you back on the show as well. Thank you. Exciting. So, Mark,
we haven't talked personally about this. How, how did you get
started with magic boxes?
I love that you're calling them magic boxes.
I call them magic. They're magical. I can tell.
But I like to think they're magical, too. It's, it was all an
accident was never meant to be the business. When I started as
an entrepreneur, I was like deep into corporate America for years,
and then pivoting from being like this corporate junkie into
becoming an entrepreneur. My biggest frustration with the
digital space was people made it so hard to get started with
their products and services. And I'm like, I just wish you would
send me the things that I need to be set up for success. And
that's where it all started. And I tested this out with an event
I did called Clickpreneur. It was a virtual summit that I
wanted to send people things that would help them get the
best insights from this event. So created a publication and
what I did not expect to happen was when people received this
publication in the mail, they did videos, they took pictures,
I was getting all this organic content and all this social
proof from the speakers and from the attendees that I was like,
there's something powerful about mixing physical with digital.
And then the second time we did an event, I decided to do a box
experience with it. And the people who received it sold the
program better than I did, because they were doing these
average three to seven minute unboxing videos showing off the
pieces. But so much of what we look at is stop sending swag to
people we say swag means stuff without a goal, send them the
tools. So that's kind of where this all started. And it's just
spiraled out from there.
Wow. Yeah, that is that is so awesome. The first time, I guess
I would say the first iteration of something like this that I
ever saw. I didn't realize what I had seen and already
participated in and it was rich dad, poor dad. And the cash flow
game that they have and, and the whole process of that. So I, I
got to learn about it once, but you've put this on on repeat,
you're creating this over and over for different clients have
turned into a business model. What, what an amazing fun
project. Oh, like that's, thank you. I just gotta say thank you
on behalf of the business world, because why are we doing this
more? I love that you say it's so funny, though, because like,
it to build a business that fuels my soul. And like every
single so every tile behind me represents a different
experience that we built out for clients. We've done so many of
these. And we have another office that has more of these.
But for me, it's just fun to like really get into what is it
that you're trying to achieve? How do we optimize journey? And
gamification is one of our tenants in the sense of if I can
incentivize behavior to get you to take action and get a result
faster, I'm going to gamify it. That's fantastic. We're going to
look at some of these boxes too, and just a minute but before we
do, all right, let's dive into some of the practical things
that have also helped you along the way. In fact, three
resources, but one trumps them all. These boxes are resource,
right? Putting these together, I'm going to throw that out
there for you. So you don't even have to say it. I'm a big
believer in gamifying a process, simplifying it, making it
attractive, tangible, something that people can hang on to. What
are three other resources you recommend for visionary leaders
out there that they may be overlooking or haven't read or
picked up yet?
Yeah, so if I was to recommend some books, two of my favorite
books lately, these are the ones I've been nerding out to
are Joey Coleman's Never Lose a Customer Again. The second one is
Who Not How by Benjamin Hardy. So I know a lot of people are big
fans of Benjamin Hardy, but those are two that I absolutely
love. And then from a resource perspective, one of the things
that we're playing with a lot that I have been loving is how
do we reimagine the use of QR codes? And so we built our own
QR code platform because when we're talking about the gateway
from digital to physical, there's so much you can do with
QR codes and happy to delve into this now, or if you want to
later on, that are just like untouched by business owners,
that can drive additional sales in terms of how to think a
little bit more strategically about the fact that every
single phone is a gateway to the online portal just using your
camera app. And so when you understand the use cases and how
to think differently about QR codes, it opens up a whole new
avenue with how you can think about your business.
I love it. Let's open a corner of Pandora's box. What's one of
those that's overlooked right now?
Yeah, so for me, start looking at QR codes, not necessarily as
the way to access a menu at a restaurant, but a gateway to
send information to your customer. So I can take a QR
code, put it on a water bottle and set it so you can scan it
Monday and have a different experience than if you scan it
Tuesday. So imagine being in the fitness space, if you had a
water bottle as the item that is sent, I can have the Monday
workout. But when you scan it on Tuesday, it's the Tuesday
workout. And I can set it that when it gets to the end of the
weekend, we're back at Monday, it can repeat the cycle again,
we call it a carousel. So there's different applications of
that you can do it on a magnet, you can do it on a sticker that
you put on your laptop, if you have a laptop to the left and
the right of the mouse, you can get a nice vinyl sticker for
nothing. And say, Hey, do you need a lifeline in your
business in this QR code, but set it on a rotation that it's
always changing. And part of this idea of always changing,
why that's interesting to me is, when I send you something or
creating an experience, I don't want it to be something that
you get and throw out. So then the question becomes, what are
the things that you naturally keep in your life? And how can
we engineer intentionality based on what you already keep? For
instance, our boxes, the most common size box we produce,
is a small box, this is what most clients want. And the big
reason we do this is because when you read a book, like the
ones behind you, you typically put it on a bookshelf, you don't
throw it out. So why don't we create experiences that are a
little bit bigger than a book, we can brand the spine, I can
say that this is box one of four and create an open loop, that if
you want to collect all the pieces, you have to keep playing
the game. So how starting to think of this idea of how do we
increase the intentionality again, back to the QR codes, if
it's always changing, are you more or less likely to save it?
I'm hoping that you're more likely to save it because you
want to see what the next experience may be.
You're like Captain Planet for the internet. Yeah, recyclable
reusable goods in the digital realm. That's all. So you took
the corner by the way, and pretty much rip the top off and
wide open. So that's fantastic. I really love what you're
talking about. One of our sponsors Dave from hard to kill.
