Welcome to the “Making of a DM.” Are you too smart for your own good? Is your smarts killing your profits? I don't know, but today on the show, I'm going to share with you a story that I hope inspires you to get going and go get that money. So, with that said, let's get started.
Mark: Hey, there. It’s your boy, Mark Evans DM. What a day? Thank you very much for being here, guys and gals. The DM show is blowing up in a good way. We have a lot of you. Appreciate you guys sharing it on social media, tagging me, going over to iTunes, five-star reviews. I appreciate you guys so much. [01:07.5]
I get messages every day like, Mark, help me, man. Help me. I want to grow my business. I want to expand my life. I want to grow my finances, and all that, and that's awesome. But I don't coach people to do that one on one. I just don't have the mental capacity, emotional capacity. It's a lot of work if you've ever tried to coach people. I’ve done that, some of that stuff back in the early-2000s. It's just I can't do it anymore, but that's why I do the show. I genuinely want to help people. I love to help people, but we've talked about this on the past in podcast shows about the one-to-many concept.
I have a new book coming out, The ME Economy, which we'll talk about, hopefully, today a little bit and I’ve been grinding on that thing pretty hard for the last four months. I've been dragging my feet. When I say grinding, that means dragging my feet and waiting until the last minute. But I'm excited to kind of give that. I'm going to actually give away 600 copies at my buddy's event that I'm speaking at, Sean Whalen, in Utah.
I'm excited to share that gift with everyone and, hopefully, something resonates with them and one of the chapters and then get value from it. [02:10.5]
Another thing, too, as I'm sitting here talking to you, something pretty cool, a life thing that happened for me. I just bought a brand new Rolls-Royce Drophead Phantom 2015. Actually, when I say new, it’s because they're new, practically very few miles, under 5,000, barely driven. It's really hard to find these cars, crazy expensive, but absolutely excited to be having it. My son is loving it. My daughter, she has no clue. She's hanging out in the car seat with my wife.
It has been something on my list for 20-something years. I’ve had Rolls. I still have another Rolls, but I have this one. This is the one that I’ve wanted since I saw the Drophead. I could've got the Dawn many times over, whatever, and it's cool. It's very nice. I’m not knocking. It's just that I wanted the Phantom Drophead. [02:58.0]
But one thing I want share with you guys, and the reason I'm bringing this up even is not to brag or impress, but to impress upon, is how our minds deal with things, because I could have bought this car many, many, many, many times over many years ago, and it's just something I’ve prolonged on and prolonged on, and I actually almost kind of semi felt guilty by buying it because it is a lot of money and getting this car is like a symbol. It's like my trophy, for me. I don't need you to tell me good job. I don't need my wife. I don't need my friends. I don't need my employees. What excites me is my employees making more money, seeing clients get better results. Those are my, if you will, trophies, like, Yes, good job. We're working hard. How do we do it better? How do we do it stronger?
What you'll see with a lot of entrepreneurs is we never feel like we're good enough. We never feel like we're giving it our all. You’ve got to understand, there are two sides of that coin because that's how pretty much every entrepreneur I’ve worked with over the years, and then I’ve had the small Dealmaker Family guys’ group, where this is the number one common theme like, Dude, I could give it more. I could go harder. I could do this and I could do that. We just never allow ourselves to kind of enjoy the moment necessarily. [04:07.6]
I'm trying to figure out how to say it in the right way so you understand. Not really enjoy. I enjoy what I do and my buddies do, too. But what I'm saying is maybe we just don't take a second and say, Wow, great job, because we're always thinking, How do we make it better? That's how our brains are thinking. When things are going well or things are going bad, you understand, we're always looking for solutions. From my experience, that's what most successful entrepreneurs are always looking for, solutions.
But as I’ve got the car it's kind of like my “What did I do next?” You may believe this or not, but the truth is I got. It got delivered at 6:30 in the morning on Mother's Day and I went and picked it up, walked there. It’s right down the street where they do it outside of the gate area. I got in it, lit up a cigar. Yes, at 6:30, 8:00 a.m., and drove around for about seven minutes because I had to get my ass home and change because I had to get to the gym. I had to be there by 7:00 and wake my son up, go to the gym, whatever. [05:08.2]
When I'm there in the car, I'm like, Man, this is pretty cool. I get home from the gym. Deena hasn’t seen the car yet or anything. I say, Hey, check out the car. They're like, Oh my gosh, it’s nice, whatever. What do I do next? This is what I do. I'm not saying this is what you do or should do or not do. But I pull out my phone and I start thinking, What's my next dream car? The Bugattis, 4GTs, whatever. What am I into next?
