Listen to the episode here:
Watch the episode here:
Taking care of kids is challenging. It is also challenging to work and raise kids altogether. So how do we do that? In this episode, Angelica Garner, the podcast host of SHE MAKES BANK, shares some insights into helping mom wins in the networking industry. Her mission is to elevate women financially and show them how to live a life of freedom and fulfillment. Learn what it takes to become a winning mom in this episode with Angelica. Listen, learn, and live a successful life now!
Angelica Garner: Helping Moms Win
In this episode, I am with Angelica Garner. Angelica, I am excited about this conversation. Chatting with you and reading up on your background, you’ve had some personal experiences that the audience is going to get a lot out of. I am so excited to have you with us.
I’m so pumped to be here. Thanks for having me.
The show focuses on top leaders, enterprise, and MLM organizations that are looking for fast growth. There are so many changes going on in the industry nowadays. It’s almost hard to keep pace with. From reading your story, you’ve seen both sides of this. You’ve been in the industry for several years. You’ve done well and built a great business. Talk to us about the changes you’re seeing, to get the conversation started, around digital marketing versus network marketing and the relationship side of it. What are you seeing out there?
We call it old-school. The old-school way of doing the Starbucks meetings, writing out the comp plan on a napkin, and having hotel meetings every two weeks and in-home parties is how I learned this business. I learned this business by latching onto my upline and sitting at appointment after appointment. That isn’t realistic for most people. I was able to do that because I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids. I ran a personal training business, so I could work around those times. For the average person, especially the average person network marketing, which tends to be young families, that’s not plausible.
The industry has navigated towards being in this online space, especially when COVID hit. Companies that weren’t savvy online had to figure it out. We had this big push to do everything online. With my previous company, I did run everything previously online. I still run the bulk of my business online. What I realized through that process is that you can’t completely eliminate the human connection. Have you had guests on here talk about the ATM system?
Add, Tag, Message? I don’t know specifically. Go ahead.
ATM is a way to offer third-party credibility without setting an appointment. It’s a great way to move a lot of people through to go watch a video or read a testimonial. It gets things moving, but it doesn’t create a long-term connection or relationship. I started seeing a disconnect there. I’ve seen both sides work and utilized both sides. Moving forward, I launched a brand-new business. I still use attraction marketing. I’m showing up on social. I’m teaching how to personal brand and all those things. I’m also having some women in my living room. I’m also going to the chamber and meeting new people. I still am meeting humans in person.
With Add, Tag, and Message on Facebook, 1) We don’t know when their rules change. 2) A lot of times, how do you deal with the fact that they are selling advertising to your nearest competitor based on the interests that you created? Even within your direct messages, we think that’s private and it’s free, but it’s not. How do you coach people to use social but don’t be used by it? How do you blend that?
It comes back to the relationship. It’s getting in the inbox as soon as possible and connecting with that person. Establishing something beyond a single sale is huge. The truth is when it comes to online, nothing lasts forever. We’ve seen Facebook transition so much. We’ve seen Instagram. I don’t know that it’s ever going to come back from where it’s gone at this point. It used to be a very organic feel, and it’s lost that. For creators like me, we go, “I don’t even know where the best use of my time is anymore. Is anybody even seeing my posts?”
Establishing something beyond a single sale is huge. The truth is when it comes to online, nothing lasts forever.
People confuse activity with productivity. Talk to me about that. You said something interesting. You were talking about the digital marketer. It’s that concept of what works that doesn’t duplicate. You see these digital marketers come in and the networker gets so excited sometimes, but it’s not always what it looks like.
You’re talking about that influential person or the influencer. We see the mom bloggers, the fashion bloggers, and all that. When they fall in love with the products that happen to be distributed through direct sales, they hit the jackpot in terms of a way to get paid on the lifetime value of their customer. It’s great for them. However, for most influencers, it’s one bucket. They’re focused in lots of different ways. They’re monetizing with the new product every day.
