Next Level Pros - #102: The Power of Pitch: Forbes Riley's Journey to $2.5 Billion in Sales

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of The Founder Podcast. In today’s episode, I sit down with the legendary Forbes Riley, a pioneer in the world of infomercials and sales, known for her incredible ability to sell anything and everything. Forbes opens up about her journey from going through personal challenges to achieving over $2.5 billion in sales. She shares the philosophies that drive her, the power of effective pitching, and how she turned her setbacks into comebacks. This episode is packed with valuable lessons on resilience, the art of persuasion, and the importance of believing in your goals.  Highlights:  "Life happens for you, not to you. Use your obstacles as stepping stones." "You pitch people all day; it's about making them want what you have." "Consistency and belief in your goals are the keys to achieving greatness." Timestamps: 00:00 - The Power of Infomercials02:20 - Mastering the Pitch05:57 - Working with Billy Mays10:00 - Overcoming Personal Tragedy13:44 - Age and Career Transitions20:00 - Setting Big Goals26:04 - Committing to Goals29:43 - Hypnosis and Memorization34:26 - Life-Changing Accidents39:29 - Mastering the Art of Pitchings Looking to scale your business? Want to learn directly from the same team that helped me sell my last business for 9 figures? Click this link below to check out how you can work with us. https://nextlevelhomepros.com/grow-home-service-vsl Join my community - Founder Acceleration ⁠https://www.founderacceleration.com ⁠ Apply for our next Mastermind:h⁠ttps://www.thefoundermastermind.com⁠ Golf with Chris h⁠ttps://www.golfwithchris.com⁠  Watch my latest PodcastApple- ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281S⁠Spotify- ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2⁠YouTube - @thefounderspodcast

That two and a half billion in sales comes from two places. One, infomercials, which means I'm selling people at two o'clock in the morning. You're watching TV, you and your wife are sitting in bed. What makes you pop out of bed going, I gotta get my credit card. That girl is on, I want that. Well, I thought I was just a genius at this. I didn't think I could teach it. At that point in time, I lost both my parents.

They both died from cancer. Months after that, 9-11 happened. And I'm from New York. And my entire world just fell apart. And I said, I want to make a baby. I ended up making two. A little beautiful boy and girl. Six months after that, I raised a little boy from South Central.

12 years of his life. He was the best man at my wedding. He was walking from a haircut to church on a Sunday morning, minding his own business. Kid who doesn't have a mentor, wants to get in a gang, walks up behind my Dexter. Shoots him 10 times in the back and leaves my boyfriend dead to die alone on the street. I've got six-month-old twins. I've got a husband who's not going to function for the next two years. And what do we do and how do we make our lives work?

The crazy part about this is I didn't know that I was making my best friends. My daughter, who at eight would come to HSN with me. She'd sit in the back. At 17, she's sitting in the house her and her twin brother doing covid school right at home right she comes downstairs and i've made a living my entire life i said mom what are you doing and i said nothing so why don't we teach pitching i'm like no and i said you know what screw it i'm never teaching this to anybody right i print money i literally print money so she says no you know what mom you we you made a lot of money in your life we've had a great life but you have no legacy with other people

yes who is forbes riley two and a half billion in sales it's amazing thank you started out as an ugly little girl which is a really interesting i have a lot of philosophies that i live by one of them is that life happens for you not to you and you're the sum of sum of the obstacles you overcome. Couldn't agree more. So about age eight, we realized I had a really weird mouth. You have five kids? Yeah. So my jaw was really weird. My teeth went in different directions. So at eight years old, and by the way, the only thing your little girls want, I don't care what you tell them, they want to be pretty. That's what little girls inherently want. I don't know why that is. And if you put a girl in braces for eight years and put a tongue thruster in my mouth, for three years I had a tongue like this, I couldn't communicate with anybody.

And as I'm now teaching communication and have thousands of students, I realized that all came about because I watched people waste their words. I watched people babble and not say anything. I'm like, I can't say anything. How do I get to do what I want? And I realized less words, more impact. And I realized how to become expressive to literally get what you want. And I call that the pitch.

You pitch people all day. You can pitch for money. You can pitch for investors. You can pitch to sell your company. But your wife can also pitch to go, honey, could you massage my neck? If you say yes, that's a pitch. I live by a rule. You get three yeses.

You got a credit card. So here's a look. Is that a pad? Can I run it? Yeah, absolutely. I love that you say you're the queen of pitch because I would call myself

the king of sales. So I'm excited to hang out. Well, so here's the thing. I didn't like sales. Sales intimidated me and I don't know your background that allows you to sell, but I didn't go with any money.

So being sold or selling always seemed weird. But getting a yes anytime, anywhere. So I've got a pretty much a blank slate here. Yeah. All right. I'm going to make a little prediction about you. We just met, although I do like you very much.