It's not that I'm ungrateful. It's not that I don't respect the situation I'm in or appreciate it. It's that I know how I tick. I need to be focused on something to keep me focused. Period. It's hard enough to be focused when you're focused for guys like me. I have massive ADHD all the way to Z. But I need something to think about. I need something to project to go forward, to go towards, I should say, kind of like a North Star. Not that that's my North Star, but for one of my goals, it is, right? [06:12.5]
I have a big garage I want to build. That's something I'm thinking about and figuring out how to structure and where we're going to do that. We've got a new house and we're redoing this and we're doing that. There's a lot going on, but for me, just when I'm sitting here working in the office, i.e. on the book that I give away all the profits to charity, when I'm sitting here doing that, that's the stuff that gets me up in the morning.
That's the stuff that keeps me going when I want to stop 87 times a day. That's the stuff that keeps me going when I get the lawyer in touch with me. He's like, Oh, we’ve got a problem. Okay, share, what's the problem? That's the stuff that keeps me going, and you’ve got to find out what keeps you going.
What keeps you going? What gets you excited? I know everyone is looking and today I kind of had a very real conversation with a great guy. Actually, he may be one of the intellectually smartest guys I’ve ever known, true story. The guy is very, very smart and he's an entrepreneur of 12 years, full time. [07:10.7]
Notice that I say successful entrepreneur. The guy literally makes $70,000 to $80,000 a year in an industry that he should be making millions. The guy literally overcomplicates taking a shit. He literally overcomplicates. He thinks about to think about to think about how to wipe his ass. I'm getting goosebumps even talking about it because I'm saddened for him. He's literally killing his dreams, his beautiful son, a wife, and this is how this ticks and it drives me bonkers and it drives him bonkers, truthfully. I talked to him today for an hour right before doing the show. I want to kind of talk about our thoughts on this and I’ll use a fictitious name. His name is John. It's not his real name, but just to keep it on track. [08:00.8]
John tells me how his market is really hard. Right now, if you're in real estate, every market is a little bit different because the market is so hot, i.e. seller’s market, so there's going to be different metrics, different numbers. I'm like, Dude, you’ve got to be killing it. Your sales profits got to be so much bigger and blah, blah, blah, and he's like, No, man, actually that’s what's crushing me. My average profit is only 14 grand and I used to make 25. And I'm like, How is that? Because in a seller’s market, your profit margins should be bigger, wider. You'll have less volume, but way bigger profit margins typically, and the buyer's market could be a little bit different, too. There are a lot of variables, all this.
I’ve given them some direct action steps to how to scale and grow and drive, and he can't for the fucking sake of him get out of his own way. He has to ask 87 questions and it's all theory. The guy, he gets a hard on talking about theory and thoughts and what if this, what if that, what if that. Dude, I don't know what the fuck you're even talking about, but here's what I do know. If you literally go execute and get data and come back to me, I can help you. Until then, I don't have time for this bullshit conversation. [09:11.8]
Theory. This is the biggest thing, true story, that I hated about school. They always talked theory. I'm like, Why don't you shut the fuck up? Let's go out in the real world and let's sell lemonade and see what the success rate is. Three hundred cars drive by. Twelve people buy. We’ve got a number now. Now we could build something from this. Not like, we could have the coolest stand and it will look really nice. We could charge 20 cents a set of 30 cents and this and that, right? Dude, let's go put it to real practical use, get it in the real world to get real results.
The reason I'm sharing this with you is not because I hate this guy. Actually, it's the total opposite. I like this guy a lot and I'm for him because he's so close, literally a pubic hair away from a totally different world, literally, but he can't get out of his own way. [10:02.3]
I'm like, John, when you're thinking before you open up your mouth, I want you to think about what you're thinking about. Why do you think the way you think? Why do you even say the words you say? Again, guys, he's wicked smart, so he thinks he can solve all these problems in himself. The good news is he's paying for high-level coaching with people I know and he's, hopefully going to get out of this sooner than later, but he's been 12 years in the game. He's making less than a hundred grand a year.
