The Business Millennials Podcast

2.11 Why You Shouldn't Depend on MRR Or Affiliate Marketing For Income

• Ashley Dreager

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This episode of the Business Millennials podcast, hosted by Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager, explores the critical importance of owning your assets in business for long-term sustainability. The hosts discuss the risks associated with relying on external platforms and programs, using examples from influencer marketing, MLMs, and gig economy platforms. They emphasize the need for entrepreneurs to develop their own intellectual property and controlled sales channels to ensure stability and growth.

Key Takeaways:

  • Owning your business assets is crucial for long-term sustainability and control over your income.
  • Relying solely on external platforms (e.g., social media, MLMs) can be risky as terms and payouts can change unexpectedly.
  • Building a business with owned assets provides more stability and control than traditional employment or platform-dependent income streams.
  • While external platforms can be useful for getting started, it's important to have a plan to develop your own products or services.
  • Consider the long-term implications and risks when making business decisions, especially regarding income sources and major purchases.

0:00 - Introduction to the Business Millennials podcast 
0:58 - Ashley introduces the topic of owning your assets in business 
2:18 - Safa provides examples of businesses changing terms (MRR, Beauty Counter) 
4:48 - Discussion on the risks of MLMs and influencer marketing 
7:05 - The importance of turning influence into owned assets 
9:02 - Comparing risk levels of different income sources 
9:47 - Example of job instability in traditional employment 
11:36 - The current job market and ease of making sales with owned assets 
12:48 - Risks associated with gig economy platforms like Uber 
14:41 - Conclusion and main takeaway on owning your assets

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Intro:

Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris, and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably. Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Ashley Dreager:

Okay. So owning your own assets in business, having your own IP, your own controlled sales channels, sales items, however you want to put it. Um, it's very, very important for long term sustainability in business, because there's a lot that can be changed outside of your control that can really affect your income and your trajectory and your projections. So like specifically something that I've been seeing a lot on TikTok is with influencers complaining about the income that they are getting or the changes to the programs that they are in. Affecting their payouts, um, like the tick tock creator fund. I don't know if anyone else is familiar with the 10 K follow trend to try to get into the creator funds so that they can post videos and suddenly make a ton of money. well, shockingly you get into the creator program and apparently your videos don't get pushed out. So then they don't make money. It's like, well, there's a, I mean, there's a lot more to it. And, um, I mean. Even if that wasn't the case today, they could just get rid of the program tomorrow and then you're back at square one.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, so I have a couple of other examples of like that scenario as well. So one being, well, obviously MRR, right? So they changed their terms where there's like, oh, you can't resell it now, but you can be an affiliate and they're calling it something else to make it sound like it's cool and new, but it's just an affiliate program. So they, and they always had those rights because when it first came out and I was like, something's not right here. My business, my business spidey senses say, like, this makes no sense. And I was like, they're 100 percent going to pull those rights at some point. And I just know it because there's no other benefit to them. And they, sure enough, they sure did pull it. And they're such great salespeople, too, that they are selling people like, Oh, this is such a great improvement. It's so great for everybody. But, like, business self knows that that's, that's not the case. They're just good at sales.

Ashley Dreager:

Yep. Every well, everyone wants money fast and easy.

Safa Harris:

Exactly. then on the, that same thing happened with beauty counter. It like shut down overnight. People that were consultants, they had both with MRR and beauty counter, and we've seen this with other MLMs as well, is that they'll shut down and people that built. They're houses and got mortgages and we're oh, we like live the high fast lifestyle now where we party and travel on the backs of this up either by selling things of this other business. And or like they built that structure and like other people were selling and they were benefiting from the payouts and the commissions of it and then that can get yanked from you at any point any day and there's something to be said about business is risky yeah like we don't know where our next dollar is coming from but we sure know that we have something we can sell Or change or do something for we can go out and hustle and make sales it and nobody's going to ever stop us from being able to do that It's just going to be us stopping ourselves from doing that and or the market or whatever Nobody's ever going to come and tell us. Hey, you can no longer be a service provider for other businesses

Ashley Dreager:

You can't sell marketing strategy.

Safa Harris:

exactly, you can no longer, like, the government bite, but like, that's

Ashley Dreager:

That's going to affect business across the board. It's like, that's different. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

often happens, I think, with MLM recruitment and things like MRR and then also influencers, that it often starts as, The enticement is like, oh, come do this with me and you'll make money and people always need money, especially we live in the US, it's expensive, like, it's a capitalistic society, like, we, like, it is a huge need financially here. It's tough. people are always going to be like, Oh, this is an easy way for you to get started. You can sell this thing. All you have to do is be good at sales. And because it's business in a box, but you don't own the box, all you're doing is doing the sales for someone else.

Ashley Dreager:

Right. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

kind of how MRR got people because it was like, Oh, but you're not paying us anything other than the one. But you're still. You don't own that aspect. And the same thing happens with influencers. They are reliant on the percentages and the commissions and all

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm. Mm

Safa Harris:

will be making, and it's not in control for them. So they can. Do all the Amazon sales. They can do all the tick tock shop affiliates. They can do all the content creation videos and make money off of creator programs and getting paid per view or ad revenue off of YouTube. All of that all day long. And. They could take that and turn it into something else that's more monetized, which you see a lot with influencer brands. They will often get their start this way, but a lot of the ones that have lasted, that are still in the game, have taken what they've done and learned as creators and turned it into something that they own, that is their asset, that they are then selling.

Ashley Dreager:

hmm.