They don’t generally grasp the true beauty of network marketing. They haven’t heard the stories of the average person who’s overcome something great to build this income stream. It’s more of a product grab for them, and that’s fine. Everyone’s monetizing how they’re meant to. I do think it loses some of the essences of network marketing and what this is designed to be.
You focused some of your activity in your business on elevating women financially. For the leader that wants to tap into that powerful network of women that want to grow a business, talk to us about the needs, desires, wants, time, and space. What do you have to do to tap into that network? Do you need to be a woman who’s in that space and wants to have an impact to be able to influence there? Maybe if you’re not and you’re that dude that wants to recruit powerful women that can build a great organization, what advice do you have there for individuals and organizations?
It’s getting in the room, both physically and online. In the online space, you’re creating content that’s speaking to the pain points that she will glue into. She’ll go, “He knows what I feel like,” or, “She knows what I feel like.” It’s also getting in the room physically. That’s going to events, meeting people, or getting on an airplane. I went to an event in Arizona. I had two women on my podcast whom I met face-to-face. It’s that art of connection and having this long-term or lifelong mindset that you’re meeting people that you can serve and support and vice versa.
In terms of speaking to them, most women want a sense of purpose and security. Security’s very big to them. Sometimes, we think people want to make more money to live a fast and rich lifestyle. No one’s going to turn down a private jet, but for most people, that’s not what they’re after. They’re after a sense of calm in their finances. They want to ease some financial burden. They want to take the burden off their husband a little bit. They want to shop without asking permission. That’s what most women want. It’s speaking to that need and that pain point.
It’s identifying their purpose. Often, companies feel the need to sell the rich and the famous lifestyle when it’s not what the average person is after.
I share my vision with people. My vision has always been to be a seven-income earner. For most people, that blows their eyebrows off. That’s not super relatable. At the same time, I don’t want to tone down my message to be relatable. I got to be true to myself. That is true for me. Most people that come into network marketing, at least that’s who I spend the most time talking to, want to make an extra $3,000 a month or even any extra money. A lot of times, people, when I ask them, “How much would make a difference?” they’re like, “Anything would make a difference.” That $3,000 to $5,000 a month would replace a handful of certain professions and incomes where people can make decisions a lot differently in their life.
I came back from a big event myself. I spoke at this networker training event. There were a couple of people that got on stage. They talked a lot about how you’ve got to build your own brand. One particular gal had recruited a lot of people. In my lifetime, I don’t know if I’ve recruited 500 people, but I built hundreds of thousands in the organization. This gal had recruited over 2,000 people.
She’s talking about how to become a social influencer. She was like, “You have to build your brand online.” She’s going through training and everybody’s taking screenshots of all this stuff. I’m like, “How would the average person possibly reach that? They can’t do that.” My question to you is in this digital world, how do you maintain the simplicity, the duplication, or the part-time atmosphere that is necessary for the average person to get to a place where they can invest twenty hours a week? They don’t usually start that way. How do you bridge that?
I think about my sister. My sister, in eleven years, finally showed interest in joining me in my new venture. She’s a mom of four. She had her fourth baby. She has no experience with network marketing. She doesn’t have a huge social media presence. She’s only on Facebook. I look at her, and previously, I would’ve been like, “What are we going to do?”
Previously, I only relied on social media. Now, I’m taking some of the old with some of the new so that I can genuinely help people. It does come back to some basics. You got to know your story. You got to share it with everybody that you meet and share it in ways on social media. You don’t have to build a monumental personal brand to make a full-time income with this.
When you say personal story, I want people to understand. I know what you mean, but what do you mean by a personal story in its simplest form?
When someone goes, “What’s new with you? How have you been?” you know how to say, “I’m pumped. I recently started a new business with XYZ. Have you ever heard of it? Have you ever tried this type of product? Let me show you this product I have.” It’s working it into conversations and having your go-to story for both the products and/or business. It’s knowing how to share what you’re doing.
“I was struggling with having enough time and spending time with the kids. I was getting frustrated. I was looking at doing some extra work outside the house, but then, I’m like, ‘I’m giving up on the kids.’ I found an alternative. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s helping me solve that problem.” That’s a personal story. Everybody’s got to come up with their own.