All right. Would you like to see something cool? Sure. So you just got my first yes. I just predicted you'd say yes. I said sure. You did say sure, but it implied, well, here's the thing. It implies a yes. Yes. And you know, in sales, and you're an expert at this, but everyone else is not. If they were,

they'd have make more money have more leads and have a better life most people are destined and designed to get a no you know how many times you get no by the time you're in first grade

lots thousands can I leave the table no can I drive the car no in school can I go to the bathroom

no you are literally taught a set of rules that all end up in the word no very rarely do you get a yes so those of us who are sitting in the back of the room going wait wait a second, this isn't working for me. First

of all, I changed the way no is. Forget no doesn't mean stop, and you know that in sales. But no for me means never-ending opportunity. Yes, the wrong person, the wrong question. And it takes a little bit of courage to do that. I think it takes a lot of practice. And I now teach an entire formula. That $2.5 billion in sales comes from two places. One, infomercials, which means I'm now teaching an entire formula. That two and a half billion in sales comes from two places. One, infomercials, which means I'm selling people at two o'clock in the morning. You're watching TV. You and your wife are sitting in bed. What makes you pop out of bed going, I've got to get my credit card.

That girl is on. I want that. Well, I thought I was just a genius at this. I didn't think I could teach it. Then I went on to home shopping. Have you ever watched QVC? I have. I have.

Did you buy anything? Mm-mm. Okay. Well, because we're not really tailored to your avatar. Yeah, I mean, it was jewelry and stuff like that. It was more just to like study the pitches. Well, you can also get a cleaner. You can get a house sprayer. You can get security lights. You can get all kinds of electronics. You can get anything you want on home shopping. I mean, it's been years. I was probably broke and, you know, a teenager. But it is a great way to learn sales because you as the guest and the host are responsible for selling $2,000 to $5,000 a minute every minute that we're on this camera. And you and I have a lot of time to chit-chat and say hi to everybody and be nice. No, no, you're out there. You have to look like you're chit-chatting and being nice.

But what you're doing is you're closing. You're closing. You are closing all the time. And I can see the numbers. And when the numbers get low, you have this different energy. And so I created this system. And the funny thing was one day my agent calls me in L.A. and says, hey, I had a contract.

I used to get paid $100,000 to sit and do an infomercial. Now, you know why someone would pay me $100,000? Because they'd make $10 million. Oh, yeah. So I'm a good investment at that, right? Yeah, why didn't you charge more? Why didn't I charge more? You know, because they didn't want to pay girls more back then. They paid all

the guys that I work with a lot more. And I was the co-host on a lot of shows that I wrote, but it was the Billy Mays, Tony Little. It was fascinating where girls got relegated. And I had this argument with Billy Mays one day. Billy's like, you have to do more two minutes.

I said, Billy, in the two-minute spots that you do that interrupt soap operas that you do so well on, you are yelling at the audience. Hey, Billy Mays here. High on cocaine. Keep going. Well, I said, Billy, if I yell at somebody through a television, you know what I look like? I look like your mom, your cranky sister, your wife, your girlfriend. It's annoying for a woman to do that right so i love the half hour format i love but half hours were on more at nighttime we still made hundreds of millions of dollars per show so you gotta you gotta answer a few questions so you're around billy mays all these guys clearly a lot of drugs going on so no no can i sit and i'm sorry from billy billy wasn't wearing

he could be done whatever he wanted not in for my presence ever and then that was the where the question circle like i mean i know for a fact because he ended up dying od right no no he no and this is that no he's a he's a really good friend i'm going to clarify that all right well appreciate the clarification he was in he first of all billy had health issues billy and i were doing a tv series called pitch men for discovery he was doing with anthony sullivan living the most amazing life he's a great father he had a new baby and he had a lot of hip issues he was on a lot of drugs like oxycotin drugs um anything he did beyond that i don't know but all i know is he couldn't walk and he was always in pain and for him to be that outgoing and i spent

a lot of time with him when you see somebody in pain so i'm gonna say that was definitely part of it he came home he when he hit tampa airport everything fell out of the overhead they had kind of a mini crash landing the next day he was gone whether something hit him whether it was a concussion something you can talk about whatever you want but i will vouch for that man well i appreciate you setting the record straight because for me a like a an opinion or a belief is only temporary until change. So I appreciate that. I definitely don't hold any overwhelming opinion about it. I'm sure that people who have a lot of money may do whatever.

It was never my scene. Right. I've always been – I'm in the National Fitness Hall of Fame. I'm a health fanatic. My husband's into health and fitness. It's real important to me. But I do know that he suffered a lot. I've lost a friend to suicide to pain.

So, you know, and I'm sorry that they did have some sense of that, but anyway, great guy. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, the media, they're full of all kinds of crap, you know, and that's why I love podcasting is we can set the record straight.

Happy to do that. You know, put the... Plus he also changed my life, but I'm, you know, it's an interesting story too because as entrepreneurs, so I took my, this to do that. Plus, he also changed my life. But it's an interesting story, too, because as entrepreneurs. So I took this new invention that I had. I'd always sold other people's products.

Yeah. I am the best spokeswoman ever. I love it. Body by Jake found me in the early 1990s. Get this. By the way, I don't know if you know my career, but I'm an actress and a television host. As an actress, movies and television. I have a new movie coming out, premiering right here in the Paris Hotel, October 5th.

It's an action-packed Western, kind of the Expendables for martial artists. I spent 30 years being a martial artist. And it's a self-invested project. Wow. So we all did this with Don the Dragon and Benny the Jet and some of the great martial artists. I'm the bad girl. I still get to do that. As a host, I started the X Games with Stuart Scott.

