← The Vault Unlocked
The Vault Unlocked
Why Sales Avoidance Is Killing Your Business (And No One Wants to Admit It)
00:47:32
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Foreign.
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With the Vault Unlocked where we discover the one thing that changes marketing, the one thing that changes business, and the most important, the one thing that changes who we are today. We have Mark Gordon, the marketing guru. The agency owner so sold his business and we are excited to have him here today. Mark, how we doing?
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I'm doing great, man. How are you?
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I'm doing awesome. For, for my audience members that don't know who Mark Gordon is, why don't you just give us a little bit of a snapshot who Mark Gordon is and what, what is it you represent?
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Well, I started out as a sales guy in the mortgage space, graduated to business owner and sold that company in the mortgage arena. And then my plan was to move from New Jersey, where I was at the time, down to Charleston, South Carolina, have an easier life. Started down that road and then got introduced to a guy who was trying to build a national mortgage. Lender asked me to do it with him. He was younger than me, he was smarter than me, didn't know anything about the mortgage industry. But I knew I could learn a lot from him because whereas I had learned everything the hard way, he had read every book and gone to the best colleges and I was like, man, I think if I can be around this person, it's going to change me. So I went down that road with him. A lot of success in that company. And then coming out of that, I decided I really wanted to help other people get to where they wanted to go, which we'll talk more about, and opened this consultancy where now we help business to business companies unlock their growth potential and we build scalable systems for them in the marketing and sales side. So that's what we do now.
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B
Okay, let's, let's dive into that because that's interesting and I like that. So helping. You said B2B. So B2B. Business to business, unlock their potential and scale. What's the approach? I mean, there's a lot of marketing agencies that do it, but I know you guys do it at a level of success. What, what, like, what's, what makes it different for you guys?
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Yeah, I know people think of us as actually as an agency, but I'll really say it's more of like a consultancy program because our best clients don't renew or get addicted to us. They graduate. We usually come in and we do what we call a full go to market overhaul. And what we find is that even the companies that have a pretty good idea about their messaging, their marketing and their sales process and the technology that Puts it all together, they don't have alignment. So a lot of companies don't even have a good idea of what those three things are. You know, I run into a lot of founders who have been five years building the same company and they can't concisely tell me what they do or who they do it for. And so we start with that part of our process and then really both internally and externally, nail that messaging, build out lead generation systems that are huge differentiators where we get the right people on the phone for our clients ready for them to close. We rebuild their sales process in a way that is scalable and we help them attract the right salespeople to help them grow. And then we make sure their technology is all set up so that those three systems systems are working together. So that's our core four. It's a pretty unique offering. Again, most of our clients, it's a four month program. Sometimes we do more if it's a little bit more complex. But the idea is we hand it back over to you and either your team or the agencies that we connect you with run it long after we're gone. And then next time you hit an inflection point where you can't grow any more, call us back, we'll come back in and do it again. But I say everybody's 120 days away from having a completely different predictable revenue engine generating business for them.
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So what do you see some of the common problems, problems these businesses are having or they're coming to you for?
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Well, most of the time all of the problems in a business come down to the founder. Right. And so, and, and by the way, the good news is, is that the founder is the problem. The even better news is that then they have the potential to be the solution. And so it's about blind spots and it's about consistency in terms of where they're going in their business. You know, we all have these natural plateaus that we hit and everyone thinks a business owner is supposed to have the right answer or everyone's going to be Mark Zuckerberg, where you start Facebook in college. I mean, it's a miracle that that guy is still in charge of that company 20 years later and was able to grow as fast as it grew. But that's not most of us. It's certainly not me and it's certainly not most of the people that I talk to. Right. And so if you think you're supposed to have all the answers, you're not. And more importantly, when you're in the fight, when you're in the fire in your business, you are going to have selective vision because what happens is you can only deal with two or three problems at a time. And so you'll just ignore this other thing over here that you kind of know is a problem. And sometimes you need somebody else to come in here and go, no, not only is this the problem, but this is the solution. And so we come in with that extra set of eyes and really it's founder blind spots or founder limited skill sets that we work around and then we make sure we set them up to have the right team or partners after that process so they can get to that next stage.
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So how do you. I'm interested because as a founder, myself and founders that I know they, the truth is what you said is it usually comes down to the founder, I believe, you know, especially in a 3 to 5 million, even maybe a 3 to 10 million dollar business, it's all founder like it, the business is growing based, based on the founder, the CEO running the company. They're a direct reflection of those results. But the founders that I know, they don't want to hear that, they don't want to know that, you know, they know that they're their problem, but they're not going to hire you to tell you that they're their problem. So how do you get around that and get them to actually be able to not just identify what is actually going on and see it from a different lens, but for them to see it to the point where they're ready to change and take your advice and be able to implement the tools. I'm going to assume systems, processes, things that you're going to implement.
