Garrett McGrath: Network Marketing vs the Gig Economy and ANMP’s Biggest Event

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A not-to-be missed discussion about the current state of network marketing and why its potential far exceeds the gig economy; the role community plays in success for distributors and their customers; why conversation over presentation is key; and how technology designed for network marketing helps level the playing field for everyone.

Garrett McGrath is President of the Association of Network Marketing Professionals. ANMP is excited to be back live this year, hosting their premiere event with the best and most complete training for Network Marketing Professionals worldwide! 50+ of the best leaders that Network Marketing has ever seen on one stage for one weekend, June 1-4 2023, sharing cutting-edge, up-to-the-minute training, coaching and insights that you won’t hear or see anywhere else in the world.

RapidFunnel is proud to sponsor this not-for-profit event. You’ll receive a $50 discount when you register for ANMP using the following link: https://anmp2023.com/ref/54/

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Garrett McGrath: Network Marketing vs the Gig Economy and ANMP’s Biggest Event

Hello everyone, it is Patrick Shaw and I am here with my friend Garrett McGrath on Beyond the Network Marketing Dream and Garrett, I am excited to have you on the podcast today.

Well, very excited to be here with you. And you know what, Patrick, in Ireland, we actually don’t pronounce our THs. That’s how we can say 333. And I’m going over there. People always go, how do you pronounce your name? Garrett McGraw. And it’s because we don’t pronounce their th. That’s how you’ve got Dr. Phil McGraw. When everyone from Ireland went over to the Islands, they didn’t read and write a lot of people and they said, well, what’s your name? They’d say McGraw. And they spelt it M-C-G-R-A-W.

So that’s how the name changed. A little bit of history, a little bit of fun facts, a little bit of heads up why my accent sounds a little different.

I can quit pronouncing your name to everybody else. You know, you don’t pronounce people’s last name face to face.

No, never!

It goes such a long time. And the things you discover

First of all, Patrick, it’s exciting to be on here with you. I see you as a fellow network marketer and I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. You have always supported the Association of Network Market Professionals. You’re someone that teaches out of your experience.

And I love that you’re really an expert in all three phases or four phases of network marketing. You really know how to gather customers. People need to know. You’ve got to have customers. You got to be able to gather them, you got to be able to keep them.

Then you need to be able to build teams of teams that can gather customers, which is phase two. But then you’ve really mastered culture, community, leadership development. And when you create all of that and you’ve done that to the level that you’ve done it as by your fruit shall you be known. I just want to tell you that I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. I know that you’ve gone on to create a company RapidFunnel that helps people really do that smoother, easier and more effectively.

And I have a lot of respect. I know so many people in the marketplace have a lot of respect for you and we love partnering with you. I love Ray and Jessica Higdon and Rank makers live. And I’ve met you there many times and you speak at that event. You partnered with Ray and Jessica Higdon.

So just know I’m very excited to be here together with you and looking forward to seeing you at our event in June.

I am looking forward to it as well, Garrett. And kindred spirits for sure, my friend. It reminds me, Napoleon Hills, two or more like minds create a third and more powerful. And every time we get to talking, I think we both get excited because, just frankly, there are very few people that understand the industry at so many different levels.

And I mean the corporate level, the field, perspective building in the field, which is very unique. And you certainly get it. You look at your career building in 21 countries, 150,000 distributors. Just for those that don’t know you, right. You’ve been in network marketing for 30 years, and you’re just a believer in the industry, which is fun.

Like, you get excited about the industry and I actually want to stop. Well, I should finish and say that on the board of directors of the Association of Network Marketing Professionals, I’m excited about the ANMP event coming up in Texas, and we’ve got our whole team coming out for that. It’s going to be a blast. But Garrett, let’s just start with this for a minute. Why are you so passionate?

I mean, yes, you earned a great living and those things, but what’s your current belief or vision for the networking industry in this day and age that we live in? Why are you still so excited about it?

Well, I know that sounds cliche, and that’s part of the challenge. I always say, if you forget where you’ve come from, you’re on your way back. So I remember being somewhere between excited and nervous when I first got going.

