How To Get A Complete Stranger To Hire You | The Client Acquisition Series

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure creative podcast. I'm your host Brian Hood. I'm here with another guest hosted episode. My substitute co-host with the most dis oh, that doesn't work coast co my cohost. I can't, I don't know what to do it.

Mark Eckert. This is what, by the way, I'm just like delete all in editor, leave it all in,

Just

this is what, happens when we leave an episode till like Friday to record.

Yeah. I mean, Brian literally said before we got on he's like, dude, It's going to be a good one. I was like, dude. Yeah, I'm a, I'm all on board with you, bro. Just in case any of you guys are thinking, wow, what does mark look like right now? I have a Winston cigarette.

T-shirt.

He does. He does. I can confirm that.

I don't smoke. But I got a bunch of gag gifts at my birthday party. Cause yes, I still have birthday parties. Cause I'm

Oh, how old are you now? Mark

I'm [00:01:00] 28 going on 65, dude. Yeah. I feel old as ever. I got gray hairs. I forget things. Things are going great, bro, by the way, I'm in a much better mood from last

Yeah. So last week was our burnout episode with mark remark was burnout, and I was like completely refreshed off my vacation in Cancun. So this is a fun fact since you're you're seven years younger than me and seven years ago was 22. 2015. If you're watching this on YouTube, you just saw me do math with my fingers, like a second grader in 2015 I was, this is fun, cause I'll just show you how much further along you are.

The me mark. I had I had just had my first six figure year and I was, and I was just trying to figure out how to do this thing called business at a higher. and the six figure home studio, which was the first iteration of six figure creative. This was specifically for home recording studios was just launched that year.

So um, that's where I was in at

That's how we met, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, cause we had a bunch of mutual friends, and [00:02:00] I like reached out to you and I was like, Hey bro, let's chat. Cause I'm putting out eBooks and and I don't know what I'm doing and you're doing it better. So. And then went out to Nashville because I was playing some shows and then we had like a bunch of mutual friends and then, you know, happily ever after it, now we're best buds for life and you call me sexy and hairy all the time.

And I just, I call you up and complain about business. So it's,

That's great.

things are going great, bro.

So it's actually funny. You read that conversation back then. This is why I think you stood out. Was that like back in 20 15, 20 16, 20 17, you were one of the first freelancers I had seen doing any sort of lead gen online. Most freelancers do not do any sort of lead gen for those who don't follow its lead generation.

And this kind of goes back into Mark's history. And why he's the substitute co-host on the podcast. If you haven't heard mark. And his background go back to episode 68, where mark talked about using Instagram marketing to build recurring income as a music producer, your background is in music production, just like mine.

And [00:03:00] then you did another episode on episode 1 29. And this was like, this was like a month into the pandemic. How mark Ecker is running a thriving pop production studio despite being stuck at home.

My claim. to fame is I was the only one that was on there twice at the time.

stoked.

So from the, I, I've never done a proper introduction for you really, because like, I just assume our audience knows who you are, but there's a lot of people that are just starting listening and they don't know anything about your background. So you've done a lot in the music production world, just like me.

you were a six-figure freelancer before you eventually launched other businesses. And so that's kind of, that's kind of your background, but I want to, I want to hone in on a topic today. That you and I can riff on pretty well, because we both have a lot of experience with this, doing this in multiple markets and multiple businesses at this point.

And that is taking someone that is a complete stranger. Has never heard about you before, who has no idea who you are that doesn't care about you and turn them into somebody who knows you, likes you, trust you and wants to pay you money to the point where they actually hand over their hotter harder. And daughter has a really hard transition, a very hard gap to close.

And I think that's a good topic for [00:04:00] anyone at any point in their business right now, whether you are already doing this well, you've never really put this process or thought into place of like how you what's the actual process of taking someone from unknown. To a client that whole journey, or if you're just getting started or you're struggling to get clients right now, this is a really good conversation to keep top of mind of like, what's the process behind this, because there can be a standardized process you do to take people through this.

if you look at it like like anything in life, there's a million ways to accomplish any one of these things. But I think it's worth talking about here because mark, I know you did this. You've understand that you've understood this intuitively even back in your, in your music production days, when you were putting out eBooks.

