Success by design, with Marcus Chan
Repeatable Revenue Podcast #009 - Success By Design | Marcus Chan
Summary:
In this meeting of the minds, Ray Green and Marcus Chan discuss the mental aspects of sales, sales management, and entrepreneurship, focusing on how you can design a work structure and system that maximizes your time and effort so that you can achieve true success in a sustainable, effective, and streamlined way.
Resources Mentioned:
Six Figure Sales Academy, Marcus Chan
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Transcript:
Edited FULL Marcus Chan Podcast
RJG: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. Marcus
Marcus: [00:00:03] Ray, my man pumped to be here, excited , to dive deep and talk about whatever you want to talk about.
RJG: [00:00:08] We have a lot to cover. I'll tell you, this is, I want to tell the audience, this is I'm actually, I'm really excited about this show and I haven't actually told you this part of it.
[00:00:16] And it's because, we've talked a good amount on LinkedIn and we chat and, but there've been a couple of conversations and things that you've done that really influenced what I'm doing with my business today. A year ago we had a conversation about community and it was after that call, I thought, damn he's got some really great ideas, but I'm excited about this cause I love your sales content.
[00:00:36] I know we share a lot of the same philosophies when it comes to leadership. And I respect you as an entrepreneur and watching this journey that you've undergone over these past couple of years. the , pleasure's all mine and very stoked to, to dive into this.
Marcus: [00:00:49] I appreciate it.
[00:00:49] But I remember that conversation we had over a year ago , And I remember when he first mentioned him is this guy trying to sell me something? And I'm like, how he's, he's been a real dude, we're gonna have a real conversation. And it was cool. Now I'm like, wait, hold on. Where are you?
[00:00:59] Actually, you're a Mexico. That's a, that's amazing. And that was the star of our friendship. It was amazing.
RJG: [00:01:05] Who knows? Maybe it's just a very slow play on the, I'm still trying to sell you something. We'll see. Who knows? I think if that's the case, I probably need some training from you on how to close this deal.
Marcus: [00:01:17] I'll help how to sell me. There you go.
RJG: [00:01:18] I really excited to dive into this. I've read a good deal about your background and, your career trajectory. And the more that I read candidly, I thought, Marcus is pretty, pretty modest when he talks about his background.
[00:01:29] when I look at promoted 10 times in 10 years and your success at what you've done at other companies and in sales so can you. Just tell me your story into sales. Like, how did you, what got you into sales? What was that? What was that path? Why'd you go that direction.
Marcus: [00:01:45] Yeah. Yeah. First off I never thought I'd go into sales. It wasn't something that was, I was predestined to do or wanted to do. And I was definitely not a quote unquote, born salesperson now, when I was going to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was actually supposed to be an [00:02:00] architect.
[00:02:00] That was the gist of my plan. And it was only because I loved to draw back as a kid, I loved drives. I'm like, okay, I'll be an architect because my parents wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer. I'm like, how am I into that? Maybe I'll be an architect. And then I actually did a job shadow right before I turned in my application and I hated it.
[00:02:19] I realized it wasn't like spec because I pictured late nights with a drafting board drawing things. And I thought it was so awesome. What I really saw was everything was on auto CAD is on the computer. I'm like, this is not what I expected. So I literally threw my application. That tracks went undeclared.
[00:02:35] And then I really didn't know what else to do in college. So eventually I'm like do business because I think that's a pretty safe, overall thing did that. And then before I graduated, I was really fortunate. I actually had five job offers on the table and there were a mixture of different types of roles.
[00:02:50]I got did some internships, et cetera. Some are sales roles. Some were like analyst roles. It was a wide variety. And one offer, which was the lowest offer was for a B2B sales role. And it was for the company I was already working for as an intern. Full-time in B2B sales is a stark division, brand new.
[00:03:08] And I remember I turned down my other offers, highest offers like 60 K a year and turned off all the other offers. And my parents were like, what is wrong with you? Why did you choose this offer? And I'm like I think it's a really good opportunity here where I can really learn how to build a business and, hopefully I'll get promoted.
[00:03:23] It'll be really good. And plus I trust the leader. So for me, I saw the vision of his opportunity to build something from scratch. It wasn't even that I wasn't going to sales more so I could build something from scratch. Now my parents are absolutely right. Once I start I'm like, this is really sales.
[00:03:37] It was cold calling, knocking on doors and doing all those things. And when I started, I really struggled. It was really hard because it was going in and doing things that was really uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. Make cold calls, uncomfortable to knock on doors, uncomfortable to ask for the business.
[00:03:51] And I struggled. And then fortunately, once I figured it out and started having success from there and then from there for years though, I still wasn't willing to admit I was in sales. [00:04:00] Like when someone asks me, Hey, Marcus, what do you do? If I said sales, I felt embarrassed. I'm like, oh, I'm in sales.
[00:04:05]Oh, okay. I could see on their face, they're thinking what do you really want to do? And, as a young kid back then, you're like that's not comfortable. So as I started having success with start getting promoted multiple times, and then I was leading teams of people and I was really enjoying that because I'll sell and lead people as well.
[00:04:19] It's I really identify as being a leader. That was really what I associate myself with. And then it got to the point where I, in my career, I felt like in order to get to the next level from an income, responsibility and leadership, I would have to do it somewhere else because I also have this fear that what if I was a one hit, wonder what if at the company I was, maybe it was this circumstances.
[00:04:41] And even though I sold like a little during the last recession, I'm like, maybe I got lucky. Maybe I got lucky winning this award. Maybe I got lucky beat people up. Maybe you guys got lucky. It was just right time, right place. So I made the leap into another. It was a downward, it was a downward promotion.
[00:04:57] It was a basically a demotion, if you will, by title by two levels. So it took a downward step two levels. Went to a complete different company. Now I'm like, let's see if I can do this again. Cause at this point I'm like you know what? Like my risk level, I can take out more risks, let's try it out.
[00:05:10]And it was an educated guess. Went to a company and it was a very hard sale. It was a contractual based sale for what they were selling, very competitive. They're still a massive company as well, really fortunate had success from there. I ended up getting promoted in nine months at that company.
[00:05:26] Most people took about three to five years to get to that point, but I was able to get promoted pretty quickly. Basically doing everything I did before. And that was brilliant. He'd seen it. And then from there I got promoted multiple times to the point I was leading massive teams. But it was at that point, I realized I really love sales.
