Kathy Lo-Pinto on Living Your Passion and Fulfilling Dreams
Kathy Lo-Pinto trained to become an accountant, but was always considered a stay-at-home mom. So, she started network marketing. Her story.
Thank you so much for this interview, Kathy! I’m curious to know more about you, so let’s get started!
Where were you born and raised, what was childhood like, and what did you want to become when you
grew up?
I was born in France in Lyon and grew up in the south of France – Provence.
With my 2 brothers we saw our parents struggling with money when we were small children & teenager but we always had enough food on the table.
Although they could not so much buy all the clothes needed , as we were getting them from people, when I see some school pictures we can laugh about it , it was another time and fashion wasn’t such a big deal.
Being the only girl, my dad was over-protective and it was suffocating for me so I left when I was 18 without going to University.
In our teens, my parents always prepared a camping vacation around France and we all have life lasting great memories. Because of my overprotected childhood, I was very naive and very introverted.
My dream was to become a ballerina but my parents thought I didn’t have the shape or the height to become a ballerina so at the age of 14 I had to quit Ballet. It had been a very hard time for me.
What did your parents do for a living, and was there any Entrepreneurship in the family?
My parents were both civil servant, my dad was a postman and then he worked night shift in the mail sorting centre and my mom was a telephone operator. But to make ends meet they had to have a second job when we moved to the South of France.
My mom was house cleaning lady on top of her job for 2 years to be able to pay the mortgage and my dad was doing some gardening for a while.
My parents bought houses in ruins as soon as they got little money and they were both working on it in their spare time. My dad was working night shift so he never really slept much and worked days in the houses.
They took an early retirement and bought a pub – bar in French – because they wanted to get enough money to build their dream house and be prepared for their old age.
They both knew that the pay of being a civil servant pension would be minimum wage or less and it would not be enough to have a fulfilling life.
They are both very hard worker and now they have a beautiful house that they built themselves.
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You eventually moved to Ireland, then Jamaica. Why so many unique destinations, and what have you learned from these dramatically different cultures?
I moved in Ireland with my second husband, after a bad marriage with whom I had 2 children. With my second husband we decided it was best to leave France and go for a fresh start, the children were 2 and 4 years old when we moved.
We arrived in Ireland with the car full of our belongings and the 2 children. We had no english at all – I learned german in school but the Irish people had been very kind to us and very patient !!!
We bought a tiny house and it was the best time we had. So many memories. We were freezing in this house but we decided that it had to work out. My husband was working hard to move up the ladder in his company. I did a computer training course ( ECDL) for a year and that helped me to improve my english.
Then I gave french lessons and worked in a call center part time to be able to stay with my children after school and helped them with their homework.
While I was doing that, I always wanted to be a beautician and in 2003 I did a course and got my exams so I started to get clients at home. In the meantime I had 2 other children, childcare in Ireland was very expensive and staying home suited me well.
During that time we also had a wine and provence food company business and an IT business. I was doing the bookkeeping and with the wine business, I did the hampers for Christmas and sometimes we did the farmers markets.
Ireland has been very good to us but when recession hit Ireland, we knew we had to find a job elsewhere. We lost our main contract in the IT business, nobody wanted to drink nice wine, and my beautician clientele wasn’t enough to sustain the family outcome. Our eldest daughter made us grandparents so we were 7 at home, 2 dogs and 4 cats ( I helped the Animal rescue). Big family!
Living in Ireland, with recession, grey sky and rain, it started to become very hard for us and when my husband found a job in Jamaica, we just jumped into the opportunity.
Coming from the South of France I love the sun and I couldn’t be happier, the dogs and cats enjoyed the caribbean climate straight away — especially the cats having long afternoon snooze in the sun.
When we moved to Ireland, it wasn’t an emerging economy with little infrastructure and not much choice for grocery store etc as compared to France,England and most European countries …we were privilege to witness and enjoy the economical boom in Ireland, houses gaining more and more value, roads being built, many european stores opened including IKEA but people changed in their attitude and their values, way of living.
They had to keep up with the jones :), every year most people were competing to buy a new car etc etc So when recession hit us, they started to be very angry, jealous and acrimonious.
So moving to Jamaica has been a blessing for us. We are back to our roots. It is a third world economy here but it has been good for the children and for us. We are back with the nature. The children are taught to be less materialist and it changed our lives.
Jamaicans enjoy their daily life whether they have a normal life or literally for some not much not even a house with water and electricity..
but they do smile all day and enjoy the simple things of life ..
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When and how did you discover network marketing, and what was your outlook about it? Were you excited
or pessimistic?
I discovered Network Marketing in Jamaica. We moved in 2012 and for one year I didn’t do much trying to settle down with the children. Because I needed a work permit I couldn’t go to any salon to propose my services as a beautician so I had to do it from home and I have my little clientele now.
But I needed to find something to do so one day I got introduced to a person that was doing network marketing with some beauty product.