I had my own national radio show in 250 syndicated stations interviewing classic rock stars. I would sit across the table from far in a sting journey, Clapton, George Thorogood, going, this is a cool life. What are you doing? And then I went on to host the Laugh Factory, and I'm not even that funny. But I had a knack for being in all of these places, and I've had the most phenomenal life that probably should be in a book. I haven't done that yet. You haven't written a book? Not a book about me.

Yeah, I saw a book. You had like something about Forbes or something. Yes. What Have You Forbes Lately is a compilation book. You know, we talk about Forbes is manifesting. What have you manifested? What have I manifested? Yeah, give me one.

A lot of things. A jet. I manifested a jet and got a jet. So my daughter wants to. Did you make a certain amount of money before you bought the jet? Is that kind of how that worked for you? I wasn't making enough money to own a jet and got a jet. So my daughter wants to. Did you make a certain amount of money before you bought the jet? Is that kind of how that worked for you? I wasn't making enough money to own a jet at the point,

but in nine months I got a jet, and we were making enough money to buy a jet. All right, so you've got to talk to my daughter. My daughter's 21. Yeah. We flew in on a private jet from San Diego. She's like, Mom, so here's a great story. How old are your kids? 17, 15, 12, 10, and 5.

I love that. So I wanted to have a baby. At that point in time, I lost both my parents. They both died from cancer. Months after that, 9-11 happened. And I'm from New York. And my entire world just fell apart. Best friends with nine guys who had a firehouse a quarter mile north of World Trade Center.

Second building comes down. They're all gone, except for my brother-in-law. So now five years of absolute hell is what I don't know what happened in life. 2000 had just happened. The world is just shifting. And I said, I want to make a baby. I ended up making two, a little beautiful boy and girl.

Six months after that, I raised a little boy from South Central, black kid, a little darker than your microphone. 12 years of his life. He was the best man at my wedding. He's walking from a haircut to church on a Sunday morning, minding his own business. Kid who doesn't have a mentor, wants to get in a gang, walks up behind my Dexter, shoots him 10 times in the back, and leaves my boyfriend dead to die alone on the street. I've got six-month-old twins. I've got a husband who's not going to function for the next two years. And what do we do? And how do we make our lives work? And so as cool as the path had been up until

that point, I hit a massive wall. And as a woman, I said to myself, look, I'm not going to stop. I am basically single now. I'm going to survive. My family is going to be great. I'm going to have the most amazing kids and move this legacy forward. And that was 21 years ago. It's been an interesting second half journey the crazy part about this is i didn't know that i was i started to cry that i was making my best friends my daughter who at eight would come to hsn with me she'd sit in the back at one point this little eight-year-old oh gosh i'm on set doing something it's like mommy like what i have notes for you i'm like you have what it's like yeah your models weren't smiling. You need to stop blah, blah, blah. And that-

How old is she at the time? She's six. Wow. So by the time she's eight, she's traveling with me around the world to do events and come to things. In fact, I used to pull her out of school all the time because our motto was, don't let school get in the way of a good education. And so she's traveled around the world. It's a great motto.

Get this. At some point, she's about eight and a half years old. We are doing a Today's Special. Today's Special on Home Shopping means you're going to sell a million dollars worth of your product if you do it right. But that means everything has to be in place. I've got a spin gym. I have a bag, a book, a DVD, and a little strength cord. But they want to buy the product for a little more than I make it for, so there's no profit to me. And we're all sitting around, a group of all of my business people going,

well, what do we do? Do we sell this, sell a million dollars and make nothing but get it out there? It's like, hmm. She walks in, stands by me and said, Mom, why don't you take out the bag? I said, well, the bag's got my name on it. The bag's also 55 cents of the product. You know what 55 cents times 75,000 is? that little girl saved us 50 grand and we launched. Wow. And that's all the profit we needed to make to keep the company going.

Man. Right. At 17, she's sitting in the house, her and her twin brother doing COVID school right at home. She comes downstairs and I've made a living my entire life. I mean, I'm on networks around the world. I've got products. I said, Mom, what are you doing? And I said, nothing. She said, why don't we teach pitching? I'm like, no. Now, mind you, I don't think I realized from the age of 12, and you've got to watch your kids when you're not watching them,

from 12 to 15, she had made about $10,000 a month. I didn't know that. She'd had to deal with her dad. I knew she was building websites for some of my famous friends. She built Joe Theismann's website and his YouTube channel she did this for les brown she was in contact to all my events she's making business deals with all my famous friends wow and she's like mom look how much money i've made i'm like where did you get that she's like oh well i've just been putting

it away every time somebody write me a check or something i'm like it's amazing i didn't know i thought they were like giving you a hundred bucks. I didn't know it was like $10,000. So here's the funny thing. I'm making a hundred grand a day doing hosting. I give my contract to my agent one day and he says,

hey, I've got good news and bad news for you and I'm 42 at the time. He says, the good news is they love you. That's cool. The bad news, they want somebody younger

and less expensive. I was 42. 42 in Hollywood, you're done as a woman. That's crazy. Right. I feel young. I'm 40. What the heck?

Being called old at that age? Come on. As soon as you walk in and some young kid goes, sir, can I help you? You're going to feel it. Yeah, I feel it every once in a while. And so my agent then said, and I found her, but they want you to teach her to pitch. And I said, you know what? Screw it. I'm never teaching this to anybody. I print money. I literally print money. And so two decades later, when my daughter says, let's start a pitching

company, I said, I'm good. You have a flashback to this moment. You're like, no. Right. So she says, you know what, mom? You made a lot of money in your life. We've had a great life, but you have no legacy with other people. At that moment, we sat down. I'd never written an online course. This is four years ago. We write the course. We do a webinar on a Wednesday night. I've got 25 people in the class.