Yeah, that was so funny, dude. Yeah, I mean some history about me regarding like building, I guess, a crew of people that you can connect with. Like, I guess remotely Some people are going to be a little bit more natural at it. You know, they're more extroverted, like, you know, for what it's worth.

I got homecoming king. I have no idea how I did it. I was the one Jewish kid in school. I have no idea [00:05:00] how I pulled this off. Dude. My mom's walking me onto the basketball. And she's like, mark, this doesn't have to happen in the south.

You might be the first Jewish boy in the

south to ever get homecoming

oh dude. I bet it had to have it anyways. at the end of the day you can kind of look back on that and you can turn that into. How you function and business. A lot of people always talk about how do I get more customers? How did, how can they give me something? How can they give me something, right?

How can I get even what you just said? How can someone get their hard earned cash into, into your bank account, essentially? You know, that's essentially what's going on, that's commerce, right. But beneath all of that, How do you get married? Well, you probably are going to, I don't know, take someone out on a date first.

You're probably gonna meet their parents.

Wait, wait, you didn't just, you didn't just go stop strapped to share and say, Hey girl, you're fine. Will you marry me that wasn't the first movie.[00:06:00]

I think she looking back, she would have thought that was really sexy, but no, I did not. I did not have the uh, ability to do that at that time. So she uh, probably would've actually called the cops. But the, the thing is you take it step by step and this could be friendships. You know, Brian, I'm substitute co-hosting on this, but how long have we known each other?

You trust me,

at least six or seven years at this

Yeah. And have I, have I been consistent over six or seven years?

have, I always had your best interests.

Prob, maybe. I don't know. I don't know.

Nine times out of 10. Well, listen, I went, you know, I went to your wedding and I didn't streak in front of everybody. So like

that's, I mean, I didn't ruin things. You went

And I returned the favor. I went to your wedding and I didn't streak in front of people there. And I actually leave, you lifted you up on the chair as heavy as you are, and like did the whole, what's the, what's it called? When you're like lifting at the wedding, the person up on the chair and dancing around in

circles.

think it's the HIPAA. No, wait, I don't, I'm such a bad Jewish boy, but um, [00:07:00] yeah, it's when you go up on the chairs anyways, anyways. the thing is business and building relationships as friends. Are the same exact thing. In my opinion, if you are going into business as a you pay me. Not only will it not work in, you know, nine to five businesses, it definitely will not work as a creative because everybody in the creative industry.

Wants to be your friend too. And if you're, if you don't genuinely care about them building a relationship with them wanting their best interests, then it's not going to work. And that's how I built my production career. That's how I built that pitch.com is, you know friends first, you know, we can get married later.

Yeah, I'm glad you went there first, because like I've been, I've been teaching various variations of this concept since I guess 2016 or 2017. And actually my first big speaking gig that I did at a conference, my whole presentation was on something I called the complete client journey and I did everything in that talk [00:08:00] related to romantic relationship.

and so like this just the two intuitively match up. So we could probably just keep that theme for the rest of this, but let's just, let's just start from ground zero. ' cause I think this is where a lot of people are, is you are virtually unknown. And so let's, let's bring this back to dating because this is a fun thing to go back in our archives and memories of like what it was like to date.

But I can tell you right now, the loneliest I ever was was in Alabama living on like 10 acres was where I opened my first, my first studio facility. And. Zero prospects for romantic relationships because I never went any anywhere. I never did anything. All I did was work. So I was virtually unknown to the female population in north Alabama, Lacy Springs, Alabama, by the way, the

meth capital of Alabama, virtually unknown to the pot, the dating population there in the dating population, there was virtually unknown to me.

