Welcome to the “Making of a DM.” Marketing—is it a cost or an investment? Your answers will tell me which one you think it is. Stay tuned. Listen to the show and be ready for your mind to be expanded. So, with that said, let's get started.
Mark: Hey, there, it’s your boy, Mark Evans DM. That's right. You might hear the birds chirping, the turkeys gobbling, and the deer rustling, and maybe a couple of black squirrels and some robins, and actually saw a couple of cardinals today. [01:01.3]
Thank you for being here. Today's show can change your life. I mean that one thousand percent. This is going to make you feel very uncomfortable, more than likely. It's going to challenge what you think, I know for sure. This is something I wish I would have learned 25 years ago. Shit, I wish I would have learned this in fifth grade, to be honest with you, because what I’m going to share with you can literally make you as much money as humanly possible, and that's why you're here I hope, that it’s because you want to make a shit ton of money.
You want to have a better life. You want to be able to spend more time with your family, because that's what really money's buying you, time. At least that's what it buys me. Some people keep making more, working harder to make more to work harder to make more, but I really just want to make a lot of money to use the money to buy me time to enjoy life and do other cool stuff. [01:59.5]
As I’m sitting here today—outback again here, overlooking this ravine, beautiful summer day—I have a lot of things to share with you, but I want to stop for a second and say again, thank you so much. You guys, yeah, last week's episode was huge. I got so much feedback and positive feedback, which is awesome about the MEconomy and understanding what that really means, where you're at and where you're going. I always appreciate you guys messaging me. More importantly, I appreciate you guys sharing it.
I get messages every day. It's very humbling. I’m just honored that you would take two minutes out of your day and shoot me a message or go over to Amazon, leave a review for the book, MEconomy, or go over to iTunes and leave a five-star review and all that. It's very important to me and it means a lot and I appreciate that.
Today's show, I just want to share something, like I said, that will change your life. It continues to change my life every day. It's something I’m putting forth effort all the time, and I know we talk a lot about mindset and all this because, at the end of the day, it's all this stuff really is, but once you have the mindset, then you start gaining the knowledge, adding the mindset, growing the mindset, growing the knowledge base. All these things start growing, your health, your wealth, and everything in between. [03:18.5]
Today's show is about marketing, the power of marketing. My first question to you is how much money do you spend on marketing per month? These are notes that you should be asking yourself. How much money?
Something that drives me nuts, the reason this shows is so timely, I was talking with an individual over the weekend and I was like, Hey, man, what kind of marketing are you doing? “Oh, I don't do any marketing. I have word-of-mouth marketing.” Do you know how fucking stupid that is to say, if you're a business owner? The only thing you're doing is word of mouth? [04:03.5]
First of all, word-of-mouth marketing is amazing, but, truthfully, it's only icing on the cake. It's not a behavior you can actually manage. I can't sit here and build a business saying, Okay, today I’m going to get 17 leads because of word-of-mouth marketing. No, I’ve got to say, Hey, I’ve got to get in front of 10,000 people. I’ve got to have 1,400 downloads, and out of the 1,400 downloads, I’ve got to get 25X, and then out of the 25X, I’m going to get X, right? It's a formula.
Word-of-mouth marketing, don't get me wrong, this is something we all want, right? By the way, word-of-mouth marketing works in both ways, too, good and bad. Actually, when it's bad, it works against you a lot faster than the good. Word-of-mouth marketing, again, I’m not saying don't, not to strive to have great word-of-mouth marketing, but trust me when I tell you, that is not a business model. There is no fucking way you're ever going to be able to sell a real business with just basic word-of-mouth marketing. You have to constantly be marketing. [05:03.8]
By the way, I see a lot of guys out there, big guys, who are like, I don't fucking spend any money marketing my podcast show or my books. Yes you do, fuckwad. You have a podcast show. That's called marketing. You have a book. That's called marketing. You're cross-marketing both environments. Your book references your podcast. Your podcast references your book. Yeah, you do market. You're just doing it in a different manner.
Oh, by the way, your social media posts that you fucking post 17 times a day, driving them to your podcast, driving them to your books, driving them to your website, etc., that's called marketing as well, you know? So, don't get it twisted when people are like, I don't spend any money on marketing.
Listen, spending money, first of all, you're not spending. You're investing because for every dollar you put in, there couldn't be an equation that comes out on the back end. For example, if I spend $1,000 today on Facebook ads, using that as an example, by the way, and my goal is to get $10 leads, a name, email and phone number, and I could expect 100 leads today. That's the formula. [06:17.0]
Now, listen, that doesn't happen every time. The formula might be $20 today and tomorrow it might be $7 a day for the lead. Where I see a lot of people really screw up on marketing is they get too micro. They overanalyze micro moments and sometimes that is just fucking wonky. To be honest with you, it's like what the hell just happened, right? As opposed to, look, let's look at seven days.
I’m not saying not to pay attention, but it's not something you should change your entire marketing message and model off 12-minute data, 24-hour data. You have to let it cycle. You have to let it work. You have to understand why you’re marketing.