[00:05:42] I love the journey. I love what's all about because sales is really about that ability to really influence and communicate. And I also realized when you really believe what you have to offer to really master selling is actually the highest level of service that you can do is to serve at a highest level is to sell.
[00:06:00] [00:05:59] Because if you know your offer, your solution, your product can really change the lives of businesses or people. It is our duty to sell to them. It's our duty to gather attention, interrupt people's day and provide them a solution. And we're going to help them. And I realized that took me years to get to that point.
[00:06:17] But now I understand that, right? And now I understand now it's like I became obsessed. I became obsessive about that and it's been great for my business because it's no different for me. I now can sell what I get to create, because I know it's gonna change lives too.
RJG: [00:06:31] Yeah, that's actually speaks to a little bit of what we were talking about before we did this on the transformation.
[00:06:37]If if you're providing something of value and you're contributing to a positive transformation, then it makes all the sense in the world that you have like a duty to sell successfully. It's when you get into that, if you're not convinced of that, if you're not convinced that you're delivering real value.
[00:06:51] And I imagine you have, so you teach sales and I don't know if you call them members or students, but the people that you teach. Do you have some students that are maybe in a position where, 'Hey, I'm not sure I love this value prop, or I'm not sure that, maybe we over promise on our transformation," if you find yourself, or if your students find themselves in a role like that, what's your advice to them in terms of trying to navigate next steps or where to go with that?
Marcus: [00:07:20] Yeah. You talked about in terms of if at their company, maybe they don't necessarily believe in the offer, is that right? Yeah . Yeah. And that does pop up periodically, right? One of the things that's so key, especially I train with the program is understanding when you can master sales, it becomes a vehicle to achieve your dreams.
[00:07:39] And the company you work for is part of that vehicle. And it's understanding that, right? Because most companies, what our people are selling most of the time people didn't wake up saying I'm super passionate about X, maybe, but most times it's not . For example, the first thing that I was selling was a rental box trucks and lease trucks to businesses.
[00:07:57] Like they had a fleet of vehicles, getting them to switch over [00:08:00] to our fleet solution, as well as selling. I didn't wake up one day and say I would love to, sell, lease, vehicle leases and in fleet programs, I know no one says that, nobody says that and I did do it, but why did see was, Hey, you know what.
[00:08:12] If I'm able to, provide these companies with a fleet solution, it will help them serve to their customers more and deliver more. And their business is going to grow, which will positively impact the business. So I saw something greater and that's, what's key. Understand for those out there who are not able to see that quite yet.
[00:08:31] What you got to ask yourself is, Hey, so when we are able to provide them this, whatever it's going to be, this solution, whatever's going to be, let's say, it's internet. Maybe you sell a telecommunications. If I pride in this awesome telecommunications business package, what does that really mean for that business owner?
[00:08:46] What does that really mean for that business? It's not just, you provide them wireless connectivity. You will provide them a tool now that can run their whole business on. A tool, allows them to connect with their customers and serve them at a higher level to provide customer service to whatever it's going to be.
[00:09:01]Like edema. If you are a in selling wireless internet and you're selling to say a bar. You are now pre-selling them not just internet. You are selling them, a package that's going to allow them to be able to have, stream TV, stream whatever, and bring in more customers and clients, and probably a great, awesome experience.
[00:09:17] So for the people that come into the bar, who've had a rough day they have a place to go a place to watch sports and hang out because you were able to provide them a service. So it was being able to see beyond what the actual features and benefit of what you're bringing, but what type of real transformation can you help them with?
[00:09:35] And a lot of times, most people do not think that deep, but I think it's for anything that you do. For example, let's just say if you're an auto mechanic, right? You're an auto mechanic. You're not just fixing a car. You are taking care of the transportation for their family. Like when that car runs really well, they don't have to worry and now they can take their family to and from wherever they need to go, whether it's school, vacation, et cetera, and [00:10:00] understanding that whatever you sell it has a major can have a major part in their transformation, their lives.
[00:10:05] And that's when you start selling a higher load. Cause now you realize you're doing yourself a disservice by not selling to them. So it takes a little bit of training and revamping to really understand how's it really helped me and a really simple way, understand this is to say, for example, let's just say you sell something that's not glamorous at all.
[00:10:21]It's just you're like, oh, am I going to sure. I sell, I don't the light bulbs is schools or something. And you're like, that's his life? It's just light bulbs. It is light bulbs. Think about this. Like when you are selling to them, ask them, Hey Mr. or Mrs. decision-maker like where do you currently get your light bulbs? Okay, cool. Why are these important to you? How does it actually help you? It's our digging deep understanding. Oh, you know what? The reason we have light bulbs is because. when kids come in, we need to both see where everything is.
[00:10:48] Okay, cool. Why else? It creates a safe environment for people. Okay. Why else? So this way it's a comfortable and open environment for everyone. Okay, cool. So I understand you right. Having good light bulbs are quality are going to last is actually about creating a safe environment for your students.
[00:11:04] Is that right? Yes, it is. So now you are truly able to go to do a deeper root versus saying, oh, you know what, we're going to order this on light bulbs because they need light. No, you are providing a better environment for people. So it's understanding that's how you start making a shift to becoming someone who's just being a pitch person versus being someone who's actually going to be a consultant, truly offer a solution that'll help them achieve an end desire they're shooting for.
RJG: [00:11:28] Yeah, that's awesome. It reminds me of one of my old bosses. I don't know the origin of this story. One of my old bosses used to talk about they asked somebody at NASA like who was one of the, a janitor or somebody that was, and they said, what do you do here?
[00:11:40] He said, helping put a man on the moon and it's different. The perspective that you have is probably not only going to influence your results as a salesperson, but it's also going to give you that inner fire. If you look at I'm here helping somebody transform. I'm here helping somebody do whatever it is.
[00:11:59] That's where the [00:12:00] internal proactive fire in the belly comes from as opposed to if you don't think it's terribly important. And I imagine a portion of that is mindset discipline a hundred percent, right? When you're working with people from a sales standpoint, what are some of the mindset mistakes that you see most common?
Marcus: [00:12:19] Yeah. So I think number one of the most common ones, most of them ask themselves bad questions. And here's what I mean by that. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. So the truth is, the hardest territory to manage is always going to be the one that's right between your ears and in sales most of the time it fails and rejection is tough and you get negative things that happen.