I'm going to sell my training for $1,000, right? I wake up the next morning. Cheap. $1,000? I wake up the next morning. Come on, Forbes. Hang on. They walked in for $19.

I was pretty proud of myself. I'd never done this before. Why weren't you my coach back then? All right, so I wake up the next morning, and I said to my daughter, what does the K stand for? She's like, Mom, what do you mean? I said, it says our account is 25K more than it had yesterday. She said, you enrolled everybody. You closed up.

Imagine this. You closed 100% of the room. Right. And that's how we launched our business. Four weeks. You closed 100% of the room. Right. And that's how we launched our business. Four weeks later, we had 100K in that same account. Six months later, we got a Two Comma Club award for a million dollar file. Which is fantastic, except for it should have been 10 times that.

Well, you say that, but I didn't have people who were ready to pay that. Right. Or you didn't think they were. 10 grand. 10 grand to pitch anything? Well, we can have this conversation, you know, and it's an interesting time. And maybe there's a real reason that I met you and you guys are witnessing something. So when you come from no money, did you have money when you grew up? No. But you had some mindset shifted for you. Yeah, for sure. So I grew up school teacher, stay at home mom, seven kids. We had nothing. Right. You know, but I started working at the age of nine right and it there was a shift in in my mentality after a failed bankruptcy that i've got to charge

a ton of money to always make sure i'm profitable see and my philosophy is a little different yeah is that i'm going to charge a ton of people a little bit of money to be profitable and i have an army why not an army of the army of people a ton of money you can little bit of money to be profitable. And I have an army. Why not an army of people, a ton of money? You can have both. Well, I'll tell you why. Because I would have missed out on some people that reminded me of me and my family. And so I'm shifting that.

But if you don't ever touch the people who can't really afford that or are gonna struggle to do that, I've got a lot of women in 16, 17 years old who trust me, believe me, and love me. i would rather have them be making 100 grand than take that from them you want to know my philosophy is go if they don't pay enough they won't take it seriously you only value what you pay for well while i agree with that you know it's interesting we have an interesting philosophy only i direct it differently because i talk about two watches

i talk about a swatch and rolex you got a watch got a watch. $14. One is $14,000, right? Which one do you put in the vault? Not this one. And it's just a watch. It just tells time. It's not even an Apple watch. But you value that one more. I'm going to tell you that I think that people that I attracted when I started, and it's a good philosophy for my daughter to have because I've met a lot of people, people now who want to

charge me, oh, Forbes, it's just $100,000. It's just $250,000. It's not just that. I'm sorry. In my mind, to a lot of people, that is a lot of money. And I love ROIs. I love to get people profitable fast. And I have helped now 28,000 people who think I walk on water. Now, can the next group of people do that? 10 grand, 100 grand? Absolutely. I know that I'm worth it. It's not about me being worth it. I think it was the people that I attracted. Right. And I think starting out entrepreneurs, I guess my daughter looked at me. I'd been screwed over.

I'd paid a lot of money to a lot of people and got nothing. And so my philosophy started to be, how do we find people who are being screwed over, who don't think life is fair, and can I be the champion for them? Yep. And that's what I did for four years. And I appreciate that because I have a similar mission and drive that I want to share my message with the world. Okay. Right?

But at the same time, I understand that most people that get my stuff for free or very little are not going to do anything with it. See, here's the difference. I don't – all the stuff – now, this is the little caveat. I don't sell anything. I teach and you finish my courses. Right. So I have invested four years of my life. This was the legacy thing. I don't want you to buy a $100 course or a $1,000 course. You bought a $1,000 experience or a $5,000 experience with me and you finished it. My graduation rate, my rate of completion, and we cared too much for four years. We cared a lot.

I wrote the most amazing courses. I've got people going, we've never much for four years. We cared a lot. I wrote the most amazing courses. I've got people going, we've never seen anything like this. I needed to do that. I got paid to build my business. And now I'm going to take your coaching and go to the next level. I love it. I love it. But yes, there's definitely different philosophies and things that work for everyone. And I mean, it's the same reason why I have free information out like this podcast, right? Like nobody pays for this podcast. They don't pay for this pot then how can it be valuable okay exactly exactly so it gets the general general interest right yeah but uh people always want more and so and yeah but anyways we so i've got so i've got a i've got a 21 year old daughter right now yeah who's sitting on a

multi-million dollar business she runs 16 people yeah and she's brilliant and her whole goal was to make mommy's dreams come true. That's awesome. Because mommy had been screwed over a lot between having Dexter being murdered. When I was a kid, my mom was held up in the house at gunpoint. They stole all of our jewelry and I had a weird thought. She's like, I'm just going to take great care of you. I can't believe that I found someone in my life, aside from my husband.

I want to meet this girl. I'm excited. Is she here with you? She is here with me. Oh my with me oh my goodness we gotta do dinner oh i'd love to you never you've never met anyone like her yeah i'm excited she gets on stage and she has a lot of you in her that's great it's because i'll take that as a compliment yeah be careful how i say that oh yes it is a compliment yeah you're good she's driven and she's hungry hungry and she's fun. But get back to this private jet thing. I've never talked to anybody on this private jet. Yeah.

