[0:59] Artemis: Certainly, well, I have always love animals and they’ve been my best friend ever since I was a child so I pursue that passion as my first career and I became a zoologist, so I’m a scientist originally.

[1:14] Jen: Wow!

[1:14] Artemis: Yes, and I worked for the Queensland National Park for wildlife service and in my spare time I was really fortunate I got to hand-rear orphaned koalas.

[1:24] Jen: How special.

[1:24] Artemis: It really was and…

[1:25] Jen: Not many people can say that.

[1:28] Artemis: No. And then I had this really major life change and I went to Indonesia for three years with my first husband and when I was there I connected very deeply with my spiritual path and I set up a centre for personal development and spirituality and I had different guest speakers come and teach yoga and meditation and different healing techniques so I was blessed to learn a lot of these things and I came back to Australia in 1995 and decided to keep going with that business because I just loved it and so I wanted to keep helping people on a spiritual level. And during that time I co-authored a book on dream interpretation. I wrote a book on personal development and I created four guided meditation CD’s and I also have my own radio show for a while and then

[2:14] Jen: Incredible.

[2:15] Artemis: Thank you. It was a pretty awesome part of my life and in 1998 life threw me this curved ball and I was just looking for something to support my own health and that’s when I found the company that I now work with as an independent distributor. And this month is actually my eighteenth year anniversary with them.

[2:33] Jen: Congratulations what a milestone. Sounds like you have a really interesting background so you were very well respected and successful in your previous career, so what was it that drew you to direct selling industry? What made you make that transition into a network marketing company?

[2:50] Artemis: You’re going to laugh at this because I often say it’s the best decision I never made. I never intended to do this as a business. In fact, I was one of those people that I had some really bad experiences with some other network marketing start-up companies where I invited people along and they joined those companies and the companies had gone under and I was feeling really burnt on network marketing. So, our company is a product led company and I was first introduced by the products. So when I found out it was actually a network marketing company that was like a dirty word to me and I vowed I’d never do this as a business and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has eaten my words because I love the product. They work so quickly they feel so great and so I was just telling my friends about it and my friends were going, “oh how do I get some?” And before I knew it I had this business growing for me.
[3:52] Jen: It’s a classic story, really. So what was the tipping point for you when you moved over to this being your primary business, at what point did you decide that that was what you’re going to do?

[4:03] Artemis: Look, I love both businesses equally. They both really filled my needs for uniqueness, expression, finance and ability to make a difference in people’s lives. And because of that, I was doing both really well and they were both growing and it reached a point that sadly, I realised there were only 24 hours in a day.

[4:31] Jen: And one of you.

[4:32] Artemis: And one of me. So I needed to make a choice, otherwise I was going to burn out and there was one really simple reason why I chose the network marketing and that is because it gives us the opportunity to create a residual income. And both directions gave me my why so I’m here to change lives, I’m here to leave the world a better place but the network marketing filled one need for me and at that stage I was hoping to start a family and I knew that I need to take some time off to do this. My spiritual career was successful because of me because of my personality, and my skills for it to build network marketing is it’s about empowering many people to fulfil their dreams and I love that it helps us create a residual income and that’s the reason I chose it as my business.

[5:26] Jen: So if you were to look back now do you feel that it was the right decision for you?

[5:29] Artemis: Hands down, absolutely, yes. And that’s because I do still feel incredibly fulfilled by it. I can still be me. In fact, that’s one of the things that I say to people about the beauty of this business is we don’t have to change we can be ourselves in all of our uniqueness, all of our beauty and yet the other thing is that what I earn now with network marketing is far more than I could have ever achieved with my spiritual work and its truly residual income, meaning that if I need to take time out then my income continues. So I’ve actually become a real convert to network marketing when it’s done ethically and when the company is in it for the long term. I see it as the most incredible root for Australians like me to be able to achieve financial freedom.

[6:24] Jen: So that brings us then to our topic, duplication versus individuality. Can you share a little bit about the power of duplication in this business model and why you chose this topic?

[6:35] Artemis: Absolutely, so I’ve already mentioned about residual income. So one of the ways that we create residual income is when we introduce the people to our products and they fall in love with those products so they become long term users.
I mentioned that I’ve been in the company for eighteen years and so there are many people in my organisation that have been using the product for almost as long as I have and that’s why good product education is such an important facet of our business. So we start with one person using our product and it grows to ten people and then a hundred people then a thousand and then ten thousand and so on. And in a network marketing company we received a percentage of the most if not all of these spending. However that’s only part of a much bigger picture because when we build a network marketing business to its potential, the real gold is found when we help other people to duplicate what we are doing. And that’s what we call leveraging.
Think of it this way, if you work twenty hours a week in your business and you have ten people sharing your passion and they’re each putting twenty hours a week into their business then suddenly instead of just having your twenty hours a week you now have two hundred and twenty hours a week, that’s eleven times twenty being spend growing your business because as they grow, so do you. So that means you suddenly created a thirty-one-and-a-half-hour work day every single day.

[8:03] Jen: And that is productivity right there.