Safa Harris:

And making a, they'll have their own clothing line, or their own makeup line, or, like, even the education based ones, they'll have their own courses, or their, even, like, the YouTube videos, they'll be like, Okay, well, like, this is now gonna be an education thing, because I've added a lot of value here, versus just, vlogs, and things like that. So, so yes, you have those influencers being like, Oh my gosh, they cut it. This is what I used to pay my bills. It's like, you never owned it. They are fully in their right to do that. And they're not doing anything wrong because that is their business is the business decision and choice that they made. yes, you reliably made more. You made a ton of money off of. What they allowed you do, but it was never anything to hang your hat on for long term stability and sustainability. And same thing with MLMs, same thing at MRR. It's a repeated story. So the moral of the story is it's like, there's nothing wrong. Well, MRR, there's nothing wrong with using all of that to get your foot in the door

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris:

And if it's purely something that that's just a side hustle and if it goes away, you're like, Oh, well. Like, I just gotta find something else. Like, that's fine. But if it's just your foot in the door, all of that, that's fine. But if you're seeing this something as like, I'm gonna buy my 10 bedroom house off of Creator Fund,

Ashley Dreager:

It's my retirement plan.

Safa Harris:

Uh huh, and I've retired my husband, and it's all me, and this is what I'm doing it. You Best have a plan to build out a business with owned assets, because that is going to be what's sustainable and long term that's actually going to give you more sustainability.

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris:

like on the risk spectrum of like, am I going to get a paycheck this week, like working a job, like a seven out of 10,

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris:

A business. I would honestly say probably like an eight or seven out of 10, too. Just because like you own more of it, you have more control and like a job can lay you off whenever, but we can still always go figure out a way to make more sales.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah, on the job thing, Justin, he used to work in HVAC, right? And the company that he worked with, he was there for a little while, um, completely changed their pay structure and his income got cut by like, 30 percent even though his hourly rate didn't change at all.

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

cause they got,

Safa Harris:

either.

Ashley Dreager:

they sold the company and this new company wanted to make things better, more efficient.

Safa Harris:

Well,

Ashley Dreager:

company is still looking out for the company. Yeah. Right. Right.

Safa Harris:

It's going to save you money, which you spend on the system set up. It's going to save you on like hours worked by the team. It's the same thing. It's just like a different. Prospective is like a business is not going to not integrate something that's going to make their operations more efficient Like that just doesn't make sense just to keep people In jobs and things like that, they're going to do what increases their revenue, their bottom line and saves them costs. However, however, on our social impact and things like that, it's like you can do that and still take care of people in different ways and have different things going on. And that's why we're so big on like, Hey, think about your longterm strategy and have your systems and things first. So you don't take things people for granted. Things away from people, you can just give them better,

Ashley Dreager:

Right. Yeah, there's a difference between Cutting costs and being mindful of the budget to keep the business in business because if the business goes out and everyone loses their job is going to be It's worse, right?

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

but yeah, take making sure that you're taking care of your people in there That you know, it's

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

different approaches and mindset to business Yeah,

Safa Harris:

work for worse for people by completely cutting it off. Um, So business stability wise, especially right now, like I think it's easier to go make a sale with an own asset than it is to get a job. With the job market, the way it is with

Ashley Dreager:

my gosh

Safa Harris:

people to apply for jobs and things like that. So I honestly, perspective, put them on par and then you have things that are more like influencing more like MRR and MLM and things like that, which is really just a sales job.

Ashley Dreager:

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris:

You're making sales for someone else. It's a sales job. And. Just as you could get laid off in a job, you could get laid off in an influencer, non owned asset business structure without the benefits of severance or legal protections or anything like that. Like another example,

Ashley Dreager:

Mm.

Safa Harris:

Uber is actually like, they could literally tomorrow be like, Hey, Uber Uber doesn't exist. And how many people are driving Uber as their full time jobs.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. Yeah. I, uh,

Safa Harris:

Mm.

Ashley Dreager:

for Lyft as like a side hustle back when I was in my last job. And, uh, I remember when I was going to get my car inspected, somebody else was like, oh, why are you like, why are you driving that car for, for Lyft? I had a 2009 Honda Civic. Um, and I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, you could just go buy a new car. And I was like, why would I do that? Like, just for the, like, I don't know how much money I'm gonna be making on this. This is not my full time job. Like, this is, that seems very risky to go put myself into a car payment for something that I have zero control over what I can even charge

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

make this trip. Like,

Safa Harris:

The only time taking on a car payment makes sense in the business perspective is when the car payments are less than the tax write off you would get if you were able to depreciate enough and you have enough tax liability.

Ashley Dreager:

yeah. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

for us to think about when we hit eight figures. New cars! Has to be over, like, that's why people buy, like, G Wagons and Range Rovers.

Ashley Dreager:

I mean,

Safa Harris:

write off

Ashley Dreager:

yeah, I can see if there being a time and a place for sure, but not like I'm not taking on a 30, 000 liability for

Safa Harris:

Yeah,

Ashley Dreager:

gig for the gig economy for gig work. Like, you don't even control the platform. What if they suspend you? What if they expel you for

Safa Harris:

Yeah,

Ashley Dreager:

review? The is a lie. I don't know. Like, there's just so much out of your control. Yeah. So

Safa Harris:

A lot out of your control. So, moral of the story is, there's a time and place for all of those kinds of income generating things. If you want to hang your hat on it, have a plan to create some assets that you own and do and work from that. Because that's going to you something more to lean back on. And count on and have more control over.

Outro:

And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.