ACN Inc. Company Blog

Leanne Gabriel RVP and Circle of Champions Member

It has been 16 years since I started my journey with ACN, and while I have experienced many highs and lows nothing compares to this convention.

I knew this convention would be special because of the RD and TC promotions in my team, but also because it was my first convention as a member of the Circle of Champions after many years in the business. For so long, I looked at the COC members as the incredible superstars – all of them breaking records and having success so quickly.  That was just never me.  I have simply been a steady – eddie. But this weekend proved to mean so much more; it turned out to inspire me to be grateful and blessed to have had this long, steady journey.

On Friday afternoon of the event, I had the opportunity to share a testimonial from the stage, and I was so unsure of what to say that I simply shared my journey – the slow and steady one – and prayed for God to give me words and wisdom so that maybe I could help someone else in that arena.

When I got to the podium, I talked about my journey to reach this point. I shared the tough mental and emotional struggles I went through as I saw so many other people passing me to reach success rapidly.  I talked about the times I doubted myself, the times I questioned whether I would make it, and how I was just dragged down by dwelling on my slow results.

I shared my turning point – the choice to submerge myself in personal growth and prayer to stifle the bad self-talk and remind myself that God has a plan for me.  Slowly but surely, my team began to grow, succeed and gain momentum.  That ultimately led to me being invited to the 2012 Circle of Champions.

What happened next was truly amazing.  So many wonderful people came to me over the weekend, sharing that they too had felt the same way. They felt like their journey was slow and difficult. They struggled with comparing themselves to others. They questioned if they had what it takes to win.

At that point, it seemed as though my ACN journey had come full circle. Now it’s as if everything I’ve gone through was not a struggle but an inspiration to others that it is possible to win through persistence and perseverance. I was overwhelmed by their stories – your stories – and deeply humbled that I could encourage and help others. I am clear now that it was all part of God’s plan.

So as reflect on the event, I am so grateful for every stumble and fall that was part of my 16 year journey to get to the Circle of Champions. In each hurdle, there was an opportunity to learn and get better. With each challenge, there was a chance to overcome and then empower someone else.  Each step was clearly an important part of the path.

If there is anyone reading this that has experienced disappointment or frustration, please don’t fight the process, but instead use it to build your strength and determination. Goals and results are critical as you build your ACN business, but it’s the journey that writes your success story and builds you as a person and as a leader – and that story, for each person, is unique.

Embrace the journey!

Leanne Gabriel
Regional Vice President and Circle of Champions Member

Tony Cupisz is Vice President and one of the Co-Founders of ACN Inc.

I think everyone out there would agree with me when I say ACN has kicked off 2012 in a big, big way!

With each new year of opportunity, we set out to have a bigger and more successful year than ever before – and we’ve certainly set out to do just that in 2012! 

With this exciting new year upon us, we want to encourage each of you to take part in ACN’s 2012 theme: “Go MAD: Make a Difference.” With that theme, the other Co-Founders and I want you to Go Make a Difference in yourself, your organization and in the world!

The plans that ACN has in store for you to help you build your business this year are unbelievable, starting with ACN’s Strive for 5 campaign – which enables you to get your services free when you acquire 5 new customers of that same service.

Pair this extra incentive with ACN’s special points promotions and ACN’s MAD Money Bonus Promotions, and we hope you’ve already MADE a Difference in your business in just the few short weeks we’ve already experienced of 2012.

My hope is that you maximize the final days of this month and go into the ACN International Convention, February 17-19, with huge momentum in your business! You know the event weekend will bring even more fuel to the fire, helping propel your business forward throughout the first quarter – and the rest of the year.

Go Make a Difference today, tomorrow and every day this year!

Tony Cupisz
ACN Vice President and Co-Founder

Max Knowles RVP and 2012 Circle of Champions Member

I have to start off by saying WOW. The last few weeks of my ACN journey have been surreal – starting with the chance to train for the first time on the ACN International Training Event stage to learning that I’ve been selected to be a 2012 Circle of Champions member.