And Patrick, you and I talked about this before. I remember what it was like to get my first customer. I remember what it was like to enroll my first distributor. I remember what it was like to have that first person achieve a rank advancement. I remember what it was like we hit obstacles and for things maybe to go back a little bit.

And it’s not a straight line to success. In fact, my first two and a half years in network marketing, I was going broke enthusiastically. And I had great sponsors, actually. Anybody ever watch Bear Grylls? Man versus wild.

Well, his parents, Sir Michael Grylls, may he rest in peace, and Lady Sally Grylls were my original sponsors into network marketing, my party. So I learned from good people and I learned to retail. That’s what kept me in the business. If it wasn’t for retail, I couldn’t make money. But you know, what I didn’t learn was it’s not what you can do, it’s what you can duplicate.

And I remember going through those lessons and saying, okay, I want to help other people because network marketing is just a choice. I don’t like to say it’s a better choice. Because having been a CEO and president of a company, being president and chairman of the Association of Network Marketing Professionals, I’ve seen people who love their careers, have done very well in their careers, have created financial security for their families in their careers. So it’s not for everyone. It is a choice, but it’s a choice that many people don’t know that’s out there.

So you ask me, why am I so excited? Because I believe in that choice. People ultimately want to have more freedom of expression and more choices, but also believe that network marketing in the last ten years, the gig economy has grown every year for the last ten years. So what do we have on the front end that is the equivalent, in my mind, better than the gig economy? Number one is, guys, network marketing pays you repeat income. Normally, in the gig economy, you get paid one, and you’re done. It’s a transaction. So you pay the second time your customer gets into another Uber car, that money goes to someone else. It doesn’t track back to you.

So when you do the job properly once and you enroll a customer, then we teach you how to have that customer repeat purchase. And also, guys, network marketing has changed. Remember I don’t know if you remember this. Do you remember back in network marketing used to say, set it and forget us? In other words, enroll a customer.

I think that’s a mistake in today’s world. But the advantage of network marketing is that when a customer enrolls one time, but when they repeat purchase, you get repeat paid. So repeat purchases create repeat income, and repeat purchases create repeat income. We have the opportunity to do that. But number two is you don’t do it on your own. You’re in a community. I can’t imagine Uber drivers don’t really have a massive, I’m sure they do community, but it’s not the same as network marketing, where the customer enjoys the community and the distributor also enjoys that community. That’s what makes things different on that front end. And that’s a big part of why I believe I’m excited about network marketing. Then the second thing is we’ve really dialed in how to teach people just to dip their toe in from being a customer gatherer to maybe being one or two levels of customer gatherers. In other words, not going full blown network marketing, not believing every customer should be a distributor. But that middle ground right there where you help them just maybe work in one or two levels, maybe just a little bit, but it just creates a little bit of leverage. It just gives you a little bit more opportunity. Just gives you a little bit more, perhaps freedom and flexibility. And then ultimately, you may want to look on, can I become a culture builder? Can I become you’re not a great leader till you can develop other great leaders. Well, I believe in all of that. I’m excited about that. I believe we have to adjust with the world and become better at that. And I see people that are doing that who also last thing I’ll say is this.

If you look at the gig economy, one of the things they did was they brought it. They embraced technology early, and that technology they learned they don’t need to teach people how to build a clock. They teach people how to tell time, and they just want to know, where is my next customer? How do I do whatever it is that I need to do? And that’s one of the things I love about RapidFunnel, not to put too fine pointed, because we’re just on here right now and going, oh, yeah, that’s parfait.

Of course you would say that, but that is the truth, because you want to make it simple for the spare time person who’s not doing this very often, and they want to go back to that app. And a mistake I think other companies make is it’s so complicated to learn the spare time person never feels comfortable with this. You’ve made it intuitive. What does intuitive mean? In other words, I kind of get it just by using this. I don’t need lots of explanation and actually doing the thing that helps me gather a customer, but more importantly, keep a customer, gather a distributor, keep a distributor, help them rank advance. But it’s laid out intuitively. It’s simple. It’s not salesy. It uses modern conversations like questionnaires, quizzes that just creates engagement, kind of nudges people along.

