Mark de Grasse, CEO of MegaMad | Marketing With A Side Of Empathy

The only podcast you need for your business, let's do this. Welcome to the sales versus marketing podcast, I'm your host, Scott. Join me as we explore and demystify the latest trends, technologies and strategies used to achieve massive growth and 10x businesses. I'll be sitting down with sales, marketing and business leaders, dissect what's worked for them, dispel myths and deliver actionable insights that you can use to ensure repeatable, sustainable and predictable revenue in your business. Welcome to sales versus marketing. It's your host, Scott here and I'm super excited to be sitting down with the CEO of Mega Mad, websites and marketing, Mark DeGrasse. Mark is a serial entrepreneur, he exited his first company, he's successfully building a second company now, he's released several magazines, he has authored a book on conventional marketing, he is a long time and tenured content marketer, he focuses on messaging on brand and on getting things out there and just creating some noise for companies. So I'm going to let Mark take it away, we're going to speak a little bit about his past, his history and his experience, what's led him to where he is today. Then we're going to go into a little bit about what his company is doing and lastly we'll follow up with a little bit of his thoughts on the current marketing and sales landscape and what methodology best practices and insights he's seen over his long and obviously very successful career. So go ahead Mark, give us a little bit of a rundown of who you are. Sure, let's see, I kind of started in content marketing back in 2008. I want to say I had a gym in Orange County and I was actually interested in getting online. I needed something to sell and I had recently got back in shape so I got into the fitness industry with a friend at the time and we started selling equipment online. We were one of the first marketers of kettlebells back a million years ago. So we needed a marketing method and I didn't want to spend a bunch of money, I wanted to do it organically. So I found that the magazine actually made sense in terms of creating content and then also again, as much advertising as I want because I'd be the owner of the magazine. So we made a magazine, started publishing back in 2010, I want to say. And eventually I sold the magazine to audit labs here in Austin. I think that's 2014. I worked for them for about a year, I created their content base. And then I left wrote a book about the process called Uncomventional Marketing for Fitness Professionals and started basically implementing the system that I came up with for content marketing for other businesses. So since then we've created about 200 websites and brands for other businesses. And now I really try to educate my clients on the process of growing their own communities online organically. And then I also have a new magazine called WOMO. I'm a really big believer in practicing what you preach. And so if I'm trying to educate other people, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. If I wasn't doing what I talk about myself. That's good. No, that's smart. And I think that's something that not everybody takes the heart. So I think that's admirable for sure. When you were building up, when you were building up your initial business, were you fresh into marketing? Did you have any background? Were you just somebody who wanted to start a business? And this is the best way that he thought that he should do it. Because content marketing is obviously very popular now. You spoke about this in 2008. And obviously content marketing was not a new thing in 2008. But I don't think it was as prolific as it is now across social and all the different media outlets that you can push stuff out to. So how did you learn this or enable yourself to do this and obviously be successful? Let's see, I am an introvert. So my goal of getting everything online was so I wouldn't have to talk to anybody. And I became a designer and a content developer when I should have become a programmer. But that's in the past now and this is what I do. So I was basically trying to find out how I could not have to interact with people offline. So I started publishing content online. I'm like, oh, that'll be my interaction. So I got into fitness and fitness. I like the industry itself because there's so much content that you can create. So just in terms of raw information, you have exercises, workouts, workout plans, diet plans, recipes, tips. It's just unlimited. And on top of that, you know, all the studies actually contradict each other on what works and what doesn't work. So you could say anything you want and you'll have justification for it. Now, I'm not saying right a bunch of bad content, but it's, you know, it's not like a financial market where you have. It's not a polished regulated industry. It's really, it is kind of a wild west when it comes to what works and what doesn't. And you see that with all the different supplements and programs and everything out there, I guess. Exactly. Well, and it's not restricted. Like if you go into real estate or financial markets, you know, you have legal restrictions, things you can and can't say. And there's none of that in fitness. It is, it's just the wild west. So you could write unlimited amounts of content. And what I found was that you have to write unlimited amounts of content because if you're not answering a question, then. People or your potential customers are getting the answer somewhere else. So it's a, it's actually a requirement of being an online brand that you have to answer every single question. So that's kind of how I get into to that. And then what I realized was that you had a lot of fitness professionals that had tons of education, tons of content that they didn't know how to get out. So I found that if I could partner with them, then they could provide the content. I could promote the content and publish it in a way that people could find it. Then they get exposure for this business. I get the traffic, you know, it's a good, you know, cross promotional relationship. Yeah, it's like you're just tapping into a massive niche market that has huge potential and and it's not. It's just a lot of people aren't doing it properly. I guess if, you know, you have the big gyms and like the name brands, but I think that a lot of the independence may not, may not be as successful at doing like what you're saying, right? Like then there's some. Yeah. Well, and what you have with the big box is you have marketing teams creating the content. So you have people who one probably don't know as much as your average trainer. Yeah. They don't care, you know, and that's that's something I try to convince everybody of that. Even if you can do something, if you don't care about it, that's eventually going to resonate in your content. So you can't fake it or you could fake it maybe for a little bit, but in the long run, people realize how genuine you are art. And then that's going to hurt whatever effort you made in the past. So in order. That's a really valid point that's strong. Yeah. I mean, people, yeah, you get the whole thing until you make it, but it's like why why fake it? You know, life is a lot longer than people realize. And why would you waste a bunch of time doing something that you don't care about? You know, and you know, and just not doing it authentically. