Transcript

The 8-Figure Whisperer - Mark Young

From The Proven Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 47 min · 10,098 words · 163 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The 8-Figure Whisperer - Mark Young", an episode of The Proven Podcast published September 8, 2025 (47 min, about 10,098 words). It mentions 49 people, works and ideas, including omni channel, Mark Young, lifetime value, reciprocity, Influence.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Mark Young, Proven Podcast, red light therapy devices, Rise Agency
  2. – 10:00: cash flow, clinical psychology, entrepreneur whisperer, life cycle marketing
  3. – 15:00: email database, Genius Network, Joe Polish, Piranha Marketing
  4. – 20:00: Fitter Over 50, reciprocity, social exchange
  5. – 25:00: Date Your Clients, nitric oxide supplement, reciprocity
  6. – 30:00: Cali Means, White House
  7. – 35:00: omni channel, Influence, lifetime value
  8. – 40:00: Influence, Navan sisters
  9. – 45:00: feel-felt-found, five levels of awareness, free audit, oxalates
  10. – 46:34: KPI reference sheet, lifetime value, Mark Young, Vanity Metrics

Notable quotes from "The 8-Figure Whisperer - Mark Young"

  • Today's guest, Mark Young, founder of Rise Agency, proves that's exactly why most brands get stuck. The show starts now.
    about Mark Young · at
  • You're you're not getting this covered by insurance. We're not selling knee replacements. We're selling red light therapy devices that actually lead to reducing joint pain.…
    about red light therapy devices · at
  • Find most entrepreneurs fail, particularly in the ecom world, is lifetime value. Mh.
    about lifetime value · at
  • That I talk to my clients most often and encourage them to do is a well-managed email database. and that is I will say that there is a false reality that Instagram followers are the way to go.
    about email database · at
  • Sociological term that talks about the I give to you, you give to me because there's what we call reciprocity. And the easiest way to actually work on building a database is…
    about reciprocity · at
  • Depends on the brand, but I'll give you an example. I have a list that I run called Fitter Over 50.
    about Fitter Over 50 · at
  • Going to laugh at this, Charles. My first book that I published was actually called Date Your Clients.
    about Date Your Clients · at
  • When you're talking about making that pivot on messaging is we live in a very omni channel world and too many brands who get to that $10 million have built their brand on very lowhanging fruit single channel outlets.
    about omni channel · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Mark Young — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Joe Polish — Person · 1 mention · first at
    A customer. and there was an example recently given, it was in a book that I just read, Joe Polish.
  • The Rock — Person · 1 mention · first at
    What the? And I felt horrible. I was What's going on? And then I watched Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, go live and he's got millions of followers and there was like 2,000 people.…
  • Cali Means — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Laughingly say that I the last conference that I was at with him, I spoke right after Cali Means finished speaking. It's like so here's a White House adviser. Here's Mark…
  • Navan sisters — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Got a, a Tik Tok influencer as a founder, easy, easy done. I just had the Navan sisters on my podcast recently and it's like I thought they were 25 years old. They're 42year-old twins.
  • Eugene Schwartz — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Date Your Clients — Book · 2 mentions · first at
  • Piranha Marketing — Book · 1 mention · first at
    And his book Piranha Marketing and he gives the example of a guy who was so overwhelmed by the just the incredible work that this carpet company had done and he just loved it and he paid extra.

Companies & orgs

  • Rise Agency — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    Today's guest, Mark Young, founder of Rise Agency, proves that's exactly why most brands get stuck. The show starts now.
  • Proven Podcast — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Everyone thinks the secret to scaling past $10 million is better funnels and bigger ad spend.
  • Genius Network — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Genius Network. Joe, like Joe's a good friend and I just recently read one of his older books and he was he Joe's a big deal in carpet cleaning was his big deal right?
  • AA — Company · 1 mention
  • Bed Bath & Beyond — Company · 1 mention
  • EO — Company · 1 mention
  • HBO — Company · 1 mention
  • Meta Platforms, Inc. — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • omni channel — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
  • lifetime value — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • reciprocity — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • Influence — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    They've they've found a big influencer in the space who was able to pump their sales up and get them a an engaged audience. They've, they found a metafunnel that was able to get them good sales conversion dollars.
  • clinical psychology — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    And I laughingly say it's because my educational background is actually in clinical psychology. And I say that I'm I tend to be the entrepreneur whisperer.
  • entrepreneur whisperer — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Educational background is actually in clinical psychology. And I say that I'm I tend to be the entrepreneur whisperer.
  • cash flow — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Kind of plan to you doesn't mean that I don't understand your concerns with cash flow.
  • life cycle marketing — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That they fail to realize that your best customer is the one who's already bought from you. and we call it life cycle marketing. And it's like trying to explain to them that…
  • social exchange — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Hold of those people? Oh gosh, there's so I'm I'm going to get into what I refer to as social exchange, which is a sociological term that talks about the I give to you, you…
  • feel-felt-found — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    I use feel felt found. I use feel felt found. Those are my I totally understand how you feel. other people have felt the exact same way. And what they found.
  • five levels of awareness — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Correct. What's the brand awareness? Eugene Schwarz talked about this before. This is the five levels of awareness that people go through. And this is psychology 101 when just don't get it. And it's okay.
  • oxalates — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That way. Nobody thinks that way. no, nobody is just Wow, spinach has so many oxalates. I wonder if I should.
  • post-menopausal women — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Particularly per pmenopause and post-menopausal women. Absolutely.
  • Vanity Metrics — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Success isn't about chasing vanity metrics or trying to be everything to everyone. It's about showing up authentically, building real relationships, and understanding that.
  • blue ocean strategy — Concept · 1 mention
  • HOT — Concept · 1 mention
  • perimenopause — Concept · 1 mention
  • return on ad spend (ROAS) — Concept · 1 mention
  • RFP — Concept · 1 mention
  • TBI — Concept · 1 mention
  • trade show — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • South Florida — Place · 1 mention · first at
    He forgot the name of the company and hired someone else. It's funny because we both live in South Florida and we drive by something that says your wife is hot. There's a there's a billboard that says love is hot.
  • White House — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Spoke right after Cali Means finished speaking. It's like so here's a White House adviser. Here's Mark coming up after him. and he's I'm not even I'm not even done questioning that you know what you're doing. How do we work with you?