Folks, I’m telling you this. I’ve invested millions of dollars with marketing gurus, by the way, over the years. Dan Kennedy. I mean, Matt Furey. There are many, many, many marketing people, great marketers out there that would smoke me any day. These guys are copywriters/marketers. You've definitely seen their products on TV, products that they've helped create infomercials for, really cool stuff. [07:21.1]
But I’ve invested since ’05 when I really started. Actually, yes, probably 2000, early-2000s when I really started investing because 1996 was when I had the gutter company. I had no clue that marketing was a thing because the phone just rang. But what happens is if you want to get massive consistency, you’ve got to be consistent on the marketing.
If you're like me, for the first 10 years of my life, I was riding the financial rollercoaster up and down, wondering, Why the hell am I making massive amounts of money this month, but the next month is really rough? Really what it all dialed down to, and I’ve talked about this as well, I’ve actually fired an accountant because of it, I was having a bad month financially and they said, “Hey, you need to stop marketing.” I literally looked at them as if they were from Mars, which when you say stupid shit like that, you clearly are, and fired them on the spot because they clearly have no clue how real business is done. [08:17.5]
I’d rather not take a salary and market straight up. See, the thing with marketing is, like I keep saying, it's a formula. Marketing genuinely is a formula, paid marketing. I see a lot of people using social media, which is awesome, and the more followers you have, the more opportunities, the more eyeballs. The game of marketing really comes down to eyeballs and ears, right?
Hence, you're listening to this podcast show. I have your attention for however long I talk and share knowledge with you. I’m marketing without marketing. I’m not paying anything to market. Actually I am, just in a different way, taking time away from my business. This is something I genuinely love to do and want to do. But the truth is there's a percentage of people that will listen to this show and want to do business with me. By the way, many people have. I don't even have the formula because I’m not here for the formula. I’m here for the share. [9:13.8]
But I do know people that build podcast shows just for formulas and figure out how to extract. I know a buddy, I know a guy who has seven different podcast shows and all he does is do podcast shows. That's his marketing channel. A pretty cool channel, by the way, it makes a lot of money, but it's a grind. Seven shows every single week, it's a lot of moving parts. Again, there's no right or wrong to this shit. There is wrong. Not marketing is wrong, but there's no right or wrong in the channels, as long as you commit to a channel and stick with it and build it. Podcast shows are amazing.
Social media. Maybe you have 200 followers today and you're thinking there's no way out. Just so you know, newsflash, we all started with zero, all of us. I think I have a little over 100,000 now and I want to get to a million, and then I want to get to 2 million and then I want to get to 5 million. Why? The more eyeballs, the more ears that you have access to, the more revenue you're going to generate. That's just the way it works. [10:13.6]
What's really cool about social media is you’ve got the stories. Then you’ve got your post. By the way, I’m talking about Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, anything. I don't really do LinkedIn. I’m mostly focused on Facebook and Instagram, not because one's better than the other. It's just that I'm comfortable inside of Facebook. I’m comfortable inside of IG. I’ve invested a lot of time and energy and money with different people helping me, so I get those. I understand those platforms are easy. They’re tied together obviously.
But LinkedIn is good, too. If you're in the business world, I know a lot of people use LinkedIn. It's just I do know the way I work is if I spread myself too wide, nothing gets done. I have to just get singular focus, build Facebook. Facebook. IG comes out. It took me a long time to get on IG. I was a little late to the party, but I got to the party finally and I’m starting to get a little bit of traction. [11:03.1]
If you follow me on Instagram, which I hope you do, @MarkEvansDM, I’m constantly showing real life. I think that's what's cool about Instagram and whatever other platforms. They have these capabilities. I just shoot quick little snippets, 15-, 30-, 45-, 60-second clips of me hanging out with my family.
Recently, my son, he has these little electric bikes. We have three of them, motorcycles, and me, my wife, my daughter and my son are rolling around on it. It's just fun. I’m just sharing real life stuff that's going on in my life—and, by the way, that's marketing, you know what I mean? I’m not there to sell you anything. I’m there to engrain my belief system of what I believe in and what I’m passionate about, i.e. my family. I don't talk about it as much. I just show you.
A lot of people say, Oh, dude, I’m a great family man. Thirteen seconds later, they're at the strip club trying to bang the stripper and they don't want to go home because they hate their wife or their kids or whatever. I’m just sharing straight up. Again, I’m not judging that person. If that's what they're going to do, fuck it, let them do what they want to do. [12:09.2]
But for me, marketing is about the world we live in today. It has never been easier. You don't need huge budgets. By the way, I spend massive six figures a month. I’m trying to get to millions a month in marketing in different businesses I own. One company does over $500,000 a month and spend another one. I mean, we have a bunch of different companies.
Globally, we definitely spend over $1,000,000-plus a month in advertising on email, on Instagram, on Facebook, etc., so we’re spending a decent amount of money. I want to spend a lot more. Why? The more you spend, the more you typically make. Obviously you’ve got to have the back end to handle the influx. You’ve got to have the infrastructure, etc., the team, and you're always zigging and zagging, and if anybody has ever advertised with Facebook, sometimes Facebook can be a little fidgety. [12:58.7]
But I can tell you this, if you're not marketing, if you don't have a monthly budget, more importantly, that monthly budget is growing, your company or what you call a company is shrinking. Every day you should be spending money. I mean, listen, I think some people might start off with $20 a day, whatever. You just have to start. You’ve got to get eyeballs on you.
