Dave Johnson

Dave, how many people do you have in your organization? I love to tell people that if you know how many people are in your organization then you're not big enough.

How long have you been with Nikken? I've been with Nikken since July of 1990, so it's been 15 years, which is half of my network marketing career. I'm an old-timer! This coming April will be our 30th anniversary in network marketing.

How did you first learn about network marketing— 30 years ago? Basically, when I was a child, I was more interested in science, particularly electronics, and I just assumed that's what I was going to do. But then I got married and got side-tracked. I was working on a forklift and basically going nowhere in a hurry and that really started to scare me.

At the time, I was 24 years old and I didn't want to go to night school forever. I got this bright idea to join the Navy. They have the best electronic schools. So, I was in boot camp as a 24 year old with all of the teenagers. In about two years, the Navy had completely cured me of my love for electronics. I just all of a sudden realized it wasn't something I wanted to do forever. I thought I wanted to be an Electronic Engineer, but the reality of spending my days inside a room with fluorescent lights and surrounded by electronic stuff wasn't fun. It was fun for a hobby, but not as an every day thing.

I decided I was more of a people person. After being in the Navy for two years, it was in 1976, a friend invited me over to his house. I thought it was just going to be him and his wife and my wife Valerie and myself, so I showed up with my best T-shirt on. When we arrived I was very surprised to see a bunch of folding chairs set up in the living room and all of these people dressed up in nice dresses and suits and ties!

A short time later we were all sitting down and it got kind of fidgety. Then another couple came in— they were smartly dressed and they walked in and set up an easel board and started drawing circles.

About an hour into the meeting they said a word I had never heard of before– Amway. And when they did, everybody got mad and left!

I found out later why, but I had never seen Amway and those circles. I felt like somebody had taken their arm and reached inside my head and opened doors inside my mind that I never knew existed. It was a literal revelation to me. The idea of duplication, the power of it, was amazing. I was one of those guys that literally saw circles on the ceiling that night as I lay in bed! I've never been the same since then! It was exciting!

Of course, they talked about a business and I had never considered a business. I got a 'D' in accounting in college, and I was thankful for that. I thought business meant you had to keep books and do something with them. But with this... somehow this was different. This was about going out and making friends and building relationships and getting people excited about something. That was exciting!

Then they gave me a book called The Magic of Thinking Big. Before that I hadn't really thought about the fact that you really do become what you think about and you can direct your life by directing your thoughts. This was powerful stuff that changed my whole life. From then on I just thought differently and it transformed me.

I was with Amway for four years, I sponsored over 50 people, and it was a wonderful experience. On the other hand, looking back at it, it was a wonderful school, but a lousy business. I never had a positive cash flow at any time that I was in it. It was expensive, but so was college.

To me it was more priceless than a college experience. So much of who I am today is because of those powerful, formative years of Amway.

David, what kept you involved even though it wasn't a positive cash flow? Basically, I just figured if you do something often enough that things will accumulate; the 'winners never quit and quitters never win' mentality. Delayed gratification didn't intimidate me. It takes time and effort to make anything happen. Any business takes time and that first night they told me that this was going to be a two to five year plan. After being in it four years and realizing I hadn't made any measurable gain, I had to make a new decision.

About that time somebody told me that phrase everybody has heard time and time again, involving the definition of insanity: continuing to do the same thing over and over expecting different results. So, I finally thought that I had to do something different. I looked around at a meeting and it actually startled me to realize that so few others who had been in the business awhile weren't making any money either. With a little further exploration, I discovered the money that was being made came to people through the books and tools rather than the soap! It was a bit devastating and left me feeling about the same way I felt when I realized there really was no Santa Claus.

I still loved the concept of the business and at the time I was subscribing to a magazine called Success Unlimited. They had regular contributors like Earl Nightingale and Paul Harvey, and just incredible articles. There was a company— as far as I know it was the very first network marketing company that put a national ad in this magazine— it was Enhance. It was a full page ad with Robert J. Luten, former president of Shaklee, and Eugene Schilling, vice president of product research. They had left Shaklee and the title on top of the ad said, "We've done it before and we're going to do it again! Experienced Leadership! Proven Management!" They said all that stuff and I thought, "I wonder, if I join this will I get away from the stigma of Amway?" So, I ended up joining Enhance, which basically carried nutrition products, in 1980 and got real excited about this better compensation plan. In three years I was making $1400 a month part time! I was selling light bulbs on the side to pay for my multi-level marketing hobby, so this was great money!