It has always been a dream of mine to participate at the highest level in ACN because ACN gives people, regular average people just like me, the opportunity to do extraordinary things. I’m truly thankful for the opportunity to be a leader in ACN. I’m so excited to work with the Co-Founders and the other top leaders of the company to take ACN to a whole new level in 2012.

The last few weeks have definitely been filled with dreams that have come true.  After 7 years of hard work and commitment, it has all come together and it’s paying off in a huge way.

When I was asked to speak at the San Diego International Training Event, I was super excited at first then after a few minutes the reality of speaking in front of 20,000+ people set in, and I was definitely nervous.

Vice President of Sales in North America Mike Kane reassured me that I would have nothing to worry about, that the most important thing was that I gave the IBOs out there real hands on information that could help them take their businesses to the next level. So immediately I stopped thinking about how I was feeling and made it my mission to put the ACN family first.

And if I’ve learned anything about ACN, I’ve learned that this company is truly about putting other people first and helping them succeed.

San Diego marked a new beginning for many up and coming leaders as well as reignited the fire for all existing leaders. I know San Diego seemed to be just the beginning of this new chapter of my ACN journey. That event capped off 2011, which was by far a record breaking year, but based on all the announcements, training and new leadership rising, I have 150% belief that the first quarter of 2012 will shatter all of 2011!

So start getting ready for the New Year now by getting registered for the ACN Convention in Charlotte. Commit yourself to taking your business to the next level; commit yourself to taking ownership of your future. Set a goal for what’s to come in YOUR 2012. I know that my organization is on a mission to create more momentum and to build more leaders in the New Year – than ever before.

2012 begins now!

Max Knowles
RVP and 2012 Circle of Champions Member

Greg Provenzano is President & one of the Co-Founders of ACN Inc.

Hello Everyone!

It’s hard to believe the holiday season is already upon us and 2011 is coming to a close – and what an incredible year it was. In fact this will go down as a monumental year in ACN – and I hope the same can be said for you personally as well. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a safe, prosperous and happy Thanksgiving on behalf of the entire ACN family.

The late, great Jim Rohn, a personal mentor and friend of ACN, once shared that success – miracles even – often start with being thankful; that through mastering thankfulness, we bless others, and that’s when true miracles occur. So let’s pause and take a moment to remember what this holiday is truly about – giving thanks for our many blessings, both big and small. The greatest of life’s treasures can’t be measured in dollars and cents, or stored in a safety deposit box. The greatest of life’s treasures is found in our family, friends and loved ones.

So as you gather around your holiday tables, I hope you will take some time to reflect on your own lives and to appreciate all you have to be thankful for. I will certainly spend some time reflecting on how thankful I am for each of you. You are the face of ACN; you make everything we do worthwhile. You are life-changers.

Thank you for your part in making 2011 another incredible year in ACN. Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I look forward to seeing you all in San Diego next week. It promises to be one for the record-books!

God Bless,

Greg Provenzano
ACN President and Co-Founder

COC and SVP Debbie Davis

Being thankful, grateful and appreciative are God-given expressions that come naturally when something good happens in our lives. What’s easy to forget is those same expressions are necessary CHOICES when things don’t go our way. No matter the situation, there is always much to be thankful for. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday that should be celebrated each and every day from the time we wake up until the time we go to bed.  The national Thanksgiving holiday is a day when we come together with loved ones and friends to publically recognize this most important expression of giving: Thanks.

I believe sharing ACN is one of the most perfect expressions of gratitude we can have.  It’s giving the gift of hope in a world where so many feel hopeless.

When you have a grateful heart, you will give to give, instead of giving to get, and that’s when your business will explode!

To be more direct in relating to your ACN business, I want to urge you not to make the same mistake that I made during my first holiday season in ACN.  