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and people, like I said, start to realize that. So even if you can make money and you could make it work, eventually it's going to fail. So, you know, it's kind of it's not argument against worrying about people stealing your content to or stealing your concepts and ideas. It just doesn't matter because the amount of time and effort it's going to take to make any concepts succeed is prohibited for somebody stealing it because they don't care about it. They didn't come up with it. So who cares? You know, it's it's almost like you just got to put your head down and just work. Incredibly hard. And then if you, if you persevere, if you do it, if you love it, if you're passionate, then yeah. And not just that because you can be passionate about something and not act on it. So, you know, I'm writing a new book. It's going to be called OMG just go. I've met so many entrepreneurs and people who are so passionate about what they do, but they are so afraid of publishing content that they do nothing. So they're the best at what they do, but nobody knows about it. And at the end of the day, if nobody knows about it, who cares? You're not, you're not making a difference. You're not affecting anybody. So what are you doing? And in the meantime, you might have some jerk off who doesn't really care, but is willing to put the work in. And now everybody is exposed to a bunch of bad information. And it's your fault because you didn't publish the good information. And how do you, how do you, how do you break people? Because I'm assuming part of your job, if you're dealing with these small businesses that are trying to, or you're trying to get them to understand the value of putting themselves out there. And putting this content out there, how do you get them to make that jump from nothing to starting? I guilt and harassment. That's kind of what I do. I try to say, well, I try to give them the tools to do it. I say, you know, you need to do it. Here's how to do it. And I give them, you know, custom tutorials to say, here's exactly what to do. And I try to get them started. So with the brands we develop, it's specifically built to be unifying their social media, you know, tasks along with their email marketing tasks, along with their website development tasks, which is all combined into one system, essentially. And then what we do is we create the graphics, we'll create the video projects, and then we'll show them how to do these things. And then at the end of the day, it's up to them to make the effort. And I probably have, I want to say 20% of my clients will make the effort and their businesses will grow and it'll work. It's just that the problem is that it's not the process is slow and boring for the part because you'll do all this work. And people get so excited about making the brand, they'll be like, I got my new logo, got my business card, got my new website. I'm so excited. And then after that is just, I call it the doldrums, whereas just you just hustle, you just do the work. And then six months from now, you'll start realizing, oh my gosh, people, this is resonated. I'm growing. And, you know, it's all I tend to compare fitness and marketing the same way, where it's like you got the best plan ever. But if you don't go to the gym and you don't eat the right food, it's just doesn't matter. Everybody's excited in January, but then a month later, nobody wants to go to the gym anymore. It's the same thing. So if you're not, if you're not consistent, obviously, you don't see the result. Because you can get awesome results. Everybody knows somebody who's like, oh my gosh, they started the keto diet plan. And 30 days later, they lost all this weight, they look great. And then 60 days later, they're back to normal. And so even if you get results, you know, it's like success. It's like everybody thinks success is, oh, I sold my company to whatever. And now I'm a success. And it's like, now success is just a series of events that continue forever. So you got to get the, I made it out of your mind because nobody's made it. You could have, you know, you see people on Shark Tank where it's like, oh, they got the deal. They're going to be successful. And then you wait a year and you look back to those people, you're like, what, what the hell happened? This. You got deal. Why aren't they success? Yeah. And it's like, no, that's like the start. And now you get to do the actual work. And then go through massive failures and keep on going. And how did you, because that's, that's something, yes, you're right. Like if that's something that you hear from a lot of entrepreneurs who have done it for a while and haven't just given up and like you've had a success and you've had multiple, you've probably had multiple successes. But you, you, you actually built something that was successful. And then now you're, you're sort of like starting again or not just recently. But I guess this thing that you're doing now with megamad and the new book. And you're not working for the company that you sold your, your first magazine to anymore. So you're doing it again. So how did you, first of all, how did you continue and how did you find the drive within yourself to continue being successful, even though there's so many failures along the way. And then what made you realize, like after you were that epitome of success, you wanted to start again. It was something like, this is your passion. You didn't want to just like rest relax outside of like financial right because like if you assume like, you know, you could have taken the foot out the gas for a bit. What made you want to go right into it again? Well, me, it was just necessary, I would say, I don't know, my wife and I, my wife is the owner of a nonprofit called special with a side of mom. And she was also, she, when I had sold my company, she actually started a new company. It was called Swank Baby. It was like a baby clothing boutique. And she grew it and sold it within nine months. And so we had, you know, we had both done it. You know, we both built these businesses and sold them. And then we realized that we just started again. You know, there's no stopping. It's