And guys, that’s what it’s about. The gig economy embraced technology early. We’re now catching up in network marketing with companies like Rapid Funnel, which means you can add it into any company, even if your company just embraces you can do it through rank makers and the relationship that you have together with Patrick Shaw and RapidFunnel. But also, you guys can reach out and see what they’re doing, because the guys, I believe for anyone that’s in network marketing that knows what they’re doing, they’ll look at that and go, oh, my gosh, that would be amazing value for me and my team. That’s why I’m excited.

Exactly. What if they get to see it?

Yeah. So, Garrett, there’s a bunch to unpack here. Now, I’m concerned with our time frame, but let me move quickly.

One is that you have to just touch on a little bit more. You said what you can do.

It’s not what you can do, it’s what you can duplicate.

Yes, it’s what you can duplicate.

And I would always say the same exact thing is what works does not always duplicate. And that’s a hard concept, especially in today’s era of network marketing. You have so many people that are relying on being and I’m not saying this is wrong, but influencers, digital marketers, all that. There’s a place for those people, especially when the comp plan is designed to support some of them, but that’s not how the big businesses that are relationship based, that have depth and duplication are really built.

Let’s touch on that one for just a minute. How in this day and age now, obviously, I’m not looking for support from us. I mean, we build technology to support this, but I mean more generically. How do people deal with that today, Garrett? like so many of the tools and systems and methodologies and even companies looking for influencers when it’s killing their ability to really build through authenticity and relationships, how do you coach companies through that type of thing?

So I believe there’s two or three things, and these are really simple. I think today people are looking for more connections. In other words, so much of the world through social media is about what separates us, because they like strong separation, because through that separation, they build their tribe. You’re in my tribe, you’re not in my tribe. And people are looking for connections. And connection comes through conversation. So if I’m sitting down with someone, whether it’s on a zoom on the phone via text, a messenger, face to face, whatever that is, as a new person, if I’m caught up and I’ve got to do a presentation, then I’m going to turn into this robot that can’t even have a conversation. That would be so easy if there was no agenda in there and no thought I had to do a presentation. So connection comes through conversation. And when someone says they want information, you could just simply say, hey, you know what? I got something to do a far better job than I do. Would you like me to send it to you via text? Do you like it on messenger? Would you like to watch the video, however you like, there’s a million, not a million.

There’s a handful of different ways you can do it. So conversation creates connection. Conversation not presentation, because presentation creates disconnection. It really does, particularly for the new person. You got to be a super pro to weave a presentation into a conversation.

The second thing is use the tools and not your talents. So I’m tying in the first point into the second, which is use your tools and not your talents. Here’s the challenge. If you use your talents and that person looks at that and they go, what are the three questions they want to ask? Is it worth it? It’s always worth it to have better health, to have a better service that you’re offering, to have better finances? Of course I do. Is it worth it? Can I do it? Can they do what you just did?

If you sat down with them on the phone for five minutes, you sent them a text that was a long script or whatever it was, they look at that and go, that was super salesy. I don’t feel comfortable with that. I couldn’t do that. So they immediately switch off. They might become a customer, but they’re surely not going to become a distributor.

If they do, they won’t be successful anyway, because they believe that that’s what they need to do. And the last thing they need to do is, will you support them? So when you add this together seamlessly, you can get to the end result by having something whereby you’re just chatting with someone that’s the connection. A problem that needs to be solved shows up and you go, hey, I might have something to that. What’s the best way for me to send you something that’ll only take you two or three minutes to look at?

Oh, prefer text. I like to do something on messenger. Hey, maybe we should jump on a zip. An old school. I like to talk.

Or could we maybe grab a cup for coffee? All good. Does that make sense? In other words.

Here’s what’s crazy. I got to tell you this.

So we do a lot of demos with really high caliber leaders. And it used to be that if you said, tell me your methodology, what do you teach the field? They could go, well, they do what you just did. They go, well, you do this, this and this. Today I find even some of the top leaders that are like, well, it’s kind of like it’s different for everybody.

They’re not teaching any simple system because they got so many people doing different things. But the danger in that, not for the Elite 5% or whatever, but for the masses. They want something simple. They want you to say, look, this is all we have to do. I find that amazing, though, and that you can articulate it so clearly and quickly.

