Episode 103 | Diversify Your Income Streams: Marketing Veteran Tips for the Modern Entrepreneur - Gloria MacDonald

In this episode, I chat with Gloria MacDonald, a network and affiliate marketing veteran with over 45 years of experience. Gloria shares her journey from struggling with traditional marketing methods to finding success through personal branding and online marketing. She emphasizes the importance of authenticity, creating a strong online presence, and the power of "one-to-many" communication. Gloria also discusses diversifying income streams and offers actionable steps for listeners to enhance their personal brands. This episode is packed with insights and inspiration for anyone in the marketing space.

About Gloria:
Gloria MacDonald is a veteran entrepreneur and a highly respected mentor and trainer, dedicated to empowering network marketers and affiliate marketers to create multiple streams of passive and residual income. With a proven track record of building a successful multi-seven-figure business, Gloria now focuses on helping others design the lives they've always dreamed of.

With a clear, simple, and proven roadmap to success, Gloria provides guidance every step of the way, offering clarity and confidence to those ready to cross the threshold into their amazing future.

Reach Gloria:
LinkedIn
Website
Facebook Page

Kay Miller interviews women in sales with proven track records, as they share their experiences, success strategies and tools you can use to crush your sales goals. Kay has a history of sales success, earning the nickname “Muffler Mama” when she sold more automotive mufflers than anyone in the world. Kay and her guests deliver actionable insights and real-world tools that will help you overcome obstacles, adopt a winning mindset, and maximize your sales results.

Kay is the author of the book, Uncopyable Sales Secrets – How to Create an Unfair Advantage and Outsell the Competition. Go to Amazon.com and search “Uncopyable Sales Secrets” to order the book, or click the link below.

Contact:
kay@uncopyablesales.com
linkedin.com/in/millerkay
Order Uncopyable Sales Secrets: amzn.to/35dGlYZ

Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:00  Welcome to unconquerable women in business. I'm your host, Kay Miller, also known as Muffler Mama. Stay tuned as I, along with my guests, give you marketing, sales, and personal branding strategies that will give you an unstoppable advantage. Today I'm here with Gloria McDonald, who and Gloria is a multiple seven figure earner and a 45 year veteran of the network and affiliate marketing industry. Gloria realized years ago how important it is to brand yourself, not your company, because people join people, not companies. Gloria, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Besides your story, I just want to let the listeners know some of the things that you're going to be hearing about. And that is why is it so important to brand yourself? And a very intriguing question. What does Santa Claus have to do with branding? And what do you do if you don't have a brand? So those are some of the things that we are going to talk about and stick around to the end, because we will have some closing thoughts, things that you can act on right now.
Speaker 1 00:01:20  Gloria, I'm going to hand it over to you, and I can't wait to hear about your journey and how you got to where you are now. Yes. Thank you so much again, Katie. It's great to be here. And so I started off in network marketing over 45 years ago. I was pretty much just out of college, and my husband and I were invited over to dinner at some friend's house, and they were older. They owned a house, so I thought they were rich because they owned a house at the ripe old age of 22, rich in my mind. So we went over to their house for dinner This was a huge honor to be invited over to their house for dinner, and after dinner they pulled out the flip chart and they started drawing circles. And it was Amway. And for whatever reason, and I can't tell you exactly now what it was that struck me, but I got this vision of being able to be an entrepreneur and having financial freedom, and to be able to live life on your own terms.
Speaker 1 00:02:27  And the bug bit me now I was, I will admit, I was complete and total unmitigated disaster in Amway and in I was in an unmitigated disaster for forever. I have been a multiple seven figure earner in the industry, but it was a long time. And to really be honest, I didn't crack the nut. On success in network and affiliate marketing until I learned how to market online. I'm a Witch, which wasn't available back then, right? No. Absolutely not. At that point, we still had rotary dial phones and there was no internet. Nobody had a computer. Personal computers didn't exist. And so I was left to talk to people. The line up at Bank didn't have ATMs. It sounds ancient. Wouldn't talk about this. That's the way the world was. We didn't have ATMs. You had to actually walk into a bank the other side. When you walked into a bank, there was actually somebody there. Yeah. Now we've got all this technology. And when you mention the rotary dial phone, I'm sure people listening have never even had to use one.
