Special Guest Expert - Ben Dixon: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Ben Dixon: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How many times have you said to yourself, I'm going to succeed? And yet you keep coming up short? You probably noticed that high achievers with heart do things differently, but you just can't put your finger on it. You're curious about why high achievers accomplish more and have more satisfying relationships. It's because success is the result of your mindset and the consistent actions you take. This show is designed with your success in mind by revealing these powerful patterns of our dynamic individuals and guest experts, you can model what they do and apply to your future success now. Let's roll up our sleeves and get started. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is the Success Patterns Show. And happy Tuesday, everyone. And it is a very special success pattern show today it is the Freedom Success Pattern Show. Happy 4th of July, everyone. I'm glad that you're tuning in. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle, and you're in for a very special treat today. Success patterns are valuable than ideas. Let me explain. Ideas, while very powerful, require trial and error and a lot of time to put into action. Just think about manufacturing. First you have an idea, then you have a proof of concept. Then you have a working prototype. Then you have small production batches and then you finally go into full scale production. This can take months, maybe even years. And you may have met some people that are collectors of great ideas, but do little else. Forget everything that you've heard about ideas. You're not looking for ideas. You are looking for success patterns. Success patterns are different. Success patterns are better. Why? Well, success patterns are proven. Have a logical sequence of steps to follow, have an action imperative and deliver consistent results. So make sure that you have something to write on and write with. As we are going into this very special freedom show today. Because in this content rich program today, we have a very special guest and you're going to learn valuable success patterns from him. His name is Ben Dixon. He has served as the CEO of Maxam for the last ten years. Now, when you see him, you're going to go, when did he start? When he was three. He it is a referral marketing platform provider. And with his leadership and under his leadership, the teams have launched over 130 some referral marketing platforms for clients across all of North America, South America and Europe. Ben also serves as president of the Direct Selling Executive Forum and Podcast, bringing relevant education and conversations to the direct selling space. Outside of his time collaborating with clients, you can find Ben enjoying his life with his beautiful family, his wife and his wonderful three kids. And I can't wait till we go into this content rich program and Freedom Show. And I have him right here from Illinois.

Ben Dixon:
Happy 4th of July, everybody.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Happy Fourth.

Ben Dixon:
Oh, man. Thank you so much for having me here today. It's super fun being in town to get a chance to come onto the show live instead of us just meeting up online. How much fun is this?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I know, you know, the other day I was telling one of my clients and they said, well, should we do this program, this training program via Zoom or should we do it live? And I said, So here's the thing, Zoom. Everyone got really, really tired with Zoom and everyone got really, really comfortable with Zoom. So my idea was, you know what? Let me fly to you. Let me come to you and let me do a training. And I'm so glad that you're here in town from the Windy City.

Ben Dixon:
Absolutely. Well, it's pumped to be here in Atlanta today. Happy Fourth, everybody, who's joining us on the session. It's good to have you here.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yes. So happy Fourth. Now since today is the 4th of July and you are passionate about the direct selling and affiliate world and that creates a lot of freedom. So how did that you know, and I was joking earlier, I said, when you see when you see Ben, you would think, you know, did he start when he was three? You're a young dude. Yeah. What what made you so passionate about giving not just yourself, because you've created freedom for yourself and your young family, but for others. Tell me and tell us about this. You know.

Ben Dixon:
It's interesting when you bring up direct sales, Birgitta and that story. And I think for anybody who's looking for success in their life, they're not going to take action unless they believe it's possible for themselves. And so you talked about action earlier and manufacturing and goals. Well, guess what? You won't do anything in your life if you don't first believe it's possible. For you and for me. I was I was a young kid. I was 16 when I watched my sister have success in direct sales. So you always have a person who opened up that door in your world. For me, I watched my sister join a direct selling company. She was a school teacher in Aurora, Illinois, with a master's degree, literally not even making 40,000 bucks a year and said, Man, I got to change my life and take action if I want to create more results. And so I watched that for three years and she had an incredible story. Not many people have success like she did. It's not normal, but she was one of those people who did make over six figures. Her first year, she was selling a high ticket real estate education. Former direct sales. And for me, it was that moment as a young person saying, Hey, if my sister can do that, what can I do?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So there's a pattern that you have noticed at a very young age. And I'm interested in the little Ben growing up. Was that something that was fostered in your in your upbringing?