Folks, listen, if you're in an industry and you say you're an entrepreneur and you're a business owner making a hundred grand a year, you're a fucking liar, seriously. I hate to say it like that and be so blunt, but it's the truth. If you can't make a hundred grand a month or a hundred grand a day or a hundred grand a week, then what are you doing it for? Who in the hell wants to wake up? [10:58.2]
You understand I have sales guys that make $400,000, $500,000 or $600,000 a year that don't have to take on all the bullshit pressure and deal with all this stuff we have to deal with as owners and the lawsuits and the systems breaking, and the hiring and the firing and everything that comes with real business? All they have to do is put people in place, make a couple of sales and go hang out on the beach for real.
When I talk to guys that are like, Dude, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner.
How long have you been at it?
Twelve years.
Cool. What are you up to? A couple million a year minimum?
No, man, I wish. That'd be nice. Hundred … seventy-five gees a year.
Seventy-five grand a year. Huh? Dude, if you're 12 years in any industry, you could accidentally trip and make 75 grand a month if you're in the right category.
By the way, this guy is in the right product world that has millions and millions and millions. Literally this guy’s left nut is smarter than 99 percent of the guys I know in the industry making millions of dollars a year, and I'm being for real, and that's his problem. He's oversmart, if that's even a word. [12:08.5]
He's too smart for his own good. It's annoying. Literally it's eating at his soul. He knows he can't stop it in his brain. Today, because I'm his buddy, I kicked him in the nuts harder than I’ve kicked anybody, and the truth is, guys, the biggest thing, and this is for real and I'm not shitting you, he’s a thief of his happiness with this thinking. He's a thief to his child. He's a thief to his wife. He's a thief to anybody that cares about this guy because he's in his own way causing his own problems, bottlenecking literally everything and he's like, Dude, I have to work 16 hours a day. It's like, clearly, what you think you have to do does not work clearly and it sucks because this guy is way, way, way smart. [13:05.3]
Where I'm going with this is you don't have to be crazy smart to make a lot of money. Actually, the smarter you are, the more it could hinder you potentially, not everybody, of course, but potentially. I will tell this guy, Go, do this, and he’ll be like, Man, I need a fool-proof way. But he thinks he needs to figure it all out before taking any action and I don't understand his thought process. He's in his forties, by the way. He's not a young kid that's trying to figure out life. This fucker has family and has done a decent amount of business over the years, but he's not doing anything big.
In his brain, he has done big work. In his brain, he's crushing the game of life. In his brain, he's making big moves. Folks, you're doing nothing big as an entrepreneur business owner if you're making 75 grand a year ever, ever. The only thing you're doing is lying to everyone. The most important person you're lying to is yourself and you're better than that. You understand the opportunities are endless. [14:16.0]
Why I'm really anxious about this conversation with him is because, today, in 2021, there are more millionaires and billionaires and multi-millionaires that will be created in this next year, two to three years, than there ever have been in a very short window, through different pivots and different opportunities, such as crypto, such as business ownership. I mean, it’s unlimited. There are opportunities everywhere, but this guy's brain can't stop and understand that pivoting is growth, not quitting. He thinks he's quitting when he stops or pivots. He thinks he has to do this or that. He doesn't understand you could do both potentially. Initially, for sure, right? Got to keep the wheels going, keep the electric on in the house, but go grow something else. [15:03.2]
He said, “What do I do?” I'm like, Dude, one, you don't own a business. Get that out of the way. You can say you're a business owner, you can say you're an entrepreneur, but you're not a business owner if you're doing everything and you still are only making 75 grand a year. If you stop, you do not make money. That's not a business.
Understand what a business is. A business is something that can run without you. Without you. What are we thinking? It can run without you. If you own a business, that means you have an infrastructure. Right? And I get it. Again, it's cool when you're one, two years in the game. “I'm a business owner, man.” And I'm not saying don't grind, don't work hard, and I'm not saying not to get excited about wanting to grow and get out of the game. When I say get out the game, get out of the day to day. Work on your business, not in your business. [16:01.6]
Every one of you listen to my voice. If you own a real business, your job is not to stay in the business forever. Your job is to get on it, not in it. And I'm not saying you don't work, ever. I'm just saying it's different work. When I'm growing my companies, I'm not like, How do we send an email? My thought is, Who do we hire to send the email? Period. Have them teach us. Have them show us.
I'm not saying be a dumbass about it, but, dude, how do you expect to make millions, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions or billions of dollars doing everything? You can't do and be everything. That will never work. That will never serve you. I have never met a business person that got in business that didn't want to grow, so why are you constraining your growth with your mindset, thinking that you have to do everything? Mark, no one does it as good as me. Bullshit. You're a fucking liar. Maybe on some things, but very few things. [16:56.0]
Not only that, let's say you can do it better, but you hired four people and they only did it half-ass as you. Now you’ve got 200% efforts with four people and you didn't even have to show up to do anything. But then your job is to now show those four people how to do it better, how to put systems in place, how to process it out, how to guide them, how to nurture them, how to show them how to be better human beings. The better they become, the better the pieces become, and before it, now you have four people doing it at 75%, 80%, 90%, and the truth is this is all they fucking do. They'll probably be better than you because they're only focused on one piece of the business, not all pieces.