Speaker 1 00:03:32  But back in the day, you hated it when someone had a zero in their phone number. Because if you dialed a one, it was like, click to click. But the serum you're with is probably anyway. So you had to network in person and there's only one of you, right? So that's right. And I had to talk to total strangers. And even though I'm an extrovert, like I have no problem saying hello to a stranger or whatever, but trying to strike up a conversation and going from, oh my gosh, I love your purse to do you want to join my business as How do you do that? I have never been good at that. I have always hated that. The rejection has been absolutely, positively brutal. And our brains do not like rejection. Our brains job is to keep us safe. That's the number one job of our brains. And rejection is not safe. So literally, our brains are taking us out of that cold calling, rejection zone, cold calling or just talking to strangers about your opportunity or whatever.
Speaker 1 00:04:41  So I was not good at it. Even though I'm an extrovert, I was not good at it. But I still had a dream and a vision, and I couldn't give up on this dang dreamer vision. So fast forward years later, I actually had created a multiple seven figure business. I had a matchmaking business and it was really cool in person. Like I'd go interview people in their homes. It was a high end matchmaking business, and I started it just about the same time in 2000, just about when Facebook was getting going and Match.com maybe had just launched. So online dating was not a thing yet, but I was very successful at that. And then through a series of events that literally fell apart overnight and I had to reinvent myself. And I was 56 years old. And at that point, I had been out of the workforce because I had my matchmaking business for 13 years. I was out of the workforce for 13 years. Nobody was going to hire me. I was at 56 people looking to hire you anyway, unless I wanted to go work as a greeter at Walmart, I might have been get a job, but that was not going to pay the bills, you know? So I reinvented myself.
Speaker 1 00:05:57  It was by far The most challenging time in my life. I've been through divorce and that was incredibly challenging. But this was also extreme retail and hard to, you know, say which one was more challenging. But I was younger. I was the only one that went through the divorce and now is 56. And I really it was the dark night of the storm. I did not know how I was going to pull myself out of this because I was not employable any longer, having been out of the workforce force for 13 years. And I had to figure out and I had to figure out quickly how to reinvent myself. So I got I'd always had a toe in the water and network marketing. I have always been involved, but now I had to make it work and in a big way. Yeah, in a big way. My husband and I literally cashed in every dime of retirement savings we had at the age of 56. Not a plan, guys. Not a good plan. I racked up literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of credit card debt and line of credit debt.
Speaker 1 00:07:03  We had to sell our home. We sold one of our two cars. I was driving around in a Porsche while that life was over, let me tell you. And it was brutal. But I did it, and I figured out how to market online. And that was truly the turning point for me. And I figured out how to brand myself, which was huge. And to me, that really makes all the difference in the world. If you have not figured out how to brand yourself, chances are you are not successful in affiliate marketing or network marketing. Because yeah, everyone, you've got lots of competition. Young are selling the exact same thing, and so they're not going to buy from you because you're like everyone else. You need to establish a difference. And just in studying you a little bit and learning about you, I just watched a video on LinkedIn where you are dressed up as a grandma. It's hilarious. A little skit about Christmas shopping, which ties in to your affiliate marketing program.
Speaker 1 00:08:10  But you've got funky glasses, so you've got your appearance is unique, so you've got that visual part of your brand. So what else have you done to build your own personal brand? You really have to create a presence online. I believe if you're going to be successful in this day and age, sure, there are people who've been successful. Let's take the example of network marketing, because affiliate marketing has not been around as long as network marketing. So yes, there have been people who have been successful in network marketing who started 30 years ago, who have a massive following, and they built it all old school belly to belly, and they've kept people following them. But if they had to start from scratch today and build all over again, they would be screwed, glued and tattooed. So it's all about creating a presence online and creating. Let's talk about Santa Claus, because to me, Santa Claus is the perfect example of personal branding. We all know exactly what Santa Claus looks like, right? White hair, white beard, big belly.
