0 (2s):
Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Female Startup Club. Today, we'll be sharing the deeds of $4 million in revenue in 2021, without any sales calls to drop these value bombs. I are brought to Brian Mark and to EOFire studios. Brian helps personal trainers make $10,000 a month online coaching with organic social media, no paid ads or funnels. And today we'll be chatting about Brian's rags to riches story, his vision, and how things started turning around when he created that meaningful vision and how you can too.

0 (44s):
And then of course, how he generates $4 million in revenue without any sales calls, a really cool strategy. He shares here and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors,

NetSuite (55s):
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0 (1m 29s):
Brian, see what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 37s):
Dude. So first of all, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. So grateful to be here and super excited for the interview. What's up Fire Nation. So something that I believe about being successful, I think that most people don't is that I truly believe that every single thing that you want to do in your life starts in your mind. And so I think that a lot of people, you know, if they're a, you know, if they're struggling with their finances or they're struggling with let's, let's say they're struggling with their finances, right though, you know, maybe they'll go to the bank and they'll sit down and they'll try to budget, or, you know, there'll be, they'll try to fix the external, or if they're struggling with their fitness, they'll try to go to the gym and buy a membership or buy some supplements, thinking that that's going to solve the problem. But I truly believe that unless you get super crystal clear inside of your mind and you know exactly what you want and you just have this like perfect picture of exactly what you're going after that, you know, all of the external things that you're, that you're trying to achieve, won't come true until you can see it in your mind.

1 (2m 31s):
So I think that a lot of people try to fix the external first. And I think that you need to work on the internal before you work on the external

0 (2m 38s):
Fire Nation. We're talking about $4 million in revenue without, and I repeat without any sales calls. And of course, Brian, Maurice going to be dropping these value bombs and you kind of have a rags to riches story, a Horacio Alger story, so to speak. So can you share that story with us?

1 (2m 57s):
I was actually born into a Christian household, a white household, and I'm a dark-skinned African-American male. So you can imagine, you know, the shock that, you know, my family felt when my mom had me at 17, I came out dark skinned into a Christian family out of wedlock. So there was like a lot of like adversity, right from the get-go we were born, I was born and raised in a trailer park, you know, lower income home. And I always kind of felt like the outcast when I was younger, you know, like I always kind of felt like the quote unquote, like a dark sheep of the family. And when I was younger, I kind of didn't notice that I was the outcast until I turned around like seven, eight years old. And that's when I started to realize that everybody around me was different and I started to ask some questions.

1 (3m 37s):
And when I didn't get the answers that I wanted, I started to become a lot more rebellious. And I think that for those people that are listening to this right now that are entrepreneurs, I think that all of us have that rebellious spirit, you know, that's, there's something inside of us that just doesn't conform to normal or a society standards. And so for me, I knew that I wanted a better life for myself because when I looked around, you know, I was living in a trailer park, you know, my grandma was always saying, we didn't have the money for food. And, you know, I didn't have money to go out and buy these new clothes and all these new kids, all these kids around me were getting all these new things. And so I just decided I was going to like start, you know, lying, stealing, and cheating. And so when I was younger, I was, I, you know, I started getting into, you know, stealing and, you know, going to the malls and like, you know, ripping the tags off and, you know, walking out with clothes.

1 (4m 23s):
And, and I honestly kind of like went down this dark path and from like 14 years old until, you know, 17 years old, I was kind of just like all over the place and trying to like trying to figure out my way through life. So long story short, I ended up playing football in high school that kind of like helped me get, you know, a little bit more stable, I guess you could say with my, with my mentality, my mindset, I wanted to play professional football. I think when I'm, you know, when I was younger, I think that all of us have these like big dreams and aspirations. And once I realized that that wasn't a viable career, I, I got into, got into bartending, got into nightclub managing and, and yeah, so that's like the beginning stages of the rags to riches is I was born into adversity.