I used to think I was the best sales closer, which I'm pretty good at. I used to think I was the best organizer or they used to think I was … or never, that's a lie. I never thought I was a good organizer. But I used to be the best person, getting the deals and networking and doing this, and getting the money in and getting the work done. I used to go to these houses. I used to put my blood, sweat and tears in these properties and say, I'm going to get rich. Then one day I realized, How the fuck can I get rich doing $18-an-hour work? I don't have enough time in the day to get rich, and by the time I get out to learn how to get rich, I'm so tired and worn out. [18:09.8]
And by the way, I'm, for real, worn out, not bullshit like most people who do their work 10 hours a day. I'm talking work 16 to 18 hours, drove an hour each way of sleeping four hours and repeating process seven days a week, 360-fucking-5 days a year, 366 in a leap year, to make money.
But, Mark, I’m busy. Man, I'm really working hard, Mark, but you don’t understand I have this and that. I don't understand your bullshit excuses. You don't even understand your bullshit excuses. When you want something bad enough you get it. Get it. It's now or never.
Brings me to another story. I won't mention his real name either. We'll call him Steve. Great guy, by the way, an amazing operator. I'm a visionary at the highest level. You get me in the weeds, I'm done. I really do start shutting down today. Back in the day, you just had to do what you’ve got to do, but now, literally working eight hours in the weeds feels like 10 weeks for me. [19:12.1]
But Steve and I are doing business together and he's an awesome operator. I'm great on the front end. We'll sell it, organize the team, and I'm spending real money. I'm talking … not really, but decent money, say, 100 grand a week in employees and team and marketing dollars and all that good stuff, so, say, 100 grand a week is what it costs me to build this up. These are semi-closed numbers, by the way. As I'm building it, it's growing. Last week actually was 168,000, not 100,000, and it's only going to get bigger per week, kind of where that business model is. People get paid out on commissions and growth, and performance and results, really. [19:58.5]
As I'm sitting here talking to him, he's like, Dude, I'm not building my thing, and I'm like, What is your thing? And he's like, They're not my clients. I'm like, You're right. They're “our” clients, right? I'm bringing them in. You're servicing and we're working together as a unit. I'm as good as you are and you're as good as I am. If I can't bring clients, we don't service anybody and therefore you don't have a real business, and if I bring in a lot of clients, we get service or we both are screwed.
We just have this conversation and, again, to this guy's credit, he has been a real employee for many years of his life. He's in his forties, so at least 25 years of his life, he's been an employee and he really is an entrepreneur, maybe more of an intrepreneur. Then there's nothing wrong with this, by the way. I’ve talked about this, about being number two. There's nothing wrong with a number two or number. It is what it is. I see a lot of people have challenges when they're trying to be a number one when they're truly a number two and vice versa, right? I don't understand why people, everyone wants to be the big front person. I genuinely don't want to be him, but just kind of that's who I am. [21:05.6]
But anyway, I digress. As I'm talking to them, again, you’ve got to pull people back on track with where they're at now. Keep in mind, I'm paying this guy over $300,000 a month. That's what he makes with us and this is a decent amount of money, considering he was probably making 100,000 a year at a job. Again, I'm just kind of giving you contrast to this conversation.
Anyways, as he's building, as he's growing, we've worked together for a while now, and he's starting to feel that weird energy, like, Dude, this ain't mine. I'm not building me, even though his bank account is growing massively, which brings me to point number one—a lot of times people say stuff, but don't even know they mean something else.
When I hear him talk, he's afraid of success. This is a whole other level of success that he's never experienced. Getting 300 grand in a month is a lot of money if you've never had 300 grand a year, let alone in a month, and no end in sight. It's only going to grow. Yes, you're going to work more in the beginning because this is a newer business. Therefore, it’s going to take a little bit harder work on the front end, which is fine. [22:12.6]
Yet my goal was to help and guide him and show him how to hire people, to run the day-to-day activities for him. I'm thinking, dude, my thought process when hiring people is how can I pay you so much money that you want to keep the business making more money? Not my old thinking. How do I pay you less and work you harder and make a little bit? But how do I pay you more and we all make more? See, it's way different. I’ve got to say this again. How can I pay my team more, so we all make more?
