Ann Sieg Re-visited – From Rival to Friend

If you guy knew me personally, you’d know that I’m not a confrontational person at all. In fact, I avoid conflict whenever possible and have always been able to use my diplomatic skills to diffuse a situation.

In fact, a few years ago at about 1am on a Saturday, I came out of a restaurant bar after being at a friend’s birthday bash and I saw some random dude, staggering and talking to himself. He suddenly turned to me and said something. I couldn’t understand what he said, so I said, “What?” At which point he walked towards me and punched me right in the forehead.

Fortunately for me, I can take a punch.

He got himself ready and was ready to throw down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some police cruisers about a block away and immediately knew that if I engaged, we were both going to spend the night in jail.

So I simply turned to him and said, “What’d you do that for?!?!”

What followed was a masterful use of my “Mental Jiu Jitsu” skills. (As you can see I’m very proud of this)

Two minutes later, the guy was crying and apologizing for what he had done. He was genuinely sorry. He gave me a big drunken hug, at which point his friends showed up. I guess they had lost him and were looking for him.

I told them what had happened and one of his friends told me, “Dude! I can’t believe you didn’t beat the shit out of him. I can’t believe this fucking idiot.”

I was just like, “it’s cool, man. He’s drunk and he’s chill now, so no worries.”

I left that situation with a huge smile and even impressed myself. At the time I wasn’t training in the martial arts like I am now, so maybe things would have been different. I definitely have more of a killer instinct now, as you can see…

The Powerbomb and DDT I Gave to Raymond, During Our Black Belt Test

So fast forwarding, this past February I got a cease and desist letter from Ann Sieg, one of the biggest network marketing online trainers in the world. Ann’s company and I already had some history of “legal letters” being tossed around, so I’ll admit that there were some hard feelings which still lingered.

This most recent one however, asked me to take down a Google Adwords ad, which was triggered everytime someone searched her name. The ad also used her name in the copy.

My reaction was pretty simple, “WTF?”

I didn’t respond to the letter right away and wanted to think about what to do, before I did anything. A few days before the deadline they gave me in the letter to comply, I remembered that Ann and Renegade had made a big splash in the industry by using very prolific ad copy and using MLM company names as triggers and copy for their Adwords campaign.

I quickly did some research and dug up, archives upon archives of ads, and keywords her company had used. Guess what? All of them were trademarked terms and used those terms in their own ad.

I was like, “What a hypocrite?”

I showed the letter and the research I had done to a few friends, one of whom was an attorney. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything here. They agreed with my assessment, and I decided to fire back.

I complied with the request from the letter (to avoid any legal problems with a very big and wealthy opponent).

Growing up poor, I always viewed legal disputes as a channel, which was only available to the wealthy. There were times when great injustices were done to members of my family and we always wanted to make them pay for the wrong they had committed.

However, my father always had a moral objection to any legal action, which was geared towards trying to take money from someone else, without you having earned it. He viewed it in the same light as stealing.

I interpreted the letter Ann’s lawyer sent me as an attempt to intimidate me and flexing her legal muscle, and I flashed back to the times as a kid, when we were wronged and didn’t have the resources to fight back. This lit a fire under me…

Oddly enough (remember that I hate conflict), at the time I kinda lament that dueling is not longer a viable option for settling disputes, because at least then you have to be willing to fight and die for what you think is right. And while dueling is not an option, I thought of the next best thing…

I wrote up a scathing account of everything that happened, complete with the incriminating archived data of her Google Ads and published it on BetterNetworker.com. I titled it, The Hypocrisy of Ann Sieg

This post let off an insane shitstorm of buzz, controversy and all out war. You can say that the ‘cease and desist’ letter was the declaration of war and my very public response was my ‘bring it on!’.

That article quickly became one of the most viewed and highest rated articles in the history of Better Networker, (#2 actually). I felt like a General, after his troops had defeated their enemies in battle with a smile on my face, having struck a devastating blow to my nemesis but I knew that there would be a response which I needed to prepare for… I was ready.

The response never came… no lawyers… no comment… nothing. Meanwhile, the folks on BN were really making Ann pay and laying into her big time… almost mercilessly. Pitchforks anyone?

And more and more, I started to empathize with Ann and her point of view. Through our mutual friend, Mike Klingler I learned more about the real reason, why she had sent me the letter, (and it had nothing to do with what the ‘cease & desist’ letter was accusing me of). And the more I learned, the more I had to admit that I no longer felt as righteous as I once did.

I now knew the real reason and I had to say, she had a point. I asked Mike Klingler if he could arrange a time for us to speak. I wanted a resolution. (A peace conference of sorts.)

Ann, her son Isaiah and I spoke a week after I had published the article on BetterNetworker, and we immediately felt a connection with each other. I lowered myself and apologized if I hurt anyone through this process, and we both took responsibility for the contributions to the conflict.

In fact, recently, Isaiah Sieg published a letter where he very humbly and publicly accepted responsibility some of the things that led to this conflict. (This is bigger than you think!)

Out of this conflict, Ann and I have become truly great friends, and have had many conversations over the phone with topics of discussion ranging from politics, world events, personal development, martial arts and much more. (Not the type of friends, where you buy their course and now claim in your emails “my good friend Mike Dillard”… But real friends.)

We both agreed that we needed to do something big to let the world know, that not only have we buried the hatchet, but that we are now great friends and allies. So last month, Ann, Raymond and I recorded a 2-hour training call where we took all the lessons we learned from this experience and give them away at no cost.

More than any other training I’ve done, I’m especially proud of this one, because there is nothing like it anywhere! These 2 hours contain the lessons and teaching, which have been the most impactful in my career and life.

It is titled, “War, Peace and Marketing with Ann Sieg, Ferny Ceballos & Raymond Fong”

I’m sure it will offer amazing breakthroughs for you as well.