The Agency Hour
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The Agency Hour
Having Money Wins
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What happens is our brains can't handle seeing something as available and then watching it disappear. Which is like, if you think about COVID, what happened with toilet paper? It didn't even make any sense. Nobody knew why they were buying toilet paper, but they're like, I fucking have to have all this toilet paper. I just got to load up. And we're like, we don't know why, but it's because of that exact phenomenon, right? There was a plentiful supply, then all of a sudden we watch the plentiful supply start disappearing, and our brains can't handle the idea that maybe I won't be able to have this thing that used to be available. And that's a big part of what we're engineering inside of the process.
SPEAKER_01From a failed rap career to discovering a knack for sales, building a sales team, and ultimately creating his own agency, coaching sales, Mike Mark shares his amazing story of resilience and drive. On this episode, Mike Mark and I discuss overcoming the resistance to conduct sales, building trust with AI, and the power of embracing the dark side. I'm Troy Dean. Stay with us. Welcome to another episode of the Agency Hour Podcast. And my special guest this week, all the way from Fort Lauderdale in Florida, is Mike Mark. Hey Mike, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_02What's up, Troy? Good to be here. Let's go.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for doing this. Now, we connected, I don't know, like I want to say it was like before my studio got flooded with sewerage, that was probably like four years ago. On we had a call, did we? Was it that long ago?
SPEAKER_02I think so. I think it was like 2018, 2019. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And um, so for those that don't know, what do you who are you and what do you do and what are you doing here on the podcast?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I'm Mike Mark. Most people kind of know me as the guy you go to when you need sales reps. So that's how I kind of built my reputation in this industry. Um, and so like the conversation that kind of my name gets interjected in a lot is like, hey, I'm looking to hire a salesperson, hey, I'm looking to hire a closer, hey, I'm looking to hire a setter. And that's when most people would say, hey, you probably should talk to Mike.
SPEAKER_01And but this is not the you haven't always done this, right? This is not you at some point, I think I remember reading in your story, at some point you made a conscious decision to figure out sales. It wasn't this isn't what you've always done with your life, is it?
SPEAKER_02Um, no, not quite. So, like, you know, my rap career didn't fully work out as expected. So that's partly why I'm here. Uh seriously? I swear to God, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I actually dropped I dropped a mixtape or like kind of my first EP seven years ago or so, and it completely flopped. And at that time I was just being a knucklehead, I'm then fucking up left and right. So I got I got arrested two times in six months, and then that that was a good that was a good like catalyst to say, hey, maybe I need to fix something here. Get your shit together. Yeah, exactly. And so so I already knew how to sell, and I kind of already had a lot of the the ideas baked in from timeshare. So I learned how to sell on timeshare. And then um there's actually something my dad told me called the keys of the kingdom, but I'll save it for a little bit later. Um, that was kind of like the mental model I was applying as I was going to figure out how to acquire the skills I needed to build the business that I wanted to. Um, so I had figured out sales, especially like timeshare is like the ultimate high-ticket sale, right? Because it's like you have a 90-minute presentation, you're selling a $20,000 product, the people are there for free Disney tickets, and they don't want to buy anything. They don't even know that they're in a sales presentation half the time. So, you know, to take someone from I don't want to buy this and they're sticking their finger in your face, going, no, I'm not buying anything today, to signing halffully for 20 grand 90 minutes later, it that really got me to understand the art of the sale. Um, but I had I had read, you know, four-hour work week, and I had read um, you know, a lot of those sorts of books, like like I was following the digital nomads, Chris Giebo, and like those types of guys. Um, and I just knew it like I would go home after work, I'd watch Anthony Bourdain like all night. Just I had this crazy wanderlust, and I knew I wanted to get out and like stop having to be trapped in a place. And I was then scrolling Facebook and I just saw this post that said, Hey, you know, I have a client that's looking for a salesperson, you have the opportunity to work remotely and and control your schedule. And I was like, I think I could do that. And that was my entrance into the agency space at that moment.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So you get arrested, you figure that you need to get your shit together. What's the link between that and then going, I'm gonna build a business? Like most people would go, I'm just gonna I just need a job like to get me on the straight and narrow, right? By the way, it's unfortunate the whole rap career thing, because you have like the ultimate rapper's name. Right. I mean, you've got we're not over yet, we're not over yet.
SPEAKER_02I just took the scenic route, that's all.
SPEAKER_01Love it. So, so how did you did you come from a family of entrepreneurs? Like, was starting your own business that that was a logical thing to do, was it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so my dad actually was an entrepreneur. Um, my mom's not at all. My mom's very like traditional by the book type of person, but my dad was an entrepreneur. And like he started his company right about the time I was born. He ended up selling it for $40 million when I was 16 years old. Oh shit. Yeah, yeah. And and I had a front row ticket to that experience. And my mom was working in corporate, so she could never bring me to work. So my dad would bring me to work. So, in and my dad, when I even when I was little, you know, he would treat me almost as if I was an equal. So, like if he was going out on meetings and doing deals and pitches, he'd ask me for advice. What do you think about that person? What do you think about this product? What do you think about this? Do you like, do you see how the system works? How would you improve it? And so he would involve me in that process since a little kid. So, like when I went to first grade, the teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, my own boss. And I knew that from the jump. Um, and so I had already like I went to Boston University to study entrepreneurship, which I can basically just wipe my ass with that piece of paper. Uh I mean it was the dumbest thing ever.
SPEAKER_00I I always just like how do you fucking teach entrepreneurship? How do you even teach that? Who writes the curriculum for that?