It's very interesting to me. I meet a lot of great people from different worlds and they have great products. Some people have really amazing products that could change the world, change people's lives and I ask them, I’m like, Who knows about this? How many sales a day are you getting? How much are you spending on marketing? These are all key indicators of if this is going to make it or not, by the way, and 99 percent of the time, they're like, Yeah, I don't have the funds yet to market. [13:53.8]
You don't need the funds necessarily to market. There are a lot of ways to market initially, right? Kind of guerrilla marketing style. Send influencers your product. Get the product in their hands. You don't have to tell them to take a picture, but if the shit is good enough, they're going to take a picture and say, Thanks, Mark, for the awesome product, man. It made me so much more focused and blah, blah, blah. Tag me. Tag the product. Boom, now I’m in front of their audience. If it's 200 people, 200,000, two million, or whatever, people now, all of a sudden, I’m starting to get a little bit of momentum. Send that out to 100 different people, people that you feel are great influencers or great people you want to align your product with and start sending products with a great note.
Recently, I had a guy send me a pretty cool package in the mail, handwritten letter, which never hurts, by the way, and a book from one of his buddies that wrote it, which is cool because I’ve never read it and I’ve never even heard of the guy, but I’m excited to read it. He actually walked the Camino de Santiago like I did, a 42-day walk, a 500-mile walk across Spain, which is really neat, so I kind of have an instant connection with this individual. He also sent me a little pre-book, a preview of his book that he's coming out with, and he wrote a pretty cool note to me like that and he's got a cool product coming out in the protein business world. [15:10.7]
Of course, I’m going to share that. Of course, I’m going to say, Yo, what's up? Thank you. His name is Mark, by the way. Thank you, Mark, for the great product. I’m going to tag him. He's going to get followers from me. Now he's going to grow his eyeballs and ear audience, and we both win, and I want you to win.
But step back for a second. If you have a great product or a great service and you know it and you're not marketing it, you're a thief. You're a straight-up thief, a thief to yourself, a thief to your future self, a thief to your client. Let me put this into perspective. I’ve had a pretty big real estate investment company and we were doing 5,000 deals a month. To do that kind of volume, it's impossible to do unless you're marketing at a real level. [16:00.6]
When I would bring people in and I was teaching people how to build their company, the first thing I would do is we have to scale your front end marketing. Once you understand your KPIs, let me explain that, KPI, key performance indicators.
See, in marketing, you have your spend, right? Let's say again, back to the 1,000, I spend $1,000. How much does it cost to acquire a lead? Let's say $100. Then let's say you convert, conversion is one out of 10, so you spend 1,000 to get 10 leads to close one deal. I invested $1,000 on marketing alone. This is one piece of the KPI. Then what is your profit? Let's say, in real estate, it's $5,000. I profit five grand. I knock off 1,000 for marketing. I knock off 1,000 for the acquisition side. The company nets three grand.
Again, I’m using these as basic numbers. These are not true numbers. These are just simple math numbers. This is how marketing and understanding your KPIs work. The first thing I would ask you is how much does it cost to acquire a customer? In real estate, it's usually about two to three grand per deal, right?
Let's say, it's $2,000, and I’m like, Cool, what's your deal volume?
I’m doing three deals a month.
Awesome, so I’m assuming you're spending about $6,000 a month.
Well … probably closer to four.
Huh, that's weird, because your average deal is $2,000 to acquire, but you're doing three deals a month. Okay, so I get it. Maybe you’ve got some cool referral marketing, etc. That makes sense. Okay, cool.
What I’m trying to explain to you guys right now is understanding your KPI metrics. If you don't understand the numbers, you cannot scale at any level with confidence, ever. Let's say he's doing three deals a month and investing 4,000 a month. But here's what always happens. They're always frustrated. [18:12.2]
I’m like, All right, John, why are you frustrated, buddy?
I want to do 10 deals a month.
Cool. What's your marketing budget?
I only have five grand a month.
How the fuck is that possible? How is it possible to get 10 deals a month that cost 2,000 a piece, 20 grand? Do you know something that no one else in the world has ever figured out, how to get a $2,000 lead for a quarter of the price? Let that set in for a minute. How are you trying to tell me you're trying to scale, but you don't have the cash to scale with? Does that make sense to you?
This is the world we live in. This is why I was able to excel at real estate because I understood marketing. See, everyone is like, dude, you're a real estate investor. No, motherfucker, I’m a marketer first, period, and then whatever else I’m doing on top of that is the byproduct of marketing. [19:13.5]
I could sell anything because I understand marketing. That doesn't mean I want to sell everything and anything. I want to sell the things I believe in. I want to get behind people that I love, the products, the results and the kind of clientele I want to be around. That's what I sell.