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So okay, couple of things. One is like I, you know, I'm not that far into my journey. I've been doing, I was in this for fun for a couple years and then really only in June I started doing this like in a full time way. But we, we've already brought on a bunch of clients and we. I'm meeting with founders every single day. I will just say that in my limited time I have found that founders are far more actually willing to accept that they are the problem than I would have expected. Especially when it's presented to them as through a series of questions I ask them about where they are or where they're getting stuck. And then when I start presenting ideas like, hey, have you ever tried this? Or thought of it this way? They're like, no. And sometimes it's like, no, I never thought of that. Which, by the way, if you get them to say that they're sold and then. Or if it's like, actually, no, but I haven't been able to get to that, or I didn't prioritize that, or, you know, whatever else it is, it's like, cool. And then, you know, once they realize, like, yeah, like, this is just the next step. Right. And you said three to $10 million companies. I think it's true of 300 million to a billion dollar companies, too. Right. Like, you know, when you. One of my favorite interviews I ever saw was Warren Buffett talking about how he passed over Amazon multiple times. He had all these opportunities to invest in Amazon and he just missed it. And at the end of the day, he was like, I think something along the lines of, like, our algorithms failed to account for the fact that Jeff Bezos was an alien. And when you think about, like, and that's such a great line, I love that. It's like, yeah, like, there was nothing special about Amazon. They sold books online. Anybody could have set up their own online bookstore tomorrow. What made that company different was Jeff Bezos. Right. Like, and so, you know, and by the way, so I think that's humbling if you're here right now and you're struggling with your $300,000 a year business, trying to get it to a million, and you're like, oh, no, it's me. It's like, well, yes, I understand that that's humbling. Right. But it's also good news because that means that you can do something about it. It's not your industry, it's not your product. You didn't pick the wrong idea. You know, it doesn't come down to that stuff, you know, and again, I think my time in the mortgage industry was very foundational, because in the mortgage industry, every single company is selling the exact same product at the exact same price. A thousand companies, right?
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Yeah.
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Some of them do incredibly well. And some of them completely stink. Most of them completely stink. The difference is the leader, it just the leader. And then that leader's ability to attract other leaders and create an environment where motivated people can thrive. I mean, companies are just the people that work there, right? And so when you're a founder, you need to attract other great leaders. You need to create an environment for those people to thrive. And that is the job, Right? And then cast a very specific vision for where you want everybody to go. Right? So if I can get really talented people, create an environment where they can thrive, and I have a very Clear vision of what we're trying to accomplish that unlocks talent in the room and then you can be that multiplier that moves things forward. And I think that's true at any size organization. Now, have I seen founders succeed in spite of not doing a good job with those things? I have 100%. You will see individual characters who will things to happen, who push things. Bullies. There are other ways to skin the cat. But the ones who tend to do special things and, and live a life that I would want to live are the ones who I think unlock the stuff that we just talked about.
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Yeah, is. Well, it's, it's unlocking a clear vision is what I'm hearing right there. And then being able to sell that clear vision to great people to help make it come to fruition. When dealing with more. That sounds like you deal with maybe like six figure, seven figure businesses and get them like seven, eight figures.
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Is that almost everyone that we deal with is somewhere between 5 and 30 million. When we engage with them, occasionally we do something a little smaller because they're like they're 2 million. Maybe they just did a raise or, you know, or they're, they're a SaaS company that just did a raise on their gross. So they're not quite there yet. But it's certainly people that are looking to grow fast and are willing to go through the pain that's required to.
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Do that in the pain. Let's talk about that. What's some of the pain that they're. That would. They're after going to go through?
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Well, I mean, different results require different behavior and change is always painful. Right. And so when we, when we look at teams, right. You know, I look at somebody like, hey, you know, we can't let this salesperson go. They're the reason we got from 0 to 5 million. And I'm like, okay, well let's, let's walk through that. First of all, how committed are you to getting to 10 million? Super committed. Well, what does that mean to you? It means I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Okay, well, let's hold that as a thought because maybe you are, maybe you're not. I actually find that when I hold the mirror up, most people are definitely not willing to do whatever it takes. But that's fine. They have their own room for what that is. My job is just to kind of show them what whatever it takes could look like. Right. But then it's like, okay, are you building a family where you don't really choose these People and you're with them forever? Or are you building a professional sports team where, hey, we celebrate wins, we get to go back and reminisce about the good times. But honestly, every year is a new season when we're trying to win a championship, and we got to have the right people on the bus to do that. Which one of these two things do you resonate with more? And they're like, most people are just like, whoa, I never thought of it that way. I'm like, listen, I have Giant season tickets. They bring back the 1990 and 1986 Super bowl teams all the time. Those dudes love each other and get along. They're not still on the team. Right? Like, no one can ever take those championships away from them. The things they accomplish aren't going anywhere. But, like, this year's team is about who's going to win the next championship. You know, that's the idea, right? And you have to be able to make those difficult decisions. And so what do you. What vision are you casting for your team? Right? And then, by the way, if you cast a really clear vision, you say to somebody, hey, listen, we're going from 5 million to 10 million. I have to grow and you have to grow. If you're unwilling or unable to do that growth, we have to layer you or we have to find somebody else. Because that's what we've committed to this team. And I want to attract great people to work here. So I need to be able to tell them what this is where we're going. Because no great person is going to come work for a company that's like, yeah, we. We made 500,000 last year and we're going to make 550 this year. You're not going to attract any big thinkers that way. So you know it. There's a lot. I know I'm kind of all over the place. This is.
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No, no, I love it. There it is. But let's. Like, how do you find yourself here? It sounds like you have, you know, a wealth of knowledge of being able to. I love you used the word the mirror. Because I use that. Right? The mirror of the business and seeing what's actually going on. And it seems like you have the ability to work with a founder, which is a foundational. But then there's something called marketing, lead gen, sales, then operations. I think you said fulfillment. I mean, those are the Core 4. Those are a lot of buckets on average. Where do you see the biggest problem? Being outside the founder, obviously, but the actual business side of what's going on the businesses. What do you see the biggest problem for a lot of these businesses that are wanting to scale?