Sponsors

  • free audit — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    To have conversations with them. We actually we do industry audits and stuff like this. So I offer a free audit to anybody who's listening if they just want to see that. Normally that's a $300 value.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Everyone thinks the secret to scaling past $10 million is better funnels and bigger ad spend. Today's guest, Mark Young, founder of Rise Agency, proves that's exactly why most brands get stuck. The show starts now.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I'm really excited to be on here. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

I appreciate the invite again. Again. Yes, we had a little bit of a kufflele the first time. We're glad to be back. We'll have to talk about that where my systems completely break down which hey you know what that was on me I apologize. So

mine do it too. So the for the few people who know who you are who don't know who you are tell us more about you. What do you do? Who are you?

Yeah so again I appreciate the invite. Um I am obviously Mark Young as you just said. Um I hate that question. Is that terrible? Like I'm just such a nonselfpromoting person that when someone's like tell me about yourself. I'm like you know I'd really rather talk about you. Um, who am I though? I'm a guy who just likes showing up in the world as a as a real version of me, I think. And especially I'm an advertising and marketing guy. Um, and I own an agency that is we specialize in direct to consumer and e-commerce marketing.

Um, so a lot of ecom stuff. We're media agnostic, but um, I I like showing up a genuine version to me, which by the way, I I use that, which sounds like real fluff language. I I acknowledge that. But the reality is is as a marketing guy, you kind of have the skills to show up however you want.

And I think it's a special skill set to not show up as someone you aren't. I think that's actually a a skill set if that makes sense.

From the beginning as an entrepreneur, you try to put your hat and put on different hats at the same time. Then you have to get back to going, well, who am I really? And have that authentic thing. Most people along the way.

Yeah. I don't want to be a chameleon. like I don't want to just fit into a situation like I want to I want to genuinely be me because I think there's especially in the marketing world and this is a lesson that I really really really double down with because the majority of the brands we deal with are entrepreneurial there and and I say that we really double down on the storytelling of that founder story um because the reality is is in the ecom world specifically like we have commoditized darn near everything that a person can buy in a commodity world we need to really focus and I know we may disagree a little bit here on some of this but the uh in a in a commoditized world relationship matters much more than transactions um because relationship leads to transaction transactions don't lead to relationship um and I think we just need to prioritize the way those things go so I say that with with the with the

founders and the entrepreneurs that I work through uh work with and coach on a regular basis like that's one of the things that I really really emphasize with them is genuinely be yourself. Quit trying to chase an audience that you're never going to resonate with. Um that that we need to get this loved by few rather than liked by many down. Um and I think the only way to do that is to be your authentic self. And and one of the things your marketing agency does differently than a lot of the other ones is your the people you interact with on a high level, these are high performers.

These are high earners. These are people in exceptionally high level. Yeah. These are business owners. These are entrepreneurs. These are in many cases uh we work with a lot of brands. I would say 80% of our of our our book of business is all working with health and wellness brands that and I would say that they're they're swimming upstream. Um because these are these are countercultural type brands that are supplements. They're medical devices. They're they're not big pharma. They're not, you know, they're not insurance covered things. They're they are they are um patient paid things, right? Like you're you're not getting this covered by insurance. We're not selling knee replacements. We're selling red light therapy devices that actually lead to reducing joint pain. Like very very different cell. Um and authenticity is so important in that conversation.

So they're actually selling things that actually help people is what you're saying

strangely. Yes. Imagine that. So like HBO and all those things. Yay. Good stuff.

Yeah. Good times. Good times. Yeah. Really, really helpful. Healthy stuff. Before we get into all that health stuff, I wanted to talk about, you know, in that environment that is a different niche that most people go into and it's different languages. For example, if I was going to create a way a dating website for women in their 20s, it would be very different verbiage and copy than a dating website for women in their 30s. Very different environment. You're talking to entrepreneurs who are ultra successful, who have now reached the point where they've got the lion that's been chasing them kind of in a cage. They've got funds under control, but now we're trying to penetrate a market that is that ultra that deca millionaire, that sent a millionaire, that environment that are in that.

There's a different way of communicating to that. How do you instruct and how do you work with your clients and what do you have them say? Well, I I'm going to say this that is it doesn't matter to me how much money that the entrepreneur has. Um I believe that every one of us um experiences that same um spectrum of emotions that is I love there there was a meme online years ago that was you know I'm I'm crushing it. Oh my god, I'm going bankrupt. This is amazing. You know, I'm I'm the best at what I do. Oh no, the world is going to end here if I don't finish this report. It's like and it's captioned a day in the life of an entrepreneur right?

This this this was not the entrepreneurs month, week, year. This this was literally a day in the life of an entrepreneur. And um and I will say that the the thing that that that I enjoy and and I laughingly say it's because my my educational background is actually in clinical psychology. And I say that I'm I tend to be the entrepreneur whisperer. Um and a lot of that is that entrepreneurs, high performers, anybody that gets to that that top position in their space. And it could be because you've got the top position in your company, right? So, no one understands where you're coming from because everyone else is on payroll. Um, and it could be that in your family, you're the highest performer, so no one at Thanksgiving understands the day you're having because no one around the table has you your experience. And it could be in the friend circle that you're part of. But, but the one thing about high

performers, these entrepreneurs, these people that I work with on a daily basis, there's a lot of rooms that they walk into that feel lonely. Yes. Um and and I I mean I'm sure you can relate to that in a lot of ways too, right?

