A Vision Without a Plan Is Nothing: Mario and Carla’s Story

You already run a business. Maybe more than one. You work long hours, you’re good at what you do, and none of it has given you back your time or your family. Mario and Carla built exactly that life in the hospitality industry in Portugal before anyone mentioned Empower Network to them, and for six months after they joined, they did nothing with it. Not because the opportunity wasn’t real. Because they didn’t yet have a plan simple enough to actually follow.

Their session, translated live from Portuguese, is less a highlight reel and more a description of what changed once a plan finally arrived, and it holds a lesson that applies whether you’re building this business or running the one you already have: vision without a plan doesn’t move anyone, including you.

What actually broke six months of doing nothing?

It wasn’t more motivation. Mario had already heard the pitch and stayed skeptical, having no background in internet marketing at all. What changed the outcome was a direct conversation with their sponsor, Silvio, who didn’t just describe an opportunity, he handed over an actual working plan and asked for total commitment to it. Mario’s own account of the moment is blunt about the trade he was being asked to make: total follow-through, in exchange for a real shot at the number he’d asked about.

What they describe learning from that plan wasn’t complicated. Generate leads. Learn to talk to the people those leads become. Understand why people say yes. Then repeat the exact same process with the people who join underneath you, so it duplicates cleanly instead of degrading with each new person who tries it.

Why does the plan have to be revised every single month?

This is the part most people skip once they’ve had one good stretch. Mario and Carla still sit down monthly, years later, and rebuild the plan against fresh goals rather than coasting on whatever worked last time. Their argument is that a system only stays duplicable if it keeps getting re-examined, not left running on autopilot while the market and the team around it keep changing.

• Set goals at the start of each month, specific enough to measure.
• Work the plan daily rather than in bursts.
• Revisit and adjust the plan at the end of the month, before starting the next one.

They’re honest that this didn’t erase the low stretches. There were, in their own words, plenty of ordinary ups and downs along the way. What changed was the response to a low stretch: focus harder on production, not less, until it lifted, rather than waiting for circumstances to improve on their own.

The harder your journey is, the bigger the prize. Believe it.

That line lands harder once you know what came before it. Both families spent long stretches without enough money for gas, without enough to cover a bill, counting change at a grocery register. The point they’re making isn’t that struggle is romantic. It’s that the difficulty was never a signal to stop, it was the cost of the thing they were actually building.

What does the whole approach come down to, underneath the goals and the monthly plan?

As it’s put plainly in the session, “a vision without a plan is nothing.” A plan without a shared vision doesn’t duplicate either. Mario and Carla describe their strength as a team coming from one deliberately simple standard: treat every affiliate on your team the way you’d want to be treated yourself, not as a sale but as a partner working toward the same thing you are. They say it plainly, that they don’t make sales, they build partnerships with people who want what they want.

That’s the actual mechanism behind the leadership positions their team members have gone on to earn. Not a secret traffic trick. A plan simple enough to hand to someone new, revised often enough to stay current, and delivered inside a relationship where the person receiving it is treated as a future leader from day one, not a number on a report.

Whatever business you’re building, the same test applies. Do you have an actual working plan you could hand to the next person who joins you, or just a vision you’re hoping they’ll catch on their own?

The full session goes further than what’s above, including the rest of their story since that first plan arrived. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Oh my god, I'm so exciting to be here This is the only words you heard Me speak in English because I'm gonna speak in Portuguese. Okay, okay, but I have My friend Sylvie who gonna gonna translate me and Mario. It's not a problem Yeah, because I don't speak very well English. Okay, sorry so I'm gonna start in English.

Okay, I'm gonna try it a little bit. Okay Oh My name is Carla, I'm from Portugal with Mario and Our history begins ten years ago Because we meet together and an event like this. It's not amazing. We meet an event like this ten years ago You go I'm gonna start speaking Portuguese, okay It's more comfortable to me I know Settings in the music comfort.

