EP200: Marketing, Millions & Mind Games – Why Your Own Thinking is Killing Your Growth

Welcome to the Making of a dm. Is your identity holding you back? I'm going to also dive into some marketing strategies. Not only that, I'm going to share with you some massive anxiety I've been having and more importantly, what I'm doing about it. So with that said, let's get started.

There ain't no question. Mark Evans, when he stepping it down, he's closing deals. Time to tell him what the DM stand for. I'm a deal maker. A deal maker. But I'm not just a deal maker, I'm a dream maker.

Hey there, it's your boy, Mark Evans, dm. Welcome to another Making of a DM podcast show. That's right, you are the deal maker and dream maker of your life. As I'm sitting here talking to you from the 32nd floor in Melbourne, Australia. I don't remember what day we are but like day 27 or day 28 of the 60th day trip around the world, country, America and international, who knows. A lot going on, a lot to share with you today. But I want to say thank you guys so much for all the shares content that you guys are doing on social media, sharing the show, sharing it on your podcast show, sharing in your emails to your audience as well as just posting on social media and tagging me. I really do appreciate it and thank you for all the five star reviews on whatever platform you're listening to. It's really cool to see. Recently I brought in someone from a, I hired another individual, six figure individual come in the company to really help us bring more value to you. I know this is a podcast show and it's 100% free for you to be here but it does cost a lot of money and time and energy for us to do this. The truth is it's seven in the morning here. Today's Thursday my time, probably Wednesday your time when you're listening to this because I'm 15 hours ahead of east coast time right now. But I do this because I genuinely care and I want to help people that want to help themselves. And that's you, you listening to the show. I'm going to talk about some stuff today about marketing, about mindset as well as about some anxiety that goes on with traveling like I'm doing because it is real and it's, it could actually be very devastating. Catastrophic actually, depending what how you handle it. But I'll go ahead and get started on some marketing stuff as I'm sitting here in Melbourne thinking about Melbourne marketing because they have the F1 going on the formula race car driving stuff going on and at the hotel, I'm staying at the hotel. All the F1 race car drivers are here. Like Lewis Hamilton, I'm not big enough once I don't really know who these guys are, but we're down, down at the club level having breakfast with the kids and he's there all the, you know, bunch of different people that are racers. So the big top 10, top 20 race car drivers just hanging out, chilling, doing their thing with their managers and their families and you know, just getting ready for a big race this weekend, which is always exciting and I don't have to be a big F1 formula race car driver, you know, person that likes it. But I do respect and appreciate all the effort that these individuals have given to their life and I understand what a dedication it takes to be away from their family, not to be able to hang out with their friends while they're driving, learning how to shave milliseconds off per, per turn around the track and all that stuff. So it's always awesome to be around high level performers. The truth is these guys are the best of the best, right? These are the top 20ish guys in the racing industry in the world, by the way. The world, right? So it's neat to see and to give people props where props are earned. I mean it's, they earned it and it's really neat. And I, you know, as I'm sitting there with my, my kid, my daughter, my son, you know, we talk about this kind of stuff at breakfast. Like, you know, listen, this individual, he's, you know, he's 40 years old now, but he's been racing since he's six. Yes. He's worth a half a bill. Yes. This is what's going on, this is what they do. But again, they're still showing up, they're still dedicated, they're still going to lose, they're still going to win. Like all this stuff goes on, right? So that's one thing as entrepreneurs and people that want to be big, you know, big winners in life is there's no. The end game for us is death. That's it. And as I'm traveling, like I said, Day 27, Day 28. Being in Melbourne two days ago, I had a lot of anxiety. Literally. I was joking with my team, I was like, I want to jump off the bridge. And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I love what I get to do. I love it. I love it when it's hard I love it when it's easy. I just love it. I love getting ready to do a podcast show to talk to you guys. I love having the team meetings. I love the challenges that come with business. Like, I'm in the game of business. I enjoy it. And the truth is, the harder it is, the more I enjoy it. Why? Because I know for a fact hard is where people quit. Hard is where people get distracted. Hard is where things break. Right? That's. That's where people just, like, start collapsing and breaking. That's when I get excited, I get calm, I get very focused, and I, you know, I bring the team together and we really drive as a team. So hard to me is not a bad thing. Hard to me