I loved it straight away. It was my field of work, health- beauty and wellness and my dream is to have a spa – I will have my spa one day!!! But I hadn’t a clue how to do network marketing back in 2013.
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What were your first two years like in network marketing, what was the biggest lesson you learned, and what is the best advice you have for new marketers?
At that time I didn’t know better so I was told to brand only the company. But then 6 months later my sponsor changed to another company so I followed him and I had to say the same thing but for another company and other products – I felt like a fraud – and 6 months later to another one.
At that time a leader well known in the industry came to Jamaica to help us promote, and I got great inspiration from her. But she went back to the US and I was left with my local sponsor.
I never lost money doing network marketing because I always found people to buy the products but I certainly couldn’t put any food on the table. That was a hobby!
The lesson I learned is that you need to have a great sponsor to help you build your business online. You need to be shown step by step what to do otherwise you are all over the place and you are not making money.
You cannot change every 6 months MLM and start over with the same speech. You lose complete credibility and even if your friends and family want to support you, well at one point they say enough is enough.
But keep your focus and surround yourself with big earners, follow their foot steps and one big advice, invest in your training. Invest – learn and teach, it is what I always say to my clients.
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You said you spammed a lot in the beginning of your MLM. Why doesn’t spam work and what should network marketers do instead?
Yes spamming is the right name. I was in 600 Facebook groups and every single day I was sending post to at least 150 groups. I got through Facebook jail a few times 🙂
And I didn’t make a dime from it!!!
I was sending all the information the companies were giving us. But when you change every 6 months well that doesn’t work. People in groups have already their products, and they are not going to join you.
Last year I knew I had to do something and this is when I discovered Attraction Marketing with a great community, the leader from the US is part of it so I thought I should do it also.
Well it changed my life. As a network marketer, you need to brand yourself to attract the right people, you need to bring value to your followers, you need to build relationship with your customers. And that is when you are going to get residual income because your clients will stay with you forever.
You’ll gain confidence and when you’ll start getting people inspired by your story and your work, you will realize that you are here for a purpose – helping people and that is a wonderful feeling.
Personal development is as important as getting some training. You need to change your mindset and believe in YOURSELF.
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I love your blog! When did you start blogging, how many posts are on your blog, and what is your traffic like?
Thank you Erik! . I started blogging in September 2016 and today I have 78 blogs published. I usually put a video on it or a Facebook live video.
The traffic on my blog is getting better. I get at least 3-4 new subscriber a week. Which might not seem a lot for most but I believe that I progress week after week and it is what’s important. I always say on my lives or clients, we are not in a race and you have to be patient!!
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What is your favorite platform right now for generating leads, and can you tell us how you use it?
My favorite platform is Facebook at the moment. I find it easier to generate leads because I can see the prospect profile.
As a mum entrepreneur and animal lover, it is very easy to start building relationship with my prospects.
I go to groups and I check who is new in the group. I check if they have a follow button and if not, I send them a few lines welcoming them to the group and advise them to activate their follow button to get more leads. I always talk about something from their wall: kids, animal, nice quote etc – to show i am not just copying and paste.
Most of the time they don’t know how to put it on and that is when I ask them first, that is important- if I can send a link from my blog where I put some tips to optimize their profile to get more followers. And when they say yes, I give them a funnel where they have to put their email address to get to my blog.
I always mention that it is free but I did it this way to see who is serious about their business or not. If they don’t opt in that means I was going to waste my time but when they do I know I might have a prospect.
This is when I start to build relationship, getting to know each other better.
That is one example of course, on Facebook you can go through a lot of different profile, like minded people, write some comments, and that is when you start having friend request from like minded people.
Having said that, I start getting followers on Instagram more and more. I only put one pic a day with a nice quote that I usually do – the one I put on my blog or on my Facebook wall. When I’ll be ready to prospect on Instagram, I’ll have already a great audience. My posts audience varies between 74 and 120 likes.
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What is your favorite book right now and why?
I don’t really have a favorite book but when I read the Power of your Subconscious mind, I wrote some notes and highlighted some texts. This is when I started to get more confident and changed my mindset.
I am now reading “Conversation with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. Very powerful also to change your mindset and help with your self-development.
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What are your goals for 2017?
My goal for 2017 is connecting with as many people as I can to help them build their confidence, change their mindset, and follow their dreams.
I wish to inspire them and make them believe that if I did it, anybody can do it.
And as a result growing my business and my income to start building my spa in 3 years!!!
And travel more to visit my daughter and grand-daughter more often in Ireland.
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What is your favorite quote and why?
“Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others feeling after an experience with you becomes your trademark” Jay Danzie
I like this quote because I can really relate to it. I always say to my prospects, friends and followers. Be yourself and you will attract the right people around you. Be authentic and real and you will go far.
And that doesn’t apply only for Network Marketing but to your complete existence!!
Thank you so much for this interview, Kathy!
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