[00:12:40] Let's just say, for example, if you make a cold call and you get shut down on the cold call, what most people start thinking about, and I know I did it still creeps in even now is, oh, what's wrong with them? Why were they such a jerk? Wow. I can't believe they did that to me. They're so stupid and lame, whatever.
[00:12:56] Or worse, you beat up on yourself. Oh, what is wrong with me? Why can't I make this happen? Why can't I be better on the phone? I can't do this. And you start second guessing yourself. Those are very disempowering questions. So the first thing you must do is start changing the questions you ask yourself.
[00:13:10] That's one of the first things because human beings are very reactive in nature. And as Tony Robbins says, if you don't like the answer, ask a better question. That's a really powerful and questions can reframe your mind. So I'll give you examples early on. And when I was making cold calls, that would happen to me.
[00:13:26] I had those terrible questions. And then I read Tony Robbins, Awaken The Giant Within, and I realized, man, I need to reframe how I think about these situations. So one of the ways that are doing that with a bad cold call is, and before it went down on a loop of negative questions are I asked myself what could I have done better, what could I've learned from here. What went really well. What could I do differently in the future to get a better result? What can I do proactively to lead to my highest possible win rate? And we start asking questions like that. And now you are asking empowering [00:14:00] questions and it forces your brain to think, and sometimes you're ready to go nothing, nothing went good.
[00:14:04] Okay. If I was to know if I was interpret something good, what could I interpret? And you start realizing you can start shifting your mind anytime something bad happens. For example, like I remember a couple of years ago, my family wanted to go to the beach and someone rear ends me, boom, hits me from behind, my wife's freaking out, Mikaela's freaking out. Nobody's injured. And yes, I could have gotten really upset. Oh my God, I just bought this new car and now it's damaged and yeah, I was pissed for sure. Okay. Let me reframe this real quick. What could be great about this? Well, number 1, no one got hurt. That's good. No one got hurt.
[00:14:38] Number two. I now know this car is pretty fricking safe. Like that guy hit me going 30 miles per an hour. And that, that did a really good job. Wow. This was a really good purchase. And suddenly I'm like, okay, you know what? You're number three. Man, this really I was like, what could have done differently?
[00:14:52] I'm like like I could have left earlier. I could have left later. And what was it? An accident? When you start thinking like that, now you have an ownership mentality and you started shifting how you think. So that's also the only one, the biggest things for our sales professionals is really being able to reframe your mind.
[00:15:04] Because when you start reframing your mind that way, you start taking a hundred percent ownership to everything you do. But also on top of that, you start seeking solutions versus problems. And so when you have something that doesn't go your way, whether it's a discovery or a close, and when you ask those questions what if only I'd done this on the front end, I think it would minimize chances of this.
[00:15:26] This is actually why I'm a firm believer pretty much every single sales process can get cut in half because oftentimes we add extra steps, without realizing it, that we could have done on the front end to minimize chances of that happening on the backend. So understanding that's definitely very key and being able to squash what I call ants immediately and answer automatic negative thoughts.
[00:15:46] So when you get an automatic negative thought, trippy in your head, how are you squashing that? And asking those types of questions I mentioned are really vital. So key. So when we start understanding that, and also the belief of selling at a higher level, you start becoming a [00:16:00] better version of you, right?
[00:16:01] Because are you asking better questions and you start changing how you think. When you change how you think, then you start changing your beliefs. When you start changing beliefs then you start changing your habits. You start changing your habits, then your results are following that as a result.
[00:16:15]
RJG: [00:16:15] Man. That's a lot of gold in there.
[00:16:17]You mentioned proactive and I'm a big Stephen Covey fan. There's a reason. I think that's the first habit of highly effective people is right. You can focus on the circle of concern, like the things that concern you, or you can focus more time on your circle of influence the things that you can actually change.
RJG: [00:16:34] And, the more effective successful people tend to focus more on the things that they can actually influence that they can own, that they can change the outcome of. I like the squashing ants piece too. What do you recommend? Because whether you're a business owner or a salesperson or, a coder, that's something that you can if you can master that, I imagine you're going to have very different results.
[00:16:56] What do you recommend for someone that's just in the early phase ? "Okay, I'm going to squash ants," but they have a habit of prior thinking. A ny tips on how to do that effectively? Yeah.
Marcus: [00:17:04] So I think one of the things is understand peak performance is intentional, right?
[00:17:09] To be a peak performer in life and that includes squashing ants. And one of the, one of the best ways to squash ants is to make sure you feel freaking good as much as possible, right? That's just the reality, but it takes skill to put yourself in a peak performance state. It's when you are coming off a high or something you're excited, you're pumped, you feel invincible and that's powerful because you just did something that you committed to, that you wanted to do.
[00:17:32] So you want to be able to replicate your peak performing states and I'm a firm believer the way you do is you also understand there are four energy buckets to help create your energy. That really impact how you think. And the four buckets are it's your emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical buckets.
[00:17:50] That's why I'm a firm believer you need to have ways to maximize each. So for example, it's about mental and it should be daily as well. For mental, like you talking about, like the [00:18:00] ants crawling in, sometimes the ants crawl in because you're not controlling what's coming into your head. For example, if you are watching the news it's bad. Like it literally, like there's nothing good in the news. Okay. It doesn't matter what country you're in, the news is always negative because that attracts attention. So I don't read the news. It's first thing. So I'm controlling my environment. Number two, if there's things that really make you distraught, eliminate them mentally. For example, if social media makes you distraught, cut out social media, it's that simple. If Instagram makes you feel bad about yourself because you compare, cut out Instagram. Okay So we start eliminating these things that actually make you feel bad. That's really key. And then it makes sure you replace them with things that are gonna make you feel better.
[00:18:42] So for example, if reading something that's going to get you fired up , a book that you're reading is gonna be great and enlightening read a book every day or not, read parts of a book every single day. Listening to podcasts is really helpful like this awesome one, listen to podcasts every single day that lift you up and give you new ways of thinking.
[00:18:56] Okay. Now, third part of your, who's part of your circle of influence, right? The people who's around you is so huge. If you're around a bunch of negative people, you'll become negative too. So if you can start us off with the right people, you'll become uplifted as well. Those are some of the key things.