Oh, I know I wanna go out my comfort zone but please more fast I'm gonna Speak in Portuguese so I'm gonna show you one slide It's not the first one This is the first one. These are our sponsors Sylvia's arena and our history begins April the No, we have to decide if you want to speak in Portuguese or in English. Our story starts in October of 2013 when Silvio and Cesarina, our sponsors, called us because they had just entered on Empower Network. At that time we were entrepreneurs, we had several businesses in hospitality, and these businesses took all our time.

We didn't see our time. We are far away from our family. When Silvio talked about us, about Empower Network, we believed it, but we entered on the business, but for six months we did absolutely nothing with the business. At that time, Mario didn't want to hear about anything about another business.

I was the person that believed it and started. At that time, when she started, she saw the videos of David Wood, she stayed for hours on the computer, but she didn't understand how I was going to develop that project, because I had never worked with internet marketing. At that time, when she started, she saw the videos of David Wood, she stayed for hours on the computer, but she didn't understand how I was going to develop that project, because I had never worked with internet marketing. At that time, she started, she saw the videos of David Wood, she stayed for hours on the computer, but she didn't understand how I was going to develop that project, because I had never worked with internet marketing.

So, six months past, she don't do nothing special in the business. Their life is a hell because they work so, so, so much in their traditional business. And then one day, Silvio and Cesarina goes to Madeira Island, there where they're living. And we said to them that they can't have this life and they should stop.

And they should really see this business once more. And Mário makes Silvio a question. He has a doubt because he don't have any kind of experience in internet marketing. And he looked in Silvio's eyes and asked if in the first month he can do $15,000 in the first month.

And his answer looked at us, the two of us, and said, Is it possible for you to do that? And he said to Carla, ten years ago, where you put your focus, your work and your dedication, you can do it. So, I have to say that it's possible. So, Silvio looked in his eyes seriously and said that I know you and Carla, I know what you are able to.

So, if you're really committed to, I believe it, that you can do it in the first month, $15,000. And I asked a second question. And he made a second question. What do I have to do?

And he said, you have to be all in. And follow exactly the plan, the working plan that I will give it to you. It was 20th of April of 2013. And he said, you have to be all in.

And I said, you have to be all in. And he said, you have to be all in. And I said, you have to be all in. And he said, you have to be all in.

Yes. We came to an event in Chicago. We started the working plan on May 1st. And on May 30th, we started to submit the commission report.

And on May 30th, it starts to have all the commissions. And we didn't earn $15,000, we earned $16,000. And it didn't make, it didn't make any profit. $15,000 but $16,000 in the first month.

The income are not typical so because they earn this money doesn't mean that anyone will earn this money of course but only it was possible because he follows strictly what the sponsor given to him as a plan. Because Silvio passed this vision to him. Yes. And from that moment Do you want to say everything?

From that moment what we did was understand what was the work plan that he expressed, which is simple learn to generate contacts and learn to communicate with these contacts try to understand why people are affiliated through the game plan and duplicate us precisely in the same. We gave him a plan to achieve what they want. We had many difficulties at the beginning. We had no knowledge of the Internet.

Very little computer knowledge. We have a lot of difficulty initially because we don't have any experience in computers any experience in the Internet. Any experience in the Internet marketing world. But we always advanced month after month.

Focusing and increasingly focused on a monthly work plan that we did every month. But every month they revise this working plan and every month they make goals and stick with these goals and work hard to achieve these goals every month. Even today we do this work plan monthly. Every month they revise their goals every single month.

And every single month they work to the goals that they establish at the end at the beginning of the month. I want to share with you that after three months we both went to the first event. I had never been to an event in Power. After three months, Mario took me to an event.

It was in Denver. I want to show you the picture. So, Mario was alone in the first event. But then after three months the next event they are all together.

And she wants to show some pictures from this first event that they were together which was in Denver. It's the photo in Denver. It was a huge… Speak Portuguese.

