Wake Up to Wealth - Wealth Strategies with Mark Evans

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

In episode 37 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Mark Evans, a real estate investor and business consultant, as he discusses the importance of relationship capital, the transition from being a boss to a leader, and the critical lessons learned from near bankruptcy. Tune in for insights on wealth-building and the power of community in achieving financial goals.SOCIAL MEDIA LINKSBrandon BrittinghamInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/ Mark EvansInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markevansdmFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/markevansdmWEBSITESBrandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/homeMark Evans: https://www.markevansdm.com/==========================Support our sponsor:Mike BentonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikegbentonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikegbentonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegbenton/Responsive Mortgage: https://www.responsivemortgage.com/

This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. Hey, this next segment is brought to you by Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And these are guys that I trust. My good friend Wes over there. If you're overpaying for your property taxes, Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And these are guys that I trust, my good friend Wes over there. If you're overpaying for your property taxes, Paramount Property Tax Appeal specializes

in helping commercial property owners and homeowners reduce their tax bills, ensuring that you only pay your fair share. These guys are gonna fight for you. And these are the guys that I trust. You can reach my good friend Wes, their contact information is 310-897-5056 or West at PPtaxappeal.com. That's West at PPtaxappeal.com.

Hey, what's up everybody? We are back again with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And I cannot thank you guys enough because you guys have continually made us in the top five in investing in Apple. I cannot thank you guys enough because you guys have continually made us in the top five in investing in Apple multiple times. We have leapfrog Dave Ramsey and got the number one spot. We're averaging 65, 70,000 downloads per episode. So thank you all for listening and supporting.

We greatly appreciate you being part of the wake up to wealth crew today. I'm super excited. I got a gentleman by the name of Mark Evans here. It's kind of funny how small the world is because we get talking and have some mutual friends and we met from Bobby Castro, who's a guy that helps both of us do some cool stuff. It's just funny, you know, when you get to the top of the mountain, a lot of times it's the same people. And it's just pretty funny that we get talking and we have the same circle of friends,

same people that we know, and that's always really cool. And it's always why I stress to everybody relationship capital is the best capital you can ever make. And so Mark, thanks for being on the show today. I appreciate you being here with us. Definitely Brandon. Thanks for having me. I mean, dude, it's a prime example of getting in the room. You know, amazing things can happen. We wouldn't be doing this right now if we weren't in that same room. Absolutely. Absolutely. So if someone's listening to this and they don't know who you are,

you know, give us the elevator pitch who you are and kind of what you do. Well, small town, Ohio kid, Hillbilly. I know it doesn't look like it today, but I am. June 2nd, I'll be in business 29 years. I've never had a job my entire adult life. If I don't kill it, I don't eat. I'm definitely eating over here. I started off in a seamless gutter company. I bought it two days after high school for a thousand down, creative financing. I didn't even know what I was doing back then. I just knew I didn't want to work for anybody. Turned that in and was doing a lot of work for investors, became a pretty big real estate investor.

Was really bad at it for a long time, but became really good at it. And then through that process, you know, started creating a lot of vertical integration through acquisition of companies, from siding windows, garage doors, everything. I mean, pretty much everything inside of around the house, because that's what we did. We rehabbed and sold houses all day. And now if you fast forward December 31st to 2005,

I took off for a month and I thought I had a business. I realized I had a job. So from 96 to 2005, I had a, you know, I work, I work 16 hours a day, like we all do here. We all love working. That's what we get to do. And but I was sitting on the beach, South Beach, with my girlfriend, now my wife, Dina, on a flip phone, closing deals and putting out lots and lots of fires. And realized I got to figure this out. So that one month turned into seven years travel around the country and around the world. We went everywhere. We went all kinds of places. And while I was doing that, I was working on the business. It forced me to work on the business because guys like you and I, we'll just jump in.

Like we'll solve it. Solve, solve, solve. Next, next, next. Problem is that's cool at the beginning. It's not cool as it gets bigger. It's everything. We are the bottleneck to everything. We are the problem and the solution as well.

Did that. Finally built some real businesses. And I've been virtual ever since 05. I have offices all over the place. I never go to them. I have team members all over the world and still do real estate investing. Have a lending business, have the media side of things.