By the way, what's cool about this is once you really understand what I’m really saying, more importantly, put it into practice, you're going to start enjoying what you do more, and the more you enjoy it, the more you want to do it, the more you make, the more you help people, the more time you get. More importantly, you're building a real fucking business. To me, that's what this is about. It's a formula. [19:58.8]
Back to this real estate guy, John. “I want to do 10 deals a month, but I only have 5,000 a month.” This is the angst. This is the pressure. This is the stress these guys put themselves through. Guys and gals. Their expectations are so out of whack. By the way, I’m not talking emotions. I’m talking fucking math 101: 2,000 a lead, 2,000 a deal, to do 10 deals a month. On average, I need to budget 20,000 a month.
But here's what most people do. Jesus, 20,000 a month? That's a lot of money. My house payment is only 1,200 a month. My car payment is 500 a month, blah, blah, blah. If I had 20,000 a month, fuck, I wouldn't even be doing real estate. I’d be doing blah, blah, blah. Right? They don't understand marketing. Again, for every dollar you put in there, money is coming back.
Let's go back to the basic math. If I spent 20 grand and I was making five grand a deal, on average I would net three of the 5,000 because it cost two grand to do the deal. Again, these numbers are way, way off. It's usually 10,000, 12,000, 50,000, depending on what market you're in. [21:06.4]
But, again, the higher profit-margin markets, the higher cost to acquire that deal. If you're in California, it might cost $30,000 to acquire a deal, but that deal you might make $100,000 on. That's a 300 percent return on your money. If you understand the math.
In Ohio where I’ve done thousands and thousands of deals, it might cost $1,200 to $2,000 to do a deal, but our average deal, we're making $10,000 to $20,000. Still not too fucking shabby. By the way, that's going to the bank and handing them $2,000 and saying, Give me my five grand. They're going to look at you like you're nuts. They’ll probably call the cops.
That's what's cool about marketing. It really is just math once you understand the dynamics. Obviously you’ve got to have a great product. You’ve got to have a great service. You’ve got to do what you say you're going to do and all that shit, but that's a given. I hope you understand that. [22:00.0]
I don't care if you're selling jewelry. I have a custom jewelry guy I do a lot of stuff with. I have many different companies I’ve been involved with. I don't do stuff with Nick, but I have bought jewelry from him. He understands his metrics. He generates a lot of revenue. I’ve seen people do this in the car industry. Marketing is everywhere all the time and this is the real secret to wealth. If you meet anybody that's ultra-confident in business, it's because they understand marketing. They believe in their product. They love their product.
By the way, guys and gals, I meet a lot of great people that fucking have the best products in the world, but they will never see the day of light until they get out of their own way. This is why they need partners that understand marketing, truthfully. They've been so busy in the dungeon, if you will, creating this product or service that actually it's so good, they forgot to tell anybody about it, you know what I mean? And I’ve seen it. I’ve done it myself. This will take a lot of stress off you once you understand your KPIs. KPIs. [23:02.5]
Let me share some other cool secret tricks that I do in my companies as well. Number one, we send out a lot of gifts daily. Daily, not weekly, not monthly, but daily. Depending on where you're financially at, you might not be able to do this, but we send out five figures a month in gifts. Cool gifts, very thoughtful gifts, not just stuff, run of the mill. Hey, here's a $10 gift card, stuff like that shit. But let me give you an example, and by the way, anybody can do this. Everyone can do it, because on social media, everyone tells you what's going on in their life. Hey, just had a baby. Hey, I just got a new job. Hey, I just became financially free. Hey, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Hey, I just got married. There are a million times to do gifts.
By the way, let me just share another second layer of insight for you. I like to kind of do case study stuff with you guys and social media, and recently I was at the four seasons in Palm Beach and I was sharing it. I normally don't share when I’m present because I don't want people to make a big deal of it, but I’m like, Yo, I’m here. Happy Thursday, blah, blah, blah, in Palm Beach with the fam, hanging out for the night or two or whatever we were there. [24:14.0]
One guy knew I was going, and guess what he did? This is a very smart move, by the way. He contacted the hotel and put a $100-gift voucher. He paid $100 for me to put towards my room or put towards food and bev or put towards the spa, whatever I want, right? $100. Then obviously they tell you, Hey, Mr. So-and-so called in and wanted to give you $100 XYZ. It's a power-player move. It's a very cool thing.
By the way, he's the only one that did it out of thousands, tens of thousands of people. Not to say everyone should do that. These are things I do. When I see someone that I like or follow, or respect or appreciate, it's a cool way to send a little gift. Just let them know, Hey, man, enjoy the cocktail on me. [25:04.1]
I love buying. I love picking up people's meals. People are telling you, Hey, I’m hanging out with the fam, I’m at blah-blah-blah steakhouse. Call the steakhouse. Tell them, Yo, if you see a guy wearing a blue shirt, nice slacks, XYZ, I want to pick up his tab. His name is Steve Johnson. Here's what it is. Here's my credit card info, and then they go tell them, obviously. It's a huge impressionable piece. That's marketing, by the way. It’s marketing. It's the way to get noticed. It's a way to get recognized and that's what marketing is about. Getting people to stop, pay attention to your shit.