kind of like, you know, when you see those, you've probably seen those articles about the Disney movie where it's like, what happens when, you know, after the happily ever after, what, what does that mean? And it doesn't really mean anything is what you realize as you start to mature, you're like, there's no stopping, you know, I've never met my father-in-law. He owns the jewelry exchange. Have you ever heard of the jewelry exchange? Yeah. The jewelry exchange and testing. They have the really annoying commercials. And he's been a business since the 80s and he has 25 stores. And he, you know, he's just nonstop. He just doesn't stop going ever. He is like unlimited energy. I don't even know how he does it. But he still keeps his business going. That's because you're doing what you love and it's driving you to keep going. Like that's the thing. He doesn't even love it. He's not like all about diamonds and jewels and jewelry. He's asking like, what's your business? He'll say my business is advertising because he came up with a method of advertising that worked. And then he came up with a system and he just kept on doing it. And he, you know, kept on working. There you go. But what you realize is that there's no stopping. You know, there's no magic income that you're going to get. It's going to continue forever. You know, nowadays, if you said somebody like, I'll give you a million dollars. Nobody would be like, hey, I'm taking the rest of my life off. No, no, no, no, I'm a million. So I'm in Toronto. I don't know what the prices or the cost of living is in Austin. But in Toronto, a million bucks isn't go very far anymore. Yeah, that'd be that'd be nice. Now I could, I don't know, put my third job. So let's, let's, I want to talk more about like what you're doing now. So we kind of have like an idea of like where you came from. I want to circle back. So I really want to understand you, you, this is the, you classified as a second company, really that you've built. I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah. My name is, this is brand and website development. So we do, you know, I try to get people started on the path of grind. So we do capabilities and designs that would probably usually cost five to 10 times as much. But I do it in a way that is systematic and allows people to get the, that kind of quality without spending 50 to 100,000 on other websites. And what I'm trying to do is make high end design accessible for small businesses so that they could do the work that actually needs to be done. Because love, you know, if you talk to small business owners, they think, oh, if I just had the sexy website or if I had the sexy branding, like that would just make it take off. And what I try to tell people is that, no, you could have that. And it just doesn't matter because what's going to make your business succeed at the end of the day is you hustling. You talking to people, you trying to sell whatever it is you're trying to sell. It's not about some magic system. There's no magic marketing method or equation that's going to make you successful. So it's just you doing more work than the next person. And that's like 99% of it. So, so my mission was trying to convince people that and they give them a leg up to skip the five to 10 years of education that I had to get to do what I do and say, hey, I'm just going to have you skip all this crap that I can do for you quickly. You could worry about talking to people and going out and selling things and all that kind of stuff. So that's my main business right now is that is developing brands and websites and then educating entrepreneurs to keep moving forward. And how did you, after like the first business, how did you build this, how did you build this one? And did you do something different to sort of scale it faster than the first time you started your own, your own thing or. Yeah, this one was a lot different because it's mainly built off of networking, personal networking. So what I found was that every, you know, if you're trying to compete in website design, you're competing with half the planet, you know, you're compete with all the people Asia and all the people. Yeah, you know, so there's just so many. There's a lot of people that build websites. Yes, well, on top of that, then you have the, oh, I have my son in college and he, you know, built my website. Oh, I used wicks and he is, you know, all these things and you're like, that's, that's a great point. So how do you differentiate in that? It's just personal networking. Yes, well, that's bar and trust, you know, it's, it is a lot of people have been burned, you know, because yes, I hired my son. He was in college and then he left and now my website. I don't know what's going on. And so people, people convinced them, especially older people, you know, 50 plus, they're like, no, I'm just not techie. And so I can't figure this out. And it's like, one, no one is techie. You know, the pace of development for online is so fast that there's no expert. You know, it's everybody's kind of just swimming right now. So drop the, I'm not techie because nobody is. Secondly, you don't have a choice. You know, a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I've made, I built my business over 30 years and I don't need, you know, the online crap. It's like, no, nowadays, if you don't have an online presence, you don't exist. You know, people just automatically assume, oh, I can't find your website. So you're out of business, right? And they might just be like, no, it just never did anything. So you literally have to now. And I think the pace of this kind of change, the shift to online information is just, you know, gain faster and faster. So businesses have to. You mentioned something that was really interesting. You mentioned that you built your second business through like your personal connections and just trust. And I think that like if you are in brand development, trust is so important. So this is definitely not on the script, but I really hope that you can sort of lend some insight into this. How does a brand that in such a noisy place like you're saying like everybody's on the web, obviously, how do they, how do they enable themselves to convey trust like through their messaging just through an online presence? That's hard. I don't, I don't know if you can, you know, well, I know how you can. You develop massive volume is content because I tried to help people that ideally your online presence is turning your website into a resource instead of a brochure. And so what I mean by that is that, you know, if somebody has found your brand, they know that they could go to you instead of Google to get the answer. So if you're, you know, you're educated, you're educated. Yeah, it's content marketing. So the only way that you could build