Yeah. We I belong to something called EO in my 20s and I've never I don't drink. I never have. It's not my thing. But it really felt like like aa for entrepreneurs where you stand up you're like hi my name is Charles. I don't know the difference between my business life and my personal life. It's like oh yes because

yeah exactly welcome Charles welcome. Welcome here. Yes you are in the right place. And it is very lonely being a successful entrepreneur. So getting with them and connect with them you'd have to be a whisper on some level. Well, and and to that point, when I when I actually meet with new clients or or you know, even have conversations with people I've worked with for years, the the reality is is I always start with the human on the other side of the call. Um, and that is, you know, when I'm telling them, look, like in order to make our next step, like you've got a $10 million business and we're trying to grow it to a hund00 million business at this point and and telling them like I I'm going to give you a couple of options here on where we need to go with this, but please understand that me blue, you know, throwing a blue ocean kind of kind of plan to you doesn't mean that I don't understand your concerns

with cash flow. Like I'm a business owner as well. I realize that there are a lot of good things and and usually that's where the conversation goes is this and I tell them like there's a difference between a good business decision versus a good cash flow decision and usually they're at odds.

Yes. Because a good cash flow decision. What is it? Yeah. Very very often those two are at odds.

Absolutely. And I mean the idea that you know growth is fantastic but it comes with a cash cost and sometimes that cash cost means borrowing and sometimes borrowing means giving up margin and the growth isn't worth giving up the margin for the borrowing. Like sure you can grow the business but you just gave away any incremental profit that you just earned in interest from the borrowing. Like why why grow? Um, you know, I deal with with entrepreneurs on the regular who for for most entrepreneurs and I'm gonna say at that 10 million is really where I see the break point. Like that's a number like that is a number where I have when I have clients that are under 10 million like that is the target. Like it 8digit is their world. Um, and unfortunately I'm having a a conversation with them on the regular because I'm trying to throttle them back. But let me give an example. We may spend media efficiently or aggressively,

but you can't do both. Right. Right. Like when when we're buying whether it's digital media, radio media, whatever, whatever it is. And and I will get an entrepreneur. I have one in particular. In fact, true story, I just fired her recently. Um because she was just a bad client.

Mhm. But it was a bad client that I must have this and this and this. And you're trying to explain that we can spend aggressively because 10 million is your number and you want anything to hit 10 million. But in doing so, we're going to lose all of the efficiency and your accounting is so bad

that you're not even making profitable sales at this point. You're just chasing a $10 million number and then you're upset. Like you have to scale smart. So, I'm often putting plans out saying, "Look, we can get to your number, but it's going to come at a cost." And or we can make you a lot of money, but it's not necessarily going to get to your number at the rate you're trying to get there because there is scaling, there is testing, there is all of these things that need to go in there. Um, and unfortunately, I will say that where I find most entrepreneurs fail, particularly in the ecom world, is lifetime value. Mh.

And that is they are so busy trying to get a new customer on the books and transactions transactions transactions that they fail to realize that your best customer is the one who's already bought from you. Um, and we call it life cycle marketing. And it's like trying to explain to them that making a wreck of your followup is the fastest way to lose a customer. Um, and there was an example recently given, it was in a in a book that I just read, you know, Joe Polish. I'm sure you know Joe. Genius Network. Joe, like Joe's a good friend and I just recently read one of his older books and he was he Joe's a big deal in carpet cleaning was his big deal right?

And his book um Piranha Marketing and he gives the example of a guy who was so overwhelmed by the just the incredible work that this carpet company had done and he just loved it and he paid extra for it and so on and so forth and the next time he needed his carpets clean, he forgot the name of the company and hired someone else. It's funny because we both live in South Florida and we drive by something that says your wife is hot. There's a there's a billboard that says love is hot.

Yes. And it's an air conditioning company. Yeah. I was like, "What's the name of the air conditioning company?" And they're like, "Uh,

no clue." And people have no idea. Everyone knows the billboard, but it's a complete failure because they don't remember the name of the company. So, to your point with carpet%

you're you're not doing the follow-up. You're not building that relationship. You're not building that rapport. So, it's eating

Absolutely. If I bought from you once, I gave you permission to keep talking to me. And if you don't, it's a snub,

right? And people don't the follow-up is horrible. And it doesn't have to be a great deal of things. Like what are the ways that you encourage people to follow up with previous clients?

Um, so there's there's many and it really depends on the vertical that they're working in. The probably the way that I talk to my clients most often and and encourage them to do is a well-managed email database. Um, and that is I will say that there is a a false reality that Instagram followers are the way to go.

Um, and I I Huh. Thank you for saying that. I've been trying to get this in people's ears for

Yeah. Oh, it's a joke. Like, and and the problem is it's a vanity metric and nobody nobody wants to talk about it. That followers on social media is fine.

The problem is is and I'll draw this comparison for your listeners and say that it's a vanity metric. And the problem is is the algorithm is stacked against you to begin with because let's assume you have 10,000 followers on your Instagram feed at a high high number. The algorithm is only going to ever show your post to 5% of your audience.

That's an exception. I think you need one of that five. Two to two to two to three is normal, right? Because I remember I went live the first time I ever went live and I just got a 100,000 followers. I was like, "This is amazing. I'm going to have like 20 people on here when I go live." five people showed up

and I had like like 40 people. I was like, "What the?" And I felt horrible. I was like, "What's going on?" And then I watched Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, go live and he's got millions of followers and there was like 2,000 people. And I was like, "All right, I feel better now." And I logged off. I was like, "Okay, I feel better."