Well, I have. But we were literally flying and McKenna says, look, as soon as we make this – and listen, this 21-year-old, mom, it's a great investment. Blah, blah, blah. Here's how we can monetize it. Here's how we can maximize it. And so what got in your brain that said I want to own a jet? You know, so it was interesting. Actually, the first thing that inspired me was, so there was a buddy of mine.

We had kind of like been similar points of our careers, and we had both had pretty good success up until that point. And one day, he posts on Instagram his new jet that he got. I'm like, dude, I need a jet. Such a growth thing. I need a jet. such a growth thing like i like and but i'd always like fantasize about the idea of it but but for me it was like you know this would make uh financial sense right 100 depreciation uh you know we live in a in a small area and it's really hard to fly direct to all of our locations right and so you know anytime i fly to like for example if i fly for where i'm at down to portland

there's no direct flight i literally have to to go through Seattle down to Portland. Like that makes no sense. Seven hours to get to Portland, which should take 45 minutes. Right. Right. And so I started calculating all these different things and I'm just like, you know, I need something to really push and drive for right now. And so actually broke out, it was a, it was a notepad similar to this. And then I later transferred it over to this. And every single day, I operated under this top 10 rule. And it was actually the rule that my buddy had shared with on his post. And I'm like, I'm going to start implementing that, and I'm going to get a jet. Top 10 rule.

And so the top 10 rule, or the daily top 10 is this. Every single day, you break out a sheet of paper paper and you say, okay, what are the 10 things that would get me absolutely amped if I accomplish before I die? Just 10 things that are big, hairy, audacious goals that are out there that maybe you can't necessarily really understand how you're going to get there, but you put it down. And so I started doing that every single day. And so with that, I implemented also what I call the inputs and outputs. So I would do top 10 things and on there was buy an eight person jet, right? Like that, that's what I wanted more than anything. Cause I thought with eight people, I could fly around

people, you know, that are with me or whatnot. And so it was there. And then my inputs and outputs. The outputs are outcomes that I want from today. Two or three things that if I accomplish these things today, it's going to get me one step closer to my top 10 and I'm going to feel like it's a fulfilled day. And then I would do what's called the inputs, where what are the things that I have to do in order to accomplish those two to three things? So what were the couple of things on that list? So some would be like a project, right?

Like launch new marketing campaign, right? So that would be like an output or an outcome from the day. And an input would be spend two hours writing new copy or spend one hour publishing the whatever right so it would be like the the actual work that i had to do to get the outcome that i that i needed you wrote that every morning every morning and i did that i did that for nine months and i so no it was it was 11 months so i saw the post in jan, December 7th, I picked up my jet, paid $6.7 million cash for that thing. And the previous year, we had only made $2.3 million. Wow. What was the big shift in income? What was the big shift?

So we went from 2.3 to 19 and a half that year. Doing? Same. But tell me what that is. Is that courses? Is that books? Is that training? No, no, no. So I ran a solar business. And so I built a business out of my garage in 2017, four and a half years later, 1100 person team. And so the big shift was between 2020 and 2021, where literally that practice I just shared with you completely shifted. And part of that practice was sell my company or sell off part of my company

to private equity for nine figures. And so I had these goals and everything that I was chasing. So that was 2021, got the jet at the end of 2021. May, we closed on our deal that valued our business at 180 million bucks. Damn, nice.

Nice. I love this. So four weeks ago, I'm with my son, spring break, and my daughter and my husband and we're having

a time of our lives in Iceland. Highly recommend Iceland, not a long- That sounds awesome. It is the Disneyland for adults. You literally land and you go to this giant lagoon.

I've never heard this about Iceland, so keep going. Oh my God. You get in a car, you go from waterfall, glacier waterfalls to these geysers. Then we went snowmobiling on top of a glacier. Then we went down into a cave, an ice cave. I'll show you some pictures.

Oh my God. Sounds awesome. I'm literally driving by this snowmobile thinking with the sunset and there's nobody anywhere. You're like, James Bond. Yeah, it was so cool. That's so cool. So we're coming back and we're in one of

these big buses that has big air tires that can ride on glacier there's three buses our bus has been a little squirrely going up there and on the way back i'm sitting with my face against the window my daughter's behind me uh joshua and my son everyone's strapped in and the guy's like you know just be careful we have a little ice next thing i know we are flying through the air and we come crashing down on my side of the bus. What? This is four weeks ago. I open my eyes. There's glass everywhere. My face is on the asphalt.

My daughter's behind me. Everyone on the bus is kind of straight. You got thrown from it? Not thrown from it. Thrown in, literally, in the bus. On the side. Boom, it fell down. Yeah, it's the glass.

Wow, that's crazy. I literally opened my face. No cuts? This is what's crazy. My hand was cut, but my face wasn't. What? Neither was my the money maker that's incredible oh you want to talk about having the hand of god or whoever's

passed before me be an angel you then read about people who die in bus accidents in iceland time people are above me are strapped in and they're being strangled by their seat belts we all get cut out of this we walk away from it i tore my shoulder in two places a lot of minor injuries my husband's his bodybuilder. And he said to me, you know, there's this bodybuilding competition in where we live for women in your age group. You want to do it? And just like you said, a list of something that would be so amazing. What do I want to do before I die?