I thought the holiday season was a great time to take a break. I thought folks wouldn’t want to hear about a business during the holidays.  I didn’t talk to anyone about ACN and I didn’t go to meetings or have meetings. I assumed everyone else was doing the same.  Then when I went to the first meeting after the holidays, I was blown away at all the new folks that had joined our company.  I had missed out! I didn’t realize that since many people have time off this time of year, some people feel it’s the PERFECT time to get their business started!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s so important to spend this precious time with your loved ones and friends. However, I don’t suggest you sit at the turkey table saying, “So let me tell you about my business; please pass the gravy.” I do suggest you plant seeds during your conversations. Be excited and create a curiosity for your business. If you truly believe in what you have your hands on with ACN, you will come to realize there is no bad day to share this gift. You’ll see that every day is the PERFECT day.

Let your grateful heart shine through you so people SEE the light of gratitude on your face.  Be that beacon of light and hope and they will naturally be drawn to you!

And the more you give to give, the more you in turn receive.

This is the time to push through the excuses in your head.  Be grateful for this amazing business that has changed so many lives so drastically! Look for your windows of opportunity.  They will be all around you. Pack your BOM’s, set up your home meetings ahead of time so you have something to invite people to.  Use Success from Home magazine, the Opportunity DVD, your ACN Direct Online Store and all of the other tools that are available to you to help you succeed in this business. And above all else, have fun!

Take some time this holiday season to list all the things you are thankful for.  At the top of my list after God and my family is my ACN family.  You all have changed our lives completely.  We are so grateful for your love, your commitment and your loyalty.

I hope you have a very happy, safe and blessed Thanksgiving!

Much love and gratitude,

COC and SVP Debbie Davis

SVP Danny Volonino

It’s often said that ACN is a personal development program with a compensation plan attached and I wholeheartedly agree! Three and a half years ago, I found myself dwelling on negative thoughts that were destroying my life. Through a spiritual awakening, my life has been entirely transformed. Since then, it has been a blessing to share with others how positive thoughts and words have changed my life.

In ACN, your “Why” is crucial; it truly determines your passion level toward your business. For some folks, their “Why” is solving a problem, like getting out of debt; for others, it’s a goal, like sending your kids to private school.

As ACN leaders, we must sharpen our skills as problem solvers and dream makers. We strive to lead people to their goals and help people achieve their dreams by becoming “servant leaders”. To become a true leader, we must first be true students. It’s imperative that we work on ourselves first, so that we can then grow into effective mentors.

I challenge you today to gauge your personal development skills! What are you listening to? What are you reading? Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and in order to make the most of today, personal development has to be as prevalent in your life as food and oxygen. I challenge you to take this crucial step toward your personal success!

Today, and every day, I live by a few simple thoughts and I encourage you to do the same: First, live one day at a time. We can overcome any daily obstacle. If you feel overwhelmed with the day, break it down to the hour; break it down to the minute, and you’ll find you can get through it. Remember the impact of attitude on life. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. You can’t control the actions of others; you can only control your reaction to their actions.

Now, ask yourself how you’re going to react to this blog?

I hope you’ll take action.

I want to challenge you today to monitor your thinking and to prevent any self-defeating thoughts from lingering in your mind. Practice a “this too shall pass” mentality, encourage positive thoughts and speak promises over your life. You can become the amazing person you are called to be. It starts today!

Three and a half years ago when personal development began to change my life, I started closing out each strategy session with a positive daily thought. So here’s my thought for today:

Excellence vs. Mediocrity:

Excellence is always part of the answer. Mediocrity is always part of the problem.

Excellence always has a program. Mediocrity always has an excuse.

Excellence says, “Let me do it for you.” Mediocrity says, “That’s not my job.”

Excellence sees an answer to every problem. Mediocrity sees a problem for every answer.

Excellence sees a green near every sand trap. Mediocrity sees two or three sand traps near every green.

Excellence says, “It may be difficult, but it’s possible.” Mediocrity says, “It may be possible, but it’s too difficult.”