SPEAKER_02Dude, my business strategy professor had never actually had a job. Her whole entire life was in academia. So every everything was based on what she reads in research papers. And it's like, how do you take advice from someone who actually doesn't know? I got actually thrown out of my marketing class by my marketing professor because we had this project and he had us uh figure out how to market a product and he was like, How do you know it will work? And I was like, We don't. That's why we have to test it and do it like at a low scale, create an MVP and rapidly iterate. And he's like, that's not how it works. And then I'm like, Yeah, it does, dude. You don't know what you're talking about. And we got into this argument, he threw me out of the classroom because he said, like, we should have done focus groups. And I'm like, nobody does focus groups, dude. Like, unless you're Coca-Cola, but even then, like, focus groups are a waste of time and money for a small business owner. And and so, yeah, like I went through that whole process. I was super disgruntled. I tried dropping out of college, and I came home on spring break in my sophomore year, and I just told my dad, like, dad, just give me the tuition money and let me go start a business. And he said something to me that really hit me. He said, Um, son, don't create a habit of quitting.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, shit.
SPEAKER_02Like, that's the ultimate, you can't argue that one. So I was just like, all right, I'm gonna do this. And so I finished college in three years. Then my dad asked me the dreaded college grad who doesn't have a job question, which is, so what are you gonna do? Um, and at that point in time, you know, I like I had a whole pitch. So I get it, I start pitching to him this whole idea. It's like a 10-minute pitch, and I go through it and what my vision is, and you know, why he should invest in me and take that fourth year of college and use that as the seed capital to build the business. And I finish my pitch and I look at him and he just starts laughing at me. And I'm like, like, I just poured my heart out, right? So this is not the reaction I'm expecting. I'm expecting a check. And uh he's laughing at me, and I'm like, Where are you laughing at me? He's like, he's like, I don't think you get it, dude. And I was like, Well, what do you mean I don't get it? He's like, You're you're cut off. And I'm like, what do you mean cut off? And because at this time, like I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth. My dad was dirt poor, so he did the thing that new money does where he wants to give his kids everything he didn't have, but he eventually really like learned that he was making us helpless. So, so I was like, What do you mean cut off? He's like, I mean no money, honey. You're cut off. You gotta figure this out on your own now. So I was like, Oh shit. Like it was just one of those boom moments. Wow. Yeah. It was really, really crazy. I was so mad when he said it all too. Like, you know, it's just like the self-righteousness, like, how dare he? He doesn't help me. Um, and and then uh he's like, Well, okay, so you got two options from here, bud. You got to pay your own bills. You can do it one of two ways. He said you either get a career and a career is gonna demand all of you, or you get a job and you can build your business at night. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna get a job and build my business at night.
SPEAKER_01That's really fucking good advice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No, wait till wait. That's not even the best part, right? The key is is the next part. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get a job and build my business at night. And he said, Okay, cool. If that's what you're gonna do, then here's what you need. He said, first, you need to learn how to serve, right? Be able to meet someone, understand what they need, anticipate their needs, and give them a real valuable experience. He said, Second, you need to learn how to sell. So to be able to transact to capture cash for the value that you're creating. Third, you need to learn how to be able to build systems so that way the whole thing can work without you having to be there. He said, if you can do that, then you have the keys to the kingdom. And so I kind of took that as my blueprint. And all my jobs that I then got from that point were based on acquiring those sets of skills.
SPEAKER_01Holy shit, what a gift.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. And so that's why I try to tell this story as much as possible, too, because I know, like in in coaching a lot of our clients, most people don't have that kind of exposure. And I'm I'm a big believer, exposure is like a massive difference. Like Marquel is one of our clients that he's gone from $30,000 a month when we first started working together. Now he does regularly six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars a month. He's done a million dollar a month. Um, and and he didn't see a pool till he was nine years old, right? Like, that's the type of environment he grew up in where he grew up nobody had money, it was all tight and everything. And so, like a lot of my clients will tell me that again and again. Like, I just in my home, you know, they're told things money doesn't grow on trees, you can't do that, we can't afford this. And and so I try to communicate this as much as possible because that was like the foundational blueprint that gave me everything, and I really want to just get that out to as many people as I can.
SPEAKER_01You gotta learn how to serve, you've got to learn how to sell and create systems. Uh, I grew up in the 70s and I heard that a lot: money doesn't grow on trees. You know the crazy thing is when I grew up, money was made from paper, so it actually did grow on fucking trees, and my parents would say all the time, and it was like later on in life, I'm like, hang on a second, do you know how wrong you were? Money, money was growing on trees, man. Like uh such a had such a uh bad relationship with money for a long time, and it took me about six or seven years to kind of reframe my relationship with money, and that just came from listening to people who helped me kind of like listening to like Dan Kennedy and Brennan Bashard and all those guys kind of helped me understand that success is not don't feel guilty about it and that no one give is gonna give you permission for it, and it's okay to have money, it's what you do with it and how you use it that defines you, not the fact that you have it. Uh super interesting. So Okay, so you start, so you you've got the you've you you're working these jobs, you're acquiring these skills. What's the what's the first business that you launch?
SPEAKER_02Uh actually in college I launched a business. Um, so the first business I launched was classically a t-shirt company. Um, and and it was called Cop Out Collective, and it was a pig head in the shape of a badge, right? And the NYPD was spelled in bacon letters, which was awesome. And so I launched that in in I had about $3,000 and I might as well flush that down the toilet. So uh this completely failed. I ended up selling some shirts. I was trying to charge premium prices, so I was selling shirts at $50. But what really happened was like I noticed a couple friends mentioned that they were in situations that they felt unsafe because they were wearing that shirt. And I was just like, you know what? I don't want someone to get hurt because of something that I'm doing that I think's funny, but I I could understand the repercussions of like if you wear something like that in the United States, it's regular to see people get their ass kicked up and down the block by police officers, and the last thing I would ever want to do is put a customer in that situation. So I just kind of pulled the plug on it after that had happened.
SPEAKER_01Uh, and then how what's the journey for you to get into the the the uh you took this job that you saw advertised on Facebook? Uh what's the journey then from doing that to then going, well, I can teach others how to sell and in fact then I can I can become a you're effectively a recruitment company right now. You look you you've placed a setter for a closer for us, I think. We're a client of yours, full transparency, we're a client of yours now. Um and uh so what what was that? How did you because a lot of people will be like, I'm really good at this thing, but there's not many people that say I can actually help other people do this and teach other people how to do this and and recruit for them. Why why did you make that decision?