So it was. No surprise. I had no one to date because no one even know I existed as far as like the romantic world. And so mark, I'm not sure if you can relate to that back in your dating days,

but like,

[00:09:00] here's, here's kind of a funny thing is oh man, where do I go with this? Basically, I went through a very bad breakup with a girl that I was dating through in high school to My first year of Berkeley. And then I dropped out. I was only there for one year actually, but, you know, it, and it ended like all long-term relationships that are, long distance, eventually it just ended, you know?

So, we went through a really bad breakup. I was down on my luck. I was living back with my parents in.

always a good time.

Yep. Out in the suburbs of Charlotte, like way out there, wasn't really seen happening at the time. You know, I left New York, like I was just miserable, that was alone. And so I was like, you know what?

I kinda gotta get back out there. So I really just kind of had a practice for myself actually. I would go to coffee shops every single day. And it didn't matter if it was like a [00:10:00] asking like a girl out or anything like that, but I would just make friends with as many people. I got five numbers from people a day.

It could be friends. It could be uh, you know, if I wanted to go on a date with a girl, like I would get five numbers a day. And that was a task that I had. And looking back, that was actually a big sales thing that I learned is nobody really ever said no. Like they were like, yeah, I'd love to meet you. so, whereas you kind of just like sat there and you're like, oh God, this is terrible.

I was like, no, I'm going to literally get five numbers a day.

Yeah, this is, I mean, this is why you were married at like what, 27, 26, something like that.

Well, yeah, because I dated some awful people and because of

and that's, why I was like 32 before I was mad.

Yeah. I just knew how amazing Sharon was because I had dated so much at that point and I really depleted options. I was like, you know, she's perfect. So,

Well, let's bring this back to anyone listening [00:11:00] right now. Cause I felt like you and I are having a great conversation and our

audience is like, that's all good to know, guys. I'm glad to know your dating history, but what does this have to do with me and my freelance creative business? Think of it like this.

Like if you are sitting around. Hoping people find you hoping people are being referred to you. You're not, you're no better than me sitting in Lacy Springs, Alabama waiting around for girls to find it. You're just going to be sad and lonely. So like the first step of getting a client is to become known. Because again, people do not hire you until they know you like you and trust you trusting is the last step they have to know you first, they have to then start to like you, and then you become a trusted person to. Put their hard earned dollars into your hands at some point or your bank account.

Preferably. So that first step is, is just being known. And mark, you did a great job. When you were in your sad state of big breakup, living alone, living with your parents again, which is never something you want to do in your adult life. Again, like once you move out, you don't want to go back in and, and you got five numbers yet.

This goes back to the nerdy uh, objectives and key results. The objective was to yeah. To, to get uh, I guess, get a [00:12:00] girlfriend or, or get relationships. And the

key result was the five numbers per day.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and now it's like, if somebody doesn't want to work with me or something like, I'm like, that's fine. All good because like, yeah, most people didn't say no, they were like, Hey, you're not creepy. Seemed like a nice dude. Like, well, let's try it out. It's fine. But yeah, I mean, it, I think it really trained me.

A lot of people are very, very scared to put themselves out there at all, because they're really scared of judgment. I think that's probably something that any freelancer deals with. Especially if, whether you're meeting people in person let's say. You're a producer. People tell you to go to shows if you're a photographer, you know, you can just meet people on the street.

It's scary to put yourself out there and actually meet people. But you got to get over that and you'll realize nine times out of 10 people are so excited that someone reached out to them that day,

Yeah. So that was, again, that was my fear. It's like the fear of rejection or the fear of failure is a big reason why people stay single for so long. And it's the same thing in your [00:13:00] business. You you're afraid to put yourself out there like mark, mark. You're just like, you're an anomalies. I know most people are not going to go to a coffee shop and get five people's numbers every day.

Like that is you're lucky. If you get five a week or five a month, most people if ever. We can still all learn from your example of like how we going to play that to our businesses, because you're not afraid to put yourself out there. That's I don't think that's necessarily a fear that you have.

Here's the biggest mindset shift for me that happened everybody is really, really scared to put themselves out there because they think they're annoying somebody, like, let's say you post con like you've talked so much about content marketing put out something that will help people. You've talked about that in how many episodes now.