Again, by the way, he might not acknowledge it. That's cool. I’m not doing it for acknowledgement. To be honest with you, it never hurts to be acknowledged, but I’m not doing it for that. But I do know when it happens to me, I always acknowledge the individual. Why would you not?
There's a cool thing I learned in marketing back in the day. Dan Kennedy taught this where you send out a letter. This shows you if you have balls or not, by the way. We sent out a one-page letter, and on top of the letter, you put a dollar bill, a real dollar bill. [26:05.6]
You tape it or staple it to the top of the thing and it says, “Hey, now that I’ve got your attention, I want to give you a dollar for your time, because this will take about 27 seconds. I know your time is worth something. No strings attached. The dollar is yours. Take it off and go, do whatever you want with it.”
What's cool about it is that, actually, you guys understand how we're raised, when someone walks by you and says, Hey, man, nice shirt, the average person typically says, Hey, thank you, nice shirt yourself, as opposed to just saying thank you and moving on. When you get a dollar in the mail, you almost instinctively want to reply and say, Hey, thank you for the dollar, and/or, Hey, I’m not interested, but thank you for the dollar.
It's a cool piece, because, again, marketing is not just about selling and closing on the first sale. It's about being recognized, acknowledged, more importantly, connecting. Today, maybe it's just not the day. Maybe your offer wasn't what they wanted. [27:02.8]
I see so many people in business like, Dude, what product sucks. No one likes it. This is not working. Maybe that's some of the truth, too, but at the end of the day, stop making it about you. Make it about the client. Maybe you don't even know who your fucking client is. This is called an avatar, by the way, right? I’m not going to send dick pills to some 22-year-old kid that doesn't need them. That's not the thing, right?
But, with that said, I would ask myself, What does the 22-year-old kid one? They’re typically probably healthy. Male. My audience would be male and they like working out and they like feeling jacked when they work out, so I might sell them some kind of front end supplement that gets their skin bubbling when they're working out, itching and scratching and feeling fucking on fire when they're at the gym, feeling like they can bench 500 pounds instead of 200 or whatever. Maybe that's the market I go after. [28:00.2]
Again, there's no right or wrong to this shit. If you're not marketing, it's the only wrong thing you can do. But you’ve got to know who your avatar is. You’ve got to talk with them, not just put your shit out there. Don't just throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. That's not how business works. Sometimes it is, but direct marketing is not like that. That's not what you want to do.
I, you guys, I talk to you like I would talk to anybody. This is me marketing. I say fuck. If you don't like it, get the out of here, right? That's who I am. I’m not trying to be your friend. I’m trying to help you and I hope that comes across that way because it is the truth and I believe you know that. That's why you're still here.
Back to this marketing and gifts. These are some cool secret tricks. When you see people advertising, when I say advertise, when you see people in their stories posting, Yo, I’m in Cabo San Lucas, or, Hey, I’m hanging out at blah-blah-blah steakhouse. [28:55.3]
By the way, if you don't have $500 to buy their meal or whatever it might be, it's a mystery number typically, just send them a bottle of wine. Buy them one drink. Acknowledge them. Let them know the followers are paying attention. They know people are watching. They see their 1,200 people just sold their story that day, but zero took action.
Don't be a stalker, by the way. Don't be a weirdo about it, by the way. I’ve never not felt gracious when people send me a thing and say, Hey, man, thank you for doing that. I don't think anybody's never not responded to me. Actually, one time it did. I made a donation, which is very interesting. That's another thing, too. I do donations on behalf of other people. I see them. I want to support the people I like.
I saw the guy do something, but, again, that's about me. That's not about him. He didn't have to acknowledge me. I wasn't doing it for that, but it just felt weird when he didn't because it was a pretty decent-size donation. But, again, three years from now, maybe I meet this guy in person and he's like, Dude, fuck I totally forgot, but thank you. What you did changed XYZ’s lives. You just never know when that time is, right? It does happen. You’ve got to remember, people are busy. [30:13.0]
Moving back to the gift-giving. One thing in my companies as well because my teams are talking to lots and lots of people every day, unfortunately, sometimes they're talking to people and they have a tragic situation in their life, i.e. death, and this happens often. At our scalability, a lot of bad things happen, right? Unfortunate things, I should say, too.
But let's say, hey, their mother just passed away and they're getting ready to sell the person. In our company, you stop selling. There's no selling going on. What you do is say, Hey, Matt, sorry to hear the news. Let's table this for the next week or two, get through everything you're going through. I’m here for you. If you're ready, I’m ready. I’m ready when you are. But more importantly, this is a sad time and I wish you well. [31:02.2]
As soon as they hang up the phone or stop the texting, emailing, or whatever is going on at that moment, my team alerts my assistant, Kim, and we get the individual's address. We send them sympathy flowers, from the individual and it’s like, Hey, sorry to hear about the news. Prayers and thoughts to you and your family. What company does that? Think about this, for real. What company is doing that?
