Is MRR A Scam, Lifetime Income Marketing, And TikTok Updates [Part 1]

In this episode of the Business Millennials Podcast, hosts Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager are droppin' some truth bombs on the shady side of MRR (Master Resell Rights) and faceless marketing tactics.

They're gonna break down the unethical mess surrounding people reselling digital products without having a clue what they're talking about. Major red flag, right? And don't even get them started on the predatory nature of targeting specific communities with promises of easy cash and anonymity. That's just straight-up wrong

Key Takeaways:
1. MRR products are often resold by people who ain't got the expertise to back it up. Talk about misleading and unethical
2. Faceless marketing tactics can be downright predatory, exploiting communities with specific cultural or religious values. Not cool, bro.
3. Sustainable biz growth takes serious effort, dedication, and a unique value proposition that goes beyond cookie-cutter approaches. No shortcuts here.
4. Avoiding those "get rich quick" schemes and developing a solid long-term strategy is crucial for making it in the online biz world. Real ones know it ain't that easy.

Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to the Business Millennials Podcast
00:58 Navigating the Digital Marketing Landscape 
02:24 The Truth About Digital Marketing and MRR
03:24 Demystifying Digital Marketing: What It Really Is
06:19 The Ethical Dilemmas of Reselling Digital Products
15:47 Creating Value in Digital Products Beyond MRR
32:59 The Predatory Nature of Faceless Marketing
36:27 Wrapping Up: Sustainable Business Strategies

Resources Mentioned:
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Transcript

0:00

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. Yeah. 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. you

Safa Harris: 0:58

So there's a lot going on in the online business space and in digital marketing.

Ashley Dreager: 1:08

Uh, Tik Tok has a lot going on. I hate that phrase. It's

Safa Harris: 1:19

it.

Ashley Dreager: 1:20

just so cheesy. Plus with everything with

Safa Harris: 1:25

yeah,

Ashley Dreager: 1:28

Oh man. I

Safa Harris: 1:32

know, and Google define digital marketing that might help with some of the digital marketing messaging there. So a couple of things happening in the landscape of the online space that. Will kind of change a bit of the trajectory of how everything is kind of going. People need to think about their strategy and whatnot. And couple of things that. Because of these changes, or may not put your business in hot water if you have not strategized and planned for these things. And I have a couple points on why, like, you never should have gotten into this spot in the first place. But we can talk about what they are first before I say, well, wait, this is what you should have done. Um, so

Ashley Dreager: 2:24

don't know.

Safa Harris: 2:25

you want to talk about MRR first before we go into TikTok?

Ashley Dreager: 2:28

Yeah, well, MRR and TikTok really go hand in hand for me. So that's where I was seeing a lot of this content and anytime this the videos come up in my feed, I can instantly spot them because they always start out with something along the lines of, Digital marketing is not a scam. You can make money with digital marketing. And it drives me nuts. Like every single time one of these videos comes through, I think I send it to you and I go off on some little rant because it's so irritating to me because I'm like, what are you talking about? You can make money in digital marketing. Are you offering marketing services? Because otherwise that's like, you don't know what you're talking about.

Safa Harris: 3:14

So

Ashley Dreager: 3:15

Um,

Safa Harris: 3:19

gears so much. So as a marketing professional. Let's dig into what digital marketing is in the scope of marketing. Like, as part of your marketing strategy, what is digital marketing?

Ashley Dreager: 3:37

so digital marketing is any form of marketing that is digital. Like it's, it's a self explanatory term in my opinion. It's just not print marketing, right? It's not something that you would see in a newspaper, like in a physical product. It's anything that's digital. Anything that you are seeing or consuming on a screen, it is that simple. So when people say. Digital marketing is not a scam. You can make money in digital marketing. I'm like, what are you talking? Like, it's a form of communication.