He's helping 100,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds
collectively, we're going to be talking about this like
immediately and say, dude, QR codes, home water bottles. I've
never thought about that is that I mean, the biggest application
for QR code similar to what you're talking about, I've
suggested the restaurants is, is implementing a QR code so that
you're getting reviews. You know, that way they can amplify
their reviews and every customer comes in can review their their
next experience. But that's just that's only scratching the
surface of all that you've just opened our eyes to and we did
that in like 60 seconds. Oh, that was awesome. So yeah, we're
gonna be right back. We're gonna come in, we're gonna dive into
Mark Stern's vision talk about custom box agency, and every
other vision that he's got in the horizon. And we'll see you
guys in the other side. All right, welcome in to vision
pros live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host, we'll be
doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders
who are building fantastic visions out there. Hey, what's
up, everybody? Welcome into the episode of vision pros live. I'm
your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of first class
business and I am stoked to have Mark Stern on today. This guy
thinks unlike anybody I think I've ever met in terms of
marketing and fun entertaining people and how to how to help
really amplify our experiences with those that we want to
serve. And I just, yeah, it's just awesome to have somebody
this genius level on in relation to how to serve human beings
with even greater sass, let's call it, I don't want to call it
hype. And I know I sound kind of hype right now. But like, we're
talking about truly amplifying the depth of the relationship
and you're gonna get to see exactly how they're going about
doing that. So we'll dive into that in just a minute and bring
Mark back on. But first, a real quick shout out to Dave of hard
to kill Dave Marlowe hard to kill.org. They're helping 100,000
veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively, you know, there's a
there's a tragedy going on a lot of our armed forces come home.
And they don't have the same training regimens and exercise
routines as the past plus some of the ones they were in are
destructive to their long term health. And so helping them get
re centered and acclimated to normal civilian life and also
making sure that they get the support so that they can still
look good, feel good and then do good. I absolutely love what
Dave's up to with this, which is why we've joined forces to help
him continue to expand hard to kill go check that out and send
your military friends on over there so they can also see what
Dave's put together for the world. Then there's open the ice
Latinas or open the ice that the rock hopper Latinos and that's
opportunities for Latinos to find work. This is our program.
This is something that's near and dear to my heart. My biggest
vision is to bridge the economic gap between North America,
South America and rest of world. And our team is absolutely
phenomenal. They have their own podcast now. But if you know a
Latino who would be a great guest for that, let us know
somebody who would be a leader and showcase that there are
opportunities. But also if you know people in Central South
America who might want job training, this is a fantastic
opportunity to get certified and trained. And if you're
looking to hire virtual assistants, then definitely come
and talk to us and see who we have available on our team. The
one thing we won't contribute to and entrepreneurs, I hope you
really take this to heart whether you work with us or not.
We don't contribute to VA experiences. We call it virtual
abuse. I see a lot of entrepreneurs not care about the
employees that they work with and the team members they get.
They hire people on fiber. I did it too. I hired people based
on a transaction, not based on the actual relationship. And it
wasn't until transitioning to actually care about my people at
a deep level where things really started to take off for
us. Plus, it's a whole lot more fun to have a whole lot of
people working with you that you have great relationships with
so definitely consider rewarding your virtual assistant
today if you haven't done that recently. Lastly, the water
project. The water project when I found out about it, man, it
hit me real hard because I've never been thirsty in my life.
I've always had access to clean drinking water and I found out
there's millions of people who don't have access to clean
drinking water. And when I saw what the water project was
doing, I fell in love with it because of their transparency.
When you donate to or contribute to one of these
communities, they'll actually send you the update of what
happens. They'll send you the social proof that this project
got completed. You get to see how many people in the area
this this water well or the sand dam is affecting. You get
to learn how they build these out. Again, if we can do
something to help these people, then fantastic. If one person
even contributes to this or one person even shares it, you
just never know how far the ripple effect of your good will
do. That picture that we just saw on the screen of these kids
celebrating water like my kids celebrate Christmas Day.
That's something worth meditating on. That's something
worth taking a walk and thinking about and realizing the type of
impact that we're able to make by giving simple contributions
or spreading the word. So, without further ado, I'm gonna
bring Mark Stern on board and we're gonna talk about how to
amplify your visions. Mark, welcome to Vision Pros Live,
man. Thrilled to be here, Jackson. Thank you for having
me. Absolutely, man. Um this is this is gonna be a lot of fun.
I can't wait to see that video pop up. As soon as it pops up,
I'm gonna interrupt this and and totally steal the thunder of
whatever we're on. Um make sure that your boxes are showcased.
Um so, Mark, let's dive into what's your vision for those
that you serve? Um you know, what do you what do you hope
to see them accomplish or what's the outcome look like?
Yeah, I think in a nutshell, I wanna simplify
transformation. You know, I've now been in this game long
enough to say so many business owners make it so tough for
people to get started with their products and services and
have clarity on what success looks like. Guilty. Okay. So,
much of it. Yeah and we all are to some degree and it's funny
cuz it's easy for me to hold up a mirror to your business and
it's just as hard when I see that mirror reflect back on me
but that is a big part of the vision here is how do we get
results faster? How do we simplify the customer journey?
Um how do we make it easy for them to know what steps they
need to take to get that result and before they, you know,
know it, they have achieved what it is as to why they bought
your products and services and they're ready for the next
thing. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, I I almost wanna stay on
that vein because we are we are so guilty as entrepreneurs of
accidentally, you know, complicated things um in order
or not inspiring people because the confused mind says no but
yeah, how do you take something that is often so boring as
business, right? And turn it into something that the people
are legitimately excited uh to to go after. So, let's stay on
that vein. How do you do that? You know, what does that look
like to you? Yeah, the three things that I like to look at
for any program that or product if we work with the client, the
three questions I always ask is what is this product or
service? What what is the outcome? What can I expect when
we complete it and what does success look like? The analogy
I like to use is if you're running a race, I love to do
Spartan races. So, I love to do obstacle course racing mud
runs. Um and you know, I know without a shadow of a doubt that
when I cross the starting line, I'm no longer prepping for the
race. I'm in the race and I know when I cross the finish
line without a shadow of a doubt, I've completed the race.
