have to really, really curious. Curiosity. It's about... I see people that are experts at things just by watching videos on YouTube about... Could you have done what you've done without going to business school? Who knows? Who knows? We can't tell the outcome, but was there anything instrumental that without you taking that class? Oh, no, no. No, no, no. Specifically, no. I used to think the level of structure. I mean, the fact that when you grow the company, now you have to deal with a board. And you have to deal with structures, or charts. And all these kind of things. And I think it helps you. Right? Understand that faster. Interesting. Now, could you delegate all things, yes? Yeah. That's a question. Okay. Okay, let's go through some of these. The first question. I won't read the names, I guess. You can read the name. I mean, Johnny. No one's going to know Johnny, is it? Yeah, but they might know. No, well, they'll know. We mentioned them. We give them the credit instead of the name of the handle. Okay. So the Ryan Morgan asks, any business that is done as MLM immediately loses credibility to me? Why MLM? Right. Well, we're talking... I think it's fair. There is a back name. I understand why there is a back name on multi-level marketing, on network marketing. Because once again, back in the 90s, there was no regulation. Right? And a lot of people, a lot of companies, just push products to the distributors without caring about what they were going to do with the products. So a lot of people just ended up overloading products on their garages and their placets. It's different now, right? Right now, you do the investment and you look for customers and the company will ship the customers and you'll get a commission. So it's pretty different from what it was before. I guess it's going to hard to get away with the name. It's just like they're saying Honduras is a very dangerous place, but today it's actually not. It used to tend to end musical, right? It's not as dangerous, right? So it takes a while to... And why instead of direct a consumer or a regular B2B? Because... Well, because network marketing will give you the platform if you set it at yourself. You're going to network marketing and good company, right? And I'm not going to say Monet is the only great network marketing company because there are some out there, not many, but some. Because the other thing you want to see is an actual product. It's still... Actually, I mean, not an actual product, a great product. A great product. So what we do... For me, I make sure the quality of my product is... And I could never do this because I believe in the channel. Good this product survive in a shelf in Sephora. Good this product survive in a shelf in Alta, right? And that's for me a stress test. And then the other thing is that we do PR. But you know, editors will pick up the products that they like. Of course. I don't pay the editors. And I see editors picking up the products very well. It's clinical, it's resource, the branding, the innovation that we're presenting. So go with a company. If you're going to go to a company, a network marketing company, go with a company that has pros that you actually believe in. And then you go to the company that you have pros that are believing. They have the culture that you like, you like the branding. You're representing a brand. That's what you're doing. You don't have to do a website. Because the website will be given to you in our case. Do you have the support for community? And that's the other thing. It's a cult. It's a positive cult. That drinking the Kool-Aid. I'll drink this Kool-Aid all day long. It's a Kool-Aid of what? It's a TV. It's a company. It's a company. A company helping each other. If you're in the right culture. Yes. You have to be in the right culture. Right? So we press ourself of saying that we're in a culture. We don't say the community says it. And we're a culture that everyone is helping each other. Right? That you want to have a training platform. We have customers every support. You don't have to carry inventory. We carry the returns. You have 30 days of money back guarantee. You have to worry about any of that. All you have to worry is about marketing the product and selling the product. And if you decide to build a team, people will join. So in other words, you like the product. You think it makes sense. You can join the company. If you don't like the product and you think the product is a scam, then the whole company is a scam. Kind of like that. That's what you're saying. Well, you know what? I feel ashamed. Do you know how many people that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars told me that they were so ashamed of being one of those? Right? You know how many dots? I know the stories of dots. Because we have a lot of young girls. But we're demographics between 24 and 35. And a lot of dots saying, I was against this and now they're wearing the hat. And it took husbands. Let's say, don't get into that to the girls. And then they go to the events. It's like, this is an actual amazing community. Right? And I own some people. In our case, you join Monet and you're going to join a community. Worse case scenario, you'll become a better person. Because the world out there is just full of negativity. Everywhere you go. And you're going in a positive community, whereas the worst thing will happen, right? Yeah. Charles C. Masters asks, how do you prioritize and maximize your daily efforts as a CEO of such a big company? Right. I have a scale. Right? So I make sure I have a scale. I think it doesn't take a lot of work, right? You farm. This is your calendar. And I make sure that my scale is always full with activities. And then I'll let my scale pull me, right? Because when you let your scale pull you, in my opinion, it will allow you to do the things that you don't want to, even if you don't feel like to. Because that's a key thing. Right? I said discipline. Right? Most of the people think that it's a perfect life. Listen, so there are days that are, it's