Right?

And everyone's always scared we know what to do, but why aren't we doing it right. I think when you can make the shift, the biggest shift that for me, was realizing that I can actually add a lot of value to people's lives. I can help people. I mean, whether for [00:14:00] my own business, we help people in music, right?

So there's a lot of things that I've learned that can help people. If I don't share this. Because I'm scared of judgment for myself. How selfish is that you're being selfish by not reaching out to people because you could actually change their lives.

You know what it is, mark? I think the, this goes back to something I I've been thinking a lot about recently is like this little psychological gremlin we all have and that psychological. it's not all bad. It's there to protect us. That little gremlin is there to say like, Hey, don't, don't do that.

That that's uncomfortable. I don't, I don't like that. Don't don't do that because that might, equal failure or rejection or whatever. And if we let that little psychological grim and like rule our lives and make decisions for us, that's, that's a bad time. And that's why, like, when I was living alone in Alabama, that little gremlin was running my life.

It was like, be comfortable. You're comfortable in the studio, recording bands. Like you're comfortable not going out and doing anything where you might [00:15:00] be rejected or, or being outside of your comfort zone. Just stay in a little comfort. And there's there's sometimes we need we need to feel safe, but it's not really helping us because I think that little gremlin goes back to like our pre prehistoric times when it kept us staying safe and comfortable meant we weren't going to be killed and end our family tree.

But today it doesn't really serve us. And the problem with the little psychological gremlin, which I should probably name him. I don't know what we're going to name a mark. You have a, if you have any suggestions pipe up

Douche bag.

There's bad gremlin is he is, he is just, he is only like a few IQ points dumber than we are.

So at any point, if we just, if we are not focused on, on being outsmarting the sky and we are not like doing all we can to, to, to outmaneuver him, he'll win. So like when, when you're not being intentional about something intentional and, and thoughtful Actually putting the work in towards an objective that you're trying to accomplish, whether it's getting your name out there, getting known instead of unknown, if you are not fully focused on that, if you let your judgment lapse [00:16:00] Friedman for a second, that little grim gets in your head and says, no, no, no, no, no.

We don't need to. We don't need to launch that podcast. We can, uh, let's keep tweaking the, the out the art of the podcast. Let's keep the perfectionist comes out, right? The PR by the way, the gremlin comes out in a number of ways. The perfectionist is a great way for you to delay the inevitable fear of putting something out in the world.

I have to make everything perfect. Another one is. That little fear of rejection, that side of things, it comes up in a number of ways of all these excuses that we have that hold us back from doing things that we know we need to do, getting us out of our comfort zone to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.

But that little gremlin stops us and hold us back. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this mark, but mine migrant one is perfectionism. That's mine.

Yep. I think my minds that kind of I wouldn't say it's necessarily a perfectionism as it is. Completely over analyzing strategy. So the difference that you and I have and what I actually really admire about you, I actually said this to Shira the other day. Like I think you and I [00:17:00] are both pretty naturally like kind of confident guys.

And I think we both really worked at that. You know, again, you weren't alone in Alabama, you know? Um, But the thing that I really admire about you is you choose a direction. And you go in it, you're like this is going to work. It's already proven I'm going to do that. What I do, is I think it's good and bad is I literally ask every single friend.

I know I get unlimited because I have such an incredible network of people now. And I'm so grateful for that. I will take everybody's advice and they're all conflicting each other. And I will like have this vortex in my brain of

What's actually really solved that for me.

And we've talked about this before, is the book of centralism by Brett McKeon or Mickey Yoon, wet, McEwen, whatever that hat don't know how to pronounce it, but he's great. And it basically talks out there's only going to be pros and cons. There's no right or wrong [00:18:00] that's been helpful for me, but I definitely analyze man.

Yeah. So that's another one of those gremlins. So like my gremlin, the one that I fight with is perfectionist. The one that I can definitely fight with is, is endless searching for information. Like I have to have all the information before I make a move. So that's the one you fight with. And again, that gremlin is just a few IQ points dumber than you are.