Well, the thing is that an ad that vanity metric is so so terrible because you take a 10,000 followers, that's 500 people are ever going to see your post. And yet we spend so much time curating that post so beautifully and making sure that the image is just shaded correctly. And it's like, and then the worst part about it is of the 500 people who ever see your post,

again, 500 is a really generous number because it's probably closer to two to 300, but we'll we'll play it generously. The reality is is most of the people that are part of the 500, the algorithm will find the people who usually engage with their posts because they think that those are your most active engaged audience. Well, that includes you. That includes me. That includes my marketing director. That includes the receptionist. That includes my friends, my wife. Like, and you run through this entire list and it's like you you're going through the list of your people and it's like, oh, this post has higher engagement than normal. And I'm like, literally, you're just entertaining yourself.

Yes. As opposed to 10,000 people on my email database. Let's say on a super low side, I mean a 25 to 30% open rate and I would be putting triage on your email database.

But a 25 to 30% open rate on email list means I just got 2500 to 3,000 people to hear the whatever message I wanted. And we spend so much time trying to get followers and not get a database sign up,

right? And we don't and we don't actively build that database. So like for example, we're getting correct,000 downloads a day on the podcast, which is wild, but we are doing nothing to those people.

That's that is that's tragic. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just Well, we had we're starting to work on it. So

yeah, if in those situations where it is tragic and you have to do triage, what are the things that you immediately tell people say, "Hey, you've got this, you've got this audience, people are coming to you, you want to build it, you want to sell more, you want to hit numbers that like because there's a big difference between what I want and what I really need." And that's a conversation you were having before, like, oh, I want to make 10 figures. I want to be a tech millionaire. Congratulations. But what I really need is if I had a half a million dollars of residual income coming in every year, I wouldn't show up for my job anymore. So that is a conversation that most entrepreneurs aren't willing to have.

And that's where people like you and I come in. I'm like, what do you really want? Let's have a real conversation. And people just aren't having that conversation.

So for those people trying to do that, how do you capture those? How do you gain what are the best ways to get a hold of those people? Oh gosh, there's so I'm I'm going to get into what what I refer to as social exchange, which is a sociological term that talks about the I give to you, you give to me because there's what we call reciprocity. And the the easiest way to actually work on building a database uh is this act of reciprocity like I generously give you something and then in exchange you intuitively feel the need to give me something in return. Um, so usually what we find in those email data I mean one let me let me back up quickly and say usually usually the way that most people end up building their database is they just it's an entire list of past purchasers.

Right. Right. Like so congratulations all the people who you talked into buying from you on your list but where are all the people who've never engaged with you? Like that becomes the bigger problem is how do we engage the people who are not there because those are the ones you still need to convert. like that's your colder list. Um, but we really really push, again, it really depends on the brand, but I'll give you an example. I have a um a list that I run um called Fitter Over 50.

Um, and it's a newsletter. It's 100% a newsletter. And I actually um put about $5,000 of my own money a month

into just getting leads um from Instagram and and Facebook. So, all meta platform where I pay about a dollar for an address.

Mhm. And and people get a promise that leads to a page that literally just says, you know, uh and I want to say that the sub sound terrible. It's fitter over50.life is the website, but it's a blog site and the entire blog site is 100% filled with articles about aging defiantly. Mhm.

And it's and I use the word aging defiantly because that actually se that that is an optin word

because I don't want to age gracefully. I have zero interest in aging gracefully, Charles. Like I turned 50 in about 3 4 weeks.

Congratulations. And oh, so I made it this far, right? Um but but literally turning 50

I got you by about a month and a half. I had hit 48. So I'm chasing after Oh, there you go. There you go. Same demo. Um, but the but the reality is is like turning 50. I'm like one of the things that was going through my head was like this is a thing. So for quite a while now I've been running this fitter over 50 database. I have tens of thousands of people on the database already partially because I bought them in. But what I measure on it isn't how many people I can buy. What I measure is the open rate,

right? Because the engagement that I get out of this audience is great. So I have thousands of people every week end up on this database who open this and read the articles and I can see how many people are clicking through. But the the whole point of the articles and again aging defiantly the voice of this newsletter that I write myself um is all set up in a you know screw what everyone else says about aging. Like uh this is ridiculous. Like I have no interest in in growing old. I have a you know I want to grow great and die suddenly. Like I have no interest in living forever, but I also have no interest in living in a feeble state. Like I'm going to do everything

versus quantity of life. You know, I spent eight years in a hospital. I want both.

And it's it would be great to have both. And with my I think there's things that are changing that. A friend of mine has, you know, intense TBI and he got into HOT and, you know, all these other therapies and it's completely reversing all of that. His biomarkers are changing and it's really cool stuff that he's done. So when you're going into that, you know, I know you mentioned you were buying the list. When you're providing value to them, since you're specifically writing

Exactly. Right. You know, you're you're using the laws of reciprocity. When you're providing value, how many value offers do you give before you ask? How many how many do you go?

Yeah. So So I will say that the the unusual thing about that particular list is because the I'm only asking the more information you ask from from a person, the less likely you are to get it.

Right. Right. If I ask you for your name and email address, all right, you can block me. You can unsubscribe. Like the the exit is pretty quick. If I ask you for your phone number also, whoa, the stakes just went up, right? People are a little bit weirder about that. I asked for your address. All right, delete. Like, we're done with this relationship. So, there is a way to stage that. Um, for me, I'm not looking for any of that information. I just want your name and phone and email address.

Um, and the reason is it says I'm going to promise you value from the beginning. That's a that's a get in on the list, join the movement, um become part of this. And every week I literally just provide value for zero ask.

Now, what we do with that list is overtime I build this this list that's got tens of thousands of people on this list. Well, now I end up throwing in a this, you know, this email sponsored by, right? Like maybe I maybe I do an aging hack that is uh you know related to cardiovascular fitness

and then at the end of cardiovascular fitness I I give you the recommendation of a nitric oxide supplement that I strongly recommend and by the way here's a coupon code if you want to try it. Now I'm playing the affiliate game.

The affiliate game becomes passive income. But the reality is is that again I'm doing that as a as a passive conversation with people.