Be excellent today,

COC and SVP Danny Volonino

Editor’s Note: With ACN’s October 1, 2011, Compensation Plan enhancements, three former professional athletes living in Arizona – Jeremy Roenick, Brian Savage and Todd Stottlemyre – became newly-qualified Regional Directors, all on the same day. We asked Todd, a former professional baseball player, to share his story. Here’s what he had to say:

Todd Stottlemyre with his wife Erica

I grew up watching my dad pitch for the Yankees, so Yankee stadium was literally my playground. The only dream I ever really had was to be like my dad and play Major League Baseball, and that dream for me became a reality. After having a great career in baseball, playing on three world championship teams, I retired at age 37 and realized I had so much more of my life to live, and I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do with it.

After spending time working a traditional job, then buying and investing in different companies and businesses, the economy tanked and I realized we had a lot of money going out and not a whole lot coming in. Every investment seemed like putting a band-aid on my next dream, and at the time I didn’t even know what that dream was.

When I was introduced to ACN in 2009, I wanted to look at the business from the inside out, so I went to the international event in Anaheim, CA. During that weekend, I felt my life change right in front of me.  And for the first time since I was that kid at Yankee’s stadium, I had a dream. Except the dream wasn’t baseball – it was ACN.

What I’ve learned since then is that ACN and baseball are so different, yet they’re so much the same. Senior Vice Presidents are our All Stars – the veterans, those who are placed in our Hall of Fame, the ones everyone else strives to be. Our Regional Vice Presidents are just one step away from those All Stars – they’re our closers, the game-winning pitchers, the rising stars. Our Regional Directors and Team Coordinators are in the bullpen – those who are fighting a great fight, practicing to get to RVP and SVP, working to try to make it big. And our ETTs and ETLs are the rookies – those first and second year players who are still growing and learning in the dugout.

In baseball and in ACN, the players are much the same, but what’s also the same is that they’re team sports. The veterans have to teach the rookies in order to win and you have to be coachable.  In fact, I’ll go a step further to say that in both it tremendously helps your game to have people take you under their wings and build you up, to have them help develop you, so you can become the best you can be.

I have to say that ACN is just a little better than baseball though because baseball is a sport where physically your body can only take so much, and at some point that sport runs out and the contracts are over. The game ends. But in ACN, you can only keep growing and becoming that All Star player. Thanks to residual income, the game isn’t ever over. You can keep playing – even when you make it to the Hall of Fame.  What’s more, the ACN game just keeps getting better. There’s more to play for today than ever before, and I’m sure that season after season the game will only get better. 

In fact, the Compensation Plan enhancements from October gave me more heart and drive to make the Major Leagues in ACN. I hope it did the same for you. It’s time to play the game, to fight the good fight, to change lives through this opportunity!  So let’s go to bat and make our ACN journey a grand slam!

Todd Stottlemyre

ACN Regional Director

Mike Kane is ACN's Vice President of Sales in North America

To this day, I can clearly remember the humble beginnings of ACN, and how excited we were about the possibilities of the company. As one of ACN’s original Independent Business Owners, I’ve had the privilege to see many of today’s top leaders begin their ACN journeys to success. Throughout ACN’s history, I’ve learned that the key to momentum could be found in a grassroots movement, designed to build momentum and excitement for ACN from city to city and coast-to-coast.

The same is true today, the only difference is that there has never been more to be excited about for the future of ACN than there is right now, and it’s all at our fingertips. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to go about building your business than a grassroots movement to momentum, and that’s exactly what we’ve put into place with our Coast-to-Coast Fall Momentum tour. Through it, we’re taking momentum to the next level and integrating ACN’s vision for the future into the field of IBOs.

Throughout this year, I’ve been able to host many of these tours, and I’ve been so grateful for the opportunity to go into the cities of IBOs throughout North America to bring the vision of ACN and ACN’s Co-Founders to as many people as possible. I’m proud to say that with this tour we can kickstart the last quarter of 2011 and ultimately close out this year on an all-time high!