[00:19:13] And then you add another part they're going to make you feel more fulfilled. So for example, I'm a firm believer you should do, you should work on every single day. Just an extra, I'm not saying anything, go in and crush it 2 hours out of the gym, but you gotta work out a little bit every single day, whether even was for a brisk walk move, get the blood flowing, so you feel good. Like when you physically feel good, you perform better. Like those days when you don't get proper sleep, you feel terrible the next day you just do, . So how can you control that? And when you feel terrible, bad things happen, that's what happens, right? There's actually why I got an aura ring. An aura ring helps me track my sleep so I can improve my sleep to be a peak performer.
[00:19:49] So you started realizing there's things that we do that we can build to our habits and make you feel much better. If what is spending some time with your family every single night makes you feel really good and you hadn't done have not done a good job with that. [00:20:00] Build time in spend time with your family.
[00:20:02] That's refilling your emotional bucket. Do it. If you need, if you read the Bible every day, read the Bible every day, it makes you feel good. Do it. If you need to pray, go pray, but building these things that are going to be habits that happen every single day, not when you feel bad. Do it before you feel bad.
[00:20:18] So you have a proactive approach to controlling the ants. So when you are feeling, good and the ants are crawling in, then you it's much easier because you're more bulletproof to those ants. Versus being reactive. And then of course then add some strategies such as surrounding yourself with good people, asking better questions.
[00:20:35] Now you're in a better position to squash those ants.
RJG: [00:20:38] That's awesome. If I were thinking about your answer in some ways what I would say if I were to reframe it, I might say the answer to the symptom, right? So if you just try to address that without changing the underlying cause , it's going to be a really long road ahead of you.
[00:20:53] Whereas if you look at what's driving that and to your point, you can change your environment, you can change your habits and that will affect the ants in your head. Get to it at the root of the problem. The a hundred percent, the only thing I might add as you're talking is I have something I call a WIN journal.
[00:21:09] Every morning and I try every night I'm not as good at it at night, but I every morning start the day with, I do exercise because I have found my, in my state of mind exercise is where I get headspace, it's where creativity comes. If it's on a bike, on a run it's where I think most clearly.
[00:21:24]And so that's why I do that. But then the WIN journal for me is a reminder of the recent things that I've done successfully, because driven ambitious people, we can be tough on ourselves and always be looking at what we still need to do.
[00:21:38]And not necessarily reflecting on, "Hey, I have exercised five days in a row or I have, made these steps." Or if you're starting to take actions that you're recommending, just jot them down, like , remind yourself of the wins along the way, so you're not constantly beating yourself up, looking at the road ahead.
Marcus: [00:21:53] I a hundred percent agree. So every single night I actually do, I do a gratitude list and inside there, I list wins every single night [00:22:00] because here's what I found. Cause for me personally, I like nighttime, because let's just say your day goes to crap. Now what happens? Then you're like, oh, you don't have the product.
[00:22:08] They plan. Now you worked out you, you meditated. You're awesome. A routine, which I have a killer morning routine, but then the day happens and it falls to, falls shit, if you will. That's okay, cool. What do I do next? Cause you can go to your night negative. How can you reframe your mind?
[00:22:21] And that's really powerful for me, what I also do as well. So I do track metrics every single day. And these allow me to make sure I'm focusing on the right things. Every single day, I'm tracking metrics. I also have a weekly tracker as well to sum everything up. And then on top of that, I also have a journal where I would call it, I call it a decision journal. It's like what decisions I make this week that are a little bit different that have had a good impact so far. So it's reinforcing. It's a good, it's a feedback. We will reinforce the right things. And then on a monthly basis, I reflect on the whole month. What went really well last month? What could have been better? This forces you to constantly think and pause and look at your business and not let your business run you. Now you can run the business because now you are focused on being more proactive and you're pausing to think, and it's not like I just remembered to do all these things.
[00:23:13] I have it all automated into like my to-do. So when it pops, I'm like, okay, time to do this. So now I've assisted a member. Okay. Know what time to reflect on the day, time to reflect on the week, time to do this. And this forced me to pause and just slow down and really make sure that I'm recognizing the progress I made.
[00:23:33] Cause it's so easy as an entrepreneur or as a sales professional, to be like go. And a year flies by you're like that other good or bad. You don't really know. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's bad. But most time you're like, wow, what else I do? Is this all I accomplished? It wasn't the year you wanted? Well no.... Chances are, you did a lot of really cool things. You just forgot. So have a place like a win journal to each. You can look back like. Dang. I really have improved quite a bit as a result. [00:24:00]
RJG: [00:24:00] A personal operating system, oh yeah. A hundred percent. If you don't mind me asking on the metrics, what are some of the metrics that, that you think are most important?
[00:24:08] What do you track or what would you recommend if somebody were starting?
Marcus: [00:24:11] So in terms of being sales, in terms of or just a business owner, what specifically?
RJG: [00:24:16] Say either one, if you're a sales professional , or as a business owner, are there some metrics that you're tracking on a daily basis that you think have led to the most self-improvement or just a better, a more positive perception of how you're doing things?
Marcus: [00:24:30] So I'll say. It depends on where you are in your journey as well, because when you're new, you may have different metrics versus, when you're six months in 12 months and et cetera. So I would say when I was new, they were a little different metrics I would look at because if being new, I'm like, okay, cool.
[00:24:47] I want to be closing every single day, 10 K per day, every single day. If I'm starting from scratch that might be unrealistic. Understanding of that as well. So like for example, I started something that I'd measured every single day. Number one, I measured reach- how much reach do I have with my outbound.
[00:25:03] That was really important to me. That was really important. So I'll take a look like, this post got 3000 views today. Did I book any appointments off it? I booked zero appointments. Okay. All right. It's these decent rates. Okay, good to know. So the measuring reach and also measuring booked calls and then also measuring revenue as well.
[00:25:19]And then as you, as the business starts to progress more then I started measuring stuff okay, know what booking codes are measuring, closing ratio, Hey, how many people showed up and how many calls that book? How many showed up? What was my show up rate? What was my close rate. Why didn't it close?
[00:25:34] Also, still be tracking stuff like, amount of views as well. And then on top of that, it starts to expand I start building other parts of my process, like a landing page. And I'm like, how many page views did I have this past week? What percent did they convert at?