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So in the smaller business side, right. If you're, if you're listening to this and you're somewhere between, you know, a half a million and five million, it's almost definitely your problem is a lack of focus and investment in consistently generation. Until you have figured out how to get your ideal customer to show up on your calendar and do it in a predictable way where you understand exactly what it costs you and you can do it more of it if you dump more money into it. Then go figure that out before you do anything else. I see so many companies trying to master their fulfillment process or ma or get the product perfect. And the biggest lie ever told is if you build it, they will come, right? Like that is not true. I've almost never met a company or very few. I've met 100 people who built a cool product and then no one ever showed up for it. I've met maybe a handful of people ever in my life that had people beating down the door for something and then they couldn't find a way to build it. Like if you have people beating down the door for your thing, you will find a way to deliver that product. Right? And so that's the biggest, the biggest piece of it that people are missing.
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Well, so my philosophy, it's a very same philosophy, is I say I do not build it unless you sell it. You can't sell it. You do not build it. Because I've seen so many people spend so much time on trying to build, like you said, the fulfillment. Think about the offer, think about this. They can't even sell it and they actually go build, do the videos, do the whole course, create the community and nobody's in there. And then now they're trying to sell something that isn't sellable. They're actually trying to optimize for something that was already broken from the beginning. Why do you think so many sale and this because I run the same kind of model as you do. Why do you think so many founders have or business owners, or let's call them creators, have such a hard time with that concept sell before you build.
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Well, I think there probably weren't. They didn't come up as salespeople. Right. And I think, you know, I met with a business owner today, super successful marketing agency, all word of mouth. So they're in a very specific space. They've grown, they grew like crazy. And literally they just, they're they're in their space. They are one of the two or three players that matter. And it is a very large space where marketing is a huge piece of the puzzle. They have created some of the biggest brands, you know, in that space from scratch. And she's like, not even like bragging in any way. I had to like pull all this out of her. They don't do any marketing or sales. They just had a partial acquisition. And that person wants them to build real sales and marketing. So that's kind of how we got on the call. And so I'm. What was the question again? To dial it in. I want to not go all over the place.
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Why? Yeah, no, with the question was why do you think founders, creators, whoever, the small business owner has a hard time with the idea of selling it before you build it for her.
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Sales is a four letter word, right? I mean, even when I started talking about outreach, right, you could just like see this like cringiness of like, oh, I have to go like and tell people, like, it's like, I understand. It was great. That got you here. Word of mouth. You were in this space. You had a. By the way, they also had a couple like big clients that then had like 30 brands underneath them. So they had these individual, like they hit a home run by doing a really good job and being in the right place and having those relationships. But if you want to scale it, the name of the game is sales, right? And so I think people think if they build a good enough product, they'll never have to go sell it. And then it gets them to whatever spot they're at and then they're stuck and they're like, well, how do I get to the next step? And it's like sales and marketing. What do we do? Who do we do it for? How do we tell those people that we're doing it? And how do we get them to want to have a conversation with us and then once they want to talk to us, how do we get them to give us their money? Like that is the next step, right? And so I think it's not said to people that way. I think there's probably people listening to this that have never heard anyone say it to them the way that I just said it. And you know, I just another business owner I was meeting with earlier today and he's got a small consulting business or whatever and he's like, yeah, we don't do any outreach or any other stuff. He's like, I'm like, well, why not? He's like, well, I just, you know, I don't really have the time for it. I go, dude, it's the only thing that matters. You just told me you're running an employment center where you're not making money. You have all these people working for you and you're doing an amazing job for your clients, but you're not making any money. You're running an employment center, right? And you just see the look on his face and he's like, he's heartbroken. And I'm like, it's so much more fun to run a business when you're profitable. It is. I've done it both ways. I have done it where you're losing money, it sucks when you're going home and you're like, how am I going to make payroll? There's nothing fun about it, right? It's hard either way. But it is a lot more fun when you're making money. And you make money by focusing on those front end processes. And so I just don't know that business owners are having these conversations. I don't know that they are. I think a lot of them feel very lonely. Everyone's telling them they're doing a great job and they think that they're embarrassed to say that they're struggling. They're embarrassed to tell anybody that they're stuck. And when they are, it's like, it's really uncomfortable to go, hey, you know, actually, like, you have to go out there and sell. And I think for a lot of people it's very uncomfortable. And I always say to people, if you're not willing to sell, it's one of two things, okay? You either don't believe in your product and they're like, no, no, I do. I'm like, are you sure? Because if you really believe you had the best thing for those people, at least a specific of people that wouldn't you want, aren't you like a good person? Don't you want to share that with them? Like, I never thought of it that way before. I'm like, man, when I was in the mortgage industry, I was like, a lot of mortgage guys are going to lie to you. I will never lie to you. I will take care of you. I will make sure you close. I believed it. I thought that no one would work harder for their clients. And I believe that. And so when I said it to people, they were like, I want to go with that guy. But I was in management, I was like, I'm going to do everything I can to help you be Successful. Do you believe me? They'd be like, yes. I'm like, cool. Come on my team. I believed it. I believe that no one would care about them as much as I did. So first thing is, if you're not willing to sell, it's because you don't believe in your product. Right. And by the way, you are your product in a lot of these different things. Okay. That's number one. Right. Number two is if you. If you. If you're really uncomfortable with it, it's because you've told yourself that it's icky in some way. And by the way, that's coming from some preconceived notion because you don't even. The times you were sold in your life by a good salesman, you didn't even know you were being sold. The ones that you remember are the bad ones. And you're like, I don't want to be like them. And the short answer is like, great. You don't have to be. Right. But, like, once we eliminate those two objections, if you believe in your product and it doesn't have to be icky, then why aren't you selling? I don't know. It's like, cool, let's go do it. Right? And then we just don't, like, hey, get on a call with somebody. Divorce yourself from the outcome. Ask them questions until you figure out if you can help them or not. If you can't, tell them, hey, I'm so glad I met you. Have a great day. If you can help them, it's your obligation to do it. And by the way, in exchange for that help, they give you money. Right? And that's whether that's, you know, that's. It's as simple as that. Right. And so I think a lot of times you just have to have a conversation with the founder, which is. Which is, how do we make this feel really good for you? Right. Do you believe your product helps people? Yes. Cool. Then go help people. Right. Like, you know, but I think they have a really hard time connecting those dots sometimes.
