Build A Personal Brand And Turn It To Multiple Streams Of Income With John Melton
You can only do so much with network marketing, especially without a brand. John Melton knows this to be true. Having worked in the industry, he found the power of building a brand and having it produce multiple income streams. Now, he is a top 50 earner in the entire profession and top three in his company. In this episode, he joins Stefanie Peters to share with us his journey and what he learned along the way that pushed him towards success. John dives deep into the value of leveraging social media, offering tips on how to go for it and create content. He then breaks down the steps to creating your personal brand and message as well as establishing systems in place to help you grow.
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Build A Personal Brand And Turn It To Multiple Streams Of Income With John Melton
I am going to bring it now not because of me but because of my power guy whom I have known for years and years. He slays it. His brand is on point. He and his wife are a couple’s goals, a side note. This guy is a top 50 earner in the entire profession of network marketing and the top three in his company. He was going all into his business for ten years and was sacrificing time with his family and his life.
Nadya, his wife, said, “We have got to do something different.” They decided to go all into social media, and the stats show the conversion rate of what they have accomplished. In the past few years in their organization, they have brought in over $200 million in sales within their organization and have over 600,000 customers, all without the home parties, meeting presentations, and three-way calls, all of that crazy. I have been there and done that if anyone knows my prior life. He is all about systems and duplication. I am so honored to have John Melton with us. Thank you so much for coming.
I’m so excited to be here. Thank you.
What I think is so powerful about your story is there’s a good number of people that slay it in the industry, but a lot of times, it stops there and they feel that they have “made it,” but they don’t make their money work for them. I posted something on Instagram, saying, “Making money is great, but making your money work for you is even better,” and that’s what John has mastered. The beginning of your chapter is so riveting. Why don’t you share where you came from, your backstory, and how you bought into network marketing? We’ll go from there.
I appreciate the introduction. I started when I was twenty years old in 2001. I was a broke bust and disgusted, with no background in business, and no business being in business. I couldn’t even spell entrepreneur. I’m still having a tough time with that one. Thank God for phones and technology. They make us look smart, but the fact is I was very open because I didn’t like the whole going to school, getting a degree, and getting a job. I felt like I was broken like something was wrong with me.
I was a loser because everybody else seemed to know what they wanted to do. They had college they were going to. They knew what they were going to major in, and I’m like, “I don’t like going to school for free. Now I got to pay to go to school.” It made nothing sense to me at all. When I saw network marketing, I was basically going to community college. It’s funny.
Where I lived, if I was driving down the road, leaving my house, five minutes to the right was my high school. My community college was five minutes to the left. We called it the harbor on the hill. It was ACC, Any Can Come. I had no direction. I had no idea what I was doing. What did I do? I got drunk all the time. I partied. I was getting in trouble. I was headed down the wrong path. It was scary. When I think about where I was, thank God I found network marketing.
I didn’t sit in that first opportunity meeting, or even in the first couple of years ago, this is saving my life, but when you look at your life in reverse, you are like, “Thank God I was exposed to mentorship and personal development. I got into the business.” Instead of being addicted to drugs, alcohol, partying, and doing stupid stuff, I got addicted to success, business, and making money. I remember one of the first presentations I sat through because you are sitting there like, “I don’t know what the heck they are talking about, but this sounds good.” They were like, “You could be from Yale or jail,” and I was like, “I have been to Yale. I could probably do this.”
They didn’t care about your educational background or your experience. They talked about, “If you got a hunger, if you are willing to sacrifice, put forth the effort and work ethic, we’ll work with you and coach you.” That was a very different time. Back then, we didn’t have social media or the technology we do now, but I was willing to learn.
Fast forward to about 2012 or 2013, that’s when we started paying attention to the online stuff. That’s when we started acknowledging that doing the home parties and having to chase the business was becoming very time-consuming. We were exhausted, plus we had our son, Dylan, and I started feeling like a bad dad. There’s got to be a better way.
Our daughter also, we had her in 2008, so she was about four years old at the time. Dylan is about eight years old, and it wasn’t a big deal when they were at home. Once Dylan started going to school, he was at school all day, then he is getting off the bus. Literally, an hour later we are out the door and we are out all night every night and the weekends.
It’s like, “There’s something wrong here. This doesn’t feel right.” That’s when we started paying attention to social media because we are like, “If I could generate leads and learn how to build a business online and duplicate that.” Our entire upline in that company, even all these coaches, were all bashing the social media stuff.
They’re like, “It’s a waste of time. It’s not duplicable.” I’m not going to act like I was like, “I will show you,” but eventually, years into it, and once I cracked the code, we walked away from the company we were with and went somewhere else. I got to the point where I’m like, “No. I’m going all in with this. I’m going to build a brand. I’m going to learn how to not build my networking business, but I’m going to learn how to monetize.”