the trust that you actually need to make a $10,000 sale by never meeting somebody is going to be by somebody constantly finding you online. So somebody's, oh, I'm trying to get website design and they keep on typing in questions and they see your website pop up for a lot of your question, a lot of the questions they have. Then they see your marketing after they read your content. And hey, I'll just hire this guy. I've already read his stuff 50 times, listen to his podcast, check those YouTube videos, whatever it is. This is the expert. I'm willing to talk to this person now. But in order to get to that point, you built up this organic trust by answering their questions 10,000 times. Wait, wait, before they even, they even speak to you really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I have people who contact me for articles that I wrote three or five years ago. Like, hey, I read this article and I'm seeing a blah, blah. And I was like, bye, I wrote that article a long time ago. And so, yeah, I think that's the only way to get around the personal connect personal face to face in person connection is by providing so much content that your expertise is undeniable, even to people who don't know you. No, it's strictly free. So that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a really good point. So when you're building out a strategy for a company to, to sort of elaborate and augment their online presence. Do you include any portion of paid or what is without going into like very, very specifics? What's your, what is your sort of like your go to market for a company that has no online like high level? Like what should, what are the boxes they should check? Well, I usually start there's one thing that you could do that every business should do is create one database of information. So if you're saying, okay, my website is going to be a resource what list of information can you provide that would be valuable to your potential customers. So for me, it could be a glossary of website terms, what is SEO, what is graphic design, what is, and then I just write the list, maybe it could just be words and I could just write a dictionary. And then, okay, this is the basis of my, you know, becoming a resource. And then from there, you're going to write tons of other content. Once you, once you start down the rabbit hole of, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to answer all my customers questions. Then it opens up to graphics and videos and tutorial. So yeah, so you're doing the research on what really matters to your customers. And that's like, that's where everything that you create is going to stem from these keywords that are important to your market. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we'll do an SEO analysis and say, okay, based on where you want to be and, you know, your target market here's 700 keyword phrases based on the 700 keyword phrases. Here's 12 that you should focus on. And of those 12, here's 12 topics that you could write about. And then we try to train you how to write the content and then publish it in a way that people can actually find it. And then it's really about growing your, I call it privatizing your following. So instead of trying to push Facebook or push LinkedIn or push YouTube, you're pushing your community through primarily email marketing. The more that, you know, in terms of privatizing your following, you have email marketing, which is the, the cheap easy way. And then you have the portal creation where you're actually becoming the Facebook of whatever. That's a long and expensive process. So I usually say just laid on email marketing, just build up a list. If you have a list of, you know, 200,000 opt in subscribers, you could be making millions of dollars for decades. Yeah, just on that. You don't even have to do the other complicated stuff. You could just, you know, have your email list, publishing educational content, and then selling related services and products. So for me, if I have 50,000 small business owners, I could be, okay, hey, I'm writing a book by my book. Hey, launching a new service sign up for the service and so and so forth. What are your thoughts? Because you're speaking about a business branding themselves. What are your thoughts about individuals social selling? So like the executives or the CEO of the company, do you do work with them to replicate efforts on like building a brand around yourself? Not usually I work with a couple of politicians that are, you know, that's very personal branding based. But for the most part, it's small business. Is it like the same, but in your opinion, would it be the same type of strategy if somebody was trying to build like their own personal brand as opposed to businesses brand? Yeah, yeah, it's all it's all the same. You know, you're trying to, you know, become the expert in a certain space. And so to become the expert and if you don't want your potential customers going somewhere else to get the information, you have to provide all the information. So, so usually it's the same process right a list of your FAQs. What do you get asked the most, write the answers, publish the content. Like it's it's not complicated. It's almost so simple that people don't trust it because they think like, oh no, I read this book and it's all about the blah blah blah method. Yeah, it's just answer questions. I think that I think that marking marketing gets very convoluted very quickly because of the like the over abundance of resources that aren't so succinct into the point. Like your method that you go into business is very, very clear to understand. It's very easy to understand. But I think that like marketing as a whole, especially for a small business owner, it's like, where do you even start? You know, yeah, well, and it's easy. Well, and the problem is that the marketing people don't want you to think like, oh, you just publish the content. They want to think like, oh, you need to do it right. And we are the only ones that can do it right for you. Like for you hire us follow blah blah sign up for the 12 month contract that costs tens of thousands dollars, which you're going to be disappointed with at the end of the year, but who cares. We just made $100,000. So no, that is a good point. So that brings me to the next point that I wanted to run by you. What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you deal with in terms of what people understand about what marketing is? I think it's that, you know, in terms of content, it's that if the question has been answered by somebody else, you shouldn't or don't have to answer it yourself. And the fact of the matter is, again, if you're not answering the question, people are going to your competitor. So you, there's no content that you can't produce because you literally have