Jeff Ross (00:02.616)
Well, good day legends and welcome to another episode of the Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show. This is where we dive into the world of network marketing, personal branding and everything in between. Hey, I'm Jeff Ross, your host, the caffeinated kangaroo. And today we're gonna talk about a hot topic. How to future proof our network marketing, multi -level marketing, whatever term you wanna call it. How to future proof our businesses with personal branding and
multiple streams of income. There's a few things here that we're to tackle today. These are a meaty topic. in today's ever shifting industry, you know, like we just saw big companies in the last three, four weeks. You know, today I woke up to a new press release, Rodan and Fields. We got sent a couple of weeks. We got body shop. You know, it's funny that they're all in the makeup and the skincare industry, but it's, it's these three big long -term
legacy type companies are now shifting away from the multi -level marketing industry and moving towards an affiliate marketing model. So first off, my heart goes out to all of those people who have been impacted by this shift, because it seems to me that, you know, reading the writing on the walls that there has been no announcements. These people have been blindsided. Their whole world has been turned upside down. The rug's been pulled out.
And first off, I just want to speak to anybody and everybody who's been impacted in this space. My heart goes out to you all. My prayers go up for you all. And yeah, it's gut wrenching, right? You know, we invest our lives, our time and our energy to help these companies build up these big brands. And then when, you know, I think it's a criminal, to be honest, that they can actually do
But the fact is they can and the industry is shifting. It's shifting towards a more consumeristic affiliate model. You know, even I got impacted by this a couple of months ago with DreamTrips International, not as a big drastic thing as, going from MLM to affiliate like, you know, Rodan Fields just done overnight, but still it was an impact nonetheless. And you know, like we've gone from DreamTrips being a standalone company
Jeff Ross (02:30.806)
and now being in the Alliance and being a part of my daily choice house of brands. Now I feel that this is a good smart move for DreamTrips, but I had no choice about it. I could have just pivoted and adjusted like we have, or I could have lost my business overnight as well. And this is the impact of when you get into this space and you just become a company rep.
You know, it's a dangerous, precarious place to be in. And I feel as industry leaders, we have a responsibility to empower and equip our community to help them weather these storms, to help them prepare for future, know, inevitabilities that are going to happen like this. And in these shifting times, we need to keep our finger on the pulse and we need to help our people even more so.
And so today I'm going to in today's episode, break down some ways that you future proof your business, how it can dive into personal branding and the, and the reason behind personal branding. I'm not going to dive into the Watts and the Hounds, I'm going to dive into the why of it all and what actually MSI multiple streams of income really means for you and how can you implement them effectively? There is a wrong way to do it and there's a right way to do it. Right. So first
Let's dive into the whole personal branding concept and why personal branding matters. Well, it's pretty evident, right? In a constantly involving marketplace like we have right now, a strong personal brand gives us control. It protects our online businesses entities. It protects us. It gives us that layer of protection. It also provides a solid platform to do multiple streams of income the right
because it's all about now serving, allowing us to serve and guide our niche, our community effectively. See multiple streams of income, they should be ways to compliment each other, not to be in direct competition of each other. You know, with industry shifts like, you know, like we've just experienced with, especially with road and fields and you know, body shop was another one. Scent moving away from the ML and industry, personal branding is no longer
Jeff Ross (04:54.488)
just for the leaders, it's no longer a luxury. Anybody can have a personal brand, you know, and that's one of the missions that I'm out here to play is to help people establish a personal brand. And I would go as far as saying, I now believe it's a necessity. You know, if you want to do this and go into this game long -term, having a personal brand is a necessity. It's not a nice to have, it's a must to have.
And it's about doing it the right way. It's about putting yourself in a position as a guide. The only difference between you and I, or me and my mentors, is how far down the path we are. How much experience do we have? How can we be a guide to someone if we've never faced the trials and tribulations, the challenges and the problems that our people have faced? That's our job. That's our responsibility, right? Is to help
eye at our people out of Sucksville and take them to Awesome Town. So let's chat about how to create a personal brand and future proof your business and why it's essential to have one message in one marketplace. So defining multiple streams of income is what we're talking about here too, to be able to future proof it. It's about offering different solutions to solve your main audience's problem and getting paid for
You know, this is the crucial building block for a rock solid long -term online business. You know, like my heart goes out for anybody that's impacted by these major shifts because they put their whole brand and their soul and their reputation into being just a company rep, right? And even leaders in these spaces are now having to shift and start again. You know, I've even seen it within our DreamTrip circles, you know, where they had to go through COVID and whatnot and they're starting again.
Maybe starting again with DreamTrips again, but still that whole start again process, that's hard. That's tough, right? It's challenging. See, if I didn't like what happened with DreamTrips and My Daily Choice, I would not have impacted me anywhere as near as much as what it could have if I was just a DreamTrips rep. See, these companies, these products, they essentially just become products on our shelf.
