Embracing Network Marketing When Transitioning Into Entrepreneurship With Drew Berman

Some people stay away from network marketing as they usually see it as an organized form of scam. But for Drew Berman, a certified expert in this field, it is a good income source every entrepreneur should take advantage of, especially when transitioning to a brand new business endeavor. He joins Jen Du Plessis to discuss how this can be done, emphasizing his own experiences in pivoting to different businesses numerous times while taking advantage of networking marketing. He goes deep into its several benefits, particularly on allowing entrepreneurs to close their financial loop and getting access to a massive number of connections.

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Embracing Network Marketing When Transitioning Into Entrepreneurship With Drew Berman

Thank you for joining us and taking part of your day to spend with us. We sure appreciate it. Hopefully, we’ll provide you with some great value here as we always try to do. Drew, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you after having to reschedule it 1,000 times and that was on me, so I apologize.

I’m thrilled to be here.

Thank you. It’s good to be here. Drew and I met through a coaching program that I’m part of. We met through the program and he has done some absolutely fantastic things in his life. I thought, “Let’s bring him onto the show. Let us let other people hear this fantastic story of yours because many people are in transition trying to figure out, “Do I go back to work? Do I not go back to work? Maybe I should follow my passion or look at something different. Is this really what life is all about?” Tell us a little bit about your story, not where you’re at now but a little bit about your background and your story.

Thanks, Jen, for having me. I appreciate it. The three questions you asked, “Should I go back to my job? I’m in transition. Do I pursue my passion?” That’s the Holy Grail and sometimes it’s a catch-22. One side says do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life and the money will follow. Some do what they love and they get a job or work or business. It then goes from doing what they love to become a job or a business, and they no longer love it. What if there’s a way to meet in the middle? What if you figure out what you love and you figure out the best and fastest way to get there as the most fun and the most impact that makes the most money? That comes down to the next question which is, why do you do what you do? Do you do what you do because you’re good at it? Do you do what you do because you like it? Do you do what you do because it has a mass impact or that it pays well?

[bctt tweet=”Do what you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” username=””]

For me, I focus and I might drop some F-bombs. I don’t know what type of audience you have but my F-bombs and I drop them regularly, not necessarily in this order are fun, fitness, family, finances and freedom. Those are my F-bombs. Part of my fantasy is creating the F-bomb era, game, sequence and trademark, and teach those five things from whatever platform. I’m manipulating that in my own virtual storyboard of how to brand trademark and live into, “Drew’s the F-bomb guy or join the F-bomb community or dropping F-bombs,” and that’s my brand.

The current brand is toes in the sand, phone in hand. I’m playing with that as a branding identity. I network a lot and what do you do? Sometimes you have to say it and sometimes you have to type it like, “What do you do? Who do you serve? What problems do your clients have?” I help people find their F-bombs. I help people have a phone in hand, toes in the sand. “How do you do that?” We do it through branding and marketing, mindset, a little coaching and some multiple streams of income.

I’ve got a story I’d love to share. It’s my favorite story of all time. It’s not a bragging story but it is one of those unique stories that I think people like to hear. I was 24 in 1996, and a brochure landed on my desk, on my lap. I was a brand-new cyclist. I was doing it back in the ‘90s, AIDSRides. Tanqueray hosted AIDSRides from Boston to New York and from LA to San Diego. I did four, Boston to New York by bicycle and North Carolina to DC. I raised about $10,000 for AIDS services in the mid-‘90s. In 1996 while I was engulfing into the biking community, a brochure for Odyssey 2000 landed on my lap, which was January 1, 2000 to January 1, 2001, a 35-country year-long, 20,000-mile bicycle adventure around the world.

Did you do it?

I did it. We started in LA. We went to San Diego, San Diego to Baja. From Baja, we flew to Panama, Panama to Costa Rica, Costa Rica to Chile and Chile to Argentina. From Buenos Aires, we flew to Johannesburg. From Johannesburg, we rode our bikes down to Cape Town, 30 days along the coast of South Africa. From Cape Town to Greece, 2.5 months in Europe. From Paris, we flew to New York. We rode from New York to Montreal, Montreal to Quebec City. We flew back to Western Europe, 2.5 months in Europe up to Finland, Scotland, Ireland and back through Western Europe. We went from Germany to Austria, the wine country. From Austria to Australia for the 2000 Olympics then 2.5 months in Asia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Japan and home. Thirty-five countries and I was 28 years old.

Network Marketing: By 2027, 85 million people will work when they want, from where they want.