Mhm. For entrepreneurs who are trying to sell their own products, it's about providing value. It's the reciprocity. It's like how are you educating people? How are you engaging people? Because the people who aren't willing to buy right now

are a different audience than the people who bought already. Yes. And the other thing that I find is that there is such a bent towards and part of it laziness by the way. Um and part of it's laziness on the part of your marketing department. So anyone who actually is doing this stuff and just doesn't see a result from it, it's because you got a lazy marketing team.

Uh because the reality is the people who have bought from you are an entirely different database and they need a different voice. They need a different offer. They need a different conversation. um you know, if I bought from you, we're already friends.

And there's such a voicing difference between people who are part of the family versus the people who are not

because I don't walk into other people's parties and just start talking as if we're familiar, we're not,

right? But at the same time, if I've already bought from you three times and you're talking to me like I'm a stranger, we we clearly don't have the relationship I thought we did. Um and actually, I'm going to laugh at this, Charles. My first book that I published was actually called Date Your Clients.

Mhm. Um, and what's funny is like the entire book is this walk through how the way that we treat relationships

and the way like you talked about if I wrote the copy for a dating site for a 20-year-old is very different on the way I would write copy for a dating site for a 40-year-old.

Date your clients is the same thing. It's like, why are we doing so many stupid things in business that we intuitively know how to do correctly when we're when we're in a dating relationship? Like, like you make a first impression really well when you're going on a date, right? You spend an extra half hour, you do a few extra pick push-ups, you vacuum the car, like you do these things because you just you prep for it. Like, you know, guys, like I hate to sound terrible, but it's like you make sure the house is clean because you just never know if you're coming back, right? like

you just you do these types of things intuitively, but when you go into a client meeting, like do you take that same type of care to make a first impression or is it just another Tuesday,

right? Like people don't prep. And what's what's horrible and we talk about this in relationships all the time. If you do what you did in the beginning, there won't be an end. And people talk about all the time in relationships. We talk about in business relationships as well. But a lot of people don't know how to value stack their offer either. They don't know how to provide enough value and and connect. So when you're talking to a demographic that is the hirer and they're at that higher level, what is the advice you give them? You sit down and say, "Okay, I've seen your offer.

What got you here won't get you there, right? We it's a Tarzan idea that, you know, Tarzan goes to the jungle blind to he's got to let go of what used to get him or he stops immediately."

Correct. So when you when you've got to let go, which is terrifying for a lot of people saying, "Well, no, this got me to ner

like, right, but that's not going to get you to 90, so let's pivot this around a little bit." when you're going through and you're working with them and you're helping pivot their offer and you're changing their value stack, what are some of the things and some of the questions and even some of the mistakes that they make?

Uh, yeah, good question. Well, the biggest mistake that I find most entrepreneurs make is that they they start to treat their teams like family and I know that sounds crazy from a guy who just said we need to value relationships more than transactions.

Right. But again, it's where you are in the stage, right? It's just where you are.

Correct. Correct. But every business has a life cycle. And the reality is is that the the people you spend all your time with now aren't the people that you spend all your time with in the next stage of life. Um, and part of that really boils down to, you know, you may have had a marketing team that got you to a certain stage, but that needs to shift. Um, and you need to find out if you have the right leadership team for the current stage of your business because I I assure you it's a different leadership team.

Yes. And if you have a leadership team that that people have been in your business for 20, 30 years, you you have the wrong team. Like I just recently had to move my COO out of the business. Um, and it was a painful thing. It was a long-term personal friend who had been with me for a long time through thick and thin, but it's like you can't get me to where I need to go and now you're hurting the business, right? And and the challenge for most entrepreneurs in that space is that and I and this is the advice that I give you. If you have a good team, they know when it's their time.

Yes. Like the team that resists that change is data telling you it's the wrong team.

Like it it if if you have the person on the other end of the conversation who says, "Look, I'm tapped. Like I'm I'm as far as I can take this.

You need what's next for you. The business needs a person better than me. That's maturity.

Um, and those people, I assure you, find somewhere else for them in the business because they add incredible value. But the person who's resisting the change is giving you the answer you need.

Regrettable. Um, and and that, right? And that can be your marketing director, that can be, you know, I was on a call yesterday, a new business call actually, with a guy that I met at a conference. He's he's looking for an agency to help launch an amazing tech product. He and I connected at a conference, totally, you know, just bromanced out, just super cool guy, very similar past trauma with the FDA. Um, like all this all this fun stuff. And and I mean, he starts the call. We we met at another conference a few weeks later. He was a guest on my podcast.

Like, go go go. We get on a call uh yesterday, in fact, and he invites his marketing director. Now, he starts the call. she's not there yet. And he's like, "Look, you obviously know what you're doing." He's like, "I'm not even asking that question." Like there there's no doubt to me that you're an expert in your field. You come from every recommendation that I can imagine. Like you've spoken on stages with people that are, you know, literally like I laughingly say that I the last conference that I was at with him, I spoke right after Cali Means finished speaking. It's like so you know, here's a White House adviser. Here's Mark coming up after him. and he's like, "I'm not even I'm not even done questioning that you know what you're doing. How do we work with you?"

Mhm. His marketing director joins the call and she takes the entire conversation into, "Well, I'm going to be preparing an RFP because there's a lot of agencies and as I prepare this RFP, you know, and and I'm like and and I'm trying not to whatever and I'm trying to explain to her that, you know, you can RFP if you're looking for someone to do your graphic design. you're in a product launch and if you believe that doing an RFP for an agency to do your product launch is more valuable than the experience and relationship that's sitting on the call right now.

Go do your RFP. Yeah, you told me everything I needed to know. Yes, correct. Thank you so much for sharing everything.

And I want to call him afterwards because he got super weird as soon as she started saying those things.