1 (5m 8s):
I realized that I didn't want this life, but I didn't know how to fight my way out of it. And so I kind of like lied steel and cheated. And then around high school is when I started to get a little bit more of a head on my shoulders, but I was still unclear of like, you know, what I wanted to do. And that didn't really become clear to me until my twenties. Have you seen

0 (5m 24s):
Colin Kaepernick documentary? No, I haven't. Oh, you got to do a rather there's so many similarities. They're really, really fascinating and, and really well done Netflix documentary on Colin Kaepernick. He he's, he's the person that actually narrows the whole thing and he does a fantastic job. So recommend checking that out for you as well, Fire Nation, just to kind of see the evolution of what it means to grow up. You know, when you don't have a silver spoon jammed down your mouth, now you did fall into drugs and also heavy addiction for six months and you actually almost lost your life. So let's kind of move forward here and your story and talk about that.

1 (6m 1s):
I was always the type of person that was against drugs. When I grew up my, one of the biggest things that my auntie taught me, my auntie ended up raising me. She said, you know, you can have your fun, you can drink, you know, you can smoke marijuana, but like never do hard drugs and never smoke. And so that was like, kind of like burned into my brain. And then I think that everyone that's listening to this podcast can relate to this idea that the people that you surround yourself with impact the person that you become. And so, because I was in this environment where I was in this nightclub and I was managing the nightclub and, you know, everyone around me was into hard substances. And I remember like seeing it all the time and I would just kind of brush it off.

1 (6m 41s):
And I was like, whatever, whatever it or whatever. But it's kind of like, as you're around something more, and as like, if you're around negative people more, eventually you'll become negative. And if you're around drinking like a lot, then eventually you'll drink. And if you're around drugs, a lot eventually mentioned do drugs. And so I ended up trying it for the first time and, and it turned into an addiction really fast. And I honestly didn't realize how fast I was getting addicted. And it, it, like, it kind of just happened so fast and six months passed. And in that six months, John, I got fired from my nightclub, bartending job. I got another job I got fired from that. I got kicked out of my house. I got my car repossessed. And finally the kind of turning point for me was, I remember I was fired from all my jobs and I wanted to do more substances.

1 (7m 26s):
So I ended up calling my dealer at the time and I told him, you know, I got fired and that I wanted to pick up some more. And he was like, okay, but do you have the money that, you know, you owe me? And I owed them a $5,000 and I was like, no, no, no, but I'm going to get it. And he's like, well, if you don't like, give me the money right now, like, I'm gonna, like, I'm going to come deal with you. And, and he meant that he was gonna kill me. And I remember that I was, I was sitting in the car and this was like my rock bottom moment. I remember sitting in this car just like I met. And that's when I kind of woke up. And I was like, dude, like, how did I get here? Wow. You know, like, how did I, how did I get here? Like what, like, you know, I just went from being this nightclub manager, the top of the world.

1 (8m 8s):
Now I'm sitting in a car at four o'clock in the morning and I just told him, I just told the dealer. I'm like, I don't have your money. So here's the address I'm sitting right here. I'm like, do what you gotta do. I broke down. And I just cried that for me was the kind of like realization that I needed to make a change. And I remember I called my auntie and I told her what had gone down. And I told her that I needed money. And she said, you got yourself here. So get yourself out. I called a couple of my best friends. And I told them what happened. And you know, and that finally was honest with myself. But that for me was my rock bottom, John. And that's when I realized that I needed to make a change

0 (8m 41s):
Fire Nation. We have the other side of this story as well as $4 million in revenue and 2021, without any sales calls. When we get back from thanking our sponsors,

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0 (12m 7s):
So Brian, we're back in a little bit of a cliffhanger because let's be honest, you know, right now it's, it's been a pretty tough story, a pretty tough life. And you know, we do talk a lot about vision and the importance of having a vision on entrepreneurs, on fire. And that's for you. When you actually started turning things around, you started working on your vision, you got clean, you got sober, you started making moves in your business and life. Tell us that story.

1 (12m 34s):
So this is what I'm super excited about because this is my life's mission. You know, my life's mission, John is to inspire people to chase their dreams. So here I am, 23 years old, flat broke, addicted to drugs have absolutely nothing. And I remember at the time I, I went back to my grandma's house and I just collapsed on her couch. W once he didn't come, I went back to my grandma's house and I collapsed on the couch and it was four o'clock in the morning, John. And she was up waiting for me to get home. When I walked in the door, I collapsed on the couch and I cried. She actually didn't ask me what was wrong. She just went, grabbed the Bible, held my hand, and she cried with me and read me the Bible. And so that experience was what made me decide that I was going to change my life because I'm like, here I am, you know, this, like, you know, I viewed myself as the biggest loser and this woman loved me unconditionally and saw me as this like amazing grandson.