We started selling courses, doing coaching, finding affiliate offers, and making money hand over fist and having all these income streams, and I’m like, “I feel like we need to tell everybody about this.” We got to the point where we created some good systems for duplications. That part-time person that doesn’t have influence has no idea how to market themselves on social media like they could be successful.
What was the first thing that you did on social media that you experienced success and you are like, “I think I have something here?”
Posting videos on Facebook. It was very different back then because you are recording a video and then posting it. You are like, “People are commenting and liking.” Even big leaders, people that I looked up to and respected were sharing my videos with their teams and I’m seeing the comments. I’m like, “This is interesting.” Nadya and I became good at doing presentations, training, and speaking in front of hundreds of people all the time. They do it enough. It goes from a massive fear because I hated public speaking. I was terrified of it until like, “Let me have them. Wait until they hear me. I’m going to blow their mind,” because you knew exactly what to say.
When you know exactly what to say, the fear is removed. We got good at offline, but what if we could do what we do offline in a room of 200 to 300 people, but now people all over the world can see our content? That started opening up opportunities and expanded our vision for what’s possible. It was several years ago.
“When you know exactly what to say, the fear is removed.”
Several years ago, we started posting videos, and back then, it was brutal. I’d be driving, and I had my phone hooked up or whatever. You can see up my nostrils. I’m not going to be holding the phone while I’m talking. It’s dangerous, but we all start somewhere. Sometimes people are like, “I’m not getting a lot of views and engagement,” and I’m like, “I’m grateful that a lot of the people that know me now didn’t see my videos back then because they were horrible and embarrassing.” The reason you are not getting a lot of views is probably that they suck. A year or two later, you are going to look back and be like, “I was terrible,” and it’s like, “Yes, you were.” If it’s not getting a lot of traction in the early days, one day you’ll look back and it will be comic relief.
What I think is so interesting is you get 1% better every day and eventually get to a point where it’s like, “I’m good at what I do.” It’s interesting in terms of TikTok. I was watching this video where they said, “If you shoot with a DSLR and put it on TikTok, people swipe past it quicker because they think it’s a commercial.” I thought it’s interesting because it’s going back a little bit more because it was, but now it’s like, “The more real it is, people are engaging more,” which I have seen that trend myself. It’s super interesting. I agree with you. Every time you put out a video, you are going to get better.
If you are not sweating through the content, you are not putting yourself out there. When people are like, “I’m so nervous,” I’m like, “Perfect. That’s where you should be.” The people I always worry about are the ones that are super arrogant and are like, “Let me have them.” Those are the people you got to worry about because they don’t shut up and are all over the place. It’s almost good if you have some nervous energy because it’s vulnerable, authentic, and more relatable.
Even in my industry with real estate agents, I found that they are so nervous about shooting videos. I talked to even my team and said, “My conversion on video is mind-blowing. You just have to start.” For that person that’s in whatever industry they are in because I truly believe you can scale with video in so many different industries, what would be the top three things that you would tell a new person to get them out of their own way and just post videos?
The biggest issue is ego. Your ego isn’t your amigo. What weighs more, your ego or your bank account? For me, I wanted to get rich. I wanted to generate leads. I wanted to build a lifestyle and freedom. I wanted to make millions of dollars, but I also wanted to raise my kids and be at home every night, so we have dinner together and go to my son’s baseball games because he’s a very competitive baseball player. In fact, he committed to division one baseball, and I believe a lot of that is because of the money and time we invested into his baseball when he was younger. Not the tournaments which were like, “This is awesome.” Then eventually you are like, “We have to go to West Virginia, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. When are we going to have a summer vacation?”
It was literally traveling all the time. Instead of doing home meetings and MLM, I’m on the road going to baseball tournaments all over the country. That’s short-lived, and you want to make the most of it. You don’t want to miss that stuff because kids grow up quickly. Anyway, you have to start showing up and doing it in a way that feels comfortable for you, which could be sharing your story, lessons, experiences, and things you are learning.
There are so many different ways to do it. Maybe doing interviews, like what we’re doing now. You have to do something that’s going to get you excited. It is tough in the beginning. You don’t know what to talk about, you are not sure what your niche is, and all this complicated stuff. I’m like, “I started talking to the camera, having conversations, sharing things I was learning, sharing experiences I was having, and things I was passionate about.”