SPEAKER_02Um, I think I'm an idiot. That's probably the main thing. Uh I'm I'm just dumb enough to do stupid stuff like that. So, you know, the the when I went to go do this, right? So the first time I got this remote sales shop, I get on the phones and they were doing about a hundred grand a year. And so it was a software development agency where they would build software products for people that had app ideas or like just needed to build extra software for whatever they were doing, right? So I get on the phones and I start closing, and it's like this is super easy. And they're like, they're like, we haven't ever fine found anybody that could do what you're doing right now. Like, this is insane because I was closing as good as the owner, and they're they're like, How are you doing this? And I'm like, I don't know, this is just easy, because especially compared to selling timeshare, this was like a cakewalk. So at that point, I was like, this was so easy. I'm like, can I just charge more? And they're like, Yeah. And I kind of found that there was a certain avatar that was easiest to sell, and they were primarily like second-time founders or they were technical team leads. And I like there were a lot of people who had an app idea, but they had never built an app and they were shit to sell to because they just didn't they didn't understand the real like what goes into production level builds, and so they couldn't actually value the offer that we were making. And so I was like, dude, let me just play with a couple things. So I repositioned the offer and got the pricing way up, and so we went from a hundred grand a year to a million a year in three months. And yeah, yeah, it was crazy, it was crazy. So so we were basically doing 10 grand a month, and then we were doing a hundred grand a month within three months, and and this was from really less, it was from June to August. And then I was just like, what the hell just happened? Right? Like it would, I didn't believe it. You know, it was one of those things like like, is this a fluke? Did I get lucky? I don't know what this was. Like it was just a miracle in a lot of ways. Um, and then so at that point, you know, the worst part about this is I was only getting paid two grand a month, and we ended up getting the company to two million dollars a year by the time I I had left, but I was just on a retainer, so I was making two grand a month. So then finally I was like, you know what? I need to get paid on the output here. And also I wanted to see if I could do it again. And around that time, so I I tapped in with traffic and funnels, and then I was in their community going through the program, and I was just like really killing it and adding a lot of value, and then they asked me to help them build their sales team. And so at that point, they were doing about 80 grand a month, and we were able to get Taylor off the phones, and then in six months they were at 500 grand a month. So that was the second time, and that was the time that I was like, oh, we got evidence. But in the middle of it, it was the first time I ever had to go from me doing all the sales to building a sales team. And that was like I was just arrogant enough to believe that I could do it, and it I couldn't do it actually. The first the first salesperson I hired quit sales is a career choice. That's how bad it was. Like it was just like I'm not a salesperson anymore after this. Um, yeah, and and then I just was stubborn enough that I don't give up and I kept doing it, and then I finally got it, and then I started to find patterns to this because I've done it, you know, I've launched now over 800 sales teams. So I started to see patterns, especially after doing about 50 of these, and then I started to be able to document and systematize it all. And then it just I built the system to build the system, which is where you're going from like a franchise E to a franchise or and I just went meta with it and I was like, how can I build the system to build the system? And that's what we did.
SPEAKER_01Wow, far out. I didn't know you'd been through the traffic and funnels ecosystem. It feels like a lot of people came through that and then have gone on and done their own thing. Are they still going traffic and funnels or have they kind of moved on and doing other things?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um, they are. We we don't stay in touch too much, to be honest. Um, the uh so but but yeah, like initially that the what we did, and it was it was a really fun period of time um at that time where basically like Taylor was on the phones doing all the sales and he was good at copywriting and kind of didn't he was like good enough at phone sales, but he didn't know that much about sales. And I had been in timeshare, which like on our sales floor, we do a billion dollars a year, right? So I had seen a mega scaled up where you recruit, they recruit 400 sales reps for summer. You know what I mean? Like this, like this is a big org. It's a multi-billion dollar company. So I've I've gotten to see sales at a different level and had a lot of exposure. So I brought a lot of what I knew there, and then we just played and designed a lot of like what you see now that like when I look at people's remote closure teachings or whatever, it's just my sales calls transcribed from traffic and funnels. Like, but it was the shit that we were doing at that time, and it was just like they're they're on our five-year-ago iteration of this stuff.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Um, and so you leave traffic and funnels and go out on your own. Is that and and and launch the kind of like the what do you guys call now? Sales coach? Is that what you is that what you guys are called?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So the company itself is called coaching sales. Um, and yeah, and so at that time, you know, we I go out and I started, I had a one of my best friends was selling um recruitment. And so he was in recruitment and he was recruiting nurses. And I I was sitting there looking at what they were doing, and and I would I would ask them a lot of questions because I was just trying to figure out how to better recruit salespeople. But then I started to notice the business model and a lot of how the business model would work. And I'm like, dude, you guys are just doing high ticket, but you're getting paid out over the course of a year instead of front loading your cash. So I was just like, what if I just basically took because at that time too, we're talking about like 2016, 2017. So if if you guys were like around back then, and this is to the listeners, you that was like the only thing at that point in time was group coaching, bro. Like that was the you would pay coaches just to tell you group coaching, bro, and that was it. And like they would tell you you're an idiot for if you're doing services, group coaching is the only way to go, blah, blah, blah. And so I just was like, well, what if we just kind of zig when everyone's zagging and we bolt recruiting onto the front end of this thing? And that's what we did. Um, and I I was looking at how do I take recruitment and basically run high-ticket plays so I front load my cash collection in a matter of one month to two months, as opposed to over 12 months, so I could have faster velocity of capital and scale bigger. And so that's what we did. We took that and applied it, and then it just went bananas, and now I can't turn around without seeing someone have bolted on recruiting offers on their coaching programs. You know, like literally, it's pretty, it's pretty remarkable. Like, you know, I after we started doing it, everyone started doing it. TF started doing it, Russ Rufino started doing it. Like now I everybody's got it, but like it that was the thing that like really catalyzed a lot of it in the industry.