Have a fintech company. I'm involved in many blue collar businesses through acquisition, equity, a little bit of both. And actually getting ready to take a 60 day trip tomorrow. Actually, a little bit of both. And actually, getting ready to take a 60 day trip tomorrow. Actually, I leave tomorrow, Brandon. So me and my wife and kiddos are going to head out to Hawaii, Tokyo, Australia, New Zealand for 60 days and kind of just explore. Obviously, I still do business. The truth is no one would know this is going on, Brandon, in our world unless we told them, right? Because we have this beautiful thing called the

interweb. Teams are still running, businesses are growing and cranking, hiring, firing. Problems still exist. You know, wins are still happening. So it's, I'm sure we'll get into some of that today though. But I appreciate you having me, Brandon. Yeah. So man, so a lot of people say, kind of what you just said of, I've got a business, but they don't, they've got a job.

I know it's probably a lot of things, but like, what do you think is one or two things you could pinpoint of, I was actually able to transition to here to basically sit in the owner's box, right? It's like where you could have businesses running, where you're not, you know not basically tied to doing that. A lot of people say they want to do that and a lot of people say they're going to do that. But as you know, there's a small percentage of people who actually get to do it at the

level that you've done it at and be successful. There's a lot of people that try to do it and they fail. Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, I think it's a discovery process. What kind of business owner are you? I think a lot of people are trying to be something they're not. And the truth is, we're all delusional, man. Our delusional actually serves us and hurts us at the same time.

That's why you got to be in the right rooms where people can counterbalance this delusional behavior and thought process. I always tell people, I'm not here to train you how to do it. My biggest job is how to untrain you. It's kind of like a new program on a computer. You got to take out the old disk and put in a new system, hardware. We've been taught a lot of bad stuff, man. We've been taught a lot of limited beliefs.

For me, it's like real estate investing specifically. When I left in 05, I'm a chest to chest business guy. Real estate, you're in the house, the seller selling, motivated, we're running ads, we're doing all these things, the office is cranking. I actually loved that. Back then, I loved like I wanted to be the boss. I was like, I'm the boss, here you come to me for the solutions. And then through the discovery though, I realized I'm not as important in the business. Problems will happen. I am good at everything, but I'm not as important in the business. Problems will happen. I am good at everything, but I'm not good at everything all the time.

And no one's going to do it as good as us, right? We always say, we always, all of us have the same exact track. No one will do it as good of us. Okay, but if they're only doing this 100% of the day, and that's all they had to focus on, and they only did it 50% better than, 50% as good as me, but I have five guys doing it, they're way better than I ever could be as one person. Absolutely, absolutely.

And there's problems in that. There's problems in that, right? You're gonna have slippage, you're gonna have over budgets, you're gonna have these things that are going on, but now I can focus on the business. Like Walmart, they have a 10%, you know, 10% of their profits get stolen out of the front door every day, you know, so they figure out a solution.

It's not like Sam Walton in there back in the day, I'm gonna stand in the front door and I'm gonna protect everything. I'm gonna run everything. Like, no, Jeff Bezos is not boxing everything and shipping labels today. It's a business. And again, that's not right or wrong.

Some people just don't wanna do it or can't do it, honestly, Brandon. It's a control freak thing, for sure. Yeah, one of the things you just said that if you guys are listening, I don't want you to miss this because it is gold. You said, you know, I can't be good at everything all the time. You know what I mean? And I think that's the mistake that we make as entrepreneurs is we want to be good at everything

all the time. We wear a bunch of hats and a lot of us entrepreneurs are extraordinary in our ability. But then what happens is you're actually losing because you're stretching yourself too thin. Yeah, you probably would do it better than most people, but to your point, if they could do it at 50% of your capacity, you're going to get there a lot faster than just putting the shit all on your shoulders. Exactly. And this is seasonality too, right?

When I was able to work 16 hours a day, I had a girlfriend, I even now my wife, I didn't have kids, I love working. So it's like, depending where you're at in the journey, my biggest fear, Brandon, is you got these guys 40, 50, 60 years old, has these amazing children, grandkids or whatever, and they're still acting like they're 17 years old or 22 years old, grinding 16 hours a day, bragging about it. Like, do listen, if you're a success in business and failure at home, globally you're failing.