I tasted travel and freedom. I came back in my mid-30s, working a job, running full speed in mud, having a newborn and paying $2,700 a month rent for 700-square feet in Manhattan. That’s what I had to recreate. I did become an adult in my mid-30s, married with a kid and an expensive rent that I couldn’t afford, working too many hours a week chasing the dollar and not having enough month at the end of the money. I had to do a pivot, and that’s when I found the home base business model. That’s when I found network marketing. It wasn’t a curse word for me. I know there are three types of people. If you’re reading, you’re 1 of these 3 types. You, Jen, are probably 1 of these 3 types and I’ll be curious to see which type you are.

One type of person thinks it is the devil’s work. It’s the most painfully disgusting profession, not even a profession. It’s the worst thing a human can do with their life. The second type of person thinks this is democracy at its finest. I’d rather make 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own. This is probably the best business model on the planet, and it’s the single best path to freedom in this era. There’s a third of people that say, “I heard of it. I’m not for it, I’m not against it. Maybe I used to have an aunt that had garage-full of shampoo but I think some people are successful with it but I don’t know what it is.” Which type are you? You’re an adult. It’s crossed your path over many years. Are you one that, “It’s devil’s work?” Two, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread for financial freedom.” Three, “I think it’s probably good. I don’t know much about it.”

I’m three heading into two going, “I see it but I don’t see it yet,” at the same time. Let me ask you this question, and you can come back to this again. Before we start heading down any roads for anyone who’s reading, I want to make sure that I go back and say, what were you doing as a job when you were younger? You were riding a bicycle but what were you doing for a job? Have you ever had a job? The reason why I’m asking this is that my son went to college, an elite beautiful college. He was an entrepreneur. I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my life and my whole family is entrepreneurial. He said, “I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I’ve already had a business going on the side and everything.” He went to college and started another business. He almost got kicked off the football team because he started this business.

As soon as he graduated, he’s like, “I want to be an entrepreneur.” I said, “No, I want you to go to work for the man because I want you to know what it’s like to work for the man.” If you start off in entrepreneurship, a lot of people that are reading are thinking about that, if you start off in entrepreneurship and it doesn’t work, you always have the, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll go back to the man.” I want you to go to the man so that you realize that, “It has to work because I’m never going to go back to the man.” Does that make sense?

[bctt tweet=”The most impact makes the most money.” username=””]

It makes sense and it’s a complicated topic. I saw a post that says by 2027, 85 million people will work when they want from where they want. I’m thinking that’s fascinating because that’s different than the last 70 years. Most people have jobs and there’s nothing wrong with jobs. I think we’re wired to be told what to do with structure. It’s good. I did have jobs. I had lots of jobs. Most of them were somewhat entrepreneurial, so they were on that fence. I’ll share with you six jobs. One was when I was eighteen, I sold hotdogs at Shea Stadium. That was a fun job, I was young, I had energy. The guys that were full-time were adults in their 40s, 50s or whatever. I was young and I was playing and I was making money, so that was fine. In college, I worked at TGI Fridays and that was a great job because I learned, I’m talking to all the waiters out there. If you were ever in service, it was great. I learned people management, emotion and time management.

I got a job. I worked for a cookware company. There was a famous sales trainer. His name was Zig Ziglar and he started in cookware. I was the pot guy or the pan man, depending on who I was talking to. We sold China, crystal and cookware to single women and to brides. It then became structured where we actually did bridal shows and expos. We did cooking demonstrations for groups of brides and I got to travel around the country and learned all the skills there, sales, phones, appointments, closing and presenting.

All the traditional sales things.

That was great but then what happened was I was in my twenties and I was young. I was only dealing with engaged women. I made a couple of phone calls and I got involved in New York real estate. New York real estate was fun and fast but I had set the goal for the bike ride. I needed to make money fast and I happened to be in Manhattan renting apartments in the ‘90s in my twenties. I had nothing but the energy. It should have been a reality TV show. We had a 5,000-square-foot rental office. It was like a machine. People would come and if you weren’t ready to buy an apartment or rent an apartment now, there was someone else waiting. I was in a fast community. I learned how to think on my feet and how to work in teams.

I’m going to give a bomb for anyone who’s reading who is in any business. You have a lot of readers and people from real estate and mortgage and that type of mindset. Here’s the lesson I learned back then. This is a huge impact on my whole life. If it was the right apartment, I could do whatever it took, holding no bars to get you in the apartment. If it was the wrong apartment, then I’m a pushy salesman. I love that fine line because sometimes I have to bring you in the ring. If I knew this was your apartment, I had to put on my boxing gloves with you, take all of your objections and do whatever it took professionally why you would pay me a fee to get you into that apartment because you had a dog or you had bad credit or whatever. If it was the wrong apartment and I went over that line two months and I was a little too aggressive, then maybe I’m the pushy sales guy and I had to learn that lesson the hard way. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars but it was a great experience.

