“Schedule what’s important.” -Mark Anthony
This podcast episode features Mark Anthony, an accomplished international speaker and business advisor, who shares his entrepreneurial journey and strategies for success. He also introduces the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, highlighting how it helps entrepreneurs prepare for liquidity events and optimize post-exit life. The episode covers Mark's book 'Join the Seven Figure Club', which outlines seven pillars for business success, including mindset, accountability, sales, marketing, customer service, negotiation, and getting your life back.
02:59 Mark's Entrepreneurial Journey: Building Success from Scratch
13:33 Accountability and Sales: Driving Business Success
20:51 Marketing Strategies That Work: Beyond Social Media
24:07 Scaling Your Business: Insights and Strategies
27:44 Unlocking the Secret Sauce of Customer Service
30:23 Mastering Negotiation: Techniques for Success
34:37 Achieving Work-Life Balance Through Effective Processes
38:00 Prioritizing for Impact: A Strategy for Success
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SELECTED LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE
Mark Anthony High Performance | Instagram
Book: Join the 7 Figure Club: Build Your Business, Double Profits & Get Your Life Back
Learn More About Deep Wealth Mastery
FREE Deep Wealth eBook on Why You Suck At Selling Your Business And What You Can Do About It (Today)
Book Your FREE Deep Wealth Strategy Call
Resources To Have You Thrive And Prosper
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Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Mark Anthony is an international speaker and business advisor. He has worked on six of the seven continents. At the age of 19, Mark started his first business, and in only a few short years, had clients coast to coast. In his 40s, he built a thriving eight figure business and generated over 100 million in sales.
Mark has taught his programs and methods at Fortune 500 firms, as well as to thousands of small business owners. Each solution he offers is practical, replicable, and based on having walked in the shoes of the small business owner. His easy to implement tools and strategies help entrepreneurs hit seven figures and more.
Additional passions include helping animals and wildlife, improving the environment, traveling to exotic locations, and participating in adventure sports.
And before we hop into the podcast, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. We have William, a graduate of Deep Both Mastery, and he says, I didn't have the time for Deep Both Mastery, but I made the time and I'm glad I did.
What I learned goes far beyond any other executive [00:01:00] program or coach I've ever experienced. Or how about Bruce? Bruce says, before Deep Wealth Mastery, the challenge I had with most business programs, coaches, or blogs was that they were one dimensional. Through Deep Wealth Mastery, I'm part of a richer community of other successful business owners.
The idea shared forever changed the trajectory of the business and best of all, the experience was fun. And we'll round things out with Stacey.
Stacey said, I wish I had access to the Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event, as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery exceeded my expectations in terms of content and quality.
And you know what, my Deep Wealth Nation, why they're saying this is because Deep Wealth Mastery, it's the only system based on a nine figure deal. That was my deal. And as you know, I said no to a seven figure offer, and I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery that helped myself and my business partners, welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure exit.
So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, if that's two years away or [00:02:00] 20 years away, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S, at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as Scale for Ultimate Sale. That's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders just like you who are looking to create market disruptions.
And they want to lock in their financial freedom and have success and fulfillment.
That's the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. It has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Send an email to success at deepwealth. com.
Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. We have a fellow business owner in the house, not only a business owner, but a successful business owner who has done it, who has created success from nothing, is now paying it forward, an author, a thought leader, all around terrific individual. Mark, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast.
An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And I'm always curious because there's always a story behind the story. So [00:03:00] Mark, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?
Mark Anthony: Thank you so much, Jeffrey, for having me on the show. I've always been an entrepreneur. I mean, when I was 19, I was working for someone and he wasn't paying me my commissions. I was really, hustling and trying to do all the right things. And When he didn't pay me, I actually went into competition with him.
And it was five years later, I literally took over his offices. So, you could be 19 and not have a lot of resources and a lot of skills. if you have the right drive and focus on how to take care of your customer, you will get. Sales and grow your business. That was like, really the real cornerstone building block, but then I got the entrepreneurial bug, I built a digital ad agency, I built an e commerce business, so I went from like a six figure business as a kid to a seven figure business, and then an eight figure business, and In the journey, one of the things that I learned is when you really want to keep scaling up, don't do it by [00:04:00] yourself.
When you start either cultivating team members or being generous and being able to create alliances and partnerships where other people really win as well you scale so much faster than you could ever do on your own. And that was to this day, my big secret to being able to create an eight figure business rather than just a seven figure business was other people and treating them well and building a team where we all had defined roles.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark, I love what you're saying. There's so much to unpack there. We're going to get to your book as well. Join the seven figure club, build your business, double profits, and get your life back. But before we do that, I'm just curious. So growing up, who or what were your influences to have you with that entrepreneurial kind of mindset?