[00:25:48] And I wasn't necessary focused on the number of views more so the conversions, because conversions, you can scale, right? So whether you have a hundred people stop on your page or a thousand, what percent is it converting at? From, a watch from a, [00:26:00] the landing page to the opt, into whatever they're watching to booking a call to close.
[00:26:05] So you start measuring every part of the process and you start improving it as you go. But, I think the key is as a new business owner, you want keep it really simple. What are the things that are gonna move the needle the most, what's going to really move the needle. Let's just say, if you are a mechanic who just started their own shop and you want to bring in more customers.
[00:26:29] Okay, cool. You may, you probably want measure how many appointments did we book today? Okay. Like it's a variable. How many do we book today? What was the average ticket size for that offer? That's very simple. And then of course from you can start improving it. You know what we're going to start and we're going to start doing Facebook ads in the local area.
[00:26:49] Okay. All right. How many people, opted into grab the coupon? If that's what you're doing okay. Per day. So now you start having measurements and start targeting, and these are improving and of course you can get more refined, when you start off, keep it really simple, keep it really lean, getting eyeballs, get eyeballs, getting eyeballs, converting to meetings and revenue dollars. And then over time you can get more granular in certain other parts of the process as you get more of a complex funnel going .
RJG: [00:27:15] Measure what matters. That's right. So you mentioned when you were talking about your sales journey, you mentioned that you went into leadership, I think a couple of times.
[00:27:23]And you did really well there, if you were either, from sales, new, into management, or you're a business owner looking to hire your first salesperson or two, what advice would you give to somebody that's new in sales leadership? Do you have any tips on making that transition or Or anything that you've from your experience?
Marcus: [00:27:45] Yeah. I'll say number one, when are you making that transition, understand this: the people you hire, they are not you. They're not you. And oftentimes, a new business owner, a new leader, they're like, oh, cool. They're [00:28:00] just like me. Ray is just like me. He can do exactly everything I do. Well, no. Ray is a completely different person.
[00:28:07] He could be better or worse. You don't really know. So understand that this is managing your expectations, right? And then second, when you bring people in, understand, they are people and, you need to win the hearts and minds of your people, but also put them position where they are most likely to be successful.
[00:28:27] And that's everything from, from a, providing resources and training support from when they get onboarded all with who again, develops the next level. Really important because a lot of times a mistake I see people make is they bring somebody in but don't have a good system in place.
[00:28:42] So like good luck. And they throw a person out there and then there's issues. Things aren't done. Things aren't done properly. There's always issues. And then they're like, oh, that person's a bad hire or whatever it was. No, look in the mirror first. Did you, as a business owner, did you as a brand new sales leader, did you provide them the environment to be successful?
[00:29:01] If you didn't, you have potential, a train wreck of anyone you hire is going to go down the train wreck. So by putting the systems in place where you can onboard effectively and teach them and help them become great. Also understand this I'm personally as a sales leader, I think there's really three key skills you need to have outside the office to be great at sales, but you need to be really great at recruiting talent.
[00:29:23]Really great at recruiting talent. If you are, if you do a good job and your people are crushing it, they're going to get promoted or they're going to, you can give other roles. They were gonna do something else or, oh, they'll get recruited away. So you gotta make sure that you have really good recruiting.
[00:29:38] Number two, you'd be really good to develop them ongoing. So it's not just onboard, train see ya later, good luck. That's not realistic. This is why it's not like Michael Jordan got in the team and they never got coached again. Okay. He got coached all throughout. So make sure to ongoing training support to make sure they are maximum themselves, coach them to be successful.
[00:29:59] And then [00:30:00] number three, you gotta retain them. How are you gonna retain them? What's important to them. Is it upper mobility is the further development. Are you treating them properly? Are you creating a culture of retaining because if you have a high turnover rate, you will burn cash. It will cost you so much money trying to hire and rehire and retrain.
[00:30:16] You become more stressed because when that person's not there, someone else picking up the slack. If you don't do good job recruiting, then the rest of the team is getting burnt out. And then you got more turnover as a result. So turnover always clues, be a master recruiting talent, developing talent, and retaining that talent.
[00:30:33] If you do those consistently, then your team will be performing at a very high level and you'll have very low turnover as a result.
RJG: [00:30:39] That's great advice. I think the cost of churn is, like some organizations do a good job of trying to calculate that cost, but it's the opportunity cost of the sales leadership, the sales manager or the business owner, like the time that you're investing the mental space that you're investing into trying to fix that is not on, on something else where you could be, more proactively moving them the needle with sales priorities.
Marcus: [00:31:03] Oh, a hundred percent. And it's one of the things where it's you want your team to be an extension of you. If you have like turnover is a growth killer, it's a massive growth killer and it a forced you to do so much. And your headspace. You're stressed. If you are a sales leader, you have a quota you want to deliver, because you wanna hit your number because your job might be at stake or whatever was going to be.
[00:31:22] So you need to make sure you retain your people, but that doesn't mean you keep bad people around because if after you provide training, do open resources and in your ongoing, if they're not performing, you got to move pretty quickly to make sure you have backfills ready to go. If someone's not willing to sit in, to take action and get the results that you need.
RJG: [00:31:41] One of the things that I've wanted to ask you is because I've seen a theme in your content and I read your stuff every day and there's a theme that you have about hard work. And I know you're like your work ethic is I know that we're part of a mastermind together.
[00:31:54] I know. You are just a, you will work your ass off to grind things out. And I wanted to ask. [00:32:00] What would you consider or what would you encourage someone to think about when you're thinking of, there's this, there's the Tim Ferriss Four Hour Work Week type of mindset, would be as efficient as possible.
[00:32:10] And, minimize, essentially trying to minimize the, the work part of it, the work ethic part of it but maximize output, like it's about working smarter. It's not about being lazy, but about maximizing out, but then there's the hustle culture, the more Vaynerchuk type of mentality . What would you encourage someone to think about when they're, or how have you when it comes to, to work, how do you think about that? How do you avoid burnout? How do you ensure that you're trying to be as efficient as possible? What are some of your thoughts on that?
Marcus: [00:32:41] So I think it's important to understand number one, what, where do you want to be in three to five years from now? Your life. I'm not talking about just your business or SIBO in your life. If you can picture your dream life, what would that look like? I think that's the first thing to understand, because that determines what you do today. So if, for example like you, you love the hustle culture and and you want to work a hundred hours a week. You can, if you want, if that's the lifestyle you want to have in three to five years. I'm also a firm believer that to get to the point you want to go, it does require quite a bit of initial effort upfront. It really does. It's gonna require a sweat equity, but also finding a key balance for you.