When people are incentivized by money, not all people are, by the way, but when you're dealing with sales people, they typically are incentivized by money, recognition and such, but as we're building this, we have to focus on paying and investing in great people. I'd much rather pay an A player 4X of a B player. A B player is 10 grand a month. I'm going to pay 40 grand a month. I'm in because the A player will always pay for themselves. [23:14.6]
You understand if you're truly hiring the right people, every dollar you put in, there's going to be a return on investment typically. Not all investments work out, by the way, but typically that's the intention. If I pay you 10 grand and you make the company 20 grand, cool. Per month, hopefully it's way more than that, but, cool. I’ve got 100X on my investment. If I pay you 40 grand and you 10X it and get us 400 grand extra a month, now, all of a sudden, the 40 grand doesn't seem like a big deal because now I’m 360, instead of plus 10. See what I mean?
I think a lot of people are going at it wrong. I know I did for years. That's why I'm sharing the story. I went at this wrong for many years. For me, as I'm sitting here talking to you, Steve, if you will, is going through the gymnastics, mental gymnastics effect, fear of success, loss. He's feeling like he's going to lose control, which there are going to be some hiccups. [24:07.8]
When you start hiring people to do what you're really great at, you're going to micromanage the shit out of it. You're going to break systems. You're going to break people. People are going to leave. People are going to stay. But, most importantly, we’ve got to focus on the big goal. What's the ultimate goal for this business, right? And that's what I'm trying to explain to him. I'm like, Dude, this is how we get into business. You’ve got to grow a business, because he thinks he's in business. Right now it's him managing a lot of people, and without him, there's nothing happening.
As a real owner of companies and having him as a part of one of my companies that we're working together in, my concern is not necessarily him quitting. My concern is him dying, because if he dies, that's an issue, for real, so how do I help him hire great people? If I die, my businesses will still continue. I have people that run the day-to-days. Now, it might not grow as big. The truth is it might grow bigger. Maybe they get a better visionary. Maybe they get a better leader. That'd be cool. I don't know, but my wife will benefit and my kids, if that happens. [25:14.4]
But at the end of the day for me, it’s that I want to help him. I love helping people that say they have a business, show them how to really get a business, because if you don't understand true freedom, I'm looking to become a timenaire, a millionaire but with time. I'm not chasing more money. I want more money. I get more money and sometimes I’ll lose more money. But, at the end of the day, money is going to go and allow me to spend time with the things I want to do. Does that make sense?
As I'm pushing and grinding, and pushing and prodding, what I'm trying to do is show these guys and gals how to build it infrastructure, to not only free them up and give them time, by the way, he has two amazing kids and a wife, and I would love nothing for him and I to be sitting on the back of a $30 million yacht talking about how to scale and change people's lives. [26:08.0]
If you're an ex-employee and you might be thinking, Dude, there's no way your boss is going to pay you more money, you can ask anybody in my companies, anybody in my companies today, for sure. Not the old me, by the way. The old me was different and I’ve talked about how it used to be a hardcore dick because I didn't understand money and how it really worked, and how to treat people. I was iron fist, like it's my way or no way, get out of my way and pay you less to do more.
But back to back to Steve, if you will. What has happened is I want to show him and tell him, like, Dude, on the back of this shot, we could build. We could make our teams more money. We’re not only changing our lives, but we're changing their lives. Someone ultimately has to do the work and every work is different. [26:59.0]
Him and I are creating and casting a big vision, making big front-end investments, i.e. software development. We're looking at buying a building to house 5,000 employees together, true story. That costs a lot of money. That takes a lot of mental power. That’s going to maybe possibly raise some money, maybe use my personal money or a mixture of both. I'm in the game to win it. Now we're talking business, not like, Dude, I’m not paying 47 cents for Post-it notes. I can get it down the street for 27 cents. I'm going to go pick it up. I'll be right back. Three hours later, they're back, but they save 20 cents. I used to do the same bullshit, so I know what I'm talking about.
But back to this. We're in the yacht, talking about who's the COO, who's the CEO, who's the operations manager. What does the bonus structure look like? How do we incentivize the team to scale? How do we incentivize the team to literally deliver the results we were making the promise to? More importantly, how do we manage that that's actually happening when we set that in place? [28:01.3]
I'm not saying all this stuff is pretty, by the way. I'm just saying, this is the stuff I spend my time on. Real business owners are trying to figure out how to make you. Real business owners are trying to figure out how to make you a better leader, a better driver. The guys I hang out with anyways. We're entrepreneurial. We're not like the corporate raiders where we're going to slash it, cut you and dice the system up, and sell this off and make more money here. We're trying to figure out how to make the humans better in the team.