My high water mark in Amway was $112, that was my biggest check ever there.

How did your experience of Enhance continue? Basically, it was great. There was no stigma attached. You could be upfront and talk to people about it and it carried a real product that gave results. It was a really positive, fun experience. I was making money and I actually had people that were making some money, too. We did that for about three years— and then I had a bad experience.

My upline had called and said, "Hey… I think they're going down." I called their sponsor, who was a founding sponsor with the company and they said, "No, you're okay." So, I put an order in, they cashed the check and the product never came. I called to see what was wrong and the phone line was no longer in service. That was a real bummer! That's when I first heard the phrase,

"The opportunity of a lifetime is only a great as the lifetime of the opportunity."

Now, again, I had to decide what to do. Most of the Enhance leaders had gone with a company called Slender Me, a company very similar to Herbalife and one of it's contemporaries. We jumped in and I remember my very first check from Slender Me was $800+, so I was just pumped. We even signed up my in-laws and they were actually building a business with it. That was just amazing to me.

People liked the product and then we started attracting some corporate attention where people came up and actually offered to do a meeting for us. So, we went to the Holiday Inn and set up our meeting. After I picked these guys from corporate up at the airport I was listening to them talk and the more they talked, the sicker I got inside. These guys were crooked… there's just no other way to say it.

Now imagine, here we are:

My group is outside in the parking lot after the meeting talking, and rather than getting us all excited about the future and making a commitment... we all decided we had to leave the company.

At that point I'm starting to look for a new home, because by that time I'm hooked on this business and I knew if I could just hang in there long enough it would work.

Dave, tell me what still had you hooked after all this? The idea! I loved the idea and I wanted a business of my own and I wanted it in network marketing. By then I knew if I could just find the right company I would succeed.

Before you go on David, why were you so insistent about wanting your own business and why, specifically, network marketing? I think basically it went back to what I learned in Amway. I got hooked on those books and the lifestyle. In Amway the big thing they sold was not the product, but the idea of duplication and residual income. You don't want to live in a rut and be in a job. I don't want to do that. One thing I remember hearing was that you could observe the masses and if you don't want to be part of that then don't do what they do. That clicked for me. I wanted to be different.

At the time I had this little commercial wiring business and I enjoyed doing that. I could kind of name my own hours, I was making pretty good money with it and it was fun having the freedom that allowed, but my heart wasn't in it. Selling light bulbs doesn't change lives.

I had seen the sparkle come into people's eyes when I showed them this business opportunity. It was enough to give me a glimpse of the possibilities. I just needed to figure it all out.

I was learning a lot and was certainly seeing financial progress with each attempt. I was doing something different and I felt I was getting better at picking the opportunities and knew my time would come. I guess I'm an eternal optimist.

You really are! And persistence has got to be something of value to you. Sure, back when I was in Amway was when I first heard the Calvin Coolidge quote, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence". I knew my ship would come in.

Then I was introduced to a company with a horrible name, MultiWay, but the thing that really impressed me was that I was in at the beginning and the two gentleman that were the partners who started the company would actually call people I sold product to and ask for their feedback. In fact, they were on their way to Seattle to do something else and they called me and invited me to get a few people together, saying they would be happy to talk with them. So, I gathered some people in my home and the two owners of MultiWay actually came to my living room.

One was a very wealthy businessman whose wife had contracted cancer and he had taken her to the best places, only to be told there was no hope. He bumped into this Dr. Dwight McKee, one of the first pioneers in natural treatments, and this lady is alive today. That was the inspiration for the company which had some of the most sophisticated nutritional products that ever was. This was in the early eighty's when I was introduced to them and they talked of a mission. You could just feel the passion in that for them.

My feeling is that there are two types of people attracted to network marketing. One type is the 'idealist'. The other the 'bingo mentality'.

The idealist wants to change the world and they see network marketing as the lever that can magnify their influence for good. The bingo mentality is where it's just a game, and they 'play' just like they'd play bingo or craps. A lot of them are really good at it; they recognize something and ride the wave, that's all it really is for them though. I'm one of those guys who just want to make my mark and make a difference. When I heard these two guys and their vision I just really got into that.