Ben Dixon:
Yeah. Had incredible parents. So my my mom's in heaven now. We lost her to cancer two years ago this last week. Pancreatic cancer is just a crazy one. If any of you have gone through that and just so sorry to you guys. It is a it is a weird one, but no, my my father grew up in an entrepreneurial family. We actually have had a manufacturing business since World War Two that our family started making the 20 millimeter cannon on the back of PT boats in order to it was my great grandfather, but I didn't want to go into the manufacturing business as a young person or as a as a kid in that space and watching what was possible for my sister made me say, okay, well, I can do that. But I didn't have success right away. Like she did it wasn't the same thing. I thought I knew it all. Jumping into it after watching for three years and failed miserably for ten months, didn't even make a dollar my first ten months in that business. But you needed that moment to humble yourself, to be able to then go take the action you needed to take to win. And so the next three years after that were just remarkable. But those those first ten months for me were not the same as hers.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So there wasn't really a failure in those ten months. There was a lot of feedback.

Ben Dixon:
Well, if you if you think about it, people think success is this. This like you say, feedback. Ray Ray Dalio talks about feedback loops. He has a really great from his book principles if you guys I was like giving out books on shows and so if you haven't read principles from Ray Dalio gang, he actually has these little vignettes, these little videos that go with it. I can even give you a link to this one in the show notes. Yeah, He talks about how it's about the loops of failure and how you learn from it is the road to success. So, you know, climbing this road to your goal of whatever that success is and success changes for everybody. You've defined a goal and then you get there and then you define a new one, and then you get there and you define a new one and you get there. But as you hit the real market, something's not going to go the way you planned. It's not going to work the way you wanted. And what you do with that feedback is what's going to allow you to either ascend or descend that path of what you're on.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So it never is. I mean, we've seen all that chart with, you know, what we think success is that that linear line and then the just the, the wombo jumbo Scribbly Scrabbly. Yeah. And so, but there was feedback for you of what not to do exactly. And then from what not to do, you figured out, okay, so if this is not working, I'm going to do this and that's working. Yeah.

Ben Dixon:
And the big thing for me at that time was realizing that not everybody is my customer. And so I think you can all hear that on this show. If any of you have gotten excited about a business and you think, well, well, anybody could use what I have and you're out there targeting anybody and everybody, you're not going to win. You're not. Yeah. And and it was when I only when I narrowed who my customer was to this super narrow niche that I started to have massive success in that business.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I love what you just said and it's so powerful because I have so many clients that say that, say exactly that or anyone can.

Ben Dixon:
Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Exactly. You know, and anyone who uses my product, my service, but then be the power in the, in the niche and the power in the being specific is is the key. And you know what I often hear and I'm pretty sure you hear the same, is that it doesn't have to be something like mind blowing and so completely out of this world different but just that just a tad different that will that will create your niche. How did you do that?

Ben Dixon:
So I'm no longer in that business today. I've been running platforms for companies, but when I was an actual sales person and direct sales, our product was real estate education. We were selling seminars on how to make money flipping houses. And what I realized was I said, Well, there are people who have read certain books and have already have the income to be working on properties and flipping houses. Who would already want this if only they knew it existed. And and what I ended up targeting was airline pilots in Chicago. Back then, Facebook was not monetizing the way they are today. There's this there was this tool years ago. You guys are going to tell you how old I am because this is 20 years ago. So 20 years ago, right. There was a tool on Facebook called Advanced Search and this thing was free. And it's just silly. Birgitta, you could go into advanced search and say, I want everyone who is a pilot at United Airlines who lives in Chicagoland, who's read Rich Dad, Poor Dad Go and No Yeah for Free. And it would just give you a list literally on Facebook of all these folks and would be like, Hey, my family's pilots, we're friends. Hey, I see that you're doing stuff in real estate too. We should get together and would sell them seminars. And that was literally it. It wasn't any more complicated than that. Facebook caught on to advanced search being valuable and being this power tool quickly in 2000. Eight and nine that started the options started to get lower and lower and lower. What you were allowed to do in advanced search. And then his ads platforms raised up in zero nine and ten. It completely went away. Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So and then and then you decided actually, let me move away from servicing pilots in the Chicago area to actually serving the industry in creating these platforms.