Speaker 1 00:09:19  It's like when he left. Like a bowl full of jelly. Exactly. We all know that. Yeah, we all know exactly what Santa Claus wears. He wears his red suit with his red hat, white fur trim, white palm on the hat. We know what Santa Claus wears. We all know exactly what Santa Claus says. He says, well.
Speaker 2 00:09:41  Mostly.
Speaker 1 00:09:42  Christmas, right? Yes, sir. We all know exactly what Santa Claus does. Santa Claus has a workshop full of elves. They make toys, and Santa Claus delivers them on Christmas Eve. And that's out of the whole world. I one of my favorite movies is The Santa Claus with Tim Allen. And when he at one point he says, Merry Christmas and all those different languages. So you're right, Santa Claus. Wow, what a great example of an ultimate branding example. Yeah. So the question is, do people you have to build a massive following and I use massive in quotes. Doesn't have to be massive. Like I don't have half a million followers on social media.
Speaker 1 00:10:27  You don't need to have half a million followers on social media to be quite successful and make a good amount of money, but massive in quotes. You do need to have a quote unquote massive following of raving fans who are very loyal to you, which Santa Claus has. He's got a whole world of raving fans, right? So you need to create that massive following of raving fans who know you, like you and trust you, who doesn't know Santa Claus like Santa Claus and trust Santa Claus, right? We don't sit around and think Ern jingling. Is Santa Claus going to show up this year at Christmas time? No. We know Santa Claus is going to show up this year at Christmas time, right? So part of Santa Claus personal brand is being totally dependable, right? And we have to be absolutely dependable. So you build this presence so people know you, like you, and trust you. They know who you are. They know what you look like. I personally believe in the especially in the network and affiliate marketing space, even more so in the network marketing space.
Speaker 1 00:11:34  If you're not willing to be out there online, in video and show up and show your face, it's going to be extremely difficult in this day and age. People want to feel like they know you. They want to be connected on a human level. They want to know who you are. As I said, just your visual presence alone, your thumbnails and your videos and the crazy faces that you make. You can have to, like, get out of your own way and be okay with maybe somebody's going to judge you. That's okay judge allowing. We're just yourself all the time. Yeah, and I forget which marketer it was. His name is escaping. I know who it is, but he's famous for saying, if you haven't pissed off, let me off by noon or offended somebody by noon, you're not marketing hard enough. and you just you have to be. You have to thick skin. You have to be willing to accept the fact that not everyone is going to love you. But that's okay, because you're trying to attract to your tribe.
Speaker 1 00:12:34  You're not trying to attract everyone. You're trying to attract your tribe. The people who connect with you in some way, shape or form. And video is the single fastest way to take a prospect, to take people from cold to warm to hot without them ever speaking to you. And the way I market, I talk about doing 100% rejection free recruiting, because that's all I do now. I market 100% online. I know this sounds strange, especially to people who have been in the network marketing world for years and years. But I don't talk to people. I don't have to talk to people. They find me online mostly on YouTube, because I'm all over Facebook, I'm all over LinkedIn and on various platforms. But the platform that really works the best for me personally is YouTube, and I have people joining my teams every week who I have never spoken to. I don't know them. They found me online. They've watched a bunch of my YouTube videos. They feel like they know me. In fact, very often they feel like we're BFFs even, oh, I've never spoken to them and I don't have a clue who they are, but they join my team without me ever speaking to them.