1 (13m 26s):
And I'm like, I can't die and leave this world, letting her see me like this. So I decided I was going to make a change. And I didn't really know what that looked like at the time, because I, you know, at the time I lost all my options. So I spent a couple of days at home sleeping, you know, eating food, sleeping, eating food, couldn't look at myself in the mirror. So I was just kind of like going through the motions. And then finally I got this idea that I was going to go out to the summer camp. And, you know, it was in the middle of nowhere, isolate myself from the world. I'd be a laborer. And I kind of work on the camp for three months. So I called the summer camp and I asked them if they had any labor positions and they replied that they didn't have any labor positions, but they had a cleaner position. And of course my ego was like, I'm not a, I'm not a cleaner, I'm a nightclub manager.

1 (14m 6s):
I was like, no, thanks. I'm good. So I hung up two hours later. I realized that I had no other options. So I called them back and I humbly accepted the cleaner position. And when I went to that summer camp, John, I, I would scrub toilets for eight hours in the day. And then at night I would get off work and I would go for a 30 minute run. And after my 30 minute run, I would open up this Microsoft word document. And on this Microsoft word document, I had this vision and this vision was like, everything that I wanted to accomplish in my life. You know, it was on this vision. I was super detailed and super clear. And, and I worked on it every single day. It was one document that I wrote and then I rewrote and then I revised. And then I edited and I did this for three months straight.

1 (14m 46s):
And on this vision, it said things like, I will be a multimillionaire on this vision. It said things like, I will be a professional fitness model on this vision. It said things like, I will find the love of my life. And she's beautiful. And she's amazing. And she's incredible. And have, I'll have this beautiful family and you gotta remember the John at the time that I was writing this vision, like I was a loser. And so I'm writing down all these things and I'm picturing all these like, amazing things that are gonna happen in my life. But I truly was like, at this like loss, I was just like lost in life. And, but it's this, it's this clarity, you know? And, and that's why I come back to what I started that started the podcast is like, you really do need to have clarity because this is the thing, right? Like your mind is creating your reality, whether or not you like it, right?

1 (15m 29s):
Like everything that you do in your life starts from your mind. You know, you want to go to work and, you know, make some money in your business. Your mind, your mind is creating your business. You want to have a relationship with your significant other, your communicate with your partner, with your mind. You know, you want to go to the gym. It's like your mind is responsible for moving your muscles. And it's like, so your everything starts in your mind. And so for me, getting super clear on exactly what I wanted to create with my life and not telling a single soul other than myself, because I didn't need other people to validate my vision. I just needed it for me was the gateway that led me to my success. So spent three months at that summer camp worked on that vision, got super clear on it and it was detailed. And I could, like, I could recite it line by line. By the end of the summer, I came back, I got a job at a restaurant as a manager.

1 (16m 12s):
I spent eight months preparing for my next fitness competition, which I took home second place. And that's when I started my online coaching business. I spend another six months preparing for it, my next fitness competition, where I went first place and my pro card. And at that point, like people started reaching out to me. I spent the next year building my online coaching business and just like, you know, just continuously working on my mindset, refining my vision every single day, I got my fitness business to $10,000 a month. And at that point, like people were like, dude, like, how did you do this? Like, it's been a year and a half. And you went from drug addict to like making $10,000 a month, traveling all over the world, going to Bali. And, and so I started getting people to work for me.

1 (16m 53s):
So it wasn't just me. At that point, I started hiring online fitness coaches to be a part of my business, to serve people. And I had a team of seven trainers. We got that business to $54,000 a month in July, 2018. And I realized by running a team of seven trainers, I was like, man, I'm so passionate about helping trainers build businesses because that's what I did. And so in 2018, I started my current company pizza domination. And right now, John, we are serving over 1200 students. We have 1200 active students in our coaching program. Our coaching program is $400 USD per month. So 1200 times, 400, your audience can do the math on that. And I'm, and I'm just so blessed. And I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to be on a podcast like this with you, such a powerful person coming from the place that I came from and coming from a trailer park and then a drug addiction to being where I'm at today and having my own podcasts where, you know, I hit top 50 in the business charts and over 500 episodes.