Ben Dixon:
And that actually came from it was it came from this need of after in direct sales. There's this kind of an idealization at times it happens of big leaders. And I didn't like it. I didn't need to be the person in the sports car. That's God and all that. It just wasn't what I wanted. I didn't need that in my ego and who I was. But I love the part that was sincere and good in direct selling of helping families earn extra income. And so what I realized quickly was just for me, being a distributor wasn't my long term path. I wanted to serve the industry as a whole. And so I ended up building a blogging system that I sold to a company called Usana and a company called XanGo back in 2009 and then partnered up with Rod Kirby, the owner of Maxim, in 2010. And we've just had a blast for the last 13 years growing that company from just seven folks when we started together. And there's 65 of us here today.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Wow, 65. And then Ben and I met in 2018.

Ben Dixon:
Yeah, 18, 2018. One of our clients. Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
With one of our clients. Exactly.

Ben Dixon:
On stage the same day together. Yeah. Then you get to meet. Oh, high five. Yeah, exactly. High fives. All right. We're just swapping mikes that day. That was.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Fun.

Ben Dixon:
That was fun. Las Vegas. That.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
That was right. That was Las Vegas. And. And. And then the pandemic happened, and you didn't sit on your hands? I didn't sit on my hands. You created a studio. We created the studio here in Atlanta. You in Chicago? Um, and with everything I like to call them chainsaws with all the chain chainsaws that you're juggling, right? You throw in your wife and your kids in the mix. How do you keep it? I don't want to call it balance, but how do you keep it at a level?

Ben Dixon:
Well, you actually prioritize the things that matter to you in life. And so what a concept. So I think I like how I like how Grant Cardone says it. So whether you love or dislike Grant Cardone, there are some things he says that are really, really valuable. And so Grant Cardone said this really well in his book seller Be Sold. And, and I dropped lots of book references. Gang just because I'm addicted to audiobooks, if you guys aren't on platforms like Audible or Apple Books and filling your mind with audiobooks when you're working out, when you're traveling, you need to. If you're not listening to Birgitta's podcast or one of our podcasts, you don't waste that time. Okay? It's fun to listen to music. I love music. I'm a musician as well. But guess what? You want to spend. If you can do 20% of your time on that fun music stuff and 80% on learning and growing from other people's challenges and feeding yourself, that's how you're going to outpace your peers. Gang, if you want to know that that's the hack. If you if there's any hack, it's filling your mind with other people's lessons of what they've learned and what they've already gone through so that you don't have to spend ten years going through that mess to learn that lesson. That's right. So that's that's there's books of everyone else who's been through situations just like you and challenges just like you and have overcome them. And if only you heard their story, you could skip that chapter and move on to the.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Next and learn those.

Ben Dixon:
Patterns and learn those patterns. So so to the question, I am an avid time blocker. Everyone has their own system. I completely live out of my calendar and that's how I do it. So I have a block, I have blocks in the morning, I have breakfast with my kids every day. I wake up before them and exercise and listen to audiobooks. I then have breakfast with my kids and start the day. Sometimes I actually get to do the homeschool teaching math. My oldest is entering fourth grade and so we we get to do lots of homeschool stuff together. And then I start my day with clients. I just don't take client meetings before 8 a.m. There are, of course, days that I do take them because of our European clients. And when I do that, I do it much earlier, so I don't put it over my family block. I'll do it at like 5 a.m. my time or 6 a.m. my time, not that 7 to 8 a.m. when I know I'm going to be with my kids. And then a big one that took me a long time to learn was actually having dinner with my family. So I have a block. I don't take client meetings from 5 to 7 where that's just really important time where I'm with my family. So if I'm working with someone in Asia and I need to be up late for a meeting many times I'll book those meetings for after I've already put my kids to bed. Right. Yeah. And, and, and that's, that's a big part. The other part of just we're in this culture of where you always have to do more, do more, do more to get ahead in your life. And many times we haven't learned the skills, Brigitta, of how to train up other people and how to duplicate and how to give them responsibilities. And so one of the books that I'll just share because, because, because getting to 65 employees, it's been a totally different business at ten employees. And I remember 12 being a big deal moving from 7 to 12. Wow. 12 was a big deal. And I remember 22.