SPEAKER_01It's um I we have done a little bit of that and we've kind of pulled out of it. We were recruiting developers and uh SEOs and mainly from our talent pool in the Philippines for our agency clients, and we kind of pulled back on it because it's really freaking hard to scale, right? It's really hard. Like, do not underestimate how difficult it is to find good talent and get them to bloody turn up on time and get them to, you know, do what they say they're gonna do.
SPEAKER_02And even harder than that is the the business owners way overestimate how good of managers they are.
SPEAKER_01Oh, all the time. 100%.
SPEAKER_02They think like, oh no, I'm a great manager. It's like, dude, you have no systems, you're not talking to your people, you have no data, you don't know your KPIs, you got nothing. And so it's it's even more than the talent not showing up. Like, I find the problem is the arrogance of the business owners who think that they understand how to delegate when they really haven't done it enough.
SPEAKER_01I hope he's not talking about us there as a client, by the way. Um we definitely have areas that we can improve. We know that. Um the the I I want to talk about resilience a little bit because you and I come from very different backgrounds, right? I come from the working class northern suburbs of South Australia. We weren't poor, but we certainly weren't wealthy, right? We didn't I didn't want for anything. I always had food on the table, always had clothes on my back, we had a good home that we lived in. We had this we had a swimming pool in the backyard. Um, then we moved to a kind of a nicer part of town just before my parents broke up when I was 12. And then things got weird because mum was a single mum, and you know, finances were a bit tough. So you and I come from very different backgrounds, and I I feel like my resilience has come from just a raw desperation to never go back to not having money, right? Like I have I have money and I've been I've have money now, and I've in my life have been through phases. Where I haven't had money and having money wins. There's no question about that, right? Um where do you and I'm not saying that you know one path is is you know more altruistic or better here. There's no judgment here, but I'm curious is where your resilience comes from because you uh I know where mine comes from. I'm just curious about where yours comes from, right? Because starting like adding recruiting onto a high-ticket offer is a pain in the fucking ass. Like, why would you do that? Why would you why like why would you choose the hardest possible path?
SPEAKER_02That's a really good question. I one of the things I always say is if I'm not busy, I'm bored. Um, and and the reason I actually chose to get into building sales teams is because it was finally like the hardest problem I ever had to solve. Like in for me in school, I was always the kid that would get like straight A's and be asleep or high the whole class. Like literally, I took my AP history exam high, a little as high, I got like a science experiment. Like, how can I get as high as humanly possible before this exam? And I got a five on it, right? So it would just be like stuff came super easy and natural for me, almost to the point that it was a it was a detriment because I just would coast all the time. And once I got into this arena, it was the first time I was like, I can't coast. And I had to really turn it up, and that that was a big part. Um, the other thing is just like I what I've tended to find, and this is like for business owners and sales reps and everything, is that the people who like really stick it through are the ones it's not the ones that want to win, it's the ones that can't handle losing because it's like their identities wrapped up in it, and so when you're losing, you just get mad. Like, I if I'm losing, ooh, like I won't give up though. I will literally fight till the last breath. And so, you know, and like I some of it I don't know. It's some of it, I think this stuff's genetic. Like, and the more I've been in business, the more I think some people's genes are like some people are wired for this game, and some people are not wired for this game. Um, like for me, my my grandfather was the captain of a ship in the Navy, and like they he was in the D-Day Normandy invasion, hit a mine, broke his leg, was the last guy off the boat, making sure everybody was off the boat, right? So, like that sort of like resilience is just in me on a certain type of way. And my dad's the same type of way too. My dad's like, won't give up, won't quit. So I think for a lot of people, you'll see that example, and it comes from within you. But the biggest, the biggest thing that I see as a commonality amongst these people is there's two things. They hate losing, like with their full body, it's just sickens them to the point that they they they're disgusted and angry and they can't handle it. The second thing is that they're absurdly curious. So they can't stop asking questions, they can't stop reading, they can't stop researching, they can't, and that that that kind of goes hand in hand with the hatred of losing, right? Because like if you hate losing so much, you have to get better. So you have to learn and study and work your craft. Just like there's stories of Tiger Woods when he was like, especially in the dominant era, he would play the match that day, go to the driving range and hit balls till his hands were bleeding, and then go back the next day and play again, and then just clean up on everybody. And it's that it would that doesn't come from wanting to win. That's not a big enough drive. That comes from like, I can't handle losing.
SPEAKER_01Hormosy, Alex Hormosy talks about this on his podcast. There's a recent episode about embracing the dark side, and he talks about that he's driven by just he's driven by basically not allowing his dad to be right. Right? Like his dad was like, You're fucking crazy. What are you doing? Like you've you've dropped out of your MBA and your high-paying career and you're gonna start your own business. Like, this isn't gonna work. And he like that's what drove him for so long to just keep going. He's like, I cannot lose because if I lose, my dad's gonna be right and I'm gonna be a loser. And that was it wasn't getting to the top that was motivating him, it was like not wanting to hate himself. That's what motivated him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's at the identity level.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, and it's interesting. I used to run a fair bit uh before I was an old man and had crappy knees. Um, and when I when I started my freelance web design business, I used to run quite a bit. And I would run and I would listen to podcasts while I was running, and I would always have this moment where I'm like, why are you running, dude? Like, are you are you running away from something or are you running towards something? And I came to the conclusion that I was, and it was kind of a metaphor for business. And I used to think being an entrepreneur and running are similar things, right? You've got to stay upright, you've got to stay open so that you can breathe, and you just got to keep moving forward. Doesn't matter how fucking painful it gets, you've just got to keep moving forward, right? Stay upright, don't fall over, stay open so you can breathe and keep moving forward. And I I came to the realization that I was primarily running away from a past that I didn't want to go back to, from a from a past life of, you know, scarcity and fear that I didn't want to go back to. And I like altruistically, I would like to say that I was running towards a desired future that I was, you know, wanting, but that wasn't what was motivating me. It was actually running away from a situation that I wanted to avoid from like not being poor and you know being able to provide for my family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I to be honest, I think it's super important that you're admitting this like open in a forum like this, and that we're able to have this type of dialogue, because most management books are gonna tell you about like you need to have a big reason why, and like, yeah, that's parts of it, you know what I mean? But sometimes your reason why it could just be that you hate that thing that used to be what it was, or or the opinion of someone like just like what you you were saying about Hermosy, there's like kids in high school would say, like, oh, Mike's full of half-baked ideas, or like stuff like that, right? So, like, there's literally like a huge part of me as wired to be like, fuck you, watch me, right? And that's that I embrace that. Like, I used to when we would sell, I tell my sales managers all the time, uh, like talk shit to me. Like, when especially like if I'm slumping, tell me I can't do it, please. Like, just tell me I can't do it. And I because I knew that would hit me, and then I would just be mad. Like, you can't do it, and I'd just be silent. And it's like, okay. And I don't respond, I just let the numbers talk. And then they'd watch, and they'd just be like, damn, he turned it on today. It'd be like boom, boom, boom, boom. They just watch the signups. And that's that's the thing. Like, you got to know what motivates you. And it doesn't necessarily need to be something totally altruistic. You know, a lot of us aren't motivated altruistically, some of you guys are, and that's what whatever it is for you is what's a critical factor.
