Drew Brees

I didn't really know anything about Drew Brees prior to my involvement in Advocare but I've learned a lot since. What I have learned is that it would be hard if not impossible to find a better spokesperson. Not only because he's one of the best athletes in sports but because his integrity and his leadership can't be over-stated. See this note from his website: www.drewbrees.com, to the fans of New Orleans that are stunned over the allegations against the team's coaches over bounties paid to players for injuring opposing players.

A LETTER TO THE FANS

March 09, 2012

This has been an eventful offseason for me and my family. Brittany and I would like to thank all of you for the thoughtful words and well wishes since we announced that baby boy #3 is on the way. While we were all disappointed with the way the season ended, the offseason has given us the opportunity to reflect back on what was a truly memorable year. It has also given me the opportunity to enjoy some much needed quality time with my family.

I do feel a responsibility to my teammates, the Saints organization and to the fans, to address the "Bounty" allegations.

There is no place in the National Football League, or any sport played at any level, for players to conspire, to be coerced, or to be incentivized to intentionally injure another player. I did not participate in any Bounty program, nor did I have any knowledge relating to its real existence. I have spent the last several years as an Executive Committee Member of the NFLPA making health and safety a priority and I am proud of the advancements we've made and will continue to make.

As a leader of our football team, I feel comfortable in stating that I know well the integrity of our organization from the ownership level, to management, our head coach, and the players on our team. We, as Saints players, pride ourselves on playing this game with honor and hold ourselves to a very high standard. We also share a great sense of responsibility to our community and to each other, a strong belief in our purpose, a resiliency to overcome adversity and a work ethic and commitment to leave things better than we found them.

The accusations and perceptions alone created by this issue make us feel like we should all apologize to the young people that love our game and aspire to be in our shoes. Regardless of the outcome of the "bounty" issue, we owe it to them to provide the best example of how to behave as professionals and more importantly, as people of integrity.

To our fans, please reserve judgment until the investigation is complete and the facts in their entirety are known. We are all working diligently to find the truth in this matter and if the facts prove there was improper behavior, we will hold ourselves accountable. Until that time, we will stand together and remain united as an organization.

Thank you for your support.

Drew

Confidence

I sat down with a wealthy owner of a car dealership in Salem a couple weeks ago and before I had a chance to startup my software on my laptop, he said "Don't bother showing me the software, here's what I really want to know. Times are tough and you're a saleman trying to get a deal. What are you not going to tell me that your installer/trainer will have to tell me." It was a tough question and certainly put me on the spot, but I had no problem confidently responding to him without hesitation. Why? Because I know my product and the industry inside and out. I was confident because I knew how much I know.

Now in Advocare, my habit of relying on personal knowledge for confidence doesn't work. I'm not a nutrition expert, nor am I a trainer or athletic coach. Worse still, I'm new to an awareness of and desire to monitor and enhance my personal overall health (and most people that know me know that). I'm neither an expert nor an ideal poster child. So I have to trust somebody else to provide the intellectual and experiential prowess to base my confidence in. I don't have the answers and only get into trouble when I pretend that I do.

So... I have to trust somebody else (which doesn't come easy for me). The beauty of Advocare is that you don't need to know the details. They certainly don't condone nutritional ignorance but they also know that for the Advocare message and business to be transferable there can't be a high barrier to entry. Meaning, everybody can do the Advocare business and be successful even if they don't know a lick about nutrition. How is that possible? The 'Bullet Proof Shield'. This concept and training has been one of the best for me in my time with Advocare. We have the most esteemed and reputable researchers and experts in the field of nutrition that formulate the products. We also have some of the worlds top athletes both professional and amateur that put the products in their bodies everyday and have much more than you or I to lose by doing so.
I'd recommend all of you watch this training as soon as you can: The Bullet Proof Shield
It is very helpful both from a confidence stand point but also as a tool to preserve relationships, and deflect verbal mine fields when you share Advocare with people.

I'd also recommend you read the bios of a few of the Sci-Med board members. As a guy who completed a pre-med course of study in college and switched to a major in Chemistry my senior year (although I decided to have a life during my last year of college and switched back to business 3 weeks later), knowing the science behind the products was very important to me.

Here are 3. The Bio's are not from Advocare but are from the top University's or Hospitals that employ them:

Stanley Dudrick:
Bio: http://surgery.uthscsa.edu/grandrounds/dudrick-bio.pdf
See also this link from the American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org/news/jacobson.html
Advocare Link: http://www.advocare.com/science/board/dudrick.aspx

William Kraemer
Bio: http://www.education.uconn.edu/directory/details.cfm?id=44
Link to UConn press release on Dr. Kraemers involvement as the lead editor of
The International Olympic Committee's handbook on strength training
http://advance.uconn.edu/2002/020211/02021108.htm
Advocare Link: http://www.advocare.com/science/board/kraemer.aspx

Carl Keen:
Served 13 years as Chairman of the Dept of Nutrition at UC Davis (largest School of Nutrition in the US). Now Mars endowed Chair of Nutrition (funded by the Mars family - think Mars Candy)
http://nutrition.ucdavis.edu/faculty/keen/index.cfm
Advocare Link: https://www.advocare.com/9904246/Products/SciMed/board.aspx?name=keen

In this day and age it's not hard to get Dr's or PHD's to endorse a product for a price. Ethics is sticky even in academia. But... you can't get guys like these three (and there are more on the Sci-Med board), to put the kinds of reputation that they have on the line for something less than the best.