is that I'm on the right track and things are working. So, you know, depending where you're at in the season of the game of business, you may or may not understand what I just said, but what I'm saying, again, just to be clear, is it's supposed to be hard. Who said it was supposed to be easy? Right? And I'm traveling and, you know, I got my family here. Obviously, it's awesome, but I can see the city where I live. I can see the beach where I live. I can jump on a plane and be anywhere where I want to be. Like, kind of thing, right, Whatever. But the biggest thing about being in Australia is, like, we're so far in advance, 15 hours ahead. And when communicating with the team, like, you know, the getting better communication, timelier communication, right? Because I only have several hours a day when they're around because I'm sleeping. Today I was up at 2am because I had DM Family and DM alliance calls going on noon and 2pm East coast time. So it's like a lot of different time changes, but the truth is that, like, I don't hate it. I've made a commitment to show up to those calls, and I'll show up. I don't care if it's inconvenient or not. It's what I committed to do. And a lot of people are looking for the convenience factor. A lot of people think things should be easy, and easy is all relative. Convenience, definitely. Entrepreneurship's never been convenient for me, and it never will be. It's just a thing. It's what we do. And until you realize that you're different, you're going to feel like you are different because you are. It's kind of that weird thing. One of my biggest podcast shows is talking about being a black sheep. We are black sheeps in the game of life. So as I sit here thinking about that, I just want you to know is like, yes, maybe you're following me on social media and you're like, oh, my God, I can't wait to do that. I think all of you should. I think all of you should go travel for a long sense of time, get out of your, your little pocket, your little zip code, your little state, your little country, and realize how big the world is and how much wealth. There's so much wealth everywhere. Like, it's wild. And as I'm talking to you, there's probably 15, 20 different cranes of all sizes building massive, large structures. I'm in this beautiful city of Melbourne right on the water, right off the water. It's just really neat to see the production and opportunities available to all of us. So don't think there's a limited opportunity because the limitations are literally in the brain. And that brings me to the next point. Identity. As I'm talking to you, we all have this identity and about ourselves. Are you fat? Are you skinny? Are you ripped? Are you healthy? Are you unhealthy? Are you lucky? Are you not lucky? Are you rich? Are you not rich? Are you wealthy or you're not wealthy, Are you thankful? Are you not thankful? Like all these things, right? And I, when I talk to people about, like, you know, certain things, like I don't change people's financial trajectory. I change people's identity and their identity changes their financial trajectory. Ultimately, I can't teach a poor man how to be rich if they're poor. Mindset. I just can't do it. No matter how hard I show them, no matter if I even do it with them, right? Kind of like the lottery mentality. If you give a poor man a lottery ticket and they win, they, they're still going to be poor. It's just a matter of time now. They just have money for a moment, but it's going to be poor in the future. It's just how it works. You don't have to believe me. These are all statistics. These are all facts. This happens with athletes. This happens with anybody with the poor mindset or improper mindset. They don't, they just don't have the skill sets to manage this identity change, right? So I've been very conscious over the 29 years of changing my identity. I grew up small town, Ohio, hillbilly kid, you know, grew up in a trailer till I was 10. My parents live in the same house. I still lived. I grew up in and just understanding what it takes to be successful for me. And I remember when a hundred thousand dollars used to be a lot of money. That was my identity. My identity was, I can't wait to make 100 grand, I'd be rich. And then my identity changed to a million, then my identity changed to 5 million a year, then my identity changed to 10 million a year, etc. Right? It keeps changing and evolving. And until you actually understand that and believe it and learn about it and understand what it takes, like for example, you could say your Identity is at $10 million a year. But all your actions, all your conversations, all your thoughts, all your emotions are tied to $500,000 a year. You're going to be very frustrated because you're never going to be able to get past the half a million. Maybe you'll hit a million once in a while, but you're never going to get that 10 million mark because your, your emotions are too wrapped up in the half million dollar. Your identity, that's your identity, right? So when I'm doing a yacht trip or whatever, when I sit on a yacht and talk to individuals or the jet or whatever we've done, I always ask a question. I'm like, what do you do? And they always say the same thing. It's like, I'm a real estate investor, I'm a blue collar business owner. I'm the, it's like, dude, you're so much more than