Um and then at the end, I get a medal to represent the journey
that I've just been on. So much of what we do with clients
is, I mean, it's a simple formula that we look at to say,
have we really defined what success looks like? Have we
defined what the process looks like to go from what we call
start here to the desired outcome as to why they bought
your products and services and that's what we ultimately look
into. When that piece is defined, then there's so much I
can do. I can leverage that as sales collateral. I can show you
ways to extend lifetime value by simply knowing where people
are stuck in offering them additional services or
introducing the next piece I can serve them. I can gamify
your business and incentivize behavior at certain junctions
of the process. There's so much that I can do but if I don't
have that, I can't build a box experience around your
business which means, you know, what I don't want is to see
business owners jump in and go, um good luck. I hope you get to
the finish line. Uh we wanna make it as easy as possible for
people. Dude, I I can't wait to see it. In fact, we're gonna
dive in right now. We're gonna take a look at one of these
videos and see what these boxes are all about. Did you did you
have thought before I jumped in? No, no, no. I'm here. Here we
go. Boom. Okay. Whoo. Whoo. I actually have that one right
here. So, it's all that. That's cool. That worked out perfect.
No, that's perfect. Um yeah, you can be talking, put a little
voice over to that. Heck yeah, man. Yeah. So, this is reset
with Miranda. She helps people get into the best shapes of
their lives and she has this multi uh it's like a multi-year
program. I think there's six phases to it and this first
phase is all about helping people rewire their
relationship with food and also starting to lose like people
lose I think twenty pounds on average within the first eight
weeks. Something crazy that she's able to help people do but
so much of what you're looking at here is uh we took her
process and it was an eight-week process at the front
end and we gamified it. So, what you can see there is there
was a journey map that says, here's what to expect on the
first eight weeks and then for each week of the experience,
there's a different envelope. So, part of what we wanna do is
we want it to be a celebration that you earn the white to
break open a new envelope inside the envelope. It's gonna
be the action card for what you need to do for that week. So,
we're trying to make it as easy as possible so you understand
the steps that you need to take and then there's gonna be
supporting tools and resources relevant to that week's
activity. So, this is a give them everything that they need
to be set up for success. Um don't make them have to run out
and get things and then you'll also see um that there's a lot
of other supporting tools and resources that she loves that
she also included in that experience as well. So, and the
good thing about this is you can see a typical experience
for us has about thirty to fifty pieces in it. When it's
assembled, it's beautiful, it's elegant, um it's it doesn't
feel overwhelming cuz you're just going through it one step
at a time but truly everything you need to have that
experience with reset with Miranda's inside that box. I
love it. We're gonna now that you have the context guys,
we're actually gonna see it again.
So cool. I love that. We're we're gonna come back to
another couple of those um in just a minute. Before we do,
you talked about Spartan races um and I'd love to know about
you. What what's your vision Mark for your life? What do you
see for yourself? Yeah, it's interesting. This, well, I'll
tell you right now, I've been going through this crazy life
transformation. I actually just uh got back from Hawaii this
past weekend, did a Spartan beast in Hawaii which was like
a half marathon um and that was a huge goal of mine but um
right now, so much of me personally is focused on um I
just turned forty. I don't know if you've made your way into
the forties yet. No, but I look like it. No, I'm thirty-six.
No, you're fine. You should have seen me and and the men look
better with age. They say so. Um but uh I started this year
pretty afraid um transitioning from thirty-nine to forty and
I'd read that the average human life is seventy-eight. I'm
getting mortal here but like seventy-eight is the average
lifespan and so at thirty-nine, it's like you are literally at
the midpoint of life and so this idea of like like making a
decision and making a choice and um optimizing areas of your
life that I've neglected. I neglected my health. So, I
started this year in the two twenties. I'm now in the one
eighties. Um and uh just like the person who started this
year to the person who I am now, the biggest thing that
change was one asking for help and two making a decision um
and so part of it is for me, it's such a box experience in
making around, you know, this idea of making that transition
in life at any point. I would say I've been going through a
life crisis right now and I think that it's inevitable, you
know, for a lot of us that it just happens but it's a
welcomed one because it's opened up my eyes to say who
is the person I want to become in the second half of my life
and uh looking at all aspects of my life from my business to
my relationships to myself, my body, how I'm taking care of
myself. So, that has been like a big priority this year and
Spartan races since you mentioned it. Um it's been five
years since I have done Spartan races and I got so out of
shape during COVID and I don't think I realized how much COVID
affected me um but this was a truly a celebratory minute to
be able to say I earned my trifecta. I did three races
that you needed to get the trifecta medal and if you
don't know what that means, Spartan has this brilliant
model that when you complete a race, they give you a medal. I
think I have one. Here you go. This is my first one and then
they hang a third of a medal off of the medal and to get
your trifecta. The rules are you have to do an eight to ten
mile or and a half marathon in the same calendar year and so I
used to do all the time up to COVID and quite frankly, that
one model has inspired my business so much because you
know, some of our box experiences, you may get a
piece in the first experience and especially to say you have
a membership or software as a service platform. If I tell you
to get the next piece, you have to keep playing the game from
a retention standpoint. This is totally a retention play. It's
totally a play to extend lifetime value. There's
different ways to re-envision that Spartan trifecta medal
for a business owner to incorporate something similar
in their own business. Absolutely. Well, and I think
that here there's a difference and people who once they start
selling a hammer, they start seeing everything as a nail,
right? There's that side of things where people get lost in
the shuffle and they're just like, oh, I better talk to
everybody about Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration. You know,
Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration. If you're an office fan, you
know I'm talking about. But the reality of what you're doing is
you're actually the byproduct of having chosen a path that is
just so beneficial and so influential. It's something that
you get to learn about with every experience you happen to
interact with. You already know that if you want to do
something and stick to it, you want to find an environment and
you hit the key on the head. I heard Glenn Morschauer teach
about this best talk I've ever heard. The power of
celebration. Yeah, and how we don't we thought folks on hype.