Safa Harris: 4:10

So, digital marketing, and then, like a subsect of Right, so it's, you have your marketing strategy and some people might, in their business, might be heavier on digital methods for their marketing, while others might be big in, say, more print or even like referral slash network based. These are all different types of marketing that are under the umbrella of marketing. marketing is really getting your name out there. It's brand awareness. It's like that top of funnel situation. So what is going on in this? You can make money off of digital marketing is that they are saying digital marketing is Is a business model almost right? Would that be the right term? I feel like it's not it's like almost like you can sell Digital marketing packaged as an offer,

Ashley Dreager: 5:15

Well, I think,

Safa Harris: 5:16

case. It's a like a tactic almost.

Ashley Dreager: 5:19

I think what they're doing is they are using digital products and digital marketing interchangeably

Safa Harris: 5:25

Yeah

Ashley Dreager: 5:26

and these products happen to be within a marketing topic. Right. And it's like, okay, you're not selling digital marketing. You are selling a digital product about digital marketing. So these are like, these are not the same. You have a digital, you're selling digital products. You're in a

Safa Harris: 5:47

is incorrect.

Ashley Dreager: 5:48

right. And I'm just like, you, it bothers me because well, and I think it goes back to a lot of the issues that we're seeing in the online space in general. What that's just unethical. Marketing tactics, unethical business growth, you know, with, we could go down a whole rabbit hole with coaches and mentors and the things where people are trying to sell something that they don't truly know enough about to be selling it as a service or a product. And that's exactly what this is, is this MRR is something where they say, Oh, you've gone through this course. You can resell this course, which great. That's, that's a business model in and of itself. But for the people that are reselling it, you, they don't know enough about what they are selling to ethically sell it. They're just regurgitating all of the information that they've gotten, which I think is problematic because now anybody who's buying it from them is probably going to have questions there. It's going to be brand new information to them, right? And the people that they bought this course from or the product from. aren't truly going to be able to educate them because there's just one step ahead. They've just gone through it a little bit. They've just had more time to go through it than this other person has.

Safa Harris: 7:11

yeah. So, a couple things here. A reason why everybody's calling it digital marketing that they're selling is because they don't actually know what they're selling.

Ashley Dreager: 7:23

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 7:24

Yeah, they're saying oh, yeah here you can sell digital marketing, but you can't because digital marketing is a Tactic that you use within your marketing strategy and that's not you can sell that as a service Or, in this case, as an information based product for a service, but you can't tangibly sell. I can't, like, come over and be like, Hey, Ashley, you wanna buy digital marketing from me? It's like, digital marketing what?

Ashley Dreager: 7:56

Right.

Safa Harris: 7:56

that's Incorrectly being shown because they don't know what they're talking about, which is going to hurt the industry as a whole because, and why people already see as online businesses as kind of dodgy because of a lack of education. And then the lack of education in the online business space, that's like. topic of conversation for another episode. Oh, and then, so then we come to the conversation of, okay, this is, we're thinking like B to C, someone just sitting at home being like, Oh, I need to make extra cash. Like, Oh, I can buy this thing and just resell it and I don't have to do any of the work and I'll learn it and it'll teach me how to set it up and I can just take it and like burn and churn this. Great., I think there's something to that, but there is, there's kind of like two fold here. There's something to be said about being able to take a product that you can resell adding to it to give it more value and then sell it. selling it, and kind of comes to the ethics of, okay, fine, you take this and you turn around and just sell it. Does your responsibility end there? Is that it? Like, I guess, that's kind of like the responsibility ends there with a chocolate bar. But this is an information based video. Product like it's

Ashley Dreager: 9:34

I think a lot of the, a lot of the people that are reselling this Sell it as I'll be your mentor so that you can continue so that you can actually make money off this. This isn't going to be something where you, this isn't an MLM, a pyramid scheme where you buy into it, and then you can never make the money again. I'll help you make the money back. It's kind of how this is like presented in a lot of the content that I'm coming across, which is great if you know what you're talking about though. And if you can't use the terms appropriately, like if you are miss. Labeling the business model that you have, how much, like, should you be a mentor to other people starting up an online business?