And and I want to call him afterwards and be like, "Dude, you've got the wrong marketing director." Like I don't want to sound terrible, but don't hire us so that way I don't seem biased. Like find someone else. Don't hire me because that way it doesn't sound like I'm trying to sell you into what I do. For your sake, this girl is going to hurt you.

Yeah, 100%. If there's that type of resist, as we said before, what got you here won't get you there. There's just no

when she's probably done great for him. Absolutely. She got him to probably the, you know, 9 million and that's wonderful and muscle. And that takes that you're already in the top x%. But you're not going to do%. It just

go find another company and help them get to 90 million that that's your gift. Go from there. You know, you're a you're a middle runner. You're not the you're not a closer. Go over there.

And the truth is is a business is a relay race. Yes. And and the truth is is the first runner has a different skill set than the second runner has a different skill set than the closer. Like

it's just it's a different point in the race, right? And I think it's your agencies as well. There are certain agencies that I've worked for and said, "Hey, you're doing great.

I can't get you farther than this." And I referred business over to those people all the time like, "Hey, this is more of a product fit. This is a product. Go do that versus this." Because having that authenticity and showing up as your real self, which kind of goes back to what you said in the beginning.

I I 100% agree with you. And I have I have a very very good friend of mine runs a hundred million dollar operation. And he's been like, "How can I how can we how can we loop you into all of this?" And I'm like the type I mean we can do graphics work for you. I'll gladly consult with you but

in terms of what you need as an agency like we're very much like you're not a retail product as as in terms of go going to big box because it's a very niche novelty product and I'm like you're not going to go to major retail which means I can't support you in television. I can't support you in mass media because that's not your thing. you're a relationship business that's going to be built on sea stores and going to be built on, you know, duty-free and all this other kind of stuff. Like, you're not going to Kroger. You're not going to Target.

And and I'm like, and you're not a direct to consumer business either. And I'm like, I'm not your guy, right? Like, I I'm not your guy. Like, you've got a couple of niche brands that I can absolutely help you support, but your primary business, it's it's not

it's not my it's not my thing. I don't want to play a game, I lose, right? Because it's a waste of everyone's time at that point.

So, absolutely. When you run into those situations where people are trying to get to that next level and you have to redesign their offer, how much of that do you sit with them going, "Okay, you know, this is what you used to say here and and versus over here because there was a there was a guy that I met at an event and he was talking about selling his his product that didn't have any chemicals and it was all this beauty skincare and all that." and how he was pitching it to me. I was like that that's not going to work in the market that you're trying to get into. So, we had to redesign his whole offer. When you run into those situations, how do you pivot the offers and how do you work with the the owners who might be married to something that again got them here, won't get them there?

Yeah. And again, I'm going to say there's a lot of contingencies in there because it really depends on the brand. It depends on what the product is. Um, it depends if the brand is a premium brand versus a a lower one. Um, I've had a lot of brands that just run 20% off, 20% off

kind of stuff. And my guy's like, that's what put Bed Bath and Beyond out of business.

Um, you know, Bed Bath and Beyond became the place that everybody got their 20% off coupon in the mail every month. And then no one ever went to Bed Bath and Beyond until the coupon showed up. And it got to the point that they just had a stack of them at the cash register.

Mhm. You know, and you went to Bed Bath and Beyond. And if you didn't have a coupon with you, the cashier just grabbed one out of the stack and gave you your 20% off. It's like

you're devaluing whatever somebody's buying. And yet, what I will say is we work with some brands that are just gang busters on Amazon because that's where they've made their niche, right? Like they've managed to be a commoditized discount brand. Most of the brands we work with in the health and wellness space, I encourage them to be premium.

Um to offer incentives where incentives are necessary. Um, but I think what the hardest thing to deal with right now when you're talking about making that pivot on messaging is we live in a very omni channel world

and too many brands who get to that $10 million have built their brand on very lowhanging fruit single channel outlets. You know, they've they've found a big influencer in the space who was able to pump their sales up and get them a an engaged audience. They've, you know, they found a metafunnel that was able to get them good sales conversion dollars. They found a really good lifetime value so the same 3,000 people buy from them every month. Like they found a way to get to that $10 million.

I think the biggest challenge for brands that are trying to break that ceiling and where it's hardest for them is an omni channel approach that works in harmony. Um because for instance what people don't get I just had this conversation with a client the other day and that is sure your your rorowass your return on ad spend on meta isn't as high as your return on ad spend at Google but if we lower the meta spend your Google rorowass is going to go down also because one channel is creating intent while the other one is actually getting the conversion and as a weighted meer

your your return is amazing right like they've got omni channel what you were talking about earlier is that you've got to be everywhere in a lot of ways.

Correct. And and and also they're at trade shows, they're working with influencers, they're they're they're doing podcasts, they're they're in all of these other places. So, they are getting a lift from everything, which not only makes our job easier because they're doing a lot of the the footwork in being present in places, but we have other other companies that we work with that trying to get them to even be a guest on someone else's podcast is like pulling teeth. And we're like, guys, you're trying to build a business on the back of a Facebook landing page.

And if it doesn't work, then the business model isn't working. The landing page is broken. The ads must not be attractive enough. And we're like, you I mean, literally, this is a brand. And for anybody who knows this stuff, this will make sense. And if not, I don't think there's a lot of value in unpacking it right here. but that they're getting a a like a 3% click-through rate

on their on their ads with a 4% conversion rate on a landing page and talking about how, you know, this just needs to improve. It's just not working. And I'm like, guys, like those numbers, like most of our clients would be begging to get those kind of click-through rates and those types of conversion rates. Like they would kill to have that. Now granted, you're in a category that's making your CPMs high and whatever, but the reality is is you need to fix your offer or something, but the problem is is you're you're literally trying to do business in this silo and measuring your silos silo by silo. And that's not the way the world works anymore. Like this is, you know, I'll quote Hillary Clinton and say like in order to build a business, like it takes a village. Like we we need to be all of this stuff needs to be working together. So when we say omni channel, it's not go get a Tik Tok influencer.