Were you born that way? Were you influenced? What was going on with that?
Mark Anthony: Thank you. I definitely was fortunate to have grown up in an entrepreneurial family. My dad was a hardworking guy in construction, [00:05:00] but he also saw how to in construction, how a crane could tip over and he basically made the first computer or the forerunner to the computer for construction cranes.
And so at the dinner table, I got to hear a lot about, what it took to be in business. But that's great to be exposed to that, but you could also be driven by not having things as well. And they didn't give me a lot. I mean, I had to earn things and I so appreciate that now. So in terms of influences at a really young age, I was reading sales books, sales books that are so old, I can't, they're out of print now but the principles are the same of.
Take care of customers, put in some effort, because it's not magic. You do need to put in some time. And then there's, the giants that each of us have built our mindset on a Tony Robbins or a Zig Ziglar. It's been around for a long time. You've got to have your mindset right.
And when you realize that whosoever's teachings you pick You can use them as a [00:06:00] launching pad.
Jeffrey Feldberg: So much there and sounds like you were fortunate with your father and your family in particular, which explains why in your book you dedicated that both to your mother and father as just a way of saying thank you. And what I also like there, and for our listeners who are saying, well, that's great for Mark, but I don't have that relationship or don't really have an entrepreneurial family in my situation.
Love what you're saying that other people's books and what I love about books really in a few hours time, even in a day's time, We can absorb a lifetime of insights and experience. So let me go back to something else that you said when we started this interview, and I'm going to go back to your book.
And for our listeners, in the show notes, it's a point and click. I really encourage you, go to the show notes, pick up the book, join the seven figure club. Mark, it could also just as easily be the eight figure club or nine figure club. Your imagination's the only limit. Build your business, double profits, and get your life back.
And so in part one, mindset. I mean, you don't waste any time. You get right to it. It says mindset. Own, don't operate. And you [00:07:00] alluded to that earlier on, and it's probably the biggest, I'll call it oversight or weakness as us as entrepreneurs. So tell us more about that own, don't operate, three words that say so much in so little words.
What's going on with that? The
Mark Anthony: Thank you for emphasizing that because it really is a secret scalability. Most people think you just got to put in more and more hours and they have to have everything be about the perfection. And you obviously want to do things very well, but they get so caught up in a perfectionist. They need to do everything.
They need to micromanage everything and what they basically keep doing, the more they lean into that. It's creating a job for themselves. And when most of us go into wanting to own a business, you want to own the business. You do not want to be owned by that business. And that's the trap that people fall into.
So, you create processes, you create [00:08:00] accountability of what other people are going to. Focus on, and you become the manager who delegates that, keeps people on point, leads them, that's being a business owner. The person who needs to do it all themselves and hold on to everything is the person that can't sell their business, can't leave their business, can't take a vacation from their business.
And when I. Talk to uh, entrepreneurial friends like, hey, let's go skiing, let's, fly down to Georgia and go on a Porsche race car track, and they're like, I can't get away for three days. I'm like, we really need to talk, we're going
Jeffrey Feldberg: golden handcuffs. Mark, I know here at Deep Wealth, when we're speaking with a business owner, to your point, one of the first questions that we ask, please only yes or no, nothing in between, no stories, no ums or ahs, does the business run without you? And you're right. Whether it's a startup or it's a very well established business, more times [00:09:00] than not, sadly, the answer is no.
One of the, I don't know, I'll call it an excuse. Let's just call it for what it is. One of the excuses I hear as well, Jeffrey, you know what, I'm doing it because no one can do it as well as I can. I've. I've brought in people before, they haven't worked out, they really slowed the business down or they hurt the business, I had to fire them.
I just can't have anyone else do it because I'm the world's best. So what would you say that? I guess it's a multi pronged question. Let's start with first, where do we find or how do we find world class talent to grow and scale?
Mark Anthony: to talk about the hiring in just a second. But when you were saying that there was something that was jumping out for me. It's one of the things I mentioned in the book, which is the 70 percent rule. Whenever people are pushing back with all those reasons why they are handcuffed to the business for excellence or whatever it is.
I say. The 70 percent rule, you're not using it, and they said, well, what do you mean by that, Mark? So I figured this out in my actual first business, so I was [00:10:00] lucky. first business was producing sports magazines for colleges across the country. And the way we made money was by selling advertising.
