429 – She went from penniless to $500 Million: Tom interviews Victoria Wieck

Episode 429 – Victoria Wieck
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode four hundred twenty nine of Screw the Commute podcast. Wow, wow, wow. Do we have an inspirational guest on today? Victoria Wieck is here and Victoria started out with pretty much nothing other than super super mother that got her kind of really put her where she is today. From what I've been able to understand, while she is quite an inspirational story and it's surrounded with beauty, everything about this lady is beauty and probably things that will last for forever for some of the people that she helps. So I'm giving you a little teaser about what she's about. So hang in there for a few minutes and we'll get her introduced to you. I hope you didn't miss Episode 428. Jeff Morrill. He's a guy who does one hundred million dollars a year for many years, starting with nothing with his brother. And they have a very unique car dealership that they started where I mean, they actually have goats to, you know, cut the grass instead of using power mowers. Just they're very eco conscious and they got 324 solar panels. It's the only dealership in the world that's completely run by solar.

[00:01:42] I mean crazy. So hope you didn't miss him. It's episode 428. Anytime you want to go to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com and then slash and then the episode number. His was 428. And I'm sure you're going to want to hear on this 429 when you hear Victoria's very inspirational story. Now, how would you like to hear your own voice here on screen the commute. Well if the shows helped you out at all or giving you ideas to help you start a business, we want to hear about it. Go to screwthecommute.com And there's a little blue side bar that says send voicemail and you can put in your own voice something that the shows helped you with and then put your website in there to give you a shout out on a future episode in front of thousands of people. So it's a good opportunity for you and we'd love to hear from you now. Pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of our Automation eBook. This ebook has allowed me to handle a hundred and fifty thousand customers excuse me, 40000 customers and 150000 subscribers without pulling my hair out. We sell this book for 27 bucks, but it's yours free for listening to the show. screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Now, I hope you are somewhat coming out of this mess of this pandemic. I've been preaching for 23 years. I've been selling on the commercial Internet for 27 years since it actually started and then preaching about lifestyle business and being able to work from home and sell from home. And a lot of people didn't listen to me and they're suffering right now because of it. But my students and myself didn't even notice this pandemic from the aspect of being able to sell. So 13 years ago, I decided to formalize my training in the form of a school. It's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. It's the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And it's certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning. So it's a really great legacy gift you could give to young people in your life or use it for yourself to improve your own business. And I'll tell you a little later how you can get a full scholarship to the school if you're in my higher level mentor program.

[00:04:08] All right. Let's get to the main event. Victoria Wieck is a highly successful entrepreneur. I mean, she went from a penniless immigrant to generating over $500 million dollars in retail sales by turning her passion for jewelry design into profits. She did. She's paid attention to this show. Actually, she didn't, but. She did go to the corporate world, which is kind of cussing on this show, but she got smart and she got out of it and she started a small company so she can spend more time with her family and not be commuting all the time. But she had no money, no mentors and no inside connections. So if you think all you got to have all that stuff to be successful, listen to Victoria and you'll find that that ain't the case. And her products have been sold in many countries and she appears on Shop HQ, which is a major TV retailer every month. But prior to that, she had her own show on HSN for 20 years straight. Victoria, you're ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:22] I am exactly. I am more than ever.

[00:05:25] Oh, boy. Victoria, we are so thrilled to have you on here. I've got a little bit of a connection to jewelry, but not quite like this. So. So tell us what you're doing now then. We want to hear your story of how you made all this happen with starting from humble beginnings.

[00:05:43] Yeah. So right now, what I'm focused on, I started my own podcast after twenty four years on TV and the TV show is still ongoing. But when we are on TV, we are judged on a dollars per minute. Basically, that is how we are measured as a guest on all TV networks. So as you can imagine, if you're being judged on a permanent basis, we don't really have time to go into in-depth connection with our audience. You're really selling. There is storytelling. What inspired me and all that. But there's not a lot of real, authentic, honest conversation with anybody at that time. So I started my podcast called Million Dollar Hobbies, with hopes of empowering other people to follow their dreams and stop the commute, stop the madness, stop comparing themselves with others and all that that that I've experienced in the corporate world. And along with that, I wrote a book which will be released in twenty twenty two, also titled Million Dollar Hobbies. So going back to where I'm at now. So I came here in 1971 with my parents. They had five kids or their family of seven. There was some unfortunate circumstances. My father got all his assets frozen in both countries, South Korea and here. So we ended up with 30 bucks in his pocket. And I don't you probably don't know a lot about Los Angeles geography, but we ended up in East Los Angeles, which was sort of like a riot, the ghetto at that time.