like, this is saying, I don't wish this life for many people. It's very, a lot of stress. And it's doing a lot of things that you don't like. Right? So if you put in the scale, it's like, this is what I have to do today because I have to, right? And the business need me to do it. So having a scale, and I leave the scale to the minutes. Good answer. Good answer. Thank you. Hey, plus. Virgilia Virgil. Virgilie? I can't pronounce that. I'm sorry. What's the unique personal branding story that makes you stand out in the beauty market? We have natural-based products that actually work. You mentioned this before, yeah. So it's more the measure is that mixture of natural-based ingredients with clinical studies. So we recently launched a product called IR Clinical that will help you with your scalp, that will help you with your hair fall. And we just did it a month ago, and it's in partnership with the University of Miami. So we do believe in the science, but we use natural-based ingredients. Marwan Blitz asks, what's the best recession-proof industry to start for e-commerce, or just any company, that's recession. They were marketing. They were marketing. Yeah, because when the recession, and I actually spoke about this in my convention, beauty industry is great, right? People will keep taking care of themselves no matter what, and you know this. But they were marketing too, because when things get tough, what do you need? You need an extra income. Yeah. And that's when more people will sell. So the barrier to entry to your business is much higher than just going in online and do what everyone else is doing. Yours is a little bit more complex. So once you go into a network that's exist already, you have already a pool of people, right? And what product in, say, network marketing, what product would you do if it wasn't haircare? If it was, well, I did haircare for five years, and then I moved into skincare. Okay. And we're doing very well skincare. I used the same mantra, natural-based products that actually work, modern nature. And we're number 12 in the United States as a brand of skincare. And then we did wellness. I could do natural-based products. But you have to be around the sustainability story nowadays. You have to actually have ingredients that people will, that are bulletproof that if the customer Google, they will come out at safe. People, I mean, the level of scrutiny that customers have today on products is amazing, right? Yeah. So that's confusing. I said, don't go to with Dr. Google all the time, right? Because they won't give you the right answer. But I think natural-based, anything that's natural-based, that's sustainable. And if you can find something that you can share on Instagram, right? Instagramable. And I'm always saying, like the best places, the best restaurants, the best hotels, everything is a half an Instagramable moment. Try to have products like I have that too. Good, good. Decentinello asks, what's the worst way or the dumbest way you've seen somebody sabotage their own success? By losing focus. See it all the time. See it all the time. Together. And see it with my own market partners. They start making some money. And now drop the ball, start traveling and creating content. It's like listening. Content is important. Right. We all are in social media. But content is not the only thing. You really have to work day in day out. And to think that to make some kind of money in a year is all the money in the world when there is so much more to do. I think that the biggest mistakes, like you're sabotaging yourself just by dropping the ball so fast. Zadizzi asks, what was the biggest mistake you made early on when you first started your company? Well, we talk about mistakes, right? I think I know how to find people fast enough, or know how to write people. I think you have to make, depending on the industry that you are, just do the dual diligence in terms of compliance, because sometimes we don't mean that, but we made mistakes. So just to do the links in the compliance part, I think those few things. Eric Sue asks, what are you investing in now? What are you excited about? Well, I didn't follow Joseph Advise or invest in the stock markets. It sucks. You're stuck there for a while now. I know, I know. So it sucks. So I did that. I also did an investment. That's when you start having some kind of capital on one of these funds. Yeah. A mutual funds, social rebuff. Really? Social rebuff. Don't do that. But in terms of investment, but that was for me, very passive, and very focused on what I do. I'm really believing. Mostly investing in your business and yourself, right? Yeah. And really believe in focus. And I think you've posted something like this. Yes. Don't multiple string of incomes. No. That's when you really have multi-millionaire, and you can really have multiple strings of passive income. But if you really want to be the best at something, and really to succeed at something, you have to pull the, what is it? Pull all the eggs in your basket and wash your basket. Go and build a company like yours if you're trying 20 other things. I need to make sure I have a real estate portfolio. Well, I'm building, but no, you have to do one thing, take it to the moon. And then after you exit, perhaps when you have some time, build a portfolio that is barely being managed, and then you can, but it's just, it's just to give this advice to everybody. It's just not. But I was saying, I love to tell people this. Will I put all the eggs in one basket? Yes. Pull your eggs in one basket and wash your basket carefully every day. I love that. That's smart. That's good. Do you want to do some, there's a whole bunch of questions on money. Do you want to do questions on money? Sure. Let's do that. Let's do that. All about money, liquidity, all right. Biggest financial regret. Investing is a stock market. Okay. Is it better? And he's not the first time. It's the second time I've made the same mistake. You can't do that. At the hype every time? No, no, they're really high. But it always goes