I was good at sales. I could close nine out of ten people in that, with the right prospects. The only problem was, the most prospects I could get to in a week was, let's call it ten, which meant that the most sales I could get were nine. So I started cloning myself. Just using college students and teaching them my process.
So they didn't need to be these sales superstars because I gave them a process of how to sell the college advertising. And guys who were good, the people, the women who were good selling for me closed seven out of ten, same ten prospects. They would get two fewer than I would. If they'd only get seven, I would get nine.
The difference was as I was growing that business, I had 12 sales reps, 12 sales reps, [00:11:00] closing five to seven sales each was a whole lot more than my nine. So if you create 70 percent and you have a team getting everything done really well. But maybe not perfectly, you will start to scale. So you don't have to find rocket scientists and most expensive talent out there, although in certain cases that is a very helpful thing to do when we have the resources to do so.
Other times by you creating a process and you know, listing, writing videoing your process, You could have these days do it for a fraction of the value of your time.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, Mark, wow, so much there. We're going down all these rabbit holes, which I love. And so, as you're talking about this, what I often tell myself, and I share this in the community, is done is always better than perfect. And there's no such thing as perfection. Perfection doesn't exist in nature. Leave perfection for Hollywood.
Leave [00:12:00] it for the fiction books. Done's always better than perfect. And to your point, Hey, you'll take 12 people doing 70%, maybe even 65 percent over, you're the only one who is going to be getting 90 percent because we're really multiplying their efforts and their actions that you don't even have to show up at one point.
Yeah, maybe they're not as good as me. But there's more of them than myself, what I could ever do and growing the business, scaling the business, helping more people, solving the problems, paying it forward, it all starts to add up really quickly. And then the other thing that you said, and this is one of our X Factors, step two, where we, our business can be absolutely world class and unique.
I love what you said. Hey, let's document everything. They didn't have to be as good as me. These college students, they had my system. They just followed the system 70, 80 percent up or down either way on that as good, but it worked and hey, get someone, get a virtual assistant, just document everything. And as crazy as it sounds, as boring as it sounds, I've seen documentation when we're pitching a new business.
We're [00:13:00] going to a prospect. Hey, Ms. Prospect, here's the documentation for our company. Here's our process. When you come on board, here's how we're going to onboard you. When you're a client, here's what's going on. That was a deciding factor of winning the new business. And you shared that as well.
Absolutely love that. So we've got that down. But again, how do we know when we have the right people, even if we have the best systems, the documentation, because I hear these nightmare stories, Jeffrey, let me tell you, brought on this one person, it was a drain on cash, on resources, on time, ultimately had to let them go.
How do we short circuit that?
Mark Anthony: When I'm training people, when I go into an organization or I'm working one on one with the business owner the word that I bring up is accountability. Okay? You could have the greatest person skill wise But they're not accountable to the result. Or you could have someone who is not as good, let's call it that 70 percent person, that 65 percent person, but they're being accountable.
And so what I mean by being accountable, [00:14:00] we want to look at not just the result. I'm going to use sales as an example because we all need sales. Without that You don't have a business. So if someone was making sales, a lot of people measure how many sales did they make this week, this month, this quarter, this year.
That's the end result. More important than that is to track what I like to call drivers. What drives sales? What drives sales? Number of leads in, number of appointments held, number of appointments that resulted in a proposal and so forth. If you do all of those well, you're going to be closing more sales.
So, the key word I mentioned was accountability. So, if you're tracking all the drivers, And what the numbers are each week, each month, now you could see if the person's doing what's necessary. And that's how you know you have someone who's good, who's honoring, going for the [00:15:00] results, but how do you make sure they actually do that and are on track?
The extra piece is, I already know the answer, but I ask them, how many appointments do you think you can do this week? How many proposals do you expect to get out of your 10 appointments? What do you expect the close rate to be? And then I plot that like a dotted line, like if you're using your GPS on a boat, that's the course.
Now I, each week, document. What they did, and if they're on point, they're on course. If they're below the line They're underwater, happens occasionally, but you've got to get above the line. So you need people who are on course or above the line. Do that and you're scaling upwards, otherwise you're carrying someone who's not the right person.
So it's the numbers. And the accountability that really let you know. And I've seen so many people [00:16:00] spend payroll week after payroll week on people that on paper were right, but they never actually tracked their drivers to recognize that they actually weren't the right fit.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Hey, Mark, what's so nice about this? And again, for our listeners, please visit the show notes, click on the link, get the book, because what I love what you did in the book, there's no theories and a gazillion moving parts. It's seven pillars, the seven pillars to success for the seven figure club. And again, it could be the eight figure, nine figure, fill in the blanket in terms of number.
