She’s Selling WHAT? Getting Your Spouse On Board With Your Business

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Hey bosses and welcome back. It is episode number 20, is that so exciting? It is for me. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Let me tell you what we’re doing on episode number 20. it’s a privilege for me to have Tim Farrant with us today. He is the author of, ‘She’s Selling What? A Skeptical Husband’s Guide to Supporting His Network Marketing Wife’. He will talk to us about how to have those conversations with your spouse, his story about helping and watching and supporting his wife’s Epic rise in network marketing, and his own journey from shock and skepticism to understanding and support. And you are going to love the actual ideas and spot on things that he’s going to help you to do, that not only will help your spouse and your family to understand your network marketing journey, but to have a better marriage overall. So here we go with Tim. I can’t wait for you to hear his story.

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

Keynotes discussed:

  • I was really my wife’s obstacle for the first few months that she was doing this business. I did not make it easy for her and I’ve apologized to her for that. And yet she persevered through, she crushed it and she’s doing great. (05:01)
  • Getting the husband to understand that compensation plan by someone who’s been successful and can answer their questions. (10:01)
  • When we don’t include the spouse in that, we’re kind of setting ourselves up for more obstacles than we need to or even for failure.(12:57)
  • And so you are going to put in a lot of work early on to build the business and then ultimately as you stick with it and you don’t quit, you know, you keep going. Then ultimately the income far exceeds the hours that you’re putting in. (17:06)
  • I tell a lot of women when I have opportunities like this, to have these conversations that if your husband or partner believes or thinks that you’re going to quit, they’re not going to get on board.(20:39)

When Did It Air…

January 13, 2020

Episode Transcript…

Beth:
Welcome to ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’. If you are determined to break glass ceilings and build it your way, this show is for you. I’m your host Beth Graves and I am obsessed with helping you to not just dream it, but make the plan, connect the dots and create what you crave. Are you ready? Let’s get started.

Hey bosses and welcome back. It is episode number 20 is that so exciting? It is for me. I hope you’re as excited as I am. And this week in honor of episode 20 we are doing a giveaway, and this is all you need to do to get boss swag in the mail from us. It’s Mandy, my boss that mails it out. So, what you’re going to do is leave a rating and review. If you’ve already left a rating and review, share this on your Facebook or in your Instagram stories and just send me a DM over on Instagram or over on Facebook messenger or sent to our email that’s listed in the show notes and just say, I shared it. Let us know how and when. And we will send you our brand-new boss swag that you are going to love. So, I want to read to you from Bridget a review for this week and she says, thank you for this podcast.

Beth:
I love the energy Beth brings. Every time I listen to her, it seems to be spot on. Always the message I’m needing to hear. And that leaves me anxiously waiting for the next one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bridget, for this review and I am hoping that this episode is exactly what you need to hear today. So, without further ado, let me tell you what we’re doing on episode number 20 it’s a privilege for me to have Tim Farrant with us today. He is the author of, She’s Selling What? a skeptical husband’s guide to supporting his network marketing wife. So, he will talk to us about how to have those conversations with your spouse, his story about helping and watching and supporting his wife’s Epic rise in network marketing and his own journey from shock and skepticism to understanding and support. And you are going to love the actual ideas and spot on things that he’s going to help you to do.

Beth:
That not only will help your spouse and your family to understand your network marketing journey, but to have a better marriage overall. So here we go with Tim. I can’t wait for you to hear his story. Hey everyone. I am so excited today because, well, the last time Tim and I were together, we had like a cosmic disruption in our interview. And as you heard in the intro, Tim is the author of, She’s Selling What, and I’m so excited for you to not only hear about how this book and this movement came about, but also most of my listeners, I have a few, a few guys out there. And women, and I hear so often, I’m not sure how to talk to my husband. I didn’t really tell him I was doing this thing. And Tim is here to give you guys all of the behind the scenes, how to make sure that it’s a partnership to get your spouse on board and also to create something together, not just as you know, you up in your office, your husband downstairs feeling annoyed, irritated and agitated because I’ve been there. So, Tim, welcome.