My dad died, of cancer but I couldn't help but think he maybe died from the chemotherapy rather than the cancer. I had a big interest in alternatives and the power of what nutritionals could do. This company had some powerful stuff. What they did was they bought a manufacturer that went back to 1936, so they could have in-house manufacturing and biochemists and enzymologists. I just fell in love with what could be done.

On the other hand, after being in this for several years working my butt off— the high water mark here was $4000 a month— but understand that over time my wife and I had accumulated nine children and it costs a lot of money just to be poor with that many kids! It wasn't quite enough and I was always spending money to grow the business. MultiWay actually hired an outside consultant to see what was wrong, because I was one of their top guys and I was struggling. The consultant actually came and spent a couple of days with me and he observed that most network marketing companies have fantastic marketing and mediocre product but he said, "you guys have incredible products and you don't have mediocre marketing… you have no marketing!" A while later the company owners were introduced to an electric toothbrush from Denmark. The owners actually came to our place as one of the kickoff areas and he left me with a couple hundred of them. We started having quite a bit of fun with them. We sponsored some dental labs and dentists and discovered it was a real viable product. I remember a dentist saying to me that they liked the product, but that they felt it should be exclusive and that only dentists should be able to participate. Well, the company agreed and so they took it from us.

That was just a bummer. I've always hated Sprint, because they basically began as network marketing and once they started being successful they said, "Fine, forget you guys, we're taking it from you". That's kind of what this felt like to me.

Then one of the things that really hit me was that one of the principals had a nephew that came in and the nephew decided that we should experiment with some new marketing ideas like matrixes or something. So, he started another company. Now, that didn't feel good to me; being with a company that's actually competing with you with another brand, I just didn't like that at all.

Probably the real bane of network marketing is when your sponsor jumps ship and starts calling all your downline.

Imagine my shock when I had downline that called me to tell me they were actually contacted by the company about the new deal! And not to sign up under me but to sign up with the company directly! That just tore the heart out of me.

The saddest thing was when they asked the leaders to come down and meet with them, because they were definitely looking for ways to integrate both companies. I decided to go down there. I remember this lady I had known for years, she was a good person, but she was just screaming, in tears, saying bad words and cursing these guys that I had loved and given my heart to, because they were doing this kind of stuff.

In fact, my sponsor was there and they were the founding sponsors in MultiWay, and one of their downline had been taken and placed as one of the founding sponsors of the new company, which didn't leave my sponsor very happy. It was a violation of a sacred trust and you don't want to mess with that.

So, here I was, just turned 40 years old, had close to 15 years invested in network marketing and a large family to support, and I was starting to feel something awfully close to despair. What was I going to do, I can't just lie down. I had a wife and nine kids and a house payment coming up.

I was feeling violated and asking myself how I could ever bring someone into this business again, knowing what I know, and all I could think to do was pray.

I wanted to do something where I could make a difference and with nine kids I wanted to make money. I'd certainly been in enough jobs that I hated and I didn't want to live like that. My dream was to wake up on a Monday morning and say, "Oh boy, I get to go to work!" I didn't want that dread that starts creeping up on Sunday afternoons.

That was in May, and in July I got a call from my sponsor and I remember her saying, "I suppose you've heard Rich Cox is off chasing another rainbow?" Which he did frequently, he'd go off in some new deal and it would crash and burn and then he'd come back to MultiWay. I thought, "Well I'm looking for a rainbow. I wonder what it is they're doing." So I called up and he wasn't home, but his wife had answered and I said, "Hey, I hear you're in something new. Can you tell me what it is?" She told me it was Nikken and I had never heard of it, so I asked her what it was. When she told me it was magnetic mattresses I just got intrigued.

Of all of the other deals Rich had done a couple of years earlier, one time he called me and tried to get me into Japan Live. He told me about his sponsor who was making $20,000 a month selling these mattress pads made out of palm fiber that sounded uncomfortable, but I had known people who had their lives transformed by them, so it sounded intriguing. In fact, Rich had one and we were out in the garage one day and he told me his wife had said he could have the mattress or he could have her, but he couldn't have both. Now, here he is with a mattress again but his wife was involved so I wanted to know more.