[00:33:19] Like interesting. So some people say, "Marcus, you're like a freaking machine. You must work all the time." Actually, I don't. Because for me when I quit corporate America, I was working easily 80, 90 hours a week, easily traveling nonstop. And and that was totally fine. Until I had a kid and then I suddenly it was like overnight, my head shifted. "I'm like, oh man, what am I doing? What am I doing? I'm like burning the candle at both ends. Like what's really important?" And that was really important for me to have that shift in mindset. And I realized, I wanted time freedom. I wanted time freedom. I wanted to be in a position where I'm more in control of my time. And I was willing to put the work in. I was willing to still put [00:34:00] time in, but I didn't want to work 80 hours a week to hit my goals, like I'm okay with slower growth, as long as I can still enjoy my life. So that's the first thing that to ask is where do you want to go and where do you want your life to be at? So for me now, like even when I started the business, I actually maybe work maybe about 50 hours a week.
[00:34:18] I do work pretty hard, but it's, I'm pretty efficient in my 50 hours. So I don't work 60. I don't work 80. I don't want 50 hours sometimes less, but I'm hyper efficient in that time. Everything is planned out to when I'm going to do things right. And I do my best to be as disciplined as possible too.
[00:34:33] It's not always perfect, but I'm pretty efficient for a reason because I'm like, okay, I'm on this. I need to work here because when my kiddo is up, I want to be with my kiddo. Like I want to make sure I can do something. I want to hang out with my wife, I want to be able to have dinner and not be on my phone.
[00:34:47] All of this is so important because I care more about my family and my wife and my kiddo than my business. And it took me a long time as early on as a, a young person in sales and in corporate America where I was primarily focused on work first family second. That's how I became a work first, family second. It just became, that's what I saw growing up until I had a kid. And then I realized this is pretty hard. I don't want to do this. I want to be able to enjoy my life. Like what's the point of working this hard if I don't enjoy it? What's the point of earning all this money if I don't get to enjoy the money? So that's why when I started my business, let me, I'm going to build a business where I could run it anywhere on a laptop and be able to have time freedom, and it'll take more work right now, but instantly, even now I'm hitting a point in my business where I'm like, okay, you know what? I have a couple assistants doing work for me. It's cool. In order for me to have more time back, I need to hire a sales person next as my next hire. I'm like, I'm at that point I'm like I could do bulk right now, but I don't run sales. I only take sales calls between 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
[00:35:51] That's it. Monday through Friday, not before, not after and not on weekends. Because I care about my time. Could I open up my calendar more and easily [00:36:00] double my results? I definitely could, but I don't want to, cause that it's going to cost me the time with my family. So understand where you want to go and find a good balance of a mixture between I do work hard with the Gary Vaynerchuk style, but I really understand the Tim Ferris models, being hyper efficient, get the maximum output in the amount of hours you're choosing to work.
RJG: [00:36:19] Yeah. Minimum, I think Ferris calls there and one of like minimum effective dose or something. And as you're talking, I'm thinking it's the flywheel approach, like work your ass off to get something going, but so long as you can see that it's taking you if you've done the preparation on the front end and you've, as another Covey rug begin with the end in mind, if you know where you're going, get the flywheel going, and if you can see that it's taking you to that path, you're more inclined to work your ass off, as long as it's getting you to the other side, whatever your goal is. It sounds like you have some systems to help you manage your time and your efficiency and your effectiveness. How much of roughly 50 hours, how much of that is planning? How much of that is system building? How much of that is prepping for the week ahead? Or is that the same every week? Like how much time do you spend planning?
Marcus: [00:37:07] Yeah, so it depends what it is, but most of is mixed in throughout the week.
[00:37:10] So I have some automating that pop up my counter that trained me to do certain things. So it's very intentional. So for example, like it's not like I sit down for a whole block. I'm like, okay. Like I have for this time and plan for the whole XYZ. No, I'm super simple. So for example, like every Wednesday am I to do, as it pops up, it says plan out the following week's content.
[00:37:32] That's it. It takes me an hour to do, and then I do it. Okay. So it's literally like that simple. So all these micro habits that are built in that allow me to be hyper efficient and that's really the key. The problems a lot people have is they don't take time to do that. So for example, I even have an hour on my calendar.
[00:37:51] It's called my protected hour and that protected hour, the only thing I do is I look ahead my following week and I make sure the meetings I've scheduled are ones I should be at. [00:38:00] Get rid of everything else. Okay. And then I plan on anything else that's really key things for the business that needs to be done.
[00:38:06] So for example, like I've already started planning out next week only because to do pop it for me to do, I'm like, okay, I need to film like 15 YouTube ads. I'm gonna do it next week on Friday, I'm gonna block a whole day. I'm just new bunch of ads that day. So there's time like that. I can time block it out, but it's having systems in place that train you.
[00:38:24] It's not popping when it's due, it's popping way in advance, so I can plan for when to do it. That's truly the key. And then I do it then. And when you start thinking this way. You're always going to be ahead of the game because okay. You know why? Like you don't, you shouldn't have a pop-up for pay bills due today.
[00:38:38] If it's due today. No, it should have popped up a week ago because I can take care of it then. Or you plan time to pay your bills. So you start always working ahead. For example, first thing I do every morning. I review all my numbers. I doublecheck all my numbers. I doublecheck all my bank accounts. I make sure everything is buttoned up. Like actually having to dial like, from like QuickBooks to my bank account, to everything, to my trackers. And then from there I'm like, okay, cool. I'm good. Because I might even make some shifts as a result of numbers I look at.
[00:39:07]But it allows me to be able to react appropriately and be proactive. So for example a few weeks back, I I started noticing a dip in our open rates. I'm like, oohh, this is getting a little, I'm a little worried here because I'm like, okay, so our burner emails were again, spammed. All right. And we had 10 of them.
[00:39:28] They're all getting spammed. So I'm like, okay. I'm like, we gotta fix this. So I saw it and then boom, suddenly the next, like three days later, 0% open rate, I'm like, yup. We're stuck in the fricking spam now. And so we had to warm those up, but now, because I already had, I started seeing that I already built a plan B strategy, which is doing LinkedIn outreach in a different way.
