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Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.

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I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you

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insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise

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but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.

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So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the

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milestones that mark the path to success.

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Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick,

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your host, and today my special guest is Wayne Mullins, founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, creator

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of the Freelance Accelerator, and author of Full Circle Marketing. Welcome to the show, Wayne.

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Thank you so much, Sheila. I'm excited for our chat today.

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Yes. So Wayne, you've been described as an out of the box thinker and you've built a highly

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successful marketing agency, Ugly Mug Marketing. What inspired you to take such a unique approach

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to marketing and how has that contributed to your success?

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Yeah. So for me, my journey actually began in sales. That was what I pursued as soon as I got my

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degree. And I spent the first three years in corporate advertising sales. I was actually

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selling billboards for the nation's largest billboard company. So the big signs you see as

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you drive down the road, I was selling what appears on some of those. And what I discovered

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during that time was that when I started, Sheila, I was absolutely horrific at this thing called

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sales. I would knock on doors. I would get doors slammed in my face. I heard a lot of nos,

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but over time I kept studying, kept learning, kept growing, and I actually got good at this

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thing called selling. And this interesting thing occurred. The better I got, the more rapidly

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I was bringing in income or revenue for the company that I was working for. And so that

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that if you think about like a chart, right, that line graph, that number, that dollar figure goes

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up pretty rapidly as I got better and better. But the other side of that was my pay and my pay did

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not increase as rapidly as the money I was bringing in for the company. Yes, it was increasing,

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but not at the same rate, not the same proportions, I guess you could say. So I had this very

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dangerous idea of what if I actually went and did something for myself? And that led me to start a

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London landscape company. Again, I'm in Louisiana, so that business really operates about nine months

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out of the year here where there's green grass to be cut, there's landscaping to be done. It was

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over the course of a three year period that I took that from startup to a successful exit. And it was

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during the course of that, that people started coming to me and they started asking, we see you

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have grown, we see how you've gone from one crew to two crews to three crews to four crews. What

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have you done? Like how have you done this? And the answer was marketing. We took a very unique,

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very different perspective to marketing. And after I sold that company, I did consulting for a while

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before I decided just to jump in with both feet and pursue it as a full-time career, I guess.

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Sales is important. So what's the difference between marketing and sales? Just to clarify.

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Sure. So what I believe to be true is that marketing's job is to make sales unnecessary.

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And what I mean by that is when something is marketed well, let's take, for example, I'm

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a hold up this, this is the iPhone, right? Within something is marketed well, like maybe an iPhone,

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if you use iPhones, when you go into the store to buy it, or you go online to buy it,

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they don't have to convince you. They don't have to sell you on buying the iPhone. They don't have

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to sell you on buying the iPhone. They just have to take your order because marketing has done its

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job. It's made sales unnecessary. So that's the way I love to think about marketing. Its whole goal

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is to bring you to the point where you're willing and ready to pull out your wallet

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and hand over money. Now, sales, on the other hand, I believe sales takes them two roles. Number one,

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that is that of an order taker, right? Somebody who is ready to take your money, to fill out the

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order form, to make sure you get the exact right iPhone that you need. The other side of that is

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a salesperson whose job is to actually do marketing, right? Meaning their job is to convince you

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of the need or desire for the product or service that you sell.

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Thank you. Cause some people, you know, they kind of struggle with it and

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they think it's all in one. So thank you for your clarification. So Wayne, you've personally have

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trained over 20,000 marketers and you've helped launch New York Times bestsellers. What do you

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believe are the key elements of a successful marketing strategy in today's digital landscape?

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So we give you four specific things. Number one, you have to get crystal clear

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about your audience. We love to call these people strangers. So who are the people who need, won't,

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or desire not the product that you sell, but the solution or the outcome that your product or service

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will provide. So you've got to get crystal clear on the who, what we would call the strangers.