[00:07:18] So I left a very idyllic island living because I lived on a small island to here. You know, when you were living on an island, you may not have a lot, but we don't have a lot of problems. You came here and I found you know, I went to school where the school had barbed wires, were like knife fights, gunfights, I mean, almost every day. So it was kind of terrifying. And we didn't have any hope. They're alive. And in fact, my parents try to go back to Korea, but they couldn't have got enough money to go back because you can't just walk over there. You have to catch a plane for the. We didn't have that. So that is my beginning. And I'm not going to bore everybody every step of the way. But from that beginning to, you know, basically my parents kind of instilled in me. I know this is also a cuss word on your show that there is a well oiled path to success, security and happiness and life in America, which is to get yourself hyper educated with all these degrees and get a nice corporate job with some upward mobility and save money and your life will be all set.

[00:08:32] So believe it or not, I did it. I tried it. And I was a great student. I learned to speak English. I did all that, got myself a degree at UCLA in economics, and then went on to USC Library School across town. And I got myself a masters degree in finance and marketing. So you could say at that time I was very hyper educated and I ended up with a corporate job. And what happened was when my parents first came here, I was the oldest of five. I was 13 years old, and I ended up taking care of my siblings, take them to school, helping to do their homework. I did all that because my parents went to work at six a.m. They each worked two jobs. So even though they were very loving and encouraging and they made all the sacrifices that could possibly make, they left us. I was pretty much abandoned. And in the corporate world several years later when I was working and every time I got a promotion, I worked longer and longer hours, more and more responsibilities. Yeah, I did get a little. Money, but my commute was about an hour and a half each way. So, you know, I thought that in a 24 hour period, you're sleeping eight hours. And then I was commuting three hours plus I was working like about 12 to 14 hour days.

[00:09:52] So I didn't have time to do anything. And one day I was coming home and I thought, you know what? I can't stand a thought of me now because I had a choice at that point. But somehow I was going to leave my children with nannies or whoever, and I was going to do the same thing to my my kids that my parents did to me. Now, my parents didn't have any options when they came here. They had to go to work. I had those options, even though it just seemed like it was a huge leap of faith. You know, a lot of people think that if you leave a corporate job and you risk everything that you're being irresponsible to your family, you might lose everything. But that's really not the case. I mean, I was suffocating in a corporate world. I was exhausted. I came home. I my husband and I had just gotten married. We were planning on having a family. And I couldn't be a good wife or a mother or a daughter for that matter of a parent. So I basically left my corporate world and started a small company to spend more time with my family. So that's pretty much how the whole thing. Wow.

[00:10:56] Starting now, your mother seemed to be a very heavy influence on you with regard to your quality. And, you know, she even with the small means that she had, you said that she really bought quality stuff that would last a long time, even if it wasn't the most fashionable. Right.

[00:11:16] Right. I mean, my mom so my my father was very forward thinking. And in the bigger picture, he left South Korea because at that time in South Korea and it is took to a degree today, a lot of Asian cultures, price boys, they want to have boys to have their legacy, their names carried on and all that. So my dad and my parents had four girls. So my father's vision was that my his daughters can come to America if they chose to be a stay at home housewife or somebody's wife. And that's what they want to be, then that's OK, as long as it's her choice and not he didn't want us to not have any options. He came here. We had no money. My mom, you know, I watched her. I mean, she had every right to just basically bitch about her life at that point because, you know, she didn't have to work back in Korea, but she came to America and she worked in a sewing factory until, like, her arm wouldn't move. I mean, huge to this day. She has a little bit of a problem with her shoulder. But even at that time, she still always gave the daughters how to stretch those dollars, how to pick your battles, how to basically never lose dignity just because you lost your money, you did all of that life changes.

[00:12:32] You can still be an elegant lady and not have to lose your dignity or self worth or anything like that. So both of them actually together influenced you, shaped who I am. And I think when you look at when I look back at my life, even though we had everything taken away, we never lost our dignity. We never lost that desire for excellence. So and that goes from your work ethic to your relationships to everything you buy. So even my mom could buy something once every five years. Why? She refused to buy things that were cheap and that was going to fall apart. So and if she couldn't do it, she didn't either own it or she sold all our clothes when we were younger. So, yeah, that quality kind of stayed with me. And when I became a business owner, I remember that I remember how my mom went from having almost everything to nothing and how she adjusted. Right. So on HSN, my price point were a lot lower than when I was selling to Neiman Marcus and Saks. But I still treated every customer as if that were the heirloom quality piece they were going to pass down to for the next six generations. So I never sacrifice quality for price.

[00:13:46] Yeah, and the same the same thing. The influence, like my dad came from Syria on a cattle boat in the early nineteen hundreds and very frugal. So I grew up very frugal to not waste things and things. So I've got the same kind of attitude about quality and, and good quality stuff. Be frugal and don't waste things. And and I saw you talking about a really big, beautiful look to me like a diamond. But it didn't have the cost of a of a diamond that big. Tell us about that. There was some these these diamonds, though, that are I don't want to call them artificial. I don't know what you call them, but but they're not real diamonds. But they're they're beautiful and nobody can tell the difference.