I’m very intentional with gift-giving, at all levels, by the way. It's something I’ve really worked on really hard over the years. Gift-giving has been very impactful for me. I do it for myself, first and foremost, but to other people as well. People remember me as a great giver, a great gift-giver, very thoughtful, very neat gifts like stuff that's very … By the way, it doesn't have to be expensive. One of my buddies recently bought a Ferrari. I sent him a $20 Ferrari flag, right? But it's not about … One, it's about acknowledging the accomplishment, which guys like us don't do it for that, but it's cool when it happens, and then, two, the note that goes inside of that. That's the magic inside of that gift as well. It stops him in his tracks. He reads it. There's power to that. [32:14.8]
But, anyway, so even my neighbor, I live here in Cleveland part-time, like I said, in the Mentor area and he invited me over to a bocce party. I went over there a couple of weeks ago and he kept borrowing my lighter, because we were smoking cigars, drinking wine, right? Obviously, it's not a big deal, but the guy is a cool dude and, by the way, this guy could buy every lighter in the universe and still have a lot of money left over. It's not about the lighter, but it's about the thought. I went and had a custom lighter made for him. It’s not a custom lighter, but a lighter customized with his name on it, “Chuck”, and it's a bad-ass lighter. It’s a $120 lighter and I gave it to him and he is like, Holy shit, are you serious?
The first reaction was, “I can't take this from you. This is expensive, blah, blah, blah.” I was like, Dude, I want to give you the gift. I gift books. I gift time. You have the same things. I’m just sharing what I do. Hopefully, one of these things will resonate with you that you can go out and do today as well and every day, therefore, after. [33:14.7]
But the reason most people don't give gifts, because, again, this is marketing, by the way. Think about this. If someone is having an anniversary, you send them an anniversary gift. One of my best gifts that we give is when people have babies. It is a very cool gift. It costs a decent amount of money. You could do it actually from $65. Our average gift basket is usually 250 I think and these are people I do business with, and there are people I don't do business with that I send gifts to.
But what it does is it creates an alertness with my team of giving, right? Our first core value in every one of my companies is Care 360. When you see someone's birthday is going on, you send them a gift. When you see someone had a baby, you send a gift, and it's a very personalized gift. [33:59.7]
By the way, all gifts are not created equal and what I mean by that is, if someone sends you, when someone buys a property from us or whatever, let's say, you buy a Walmart Automation store through Lifestyle Money, you're going to get a $125 bag, a nice badass bag for your computer or laptop with a cool note and all this cool stuff, but that's what you're going to get.
In the real estate company, you're going to get a very cool money tree because we're going to create a lot of money together. These are things people don't throw out. When you have a baby, we're going to put your child's name on the blanket or on the bear, or on both, right? You're not throwing that shit out, ever. They're going to have that. That's a hand-me-down piece. Think about that. I’m not sending chocolates. I’m not sending a fruit basket. I’m not sending a popcorn basket. I’m sending very thoughtful, usable gifts that are everlasting and have purpose. There's a real purpose to them.
Those are just some examples that we do on a daily basis and you can feel free to swipe them or use them however you see fit. [35:05.1]
This is marketing. The reason most people don't do it is there's not a quantitative number to it, meaning, if I send out $1,000 in gifts today, the formula doesn't make sense because there is no formula. My formula is giving, but here's one thing I do know and I’m not saying go out, run out and spend every dollar gift-giving and you're going to make millions, but what I’m saying is I’ve never lost money by being a great giver, ever. It might not come from you, but it's going to come from somewhere. How couldn't it? It's impossible. The metric is impossible to fuck up. If you're giving consistently, you will be receiving consistently. I promise you that. Like I said, I put my money where my mouth is.
I’m just going to recap here. You’ve got to start sharing stories more often. I’ve got a buddy right now, traveling around the country. He's fucking it up, by the way, and he's not sharing his story. He's a cool guy. He's making real money. He's doing some really neat shit. This is a big deal for him, too, traveling, 30 days with him and his family and whatever. [36:10.8]
But I’m like, Dude, you have to be sharing what's going on, and it's not like, Hey, I’m over here at Yellowstone National Park, hanging out, thank you. That's not sharing. That's just fucking telling, by the way. When I say share, I’m talking like, Today, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, scared to death. My company, I felt like it was burning to the ground. The reason is I’ve been traveling for the last 18 days. I’ve talked to zero sellers, zero buyers. I have only communicated with my team, 35 minutes a day, XYZ, and as I’m sitting here, I’m also kind of peaceful because I’m starting to realize that I’m building a real business that doesn't rely just on me. I haven't taken a moment to step back and realize maybe I am up to something good. Maybe I am helping great people and my team means a lot to me, blah, blah.
See what I’m doing? I’m storytelling to bring in. I’m sharing vulnerability, that's realness, by the way, because that is real shit. That's shit that goes on. We all have these problems every single day, but most people don't show or share vulnerable situations. [37:15.8]
The fucking interesting thing about that is you will bring so many people closer to you by being vulnerable. My boy, Sean Whalen, is really good at this. By the way, you should follow him, @SeanWhalen, and Lions Not Sheep, his brand. But the book or the story that took him online, I think he's got over a billion views and all this stuff now, is he shared about wanting to kill himself and how he was so down in the dumps, he put the gun in his mouth. Thank God he didn't pull the trigger, but he easily could have just as easily as he did not, and sharing that raw, genuine, most vulnerable post ever, he built a brand that started the process, and it's really neat to see. I love seeing it. [38:00.8]
If you follow me, I share real shit. I’m not sitting here trying to slim my belly down or fucking cut my jawline down or anything like that. I’m sharing real shit. This is where I’m at today. If you don't like it, get the fuck out of here. I don't care. It's my life. It's my story and I just want to share it real with you. What's cool about that is it will separate you from the bullshitters.