Safa Harris: 10:18

Yeah, cuz if they're don't buy products from not an expert an information based product from not an expert And that's exactly what's happening. But say they are selling it and they are not expert based. They should not be themselves in that way because that is unethical marketing it And that feeds into the vicious cycle of digital marketing is a scam, online business is a scam, because that's exactly what's happening here. It is false advertisement of what's backing up the information that you're bringing. then, back to the point of, uh,, if you are legitimately seeing this as a business opportunity, it's kind of like twofold here. Yes, you can take advantage of being able to resell a course, but if you are trying to build a business, You need to take that and bring some kind of proprietary information and product into that to expand upon it make it something that has more of a unique value because Everybody's just burning and trading the same thing And if you're not an expert if you don't have any like what what is your unique value proposition here to this thing that everybody? It's gonna get saturated in like 0. 5 seconds Which it already, like, might be

Ashley Dreager: 11:47

I think it already is.

Safa Harris: 11:49

Yeah, because A part of it's also like oh, you don't have to show your face like faceless marketing stuff And everybody's eating that up because they're like, oh, yeah That's the hard because that's the hardest part of being an online business owner is showing your face And doing all this content creation because we're not content creators. That's a whole different business model. We're business owners.

Ashley Dreager: 12:07

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 12:08

So Yeah, that part and then as a business owner, when you are creating things in your business to sell, you want to own that asset. You want to own that business asset that you're making money off. That's like the whole concept behind patent., And trademarks, like this is your proprietary information. You own it and now you're selling it and that's an asset to your business. So if you turn around and want to go sell your business, This is what you're going to get paid money for is that asset in your business MMR you're buying that's not an asset in your business. You don't own that For one you haven't done anything to improve it two They can come and yank that out from you anytime. They want to they can say you know what? I want everybody that ever bought this product to stop selling it right now And then what are you going to do? You don't own that asset. That's zero amount You Protection.

Ashley Dreager: 13:13

Well, and something that I just thought about as you were saying that is what, yeah, what if, what if you buy this product to resell, you, you start up a business model within digital products, but then there's something within that that you don't truly agree with or something that you would want to change. Can you change that information or then are you going to be obligated to sell this as is? With the information that you don't necessarily agree with, that you have a completely different point of view or perspective on, because in marketing, there is nothing is set in stone. Everything is subjective. You could get five marketers in a room and there's a good chance that everyone's going to have a different opinion on something on some level of it, right? Like there's probably going to be like a good understanding of, yeah, this is generally best practice. This is probably a good idea. But I think that this is the way that you should go about it. Right. But now because you don't own this product as your own, then what

Safa Harris: 14:17

So I obviously have not bought the M. O. R. So I don't know what the contract is. I'm very interested. If someone has, like, send us the contract. We'd, very interested to hear, to

Ashley Dreager: 14:29

I'm so curious to see what's inside of it.

Safa Harris: 14:32

From what I've heard and what I understand, is they're allowed to add to it. I don't know if you're allowed to take it and change it, which comes to like my next point of, we had this conversation about like stealing other people's products and. selling it as your own, which is allowing you to do that. It's allowing you to resell. It's giving you the rights to do that. Um, but some people are like buying other people's products, taking it and reselling it. Without doing any of that, um, so on both of those terms, one, I don't know if it's legally allowed to change MRR like that, like take that information and just like tweak a little bit of it and put it out. Um, but it's, it's very illegal to take someone else's product, like copy and paste and resell it. But on the idea of everything is actually inspiration, can you buy MRR And then be like, okay, yeah, this is interesting. And then create your own product that puts your own expertise into it. you're actually an expert and are qualified to teach on this. And be like, I don't agree with this, but this is how it should be done. And make your own thing. That's now something interesting.

Ashley Dreager: 15:57

That's a good question. Because if it's different than if you just bought a course online from somebody else, recreated it as your own, because with MRR, you have the resale rates. So at what point does that, the intellectual, is there intellectual property with MRR then?