If you are passionate about real estate, it shouldn’t be that difficult to start talking. Act as if you are talking to one person. Act like you are sitting down with your girlfriend or one of your buddies like you are having a beer or a glass of wine and having a conversation. If you get to the point where you can just look at that camera dot and talk to that one person you are thinking about, it will make it so much easier versus feeling like, “I have to perform in front of an audience of people.” That’s the mistake a lot of people make. They think a lot of people are even going to watch their videos, which is highly unlikely, especially when you are brand-new, you suck at it, and you don’t have much of a following.
The worst thing would be for you to have followers and have 100,000 people that know you, trust you, respect you, and follow you and then start doing videos. You have this massive network, but the truth is you are probably not going to have a massive following if you are not doing videos. The sooner you get over yourself and realize it’s not about you, it’s about the person you can inspire. It’s like little things like talking about some of the things you overcame in your history or past.
Personal Brand: You're probably not going to have a massive following if you're not doing videos. Get over yourself and realize it's not about you; it's about the person you can inspire.
When I started telling my story about how I quit drinking or my dad died of a heart attack so I quit smoking, some of that stuff resonated with people. We were sharing behind the scenes and stuff we were doing with our kids. You have to test it out and figure out what works for you. The more we showed up in an authentic way and kept it real, the better the results were, and people felt like they knew us even if we had never had a conversation.
It was amazing. You go to an event, and someone comes up to you and takes pictures with you. They are like, “I love you. I love your wife and your kids,” and you are like, “I’m sorry. What’s your name?” I literally never met that person before, and that’s when you start to realize the power of building a brand and building influence.
That’s the absolute beauty. Me being in real estate, I found if somebody knows me or it’s a warm lead, I only have to show them two homes and they are ready to put in an offer. If it’s a cold lead where they have no idea who I am, I have to build trust and show them 20 to 25 homes before they are ready to pull the trigger. For me, I was like, “Why am I doing cold leads? I got to be all in on social media.”
I will give you an example. My buddy, Phil, was a network marketing leader like me, and he decided to pivot into real estate. Instead of doing videos of network marketing, he started doing real estate videos. At first, a lot of it was stuff he was learning, but a lot of it was also the same stuff he was already doing videos on.
In network marketing, it’s a lot of mindset and philosophy, and then he started incorporating this real estate stuff into his conversation. He’s become one of the top agents here in Maryland where I live. He’s got a big team now of real estate agents. He’s got his own office. He’s killing it, but he was doing the same thing he was doing before with videos, content, training, and all the things.
He pivoted into real estate, and now he’s killing it with real estate. It is amazing that if you build a brand and you build that know, like, and trust like you said, people are coming to you. Your close ratio will increase. You won’t have to work as hard. You are working smarter. You have that know, like, and trust so people are going to resonate with you. That’s why when people are like, “Whom am I talking to? Whom am I attracting?” I’m like, “People like you.”
The people that I recruited when I was twenty years old and the people that I was able to work with the easiest were young guys like me. When I got into mortgages years later, because I did mortgages and got away from the network marketing thing, then I got back into network marketing in 2006. Guess whom I recruited. They are real estate and mortgage people, people that were like me.
It makes sense that the people you are going to relate to and the people that you should try to attract in the beginning are people that are like you with maybe similar backgrounds and personalities. If it’s a mom and you are a mom, it’s easy to talk to other moms. That’s in the beginning. The obvious choice is to try to talk to people like you and share the things you are learning, experiencing, and excited about.
This is a good idea when it comes to creating content. I want you to think through this for those of you that are getting into marketing or creating content. Think of an enemy. Who’s the bad guy? Who’s the adversary? Who’s the enemy? Then here’s the solution. You want to do a good job, too, when you are talking about the enemy or the bad guy. You want to rub salt in the wound. If you identify a problem or a pain point, that enemy, and then you found this solution, “Here’s your result,” this will help you think through your content.
Also, when you are creating content, you want to think of a lesson and back it up with an example or a story. For us, that’s worked well over the years. We have too much content. We have too much we want to talk about. It gets to that point where you are like, “I can do ten videos a day because I have that much in my dome that I want to share with people.” It becomes, a real passion for people. Once you get the hang of it and figure out your messaging, whom you are serving, and who that audience is that you are helping, it becomes more than making money.
It’s so purpose-driven, and there’s a big why behind it and a driver. Even when I made the transition from what I was doing before into real estate that having that personal brand, I have found that I made an intentional decision when I was in network marketing that I’m not branding the company. I’m branding myself.
Thank the Lord on high because you can go wherever the heck you want if you have a brand where people know you and love you. That’s what has been so cool watching you through the years. In the beginning, I watched you from pretty much day one, and I was like, “This is interesting that he’s putting these videos out there.”
I remember watching one video specifically, it was you and Nadya. It was almost that tipping point of like, “They got the it factor.” What I find very interesting is you were good before, but there’s that tipping point when you have that it factor and you created that brand for yourself personally. What would you say would be a good first step? A lot of people get overwhelmed by a personal brand and their message. What’s a good first step to start to craft that and figure out what your brand is?