See, it's funny, you guys are renting Lambos or Rolls-Royces to take pictures. I've had that shit for years. I don't even need to take a picture with the car. It just is in the background. You already know it exists, right? Because people know if they know.
Being vulnerable is a great marketing tool for you and your business. Sharing raw, authentic content will change, not just your life, but other people's lives, and not only that just, and again, I’m not saying go online and say, Hey, man, my business sucks. I’m losing everything and blah, blah, blah. No, it's just like you’ve got to learn how to write. You’ve got to learn how to craft the story. If you've been listening to me for years, because I have multiple podcast shows I’ve done over the years—I’ve been online doing audio podcasts. Actually tele-calls they used to call it, then webinars, etc.—since 2002, right? [39:11.2]
My voice and my story have evolved. It's got tighter. It's got more emotional, just like a comic, right? They go to comic events and they talk to 50 people. They bomb on 90 percent of the stories, but they take the 10 percent. They do this 10 times. Fucking 10 weeks from now, they have a Netflix series and it's badass because they fucking went and did all their work, captured the top 10 percent in each show, and then put it all together in shared the story in a very controlled environment. It's a pretty neat thing to do.
Share your story. Be genuine. Let people know what you're up to. Make it a daily challenge. I challenge you. Here let's do this today. I challenge you. Please tag me if you join this challenge, because I might do something cool for you. Tag me @MarkEvansDM. But I want to challenge every one of you listening to this and there are a lot of listeners, the 30-day social media marketing challenge. [40:09.4]
I want you to post for 30 days on social media. I don't give a fuck if it's a picture. If you're ugly, not ugly, good luck. Whatever it is, ugly view or whatever, just say like, I’m talking to you from the bench, overlooking this ravine. If it was rainy and dreary, I could take a picture and say, Pretty ugly, huh? or I could say, Rain or shine, I come and I show up. There are a lot of ways to craft a message with an image or, if you'd rather, just shoot a video, do a live video. Hey, guys, it's Mark, hanging out here at the ravine. I have one quick tip for you. Marketing changes the game. Let me explain. Boom, and then share about marketing.
This is what you do, guys. Just do this for the next 30 days. Day 1, challenge, Day 1 of 30, Day 2 of 30, Day 3 of 30, Day 4 of 30. See how consistent you are with that. If you stay consistent for 30 days, I can promise you 100 percent, you will have more eyeballs, more ears and more opportunity on Day 31. I guarantee it and beyond. [41:18.4]
As I’m talking to you, my buddy, Matt, recently messaged me over the weekend and told me how him posting daily, like I’m telling you to do or asking you to do, I’m recommending you do it actually, he's like, Dude, I’ve had people reach out to me that I haven't talked to in 20 years, sharing stuff that I can't even believe they're sharing with me out loud, but I’m thankful for it because I can help them.
I sent him a text back and I said, “Isn't that amazing how that works?” When you lead with vulnerability and share your shit, real stories, real talk—remember your message is your message. You're just sharing you. It is what it—and this happens. You open up a door. People realize you know what you're up to. They can actually open up to you because you've opened up to them. [42:15.2]
It has changed his business. It has changed his life. Actually he writes every day now and he says he's going to forever. I believe him, too, by the way. This guy is a machine and he's very committed, which is awesome. He's finally doing it and his numbers will show that it works. It's already showing. He's on six figures a week from it.
But what I want to challenge you is for the next 30 days, tag me and do the marketing challenge, 30-day social marketing challenge and a tag @MarkEvansDM. I want to follow you. I want to see what's up. I want to see what you're up to. If I can help you tweak your message, I will, and please be patient. There could be a lot of people doing this, so I’ll get back to you as fast as I can, but share. [43:00.0]
What's cool about this is you don't need any crazy thing. You already have it in your hand. You’re probably listening to me on your technology, your iPhone, right? Use your iPhone. Write it in Notes. Copy-paste, put it on Facebook. Copy-paste, put it on Instagram. Use pictures. Use video. It all can be done from your smartphone. Don't worry about if the lighting is perfect. Don't worry about it if they can hear you a hundred percent. Just share your fucking message. Stop overthinking it and get it in motion. You'll be thankful that you did.
So, marketing. I need you to do this. Figure out how much it costs to acquire your customer. What are your top six bullet points of your avatar, “Mel, 22, makes over 40,000 a year, works out at the gym,” whatever, put this shit down. These are things that drive your business, depending on what business you're in, of course. Find out what drives your business.