You Can Have it All: A Simple Guide to a Joyful and Abundant Life

I’ve been in sales for many years, so I know exactly what you’re talking about. There is a fine line where you have to sense, “Are we going over the line?” I wouldn’t say it’s a line, it definitely is but you can sense when you have to back off and jump back out of the ring and say, “Let me take a look at this and make sure it’s the right ring to choose that battle to go into.”

I could do a whole show for you on Lessons from Real Estate from Manhattan and that’s a book.

You should write that down and you’re ready to go. Thanks for sharing that because you are loaded with lots of sales experience, these lessons that you’ve learned from yourself as a salesperson that had brought you to where you are. There are people that have salaries and jobs that are thinking about making this transition or a transition into some type of entrepreneurship and they don’t have that experience. It becomes a big fear for them.

What advice do you have for people that are in that and maybe this has to do with the ring. I say this to all my clients all the time, “It’s not a sales call, it’s a service call.” As soon as you can get out of your head that it’s not a sales call and it’s a service call, that someone has a need for a product or a service that you have, you have to find those people and you have to be able to make sure that they know. It then becomes much easier to pick up the phone. How dare you not serve your clients?

That’s the fine line, and here comes network marketing. No matter how good your steaks are, you cannot sell them at a vegetarian restaurant. My wife is unrecruitable into the network marketing profession. I had to make $1 million before she acknowledged it even as a business. She still is not into it. I’m into it for many years. I didn’t make any money in my first five years but I’ve been full-time for the last several years. Here’s the sentence that changed my life and this will close the loop. You started with people in transition. Marketing people don’t seek it out. People seek out a better way, more freedom, “How do I get out of debt? How do I get rid of my job? I don’t like my morning commute anymore. How will I pay for ballet lessons or soccer lessons? How do I get my children their first-degree debt-free?”

[bctt tweet=”Learn to see every sales call as a service call.” username=””]

These are problems of humans, adults, our age from janitor to doctor, from Yale to jail. People who want a little bit more. They tend to stumble upon network marketing. I stumbled upon it. I was in my room in real estate coming home from the bike ride. I was looking for more of a freedom-based business. I knew it must exist and a guy said to me at a real estate event, “You seem like a sharp guy. Are you the type of guy that keeps options open for additional streams of income?” I said, “Yeah, I’m open to additional streams of income.” I got into a company called Amway. I didn’t know anything about it so I had no resistance. I came from a marketing background, so network marketing made sense because I learned marketing and I was looking for a business. I came in hungry with skills, ready to work and I made no money in five years.

That would send a lot of people running, but the truth is I get into your business and we kill it in year one, we’re struggling for five years. That happens in every business. We’d kill it in year one, I struggled for five years and I quit but I still heard the training and the millionaires and the diamonds over and over in my ear, in the books, financial freedom, passive income and residual income. I went into sales selling advertising and then I joined my second company, and this time I was ready. It’s a different product and great results. I started telling everybody and we went vertical.

I tell that story in the book, You Can Have It All: The Ultimate Guide to Having Fun, Making Money and Living a Good Life. Many years later, I’m a peak performance strategist, Jen and I help people bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be. Sometimes network marketing is a great entry point for someone who wants to explore being an entrepreneur because it has some teamwork established. It has some products established. It has some customer service established and it’s open in multiple countries. For some, and what I wrote in the book, it could be a car payment. It would save a lot of marriages if you can make an extra $300 or $500.

Let’s be honest about this too, the term that used to be used was multi-level marketing, and now it’s changed into network marketing because it is a network. It’s funny because when I was making the transition from lending into what I do now like coaching, speaking and podcasting, I had to have something to help me bridge that gap. For me, it was completely different. It was investment properties, which I have tons of experience in, so it was easy to make that transition. If you don’t have that, I know a lot of people go, “Buy some properties because everybody says you can buy a property.” It takes a lot of time to learn that trade.

Network Marketing: Network marketing is a great entry point for someone who wants to become an entrepreneur because it has some teamwork already established.

Airbnb is what we used. We said, “If we could rent out our house, rent out a couple of our properties and get a flow of income coming in, nothing would replace my income.” We knew that because I had been in the business for so long and have done so much volume. Nothing was going to replace my income but the key was, could Airbnb sustain us if neither of us had a job? The answer was yes. It did. We grew it and we played with some properties and not others. We played with this house like, “How often should we rent it? Should we not? Where do we go? What do we do?”

It was the bridge for us and it allowed me to exit mortgage lending on my terms, not on a recession, not on COVID, not on tax implications, not on layoffs from companies but to be able to exit on my own terms. I think you bring up a valid point of how important that is to have these other streams. With network marketing, it’s different. You have to have my experience in order to be able to do what I did. With network marketing, you can find something that you have passionate about, a product that you have a passion or a service that you have. Something that aligns with what you’re going to be doing perhaps if you decide that you want to go off on your own at some point in time. That’s what’s powerful about is there are many different things out there that could help you accelerate based on where you’re at now.