And if for a second, you let yourself slip into that like thoughtless research phase, or I'm just going to call another person and get their input now. Cause you called me yesterday and we talked for 30 minutes about some thing that you're struggling with right now. And it's like, I just need one more person's input, but all this stuff is delaying.

The inevitable decision that you have to make, or the Neville action you have to take towards what it is you're trying to work towards.

Yeah. And I think the reason why I overanalyze too, is I have a delusion of there being a permanence to that decision that I make. Whereas what we talked about is like, you can have different iterations of what you do over time,

Yes,

That's me trying to get past perfectionism is realizing version one does not have to be the final version.

[00:19:00] And it won't be, it

shouldn't be,

Yeah. So like just an example for anyone still listening. Hopefully hadn't lost anyone here. when you launch your website, if you lost a website. Yeah. For example, you can launch a website that is not perfect.

Done is better than perfect. You can always iterate and change and improve and, and switch things around all you want. But what you'll likely do is you'll realize that's just the little fear, Grumman getting, getting the better of you and the perfectionism grim and getting the better of you. And you realize when you launch it, No one actually goes to your website.

So now you have another problem which is getting traffic to your website, which goes to this kind of beginning conversation, just going from unknown to at least known people to your website and only then do you start making adjustments to the website, making it all perfect, but you've got to get traffic there first.

That's just one example of how this all plays back to your businesses. This, this mental psychological stuff holds us back in a number of different ways.

Right. So like if we kind of bring it back to, cause I know we're vamping here, but like if you kind of bring it back to a step-by-step tactical approach, this is really [00:20:00] getting from zero to one. And I think the hardest thing is if you have momentum, you already have, for instance, you've had this podcast for years, you know what to do, you have it all systemized.

You don't even have to think about it, but if you're getting from zero to one, It's a lot harder because you don't have a system yet. You know, if you're just trying to get somebody one new person today to know that you exist from being alone in Alabama, by yourself, surrounded by meth heads, you know, and that's the dating population.

That's a big step. You know, so kind of going into a digital format, how do people accomplish that? Like how did you first accomplish that? We've all talked about eBooks, but what was your kind of first thing of like, how can I get people to know who I am like me, you know, kind of move towards that trajectory.

Yeah, so it depends on the business. So for my first, like my first real business was four or five, six recordings, which is my recording studio. And with that business, it was the, like, I just, I [00:21:00] survived the word of mouth death trap. We've talked about the word of mouth death trap on the podcast before, if you haven't heard that episode, go back to episodes. 180 2, it's just called the word of mouth, death trap and how to avoid it. I survived that it was the war of attrition and I survived the war of attrition, essentially for that, for the studio. Now, there were some things that I did and, and relationships I made and, and, and I was just really good at what I did in those days that helped me kind of become known.

And I put out great work that then got listened to by a lot of people and that helped. But for other businesses, My first foray into that was actually YouTube. I put out a number of YouTube videos early on, like before. Before I really knew what the hell I was doing that has, have done really well.

And that, that got the word out about the very first online course ever put out, which was a free course called from to gold, which is like a mixing course. and that course did really well, but YouTube was a huge source of that and building my mailing list up for that and stuff.

So that was like my first like passive income business, if you want to call it that. But that was my first thing is getting past the fear and perfectionism of like putting a YouTube channel together and putting content [00:22:00] out there. what was yours? Was it the.

Well, it was actually before the ebook. I think the biggest thing is people want to launch as an expert. And I, you know, it's interesting, I think back in the day, like in the early days of social media, I think that was really easy to pull off in a way. But now if you're just like, I know everything, I'm the best, you know?

And everyone's like, oh, what up Ty Lopez? You know, so. I think now, and what I even did years ago is I never ever said I was the expert on anything. I was just more about like building a community around what I love and just saying, Hey, I might just be a little, a couple steps ahead of you in this one direction.

These are the things I learned and I have some, you know, friends or clients or whatever that got screwed. This is how. To not have this happen in PR. Cause that's a big thing for me is uh, artists.