It’s pretty cool.

Well, thank you. And here’s the thing. I’ve only ever made my money for 30 years in network marketing. I’ve lived and died by people, the new person.

I never forgot where it came from. Complexity is the enemy of execution. Complexity is the enemy of execution. And the challenge is and I love this, so I read a book about Steve Jobs that really just tickled me, I thought was so funny. There’s a throw phrase, and you can buy it. It’s in a poster, and it says, Simplify. Simplify.
So he walked into a boardroom, and it was a big one on the board, and he came over and he crossed out one of the simplifications.

That’s pretty good.

Great. Think about that. How smart is that? And that’s what it’s all about.

It’s about simplicity. And, you know, the way they talk about in a movie is somebody playing their character type. In other words, playing to who it is they are. Most people are comfortable having conversations. Most people are not comfortable having presentations.

So why force them into some comfortable zone that they’re not going to learn well in? Because they’re using talent, not a tool. And in that learning curve, most times they lose confidence because the people they know, like and trust say, what happened to you, buddy? You turned into a robot. And they just fall away from network marketing.

That’s why it’s so difficult. And I remember that I was blessed that I made it, and the only reason I really made it had great sponsors. I came from an entrepreneurial background. I made the decision that it was something I wanted to do. I’d already studied international marketing and foreign trade, both in England, I mean, in Ireland and in Germany.

My dad was an entrepreneur, and he said, if you make a commitment, you’re looking for two things. Number one, are there people in the profession or industry making ten times what you want to make? Because if they are, you can make the income you want to make. That’s number one. And number two, he said, make a one year commitment.

And I made a one year commitment, as I said. And two and a half years later, I was going broke enthusiastically. But I was able to learn these lessons and I was blessed not with a fast start, because that’s where most people are at. Why am I good at this? Because I was actually blessed not having a fast start.

In every adversity is the seed of greater equivalent good. And I talk to my kids about it all the time. Those struggles are what really helps you elevate, and it’s hard to grasp at the time. Listen, let’s talk about the ANMP event. We’re going to get this. Jose is our production coordinator.

He’s going to turn this really quickly. There’s an incredible event coming up very quickly, almost too quick, right? Just because we’re going to be there and we’ve got a lot of planning to do. Garrett but could you talk about ANMP, a little bit of maybe the history and then what people can expect at that really incredible event coming up in Dallas.

So it’s a 501 not for profit trade organization.

No one gets paid. I’m president and chairman. I do not get paid. I do not have an expense account. I’m paying for my airline ticket.

My wife is a secretary. She’s paying for her. And that’s not a secretary. It’s a position within an association. So please, I’m not trying to say anything that belittles anybody.

Understand? That’s a named position. That’s in 501. My son is flying as a volunteer. We buy his ticket, airline ticket, his hotel room, and it’s all volunteer.

That’s how for $299, you can have eight meals. If you get the early bird special, probably by the time you broadcast, that mightn’t be available. But there’s a link that you can follow through that Patrick Shaw has that you can follow through, and he can give you a $50 off coupon. And when you arrive there, you just apply that coupon that’s specific to Patrick and you’ll be able to end the RapidFunnel. They’ll be able to give you an additional $50 off.

And people say, how can you do that? It’s because it’s all volunteer. There’s 50 plus speakers. One of the things I love is there was a lady that was the first female CEO of IBM, and she said something that really hit me, not just because she was female, but her precise, simple way that she spoke and her leadership style. And she said, You’ve got to see one to be one.

And she said, I take it as a big responsibility to show up as someone that aspirational people would aspire to be, but show up and tell them my story of how I got there so I can be accessible, so they can see how they can get to me. So think about that. Now, imagine 55 people doing this. So you’re going to find people, you’re going to see one to be one, and also all of them stay in the room all weekend. So imagine eight meals.

You get to get a VIP experience. So, no knocking anybody else’s? VIP experience, please help me. Me.

Let’s be very clear about that. That’s $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $5,000. You get to experience that for $299 or whatever that you pay probably for the $50 off coupon, definitely 299. And all the speakers change tables. So imagine sitting there being able to ask one of the speakers, what do they think about it?