A huge pavilion. It was a huge pavilion. And we were sitting in the middle in the middle of English alone in the background. And we sit down on the end of the people together with some English persons.

And I look at Mario and we look at each other and we said we are going to be on that stage one day. I don't know when. But we are going to be. And Mario said to me you don't know when?

I know. Mario immediately drew goals for the things and drew some goals when we were going to be on the stage. So, she said to Mario that one day they will be on the stage. And Mario says that I know exactly the day that will be.

And a year ago we were invited to participate we qualified in the… I don't even know the name. In the leadership council of Empower Network and our results. And after one year they were invited to the leadership council and one year later they are here on the stage on the stage before speaking.

What we did during this journey was to learn… We never invented a lot. Silvio always told us what the path was which was to generate traffic. The greatest amount of traffic to be able to do one or two sales once a day.

What did you learn from this work plan? So, they don't invent so much. They really stick with the plan that we… that Silvio gave to them.

The plan was really, really simple. Generate as many leads as they can in a way that they can generate two members a day minimum. Throughout the whole work plan we always have moments at the bottom moments at the top. Which is absolutely normal during our lives.

And our moments. When we are working and we are making the plan every day of course we will have ups and downs. We have really good moments and we have low moments all the time. And what I personally and Carla do we…

at certain times of our lives we go through great, great difficulties. And what we do is that we know that we don't want to go through those difficulties anymore. So we focus precisely on what we have to do to not go through those difficulties. During our life together we already passed through really, really tough moments a lot of times.

But we know that when a low moment will come in our life what we have to do is focus to not having anymore these low moments and focus on work and focus on production to get out as soon as possible from this low moment. The game plan is without a doubt one of the most important parts of your relationship with the affiliate. The game plan is one of the parts much more… very important with the relationship that you have with the new person that comes in your team.

Our success and the success of our team is really based on the vision that we capture from our sponsor, Silvio. We treat all our affiliates as we like to be treated. And we treat our affiliates exactly the same way as we would like to be treated. We don't make sales.

We have business partners and people who want the same as us. We don't make sales. We have business partners that really want the same thing as us. If Silvio hadn't helped me, the times that were necessary for me to learn how to make a broadcast, I still wouldn't know how to do it.

If Silvio didn't help me as much as I needed to know how to make a broadcast, today I don't know even how to do it. If he hadn't helped me the times that were necessary with Facebook to learn how to make campaigns, I still wouldn't know how to do it. If my sponsor Silvio didn't teach me as much as time as needed, in a way that he dominates Facebook ads, until today I don't know how to do it. And if Silvio didn't give part of that to him and to the whole team, it would be impossible for us to understand and duplicate precisely the same way.

And if Silvio didn't really give this to him and to all the team, today we will not know how to have a broadcast that is as good as we want it to be. And if Silvio doesn't really give this to him and to all the team, he won't know how to have a really good duplication in our team. So the real strength of our success, of our duplication in our team is really because we treat our affiliates exactly as we would like to be treated, ourselves, and how our sponsors treat us too. And that vision that Silvio gave me, that it was possible to earn more than $15,000 in the first 30 days, and the vision that Silvio passed to me, that it was really possible to earn $15,000 exactly in the first months that we started working, that they really want to get it in double, in triple, whatever it is.

We passed the vision in a very strong way. The vision that I want to achieve, I pass this with the security. And when you pass a vision like that, to follow the vision, you have to have a detailed action plan. A detailed action plan of what you have to do.

And together with the vision, a vision without a plan is nothing. So we have to pass the vision, the security, and at the same time, a really simple plan of achieving that. How to achieve this vision and these goals. That has been our pillar of duplication.

And it is about this pillar that we have walked and the whole team has walked in terms of duplication. And today, at the top of Empower Network's performance of today, we have 5 people from our team there. And today, today, they have 5 people on the leaderboards today on Empower Network. Today.

