Eric Worre’s $25 Million Studio: A Leap of Faith

0:00I had this idea, Jim Rohn was a mentor and a friend, and he was passing and social media and social media and social media and social media and social media.

0:34Eric, I am really excited to have you here today because you're somebody that before I met, I heard about for years and I have tremendous respect for what you've accomplished. You've written a bestselling book in the network marketing arena. You've trained over a million and a half people, which is just insane. You've built the studio of my dreams in Las Vegas, the amazing place that you've got there. And you, you, and you're really like, you've gone into all of the media, you know, you have a YouTube channel, you have a podcast and, and, and the most important thing though, is that you're a fantastic instructor, teacher, mentor, and coach, and you also did this.

1:26You're not one of those people that just kind of came along and were like, let me read a book about how to be a great network marketer, and then I'm going to teach people to be great network marketers. You kind of came up through the trenches, and I would love it if you would just share a little bit about your story with us today. And then I'll ask questions as we go along. But I mean, how did this start? How do you get to where you are now? Because I think there's a lot of people that would look at where you are and say, man, I'd really love to be there. What's the story? Well, I pinch myself every day.

2:01The one thing, I did build a large organization in network marketing. I did have what people would call success in the space. And I did pivot 15 years ago, just when Jim Rohn was fading. I decided to kind of start uh social media was rising uh 2009 uh i just decided to start making little videos and putting them out into the world with no agenda no business agenda really um but the one thing that there's this old maxim the those who can't do teach all right um Um, and you know, never listen to somebody who's not doing what you want to do right now. Yep. I pushed back on that meme a bit, you know, like Bill Belichick's not very good football player.

2:57Um, but he's pretty good coach. Yeah. Uh, so there's some people who are just really, really good. Uh, they're not great business people, but they're really good at taking a particular category and boiling down the simple things that matter and communicating that in a way that makes a difference for people. So you don't always have to have it. I mean, so it's nice if you do, you know, you, you, you can call bullshit easier if you've, if you've lived it, than if you haven't. I think that you have the ability to relate to the issues and challenges somebody has so much better. I agree with you. I don't think you have to be doing it today to be a good coach.

3:49But I really do think that having lived in the mind of the people that you're helping makes it. There's a different empathy for sure. My core belief is network marketing can't really be understood. Your audience that is trying to understand what network marketing, multilevel marketing is, you might think that you understand it. It can't be understood from the outside. It has to be experienced. It's one of those things that is highly emotional, way more than any other profession that I'm even aware of. but I started in this profession when I was 23 years old and needed money. I had the gift of desperation.

4:34I was introduced at a good time. I had some good mentors. I struggled for three and a half years until I finally really made a decision to go pro to be a, to become world-class and stop trying to get lucky and just focus on the skills. and it took another three, three and a half years to go from there to a million dollars a year in the, in the profession, which I was at for many, many years. And a bit ago, right? So yeah, when a million dollars was real money. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's like 15 cents. But I had this idea. Jim Rohn was a mentor and a friend and he was passing and social media was rising 2008 and um he was at toward you know you know he was towards the end of his life and uh and everybody knew it and i what went through my mind is the social media thing looks like it's going to be a thing this is just when facebook had just come out and it was just for students they just transitioned from college students to high school students right and i said you know what i'm going to get on this thing and my all my kids said if you get on i'm getting off this is so embarrassing don't you follow me um you're just this creepy old guy um don't don't come on facebook please uh i said no no there's something here so i started asking around who knows um somebody who's smart at this and uh gary vaynerchuk's name kept coming up so i i called Gary at his wine library.