And you're saying, hey, pillar two, accountability. Commitment to the goals. And what I like about that is so often, and I don't know about you, Mark, when I'm speaking with business owners, it's like when you go into a casino and I'm not a gambler, I've played a slot machine every now and again, and I watch people as well, and you get those cherries that come across and you get a few points, but that might be one out of.
Who knows, a hundred spins. Oh, but I got some cherries. I'm going to keep on going. Oh, this person, they really had a good week this week. Well, what about the [00:17:00] other 28 weeks or 52 weeks or other four weeks where it was absolutely nothing? So I like what you're saying. Hey, know what your KPIs are, know what your numbers are, know what your threshold is.
And if we don't get there, let's be prepared to move on and just call it a day and keep on moving forward. And I suspect that's also a segue into your third pillar, sales get more faster. So what's going on with that?
Mark Anthony: Well, to get more sales faster, you do need to know what your drivers are, as I just mentioned a moment ago. And if you want to get more faster, you want to get the whole team focused on sales and not enough people do that. So, recently just did a program with a company where If you want to get more sales, it doesn't have to be all about new business.
And with this company, what we did is we focused on getting more repeat business. So the team that is working every day with their major customers, just handles the phone call, processes what needs to be processed, and they do it [00:18:00] excellently. I was like, but why don't they take those customers, Out to lunch, just bond with them, find out who who they're working with, knows someone else in another division that might also need you, or has a colleague that does the same thing they do at another company.
And just by going out, you can uncover things. And they didn't need to be salespeople, but the people working with the customer can be your best friend. Leverage point for getting even more repeat business. And there's a nugget that I gave to them that both the non sales people, as I'm calling them, and the sales people just had to ask two questions to uncover how to get more sales in these opportunities.
And one was just while chatting with your customers, what's most important to you in developing blank. And listen, and usually you're going to get a vague [00:19:00] answer. Oh, I want more efficiency, more effectiveness, more profitability. But then I say, ask them how they define it and know that it's, and how they're defining it and like how they're illustrating it.
And when you hear that, you really know what they truly need. You got the general what they need and the evidence of how they know it's being achieved. And in pillar three, as we talk about that, it was like two questions. You don't need this long, major sales process. You get that. Obviously, there's lots of other things you could learn but if I had to pick just two things, make sure you know what's most important to the person you're trying to serve.
And how they're defining it so you could communicate on their terms and through their language and reference points. You do that, more sales come, you're on the way to more profitability with more sales.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark, isn't that really the heart of being an entrepreneur? We're finding out what people's painful problems are, figuring out how to [00:20:00] solve that in a world class way, taking their pain away. And eventually we do that enough times, help people get what they want over time. And in that order, we're able to get what we want.
And I just really appreciate how you're really lining out. Okay. Here's what you do. Here's what you're asking. And for listeners, did you pick up on that? Because what Mark said was so important, subtle, but important. Everyone in the company from accounting to customer service to finance, everything else in between, they're all in sales.
They may not know that. They may not believe that, but they really are. Every customer interaction, hey, what's going on today? What are some new problems that's going on? What are you trying to achieve? Maybe we can help you with that. We don't know about that. Talk to us about that. Truth is stranger than fiction from an accounting department, getting sales to all these other areas where you're uncovering the needs, maybe leading to a market disruption, some terrific advice there.
So let's talk about marketing. And I know that's a fourth pillar in the book, and you're talking about scaling your sales. So marketing, and Mark, you can tell [00:21:00] me, hey, Jeffrey, you're on base, off base. There's a lot of noise out there, and I'm going to be the contrarian here. I feel social media has really thrown us in a negative way, not in a great way, has really thrown us off the track with marketing.
You have it taking longer, being more expensive. What's going on out there? Tell us about the marketing. What's really worked for you? I'll
Mark Anthony: multiple channels of marketing. So, I'll talk to clients who are like, oh, I need to do all this branding and then I need to do all this social media, influencing and credibility pieces. And then they're like creating this long runway to success.
And I'm like, well, Why don't you actually go to a networking function, meet people, face to face who are your prospect, and if you're able to communicate to them and you resonate with them you're proving what you have works. Okay. And that your message is getting across. And it was like that's just so old school.