I like what Gary Vee says, “Your brand is your reputation.” That’s it. Are people thinking about you when it comes to real estate? Are people thinking about you as one of their top choices for the person they want to reach out to? If the answer’s no or they don’t even know you, you have to figure out ways to get attention. You have to figure out ways to get in front of that particular audience. As much as I love reels, TikTok, and all that stuff, I still think doing live videos is the best way to do it. We have had people too that are like, “I have got a face for radio. I don’t ever want to do a video.”
Can you make money without doing videos? Yes, but it’s harder. If you are good at writing and you could do selfies and there are all these Instagram influencers that do good at copy under a post, picture, or whatever, that can work too. You can have a podcast, but still, if you are good at writing, you are good at all that, and you are doing videos, you are going to kill it. Live video is still the best way to do it.
Let’s say you start on Instagram because I know a lot of real estate agents probably use Instagram or Facebook. Doing a five-minute video every morning for 14, 21, or 30 days, you start to get feedback. You start to see the comments and engagement. Like what Marina Simone teaches, “We all have different things we like to talk about. We all have different niches.”
Maybe for 30 days, you do one particular niche and see how it resonates. You see the responses and how you feel. If you don’t like it after 30 days, you are like, “I’m not feeling this. I want to talk about something different.” Do that for 30 days. For another 30 days, you try something else. The live video is so important because you get to talk it out. They don’t have to be 30-minute live videos.
I’m lucky if one of my videos is under 30 minutes because I like to talk, but I have been doing this video thing for over ten years. It’s a little different now. I tell people, “Do a five-minute live video every morning before work or a five-minute video every day after work or during your lunch break.” 5 minutes for 14 days or 5 minutes for 30 days, whatever that looks like, after that 14, 21, or 30-day period, whatever day or amount of time you commit to, you’ll have so much more clarity on whom you want to talk to, attract, want to be, how you want to show up, and what you want to talk about. You’ll have so much more clarity than being up here all up in your head trying to overthink it and ending up getting this analysis paralysis.
You said the thing about being overwhelmed. My rebuttal to that objection is the same always. It’s better to be overwhelmed than underwhelmed. You were like, “I’m so overwhelmed.” I’m like, “Would you rather be underwhelmed and be like, ‘This is it?’” This suck. It is what it is. Everybody has a brand anyway. Even if you are not doing videos, you have no brand. That’s your reputation. You might as well start putting yourself out there, and live video is the best way to figure out who you are and how you want to show up.
“Live video is the best way to figure out who you are and how you want to show up. ”
One of the questions I wanted to go back to that you hit hard early was like, “I put systems in place.” This is not a knock on anybody else on this show. I’m the only one who graduated from college here, I believe. Not trying to rub anybody the wrong way, but where did you learn about systems? I look at real estate agents, and they get their license, and then they are like, “I’m going to go out and start running around like a chicken with my head cut off.” Where did you learn to get those systems in place? Speak to that.
The 4-Hour Workweek was one of the first books that blew our minds. I’m very lucky. I’m a blessed dude. I’m married up. Nadya is more of that personality. She’s got two college degrees, one for each of us. She’s way more analytical and organized. She always says that men are more confident than competent, which is true, and women are more competent than confident. It’s important for anyone that’s in business to get organized and have clarity in what you are doing every day.
If you are not that type of person, let’s say the dudes that are reading this because you are confident in your abilities, you are going to go out there like a bull in a China shop. If you are not that organized, find someone with systems and with the backend stuff with capturing leads, funnels, and all the things like repurposing your content. You need to either outsource it. Hire VAs or an assistant. You need someone to help you with the organizational part.
With women, because they are more competent and confident, it’s important for them to take action and get to the point where they overcome their fears and insecurities. In general, if you are not that organized or not good with systems, first of all, whatever you lack, you should attack. You should figure out how to get better with all the backend stuff. As you said, you are not running around like a chicken with your head cut off.
The 4-hour Workweek blew our minds. Nadya also was in Brendon Burchard’s mastermind for a couple of years, his highest-level mastermind. She went through all his courses. She went through Amy Porterfield’s course and Shelly Johnson’s. She did all the courses. She went through all the programs, learning how to do all the things. She’s still a student. We are both students. You never arrive. You are always growing and learning.
It’s so important to have those backend systems, and that stuff overwhelms me. I’m not going to lie. I get overwhelmed with a lot of that stuff. Nadya is like, “We are going to upload videos in this Dropbox folder and create these new funnels. We got the text message.” I’m like, “I don’t want to even know the login. I don’t want to be involved in the blog, website, and all the things, but we have our VAs. Thank God.”