And so three weeks ago, I said, yes, I'm going to appear in a bodybuilding competition and hook her high heel shoes. And I'm going to walk across the stage of my first bodybuilding contest. When is this going to be? June 29th. Oh, my goodness. I've got nine and a half weeks left. So you're busting your can to get this done. I am protein girl.

I'm in the air every morning at 5 a.m. I'm doing – it's just funny that you talked about how you wrote that list down because the input-output is what I'm doing with food, nutrition, mentality. Birthday cake showed up yesterday. My birthday is on Thursday. I looked at the birthday cake and it was funny. It was amazing. It was like, blow out the candle, go, pretend to taste a little bite. Not interesting.

I have a goal. And I will tell you, as I look at my husband, who I don't know why you would compete, I do now. Do you go to the gym? I do. Okay. I went there this morning. There you go.

I used to go there a lot. Do you know what I discovered about myself? What's that? I think I'm a liar. I think I've been lying to myself. I think I went to the gym to go do Instagram, to sit in the sauna and do Instagram. Get a lot of Instagram done. I'd lift a weight at Instagram. I'd lift another weight at Instagram. There was no, and I go, I was in the gym for an hour. Dude, I will tell you, in the last three weeks, I show up to the gym and I do all the sets. And Josh was not about doing three sets. He does eight to 10 sets and I'm doing them and I'm focused. And I've achieved so much in my life.

I just think it took a bus to fall on me to solidify what the next part of my life is. I love it. About not lying to yourself. And literally, I don't want any of my students anymore because I've got lots of clients who say, I want this. and then they don't do it. How dare you tell me you want to lose 10 pounds and have a donut? You're not lying to me. You're lying to you. And I think that's a lot of, so when you sat down and did that commitment, did you do that every day religiously? Every day. I probably missed five days that year. Right. And this whole act of writing things down, it is, I mean, you know what NLP is? So NLP and hypnosis and I have been friends forever.

I am a Broadway actress. I had an opportunity to Lily Tomlin, big actress, let me do her one woman show. I'm that talented that I got booked on it. We're excited.

It's 250 pages. There's no teleprompter, no ear prompter. And at some point, a week into rehearsals, I looked at the director. I said, can I talk to you?

You have to fire me he said what do you mean you're great please fire me he said what's going on i said i can't memorize this i can't even get a page into my head there's no way in a month i'm staying or however long i'm going to stand on stage and do this entire thing playing 15 characters with no teleprompter and he said do me a favor before you quit you You can't quit. Go see this person. And it was a hypnotist. Wow. And I sat on the couch and I think it was the very first time, and this is now 30 years ago. And I'm like, he said, what do you want to do? I said, I have this play here with all these pages. I can't memorize it. He said, okay, go home. I said, wait a second. I

don't want to go home. He said, well, you just said you can't do it. So go home. I said, but I can't. He said, then go home. I said, stop this. What are you doing? He said, stop saying can't. I said, oh, come on. It's not that simple. So I stood up and I said, okay, fine. I can do it. He said, go home. Because that can sounded a lot like can't, right? And then he looked at me and he said, look, has anyone ever memorized a play? Have you ever done a play? Does Beyonce do a three-hour concert and not look at her notes? I'm like, yeah, I guess it's possible. And as soon as I said it was possible, it was like a winter coat fell off of my body. And I thought, well, darn. Okay, it is possible.

I can do it. And then I asked him this great question, but how? And he said to me, there's three things you need to do. One, every morning say that you can do it. Visualize and imagine that you're there. Number two, taking long hand in script, literally which nobody does anymore. You're going to write every line of the script once.

You're going to write it again, and then you're going to hook it and write it in the air. And you're going to do this. It took me 72 consecutive hours to write the entire book in handwriting. And then you're going to say it all, listen to it every morning, and listen to it every night.

Six and a half weeks later, I did the show for eight months. Deliver it it's phenomenal switch you know consistency is such an incredible thing right like and it's yeah so one making the switch that i can it's possible being around people that help you believe that right i think that's one of the biggest reasons anyone should ever pay for a coach or a mentor or to be in a room a master class a mastermind whatever it is is to be around people that truly believe that pretty much anything's possible right like that's they proved it right they proved it and or they believe it and they're chasing it whatever it is right like your parents alive parents alive? They are, yeah.

Do they see you by a jet? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Right. But what's the reaction of mom and dad who I'm sure in their life, I never imagined they would never imagine. For sure. But you know the cool thing about my dad, like even though he wasn't really successful financially,

he was always my biggest cheerleader. Always. And like coached me on. And my mom always just like instilled in me like dream as big as you can oh and uh yeah so do you have siblings i do i have there's seven of us so what's that you're mormon i am i can feel that that's the best door-to-door sales people and i was door-to-door salesperson for a long time i'm in business with a lot of mormons i'm heading to ut Utah after this.

Yeah. I've been really blessed in the last two years to meet some phenomenal sales. I didn't realize you guys were seriously cooking up salespeople. Yeah, we know how to whip them out. Well, because it's an interesting attitude. I talked in the beginning about you knocking on doors and getting no's. How many no's did you get in a day? Right.