What it comes down to and what we talked about, “Where are you at? Where do you want to be?” There’s a gap. What are your choices? You can either do more of what you’re doing. You could shift entirely. Network marketing, when done right, allows someone to transition for a season, whether it be a couple of months or a couple of years, to make some extra funds while pursuing another career and it could evolve into a career. What could happen? I teach what’s probable and what’s possible. It’s probable that we can help you make a car payment. It’s possible that we can help you eliminate a mortgage bill or something like that. It’s possible we can help you add 10%, 20% or 30% to your already existing income. It’s possible, like a business, we could replace double or triple your current income and all those things and everywhere in between.

What advice would you give to someone who’s reading this and said, “I never heard of network marketing or I knew it as MLM or whatever?” What advice do you have for them in exploring these opportunities to bring in some extra money?

I would say 100% unequivocally reach out to me. I will guide you in the right direction. I’ll answer questions honestly. I have my hand in a couple of opportunities that might work. I also can help you evaluate companies. If you’re evaluating companies, we have a whole network marketing division and I’ll promise to be truthful and give you my best, and save people tens of thousands of dollars on their journey and maybe years of their research.

[bctt tweet=”When opportunity knocks, sometimes you have to answer the door at once.” username=””]

I wrote three books about the topic. I’m actively not only building as you know but I also am coaching people in multiple companies and I noticed some themes. I’m a peak performance strategist designed for the network marketing profession. I like to work with people who like to drop F-bombs. If you want to have more fun, create more flexibility, have more freedom, have more finances and spend more time with your family, I might be your F-bomb guy.

It’s a disruptor and everybody’s like, “I don’t know,” but you’re going, “It’s all the good stuff.” It’s all the great stuff that’s associated with it. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much for sharing your time. I appreciate it. I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to see something that would be possible for them to explore especially during COVID. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “Be quiet, be silent and know.” Because of COVID, we’ve all been silent. We’ve had a lot of time to think and now we have some more knowledge to be able to take good action to change the trajectory of how our life is going to end up. What is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?

The easiest that cuts through all the riff-raff is CallWithDrew.com. You can google Drew Berman and find me on all social media. I’ll give you a gift. If you are even 1% interested in the world of network marketing, whether you’re brand new, you already have a team, you’ve been in five companies, your spouse is doing it or you have questions, I have a training and it’s free. It gives you the basics understandings of network marketing plus some tips on how to grow. It’s TheLawOfAffluence.com. It goes directly to my free training. If you want to have a chat, go to CallWithDrew.com. It shows up on my calendar. There is no agenda, I ask you how you’re doing, what you want in life and see if we can collaborate. It’s an easy-peasy way of moving the ball forward.

Thank you for joining us and sharing this information. I hope those that are reading take advantage of what you’re offering just to explore what’s possible. When opportunity knocks, sometimes you have to answer the door and this is that opportunity. Everyone, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. We appreciate it and we look forward to catching you on the next episode.

Important Links

About Drew Berman

When I was 28, I was lucky enough to participate in a 12 month long, 200 person, 6 continent, 35 country- bicycle tour around the world. Yes, it was epic.

I came home and tried to get back into Real Estate. It wasn’t working.

So, I went to a BNI meeting and a man approached me with a compliment and a question that changed my life forever. He said “You seem like a sharp guy, are you the type of guy that keeps your options open for additional streams of income”? I said YES – because who wouldn’t be open to additional streams of income? He handed me a CD. It made sense and I was hooked. Little did I know I ended up in Amway. For five years, I did whatever my upline said. I was on the tape-of-the-month club on autoship. I went to every convention – 4 a year. I read 10 pages every day in a personal development book. I was told to get 2 prospects a day … and one time, as my wife was putting her cute little pj’s on, I left and went out into a snow storm on the hunt for prospects.

In my best selling book You Online You Offline – How to make a fortune in Network Marketing, I talk about the snow storm. I also talk about the Network Marketing Intervention we had. After five years, I had spent more money on soap and detergent then I had earned, so I quit.

Then I started studying the Law of Attraction and threw myself into a decade of personal development. I invested hundreds of thousands into coaches, mentors and courses … and then finally found success.

Now I teach Network Marketers the habits, skills, and mindset to go from hobby income to professional income. I finally got myself right. I matured. I learned that commission means co- together, we, are on the same mission. I only get paid if I solve your needs and problems. I went from doing something to my prospect to doing something for my prospect. I went from selling to serving.

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