It's also a big scammy industry that, that

sucks the money out of a lot of artists.

So I [00:23:00] made a bunch of content originally around the type of music that I made. I just said, oh, I love this synth patch.

You know, this is how I did it gave tips. But the next step is I came out with an ebook. It was originally called the indie pop cookbook

I remember that.

I think it was just like about how to run your live show because a lot of people got the track. It was awesome. They didn't know how to perform it.

And basically for anyone who is not following and doesn't know the music world, it's just, it's not the problem. And that's, that's the that's the biggest thing is like, First of all, in order to make that transition from unknown to known, we have to be willing to put ourselves out there. That's the first step.

That's where we talked about that gremlin that holds us back from getting uncomfortable. Like we want to be comfortable. We want to be safe. We don't want to have to face failure or rejection or these other things. We have to be perfect in all ways before we can launch it. Like, that's the thing that holds us from being known in the first place, but then to go from no.

To light. That's where you actually have to start bringing value because like I can give you a Superbowl ad right now and I can pay you like the $30 million at cost for your [00:24:00] Superbowl ad, for whatever thing you're trying to do or for your business or your freelance business, but really like is probably not gonna be very effective because there's no reason for them to move past the known.

There's nothing that's going to go from known to light and then like to trusted, and content is a great way to do that. The podcast you're listening to, right. This. Is helping build that relationships that if you barely know who either mark or I are, there's things that we're saying and doing, and helping with that bring you closer to light.

Maybe that Mark's, Mark's constant fact that he's just plays into his Jewish Jewish life and like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's that, that helps them become more likable. But then to go from light to trusted, which is an even more important step is actually delivering value of some sort that unequal value exchange, like the indie pop cookbook you created was an unequal value exchange.

They just give you an email address. They became a lead for you, but they got so much value out of it that they said, oh my gosh, mark knows this

Yeah. And I think like, it was just, how can I help solve a problem for everybody? And I literally asked for nothing in return and I was like, I think this could help. But Even kind of [00:25:00] going further into that, going from zero to one of just getting known and for people to like you at all. I think the big problem, and it's the most important thing, honestly, it's the most, it's the biggest asset and liability is truly being authentic.

Like I am exact like I'm holding nothing back here at all. I mean, if you want to edit something out, I'm sure you will, but I'm not

going to say

a lot out of you because you're too much Margaret, too much for our audience.

stop it, stop it anyways. But you know, I'm exactly who I am. I say bad words. I'm a little outlandish, but I am like a hundred percent who I am and I, what I've always found is. The vast majority of the time, unless somebody is like crazy. If somebody is a hundred percent authentic and being a hundred percent who they are, I'm genuinely going to like them, no matter what, what side of the aisle they're coming from?

I'm like all about it. Oh, I

[00:26:00] just love that, you know?

I mean, it's not, and that's not always true. Cause I gotta, I gotta push back a little bit because your personality is grading to some people, You know

Yeah. Some people don't like it.

But th the whole point. Yeah, the whole point is if you are always genuinely yourself, then you will self-select that by its very nature will self select.

The people who are drawn to that are going to love you. The people who are not drawn to that will stay away from you. And that way you can build a deeper connection with those that are surrounding you. That the number one way people mess us up is by trying to be liked. And I can't tell you a more cringy unlikable way to be liked and trusted.

Is to try to be liked is everything you create in your life is around being liked. If that's all you care about it. I want people to like me, not an attractive quality marks quality, whether you you're attracted to his personality or not. And I'm kind of the same way where like I'm a no BS kind of guy.

Like I just say it how it is, and I can be not quite as abrasive as mark, but I can be pretty abrasive. right. Like if, [00:27:00] if I try to be anything, but this, it just wouldn't work. So there's, there's just, you have to be yourself because if you try to be anything, but that this is not going to

The thing is, is that the peep people's default is to not care at all. So the win is getting someone to make a reaction at all, either like you or not, like you getting some sort of emotion in general is a win, like within reason, you know, people just don't care at all. And that's okay. Like, if you're just yourself, there's going to be people who don't like you.