6:14He was doing a wine vlog at the time, getting 80 ,000 views a day. Crazy. And that's all he did out of his dad's wine store. And I said, how much for two hours of your time I want to fly out and meet with you. So I flew out in February, 2009 and met with him for a couple hours and said, I want to do for the network marketing space, what you are doing for the wine space. Can you deconstruct it for me? So we kind of mapped it all out. He ended up putting virtually everything he said to me in the book, Crush It, if you ever want to learn. But the reason for me wanting to do that is I was thinking in my head, well, how cool would it be if Jim Rohn had a video camera in his pocket and recorded everything instead of just the few audio programs and the few books that he put out that, that he had, um, kind of a living diary of all of his ideas and experiences.

7:18So I ended up, he did the last talk of his life in March of 2009, which I, which, which happened to be the year or the month that I started network marketing Pro, which was a, an idea to put as much information out as possible for free, uh, at the beginning and still for free to most people, uh, to the network marketing space, a hundred million people strong. And then it turned into a thing, you know, I didn't have any list to, to, to join. I, I would, I would did it all. I bought a bunch of equipment that I never used. um i ended up with a flip cam uh i love my little flip cam and and somebody taught me final cut express and created a little little template for me so i could just record and then dump it in the middle and squeeze it together and export it and how to put it on a wordpress site and how to tell my little audience that the new video is up that first year i put out like 250 videos or something average five six seven minutes long just give them an idea or some story or something a little bit of value every day and never asked for anything i didn't ask for anything for two years um and and from that built a brand and huge following and uh then we did our first event for 200 people at the Las Vegas, uh, that we called GoPro, um, no GoPro recruiting mastery is what we called it.

8:54200 people were there for three days. And, um, the next year was 400 and then 800, then 2400 and then 4 ,000 and 6 ,000. We got up to 18 ,000 in person, um, which was insane at the Las Vegas convention center you know we had Tony Robbins and Richard Branson and Pitbull and and you know all the fancy stuff uh which was but it was you know a concrete jungle nightmare crazy um we ended up settling into the MGM Garden Arena which is a really nice space for us once a year we'd get everybody together and by then we had a few courses and you know I wrote I wrote the book GoPro, which went on to sell about 5 million copies, um, self-published, which was a complete surprise to me, uh, around the world.

9:47And, um, then the pandemic hit and we needed to do something. We were booked at the MGM garden arena and people weren't coming there. So Tony Robbins had started, uh, had, he built this little virtual studio and, and, and I called, called him and said, hey, could I use that? Because that would help us out because I didn't want to give everybody refunds. I wanted to do the event. And he said, oh, I'm not renting it to anybody. No offense, but everybody's called. I'm just using it for my stuff. I said, hey, all respect. So we just decided to take a huge risk, my wife and I, and we built our own.

10:28So we ended up building a$25 million spaceship that, that we can put 400 people in person and it can have interactive a half a million people. Uh, I could talk to in real time, 500 ,000, uh, that I could talk to and then millions can, we can stream to. Uh, so, I mean, they just finished filming a, um, you'll, you'll see advertisements for it, but it's called a lucky 13. uh it's a um a game show from the people who did uh who wants to be a millionaire hosted by shaquille o 'neal they just finished filming last week and uh so first season's coming out soon but you know gurus people do book launches and russell brunson's doing his next next uh conference they're coming up soon and and uh you know we use it about 20-25 days a year and then lots of other artists and different people use it for different purposes.

11:29But so that's happened. And we do a lot of consulting and we, you know, sell information and training and masterminds and, and the whole thing. So, um, that's, that's the, the, the kind of the short form of, of how I got there. A lot of plan to review basically 36 years of make a plan, do it, review it to figure out how to make a better plan, then do it and then review it. And if I, if I were to say the one thing that separates me from anybody else inside of my world is my wife and I's risk tolerance. We're just willing to risk all of it all the time. Um, you know, like doing that studio, we had no business doing that studio, no business.