[00:39:47] Okay. So we were already started running that campaign already to make sure the flow of punch is still going. But the why it's so key to have things like this in place that allow you to just gauge where you're at and make [00:40:00] decisions that are based off data and not off feelings. You have a system in place that pops up, you need numbers to track.
[00:40:05] This is why I like numbers because numbers don't lie and you can walk out the numbers, make a better decision for the future. But in terms of total number hours, it's spread out, man. I'll say maybe, I don't know, five, maybe five hours a week for planning. I have no idea. I really have no idea.
RJG: [00:40:19] Yeah. It's funny , and when you talk about the numbers too it's the numbers that you pick are really important too.
[00:40:24]Like if you're only focused on the lagging indicator, I guess if you don't have any of the lead measures of the lead leading indicators, that's right. You're not going to see, okay, this is starting to go off the path. Like you're only going to see it after the fact.
[00:40:37]So making sure we have a good balance of lagging indicators, when you get to the finish line, but the things that influence that along the way so that you can predictably say, okay, this is going off track. Let's build a contingency and be ready when you need to.
Marcus: [00:40:51] 100%. This is why I'm a firm believer. You have to know your numbers inside and out, and you all not have memorized, but you have a place to look at them and you can make really good foundational decisions based off data to create a better future because of that.
RJG: [00:41:04] Yup. Be objective about yourself. One question I wanted to ask you, it's not specific to sales or management, but you had a post recently about being the only Asian on a sales team.
[00:41:15] Yeah. And I think it speaks to something that is, something that we really should be talking about more often, but just diversity within a team at all. But of course the sales team and what I mean from my experience, the best sales teams are the ones that are continuously improving.
[00:41:31] They're iterating. They're piece by piece. It's, non-stop always optimizing the sales process and the, way that you can accelerate that is by getting people that think differently and act differently on a team. I'm a systems person, so it's not that I want everybody doing everything completely off, on their own way.
[00:41:50] But when you have the right mix of diversity on your team, you can follow a process and you can still encourage innovation and think about things [00:42:00] differently. But you oftentimes, you don't get that without diversity. If you only hire people that always think the exact same way you do I don't think it's a subject that's talked about enough in sales. Can you just share your experience and some high level thoughts on how sales could improve in that space?
Marcus: [00:42:17] Oh, a hundred percent. So I'll give you an example, right? So I remember one of the sales teams I joined, this is my just change company.
[00:42:23] And I joined the company and pretty much 90% of the sales team was like the same, like a 23 to 25 year old, white male, nothing against that. But that's what it was clean, cut shirt and tie, block, see white shirt, black tie, you get it right. And I'm like interesting. I definitely stood out here.
[00:42:41]And they were underperforming. Makes sense. They had one girl on the team. She was definitely ostracized just from everything. Just totally stood out. I'm like, oh, probably me and her. We stand out great. She ended up not making it. Was gone for two weeks. So what was interesting, once I took over that team, because now I'm, I got to grow that team. I started to update the team and top grade it was it's so funny. Cause fast forward a year later it was a completely different team. Half my team was female. All right. At that point we had we had people that were African-American.
[00:43:11] We had people that were from Pakistan. We had Asian, it was a diverse team. Like it was an also age as well. So like even age, we have people that were like 45, 50, 55, like just very diverse. When we had our annual sales meeting, I remember looking at my table, my team, and everyone else.
[00:43:28] They're like, we're definitely a different team or we're different team. It's interesting. I'm sure people look those like interesting hires there. But I wasn't hiring for, I wasn't, as like looking out for looking at diversity, I was looking out for the best talent and the best talent happened to people with these diverse backgrounds and when I brought them all together, that year we finished off you would a good year, but then the second year we would bang out year. It became a, team of the year is because we had diverse team. We thought differently, had different ideas. We had collaborative discussions. So it's okay to have diverse people. You want to have diversity. [00:44:00] If diversity is how you are able to find new ways of thinking about things, but also your prospects want it to, because if it's always the same people reaching out to them, if you have a different kind of person reach out to them, they may better connect.
[00:44:14] They may better connect with that voice, that person, because of how they're able to take the same message, but change it in a way that connects them in a better way. So this is why it's so key to make sure that you have diversity all across the board to make sure you are able to maximize your team, but also make yourself better as a leader, and a human being.
RJG: [00:44:34] Yeah, that's awesome. And the only thing I would add to that is if you're in a leadership or management role, if you're not hiring people that are better than you, and you are ensuring that your job is going to be difficult forever and in perpetuity like the surest path to being more productive with less time is surrounding yourself with people that are better than you think they'll make your job easier.
[00:44:56] They'll make your life easier.
[00:44:58] I, have a lot of respect for you as a salesperson and then as a sales leader, but also as an entrepreneur. And I want to ask, as an online entrepreneur, what are the toughest obstacles that you had to bust through?
[00:45:11] Have there been any times where you said, I don't know, I could go back and probably make a lot of money if I just took a sales role or a sales management role or something like that. Have you run into any of those walls? What were they? And how'd you break through them?
Marcus: [00:45:24] Yeah, definitely of course. I would say especially early on I first, when I first got going it had some early success, which I think is just, you can't get the low-hanging fruit and you feel good. People are excited about what you're doing, and then you get to the point, like, all right, the honeymoon stage is over now what's really going on. And honestly over my, especially my first year, because I've been in business for 19 months now, and my first year that definitely hit a lot, every now and then still creeps in even now, it happens. But early on I'm like, man, this is hard. Like I remember it was like, okay, like sales started dipping. I'm like, okay, what can I do? And I remember I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna [00:46:00] start running live webinars. So start doing live webinars. This is before COVID hit. So I'm like, I've started doing live webinars. And I remember my very first live webinar did and I was used to running webinars with my corporate job, but I was used to having someone do everything for me.
[00:46:13] Okay. Like I had teams of people, I had a lot of biggest, big staff, so I'll just have to show up and just deliver. But as a solopreneur and I didn't have any VAs at that point, it was all my own. And I remember I get on the web and I'm real excited that I did a real good job promoting it.
[00:46:27] That's my first webinar. I have 150 people signed up. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do a really good job on there. And I start the webinar and my camera doesn't work. And it's they can't see my screen. And and I was trying to figure it out the first 10, 15 minutes.