-Bryce

Top 5 things

Having gone to success school twice and attended a number of events this is what I've taken away as key to Advocare business growth. (I'm a work in progress on this and have far to go to put into practice what I've learned).

1. You have to treat Advocare like a business - When I asked Bob during our first meeting what separates the successful from the not successful in Advocare that's what he told me. What that means to me:
- Like any business, success won't just happen you have to work hard to build it.
- Presentation matters - I have to look and act professional to sell a professional product
- Advocare needs to make business sense in order to attract business builders
- Without a plan and goals, the business is aimless

2. You have to stay connected - Advocare has a lot of events, phone calls, motivational emails, trainings, etc... They can be overwhelming and at times redundant but... we're fickle humans and when we don't stay connected, we drift. I know this well not just in Advocare but in faith, commitments, etc... I'm not a big fan of motivational gatherings, but there is great intentionality not only to the volume of Advocare related events and notices, but to the exact timing and frequency of them. Since I'm in business for myself and have no boss, motivation has to be internal. Forcing myself to remain in the company of those that are succeeding in Advocare and keeping Advocare in front of me via reminders on my iphone of events or calls, etc... keeps me connected and intentional where left to myself I would not be.

3. You can't be smarter than the success system. Every one of the successful people in Advocare follows the fundamentals daily and swears by them. I've heard almost all of the diamonds in Advocare speak at least once and not one of them has shared a method or trick that got them to the top outside of the same fundamentals they teach to all of us. There aren't any professional sales people amongst the diamonds. It is dominated by regular people that were fueled by their purpose. Teachers, Coaches, IT Professionals, Engineers, Lawyers, Athletic Trainers, Blue Collar laborers, Pastors, and business owners.
- Perfect your 30 second and 2 minute story
- Bring people to 3rd party credibility (magazine, sponsor, event, webinar)
- Correctly sample the products
There's no safe distance or technology that can avoid the inevitable: to grow the business you have to talk to people and follow the success system again and again consistently. It's simple, but not easy. Last, if you want to produce successful distributors and Advisors then everything that you do has to be repeatable. If you build your business on your superior technological prowess or doing booths at trade shows, or things like that that aren't easily reproducible by others than no one will follow you. Your followers will do what you did, and that only if they can. Everybody can talk to someone and share theirs and two other's story. The simplicity is intentional.

4. Honesty is King - Most people have a pre-conditioned response to hearing about a direct sales anything. I do. The immediate wall that comes up is, "what are you hiding?". or "What's in it for you?". When I've presented Advocare to people as a sales guy, I've failed every time. When my sharing Advocare with them results in them asking the above questions, it's obvious to them, because it's true, that I'm not proactively addressing their concerns and disarming the manipulation fears. By not addressing what I can see on their face that they're feeling but don't want to speak out (because of my fears) I am being dishonest. I'm also doing myself and Advocare a disservice. Bob has told me again and again that it's OK to bring up the pyramid scheme worry. It's OK, to say, I would respond the same way but I'm asking you to trust me and hear what this guy has to say....
-- When I was in Ruby boot camp during the fall, one of the challenges was to spark 10 people during the week. I was scared to do it and got into a fight with Lindsey over it on haloween night. We had to go to Safeway so as I got out of the car, (kids and her were going to wait in the car for me), she handed me a spark and a water bottle and gave me the look that spoke, are you going to take this serriously or not? I paced safeway for several minutes trying to find an opportunity to talk to someone. Finally I approached a guy named Ted that was restocking fruit. I asked him if he was going to be up for a while working. He said he didn't get done till 1:00. So I lied. I told him that I had just been out trick or treating with my kids and hadn't taken my energy drink. Since I was going to bed soon, I thought I'd offer it to him since he had to stay up later. He said OK, and I made him the spark and gave it to him (without the cap so he had to drink it). I was very proud of myself and told Lindsey the story. Although impressed at my guts, she wasn't at the fact that I lied about why I had the water bottle and spark in my pocket in the first place. She was right.... There is no virtue in getting a sale or getting to the top using dishonesty of any kind. As Charlie Ragus (Advocare's Founder) would say, the #1 criteria to look for when recruiting a distributor is Moral Integrity.

5. Personal Growth is Key - I can't offer what I don't have. My work on myself and being a person others want to follow is indispensable.