Everyone has one. That’s part of the basic foundation. I told my sister, “We need to get good at a few things. Not to confuse, but you need to know how to use your stories on Facebook and Instagram. Your stories are a medium for getting your content out. You need to be posting about this. People need to know what you’re doing.” That’s more of the passive way. That’s more of the, “Come to me if you’re curious.” We also need to start having conversations with people in the inbox, start responding to people’s stories, and start engaging with people. That’s the social media part.
Here’s the thing that people need to grasp. That is you can link up with your mentor in a way where you are in communication or talking every day. I am here to support everyone on my down line. I don’t care where they’re at in my business. Partially because of the compensation plan I’m with, there is no cutoff. I like that because I keep digging down and working with people. What keeps this duplicatable is, “Bring them in,” and bringing it into third-party credibility. Getting that third-party credibility is huge.
I’ve spent so much time teaching personal brands and helping my team understand the personal brand. I realized that most people aren’t going to step into that. I can’t be like, “To build your network marketing business, you need to launch a podcast. You need to write a book, start an email list, and have this great niche on Instagram.” The average person’s not going to do that. I’ve had to get basic, honestly. What are the basics of what we do? We sell products, recruit for business, and share our stories to generate interest. We get better at it. That’s the most basic level.
Back in the day, you set up a three-way call. You edify your leadership. The leadership gets onto a call. When you think about the primary methods in which you’re establishing or want your team to establish third-party credibility with you, what are those methods or strategies?
I keep everything simple because most people building their businesses already have enough going on in life. I tell every single person, “Put them in a three-way chat with me.” I love three-way chats. I can respond when I want to. People can see if I’ve read the message or not. It’s nothing like the time demand used to be for three-way calls. I put in my work there for many hours of my life. In a three-way chat, I pop in, answer with a quick voice text, and we move it along. It also edifies the person as well because even if they aren’t building a personal brand, I’ve been dedicated to my personal brand for many years. It edifies them to be synced up with a professional in this industry.
Do you tend to lean toward whatever methodologies they use? I don’t even know if there are three-way chats on Facebook, but WhatsApp or text messaging. It doesn’t matter.
We almost always keep it on social, Facebook or Instagram.
Is that more driven by the nature of the audience that you talk to that most of them tend to be on Facebook or Instagram?
Yes. However, my teammate is communicating with them. I say, “If your chat’s already going on Facebook, let’s keep it there.” If you’ve been texting with a friend, start a three-way text. I have them keep the communication based on how they’ve already been communicating with their prospect.
Are you creating any tools? You see some powerful platforms out there. They tend to be one-to-many is the problem. They’re good for digital marketers in a one-to-many approach. Surveys can be so powerful. We had a gentleman that generated 1,200 leads in 4 months by posting a survey to social that was discovery-based and problem-aware but is not a solution or product. It wasn’t leading. You’re not going to send people to SurveyMonkey and try to get them all to sign up, capture pages, and email campaigns. There are some great tools. Are you doing anything to provide tools to your team to solve some of that lift for them? How do you manage some of that?
It’s the nature of the compensation plan I’m aligned with. Any recruiting I do is going to benefit the team. I focus on my production. I have offered a free quiz to build my email list. I know that the more leads I’m getting in front of, the better the odds. I haven’t created any tools specific to my team. With my previous company, we were so focused on influencers and people sharing this idea of sharing products instead of building a team.
I created an entire lead page. I had a professional videographer come in. I had a full opt-in page for influencers or micro-influencers. It was around that time that I started going, “What am I doing? I’m trying to create all these special ways to generate business.” It’s not that you shouldn’t be creative in business. That’s important, but ultimately, we need to keep it simple.
It was impossible for your team to do all those things.
What I realized is that no one on my team’s going to go message influencers. I thought maybe if they were hungry enough, they would, like me. I don’t mind. I’ll get in anyone’s inbox. It’s almost like when you do a cold market versus a warm market. In your cold market, it’s so much more of a rejection. You have no relationship.