SPEAKER_01I think I've found I just had a live stream in our group with a couple of our VIP clients, and I was talking about I I have an external motivation and an internal motivation. So my internal motivation is definitely being a provider for my family and not going back, you know, and and like just never being poor again. And as I said, not that I was ever really poor, but uh by you know, standards, but I I know like where I'm at right now in my life beats where I was, and I'm I'm not going backwards. But my in my external motivation is I genuinely just want to help the underdog succeed and and a kind of a bit like you, like expose them to the information and the people and the motivation and the inspiration that they need to actually take the next step. So I have a I kind of have a you know a little bit of both, and that's what keeps me going. I think gets me out of bed every day when I know things are gonna get tough. What I see a lot in the agency space though is that and it's probably not unique to the agency space, but that's just the gut, that's just the sandbox that we play in, is um a lot of people coasting, because frankly, since COVID, right, if you know what you're doing and you're in an agency, like it's been uh almost a license to print money, right? Everyone's jumped on the internet, like it's been like m our top clients are not struggling to get clients. Our top customers are not struggling to get clients. Their biggest problem is like building their teams out. But I see this uh real resistance to embrace sales and that they're just uh gonna live off referrals and word of mouth for the rest of their life. And we teach the sales process to agencies, but I still see so many people not focusing on the data and not focusing on the numbers, just coasting on referrals or word of mouth, getting distracted by all the fucking shiny widgets in the world, and then eventually coming back and going, Well, you know, things have slowed down a little bit because the referrals, and by then it's too late. Like you should have fixed this problem when you don't need to is when you fix your sales process. So you've trained a lot of salespeople and you've had a lot of clients who you've built sales teams for. I'm curious about your insights into the people who crush it. What's the difference between the people who kill it and the people who don't? And I'm not not just individual salespeople, but business owners building sales teams as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. In even more so on the business owners who are building sales teams themselves. Um, I I think the biggest thing is is like really getting the lead gen tight. Like that's when it what I tend to see is is the average business owner who doesn't know how sales works will typically think that you should I should close 60% of my leads, right? And it's like, no, that's not how that works at all. Like on cold traffic, my target is 1% if I'm launching a new offer, right? If I can get 1% lead to sale and my economics work on cold traffic, I know I have something scalable. You know, when I have a more refined system, I'm at a 3 to 5%. And this is like one of the best in the world at doing this, saying that, but that's where I'm at, is a 3 to 5% of my leads will convert into customers. And so I think a lot of people, and that's after I've refined it for you know years and 100 plus calls and a lot of copywriting and a lot of ad experiments, and I've lost I've I've learned a lot. But like going into it, I think a lot of people think that they should close a lot more than they do. So then they get frustrated and they give up too early. So uh part of it's an expectations thing. Um, and and the way that I think a lot of people don't understand the reason why you want to have a shit ton of leads, right? The reason why you want to have a shit ton of leads is not so you close a lot of people, right? It's the reason why I want to have a shit ton of leads is so that I could say no to most of the people and then refer them out. And then I cherry pick the sure shots. So that way I know, okay, boom, that's this is an easy yes. Like, and I'm cherry picking those deals. And as a result of that, I have very tight criteria, super consistent results on my output, and then the word of mouth on and the the referrals really grow as an engine on the back end and it builds this growth loop. And so that's like having a shit ton of leaves is not to cram them all into becoming deals, it's actually to start to reject the majority of them. So you cherry pick those easy ones that you know you're gonna turn into out.
SPEAKER_01That's so good. Oh my god. My brain is just like my brain is shouting at my team already. That is so good. Uh that's the complete opposite of why people think you that's just that's a zag right there, right? Like you need leads so that you can say no to most because most aren't right, and so that you can cherry pick the one. We've been guilty of this of letting the not the wrong, I would say the wrong client, but not our ideal avatar into a program and six months later going, Fuck man, this is like this is bitten us on the arse again. This person shouldn't be here, it's not the right solution for them. And I think that happens when you start off because you're just trying to hack your way to relevance, right? Um and and with the sales, with the sales individual, uh, you know, I read uh Jeb Blount's book, um, whatever it was, radical prospecting or whatever it's called recently, and he makes an interesting point. He's like, no, like salespeople don't like prospecting. No one actually likes prospecting. Um with I see uh agencies come to me and some coaches that I work with as well come to me and and and uh kind of want to have a talk about the sales process. And I dig into the numbers and I'm like, dude, you're just like you're just not doing anywhere near enough activity to achieve what you are telling me that you want to achieve. Like how many you've started seven new conversations this week with new prospects? Seven? You should do that before fucking breakfast on Monday, right? Like that's just not enough activity. And I know like Cardone's got the whole 10x kind of thinking, and I've seen him talk about this a lot as well, is that you need to generate way more first of all, you need to generate more income than you think you need to actually have the life that you want. You need to close more deals than you think you need to close, you need to generate more leads than you think you need it. What is it with what is it with the people that take that action? And is it just experience that gets someone to a point where they're like, all right, I need to do more activity, or you think it's hunger, or like, what is that mindset where some people will just do the extra work and some people won't?