That one thing that can unlock for you a blind spot that you have suddenly can become that million dollar growth. In addition to that, every speaker and also, guys, there’s about 6 hours that we’re not broadcasting. And here’s why. We do this hot seat round. And I’ve asked every speaker to bring to the hot seat round one business building idea that everybody could use.

In other words, they could deploy coming out of that event that will give them enough value to pay for the expenses they had to go to that event. Now imagine hearing that 50 times. Do you believe you’re going to find one that will pay for that unlock your ticket? Another level, the two of the questions that I’m asking them as well is what’s changed for you in the last three years? So network marketing is not going through a transition.

It’s not changing. It has changed, and it continues to change. So what are those things? The post pandemic pivot. And I don’t mean a pivot.

Sometimes people get all freaked out by a pivot. No, a simple adjustment. Any of you that are out there that golfers know that Tony Robbins talks about this when the club face hits a ball, one degree of difference in how it hits that ball means that you’re either frustrated because you’re off in the rough, you’re off track, you’re just not where you want to be. That could be you right now. And a blind spot is, can you find a coach that can help you, give you that one adjustment to make that one degree shift and then suddenly you’re on the fairway.

Maybe you’re on the green, maybe you’re hitting a hole in one, but you are where you want to be. You’re going in the right direction. It’s an immersive experience. Now, imagine every speaker is going to share that also in the 6 hours that are not being broadcast. And here’s the last one.

What are you doubling down on? Wouldn’t you love to know what these 55 people are doubling down on now? They’ll give you massive value in the training. Those people that watch online, it’ll be great. Each speaker speaks for 20 minutes, but there’s pieces that they don’t want to speak about because maybe they’re acknowledging, hey, we weren’t having growth over here.

The companies don’t like those sound bites going out associated with their company on a zoom. I get that. I respect that. They want to speak raw and truthfully and said, hey, we ran into this challenge. I don’t want that sound bite going out in my competition.

So we’re going to do that in a private session that all the people that are there get to see. Because all the meals are about 2 hours, guys. So what we’ll do is we’ll make it no recording, no broadcasting, you’re sitting down, the speakers that spoke in the morning come up at lunchtime.

The ones that speak after lunch come up at dinner time. The next morning we’ve got breakfast. We repeat that same process. And guys, the last thing I’ll say is this: we treat you like a rock star. And I’m talking about top drawer, absolute VIP experience.

You know why? we want you to come away from this. Not just with a strategy and a tactic, but with a belief system. Because Tony Robbins says the best in my mind, when all is said and done, when you have all the strategies, all the tactics, all the script, the scripts, all the technologies, finally the vast variable is you. And when you put two people together in any conversation on Facebook, Messenger, via text, just the way the world works, god set it up like this. The person with the strongest belief system will influence the other.

The person with the strongest belief system will influence the other. That’s just the way it is. And you are going to build your life up to the height of your lowest limiting belief. We need to shatter those limiting beliefs. When we shatter beliefs, give you a vision of the future and put all this together, explosive growth can happen.

We get letters every year, emails, I mean voicemails. People on Sunday morning come up to and go, oh my gosh, this was life changing and you can afford to have your team together with you. That’s what we’re about. It’s not a transaction. This is about transformation.

We want to give back because I’ll finish where I started. When you forget where you’ve come from, you’re on your way back, every one of us as speakers, I challenge everyone with the three things I said and remember what it was like to serve you, want you to think that it’s you sitting in that audience, it’s your team sitting in that audience. Give them the best of you so we can grow our profession to another level. And again, the reason we can do it is because we’ve got people like RapidFunnel and Patrick Shaw, whose team every year has basically come in, and it’s a sponsorship, it’s $10,000.

And what that does, it pays for a meal. So think about how all the meals get paid for and the production gets paid for.

Let me say this from year one before we knew each other, Garrett, just to speak to your authenticity and your seriousness about all this, you were very clear, look, you can’t buy a stage conversation and you qualified me in the background and what are you going to talk about? And I can’t be up there pitching our company. Now, obviously there’s going to be some values built into that presentation, but you’re very cognizant of that.