Tim:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Beth:
All right, so we know that your wife has had a meteoric rise in the industry. So, can you take us back at the end? Not the end, but it’s like the beginning of the next phase. You have this amazing resource, this book you’re speaking at Top Summit. I get to see you there. Yay! And you’re all over the place as the network marketing husband, so take us back. You haven’t always been the network marketing husband. Give us a little background of how all of this came to be and a little bit about you.

Tim:
No, that’s great. In fact, I would have probably been the anti-network marketing husband when my wife started, which is, you know, where so much of this passion comes from now. So, I remember sitting at the table, like I remember the restaurant we were at, and the table when my wife looked across and I love my wife, I love her to death. We have a great marriage. She looked across the table and she was like, okay, I think I want to do this business. And I literally, it’s one of the reasons why I named the book. She’s selling what? Cause I literally looked at her and I was like, you want to do what? Like come on. At the time she had another business that she was successful in. And I was just like, seriously, you’re going to do this? And to be honest, Beth, it was because I carried with me a bunch of the skepticism, like a U haul truck full of skepticism and all of that with me that a lot of other husbands have and spouses and partners have about the network marketing industry.

Tim:
And so I was really my wife’s obstacle for the first few months that she was doing this business. I did not make it easy for her and I’ve apologized to her for that. And yet she persevered through and she crushed it and she’s doing great. But what we have found is that there’s so many spouses that the truth is they end up giving up because their husbands are significant obstacles instead of really being fuel on their fire in their business. And so, my passion is not only for people that have been in business for a while, but especially for newer people to get the spouse on board as soon as possible. And if you can, it will fuel not only your business, but align yourself in marriage in a way that could be really incredible. So anyway, that’s my heart and passion.

Beth:
Okay. So, I’m visualizing the you haul truck and all of the skepticism. And I hear so often, and I, you know, I deal with it all the time myself now, I have such unshakable belief in the mission and what I do and the people that I’m helping, people will say, well, it’s easy for you. Well, so some people will say, well, it’s easy for Becky. It’s easy for Beth and Tim because they’ve built these ginormous teams and networks. But it’s every single day staying, staying like you’re a pastor. So, I always say it’s staying in the word, staying in the stories, staying with what we see, amazing things happening. I just had somebody send me a silly article, I think, I don’t even know. It was in a popular little online magazine about why the network marketing industry is ruining women. And, and again, the skepticism. So, tell me about this is you had a U haul truck full of skepticism.

So did my husband, my husband Don, he was supportive, but he was like, Oh yeah, okay. He thought it was me, this little thing, right? And all he said was, Oh, like do you have to pay a monthly fee and how much do you have to order and how long are you going to stick with this? And I was fueled because I, the name of this podcast is, You’re Not the Boss of Me. And so as being the youngest of three, I was always trying to prove that I should be the first pick for kickball I could win at tetherball. So, I, I was going to win. They’re going to win, but not everyone has that tenacity. I think it was kind of, I think my two older sisters for that, because you know that was my birthright is, I’m going to show you. So, tell me the skepticism is there.

Let’s walk. Let’s, let’s just get right down to it. You’re listening today, your spouses and on board. You can also use these strategies if it’s a parent, if it’s a best friend. If you, and I know that you and Becky work with her new distributors when they signed on, so let’s call our person Sarah. Sarah’s just signed up. She has an incredible experience with the product. She wants to see if she can make a go of it and she doesn’t even want to tell her husband that she bought some product to get started. So, walk us through what you would, how you would counsel a new person to bring their spouse, their husband, their boyfriend onboard, and what does that look like?

Tim:
Yeah, that’s really a, it’s a good question. One of the things that we do, and even if you don’t have no a husband who’s supportive with you right now, but you have a team of people, we always engage the husband or partner of the person before they start the business. So if they’ve already bought some product and they’re already ready to go for it, like one of the worst things that you can do is hide it from your husband because if you try and hide it out of the gate, then how does that ultimately end? Right? Like ultimately they’re going to figure it out and then when they figure it out, if they already have skepticism, then you saying that, I know I was hiding this from you, but like that’s not going to build more trust with them. That’s only going to erode it more.