down. It's too much stress for me. Yeah. It's a stretch that I don't need. Yeah. Because I want to be focusing on my business. It's just that you get greedy, right? So when you say going up and up and you don't get out, you don't get out. Yeah. I think, I think you have a discipline. And you say, when I put an investment once I'm making 30%, I'm going to get out. And I have what's discipline like that. And then you say, well, you know what? Maybe 60%. Yeah. And then... Nobody wants to leave the party. But then midnight comes. Exactly. I was buffing. It turns into a pumpkin. And now everyone's stuck. Actually, all these questions are from Elizabeth Tipco. These are really good questions. So is it better to strike gold early on or make it later on in life? Like, first time is it good to have a success? Or does that ruin you? No, I don't think so. Early on is fine for me. Do you feel money changes people? Or merely amplifies what's already there? I think amplifies what's already there. 100%. Most expensive thing you've ever bought. Do you have to say that? You don't have to be the one. You can move on. It's a good one. It is a good one. No, you know what? I don't buy a lot of expensive stuff. Maybe I watch. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. If you could use your wealth to solve one of the world's problems, which one would you solve? That's a tough question. I think I'm really focused on hunger. Yeah. Have people treated you differently as you've made more and more money? A little bit. A little bit. You know, it annoys me. In terms of... I think people just... I don't know if they're worth the care or they just don't really want to be... I think people get nervous sometimes. And I laugh. Why are you nervous about me? I think people get nervous. And then they have no tension. Just be yourself. Be normal. I'm normal. No, it's good. Can money buy happiness? No. But it really puts you in a great position to be happy. Because if you amplifies who you are, you're just going to be happier. If you amplifies who you are and you're already a miserable person, you're just going to find ways to be miserable. I've always said I was super happy when I was about my first townhouse and when I was 2004. So I was 23. I was really happy when I went about my first car. I was really happy when I moved to my house. And it's like in every stage of my life, I can't be happy. Happy than what I am now. But it's because you will find ways to be happy. But I see people that they just find ways to be miserable. With money. What can you share? Wait, I'm just reading this. No, okay. So what would you tell somebody who feels like giving up? I understand. Most people will give up. And I think there's nature of the world. So don't be like everybody else. I love that. I love it. And how much of your success would you attribute to luck? Is it a debate? I was talking to my dad actually about that the other day. I think you need to have some luck. You need to, I mean, people slack. There's a saying. I love this saying. Oh, the harder I work, the luckier I get, which I believe in that too. It's like when you really focus and you're really immersed and you're really passionate, everything goes right. It's fun, right? Yeah. Because maybe you know to take the right decisions, you know what to do. But I mean, I think, I mean, you want to call it blessings. You want to call it universe or whatever you believe in. We want the specific percentage, right? You need a little bit of luck, right? You need a little luck. Actually, you kind of mentioned this. You already mentioned about what causes you want to give back to and what problems you like to solve. So I'm going to, that's a duplicate question. So what mindfulness practices is from Rachel Perez? What mindfulness practices do you use in your daily life to stay focused and stay centered? Yeah, exercise. Exercise for me is big, right? So I do, I think two things that I always advise. Exercise, not only because you want to be healthy and look good, but it really clears your mind. I can tell you how many times I have gotten into the gym and I was just overwhelmed or just upset and got out of there, like nothing. And then don't let yourself immerse into negative news. So I will tell people, do not wash news. There's no point on it. The informed, I mean, but with the phone, you can see the headlines. That's what you need to know. If you want, if you need to know about something and don't let yourself into the robbery calls of negativity or even on social media, I know that. So I think if you do those things, you will stay positive, right? Amazing. That's most of the questions. That's very good. Thank you. That was good. Anything else you want to go into? Give us some tips for people that try to get work life balanced or not as much as more like a family, kids, business balance. Because you've been doing it since 18. Yes, you've done this very successfully, very effectively. So what would you tell people? Yeah, I have a saying. I was going to put it in the wall in my outfit that says, do you know that they said you cannot have it all? I think you can have it all. I do think that it's time for everything. Once again, if you really follow a plan on the daily basics, right? And then you can balance quality. It's not about quantity of time, for example, with your kids. It's not about the quantity of the time that you give to your kids. For me, it's the quality of the time that you give to your kids. So when you're there, you're present. Correct. Be present, be intentional. Right? For example, with my wife, I always said, I want to be intentional about doing daynights. Right? I want to be intentional about spending certain slots of times doing the work with her, with my family. I want to be intentional about, hey, listen, say my siblings. We haven't had fun together in a couple of months. Let's do something. Because I think people just leg themselves go with whatever happens on the daily basics, instead of being intentional, or how you're going to spend your time. And so I always