Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Mark Evans DM - 10x Best Selling Author, World-Traveling Real Estate Investor and Serial Entrepreneur

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Welcome to another episode of The Radcast! In this week’s episode, host Ryan Alford talks to Mark Evans DM, 10x Best-Selling Author, World-Traveling Real Estate Investor and Serial Entrepreneur.Mark talks about the best moment in his childhood journey and how it became a defining moment for who he is now. He also explains the key points that guide his coaching process to keep other entrepreneurs on track for success. Mark shares his marketing and branding perspectives as his business continues to grow, specifically how to build brand equity and market value for “Mark Evans DM” and how to balance family and professional life.As a 10X Best-Selling Author, Mark explains how his readers relate to what he does. He also gives advice to young people who look up to him.If you want to know more about Mark Evans, check out his website: https://markevansdm.com/. Follow him on Instagram: @makrevansdm and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markevansdm/. If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Check out www.theradicalformula.com. Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube account https://bit.ly/3iHGk44 or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

These are each pivot moments. Everything that we dream about, our goal, becomes actually just a checkpoint in the moment. You know, everyone's so focused on this goal, they get there and you're like, dude, that's it, I can do more. I think the biggest thing is just finding out what you're really, what makes you tick as an investor.

If you're not spending 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 grand a month, like, this is why you're frustrated. You don't have a duplicatable, replicatable process. The hardest part of that need is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast. You don't have a duplicatable, replicatable process. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey, guys.

What's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. We're talking deals today. We're talking investing. We're talking best-selling author, entrepreneur, Mark Evans, DM. What's up, Mark? What's up, man? How you doing today? I'm good, man. Anybody that's the fucking dealmaker, I need to have on my show. I love it.

Appreciate you. I love it. Appreciate you. Yeah, man. Yeah. You know, two of the people that I have a lot of respect for and are two of my closer friends and contacts recommended having you on independently of one another. We're like, you know who you need to talk to?

You need to talk to Mark Evans. He said, number one, I think you guys are probably pretty similar. And number two, I just think Mark's a great guy and he's doing a lot of cool shit and I'm like all right I gotta talk to Mark and uh so I'm I'm happy to have you on brother no man appreciate having me yeah uh literally we can get our friends if they're referring me over to you exactly exactly uh I know you you spoke at like a real estate event a couple months back or and uh got my actually my trainer um adam and my personal trainer was there doing training for the at the event he was helping the uh real estate guys do personal training and stuff like for the four days

he was like you know they drink too much at night and then he'd wear their ass out the next morning but he was like you've heard of mark evans like i don't know i think i've probably passed his instagram profile or something but uh yeah but no cool man i do want to talk so you know if you you're the deal maker right uh dm i did like it from a branding standpoint, you know, after we talked and then I started digging into some of your background and stuff. I'm like, there was a lot of Mark Evans on the Google search, but kind of branding yourself out as the Mark Evans DM. Don't know exactly when you carved that out, but pretty smart from a brand standpoint. Yeah. I wish I was that smart, strategic. Actually, the truth is there was a guy in Ohio where I was doing a lot of real estate deals and his name happened to be Mark Evans as well,

but he wasn't a good Mark Evans. So I had to flip the switch and call Mark Evans DM, even though the guy was like 50 years older than me back then. But it just became the DM. Literally, no one even calls me Mark. Everyone calls me the DM. It's kind of funny now. But at the end of the day, man, like we were talking about earlier, as long as the bank and my kids know who I am, that's all I care about at this point. Well, I love that. I love that philosophy, especially starting with the kids. I know you're a father, a proud father, saw a lot of that content.

I do want to talk about that path a little bit as we get down it. But, Mark, let's give everybody in the audience, let's do the kind of business journey from your perspective. I know you've done a lot in a lot of businesses and have your hands in a lot of things. So I'll let you guide where you start and stop kind of that story. But let's start there. Yeah, man. Small town, hillbilly Ohio kid, you know.

Grew up in a town of 650 people. College was not a thought of my mind. I hated high school. I hated school. I just wanted to get out and make money into the real world. And, you know, two days after high school, I bought a seamless gutter company. I grew up in a construction household and I knew how to build houses by the time I was 12 years old. I was working with my dad every day. And seamless gutters seem simple to me. It's like just put gutters up on the thing and water goes downhill. It's pretty easy. Owner financing. So I learned about owner financing two days in. I had literally no money. So if he didn't owner finance, I couldn't do it,

but you just have to ask. And he said, yes. So I did that. And, you know, and then started doing, you know, garage door, siding windows, everything goes with the house, just kind of natural progression. But I kept doing work for this one guy. I kept pulling up on a Porsche, smoking cigars, and I was doing all the work for him. And I'm like, man, I'm driving a crappy truck. He's driving a nice car. I'm missing something here. And I was like, hey, what are you doing?