She said they were actually working with the originator of the technology and it was a billion dollar company from Japan. I asked how they got into it and she said they heard about it from Charles Richy, the $20,000 a month man, so I called him and found out that he had walked away from Japan Live and that income because Nikken was the originator of the technology, Japan was a break off company, and that the Nikken product was more user friendly, more comfortable, much less expensive, the marketing plan pays more, a more diverse line of products and the people were much nicer.

The thing that really clicked with me was that I really liked him. I instantly bonded with Charles and he had just recently jumped ship. He already knew how to sell a product, was making a great income with an inferior product and marketing plan so I figured he's already a proven success. I already knew that if you want to be a success you need to find somebody who already is and just copy them. After spending the whole day on the phone with people and hearing about this company I remember feeling, that night, that this was my day! This was IT! I knew I was ready and it was my turn to shine. What a wonderful feeling, knowing that you know that you know!

Here was a company that had been around for years, was already tried and true, and yet with a product that everybody needed but nobody had it yet. I wanted to share this with my wife so I went upstairs, climbed into bed and said, "Hey Valerie, we're in a new business! We're going to sell magnetic mattresses!" and I remember her shuddering and saying, "Oh, David… we can't afford it." I said, "I know" and she said, "This is weird and all my friends will think it's weird too." Again I said, "I know". I just agreed with her about everything because she was right about it all. The next morning I went and signed us up. I just kept thinking, "How can it not work? I've got the 20,000 a month man with me, look at the track record of the company in Japan, we'll do that here and I know what it takes." So I promptly called everyone I knew and let them know I'd made a career change and it's the biggest, best thing I've ever seen. I invited them all to a presentation. Charles agreed to come up and give it and I let them know this might be the only time they could meet him. I called a couple hundred people and I think about 45 showed up. The interesting thing is that I hadn't even seen the product until that meeting.

So what did you say to get people to this meeting when you hadn't even seen the product? I just said this is a billion dollar company from Japan. It's big there and it's going to be big here. We're addressing aspects of health that nobody is even looking at. It involves energy and magnetics and we have a fully blown product that has already proven itself in the Japanese market and there's already a guy who's made $20,000 a month with an inferior product and he's just changed companies and I'm working with him. We're going to change the world and have lots of fun and you get to work with me!

I just said any and everything I could think of to make it sound big and let them know that I was excited and totally committed and if I had any credibility with them I wanted them to know that this is what I was going to be doing from now on. A lot of my very good friends said they'd had enough. They had already been with me in Amway or something and they were done. A lot of people are one-timers but that's something I can't comprehend personally.

Well it certainly pays to stay in! What did it feel like to stand on stage and receive a check for a million bucks? Boy, if you can imagine it, it's probably all that and more. When you think of being a millionaire and it sends shivers up your spine, well to have it all there in just one check, bang, well that was shivers all over, incredible.

And it was good marketing for the company to do something like that. We were in Nikken 10 years and I figure if we had only received that one check it would still average $100,000 a year! That's more than double what I've ever made before I got into Nikken. You know what? I LOVE this business!

David, when did you realize that this thing was just totally up, up, up and away for you? Oh goodness! It really was that very beginning, talking to Charles Richy that night. There was one thing that kind of helped prepare me. When I was doing MultiWay I was going all over the place. I was in California doing a home meeting and the lady hosting it was a typical California health nut; attractive, totally fit and just bouncing all around, the picture of vibrant health. After the meeting she asked if I had ever heard of magnetic therapy. She told me she had been in a horrific car wreck and it had basically triggered an arthritic attack that left her body in a lot of pain. Nothing worked until someone gave her a Japan Live mattress and she said it gave her back her life; total recovery, no symptoms, no medication. So I remembered that and it came back to me when I was talking to Charles and that night I really made a commitment to myself that I was going to be one of his key people and I was going to keep him so busy that he wouldn't have time to think of anything else. I knew I didn't need to reinvent the wheel because I would just do what he was doing since I, too, wanted to make $20,000 a month. So I taped him and listened to it constantly. I just stole everything he did. I even made copies of them and gave them to my friends. And we all started making $20,000 a month… just doing what successful people do! Pretty much all we did was talk to people and hand out tapes.