It's not get a better ad, you know, Google ads. It's and it's all this together.

When some we always teach people in the beginning, you know, master one channel first, lock into that, get really good at least one and then start branching out. When people go into that branching out and they try and do more things that that cover that more of that scope, what are the ways that you have them present differently or just say, "Hey, you know what worked on TikTok? keep doing that over in Graham or what worked on the podcast really works in your email. How do you tell them to show up differently or the same way?

It depends on the channel. It depends on who the founder is because sometimes you get a really dynamic founder

who can show up in all channels and be relatable. Um sometimes you get a founder who needs to hire somebody to be the face of their company.

Um and that matters. It very much matters how that person shows up, if they're even capable of doing what they think they're capable of doing. Um, so yeah, in some channels it works, in other channels it doesn't. When you've got a, you know, a a Tik Tok influencer as a founder, easy, easy done. I just I just had the Navan sisters on my podcast recently and it's like I thought they were 25 years old. They're 42year-old twins.

And I was like, how in the world are you 42 years old? And I mean, statuesque, beautiful, ripped bodies, perfect presentation. And I'm like, you are your own brand. Like, you literally, they got a they've got a a a healthcare coaching business for women as well as uh a uh skincare line. And I'm like, literally, anybody who sees you is like, I want to be you. What do you do? like that's literally the way this is because they're the girls that you know every guy wants to be with and every girl wants to be

and like you're your own ant. But I've got other clients that are 60some year old bald men who no one take

Yeah. No one wants to take health advice from you. Like I don't want to look like you. I don't want to be you. And I tell my own uh I tell my own staff here on a regular basis. Like as I just said to you, like I'm turning 50, you're turning 48, right? Like I don't think anybody's guessing either one of our ages.

No. And that's my brand, right? My my brand is literally aging defiantly when we talk about defiantly. Yeah. If you were

I have to age defiantly or it doesn't work anymore. Correct. Correct. Like I leave work at 6:00 every day to go to the gym.

And it's And for me, like while I enjoy it and all that other kind of stuff, the reality is is I'm leaving here to go to the gym, but that's a continuation of my work day.

Yes. 100%. Absolutely. And that that is part of my brand. Yeah. I think that's one of the mistakes that people make is they don't understand that they in a lot of ways are their brand. And when you're talking really high-end deals, we talked we were talking about this before we started rolling that, you know, people will focus on the result before the person. When you get to those lower ones, you've got to buy the person first. It just it is what it is. It just depends on what's going on.

What are some of the mistakes? You know, you just talked about one not looking like your brand. If you're selling a luxury thing and you're showing up in a pair of shorts wearing a Fitbit, it's going to be hard to sell that luxury item at that point. What are some of the mistakes that business owners make that you run into that are just you would wish they would handle this way before they ever showed up at your door?

Oh gosh, that's a wide openen question. I I tried to make it easy for you. Yeah. Uh good question. Um what are some of the mistakes that I think people make when they show up? I I will I'm just going to give you an answer on that and I'm not even going to say that it's the superlative, but it is an answer that comes to mind.

Um I don't close people. I I don't make a point of trying to sell anybody anything I do. I make a point of showing up to add value authentically and should that resonate with that person, we build a relationship from there. When when I'm having a guest on my podcast, for instance, like one of the things that drives me crazy is when the person shows up on the podcast and I'm like, "Hey, it's so good to have you here today." You know, blah blah blah. We do our little intro and and they're immediately, you know, they're they're holding their product.

Yeah. They're trying to sell like this is what we're doing. I'm like, "Oh my god." Yeah. What are you doing?

You need to stop. No one wants to listen to this podcast. Like, I didn't tune into the commercial channel, right? I I tuned in because I wanted to learn something and you're not helping me learn anything other than you're trying to sell me something. I said, "That's disingenuous. it comes across terrible. And the truth is is when I I don't know if you do the same thing, but we just had a meeting about it yesterday, in fact, with my on my production team because there was a bunch of podcasts that we recorded when we were on location at a conference a month or two ago, and I'm like, "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope." And 100%

what what would have been episodes turned into bonus material. You're welcome to go throw them on the channel. They are not an episode.

100%. I just I literally just had that. This was a very very impressive founder of a very famous company came on. We did the whole studio thing. We did everything. But the individual we brought with him just pitched the whole time and I stopped the interview multiple times. I was like, listen, you got to stop doing that. You're not providing enough value. No, I I'll edit this part out. You have to stop doing this. And at the end of the day, my my team edited this like, we got nothing. This isn't this we can't do this. And I was like, no one will ever see that episode because I'm like, sorry, just it's not going to happen. Well, and and we'll edit them down into shorts and and we will post them on the YouTube channel. Um, and we'll get some shorts out of it. We'll we'll do some reals that'll, you know, out takes, whatever we want to do with the footage and not necessarily throw it away. But it's like

if you show up on my podcast and you're just holding your product in your hand and and when I say, "Hey, so so I want to get in this conversation with you about nutrition." Yes. My product is the most nutritious on the

click. Yeah. Click edit. Done. Yeah. you know, and I'm forever and I'm always trying to unwind that conversation with them and going, "Wow, you know, that's really cool. I want to get to that,

right? But like I first need to understand why I have the problem before I care that you solved it."

And simple marketing feels don't start with fix. Absolutely. Start with feel felt then.

I use feel felt found. I use feel felt found. Those are my you know, I totally understand how you feel. You know, other people have felt the exact same way. And what they found

Well, it's this this Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And and and it's these little things that prove it. Yeah. It's just that don't tell me the problem. I mean, don't give me the solution yet. Make sure I trust you and respect you and like everyone say KT. I was like, reverse that. Anyway,

and I'll I'll say this like it's not and sometimes it's a matter of people aren't even aware that they have a problem.