So right out of the gate we sit with spouses and we ask them for what their questions are like, let’s get it all out there, let’s have the conversation. And so, trying to address those concerns right out of the gate is really, really important. Or I would say to the people listening to this, like if you don’t feel confident doing that yet with your team as you bring people on it with someone in your upline, right? Someone who’s been successful and say, Hey, would you engage my husband as well? And having a conversation. And what we do first that is incredible is we always help the spouse, the husband, the partner, understand the compensation plan. It’s so important because until they understand that they have no idea how to talk about the business because we have been trained since we were like 16 years old to trade hours for dollars, which you know, Beth isn’t the way this business works?

And so getting the husband to understand that compensation plan by someone who’s been successful and can answer their questions ultimately, then that even gets more of them on board and they can answer questions and then they begin. I’ve seen, many times or the husband starts looking at the wife and going, is this what you want to do? Like, why don’t we try and go for this rank? Or when, what’s your goal to try and get to that? And you start to see them be engaged when they start to get how the business works also.

Beth:
Absolutely. And one of the pieces that when one of my upline, is also Blair Critch, and they also have a passion for marriage, and she had brought to my attention in the beginning, she said every Sunday night have a family meeting. So, I would sit down and write in understanding the comp plan and the goals. That is so huge. And when we talked the first time before we were interrupted by the thunderstorm and wifi, you had said to me that piece of the comp plan and since we started that when someone new comes aboard, I always say to them, listen, let’s schedule a zoom with your husband in the next four days so that we can talk about this first bonus. We’ll look at the comp plan, he can ask me questions and I also have had my husband have some personal phone calls without the spouse there because he’ll say, let me, you know, let me give them a quick call.

And it’s really, I’ve heard back from the people that have engaged with us to say the whole process has reunited them in a way in their marriage, like the beginning, because you’re working toward a common goal, you’re communicating your sharing. I will say to Don, I will say, here’s my goal this month. Here’s what I need to do. And I give him permission to push me a bit because you know I do that when I’m, when I’m on a fitness journey right now I’m, I want a Peloton and I could go out and buy one. But I said, okay, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to run to the red line every day, give it, and we have the goal because we want to redo the garage. So, it’s like the network marketing piece. So, the communication of the goal and having that. Now do you bring your kids into, to part of the celebrating of when you reached certain ranks or milestones, do they come into play as well?

Tim:
Yeah, absolutely they do. And I want to say this to everyone just to summarize what you’re saying to Beth because it’s so good. We don’t like this truth sometimes, but the truth is no other person will impact your success more than your spouse, positively or negatively outside of you. Right? There’s no other person that’s going to impact your success more than your spouse, whether positive or negative. And so, and that’s true for both sides of it. And so, when we don’t include the spouse in that, we’re kind of setting ourselves up for more obstacles than we need to or even for failure at sometimes. And so, I love the fact that you’re getting husbands involved in and having those conversations. It really, really is a huge part. But with the kids, absolutely. So, we do little milestone things with our kids. We have a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old.

And so, you know, we do everything with them from vision boards to they know, you know, mom’s going for a particular rank this month or a particular goal. So, we’re all going to sacrifice. And then, you know, when we get to the end of it, we’ve done like mini shopping sprees with them or when it’s been really big. We’ve taken a trip together and it’s fun because when your kids know that, especially if they’re younger, if your kids know that, they’re like pushing my wife, you know their mom also, where they’re like, mom, how’s it going with the goal? And you want some accountability and your goals, get your spouse and kids involved. They will hold you accountable, you know, if there’s kind of a carrot or prize on the other side for sure.

Beth:
Oh absolutely. For sure. They love that piece. I have an almost empty nest and so when I started in network marketing, I had one in junior high and one in high school. Donnie was in junior high and McKenzie was in high school and we did that. We looked at, okay, and this is what I’m working toward. And I was really clear too, we talk a lot on this podcast, him about not dropping the glass balls, your spiritual life, your family life, your health goals, because all of those pieces have to be a part of your success with your business. And so having the communication with your spouse of like, Hey, this week, and I told I have a retreat this coming weekend and it’s been planned and we talked about is this a good time, is this, how does this work with our son’s schedule? How does this work with your schedule and feeling as though it’s a team effort and the goals and they are all a part of the whole family piece.