And that's how you built an absolute empire? Yes! You know the fundamentals are to get really good at talking to lots of people and learn their story. Learn your story, your company's story and share it with lots of people. Show them what you have and learn how to let your products talk. Get referrals from people and learn how to grow roots.

Say more about growing roots. Basically, if you can learn how to get names, things will just explode. There are two motivating forces that we all have when we look at something like this. One is the desire for gain, the desire for more, and the other is a fear of loss. And the fear of loss seems to be the more compelling to people. The best way to create a fear of loss is to find somebody that will give you a name. What I do is say to people, "If you were interested in something like this, of all the people you know, who would you most want to have in your business?" If they won't give you a name then you need to accept the reality that you are at a dead end and go down the road with someone new. You just can't build with someone who won't give you names.

My favorite thing is if I find somebody, and I like them and they like me and they will call me to give me names, then I've got a key person. It's just that simple. If I'm always calling them and they don't call me and give me names then I can't work with them.

Are you still calling people today and finding referrals? Oh, yeah, it's a habit. I can't stop. If I'm meeting somebody I'm interviewing them. It's like I'm on auto pilot.

So you're doing the same stuff you were doing ten years ago? Has anything changed? I'm doing the same things and it's just gotten better. I've really worked hard and I think we're losing ground, really, in the traditional work world. Right here in the United States there are new markets opening up, new people being born, and new people through immigration. I think the old way just doesn't work any more, that sacred trust between employee and employer doesn't seem to exist like it once did, going to school, studying hard and getting a job with the understanding that if you take care of them they'll take care of you doesn't seem to be the reality anymore. The days when your wife didn't have to work don't exist anymore. Everybody is realizing it. If you have a job you're just a commodity and there's no security at all out there. People are realizing that if they want any future, they've got to make it for themselves. Network marketing is the very best way to participate in business!

I just tell people to get a piece of paper and write down all the ideal things you'd love to have in a business. To me that would include fun, a lot of money, making a difference, personal growth, a feeling of accomplishment, the ability to bring people along with me, those are the things on my short list and the list of many others.

And of course there's the list of the things you don't like in a business. I didn't like the regulatory stuff, having to fill out paperwork, receivables and payables and inventory, and basically, you get both of those lists and compare them to something like Nikken, where you get all of the good and more and none of the bad and it's amazing, it seems almost too good to be true. And yet it's really good and it's really true!

Coupled with the heritage of a 30 year old company, well capitalized, superbly managed with unique product and the fact that people are living healthy longer it just opens us all to better and better.

David, what, to you, is the very best thing about network marketing? My favorite thing is the feeling of gratitude and accomplishment and that what I have done is important to others lives; the feeling of satisfaction. My greatest fear at 40 was to grow old and die and still have a full tank of gas; to live and die but not really ever have really lived. I already have that wonderful feeling that I'm making a difference and I love that!

Dave and Valarie Johnson live in Liberty Lake, just outside of Spokane, Washington. They have 11 children.

AUDIO COACHING | MOTIVATION | STORIES | TRAINING | SKILLS President's Circle Interview As part of a 12 month intensive coaching program with Oxyfresh leaders, CEO Richard Brooke, interviewed a select group of networkers earning over $100,000 per month. an interview with Dave Johnson approximately 90 minutes downloadable MP3 From Richard Brooke about the call:

During the 12 month intensive coaching program called the President's Circle, one of the participants asked if they could hear from a few people earning over $100k a month. I put together a list of eight people I knew, called them up and asked if they would do it.

They were from a variety of well-respected long-term companies. Dave Johnson lives close by and I had heard incredible things about him. He was very gracious in agreeing to do the call.

Each call was 90 minutes. Each of the 12 Oxyfresh field leaders introduced themselves and then I asked Dave to tell his story in detail. This took about the first 30 minutes of the call. The rest of the call was each of the leaders asking Dave one question about how he did it.

Dave's story is profoundly moving and his philosophies and strategies for building an empire are a perfect fit for our culture. The team loved him and his contribution will stay with them forever.

ATTACHMENT NETWORKING | RELATIONSHIP | PARTNERSHIP | WISDOM If you do not ask, the answer is always no! You really must have an unshakable belief in network marketing. This includes the products, the company, and the network marketing method. by Dave Johnson 491 words | 4 pages