12:14Um, would you do it again? A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred 100%. I mean, it, that studio paid for itself in first month. Isn't that crazy? Unbelievable. I mean, I have no business owning an airplane, but I own a Gulfstream five 50, no business travel the world on that thing and, you know, charter it out when I'm not using it. So we're just willing to, to roll the dice. We have earning power. We know we have earning power. um we're very entrepreneurial and um i will tell you one thing that i've realized in the last two years what's that um i've been playing in the kitty games i have that realization every year and it annoys the crap out of me because you i think i'm thinking big but i know i'm not tell me how that came about.

13:13How did you start to think that you get in the right rooms? Yeah, you get in the right rooms and you hang out with people who think who had the audacity of thinking bigger. And you ever gotten it? You ever been in a room that is so big that you make the intelligent decision to just be quiet? Oh, yeah. So many times. Just be quiet. Just soak it up. watch how people respond watch how people act watch how they deal with issues watch how they uh connect or or disconnect um just watch so i always come home from those pissed off but in a good way me too my wife is like what are you mad about like i'm i'm an idiot that the mad the mad is a good thing yeah i like being mad that way yeah of being reminded that there are levels there are levels and some of us haven't beat the boss of this level to get to the next level um and there's so many more levels above where i am right now i've decided i just turned 60 two months ago and i decided i'm gonna go to a place that i've never been your april birthday no march march so three months so i'm i'm going to a place i've never been and to do that i'm gonna have to think and act in a way like i've never thought and acted and i have to challenge every limiting belief and roll the dice and go but i'm not playing in the kiddie games anymore can you tell us a little bit about what that might look like i don't know okay to be honest with you i don't know i don't have goals anymore that are like super tangible sure they're directional how will you move in that direction and what direction well it's all for me i think going to this higher place is becoming more efficient and effective at contribution to others.

15:24Okay. In some form or fashion. Okay. As far as reach, scale, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, purpose, mission, but on a grand scale, on the biggest stage. Just no apologies, no excuses.

15:54I don't know where it is, where I'm going. I just know it's not here. And there are levels above where I am right now, many, many, many of them. So a couple of things to help people that might be watching, listening to this. how do you get yourself like how do you find those rooms how do you find those rooms where you want to be quiet because they're so big in what they're thinking well if you provide enough value for long enough you get known and and by getting known and if you're if you're not an asshole if you're if you get known then and you build real relationships and i believe all businesses conversation you build real relationships from those real relationships you get invited into those rooms fair enough um and and if and if you don't have the time you haven't built the brand yet and you haven't built the relationships yet the only other way i know the only other cheat code I know is to buy your way in.

17:05Yep. If there's, if there's a mastermind, you could buy your way in, or if there's some sort of high level coach, there's it's the biggest cheat code in the world are mentors and masterminds. In my opinion, it literally, you could be five years smarter without being five years older. And, and, and what is that worth? Um, I always say if, if you find the people that you want to get next to and then find if they have created a paid channel of access, whether it's they, you can hire them to speak in an event. You can have a mastermind, they coach, whatever, pay them. Don't run up to them as they get off stage with 20 other people saying, I just need to ask this one question.

17:47Show yourself to be different, right? Yes. Bring value, be a good person bring value uh give without asking for anything in exchange realize that they're at a at a different higher hierarchy than you are even though they're not better in eyes of god than you are but they're definitely more successful yeah and they're more efficient and they've learned things that you haven't learned and just find a way to make that happen um that's that's the best cheat code in the world. Now the, the, the way to get there is build a brand is what, what are you known for? And if you can be known as a person that brings value and it's whether, whether you're bringing it yourself or you're curating it, you're pulling it from other sources and, and then you're offering it to somebody else, you're still a person of value.

18:45And if, if you, if you can be a person of value for long enough, you'll become known as that person to go to for that any particular that particular problem that particular issue we decide to be the thing that changed my life is three and a half years in I decided to walk away from lucky and I just decided to to become world class yes and I knew that if I worked on the skills that I became uh valuable that I didn't have to worry about politics or people liking me or anything else. I was in control of my life from that point forward. And I could choose who to build relationships with and who not to build relationships with, who I wanted to pursue and who I didn't.

