In this episode of Personal Brand Breakthrough, host Sheryl Plouffe interviews network‑marketing leader Christine Althaus (Youngevity) to uncover the three practical actions that helped her rise to the top of her company and that can help other entrepreneurs—especially moms and women in relationship‑marketing—grow their businesses. The conversation centers on (1) being authentic and showing up as the real self rather than a polished façade; (2) sharing the lived experience of using one’s product or service on social media, following an 80/20 content balance that prioritises value‑first storytelling over hard‑sell tactics; and (3) consistently using video to increase visibility, build trust, and overcome the fear of being on camera. Christine illustrates each point with personal anecdotes (e.g., messy‑kitchen video, makeup‑free recordings) and offers concrete ways for listeners to connect with her via Facebook and Instagram. The episode ends with Sheryl’s contact information and a call‑to‑action for viewers to engage with Christine’s content.
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Welcome to Personal Brand Breakthrough. I'm Sheryl Plouffe, and Personal Brand Breakthrough is the show dedicated to you, the entrepreneur who wants to grow their business through social media, through building your personal brand, and through video marketing. Today we have 3 key component core activities for you that will help you to become a network marketing leader in your company. So if you're in MLM, you're in network marketing, or what I like to call relationship marketing, then you're going to want to listen to the 3 core activities that we have planned for you today. Our guest is Christine Althaus, so let's get started with today's show. Okay, so let's dive in. We have Christine Althaus here today, and she is going to give us some real-life tips and examples of how she's done it for herself, how she became a top leader in the company that she's with, which is Youngevity. So Christine, welcome to Personal Brand Breakthrough. I'm really happy to have you here.
Thanks, Cheryl. I'm really happy to be here. Um, it was quite an honor for you to ask me to, to be on your show.
Hey, you know what? You have so much to share because you have risen, you know, the ranks of your business and your company. And I want to really kind of dive into some practical things that you have done personally to be able to do that. I mean, that's no small feat, especially, you know, network marketing, multilevel marketing, direct sales, what have you. By any definition, building a business is challenging. And I know that you work mostly with moms and with women. What are some of the things that maybe we can just go down a laundry list of the 3 things that have really helped you to propel your business? What would be number 1 that you've done to put yourself out there and really become visible and grow your business?
Sure, Cheryl. I believe that these 3 tips that I'm going to give that have helped me will help anybody else. And the first one is really being authentic and just being myself, not trying to be anybody else. Here on social media, we happen to see a lot of different people as influencers, and you might see people in different companies and what they're doing, and you're thinking, wow, maybe I should be doing that. But as soon as I realized that I just need to be my authentic self, then it just made more sense, and people connected with me a lot more by doing that.
And did you ever go through a period where you were not authentic? Like, were you ever at a point in your business where you were like kind of trying to be Photoshop perfect and it wasn't working out for you?
Oh my goodness, for sure. I definitely, you know, when I would start to do a video or anything like that, I would really take inventory of my background or my hair or my makeup and all the things that, you know, sure, that is me as well, but it's not me 100%. I'm not like that all the time. I am a wife, I am a mother, and I do work from home. And if anybody works from home knows that their home is lived in, and my home is definitely lived in.
Well, I think that's really important for people to know, you know, the moms out there who may be listening to that and saying to themselves, okay, you know what, I can let my guard down. I don't have to have that veneer and kind of put on a show for other people in the sense of making everything look perfect. So, so number 1 is authenticity. What is number 2 in your books?
Number 2 is really just sharing with my friends and family and followers within social media my experience of what it's like to be in my company. So I don't like to sell my product on social media. What I do is I share the experience of using my product on social media and what it's done for me. And how I use it throughout the day. So depending on the product, I will share my experience with it. And I believe more and more people are drawn to that because they can put themselves in that position instead of me saying, "Hey, you should buy this, blah, blah, blah." It's more like, "Wow, if it did that for Christine, maybe I could get the same results," or, "So-and-so can get the same results." So, The second tip I would give someone is just show the experience of using your product or service on social media so people can relate to you like they're in your shoes.
And I think that's really crucial, especially in network marketing. And, you know, I see a lot of network marketers who are doing the ding, right, the commercial, and it isn't resonating with people. Like, it doesn't land. And so they're not putting out enough value in advance of being able to, you know, sell the thing that they're selling. And so what I love about the approach that you're recommending is show your lifestyle, show the real time, like the real life uses of a product. And I'm also probably hearing you say do it in balance, right? Like you wouldn't suggest, or would you suggest that people have product placement necessarily in all of their videos, or what kind of balance do we want to try to find?