Cause the ultimate goal, like no one cares about what you've accomplished in business. Your family is really why you're doing all this crazy stuff anyway. So I'm very conscious of that thought process. Cause you know, I don't want to be great at business and not great at home. Hey, are you ready to take the next step

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So you mentioned this a little bit and it's kind of become popular on the Internet, right? Business acquisition, you know, and it's funny. I actually had somebody call me the other day and they're like, you know, I want to pivot and I want to start buying businesses. And I'm like, what the fuck do you know about doing that? Right. And how about figure out your business first? But it is it is a it's a lucrative business. We've done it, you know, not at the level you've done it at. But like, if you would, you know, just kind of share like, what do you look for?

You know, how do you evaluate one? What do you come in and try to do? Like, how do you look at that whole process? Yeah, real quick, the disclaimer for me is, you know, I have a lot of contrast. You've got a lot of real estate people, business people here. And I think you guys understand like a buying a business is not like buying a piece of real estate. I know it's, by the way, it's a good marketing strategy. Like why a real estate deal? It only makes a thousand a month. It's a hundred grand or buy a business for a hundred grand. And it can make you as unlimited sort of. Yeah. Yeah. But the problem is with real estate, there's always a value to it. The truth is if you buy the wrong business and you don't know how to manage it right,

it actually has a negative benefit because there's debt to it. You have employees, you have hard costs, you know, I have businesses I've sold and I'm losing $80,000 a month. Those are not worth money. Those are actually you're paying and or breaking even just to get out of them because you have liability attached to it Single-family house, dude I've had many of these where I could buy it and just landlock it and make 300

You know make make 300 percent in 20 years 10 years or whatever depending on the location I don't have to do anything just pay the taxes every year and mow the lawn twice a year kind of thing So there are definitely different strategies different um categories in investing But investing in business, like I said, I did my first one in 1996 and I did multiple There are definitely different categories in investing. But investing in business, like I said, I did my first one in 1996 and I did multiple up to 2000. And again, the truth is I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just so dumb.

I was like, why wouldn't I buy something where the phone's ringing 80 times a day? I don't have to do anything. Literally, I lived with my parents. I was 18 years old. I bought this gutter company. I literally, the day I buy it, I plug in the back, this is old days, so a lot of your viewers might not know.

We plugged in a phone and actually had a voicemail, answering machine with a tape recorder. And I literally, the phone was ringing off the hook because it was established 16 years in business and it was needed product, gutters, in Ohio. It was a big deal. So I kind of had, as I started getting a little bit more mature, I started realizing kind of what I was going.

But now what I what I'm looking to do, honestly, when I'm establishing it, I said, I'm what I call it the torch method. So first is the T time, right? We're all at different times in the game. How much time do I have? Some of you might have a lot of time on your hands. That's awesome. You could buy different businesses that I can't buy or won't buy simply because of a time factor, right? Then the O in the Torch Method is opportunity cost. This needs to be low for me. If I take

my attention into this business, it better have a very high probability and value or my opportunity cost on what I actually have going on that I know works for sure, and I'm growing as well. It doesn't take away from that. Then I'm looking at risk. Let's be honest, not all businesses have the same risk profile. If I'm buying a mom and pop store in the corner, which I don't do that, but if I did, that's a higher level of risk. One, I'm virtual.

Two, I don't like to have that. I wouldn't mind owning the real estate and renting it back to them potentially, but I don't like the risk factor of that. And online, does it have assets? Does it have employees? There's different risk levels. And then you've got to ask yourself, what skill am I bringing? Honestly, Brandon, a lot of these people aren't bringing any skill. They have an idea and they might have access to a little bit of capital, but if you don't have skill sets on managing these components, you're going to get smoked because there's real players entering this game now. Like it's, it's, it's way different now.

By the way, I bought my seamless gutter company for $25,000 and the thing was making six figures. Uh, well it was making, uh, grossing six 50 ish, the first year kind of thing. Well, it was making grossing 650 ish, the first year kind of thing. So you could never do it now. No. It's just different. And it came with equipment, it came with a truck, it came with all these things and a thousand dollars down.

Like it was literally a handshake, two page contract, you know, good old boy thing, you know? And then, you know, I'm a cashflow investor. So I wanna ask myself, does this, how much cashflow does this have or is this a cash suck? Some of you guys listening to me are really good, and my mind breaks with this by the way, but when you do startups, hey, my burn rate is $100,000 and I go six years burn rate because you're gonna constantly be raising money, raising money, raise money.