[8:06] Artemis: Now that’s really exciting because it’s more than what you could humanly do unless you found a secret to whooping time which I haven’t. So not only do you have the benefit of all those sales from people who love your product, but you also have a huge benefit of leveraging which is where people are working toward the same goal as you and that’s benefiting them but also benefiting you and that’s really one of the reasons that I love this business model because the more we help someone else be successful, the more successful we are so it’s a truly win win business model.

[8:40] Jen: So why do you feel that individuality is important in the business model?’

[8:44] Artemis: Well, we’ve just been talking about the power of leveraging which is when you help others fall in love with the product just like you have so they can replicate what you’re doing and that’s the topic in itself, what does that replication look like. But think about marriage, if we said that every marriage had to be a cookie cutter version of every other marriage, do you think it would work for everyone?

[9:06] Jen: No.

[9:07] Artemis: No, absolutely not. So the concept of marriage and the basic guidelines of marriage, those will be consistent in individual marriages but the actual details of the relationship will be different based on the individuality of each person in that relationship and it’s the same in network marketing. Yes we want to have really good systems but we also want to provide scope for people to express themselves as individuals. And being able to do this gives us such a sense of satisfaction within ourselves. It satisfies our need as a person to be ourselves and to connect with others that are different to us and just to be this unique beautiful person that we are, so I know the importance of having systems in place that strengthen us, but we don’t want those systems to become a cage that limits us. Does that make sense?

[9:58] Jen: Sure, and I love how you linked it to a marriage because this business is really about relationship so you’re saying that you believe in both you know the importance of duplication and the importance of the individuality, but how do you strike that perfect balance in real life?

[10:14] Artemis: Okay, let’s talk about the systems first, because a good system is something that distills a repetitive task down in to steps that can be learnt and can be taught. So systems are great for some aspects of network marketing. So for example, you want to have a system for meeting people who may be interested in your product so that could be that you make a list of people you know who could be interested in your product. It might be having a booth at the trade show so that you meet people you wouldn’t otherwise meet, people that aren’t part of your circle of friends but who you have a common interest with or it might be a system whereby you offer something special in your advertising so everyone who phones up receives a free gift as a means of generating inquiries.
So that’s where the system comes in, but then you want the individual expression as well and I’ve notice that people are the most successful in this business when they’re talking with authority to people that look up to them or people that respect them and so I like to give people the best chance of success straight out by making sure they’re communicating with an audience that will listen to them.

[11:25] Jen: So can you tell me how do you do that?

[11:27] Artemis: Okay, one of my secret is that I ask people to identify three passions in their lives. So if I was talking about myself, my three passions are animals, spirituality and adventure. When we have an area of passion in something that we love so much that we’re knowledgeable in this area, and because of that we can speak with credibility and confidence and people listen to us when we’re sharing from these space. We got authority when we speak about something we love and that’s have a really magnetic quality. So, I want to set people up for the best chance of success so that’s why I encourage them to blossom their business firstly in these areas of their passions.

[12:12] Jen: So can you give us an example of how you’ve done this with your three passions then?

[12:16] Artemis: Absolutely, so I mentioned one of my passion which is my spiritual journey so I was running spiritual development classes around Australia and I just suddenly have this great idea to piggy back the products that I use from our company of what I was already doing. I just think that’s such a good idea rather than creating a whole separate business if we can bring the products from our network marketing business and integrate it with something we’re already doing that’s just makes the most sense to me. So I was teaching people how to see auras as part of the class or the energy field. So I was showing them how to literally look at someone and see this light appearing around a person’s head and I thought, I wonder what our product will do to their aura and I used it and it made a huge difference really quickly. So suddenly I had all these spiritual people in my class who’s getting very excited about our products and they were seeing the impact of them in their aura and they were extra side-tracking my spiritual classes because they wanted to know about this amazing new product that I was using. Well that’s not totally duplicable and that not everyone will be able to use that same approach.

[13:30] Jen: That’s why your individuality.

[13:32] Artemis: Exactly, so then my second passion is animals so honestly our products were not well known in the field of animals and it was something that I was exploring myself that I didn’t feel that I had enough knowledge about how to use this product in the animal field, so I invited a US holistic vet to come to Australia and teach classes about how to use our products on animals and I got these vision of what Australia will be like ten years down the track and how these classes had the potential to completely change the things of animals caring knowing what we know today and that was a bit of a punt for me but it was so successful and I guess that’s again something where I love that we can bring our products into our area of passion and try something that maybe a little different to what anyone else has done.
Again, that’s where the unique expression comes in and really have a big success so then obviously my third passion is adventure and I get to do a lot of traveling with my business to really amazing places in the world and so I’m often meeting people in a really spontaneous way. In fact I have to say one of the most common ways that I meet people when I’m travelling is that I’m sitting next to them on a plane and we’re trapped for fourteen hours.

[14:55] Jen: Yes I can relate to that.