SPEAKER_02Interestingly, here's here's one thing I definitely see is that uh salespeople have different superpowers, and and this is for business owners too. And so what I tend to find is that there's different configurations as to how salespeople will hit KPI. So, like there's the sales rep who does a ton of top of funnel, super high activity volume, works like crazy, uh really short calls, not going to a lot of depth, but they're hitting their numbers because they're doing the activity to compensate for that. And then you have like the sniper style guys that were like or girls, where they they have like a 70, 80% close percentage, but they very rarely make offers to the people that they're talking to. They turn a lot of them away. But if you look at like dollars per lead, or if you look at the actual conversion on the net booked leads in total before cancellations and everything, they actually end up apples to apples a lot of the times on the back-end numbers. They're just getting there differently. Um, so I do think uh an aspect of it is finding your style. The way I talk to sales reps as well, when and or business owners, if I'm I'm helping them kind of figure this game out, is that learning how to sell is a little bit like learning how to become a stand-up comedian or like learning how to become a rapper. So stand-up comedians will often talk about how they they imitate their favorite comics when they're learning. And so they'll go through and they'll they'll say, I really like this comic, and they imitate ideas from them. And then they'll go to the next comic and they imitate ideas off of that comic. And they they'll imitate a handful of people until they kind of find their own style and then they bring it into their style. And that's when they like really take their quantum leap in most cases. And comedians will talk, like if you listen to the Kevin Hart autobiography, which anyone here I'd recommend is amazing, it's like hilarious. I was laughing at the gym the whole time, like everyone's thinking I'm crazy. But he talks about exactly that. Like his journey was he trying to be Eddie Murphy, trying to be Richard Fryer, trying to be these comedians he looked up to. And then once he was him, is when his career started to really take off. And and I think with sales, it's that same thing. And you just got to be willing to try all the different styles too to figure out which one's gonna be best for you.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting that you you talk about that kind of individual approach. I don't have the attention span to do the the volume of activity, right? Because I just get bored way too quickly. We now have a model that I think is really common where we have appointment setters actually qualify people and set the appointment on the salesperson's calendar and then the salesperson their job is to, you know, onboard and close. Is that a really common model? Is that the most common model that most service providers and agencies are using that that you see?
SPEAKER_02I think it's more common nowadays. Um, I do see it going away in a little bit. I don't think that that model will stick around as long as people think it will. I think it's kind of like um, just like webinars were the thing that everybody had to have in 2016 and then they faded away. Uh I believe appointment setters are going to fade away. I think it's it just with what we can do with AI, I would much rather use AI than appointment setters in in most of the scenarios. And like I've seen some of the more advanced tech that's coming out because like what happens for me is a lot of people come to me because I have the distribution, so they show me what they got to be strategic partners to see if I want to sell this stuff to the audience or if I want to offer this stuff to the audience. I've seen what's that coming down the pike. It's crazy. They have cold calling AI where it sounds like a fucking real person and you wouldn't be able to tell. And it has full conversations. Like full, like it doesn't sound like an IVR at Bank of America. It sounds like a like if it called my parents, they wouldn't know it wasn't a real person. I can kind of tell because I can hear a little bit of the the the twink like kind of like robot twinkle in the voice, but my parents would never be able to tell if it was them. No, yeah, and and it it can respond to full conversation dialogue. It's like insane. So, and like with what chat GPT, like what you're seeing right now, like and what what we're seeing with like a dialogue flow, like I just see that the the future of this stuff is not human. And and you know, like like if you go to let's say, for example, yeah, I don't know in Australia what your equivalent to Walmart is, but you know, if you go to Walmart, you're gonna self-check out the majority of the time. Right? As a buyer, I would re people don't want to talk to sales reps and then less are almost already ready to buy. And so that sort of process, I just see the majority of things are going to start to head that direction in the next three to five years, and this whole human-bloated model will start to wither away or like kind of become a thing of the past.
SPEAKER_01So I've always thought that like the touch points with humans in like that four to seven-day window where we put our hand up, we generate a lead, we have a triage call, we get on a strategy call, that's a really good opportunity to build trust and to show them that there are people on the team and that they're well held and well supported. How do we do that with so what I hear what you're suggesting is that maybe the triage call is just AI and then they just book them onto the calendar, right? Which we've already got AI booking calendar booking bots anyway. But how does that, how do we, how do we continue to build that trust, especially if we're selling high-ticket stuff? Like, how do we continue to do that if we're removing the humans from the from the equation?
SPEAKER_02It's all through media and content, right? It's all through podcasting, it's through seeing people speak, it's through like people going through your online courses or a mini course and like really seeing that you know your stuff, having a great book out there, having the like it's just content and really putting up as many of the different media that you can. So you you you know, you may have your core message and put it into different media, so you have it as a book, you have it as a course, you have it as a YouTube video or whatever. And then you also are gonna see like that it's having just like really high quality insights that you're delivering to people. So when when someone's going through your content, the holy shit, I never thought about it like that feeling, that's gonna be the thing that creates that human connection and creates the trust and the authority.