[00:46:44] And literally I could see people just dropping off. I'm just like, oh no. Oh no. All my hard work. It was basically, we worked so hard, basically recruit people to a webinar. And now that all petering off and I remember I get done, didn't sell anything, by the way, I didn't sell anything. I'm like, oh man, this is why is it so hard?
[00:47:00]This is so I'm good at presenting. I'm good. These things like, oh, I just totally botched this. And I was like, what's wrong with me? These ants are crawling and what's wrong with me? Why this tech will go stupid tech, blah, blah, blah. What's wrong with me? I should go back to corporate America.
[00:47:11] I'm way better at corporate America. And then I'm like, okay, I need to just pump the brakes there. What could you differently? What else could I do? What could I do differently? Why is I didn't? I didn't test a software beforehand. I just, I did the practice webinar, but I didn't try running a, just a dummy live webinars.
[00:47:28] Like I should do that. Okay. I didn't I didn't make sure everything worked properly if I just did that would have fixed it. So I tried again and next webinar made 5k. I'm like, all right, it worked. And that was a nice little win. But then I started doing it and I started making it all back to 10, 15, 20 K a month.
[00:47:45] I'm like, okay. I'm feeling pretty good. All right. But now, so I'm getting exhausted because I'll spend so much time recruiting people to a webinar and I was running two or three live webinars a month. It was wearing me out. I'm like, God, this is it takes so much effort to like, do [00:48:00] these lives every single time.
[00:48:02] And then at that point I'm like, can I even do this still? Like this, it feels so up and down, like to make zero money, then a webinar, then you get an influx of cash and then zero money and an influx of cash. I hated that. So now I'm like, okay, I need to get some help at that point. That's when I first invested into my first like a real coach for internet marketing.
[00:48:23] But before I bought these courses and other things, it's my first one, I went invested 10 K got into the program and it is one of the best in the industry. And that was so key for me. So key. And there were just things in there it's you just don't know what you don't know. You just don't know what you don't know.
[00:48:41]There are things about my marketing. I didn't do a good job with, from how I frame things up. It's almost like I got lucky in a couple of things, but I'm like now they had a database approach, but certainly you'll gather in talent feedback from the market. I'm like, much better. So I started doing that and that was really good. I started, and from there I was able to build out systems in place. This is my first funnel I built and now I'm like, okay, now I ran a beta launch and we had consistency a phenomenal flow, like now, like a real business. At that point, I was going to really good at that point because it was still up and down to that point.
[00:49:11] And that was really til probably July last year, July, August last year. That was, it still felt so up and down. And what was interesting was I was starting to get recognition from LinkedIn and other people. But having recognition doesn't mean you're building a thriving profitable business. And what I learned is, it's like it's constant reminder that you don't have to make a hard on herself, and that's what I was doing.
[00:49:34] If you can find people that already done what you want to do consistently, how can you acquire their knowledge? I had tried the freemium. I try figuring out my own and I've had more time, but that stressed me out. And then I runs how much, how bad my time is. I'm like, okay, you know what? I need to sit and invest in these programs and it's accelerate my results.
[00:49:54] And that was really key for me to really own that was so key for myself. It made my programs [00:50:00] better. It got better results, a help scout, everything was part of my business. So instead of having this up and down and feeling, now it's a consistent ecosystem. That's growing nonstop. It's getting to a point where, now we have two and a half assistants now. And then now I'm bringing on a sales person in the next, probably next month or two, because we're keeping, we keep growing now because now real business, not just like a side hustle, if you will, a real business that is actually profitable and thriving and also is really exciting to run. That's the most important thing.
RJG: [00:50:28] Yeah, it's all. It's all really good advice. If you're not willing to invest in yourself or in your business, that is going to be a limiting belief. Now, obviously, you want to invest in the right program and you wanna invest in the right people. Like I get that.
[00:50:41] But when somebody comes to you and they have proven success and they can teach you something, it's no longer a cost. It's an investment. That with the right person, always multiplies in value, but if you're not willing to invest in yourself, it's hard to get skyrocket results. So before we head out, can you tell me a little bit about six figure sales academy? Who's the ideal person and what do you do?
[00:51:03]Thanks so much for asking man. My six-figure sales academy program is my most proudest product I've ever built. It's a culmination of everything I've learned, my experience, my failures was compiled into a step-by-step program that's a high-level coaching program to help B2B sales professionals get results as fast as possible, but also in a sustainable way as well.
Marcus: [00:51:25] It's been really incredible because since its inception and we created the first version over two years ago, We've now had a hundred students to join the program and she had incredible results from earning additional $50 -100,000 more in their first year, not every year, beyond that from creating financial freedom, to building more confidence, to being able to have more time freedom as well.
[00:51:44] So it's a pretty awesome program.
[00:51:47]But here's the cool part, right? Because yes, making money more money is cool. That's definitely awesome.
[00:51:51] But I there's no greater high though. When you get that tax or DM or whatever, and they say, Hey, listen, I was able to do this because of you. I just got [00:52:00] promoted. I just bought a house. We just got married and I got the rings that she wanted because of you.
[00:52:06] That's that's why we do what we do, because it truly means it's about the impact. And when he's able to make that impact becomes as a side effect. So that's what the program was for.
[00:52:17]So if you are a B2B sales pro who is looking to take their game to the next level and build bulletproof commas and you want to max out a comp plan it's definitely a really good program. Definitely consider. So I appreciate you asking.
RJG: [00:52:28] Yeah, you bet. And I think it goes right back to, you gotta be willing to invest in yourself, and if you find the right program with a good coach, it's it is almost a sure fire way to multiply, the investment with good ROI.
[00:52:41] So that's right. And where can people find you if they're looking for you.
Marcus: [00:52:45] Awesome. So one head over LinkedIn, look at Marcus Chan it's the only guy with Speedos in the tagline, cause I did sell Speedos at one point or you head to sixfiguresalesacademy.com, that's sixfiguresalesacademy.com. Head over there, there's free trainings, free resources, things that are going to help you absolutely crush it in sales.
RJG: [00:53:01] Awesome. I really appreciate you dropping in. We will have to have you back. I have 20 more questions for you, so we'll we'll fire it back up, but I yeah, I appreciate your time and coming by, man.
Marcus: [00:53:11] Thanks brother. Great to see ya.