to, if you're going to be the expert for your customer base. Number two is that there's some magic system or something that's going to work for your business. And if you could just get a hold of that magic system, it would work. And the fact of matter is it's no, the only method that's going to work and just like fitness, the only method that works is the one that works for you. So it's always custom and it's always specific for your business because your business is unique and you are unique. And, you know, even if something, you know, like dieting or a training method, even if that worked for 20 other people, it might not necessarily work for you because, you know, there's all these factors. There's emotional factors and there's motivational factors and relational factors and all that kind of stuff. So what you have to realize is that it's just about experimenting and figuring out your system because that's the only one that's going to work. And then follow up to that. So you have to miss what what is the practice that you see in in marketing that you wish would stop right away that you like the worst habits that you see people do. It could be from the business owner side. It could be from the agency side. I'm just curious what you hate. I hate when people have too many brands. So why try to tell people is it's hard enough to make one brand work and somebody's like, no, I have all these different ideas. So I need to brand each one and that's like, okay, you're giving no attention to any of them and they're all going to fail. No matter what, they're just going to fail. So I'd say not focusing on a single avenue or single brand is one of the bigger biggest one. And then the second biggest one is probably thinking that it's the brand designs fault that you're not successful. So somebody might be like, oh, my logo's ugly. That's why people aren't buying my products. And it's like, no, that has I my original company was I built on I think geocities and it made 10 to $15,000 a month. And I didn't know anything. So it was really ugly. I was hustling and doing the work and publishing the content. And it had nothing to do with the design that it was working. It just had to do that. I was hustling and constantly posting content. So I think that's that's the other big one that that's some magic designer is going to come out of the works and it's going to be beautiful. And that's going to make your company successful. It doesn't branding matters, you know, it's a part of the sales process. But at the end of the day, if you're not doing the work, it's just impossible. It's just not going to work ever like ever. You got to realize that it's just about the work and it's about the time and it's about the getting things done forever that matters. That's what people are so they get so mad at other entrepreneurs like, oh, this idiot, his stuff sucks. And that, you know, I hate when he produces and blah, blah, it's like he has two million subscribers. So who's winning? Yeah, no, it's true. No, you're 100% right? Okay, so that's good. That's good. I want to just to wrap this up. I want to go back to what you've gone through in terms of your entrepreneurial journey. Because this this podcast is not particularly meant for entrepreneurs, but I really do feel that a lot of things that entrepreneurs go through. I think people that work for companies should have gone through or should understand how to persevere like an entrepreneur would just because I think that somebody in a company. If it's a very large company, they may not experience the amount of stress and struggle that an entrepreneur would, but I think if they did, they would be farther along in their career. And that's just my personal opinion. So I do, I do believe that there's something that comes out of something really, really good that comes out of building your own thing and either failing. I think you probably learn more if you fail or succeeding obviously. So to segue in your career, your biggest challenge. What was what was it? It could have been something that you could have been like an impact on your personal life could have been like a business process or a milestone that you couldn't achieve like something like that. Oh, for me, I mean, I had two sons and they were born 10 months apart, which was hard. And then my my second son was calling for six months. And it's kind of funny because if you haven't had kids, then then people are like kids are so hard and you're like, I'm sure it's not that bad. And then they're like, oh, my God, it's so hard and it's so tiring. And and so I think, you know, the struggle that I had always kind of relates back to energy. So you think like, you know, when you're in your 20s and you're getting started, you're always motivated, you always have energy and you always have time to get things done. And so I think, you know, if you're talking to young people, it's you are never going to have more energy than you have right now. So hustle because it's going to end when you hit 30. How do you how do you maintain that though? That's that's good points. How do you how do you keep going? Well, for for this year, well, I'll just back to the big milestone was having kids because I had kids really close together. And then I, my second son is severely autistic. So he is nonverbal and he's seven. And so we've dealt with therapies and fights with schools, you know, and it's just been hard. And so then and then not sleeping for years that helps you. But back to energy, what I did was I, you know, this year, I kind of made big change. So I gave up alcohol on January 1st. Congratulations, that stuff. Yeah, I was, well, I think I was trying to think of what, what could I do that could increase my energy right now without changing that much. And so I'm like, oh, give up alcohol. I'll have more energy at night. I won't have any recovery period ever. And there you go. And so that kind of led me down the path to like, how do I get more energy? So then I started fasting three months ago. And now I don't eat 18 hours a day. So that was another energy, you know, that's such a fitness thing to the intermittent fasting. Yeah, well, I kind of went through. I'm like, okay, well, now I could, you know, if I could use this discipline to get more energy, what else can I do? Yeah. And so I've got to implement all these things that are just energy focused. So then you get into nutrition and you get into sleep and you get into all these things. And you start to realize like, you know, if you're not physically fit, then you can't expect anything else to work. You're not even in control of this one thing, your body, that you have any control over. Yeah. You know, it's the one thing you can change. So how do you, if you can't control your body, how do you build a business? How do you do your, anything