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I agree. I think people are. Are scared of selling themselves. I like what you're saying is like, they either don't believe in themselves or they. They have a misconduct conception of what sales is. They want to be. Sales are icky. But I always say to the Henry Ford, like, number one saying right. Is nothing happens until a sale is made, period. So I think a lot of business owners, they hide behind the idea of the thought of success and thought of wealth, and they get caught up in the Minutia of doing work, building funnels, building back end building operations, but they never actually do the hard work that actually drives the wealth, which is the number one thing is sell, Sell the.
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Every. I'll tell you, every person who I didn't think was a sound entrepreneur or founder, in other words, like, they don't, they're not following the book, they're doing whatever, but they were, they were somehow succeeding was because they had the ability and willingness to get their ideal customer profile to have a conversation with them. And they were willing to do that all day long. Like, I've seen people. You're like, I can't believe that I wouldn't buy a shirt from that guy. And people are buying hundreds of thousand dollars of software. Why? Well, because he's calling those people relentlessly, acts like he belongs in the room, has those conversations, goes to the conferences and is hustling constantly to make sure he's talking to those people. If you're willing to do that, you can solve for almost anything, right? If you're not willing to do that, good luck.
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B
So do you find with these small business owners that one of the biggest challenges they have is they don't actually understand their IPC and, or the offer to the ip?
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I think they don't know how. I think I hear a lot. So I'll give you another example. Somebody will try to explain to me what they do. And they're like, listen, you know, and they're using a lot of like, weird terminology or like big buzzwords. And I'm like, hey, like, you know, I'm, I'm not really getting it. I'm a pretty smart guy, you know? And they're like, well, it's very industry specific. And I'm like, cool, I promise you, you're going to fail. And they're like, whoa. I'm like, if you. That is the greatest myth people tell themselves, right? Like a doctor is doing something that I don't really understand, but his job is to explain it to me in a way where I can go take action on it or understand what's happening to me, right? Like, yeah, that makes sense. I'm like, cool. If you can't explain to my mom, who is retired, what you do in two sentences and who you do it for, your customers don't get it either. And they're like, well, no, you don't understand. My customers do get it, man. I work with IT services. Companies that sell to CTOs. They, they speak a language I don't understand at all.
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Yeah, it's called when I get there.
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No one's buying from them. As soon as I put it in words I understand, people are booking meetings like crazy. I've just seen it over and over again. You think people, how many people on this call don't know what an ICP is? Right? Ideal customer profile, right? Most. They're probably looking it up or they're too embarrassed to even do that. They're afraid chatgpt might judge them. Like you got. We're talking over people's heads with all of this stuff. We have to be able to explain it. So what do you do? I build world class revenue machines for B2B companies in 120 days. That's what I do. It's like, okay. And by the way, people go to my website, they're like, you know, really, it's really clear what you do. I go, I know, I go to your website and I have no idea what you do, right? I have no idea what you do. And so I think it's over complicated. And I think that when you're in it and you're building it, you start to think everyone has the same knowledge base that you do. Start explaining what you do in a way that maybe they get. But I'll tell you, those companies that I have those conversations with when I meet with the other people in the company, one on one, I go, hey, what do you guys do and who do you do it for? I'll get 10 answers from 10 different people and none of them are good, right? That company's struggling because everyone's rowing in their own direction, right? It's about what makes a company successful, hire really great people, create an environment where they can thrive, let them all know exactly where we're going, right? And so if everybody there knows this is what we do and who we do it for, then you're giving everyone the freedom to use all of their power and knowledge to get you to that, that place. If everyone's kind of confused about it, good luck, right? Because then it's like, you know, you almost have to get there by accident otherwise.
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B
And that's a hard one because you're asking founders to think differently in that if they're in that kind of gap, right, is to get clear. And what I found in my experience too is again, we're going to use buzzwords, but getting them to niche down first, right? Like, but I can help everybody. And they, you know, as you know, you try to go help everybody, you're helping nobody. So then there's this gap of trying to help the right somebody. Right. And then knowing how to speak to them. So from what I'm hearing from you though, it sounds like you do a lot of more like sales. Like you help with the sales process but you also do marketing. Is that so?