Ben Dixon:
Being a really big deal. And then 40 was like, Wow, this is really different. And 65 is very different. So like I couldn't get there the whole way in the book. That's really been a blessing to both Rod and my. The founder of our company, my partner and myself has been Gino Whitman's traction. So if you haven't read that and that's one, I would not do an audio as we just talked about audiobooks being the bomb. I would I would get that one on paper because there's a lot of diagrams in it and it's just more helpful. I think it's harder one to get on audio, but it's very simple as a handbook and in in that book it's a, it's it's the E-Myth revisited from the 90s rewritten for today and it's been out for over ten years. But it's a fantastic book that will help you think through how you define roles and accountabilities inside of your company and how you set your own people up for success and how you're able to lead, manage and hold people accountable while at the same time setting expectations and all the things you need to do to be able to grow an enterprise and scale and expand others? Well, it's a perfect book for anyone who's in that 0 to $10 million a year Mark. That's what I would share with everybody.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. So traction. Go get that book. Now I have a I have a question about direct selling. That's one very unique and very specific niche. Right? But there's so much learned and I'm pretty sure we have a bunch of viewers that have at one point been in the direct selling network marketing arena and have learned a lot just by going through that and have chosen to not do that anymore. You chose to actually you came through that arena and you chose to build platforms for exactly that. What would you say is would be the common denominator of direct selling or not direct selling that people that are highly successful in either arena, the, I'm going to say traditional or direct selling that they would have in common?

Ben Dixon:
Well, I think we need to expand beyond just direct selling, because I spend a lot of time on referral marketing platforms. So referral marketing is this word we use. That's a that's overarching. And so on referral marketing, there's extremes on one side, there's affiliate programs that are just here's your link, go share the link, good luck. And you move further over and there's influencer programs or social selling programs or maybe party plan programs where you're rewarded for group selling and then direct selling programs and then over way over here, network marketing, MLM. So there's, there's extremes. And I've written some articles on this actually that I could share. I can send you for the show notes of just the range of what is referral marketing. And when I think about some of a lot of the skills from that space, the ones that move over, whether it's into insurance companies or real estate or anyone else who needs to sell, right. We all need to sell in our businesses is understanding how to connect with a customer, how to understanding how to explain a value proposition and when to invite and how to trial close and how much follow up is actually required to move someone who's never heard of you before to a decision? You know, I think people learn really quickly in direct sales that you can't just ask 2 or 3 times because you're letting go before any decision is going to be made. It takes 7 to 10, sometimes 20 exposures to content and information for somebody to make a decision. And so you're you're ending way too short if you think, oh, well, I've already taken them to 2 or 3 touches and they weren't interested. And if you take that attitude from direct sales and and apply that, you're not going to be successful in real estate as a realtor, you won't be successful as an insurance broker, car salesman. None of that is going to convert over.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Right? So so it's the it's the communication, but not just the communication. It's it's the knowledge of how to communicate to the individual and the touchpoints.

Ben Dixon:
Well, it's the expectation of what it takes to be successful. I think what a great learning ground for people. You know, you think of traditional businesses, whether it's opening a subway in town or getting a license for a Chick fil A or buying a real estate brokerage, they all have large investments. You think of your studio here, you and your family made a large investment to build this beautiful studio. And then you look over at direct sales and network marketing. Many of those businesses are less than $1,000 to get involved in and to to run for 95. Exactly. For 95. What is it, 99 bucks, 49, 95. Some are. Some are 50 bucks. Right. And so thinking about that, what an awesome way for somebody to learn the skills required to be able to do lead generation, connect with a customer or sell a product or service, that's all incredibly valuable. And what did you risk? You risked what? Not even what you would spend going out to dinner a few nights in a row. Many times. So a.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Month, a month of Starbucks, a.

Ben Dixon:
Month of Starbucks. You're less than your health insurance for one month. Like that's literally your cost of a business versus you look at other businesses, you know, you're going to spend $100,000 on franchise rights and then you're going to rent a building and lease it for five years and you're going to do all this other stuff and you're spending half. $5 million before you blink and then $1 million and you're leveraging everything very easy, just the way beginning. So you're not this isn't a bet the farm thing for so many people. And yet that's the value is is it's accessible to other people do you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Because it is a special freedom show today do you people are looking for freedom. Right. If we if we would go out on the streets here in Atlanta and we would pull folks, you know, there and we would ask them, so what do you want? Freedom? They're like, yes, where do I sign up? Sure. But then there is a there seems to be a disconnect of wanting the freedom and then having the confidence that, hey, hey, I'm worthy of having it and be I have the tools to actually get it. What would you tell those people that are that want it? And I would say, you know, without having the actual facts, but 90% of statistics are made up anyway to, you know, to have the the tools, to have the the belief in themselves.