He's like, I'm a real estate investor. I was like, I don't know what that is, but I want to do that now. And I went to a seminar, man, and learned it when I was 18 years old. The guy actually hosting the seminar had to check me in because I was so young. I took every penny I had to go. $2,500 back then was a lot of money. It was all of my money. And I learned real estate.

I saw a guy make a call, close a deal in 96. I was like, I can do that. And I started doing the work. And this is a process. It's a journey. Almost went bankrupt twice. What they don't teach you is once you learn how to make money, you got to figure out how to keep it and pay taxes and everything else.

That's something else that you learn through the journey, but I didn't have financial wherewithal. My parents really didn't have much money. They taught me, you know, you know, just work hard and, uh, you know, a hundred grand a year would be a dream. That was my goal. And, uh, now we do that daily, but at the end of the day for me, it's like, you know, I did real estate rehabs. I mean, everything inside the real estate investing space. We've done over 10,000 single family houses now collectively over the 26 years I've been in business. I've never had a W-2 job in my adult life. So, you know how that is.

If you don't kill it, you don't eat kind of thing. And I'm definitely eating over here. And, you know, and now, you know, it's just a progression. Really now I'm more of a, you know, not even a CEO. I'd say more of a sitting on the board kind of like as an investor to my own companies at this point not say i don't get dirty once in a while but like you know i've really built out some good teams and just trying to build companies at another level now what's uh you know a lot to unpack there um do you have

like a favorite moment like you know i know, I know, you know, you're like me, we still got a long way to go in this journey, but you know, you've done a lot. You have a favorite business or a favorite moment, you know, in that journey. No, I mean, listen, the favorite, one of my best moments was two days after high school when this grown man is telling me, yes, he'll sell me the prop, sell me the 1978 truck with the gutter machine in it with a thousand

bucks down, 287 a month. I just took balls to do that. I think as you know, these are each pivot moments. Everything that we dream about, our goal becomes actually just a checkpoint in the moment. Everyone's so focused on this goal, they get there and you're like, dude, that's it. I can do more. so focused on this goal, they get there and you're like, dude, that's it. I can do more. So, you know, that, and then hitting a hundred grand a year, that was very big deal for me, man. Yeah. You know, this goes back about clarity. I just wanted to make a hundred grand a year. Well, in business, if you make a hundred grand a year, it doesn't mean you keep a hundred grand. So I should have been a little bit clearer with my goals.

I want to net a hundred grand a year. And, and then, you know, then you hit the million, million etc so it's yeah man i don't know i'm still having those moments that's what i think that's what keeps us going it's kind of like golf you have 80 shitty shots but you have one it keeps you coming back you know that's true and my golf game's so non-existent right now uh you know it's funny like i got four boys and between coaching that and running three or four businesses, it's like, I don't know where people find the five hours. But, you know, I don't know. My drives would probably be a hard left right now.

We'll see when we get out there. But maybe we'll hit the link sometime. So, Mark, you know, I know you've got some coaching and a lot of mentoring and different things that you do. And you give back a lot. I don't want to not tell that story. We'll get kind of to that. But down the coaching path, as you've been developing your success, wildly successful, a lot of businesses, a lot of people go, all right, this guy's really figured it out.

Are there themes that kind of guide your coaching process, your mentoring, or key themes that really you come back to that you think ultimately kind of make or break people having success? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is a lot of people don't come to me for tactical at this point. It's really going to be for mindset. We get in our head, man. A lot of people know what to do. They're just not doing it.

They're afraid. They're stutter-stepping themselves to the next step. I talk a lot about thought auditing. I wrote a book called Magician vs. Mule. We're all mules. We're designed as mules. Sit down, shut up, raise your hand if you can. All this stuff. We're really ingrained. It's ingrained in us. I'm really good at deprogramming people and telling, you know, showing them the path and giving them, borrowing my belief system. They could borrow my confidence. They could, you know, drive through it. And then they, you know, three days, three months, three years later, they're in a whole different place. Not because, you know, we're better than anybody, just because they're actually doing different types of work. And entrepreneurs, man, you know, we take a beating every day.

And I don't think most people are thinking about what they're actually doing. You know, we could build a job. Lots of people think they have companies, but they have really have high paying jobs. And, uh, that's like the biggest thing I've helped a lot of guys do is, you know, stop, you know, they're so busy. They all want to make, you know, a hundred million a year, a hundred million dollars in their lifetime, but everything they're doing is, you know, a million dollar activities, you know, to make a million a year. And that's what's holding them back from making 10 million years. They're too busy make a million a year and that's what's holding them back from making 10 million years they're too busy making a million a year honestly i love that it's so interesting you know you made that that comment and then the hundred thousand dollar

you know kind of mental barrier or not barrier opportunity it was funny like in my career you know that that moment kind of came and went like I was probably like 25, 26. I don't know what it is about – the way I was programmed is I just kind of – I've never had a problem making money. It is learning the lessons for how to keep it and how to invest it wisely and kind of like the multiple streams of income, which it sounds like you've kind of mastered that on some level. I don't know your perspective on that. It seems like guys like you typically have multiple streams

and kind of learned that lesson pretty early. Yeah, I think I have probably 30 multiple streams of income, maybe more. I'm not really focused on that as much now. You know, honestly, at 27, another big moment was October 8th of 5. My grandmother passed away. So I was working 16 hours a day. Guys like you and I, we like working. So it's like not a big deal.