It’s coming back. It’s exciting to see, too. We’ve gotten through this COVID era. All these people have tried influencers and have seen the flash in the pan. You’re doing a lot of podcasts. You’re talking to different leaders. You’re almost getting a sense that people are starting to understand it’s about the relationship again. It’s about building culture and a team.
Not to get long-winded here, but it almost did a real disservice because some of the companies started to get the idea falsely that this influencer thing could work. They’re like, “Maybe we’ll sell directly.” They started going, “What are we doing? The whole point of network marketing was the people. Now, we’re trying to take the people out of it.” That’s not very sticky.
I’ve been a part of a company that pitched very heavily, “You can make a good income without building a team at all.” We were turning it into affiliate marketing. That’s fine, but it loses that personal growth, leadership, and culture. That’s the stickiness. That’s what keeps people around for ten years.
That’s so nuanced, though. It’s one of those hard things to clearly explain to companies, leaders, or consultants that are coming into these companies. They’re trying to teach them how they could become retail superstars. If that’s what you wanted, then why are you in networking? It is so powerful. It’s about the people. You’re on point there. I don’t know why. They’re seeing so much social digital marketing that somehow and sometimes, they forget who they are.
It’s the shiny excitement. In all three companies, I’ve been a part of, there’s always been some TikTok superstar or Instagram superstar years ago. You’re like, “How are they putting up these types of numbers?” It tends to be a good run, but it’s nothing long-lasting unless they commit to the process and get into what makes network marketing what it is.
I’ve almost seen a crazy pattern out there. It doesn’t last. It’s these digital marketers that come along. They find a top leader and sell them a program to run digital marketing pay-to-click ads and such to generate a lot of sales. What the leader is doing is he is leveraging all the dynamics of the organization that is on social. There’s a lot of traffic being driven by the organization.
One person comes in, pays for advertising, and sells the product directly. The company gets mad at them, but first, they love them. They’re like, “You’re selling $150,000 worth of product a month off the backs of the traffic the organization created.” The company turns around, gets mad, and says, “We could do some of this ourselves.” The company does it, and the field is mad at them because you’re selling against the field.
They don’t see this pattern that they’re creating by rewarding the field leader who did it, then realizing they can’t do that because everybody else is mad. The field leader is using marketing techniques the company could have used. The company does it, then the field is mad at them. You go, “You couldn’t see this coming?” You can’t violate the trust of the organization.
That field-to-corporate relationship is huge. When you get with a corporate team who understands the field and who’s been in the field, they make decisions differently.
When you get with a corporate team who understands and has been in the field, they make decisions differently.
Who do you think the customer of the company is? Who’s their customer?
It’s a distributor.
A lot of people don’t understand that. That’s so true. You’ve got such a keen insight into the industry. You’re helping a lot of women out there become financially free. You’ve got a podcast going, too. Can you tell us about it?
My podcast is called She Makes Bank. We talk about getting rich and building generational wealth.
I love it. That is awesome. How would people reach out to you? If they want to connect with you, how do they get ahold of you?
You can find me at AngelicaGarner.com. I’m also on Instagram and TikTok. On my TikTok, I have a vlog where I’m showing the behind-the-scenes of launching a brand-new business again. It’s the actual work I’m doing to build a brand-new team with a new company.
That’s exciting. Thanks so much for being on. I enjoyed it.
Thanks.
Important Links
- Angelica Garner
- She Makes Bank
- Instagram – Angie Garner
- TikTok – Ang Garner
About Angelica Garner
Angelica Garner is the Bestselling Author of ‘Time Millionaire’, Podcast Host of SHE MAKES BANK (100k+ downloads), Creator of the Rich, Hot & Happy Blog and Social Selling Leader with over $8 million in lifetime sales. She started her first business in college as a personal trainer, then opened up a gym and eventually landed on network marketing as her entrepreneurial vehicle for freedom. In 2016 she put all of her belongings in storage and traveled across 16 countries with her husband living the “laptop lifestyle” which is also documented in her first book. Her mission is to elevate women financially and show them how to live a life of freedom and fulfillment.