00:00
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 makes you tick as an investor. If you're not spending 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 grand a month, this is why you're frustrated. You don't have a duplicatable, replicatable process. The hardest part of ending is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical.

00:29
We cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.

00:36
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 bestselling 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 deal maker I need to have on my show, you know? I love it. Appreciate you. Yeah, man. Yeah. You know,

01:06
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 what you need to talk to? You need to talk to Mark Evans. He said, I think, 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 so I'm happy to have you on, brother. No, man, appreciate you having me.

01:35
Yeah. Uh, literally our friends, if they're referring me over to you. Exactly. Uh, I know you, you spoke at like a real estate event a couple of months back or, and, uh, guy, my, my, actually my trainer, um, Adam and my personal trainer was there doing training for the, at the event, he was helping the real estate guys to train personal training and stuff. Like for the four days, he was like,

02:02
You know, they drink too much at night and then he'd wear their ass out the next morning. But he was like, you need you to 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 as so, you know, if you, you're the deal maker, right? Uh, DM, I did like it from a branding standpoint.

02:25
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 on a lot of real estate deals and his name happened to be Mark Evans as well, but he wasn't a good Mark Evans.

02:49
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. Yeah. But, you know, it just became the DM. Literally, no one even calls me Mark. Everyone calls me the DM. It's kind of funny now. But, you know, 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. Supposed to start 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...

03:20
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 in my mind. I hated high school, I hated school. I just wanted to get out and make money into the real world.

03:47
You know, two days after high school, I bought a seamless gutter company. I grew up in a construction household and I know how to build houses. By the time I was 12 years old, third, I was working with my dad every day and, um, 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 own a 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, um,

04:16
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 porch 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 do you do? He's like, I'm a real estate investor. I was like, I don't know what that is, but I wanna do that now. And I went to a seminar, man, and learned it, like 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 bucks back then was a lot of money, I was out of my money.

04:46
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 you know, this is a process, it's a journey. Almost went back around twice. What they don't teach you is once you learn how to make money, you gotta 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 aware with all of my parents related to how much money they taught me, you know, and they just work hard. And you know, 100 grand a year would be a dream. That was my goal.

05:15
And 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 of really now I'm more of a.

05:42
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, you know, you're like me, we still got a long way to go in this journey, but

06:08
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, you know, with a thousand bucks down to 87 a month, I just took balls to do that, right? So I was a huge, 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.

06:38
you know, I went so so fit, you know, 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 100 grand a year. That was very big deal for me, man. Yeah. You know, this goes back about clarity. I just wanted to make 100 grand a year. Well, in business, if you make 100 grand a year, it doesn't mean you keep 100 grand. So I should have been a little bit clearer with my goals. I want to net 100 grand a year. And, and then you know, then you hit the million 10 million, etc. So it's

07:05
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 so non-existent right now. Uh, you know, it's funny. Like I got four boys and. Twink coaching that 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, uh,

07:28
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. The, uh, sub Mark, you know, I know you do, you've got some coaching and, and a lot of mentoring and different things that you do and you give back a lot. Um, I don't want to not tell that story. We'll get kind of to that, but, but down the coaching path.

07:51
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 gonna be for mindset.

08:19
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 them with themselves to the next step. You know, I talk a lot about thought auditing. I wrote a book called Magician verse Meal. You know, we're all meals. We're designed as meals and sit down, shut up, raise your hand if you can, you know, like all this stuff. So like we're really ingrained. It's ingrained in us. So we got, 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, and drive through it.

08:49
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, it's 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 really have high paying jobs. And 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.

09:16
You know, a hundred million, a hundred million dollars in their lifetime, but everything they're doing is, you know, 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, 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, and I was probably like 25, 26. And.

09:46
I don't know what it is about, in the way I was programmed is I just kinda, 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 kinda mastered that on some level. I don't know your perspective on that. It seems like.

10:11
guys like you typically have multiple streams and kind of learned that lesson pretty early. Yeah, I think I have 20, probably 30 multiple streams of income, maybe more. I'm not really focused on that as much now. I honestly, at 27, another big moment was October 8th, or five, my grandmother passed away. So I was working 16 hours a day. Guys like you and I, we like working, so it's not a big deal. But I do have a girlfriend now, my wife, Dina.