SPEAKER_01And that's leverage because you make the YouTube video once and 300,000 people watch it talking about leverage before the we went before we hit record, you were telling me about group sales calls?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, these are epic. This is this is actually like probably the thing I'm the most excited about. Um, so like I people come to me now and they're like, hey, I want to hire a sales person. I'm like, actually, like if you considered this instead. Most people don't really understand what it is. But so I guess like to preface it a little bit, the thing that kind of got me into group sales calls was um do you know who Navel Robbie Kant is?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so buy the almanac of Navel Robbie Kant immediately. It's like one of my favorite books of all time. Um, but Navel Robbie Kant is like a genius. So he's one of the most respected and best performing VC investors in Silicon Valley. Um so he actually was a guy who directly mentored Tim Ferris on VC investing. And um, in in his portfolio companies are pretty outrageous. Um he's not necessarily as big of a shop as like, say, for example, a Sequoia or some of these other guys, but he's still like he if he opens his mouth, Sequoia, Greylock, all those guys listen when he talks. You know, it's that he's that kind of a guy. Um and and his what I love about him is he's very good at first principles thinking. Um, because he's an engineer, he breaks everything down to its components and really like looks at stuff in cool ways. And there was this this series of tweets he put out that is published in this book, and it just like completely fucked me up. Like as soon as I read it, and at this time, mind you, I had a team of 50 people, right? So I had a team of 50 people. Um, and and he says in there, fortunes require leverage, right? So leverage comes in three forms. There's capital leverage, meaning someone lets you use money to whether it's through lending or fundraising. There's labor leverage, right? So someone's offering you time and skills for services. And then there's products with no marginal cost of replication. So media and code, effectively. And he goes on to say, and this is the key distinction of this all was capital leverage and labor leverage are permissioned leverage, meaning that everybody wants to raise money, everybody wants people to follow them, but somebody has to choose to give you the money, and someone has to choose to follow you. Media and code, you don't need permission. Right? So they're permissionless and they're infinitely scalable, basically. And not only that, they make fewer mistakes, so they're far more reliable in their delivery of whatever you're doing. So that idea, I was just like, oh shit, you know, and he talks about how like the fortunes of old were built on capital and labor leverage. But if you look at today, the fortunes of today are built on products of no marginal cost leverage, right? So if you look at, for example, you know, Bezos, or if you look at, you know, uh Elon, it's all code based businesses that they're building. Or even, you know, you look at WhatsApp, and it's a small team that's able to build a code. Code-based product and sell it at the multiples they are. So, you know, if we look at like all the big companies right now, especially like Fang, they're all code-based businesses. And so that was where I started to say, like, okay, this makes sense. Where like, you know, Joe Rogan can get a hundred million dollar deal from Spotify off of just pure media and it's infinitely scalable. Or Logan Paul is pure media infinitely scalable, able to reach all these people. And so that idea really like fucked me up in a weird way. So I just was like, I just started changing everything. And I started firing a lot of our team and downsizing the company and downsizing the team. So I had a lot more control, more reliability, more predictability, and it was far more scalable. And then right around as the time I'm playing with these ideas, I get introduced to this client to build a sales team for him. And basically he was looking for a sales rep. Um, one of our clients who runs a business coaching program had referred him to us. And the um I look at his situation and he had like one of the most niche audiences I've ever seen. So his situation was he helps people who graduated from a service academy, which means like they went to uh the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy, the West Point, which is the Army uh college, or like went to the Marine Corps or Coast Guard Academy. So he helps those types of people who are now executives find their next job, right? Tiny band of people. And I was like, I told him, I'm like, dude, I don't think I can find you a sales rep who's gonna be able to speak to your audience properly, because like they have to come from that world. I was like, maybe I could find someone who's like a service person who'd been in the army or something that could do it. And he was like, Well, to be honest, these are all officers, and officers kind of look down on that type of person. Like they don't identify or relate with them, so it wouldn't necessarily work. So I was like, Well, have you ever considered group sales calls? And he was like, No, I don't know what that is. And you know, most people ask me, like, well, isn't that just the same thing as a webinar? And it's not, it's actually very different than a webinar. Um, most of our people, there's some similarities and we borrow some ideas from webinars, but it's actually a fundamentally different system. So webinars are a lot more belief shifting and I like focused on identity shifting ideas. So the the front part of the webinar is all marketing material, not sales material. And then that back piece is where the sale comes in. What we've done is almost like split these two pieces apart. So a lot of our clients will have a front-end BSL or maybe some sort of educational piece of content that people will book the call, but then the group sales call, we're actually it's very sales focused. So it's like a strategy session, but with a group of people at once. Um, and so with this guy, uh, he was like, all right, well, whatever. What the hell can I lose at this point? Because he was about to burn out. So he's like, let's try it. So he was doing at the time about 25 to 30 calls a week. We got him down to two group sales calls per week, and in the time frame, so basically it's an hour each, and within that, he was able to literally triple his revenue, take his closed percentage from 15% to 65%. And it's it's nuts. Like I the transformation on these things is like mind-blowing. I have another lady, so then after that, I had another lady who came kind of the same situation. So she was um um, she was an she's an attorney who built this certain estate planning firm and she sells her her IP of how to structure the practice where she can work two hours a day, make 10 grand a month and profit. And that's so it's a lifestyle business sort of idea. She sells the IP to other lawyers. Well, one of the weird things about selling to lawyers is that they believe everybody's a liar, right? And it's just, I mean, you have like if you're in law, that's kind of the a prerequisite for the job, right? So, um, and and so in it, they they really don't listen as much to people who are non-lawyers, especially when it's like, oh, well, I don't know if I can do this because with my little like legal blah blah blah with the bar in my state, unless it's a lawyer who's talking to them, they kind of don't listen to them. And so it's harder to get sometimes sales reps to sell on the system if it's not really, really refined when you're selling to lawyers. And she was the same situation. She was like burning out, she did literally have six, eight calls a day. She's like, I can't keep this pace up, but I'm this is going really well, so I don't want to slow down. And I was like, let's shift this to into this model. So she did the same thing. Now she does two group sales calls a week. She pops off about 20 grand on each group sales call. She's solo basically in two hours doing 40 grand a week on the sales calls. And where she went from doing 30 to 40 hours, she's now been able to crunch it down into two hours while actually again increasing her revenue, which is pretty nuts.