But I did have a girlfriend, now my wife, Dina. And that was a pivotal moment in my life. I'm like, dude, I have money in the bank, but I have no life. You know, worked really hard for a lot of years. And now, you now I'm 27 years old. I didn't even realize I was financially free. I know I was making money, but I had enough residual coming in. I could live my life. Back then, that was way different than it is now financially. But it was kind of cool in that moment. But yeah, I think you got to have multiple streams of revenue. I think the biggest problem I see people do though, they abandon active revenue to go build residual revenue.

And then they never can get in front of it. You've got to make sure you still keep your active income coming in. And then the problem is you can't be spending all your active income either. You've got to take the active income and start parking it in different environments. But you really – that was probably the luckiest thing I did, man, learning about investing, real estate. I just understood investing at a different level and it's helped me a lot. What's today?

I want to give everybody an actionable cool tip here. Talking with Mark Evans, DM, the deal maker. Okay, I had Grant on the show, Grant Cardone. I've had a lot of real estate guys, Pace Morby. Had freaking Torek El Moussa from Flip or Flop.

Everybody's into talking real estate. So it's okay if we go down that path, but I'm going to tee it up for you. So I'm someone listening. I'm thinking about an affordable, reasonable, exactly what you just said. I'm not going to take the eye off the active income ball completely, but I'm ready to pivot into something. Is there a field, a dynamic, or something you'd tell people to kind of look at? So listen, I think at the end of the day, it depends on how much we have access to. If you have a decent amount of money, $100K plus minimum, you might want to park it with a great operator, someone like a GC or someone like – I don't do that. But like other people, you can park their money in deals and make a passive income, a truly passive.

See, real estate, a lot of people get confused that real estate is passive. I got a deal right now. I just got an email from our property manager. Ten has been in there five months. They're going to stay in there seven months rent free, and then they're going to trash the play. I mean, that's not passive. That's a very active stream of income. You're dealing with BS all the time. But I think the biggest thing is just finding out what makes you tick as an investor. I think a lot of times I'm really good at giving people advice of where I'm coming from and where I'm at, as opposed to understanding where they're at and

where they want to go. I've realized, and I've had thousands and thousands of investors, I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars. All investors are not created equal. You know, if we're off 12 cents with one investor, they're blowing us up or scam artists, you ripped us off. It's like, dude, it's 12 cents. Here's a dollar. Leave us alone kind of thing. As opposed to like, you know, it's business. Things happen. There's a process to it. And there's a team. And, you know, some people get it.

Some people don't. So I think it's really understanding your investing philosophy and what you're trying to accomplish with the strategies. And not only that, how quickly you're trying to do it. Yeah. So I guess I'm not going to get the invest in the ice making machines comment or car washes. I love businesses. I love investing in businesses. You know, real estate's cool. I can buy a $10 million property. It's going to make a 6% cap. It's awesome. And maybe I'll sell it in the future for a little bit more. But, you know, in a business, we're buying one right now for 5.5 million. Literally, the goal is sell that thing in three years for 50 million. I can't do that in real estate. I can't do it. But we have a special set of skills. We have a good team. We know how to

market. We know how to build better teams and such and put them all together to drive revenue up, sell for a bigger EBITDA. And yeah, it's just a different game. What kind of businesses are you buying? Are they just all over the map? Are they specific types of businesses? They're making, you know, manufacturing something or they're service-based. Is there a specific type of business? Yeah, I love the pet industry.

You know, I'm not really in the food space of the pet industry, but more on the service side. You know, the service letters, dog leashes and things like that, hard products. It's very recession-proof. I'm looking for recession-proof businesses. I like the data companies. I'm pretty big in data. Data is only getting bigger. Understanding the data and how to sell it, extract it, and understand what the data is saying.

I like media, depending on media. This game is all about eyeballs, right it, and understand what the data is saying. I like media, depending on media. This game is all about eyeballs, right? So I understand media. We send out 700 million emails a month out of that system. We want to be over a billion by the end of this year. So the more emails we send, the more money we make. The more texts we send, the more money we make. So it's like just understanding marketing at another level. Hey, you teed it up for me, brother. I was headed down that right there. I know I liked you. Marketing, branding, as you've grown in your career and your business journey and your multiple business journeys,

you just talked about a few tactics and things, but what's been your relationship with marketing or experience with marketing and branding and kind of your perspective, maybe both in how you coach it or talk about it and just kind of your overall perspective on it? Well, I think everyone needs to spend more money on marketing and branding. I think most people don't understand it. I know in business, I'm accustomed to spending large six figures, if not seven figures a month in marketing. I've always understood the more money I put in, the more money

I get out. So it's kind of a cool dynamic. It's ROI. I think, you know, back in the day when I was in my young twenties, our real estate business was suffering because I was stealing, taking the money out of the company and playing with it. But, you know, I remember I fired an accountant because she's like, we have to cut this, eliminate this line item. And I'm like, what line item? It's like marketing. I was like, you're fired. That's the only thing that's keeping us afloat. But they see it through numbers.

