With 10+ years experience in Network Marketing, Miguel de Oliveira is a true believer of simpleness, personal relationships and hard work.
He started in his first MLM business at the age of 28, and throughout the years he learned the basics and secrets of Multi Level Marketing which helped him to get to the top.
In his current company Jeunesse everything started with a phone call: in October 2014 while enjoying the Portuguese sunshine in his hometown Porto, Portugal he got a call from a friend in Los Angeles and he got invited to a dinner in Macau, China.
Along with 14,000 Asian distributors Miguel participated Jeunesse EXPO5 Convention and realized the perfect momentum: Jeunesse was just getting started in Europe. He joined immediately and after 2.5 years he has 50,000+ distributors in 50+ countries in his downline.
Ted Nuyten has the honor to interview Miquel:
Miguel, what did you do before Network Marketing?
I always wanted to be free, so I never had a normal job. Before I joined my first network business, I had a rock’n’roll band. I always loved rock’n’roll music since I was 3-4 years old, and I started a band when I was 18. We became very popular in Portugal fast, we played on music festivals and TV shows. After 10 years of success, I wanted to do something very different.
My sister was in a Network Marketing business, I went to a few events with her and I liked what I saw there, so I joined and fell in love with the industry. I joined my first MLM business because of the money and I am still here because of the money. I belive since the beginning that MLM is the perfect and fastest vehicle to become rich.
What is your secret to success?
I try to surround myself with good people, and spend time with them. My goal is really understand what they want and help them achieve their goals. If you want to be successful in Network Marketing you cannot have the mentality of a dictator or an owner, and you cannot be upset if your downline doesn’t like your ideas.
You have to treat this as a serious business, but at the same time maintain a very relaxing „zen” relationship with people.
You have to be cool, because if you are cool, relaxed, nice, smiling, it will bring peace to your business. Everything starts with a smile. If you get on a train, and everybody look pissed off and they see the same pissed off expression on your face, nothing will change, nobody will smile to you. But if you get on the same train where people are sad, concerned about their lives, and you go there, look at them, some of them might look into your eyes and you do a sign like „hello” without actually saying hello, or just a smile, usually the people do the same back to you. So everything – peace, relationships – can start with a smile. Be nice.
What are the most important principles, guidelines to success?
Believe in your dream. Understand that you are unique, doesn’t matter what other people say. If you truly, honestly believe that you deserve the best, you can achieve it. Let me give you one example, like in music, there are lot of TV shows with judges, to judge people that are performing there. What is a good voice? What is a bad voice?
My rock’n’roll band was really successful in Portugal, but still not everybody liked us. Another example, imagine Bob Dylan singing „Knocking on heaven’s door” in front of a jury and they say: „Excuse me my friend, we don’t like your music.” Does it mean he is not a good musician? Of course not!
He just received the Nobel Prize in Literature last year for „having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. So, what is a good voice? Who is right or wrong? Who defines that you are good or not? If you truly, honestly believe in yourself and you do the hard work in front of their faces, they will notice that you are good.
What is your advice for new people who are just getting started in Jeunesse?
If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. What does it mean? You really need to understand this industry, this company. You need to make sure that you are getting the right information, and your goals must be strong enough because your goals will define your success. Just „want” is not good enough. As I said, it’s about hard work. Do the job and keep doing it in front of the people’s face. At some point they will notice that you are there and they will see you succeed.
What do you do on a daily basis?
I am a kind of „fixer”, I try to fix a lot of things to make the work easier for my team. I am not a specialist of recruiting, also I don’t think I am a specialist of a lot of other things in this industry, but one thing that I know for sure is that my feelings work very well. I feel things. When I am talking with someone I feel the person. It’s very rare that my 6th sense is wrong. That’s why I am usually too much concerned, I know at what point the things might go wrong and I try to prevent that.
How do you help your team?
I spend time with my team personally and help the ones who want to be helped. I push the ones who want to be pushed. I am not a very patient person with those people who create drama and confusion. I try to fix things, create the possibly best circumstances for my team and help the ones who are willing to work hard.