I look at these people as my family. Actually, today, one of them, she's an ops manager for one of our companies, my COO messaged me, and she said, hey, her dog passed away last night. They had to put him down. I take that stuff to heart, so we sent her a nice gift, obviously a condolence gift to say, Hey, sorry to hear. But this is like family, and I know a lot of people that do, don't get close to them, but fuck you, you’ve read the wrong books written in 1960. Maybe that's how it was back then, but in my world, and maybe it doesn't work for you. [29:01.0]
But not only that, I'm not saying it's easy because I had to let a buddy go. He's been with us for six years and we had to let him go last week. It's not easy. I cried. To be honest with you, I cried because he's a buddy. He is a buddy. He’s not like a buddy. He is a buddy, but I also have a team to protect and I gave him multiple opportunities to step it up, and he didn't and that sucks. It sucks with me. More importantly, take me out of the equation because as a leader, it's not always easy decisions you've got to make in the execution of the plan, but he’s fucking the team up, because my for real vision and the agenda is we are only as strong as our weakest link and he was weak as hell for a while, and if we allow that to persist, it's like cancer.
If you find out you have cancer in your left arm, cut the fucking left arm off ASAP or get the cancer out. However you need to get the cancer out, get it out, because if not, ultimately it's going to kill you, and my job is to protect the whole as a company. If I allow that to persist, my COO sees it, my CEO sees it, my ops manager sees it, my employees see it. Everyone sees this. Therefore, they start seeing what they can get away with. [30:15.4]
That's how it works in real life, and unfortunately, we had to let him go. It was not easy at all, but there was a huge monkey off my back when we did it. He actually got a little upset as well when we made the call, when I made the call. By the way, I don't put this off on other people. I personally do it. I make the call, have the real conversation. He respected it, appreciated it. Obviously didn't want to hear it, but he knew it was coming.
See, what I’ve found is, as a leader, typically, pretty much all the time, when you do let someone go, they pretty much know the time is near. Do you see what I'm saying? Our job is to have that hard conversation, have that conversation and move the deal forward, just like Steve, for example. [31:06.8]
My goal is to get him making 500 grand a month net to Steve. Therefore, his employees and staff might be 80 to 120 grand. In essence, I’ve got to be cutting him back 650 gees somewhere, give or take, and we need to build a formula. He and I need to be exhausting our energies on how do we build the front end formula to make that a reality today. This takes brain power. This takes an understanding. This takes a team.
See, a lot of times people think, especially solopreneurs, like, Dude, I could make 100 grand a month by myself. Okay, but if you stop working, you make zero. By the way, that's not called a business owner. That's called you've created a massive high-paying job working for a fucking psycho, i.e. you. You're inconsistent as hell. You only work when you want to work. You have massive mood swings. You have massive financial swings. How do I know, Mr. Evans? I'm glad you asked, because I was that fucking person for 15 years. I'm telling you, it's not easy. [32:11.0]
When you have the epiphany that you have to start hiring, start with an assistant. If you can't hire and manage an assistant, you can't hire and manage anybody, in my opinion, because an assistant is simply a direct …
He or she is literally doing what you do daily already, just you don't even think about it, you're just doing it. You’re just getting paperwork off your desk, and getting it in motion and getting things executed. Hey, I need followers over here. Hey, I need this done. I need that. Just getting that out of your brain will make you twice as much money, guaranteed, if you do it.
Hiring is easy. Managing these guys and gals, that's where the rubber meets the road. I can hire people all day long, but when it comes to managing them, man, that's where you’ve got to sit in the office or on the beach and learn, and read books and listen to podcast shows and learn how to manage and lead people, because not everyone leads and manages people the same way. [33:06.6]
I'm not saying I'm the best at it. I'm still trying to learn to become better, but I can tell you this. I'm not a micromanager and I want everyone around me to get stupid filthy rich. I don't care if you're down to the janitor. I don't care. I want to teach you how to be a better human being. I want to teach you about leading by example. I'm going to teach you about doing the shit you need to do. If you say you're going to do it, you go do it. I want you to be a team player. I want you to acknowledge people. I just want you to be a good fucking human being.