[00:14:32] Right. So when I began my company, and I'm pretty sure you probably remember the 80s. Yeah, yeah. OK, so because you look pretty young. So 80s and 90s, we were the first generation of women that went to work in a managerial capacity. So before our generation, they weren't hyper educated. They were like a administrative role, like secretaries, receptionist or whatever. So when millions of women were coming, you know, getting out of college, they were getting supposedly equal jobs to men. The jewelry industry had not evolved to meet the needs of the working woman. And I'll tell you why that kind of matters, because until my brand really focused on that woman, jewelry was sold for, like fancy jewelry for diamond social engagement. So it was nighttime jewelry, weekend jewelry where you went to parties with. So if you're a working woman, you look like every other week in work because, you know, clothing industry also, they had kind of like a button down, like a female version of a button down shirt. We wore them to work with pencils, got in pumps. So we all kind of looked very similar. And if you wanted if you're a female worker at that time and you're a vice president of some company and you wanted to differentiate yourself from the rest of the field, jewelry, daytime jewelry was either chunky or there were plastic and they clinked and they made all these noise when you walk so you didn't want to wear them.

[00:16:06] So when I came to the jewelry industry and I started my own company, I zeroed in on that on that professional working woman because she No. One, she had money. Now she was making her own money and making good money. And she needed jewelry that made her look like she was polished. She was elegant. She had some style, but still understated and elegant, made of high quality pieces. And she needed jewelry every day. I mean, you went to work every day. So, you know, it couldn't be something that cost you 10, 15, 20 thousand dollars. Right. And there was also a security issue as well. So I offered by diamonds to the one of a kind client in Beverly Hills, and they would pay 15, 20 hundred thousand dollars per piece. But I didn't have a lot of those customers. The the mass merchandise that I sold to department stores were imitation diamonds. And at that time, the the industry for simulated diamond or, you know, some people would call it fake or imitation, but they were technology had advanced to the point where they'd look more beautiful than diamonds do the same way that

[00:17:13] The big zirconia. That's the only thing I remember because I'm not into it that much. But what is that?

[00:17:19] Kubic Yeah. So you have cubic zirconia and they come in all different grades as well. So you've got cubic zirconia, moissanite. You have today lab grown diamonds, all these different simulant, diamond simulant. The thing was, though, until I mean, I think I was the first person to really revolutionize the keepings akuna, because when you you know, when you don't take care of it like you, you just have a stone. You put them on a four prong and it looks like it's a five carat diamond. No one's going to actually believe that it actually is real because it wasn't well cut and it wasn't set like somebody with one hundred thousand dollars, which would set it. So, you know, I really focused on realistic looking designs because I was doing diamond designs on the one end. I, I understood the aesthetics and also the the cut quality, the quality that you would have to have to to kind of carry it off as a diamond. So, you know, that required some negotiating with the growers of materials as well as cutters. And it was just like a nonstop work to kind of convince people that there was a huge market for this. And so it went from kind of like a dime store looking pieces to things that that really appeal to people who had millions of dollars, because those were my biggest customers, really, the people that had the real thing. One, they didn't want to walk around with the real five carat diamond, everything they did. So we had an exact copy of it. And then eventually a lot of women like school that like, why would I want to spend an extra hundred thousand dollars or something when it's like if you could get a Mercedes that looks exactly the same, feel the same types the same, could have the same logo and actually is the same.

[00:19:00] You could build it, but it just didn't have it didn't came for the Mercedes factory. It was a tenth of the price. You would buy it because it was done in 14 karat gold. Everything was exactly the same. And and my selling point was, look, if you bought this in real diamonds and you went to Tiffany's or you to whatever, it would cost you twenty five thousand bucks. It will be set in 14 karat gold, it will look exactly the same, no, you can buy this wear for the next five years. And if you want to have a real diamond put in, this is all gold aesthetics and everything is exactly the same. Could just pop out that diamond, put a new one in it because there was intrinsic value. So that industry was I mean, I think it was a very I mean, it was so exciting to be in the beginning of an industry that was just blossoming. So I went from sort of its infant embryo stage up to the maturity state of that whole industry. On top of that, I also did a jump like a natural, genuine gemstone line as well for people who love the artistry of jewelry design, because that's what I really excel in, is unusual color combinations, the artistic flair that the jewelry industry actually lacked. So I just simply met the need. So when we are talking about building a business and how do you go from a penniless immigrant to five hundred million dollars in retail sales. I didn't invent anything new. I'm not a scientist. I'm not an inventor. I didn't run into some unicorn and that was just really doing little little things and understanding and having a pulse on your customer, understanding what they needed at the time and bringing them the highest quality available on the market at the most affordable prices and in your messaging has to be very sharp on, you know, instead of saying, hey, I designed this wonderful piece of jewelry, wonderful collection. It's it's absolutely fabulous. Anybody would love it. And it's twenty five percent off today. Well, that's just kind of blah. But if I had a different message saying, you know, do you want to look polished? Do you want to look like you're successful, you want to wear that your jewelry with confidence and pay affordable prices? Here's a collection designed just for you. So your messaging has to be pretty sharp. We talk about Neshin down. I mean, that was very, very focused niche. That was just completely untapped. So, you know, that was kind of an exciting time at that.