On this team. And from the team of the Lazy Millionaires, there are 6. And from the Lazy Millionaires team, there are 6. Today.

And today, today, we have a very simple business. Very simple. Everything we do has to be duplicable. Everything we do has to be duplicable.

We make it in a very, very simple and easy way. And what we do, we are always thinking about duplication. And to have a really great duplication, If it was really complex he don't have any success on this business From this one half year they earned more than $600,000 with Empower Network More than important than the money of course is that we really change our lives Carla will show you some photos Today we live the life we always dreamed of without a doubt a life that we designed for ourselves a long time ago We were on the Mandela Highlands but then we changed to the continent to near Lisbon and we have a big, big house when we receive our affiliates and our team This house is afar with horses There is a bullfight arena inside of the property We have a lot of horses too This is our family Our daughters, Nicole and Lara I'm flying away This is our family Nicole and Lara For the people who are watching the hundreds of Portuguese who couldn't be here and who are watching us via live stream a big kiss for everyone at home at home to everybody that is not here that are at home big kisses for everybody Some people say that money don't bring happiness but of course that happiness comes when we achieve things with the money and we achieve things with the money and we have the things that we really want and the most important thing about this is not to be in a company as we know many of them where only one earns money we are in a company where we earn money and the most important thing is our team to see them change their lives and they earn the money there we have a photo of the Lazy Millionaires in one of our events so the important is not only that we earn money because we were in other companies that one or two earn money and the others don't the much more important thing is that when we earn money a lot of people on our team and for instance this photo is from the Lazy Millionaires team event with a lot, a lot, a lot of people that earns money thank you all of this because one day there was a madman who said that really this was the opportunity of our lives and he is a madman and we all started dancing to that madman and we all started dancing to that madman yeah it was because one day one crazy guy start dancing translation please and because other people start dancing together so this kind of thing happen change subject this is possible because It was really important that Silvio passed me this really big vision through the project.

So I can pass a really, really, really big vision on this project because I and Silvio My family and Silvio's family we already passed for really tough moments moments that we don't have any money to come to the events don't have money to put gas on the car don't have money to pay a bill to take the car from the police go to the supermarket and have the money counted and don't have as much money to bring everything that we want Silvio and his family and Mario's family passed through all these kind of things together without even thinking about it.

When we arrive here we know exactly, exactly what we want and exactly what we don't want and we don't even want to think about it what we don't want. The harder your journey is, the bigger the prize. Believe it. What's more tough is the way when you achieve it it will be much more amazing.

Let yourself be influenced by what will happen this weekend. Let influence in this environment because if our life change because we let us influence itself your life can change too. in this weekend. Yeah.

Thank you. It's unbelievable to be here today and look back. But besides of all these problems, besides of all this challenge, now we are here and we changed our life. And every time we come here on stage, we get very, very, very nervous.

But besides of all these things, we always, always, always know exactly what we want for our life. And if we do it, you can do it too. Let's do it. And the most fabulous feeling of victory is that you achieved something great.

The most amazing feeling when you achieve something really, really big. It's not the money that you earn with the project. It's when you really see people in your team following a work plan. You see people in your team going up to a stage and being with you on top of the stage and achieving what you achieved in less time than you.

The really, really amazing thing is that when you follow a plan, you give this plan to the people, the people will follow this plan and then one day they will hear on the stage and most of the times much faster than when you do it. They do it in less time and it's amazing. It's an amazing feeling when the people that trust you comes here to the stage and conquers too. Do you know why he cries a lot?

Do you know why Silvio cries a lot? Do you know? Do you know? I speak for Silvio.

Because this started to happen to him. And so, he cries a lot For us to be here, all of us. For us to be here and others that will be here and more others that will be here. And he can't contain himself because of that.

It's the sun. We get emotional when we see the people that trust us changing their lives. Thank you all. Thank you.

Give it up for Carlo Imario. Thank you.