that. Right? Let's get this out of the way. That's what you, that's what you're, you do as a. But, but again, like us entrepreneurs, we wrap ourselves, identity into the thing we do. But the truth is we're so much more than that. We're great human beings, we're great givers, we're big doers, we're big dreamers, we're big talkers, we're big action takers, right? We do a lot of cool stuff and we don't give ourselves enough credit, truthfully. But with this identity piece, if the identity is stuck on a half million dollar, your life in your brain, but yet you think that's a big thing. And it may be for you at that moment. But is that where you want to stay or is that where you just, that's just a pit, that's just a, a checkpoint in the process, right? If you're on a journey, right? So is it stage three of the stage 20 that you're going to live in your life? Because. Right, because you got to make a half million before you Make a million before you make 10 million. Etc, that's cool. As long as you're aware of that journey. Because identity. You have to constantly work on your identity restructuring, right? Like, what do I like? What don't I like? How much is big? What does big look like? How much is giving? Am I thinking about giving at this season of life? Am I going to give more this year than I gave last year? Right. These are different. Identity. I remember when I gave my first hundred thousand dollar donation, I literally was dry heaving. I was sick to my stomach. But I knew I had to change my identity of giving. Why? Because if I want to give billion dollars away in my lifetime, I got to give $100,000 away eventually. Why not do it now, right? So I had to change my identity to now. Giving a hundred thousand dollars is not like, oh my God, it's the end of the world. It's like, it's part of my identity. I've done it. I know what it feels like. I like the feeling of what it creates and the outcome it can create. So I want to, I get more excited about how to do more of that. And the way I got to do that is I got to generate more revenue. And then you start forcing the revenue and I start creating more opportunities. I start letting go of different things and start focusing on bigger things. It all kind of like folds together. It's like, oh, I'm a firefighter in my business because I put out fires every day. I always say, well, you're probably an arsonist. If there's fires in your business every day, there shouldn't be fires every day. There should be situations. But these aren't fires, these aren't fire drills. This doesn't require you most of the time because a lot of the stuff is small, Mickey Mouse stuff. I get it has to be dealt with, but who says it has to be dealt with by you? In the beginning it does. But if you're 10, 12, 20, 30 years deep and you're still dealing with the same BS all the time, well, you haven't changed your identity of what you're really worth. You're, you're worth so much more and your upside is so much bigger, right? So change your identity, change your outcome, change your life. What is your identity today? You have an identity crisis. I see it every day when I'm talking to an individual, like, dude, I'm the biggest investor in my town. I'm like, cool, but you only made 500 grand. I know people that make that a day, a week. A month in your town and you're telling me you're the biggest? That's the identity you've given yourself to protect your ego. Because I know you ain't the biggest. You don't have to believe me. Let's call 10 title companies, let's call 10 brokers, real estate brokers, let's call 10 investors. Let's see if they even know who you are. The answer is the majority would never know who you are because we're really not that important. But as we scale up and get bigger, you know, like, are you big in the single family space? Are you big in the commercial space? Are you big in the high rise space? Where do you big at? There's different levels in the game. And I'm not saying one's right or wrong, I'm just saying there's bigger levels. If you're doing 10 deals a month, someone's on a hundred. If someone's on 100, someone's on a thousand. You say, oh, no, one's on a thou. I know people doing 10,000 deals a week a month in real estate. They're called funds, they're called big corporations. Right? You just don't know how they exist and you don't know how they're chopped up. You, you don't know their entities. You don't, because you're not thinking about that yet. Don't have identity exposure to it. I have exposure to it. I know some of the biggest guys that have bought tens of thousand, over a hundred thousand deals in the last 24 months, right? And they're trading constantly, all the time at mass. Billions and billions of dollars in your backyard, probably, right? And that's just real estate. That doesn't count everything else going on in our world. You know what I mean? Like, there's so much, there's so much commerce, so much opportunity, so much business happening at all levels in all industries. And some people has changed their identity to give themselves permission to live a bigger life, to accomplish more revenue, to give more money away, to go take that trip they've been talking about for many years, the dream trip, you know. So I want you to be conscious of that as you're going throughout your day and week about how you're acting or reacting to certain