A lot of people focus on excitement. A lot of people
focus on the next big fad when in reality the underlying
benefit of authentically being able to celebrate and have
gratitude. Outstands outlast them all. So I think it's
interesting how you you mentioned that word and you kind
of key in on that. Is that by choice? Did that something
that's learned or is that just something that like
intuitively hit you? Celebration is huge and just to take it a
step further what you said. Brooke Castillo. I don't know if
you're familiar with Brooke. She's a life coach. She has one
of the biggest. She's one of the biggest life coaches in the
game. She's brilliant. She had a quote that was for most
people the last time that they were truly recognized or
celebrated in their life was their high school graduation.
And I would take it a step further to say it's either your
high school graduation or your wedding day. And for most
people like the power of reinforcing and celebrating.
Again, this gets back to this idea of have you defined
success and success can be achieved like hitting this
milestone. We have a framework that we talk about called the
jewels, the tools and the rules, meaning your customer is on a
journey to the jewels. And so if my goal is to get a black
belt in Taekwondo and I'm a white belt, I have to collect
all the belts. These are each jewels that take me one step
closer to achieving the ultimate jewel. You know, if
you're talking about college, it's your graduate degree. It's
a physical representation of achieving the thing for me and
Spartan races, the medal at the end. So it's the it's the
thing that represents the accomplishment of something so
much greater. And then when we say the tools and the roles,
this is where I say our role comes in as entrepreneurs. We
need to provide them with the tools. This is why I love the
box experiences and we need to set the rules. So what's the
frame that they need to go through this experience is if
you don't set the rules, what I say is chaos has the chance to
pursue. So in that model, recognition is so powerful
because when you recognize someone and they have that
physical item, this gets back into this idea of where things
that we say, well, I know that there are empty nesters that
have the soccer trophies in their house and their children's
bedroom from when they were three or four years old,
because that form of recognition is something that we
hold on to for the rest of our lives. That graduate degree you
got from college or the college degree, it's a piece of paper,
but we save it for the rest of our lives. And that piece of
paper is a couple of bucks, but why is it that we save these
things? It's just the power of recognition. So when we work
with clients, we say there's three types of campaigns we
offer an acquisition campaign. So it's getting the customer all
the way to point of sale. So acquiring the customer or it's
delivery. You brought my products or services. Let me
give you a box to onboard you and prepare you for the
journey or its retention, which is recognition, celebration,
or introducing the next piece in the game. And so this like
idea of recognition, it's a big part of our business simply
because it's powerful. It is a powerful beacon to extend
lifetime value. Well, you're talking about improving
people's lives. I mean, at the end of the day, that's a big
part of the celebration. It's funny, you taught me something
amazing just now and in a couple of ways. One, you gave me
a wealth of knowledge. Brooke, what is Brooks last name? How
do you spell it? C-A-S-T-I-L-L-O. Oh, Castillo. Yeah, very
good. Okay, Brooke Castillo. I didn't know about her. And then
through you, she opened my mind to realize like, oh, man,
that's a big reality. I'm very blessed in that my
celebrations have come through other means. But that makes me
unrelatable to the world. I did not graduate. Rather, I
graduated early by telling my mom, I'm either dropping out or
I'll graduate early, take your pick. And I had a teacher
trying to force me into sticking around. I was like, no,
this would be a waste of time for me. And I thought through
why it was so important to her and I could see what you're
saying. But for me, it didn't matter. Then I'm divorced, man.
So my wedding is not something that is something that continues
to be a celebration. And so I've had a life where I've gotten
and I have a point three, three GPA. I don't have a sticker
thing on my wall or a piece of paper. So what you're doing is
you're helping me see a grander paradigm that exists for most
people that are out there. And I think other entrepreneurs who
are a little bit more in the outlier space tend to overlook
or not realize the importance of such accolades for people who
did actually achieve those things. And those are important.
Those those aspects do matter. So we're going to dive in,
we're going to take another look at another box, and we're
going to come back and we're going to talk about some
leadership experiences. Also, let's dive in for this. Be her
now. I think it is. Let's take a look. Who is that? This is
Maya Camerota. She is incredible. So yeah, if you want
to see the video, do you mean to end up now? Or do you want me
to? It all up to it up and then you know, go ahead, give us a
little background. This is she's an incredible woman. She works
closely with Tony Robinson, Dean Graziosi at mastermind.com. I
think she oversees one of the the mastermind groups over
there. But she has her own business that is focused on
targeting women 30s to 70s, who have like suspended their own
desires for their kids and for their significant other, their
spouse. And so a lot of her messages, every person was put
on this earth for a reason. It's already written in the stars,
it's time for you to step into, you know, the woman you were
born to be. You were born for this. So she empowers women in
a really powerful way in terms of the transformation she
offers and what you're going to see in this box experience. This
was for her virtual event. It was a three day event and the
three days, you basically are going through a journey from
day one is in the sky. So there's a lot of design that's
like in the sky cosmic day twos are in this in space and
then it goes more sky where you'll see sun. And day three is
more ground. So she takes your dreams and helps you in this
three day experience bring it to reality. That's phenomenal.