10:38
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, really hard for a lot of years. And now, you know, so 27 years old, I, I didn't even realize that's financially free. I know it 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, you know, it was kind of cool than 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.

11:06
And then they never can get in front. Like you got to make sure you're still keep your active income coming in, you know, and then probably as you can't be spending all your active income either, you know, you got to take the active income, you know, and start parking in a different environments. But you really, I was probably the luckiest thing I did, man, learning about investing, you know, real estate. I just understood investing in a different level and it's helped me a lot. What is, what's today? I want to give everybody like an actionable, like cool tip here.

11:35
talking with Mark Evans, DM, the deal maker. Like, okay, everybody, you got Grant, I had Grant on the show, Grant Cardone, I've had a lot of real estate guys, Pace Morby, had a freaking Torek El Moussa from Flipper Flop, everybody's into talking real estate. So it's okay if we go down that path, but I'm gonna tee it up for you. So, you know, I'm someone listening, I'm thinking about an affordable, reasonable,

12:02
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 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.

12:28
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's passive. It's a lot of, dude, I got a deal right now, just got an email from our property manager, 10 has been in there five months, they're gonna stay in there seven months, rent free, and then they're gonna trash the place. I mean, that's not passive, that's a very active stream of income. You're dealing with BS all the time, but.

12:56
You know, I think the biggest thing is just finding out what you're really, what makes you tick as an investor. I think a lot of times I'm really good at giving people advice of what, 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.

13:24
As opposed to like, you know, it's business. Things happen. There's a process to it. And there's a team. And 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. Well, I love businesses. I love investing in businesses. Yeah. You know?

13:52
Real estate's cool. I can buy a $10 million property. It's going to make a 6% cap, blah, blah, blah. That'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 to sell that thing in three years for $50 million. I can't do that in real estate. I can't do it. You know, but we have a special set of skills. We have a good team. You know, we know how to market. We know how to, you know, build better teams and such and put them all together to drive revenue up, sell for a bigger EBITDA.

14:22
And, uh, yeah, it's just a different game. What kind of businesses are you buying? What are they? 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 in the service side, you know, the service letters, um, dog leashes and things like that, you know, hard products. Um,

14:50
You know, it's very recession proof. I'm looking for recession proof businesses. I like the data companies. I'm pretty big in data. Data's only getting bigger. Understanding the data and how to sell it, extract it and understand what the data's saying. I like media, depending on media. This game is all about eyeballs, right? So, you know, I understand media. We send out 700 million emails a month out of that system. We wanna 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. I mean,

15:19
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?

15:48
Um, and just kind of your relation, you know, overall perspective on it. Well, I think everyone needs to spend more money on marketing and branding. You know, I think most people don't understand it. I know in business, you know, I'm accustomed to spending, you know, 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.

16:16
because I was still 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. Like, that's the only thing that's keeping us afloat. You know, 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, you know, direct to consumer marketing is a little bit different than branding, as you know, right? Because branding...

16:43
a little bit longer term play, but direct to consumers. Like, you know, I'm just looking for a ROAS return, you know, as fast as possible. But when we're brand, you know, when we're branding, let's say in five years from now, do you think you'll make more money if you have 10 X the amount of people following you or a hundred X or a million X more, or if you just stay where you're at today? The answer is pretty simple. So you gotta get to work. You know, so I'm very conscious of that. I mean, I have three people on my team. All they're doing is working on content distribution.

17:11
repackaging, I have a documentary coming out. I mean, I'm trying to hit people at all angles. I know you understand all that, but you as a listener, you got to understand 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 $1,000. Well, I'm talking hundreds of people saying this. And these are like semi, people that say they have a business.

17:38
If you're not spending 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 grand a month, this is why you're frustrated. You don't have a duplicatable, replicatable process. And you gotta have, if you don't have front end lead gen processes out where you spend money and make money, you're always gonna plan smaller than you need to play. Yeah, amen brother. I'm gonna repackage that two minute right there for an infomercial. But it's true. And you've seen the success of that.

18:08
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, you know, 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.