I'm like, well, I didn't say it was new. I just said it [00:22:00] worked, so, You get out to network and that's something that costs you nothing versus someone who doesn't have 100 a day to spend on digital advertising or 3, 000 a month. Now I'm a big believer in digital advertising. I had a digital ad agency.
So, I mean, that is a channel that can work, but in the Early stages, you got to build your business with a foundation, networking does that, actually calling local businesses if you know how you can help them makes it work. One of my favorites for the, at any stage business, if you know you're good, what is your risk reversal offer?
Or what is your butt on the line before you ask someone to put their money on the line? Guarantee. And they're like, huh? People might take advantage. Very few do. you're delivering, people are going to want to work with you and keep working with you. So create an offer, a guarantee where [00:23:00] you're taking the risk away and you can incorporate that into your digital ads, into your close offer, into your networking meeting, into just calling up a business owner and saying, this is what I'm going to do for you. All of a sudden you're closing deals. As an example, there's this client I worked with. They had a local restaurant they wanted to work with. They were a digital advertiser. I said, why don't you go to that cafe and tell them you want to create a birthday campaign for all of their customers.
To bring people back in, and you're going to do that for free, and you're going to also market it to new potential people in their geographic area. You won't charge them, they'll know that they're getting results because people are going to come in because it's their birthday. They did that for free, it worked, credibility was created, profits were created for the customer, for the person that would hire them.
So then with that, they were able to now become a [00:24:00] confident, no risk digital agency hire for this small cafe that normally couldn't have afforded to do it. Be creative. I mean, we could talk about how to do this with eight and nine figure businesses as well. But the fact is basically one out of 10 businesses gets to seven figures.
And it's like one in like 20, 000 or 60, 000 that gets to eight figures. I've been blessed to have gotten to that category, but I know most people haven't. And so that's why when I use examples, I'll use examples that are right for the big business and I work in a big business, but I want to make sure that the smaller entrepreneur or the one that's at 800, 000 or wants to break that ceiling knows they can do it.
And they don't need to put the family fortune on the line to make it happen. There's creative, lower risk marketing ways to do it.
Jeffrey Feldberg: mark with my next question. You would be absolutely right if you said, Jeffrey, every business is different. It depends on the business, the industry, where they're at. [00:25:00] Generally speaking, though, is it a Pareto's law, an 80 20 rule where, hey, Jeffrey, yeah, 20 percent of the same issues again and again are really causing problems or preventing these companies from going to seven figures or eight figures.
And if that's the case, what would be one or maybe two, three of those issues?
Mark Anthony: That's a lot to unpack right there. So thank you for throwing it
Jeffrey Feldberg: That's an, as an episode in and of itself for sure.
Mark Anthony: that's fair. I was giving you a lot there so that all of that is great. Not getting enough prospects in the door. To their website or getting, if it's an outbound team out to enough prospects that's a huge piece.
And when they are out to prospects, they're not clear on who their prospect should be. Cause the reality is everybody does not need your service. Any service, well, everybody has feet, for most people here, so so they all need a podiatrist. No, it's the person who has foot pain that needs that.
So, you [00:26:00] need to figure out how to target your market. If you do those things, and as we spoke about before, pay attention, not to your needs, but to the need of the person that you're serving, you create huge leverage, and that ties into sales, that ties into customer service, that weaves into your marketing message, it into negotiating.
So those three things, if you have the right person to speak to, and you're focused on their needs, and you get enough of them, now have the trifecta to make sure you're going to be successful. Take away one of those pieces and you're going to be struggling.
Jeffrey Feldberg: And so really what you're getting here and it's really the whole approach of what you're doing in the book and your philosophy, in your experience, let's really move away all the moving parts that aren't necessary. Let's do really the least amount of effort for the maximum return, keep it as simple as possible.
Let's not overcomplicate it, figure out what those levers or drivers are, and then one by one, start to ramp those up and get those out [00:27:00] there.
Mark Anthony: Yeah, it's exactly why I wrote the book to really be a blueprint to what I did to grow multiple businesses that were in seven figures and higher. And I wrote it in a language and with stories and also specifics of formula to give you both the technical of like, hey, but in an easy to read way, as well as in illustrative stories, you could see how to implement it because.
The folks who have built successful businesses are doing the same things again and again. And we're out to a nice dinner together. We're all saying this is what folks need to do. it is duplicatable.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And, you know, as you're saying that, you're really, it's a great segue to the fifth pillar. Customer service. You call it the secret sauce and Mark, there's customer service and then there's customer service. Everyone says, Oh yeah, we got great customer service. It's become such a generic overused expression today.
