An Upline Interview with Australians Rob and Nicky Horkings - Success Story
Ten years ago, Rob joined Amway for three weeks to get access to the motivational information, although he never did the Networking. He had a highly-paid career in computer sales. Nicky has been involved in Network Marketing for over 20 years, and has always loved the industry for the motivated, positive, self-assured people it attracts. It wasn't until they got involved in USANA that they really set out to build a business together. As a team, they became the fastest qualifying Diamond Directors in the history of the company....
We did our research, and it all came out looking like Network Marketing offered the best chance for us to take control and get freedom in the next 20 years. The main thing that got us involved with USANA was the presence of Dr. Denis Waitley, who gave the opportunity credibility for us-- and the website did a fantastic job of enrolling us in the possibilities. We attended the USA convention in July of last year, and it was that experience that motivated our decision to put all our energies into building USANA in Australia.
After leaving the convention, we had no product, no tools, no promotional material, no idea what the Australian product would be, and no approved marketing plan. For eight months of our life we sold a dream. We had to hold the dream for ourselves and sell the dream to others.
We put thousands of people into meetings around Australia and New Zealand, telling them about Network Marketing, about our company, the founders-- in the process, we began to build a team. That was when I left my $250,000 computer sales job to go full-time.
The USANA corporate website proved to be the best tool we had before opening, because it gave people the chance to view testimonials, to verify what we'd told them, to check up on the doctors, the founders, and read all the company information. People could read material right off the screen that we were prevented from photocopying in Australia. If it wasn't for our computer experience, there is no way we could have achieved this level of success. Email and the company's website made it possible.
We've invested over $150,000 to launch the company here from the distributors' side of the fence, and to create the momentum we're now experiencing. Ten months from making the decision to work USANA full-time, our income will have returned our investment in full, so it's a much better return-on-investment than any other business that I know of. We spent most of that on hotels, travel and setting up meetings. That was before we were officially operating here, so we won't ever have those costs against the business again. It's all positive cash-flow from here on in.
The key to our success is how well we work as a team. Nicky handles the prospecting, and I do the manual/computer side: Doing the packaging of information kits, database management, checking the website for emerging leaders, follow-up, checking that things have arrived. Nicky is out talking to more people, Networking, doing one-on-one presentations, generating more interest and giving me more work to do!
We feel that this business is a great thing for a couple to do. We're not together all the time, so we don't get sick of one another, but if there is a husband and wife presentation to do, we'll often do it together. You get to know who is the positive person, and who makes the decisions, and as a team we can work with all possibilities.
Another key to our success is that we spend a lot of time listening to people on our presentations. We qualify, qualify, qualify to see if USANA is the right thing for them. We listen to hear if they have a genuine interest in nutrition and if they could do with the extra stream of income. Coming from our sales and marketing background, we know the value of qualifying a prospect for your product or service. We know that it's not worth the effort to try to shove an opportunity down a prospect's throat, and that it's better to walk away and find someone new than to try to convert an unwilling or unsuitable person. That way you can leave and still remain friends.
If a prospect has the need, we know we have something that can provide for that need. There is nothing more exciting than someone thanking you for helping them put more money in their pocket at the end of the week.
We love each other, we love being with each other, and we enjoy what we do-- that's our philosophy of a successful life. It's such a great thing to share the same ideas, the same goals, with a partner. We're striving for independence, freedom, and financial security. We thrive on forming partnerships with people, sponsoring leaders and working with them to make them successful in partnership, letting them fly on their own, and moving on to the next group of leaders.
We have to teach new distributors to listen, to work with other people, and to partner with us, their sponsors, to help them be successful. We find out how committed they are to their business, and to their goals and what they want. We demonstrate our 100% commitment to our goals, and they see it, and duplicate it... if they want to be leaders too.
Our commitment to this business has been unshakably strong since we made the decision at the convention last year that we would be the Australian leaders. We have a saying about commitment: Commitment is your pledge to do whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter what! That's actually from Upline! We've used Upline to build our business as the second string of information to train and duplicate. We get Upline into every distributor's hands to teach them the Nineties way of doing Network Marketing, to break any negative paradigms they've had, and to keep them up with us and what we're doing.
The best thing about Network Marketing for us is working together and deciding that we run our own lives now. Network Marketing has given us the financial freedom to do what we want, where and for how long we want, and make decisions for ourselves. No-one makes decisions for us now; we're in total control of our lives.
Being successful is also a great feeling. To be #1 in Australia, working with people, helping them become successful, hearing the excitement in people's voices as they begin to achieve success, and then teaching them to be independent leaders, is an incredible reward. Our youngest team member is 18, and our oldest is 102! We're bringing people into the business on the strength of our success, and seeing them achieve their goals inspires us to further success.
We're off to England to build the foundation for our international expansion, and to take the message of USANA into a new market. It's exciting to be able to go make a difference for people in another country, and we're sharing the vision of Dr. Wentz so we can make a difference in the lives of thousands more people in the United Kingdom.
We are in the right place at the right time. If you have the vision and totally commit to do whatever it takes, you will be very, very successful!
ROBERT AND NICKY HORKINGS are Diamond directors with USANA, Network Marketers of advanced nutritional products. Within five weeks of the Australian operation opening, they qualified as Diamond Directors based on the volume of distributors purchasing their products in the first month of operations. In doing so, they broke the previous record of 22 months for achieving this level of success with the company. They live in Brisbane, Australia.
Reprinted with permission from Upline, Horkings-Success Story-November/December 1998, 888-UPLINE-1, http://www.upline.com