[14:56] Artemis: It’s just amazing talking to the flight attendant; talking to the people next to me. I just feel that sometimes there’s a real synchronicity in who I ended up sitting next to. So if we get talking about what I do and if they express interest in that then I’ll take their details and I’ll follow up with them afterwards and I talk to them over the phone or via e-mail or via social media and invite them to a presentation. So for me the system is from that first contact to start small and then step by step introduce them into the product. So start with that chance meeting then go to a more in depth conversation, then provide a bit more information, then going into a class and you probably already aware of this, but often it just takes more than just that first initial contact for someone to say, yes I want to be involved. I believe that so I think sometimes I heard it takes seven or eight contact before someone typically would go, “yes, ok I feel confident that I’d like to try this.” So we do need systems in place for managing those initial communications.

[16:02] Jen: Yeah, connecting with people on that deeper level, definitely. So this is all really interesting and you obviously help others with these tools when you’re mentoring them, so can you give us an example?

[16:11] Artemis: Okay, Jen, I’m going to use you as my example, let’s say that you had fallen in love with our products and you wanted to take it further and begin sharing with others so I just say to you, Jen what are three of your passions apart from the product themselves what are the three things that you love doing, you’re passionate about in your life?

[16:33] Jen: Oh, I’d say spending time with my family and friends, travel and probably getting out and taking walks outside.

[16:45] Artemis: Ok, well let’s start with family, so what would you say, let me ask you with family, how many children do you have, what sort of ages?

[16:57] Jen: Sure, I have two young girls, they’re three and a half and two.

[17:00] Artemis: Beautiful and so how do you get support as a mom with two young girls?

[17:09] Jen: Well, we are very lucky, we are very fortunate to have a lot of friends and family around us to support us. A lot of them are mothers you know and yes, basically the grandparents are really, really big part of their lives and big part of our lives so we’re lucky in that area.

[17:28] Artemis: Beautiful, so you said you’ve got lot of friends and know a lot of other parents, so at that point what I will be doing is actually be chatting with you more about the different types of people you’re meeting. So let’s say for example that you were really interested in home schooling, then there will be some great opportunities to look at ok how would I share some of what I’m doing or some of the results I’m getting within the home schooling communities. Maybe we would look at if you’re children are a bit older we’d look at school activity groups, even connecting with other parents in playground while they watch their kids at the age that you’re children are we might look at not any type of care situations. So when children are put into home care is there some way that the products could benefit in that sort of environment.
So we just be brainstorming about all different ideas and naturally there’s going to be some of those ideas will really sound true to you and some of them might have obstacles for instance we might think “Oh, this would be great, we could get these into schools and then maybe we would find that schools have policies that don’t permit that, so then we might go ok well can we go a little broader than that?
What about advertising in a school newsletter or what about advertising on a notice board where there’s school activities so a lot of the parents were going to be near there. So it’s really just that I love that space where we together brainstorm ideas. So you love your kids and I will be looking to find that more about the types of activities that your children do and that you do and building the products into a piggy backing of those kind of things.

[19:13] Jen: Sure it makes sense.

[19:17] Artemis: And so you said that you like time walking in nature so let’s say that you said to me that you love doing outdoor yoga, well then I’ll say what a fantastic place to promote the products. What about looking at bringing it into both outdoor and indoor yoga areas of fitness group, and we would again we brainstorm about what might be some of those different areas that you felt most in your comfort zone with I guess this is really what this exercise is design to achieve. It is to help you talk to people that are just like you that share common interest with you so that if they’re mums, you’re a mum, you know what it’s like to have the kids, you can talk to them on that same level and they really going to hear you whereas for me, I never did have children, so I’m a bit more out of my depths talking to moms because I haven’t been there. That’s not my strongest area for promoting.

[20:15] Jen: That’s why you’re suggesting home schooling and I’m like, never!

[20:22] Artemis: I understand that. Now, you’ve also mentioned about travel and obviously, I talked about my captive audience when I’m on planes.

[20:30] Jen: That is something that we have in common.

[20:33] Artemis: Yes, so look this is a great way that we can tailor the audience to begin meeting each us as individuals and generally what we might say about the products could be the same that’s where we’ve got the duplication, but the audience we approach would be different depending on our zones of authority, in other words our passion.

[20:53] Jen: So just a quick question before we finish off the first part of these two-part series with Artemis. Artemis your favorite place on earth?

[21:00] Artemis: Ok, that’s a little bit hard to pick, I’ve been to some amazing places but my heart lives in Paris, all the south of France. I try to get to France every year and when I arrive I feel like I’m in my second home and when I leave I want to cry. Yes, I’m just talking about it and I’m just thinking of the beautiful food and the beautiful amazing experiences of Provins in Paris. It’s such a beautiful place.

[21:31] Jen: So you can’t live without?

[21:34] Artemis: Ok that will have to be my heart, so I’m really driven by my heart I can’t imagine living without that sense of joy and optimism in my life.

[21:43] Jen: And you’re inspired by?

[21:46] Artemis: I’m inspired by people who are out there making a difference, especially the ones who are really humble, quietly and selflessly going about changing our world.

[21:56] Jen: That’s something you see so much in this industry.

[22:00] Artemis: It is.

[22:01] Jen: Well, thank you so much for your time today, Artemis for sharing your insight from Duplication versus Individuality I think we’ve all learnt a lot from you and I look forward to part two.

[22:11] Artemis: Thank you so much, Jen.