Ben Dixon:
Yeah, well, you're not going to do anything if you don't believe it's possible. First off. So understand that there is abundance in the world. Like understand that like the person who works hard and makes $40,000 a year in the job is probably the hardest working person in our society today. Literally, your job is probably harder than any other job anyone does at the end of the day. So realize that money, whether it's in direct selling or whether it's in entrepreneurship or a side gig, is all tied to the value you create instead of your time. And so the first thing to connect to is this idea of how do I become someone who can create value with my time instead of just selling my time? Okay. And and understand that concept. First of this, just the simple idea of, wow, if I connected like real estate is a great example here. Everyone knows that realtors in America make 3 to 6% commission on the sale of a property so you could sell a property in Indiana for $30,000. And if you were the the selling realtor, you'd make your 3% of $30,000. Or you could sell one in LA for $4 million and make your percentage. So where do you want to sell real estate you want to sell at in LA, or do you want to sell it in Indiana? So so.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
There's your niche again.

Ben Dixon:
There's your niche again. But at the same time, is it going to be more competitive in LA because of the higher ticket? Yeah, that it is. There's going to be people dressed smartly like Brigitta you're going to compete with and people are going to have cool glasses like Regina and Ben, right. That you're going to have to compete with and maybe not in Indiana. Right? So so you have to understand that. But you're getting paid for the value you created. You sold a $4 million asset instead of a $30,000 asset. So you're getting paid more. So if you first understand that you can get paid for the value you create in the world instead of just your time, and then you got to find the right vehicle. And one of the misnomers just got to bring up on the show because over half of my clients at, if I think about it, are not in the traditional referral marketing network marketing, product space. There's nothing wrong. I have a lot of clients that sell skincare and wellness and all these other products. There's nothing wrong with that, but that might not be your jam. And I want you to know today more than ever, there's tons of opportunities that I call professional business opportunities. So professional business opportunities are in insurance. I have a bunch of clients who sell insurance, are in real estate. I have clients who sell real estate education and our realtors. There's people who are selling education. There's a bunch of companies in the space that sell education or future learning. These are all professional business opportunities. There's people who, like you, have a business here in NLP and training and there's coaches, right? Wow. You could be a coach and earn an income, right? These are professional business opportunities. So it's not always you saying, Oh, wow, I'm passionate about this lotion or this essential oil and I'm going to go sell that on Instagram. That's not always what it is. You may want to go learn a real skill set that not that those are not real skill sets, but learn a technician professional skill set and go do that in this space. And that's okay. You have to explore that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So being a value, building those relationships, right? We hear that so many times over that in order to for someone to make a decision that they want to work with you and that they want to give you the money, you have to have a relationship. Ben didn't just come here from Chicago to Atlanta because, you know, for one phone call, Hey, Ben, I'm bergita. You know, why don't you come over to Atlanta? Yeah, it takes it takes it takes liking each other. It takes a relationship. It takes a win, win, win. You hear me often talk about win win wins. Um, but it takes a very special confidence. I want to come back to that confidence and I want to get down a little bit deeper into that. When you failed forward, let's put it that way. Going into your company when you were 16 and you failed forward, what kept you going? Because it's. Easy to just say, You know what? I can't do this. It's not worth it or whatever other excuse people find.

Ben Dixon:
So actually, it was probably my hurt pride, actually, because there were so many people around me who I thought had lesser resources than I that were kicking my butt. And so, like, just a good example. So a like when my sister had success and I said, Well, I can do it if she can. She just wasn't a very gifted salesperson, but she was doing she could do it, could do it, and was kicking my butt. So I said, Well, my sister can do it. Of course I can do it. But I kept going to the events at that company and I remember forever there was a young Chinese lady named Ting who had married an American and moved from China, and she was literally working at McDonald's to learn English. Now, not for income for their family, but her husband, who is a successful businessman, was like, All right, Ting, now that you're here in Chicagoland, just go learn English. You can run the drive through at McDonald's. That's so dang it. Only lived in America for like two years at this time. Was just learning English and we don't make income claims of direct sales. But this is 20 years ago. I know the moment. For me she had had a $50,000 a month. She had sold five $20,000 packages.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Ting from.

Ben Dixon:
China Ting from China, two.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Years in.

Ben Dixon:
The States, in two years in the States. And I remember listening to her story saying, Here's me growing up on a farm in Chicago, in Illinois my whole life I know English. I have a relationship.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
If Ting can do it can.