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Your next job is to convince those strangers to become friends of yours. And there's two things

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you have to focus on. Number one, you have to get them to know about you. Pretty obvious, but then

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number two, you have to get them to actually like you to like your products, to like your service,

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to like your company and what you represent. And then once they're your customers, I'm sorry,

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once they're your friends, you have to get them to become customers. And to do this, you have to

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think about trust. How can I convey trust in the company? How can I make can trust in our product

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or our service that we provide? So when we think about moving people through marketing,

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we start with those elements. We start with the strangers. How do we get them to become our

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friends? Then how do we take those friends and convince them to be our customers? So those are

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the core elements when we move people through, if you will, a marketing funnel or a marketing system.

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So as the creator of freelance accelerator, you've helped many freelancers and entrepreneurs to grow

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their businesses. What common challenges do you see they face and how have you helped overcome them?

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Absolutely. So one of the most beautiful and fascinating things about having a marketing

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agency is I get an email from a friend of mine who is a freelancer and he's like, Hey, I'm

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not a freelancer, I'm a marketing agent. So I get an insider's perspective on so many different

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industries because when we're brought in, we're brought in for typically one reason, and that is

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they want to increase sales and they want to increase revenue. In doing that, we often have

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to get in behind the scenes. We have to understand how the operations are working, how other channels

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of marketing or sales are working. And so we get a behind the scenes perspective in terms of the way

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businesses work. And here's what I've discovered over, you know, I've been doing the agency now

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for almost 16 years full time. Before that, I was doing consulting for about five years before that,

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specifically around marketing and business growth. And here's what I've discovered that all

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businesses, regardless of industry, go through five phases. In other words, there's five phases

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to scaling a business. The very first one is what I call the me stage. And this is where you,

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as the entrepreneur, have to learn to trust yourself. You have to learn to trust your

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decisions. You have to learn to make wise decisions to build your company to that next level.

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The next phase that you go into is what I call the we stage. So we, as in you start building out your

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team and you start learning to trust those people, not just trust them, but to trust them with key

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functions within the company or within the business. The third stage that you're going to go into

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is what I call they, and these are systems and processes. So as you bring people on and as you

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have people taking over key roles and key responsibilities, you quickly discover you need

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systems and processes to ensure that things aren't falling through the crack, that policies and

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procedures are being upheld, et cetera. So you move into that stage. The next stage beyond that

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is what I call the machine. And this is where you have to get your systems and processes to work

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to work in unison with the people, with the team. And this is a huge friction point. This is a

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massive friction point, particularly for entrepreneurs, for founders, because by default,

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entrepreneurs typically hate structure. They hate systems and processes. They're all over the place.

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They're chasing the next big idea. They're jumping from thing to thing. And so often they don't want

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to be held accountable. They don't want to be held to systems and processes. They believe rules are

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made for other people, not for them, which on the one hand serves them so well in the early days of

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growing their business. But to truly scale your business, you have to buy into those systems and

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processes. And you have to get the people and the systems and processes to work in unison and work

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together. I completely agree. That was wonderful. So you have transitioned in your careers. What is

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your next milestone? Well, Sheila, this is going to be the most unappealing, boring answer you've

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probably ever heard for this one. But I am becoming more and more of what I would call an

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incrementalist. And so in the early days of my entrepreneurial journey, and just for context,

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you know, I have been out in quote unquote, the working world now for over 20 years. And during

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my 20 plus year career, I only spent about two and a half to three years actually working for

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someone else. The rest of that time, I've been an entrepreneur, I've been responsible for my own

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income. But during that transition for me as an entrepreneur, I started out, you know, with the

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traditional entrepreneurial ambition, big ideas, grand ideas, conquer the world, take over the world

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stuff. But what I've learned over the years is that when I focus on incremental improvements,

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not just in business, but in every area of my life, that the compound effect of those decisions

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is profound. And so with my team, for example, we're not talking about, you know, 10Xing revenue,

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which I know 10X is a phrase and a term that gets thrown around around a lot. And it's a very sexy

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sexy phrase and thing to talk about. What we're talking about is how do we get just a little bit

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better each day, right? If we're responding to clients or customers, and let's just say that our

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current response rate is three hours, how do we get that down to two hours and 55 minutes, right?

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And so if we just embrace this mentality of incrementalism, just small, small adjustments

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over time, what happens is in a year, in two years and three years, where we end up is so drastically

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different than where we are today. So that is my next milestone. Although it's further out,

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it's this milestone of a daily incremental improvement.