Safa Harris: 16:21

did it because they can yank it they want to. But if you're like, you know what? is very interesting. I am going to create a, because it essentially just teaches you how to do a basic funnel, like a starter funnel for a digital product. and I think it's like system IO or something that they set it up in. so it's a basic funnel. I want to, I want to put a course out on funnels and I like how they set it up here, but this is what I want to add into it, because I think this is missing this part. It's missing this part, and I don't agree with this strategy. So, I got the idea of doing a course on funnels from them. I liked the idea, but This is my take on it and what I think is better and like the improvement of when I'm going to do it this way, because you have to learn all strategies from somewhere or someone or at some point, like, we all learn everything we do, like, even when we take strategies to clients and make a custom for their business, we, you and I, we learn that from somewhere. Like

Ashley Dreager: 17:36

Right.

Safa Harris: 17:36

wake up one day and be like, Oh, now I know funnel strategy.

Ashley Dreager: 17:41

Here's this magic strategy that's just suddenly going to work.

Safa Harris: 17:44

it and we implemented and we tried it and we figured out the right better way for us and then how to tweak it in different iterations for clients. So I think there's something to that and yeah, MRR allows you to copy and paste, but not legal if you don't have the resale rights, but you can get inspiration from other people's courses and bring your own expertise into it and make it your own asset and resell it. So. Have that same mindset and approach to MRR. Like, there's nothing wrong with digital products. There's nothing wrong with funnel strategy and creating digital products around it. But, like, add something to it. Create it your own. Make it your own. Add your own intellectual property it. And actually have ownership of that and ownership of your own business. And don't just, like, It's not stealing for MRR, but like, don't steal other people's stuff.

Ashley Dreager: 18:48

Just be a good person. Something that I'm getting hung up on a lot these days. TikTok doesn't help that. Uh, it is, it's probably my life lesson to learn how to deal with it. But no, well, cause this, and that leads us into a really good, um, point from something else that we were going to be talking about, is that once you have this MRR course, you are now in digital products, right? You're not in digital marketing. You're using digital marketing to sell your digital products. Okay. I guess I can move on from that rant, but I just feel like there's so many people who buy these courses that don't truly understand that probably because everything inside is templated, which is an issue. Because business is not a template, right? There's, there's nothing about business that is a template. There should, if we have time, we can get into templates and their use

Safa Harris: 19:56

we

Ashley Dreager: 19:57

business. Yeah. Since we have a template shop, but, um, that this is, you're buying a business model. Until you have some other product or service suite that goes with it, your, your business model is digital products. So then what else are you going to be selling or offering or How else are you going to be making money outside of this one course? Because like you said, it's already getting very saturated, right? The selling point for MRR is that you can instantly get this online business and instantly make money. And it's super easy and you don't really have to do any of the work, except we all know that there's a ton of work that has to go into marketing and building an audience, establishing trust and relationships. And you know, all of that good stuff that comes along with, um, Sustainability in business. But so like, so then what, right? Like you've bought a business model. Is this a business model that you want to continue on with? Or are you looking at this as a quick fix, a, just like a, like a cash injection for your personal life? Like how is it a side gig? Is this a hobby? Are you really wanting to start a business? Like there's a lot of other questions that come along with this. And because everybody's using whatever information is inside of these courses as. Probably these templates for talking points, social media posts, content calendars, all of the things.

Safa Harris: 21:29

Because all the posts are identical.

Ashley Dreager: 21:31

They are, even to the talking points,

Safa Harris: 21:35

you're copying and pasting them, guys. We know it. We can tell.