say, okay, after a day of work, or after a day of activities, I always ask myself, how was this impactful for me? Say, for example, I took the day off because it was my girl's birthday a couple of days ago. I took her to different places to go to Target, and she went to one of these indoor parks. And for me, it was powerful because it was important for me. I don't do that all the time, but I did it that day. That's it. And so for me, it's being intentional, have a plan, and depending on what's important for you, make sure that you are cultivating those moments, right? And that there is time for everything, even for exercise, right? I decided, what was it now? Like, nine years ago, I want to get fit, I want to be healthy, and it's a non-negotiable for me. I will go to the gym, no matter what, one hour a day. So it's a non-negotiable. If you do non-negotiable in your life, there are so many hours of the day, and I see people say, I don't have time. Really, you don't have time. Let me see how long you spend on social media. I bet you spend 20, I did that exercise a lot recently. That's how you make money, though. You text and scroll, right? Right, that, right. I don't even have to do anything. Just be positive and be on Instagram. So I go 20 hours. How much can you do in 20 hours? Listen, you can do so much, and you still have time to watch an hour of TV. I don't believe in the extremes. Like, don't watch TV, don't do something. Listen, I watch TV, I go out. How many emails do you respond in a day? Ooh, a lot. I haven't thought about it, but I wouldn't say less than four emails. Interesting. No less than that. Okay. And why more text messages? Okay. So I mean, because that's a good thing. The phone gives you the flexibility, right, of working, of taking the fast decisions, the important decisions. But once again, you have to balance everything. I think an unbalanced life is one you say, I'm just going to take all my time to work. How about the family? I'm going to take all my time to my kids. Yeah, but the kids need a future. So you can't just spend all the time with your kids. Oh, I'm going to be all the time with my wife's traveling. I think many times it's just excuses for people that don't want to do one job. And they're just going to that zone. And they said, I'm only over here because XYZ, instead of say, well, I'm not building the business because it's not secure. So I have to get that day job. And because it's not secure, I don't want to say I don't want to start it because it's not a good excuse. Because that's that's investment. You go into the unknown and you're putting your time perhaps money. And they'll go and they'll say, I want to be more with my kids. But you just said, what do I need to do to make money? I'm just telling you. And it's like, and that's one of the reasons. It's ask yourself, am I giving myself? Don't like to yourself. Don't give yourself the excuse. Maybe to others, but ask yourself deeply. What's going to be intentional? I mean, if you're building a business and you're building a family, you want to build yourself. You have to be intentional and say, if I want to build myself, I really have to spend some time reading a book or listening to a podcast. I have to do it. I don't feel like it. But it's part of your goals. You have to do it. Are you building a family? You have to spend time. Quality time with your family. You're building a business. You have to know how to balance your business. But yeah, I like that. I think people create excuses in their heads. Because you tend to do the things that you like to do. No, the things that you have to do. Of course, yeah. You're more emotional, right? Your decisions are emotional and they're being justified by rational explanation, but they are emotional. So when you don't want to go to the gym, tell all the stories of the why. There is going to be a story why. But you can shoot holes into that story in a second if you just want to. But the core, the bottom line, is you're lying to yourself. Yeah. I don't like that sign that says, do what you love and you work work another day in July. It doesn't make sense. Thank you. If you love 50% of what you do, you're lucky. Exactly. You're lucky. It's not like you're not going to work another day of your life. It's not realistic. You have to do things that you don't like. And then enjoy the result. Right? But you have to enjoy the journey too. So what I do is, in anything I do, if I don't like it, try to find my way to enjoy it. Right? And running companies, for example, there are so many things that... I would actually say that when you truly are not doing anything that's uncomfortable, it's actually not a very good life. It's not a good life at all. And that's actually, in my opinion, when people retire, then they die. Absolutely. They die the second they stop trying to progress. And you actually not just like metaphorically, like people that actually stop working. They're healthy. They stop trying. No, they're studies about us. And then like five years, 10 years, they're health deteriorates immensely. Not everybody, but it does happen. They're studies about us, because you have to have a reason to keep going. They're self-actualization. I think that's a term. You need a self-actualization to know that you're here because you're important, and you're in the middle of building something, so you don't disrupt your mind with negative thoughts with everything else. If you go to any elderly community and a central village over here, what you're going to find is that they'll call for maintenance for every little problem. The worst people you can rent the house to is all people that do nothing, because at home all day, they have nothing else to do but complain. When you're busy doing something, you don't care about that little noise coming from the... You don't care about all those stuff. It doesn't bother your life. And that's where people start deteriorating. I love that. I love that. I know that. No, but I love what you said too about comforts. That's something we always have