Jeff Ross (07:16.92)
You know, the great analogy I can share with you right now is think of Athlete's Foot. Athlete's Foot, they're a shoe shop amongst all the other shoe shops. But they've niched down and they've created a niched brand, Athlete's Foot, to serve the athletes. That's their community, So they're a shoe shop that's serving a niche community with Athlete's Foot, you know, with the athletic shoes. You walk into there, they've got all different brands stocked on their shelves.
They've got Nike, Reebok, Adidas, know, New Balance, whatever, as long as it's an athlete's shoe, they stock it. Right. And yeah, they have other schools, know, back to school shoes and all that sort of thing too. But their main message is about serving the athlete. And this is how we can create a personal brand for our online home -based businesses as well. You know, I'm, I'm a dream tripper. Well, I'm also now a MyDailyChoice affiliate.
or rep, whatever you want to call it, right? And My Daily Choice have 30 other, at least I could think off the top of my head, 30 other brands in their house of brands. Now, I serve a travel community and I also serve a online education community, teaching people how to master AI and social selling. So I could look through those house of brands now and see if there's something that aligns with serving my community and that just becomes another product on my shelf.
For example, there's a company in My Daily Choice called Akashix. And I know that DreamTrips has sort of created a hybrid product here with travel and the crypto space, travel and trade. So they've created a hybrid product, a sub -niche product. Now I can now go and represent that product on my shelf to my community. Because I know that some of my community, they're all network marketers, affiliate marketers.
You know, they're all in it to make money online. So Akashix, you know, been in that crypto trade space could serve some of my community. See, by understanding how to place these products on our shelf and putting the right product in front of the right people at the right time, our personal brand is at the front. See, we need something at the front. You know, the challenge I've seen in this space and people do this wrong is when they're jumping
Jeff Ross (09:41.236)
one network marketing company to the next to the next, or they've got multiple network marketing companies, multiple MLMs. Now this is the equivalent of sleeping around. It's probably the bluntest way I could put it. It's okay to sleep around. It's probably a fun thing to do when you're young, but it's highly frowned upon because you're going to get a bad reputation,
You know, what's that? Yeah, I'm not going to go there, right? I'll stay away from that. That's the old Jeff that probably would have went there. But you get a bad reputation, right? Because you're sleeping around all the time. So like my recommendation, especially with the multilevel marketing companies is find one, one that you're passionate about. One that you want to go all into. One that you essentially want to get married to. But just like any healthy marriage,
It's okay to have babies. It's okay to gray our family. Right. And so this is, if I look at my, my career, just the last three years, last snapshot there, you know, I went all in with dream trips. had a lot of success with dream trips. I followed one course until successful. I focused my attention heavily on getting my dream trips team up and running. Yeah. So I didn't juggle anything else because if you do
You're just going to confuse yourself. You're going to get overwhelmed. And when overwhelm happens, you end up in procrastination and you're just staying in Sucksville, right? So if you're confused yourself, how can you expect your team to be have clarity? How can you expect your audience to have clarity? So a brand right helps you to get clarity, to help you to get confused minds, to come out of confusion into clarity. Cause that's where the action happens, right? A confused mind will never take any action.
So you need to create your personal brand and then you need to look at your multiple streams of income essentially as product on your shelf. know, to dissolve that, sorry, that solve a specific problem, right? For your audience. This is the power of niching down. You know, if you look at the laptop lifestyle dad's community, it started with just serving dads, but it's spilt over and serving now moms. And it's now the laptop lifestyle legends that we serve.
Jeff Ross (12:06.648)
But this is the power of the spillover when you get it going. But the big thing here, so there's different levels of niching down. So I've got my audience and then I've got the way that I serve my audience. Well, the way that I serve my audience is being a digital marketer and now a coach in this space and a public speaker in this space and a thought leader in the social selling and AI space. I can now create information products.
as serving the online education space. So if I go from serving moms and dads now to a deeper level, which has probably frustrated affiliate and network marketers who are moms and dads, and the way that I serve them is through online education by empowering and equipping our people to create a personal brand, to help them create a niche community.
to help them monetize and create a customer value journey for their brand in the community so they can have an online business. But also if I go deeper than that, it's about teaching you how to master the AI game to become an awesome attraction marketer and use social selling and leverage these amazing AI tools to help you get out of your own way, to help you to systemize this structure and create a pipeline that helps you to create a personal brand, grow a niche community and monetize
to help you to create a life by design that's heart -centered, that's purpose -driven, right? And then you just marry up the right products to put on your shelf, See, our mission should always be to how do we create a win -win -win scenario, serving the greater good, serving our community and serving ourselves. By focusing on one message, we lead from the front to create clarity and purpose.