I'm sure there's people who don't like me. That's okay. I have my crew. I love my people and I have plenty of people who do like me and that's cool.

Yeah. So, I mean, this let's just bring this back to dating for a second, because there's so many parallels between freelancing and, dating or relationships. If you're trying in your dating life to just be likable, you're being this person. That's not true to who you are. You might get a few dates.

You might trick some people into dating. You. [00:28:00] Eventually the bottom is going to fall, fall out, and they're going to realize who you really are and that relationship's over at that point. It's just like that a freelancing, if you try to, or just as any business, honestly, in marketing, if you're trying to be anything, but yourself and freelancing is really important because there's no differentiation between you and your business.

You are one in the same as a freelancer. If you try to pretend to be something that you're not, you might trick a few people to. Either get on your mailing list. If you have a lead magnet or that you might trick a few people to becoming a client, but eventually when they realize who you really are, that relationship's over, they're never going to refer people to you.

As a matter of fact, they're going to detract people from, from hiring you as a matter of fact. So you don't want to be anything but who you are. And anyone who's told you the lie that you need to be the specific thing in order to be likable or trusted is feeding you a line.

Yeah, and I, a simple way to do this or to kind of put this in a better metaphor is like back in high school, you had a type, like if you were a punk kid who was doing drugs every day, you're probably not going to date the cheer. You know, and she doesn't want to take you,[00:29:00] you know, it's good to have a type that is totally okay.

Like nobody was, nobody is datable to everybody, even like, you know, the Ken doll or the Barbie doll from back, somebody found that on attractive,

you know,

you're always gonna have a type and that is totally cool.

you just don't want to do a bait and switch. You don't want to say you're the perfect person. And then you end up being an absolute, like, you're just not a fit,

Yeah, this is why for years, I've said, if he tried to, if you try to attract everyone, you'll attract no one. This is the same in dating. It's the same in your business. Like you need to, you need to have a type B a type. That's fine. Like I know your what's your, what, what, what would your type B mark? What is, what persona are you?

Like in dating

No, no, no. I don't care about dating. I'm talking about in your.

Um, I honestly, I think I am very just classic music industry It's like old school punk in a way. It's like everyone says vulgar in the studio. Everyone is, you know, has their demons sort of [00:30:00] thing. I'm just upfront about it and saying that I'm screwing up on things, but this one thing I'm doing right now is killing.

So I think I'm just honest. And I'm, I'm saying like that it's just very relatable. I think.

I would say, just outside, looking in, and this is just anyone can, it's hard to do this on yourself, which is why I was asking you and seeing what you would say, but like, you go for the little more, like out there brash, say it, how it is kind of personality and not everyone's like that. Like not everyone's attracted to that.

I know people that have really, really good Good. Good, good connections with people or clients or customers depend on what kind of world you're in being very chill. Like you don't have to be. Super outgoing, loud, brash in order for this to work. But you have to be who you are, whatever that is. You have to be who you are because I say this, sometimes I say in a mean way.

And sometimes I say this in a nice way, but there's someone for everyone out there, but it's relationships or whether it's in business, there's someone for everyone. And you've just got to realize that like, even if you are not what you would consider the most personable type person. [00:31:00] Not everyone is like, there's people just like you out there that they just want to have chill relationship there.

The person, like, I think there's a family guy episode where Peter Griffin is just like sitting. I think his family guy where he's just sitting next to this guy for like years and they never talk. And then like the whole episode, they live their entire life together and never talk and then they died. And then

he says that was the best friend.

I never talked to her or something like

that. Like.

it's, it's funny. I know last week we were talking about how I haven't been traveling lately, but last year I went to Panama for a couple of weeks, just backpacks. I came back and complete hippie that's what happens to me? I just don't care about anything. And all of my friends, my team, everyone was like, mark, are you okay?

I was like, yeah, like I'm just how care like, everything's cool. And they're like, you're not yourself, dude. Like, I don't like this version of you.