things and pay attention to your identity. How's this tucked into your identity? Because your ego is messing with you constantly. It does it to all of us, right? There's times I think I'm big, I'm not big. I have a great podcast show. I Have a Mickey Mouse podcast show in the grand scheme of things. That's why I need your help. Share this show. Let other people know this exists. I have a great mastermind called the Dealmaker Alliance. Dealmaker Family. They're small compared to the world. Right? We have 162 people in the DM Alliance. That's a lot of amazing human beings at a singular level. One on one amazing. But listen, why isn't this 500, 5,000, 50,000, right? How do we fill up stadiums? There's different levels to this game. I'm not saying this again. My job's not. I'm not. I literally am not trying to build it to do that. But if it got to that level, cool. I don't think it's going to because that's not where my head's at. I want very small, very intimate, but very powerful at the same time. Right. I see a lot of people not give themselves permission to step up into the bigger game. I see this all the time, actually, unfortunately, like, people like. Yeah, I guess I just. I'm not ready for the big leagues or. Yeah. I'm just. I'm just a normal person. Well, guess what? I'm just a normal person too. It's just I have big dreams, big goals, big plans and big execution. That requires a lot of stuff. And most importantly, I have an identity to match. That therefore going after it, it's like, you know, this is imposter syndrome effect, right? A lot of people like, oh, I'm imposter. I've never met someone that doesn't feel like an imposter ever at all levels. You know what I mean? So it's like, that's part of the game. But like, that doesn't mean that they don't execute. That doesn't mean they don't show up. That doesn't mean they don't think bigger. That doesn't mean they don't change their identity on the level up. Because what my identity has changed. Realizing everyone has that same feeling, it's simply that of feeling. If I show up and I'm leading by example and I'm executing really hard, that's why people are showing up to follow and because we're leading, we're leading by example. So, you know, guess. Sometimes it feels like you're impos. Impostor syndrome. But like, it's a feeling, it's not real. We've created this story. Do you believe it or do you not? That's up to you, Right? So start changing this. Start retweaking. This information to serve you instead of it hurting you. I see a lot of people has this identity where it's hurting you, it's crushing your growth. It's not serving you, it's not giving you opportunities that you're capable of. Probably one of the biggest things I see is that we all are living way below what we're capable of, way below. And the best way to expose that is to get around big thinkers, big doers, big, big idea people, most importantly, big executors because they will teach you how to think like that, they will show you how to think like that, they will show you the path because they're living it. So get in the right rooms with the right people. And that's kind of what Dealmaker alliance is about. Not kind of, that's 100% what it is. Get in the right rooms, positive peer pressure and start winning the game. It's crazy. I'm sitting here talking to you. I'm sorry, I'm distracted. Here on the 32nd floor looking out this window, this building's going up beside me probably, I don't know, 90ish stories tall. And they got this big ass crane just like lowering concrete back and forth all like, it's, it's so awesome to see. And how cool is it? I'm literally standing, what, 400ft in the air looking out at this beautiful city looking next to me. And this big crane is on top of a building. Concrete going up and down. Things are just working in production and harmony. And I think about this. Do you think the person building that building is thinking about how to buy a single family house? Their identity is so much bigger. They're thinking bigger, bigger levels, bigger thinkers, bigger ideas, bigger execution. You can do the same thing, just get in the right rooms. But the Dealmaker alliance, you can check it out@dealmaker alliance.com schedule a call with me or Sonia and whoever's available that will take your call and have a conversation. So let's talk about some marketing because I'm here to teach you something tactical today as well, on top of besides the mindset, because that's very tactical. Just sit down, pay attention, start like thought auditing your ideas. I talk about this in magician versus Meal a lot. But on marketing, we had a call today in the, in a group and one guy, he's a mortgage broker and he's talking about like, man, I need leads, I need cheap leads, I need effective leads. And in marketing it's not about cheap or effective, it's about profitable Leads have to be profitable, just affordable. Leads don't make sense. Profitable leads make a lot of sense. But just basic one on one marketing is how much is a lead worth to you and how much do you make per customer or per client? Closed. You gotta start there. Cause if you don't know, you don't understand anything about marketing. You're running things blindly, you have no clue. And the easy way to do that is like this guy said, hey, for every deal I do, I get 1% off of 200 grand. So cool, you make $2,000? Yes, I make $2,000 on day one with this lead. If they close a deal with me and, and I'm like, cool. And then that's how much we can spend up to then. Because I have $2,000 on average of what it costs me is what I make. So I can go spend up to $2,000 and still be in the money or break even on a lead. The reason that's important is like you could break even on a lead and still make a lot of money. Why? Well, because on this particular lead they actually buy more products and he makes more money on his second tier opportunity. He makes about $2,500, he said, so he could break even on step one, lead one, and then eight to 12 months later recycle that money and make another $2,500. So now the lifetime value of that lead in one year is $4,500. And I don't want you to get twisted up on lifetime value and all that because you don't have a lifetime value of anything if you're not in business anymore. So that's why I always focus on level one of the game and that's how much is a lead worth to you today. So when you're building this up, like if I, if I don't have that much capital and resources, I'm literally emailing my database. I'm emailing my database consistently and I'm creating conversations and stories and extracting results like, hey, you know, are you looking to do a deal? Yes or no? Like I'm, I'm not. Look, I'm not writing an article. I'm not trying to like act like I'm smarter than I am. I'm just asking very punchy questions on a mass scale. Hey, let me share a quick deal we did with someone recently. They needed cash in 30 days or less on a real estate deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, if you ever need a deal done quickly and you, you need it done now, Shoot me a call, shoot me a text. Here's my information. Boom, done, right? And I'm just going to do that all day. And I don't care if there's one person or a hundred people or a thousand people or ten thousand or a hundred thousand people in that email database. I'm just going to ping that database once, twice, three times, five times a week and I'm just going to create conversations. Create conversations, Conversations, create conversions and then conversions, create revenue, right? So that's a, that's free, by the way, everyone that has email databases, that's a free way to do it. I'm not saying cold email contact the people that you've done business with already. Now you also probably have their cell phone numbers. You could create a great text marketing campaign. Hey, it's Mark, just touching base with you. Just a reminder, I do loans. If you need a loan, shoot me a call. Click right. So stuff, stuff like that, you do that. So now you're piggyback marketing. You got email, you got tax market going on. These both are very affordable strategies to extract opportunity. And then you got this beautiful thing called social media, which I didn't have back in 1996 when I started, but social media, share your journey, share your story of what you're up to, right? Like let people know what types of deals you do. Let people know testimonials that people are doing business with you, how it's working, what kind of results have they gotten. You just have them shoot a testimonial, post it on your wall, and hey, if you want testimonial like Mark, give us a call, click they watch my testimonial or whoever's testimonial now. Like, wow, this is the go to person, right? So there's three strategies right there and they're all pretty much damn near free, right? And there's no way, I don't care what business or what industry you're in, those three strategies work immediately. You could do it right now, right now, today. And then let's take it a little bit more advanced strategy, a couple advanced strategies. You could do this beautiful thing called retargeting. I could retarget my entire database and just have my ads running in front of them. It's very affordable, very cheap. But you gotta learn how to do ads on Facebook, you gotta learn how to do ads on IG, gotta learn how to do ads on LinkedIn and blah, blah, blah, all these other environments. I don't know how to do that. So I don't, I Wouldn't go that path. However, I would hire someone to do it if I was big enough because it's a very practical and powerful strategy. The second layer is this. Go find people that have your clients that are talking to your clients that are non competing. For example, call title. If I'm talking about mortgage guy that I've been talking about, I would contact title companies. I contact title companies that work with investors and say, hey listen, just a heads up, my name is Mark Evans. I do notes and loans for people that need deals closed quickly. If you have anybody in your pipeline or someone hits a snag in your deals, let me know. I'd love to help you close a deal. Keep mine. A title company, it's non competitive because the title company closes deals for mortgage brokers and title investors, etc. Therefore you're an enhancement to them, not a takeaway. So if they know you exist because you're staying in front of them, staying consistent, being cool, being valuable, guess what? Eventually you're going to start doing deals with them because title companies don't make money if they don't close deals. And deals fall apart at title all the time for lack of money. So if you actually can close deals and get access to the money, you're going to