See, my mission here is to help frustrated network and affiliate marketers, moms and dads, help them transform them into laptop lifestyle legends, teaching them how to make at least $10 ,000 a month online so they can become the fun vacation parent, fueled by dad jokes, of course, so they can focus on making memories with their family. See, I've been laser focused on my brand for the last 12 months.
Jeff Ross (14:23.374)
You know, I started with DreamTrips and I started with the Laptop Lifestyle Dads community. I started with doing, you know, free challenges, which then transform into five -day boot camps. On the back of that, I created a coaching program using AI's help to help me do that. You know, and now I've had over 60 students go through our program. We've got over at least 15, 18 now success stories. You know, people are starting to do the
and starting to get their own personal brand up and running. And that's climbing every day. You know, off the back of that, I launched a book just a couple of weeks ago. Off the back of that, we now have this podcast that you're listening to. You know, off the back of that, I've just been introduced to the LA podcast Tribune Network and been brought into the fold there. Because of that, I'm now one of the Australia's top AI social selling thought leaders and public speakers. And off the back of
I'm also one of the DreamTrips global leaders as well because I'm serving a community, serving my mission. See, when we get our mission and we get our heart right, this is where we get multiple streams of income, the flow that comes through that. Now, I love and breathe and live DreamTrips, but if God forbid something did happen to it overnight like COVID did, it's not going to impact and hurt me as much as it would be.
If DreamTrips, all my eggs are in one basket. You know, I learned that lesson the hard way from COVID, right? Before COVID, I had a full service digital marketing agency and that was it, right? That all my eggs were in that basket and I lost that business overnight. It's devastating for that to happen. You know, so once again, I go out, my heart goes out for anybody who's been impacted by this industry shift, but it is a shift. And as a leader, it's our job to empower and equip our people.
to help them to be able to weather these storms. And I truly believe that the future of this industry, it is affiliate marketing, but it's also, it's gonna be a hybrid approach. I love what My Daily Choice have done. You know, they're very smart in the way that they've brought other brands together and still been offered, you know, a team building comp plan. Because I love the MLM industry. I love the fact that I could build a team. I love the fact that I can,
Jeff Ross (16:48.674)
bring out the best in our team and then the leaders rise and we can work with those people to help them grow in their personal development and leadership. Like I love that part of the MLM industry. You know, if it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't be involved in the MLM. But I do, I love it, right? So let me give you another example of MSI, you know, multiple streams of income in action. So let's break down this example, right? You're a travel club ambassador with
Your primary opportunity is DreamTrips and the travel packages. Now we can start to build that business and now we can bring in affiliate marketing as a side income. So you can partner up with travel related products and services. Maybe you partner up with a suitcase company or a mobile phone company that takes really good travel photos while you're out there. Something along those lines and you then create an income off that affiliate marketing
Then you bring in info products, you create digital courses on travel tips. Then you might bring in coaching. You don't have to do all of this. I'm just giving you your layers to it, right? You offer private group coaching on travel, planning sessions and group coaching. Then you might bring in a done for you service and you provide custom travel itineraries. See, just right there, I've brought in five income streams. This is how we do multiple streams of income.
It's not to get confused with with just jumping around, know, like another term that we do in the church circle. It's called church hopping, right? Stop the multiple level marketing company hopping. You know, if you want to go hopping, go bar hopping, go pub hopping like us Aussies like to do it. You know, jump from one pub to the next. Now I'm getting the caffeinated kangaroo style in. Right.
This is what the industry leaders do, right? If you look at John Melton, if you look at Fraser Brooks, if you look at Ray Higgins, if you look at the Eric Worries of the world, this is what they do. Now, who's to say, just because you have not got the authority, just because you have not got the the expertise of some of these industry OGs do, you can still own it. You can be real raw and realistic. But who's to say that you can't be a leader?
Jeff Ross (19:10.818)
that's serving your people, right? Be a guide in this process. Yeah, like don't try and fake it till you make it, be raw, be authentic, be real, but be a guide and create a personal brand, build an amazing community around you and then get clarity on what your customer value journey looks like, yeah? So let's recap, know, the future of proof, you know,
A future proof in your business is to focus on building a strong brand, you know, and a brand that is like the athlete's foot that has different multiple products on the shelf. But here's the thing, right? Is you don't want to try and build out the whole castle, the whole empire all in one go. The trick to it is, is to break it down into stages and focus, follow one course until successful. Build that piece, get that going.