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A
We do whatever's necessary to fix the entire go to market process. So I have a client right now that onboarded this week. The sales guy who runs their sales team is elite, probably the best in his industry. This is a company, there's 50 companies in this space. This guy is really, really good. I'm not messing with him or his sales process at all. This company has a product that is better, faster and cheaper than the competition. I always say if you have one of those three, you can build a company. If you have two of those three, it's a no brainer. If you have three out of that three, you shouldn't even need a salesperson. The problem with this company is they have no marketing. None. Right. They're growing like crazy. They're doing really well. They have no marketing and so they. This sales guy's doing a great job. But so with them it's all going to be messaging and marketing and lead distribution.
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B
Yeah. Like driving leads.
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Driving leads. Maybe I'll break that sales guy and. But he's built big companies before. He understands. Like I've met with him. Like I don't, I think, I don't think I need to mess with that. So I'm not going to. Right. So for them I'm coming in as kind of a chief marketing officer and we're going to go ahead and, and fill that out for another company who's like, hey listen, like we are, we don't really. Our leads, our sales guys generate leads. They're the ones dialing whatever it is. Like that's their sales process. It's a lower ticket thing. Cool. And then it's, it's a sales gig. Right. So everything's about messaging. We have to get the right words and we have to really dial into what, what moves our, our ideal customer to move forward with us. But then once we get that messaging, we kind of fix whatever is broken. Some companies it's a founder doing sales and I'm building out everything from scratch. I sometimes I'm coming into comets pretty well established in one or two areas and we're just fixing the third. But through the discovery process we do a diagnosis and really what we need is perfect alignment between messaging, lead generation and sales process with the technology underneath it kind of holding it all together at the end of the four months. And so we built. We plan it, we build it, we test it, and then we. We let right off into the sunset.
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B
And then ready for scale. Let's take a step back a little bit because we're talking a little technical here. I kind of take a step back with who you are. Like, Mark, how did, like, how did you get into this space? You know, what did you learn in your know, it sounds like you had a quite successful year with mortgages. You know, sorry, not a year, but like, you know, a career. Career. And like, tell us a little bit about that. How did you kind of end up going from owning mortgage businesses to, you know, consulting, you know, businesses across the nation?
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A
Well, it all started because I was a horrible student. And that's how you end up in the mortgage industry. Because if you go. If you get really good grades in college, you don't usually end up selling mortgages. It was the one place where my grades didn't matter. And so. But I found that call center and moved up and then, you know, started companies from there. I would say I wasn't even in the necessarily naturally entrepreneurial person, but I knew what work I wanted to do and how much money I wanted to make. And at some point in the mortgage space, it just became obvious that that was the way to do it. The thing that made it very difficult for me is I did not come from a family that like, was entrepreneurial or in the mortgage space or built companies or businesses. And I was very closed off to the idea that, like, business was similar. I didn't read any books. I didn't ask anybody for help. I didn't think anybody consultants. I'd be like, how's anyone going to help with my business, my business? How's anyone going to know more than me about this? And I told myself all these stories. Then I ended up selling that company for pennies on the dollar. For what? If I could go back and knowing what I know now and talk to the kid who sold that company, I'd probably still own it and I would have made a hundred times as much money. And what happened was I sold that company and I moved to Charleston. And then I met this guy, Rich Whitel, who was running, who was about to take over Princeton Mortgage. And he hadn't really built anything, but he went to Cornell. He knew all the right people. He would call CEOs of Fortune 100 companies for conversations and they would take his call. I never dreamed of it. He'd read every book and not only did he read the. He pulled the book off the shelf and turned to the page, like, just like. And they'd be like, this is. Remember. And I was just, like, so blown away by this guy. And I know 10 years later, I still am. And I did this. Six years of them. In the first four of it, I was just playing catch up. I was reading all the books. I was having all the conversations. And what it did is it took all that stuff I learned through pain. Millions of dollars in mistakes. And by the way, I wouldn't trade any of that for the world right now, because it gives me such an authenticity when I'm dealing with people who are bootstrapping it and building it. I've done that. I've been there. And then all of a sudden, I had all these frameworks where I could suddenly explain very clearly what I had learned in a way that other people could understand. And it wasn't just me saying it. I was like, hey, this really smart person said it. This was. And so it wasn't just Mark's school that thought it was kind of that next step and did very well in the mortgage industry with Princeton. But then when rates went up, I was like, hey, I just started my 40s. I'm still in build mode. I don't want to wait around for the next refi boom. Like, I want to go. And so I took a year off, really trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And that time, I kept helping my friends and family build businesses, and I loved it. I got to learn about new businesses. I was having such an impact on people, and I was doing something I thought was so obvious. It was like, what do you mean you're not doing that? What do you mean you're doing this? And they're like, dude, no one's ever said any of that to me before. I was like, well, I think there's a business here, maybe. And so, you know, we started. I started doing a little bit more and a little bit more, and then I was like, in June, I was like, you know, man, I'm. I love this. I get to help other people get to where they want to go, which has been the unlock for me the whole time. Everything in my career that's happened that's good is because, hey, how did you build this company? Well, I hired a bunch of salespeople, and I obsessed about how to help them hit their goals. And then we did. Right? Like, it was, like, always thinking that way about it, right? And it was my first conversation With Rich, where he said, what do you want people to say about you at your funeral? And I said, I want there to be a lot of people there who helped me get them, who helped who I helped, who say he helped me get to where I wanted to go. And so now I get to do that, like, in such a real way with founders, with their teams, you know? And we got a quote earlier this year where there was a company that hired us and we do sales, right? Sales and marketing. The head engineer calls me up and he goes, you did more for our sales and marketing in 30 days than what we were able to do in the last 30 years. And when, when. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, dude. He's like, I couldn't tell anybody what we did or who we did it for. There was no. We were scrambling around to take every client who walked in the door. We were trying to find a way to help that person because we had no clear definition of who, who we were trying to help. And what we didn't, didn't do is that you just cleaned all that up and told us internally what our jobs were, and suddenly we're all moving in the right direction and the clients are showing up, right?