They don't understand marketing like we do. But here's the thing, as I always say, especially about branding. Because marketing, direct-to-consumer marketing is a little bit different than branding, as you know, right? Because branding is a little bit longer-term play, but direct-to-consumer is like, I'm just looking for a ROAS return as fast as possible. But when we're branding, let's say in five years from now, do you think you'll make more money if you have 10x the amount of people following you or 100x or a millionx more? Or if you just stay where you're at today? The answer is pretty simple. So you got to get to work.

I'm very conscious of that. I mean, I have three people on my team. All they're doing is working on content distribution, you know, repackaging. I have a documentary coming out. I mean, I'm trying to hit people at all angles, you know, so and I know you understand all that, but, you know, you as a listener, you got to understand, like, if you're not investing in your I just did a recent case study to my group actually asking them, how much are you investing in marketing? And unfortunately, the majority are saying zero to a thousand dollars.

Well, I'm talking hundreds of people saying this. And these are like semi, like people that say they have a business. If you're not spending 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 grand a month, like this is why you're frustrated. You don't have a duplicatable, replicatable process. And if you don't have front-end lead gen processes out where you spend money and make money, you're always going to plan smaller than you need to plan. Yeah. Amen, brother.

I'm going to repackage that two-minute right there for an infomercial. But it's true. And you've seen the success of that. I mean, reach and frequency, that's media. The number of people that see your message or see your brand, the number of times they see it increases your overall awareness. And when you have people aware, they know to buy you. I mean, there's obviously layers on that but like and everybody wants it now you know they want it now they don't want to spend anything

and they don't understand why nothing works and you know it's so so contrary because everyone you know marketing is an investment and so many people, you know, fight that and don't understand it. And they go just like that accountant did. We can we can nix that off the budget. No big deal. We're just going to make things and sell things. And it just happens. Right.

Nope. I don't know. I don't know where that where that perspective comes from. And what does that originate from? Yeah. Oh, I mean, they're just seeing the bottom line. They're about to lose their job if no money's in the account, I guess.

Listen, it's never been easier, though, right? You've got social media. Everyone has a voice now. I think that's some of the problem, actually. Also, a good opportunity for anybody that wants to get out there and start talking. It's always crazy to me, man. They all talk about Will Smith smacking someone

and being silly, talking about stupid stuff, but they won't go and talk about their product, their service, what they do, their value to the world. And I'm always amazed by it because I'm like, I've had a lot of people, I'm like, do this. And they're like, well, what if they say this? What if they, I'm like, what, huh? Like, I don't even think about this stuff.

What if they don't? What if they like buy? What if they send you more money? What if they tell their friends about you? It's, people are weird about this stuff. What if they don't? What if they buy? What if they send you more money? What if they tell their friends about you? People are weird about this stuff, man. I know. I do want to talk about what's your perspective on, obviously, your marketing businesses, but you're also marketing yourself.

We work a lot with personal brands, telling their stories. You do an incredible job. I went through a lot of your stuff. I think you do this great balance with family, which I want to get to. Both sharing knowledge, sharing behind the scenes of your life with your family and all that, but what's the balance for you and what have you seen as the success of, you know, marketing the Mark Evans DM personal brand? You know, I just think being real and vulnerable, you know, just sharing my life. I'm taking micro clips. This is my life. I'm not trying to, you know, make everything pretty.

I'm just sharing, you know, the raw. Most of the time I'm talking, coming from the gym, you know, have a half beer, you know, have a zit on my belly. I just don't care. You know, one thing I've realized, man, no one, you know, we're really not that big a deal, you know, have a half beer, you know, have a zit on my face. I just don't care. You know, one thing I've realized, man, no one, you know, we're really not that big a deal, you know, but we make ourselves such a big deal in our head. I just, if the message is important, I'm sharing it. You know, I think this is where I think, man, this is the beautiful thing about social. Like literally this thing, we could start shooting content right now. If something pops in your head, shoot it. Don't write it down it down don't edit it out don't go do like

just shoot and share the message if it resonates and you want to make it prettier in the future that's fine too but like i think so many people are like you know they're just stuttering constantly because there's too afraid to move just shoot the content and go who cares if you have a lisp who cares if you spit who cares if you have a bug like it doesn't matter like it really doesn't matter man honestly no and i'm now have you i know i know the answer to this but i want the audience to hear it uh hey can have you do you quantify you know your personal brand and what you're spending on your personal man i know a lot of it's organic you just being comfortable and shooting and all that that doesn't really cost anything but just you're spending on your personal brand. I know a lot of it's organic, you just being comfortable and shooting and all that. That doesn't really cost anything, but just remembering to do it.