Ashley Dreager: 21:40

which is the issue with templates. So you need it. You need your own unique perspective on things and to, I guess, to move on from the, the point of, okay, you've bought this business model and then what, right? You, you have to make it your own. Right. Even if you don't want to be a digital product creator, even if you don't want to be offering these one on one services that like, you just want this to be passive income, it's going to be like affiliate marketing, however you want to position that in your mind, there needs to be something different. And right now nobody's doing anything different when they're selling MRR. It's all the same points. It's all the same pain points. It's all the same desires. It's all the same talking points, talking paths. So it's just like. Instantly identifiable. Like, you know, when somebody comes to you, like they're part of an MLM and no shame on MLMs. Like there's a lot of MLM products that I use and enjoy myself, but you can almost spot it instantly. When someone's going to be trying to sell you something that's an MLM product, right?

Safa Harris: 22:46

Mm

Ashley Dreager: 22:47

Like you can smell it coming. It's that obvious.

Safa Harris: 22:50

Like, hey

Ashley Dreager: 22:50

This is what MRR is coming. Yeah.

Safa Harris: 22:54

I know I haven't talked to you since like high school, but your kids are cute. Are

Ashley Dreager: 23:00

Oh my gosh. And that like the health supplement MLMs and stuff like that.

Safa Harris: 23:09

It's like, oh, I saw you just had a baby. Are you trying to lose the baby weight? Like, it was so hard for me.

Ashley Dreager: 23:17

Oh yeah. That it's like the Netflix for workouts. You know how many times I've heard that one line? Like

Safa Harris: 23:27

it is the same. So, fine, you buy MRR, you take it, you set up their funnel, whatever, you sell it. don't change anything about it because you agree with everything, you think it's a great product, but maybe, just maybe, add a minimum. Make it into, at least change the way you're doing your marketing on it. That part actually relatable to you as a person and what you're selling and start building that brand. you can maybe use this as a launch pad. Like maybe this is just like, Hey, one aspect of it. And you know, me, I can come up with an offer, like in a whole offer suite in like 0. 5 seconds. So maybe you start off with MRR and then you're like, Oh, you know what? I'm going to add like a membership group coaching situation to this for, to give them more support, to add more of this mentorship into it when they hit a snag, whatever, help them customize their. Marketing and do all of that and like maybe this is a launchpad into your full grown online business and maybe if you're like Hey, this is just for like a few months for me to get some extra cash to keep it going like okay Cool, maybe but like you really want I guess we're very business focused It's like why would you want to do that and not build it and grow it into something and just have some extra money to like It runs out of gas like that would suck because I would want that extra money continuously going in so just thinking If you are long term focused Just don't just stop with the I can buy this and sell it and be done There's just so much more that's going to be better for you in the long run and that kind of comes back to of the points I hinted at earlier of like When they yank this rug out from under you or when this gets saturated and the sales stop coming in If you are going to be a lot if you want to be in business for the long haul and this is something that's for you and you want this business, this was, this is like something you should have anticipated early on and planned for that as part of your strategy. Your vision is going to be important in having that long term strategy and identifying those pitfalls and making a plan around it is what is going to save your ass in business. we're gonna have to put the expletive marker on the episode now. Like, not safe for kids. like, that is going to, everything is going to have a pitfall. Everything needs a contingency. Everything needs the ability to shift pivot. And move, and you need to be able, like we talk about this all the time, you need to be able to adapt to the market and what the market is looking for and what it's talking about and of those things. And it's, it's great for you to get started. We've given you some great tips how to change it, but don't like hang your hat on this.

Ashley Dreager: 26:54

Oh. Yeah. This is not a retirement plan, you guys. I hope nobody's buying this thinking that they're just, their work is done. Right? They put, they don't. Build an online audience. Cause I, there are a lot of people, a lot of, uh, a lot of the content that I come across, they're talking about how they, um, they're like documenting their journey to making money and like an update of how much money they made that day, how things are going, just like the real raw behind the scenes, which I'm going to be honest as a marketing tactic, I wouldn't necessarily do. Uh, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go on social media every day saying that you did not make money. Do you not see those videos?

Safa Harris: 27:43

No, seen those! I've only seen the Oh! I made 400 dollars and all I did was buy this one thing. I

Ashley Dreager: 27:50

You haven't seen those? Oh my gosh, they come up. And that's

Safa Harris: 28:00

this much. And then it's like, 2005 I made 1 million dollars.