Correct. What's the brand awareness? You know, Eugene Schwarz talked about this before. This is the five levels of awareness that people go through. And this is psychology 101

when just don't get it. And it's okay. How many people walk around all day and go, "Wow, I feel nutritionally depleted." Like, nobody nobody feels that way. Nobody thinks that way. Like, no, nobody is just like, "Wow, spinach has so many oxalates. I wonder if I should."

Yeah. They don't go, "Look at all the oxalates today. What's happening?" Exactly. Nobody thinks that way. And and trying to get so many products and so many people like I've got a comp stories. I've got a client right now that is selling a product that that increases bone density,

you know, and it's like necessary. Yes. Like should people be taking it? Yes. Particularly per pmenopause and post-menopausal women. Absolutely. Taking care of bone density is an issue particularly whatever. And I'm like guys like nobody walks around and goes, "Man, my bones feel fragile today."

Like the only time I ever feel that is in the ER, right? and you're not selling at that point,

at which point it's too late. And like the only way to do this is to talk about and we did this full advertorial that I thought was brilliant to be honest with you. And the the whole advertorial was written in the voice of a woman who was sitting looking at her mom in a hospital bed with a broken hip.

Yeah. And and having a conversation with herself about, man, I I feel so helpless. there's nothing I can do for her and the only actionable step I can do is never to be her.

Right? And it's the conversation of Advil. Like what? Advil doesn't sell ibuprofen. Advil doesn't sell pain relief. Advil sells a little pill that you can get back to your life. The little pill that's going to be able to drive your kid home from school. Sell the result, not what the product's made of. This isn't complicated, but people lose this all the time. And it makes me want to drive a car into We just had car problems. We'll talk about that later. We already ran through enough car problems for

I can't drive a car. I can't get through the DMV. You can't get through the DMV down here. So,

I'm not even allowed to drive a car. What are you talking about? So, if people wanted to get a hold of you and and and do this better and track you down and say, "Listen, I've already I've done really well. I've gotten to the, you know, I've done the seven figure mark. I'm just about to get to eight. How how do people get a hold of you? How do they get in touch with you? What's the best course of action?"

Well, I appreciate that and I would love to have conversations with them. We actually we do industry audits and stuff like this. So I offer a free audit to anybody who's listening if they just want to see that. Normally that's a $300 value.

Free audit to anybody who reaches out and mentions your name. But um our agency is Rise Agency ryzaggency.com or they're welcome to look me up at the markyou young.com. Um all that it's probably easier to remember the markyou young than it is how to spell rise. But if they go to the markyou young.com they can learn more about me. They can follow me on social, they can find agency links, they can see my books, um, anything like that's all available there. It's kind of my whole life in a in a landing page. But, um, yeah, that would be the easiest way. But anybody who's interested in just seeing what the industry looks like, um, we've got tools where we pull what are the competitors doing, how are they marketing, what's successful for them, and then give some tips on that best roadmap. And that does not mean that they have to do business with us. Um, we can also do one of the things I will say that most businesses

that are reaching that 8 to 10 million mark struggle with, which is another kind of an entry-level tool that we use. Um, they struggle because they've intuitively felt their way to 8 to 10 million. Like there comes a point that you just kind of know what the bank balance is and you kind of know what the inventory in the warehouse looks like and you feel like you know the voice of your consumer. Once you get past that 810 million mark, where a lot of businesses struggle is understanding how to run a business from metrics and not gut feeling.

Yes. I I tell people, you can brute force your way to 10 million. You're not going to get

correct. Past past 10 million. Past 10 million, there's no way to do it without understanding KPIs. And one of the things that we also do is um you know, we we do NDAs and everything, but what we can do is actually take two years worth of your transactional data.

Mhm. and actually back that in to KPIs and actually give you data on how your business has performed going and it literally will just take all of that information and turn it into a KPI reference sheet

which will give you information about what is your lifetime value, what are your repeat customer rates and give you some industry baselines on all of that kind of stuff too. So just some really good information that I think any business that's trying to turn that corner um could really use. Um, so we can bang those out. So, anybody who's listening, by all means, reach out. We can give you some some information on that and and really uh give you some insight into your own business that you might not even have because you've brute forced your way to where you are. And I think it's time that that people who are trying to make that switch start working a little smarter than harder because none of us are getting younger too, right?

Even though have better names, last names that are actually that, we don't. You have the last name of Young. It's kind of true.

I do. I do. I'm the marketing guy who works in longevity. I'm Mark Young. This kind of wrote itself.

Yeah, you Yeah, it's really easy. All right, Mark. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on.

I appreciate you, buddy. Good seeing you. Success isn't about chasing vanity metrics or trying to be everything to everyone. It's about showing up authentically, building real relationships, and understanding that what got you here won't get you

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The 8-Figure Whisperer - Mark Young"?

In order: 0:00 Mark Young, Proven Podcast, red light therapy devices, Rise Agency; 5:00 cash flow, clinical psychology, entrepreneur whisperer, life cycle marketing; 10:00 email database, Genius Network, Joe Polish, Piranha Marketing; 15:00 Fitter Over 50, reciprocity, social exchange; 20:00 Date Your Clients, nitric oxide supplement, reciprocity; 25:00 Cali Means, White House; 30:00 omni channel, Influence, lifetime value; 35:00 Influence, Navan sisters; 40:00 feel-felt-found, five levels of awareness, free audit, oxalates; 45:00 KPI reference sheet, lifetime value, Mark Young, Vanity Metrics.

What is mentioned in this The Proven Podcast episode?

49 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including omni channel, Mark Young, lifetime value, reciprocity, Influence, Rise Agency. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The 8-Figure Whisperer - Mark Young"?

The episode runs 47 min; the transcript is about 10,098 words in 163 timestamped sections.

More from The Proven Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 19, 2025.