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So which improvement would you focus on? Or would you prioritize? Or is it that you're choosing,

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you know, to be better in different little aspects all together?

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Yeah, for clarification on that. So I believe for me, it's in multiple areas of my life, right? So

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relationships with my wife and my kids, with health, my personal health getting better,

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incrementally better in those areas, with relationships with friends and colleagues

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outside of work, outside of family. But if we're thinking just in terms of business and where I'm

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focusing here, I would say that the incremental improvements that me for a leader are focusing on

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the most would be incremental improvements in our culture, the culture that we have.

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As you know, and anyone listening to this would know that we live in a very volatile world,

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right? A world of uncertainty, a lot of, hey, what's going to happen tomorrow? What's going

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to happen next week? We don't know. It's very chaotic world. But what I believe to be true

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is that I think it was Peter Drucker who originally said this, that culture each strategy

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for breakfast. And so when we think back a few years, when the world was all of a sudden

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shut down, right, locked down, you could have had the most brilliant strategy plan for that year,

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for 2020, right? You could have spent millions of dollars, all kinds of tech research, developing

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the absolute perfect strategy for your business and your company. But the minute the world changed,

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that strategy goes out the door. And what comes into play, what makes the difference between how

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much you succeed is the culture that you have in your organization. So for me, that is the focus

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within ugly mug marketing. It is making sure that we're getting better with our culture.

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Where can the listeners find you online or where can they learn more about you?

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Two places. So the simplest place is our website. That's just ugly mug marketing.com, email

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addresses, phone numbers, all that kind of stuff. You know, you can find out more about our services

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there. And then on Instagram, I'm somewhat active there. Personally, I share more leadership and

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all that kind of stuff. And my Instagram is at fire yourself. F I R E like fire like you're fired.

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All right. So before I get to my last question, you're coming up with these unique names are very

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catchy, right? Your company's called ugly mug marketing. How do you come up with these names?

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Or what's the significance? I'm curious. Yeah, absolutely. So ugly mug marketing,

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it comes from a quote by this gentleman of the name David Ogilvie. David Ogilvie immigrated to

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the U.S. back, I think, in the late 50s, if I'm not mistaken. And he came over here with 40 bucks.

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And he was determined to build the world's largest ad agency. And he did that. He built the world's

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largest ad agency. They're still in the top 10 in the world. But one of his quotes was this,

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I would rather you show me an ad that's ugly and effective over one that's beautiful, but isn't.

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And so our name stems from that quote of this idea that we want something that's effective

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over something that's beautiful, although we don't mind something that's beautiful, right?

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If it works. So that's where ugly mug comes from. At fire yourself or fire yourself comes from this

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notion that the biggest obstacle in any endeavor in our lives, whether it's business, whether it's

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relational, whether it's finance, is not external factors, but it's rather the person who looks

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back at you in the mirror every single morning. That is the biggest obstacle you have to overcome

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and learning to lead that person well is what matters most. So that's where that comes from.

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I love it. I knew there was meaning behind the names.

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So before we wrap it up, your leadership style is described as passionate and heart driven. How do

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you maintain this approach in your business and what advice can you share to other leaders looking

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to lead with purpose? I would say that, you know, when we think about leadership, it's easy to get

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wrapped up in, you know, principles or techniques or tools on how we should go about leading, how

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to be an effective leader, all of that stuff. There's so much great material out there.

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And I'm certainly a student of it all. But at the end of the day, I think it boils down to this

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simple thing is that we are dealing with human beings who have different motives, different

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desires, different struggles, different pain points than we may have. And the more that we can

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learn to be in tune with the person, either across the table, across the screen, on the other side of

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the phone, the more that we can truly learn to listen to them, to feel where they're coming from,

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the more effective we'll be in all of our leadership. Because at the end of the day,

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as who, I don't know who says this, somebody, some great leadership person says this,

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leadership is really just about influence. And if you truly want to influence people, you first

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must understand who they are and where they're coming from.

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Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, she love enjoyed our chat.

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And thank you to everyone that tuned in to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and

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Leadership.