I have another company. Our average age is 57-year-old male, 72 percent of them are male, 57-year-olds, white, Republicans, XYZ, right? I know who our people are, right? It depends on what company you're in, what you're trying to do. Figure out what your avatar is and start writing to them. Share your message to them. Let them know how to connect. [44:15.0]
Write with your heart, not your brain, by the way. Write with your heart, i.e. vulnerability. Share your message, and when you start doing this, your life and business will change drastically. I promise you that. If you have a massive anxiety and you're overwhelmed because you are not getting the results you want, it's because you have terrible expectations.
Again, back to the guys trying to do 10 deals a month, but only wants to spend 5,000 a month, which would only get him three deals a month. You can see the disconnect. Of course, you're going to be fucking frustrated. You're trying to do something of the impossible, right? Or the ultra-unlikely. It might happen once a year.
But if I can create a formula and say I’m willing to spend 20 grand a month, invest 20 grand a month to make 50 grand a month, I’m in. Now, all of a sudden, it takes off. There's no emotional bullshit attached to this. It's a formula you've created. You've dog-eared the amount. You know what you're doing. [45:07.8]
As you're in the beginning stages, you're building up, spend 10, 20 percent, maybe more depending on the size of your company, of your profits to put back into marketing to grow, and the reason, the way to do that is you’ve got to understand your KPIs because the KPIs will show you growth through numbers, not emotions. It's all fucking numbers. Business is numbers, guys. I’m not saying that you can't be passionate about it, but business is numbers. One plus one equals two. Your real formula is how do you make one plus one equal 11. That's the goal, right? And that's through investing in marketing.
Get this out there. A lot of great opportunities. I’m telling you, you’ve got Instagram. You've got Facebook. You've got LinkedIn. You’ve got Twitter. I mean, it's endless. It's endless, the opportunities. Just don't try to do them all out of the gate. Get dialed in with one or two. Stay focused. Get your message out there. Stop stealing from yourself and your family. [46:02.8]
Look at yourself in the mirror. You're the one in control of this shit. No one else. You are in control, and if you get marketing dialed in, you should start asking yourself—what's cool is once you get to the next level in marketing, you start asking—how to spend more money, how to invest more money in marketing. Where are the next marketing channels?
Let me give you one more tip before we leave today. Please, if you do nothing else, do this. Please get people on your email list and email them consistently, once a day ideally; worst case, once a week. Email them a message. Connect with them. Relate to them.
If you already have buyers in your business, you’d better start crafting messages and building massive amounts of money with them, because the hardest part is getting a buyer; the easiest parts reselling the buyer. Most people spend so much energy acquiring a buyer, they forget about the people that's the easiest to sell. I did it for years, kicked me in the ass, I swear. [47:03.8]
I lost many, many, many millions chasing the next deal that I forgot to actually take and go, extract more money from the people that already know me, like me, trust me, got results with us. It sounds so stupid saying it out loud now, but I did it for a long time. Don't be a dummy like me. If you have a buyers list, start messaging them.
Don't know what they want? Simple. Ask them, Hey, if I came up with a new product that could change your life or improve your life, what would that product look like? What would that product be? They'll tell you.
Hey, extract from social media. If you'd like to get on my free email list, put your email in here and I’ll get you on the email list. I’ve got something free for you. Give them a reason to do it, of course, but get them in the pipeline. Build your email list.
Why? Glad you asked. You control and own email, right? If I give you my email address, you own that email address. You can message me until I unsubscribe. Social media, let's say, Instagram or Facebook, or any of them for that matter, they could shut me down in a second. I could have 100,000 followers today and wake up tomorrow with zero. [48:12.2]
But if you have 100,000 followers on social or 10,000 or whatever the number is, start extracting. Get an email list. Now maybe you have 10,000 emails on your database. You can't shut me down in email. Maybe my ESP would shut me down. I’d take a copy and paste and put the emails in another system and start messaging out again tomorrow. Obviously there are ramp-up phases and all that, but you're in control.
Social media controls you if you only have social media. No one talks about this. I don't know why, but I’m telling you right now, extract emails. You want to be in the email world. We send out hundreds and hundreds of millions of emails a month and I recommend you do, too. That's where you want to be, for sure. That means you're generating a lot of revenue. That means you're impacting, touching and conversating with a lot of people.
Please get emails. More importantly, email the people that are already on the email list and start connecting with them through email. It's a very ultra-super-duper-duper powerful channel. You don't have to believe me. When you go to checkout anywhere in the world, what do they ask for? Your email address. Get your email. Get your email right. [49:17.3]
I know a lot of people are on cell phones now, which is cool, too. If you can get the email and phone number, all the better, but the thing is cell phone has some challenges right now. They're going through a lot of texting issues, whatever, and I own a pretty big texting company in the data space, so there are real challenges there. But, at the end of the day, email has always served us ultra-very well. Direct mail, email marketing, text marketing, cold calling, I mean, there are many, many, many different ways to market.
I’m getting excited and I’m rambling now, but I challenge you. Step your marketing game up. Please join the 30-day challenge of marketing. Tag me @MarkEvansDM. Day 1 of 30. Are you in or are you out? We’re about to find out.
With that said, make it today count. Peace. [50:00.0]
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