Ben Dixon:
Come here from China in two years and do lead generation and call people and make 50 grand. Dang, I should be able to do this. And and that was the moment for me where I said the problem in this equation has to be me. Aha. It has to be me. Like I must be doing it wrong. So I had to get humbled and then rework the process and then actually do the work they told me to do. And when you get rid of all your excuses and really evaluate your calendar and you're like, Oh, wow, I'm, I'm not doing the actual revenue producing activities.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Picking up the.

Ben Dixon:
Phone, picking up the phone and prospecting and prospecting the right people. I was prospecting every day, but I was prospecting the the absolute wrong target for what we were doing. And so as soon as we moved the time over here to prospect the right target, 90 days later it's all happening. So it's not overnight gain. You have to remember all pipelines, all pipelines and prospecting are 90 day pipelines like all the time. Short term. Long term, it's going to take you time no matter what business you're in.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
You mean you weren't an overnight success? No.

Ben Dixon:
You could fill.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I'm yet to find one.

Ben Dixon:
You could fill this whole theory all the way back to the the 50ft of this room with bodies of people who are responsible for my success. There are. So am the last person to say I'm a self-made millionaire. My road to millionaire was with tons of other people pouring into my life selflessly. So I'm very grateful for the mentors and the people.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Expert modeling is a big, big piece in that, and I am so grateful that you shared that there were so many success patterns that Ben just described. And and yeah, it was very specific to what you were working on. But you know what I claim that that what you just described as a, as a structure that would be true for any business. Yeah. And it takes, it takes a it takes a little bit of a plugging into your own competitiveness within you because I think we all have it. Some have it more, some have it less. Sure. Um, and, and and that, and that. You said that piece of vulnerability too. I find often that people that are very competitive are not necessarily good in being vulnerable. So when did you decide that having both would be a good idea?

Ben Dixon:
Well, it was it was more of wanting to be the person I wanted to be like like there was it was very empty. There were certain like, accomplishments where when they happened, you think as a young person like, Oh, when I have 100 grand of cash in my checking account, then I'll be successful. And then people will look at me differently or treat me differently. And they didn't No one, no one cared. At the end of day, things that you really care about in your life or when I get this sports car, people will treat me differently and think differently. You get the sports car and it didn't. Did it fill the void? Right. And so for for me in my faith, right. So I'm a Christian, so I believe in Jesus and as the son of God and what he's created me to do on this planet in the short time that we're all here. And so if I'm just doing what God wants me to do in my time here, and it's not about me, and I don't believe that life's about me, It's about how am I to be of service to others and how am I to steward my time? And so I look at the schedule I keep and what I put out in the action I take as an act of stewardship, of saying for some reason, God's chosen me to be alive today. I could have had a brain aneurysm and died. I could have. I've had friends much younger than me already, pass away of crazy stuff, Had another young friend just passed away from pancreatic cancer. Same one my mom had who is not much older than me. And. And you sit here and say, why am I alive? Well, for me, okay, if I'm chosen to be alive today, then I'm going to do.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Do something. Do the very best.

Ben Dixon:
Steward this time. And so what does that look like? So look for businesses and things that are actually making a difference or creating new possibilities in other people's lives that can be a part of and just want to be of service. And so at the end of the day, that's the result you want to bring with your time. You want to when you when you go to die at the end of your life, you want people to be able to say, man, I'm so grateful that that person made a difference in my life, not just, oh, wow, look at what they, you know, oh, look at all the oh, look at their the car. You're not going to count the car or the money or that and the experiences even we idolize travel and those things in our world today. Right. In my generation especially. And and as much as we enjoy traveling, have fun traveling with it, right at the end of the day, it's going to be about people and relationships. And so you want to you want to think about how you can create something special for the people in your world. And that's going to be more rewarding than anything else. Yeah, I agree with that. It's going to be so much more rewarding to be able to to just know those relationships and and they come around, you know, I'm amazed. I had some meetings earlier this week with one gentleman. I hadn't seen him for six years and it was so funny. I had recommended the same book attraction that I recommended on the show to him six years ago. And we were in a meeting where he had been. He was newly employed as a chief revenue officer at this client's company, and we were in a meeting this week and that client had literally just gone through that book. And so it was just too funny that I was like, Oh, I recommended it to you six years ago and now your new boss has just finished that book. And it was just a whole cycle of and this is too funny how we're all connecting on using principles to grow and scale businesses together.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Success patterns, success.