I don't do that. I can't do it. My brain doesn't work like that. I'm not that smart. Genuinely, I'm not that smart. However, I know if 100 comes in, 80 goes out, net 20, I like that model. I understand basic cashflow structures.

And then what am I building this for? Because a lot of you guys are creating fragmented opportunities, meaning you're in the gutter company and then I'm gonna go do software and then I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this. There's no connection. So what happens on part of the torch method, the E is enterprise value.

If I buy this company today, does it add to my enterprise value of what I'm really trying to accomplish? Oh, that's, that's, that's money. I, I've never heard some, I've never heard somebody relate it that way. That's, that's, that's a good one. Well, again, I've, I discovered this the hard way because I was buying everything all over the place and my resources got so limited. Again, it's kind of like real estate, right?

If you do single family investments, that's good. But if you do apartment buildings, that's a different team, different lawyers, different commercial broker. Everything is different. But you're like, I'm still a real estate investor, so it's the same. Well, no, if you're doing rehabs now, if you're a rental portfolio, like these are all different businesses disguised as the same business. However, if I did single-family, this is exactly how I progressed, I did single-family rentals,

and then I moved over to single-family rehabs. I call it the one step over method. As long as it's one step over and I can actually use some of my resources, the same bookkeeping, some of those, and then expand resources with relationship capital, that's different. That's a lot easier to make these moves. Reason most people don't do it though, Brandon, it's boring. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's something new. It's exciting. It's well, sometimes honestly, real business isn't too exciting. No, that's a good point. Another thing that you said that I think is so important,

I've had to learn this the hard way. I think it's a gift and a curse as an entrepreneur. You said opportunity costs. And I think so many people miss this. And we were in the room together when a gentleman said, one of the biggest struggles you're gonna find as an entrepreneur is you've gotta say no to really good ideas to execute on the great ones.

That stuck with me. And opportunity cost is, I remember one of my first mentors, I was looking at an opportunity and we thought it would make us a million dollars, right? Shit ton of money, especially to me at that time. And, but he sat me down and he said, it's gonna cost you three. And I said, you're fucking old and crazy. And he said, okay, so walk me through what it's gonna take you to make that million.

And then he said, okay, now see how much that takes away from everything else that you're doing. That's making way more than that, by the way. And then I was like, holy shit, like a light bulb went off. And I was like, that's real opportunity cost. You know, and that's, I wanted to highlight that because you said it, you know, you eloquently said it very easy. And I just don't want wanted to highlight that because you said it, you know, you eloquently said it very easy.

And I just don't want people to miss that because entrepreneurs, all of us, we chase the shit and we chase the shiny object and we forget. It takes away from the main thing. I love the enterprise value and the one step over that. That is genius. Another thing that you said that I want to highlight is, you know, you said you don't wanna do startups. And I think to your point,

the buying businesses or whatever you do needs to be tied to your identity. Another thing that the, when we were together in Florida, the founder of Netflix said is he was good at startups, but he was bad after they were startup, right? And he knew that. And he knew when to get out. So that's really cool.

So you went through the torch method and I really appreciate that because that's gold to break down for our audience. So like, what do you look at? Like, what is, if you were to pick one, what is the ideal business like today you wanna buy? Like, what kind of revenue are they doing? What do you think you bring to the table?

And then ultimately, do you look to exit? Do you look to roll that business into something else? Like, how do you look at it? Yeah, again, just to be clear, I have construction background, right? I grew up in construction my whole life. So I understand construction very, it's simple to me. Yeah. So, you know, I just got to say that because I do, that's why I like the blue collar space.

My family's blue collar. I'm, I'm blue collar. Like it's just, it the blue collar space. My family's blue collar, I'm blue collar. It's through my blood. And I believe, I saw my uncles, I saw my mom and my dad, my parents, all these guys and gals work really hard to never get to the end of the finish line and get a payday. So I kind of have an internal mission to really help great blue collar guys and gals take what I know and understanding of my relationships and my connections, everything. That's my biggest value.

My knowledge, my relationships and connections, and I do have a little bit of banking relationships too, where we could plug in a lot of these companies in the blue collar space specifically. I like them going anywhere from $5 to $10 million gross. You know, typically, EBIT is going to be anywhere from 700 to 1.5 million. I like to come in around that point. I don't like them when they're too small. Again, I'm not in the day-to-day, so I'm not a micromanager.