But I know you spend on your own personal brand. Do you quantify that? Have you quantified it? I mean, what value would you put on what you've put into the Mark Evans personal brand? I mean, this year alone, just straight up, I put put a million dollars and real dollars into Mark Evans DM brand through a documentary, through marketing, driving eyeballs to our pages. We're not even trying to monetize it. We know if we have more followers and more content and more connections, we're going to generate more revenue. And the thing is, is where the revenue comes in, I'm not as necessarily worried about that as I used to be. This is a long term play for me, not a direct to consumer play.

You know, I'm not trying to figure out how to put a dollar and get a dollar twenty today. I do that in all my other companies, but like on personal brand, you know, I raise money. I could raise money. What if I post and I raise 50 million today? What's that worth? You know, what's it worth if I, you know, post? I'm actually doing a yacht trip here next week. I posted I got 10 guys to send five grand a piece in. They don't do that because they don't know me. They do that because they're following me.

They connect with me and they like the vibe. So I don't really it's more if I put a million, I'm going to make more than a million. Yeah. Yep. Well, you're playing the long game, number one. And then number two, what you realize that few do is the value of personal brand is the relationship development and the connections that you make. Because it's never been more true. I won't say it doesn't matter what you know. It does matter what you know. But it fucking matters way more who you know.

And who knows you. Who knows you. That's right. Yeah. So, I think if people are listening to this or watching, right, you know, a lot of my great friends that I know today through social didn't come from me talking about the next best thing. It came through more smoking cigars, hanging out with my kids, people seeing that I'm a good dad. It comes through more smoking cigars, hanging out with my kids, people seeing that I'm a good dad. And I guess I have like they call it balance.

I don't really call it balance, but I'm hanging out with my children and having fun with them. And they're evolving and they're just watching the evolution of the kids grow up, you know, really connecting with people. I think a lot of times people think they need to be the bigger swinging dick in the game. Like, oh, I do. We're not talking about that. We're talking about like, how do we make real money? How do we grow real businesses? How do we like and you can connect through charities, cigars, whatever you're into, man, coffee. I mean, there's a lot of ways to connect on social now. It's way bigger. It is. That's how it's all we're talking. Go figure. How meta is that? So Mark, I want to talk about family. I know it's important to you uh i see it on your social

media you're one of the realest dudes like once i got to kind of know you we talked on the phone a couple times like dude this guy's so fucking real like and so available and but i think the the family aspect with you is so impressive to me and i know it's not just to do it or show it just comes so organically is that a is that a learned behavior or just a natural behavior like were you one of those that like you went through something you're like damn my family is this supporter or has it just been natural for you to kind of embrace that you know I think you know my parents were awesome we didn't have much money but my parents were always around you know I don't know how they did it. I still like, I'm amazed. My mom and dad were crazy hours, but they were always at my football games when I was in high school. And I always remember that

because we, again, keep in mind, we didn't make that much money, but there's kids that made a little bit more money, their parents, but they were never there. And I remember coming out of the tunnel and I didn't have to look and see if my mom and dad were there. I knew they were there. Yeah. The other kids in Rolandwood, they're like, look, and where's my mom and dad? They're not there. Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed. And the thing is, I've realized, you know, fear and death motivates me. That's my biggest fear, dying. It's not big fear. It's not like fear of like, oh, my gosh. But, you know, we only have a short limited time with our children being zero to three, three to six. These are moments. And when those are gone, they're gone.

They can never get them back. And I'm very conscious of that. You know, today I'll be at tennis at 430 with my son. You know, tomorrow I'll be at 430. I'll be at Taekwondo. Like we have a, you know, a schedule with the kids. I want to be there for them. And again, it's not always fun. You know, once you've hit the same shit, you know, sweat my ass off here in Florida. It's not always fun, but it's needed. It's mandatory in my life. It really is. So these are non-negotiables I have. We all have non-negotiables. Some are just not serving you and some aren't. Yes. I will better your tennis, though. Nothing is more boring than swim meets. I have two of my four boys swim. And you watch them swim for a total of four minutes and you're at a four-hour swim meet

uh because they swim and it's like you know a minute max you know for like two laps and then it's like an hour until the next race and it's like oh god you're sitting in the south carolina heat so that's real love my friend yeah well it's great networking too yeah i think i've realized i meet a lot of the same dads and parents at these events yep and guess what you know you're it's an instant connection because you know the power of consistency is a real thing and if there's a consistent behavior and an environment that's conducive to opportunity i actually there's a guy at the tennis thing i mean he manages billions and billions and billions of dollars and we we always talk, you know, again, come through the kids, come through tennis, the boring stuff that we start. You know, it's like nothing else to do except talk.