Nadya hired and trained. They don’t just magically appear. You need to start thinking like you are the CEO of your life and your business. If you are trying to build a seven-figure business, your time is worth at least $500 to $1,000 an hour, at least. A lot of what people do on a day-to-day basis does not take their talents and abilities. They are wasting time doing things that don’t move the needle that they could outsource and pay $5, $10, or $20 an hour to do instead. We learned about something called SOP, Standard Operating Procedure. You should sit down and do a brain dump about all the things you do every single day and every single week and how much time you are putting into the various activities.
Figure out what are those things that stress you out. What are those things that are time-consuming, those energy suckers that when you do them, you are like, “This is such a drag?” Figure those things out because you want to put your time and effort into the things you enjoy. I can’t outsource this interview. I have to be the one doing this interview. I can’t outsource mentoring my leaders. I can’t outsource the content creation, but I can outsource the editing. I can outsource uploading the videos on all the different platforms.
I can create an SOP so that we have a file and database with all my best posts or videos and keep reusing the same content over and over the years. It’s so much of what we do. It’s so much of our backend is handled. That’s with our taxes, investments, or beach homes. All the stuff, we have created SOPs for every aspect of our life.
When you get to that point and start thinking like a CEO and start thinking that your time is worth $500 to $1,000 an hour, if not more than that, everything starts to fall into place because so many people are in this rat race and are barely making ends meet. They are so frustrated when 1, 2, or 5 years go by, and they are stuck in the same place and are caught up in the weeds of their day-to-day activities and the stuff they are doing in their business. It’s so important to put those SOPs in place and get good at outsourcing and delegation so you can focus on the most important income-producing activities.
Personal Brand: When you start thinking like a CEO and like your time is worth 500 to a thousand dollars an hour, if not more than that, everything starts to fall into place.
We talk about the IPAs all the time. They are so good. The other thing that I absolutely love that you said is even though you are not college educated, you guys are spending money on education. It’s through masterminds and courses.
We have probably spent $500,000 for a number of years on all the things. That’s a good point.
I have had real estate agents who are like, “I want to move my business forward.” “Why don’t you get into coaching?” “I don’t want to spend the money,” and it’s like, “You can keep doing what you are doing.” To spend money on that education from somebody else who’s done it and who’s good at it is super valuable.
One of the first books we read on marketing on social media was Fredrik Eklund’s book, The Sell. It’s phenomenal. Until now, it would be super relevant. Some of the tactics are a little outdated because it was from 2015-ish, but the guy has built a multi-gazillion-dollar real estate business. He’s got 80 or 100 agents all over the world, and he’s hilarious. We learned about him from that Million Dollar Listing New York.
I heard about his book, and it was one of the best books we had read when it comes to using social media to generate leads, build a following, and all the things like content creation. There are so many great books, gurus, and experts out there. You have to figure out who resonates with you and who it is that you feel aligned with and learn from them as much as you can.
Don’t also have too many mentors. You’ll see some people have three masterminds. They got seven coaches. They are reading fourteen different books. They are also trying to learn how to do a podcast and YouTube channel. They are trying to learn how to do live videos and TikToks. That’s why they struggle because they are also spread way too thin instead of going deep on one thing at a time.
If you were to start your network marketing business all over again or in any other industry, what would you pick as your platform to go all in? Would you start repurposing on all the different platforms and go deep into one, or would you try to master a couple? What would be from day one if you had no following at all?
Facebook is still my favorite. It has reels, Facebook groups, and live videos. You have the business page. You can do ads. You can do a professional profile, get paid for your reels, and schedule posts. There are so many cool things you could do with Facebook. Instagram is still an obvious one also. I would say that’s number two for me. Repurposing is easy once you outsource it because I hardly ever even check LinkedIn. I hardly ever check these other platforms, but I have got content being posted on them every single day, but I have a primary place I create my content, which is Facebook. With our short-form videos, “Nadya, do you like TikTok now or reels now for short-form videos?” then she does it on TikTok.
When she does her short-form videos, she uses TikTok, and then we’ll take off the little logo and repurpose it. This is awesome. We have a team in the Middle East. We pay them $500 a month, and they make unlimited videos for us. I can be like, “I got a thought. Let me record a quick video and send it to them, then they add all the cool emojis.” You can check out my Instagram or my Facebook reels. You can see those videos. They have little cool sound effects, and they are very good. It’s only $500 a month.
As you said, there are people that will be like, “I don’t want to spend $500 a month.” It’s going to cost you more not to do it. It’s going to cost you more not to invest in that course or coach because these are the things that move the needle, build up your credibility, and generate leads. I will have people reach out to me, and they are like, “I want to join your team.”