Ben Dixon:
And it was just another loop. It was another six year loop of just, oh, I was looking at our LinkedIn messages and I was like, wow. The conversation we had on this last week was the exact same conversation we had six years ago, but for a different company. And it was just it was just, oh, it's the same framework we're using, you know, the same framework to to grow these businesses and scale and create more opportunities for people.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Create more opportunities for people. So in summary time ownership.

Ben Dixon:
Yeah, you have to you're accountable. No one's going to do it for you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
That's right. Choose it. Yeah. And you got to pick up the phone or whatever it is that you do. Write the copy, send out the emails. So time ownership, building relationships, bringing value to people. Yeah. And then the last thing that I heard from you was being of service, being a great steward to humanity and. And leaving. I remember when I did my dad's eulogy, the dash. You know what What is. What is that? It's so short. And yet while we're in it, it seems so long. But what's that? What's that impact that we're leaving? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That was powerful, Ben. Thank you. Now, I know people want freedom, especially today. How do they get in touch with you?

Ben Dixon:
Well, if you are in need of any of the work we do on referral marketing or looking to get in touch with us, we're most active on LinkedIn. You're welcome to follow our page on LinkedIn. Our marketing team just does an amazing job of aggregating reports and studies and content. There's a lot of education there. In addition to the work we do at Maxim, I serve as president of the Direct Selling Executives Forum, so you're welcome to go there as well. We that the Dzf published a report in January that I gave to you in the show notes that's available here. That's a viral trends report. And why it's interesting is if you're in referral marketing at all on any of those verticals in your business, the difference we found between clients that are growing virally and clients that are not growing virally because pattern, because so many people had artificial growth during Covid, right? That that was this. Oh, wow, we're growing again when everyone was home and wait, we lost that. How do we get it back? We're asking that question. We found that it's actually a decision making framework. It's how the executive team makes decisions and leads and how they choose to do what. And what not to do is what's allowing certain companies to grow virally and which ones not to. And without going into all of it here on the live stream, we'd love to share it with you. You're welcome to go to our website to see it, or you can book a time here on this link and our team will meet with you and walk through the actual viral trends report with you. But that's been a tool that has helped lots of both functional teams, even dysfunctional teams. You may find yourself where you're like, Man, I'm a part of a dysfunctional team. Like we are just not on the same page and how to grow our business. Maybe you're a CMO or CSO or CFO or COO and you're like, Man, we're just not on the same page. Your CEO and you can't get your team on the same page.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Happens often.

Ben Dixon:
Happens more than we all talk about it. Yeah, I have found that many times. If you can teach a framework, it can align everyone's goals around what's important to grow a business. So this has been a tool that's just in 2023, been creating lots of unity around how do we move forward for so many people in the space. So glad to share it with you. Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So make sure that you get with Ben. Email address. Bien. Bien at Maxim.com. So if you're if in doubt, just go to the Maxim.com website. Send a quick email to Ben at Maxim and tune in again next week, same time, same place. Ben, if you would want to leave us with one last thing. What do you want to share?

Ben Dixon:
Well, be safe tonight as you guys enjoy those fireworks. All right? And and with Birgitta's content gang, if you haven't yet subscribed to the channels, you're getting copies of all the additional content. Do subscribe and make sure you're following on your favorite device, your favorite platform so you consume the content. That's the last thing I would I would share beyond being being safe, of course, with the fourth tonight is for for you to create a commitment to learning daily. It's one of those key things, whether it's 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day while you're working out, one of the best things you can do is just create a commitment to learn daily in your life, and it's going to open up so many more doors for you. There's people like Birgitta and myself and many, many others that have gone before us who have experienced many of the challenges you're going to experience and you're going to experience challenges. There's no there's no life without challenges. You'll be dead if you're not experiencing challenges, probably because you're dead. Anytime you're alive, you're going to be experiencing challenges. And so if you're going to overcome those, there's people who've gone before you who have and you want to start feeding your mind great content every single day, 15 to 30 minutes, pick your minimum and then never, never go under. All right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Feed this so you grow your business. Yeah. Thank you.

Ben Dixon:
Thank you. Thanks for having me out here.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Fantastic so much, Ben, for being here. You got it. And for you, make sure that you're safe tonight. I'll see you again next week, Same time, same place. Thank you for tuning in. And you will notice opportunities to apply success patterns daily while eagerly anticipating next week's content rich success patterns.

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