I'm more forecasting big vision. Here's the targets. Hey, we're gonna bring in these three people, four people. Typically, we'll bring in a books person, someone to jump on the books and really understand that and give us visuals and data to support everything they're saying, because we're all good at saying stuff and very few people good at actually accomplishing it.

And then I bring in an operations driver, typically a layover and operation third party, we just pay them out monthly and say, hey, I need you to go do every two, every two or three weeks, especially in the beginning, I need you to do site visits and I need you to drive the team, reorganize the team, drive the team. When we come in, there's a little bit of disruption, right? Of course. So my company would have anywhere from 25 to 60 employees when we're stepping in. And our job is to go in there and to streamline, get their books tight because no one has good books typically. Let them get some good. And again, if you ever feel overwhelmed or anxious,

it's really because you don't have good books. You know, because business is just math. Humans mess it all up. And this is what you've done. By the way, I suck at this. That's why I hired people to do it for me. So it's like, and it's like, man, I don't know what's going on.

Everything's falling down. It's like data, not drama. So every day, like anybody says, talking more than three words, I'm like, data, not drama. But, so we'll step in. I like blue collar, I like roofing. I like siding windows. I like HVAC plumbing, electrical. I like them where, like I said, I'm gonna go in

and get a three X, four X valuation today. That's where I'm gonna come in. Oftentimes, I don't mind bringing money to them as well. Oftentimes they don't need money money to them as well. Oftentimes they don't need money. They need knowledge and connections in a playbook. They need clarity of where they're going. These are already focused people, by the way.

I think this is a big misunderstanding. People have focus and clarity mixed up. You're focused. A lot of people just focus on the wrong problem or the small problem. I can step back. I'm non-emotional. I understand the playing field a little different because I've been in Rondo long enough,

where it's like, hey guys, we need to gain clarity. And then we're gonna take this clarity and we're gonna hand it, plug it into your focus. Because these guys are, there's a lot of amazing people out there just working way too hard for way too little. So we typically, we're trying to sell them within three to five years max. And sometimes what will happen

is there might be a singular focus, but R you know, Roofing Company tomorrow I'm taking down actually, we actually already have two other companies that will fold into that and we'll sell them probably in about 18 months. You know, they want three years, they want to be on three years or less. I think it's going to happen way sooner because again, that's our power. Like we'll come in and like, hey, you're bringing us in at 3X, we're gonna sell this at eight to 10X when we go on the X-axis. Right. But again, those are the type of companies I really like.

Yeah, one of the things you said too is this is not to be understated. Most people's books are not right. If you're an entrepreneur out there, one of the things that he just said, you know, data not drama, your decisions are math and they're all based on data.

The struggle that I see so many people have is they don't even have the data, they don't even have the right data to make a decision and they don't have their back office tight enough to even have the right data to make a decision. One of the things you should really be concerned with as an entrepreneur is investing and having that side of your business correct. Cause if not, you're gonna have problems. Well, problems are coming for sure. And not only that, you'll sleep a lot better at night.

The thing is though, what you said Brandi, it's very important though. It's an investment, not a cost. A lot of people, and I did this for years, so I'm talking out of experience. For the first nine years, I's an investment, not a cost. A lot of people, and I did this for years, so I'm talking out of experience. For the first nine years, I thought an accountant, bookkeepers, tax advisors were a cost, not an investment. Really, I realized that when I almost went bankrupt twice, by the way, how much of an investment they really are back in the day. I never did go bankrupt, but I was close.

I mean, I had the paperwork filled out. I was ready to file. And I just ended as one more day, one more day, excuse me, one more day. And then I figured it out. But I can tell you, these are great investments. And again, you don't have to spend 20,000 a month for these individuals out of the gate. It all depends on your size. Once you get clarity on one data, and don't get too complex with that. That's another thing I see too, Brandon, a lot of people get complexity inside of their data. They know, they know data about everything, but

they don't know what to do with the data, right? They're clueless. It's like you have overconsumption. Ideally you're finding, you know, six, seven KPI points that really can move the needle. I mean, let me give you some basic, like sales calls, right? How many calls are you making and what's the conversion? Real simple, right?

I don't need to know cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, follow-up leads, blah, blah. Like, I just need to understand the main important ones. Obviously if I need to deep dive into them, we can, but I see a lot of people so, they're deep diving on this stuff and why they're deep diving, they're not actually doing the work.