- [30:00]
B
Yeah.
- [30:01]
A
When you're getting that kind of feedback, it's like, wow, like, I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I, I've always kind of felt like I was doing what I'm supposed to be doing, but in this moment, I'm feel. Never felt more like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
- [30:14]
B
I love that I, I, I mean, if anybody was listening, they could probably hear your conviction the whole way through. But you used a word, and I, and I wanted to jump on it because I think it's very important. And it sounds like you're in it right now, but use a word earlier, which is called alignment.
- [30:29]
A
Yeah.
- [30:30]
B
How important is alignment for businesses, for individuals, for companies?
- [30:37]
A
I would argue it's the most important thing other than the fact that you can't have alignment unless you first declare very specifically what you're trying to do and where you're trying to go. So first thing I would say, the most important thing is like, hey, we're trying to be, we're trying to get the 10 million ARR, and I'm going to sell. Cool. If you know that going in, that's like a very clear path. We know what to do to get there. If you're like, hey, I'm building this business, I Want to work here for 40 years, and I want to give to my kids, and I want to be doing a billion dollars a year. That's like a very specific thing. So first thing is, what are we doing here? Why are we doing this? Where are we trying to go? Second thing is then alignment, right? And. Which is both in terms of your thought process, what your team thinks, the direction they're all moving, and then how you guys talk about that, both internally and externally, is the hack, right? If you have a bunch of smart, motivated people who all know what you're trying to do, and they all have the freedom to operate in that. With. With some rules of the game in place. We call them culture and values, right? What are our rules of the game? That's the unlock, right? And so. But I will tell you, one out of a hundred companies that I meet with where it feels like there's alignment and. And I see founders tolerating misalignment out of fear or what they'll say is prioritization. But if you. How many times you see a sales team and a marketing team with different leaders who don't talk to each other all the time, right? I mean, I'm not saying they don't get along. They might like each other, but they don't talk to each other.
- [32:02]
B
Communication. Yeah, Right.
- [32:04]
A
It's like, okay, if I'm using this language to generate leads, and my sales team is using this language in the first five minutes of the sales call, you're teaching everyone out of the gate not to trust you. You have a cynical buyer base to begin with. They are looking for signals of, can I trust you or not trust you? So simple. And by the way, this is happening at a subconscious level for your buyer. They go, wow, I clicked on this lead because it said, you guys could do this. By the way, the company can. The sales guy comes in and goes, starts talking about this other thing that they do or this from this other angle, and this person goes, wow, that's interesting. And suddenly they had this feeling of, like, I think I'm in the wrong place. And then they don't buy, and you'll never even know it's because of misalignment. So I see this. All people are going, why do you spend so much time on the words and the language and the messaging? Like. And it's like, because if you. When you have unified words you use, it allows everything to move 10 times as quickly, right? Like, it's almost like if you're in a. If you're in a Kayak like rowing crew. It's like if one person's rowing against you or just not rowing at all and holding their thing and they're holding their paddle in the water, the boat just spins around in circles. Like you can all paddle very slowly but if you're in unison and doing it together, the boat will go straight and it will move and you. As soon as one person stops paddling, it's. We just go in circles. Right.
- [33:17]
B
I call it the doctrine. I create doctrines for companies which is the messaging, the marketing, the psychology at every layer of where like they are part of them. I'm going to say the funnel online funnels. And it's not a marketing plan. It's not. I tell them this is, this is the doctrine, this is the bible of what we actually represent and where we come from. If we waver off this, we have problems. If marketing is talking at different layers than what the doctrine says, we are going to have problems whether it's sales, market and fulfillment. So it's, it is all about alignment. It is all about making sure that the signal, you just said the energy, the signal is, is, is also too on the same wavelength alignment. So that the prospect, whether it's cold, never heard from you all the way to. On a call with you all the way to basically making a buying decision. They're getting the same frequency from all departments.
- [34:16]
A
So I love that by the way. So let me ask you a question then. So when you think about that, what company do you use as like your North Star or like a story or a book where you were like oh man, like that founder, that company did that in a way where like that's what these other companies should be emulating. Like what's your. What's your go to example?
- [34:34]
B
My go to example on that one for me personally is a company that I got to work with and build as a. I was a partner in it in 2018. We went from this not massive, but we went from 0 to 38 million in 18 months. And what I saw that it wasn't all great, but the vision that was sold and the way that everyone operated is what takes is what I saw that takes to build that type of company. Now is the vision coming from a good place. That's a different story. But when I look at what I know what it takes, I think of what we did back then and then other big companies I think about that withstand the founder, meaning you can keep growing and the founder's not part of it because I call it, it kind of Created its own mechanism like an organism. And it built like founded there or not, or like companies like, you know, like big ones, like Apple for instance. Right. Steve Jobs no longer here. The company's still thriving. Is it on the same mission? No, but does that.