That's because you hung out with Brandon, which is my old roommate, and he's very much that type. He's the very chill. Very cool, calm, collected. He's actually been on this podcast if you want to experience, oh, Brandon Brown on episodes. 131, [00:32:00] where he talks about how to set up your Instagram account for success with Brandon Brown of media west. But he's an agency owner who does social media. So for those who struggle with that, go listen to that episode and you kind of get what I would consider probably the exact opposite of, of mark in every way, as far as persona.

We just talked to actually yesterday on the phone. I'll fucking

love Reddit.

Yeah, I hung out with him. Sunday. Anyways, let's bring this back to the audience again. We've talked a lot about the being known being liked, but I think there's something else to talk about this. As far as relationships go. Just actually focusing on relationship.

It's so easy in the marketing world. If you've ever studied internet marketing or digital marketing or anything where you're actually trying to bring out some of those elements of the world into your freelance business, which is surprisingly rare, most people aren't doing that, which is why it was so interesting to see you in like 20 17, 20 18 promoting an ebook as a music producer.

Like it was

something unheard

of.

out with like three.

It was great.

So like bringing this back to us. Instead of looking at all that stuff, we, we need to remember that this is all about relationships. Just like when you're dating, you have to show up consistently over a long period of time. That's why mark and I have a great friendship is that we, he, we, [00:33:00] he showed up in my life more than I showed up for his, I don't know why, you're my friend mark, but

you

pick up,

I just have to call twice.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But like, but you showed up consistently and we've, we've kept in touch and like we've, we've sustained this relationship over a long period of time that I think. Will we miss that when we get into like marketing mindset, we think about things as ones and zeros and numbers and quantities.

And we forget that it's a human attached to this. So that's why I really like the romantic relationship that you and I have. No, I'm just joking. The romantic relationship kind of comparison between Marcus. As a freelancer and building a romantic relationship is because you ha you cannot, you cannot do Arlis.

You shouldn't be doing marketing on a mass scale in the dating world. Maybe there's a way to do it. I think Tim Ferriss actually did that one, one day where he did his experiment, where he had this. 10 different dates in one day, all lined up back to back it like the same coffee shop. And he had a virtual assistant doing all of the conversations for him as this bizarre, hilarious experiment that he documented on his podcast, which is, it was like legendary back in the day he did this like probably 10 years ago.[00:34:00]

It probably didn't work. He's probably not married to any one of those people that he went on the date with in that one day. but that just bring it back to us. We have to focus on the one-on-one relationship, showing up, being authentic, who we are, all this sounds like fluff, but it sounds like, fuck, because it's generic advice, but no one follows it.

So yeah,

that's what I

thought.

we've, all seen somebody put out content and they're like trying to appear. Bigger than they actually are. And it's just, it's just a big turnoff. Everybody knows at this point, like also people not responding to DMS, like seeming like they're inaccessible or something like that. We're not in 2002.

You can contact anybody now.

Yeah. So any last kind of words of advice for somebody who is struggling to go from that unknown to known, to light, to trusted, journey with new people.

People are either going to love you, or they're going to hate you, but you have no control over anybody. Else's emotions. Just do it's second nature to you be yourself. [00:35:00] And you're going to be so fine.

Yeah, I want to, I'll finish this off with a quote from grant Cardone. This is something he said at a conference, he went to the room and he just said, raise your hand in here. If, if you've, if you've ever heard of me.

And like about half the half the room raised their hand, it was like a couple thousand people in there. And then he said, well, let me just first say, I apologize that the rest of you have never heard of me because like basically his whole spiel, his whole, his whole deal no matter what, he doesn't want to be unknown because if you're unknown, no one will ever buy from you.

Like, I think the worst thing is to be unknown. I'd much rather be hated than unknown. That's that's what he says. And we don't have to go that far, but by default, if no one knows who you are, if someone doesn't know who you are, they will never hire you as a freelancer. That's something we have to understand.

So that by. Being unknown is a no. So the first step to getting the yes is to becoming known. And I feel like our audience has to be better about putting ourselves out there as creatives to become known.