[00:21:42] I'm sure everything was like smooth sailing the whole way. Right. But but I did hear you say

[00:21:49] I'm sure it was you know, I just I got on a boat. I just got me over there.

[00:21:55] So but I did hear you say for business people out there, plan for obstacles and you'll never be disappointed. Tell us about that.

[00:22:03] Right. So that having been through this journey, by the way, I've had a lot of ugly moments. I got screwed over many times. I mean, for sure at that. It's a whole other conversation. But I mean, things like I would make samples. I mean, I would the one thing about my whole journey is that I had design skills that a lot of people didn't have. A lot of these so-called designers actually don't design anything. You know, they're brands. And there was like a sweatshop people that's actually creating all the stuff behind. So I had that. And whenever I would go to a manufacturer, a large manufacturer and, you know, I'm very transparent. I know that you, you and many of your guests are really into ethics, authenticity, honesty, transparency. These are things that are important to you. They were important to me. I mean, as you heard the story about me and my parents and all, so when people would say, you know, if I make the sample for you, I mean, these samples are very complex. And if I make it for you, how many can you sell? And I would always say, well, I don't know. I mean, I could I could tell you I could sell two hundred fifty pieces. I could tell like I sell twenty five thousand pieces, but it would all be a lie. I don't know. It'll depend on what the sample looks like from my sketch and secondly, what it would price out at. And thirdly, I mean, even with all that, nobody really knows until I actually sell it. So obviously they don't like to hear that. So what happened was my first batch of samples, actually, I never got those samples. I went to a trade show in Las Vegas, got the largest GOP trade show in the world, and I went there to look for new manufacturers.

[00:23:38] And there I found my designs all over the market already. I had no stolen. They stole them. You know why? Because they knew I was like a young girl with no money. So even if I got an order, they knew that I wasn't going to be able to go financing or something. So instead of telling me that they basically sold it to my competitors or everybody else who was on the market. So I learned, OK, so when we talk and that set me back probably six months back or something and all those designs, I mean, some of those designs, my very first ones are still in circulation today by some odd guy or girl that doesn't even know the genesis of the whole thing because designs are that timeless. So going from that. To basically, you know, that was an obviously unplanned failure, but what I will say is this when you're an entrepreneur, you know, I don't care how smart you are and how hard you work and how good of a heart you have, you are going to get into problems, detours from hell and back. All these things will happen to you. I mean, look at COGAT. You could have done everything right and you're out for like a year and a half. So all these things will happen to you. And failure is something you have to expect. In fact, I would say you should plan it because failure is a key ingredient to success. Anybody who has never failed in anything before, they are never going to be successful.

[00:25:04] And they probably weren't doing anything.

[00:25:06] They weren't doing anything. So it's just the art of learning to fall forward. And also when I say plan your failure. So, for example, if you in my collection, in the job arena, if I know when I do a show like an I do a show on HSN or shopping HQ, I might go through a hundred styles in a visit visit, meaning like over two days and several hours of airtime because every item on the air for five, six minutes. So if I do 50 new styles, you can usually get a read. And so you know what, all the canary yellow sold out or whatever, but you get a little weed and say, OK, these are things that gave me 80 percent of my revenue for the last visit. So I'm going to keep kind of looking that little little well. So when you do that, it's good. But what happens is, you know, eventually that that's going to run out because people buy jewelry forever. They don't ever throw it away. So at some point you are going to have a you're going to get into a point of diminishing returns. So what you have to do is you have to look for the new superstar in your life.

[00:26:12] Well, how do you find that you have to kind of reach out and say, OK, well, you've all the canaria, those sold last month. And so is it the color thing? People like impasto, color stuff or do they like the price point or do they love the styles of the butterflies or whatever? So you basically have to test and go outside your box and go, you know what? My common sense tells me that anything under two hundred dollars in pastels sold. So let me give them that. But if you let me see how much more I can like, if I add more value by add that Pasto plus some critters, butterflies or whatever and set it in 14 karat gold, maybe I can get more. So when you start to go outside your boundaries and try to test to see what your outer boundaries are, I mean, obviously you're not going to be stupid and go in a stock million dollars worth of this. When you were testing something, you test that very small. So this is what happened. So if you try four things. Only one is going to work, right? Only one is going to be this guy. Yeah, if you're lucky. So the other three, they were just to give you a read as to, you know, relative to the superstar, how close to this other thing comes and what can I salvage from this? So technically there were three were failures.