18:36
And you know, it's so contrary because everyone, you know, marketing's an investment, and so many people, you know, fight that and don't understand it, and they go, just like that accountant did, oh, we can nix that off the budget, no big deal. We're just gonna make things and sell things, and it just happens, right? Nope. I don't know where that perspective comes from. And what does that originate from?

19:04
Yeah, I mean, they're just trying to, they're just seeing the bottom line. They're about to lose their job if no money's in the account, I guess. But you know, listen, it's never been easier though, right? I mean, you got social media. Everyone has a voice now. I think that's some of the problem actually. But also a good opportunity for anybody that wants to get out there and start talking. It's always crazy to me, man. They'll 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.

19:33
And I'm always amazed by it because I'm like, I've had a lot of people, I'm like, do this and I'm 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 a, people are weird about this stuff, man. I know. So I do want to talk about like, what's your perspective on obviously your marketing businesses, but you're also marketing yourself. You know, we work a lot with personal brands, uh, you know, telling their stories and

20:02
You do an incredible job. Um, you know, I went through a lot of your stuff. I think you do this great balance with family, which I want to get to. Um, and both, you know, 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, it's just sharing my life. I.

20:32
I'm taking micro clips, this is my life. I'm not trying to make everything pretty. I'm just sharing the raw. Most of the time I'm talking, coming from the gym, have a half beer, have a zit on my face. I just don't care. One thing I've realized, man, we're really not that big a deal, but we make ourselves such a big deal in our head. I just, if the message is important, I'm sharing it. I think this is where I think, man, this is the beautiful thing about social. Literally this thing, we could start shooting content right now.

21:00
If something pops in your head, shoot it. Don't write it down, don't edit it out, don't go, just shoot and share the message. If it resonates and you wanna make it prettier in the future, that's fine too. But I think so many people are like, they're just stuttering constantly because there's too afraid to move. Just shoot the content and go. Who cares if you have a list? Who cares if you spit? Who cares if you have a bug? It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter, man, honestly. No, and how many, now have you,

21:30
I know the answer to this, but I want the audience to hear it. Hey, can you, do you quantify, you know, your personal brand and what you're spending on your personal brand? I know a lot of it's organic. You just being comfortable and shooting and all that. And that doesn't really cost anything, but just, you know, 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, what value would you put on?

21:58
what you've put into the Mark Evans personal brand? Yeah, I mean, this year alone, just straight up, I put a million dollars in 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 gonna 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.

22:27
I'm not trying to figure out how to put a dollar and get a $1.20 today. I do that in all my other companies, but on personal brand, I raise money. I could raise money. What if I post and I raised $50 million today? What's that worth? What's it worth if I 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 follow me, they connect with me, and they like the vibe. So I don't really... It's more...

22:56
If I put a million, I want to make more than a million. 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 developments 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.

23:25
It's like, who knows you, who knows you. That's right. Yeah. So it's like that. I think if people watch 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 I can come 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.

23:53
You know, really connecting with people. Uh, I think a lot of times people think they need to be the bigger swinging Dick in the game. Like, Oh, I do more. We're not going to talk 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 while we're talking. The, uh, go figure. Uh, how meta is that? Um,

24:21
So Mark, I want to talk about family. I know it's important to you. I see it on your social media. You're one of the realest dudes. Once I got to kind of know you, we talked on the phone a couple of times, like, dude, this guy's so fucking real, and so available. But I think 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 learned behavior or just a natural behavior? Like,

24:49
Were you one of those that like you went through something, you're like, man, damn, my family is this supporter or has it just been natural for you to kind of embrace that? Yeah, no, I think, you know, my parents were awesome. We didn't have much money, but my parents are always around, you know, I don't know how they did it. I still like am 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 that

25:17
I didn't have to look and see if my mom and dad were there. I knew they were there. The other kids I'm rolling with, they're like, look, where's my mom and dad? They're not there. Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed. And the thing is I've realized 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 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. Today I'll be at tennis at 4.30 with my son.

25:46
You know, tomorrow I'll be at four 30 to be a Taekwondo. Like we have a schedule with the kids. I want to be there for them. Even. 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 it's mandatory in my life. It really is. So, you know, these are non-negotiables. I have, we all have non-negotiables. Some are just not serving you. And some are. Yes. Uh, I will, I will, I will better your tennis though.