1 (17m 49s):
Like I'm just grateful, man. And I'm just like so blessed to even have this conversation with you. So that's the story?

0 (17m 54s):
Well, it's been a great story and I'm actually not going to let you stop there because you went from a trailer park to a multimillionaire by the time you were 30. And I mean, as we said in the introduction, the title is 4 million in revenue without any sales calls. And I know that really kind of pricked up a lot of Fire Nation's ears because nobody likes making sales calls. Nobody likes making sales calls. So tell us that story, the $4 million without any sales calls, like any tactics, any strategies share that part of your story.

1 (18m 25s):
Yeah. So I love it. So let's talk about, you know, making offers because, you know, we've been talking a lot of like mindset stuff and let's talk tactics. So if you are a service provider right now, and I truly believe that if you're a service provider, like social media is the game, right. And when I say social media is a game, you guys, I post on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, tic talk, YouTube, and my podcast app on a daily basis. And when I first started, I obviously didn't have a team. And so if you're just getting started, I think Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are a really good place to start. Now that being said, John I've made all of my money without using sales calls because I got to a point where I was getting so many people reaching out to me, asking for help. And I wanted to offer this service where it didn't because, you know, sales calls are time consuming.

1 (19m 8s):
You know, you spend 30 to 60 minutes on the phone with a prospect, potentially not to have them enroll in your program. It's, it's a super, you know, kind of like annoying process, right? So if you want to eliminate sales calls, I'm going to give you some tactics here. So first things first is understanding that selling over video versus selling over calls. When I mean selling over video, like recording a 10 to 12 minute long video and sending it to your prospect, selling over video versus selling over calls is actually more convenient for your prospect because your prospect also has a busy schedule. And so they might not want to get on a call with you plus they might not want to get sold. And so for me, I decided that I was going to start offering my product over direct messages instead of offering my product with sales calls.

1 (19m 53s):
Now, everybody that's listening to this right now. Like if you're even getting on sales calls, then I'm going to assume that you have a process that leads to that call, right? And that process could be maybe you're running Facebook ads that lead to an application. And that application, you book a phone call, maybe your process is you've got a calendar link in your bio when people click the calendar link and they book a call, maybe your process is you send out a certain amount of messages and you know, your goal is to book a call with a prospect. Here's what I did, John. Instead of closing out the conversation with booking a phone call, I closed out the conversation by making an offer. So instead of booking the call, I made the offer. Now here's what I did to make the offer. I have this one page like PDF that basically explains it's kind of like a sales page done, but it's, it's more simple because I found that when you design an entire sales page and you're trying to sell it over a video, people kind of like sense that it's almost like too professional.

1 (20m 45s):
And so I like to make my approach almost very humble. Like I just made it for them. And so I've got this PDF that has my offer on it. And you know, what, if you're listening to this, if you're on Fire Nation, I'll give you the PDF. I'm going to give you the PDF, John. So I've got this PDF, that's got my offer on it. And what I do is I take out a, there's a software you can download called loom. It's a screen recording software. And I record a video of myself reading over the software. So once I've warmed up the prospect and direct messages and I've, you know, had a conversation with them. And by the way, I have 10 virtual assistants that work for me. So I don't do this anymore. But once my virtual assistants have warmed up the prospect over direct messages and they get into the point where we're about to quote unquote, book a call, instead of doing that, we'll say something like this, all right, well, I'll tell you what, John, you know, it sounds to me like you'd be a great fit for my program.