Speaker 1 00:13:53  Because I've created that personal brand. I've created a trust. I've created a sense of dependability because I show up all the time and I've created a sense of authority. I know what I'm talking about. I've been doing this for a long time now. You do not have to be in the industry for 45 years to know what you're talking about. You do not have to be a true expert, but as long as you just if you're one step ahead of your prospect, you're an expert, right? And I think that that is a great point because I think so many and I'm going to I will make a generalization about women. I think that we think we have to know everything. We have to be the ultimate expert or authority on what we are doing. And like you said, we really only have to be ahead of what everyone else is doing. And you've got I understand now, I was wondering, what does rejection proof marketing mean? Or do you say marketing or selling? rejection for recruiting.
Speaker 1 00:14:59  Recruiting. Okay. For recruiting. But now I understand because you've got people coming to you because of your brand. And of course, I'll have to give our book a little plug. We talked about that on our interview, but absolutely, on Copyable use about personal branding, know and trust. And we add a word that totally applies to you and that is people will remember you are memorable. You're different when someone sees a video of you in an acting like a grandma in a rocking chair, you've got to go look at the costume and getup you have that stands out. And yeah, you've got to be willing to act silly, etc. but yeah, I thought that was brilliant. Brilliant, by the way. Thank you. And that's a relatively new thing. I've only been doing that for a couple of weeks. You do have to be willing to stand out from the crowd and do something and stand out from the crowd, but be authentically you, Right I am of. I am always being authentically me.
Speaker 1 00:16:03  Yes, the lady and gurdy skit. I'm doing it with a friend. We are dressed up, we've got these wigs and I've got granny glasses and an apron and everything. It's still authentically me because I'm a goofball, right? And I'm willing to do that. So you had to step out of your comfort zone. Most people have to step out of their comfort zones. Now, doing video for me is a piece of cake, but it wasn't the first time I did it. I wish I had that very first Facebook video I did when I went live on Facebook. I can remember I was so nervous. I was literally shaking. And now I laugh at it because like, I can go live anytime, I can talk about anything on the fly. I'm so comfortable. To me, it's just like me talking. You were just two people having a conversation and it's easy peasy. And one of the things I say to people all the time is let go of being perfect as people don't want to watch people who are perfect.
Speaker 1 00:17:00  They do not. They want to watch people who are real. so I love that. I totally agree with that. And it is hard the point about being not great at video at first. I'm still in that category where I'm getting comfortable, but I don't know if you know who Amy Porterfield is. She's in the online marketing for sure. You know, fabulous. She's built a huge organization. She used to work with Tony Robbins. If you go to YouTube, if you're listening and you go watch some of her early videos, you won't believe it. She was terrible, too. She admits it. I know other people. You said that about yourself. I'm getting better and better, but even my first podcast interview just left you listening. You just gotta go through it. You gotta walk through the fire. And that's exactly how you get better. And yet I say to people, look, there's absolutely no problem if I've got five points that I want to bring up in a video, I have no problem just saying.
Speaker 1 00:17:56  I've got a list here because I want to make sure I remember all five points. So point number one is blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah. And the importance of this is don't point number two and don't be real. Don't hesitate to look down at your notes. Now, what you don't want to do is spend the whole time looking down at your notes. And so as soon as you possibly can get rid of the script, I know there are people out there that are reading scripts and they think, oh, nobody can see that I'm reading a script. And so you're fooling yourself because you can see the the eyes go across the teleprompter and you can, you know, what you can tell. And even I use a program called The Script, and I tried it recently because it can change your eyeballs and it can make your eyeballs look like you're staring straight ahead when you're not. It's still not real. It doesn't look the same as when you're just talking from your heart.
Speaker 1 00:18:47  It's exactly. And even if your eyeballs don't move, you still sound stiff and formal and and it doesn't sound like you're being genuine in. That's the problem, right? It's going to take some practice. One of the things I tell people all the time is do not do five cuts until you get the perfect video, because you get stiffer and stiffer and stiffer and stiffer and worse. Like for me, it's one and done. I've even had situations where I've mispronounced my last name and it's macdonell o, but she doesn't get the McDonald. And then. And then I laugh. I laugh at myself. So be willing to laugh at yourself. Be willing to have fun. Just come from your heart. Be genuine, sincere and what is authentically you. And when you are truly, authentically you, when you're coming from your heart, that comes through. So the beauty of this is, not everybody has to have the same level of energy that I have or that you have. You can be more calm, cool, and collected.