So I want to back up because something just came to me. I was looking at my notes before I got on of frustrations that I’ve heard from women that are starting in the business of helping that spouse to unpack that U Hall of skepticism. So, I always like to let people know like here are the reasons why the network marketing industry is good for women, especially women who want flexibility and freedom to perhaps be at home with their kids to not have that glass ceiling. What I saw when I first got started is I didn’t have to figure out a distribution channel or build out a technology platform or hire a marketing team or HR, the zillion things that our family business had us doing because building a traditional business requires all of those things and all I had to do was talk to people, share the love of the product, share the company, build community and culture. Those were the pieces. It was like, I could start making money from day one. What are some of the ways that you help spouses to understand when they have that skepticism? Oh, nobody makes money in these businesses. Oh yeah, blah blah blah. What are, what are your go to points?

Tim:
Yeah, yeah absolutely. Because it’s a huge issue. I mean some guys come into it and they think their wives should make like thousands of dollars the first month or if not it’s a scam of some kind. You know? And I think one part is definitely understanding the compensation plan so that they have that as a framework for their, just their knowledge and understanding of how it all works. So that’s a big one. But also, like you got to explain to your spouse and help them understand that building a business like they can’t expect year 10 results on a month one business. Like it’s not going to happen. And so, you are going to put in a lot of work early on to build the business and then ultimately as you stick with it and you don’t quit, you know, you keep going. Then ultimately the income far exceeds the hours that you’re putting in.

But it’s real work, like it’s hard. And so, having that conversation early on for them to understand this is going to be difficult. So, I always encourage women that are coming into the business and starting their business to look at their husband and just literally look in the eyes and say, would you support me for six months? Would you please support me in this for six months? I’m not asking you for like the rest of your life, but for six months because it’s going to take time and it’s going to take hard work and I’m not going to make a bunch of money early on. But that’s the way a business works. And obviously the lower investment, right? Like you said, not the complication and the lower investment to get a business is what makes network marketing such an incredible opportunity for so many people. So, is that, does that answer the question, Beth?

Beth:
Yep. And I love, I love that piece of it. If I went to my husband and said, listen, I want to go back to school and become a physician’s assistant. That’s what my sister did when she was 35 years old. So, did she make money right out of the box? No, she invested. I mean, you’re going to make money right away in network marketing. You can start earning while you learn. But I like to say that. So, we always hear, Oh, she became a six-figure earner. She became this, she became that. And so, people think it’s immediate success like you said. And so, I always say, what would happen if you invested five years? You said one, and I would say if I told you that showing up consistently, and maybe we did people, I always say, how much time do you have to invest?

Well, okay, so a teacher that’s making $1,000 a week or $1,500 become much time. Is she investing and preparing her lesson plans? How much time do you invest in preparing your sermons and working with your youth groups and helping everything in the church? So, I always say that the time commitment will reflect the income. And also, there’s a piece of it too that we have to look at. People don’t get lucky that some people walk in and have a larger network. Like Becky walked in and she had a blog following, right? She had people that were, that were curious and interested in what she was doing. She still had to have conversations, but someone that might have just started on social media or just started marketing will have a different path.

So I’m always saying keep your blinders on, believe it can be you ask for spiritual guidance, always right? As for, I always say in my prayers in the morning, I take action with faith and clarity. Who will I serve today? And then having the spouse on board, the family on board, and being exceptionally coachable. These are like all pieces. So when you see someone that comes in into your space and wants to have you, we’re going to talk about one last thing and wants to have you talk to their spouse and they’re excited, they’ve got belief, they’re ready to go, they’ve got the desire, and then it doesn’t go as planned. The success isn’t immediate. How do you then revisit, do you revisit that conversation? Because the last piece is commitment to go until no matter what. So, can you talk a little bit about commitment as a family, what you’ve seen with some of the couples that you’ve worked with?