For you though, in building these seven figures, eight figures and beyond, what does customer service really mean? What [00:28:00] makes it stand out and the secret sauce?
Mark Anthony: Well, I use an acronym when I'm training people in this and putting it in to change the mindset, which we always talk about, and that's deliver an award winning level of customer service. And I won't cover the whole piece, but, avoid making a customer wrong, even when they are. Be connected to your customers so that the A is avoid making them wrong, the N is name power, have it be individual to individual.
So I want to know my customer and I want to know them working with Mark or Janet or Jeff or Michael or Mary, Maria, like whoever's on the team, I want to make sure. That it's individuals working with individuals, and that we're aware of the wording, and that we're listening to people, and, taking it all the way through, going through all seven steps, but to the D, just deleting the button, however, I'd love to help you, Jeff, but Yeah, that doesn't work.
So you got to delete the buts and howevers, no matter how nice I was trying to be. I might say, I'd love to help you, Jeff, [00:29:00] and we need to navigate around this situation that's different so we can replace the buts and howevers with the end, we got to think about something and get people involved that.
You're working for them and then they can help you by being more reasonable on their end. But it comes down to making sure you are talking to an individual. And if you treat that customer the way you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed. And a lot of times, oh, if it was reversed, I'd want it like this.
Then why aren't you doing it like that for your customer? And like, I'll push back with a client and I'll be like, if it was reversed, how would you want it handled? Oh, well.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, interesting. And it's so true. How do you want to be treated? Well, why aren't you doing that in your business? And language does count. We've become accustomed when we hear the word, but we shut down. Okay, here it comes. Heard the first part. I'm just waiting for the word, but, and [00:30:00] our mind goes off in different areas.
Love how you're repositioning that. Replace the word, but with, and, or something else. It's not an us versus you or you versus us. It's just an us. Let's work through this together. Let's figure this out of how we're going to really make this happen and get you to that win win situation or have you cross that finish line.
And speaking of crossing the finish line, this could be a whole other episode in and of itself. It's your sixth pillar. It's all about negotiation. And like sales, when it comes to negotiation, most people say, well, I'm just not a negotiator. I would never negotiate. I'm just going to whatever's put in front of me.
That's good enough. Well, that is a negotiation. And you basically just lost because you took whatever was there and we are negotiators and we are salespeople naturally that way. We just don't realize it. What's going on with negotiation, Mark, in your experience, how have you leveraged
Mark Anthony: three day negotiating workshops literally on every continent but Antarctica. So to pack three days down into just one or two point, okay, and I'd love to do an episode, if that [00:31:00] comes up, that'd be fantastic on Just Negotiating. But what we'd want to do is first, the negotiation is not a fight, okay?
So one of the secrets is to negotiate for your opponent's needs and what they're looking for. The reason I say that, you see, sometimes your opponent will word things in a way that is adversarial, but, and they're like, well, I can't give you this closing date. I can't take this much money off the price.
Okay, well, that's why, and they're like, well, because shipping costs this much money on a given item or legal fees are this much money and we have to do it this way. I'm like, oh, so if you didn't have legal fees, we could change the price. Or if you'd have to pay for shipping, then you could lower the price.
Well, yeah, you know what one of my clients is a shipping company. They owe me a favor. I'll take care of the shipping on my [00:32:00] end so you can drop the price, but you work for their needs. And I'm getting doing this very quickly. The other piece is most people spend more time planning their vacations than they do their negotiation.
And yet it's worth so much more money that it would give you lots of vacations if you actually planned it better. When they do the planning, they sit in a boardroom and say, these are all the things we're gonna do to get what we want. This is what we think. This is what we need. We, we, We us, us, us and I walk in and I say, shut up.
You already know your own business. You live it every day. Let's plan the negotiation as if we were hired. By the other side, what are all the things that they would want? What are all the things that they're saying? And put 80 percent of your negotiating planning into thinking from the other person's [00:33:00] shoes.
Because once you're doing that, you can then work better for their needs. Usually, you have an inverted list. Your dream deal is their walk away and vice versa. And somewhere in the middle is where deals usually get done that stick. And you're going to get there way faster and much more easily. If you do all the planning from the other person's point of view, I helped a client who was actually one of my clients grew and was selling their business and the person that was buying it.
I was concerned about the warranty that he would have to guarantee. And my client didn't want to sell because they didn't want to be on the hook for that. And based on that, I said, well, how often have you ever had to honor that guarantee? They're like very rarely. And when you did, what did it cost you?