19:31And the other thing I will tell you is many of these rooms that I've been in, some of them have been virtual. I'm not actually in the room, but I'm learning from them. right you know there's uh biographies that'll blow your mind that can teach you so much uh watch the second half of lex friedman's podcast with jeff bezos first half is about space the second half is about how he runs business okay it's so genius uh how he thinks and i and it's helped me so much and we've never met and we probably never will. Right. It doesn't have to, you don't have to have a mentor that sits in your house with you and, and, and coaches, you know, gives you a hug and coaches you through every single problem.

20:25You just need to find your way to information or organizations and pull the information and then use the information to become more valuable. So sometimes I'm not in the room. Sometimes the mentor never even knew that they were my mentor. Got it. You know, I've got several of those and I've got mentors that know my name, but you know, they've never invited me over to their house. Right. It's okay. I haven't earned it. I like it. It's all right. It's all right. And I, and, and, and I'm, I'm perfectly humble about that. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Um, but I've also learned sometimes, you know, one quick lesson is I, I spent an early part of my life trying to get the approval from people that I wildly respected.

21:22Yeah. Jumping up and down, leaping and hollering and watch me look at i did this thing and here's this free thing here let me give you a gift and all these different things and imagine they're just kind of over here and they have their they have their backs to me and they're they're looking the other way and every once in a while they turn around they did don't give give me a thumbs up hey nice nice job eric you know and then they they turn back to their thing and they and i was always trying to get their attention yeah and one day i realized wait a minute if somebody's if i'm jumping up trying to get their attention i wonder if somebody over here is trying to get my attention.

21:59So I just turned around and there they all were. The whole community, like millions of people. Ended up being literally no joke, millions of people that just wanted my attention. And I'm like, oh, I'm just going to pour value into those people. And then guess what happened? After I poured value into those people, these people turned around. Yeah, yeah. And they said, hey, let's go to dinner. And I'm like, oh my gosh. All right. I mean, I wish I would have learned that earlier. Me too. Right? Yeah. I want to ask you a little bit different question because a lot of businesses that I talk to, a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, are interested in other channels of distribution that they're not really taking advantage of now.

22:56There are 100 million people or so in the network marketing world. How do you look at network marketing as a distribution channel for, say, any business? Is it right for any business? I think it's not necessarily any business. as far as you're talking about a business trying to reach that group as a group to market something to? No, just, well, yes, but just in other words, so I have a bottled water company and I am interested in getting my distribution channels. There's Facebook ads and there's network marketing, which to me is this whole media that gets ignored by a lot of mainstream. And I don't know if that makes sense that that that they're not embracing it here's what i would tell you um if if you have software solutions that would work for some of these organizations certainly this can be a distribution source for you there's there's a thousand companies around the world that represent these 100 million folks um that need technology you know because they're they're a little bit behind the times in technology if you have a product that you can figure out a way to partner with one of the companies and they don't have to manufacture or they can pay a royalty that could work as well um for the gurus like tony robbins most of his audience are network marketing people okay because in inside of network marketing um is personal development is the glue that holds the whole thing together because the more you become as a person it shows up in your check really fast in network marketing.

24:47Personal development is rewarded very quickly. So if you're an author, show network marketing some love. Just encourage them. Tell them you believe in them. If you do, don't be inauthentic. But if you do, throw them some love and they'll buy every book you got. They'll buy all the courses you have. They'll eat it all up. Um, if you show them some love, if you, if you look down your nose at them and then they won't buy anything, but, um, you know, if you've got a product, you've got a service, if you've got some sort of value that you can either bring to the a hundred million or to the companies that serve the a hundred million, then certainly, uh, it can be an area of distribution.