really? Well, some people just have unlimited energy, like my father-in-law, he'd like literally walks fast everywhere. He had metastasized cancer in his back. You know, this was 20 years ago. He had a 5% chance of surviving. And he did. And he just keeps on moving fast through everything. It's just so that's crazy. It's just knowing, you know, groups of these rich men, essentially, that we were, when we were in California, we were kind of surrounded by, you know, these successful wealthy people. And what I started to realize was it's all about just energy and work. Yeah. You know, it's my father, my father. He's been for my entire life. He got up at four in the morning to go to work. And then he'd come home at six every day. And that was just his life for my entire life. And so I started to realize it's not just about, you know, there's no magic system or bullet or whatever that's going to make up for energy and the amount of work you do. So you need to figure out how to get those things. That's, that's damn good advice because I don't think a lot of people take that as serious as they should. And it's just numbers. You know, if you think about like, so I've been, I get up at like 4 30 every day. And I tried again, the office by five. And then I, because I never know what's going to happen in the afternoon because of kids. Yeah, it might be, oh, you got to run a, you know, go to the baseball game or go pick them up from school or therapy or whatever it is. But I can control the first three, four hours of the morning. And so if you say, if I'm, if I get three hours extra of work in every day. Over the week, I'm getting 15 to 20 extra hours of work in over the four. So it's just a, if you ever look at how they get so much done. It's like because they're just working. You can't make more time, but you could, you know, you can properly use the time you have. Yeah. Well, there's like the 10th Ferris book. I'm sure you're at the four hour work week where he's like, I only work four hours a week. It's like, fuck you, dude. You were a millionaire already. Like you did not work four hours a week to become a millionaire. You became a millionaire. Now you work four hours a week. Like that's. There's this misconception of listening to to Warren Buffett about financial advice. Yes. Yeah. Oh, he's a billionaire that doesn't own a computer because he has a building full of MBAs. Like that, you can't compare your finances to that. He doesn't, he can't even relate to you anymore. So why are you taking advice from him? That's good. That's very good. And that's that's valid too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just hustle. There's no, you know, there's no magic thing that's going to make up for that. So it's hard because everybody wants to think that there's some magic bullet like, oh, it's just going to happen. And then I'm going to be rich and successful and happy and blah, blah. It's like, no. You know, one, it's a constant thing, you know, and I think in terms of cycles. So like personally, I have, you know, just this thought of my mind of like every seven years, every selling your body, you know, is reproduced. Right. So if you think of yourself in terms of cycles, like a program, you know, I'm 36. So I'm in my fifth cycle. So, you know, you're coming up on the six cycle seven cycle. And so you, you know, if you think in terms of this, how far have you achieved in each version of yourself. Yeah. Then it gives you some, some perception of, okay, are you successful or not. Yeah. But it's all a cycle. You're going to, you're going to fail. Nobody likes to hear that. But, you know, it's just, it's part of it. It is part of it. And I think that's what separates, right? It's people that fail a lot, but they, they're still doing. Well, I think if you, if you acknowledge it and acknowledge that it's just part of the process, then you don't get down on yourself so much because that kind of guilt will ruin your, it'll ruin your energy, which goes back to the energy point. I think you made the one, one thing you said earlier, life is long. That's, that's very, very powerful. Well, people, there's all the whole yellow movement where you're like, oh, you just got to do it now. And I'm going to fuck everything up. It's like, no, you, you might live for another 50 years. Yeah. Chill. Relax. Take your time. Well, not, but then there's the, the other side of it where it's like, you have people like, I'm just going to party and call it. So not take your time in a bad way, but patience. Yes, yeah, it's, you know, every, you don't have to worry about the next 30 days because, you know, you got 30 years. Yeah, think of it. And again, I always really back to fitness where it's like, yeah, you know, you could go to the gym and you could kill yourself trying to, to hit new PRs all the time. It's like, who gives a crap? If you get a lot of 500 pounds today, if you're jacking up all your crap, and at five years, you could be in a wheelchair because you have f'd up your joints so bad. Yeah. So, so it's about, you know, longevity too, we're thinking like, yeah, I want to be in shape, but am I just doing this because my ego requires me to be, you know, hardcore. Yeah, or look a certain way or yeah, so. Well, I talked to a bunch of, you know, old bodybuilders, like Fairfax Haxley is one of the guys that made the original Arnold expo. And he was talking about that. He's like, yeah, I was in the 70s of one of the big bodybuilder guys, big giants, and he's just like, I hurt every day. I'm in pain all the time. And I'm just like, well, that sucks. Well, you think, you know, these people are working all the time. And then it's like, well, as you're going to be in pain all the time, that's. That's no way to live. That's no way to live. All right. Last last question I want to ask, I think this one is a good one. And you've kind of already covered it, but I'll ask it again. You could tell your 20 year old self one thing or things, what would it be? My mind is a little unique, but I'm sure a lot of people would say it. Don't get married until you're 30. What? Why is that? I saw everything. Well, I got married to my high school sweetheart. And so I was with her from 17 to 27. And so I wasted 10 years, 10 prime years. So yeah, that's what I was saying. Don't get married until the third. You don't know anything. You're not even fully developed at that point. Just chill. You know, just take it easy. You don't have to rush into all this stuff, especially nowadays. I mean, there's so many things you could do into your 30s or just marry a 20 year old if you're so concerned about. Yeah. I mean, kids in your 30s. Anyways, just don't get married until you're 30. That that mess with your like your career, your your life to us. Oh, when I when that happened when I got divorced, I