26:14
Nothing is more boring than swim meets. I have two, 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, cause 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. It's great networking too.

26:43
One thing I've realized, I meet a lot of the same dads and parents at these events. And guess what? It's an instant connection because the power of consistency is a real thing. And if there's a consistent behavior and an environment that's conducive to opportunity, actually, there's a guy at the tennis thing, I mean, he manages billions and billions and billions of dollars. And we always talk, again, we come through the kids, come through tennis, the boring stuff that we start. It's like, nothing else to do except talk. What's going on?

27:13
So yeah, I think it's just your environment, man. It's pretty powerful. Yep. So 12 time bestselling author. I know you mentioned, uh, one of the books, but, uh, talk about, you know, what are the general, are they, are your, your themes are a few on real estate I know, and a few, you know, broader business, but, uh, 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 on that. You know, I talked, you're like, you kind of motivate me. I was.

27:42
wrote some more notes down. I got to like get your guys contact, but, uh, what's, uh, what's the, uh, what are some memorable moments? You're some of your favorites. Uh, and, uh, let's talk a little bit about the books. Yeah, man. Well, November 21st, oh six has to be the most memorable book. It was my first 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 out I could catch it on camera. Keep in mind, cameras were different back in oh six. You didn't have your cell phone available like we do now. So,

28:12
But no, man, 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 wanna pick that up. So I got the girl from, you know, Kendra Todd won 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,

28:41
free exposure, 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 and every new, every books in the evolution of me, the way I talk, what I'm talking about and where I'm going. So first three books were conversations with mortgage brokers, business people, blah, blah, blah. And then now, 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

29:10
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 starting to let go at another level. So I just started writing about it. And, and then now you have magician versus mule, like my first straight. Why do I always feel like I have to work? You know, it's as opposed to be a magician. And then, you know, the other book, me economy with everything going on with COVID and all that stuff back in the day, you know, cause

29:38
Clearly it doesn't exist anymore obviously, but at the end of the day with economy, it's like really you gotta focus on you. We really like hunker down and get involved with you. Gotta get, you know, start being selfish. Yeah, you know, take care of yourself, focus on yourself. You know, there's 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 really, it's really hard to write, I'm working, is about raising kids with money. It's a big fear of mine, you know?

30:07
I don't want to mess this up. I want my kids to be respectful, understand that our life's not as normal as, you know, 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. One's very marketing specific. It's around radical and things like the radical formula. But I've been working on this.

30:36
I'm gonna 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. Like, and if you.

31:02
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. But anyway, so I love that perspective. Yeah, and plus too, real quick, just to note, 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.

31:28
care for yourself, care for others and everything else you want more of will come back to you. Just care. And it's a very powerful thing. It's a cool way to give, full circle giving, we call it as well, where you're buying a book, you're giving to a charity that you don't even necessarily get to meet the people and then you're giving to yourself. I mean, everyone wins. It's a one-win-win all the way around. I love that. Let's talk about the charity a little bit. I mean, are there, is it?

31:53
Do you have organizations you give to? Is it an organization you started or did you disperse those, those funds across things you care about? Yeah, man. You know, I, so 2006, I met a guy named Frank McKinney. He has a thing called the carrying house project foundation where they build facilities out in Haiti. You know, Haiti is a very poor country. We went out there actually with kids or Todd and all those people I was mentioning. Um, and got to see firsthand how, like, if you live under a bridge in America, you have it made compared to over there.

32:21
I mean, you literally have have it made. And it just made me realize how much, you know, that's why I want to, 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, you know, saving children from, you know, sex traffic and all that stuff. That's a very important thing to me now, having kids knowing that it even exists.

32:51
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'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 100 bucks, you're not going to ever give it away. It just start now. You can't out give the world.

33:20
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, like 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, um, you know, where does that kind of moral thread for you and kind of your guidepost, where does that, where does that originate from?

33:47
Yeah, I think it'd be my parents, man, honestly, you know, I think my parents always did the right thing, even when it was hard. My parents, they raised us in very rough times, you know, like 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 fire when we were 10 years old. We lost the house people gave to us. It was like 7800 up, 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,

34:17
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 light, I'm in. And it just kind of refocuses. But now my parents have done an amazing job. And now I have kids, dude. They're watching me. Not what I say, but what I do. And I'm very conscious of that. Talk to guys like you and everybody, damn, he's got it all figured out.