25:36And do you help people on that side of the table as well? Or is it mostly the people who are trying to, uh, sometimes. sometimes um you know i work with companies and i work with a few organizations most are i would say they're not quite ready you know there's a lot of tech pitches that i've that i've heard in the last five six seven eight years that weren't ready apps or whatever different things that they were trying to do. Recently, there's a company, an AI-based company that was ready that we connected with and are connecting to the network marketing community because it's specifically solving some pretty big needs technologically.

26:32But that's kind of a first down that road. I mean, if somebody has a product or a service or something that there's enough margin that everybody can win, sure, I can make introductions to organizations that I think might be a good fit. What is the margin? Is that about a 5x minimum? Yeah, yeah, somewhere like that. Yeah, okay, yeah, that was what kind of generally in the - Yeah, 15 to 20%, something like that, yeah. Okay, cool, and in terms of of the lifestyle, like as somebody, cause we have a lot of people that are trying to get out of the corporate rat race. They're tired of being employees and they kind of want to do their own thing.

27:17Is network marketing a viable thing for those people who they, maybe they don't want to go to a bunch of meetings, but they, they want to be their own boss and they don't want to start a business from scratch or via franchises. Is this a... Well, I will tell you the truth, okay? Shoot you straight, Roland. If they were a big shot in some corporation, they probably don't have the emotional strength to be able to get through what they have to get through to do to be successful in network marketing. Okay. What is the challenge that needs that strength? Because I'm really curious about that. The challenge is the catch to network marketing is you'll have to endure the loss of social esteem from ignorant people.

28:14So uneducated people will think less of you for a season. And for a person who's been a professional in some corporate organization, that's just too hard of a pill to swallow. okay um people saying oh guess what he's not working for the now he's in network marketing right you know and and i had the gift of desperation at age 23 so i didn't i had nothing to lose you know that'll get you through a lot won't it the gift of desperation is one of the greatest gifts you could have but somebody that has uh they could earn money a hundred different ways as soon as it gets hard as soon as it gets emotional and this is an emotional business they can choose some other way to make money and they usually do.

28:59So I, I say the same thing to like professional athletes that come in and want to like use their notoriety to build a network inside of network marketing. I said, you know, listen, you can come here and sign some autographs and take some pictures and make some appearances and do some talks, but that's not going to make you a lot of money. That's, you know, go sit in the mall wherever and do your autograph thing. If you're willing to do what it took to become a professional athlete again, to become a professional inside of network marketing, then you can't be stopped because you have notoriety plus the work ethic again, but you have to pay the price again.

29:44You know, you can't take your resume from wherever you came from and attach it, bring it into network marketing and, and immediately turn that into success. It won't work that way. That notoriety that you mentioned is, is it helpful to develop? I know it's generally helpful always to have a personal brand, but significantly, like, would you advise people in the network marketing world to develop a personal brand around something? A hundred percent. And the brand is just being known for something. right i don't care what it is it could be mushroom hunting right as much as anything it could be mushroom hunting it could be goat yoga it could be baking cupcakes it could be you know red ferraris whatever it is become known as that person and you'll build a tribe you'll build an audience from doing that and then you can figure out ways to monetize you know once you've built your community but find out something that drives you that makes you happy um that that that you love.

30:46I'm not saying every part, you know, the biggest lie in the world is only do what you love. That's what entrepreneurs, that's what all the billionaires say, which is total nonsense. You should be doing what you love, hopefully 50 % of the time. And you're really lucky. You're really lucky. The rest of it's just, just grit and grind and wet, dirty, muddy clothes crawling through the jungle in order to be able to get where you want to go to get to that thing that you love. So, yeah. So, I mean, it's...