to ask ourselves. If I'm really comfortable, there's something wrong. If you're not on comfort, or you're not growing, it's like a muscle. You have to break the muscle for the muscle to grow. You have to break in yourself all the time for you to grow. Once you grow, you know that they always say, be outside your comforts. I tell people, no, expand your comforts. I love that. Do you have time to comfort some bites? I love it. You heard what Elon Musk said when he asked him, what advice do you have for people who wants to be entrepreneurs? I didn't hear that. Why? Did you hear that? If I need to convince you to be an entrepreneur, then don't be an entrepreneur. Oh, yeah. That's good advice. You understand how many raining days you're going to have? Moments that you're going to doubt yourself, that you're going to think you're not the right person. You're going to have all those moments that you're going to say, I wish I just had a stable job that I can just pay the bills because I don't have money to pay. It's just all those moments that are tough and you said, do I really want to go through it? But somehow, some people prevail and make it through the other side. Yeah, it's hard for everyone. It's hard for everyone. It's hard for everyone, right? You can find a great job, order college, find a great job, and make 200,000 dollars a year. That's good. You make a good life out of it, right? And you're not stable, you're not. It's predictable. I mean, you can get far, but it's very predictable normally. And then you're in business, and you're growing, and there are days that you're like, how many times? How many times you're going to say, I'm out of cash, or I don't know what tomorrow is. But then, it's a trade off, because then you have the flexibility, you have not only the potential of building unlimited wealth, but the flexibility, the freedom. And that's what I always tell people too, who want to be entrepreneurs. I cannot believe you don't want to get freedom and be free of your time, right? And working on your own terms, not worthless, because being an entrepreneur is not working about working less. It's about working more. It's about having more stress, but it's about being free, right? I think that's the most powerful thing that we entrepreneurs have. You can create your own liabilities. Your own, your own, I would say, obligations. You create your own obligations. Everything you're doing as an entrepreneur, you're doing it for yourself, so it's much more digestible for your, in your own hand, versus someone else telling you what to do. Absolutely. But you have to have the self-disciplines, and you have to have the courage, and you have to have the mental strength in the number one thing, where people don't have mental strength, right? Be pragmatic and have the mental strength to know that there is no plan B. I was talking about the plan B, because I think that too. If you're always thinking, well, you know what, worst case scenario, and that happens a lot in this business, in my business, because it's easy to get in, it's easy to get out, right? If you invest $100,000 of your life savings into, say, a restaurant or a spa, and you're going to do everything in your power to make it work, because that's it, right? You put all this money that took you years to save. If you put $200, you'll find excuse to quit fast, right? So it's easy to get in, it's easy to get out, it's easy to get out, right? If you invest $100,000 of your life savings really fight for your dreams, and know that it's a labor plan for you, if there is $100,000 of people doing it, making it work, what's the difference? The difference is you. So do you have this data among your partners, the people that are commission people? If you see a group of you that started together and they're doing good, all of them are mostly going to do good versus randomly people that come in by themselves, and they'll just give up, because they don't have a network of friends that are doing the same thing successfully too. Give them the motivation to know it's possible. You don't have that data? It's nobody can tell you. It doesn't make a difference. Really? It doesn't make a difference. I have it. I mean, I have... I have market parents I have come with being influencers, right, already, when they have this huge network. If you have make it work, I mean, big, and some they never work. Nothing, right? I have a people that came with their Instagram, with 100 people on the Instagram, and they have all the way to the top. I have people that come and have been lucky to get a great apply. So a great person that brought them and mentored them. I have people that have been successful. Mentoring is important in your business. It is very important. Interesting. It is very important. But hey, I have people that have come without a great mentor, and still... Made it. They made it. They found the way. We offer a lot of resources, right? We have visual trainings, we have events, training events, that the corporation does. And you have a lot of support in the community. They find ways. So it's not really... There is no really one way that you say, this is the key. No. It's about the person. The person makes a difference. Last question I had. You mentioned comfort zones, and obviously you said, expand your comfort zone. I love that. What are you working on right now? What is your... You know, you built a great company, obviously, very successful. What are you doing to push yourself out of your own comfort zone? Or expand your comfort zone? Well, I always want to be a better leader. Right? So I think once you grow a certain size of company, you have executive teams, hundreds of thousands of people looking up to me, and try myself to be a better, a better leader, right? And leadership is a whole topic. So trying to be the level five leader is trying to strive for. That's amazing. All right. That's it, man. Thank you so much. That was amazing. All right. Thank you very much. Enjoy the conversation. Me too. Me too. We're going to have you come in again. You