But you dealt with them differently. Right. You got very emotional there. What's going on? Oh, I just love my parents. Yeah. They're great. Are your other sisters and brothers as successful? They're all successful in their own ways. Yeah. They've all been financially blessed in many ways. I was just wondering if it was something that set you apart or was the

environment? Definitely our environment shaped us. I had some things that set me apart for sure, like being diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, uh, you know, uh, I think that was like one of the biggest factors that really just like, you know, honed in discipline and all kinds of different things that, uh, really made me pay attention to that. My life is valuable and if I don't take care of it, I could be gone very quick. Right. Like I, I knew other diabetics that died at age 20 and that type of thing. But yeah, but definitely my other siblings have done very well. But it goes back to this moment because all the people who are listening to us right now, everyone's got those limiting beliefs about themselves.

And I go back to my story of whatever happened to me when I was younger. And if you choose to let all that be your foundation as opposed to your excuse, your life is fantastic. And I value people. I love learning from people who've lost it all. How did you do that? You lost it and then you regained it. I want to know that lesson.

And I don't want to know what you did. I want to know how you felt doing it. It's like, wait a second. Somewhere in you, again, this little switch that's like, oh, you made a decision to be successful, didn't you? Absolutely. And it changed everything. Yeah, there was there were several moments in my life in which i have happened but yeah losing it all for sure filing bankruptcy for 2.2 million at the age of 27 you know that was why yeah everything i mean a lot of reasons

poor decisions bad pricing bad partnerships, all kinds of different things. Do you teach those lessons? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, ego is one of the big things that led to my demise. And yeah. I would call it a demise, hiccup. My short-term demise. It was definitely short, you know, it was definitely a demise at the time. And then what was the decision and what was the process to come back? Because this really is what I love to hear.

Yeah, I mean, the decision was like, do I hang it up, stop chasing my dreams, go get a normal job, go down the medical path that I was planning on doing from age six, like being a doctor, you know, and just go back and do what everybody else was telling me or do I take the lessons that I had learned up until that point,

go and apply it, figure out and study the principles of success, and go and apply it? Yeah, and that's what I chose. But there's a lot, and we can talk later about it, but my audience has heard these stories way too many times. That's all right. How important is faith to you? Absolutely, 100%.

Like, top. Yeah, God number one for me, for sure. So two things. One, thank you for sharing the wreck, the accident that you had. I actually recently had a very similar experience a year ago. So head on uh with the drunk driver coming at me 130 miles an hour oh my god and with two of my sons in in the car and

and uh we should have been dead for sure we should have we should have absolutely been dead and had we not been driving a tesla we would have um my son wasn't wearing a seatbelt in the back, and the back end of my car was completely demolished, and only the battery, the weight of the battery kept us from rolling, and had we rolled, he would have been dead. So, yeah, but like those type of wake-up moments that really like put life into perspective. Okay, what is my purpose? What is my direction?

Why does God still have me here? Right. From, cause you know, I had a, a guy that managed our fleet of 250 vehicles that worked for me that had previously worked for the state, uh, uh, the state patrol and said he had been on scene 2000 of these different types of wrecks. And he said, mine was the worst without fatality. Oh, wow. And you know, and so like things like that, you're like, wow, yeah, God, God wants me here. I have a purpose. It's, it's bigger than just, you know, building and growing and selling a company.

And so it was shortly thereafter that I launched my podcast. Really? Yeah. So, yeah. The good story is I've had one for 20 years now. I love this. I love it. It's a great time and excuse to meet people as opposed to just going out to dinner yeah it's like memorializing a really intimate

fun conversation yep yeah other other question which is completely off topic but uh you have an android oh dude you was with people oh my god i was like i'm gonna keep it now because it's so freaking disruptive oh man you know what four three two years ago whenever i bought it the camera was better i'm crazy about cameras oh the new iphone i've got everybody in my world has an iphone i get to use it all the time but thank you this is not nice to pick on yes you pick on me i'm not gonna give you my spin gym now no spin gym for you but here's the here's the reality you know i mean when i when i send somebody a text and it goes through as an iMessage i'm like all right it's a real human being and when i send it and i get a

green bubble i'm like are they real is it a bot is it am i texting a computer like is this is this a real human or is this really forbes and she shows up. Sure enough, she's got an Android. So I have to give you a hard time about that. You technology geeks. It's totally fine. Everything else in my world is a Mac. I just like my camera. And for a while it was better.

And now iPhone has just stepped up with this new titanium. I get it. I pick on something else. Come on, go for it. Well, I mean, I don't want to pick on you anymore, but Forbes, it's been incredible hanging out with you. Thank you. It's been a good time. And I would say that you're close to the best guest I've ever had.

Well, I'll just be the closest female. You know what? I'll tell you what. I just can't select one, but you're absolutely phenomenal. Well, I wouldn't want you to, but I will tell you. I did not really watch who you were until recently, And I started watching your shows before I came on. And there is a sense, I know why you're successful. Thank you. Do you know why you get it? I mean, I would love to. I always like a good compliment. Keep going.

Well, you know, it's funny when I also hear the accident too. I think people who do get a wake up call have a little different sense of what we're doing here. Yeah. And I'm glad a bus fell on me because I don't think I would... I was going down a path. I was fine, but something just amped up. A new mission, a new sense of purpose.

And maybe it's... You know, I often say that I don't... I've never seen a burning bush. Have you? No. No. So I'm not sure how you communicate with the bush, but I do think that God talks with people. Absolutely.