31:26People who have too many options usually will take an easier one. This is a highly emotional business with uncontrollable people because they're not employees. So you're literally building a network of a volunteer army and you're trying to hold them together inside of a system in order to be able to move more products and services to the world. And the whole network marketing space moves$200 billion a year worth of products and services to the world and pays out$200 million a day in commissions to the distributors involved. Okay. So it's huge. but if you have a lot of options and it gets uncomfortable or it gets embarrassing or you get humiliated and laughed at at a at a neighborhood party and you can't handle it not for you yeah you know but if you can handle it hey the the world's your oyster um yeah because the company will do all the stuff that a traditional business would owner would have to do they do they take care of all that stuff all you have to do is build a team and and and show that team how to sell i mean that's fun yeah um you know manufacturing and warehousing and and doing all the all the back office computer and everything else and having all the employees and facilities and everything else and licenses and international and legal and liability and all that stuff who wants that?

33:01Yeah. You know, you can, you can build a humongous business with no employees. Humongous. That is true. What is it that you're most excited about right now in that world? I'm actually, I'll, I'll expand it, but I do want that world too. What is it that you're most excited about generally right now for yourself and your business or out there in the world? And same question in the network marketing space. What I'm most excited about personally is going to that place I've never been that mysterious place. I'm in the jungle hacking my way to that place. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what it's going to smell like, feel like, taste like.

33:42I don't know. I just know that it's there. So that's what I'm most excited about. So every day I'm hacking through the forest, you know, trying to trying to make the trail to get there. That's what I'm most excited about. For the network marketing space, I will tell you It serves, here's what it does. There's a company on this side with the product. There's a customer over here that wants the product. And the distributor stands in the middle. Yeah. And they provide the following value. One is education. They educate the customer as to the value of the product. two demonstration they demonstrate that the product works maybe they show them they give them some samples whatever three is just word of mouth advertising that people trust more than traditional advertising anyway yeah four they provide community this is the loneliest generation in the history of the world, this generation.

34:54And there's so much incredible community inside of the network marketing space because they're like-minded people. They're upbeat, they're optimistic, they're positive. And to have community is really a rare and valuable and precious and amazing thing. yeah next five the the opportunity to have an excuse to be around that positive environment and the personal growth that comes from it and then six the opportunity to do real networking no matter what business you're in keep the money in the community you know whether you're in real estate or insurance or it doesn't matter just spend it with your friends instead of spend it somewhere else.

35:41So we stand in between a company and a customer. We provide those solutions. And if I had to pick any one of those six that I'm most excited about, it's the community. Because people are looking to hang out with like-minded people and enjoy that process, you know, to get in those and become more valuable and earn their way into those bigger and better rooms. So yeah. If you could past pace as opposed to future pace yourself into the desperate situation that you were in back in the day, but you have the resources out in the world of everything there is now, how would you create that community from scratch now?

36:31whoever talks to the most people wins um find a way find a way to like you said who's my ideal customer who's my ideal recruit yeah find a way to connect with those people and all businesses conversation yeah i mean you could drop me with uh with a parachute into any country in the world i didn't speak the language didn't have a dollar i could quickly build a network because of the skills I developed over 36 years. I would literally meet every business owner in that city. And I would ask them how I could help. I would meet every religious leader. I would meet every government official. I would meet every, every, everybody I could meet.

37:14I would meet within 90 days. I would walk down that street and I'd find somebody bilingual that would help me with the translation. And within 90 days, I'd walk down the street and every single person would say, hire a hire a hire a hire before i even needed to say okay i'm going to start a business i'd have people lined up ready to go so i have absolutely no doubt that would be the case about the skills man um it's it's not about do you have opportunity or do you not if you have this today you just have this yeah you have no excuse yeah i mean if you're not making money and you have this it's on you it is you have a creativity problem you have an imagination problem you have a limiting belief problem you don't have an opportunity problem i agree i mean there's so much money floating around you just got to get in between somebody who has a solution and somebody who wants it right that's it i love it yeah so how what's the best way if somebody's interested in finding out more about you, about your book, about the events that you've got, uh, opportunities for mentorship, et cetera, what are some of the best ways for them to get in touch with you?