And there is that other side of the category where, I have people in companies I've had to let go, they know everything about the data, but they don't know what to do with it. And the companies are so far away. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Hey, let me tell you about my good friend,

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So you just mentioned it, you're on the brink of bankruptcy and obviously you turn that around. I'm always interested more in, for me personally, I think that success is a bad teacher sometimes. I've learned way more when I got my ass absolutely handed to me than when I hit the walk off home run.

So, you know, what do you think was a lesson you could share in that, obviously you didn't give up, but what do you think you learned? What clarity did you gain through going through that? Well, man, again, we just saw it happen real time with Kansas City Chiefs. They let their foot off the gas a little bit. I was there by the way. Yeah, I saw that. Well, then again, we just saw it happen real time with Kansas City Chiefs. They left their foot off the gas a little bit. I was there, by the way. Yeah, I saw that when you're winning, you know, you kind of think and keep winning.

I promise you, they come out next year, fucking hungrier than they've ever been. Getting embarrassed like that on national national TV at that stage is a whole nother level. And that's what happened to me. I was very young, naive. I was spending lots of money at the club being silly. You know, I thought I had everything figured out. I was having fun.

Yeah, yeah, man. Listen, I was the boss, not a leader. That's a big thing to change. You asked that earlier. I did transition from a boss to a leader. I don't wanna be a boss to anyone. I wanna lead leaders and I wanna be a beacon to them. I wanna help them and guide them and, you know,

level them up. And if they level up, if I level humans up in my organization, the organization levels up, you know, so that was not the old me. That's like new talk track for me for the last 12 years. The old me was like, here, I said, this is the way it's done. No, don't, you can't question me. I'm the boss kind of thing. So I just got cocky, man.

I, you know, I thought I figured it out. Not only that, I wish I understood the torch method. I didn't understand opportunity cost. I didn't understand time, I didn't understand my time involved. We take for granted, we were like, oh yeah, it's only gonna take an hour a day. Every business I buy, every business I buy,

they're like, oh yeah, I only spend a couple hours a day. I'm like, how? Like, you think about it, you're not even sleeping three hours a night because you're stressed out, overwhelmed of what even sleeping three hours a night because you're stressed out overwhelmed of what you've got to do tomorrow. Like that's thinking. And oh, by the way, you're working 12 hours a day. The brain, the brain damage, people forget that.

Oh, it's real. Yeah, it's very real. So yeah, that was like the biggest lesson, man. It's just like, you know, be humble. I'm a student forever. I'm constantly investing in myself. We are the best investments in ourself. Obviously, you know that, Brandon. So, you know, I'm like, I always want to learn. I'm very curious not to just learn, but curious to be better. You know, who's doing it better than me? Like, as you know, as you get bigger, it's not about competition. It's about collaboration. Absolutely. You know, when you're, when you're in the beginning, it's all about competition. You're always worried about everyone's trying to take your client, take your buyer, take your seller, whatever. At the end of

the day, it's like, I'm like, how do we collab? This is what you do, this is what I do. How do we do more together? What's one plus one equals four? How do we do that? But this comes with maturity, longevity, getting kicked in the face many, many times. I don't get this ugly face by not getting kicked a bunch of times. That's for sure. Switching gears a little bit. So you've taken a lot of your knowledge, right? And you've built community. I'd love for you because I'm just, I'm such a huge believer of that.

We've got a huge community here with the podcast. You know, I run a couple of groups as well. But you do some cool stuff. I'd love for you to touch on that. Yeah, I have two communities, the DM family, you know, it's a $50,000 a year community. There's 33 guys in that group, high level. It's max it'll never be, we don't go over 33. It's a little bit more hands on a lot of, a lot of guys have exited companies for big money. A lot of guys have built pretty large companies, nine figures or more, some eight. And then I have the DM Alliance. It's $1,000 a month. We have 154 guys and gals in there. And what we're doing is just teaching them how to build a business right. That's right for them,

by the way. That's one thing I got to always focus on, Brandon, when I'm doing this in the community is I don't want to tell you what I would do yet. I need to understand where you want to go so I can guide you the fastest path. Because what I want to do and what you might want would do yet. I need to understand where you want to go so I can guide you the fastest path. Because what I want to do and what you might want to do might be, you might want to be a billionaire, I might want to be a hundred millionaire. I don't know. And these are way drastically different action plans. Not to say we shouldn't all want to be more, but like some people just genuinely don't want that. From my experience and all of that, I can see where they're at. How long you've been in the game? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your life look like today? What's your cash flow positions?