[00:27:32] I say to people like if you were a buyer of men's socks, like at a department store. You know, in your heart, the best seller is always going to be the black sock, right? So why are you even there? Why don't we have a computer just reordering the stuff? What do you even have a job right now? Think about that. So if you're buying like a men's sportswear men's shirts, like your number one seller every year, year after year after year for the last 50 years, which is going to be the white button down shirt. So why do you even have a job? Well, you do still need to find out the next lavender, then the next pale blue or the a little bit. So what I'm saying is that. Plan on your failures, learning from that and and if you're really smart, I mean, a lot of people, they hit their first obstacle and they give up. Wow, that's just the beginning. Yeah, it's just the beginning. Exactly.

[00:28:32] Are you able to follow up with customers off of those TV shows or you don't have any access to the database?

[00:28:40] The customers actually call in testimonial lines. They can also email us. I don't have a dialogue with the customer unless they comment on the testimonial line. But the best way you communicate with your customer is I can actually, when I'm talking on TV, like right now, if I'm talking to if I were on TV, you can actually tell which items are selling in what states, because we have all these models in front of us were judged on a dollar per minute so that customers, they may say, you know, this is what happens in retail. Like if you if I'm doing homework and I go to a department store and I just stand there and watch people watch, what's going to happen is some of them, they're just going to go, oh, I need a pair of you and need this and that. And they just pick it up and buy and they leave. But there are some things. There were like ten different people will try it, but they won't buy them. They love it. They try to talk to the assistant buyer, but they know they will buy it. Well, sometimes they love something, but they don't buy it. Well, what's the reason they don't buy it? Is it too expensive? Does not fit well. Is it too heavy on there or whatever reason is? You kind of have to figure that out and kind of meet the needs of your customers. So and then also the messaging as well. I mean, I know that the feedback I got from a lot of my customers, millions of customers, because all the networks are hooked up to like 80 million homes or more.

[00:30:10] They say that they love when I'm on TV because I come across somebody who is authentic. You understand them, who talk to them directly. So, for example, like if you I don't know if you ever watched any of the shopping networks or infomercials, but when you watch them, you know, a lot of times they either come across as less than authentic. Oh, you know, a lot of times they'll say something like, oh, this is free and you get this and you wait, there's more and you get this for free. You know, it's not free. I mean, it's all built in. So everybody knows that, too. In fact, they wait to see what else they're going to give you because you're consumers kind of know all this. But if you go on TV, a lot of the people that are highly successful on TV, they understand how to talk to the customer and they talk in customer centric ways. For example, if you say I created this wonderful line of jewelry and I just love it and I just came back and I just won the design award for such and such a word. And I want to tell you something. I designed this. Love it. I test drove it. I went to a fabulous party and all the people were just swooning over me. I got tons of compliments. And I want you to get those compliments to Ken. That's one way to explain that. And a lot of times people go on TV thinking, well, if I don't establish my export authority, if I don't tell people I want these awards, if I don't tell people I'm legit, and if I don't tell people that I hang out with famous people and they're complimenting me, they're not going to believe me.

[00:31:45] So they keep talking about themselves because they want to set this up. But I actually just take the risk of them not knowing all of this. And I would just go out and say, look, you know, summer is here. We're almost out of covid. I cannot believe that. You know, finally, you get to enjoy life the way you want to enjoy your life, whether you are on your vacation, whether you're planning on going on vacation or you just wanna have some barbecues in your backyard, you were going to look fabulous. You're going to glow in this new set of jewelry that I designed during covid understanding that your priorities have changed. And I let me tell you something. When you're glowing and you have that radiant smile and you're enjoying life, people are going to love what's happening with you. And if they know you well, these people, they know you're a smart shopper. They know you've got a great bargain. And you know what? You're going to get compliments forever. And let me tell you one other thing. Jewelry, something that you get to leave for your future generations. If you are lucky enough to have a grandchild or someone in your family, you get to leave that legacy, your personality, what mattered to you the most with that? So you get to do all of this for thirty bucks on a down payment today. And how great is that? Right.

[00:32:59] So where you are. You are smooth. You just spit that out very, very smooth. I'm ready to buy jewelry and other words or so.