34:45
But I and I know and that's what you know, like I know none of us do but is there uh, Is there a character like i'm not asking what's your biggest flaw? But like, you know, like 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 do you try to work on? Man, I just don't like to disappoint

35:13
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, leadership. Leadership's tough, man. 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 not always unicorn and rainbows. I mess it up often. I say the wrong... I'm very aggressive, right? I'm just hungry. I'm just aggressive. It's the way I talk. I'm not trying to be a dick. It's just like, dude, I'm moving so fast. And then sometimes now you got to do emotional...

35:41
control their, they're sad. It's like, I don't have time for this. You know, let's go. But 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. Often, 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

36:09
you know, helping them through a problem. Who knows? Like, 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 fail at home, to me, it's a failure. You know, I think it's not about balance, it's just 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, and it's like, hey guys, here's what's up. Next two weeks, daddy's gonna be kind of crazy, you know? But I'm here, I'm just not gonna be as available. If you need me, call me, kind of like, hit me up in the office.

36:38
But yeah, I think awareness, I just wanna be a better leader, man. I just don't, I wanna give more. Sometimes that's draining to guys like us too, right? We wanna give so much, we end up doing, and then there's, unfortunately, the world, there's a lot of takers. Yeah. You know? How, what, you know, when you're hiring, that's such a, and I don't know how, 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 what do you look for in people?

37:08
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 having the past, you know, is it, how do you go about it? Yeah, I'm looking for people who have grit, number one. Like, if I'm looking for a right-hand man or right-hand girl,

37:36
they definitely have to be rolling kind of like, they have to have some of the, a lot of the same philosophies as me, if not it's gonna 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,

38:06
I partnered with a guy just like me. We were both great talkers, great sales guys, but we're doing all that, but who's taking care of the business? Knowing what I know now, I had to find the ying 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. And that's where I've messed up on partnership stuff. But when I'm hiring, man, I'm just looking for someone that, I'm not talking about the guys that tear off their sleeves. I'm talking to guys that just get down and dirty.

38:34
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, um, I have a lot of amazing people on the team, man, but unfortunately I'm really good at hiring terrible at managing easy, you know, and I'm doing the opposite. Everyone's like hire fast, hire slow, fire fast. I flipped that I've hired 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.

39:02
I mean, that is the, that is, that's the characteristic right there. You know, you can be, don't get me wrong. You gotta 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 is give me, sign me up for grit all day, every day. It was my favorite. That's why it's, if I left my kids with anything, I'm gonna teach them grit. Yeah.

39:27
Yeah, I love it, man. I feel like we could probably talk for three hours, but as we're closing out, I do wanna share with people, I know you do some coaching, some mastermind stuff, talk about the types of people you like to kind of recruit into that and where all that's headed. Well, I like to work with slow learners that have a lot of money. They're the best clients in the world, man. No, listen, I'm looking for people that are full-time entrepreneurs looking to get to the next level.

39:56
I don't really coach, I like to mastermind and direct and help guide. 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 someone has one hamburger joint, why can't you have 100 or 1000 or 10, 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 I'm looking for entrepreneurs that know they don't know everything.

40:26
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, you in our world, you make a million dollars, remember, dude, why didn't you make three? You know, as opposed to hanging out with your boys, I call it 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, you gotta be careful who you listen to.

40:55
Yeah, that's right. Where can everybody keep up with Mark Evans, DM? Where can they fall along? Where can they hit you up when they want you to invest in their company and take it to $500 million or something? I know, I'll just do that for sure. No man, listen, social media's powerful at Mark Evans, DM, pretty much everywhere. And we have a podcast show too, the making of a DM, but.

41:21
Depends on what you're into, what kind of media 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. I know, I felt like I was like, you're marking at least seven killer highlight clips from the show and things that people can keep up with. You had a lot of value and I look forward to kind of building our relationship and staying connected.

41:49
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 deal maker. You'll find all of the highlight clips from today's episode. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Alford 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.