What's your urgency factors? Because a lot of us make very crazy decisions in urgent situations. I need cash today. They melt down everything, just try to get a quick buck. We've all been there. I'm not judging it, but I need to understand where they're at. So those groups are, you know, very collaborative. As you know, we're big into relationship capital. The giving muscle I talk about often, you know, I give people rewards for giving and how much are you giving back? Not just money, but time as well. Because I do feel like we have to be great stewards, not only of our wealth, but of our

efforts and knowledge and connections. Yeah. So that's, that's golden man. I appreciate that. So one thing I always ask everybody at the end of every show is we call the show Wake Up to Wealth. And my whole idea and premise behind why I wanted to do this show was because I was never taught correctly about money, but as most people aren't.

And one of the reasons I did this show was to bring people on like you and open people's mind up to see a different world of you can become wealthy and you've just been taught shit the wrong way. And my vision was I want to give people the knowledge that they can change their life and they can wake up every day wealthy, regardless of what that is to them. So I ask everybody the same question, which I'll ask you is what does waking up to wealth mean to you? It means a lot of things.

Number one, waking up, I can, I can move. That's step one. I can't, I can't do anything else if I'm not moving. So you've got to take care of yourself. Healthy, right? Healthy is wealthy. And then, you know, just being around my family. Like I do this because of my family.

I don't go out. I don't drink. I don't boo. I'm not doing that crazy stuff. I typically travel with my family everywhere I go. So to me, family is, you know, what drives me. And then, you know, wealthy too, surrounding myself around people. I love having great people, you know, like yourself, Brandon, we're just getting to know

each other, but like people that challenge me to be better. You know, how can I have a bigger blah, blah, blah, blah, or how can I not even just bigger to be bigger, but like bigger vision, bigger mindset, bigger connections, bigger everything. Like how do we just and I'm very appreciative and thankful for everything I have. But I feel like an honestly, man, as you know, I don't think we feel like we've done much of anything. I know we've done some cool stuff, but like there's so much more to do. And life is, you know, the end is coming. Like I'm very motivated by death.

One day it's coming and I want it to just be meaningful for my family and all that. And then obviously, you know, we got to have money in it. So I don't don't get it twisted like I'm all about about having money. But you know, money's not the first of the line. You know, even though it is very important, up there by air for a lot of people, but like, there's lots of ways to generate wealth. And wealth is relative to everyone here. And I think, you know, just having the mindset that you're moving towards wealth, and, you know, listening to a show like this

with you, Brandon, I think it's very important for people. It's constant learning. Like this never goes away. I'm still learning, Brandon. We're all still learning. So don't think you're behind the eight ball. Most people truthfully, never even catch this idea. You know, they just suffer. That's my family. They just suffer through life and they accept it. You know, and a great way to know this is, are you still dreaming?

Are you still pushing? Like if you ask most people what their top five dreams are, they don't even know, dude. They don't even know, they kind of given up on it. Cause like, if you say it out loud, you actually got to work to get it. And you got to get uncomfortable and it's scary and you might fail.

But, you know, I think to me, waking up wealthy is just being around great human beings and pursuing greatness. That's awesome, man. Powerful, powerful statement. So for those that want to follow you, check your stuff out, where can they find you? What's the best place to get in touch with you? Yeah, social media everywhere at Mark Evans DM or get over to Mark Evans DM.com as well, man. Love for people to check it out. And if there's anything I can do, let me know. I

love doing this stuff, man. As you know, I think we have to do this. It's very important to help other people. Yeah. Well, I know you're a busy guy and I know you're about to be traveling for 60 days. So the fact that you took the time to come speak to me in my audience, I'm very grateful and I thank you so much for your time and being with us today. Hey, what's up everybody? This next segment is brought to you by Greg Hurling and my good friends at Horizon Trust. Greg's a guy that I trust and a real estate partner of mine. Greg's company Horizon Trust was founded in 2011, has over a billion dollars in assets. And what they specialize in is helping you get into a self-directed IRA account that

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That's www.horizontrust.com forward slash Brandon B. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show, wherever you consume podcasts. This way we have good updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us until next time.