Let's take a look guys.
Dude, those are those are brilliant. The boxes are
brilliant. The way you guys promote those are brilliant. You
can you can feel the amount of love and energy and power put
into creating this experience. Like how could you not receive
that as a client and not just like melt with that experience?
What's crazy about that experience is before the virtual
event started, I want to say that about 40% of the
recipients had already posted content online or shared their
story online or some degree of an unboxing video or
interacting with the pieces inside that box. What was
really cool two things that we tested that were a lot of fun.
She had mentioned to me that the quote be her now is something
that members of her community started to tattoo on
themselves. So then we of course made it into temporary
tattoos and during the event she received like hundreds of
pieces of content of people with their temporary tattoo that
said be her now and the messaging around it was so
powerful as as that tattoo starts to fade you are stepping
into that new identity and the other thing that was a really
cool piece and this shows you that sometimes the pieces in
the box don't have to be that expensive. A lot of our boxes,
my happy zone is to get these experiences between anywhere
from 15 to 30 dollars because I'd rather you get what you need
on the front end and then if people hit a milestone then
reward the behavior with some type of swag or some type of
material but it's designed if you just give me a shirt for
showing up it's stuff like I don't have a connection but if
I went through a transformation and received something in the
mail recognizing that transformation takes on a whole
new meaning but one of the most powerful pieces she told me
the story that there was a time in her life that she broke
down in tears to her father and her father pulled out his
handkerchief and gave it to her and she looked at him said no,
I don't want to get your handkerchief dirty and his
response to her was no, your tears were not meant to be
cried in a tissue and then crumbled up and thrown away.
This is a special moment. Your tears are sacred. They should
be saved and gave her her handkerchief. So one of the
pieces we put in a box was a handkerchief that said on it
and you can see it in that video. Your tears are sacred
and that was a piece that cost a buck or two less than two
bucks but that was one of the most powerful pieces as a
connection piece to unite the community and even when people
go to her event, they still bring that one handkerchief
with her because she gave it meaning. She gave it a story.
It meant more than just a thing. That's phenomenal and
that reminds me there are past cultural experiences of women
who kept their tears in a vial. I won't go back to the whole
reference of that but that's actually a very sacred belief of
past centuries. So that's pretty neat that they have their
own token for it and those who are familiar with that process
again the stacking of value that exists there is wow that's
so cool. I'm gonna get lost in the metaphors here and the
symbolism of all this. Before we go too further and before we
go to the next box, you got like the Midas touch it seems.
You know you get all these great great clients, these great
opportunities Mark and yet you and I both know that there's
gotta be some horror stories behind the scenes. There's gotta
be some experiences you've had that weren't all fluffy in life.
I wanna honor that. So what is one of the worst leadership
experiences that you've ever had? Yeah, no I this is a good
question and I think this is a lesson that I learned pretty
early. When you look at my it's so funny so hearing your story
I'm the complete opposite in that I am post-report child of
corporate America like I had I was president of my high school
in my college and my grad school like I did it all. I had
the one job before grad school that I went all in on because I
don't know how to do anything any other way and then the one
job after grad school I worked for Dully Consulting. So like
by the book like I was told that there's a natural
progression in the lesson that I learned is it is not fun
graduating from grad school with $165,000 in student loan
debt. So school is a pathway but it's it's just a different
form of acceleration. There's so many different ways to
accelerate the learning and development and I like when
people tell me they want to go to grad school or they want to
delve deep into corporate America my biggest question is
why because there are people who are building businesses
without degrees crushing it serving at a higher level than
people with degrees could ever imagine. So this is kind of
where it's just like we all can end up in the same place you
just pick a different accelerator. That's it to your
question the lesson that I learned my job from undergrad
to business school was a dream job. I had an amazing boss. I
had this dream of working on national marketing campaigns in
the liquor industry. So brands like Absolute, Jamison, Malibu,
Chivas, Kaluwa, Beefeater just all these brands that we'd
incubate their marketing campaigns and then launch them
nationwide and it was like a dream when you're 22 years old.