1 (21m 36s):
I've got all the details for you here. I don't have a fancy landing page or anything. It's more of a PDF. Would you mind if I send it over chat? And then they say something like, sure. Yeah. Why not? I'm like, okay, great. I'm like, let me go grab my computer. But while I do check this out, and when I say check this out, I send a link to a testimonial of one of my clients. So I send social proof in direct messages. So they take a minute to check out the social proof. I make sure they seen it and then I'll come back on my cool. And then I send them the video that I've recorded. It's a 10 to 12 minute long video, by the way, it's the same video that I send to every single prospect. And I've sold 1200 clients with this one video. I'm like, here it is. Once you have a listen, would you let me know if you're in or out or have any questions?

1 (22m 19s):
And in a nutshell, that's the process. That's, that is the process. And so what I do, John, my job is as a content creator is to put out so much value that I get people reaching out to me, asking for help on a daily basis. And then when people reach out to me and ask for help, it's my job to take that interested person and turn them into a paying client with direct messages

0 (22m 39s):
In foreign nation. I want you to realize that, yes, this is simple, but that's the beauty of it. The beauty of it is that it's not overly complicated. It doesn't have a million different things happening all at once. It's simple, as direct as clear and it's concise and that's why it works. So Brian, with everything that you shared with us today, and thank you for offering to share the PDF with Fire Nation, what is the one takeaway, the single takeaway that you really want to make sure our audience gets from everything that we talked about here today, give us that call to action, where we can, where we can connect with you, get that PDF, et cetera. And then we'll say goodbye,

1 (23m 16s):
Dude. I love it. So first of all, I'm actually just going to give you the PDF so you can drop it in, in the description. So I, I want nothing from this. I literally just want to give value. And that was even my intention and coming to the podcast, like, I just want to give so much value and you know, maybe some of you guys connect with my story and you want to connect with me. And that's incredible. Here's my one takeaway for all of you guys that are listening right now, I'm 30 years old. You know, my business has actually made $4.5 million so far this year. And I went from being a drug addict seven years ago to making 30 minutes to making $4.5 million at 30 years old. And my biggest, you know, my biggest kind of like invitation for you right now. If you're listening to this is to start right now. I think that so many people put their dreams on hold and then eventually they wake up and realize that they're not where they want to be.

1 (24m 1s):
But the one thing that is like absolutely certain in life is that time is always moving forward. And so if you don't make a decision to make a change right now, like, I mean now then more time is going to pass you by you're going to stay in the exact same place. And the last thing that I'd want to do is like end up on my death bed and realize that I'm just full of regret because I didn't chase the things that I wanted to do. And John, right now, I'm so happy. You know, I've got, you know, I'm married to the love of my life. I live in a beautiful mansion in west Colona. You know, I've got, I own my own gym now, you know, I'm making $4 million a year. It's like, and all of this started because I was willing to bet on myself. And so my invitation for you is to bet on yourself and chase your dreams. And to start right now in terms of where you can find me, you guys, my podcast is called the change lives, make money on the TriNet podcast.

1 (24m 42s):
It's the number one show for on the fitness coaches. Even if you're not an online fitness coach, I've had a ton of people DM me and say that the podcast has been extremely valuable for them because I tend to talk a lot of mindset, mindset around entrepreneurship and business and everything like that. But my goal is simply to give as much value as I possibly can. So Fire Nation, thank you so much for having me. Hopefully you got some value from today's episode and John, thanks for having me on the show, bro,

0 (25m 6s):
You got some value brother. You shared a great story. And one thing that you actually talked about more towards the beginning is the power of the people you spend the most time with. And that's why I always end the episode of Entrepreneurs On Fire. By saying Fire Nation. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with BM and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Type Brian in the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. We'll have that PDF that Brian promised or right there on the show notes page. And of course, make sure you check out everything that Brian has going on. As you can tell inspiring story, great content, Brian, thank you brother, for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

0 (25m 52s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Brian and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and I've created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is these step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy and I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side,

NetSuite (26m 31s):
not running your business on NetSuite is like trying to sink a putt with a cap over your eyes. Over 28,000 businesses using NetSuite. And for the new year NetSuite has a new financing program. Visit netsuite.com/fire for this special, one of a kind financing offer. The my first million podcast features famous guests, discusses how companies made their first million and brainstorm new business ideas based on the hottest trends and opportunities in the marketplace. One recent app was all about how venture capitalists make money. Listen to my first million, wherever you get your podcasts.