You know what's going on. So, yeah, I think it's just your environment, man. It's pretty powerful. Yeah. So 12 time bestselling author. I know you mentioned one of the books, but talk about, you know, what are the general, are your themes, there's a few on real estate, I know, and a few, you know, broader business, but how would you categorize them and, you know, maybe talk about, I mean, fuck, 12 books, dude. I'm just trying to write one. I'm like trying to get all that.

You know, I talked, you're like, you kind of motivate me. I wrote some more notes down. I got to like get your guys' contact. What are some memorable moments, some of your favorites? Let's talk a little bit about the books. one and that's when I proposed to my wife at the same time as well. So I had to have the camera crew there. You know, that's the only way I figured I could catch it on camera. Keep in mind, cameras were different back in 06. You didn't have your cell phone available like we do now. So, but no, man, you know, that was the start of the journey. And the truth is my first three books were conversation driven. My buddy wrote a book called Conversations with Millionaires. All he did is conversate with millionaires, transcribe it, turn it into a book and sold

hundreds of thousands of copies. And then I was like, man, I want to pick that up. So I got the girl from, you know, Kendra Todd, one apprentice and Michael Gerber, E-Myth and just everyone I wanted to talk to. You know, I put them into a book, transcribed it, became valuable to them. It's free and it gets them exposure. Real entrepreneurs want more exposure. I've never had a real person say, no, I don't want more free exposure. You know, don't do that.

So I put them in the first three books and then, but what's cool about it is like now knowing I have kids, I'm thinking, how do I write a hundred books in every new, every books in the evolution of me, the way I talk, what I'm talking about and where I'm going, you know? So first three books were, you know, conversations with mortgage brokers, business people, blah, blah, blah. And then now, you know, then we moved over into a little bit more tactical in the real estate side because I was known as a real estate guy. And then four years ago, I wrote a book called 10 minute business owner because I'm sitting on the back

of the yacht on an Island. I'm like having anxiety attacks. And I'm like, businesses are running. I'm not doing, you know, this is the entrepreneur detachment. I'm supposed to let go at another level. So I just started writing about it. And, and then now you have magician versus m. Mule, like my first straight. Why do I always feel like I have to work, you know, as opposed to be a magician? And then, you know, the other book, Meconomy, with everything going on with COVID and all that stuff back in the day, you know, because clearly it doesn't exist anymore, obviously. But at the end of the day, with Meconomy, it's like, really, you got to focus on you. We really like hunker down and get involved with you. Got to get, you know, start being

selfish, you know, take care of yourself, focus on yourself. You know, there's a lot, a lot of noise out there now, but, and then there's, you know, I got a new book coming out called Money Tree coming out this year. I got two books coming out this year. Honestly, man, one of my books, I'm like, it's really hard to write. I'm working, is about raising kids with money. It's a big fear of mine. I grew up poor, and I don't want to mess this up. I want my kids to be respectful, understand that our life's not as normal. It's different.

They're on yachts and jets everywhere. This is not a normal life. So I want them to just be very appreciative and understand that. I love that, and I love the me economy. It's actually, I've got a couple of working titles. Uh, one's very marketing specific is around radical and things like, you know, the radical formula, but, uh, I've been working on this. I'm going to go ahead and put it out there. And if someone copies it, you know, ideas are easy, but I call it the

disease of we, and what happens when you don't put you first? And it's kind of around this whole philosophy that we've been programmed to kind of build for the collective. And when you don't take care of yourself, because everything starts and stops with you. And if you aren't nurturing yourself, it's kind of back to that notion i know it's been used a lot now by a lot of different people the whole the oxygen on the plane you give yourself first before you can give it to others uh but anyway so i love that perspective yeah and plus too real quick just to know 100 of net profits of all these books go to charity oh man that's awesome that's our number one core value in every company I own called Care360.

Care for yourself, care for others, and everything else you want more of will come back to you. Like just care. And, you know, it's a very powerful thing. It's a cool way to give, full circle giving we call it as well, where, you know, you're buying a book, you're giving to a charity that you don't even, you know, necessarily get to meet the people. And then, you know, you're giving to yourself. I mean, everyone wins. It's a win-win-win all the way around.