So I had an experience that I knew what it was to love what I
did when I was getting my MBA at Duke between first and
second year I interned at American Express and it
intrigued me to do it but the person that I reported to it was
a complete opposite experience. They were miserable in their
job. They did not know how to bring the team together. They
were on their way transitioning out and literally I would wake
up every day not wanting to get out of bed and just to have
someone that intentionally that you reported to not want to show
up and like be that leader for the team and guide the team and
create an environment that made me miserable. Like it taught
me this lesson that I know what this feels like and then
luckily at the age of what was I at that time maybe 26. I've
learned really quickly what it feels like to absolutely hate
what it is that you do and it was just this merriment that I
was miserable at the time but when I look back and see what's
the lesson that that taught me it taught me that I can show up
however I want to to my team and I can deliver the same
message in a pace of love or in a pace of fear and you know
the lesson that I learned is it's almost like you have this
database of when you see other mentors or other leaders you
could say I will emulate that and take that into the database
of things I will do and then here's things that I'm being
exposed to that I will never subject people who report to me
to do and so from a leadership perspective at a young age it
was a hard lesson at the time to be in an environment that I
was just miserable for three months thank God it was three
months but it was enough to show me I've lived here and I've
lived here professionally I only want to be here and it kind
of rewired the way I thought about you know my role in
corporate America and my role as an entrepreneur and now post
working at Deloitte for six years starting a business I have
never had a nine to five it's always been a 24 seven job that
I've worked in that just the phone would vibrate and you're
diving forward at 2 AM and to build a culture and a community
a custom box agency that I want people to end the workday at
five I want people to know that we work in a post COVID era I
want to empower people to own their schedule because I don't
care if you work out at 10 AM be responsible for your time just
get done what you need to get done but manage your own time
and so thinking about the lessons learned in terms of what
does leadership mean as a business owner and in a post
COVID era you know for me it's it's those moments that
influence even the tough ones reveal the greatest insights to
make you know the next step better I love that that's that's
so powerful that you were able to make that transition and
that you're also looking out for the future of the individuals
that you're working with you know there's a lot of nurture to
to your leadership and that that I can see I'm gonna have to
go back and listen to the segment of the show because you
got my emotional and leadership drive thinking through like man
I I have a work leadership experience that I I want to make
sure that I avoid because there's a juxtaposition
between us like you talked about the way that you did things
the way that I did things in terms of our our backgrounds
and it would be so irresponsible of me as somebody who didn't go
the university route or rather who tried to go the university
route and didn't know what you knew I didn't see by the way
did you get to go to JJ Reddick's basketball games
I went to coach K's coach Trusev skis while I was in there with
JJ Reddick I was there 2000. You're gonna love this. So are
you a big basketball fan? Huge. So I was there 2010 to 2012. So
that was the Plumlee brothers all three of them were there we
had Austin Rivers was there at that time as well and I somehow
lucked out they invited two students from the business
school to go travel with coach K and the Duke basketball team to
China and Dubai. So we boarded a private charter plane and went
for two weeks to China and Dubai and like we were just
hanging out with coach K he knew everyone's names he was
joking with everyone but his leadership he is a class act
and to see his leadership in the flesh the one story I'll
tell you is they were supposed to put us on an international
charter it broke down so they sent a domestic charter so think
of like a delta plane with the cigarette ashtrays and no TVs
from the 1990s and because it's domestic it cannot be in the
air for more than seven hours and they originally said we're
gonna send the Duke basketball team and everyone else can go
on a later flight coach K pulled everyone together because
we were waiting for hours in RDU Raleigh Durham Airport and
said either we all get on that plane together or no one gets
on it he was not happy that they had originally they were
about to separate the group and that set the tone for that
experience beautifully but at the same time you have these
like seven foot tall teenagers sitting in crammed like there
was only like four first class seats which went to Doc Rivers
and his wife and you know coach K and his wife and I was in the
back middle but like everyone had such a great attitude that
you just can't complain even though like we're not on a
international charter we are literally hopping around as
long as the plan we I think we did Raleigh to Anchorage to
Japan to get to China and then went all over China and then
did Thailand to get to Dubai and then three more stops to
finally make it all the way back to RDU but we literally
were jumping around and most people would complain about all
that he was had such a good attitude that it was hard not
like he really set the tone on that trip really that's
phenomenal you get to travel the world with coach K yeah so
it's one of those those elements right and so that the
young kids who are in the stage of trying to decide this I love
that you talked about how difficult it is to come out of
that experience the hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars in
debt right and on the flip side those who don't go the school
route but go the hard knocks lifestyle of entrepreneur route
right who go the four-hour work week route and say oh I'm just
gonna work four hours and then be a multi-millionaire there's
a lot of debt that comes with that too there's a lot of
sacrifice that comes with that most of the time and so I would
I would challenge any young visionary to honor the reality
of what value exists within the university school system and if
you have the preparedness to maximize that opportunity
understand the network benefit that you gain by being involved
in that opportunity and and realizing that it's not
necessarily more glamorous for those of us who do not go to
the university. I know it doesn't put me on stage fast. I
know that that doesn't make me the one who people want to say
oh you need to glorify everything about the the
non-universal. No, I don't. I need to be honest and real
and authentic about it's a very very hard path and you have to
be tenacious. You have to be diligent because if everything
goes sideways then you also end up as the person who's now in
the job market who doesn't have a degree and that degree is
still very much matters and most most opportunities out
there. So I just want to paint the reality of that because it
would be poor leadership on my part to glorify the path that
I've gone when in reality life's not about the easy route
life's about doing what's necessary to build us to the
next level and help us gain strength and both paths are
gonna be hard but which one do you want for yourself? That's
that's that's for you to decide not for for Mark and I to
decide. So thank you for for talking through your story on
that and then also just let me go through and and talk through
some of that as well. Let's look at one of more of these
boxes. Is that okay? Sure. I dive into one. I can't tell which
one of this. We're gonna get surprised in this one. We'll
talk about it after.
Shout out to Molly Mahoney. I know who that is. I couldn't
tell the clip who's this was but that's awesome. Go ahead.
Molly is one of my favorite people on earth. So if you
have you interviewed her? Has she been on the show yet? I have
not had her on the show but I did get to meet. No, I didn't
meet her. I'm sorry. She was on with Deidre from Cap Show and
so I was sitting in an airport, you know, taking in their
session, talking back and forth live and she was giving
Deidre and them excuse me a whole ton of value on how to
run communities and groups and lives and all that. I could see
the energy just like whoa. She's she's something else.
VIP Hall of Fame level. So go ahead. Yeah. That's a big deal.
You said she's one of your favorites. Oh, she is. She's a
dear friend. Molly is just when you meet her. She's just one of
those people that I just want her to win and she's crushing
it right now but she has the biggest heart and this is a good
experience of a box experience. Like I like a box experience.
So there's a lot of people who sell the products and services
that you and I sell. Like there's a lot of people who have
similar businesses. The difference is that I'm not you
and you're not me and so when we see a good box experience, I
wanted to I hate to use this word but I use this word a lot.