Oh, definitely. You don't want to make, you don't want to make it like everything about your company and your products. You really want to do the 80/20 rule where you're just sharing like regular stuff 80% of the time and 20% of it is going to be, you know, sometimes you'll have something in the background or you're using your product or maybe even doing a Facebook Live and experiencing the product and using it and just talking and chatting with some girlfriends on Facebook Live using your product. So I see a lot of women doing that and being very successful at it. So it's not really selling them, it's just showing them how they're using it. But definitely not like every post should not be about it. It should— I love the 80/20 rule.
Yeah, I think that's a great baseline, you know, to use. It's like, it's Gary Vaynerchuk style, right? It's, you know, give, give, give, ask, give, give, give, ask. So I love that. What is your third tip for moms, maybe moms or women who are thinking of going into network marketing and they are kind of close to doing it, or others who are in the business right now in terms of how you have been able to grow, you know, build up in the ranks of your business. What is your third tip?
Well, Sheryl, I think my third tip is going to be your favorite, and that is use video.
Yes!
I personally have been using video for— actually, it's been 6 years on social media. But a lot of it had to do with just me sharing personal growth stuff. But since I'm using video more in a strategic marketing way, has really helped people see my 2 first points, being authentic and experiencing my product, service, and company because I should step back to step 2 and say not just experiencing the product or service, but show what the company, the lifestyle has done for you too. So those extra things that you may not have been able to do. So using video has allowed me to share that with everybody throughout social media. And I have to say, Cheryl, you have been very instrumental in that within the last 6 months. And I have seen a huge difference in my following and my business. Just by taking a few extra steps within that video. So my third tip to anybody watching this that wants to grow a business on social media really is to, to add video and not be afraid of it.
Yeah. And thank you for that. I appreciate that. I think the video piece is really important. That's obviously what I'm building my own business around. And I think what I'm hearing you say, too, is, you know, put yourself out there like you have to overcome any fear or hesitation you may have and be visible. Like if you're not visible, to, you know, people on social media as an example, to your audience, then really you just stay the best kept secret. So when you started out doing video, you've been doing video for a while, like 6 years, and yes, you're getting some more momentum in more recent months, and that's great. Did you have any fear or hesitation around it, and how did you find the courage to overcome that?
Oh, good. Yes, I definitely had fear. Because of the first things we talked about, you know, I think about I'm a hairstylist, so for me it was like my hair had to be perfect. I had to have makeup on, at least mascara and earrings. Like these were things that when I first started doing video, I was thinking they were necessities. Well, probably 80% of the time it's still a necessity for me, but there has been probably 20% of my videos where I'm pretty raw and authentic, where I've been no makeup, messy hair. I even did, you know, I have two shows that I do on Facebook, and one show I did a couple of weeks ago, I was walking into my kitchen, and you got to see my messy counter. And afterwards I thought, you know what, that's real life. So you just, you can't be afraid of it because people want to connect with you knowing that they do not have to be perfect to get in front of a video and the camera to do a video.
So Christine, I think that you've shared some really important key essential steps for women entrepreneurs, really any entrepreneurs, but I think especially, you know, for women who will struggle with these pieces. They'll struggle with the authenticity piece. They're gonna struggle with finding that right balance between, well, how much, you know, do I, you know, place my products, and how do I do that in a non-salesy way? And then thirdly, you know, doing that video. So I know that you help women entrepreneurs in this area. So if there are any women watching who want to connect with you and have you support them through that process, how would they connect with you?
Absolutely. They can connect with me on Facebook. I have a page which is facebook.com/christinealthaus. If they happen to be on Instagram, I'm on there as well, and it's christine_althaus. But those are the two best ways to contact me because you can private message me in both platforms.
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time. And so anyone watching this right now, Christine mentioned that messy kitchen video. What I would recommend is we all go there now, we'll go to her Facebook page and we'll check out the messy kitchen and we'll all leave a comment and say, "I'm not the only one." I'm not the only one with the messy kitchen. Yay! Yeah. Thank you so— Yeah, no, it's real life. It's real life. So thank you so much for sharing your tips on how you've been able to grow the ranks, you know, build up in the ranks of your company and I really appreciate your time today. And thank you so much for watching Personal Brand Breakthrough. If you want to connect with me, my name is Sheryl Plouffe. You can connect with me at Cheryl@CherylPlouffe.com. I'll see you next time. I hope you have a great day, week, month, and year. Bye for now.