Speaker 1 00:19:55  Don't worry about having the perfect studio and the perfect lighting to get over that. Some people have these really produced videos where they're doing a shot this way, and then the next scene is they're somewhere else and they're doing a shot looking in another direction. My YouTube videos are all here, sitting at my desk or standing at my desk with the orange painting behind me and the orange chair. I have to say, because that's our brand new color and the orange chair like you're orange. And that's how it works. Look at you, how successful you've become. And you know what? I'm approached. I'm sure you are a lot to buy people who say a company's business to say, oh, I can make your videos so much better, and we can make the sound quality perfect, and you get a green screen and all that stuff. And like you said, it's not only does it not matter, I think in a way it's worse. And I've talked to you on camera and off camera and you're the same person you are.
Speaker 1 00:20:51  You're genuine. And something someone said in a recent podcast when I interviewed them is they said, if you're super nervous and thinking about all that stuff, you're thinking about you. Instead of thinking about you, who you're talking. I really thank you for making that point, because I think so many of the things you're talking about stop us from making videos and you, like you said, what a tool can you imagine 40 years ago thinking, oh my gosh, I can reach hundreds and thousands, billions of people. That is that's the other piece of my mind. 2% rejection, free recruiting. I don't have the time or the inclination to talk one on one, one on one, one on one with prospects. I always try to speak one to many. This podcast were speaking one to many, right? A whole bunch of people are going to listen to this podcast, see this podcast. It's all about communicating one to many and you can absolutely 1,000% build meaningful relationships, speaking one to many, so I speak one to many in my podcasts, on my YouTube videos, my Facebook videos, my emails.
Speaker 1 00:22:07  I'm always I'm building an email list, building an audience, constantly building an audience and speaking one to many, one to many. I built a team of 168,000 people, a little over 168,000 people in eight months. You can't, Lance. You can't. You can't even make a baby in eight months if it's true. Good point. I'll let the King's 168,000 babies in eight months. Oh my gosh, thank goodness they weren't real babies. You cannot do that if you're doing old school belly to belly. And you literally have to either text every single person one on one or call them up or get on zoom calls with them. You can't do that. There aren't enough hours in the day to build a team of 168,000 people in eight months, if that's what you're doing. But trust me, you can. Absolutely. And I did not speak to any of those people one on one. None of them zero. One thing that I love about the way you are, your persona, your brand, is that even though you are speaking one to many, it feels like you're talking to me because of the way you're casual or your low key.
Speaker 1 00:23:20  You're saying, hey, is this for you? Hey. Let's connect. It's not like you're doing a hard sale. You are. You're communicating one to many and taking advantage of this amazing technology that we've never had in the history of mankind. Boy, you really. This has all come together for you and people like me and you listening. You've got the technology that can just explode your results. but the personal brand, again, is what makes you stand out from everyone else. That's also online, right? Yes. And I know there are people that are listening to this, watching this, or saying, yeah, but I'm not Kay Miller. I'm not Gloria McDonald. I don't have anything unique or different or this is what I would say, every single human being has a personal brand. My cleaning lady has the personal brand now. She has no idea she has a personal brand, but she has a powerful personal brand. She's been with me for three and a half years now. Part of her personal brand is absolute dependability, consistency, a great job, honesty, integrity, pleasant, good communicator.