If I can help you become a better human being, a better investor, have a better family life, that typically, guess what that does, it rolls over into business and they appreciate that and respect that. I have people that have been with me for many, many, many, many years, and they'll be with me probably forever as well as I hope they are and I hope I am, too. What I want you to understand is start thinking how to build a real business, who's your first hire or next hire. [34:01.3]
I'm not saying go hire the CEO tomorrow. That's not going to happen. But what I want you to do is start becoming more strategic about who you need on your team. If I had 10 grand in the bank, I'm hiring an assistant. I'm being dead serious. You might think, Oh, my God, man, it's 50 grand a year. No, it's not. It's 4,000 a month. In three months, if you an assistant can't take so much off your plate, you have nothing going on anyways. That four grand could turn into 40, 50, 80, 100 grand because you buy back so much time.
Let me ask you a question. Why are you even here? Why are you even trying to build a business and make money? The real truth is, one, you want to make a lot of money, or I hope, and, two, you want time, so get the money and use the money to buy more time. Take more money and buy more time. Get more money and buy more time. I literally don't have to think about anything except how to make the vision bigger and drive people, and if I can do that, I can help make more money, hire more people to make more money to gain more time. [35:15.2]
I have time freedom. Location. I'm not location specific. I can be anywhere in the world at any time. I can wake up today and travel today. That's how my life has been built. I built what I wanted. I'm not saying you have to mimic me. I'm just saying, I want superfluid flexibility. I want to wake up. I don’t want to be here tonight. I'm out, right? I’ve got money. I’ve got business. I’ve got teams. I could jump on Zoom. I could jump on a call or whatever it is, right? Build it how you see it.
As Steve and I were concluding the call, and I’ll be talking to him later tomorrow and helping them hire this first real C, someone with a C in front, CEO, COO, CFO, etc., to help him understand this doesn't cost money. This is a pure investment to buy back your time. This is an investment to buy back your emotions, because when everything's on your shoulders, it's very, very stressful and the last thing I'd want is someone amazing like this guy to get burnout or to die and that's it. [36:22.2]
I believe he could generate, in his first 12 months of real business, $4 million to $6 million net. That's a decent amount of money for your first year in real business. The problem is the mental fortitude and the mental, the things that come with it. There's a lot of baggage that he's going to deal with and have to deal with if he wants to keep pursuing it and growing to get to that next level. I know I can help him. I know he's willing to be helped, which is even better. That's why I'm talking to him again tomorrow because I'm a team player.
Dude, just like football, the lineman is not going to be the quarterback. The quarterback is not going to be the lineman and the wide receiver can't be the quarterback. You can't be in every position. I know my position on the field. I'm trying to be Robert Kraft, not the coach and not the quarterback, not the lineman and not the star receiver. I'm trying to be the owner, not the doer. [37:19.7]
By the way, they're all equally important. They all need each other. Sometimes one doesn't need the other as much as the other, but they work together, and when we're growing and expanding, these are challenges that we all have to think about and deal with. If you don't deal with it, that's even worse.
Look at your situation like my first guy. Are you too smart? Are you in your own way? And if so, how do you get out of your own way? What steps do you need to take? Who do you need to hire? You need to invest money to get out of your own way. You need to understand what's going on and then invest money to get out of your own way, just like my boy, Steve. Fake name, by the way. [38:01.0]
Steve is making more money than he has ever made and now he has a fear of success, a fear of losing control. These are all things that come with success, by the way, believe it or not, and I know a lot of people are too afraid of failure. That's kind of like a fear of losing control because you don't want to let people down. By the way, I like this personality in people. When I'm looking to work with people, I'm looking to make sure you don't want to let anybody down.
That's actually a good thing for me because I know where you're at. If you're the guy like, Fuck, just give me the money, I'll figure it out later, I'm not that guy. I don't like that because you're just going to be onto the next thing, onto the next thing and onto the next thing, until it catches up with you. What we need to do is harness that emotion and feeling, and learn how to use it for fuel, not fear. Two sides of that coin. You’ve got to be careful on that. I'm going to guide him. We're going to help him, and I hope in the next 12 months, and we talked about this, he's hitting 10 million a year net, because that means everyone, the salespeople, the teams, the white-glove service team, the deployers, the executors. I mean, we have thousands of employee lives we’re changing. [39:07.2]
That, to me, is what this is about. Why else get up and beat your head against the wall every day, go through the emotional and financial ups and downs to make 100 grand a year, 50 grand a month or whatever? You understand there's so much money and so much opportunity out there. I hope that you understand that this is something that we need to really talk about more because this is real talk.