Since the Charlotte event, I think momentum has cranked up in ACN across the board, but the idea of this tour is to take the momentum that’s been created to the next level! To take the passion, the belief and the excitement for the ACN Opportunity up even more by utilizing everything that’s available to you as ACN IBOs.

There are no excuses for you not to succeed! There is simply too much in place for your success from the new 1-10 Business Opportunity Presentation Video, which has made presenting easier today than it’s ever been before, to the latest Your Business Assistant enhancements, to the upcoming additions to ACN’s product portfolio – I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you to ride the wave of momentum ACN has created for you throughout the Fall of 2011 and into the new year!

I am traveling from coast-to-coast over the next few weeks, showing everyone I can how to put momentum into motion in their ACN businesses – and I can only say that I hope to see you on the tour.

Look at the map on the ACN in Actions for this tour. What spot can you get to? What spot can you get your team to? It is imperative that you get there! Your business can explode this Fall and I can assure you that ACN’s Coast-to-Coast Fall Momentum tour can help make it happen!

Mike Kane
Vice President of Sales in North America

SVPs Jeremy & Mindy Deeble

Tomorrow – October 1, 2011 – Jeremy and I will celebrate our 6-year anniversary with ACN! And when we reflect on how much our lives, and the lives of those around us, have changed in just those few short years because of this opportunity, we’re amazed; it’s surreal. But just when you think the ACN Opportunity can’t get any better, the Co-Founders of ACN surprise us, making this business better than it has ever been before!

Jeremy and I were absolutely blown away by the Charlotte International Training Event, and we truly believe that this will be an event that many ACN leaders will be talking about for years to come!  The excitement that filled the arena as Co-Founder Tony Cupisz was on stage giving all of us the new announcements was electrifying!  It was truly amazing.  We left that event so excited, so on fire and ready to work!

We feel that the latest announcements have made the ACN Opportunity today greater than it has ever been before.  These announcements not only enhanced the business opportunity for all of us that are already a part of ACN, but also for brand-new IBOs who are just getting started.  The new Regional Director qualifications and the Compensation Plan enhancements are incredible!  This really makes it possible and encourages all IBOs to build their businesses the right way, and, even better, it rewards them for doing so! The amount of money that ACN just put up for grabs for all of us is incredible!

All of the new product announcements – from cable Internet and television to the continued expansion of gas and electricity in the U.S. to the plan for a streamlined ordering experience with the new storefront – simplify customer acquisition making it easier than ever before to acquire customers.  To top it all off, the new Opportunity Disc released at the event really leveled the playing field for all IBOs.  You see, there are no excuses now to not show this opportunity to everyone you know, changing your financial future and helping others to do the same.  It doesn’t matter if you are a good presenter or not, all you have to do is literally push ‘Play’ and let the video do the talking!

As I mentioned, Jeremy and I are coming up on our 6-year anniversary in ACN, but since day one we have built our ACN business from event to event.  We have always known what our production would be like after an event based on how many people we had brought with us.  The test has never failed: The more people that we got there the bigger our production was. It’s a rule of thumb we still use to this day!

We are so grateful that we were able to get as many people as we could to Charlotte because since that weekend, we have seen huge growth in our organization!  Brand-new people are committed!  They see the vision of where ACN is going and what it can do for their families if they apply their work ethic and are coachable to the incredible system ACN has in place.   Their conviction as they are talking to new prospects is amazing and their belief in ACN is undeniable!   PBRs are out of control and people are on fire!   If you want huge production in 2011, make sure you are registered for San Diego and get as many people as you possibly can there as well!

Jeremy and I are so humbled that we are able to be part of such an amazing organization.  We truly feel that ACN is better than it has ever been, and that now is the time to take action! We could not be more excited for all of you who’ve decided to plant your flag with ACN. Work like you have never worked before and enjoy the success that we know will follow this coming year!  You all deserve to have what this amazing company can offer!

To your success!

Mindy Deeble

Senior Vice President and Circle of Champions member