- [35:41]
A
All I know is that my Siri still doesn't work. It's 2026 almost and Siri never got there.
- [35:48]
B
It's. Well, because the company has changed for sure. Therefore they want money. I mean, I mean, look at the. As an iPhone really been upgraded in the last 10 years. No, that does not. The innovation isn't there. But what I see with a company like that though is it's still like it's taken on its own mechanism, organism. Like that thing is going to go as long as they have the right CEOs in place right now. Is the right mission is the right thing that we want to agree on? No. But does that thing still make how, you know, they're printing money over there?
- [36:16]
A
Pretty much. Yep.
- [36:16]
B
Right, Printing. So I think about companies like that Amazon. I don't know much about Amazon. Like. Right. Like, I just haven't done the research on like what Amazon's done. I'm just being, you know, transparent here. But like I, you know, massive. Right. I don't even, can't even. My brain can't even comprehend honesty. Like if you try to even understand how big that company is and what that company does. Amazon trucks on the road, different people, different countries, products, all of that. Like my brain explodes this even. Even thinking about it.
- [36:48]
A
Yeah, those are, those are, those are good examples. I'll just share. One of my favorites that people really relate to is Netflix. And I like that one for a couple different reasons. One is because Netflix has been three completely separate companies when you think about this, and each time has just completely eliminated their competition. First time it was we're going to mail people movies, right? Which sounds like an insane idea, right? But they put Blockbuster out of business by mailing people movies, right. And they created a business around that. And, and they did it through a subscription model, right, which is like they came up with new ways to do it. Second thing is they really invented streaming technology, right? Like they were the first ones who could do streaming and they, they at one point like 80% of all Internet traffic was people streaming stuff on Netflix. And they invented the technology to be able to do that and dominated in that space. And while they were doing that, they created this model of buying content where they were early to it, people had completely undervalued it. They understood the value differently than everyone else and they made a fortune. And that's great. It's two different companies and two completely different companies and they dominated it. And they go, hey, I know Hollywood's been making movies and TV shows for a hundred years and it's been the same players most time, like building those big production companies. We're going to come in and by the way, within a couple years we're going to win all the awards, we're going to get all the viewership, we're going to get all the prestige stuff, we're going to attract all the biggest people to work with us and we're going to, and we're going to dominate. And they did. And it's insane that they were able to do that to a 100 year old industry in that sort of a disruptive way. You say, well, how did that happen? This company's famous for their culture deck, right? Like they know who they are, they are run like a professional sports team. And by the way, the idea is attract the most talented people you can and give them the most amount of freedom that you possibly can to achieve a very clear mission. Yeah, right. And support them and get out of the way. And by the way, you get a 51% vote on what you're doing and I get a 51% vote on whether or not you work here. And so cool. You're running this project, you're doing it, you want to, you want, you want. By the way, here's my notes on your TV show. You get, you get to run it wherever you want. By the way, if people watch your TV show, we'll give you six more TV shows. If people don't watch your TV show, we're not working with you anymore. And that's, that's our 51% vote, right? And so how do you attract the best directors in the world? You give them creative freedom, you give them a big budget and creative freedom way right? And then create amazing shows. You know, HBO was the first one to do that with creative freedom, right? It was like, no, you guys do it your way. Suddenly all the best, all the best shows are there, right? And so what? There's so much we can learn from that, right? But Netflix, super. By the way, most people working Netflix work there for a season or two, four or five years, right? Like it's a, it's a really grinded out culture of doing great things. We're doing great work, we get to celebrate those, we get to make a lot of money while we're there, we get to pay people well. We get a ton of creative freedom. We get to learn stuff. We attract really great people to what we're doing in our mission here. Right. And then we have that culture. And so Bridgewater, you know, Ray Dalio is another guy I just really admire with this stuff. And so to exactly. What you're talking about is let's create a framework for what our company is, what we do and how we talk about it. And then let's set really ambitious goals that attract big people who want to do ambitious things and then give them freedom inside of that operating model that we very clearly defined to go accomplish those goals. Right. 51 vote, 100 responsibility for the result. Right. And then we make it really clear and go. And so, and that, that's, that's what we bring to these companies. And I think it's awesome.
- [40:14]
B
I love the. I'm, I play sports. So I really do love the analogy of you're building a sports team here. Like when you take it from that perspective, if you're building a Super Bowl, I'm just going to use the super bowl for this. You know, like whatever, like the Super World Series or a Super bowl sports team. Year after year, they cut players, they trade players, they cut staff faster than ever. Why? Because they're trying to optimize for the win. It's not personal. It's just the name of the game. Right. So I like that ideology and thought process is like if, okay, if I was a professional sports team, just even as a business owner, agency owner myself, who's, who's on my winning team, who. I always looked at it as if I went to war. Who am I bringing and who can I trust?
- [41:01]
A
Yeah.
- [41:01]
B
And, and, and, you know, I had my, personally, you know, my business last year I had to make though I fired 50 of my, my staff because of that 50% it.
- [41:14]
A
And that's not a weird number.
- [41:16]
B
The funny thing is when you do that, all of a sudden we become more profitable. We get more clients, we move faster and we see more money. Which is very interesting thing. Right. Because. And all those other people, they all went on, some of them went off and done greater things, of course, greater things that they could ever do here. Why they were never actually in alignment here. It's not my. Doesn't mean I'm less than. Doesn't mean I couldn't provide them the, the best opportunity. What it means was the opportunities that I had here weren't in alignment for them. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing.
