DSA Convention 2011

Hi, everyone. Kevin thompson here from vmlmatorney.com I wanted to report about my visit last week to the DSA convention. Yes, I did join the Direct Sellers Association. That might be a surprise for some of you folks. But I was very pleasantly surprised at what I saw at the event. And although philosophically, I might disagree with some of the DSA's lobbying efforts, I'm relieved to know now that they welcome different perspectives and they want to have a conversation about challenging issues. And that's a conversation I want to be a part of, which is why I joined the association. I do not regret it. I met some fantastic people. I really enjoyed meeting a lot of people at the event. Sort of the who's who in direct selling. I'm just going to kind of. I'm going to go down a list, really, and tell you who I got to meet. I got to meet some of my competitors, Jerry Nera and Richard Walker, just extremely kind people. It was really a pleasure to sit down and talk to Jerry and get some really neat history about Amway. Such a kind man. And I got to meet his wife at dinner one night. That was really one of the highlights of the trip for me was to kind of associate with Mr. Nera. I also got to meet Badner face to face. We've had some conversations over the telephone. He was very kind and cordial. And as far as I'm concerned, Badner is just one of the best. He really has it figured out. He gets great clients, he does good work. And so it was an honor for me to meet Babner. It can be argued that he was probably the first MLM attorney. He started a long time ago, and so he really paved the way for guys like me to build the kind of practices that I have. The same with Jerry Nera. He's sort of a pioneer. Got to meet a lot of folks in software. Jerry York from By Design is a. I had a good time and good conversation meeting with him. Of course, Troy Dooley. Troy Dooley is awesome. We hung out a lot, got to break some bread together, ate at Morton's Steakhouse, and finally got to meet Jay Leissner in person. Now, this is the first time you're going to hear it right here on this video. Jay and I were putting on a conference in Las Vegas late September for MLM startup companies and existing MLMs. And we're going to talk about software, we're going to talk about pay plans, we're going to talk legal, we're going to talk about everything that a Startup entrepreneur needs to understand for taking the plunge and starting a company, we see a lack of information in that category. So we want to have a live event. We're going to record it professionally, and we're thinking about selling it after the fact. That's going to be very exciting. More information on that to come. But anyway, it was a pleasure to meet Jay Leissner. He's with Sylvina Consulting. S-Y L V I N A dot com, I think. But it might be SylvanaConsulting.com Jay's awesome and it was good to meet him. Also got to hang out with Mel Atwood. My goodness. We've been speaking for two years. We've never met live. And so I got to meet with Mel and his lovely wife Sherry. And Mel's a hustler, man. It was really fun to hang out with him. He is extremely passionate about the space and he does it all. He does software, he does pay plans, and it's good to call him a friend. And actually, Mel was one of the individuals that really encouraged me to join. So thank you, Mel, for that. Another individual that was a real privilege for me to meet was Richard Brook. I've heard so many good things about Richard in that he's a true servant. He's a fantastic executive, and he's engaged on Facebook and social media. Just to meet him in person was a real privilege for me. I had some doubts about joining the association and he encouraged me. We exchanged some messages and he really encouraged me to join and said the DSA will welcome a little different viewpoint as far as what needs to happen to fix the space. He was just very polite with me and I really appreciate it and I really respect him. And I think, you know, it's exciting because he's really trying to build a company and lead it the right way. And so I'm watching from a distance. I'm really impressed with what he's doing. I also got to meet with some of the leadership from the dsa. I got to meet with Joe Mariano briefly, as well as John Webb. John Webb is one of the lobbyists of the dsa and he is actually from. I hope I don't mess this up. Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, which is just a little bit south from where I am right now. So it's a very small world that we kind of come from the same sacred ground of Tennessee. It was good to meet those gentlemen. They were very nice and pleasant to speak with. Joe did a fantastic job at one of the general sessions, kind of outlining the DSA's mission for the next year. And actually, at one of the general sessions, they did a survey where they asked people, what's the number one issue affecting the space? And the majority of people said it's the reputation. And so Mariano sort of outlined the DSA's efforts to fix the perception of the space and improve the reputation. And I think it will be quite effective. Now, reputation, you have to be careful, because Coach Wuden from ucla, he says reputation is the shadow, while character is the real thing. Character is what casts the shadow. Reputation is sort of beyond our control. And so what I would like to see happen is that instead of focusing on fixing perception, I'd like to see us address some core issues that lead to the perception. For example, the perception of obesity is not a problem. It's the reality of it. And so instead of trying to fix the perception, obviously people need to fix the behavior that leads to the perception. So that's where smart minds can disagree as far as what needs to happen in the space to improve the perception. But it was encouraging. I really enjoyed my time there. I think unanimously. Everybody there cares about people. They care about the industry. It's an industry that I'm very passionate about, and every single person I met at the event is also very passionate about the industry. And so it was very encouraging. It's just fantastic. It's going to be a lot of fun to be a part of. So, with that said, hope you guys are doing good. It's Monday. Get back to work and I'll catch you later.