get a great pipeline of opportunity, build up over time. Another strategy, if I was this mortgage guy, I would contact or any other business for that matter, like go find non competing environments, go find where you can add value to a marketplace. So we gave this guy some direction, said hey, contact people that are speaking to investors every day, every week, every month. They have email newsletters, they have social media posts, they have, you know, audiences they're speaking to in person, maybe live events once a month, like get togethers and you become a value add to that market. Have that, you know, like we're all looking for better content. We're all looking for great value content to our clients. So if you have something to share and it's valuable that we see perceived as value, we're going to bring you on stage in essence and bring you up in front of our people. And when they do that, they're validating you and that that's going to generate leads for you because you're going to bring the heat, you're going to bring the value and you're gonna say, hey, by the way, if this is something you're looking to get a loan done in the next 30 days, here's my information, get on the list, let's have a conversation and let's close some deals. So now you're doing emailing, texting, cross promoting, all these amazing things and marketing. And you will close more deals and all this stuff is practically free to do. So there's no way anybody can come to me and say, mark, you know, it costs a lot of money to do marketing. Well, it should cost money to do marketing. Once you understand real marketing, you should be wanting to ask yourself back to identity. How do I spend a million dollars a month in marketing? In the beginning, maybe it's 5000amonth, then it's 10,000amonth and it's 50,000amonth, then it's 500,000. Like these are things that you have to scale up to to build up your risk tolerance. But I'm telling you right now, it's very important that you understand how to look at marketing. Marketing never will cost you money if you know what you're doing ever. It will never cost you money. Right? Because if I make $2,000 a deal and I put 100 to make 2,000, that's a good investment. That's a good ROI. A lot of times if you can get a 3 to 4x ROAS return on advertising spend. So if I put a dollar in today and I get four bucks out today, the question is, how many dollars can I put in before that changes, before it deteriorates? And spend like a madman. Big lesson. One thing I wish I'd have known, when it's something's working, go heavier, go harder, faster, heavier. Because things don't work forever. Marketing is a constant test, test, test, test. And when you get sick of testing, you got to test more, got to pay attention to numbers. You got to understand KPIs, you got to understand customer acquisition. You got to understand all these things to scale and grow a real business. So again, I know I got a little heavy on tactical stuff here today, but I just wanted to drop and plant some seeds in your brain about the power of marketing and understanding true marketing and what it takes to scale a real business. And you know, this is something you should be thinking about every day in your business because if you don't have customers, you don't have a business. So hopefully you guys take some of this information and execute and implement and get massive results. And when you do so please keep me posted. Please Share this show on Social Media make sure you tag me at Mark Evans DM on Social media. I'll make sure I give you a reshare as well as say what's up? But I appreciate you Being here. I got to get back to Melbourne here. It's missing me actually. I'm getting ready to go down to breakfast with the fam. But I appreciate you guys being here. Have an absolutely amazing day. With that said.

I'm here to help and teach him what I know and how I did it to discover freedom There ain't no question more Kevin's when he stepped in the doubt he's closing deals Time to tell him what they the DM stand far I'm a deal maker a deal maker But I'm not just a deal maker I'm a dream maker the journey's where it's at it's all about the process Time to get over to the DM project from a small town in Ohio so I know how it is Can I come from a lot of money I remember as a kid wanted to make a honey breath didn't see no one making more than that Graduated high school with a 1.5 should have held me back I hope my principals and teachers are alive just to witness this I'm a own boss I'm out here running two way figure businesses I can walk away from it all and I'll be good But I've been called to help people just like y' all learn the game it's time to ball everybody chasing the money But I'm not chasing the money I'm out here chasing the purpose yo I've been working my whole life Got us where we at is it gonna get us where we wanna go it's time to pull it's time to lose learn time to grow more Kevin's DM I'm here to help and teach him what I what I know and how I did it to discover freedom There ain't no question mark Kevin when he stepping the dough he's closing deals Time to tell him what the DM stand for I'm a deal maker a deal maker But I'm not just a deal maker I'm a dream maker the journey's where it's at it's all about the process Time to get over to the DM project.

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