- [41:51]
A
When I first started companies, I used to think that if I let somebody go, they were going to die. Like, literally the personal responsibility I would take is like, what are they going to do? How are they going to pay their bill? They all made it. And I'm not saying that losing your job isn't incredibly painful or scary or anything else, but it's better ultimately than being stuck in a place where it's not optimal for you to do the best work of your life and for you to thrive. And so we very clearly define what it means to thrive. And we will help people get their next job. And we like to do severance and all those different things. But, like, at the end of the day, yes, we're trying to win a championship. Right. And by the way, you see it with professional sports teams all the time, where do the veteran players go for discounts when they're free agents? To the organizations that are committed to winning. And so by having a commitment to winning and showing that you're willing to do difficult things, you don't. People like, oh, if I tell people that we're going to let them go, if they underperform, we're not going to be able to attract winners. It's the opposite. Eight players don't worry that you're going to cut them. They're 100% sure that they're going to crush it, whether they're right or wrong. I've never once looked at somebody and I'm like, dude, I don't know if I can hack it there. Like, that's just not how I think it might be true, but I don't. I want to win. I want to go, I want to go join a team where I'm the.
- [43:02]
B
Week, oh, hey, hey, listen. A level A players hang out with A players. A players don't want to hang out with C players. So if your culture is a bunch of C players, you're never going to trap an A player. The problem is you're going to think a B player looks like an A player because you have all C players. That's a, that's a big problem. I see. And then the other thing I see with people is they, they, they're not holding their own founders are not holding their own rules and their own accountability. So they're saying X but displaying Y and then wondering why there's disruption.
- [43:33]
A
Yeah, I, I, I often say to people, how much would your behavior at work change if your wife and kids were in the office with you? And for me it was a real thing. I had my wife and kids in the office when I was building my company. And I'm. I'm the same person you get, you get, for better or worse, you get the same version of me wherever you are, right? And my version of integrity is like, I don't, I don't lie about anything, people. What do you mean? I go, well, if I'm walking down the street with my wife and a beautiful woman walks by and I'm looking at her, my wife goes, were you looking at her? I go, yes, I was. People think that's crazy. I go, I would rather have the discomfort. I'm telling my wife I was checking that person out. Then the dysfunction of being somebody who lies to my wife, that's it. Discomfort over dysfunction. I'm the same way of business. I'm the same with my family, with my friends, whatever it is. When I see business owners out of alignment, right? Same thing. It's like, if you're willing to behave one way here and one way here, then what you're really saying is you're hoping nobody notices that you do whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it, right? Like that's really what it is. And so that. That does create a toxic culture. Again, I'm not saying you can't succeed that way. I've seen, in spite of these things, people who are really good at enough one or two tricks to get to get it all to work. But if there's always friction, there's always.
- [44:46]
B
Options, it shows up in other places. If it's not showing up in the business, it's showing up at home. It's not showing at home, it's showing up in relationships. And it's not showing up relationships, it's showing within the relationship themselves. Shows up in their own spirituality. You can't, again, it's the world of the economy, right? Like, you can't say you're doing X and then doing Y. You can't. There's, you know, it's, there's. There's like, we call those full. This full alignment. Hard place to get to as a founder, but I know once you do everything clicks. Everything be just becomes a little easier. Not saying it's always going to be easier. It just becomes a little lighter, a little easier because you're allowing for a little bit more freedom. And then that freedom is where all.
- [45:20]
A
The great stuff happens, you know? And one of the things I always preach to is I preach radical transparency. We share almost everything at my companies with almost everyone, and people like you tell people when you're losing money, I'm like, yeah, I need those people to be the ones to do something about it. Otherwise I'm owning all of it myself. And these are the ones who have to go out and do the work. Right. And so, like, you know, again, I'm unwilling to walk around pretending anything, you know, I mean, like, it's just not it. Once I'm out of alignment that way, I'm not doing my best work. I'm not feeling good about what I'm doing. And so I think there's tremendous freedom in just saying things the way they are and showing everybody what's the truth. And again, if you, if you know what the mission is and what the rules are, you'll attract the right people who want to go on that journey with you even when times are tough.
- [46:04]
B
I totally agree. So as we really do come to an end here, for anyone listening, founders listening, that might be in this spot, might not, might not be in a complete alignment, Might have a marketing message or a sales message. Where can they find you? How can they work with you? How can we get the, you know, I'll start having you serve them.
- [46:24]
A
No, I appreciate it. So my website is igtms.com it's integrated. Go to Market Solutions igtms.com you can find me Mark Douglas Gordon on LinkedIn or MarkD Gordon on Instagram. Reach out to me, book a call. My Phone number's on LinkedIn. My calendly's there. And I say this because no matter what stage you are as a business owner, again, if you're not at least doing 2 or 3 million, it's probably not a fit. I'd still like to meet you. I'd still like to help. I genuinely enjoy meeting entrepreneurs, genuinely enjoy learning about what people are doing in their businesses. And I do believe very much that the more of those conversations I can have, the more it's going to be good for everything about who I want to be and what I want to do. And so if you're out there right now, no matter what stage you're at in your business, if you feel unstuck or you have some specific questions you think I might be able to help, reach out, book a call. Happy to meet with you. And yeah, that's where you can find me.
- [47:16]
B
Awesome. Thanks so much for being here. Appreciate you. That's another episode of the Vault Unlocked.