“It’s going to cost you more not to invest in that course or that coach, because these are the things that move the needle and build up your credibility and generate leads.”
I have never talked to this person, or maybe we had a little bit of interaction once or twice. I don’t know them, but they feel like they know me. They want to work with me. They are not even looking at anyone else because they like me and resonate with me and my message. They have seen so much of my content over the years they have been following me. When the timing is right, they are only going to look at a few different people that they trust. It’s the same exact thing in real estate.
You could say there are thousands and thousands of realtors in a particular market, but this person that’s looking to buy or sell a house is only thinking about a few different people that they are going to reach out to, and that’s going to be the person that has been in their face via social media. Building that relationship on the back end is sometimes a lost art.
People are so much about front-end content creation, but the one thing in the step that we have talked about over the years many times is I stay in touch with people. I respond to messages and comments. I proactively reach out to people anytime I have a little bit of a lull in my business. It could be two minutes.
For two minutes I have a lull in my business, I’m going to proactively respond to some people’s Instagram and Facebook stories, comment on some things, and wish some happy birthdays. I’m always intentionally reaching out and connecting with people still because it stands out. I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone say, “As busy and as successful as you are, you are still reaching out to wish me a happy birthday. I can see why you are successful.” I get it because I still do the little things.
Even when I made the transition in the industry, from day one when we connected, I get random audio messages from John Melton, and I love them. It makes people feel special. It makes people feel seen and heard. People will fall on a sword for you. That’s so important. I love that.
I have found audio messages that people are like, “I’m not expecting that.” I agree.
When I first started doing audio messages, people were like, “What is this?” I’m like, “Hit the play button. It’s okay.” They are like, “Did your account get hacked?” because nobody was doing it. It’s everywhere. You got it on text messages, Instagram, and Facebook. LinkedIn does it. It’s so powerful for them to hear your tonality and enthusiasm. It’s personal. It’s the next best thing to call someone on the phone, and none of us use our phones for phone calls anymore. It’s funny. I would start on Facebook. I would start creating content there, and then you can take your best content because you are paying attention. It’s getting good traction, and you can repurpose it on other platforms.
When do you think it is the right time to transition into having those multiple streams of income? It’s very important to master one and get kick ass at it. I see some of these entrepreneurs, and I’m like, “What the heck did you do?” What’s that tipping point?
It’s tough because so many people are distracted by the shiny penny. It is a little better now. These NFTs, crypto, and everything was spiking. The real estate was crushing. Everybody looks like a genius when the market is good. Now, there’s very little big money popping off like the stock market and real estate. All of it is a little bit more back to normal or to reality. Assuming the money in all those things, it’s much less. It’s not as fast, aggressive, and profitable to do any one of those things.
I’m a big fan of focusing on one thing. There’s a book called The ONE Thing. You need to have that primary focus. While you are creating this business and crushing it with this income, you can then, as you start to earn profits and make some serious money, look to diversify to build other income streams that don’t take your time. For instance, we have invested in a lot of real estate syndications. Those aren’t our real estate syndications. We are invested in a fund. We hired a fiduciary after we went to the Tony Robbins business mastery event which was a $7,000 per ticket 5-day event. It’s crazy.
One of the biggest things we got out of that is we needed a fiduciary. Have someone set up a portfolio for us or an investment account for retirement. Have someone that’s an expert who knows how to put together a retirement plan and will look at our investments for us. Like other investments, we can send it to them. They will analyze, look at it, and tell us their thoughts. We can borrow against our portfolio. I love it. It’s absolutely amazing.
“Get a mentor. You can figure it out on your own or learn from someone that already figured it out.”
Long story short, that is something that we have as an additional income stream and pays dividends and all the things, but then the money is automatically reinvested. We are not even involved in it. We have two beach homes that we bought down in Destin, Florida. Nadya will tell you, “That is not passive. I’m still involved,” but we have a property manager that manages the property and deals with all the renters. Once that’s set up, a lot of that is automated. It’s passive. We are not having to talk to the renters, collect the money, and deal with the people. It’s important to have one thing, build that up, and focus on that thing. Once it’s profitable, then you can start to diversify and create other income streams.
Personal Brand: It's important to have the one thing, build that up, focus on it, and then once it's profitable, you can start to diversify and create other income streams.
The only thing I will say is if you are building a brand, you can find other things to promote that are aligned with your brand, but you got to be very careful. When you are promoting things, if the people who trust you buy the thing you are promoting and it’s not your thing, where you are an affiliate or it’s something that was sponsored, if you promote that thing and that thing isn’t legit, it’s going to hurt your credibility. You got to be careful not to try to monetize too soon or too often.