I love that. Talk about, let's talk about the charity a little bit. I mean, are there, is it, do you have organizations you give to? Is it an organization you started? Or do you disperse those funds across things you care about? Yeah, man, you know, so 2006, I met a guy named Frank McKinney. He has a thing called the Caring House Project Foundation where they build facilities out in Haiti. You know, Haiti is a very poor country. We went out there actually with Kendra Todd and all those people I was mentioning and got to see firsthand how, like, if you live under a bridge in America, you have it made compared to over there. I mean, you literally have, have it made. And, um, it just made me realize how much, you know, that's why I want to, that's why, that's why I was talking about being stupid, filthy rich, man. I just want to give more money away, not for the money to be rich,

but to give it away, to help more people and also provide a service to do that as well. But yeah, we do that. And then, you know, as I started having kids, you know, the underground project with Tim Ballard's company, his group, saving children from sex traffic and all that stuff. That's a very important thing to me now, having kids, knowing that it even exists. It's pretty disgusting, but it is something I feel like we can make an impact with our dollars. I'm not good doing the stuff, the work, honestly, because it's very emotional and I'm not good in that environment. But I'm good at making money and giving money. It's a muscle, though, right? I think a lot of people'm not good in that environment, but I'm good at making money and giving money. It's a muscle though, right?

And I think a lot of people's not good at giving money. I know a lot of people's like, well, when I get a million dollars, I'll give 10% away. If you can't give $10 away, when you have a hundred bucks, you're not going to ever give it away. It just start now. You know, you can't out give the world. And, um, it's, it's, it's served me very well. I teach my kids this strategy and it's powerful, man. Where do your foundational beliefs come from, man? Like, you know, I have this discussion a lot with people, nature versus nurture. You know, you talked about your parents.

I'm sure that's part of the answer. But, you know, where does that kind of moral thread for you and kind of your guidepost, where does that originate from? Yeah, I think it would be my parents, man, honestly. I think my parents always did the right thing even when it was hard. My parents, they raised us in very rough times. It was tough, but they always did the right thing. They'd always take their shirt off their back and help other people. I saw we had a house for everyone when we were 10 years old.

We lost the house. People gave to us. It was like 7,800, but it just showed that people cared. So it's like, we're just looking for that light. You know, everyone's like, oh, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The truth is most of the time it's another freight train coming at you, you know? So it's like, dude, I want to see the sun. I want to help people. I call it North Star. I'm looking for the North Star to keep me moving forward when I want to quit. And as long as I can look up and see a little bit of like a little bit of light, I'm looking for the North Star to keep me moving forward when I want to quit. As long as I can look up and see a little bit of light, I'm in. It just refocuses. My parents have done an amazing job.

Now I have kids. They're watching me. Not what I say, but what I do. I'm very conscious of that. Talk to guys like you and everybody. Damn, he's got it all figured out. And I know, and that's, you know, like, I know none of us do, but is there, is there a character, like, I'm not asking what's your biggest flaw, but like, you know, like what, what is though, what, what do you work on yourself the most or what,

what keeps you up at night not necessarily about yourself but you know I think you know where I'm going with that like you know what what what do you try to work on man I just don't like to disappoint myself first and foremost and then other people around me that are relying on me I have lots of employees a lot of team members you know leadership leadership's tough man you don't you can read all the books you want but until you're leading and getting punched in the face kicked in the balls it's it's not it's not always wrote you know leadership leadership's tough man you don't you can read all the books you want but until you're leading and getting punched in the face kicked in the balls it's it's not it's not always wrote you know unicorn and rainbows i mean i mess it up often i say the wrong i'm very aggressive right i'm i'm just hungry i'm just a great it's way i talk it's not i'm not trying to be a dick it's just like dude i'm moving so fast and then sometimes now you gotta do emotional you

know control they're they're sad it's like i don't have time for this you know let's go but um you know i think a little bit more patience sometimes could be good but also i don't look at my flaws i look i just know i don't know everything so i'm always very self-aware i think as you know most entrepreneurs great entrepreneurs are very self-aware you know we're very aware when we mess up we're very aware off like Like we fell every day. We're failing all the time right now. As I'm speaking to you, I probably should be on the phone with someone on my team and, you know, helping them through a problem. Who knows? Like, I don't I don't know. But like, I do know I don't want to fail at home. That's like, you know, you'd be the most successful business person in the world. But if you fell at home to me, you're it's a failure. You know, I think it's not about balance.

It's about awareness. Yeah. And, you know, if I have a big event going on, I think it's not about balance. It's about awareness. And, you know, if I have a big event going on, I tell my wife, sit down with my kids. We're having dinner. It's like, hey, guys, here's what's up. Next two weeks, daddy's going to be kind of crazy, you know, but I'm here. I'm just not going to be available. But if you need to call me, kind of like hit me up in the office. But, yeah, I think awareness.

I just want to be a better leader, man. I just don't, you know, I want to give more. Sometimes that's, you know, draining to guys like us too, right? We want to give so much we end up doing. And then there's, unfortunately, in the world, there's a lot of takers. Yeah. You know? Yeah. How, what, you know, when you're hiring, you know, that's such a, and I don't know how

if maybe you have hired people to hire now and so you don't have to deal with it as much anymore. I'm sure that's probably part of it. But, you know, what do you look for in people? Like, you know, is it like-minded? I mean, or do you surround yourself with people that are complete? You know, there's a lot of different takes on that. You know, like, oh, I get to surround yourself with, you know,

people that are better than you and all those kind of that perspective. But, I mean, are you real – when you are hiring these days or have in the past, how do you go about it? Yeah, I'm looking for people who have grit, number one. If I'm looking for a right-hand man or right-hand girl, they definitely have to be rolling. They have to have a lot of the same philosophies as me. If not, it's going to be pretty rough.