Tim:
Yeah. In fact, I also, I tell a lot of women when I have opportunities like this, to have these conversations that if your husband or partner believes or thinks that you’re going to quit, they’re not going to get on board. And if you’re just objective about it, can you blame them? Right. Like if you, if the tables were returned and they wanted to start something, but they were always, you know, complaining or they weren’t putting in the work or they weren’t setting the goals or they just were super negative or whatever it is, you would look and say, are you about to quit this? You know, and so your mindset on even the person building the business to say, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to keep building this. I’m going to keep going. Builds faith in your husband, builds faith in your kids.

And when that’s there, of course they’re more likely to get around it and to keep going. And when you are struggling, reach out to, again, someone in the upline or someone on your team to have the conversation with you and your spouse. So, to sit together with both of you again and say, okay, so you set some goals and they weren’t there. Well let’s revisit it. Like you said that, is it the time you’re putting in, you know, did you have too high of expectations of how much time you could put in or do you need to readjust some things? You can put some more time in, you know, what are those income producing activities? Are you doing them or are you not doing them? And having that honest conversation with the both of them together helps again, just realign, re-establish a baseline, and then setting new goals together and then helping them run towards that for a season. So, the struggle happens when those conversations happen in a silo and the spouses aren’t talking with each other because that’s not going to build more alignment and trust with them.

Beth:
And this is a big piece too, is not bringing the negativity and that using the second, then we open ourselves up for the complaining, the negativity, the doubt, and using your spouses as kind of the punching bag for that. Then they’re like, well, this isn’t making you happy. So, making sure that positive mindset, let’s jump to you dealt with this personally. You started to see it in Becky’s business. You started to see that there was really a need to educate, to inform, to support the spouses. So, you jumped into a book project, talk about the book, how can people get their hands on it and share a little more about that journey. I love it. I’ve read it, I’ve shared it. It’s in my, when I send out a new person, joins my team personally, they get a package from me and that is always inside of there. It’s kind of like the fab fit and fun box. That’s one of my pieces inside of their welcome box. So, share a little bit more about your book and where people can get their hands on that. And you know that was a huge project for you.

Tim:
Yeah, it was a huge project and now we’re having this conversation. We’re seeing how marriages were being hurt, women were giving up. And so, I couldn’t understand why nobody else was addressing or talking about this or getting resources. And so, after several months of like me personally wrestling and like fighting with God, because I felt a calling to write this book, you know, and I didn’t want to, and I got enough going on in my life. Like all of that, I ended up, you know, writing this book. And I mean literally thousands of people and thousands of husbands that have gotten their hands on it, you know, weekly. Now I’m getting messages from people whose marriages are being helped and businesses are growing because of it. And it’s just been a humbling, humbling journey and we’ll see where this all goes. But my heart and passion for it is to see women build more successful businesses and see their marriages and families thrive in the process. So, you can get the book anywhere you can get on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or anywhere you want as well as I record it on audible. And so that was a big part cause a lot of husbands don’t read. And so, guys are engaging it and it’s just been received really, really well. And I’m humbled to be a part of it.

Beth:
Well, I thank you so much for that resource for thousands and thousands of spouses that just needed to hear and have it in their audible when they’re walking the dogs when they’re at the gym and also for that push to create conversations and to create a way to bring the whole family on board. So, it’s huge in my business as a shift to help spouses. It’s also brought to light that when someone comes aboard, we don’t have that in our onboarding process. That question, and I’ve added it. Tell me about your family. Tell me about the support. What, what does support look like for you? So, I like to leave everyone with a good question. And that question I always would say to say each week is how does support look? And being able to ask to ask your spouse to say, listen, this is what support looks like for me and what you need from me.

Like have that open level of conversation instead of being reactive, be proactive. I know that when life feels aligned for my family, it’s when I’m in a proactive state, when I’ve really, really blocked my calendar. When I’m not running from here and they’re trying to be on the phone, having a conversation with my spouse, checking messages. I always say this, Tim, be wherever your feet are, if you’re with your spouse, be with your spouse, not with your team on your phone. If you’re with your kids, be with your kids and block that time and there will not be resentment if you are so mindful of that time being spent and go to the date night, keep your phone in your purse, your team will survive, right? So, I want to end with three ways. I’m just throwing this out at you. Three ways that you can tell people to keep their marriage alive and vibrant while building a successful network marketing business.