Ashley Dreager: 28:07

Okay, yeah, let's talk about, I want to talk about that next. But,

Safa Harris: 28:13

Marketing

Ashley Dreager: 28:14

but these Life. Seriously though. Um, no, so these, so these, uh, I don't know what I want to call them. Content creators, peaches, people like those that have bought this, this MRR product and they're trying to get their, they're trying to get theirs launched right up and off the ground, making it profitable. Um, and so they're, They're like, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to tell you exactly how much money I'm making. I'm telling you, I'll tell you, yada, yada, like all of that kind of stuff. Like I'm not going to try to mislead you into buying this and saying that you're going to make a bunch of money overnight, which great, I get that. But you can't go on saying for three weeks straight that you're not making money. Nobody is going to want to buy from you. Yeah,

Safa Harris: 29:04

Is it multiple videos saying they haven't made money?

Ashley Dreager: 29:09

it'll be like, okay, so this is, you know, today's update, this is how, you know, this is what I did, this is how much I have, I still haven't made any money off of this, like

Safa Harris: 29:17

Which actually might be smart if they launch something else. Be like, hey, remember how I didn't make any money off of that? But guess what? I made my own thing and did this and now I'm making this much.

Ashley Dreager: 29:32

I mean, like, I get it. I like, I appreciate it because it's, I mean, I mean, like, I don't know why I say I appreciate it. I'm not going to buy it. I'm not going to buy the product ever, but, but like, it's, it's a, I think it's, it can be appreciated with the honesty that comes along with it because that's not something you never see that side of it, but I'm just going to be honest, like anyone, like free consulting here, anyone who's trying to build up their business. If you're still trying to establish yourself as an expert and be seen as someone that you should, people should give money to for whatever service or knowledge that you have to share, don't lead with, I'm not making money. I think like there's a strategy that can come along with that with, uh, like product based businesses of, Oh, this is really tough. Like, I'm really having a hard time like on TikTok or whatever. And then everyone's like, Oh my gosh, you actually have a really great product. But like, if you're somebody that needs to be, if there's somebody who's trying to buy an expertise from you,

Safa Harris: 30:33

Mm hmm.

Ashley Dreager: 30:34

don't lead with nobody's wanting my expertise.

Safa Harris: 30:38

Yeah, because there's like a, a trust factor and then like Yeah. Yeah. Because I haven't been able to actually do this. Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah. I, I don't have a proven track record here. People are not, people are being very selective right now anyways in giving money all of that. So they won't do it. But this is like clearly templated marketing for people that are just putting it out there and doing that. So It's like,

Ashley Dreager: 31:14

just think it's funny that you haven't had those come across your for you page yet.

Safa Harris: 31:18

my TikTok feed is very not business.

Ashley Dreager: 31:22

Oh, see, I,

Safa Harris: 31:25

yeah.

Ashley Dreager: 31:25

started a second Tik Tok so that it wouldn't be on business. Like I tried to stay on like plant talk and hikes and just like all of this stuff. And I left my, like, cause I have my like director of marketing, my Ashley Drager handle that there's no content on there. Don't, don't go on there expecting to see. Valuable information, you guys. But I have that on, I had that as like my business, it turned into my business tick tock, right? When I was like, oh, this is actually really interesting information. This is more like more serious, like government focused business, like all of that, and I was like, I just want something like fun and lighthearted again, so I started a second one. And now that's just morphed into the exact same 40 page

Safa Harris: 32:06

Because you're the same person.

Ashley Dreager: 32:09

same person.

Safa Harris: 32:10

You tried to be someone else and it didn't work. be

Ashley Dreager: 32:13

I tried to be this like, fun, lighthearted, just go out and,

Safa Harris: 32:19

Uh, it was like something sparkles.

Ashley Dreager: 32:23

Oh my, uh, uh, sprinkle. What is it? Sprinkles and sparkles era or something like that.