[00:33:10] Right. So I think that you have to understand all of us who are in business. When we go back to the basics, why do you why does your product even exist in the first place? So my product exists to make people happy, make memorable moments to celebrate those milestone moments with their with their family. It's not about you design or loving what you're designing. I mean, I didn't say the word I more than twice in that presentation. I did because I don't matter. I mean, I'm just a vehicle to make those memorable moments matter in a way that connects with them, with their future generations. And they can save money. They can go and they can they can make this magical moment. So I think that entrepreneurs who are successful, even if you're not on TV and you have a website, you have a podcast, whatever you do, make sure that messaging. Kind of sort of hit that emotional chord with your audience, because without that, without people have to like you, they have to trust you, they have to trust you on two levels. One, they have to trust you as a person that you're not going to cheat them. And you sound like a stable guy who's not going to just was not a fly by night. But they also have to trust you with with your subjective expertise. So do I like him? Do I trust him? And is he the best expert in this field? Then the price and everything else matters. So, you know, the advice I would give to any entrepreneur out there trying to scale their business up to, you know, anyone can sell to friends and family, but if you're going to scale your business up, you're going to have to connect with a few more people than that. And I think that just loving your customers, loving what you do for them and loving the results they get, that I think is a key,

[00:35:13] That's for sure. And and I just thought, as you know, as I don't watch that stuff too much, but I think you could save so much money if the ladies didn't have to have their nails done all the time. The most perfect nails on earth are on these shopping networks. I can't imagine how much money you spend on that.

[00:35:35] You know, that's so funny. You say that because doing covid, I am one of those people that kind of like, you know, anything. And I tell you not I'm not taking moral high ground, but my mother in law is 100 years old. She turned 100 in the middle of it. So obviously we care about her and we didn't want to carry any germs. So none of us, the grandkids, I mean, no one left the house. We just kind of left the compound. And so I didn't get my hair done. I didn't get my hair cut for 18 months. I didn't get any my nails done. And I'm on TV and I didn't get my nails done. I would tell people, look, I can't get my nails done right now, so but I have to I think I saved thousands of dollars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thousands of dollars just in my nails, you know, because you're out here in San Diego, I think that neon nails are like one hundred and fifty bucks or something like that. Oh, my pedicure manicure. And I get it done every two weeks. So I saved a lot of money. But you're right. I agree with that. Yeah.

[00:36:32] I learned early on in my in my life that when your girlfriend gets her nails done is not the time to wrestle around and horse around with her and break one.

[00:36:42] Yeah, no, no. Absolutely not. Yeah. That's that's like devastating. Don't mess with the nails.

[00:36:48] Ok, so we got we got to take a response, a break. When we come back, we'll ask Victoria what's a typical day look like for her now. And we want to hear about her new book and we want to hear about the podcast. She's doing so. So, folks, about about 23 years ago kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head. And the people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to help other small businesses. But I knew all of these people. And if you gave them 50 or 100 grand up front, they'd be hiding out in Mexico or somewhere else and they would never help you. So I thought, you know what, this is not really fair or it's too risky for these small businesses. So I'm going to I'm going to fix this. So I kind of turned it on its head and I just charged an entry fee, which is like ten times lower than that. These people were charging. And for me to get my fifty thousand, you had to make two hundred thousand net. Two hundred thousand. Well, people love this idea. And twenty three years later, the program still going strong. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique program of its kind to help people with Internet and digital marketing.

[00:37:59] I have no trouble saying that because I've dared people to put their program line for line against mine because I'm a crazy fanatic. I do evenings, weekends, holidays. I help people. I could have quit years ago and I just love it so much I, I keep helping people, but I have the unique part is, is you have an immersion weekend at this big estate in Virginia Beach along we have a TV studio, we shoot videos for you, marketing videos, one of which I saw at a convention, would go for seven hundred bucks. And we've never had anybody get out of here within less than ten of them. One one couple did 53 of them. And we added them. Put the marketing, the graphics on them, everything. That's just one thing, the immersion weekend. But we also it's a year long program, so everything is one on one. We don't believe in group training because if I'm talking to an advance person, the beginners are lost. And if I'm talking to the beginners, the advanced people are bored. So there's no that's there's no efficiency there. And I can't help people as well as I want to. So so it's all one on one. We'll even take over your computer, show you where to click with myself and my entire team will.

[00:39:12] Help you learn how to do this stuff and then you get a scholarship to my school I told you about earlier, if you're in this mentor program and you can either use it yourself for extra training or gift it to someone. We had one guy gifted to his daughter and she's making six thousand dollars a month before she graduated. So it's very powerful. These are not theory things. These are the all the things that I've been using email marketing and chat boards and blogging and shopping carts and all the things that you need, every small business needs. So you can work for somebody else or you can work for yourself, or you can do both right from your home and you can travel the lifestyle business for sure. Screw that commute. So check that out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. I'm very accessible and love to talk to you about your future online.

[00:40:09] Now, let's get back to the main event. Victoria Wick is here. She's been selling her own jewelry through various methods for many years, starting with absolutely nothing but great style. And Grace from her mother and her parents got her started in this. So. So, Victoria, what's a typical day look like for you?