I do think that everything that you said that I need to hear from the airplane to the way you are with your family, to your parents, not only did I hear, obviously it's memorialized for everyone to hear, but that comes from a higher power. Absolutely. It's one reason I love to, you know, we haven't talked about, oh my God, this is so, we've yacked, but we haven't talked about what I do at all. What do you do? Well, you sell information. No, I don't. I actually don't i actually kind of your it's your daughter's business no no people out of pitch no okay i'm just guessing now i know come on give me your

iphone the war of the phones um no okay i i do teach people how to pitch i'm gonna start with the question it's funny you said what do you? Because the question I ask people all the time is, what do you do? What do you do? It's a great question. So what do I do? I have a mission of impacting 2 billion people across the world and changing lives through entrepreneurship. Okay. So I'm going to give you guys a lesson. This is what I teach. Number one, stop telling people what they need in your business. So they don't need a solar panel. They don't need a coach. You want to get them to want what you have so that they want to get electricity, care of the sun.

They want to train with you. I would question the way you said what you said. I'm a master at listening to people's words. And not a joke. I want to impact 2 billion. My question is, why would you limit? That's not a good way to say it. What if you start a sentence that says as?

Now, and I'm not kidding. This is what I love doing. When you network, when you meet people, I call it one minute to millions. When people talk to me or they pitch me or they pitch anybody, they yak a lot. They don't always say what they want. They have no assumptions about who they're talking to, and they don't close deals. Do you find that to be true? Sure.

And if people knew that, wouldn't life be better? Absolutely. So if I meet you at a party, literally I have no idea who you are, and I say, hey, nice to see you, Chris, what do you do? What do you say? I said I'm on a mission of impacting over 2 billion people on the earth through helping them influence their employees physically, economically, their associations, and their spirituality. And so if you're listening to that, don't let him hear you.

You kind of heard like the 2 billion. I'm not sure how you do what you do. So what if you said, and I know nothing about you in that one sentence, right? As someone who sold as someone who's exited businesses, I'm on a mission. Would that change if you started the word as absolutely. And this is, you're going to help me pitch better. I'm a fantastic closer. You're going to help me pitch better. You know, I, that, that is my specialty. I can hone this, guys. I get invited into companies. I sit with CEOs and sales teams all day, every day.

Who, they say words, and it irks me so much. It's like nails on a chalkboard. When I hear the misuse of words, I would stop saying two billion. I think, no, because I get that your mission is that big, just from who you are. As someone who's built multiple nine-figure businesses. Who did you say that? That's massive credibility. Right there, I don't care what you say next.

I might want to know you. Because as someone who's done that, now what? Right. Now the next question is, a sub-question, not what can you do, but what can you do for me?

So if I meet you at a party, I don't really care what you do. Nobody cares what you do. They care what you can do for them. So that's nice that you exited those businesses. It's nice that you have 2 billion people you want a party. I don't really care what you do. Nobody cares what you do. They care what you can do for them. So that's nice that you exited those businesses. Nice that you have 2 billion people you want to meet. Why do I care? So if I were to meet you. So as somebody that's exited multiple nine-figure businesses, I'm here to help you build a similar culture in your mission that I was able to create within mine. You know the funny thing? While all that's true, I wouldn't say that when you first meet somebody.

You have a really cool podcast, don't you? I do. Yeah, how do you find guests? I mean, reaching out to people and networking and everything else, yeah. I don't know that I would say all of those things about what you want to do for someone, except maybe with the podcast. Hey, as somebody who's exited multiple nine-figure businesses,

even one is impressive. I now spend time uplifting entrepreneurs. I've got a podcast that can up-level your personal credibility. And if that's interesting or you know somebody who's at that level, love to meet them. Great pitch.

And then move on. I love it. So that's just one of the myriad of things that I love. I love spending time honing somebody's message. And you can go back and say exactly what you wanted. But I love the idea that if you could impact other people's ears faster, your progress, because I'm sorry, don't you want a 10-figure business exit? It's true. It's true, yeah.

I'm just in the lowly nines. I know. It feels so bad for you. It's terrible. It's true. It's true. You're so funny. Man, Forbes, for you. It's terrible. It's true. It's true. You're so funny. Man, Forbes, phenomenal.

Phenomenal. Just that little tweak right there with the pitch. Obviously, you're the queen of pitch. Oh, whoa. Thank you, thank you all. And one of my top guests I've ever had. You know, there's a very funny thing here. I hope you guys were watching.

Whether that's true or not, the fact that he thought to say it publicly, we all saw that, that was something that I jokingly said I wanted. So if you pitch someone to get what you want and you give it to them, you know what we call that in my world? What's that?

Forbes-ing it. Forbes-ing it. What have you Forbes lately? Oh my goodness. Good stuff, Forbes. Where is the best place for our listeners to find you? Is it Instagram? Is it X?

Is it X? It sounds ridiculous. I know. I can't help. I've got to say Twitter. I know. Elon, you screwed up there. Hey, here's the thing.

I'll give you guys a free gift. So if you go to www.freegiftfromforbes, there's a template there that will just what I worked with you. It's completely free. There's a template there that will just what I worked with you. It's completely free. It's got 15 prompts. It will change your business and the way you communicate my gift to you for free. And just go to Forbes Riley everywhere, Instagram, Facebook. It's my name. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much, Forbes. Until next time.