imploded like everything fell apart. My entire perception of everything was just just it died. Like I died when that happened because I had this perception of structure and work and all these things I kind of talk about now. It's a little looser than it used to be, but in my early 20s, I had this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to grow a business and sell it. I'm going to just I'm going to get married. I'm going to buy my property and that's going to work. And then I'm going to end. And there was very, you know, systemized. Yeah. Then when that happened and I realized what had happened, everything just went out the window. And so, you know, my religion was hurt. My all my my core principles were decimated. Like I just fell apart. And so it took years to recover from that. And, you know, I think only recently, you know, that was was 27. I was 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're recently like, OK, I think I think I'm better now. But that's yeah, it's that that's part of the failure part. We're just like, yeah. You know, it's just part of the process. So now I have a wife. I love. I have two kids. We have a house. We have all these things. But I think, you know, at that point, my my perception of I could predict the future is gone. Yeah. So what it became now is what skills can you build that will help you, you know, live. And it has nothing to do with like, I'm going to get to this point because the point so that goals are good. But if you have goals, they're so strict that they they're not flexible enough to adjust your life circumstances, then you're just going to. You're setting yourself up for failure. Well, yeah. And when that failure happens, it's going to be hugely detrimental. Like it's like somebody who's riding on like this one sale. If I could just get this one sale and then everything will be fixed. And then that sale doesn't happen. And you have no other plan. It's like, yeah, crap. That was everything. I don't know what to do next. That actually happened to me too, because I work for a startup after I went to college. And I was trying to get the company sold for like a year, you know, I was the CFO. And so I was pushing to get the company sold and we had meetings and then it didn't happen. And it was like, crap, I'm miserable. Yeah. You know, I was betting everything on this and now it didn't happen. And what do I do now? And so yeah. That's good. That's that's that's good advice. That's really good advice. But you get away from burn the ships, the whole burn the ships. It's like, you know what? That didn't even happen in history. They didn't burn ships. And on top of the fact they could just build ships. That's what they did. You top down trees and build ships. So I think it's, you know, there's these sound bites and marketing that people just latch on to. And then it just gets rid of logic. And so avoid that. Avoid sexy marketing pitches. Not my sexy marketing pitches. But the cheesy ones. The cheesy ones that don't last. Yeah. Just take over the great assault and realize that somebody's trying to sell you something. Yeah. Yeah. Not smart. Okay. For people listening, where do you go? So you can either answer one or two or both. Either like a mentor that you listen to or learn from or somebody that you would go. If like somebody who you respect, like not like not like a, you know, like I don't want to name names. But there's some, there's some people out there that are gurus that I'm not a huge fan of. So people that are really strong leaders that you look up to and they produce some content that you find. Or you'd suggest people should go check out or like a book or a podcast or something. You know, you can plug your own book, of course, but other, other stuff that you go to learn from. You know what? I'm kind of a scatterbrain follower. So I don't actually follow anybody specific. I put on TED Talks and I let them run. I have a Pinterest board that I created. And again, it's never, it's never anybody specific. I, everything I do is based on what people have produced in the past. It has, it's not, I'm not following other people's principles because who knows what they're saying when they say this is my principle. So I go by people's actions. You know, it's kind of, it's how I judge people in general because the, every, you know, you have these people are awesome sales people. And they'll sell you on a concept because it's beneficial for them. And who, you know, who knows what's actually good for. So I try to rely on something done. So it's all projects. Yeah. No, that's fair. Is there anything that I didn't cover that, uh, that you wanted to speak about? We can, um, I don't know. I work with a lot of nonprofits of my wife. She has special with a side of mom is what it's called. And we advocate for special needs inclusion. So the, the message is basically that you include people who are different. So autism or Down syndrome or, uh, sort of, uh, cerebral palsy. Then the kids or the community will benefit in turn. So it's a, um, that's a really nice cause. That's a, that's a good cause. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it's beneficial for everybody. So I try not to be, cause a lot of charities are like, give me money. I don't know what to do with the money. Yeah. So it's like, I did that with everything. So my magazine, WOMO, uh, magazine workout more often. Um, it used to be called mad fit magazine, which is very hardcore. Kind of harsh masculine looking magazine. And so now what we've done and, and you can see the cover here is just my example of it. Where it's light, bright. Yeah. You know, it has a consistent message. It's blue. It's inviting. So everything I do, I'm trying to be more inclusive. Like, hey, let's just, you know, before I was discriminating against half the population of the planet. Let's bring that side in. You know, that's, that's not good. Yeah. So I said, it's definitely right that businesses I work with where I say, hey, you know, how can you include everyone into your messaging? Yeah. No, that's good. Um, and then if people want to connect with you, uh, can they, uh, and if they can, where can they reach you? Yeah. So my, um, I have my, my personal website is marketgrass.com. And then I have my, uh, my primary website is make a mad websites.com. Um, I'm online. I, you know, do some stuff. I disappear from social media. It's not, it's not good. But I'll disappear for like months of time because I'm busy and I'm an introvert. So I don't actually like doing it. But if they want to connect the, the Facebook or just look me up, I'm, I'm all over the place. Awesome. So thanks again for joining us. Mark on the sales versus marketing podcast. If you want more sales versus marketing, go to www.ROIOverload.com. And you can check out this podcast and