And then the last thing I got to say that Benjamin Franklin talks about, always know the agenda of the person. Sometimes that’s just a matter of following the money or structure drives behavior, right? Incentives drive behavior. And the way you have this event designed, it just creates a purity. Like people are there to serve each other.

And it is very different. You’re not getting hyped. There’s just a level of authenticity that I haven’t found before. And that’s why I’m passionate about your event and excited. And hopefully I’m going to post this podcast all over the place.

The link will be there. I’m excited to be there with you, Garrett. It’s going to be quite an event. Any closing thoughts before we touch on one last subject about an ANMP?

I just want to say thank you very much for the kind words. And that’s what it’s about. In ten years in this position, working together with the board, and for me, it’s a labor of love. I love our profession. Why am I more excited today is because I really stay engaged at the grassroots level, helping new people that are the lifeblood of the business and really learning. The reason we call it a profession is this.. When it’s a profession, it’s assumed that knowledge needs to be acquired in order to have access to us and to make money. And it’s also assumed that there should be ongoing education.

So we really teach you how to make a full time income on the retail level of your business? If that’s what you want to do. If you never want to build a business, then how do you dip your toe in the water and then take it to that one or two levels? What are the skills there without overwhelming people with too much information?

So. That they can take to the next level. How can you do that? How can you teach it then? How can you develop teams of teams?

How can you develop leadership and ultimately build the culture, the community, and build other leaders? That’s what it’s about, because that gives you the ultimate leverage. But it all starts with the customers’ repeated purchasing, leadership creating some leverage and expansion, and then ultimate leverage and wealth comes from building those teams. And that’s why we partner with people like yourself, Patrick, and RapidFunnel. We want to know that it’s not someone saying, oh, it’s the gold rush.

I want to be in the business of selling picks and shovels. That’s not an offense to anyone that feels like that. Patrick says, I’m a network marketer. I found gold in their hills. I helped other people find goals, but also found along the way a few extra tools that would help make it simpler, more sustainable, and more predictable.

Those are the people you want to partner with, and that’s why we’re with you.

That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Garrett, on your end, for the kind words to wrap up here. One is, I want to let everybody know you can go to an ANMP, American Network Marketing Professional Association. Just an ANMP2023.com, and the website is there.

Great job. They can get their ticket, or I will put the link specifically so they can get the discount, as you said, Garrett, I forgot about that. So I’ll make sure to put the discount in all the places where this podcast is broadcast. Anything else, people can reach you? How can we serve you or how can people get in touch or how can we serve you in any way, Garrett.

You know, show up at the event. Because I believe in fellowship. I believe in person. And we put this on as a labor of love for you. I don’t believe that you could even eat in Dallas for $299. When I say it’s beautiful catered meals, it’s not just the meal.

It’s the fellowship with the other people asking questions that you overhear. It’s the conversations to hear. But all the speakers are not just there to take a selfie with you. They will do this, or sign a book that they maybe have. They’ll literally chat with you during the lunch and during the dinner and during the breakfast and raise your game up to another level.

Show up. I mean, the hotel is $133. Look, in Dallas, if you can find a four star hotel for $133 a night, we get that because we’re an association. We’re not for profit. Show up.

Come up to me and say, hey, I saw Patrick Shaw’s podcast with RapidFunnel, and I decided to show up to go up. I know people say that a lot, but you know what? It’s an immersive opportunity. Show up and say hi to Patrick. Take a selfie with them and show up at their table and see what they can do.

It’s about you guys. I really mean this with every fiber of my being. If you can be there, there’s probably very few things that can help you and your team grow, if that’s what you’re looking for between now and the end of 2023, that’s what we want, to be there for you. So just take the value, take the opportunity and say hi. And then after the event, we always do a drive.

We’re going to do lots of different things after the event, but the one year event is a big thing for our association, every year and all the people that show up to support us. And again, Patrick, I’m excited and grateful for you and RapidFunnel and all you guys do.

Look forward to seeing you soon. Garrett, thanks so much for being on the show.

You’re more than welcome. God bless you. Thank you for inviting me.

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