Tim:
Oh, you’re asking me three ways. Three ways. I thought you were…I was waiting for you to give the magical three ways Beth. Three ways. Okay. Three ways to keep your marriage alive while you’re, okay, so you said this, but one is definitely a regular date night, right? Regular date night, family night. You got to do it. You got to carve out the time. Like you just said, your team will survive, and your spouse won’t resent you. So that’s number one. Number two, you have to include your spouse. We’ve talked a lot about that in this, but the spouse, can I talk about this a ton in the book? Like the spouse can’t just sit on the sidelines and just observe from afar your business, they got to have a couple of small contributions. You got to share the wins with them. Ultimately, you want for your wins to become his wins as well as you go through this.

So there’s got to be some, some contribution on their part. And then, let’s see, what’s a third one? Oh, this is so good. Okay. You’ve got to treat your spouse. You got to be the spouse that you want your spouse to be. So just kind of an overall, as you’re building this business, flip the script and say, you know, how would I want my spouse to react when this is going on? Or if, or if I was building a business and things weren’t going like maybe you had even hoped, like how would I hope my spouse would respond and then respond that way or what would I hope they would do if the tables were turned and then act that way with them as you’re going through this process, because it’s a journey and building a business is hard. Anybody that’s going to tell you that building any type of business is easy is lying to you.

Beth:
Amen to that. It’s hard and I love it. You want to be, that’s huge for sure. Marriage, longevity. I’m going on 25 years of being married. I love those pieces and yes, it is hard and be the spouse you want to be. And here’s one that I’m going to add to it, because I didn’t do this in the beginning and this just came to mind is, you know, you get teams on the West coast, she get teams in London and I would go up to my office at night and I would, you know, work and he would go to bed without me. And so I’m going to add that there may be one night a week that you’re working on a different time zone, but 99% of the time, shut down, create a boundary around your time together and, and go to bed at the same time.

Like have that ritual of whatever that because that’s where you start to feel that disconnection. And so that’s been a big piece in terms of being the spouse that I wanted to have was how would I have felt if he was working all night, didn’t come downstairs and check on me. And they hear you in your office, you’re on zooms, you’re laughing. You know? So that shifted a year ago and I felt this complete reconnection. And so, I appreciate that so much. Be the spouse that you want to be. So, Tim, any closing thoughts you have for our podcast listeners today?

Tim:
No, I think this has been great. I just want to encourage everybody, and I know you do this Beth, and it’s been part of your journey as well, but if you make it to the end and you’ve been super successful in your business, but you turn around and your marriage and family is in a destructive place, you haven’t won and you haven’t been successful. A definition of success, somebody shared with me years ago, success is when the people closest to you respect you the most. And so yes, you need to build a business. Yes, you need to work on it, but you really can do it in a way that you see your marriage and your families thrive in the process. And so, I guess maybe that’s the closing thought.

Beth:
That is a perfect closing thought. Thank you so much Tim, for being with us today and grab his book, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There’s still time for you guys to get tickets to the Top Summit. It’s in February, it’s in Naples. Go to the topsummit.com you’ll be able to hear Tim and Becky speak onstage on this very topic. I’ll also be speaking on another topic, but it’s a whole lot of fun. I don’t even want to give a sneak peek, but it has to do with finding your spouse, but we’re relating it to how you find the perfect recruit network marketing, so it’s going to be a whole lot of fun. And Tim, thank you and I will see you in February and real life.

Tim:
Absolutely.

Beth:
All right, cool. Hey, you guys, check out the podcast next week because it is going to be something you don’t want to miss. I have another exceptional guest who is also an author and we will catch you guys all next Monday.

Thanks so much for hanging with me today on the podcast and remember, you can create what you crave. If you’re looking for a supportive sisterhood, I would love to see you over in our free Facebook group. As most of you know, I love camp. It’s part of, ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’ because when we’re building this thing, we’re doing this thing. We need a supportive sisterhood and I also crave more fun and more connection. Join us at camp over in the Facebook world, thecampelevategroup.com or just click on the link above and we will see you around our campfire and help you to create what you crave.