[00:40:30] I still you know, I built my business around my around my kids schedule. So the lifestyle business. Yeah. So in the beginning when my kids were just infants, I got up at five. Thirty kids are getting up anyway at five thirty six o'clock. So six a.m. California time is nine a.m. New York, all the East Coast where my custom, a lot of my customers were East Coast but it's also midday in UK, France and places like that. So I started grow globally, marketing my business from day one pretty much. So I got into places like London, Galeries Lafayette, all of the major stores in Europe, which got me a lot of PR things out here in the US during the day. I so and that still continues to this day because those relationships go back 30 years. So I still get up pretty early every morning. I start my day about 6:00 a.m. I'm just kind of used to it. Even when I was a kid, I all but, you know, my parents got up and left for work at 6:00. So that's kind of like in my DNA now. So I do that. And then I take a break about 9:00 a.m. I have breakfast with my family. My kids are up and they're grown now. Twenty eight and twenty seven. So my whole family, we have a nice, healthy breakfast. And then I work from about 10, 10 a.m. until about two without our lunch break.

[00:41:59] And after when my kids were in school until two I'd pick them up at two and I had them from two to about 8pm. I did all their activities like soccer or baseball, all that stuff, then cook them dinner and help them do their homework. And about nine p.m. is at nine p.m. this afternoon in Hong Kong time the next day. So Hong Kong, Korea. So I had my distribution there as well. So those relationships are still very strong. They they are stronger today than before. So I pretty much still follow that occasionally because I have the means, financial means now to sort of cut my day a little bit. Sometimes I especially now in covid my family. Well, we all live very close to each others. We have lunch together, will cook or do so. We have a nice place. And then on weekends I take the whole weekend off, I we go to the beach, we do activities, play the piano, paint well that play golf a little bit of golf. So that's my typical kind of week. And it's just it just great to be able to build a business around your family schedule and have. And the other thing to Tom, I'm sure you'll agree that having that diversity of customers around the world, you're not dependent on any one customer to you know, if any one of my customers just couldn't buy from me anymore, it doesn't change my life one bit.

[00:43:31] Exactly. Exactly. Victoria. Yes, I'm sure now you haven't any trouble with Hong Kong.

[00:43:38] You know, it's interesting, in twenty nineteen, if you recall all the umbrella protests and you know, there were supposed to be all this protest protest. So there was a huge trade show and I asked my contacts there what's happening. And they were like, it's all out of proportion, it'll be fine. So I went and I actually tried to video some protests and I couldn't actually find anybody. I couldn't find anything near my hotel near the the convention center or the other side on the inside. So. I really didn't it was like they were they had gripes about their own government, but nothing about Americans or any other it I mean, they they literally went out of their way to I mean, if I did pass by some crowds and they weren't white protests yet, they would still, like, hand me water and things like that just to make sure that I was welcome there. So, you know, but I mean, every country I've been to Korea when Korea was going through the whole I mean, that was just a lot of unrest there, went through Europe and all that. I just think that if you go there with a positive attitude and I actually ended up in Bahrain when there was I mean, there was a lot of unrest in Lebanon and you were seeing all these violence and destruction, all that in the papers.

[00:45:05] And people told me, don't go to the Middle East. And, you know, with the American passports going to be horrible. And I didn't let anything bother me. I actually went to places and met people and they took great care of me. And I had some of the most engaging and authentic conversations I've ever had. And we can probably do a whole other show on cuisines and cultures and how you negotiate with people in Saudi Arabia versus Japan. But, yeah, I've just had the jewelry business has been very kind to me. And I think that also, you know, I think also in every business, there's a little bit of luck involved. And I want to say that I've had many times when I just needed a little spark somewhere and it was there. I mean, whether it's an incident or timing or a person that just gave me a little or something or an introduction. So I speak to you now with so much gratitude in every evening, all those people that kind of screwed me over. I don't have any grudges about that. I just think that they were all placed there for a reason. I learned a lot and I am standing here with a lot more business than them. Those people aren't doing all that well right now.

[00:46:18] Well, another thing I heard you say was never give up hope no matter what happens to you.

[00:46:24] Yes. And I think that is very, very important. I think if you come and I'm inviting you Tom to come on my show as well, the Million Dollar Hobbies podcast,

[00:46:35] I'd love to. Yes.

