An impressive young band of entrepreneurs is leading WorldVentures into a bright tomorrow, full of optimism, integrity and unimaginable freedom.
By Tracy Hackler, Success From Home Magazine, Vol. 6, Num. 7
You hear the term “Rat Pack,” and the first thing that likely comes to mind are images of Sinatra, Martin and Davis and the cast of the original Ocean’s Eleven.
You think of the swingin’ group of entertainers onstage in tuxes in Las Vegas in late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
Then you discover that the name is being used to describe a dynamic group of 20-something entrepreneurs in WorldVentures and that “RAT” is an acronym for “Retired at Twenty.” But it is more than just a name. It’s a movement.
“Everybody who’s a part of this group sees a bigger picture than just themselves, and the company’s a vehicle to help us accomplish our dreams and help other people,” says 24-year –old Sarah Martinez, who recently graduated with her MBA, and, along with boyfriend Brian Brown, became the youngest marketing director in WorldVentures history.
Brown, who, like Martinez, attended the University of Denver on an athletic scholarship, credits the RAT Pack with completely overhauling his mindset.
Lorenzo Roybal, 21, has spent two years in WorldVentures and adamantly admits the program’s spirit-lifting disposition likely saved his mother’s life, to say nothing of saving him from a career spent scrapping it out in the 40-hour-a-week trenches.
Then there’s Steven Little, a 20-year-old wunderkind who discovered WorldVentures as a high-school senior. He recruited – among many, many others – his high-school coach into WorldVentures. One year later, that coach retired from 80-hour weeks and now spends quality time at home with his wife and four daughters.
And although these four may be in the spotlight, they’re part of a much larger group that is leading the charge for the millennial generation. As kids who grew up in the Internet age and witnessed the dot-com bust and the “Great Recession,” they’re a generation primed for entrepreneurial endeavors and disillusioned to the idea of spending the next 40 years at a job in the hopes of retirement and Social Security to support them afterwards. They’ve discovered that WorldVentures “ain’t your father’s network marketing company,” and they’re focused on spreading the message to their peers as quickly as possible.
There’s a prevailing pay-it-forward vibe that punctuates seemingly every conversation with the group. “It’s a mind shift,” Brown says. “As opposed to doing everything for me, it’s an opportunity to help others. It’s the idea of empowering other people and helping other people. It’s about integrity.”
It’s a testament to the quality of the individual, sure. But it’s also a testament to the kind of young entrepreneur that WorldVentures attracts, and to the guidance and inspiration provided from other young leaders, such as Carlos Rogers, Eric Gryzbowski, Sara Olsen and Jamie Young.
It’s also thanks in no small part to the mentorship of Don Morton. Morton has been around network marketing for more than 30 years and is an upline leader to many of the RAT Packers. He is a man of profuse passion who sees unlimited potential in WorldVentures’ future for one simple reason.
“For the first time in the history of network marketing, we have a product that the students love,” Morton admits. “It’s not Dad’s weight-loss product. It’s not juice. It’s not skin care, hair care, potions, lotions or pills. It’s travel, and they all want to do it.”
“So when they learn how they can tie travel into a business, and they learn that the business model is real, it’s legit, the students get in. Then, the parents are almost forced to look at it. When they look at it and see the viability of it, then they usually get started, too. That’s the way it’s happening over and over and over.”
That’s certainly how it happened with Lorenzo Roybal, nicknamed “Zo.”
Admittedly, he was “still trying to figure everything out” when his best friend from high school introduced WorldVentures to him during Roybal’s first semester at the University of Northern Colorado.
Two years later, Roybal is as successful as WorldVentures’ leaders said he’d be at the very first meeting. A kid who last went on vacation when he was 10 is suddenly globe-trotting from Cancun to cruise ships.
“Obviously, when they presented it to us, they told us everything that would happen if we just did what they told us to do,” Roybal says. “I thought they were crazy. But fast-forward two years, and it’s an absolute blessing. More than I can express.
“To be able to get up when I’m tired of sleeping and then work with all my best friends, it’s been a fairytale. It’s just getting better and better every single day.”
In This Together
For Brown and Martinez, former college athletes at the University of Denver who’ve been dating for five years, WorldVentures entered their lives when both were still in college more than two years ago.
Brown says he was excited about the opportunity from the beginning, but he didn’t see the big picture until he attended his first Leadership Acceleration Workshop. From that point on, he admits that one of the most difficult hurdles was staying the course until graduation, knowing all the while that he “would never really use what they were teaching me.”
He’s been putting his on-the-job WorldVentures training to good use ever since.
“Our friends spent 40 grand a year in school and graduated with $160,000 in debt and had to go find a real job,” Brown says. “We don’t work the 40 hours a week. We get to pick and choose what we want to do with our day, rather than have someone else dictate what we do.”
They also get to travel – a lot.
Brown says he’s attended more than 20 WorldVentures events, including DreamTrips to Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Martinez has been by Brown’s side for most of those trips. Her rapid ascension within the organization has drawn the attention of the highest levels of WorldVentures’ leadership, and even inspired her father to close his successful law practice and join her team full time.
“If we just had freedom for ourselves and none of our friends and family were there, it’d be fun, but the lake would be pretty empty,” Martinez says. “The ability to help other people get to the same place and have the same freedom means more than anything. You don’t want to just climb the ladder by yourself; you want to bring everyone you care about with you.”
The quality of their character in concert with what’s coming – including, among other things, a national campus tour, potential college credit given for WorldVentures participation and mission trips – has Morton talking about a limitless future.
“These are straight-A students,” Morton says. “These are the best of the best of the best of that generation, and they’re bringing in more. Students are excited about doing something that has good intentions, that’s powerful, that gives back to the community.”
Little by Little
Certainly, Steven Little is not average. In addition to being the youngest director in the WorldVentures organization, he’s the only member of his high-school graduation class to forgo college.
The son of WorldVentures’ No. 1 earner Steve Little, Steven made enough money in his first four months with the company to purchase a $52,000 truck. Still, the 20-year-old is quick to point out that he’s not necessarily a member of the RAT Pack.
“The RAT Pack is primarily college students with college students on their teams,” Little says. “The first couple of people I talked to were my football coach and another one of my teachers and about 13 of my friends’ parents. I tapped into that, and so I didn’t really build it with people my own age.”
His dream started with that truck. And when his father refused to buy it for him, Steven took it upon himself to learn Dad’s business, and then add his own little twist to it.
“Just like he didn’t buy me the truck, he didn’t build the business for me,” Little admits. “He made me figure it out on my own.”
Steven did just that by employing a tried-and-true business strategy: face-to-face contact. How better to tell folks that you get to eat lunch and travel for a living?
In today’s hectic business climate, Little finds there’s nothing quite like sitting down to lunch to grow a business. So, for over a year, he’s been running lunch meetings every week that consistently draw over 100 attendees. It helps explain how he’s added more than 3,000 people to his team in just two years.
“You can’t replace a phone call or a face-to-face meeting,” he says. “We’re in the people business, and it’s all about relationships. I’m kind of the black sheep of the [RAT Pack] group, but I’ve had a lot of success at a young age just kind of doing it the old-fashioned way. There are lots of ways to do it, but at the end of the day, the thing we all have in common is that we’re all plugging into the WorldVentures system and the WorldVentures training.”
They also have something else in common: These young entrepreneurs have retired from the corporate world before even entering it. “I want to be able to live full time.” Steven says. SfH
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