My goal has always been to talk to you for real, about real shit happening in my life. I'm just sharing real-life stories and what I'm saying to them. Some of these guys are paying tens of thousands. Some of these guys I have done millions of dollars of business with, so we're all in it together, but more importantly, you’ve got to take this information and do something with it.
But as I'm wrapping up here shortly, I hope everyone listening to my voice, one, always gains knowledge and takes this stuff, and implements it and gets results, and shares their feedback with me, and, two, get over to the iTunes and leave a five-star review. Share this with your friends. Share on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, wherever you're at, hanging out. Let people know that this podcast is helping you. [40:15.0]
But I also have a new book coming out called The ME Economy, and it's all about the ME. It sounds selfish and maybe it is, but I can tell you what selfish is. It’s if you don't read this book and implement it, and execute it with massive action, to change your life. That's selfish, because you can change your life, but what's cool about it is that, this book, a hundred percent of the profits are going to charity as all my books do.
For now, right now we're allocating it to the Tim Ballard’s Underground project foundation, rescuing children and stuff. That's a whole other world. I have two children and I think about that often. Hopefully, that would never … I couldn't even imagine as a parent, having your kid abducted and taken from you or whatever, and have them sold off into slavery and sex slavery, whatever crazy shit goes on in real life. [41:04.4]
But 100 percent of those profits go there and I hope to raise millions of dollars for them and other charities included. That's my mission and that's why I do these books. The truth is I pay tens of thousands of dollars to create these books. I spent countless, countless hours. This is my twelfth or thirteenth book I’ve done with all profits going to charity. I will probably work harder. Not probably. I work harder on books than I do anything else I do. I'm so afraid to let you down with the book, I beat it up. I go through it a hundred times, literally every page for page. This one is 172 pages long. It's got a lot of cool stuff in it and I hope it really resonates with you.
I started writing it last year in April. Actually, I’ve been thinking about for many years, it's kind of a play on “ME”, Mark Evans economy. The economy, right? The em economy, and obviously the economy is crazy, and the ME, Mark Evans, and/or you, your “me” economy. What's neat about it is you own and control your ME economy. We all do, and it literally wipes out any, Oh, I'm a victim. Oh, man, you don’t understand my path. Dude, control your ME economy and get whatever you want. [42:12.8]
I break it down into relationship capital and thought processes, and what my take is on homeschooling and all that because clearly we homeschool kids. Pretty much get your shit in order and be ready for anything, because as you know, with everything crazy going on in the world, anything is possible, so are you ready? Are you prepared? Do you have your house in order, as my boy, Sean, says, or are you just talking shit? And this means being ready with food, being ready with family, being ready with mobility, being ready financially, being ready for anything. Rest assured, I'd rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.
That's what this book goes into detail about, just kind of the mindset about how me and my buddies are all talking and what we're talking about, what we're thinking about, and more importantly, what we're doing. It’s very powerful. It's very real and, hopefully, you’ll gain a lot of information and insights into it, more importantly, take it and do something with it. [43:05.5]
I hope you guys have an amazing day and we'll be releasing that book here shortly. Make sure to follow me on Instagram. That's actually where we're going with it, Instagram and Facebook, @MarkEvansDM. We'll be going live over there, so make sure to turn on your notifications and all that, and we’ll be doing some cool gifts and giveaways and all that fun stuff. I believe we're launching it on my mother's birthday, which is May 26.
Actually, we are going to launch on May 26, so if all goes as planned, that's the day you can get the book on my mom's birthday, which is really cool and special. I haven't even told my mom actually yet that I'm going to do this book on her birthday because she means so much to me.
It's an exciting time to be alive, folks, and I'm here to share real stories with you. If you need any help, please reach out. Let me know what you’ve got going on. I'm here for you. I'm rooting for you. It's a battle, man. You've just got to stay in the game. Never, ever fucking quit, though. That's all I can tell you. Don't quit. Keep going. [44:01.7]
When you want to quit, it's a test. The universe is testing you to see if you're a pussy, to see if you're going to quit, to see if you're going to tap out. Don't quit. You can adjust. You can reevaluate, but don't quit. Keep focused. Keep focused on that North Star. Keep your feet moving. Don't ever stop until you're dead, period. Promise you, if you stay in the game long enough, the results, the time, the money, everything will come and you’ll be like, Wow, how can I do more?
Thinking about you. Hope you have an amazing day. Make today count. Peace.
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