[00:46:36] Because so many of my guests have very similar stories to mine. You're going to hear people in skin care, in beauty, in in anything. I mean, literally just they took their they never gave up hope. But when you say things like that, don't give up hope or be inspirational or be motivated, all of those words are great. But they don't do anything for you. Those words will do anything for you. You have to take action. Only actions. We will cause your results, all the thinking in the world, all of the positivity you soak in, if they don't result in a single action, you don't see the results. So my big peeve is. I don't care how bad you think your life is, I don't care what's happening to you right now. Think about the one tiny little thing you could do for yourself, for your future. Today, not tomorrow, not a year from now. Just going to tell you one thing about how I would translate that. So if we say, you know, I gained a bunch of pounds during covid and you and I should have already lost some weight before then, so now I'm really in trouble and I'm going to lose 10 pounds. And you know what? I'm going to I'm really motivated now because it taught me a lesson. And I see all these people who lost all this weight. I'm really inspired. And so you say to yourself, you're going to do all this, but you don't unless you really have a plan to do that. So if you said to yourself, you know what, I am going to lose 10 pounds in the next 10 weeks. OK, so now you are thinking one week, you know, one pound a week for the next 10 weeks.

[00:48:20] So if you say to yourself, you know, I'm going to lose 10 pounds in the next ten weeks and I am going to cut out three hundred calories a day, which means I can cut out either a soda or a piece of bread, OK, for the whole day. And I'm going to walk my dog for 30 minutes a day. Well, then you're already there, know, and you have a choice. You can either walk your dog or you could walk by yourself or you could maybe skip the bread or maybe skip whatever your glass of wine, whatever you have your choices. And so this is the one little thing you could do. One tiny thing. Just setting a goal today would be the one thing. And the next day you can actually start to implement that. So I'm here, hopefully, you know, hopefully many of you have been motivated because like I said, I'm an ordinary person and I have no extraordinary skills. I didn't invent anything. I didn't do anything extraordinary. It's little things. So think about the one thing you could do no matter what you think you're facing, there is something you could do. When I was 13 years old, the only thing I could do was really to tell my parents, my kids are going to be my siblings are going to be OK and that I'm going to study English. And so I basically took like a two hundred vocabulary words a day, and that's all I can do. So think about the one thing you could do because you can't it will heal you, change you, and you can change the world with that one first step.

[00:49:46] That's that's for sure. Beautiful, beautiful words. Tell me about your book.

[00:49:50] So I wrote my book. It's a little bit of a memoir, but it's really packed with how to and it's written for people who don't have fancy degrees. In fact, I personally have had to unlearn my MBA to succeed.

[00:50:06] What's the title?

[00:50:08] It's called A Million Dollar Hobbies. So Million Dollar Hobbies book. And then you have the Million Dollar Hobbies podcast. So on the podcast, it's about other people's stories. And if you have if you're listening to the sound of my voice right now and you listen to Tom podcast for the last, I don't know how many hundreds episodes you have, but if you've lost the Tom podcast and you've gone to school and you have a success story about how you took your passion, and I don't believe without passion you have anything in life anyway. But if you took your passion too, and you don't have to be doing millions of dollars, you could just have a success story, then come out to milliondollarhobbies.com, the podcast and just fill out to be a guest on the show. Because the next phase I want to do is I actually want to diagnose problems like I want to be like a mini shark tank. But what I want to do is instead of kicking you off and saying, I don't want to buy your company all that, I want to actually help you if you need influencer, if you need that, because I in my business, I, I mean, I've made some amazing connections all over the world and I'm in a position to be able to make that make that happen.

[00:51:17] So come and visit the book. I try to self publish it. And what happened was I ended up participating in the meta agents event or something, and now I'm dealing with a couple of publishers who is looking at giving me advances for my book. So it's been publishing is actually been delayed now because of that for all the good reasons. So check out the Million Dollar Habis podcast, which has amazing stories. And if you're looking for like real tools and tips on it, I'm not I don't want to just motivate people. I mean, there's a lot of other people motivating other people. That's great. Most of you are listening. If you already listen to Tom show right now, you are I mean, you want to take action or you're already an entrepreneur. My show is going to focus on actions that will get you real results. So come to that. And and the other thing, too, is I just want to engage with people. I want to hear from you because there are millions of people, 15, 20 millions of people that have listened to me on TV for all those years. So they come to me and tell me, you know, even if you've got something to just gripe about, just go ahead and say it on my. Joe, aw, come on my website, that's great, that's beautiful.

[00:52:26] What an opportunity if folks, though, to make sure you check that out, Million Dollar Hobbies podcast, but you can find all this stuff through your website, right?

[00:52:43] Right. VictoriaWieck.com or milliondollarhobbies.com.

[00:52:49] Beautiful. Both of those places.

[00:52:50] Yep. Wow. Victoria. So it's been so great and past with you and I hope you'll come back and I'm sure you got a lot of other insight you could give our crowd.

[00:53:01] Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. And I've had a wonderful time and I hope to hear from everyone.

[00:53:06] All right. So everybody check out the show notes. Get over and hey, tell Victoria your story. You can have a better, better listener on that end for sure. So we'll catch everybody on the next episode. See ya later.

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