Safa Harris: 32:29

I had glitter in there too. It was a very girl mom

Ashley Dreager: 32:31

Glitter. Oh yeah.

Safa Harris: 32:37

But, um, so my for you page is very, Social justice like Muslim TikTok. I'm like heavy on that. Um, but I've started noticing that MRR has like infiltrated its way into Muslim TikTok.

Ashley Dreager: 32:58

Oh really?

Safa Harris: 32:59

Yes, because of the faceless marketing. And I'm just like, no guys don't do it. Like I,

Ashley Dreager: 33:08

Oh, that's so interesting.

Safa Harris: 33:10

I feel like it's a, it's a little bit predatory towards Muslim women so there's like the whole aspect of like modesty and like religiously, yeah, we're supposed to like veil and hair and everything like that. And some women do take it further and do the full niqab and don't, and a lot don't like to show faces. On the internet, and this is not a religious TikTok, so I'm not gonna go into like the wise or things like that, but that's their choice. choose to do that for various reasons, but we all need to, we're all in a place where money is tight. We wanna make more money, we want to have our own money. Um, and Islam for women like we are not. We're allowed to make money and have jobs and do all of those things, but it's purely for like our own personal gain. Like if we want to contribute to the household, like we can out of like the goodness of our house, but like our husband's supposed to pay the bills. And like his money is my money and like my money is my money, which a verse in the Quran. So when women make money, like, sometimes they're like, oh, yeah, like, I'll contribute to the household. Or sometimes it's like, I'm just making money for like, my own fun stuff I want to do, or just because I enjoy it. so what's happening is, It's like, Hey, are you like a Muslim woman, like a Muslim that wants to not put your face on the internet and still make money, and faceless marketing? It's like, you can do that easily with this. And I'm like, no. And

Ashley Dreager: 34:52

Oh no.

Safa Harris: 34:53

so bad. I was like, you guys are taking advantage of them. And they don't know. Like

Ashley Dreager: 34:58

Because if you, yeah,

Safa Harris: 35:00

predatory

Ashley Dreager: 35:01

don't know what the online space is like, like that's your first introduction to the online space.

Safa Harris: 35:09

And

Ashley Dreager: 35:10

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 35:11

your, like, personal spiritual convictions of not wanting to show your face. Like, oh. Like, that, and I see it and I want to do something about it, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Ashley Dreager: 35:26

Oh man. Oh wow. I was going to ask her like, what is the, this like, not like spin that they're putting on it, but like, what is the, how is it coming up differently than,

Safa Harris: 35:40

Yeah,

Ashley Dreager: 35:40

What I would have seen.

Safa Harris: 35:41

can make money by not showing your face. It's leaning into the faceless marketing thing. Which I don't know. You can, ways to build a brand and like make money and there's different strategies you can use, or even using other content creators and things like marketing things you can do and still make money. using digital marketing and things like that around your brand, but MRR is going to put you in hot water at some point and it's not something sustainable and long term. And you know, that's big for us where, when we're talking about business strategies and this podcast and everything like that. So if you guys want long term sustainability, this is This is not it.

Ashley Dreager: 36:34

No. Not by itself.

Safa Harris: 36:37

Yeah, not by itself. It can be a launching pad, things like that. You can use it as something to get you started, to learn, to get it going, but definitely think about this as something long term and like just buyer beware. And I think that's really like the heart of this episode is just putting it out there from people that have been in this space for a while. and have seen it, know the options, and kind of give you like the dark underbelly on this. It's just getting the word out there that, yeah, great, but be careful and think about these things that you can do alternatively here.

Ashley Dreager: 37:20

There are no quick fixes. There are no instant million dollar business models. It's gonna take time and money and effort and sweat and tears and frustration. It's gonna be a lot, so I'm going to say this is going to be part one, go to part two, uh, for the other topic that we didn't have time to get into today, so in part two, we will go into lifetime marketing and just some of the other marketing tactics that we are seeing in this. Online space and templates. So see you next week.

38:01

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.