A lot of the big YouTubers that I love following were all about advertising FTX, which was an exchange. They went bankrupt. A bunch of people who were watching their videos invested in FTX and the money is gone. It’s been interesting seeing the follow-up from that, and a lot of these YouTubers creating apology videos and then some of them not even apologizing saying, “I was promoting it. I didn’t do it.” It’s like, “Why are you promoting something you don’t believe in?”
To your other point, getting good at something is so important because I will have somebody who’s like, “I have an extra $1,000. I’d love to diversify.” I’m like, “I don’t think this is the time to diversify when you have an extra $1,000.” Get so good at something where it’s like, “I have got an extra $100,000 in my bank account.” Now let’s talk about diversifying, investing in real estate, the stock market, or anything like that. I love what you said there.
I tell this to anyone that has less than $5,000. If you have $5,000 or less, you should be investing in yourself. You should be investing in a course or a seminar. The only thing that has always given me a great return on my investment is the investment in myself and my education.
Thirty seconds or less as you answer these questions, John. If you would have not started with network marketing, what would you have gone into?
I would say real estate.
People would be surprised that you spend so much time doing what?
Watching shows. I watch a lot of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO. I have watched all the shows.
Chipotle or Chick-fil-A?
Chipotle all day.
Favorite way to spend downtime.
Watching shows.
What are you absolutely addicted to?
Honestly, my business. I’m obsessed. I love it. Even when I’m not doing it, it’s always at the top of my mind. That’s something that I could say I’m addicted to. It’s not just me. It’s the impact and blessing. Being able to see others growing themselves, building a business, and changing their life is the most amazing thing in the world.
What are you reading now?
I don’t read.
Do you do Audible?
Sometimes. I have, in the past. I will listen to like Patrick Bet-David and Joe Logan all day. I love listening to stuff more than anything else.
That also is a clue that it’s not a one-size-fits-all. A good percentage of successful people love to read, but there are exceptions to the rule. There are other ways that you learn and grow. There are masterminds. It’s different things that you do to grow yourself personally.
The statistic is auditory. You retain more auditory than reading. It’s almost double than what I remember in reading. Don’t quote me on that.
It makes sense. What boils down to it is the person. Some people love to read, and some people will read ten pages and be like, “I don’t remember what I read. I was totally spacing out.” If I’m listening, absolutely. I love to listen to stuff. Audible is amazing. We talk about outsourcing. Have the narrator read the book to you. It’s fantastic.
The best piece of advice you’ve ever received.
Work harder on yourself than you do on your job, Jim Rohn.
Most embarrassing moment.
It’s probably back in my drinking days. I quit drinking several years ago, but there were some doozies. I got arrested a lot. I did bad things. I would black out. One of those would probably be good. Getting arrested for assault was pretty embarrassing. I have had some very bad moments. I’m lucky to be here. I will say that.
Talk about the rebound factor. Favorite food?
Filet mignon.
Who inspires you?
I get inspired by the people within my organization, but for people that are like, “We don’t know the people on your team,” I would say I love Ed Mylett, Patrick Bet-David, Shelly Johnson, Gary Vee, and Tony Robbins. It’s probably a lot of the obvious ones. I can’t say that there’s this one. I don’t have one. It depends on where I’m at the season in my life whom I’m listening to.
Coffee or chocolate?
Dark chocolate. We sell coffee. That’s one of our products. We have a collagen coffee. It’s my favorite product, so I’d have to say that, but I’m a dark chocolate fan. I don’t eat a lot of it, but when I do, you know what I’m thinking about. I made a decision in August to stop eating sugar and stop snacking. I saw this video, and the guy says, “Stop snacking. You are not a kindergartner.” Shots fired.
That is a word. I need to implement that.
It wasn’t easy, but I’m like, “I already know what everything tastes like.” I don’t need the popcorn and Oreos. I don’t need either Milano cookie. When I went out to dinner for my brother’s birthday, I didn’t have any of the desserts. I have no desire. It’s like, “I already know what it tastes like. I already had it a million times.” It’s like Tony Robbins says, “Being fit or healthy feels better than anything tastes.” It took me 42 years to realize it. It was not easy, but once I made the decision, finally, I stuck to it pretty good.
You and Nadya are on point as far as your fitness goes. You are overall about well-being. You guys inspire me.
I appreciate that.
Describe yourself in one word.
Hustler.
I totally see that. If you were a superhero, who would you be and why?
I like Wolverine. I want to say Ironman, Batman, or Superman. I’m Wolverine.
Those claws would be going to be pretty much indestructible.
Hugh Jackman completely jacked in that. The Hulk would be cool too, I guess.