It's Greek you because you are like people are not only buying
your product but they're also buying you in your level of
success and you as their trusted mentor and so you can see the
disco ball. the feather pen, the whole experience around it is
very important for Molly and exactly the decision that she
started to bring to life with us and the other things that she
started to see with this is for us, every single box
experience we there's certain essential pieces. You have the
You have a welcome note, you have a getting started guide,
and you have a journey map.
Those are kind of the four baseline
and then all the tools and resources that you need.
So here you also did see a journey map
that they were pulling stickers off
that as they earned the badges,
you started to see that journey map come to life.
And we do that because again,
we wanna celebrate you for completing a milestone.
So typically when you complete,
in her case for Social Cell Stars, module one,
the module one badge is gonna be living
in the module two envelope.
So when you break it open, you've already earned it
because you completed module one to earn it.
And then you have the right to peel it off
and stick it onto that game board.
And the goal being every time you place a new sticker,
you're one step closer to completing it.
So this is where you can see some of these pieces
come to life in that experience.
That is so cool.
And so Molly Mahoney, we get to honor her
and she's obviously associated well with this question.
So moving towards your best leadership experience ever.
You know, again, I wanna honor Molly in this
because she's been a phenomenal leader
in the cap show space.
You've now acknowledged that she's a phenomenal leader.
And what's the best leadership experience
that you've ever had?
Not necessarily the best leader,
but the best leadership experience you've ever had.
Coach K, it sounds like that's a nomination as well.
Is that it?
I can talk about one that's more internal
to our organization that was transformed to my business.
Love it.
And it's so easy to assume that you hold the bigger vision
for your business and they will get to a certain point
that your business will grow arms and legs
if you want it to be where you just can't do it all.
And early on in the business, custom box agency,
we kind of went all in on this business in 2020.
And now we've just grown it since
and we're about 30 employees strong at this point,
which is crazy.
But there was a certain point that I was challenged,
like I was in a position of saying like,
why aren't people taking more responsibility
in the business?
And why is everything having to fall back on me?
And it was the wrong question to ask
because the reality was I wasn't putting the faith
and the trust into my team that I needed to
at that phase of the process.
And the one thing that I did that it felt heavy
when I did it was I flew my team in to Austin, Texas,
where I live, rented a big Airbnb and had them co-create.
Like when we started to go through
and optimize our business process,
how we deliver to clients.
And what ended up happening was they made me stop talking.
And they said, we just want you to look at what we're doing
and evaluate how we're thinking about this.
And taking a step back and trusting the team
and like having this retreat did not expect it to be
one of the most transformative things to my business
because my business was never the same after that.
People felt ownership of the business.
People felt part of the creation
of the future of the business.
And now this is something that we started to incorporate.
We do it either quarterly or twice a year
to bring different parts of the team together
because every single time when the team comes together,
what ends up happening is they become more protective
of the business than me.
And now we're at this phase that because we've grown
and we have layers,
things that I thought were 100% relying on me
quickly realized that everything can be trained.
Everyone is replaceable, including you as the CEO.
And to build that camaraderie and excitement,
I have a very loyal team.
I love my team.
But to see the way that they protect the business,
it just fills my heart in a really powerful way.
But the only thing I felt like I did at that time
was want to hear their voice
and want them to be part of the creation and the vision.
And that has been one of the best things
as the leader of the business
that I could have ever done to empower them.
From a leader, someone above me,
and everyone needs a mentor.
I don't care who you are.
Everyone needs a mentor or mentors.
But I had a mentor during the early stages
at the Custom Box Agency who,
the one thing that he said to me was,
I went around asking people, who are you?
Are you the virtual event guy or the Custom Box guy?
Because I had a business in two different zones.
And that was one of the pivotal questions
that made me reevaluate my business
because I was growing these two businesses.
I'd spent three years building a virtual event business.
COVID happens, you think a virtual event business
is the way to go.
I spent a lot of time thinking about it
and came back to him saying,
I'm gonna go all in on custom boxes.
And I'm gonna go all in on that one pivot to niche down
and focus on one thing.
Changed my business overnight.
We went from being a new business
to generating over seven figures the first year
via word of mouth.
And we're still a word of mouth business
with how we've grown.
But it just goes to show you,
when I came from corporate America at Deloitte,
they celebrated you being the world's greatest generalist,
being good at everything.
When I switched to becoming an entrepreneur,
you're not celebrated for being good at everything.
You're not celebrated for being good at everything.
When you're known for one thing
and you can lead with one thing,
then it makes it easier for other people to help you win.
And I'm a believer in the law of reciprocity.
I want other people to win,
therefore I have to assume that other people want me to win.
What's the easiest way I can help them win,
making it easier for them to be able to communicate
our value prop.
Well, I can forgive you for that
because you live near Gary Keller and he's given
one thing as well.
I'm in New Braunfels by the way.
Oh.
There he is.
Oh, what?
So we have lots of cool overlaps.
I can see you doing amazing things with Chandler Bolt
if you haven't already done things with him.
I have not.
I know of Chandler.
I'm Mark Wonderlin.
Have you met him yet?
Who?
Mark Wonderlin.
I've not.
Oh my gosh.
All right, so we get some people we gotta pull together here
because he's a super video guy.
And you just reminded me,
you're straight right there though.
You reminded me of Jake Larson.
It's like, and you remind me of two things.
I gotta go over the map here.
So first one, JJ Raddick, JJ Raddick.
JJ Raddick is that specialist, right?
Three and D, sharp shooter guy.
And then there's LeBron James though,
I mean on the journalist side.
And so I would caution visionary leaders out there
that you know you, right?
You gotta do you on this process.
Richard Branson is more of that generalist.
And does that mean they don't have certain one things?
No, it does.