SPEAKER_01And is it the is it I imagine that the group sales call is a social proof element? It's like being at a seminar and someone goes go to the back of the room and the first person gets up, and the second person and all of a sudden everyone gets up because they're just being led by the pack. I imagine that happens on a group sales call as well, right? Someone puts their hand up and then right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the other thing is is the group. So think about this. Like if you walk through the mall and you look at where are their lines? Where are their lines in the mall? The lines are at Louis Vuitton, the lines are at Gucci, the lines are at the high-end designer stores, right? So when we see groups of people crowded waiting for products, it's a good signal that this is a premium product. And this is not just a like a kind of standard run-of-the-mill mass market offer. And so the beauty of it too is that it positions in a way that aligns more with ultra premium or luxury brands. Um, and and then as well, like when people are seeing that you're saying this to them, but to everybody else, it also adds this elevation of the like perceived truthfulness and the authority of what you're saying. Because now you are in a public forum with public accountability. So it's not like when you're one-on-one, and uh, you know, the everyone knows the old strategy session format where you ask them all the questions and it's like, oh, it sounds like this is your problem. They're like, Yeah, that is my problem. You're like, well, that's exactly what we solve. Good news. It's kind of like, well, maybe you're just telling me sweet nothings to get me in because this is what I want to hear. But when you say it publicly, that's not now in their mind. That goes completely out of the equation.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that is super interesting. And I imagine that we're gonna be working with you on that in the future to get that dialed in. And I imagine I imagine with an AI presenter, this will probably be automated at some point in the future.
SPEAKER_02I I mean it very well maybe. I don't know. Even just with if you get your stuff really tight, you could even do it with recordings too. Yeah, um, potentially. But but then you run into the territory of like, it's not a live webinar, so this is bullshit. So you kind of get back into that. But if it's if it's live, that's part of the fat the fascinating aspect is like they have opportunity for QA, so people hear the questions other people are answering and they're asking, and it just like it really changes the dynamic of the selling situation and it gives so so there's a really fascinating idea. Um, if you've read influence, I'm sure. And like if anyone's listening here has read influence, so basically in the book, he breaks it down to the six pillars of influence. You have reciprocity, likability, social proof, authority, commitment or consistency is what he calls it as well, and scarcity, right? So the beauty of this is that social proof and authority are what so if we actually break this down, at top of funnel, you use reciprocity and likability, which is why we give away lead magnets, which is why we give away free trainings, which is why we give you a free plus shipping book, because I'm giving you something of value and there's a reciprocity effect that's gonna occur, right? So top of funnel is generally reciprocity and likability, middle of funnel is where your sales argument's now built. And your sales argument is built around social proof and authority, and then bottom of funnel is all uh scarcity and then consistently consistency, right? And so the beauty of this is that it amplifies the social proof like crazy, it amplifies the authority like crazy because, as well, the other thing is when you're in a classroom, the person who is speaking is the one who has the authority, right? So the teacher's standing up in front and everybody sitting down looking at the teacher and the teacher speaking. So our brains, since we're young, are trained to elevate the status and authority of the person who's talking in the room like that. So it already elevates status and authority, which is crazy. And then now I'm able to engineer real scarcity and people, there's transparency in the supply-demand tension, and that allows people to see that and it forces them to go fast. So there's a really cool study actually they did where um they took college students and then they had sets of cookies. So they designed the experiment where they had red cookies and blue cookies. So when they had red cookies and blue cookies, and they would ask them to rate them on how favorable they were or how tasty they were. So when there were equal number of red cookies and blue cookies, they were about the same. When there were more red cookies than there were blue cookies, blue cookies were more desirable. When there were more blue cookies than red cookies, the red cookies became more desirable. But then they found something really fascinating occurred, which was, and this is where what you're talking about, like the selling from stage stuff, this is where this magic occurs, is that when they had equal number of red cookies and blue cookies, they had plants or paid actors in the study come take more of one of the types of cookies. So people started going crazy over the blue cookies, or people started going crazy over the red cookies. That created this insane frenzy and buying frenzy. So what happens is our brains can't handle seeing something as available and then watching it disappear. Which is like, if you think about COVID, what happened with toilet paper was it didn't even make any sense. Nobody knew why they were buying toilet paper, but they're like, I fucking have to have all this toilet paper, I just gotta load up. And we're like, we don't know why, but it's because of that exact phenomenon, right? There was a plentiful supply, and then all of a sudden we watch the plentiful supply start disappearing, and our brains can't handle the idea that maybe I won't be able to have this thing that used to be available. And that's a big part of what we're engineering inside of the process.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Epic. This is awesome, dude. I could literally spend weeks talking to you about this stuff. I love it, and I can honestly see how jazzed you are about it, and I think that's why we're super pleased to be a client of yours again. Um, for those of you, for those who want to like get to know you and take the conversation further and reach out and connect, where can people hang out with Mike Mark online?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the easiest bet is just literally Google Mike Mark and then I'll pop up. I own all page one. So you'll find me, you'll find all our assets. Uh, you could also check out coaching sales.com. That's a good hub. We we have some pretty epic stuff on YouTube. So a lot of people will go down the YouTube rabbit hole. They love that. Um, but yeah, if you just check out coaching sales.com or you Google Mike Mark, either one of those will plug you right into our ecosystem and you'll be able to really like go deeper in this rabbit hole with me.
SPEAKER_01Unreal. Love it. When's the next rap record coming out, dude?
SPEAKER_02That's a good question. Actually, we're coming up on the seven-year anniversary of when Flowers and Loafers was released. So we might be re-releasing it.
SPEAKER_01Unreal. Is it available online? Can people can can people go listen to it?
SPEAKER_02If so, if someone's like digs enough, they'll find it.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna dig. Fantastic. I love it. Hey, dude, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it, and it's great to hang. And it's been amazing to watch the sunset behind you as well. Uh yeah, it's very, very cool indeed. Uh, thanks for doing this, man, and uh look forward to hanging out again soon.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, guys. It's been a blast.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour podcast. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and be sure to share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. We'll definitely have Mike back on in the future. Until next time, I'm Troy Dean. Bye for now.