Nicely done, John. We are going to end with our last three questions, and then we want you to share your handles and how people can get in touch with you because you rocked this as usual. What is your definition of a boss?
Call your own shots. Wake up when you are done sleeping. Do what you want, with whom you want, and whenever you want.
I have never heard it put that way. Wake up when you are done sleeping. That’s so good.
No alarm clocks.
Any last words of wisdom that you want to share with our people?
People need to follow you guys. You are doing your thing, putting out content, and showing up every day. That’s what this world needs more of now. Social media and the news are very dark. It’s all that doom and gloom stuff. If you focus on negativity and your problems, guess what you get more of. Problems and negativity. You want to be a light during dark times. It’s easy to be positive when things are going well. Leadership is all about shining a light during dark times, stepping up, and putting yourself out there. That’s what you guys are doing. More people need to do that and need to follow leaders now more than ever before.
“Leadership is all about shining a light during dark times and stepping up and putting yourself out there.”
That is so good. You have been such a powerhouse figure in so many people’s lives, including mine. Thank you for showing up, even on days when you are fired up and feel it, and other days where you are like, “I do not want to turn on this camera, but it’s not about me. It’s about other people.” Thank you so much. Where can people follow you? Where can people find your courses and get more of your powerhouse training?
We have our website, My Lifestyle Academy. That has our blog, a lot of our resources, and our free downloads. You can join our Facebook community there. It’s MyLifestyleAcademy.com. Also, Facebook and Instagram are our top two platforms. They can look me up. Instagram is @RealJohnMelton. The thing that sucks about Instagram is there are so many fake accounts.
I’m the one that has 24,000 followers. If there’s any other number, if it’s 10,000 or 2,000, that’s not me. That’s a scammer. It’s somewhere in the Middle East, most likely. That’s going to try to pitch you on crypto. That isn’t me. I’m not welcoming you to my private chat like, “Hello, dear. Welcome to my private chat.” It drives me crazy.
I literally get five messages a day. Every day, people are going, “There’s an imposter account.” I’m like, “Thank you for blocking it. Thank you for telling me.” Imagine that. The annoying part isn’t the scammers. The annoying part is all the people that know me and are like, “You have an imitator.” I’m like, “I know.” Five times a day, at least. Sometimes, it’s a dozen or more, and you are like, “Thank you for telling me.” Luckily, my VAs responds to a lot of them, but still, it’s like, “Okay. We know.”
I haven’t had anybody impersonate me yet, but once I do, then I know I have made it.
Here’s how smart they are. They copy everything, your videos, and website. People are like, “Why would they put your website on there?” I’m like, “It’s for you to think it’s real, obviously.” They copy everything. They are not doing it for Brad Pitt because you know Brad Pitt is not messaging you. They do it for micro-influencers that have 10,000 to 20,000 followers. Every time someone follows me, they are like, “Just so you know, I got to follow from an account. Is this you?” I’m like, “No.” They took my O in John Melton. They made it a zero. That’s not me.
With the lengths these people go to, you can have a booming business that you would put this in the right spot.
What sucks is it works. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing it so aggressively. I have had people say, “Are you telling me that wasn’t you? I gave it $1,000.”
I had a real estate client who lost $3 million in a crypto scam.
All of it is high risk. It was a straight-up scam.
We can talk about this after the show.
You know how hard it is to become a millionaire and then they use you on stuff like that. That’s what we call stupid tax. Here’s one thing we learned early on in our career, which is a quote I will never forget, “There are a lot of very smart people, and they are spending all their time every day trying to figure out how to get your dumb money.”
Once you start making money, you think you made it, and there are all these smart people. Have you ever heard this? The man with experience meets the man with money. What happens? The man with the money ends up with an experience because the man with experience ends up with the money. That’s how that goes.
On that note, thank you, John. You are amazing. As I say, every single time we do this show, it is time to fight your fear, build your faith, and become the boss of your own life. Let’s get after it.
I love it.
Important Links
Facebook - My Lifestyle Academy Mastermind
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@RealJohnMelton - Instagram
About John Melton
John is a top 50 earner in the entire profession, top 3 in his company, a member of the Network Marketing Hall of Fame, and one of the most renowned Social Media trainers in the Network Marketing space.
After spending 10 years building their business using offline methods and sacrificing family time, John and his wife, Nadya turned to online marketing. This led them to explore and develop various online marketing strategies until they found the formula that worked for them and their team.
Over the past five years, their organization has brought in over $200 million in sales and over 600,000 new customers. All without home parties, meeting presentations, and three-way calls!
Today, John’s favorite words are “systems” and “duplication” as he combines modern online marketing strategies with traditional network marketing methods to teach thousands how to create a profitable online business.