The truth is, man, what's been going on the last two years have really sorted out people. If you roll in with a match, you're out. I like, I just don't get it. You know, like you and I are on the same page. It doesn't mean you're bad or right or wrong. It's just, I don't like it. It's not how I roll. So, but again, truth is I haven't hired, I'm not really hiring people at this stage. I do have teams and, you know, we have companies that hire for us, but I mean, we, you know, listen, I think where I messed up back in the day, I partnered with a guy just like me. We were both great talkers, great sales guys. We're doing all that, but who's taking care of the business?

You know, knowing what I know now, I had to find the yin and the yang. I'm looking for the guy that I'm not trying to hang out with every day, but I'm looking to build a business with. And I have what he doesn't have and he has what I don't have, you know. And that's where I've messed up on partnership stuff. But when I'm hiring, man, I'm just looking for someone that like, I'm not talking about the guys that tear off their sleeves. I'm talking to guys that like just get down and dirty, you know, they're ready to work. They're not afraid of it. They don't care what people think. They just want to get the job done. And I have a lot of amazing

people on the team, man. But unfortunately, I'm really good at hiring, terrible at managing. I have a lot of amazing people on the team, man. But unfortunately, I'm really good at hiring, terrible at managing. Hiring is easy. And I'm the opposite. Everyone's like hire fast, hire slow, fire fast. I flipped that. I hire fast and fire slow.

I'm very bad at it. So I'm definitely not someone to follow in that process. I love the word. You said it right as you answered the question. It's one of my favorite words, grit. I mean, that's the characteristic right there. You know, you can be, don't get me wrong, you got to have some skills, but damn. I mean, we got a fucking bunch of soft people out there, you know?

I'm just, you know, it's like grit. Give me, sign me up for grit all day, every day. Oh, yeah. It's my favorite. If I left my kids with anything, I want to teach them grit. Yeah. Honestly, man. Yeah, I love it, man. I feel like we could probably talk for three hours.

But, you know, as we're closing out, I do want to share with people. I know you do some coaching, some mastermind stuff. You know, talk about the types of people you like to kind of recruit into that and, you know, where all that's headed. Well, I like to work with slow learners that and you know where all that's headed well i like to work with slow learners that have a lot of money the best clients in the world man um no listen i'm looking for people are full-time entrepreneurs looking to get to the next level i don't really coach i like to mastermind and direct and help guide you know again the truth is most people

that i've worked with pretty much all people I work with, they have the technical skills. They have the chops. It's like, you know, it's like someone has one hamburger joint. Why can't you have a hundred or a thousand or ten? They're already doing it. It's just how do they do it at scale? These are typically mental roadblocks, not necessarily technical roadblocks. Maybe they're afraid of the money or failing or this or that. So we need to kind of guide them on that process. But, you know, I'm looking for entrepreneurs that know they don't know everything, looking to grow and evolve. More importantly, man, get around great people that will inspire you, tell you great job, keep up the great work, push harder, grow more instead of why would you do that? That's stupid. That's a scam. You're

crazy. You know, like pretty much what most of the world will say. You know, in our world, you make a million dollars. Remember, I do. Why don't you make three? You know, as opposed to hanging out with your boys, I call king of the dipshit mentality like dude quit bragging you made a million dollars and you think you're all king almighty but like you should have really made three million you know so yeah be careful who you listen to yeah that's right where can um everybody keep up with mark evans dm where can they follow along where can they uh you know hit you up when they want you to invest in their company and take it to $500 million or something?

I know. I can do that for sure. Social media is powerful at Mark Evans DM. It's pretty much everywhere. We have a podcast show too, The Making of a DM. It depends on what you're into, what kind of media you're, you're listening to books, obviously Amazon and all that. But yeah, I mean, obviously at social, social media, any handle at Mark Evans, Dan would be awesome. Love to connect with you. Cool brother. I really appreciate you coming on. Uh, I know I felt like I was like, you're marking, uh, at least seven, uh, killer highlight clips from the show and things that people can keep up with. You add a lot of value,

and I look forward to kind of building our relationship and staying connected. Likewise, man. Keep doing what you've done too, man. I appreciate you having me. Yeah, man. Hey, guys. You know where to find us,

theradcast.com. I want you to go to the search bar. I want you to search Mark Evans DM or The Dealmaker. You'll find all of the highlight clips from today's episode. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Offord on all the platforms, TikTok, Instagram, DM, or The Dealmaker. You'll find all of the highlight clips from today's episode. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Offord on all the platforms.

TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. Hit me up. Let's talk about how we can grow your personal brand. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.