more on YouTube or wherever you can download podcasts. So now time for my favorite part of the podcast. Scott's thoughts where we go into a little bit of a explanation as to what Mark spoke about and why it's so important for your business and for your success. So Mark spoke about a couple different things and they all, they're all great, uh, little knowledge nuggets. But what really stood out to me was Mark's over emphasis on companies creating quality content and making noise in the space. But most importantly, he was focused on just getting companies started. And I see this quite a bit all the way up to Fortune 500 and large enterprise where their true content creation and content marketing strategy is not on par and can be rivaled by some very small agile companies in terms of the quality and volume of content that I've seen created. So this is interesting for two reasons. First of all, if you are a marketer and you're working for a large company and you're more focused on PR events and you're more focused on perhaps traditional outbound techniques and you're not as heavily focused on on actual social media content or even writing significant content on your website. And obviously optimizing that content with keywords for SEO to help drive traffic to your website. At any, at any level of a business, this is extremely important and this is obviously a very small tool in the marketers arsenal to be able to successfully create quality content and scale that content while maintaining quality. That's important. So obviously you're trying to create this quality content. But what would market alluded to and what he had discussed was not only just creating garbage content, creating good quality content, creating educational content and repeatedly creating that content. And this is the way that he has seen businesses and this is what he actually delivers the businesses. He has seen businesses be very successful just through focusing on creating this quality content and he also he drives a really good point home. This is something that you can't always pay someone outside your firm to do. So obviously if you're a larger organization, you'll have these resources in house. But if you are a small to midsize and you are hiring a marketing firm to complete this work for you, just know that they don't have the same perspective as somebody internal to your company would. And that authenticity and that perspective on on your business, on your industry, on your niche is so important. It's something that really can't be replicated for any significant period of time. So the takeaway with this is that if you do have or if you are embarking with a significant content marketing strategy, which you should be don't put out garbage, put out quality and you have to find a way to maintain that regardless of whether or not it's internal. If it's a smaller company, maybe it's the executive team that's putting this out or helping create it or it's hiring somebody who understands the brand, the voice, the mission of the company intimately. And somebody also who is passionate about this. So that is something that obviously obviously you can you can bring from within your own company. And it's something that you really have to be careful about because it's something that you can't really teach over you can't teach passion and you can't and what he's what he's found through working with different types of companies is that it is truly the people that are most passionate about their brand about their company. If they have a hand in creating this content, then it he has found that it's been the most successful. So that's a great point. And on a more entrepreneurial level, if you are a small business starting out, which those are those are the majority of the companies that Mark sells into. So if you're a small business starting out, this is even more integral to get your name out there and you have the opportunity because you are starting fresh to do things right from the get go. So keep that in mind and do be authentic and do be trustworthy and make sure that your content is educational and make sure that your content is something that the people your potential clients really want to read and can really help drive their business and answer their problems and solve their pain points because that's going to lend cadence to obviously all your sales efforts. Another thing that Mark brought up, which is really important outside the context of of marketing and this is just life and and being being a really strong professional in general is he spoke about managing energy and being aware of energy. And one thing that he gave up, he gave up one of his vices recently, he gave up drinking, which he he attributed to increased energy levels. And that's one way to do it. There's many ways to do it and there's many ways that people unfortunately fail and they don't really take consideration of their body when it comes to managing their their stress levels and managing their energy levels and really just understanding the cadence of their body. And Mark is in tune with this because he has worked in the fitness industry. So he's very in tune with his body and he's obviously worked with a group of individuals that are also, but this is a lesson that very much transposes outside of fitness and is something that any professional has to do in our go-go-go society, you know, in our hustle 24-7 365, no rest type of mentality or society that we find ourselves in with a lot of young professionals and young entrepreneurs. It's very important to understand how to maintain that pace for a long term as opposed to just a short term because like he mentioned life is long and we have to find a way to maintain energy levels throughout the entirety of our career. And if we don't find a way to manage that early on and we burn out, that's going to be detrimental to obviously our success and our our personal health and well-being. So find out what works best for you. Find out if there's vices that aren't so healthy that are inhibiting your professional growth and understand that they may not be today. But as you continue to live your life and as you continue to grow life is long and you want to maintain those energy levels in perpetuity because there is no stopping. There's always something else to do. There's always another milestone to achieve. So those are two great two great lessons from Mark. But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode of sales versus marketing. As always, if you haven't already hit like, hit subscribe. This podcast is available wherever you can download podcasts and it's also available on YouTube and always leave some feedback. Let me know if you like the episode. Let me know if you like the content and let me know you'd like to hear about it next time. Cheers. Bye.