Speaker 1 00:24:35  Those are all pieces of my cleaning lady's personal brand. And every single person here listening to this has a personal brand. Now your personal brand might be inconsistency in visibility, lack of confidence, but you've got a personal brand. If someone goes and searches you out on Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube. Are you there or are you on Facebook? But the last time you posted was three months ago. Guess what? You've created a personal brand of inconsistency, right? If you're not being trusted, right? How can you trust somebody if somebody is only showing up once every three weeks, three months, whatever on any social media platform? Then how can I trust you that you're going to be there for me when I join your team and I need your support? So you walk the talk, and we say that in our book to everyone has a personal brand. Is it intentional? Take the time to do a self inventory. What's important? How do you come across and study? Gloria, you are just really brilliant at this and and it's worked for you.
Speaker 1 00:25:51  We just have a few minutes. So I'd like you to not only give us closing thoughts, action steps. But do you want to talk about your product or products? I know you believe in multiple streams of income, so why don't you speak a little bit to that? And of course we'll have in the show notes how you can get Ahold of Gloria, take advantage of her opportunities. So, take it away. So I have I do believe in multiple streams of income. I just think gone are the days when we can put all our eggs in one basket. Just gone are the days for the vast majority of people where you can work in a company for 35, 40 years and get a pension, right? So you just have to diversify your income. So the two top things that I absolutely love that I'm working with right now are a company called Give Box. And I love this. It's a super app where a part of my brand is do no harm. So I am done with companies where you have to pay a monthly fee of $125 or $150, or even $75.
Speaker 1 00:26:55  That's too much for people. I want to make sure that every single person who's joining me is not harmed, that the worst case scenario, they're going to save money. So this is one of the things I love about Give Books is a super app that saves money. And every time you use the super app to buy something, whether it's on Amazon or at CVS or at your local grocery store or a gas station, not only are you going to get cash back, but a percentage of money goes to a charity or charities that you choose from the app. You can't use the app without making a donation to a charity. And the really cool thing is that none of it comes out of your pocket, which I love. So you're donating to charity without any money coming out of your pocket, and it's free to join. The app is free to download, and my other favorite opportunity is called Mixes Rewards. It's very similar. It's all about Savings, massive savings on travel, and all kinds of free apps where you can save money at the grocery store.
Speaker 1 00:28:03  Actually, I saved money on absolutely everything I pay for with Nexus Rewards. Even my property taxes, my community association dues, everything. I even got cash back from having to, send the Arizona government $0.90 in taxes. I owed them $0.90, and I got cash back from the $0.90 with one of my free apps. So Nexus Rewards and Gift Box are my two favorites, and you can find out all about these things on my YouTube channel at Gloria macdonald.com/passive. Passive. It's all about passive income, multiple streams of passive and residual income. And I just love helping people save money and also make money. Yeah because there's the opportunity to have an affiliate network marketing, I don't know. Do you consider that affiliate or network marketing? Those two opportunities are both network marketing because they pay multiple levels deep, not just two levels deep, and affiliate marketing is limited to two levels deep. So those are both network marketing. But the lines are getting very blurred between network and affiliate marketing these days. The most important thing is with both of these, the worst case scenario is you're going to save money that you're not saving right now and yet really take a risk.
Speaker 1 00:29:25  Yeah, save some money or risk. And there are opportunities if you choose to make a whole bunch of money. It's fascinating. And as I was looking into this, I thought I got to consider this myself. As I said, all the links to this will be are to these will be in the show notes. And so check Gloria out not only to learn from her how to brand yourself and how to sell one to many, which is an opportunity that we have in the modern day and age. But then also check out these companies, these platforms where you can save money and earn money. So boy, sounds like a win to me. Yeah, absolutely. Kay. So Gloria, thank you so much. The time flew by and I so appreciate you spending time with me on the podcast. So thanks so much. Thank you for having me Kay. Really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode of Unconquerable Women in Business.
Speaker 3 00:30:24  If you enjoyed the show, you know the drill. Please like, share, rate and review it on your favorite platform.
Speaker 3 00:30:32  I also invite you to join my private Facebook group and Copyable Women in Business. See you next time and always remember to be an copyable.