I don’t like telling people that you need to do this, this and this, because I truly believe that all of us are different and all of us are unique. I encourage them to tell me what they can be good at, and we work together on this. If you can be really good at doing power points and doing presentations on the stage, you should invite people and attract them to your seminars and events where they can see you presenting. They will say „oh this guy is good” and they get excited about the business because of your presentation.
If you are good at one-on-ones, invite people to one-on-ones, you might also invite your sponsor and try to get new partners this way. If you are an expert of social media, use that for your business. Work on your strengths, whatever they are.
You have business in 50+ countries and over 50,000 people in your downline. What is your secret?
If there is a secret – which i don’t belive -, here it is: this business is about actions and decisions I take. When I find good people somewhere, or I just believe they might be good, I don’t do 10-12 skype calls and webinars, but I fly to that city and spend 2-3-4 days with the person and their team, so that we can create real relationship. I believe this is the most important thing in this business.
At the end of the day this is all about relationships. And then I go to another place, I know more about the people and people know more about me. They spend time with me, they see how I do the business, how I talk, how I respect them, and they can really feel that I am ready to help them.
My secret is face-to-face meetings, one-on-ones, talking with people, spending time with them. Look them in the eyes.
Even if sometimes we don’t understand the language, we understand the energy.
What have been your biggest challenges on the way to Diamond? What is your advise for those people who are in the same situation?
When I joined Jeunesse a little bit more than 2 years ago, I didn’t come with a team. I was in another business, people decided to stay there, but I took a decision that I was going to do this. I had no idea how I would do it, but I was sure that I would. So what I did was I started to talk with a lot of people and searched for the ones in the downline. Because you never know where they are.
One of the challenges was communication because I started to work internationally immediately and some people I talked to didn’t speak English. Another challenge was understanding different markets, with different mentality and cultures. My advice for the people who are in the same situation, you need to decide if you really want to go Diamond, you really need to want that. You have to feel deep in your hear that you really want and you will attract the right people into your life by this strong desire.
I really wanted to become Diamond. And when good people show up, you will know that. I dealt with lot of negativity before I got real success in Turkey. When everybody gave up on a situation or on a person, I kept on handling them because I had the feeling that one day it would pay off. Usually I don’t do this with too many people, but my feelings were right again and this brought amazing leaders to my team. So again, for me it is about feelings.
Do you think training, self development is important to succeed?
Of course yes, but not as a factory or as a produce line, I am not a big fan of „we all need to read the same books” or „we all need to go to the same coaching event” concept because we are different. In my opinion all strategies are okay if they work for you. It doesn’t matter what is your profession, where you came from, it doesn’t matter if you like Eric Worre or lyrics from Bob Dylan, doesn’t matter if you like reading romance or Go Pro.
Find the way of self-development which matches your personality the best. For me music is the best tool. Rock’n’roll songs, sentences from songs that have been part of my life have influenced me the most. I have never read the most famous books, but this is not a priority for me. For me it’s much more important what I feel and what I believe. Sometimes I am listening to a song from my favourite band, I like the song and the lyrics and I realize this sentence is about MLM.
What are the main characteristics that one have to gain or leave if wants to be successful?
As I said, I don’t know what is right, what is wrong. What I know for sure is that the ego cannot be bigger than the talent. We need to be open to learn, we need to be open to sit in the front row and listen someone talking. We can learn something from everybody, even if it is a crossline leader and we don’t like them. You can say to yourself, „I really don’t like this guy but he is saying something important”. So it’s always good to be open to listen, to see new things, to learn new ideas.
How has your life changed since you joined Jeunesse?
The biggest change in my life since I joined Jeunesse is that I became international really fast. 90% of the people who I have in my life, even in my private life are from outside of Portugal. I spend most of my time with people from other countries, doesn’t matter if it is personal meetings, phone calls, emails or webinars. So basically all routines in my life changed
“I keep going on this direction because I love the fact that everything is going to a completely different level that I used to have in my life in my country.”