And it was a very small number. So I was like, all this customer's asking is to basically, [00:34:00] all the buyer's looking to do is be the customer, honor the guarantee for them as well, because they were thinking now from the buyer's point of view. The guy was quite happy and the deal got done and it became a, a non argumentative point and they were so stressed about it till they started thinking from the other person's point of view.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes, the world's favorite radio station, WII. FM, what's in it for me, but from the other person's side, when we can tune into that's really where the magic happens. And you're right, Mark, each one of these pillars or chapters in your book, that could be an episode, some of them even a series in and of itself.
For the final pillar. Pillar seven, getting your life back. So this is where you're talking about processes and really pulling it all together. So a little bit of a snippet for our audience, what's going on with that.
Mark Anthony: it's, you can't grow a business and have free time, even if you had a one person business, you can't do it. If you haven't and have your life back, if you're really going to try and do everything [00:35:00] yourself, so you gotta find a way to put a process in place, whether it's using digital tools, AI tools to clone yourself a little bit, or better yet, Put a VA in place that can just follow your recipe.
You gotta document it. You can just take them through it, make them take notes on it, and then give it to them and then have them test it. As you grow your business, you're gonna have multiple departments. Each department, the only way that happens Is if you can put someone in place who can do it and what you will find and here's the real setting yourself free magic. When your customer asks a question or the phone rings and someone has a question and you just happen to pick up because you're a hands on owner. And you realize there's a staff person in place who's now doing this every day and they could do it better and faster [00:36:00] than you. then you can much more comfortably take that trip, whether it's a weekend getaway or as Jeff, when we were talking, taking my older parents to Italy for an entire month and business continued onwards.
Each of the pillars work It grows your profitability, it allows people to join the seven figure club, which is why that's what I named the book and the website.
Jeffrey Feldberg: And going back to what you said earlier, again, I'm paraphrasing. I'm not far off base. You can tell me otherwise. Oftentimes good is good enough. It doesn't have to be your 90 percent or a hundred percent, 70%, 80%, something in between, give or take, up or down. It's getting done. You're having your life. Taking the parents to Italy in your case, you'll never have that time again.
It's a magical moment just waiting to happen. And Mark, it's interesting. I've had guests incredibly successful in their own right with what they've done. And oftentimes it'll come up, Jeffrey, as successful as I am, the one regret I have is what I gave up that I can never get back. On the friendship side or the family side, I was going after, I can't even [00:37:00] remember what deal it was or what meeting it was that I didn't spend the time with the family.
Some of those family members are no longer here. It's an opportunity loss. I can never get that back. And what you're saying, it's, yeah, it's one of those sayings that you hear, but it's so true. That's why it's been around for eons of really spending time with loved ones is so important. Treasure it because that's all that we really have.
Well, Mark, let me ask you this before we go into wrap up mode. I'm just curious. Is there a question I haven't asked? A topic we haven't covered? Is there a message that you want to get out to the community?
Mark Anthony: Thank you for really going through each of the seven pillars of the book, and it really does give people some gems in each spot that are really very practical to implement. You've built a great business. I've built, a number of businesses as well, and it's not easy, but it's not impossible and it's not totally hard either.
And so, you gotta lean into it and just implement. Each day, if each day people are taking an action towards their goal, they're [00:38:00] going to get there. And to pull all of this together, what I actually do is at the start of the week. I plan, what are the six things that are gonna move me the most towards my goal on my long list of 50 to do items, or 500 to do list items.
I'm never gonna get them all done, so I recognize I'm gonna get one through six done first, and then if the other stuff doesn't get done, it's okay. Because the other stuff was lower down the list. So put your priorities first, both in family, in wellness, in business, in profitability. Know the actions and make sure that those are the things that get done every week.
You do that every week for 50 weeks, six times, you made 300 steps and that marches you right down a field to score that touchdown.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific answer. In [00:39:00] that answer, you actually preempted a question I was about to ask, and that would be what's one low hanging fruit A listener coming out of this episode before they take that next meeting or call or whatever activity that they're doing, what could they do?
I would say that would be it, unless you have another thing up your sleeve that you can share with us. What do you think? Would that be a really a terrific, low hanging fruit, high producing, low effort, high reward kind of action?
Mark Anthony: Absolutely. When you write down your six movers, levers that are really going to make a difference, and you implement that week after week, and those are the things you check off you're both increasing profits, but you're also making sure that you get your life back. Cause if you did items 30 through 50 on your to do list, if it was a priority order and it felt good to check all those boxes.