I'm just saying, if that's not quite hitting you
the way that Mark intends it to hit you,
then have that intuition to clap back, right?
That's one of the values of a mentor mentee relationship
is being able to know what's right for you
and having a leader who's supportive enough to recognize
that it's okay if you're not a robot
of what the mentor wants you to do.
Now, going back to Jake Larson,
what you are doing with your company,
bringing them together is something that Jake implemented
when I was at Video Power Marketing.
And that was bringing the team together,
making sure that people knew they were included,
giving us time, whether it was going to an event,
it was usually around a speaking engagement that he did,
we'd bring the team out
and we'd plan out some camaraderie time together
and do some mastermind collaboration where everybody led.
But you're talking about not making it Mark box agency.
It's custom box agency.
It's beyond you.
And that type of leadership is not something
that I see too often in the market,
but it is the type of leadership that I see happening
that drives lasting results.
And that's what I hope the visionary leaders recognize
and catch in this is there's a model behind what you've done.
There's a lot of different opportunities for them
to catch and see what you're up to and apply it
to how they're going about their leadership.
Now we're about to run out of time.
Do we need to wrap this up Mark?
You got something in two minutes or five minutes
because I'd love to ask you one more question,
but it is a bigger question.
Should we schedule another session?
I have time.
No, okay.
I would love to.
I love to get this one in
because it is the most powerful question.
So if this was the last opportunity that you ever had
to share a powerful lesson with visionaries
and leaders out there, what's the powerful lesson
other visionaries can learn from your experience?
Yeah, so one of the ones that I just indicated
the power of niching down is has been transformative
to my business.
And it's one of the things when I see a lot
of people get started, you know,
and it's interesting to hear what you said about leadership
because my mentor actually told me I should go all in
on virtual events.
And I went for a walk and came back and said, I'm not,
I'm gonna go all in on boxes because part of it,
the one of the lessons I can tell you
that has been true for me, don't forget that, you know,
I hear a lot of people say like, give away, give away,
give away what you do to get this case studies,
but don't also forget that you can be your first case study.
So with Custom Box Agency, the first case study that I had
was the boxes that I built for me.
And sometimes like I'd say the most challenging part
of what it is that I'm doing is I saw an opportunity
with boxes that no one else saw.
And so I had this challenging role of having to then get
other people to see it.
And for me, it's one of those things that was exciting
because I could go up to people saying, do you see what I see?
Do you see what I see?
And people would look back at me and go, no, I don't see it.
Part of the role of being a visionary is holding the vision,
even when other people can't see it.
And the fun part of it is, and it's one of the most
difficult things that you will ever do,
is you now have the role to educate others on this vision
and why it's such a powerful thing to do.
So with Custom Box Agency, I saw something really special
with these box experiences we were building out with clients.
And the coolest thing is it took one person jumping in
and going, hey, I see it too.
And then the second that we did it,
the next person said, I see it too.
And so you have this spiral that starts to happen
that other people start to see what you see.
And looking back on the journey that we've been on
and where we're going, it all started with holding the vision
and recognizing that sometimes it takes people time
to see what it is that you see.
But don't let that be a means to crush your hopes and dreams
because part of the game is, and I'm loving seeing all this,
you can see we've hidden our dog.
That's my dog right there that's hidden in it.
I have a corgi, she's hidden throughout all of our stuff.
You can see there's another, it says Rover.
That was a product that we launched early on, but yeah.
So that's it.
That would be the one thing I'd say is,
don't be afraid to be bold and go after something
that other people may not see right away.
Our job as an entrepreneur is to make them see it.
Don't be afraid to be bold and go after something
others can't see, I love that.
I believe that all of us on this earth, we are visionaries.
And that means that we grasp, we get insight
that other people may not have.
And so being able to tap into that
is one of the most beautiful gifts that we have.
And it is scary, it is not easy to do,
but I would say that Mark's there and what you've built
is one of those testaments, at least for me.
It serves me and helps me see like, wow,
like this is why I do what I do.
This is why I host this show as well,
is because coming across these types of visions
and realities, like it's, how cool is this, man?
This is like as good as it gets on this type of show.
So thank you for building what you've built
and bringing the passion behind it.
It's also to see too, you're not a narcissist.
Sometimes the leaders out there are doing so
in a way that's just like, ah,
it doesn't feel as refreshing.
So I'm just blown away by the experience.
I wish you all the best.
And any final pieces of advice, words of wisdom
that you wanna share before we reveal one more unboxing?
Oh yeah, no, I would just say
you have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur.
The risks that you take on,
we are slightly crazy to do what is, we do,
I would have it no other way, the rewards of the game,
but it is a roller coaster.
Find your network, find your people, protect one another
because I mean, it's such a game that we do play,
but have fun while doing it.
And I look at this to say, this is a business
that is a piece of me just in a business form.
It's just fun, like I get to show up having fun,
but you can do that in your business as well.
Absolutely, and that's what Mark's empowering us with.
So we're gonna catch up about that afterwards.
I'm really excited about this.
I know that we need something like this
for what we're doing as well, and so that'll be fun.
We're gonna end with one more unboxing video.
We'll just show the promo video.
We'll dive right into the ending from there.
Vision Pros, check out the action steps on the landing page.
And also in addition to action steps,
we'll have the resources down below
so you can gather all the names and the resources
that were talked about.
And in the top right corner,
we'll have an invitation to be our guest.
If you've got a vision, you do not have to be
an out of this world, amazing vision,
like custom box agency in order to be on our show.
You might be at the incubation stage
where you haven't created what is your first box yet.
Or maybe you are a JJ Reddick or Coach K.
Either way, we'd love to have you on the show
and we look forward to seeing all of you
on the next episode.
Take care, everybody.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out.