get it going on its own steam, then move on to the next, then move on to the next, right? So actionable steps from this podcast episode is go make a decision. If you haven't already, or if you need to pivot and adjust and start again, start again from the basis of I'm gonna go do this the right way, the correct way. I'm gonna go do this by building a personal brand. And I'm gonna do it with a long -term focus on things that I can control, right? So pick one business,
one company that you want to get married to, ideally choose one that you're passionate about, right? Pick one, put one in an industry that you love, right? I love travel. I've tried to sell the potions and the lotions, but they're just not me. I love selling the beaches and the oceans, right? Give me that all day long. You know, that's my passion. That's my jam. The other thing I'm passionate about is personal development, is spiritual development, is lifting people
helping them become the best version of themselves and helping them to create a life by design. And if travel is part of their jam too, cool, awesome. We can connect on that, but if not, all good. I love and live and breathe this online social selling world. I love and breathe this AI world. I'm a marketing nerd. I have been for last 16 years, if not longer probably. So I love this industry. So pick an industry that you love that you can get passionate about.
Jeff Ross (21:34.392)
that you can go and learn how to become the master and the best at. Go pro, as Eric Worre says. Go get the experience, go get the hours under your belt and let go of the rest. Stop trying to be everything for everybody. Stop trying to market to everybody. Find your audience who loves you, who knows you, who likes you, who connects with you, who resonates with you and go all in. Focus.
is the golden tickets to success. And it's time to go build something legendary, right? So, hey, if you want to learn how to really dive into this world of personal branding and, you know, creating a niche community, well, we've got something for you here. We've got our five -day social selling and AI mastery bootcamp coming up. We host these bootcamps nearly once every two months at the moment. And so the purpose of these bootcamps
is exactly that, is to help you to build your personal brand, help you to create a niche community, help you to master your message, help you to get a proven, predictable, profitable customer value journey blueprint in place, and help you to learn how to master this world of AI so you can use these amazing tools to help streamline the whole processes. If you'd like to know more about this five -day bootcamp, there'll be a link in the show notes below. So go ahead and click on that.
and make sure that you save your seat. And also we've both got our book. So I wrote a book at four hours using ChatGPT. What I did was I uploaded the transcribed notes from our previous boot camps and with a few clever prompting tricks and whatnot, we were able to write a book in four hours. It's called Social Selling and AI Mastery for Network Marketers. And it's now live on Amazon. You can grab the digital copy here from the link below.
and you can go grab the paperback copy from Amazon. So make sure you go grab your book and that'll help you to get started in this process too. At the moment, as you're listening to this episode, there's a 50 % off special going on for the first 100 people. I believe at last count, now I'm looking at it 16th of July, we've sold over 40 copies already. The book's only been live for a week, so it won't be long before those first 100 are off the shelf, as they say.
Jeff Ross (23:56.738)
So look, if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share with your mates. Join our Laptop Lifestyle Dads community for more tips and strategies on building your personal brand and learning how to implement multiple streams of income that can help you to future -proof your online business. Hey, before I shoot, here's a dad joke for you. You know, our customary dad jokes, I am known as the king of dad jokes, so I better keep them going. But here's a golden oldie for
Why don't skeletons fight each other? Of course, because they've got no guts. One of my friends, one of my boys, I should say, favorite dad jokes. Guys, that's it for today's episode. Stay legendary, stay caffeinated mates, and until next time, keep building your dreams, and we'll see you on the next episode. Hey, bye for now. All right, guys, well, there you go. There's the episode for our podcast on how to future -proof your business.
And whilst I've got you, let me just check in to see if there's any comments here, any questions. Thank you for your time. Truly, truly appreciate you all. And if you're watching the replay later on, let us know in the comments below where you're tuning in from. And yeah, let's go out there and create an amazing businesses that are helping us to live our heart centered, purpose driven lives and help us to create a dream lifestyle that we just love to jump out of bed for and serve and go and create win, win, wins.
all round. This is the power of personal branding. This is the power of building a niche community that you serve, that you're the guide for. And then, you know, when things happen like storms, because they're inevitable, they will happen. The rug will be pulled out from you one way or another sooner or later down the road, right? And just remember things don't happen to us. They happen for us. And once again, you know, for all of those who have been impacted by this major shift in the industry,
especially our friends at Rodenfields and our friends at Santon and Body Shop, just to name a few. My heart goes out for you. We're praying for you and yeah, here to help serve the community in the industry in any way that we can. And it all starts, I believe, with learning how to master the personal brand. So if this has spoken to your heart today, if you're curious and you want to know more, please reach out. I'd love to have a conversation with you and go and have a great day.
Jeff Ross (26:22.912)
It's okay. Things can happen to us. You we all got knocked off our perch when COVID came along and you know, we just have to learn how to pivot and adjust, right? And yeah, but once again, I understand the impact, especially those who have got their livelihoods just been taken away from them overnight. My heart goes out to you and we're definitely praying for you. Thank you for your time. We'll see you on the next episode. for now.