You'd be looking at one through six still undone, and therefore you wouldn't be able to stop working, so then you'd get sucked into the 80 hour week. [00:40:00] If you got one through six done and some great movement's happening you might choose to let some other stuff go because it's never going to get done.
it's like junk mail coming in. The post office is always going to bring in something. It just, it never stops. And you got to be in control of what the priorities are. And you got to clearly define what they are.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific insights. And it's actually a wonderful segue into the wrap up question. It's really a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast, where every guest, I have the privilege, the honor to ask this question. It's a fun one. Let me set this up for you, Mark. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time.
So here's the fun part. Imagine now it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car there, the door is open. It's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now going to go to. Any point in your life, Mark, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life [00:41:00] wisdom?
Or hey, Mark, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?
Mark Anthony: There's a couple of things, because we would love to be able to do that. One is to build team sooner,
Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.
Mark Anthony: And get people like, business partners that can be experts at the things that you might be good at, but not an expert in, because then They'll grow that department really fast while you're growing your specialty.
And that is the secret to my largest business is we all complimented each other so well. The other piece is. Make sure that you actually recognize the things that you want to do, put them on your calendar, in writing, every year. And what I actually do is I take little post it notes, and I, instead of writing in ink what I want to do at certain times, I put the sticky note on the calendar, and the reason I do that is, when I do it, I then peel it off and [00:42:00] write it down in ink.
But if someone said, oh, can you do this other activity instead, on the dates when I wanted to do something, that I was planning that was special, I have to peel that sticky off and either move it to somewhere else on my calendar. Or throw it in the garbage. Am I willing to do that? Am I willing to bump what I said was so important?
And that allows me to control that finite resource of time. Because otherwise, that trip, that new skill, that something will be one day, and then you might find out that time has gone by, and it could be as simple as Oh, I'll coach my kid's team next year. The year after that, all of a sudden they're in high school.
And they don't want you to coach them. And hopefully the, everyone's close, but, illustratively, everyone can sort of relate to that point.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And I always hear people say, Oh, one day or tomorrow. And Mark, I don't know about you, but at least every [00:43:00] calendar I've checked up to this point in time, and maybe there's one that exists that I don't know. I never see a one day, or I never see a tomorrow, and that's exactly the point. Unless we schedule it and honor that schedule, it's sacred time.
This is really not moving unless something, life happens, and sure, every now and again, things come up, but hey, this is sacred time. I'm sticking with it. That's what I'm going to do. That's where the magic happens, and that's how we really were able to enjoy the present moment. Mark, as we wrap this up, Hey, listener, they want to get in touch with you.
They have a question. Maybe you want to do some of your coaching and really learn from the trenches, these strategies that have worked so well for you. Where's the best place online for someone to find you?
Mark Anthony: The book is called Join the Seven Figure Club. I made the website very easy. Join the seven figure club.com and the seven is the numeral seven. So join the numeral seven figure club.com. They can get the book, they can learn about programs right there. One of my New Year's resolutions was to make sure that [00:44:00] instead of just taking five as the saying goes, it's about Giving five.
And so I've blocked out approximately five hours in my schedule each week to be able to field questions from people and to help a business owner that wants to go to the next level, whatever that is, and really just roll up our sleeves and spend an up to an hour with someone typically more like 45 minutes.
I did that with uh, restaurant owner from Hawaii just yesterday. And we were going over all different profitability strategies. So it's not a sales call. It's a give. If you, the more you give, things come right back to you. It's very much like that. And if anyone wants to follow me on Instagram, it's Mark Anthony, high performance.
Jeffrey Feldberg: Doesn't get any easier because we'll have all that in the show notes. It's a point and click. And again, for our listeners, go to the show notes. You can pick up the book, go to the website. Book a time to talk. See what's going on. It's all there. Well, Mark, two things. Firstly, congratulations. It's [00:45:00] official.
This is now a wrap. Really enjoyed our conversation together. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.
You.
So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.
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And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much. God bless.
Author/Entrepreneur/Adventure Traveler
Mark is an international speaker and business advisor. He has worked on 6 of the 7 continents. At the age of 19 Mark started his first business and in only a few short years had clients coast to coast. In his 40s he built a thriving 8-figure business and generated over 100M in sales. Mark has taught his programs and methods at Fortune 500 firms as well as to thousands of small-business owners.
Each solution he offers is practical, duplicatable and based on having walked in the shoes of the small business owner. His easy to implement tools and strategies help entrepreneurs hit 7 figures.
Additional passions include helping animals and wildlife, improving the environment, traveling to exotic locations and participating in adventure sports.