Marcus Chan - Founder of Venli Consulting Group: Starting a Business from an eBook, Succeeding in Sales, Asking Better Questions, and Being Self-Aware

Marcus Chan  00:00

So I was testing on Instagram. And this was when Instagram was really starting to get really hot, because it was like 2015, 2016. So built a little following there. And I just launched this ebook, right? And I remember like, within an hour, I made 995. And I'm like, oh my God, someone from the internet paid me money.

Callan Harrington  00:19

You're listening to That Worked, a show that breaks down the careers of top founders and executives and pulls out those key items that led to their success. I'm your host, Callan Harrington, founder of Flashgrowth, and I couldn't be more excited that you're here. Welcome back to another episode of That Worked. We have a really exciting show. This week I'm joined by Marcus Chan. Marcus is the founder of Venli Consulting, where he helps account executives sell and earn over $100,000 each year through his coaching and training programs. Marcus is an official member of the Forbes Business Council and has been featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, and many others. He is a three time Salesforce top sales influencer and the Wall Street Journal best selling author of Six Figure Sales Secret. This was a high energy episode. Marcus has had an incredibly successful career. And what I love about Marcus is that he's not afraid to talk about his mistakes. We dive into the power of asking ourselves better questions in order to get to better answers. We talk about the mistakes he made when he moved from an individual contributor to a manager. And one of the most exciting areas was talking about his founder story. Marcus was way ahead of the social selling game and started his business from an ebook. Now my favorite part of the interview was diving into what Marcus calls the four F's, optimizing for fortune, family, freedom, and fulfillment. And if nothing else, it really makes you think about what's important in your life. So with that, let's jump into the show. Today's guest, we are joined by Marcus Chan. Marcus is the founder of Venli Consulting. Marcus, welcome to the show.

Marcus Chan  02:26

Hey, I'm pumped to be here. We had a fun jam here last time. I'm excited to be back. Thank you for welcoming me back.

Callan Harrington  02:32

It was the fastest turnaround ever. I was super excited, man. We could have kept that one. When we first spoke. I was like, man, I wish we just had this recording. I wish we had this one recorded.

Marcus Chan  02:44

Totally.

Callan Harrington  02:45

So we're going to recreate the magic. So tell us a little bit about Venli Consulting.

Marcus Chan  02:49

Cool, super simple. So I work directly with B2B sales professionals, or account executives who sell fullcycle sales or are in the closing part, I help them earn additional $100,000 or more each year in commissions alone, but absolutely dominate in their industry.

Callan Harrington  03:03

All right. So I know you have about fifty million different situations you can talk about. But there's one I want to hear about. Tell us about the most interesting thing that happened to you when going outbound.

Marcus Chan  03:17

So I grew up in a world where I didn't know what inbound marketing was, didn't know what inbound lead was. I've done all types of cold prospecting. That's everything from cold calls, cold emails, knocking on doors, sending emails, doing all those things. And you can imagine when you do so much, but when you have zero inbound, we do so much outbound, you always run into really interesting things that are surprising, and weird, and funny, or potentially scary at the time. And I remember one of the most memorable times is actually early on, when I was trying to figure out how to effectively go door to door to businesses, like literally walking into businesses, and knocking on doors and this is back in 2007, this in the last recession. So businesses were shutting down. People, were pissed, people are angry, things are going suddenly a little crazy, unemployment going to 11% plus. And I remember there was this prospect that I had targeted, I knew it'd be a great prospect, like this guy spends a lot of money, he has a huge opportunity. But every time I would cold call the phones, or would email, or do any type of outbound that way, I could never break through. And what's interesting about the building was it was an old part of Portland in Portland, Oregon, where the main office for some reason the way it was set up, it was behind these closed garage doors. So there's all these roll downs, it's a very industrial part of Portland. And that was the only way in. And one day I was in the field. And I saw that the doors were actually rolled open. And they had regular glass doors right behind them like. I'm like, oh, perfect! This is awesome. Here's my opportunity. And I see some guys moving around through this  glass door. I can see him in there. So I go in, and I walk in, and I walked into this huge warehouse. And there's a bunch people moving around. There's just dozens of employees. And they're kind of gruff and rough around the edges and they're like, "hey, what can I do for you?" I'm like, "oh, I'm here to see Peter." And they're like, "okay," and Peter is the owner. I probably shouldn't have done this, they're like, "is he expecting you?" And I'm like, "sure." (laughs)

Callan Harrington  05:07

Oh, you have to say it. (laughs)

Marcus Chan  05:10

I'm like, sure! I must sound at  least confident enough the time. So then I'm like, all right, so okay, so it's like in this really old building in Portland. So they take me down from this hallway. And they point to this room, and I walk into the room. And the room is almost pitch black. There's like no lights on. It was like a movie, and probably like ten, twenty feet in is a desk. I can see there's a desk lamp and a computer and a guy on the computer. And he's like facing, but everything around is like complete pitch black. I'm like, oh, okay, it's kind of weird. That's fine, whatever. And I can see on his face. He has a big scowl on his face. He just like- he just looks pissed, right? I'm like, okay, well, here goes. And I walk up. I try to be your typical salesy person back then, kind of trying to figure out how to sell. And I was like, "hey, Peter, how's going?" You know, my name is Marcus, blah, blah. You know, you probably got my phone calls and emails, hahaha.Trying to make some stupid joke. And he starts like, in the middle of my pitch, he starts shaking his head side to side, and he says, "you fucking salespeople." You could see on his face. It's almost like a kettle or a pot of water starting to boil. I could see him get redder and redder. I'm like oh, hey, you know- hey, you know, I'm not trying to like sell you something right here. You know, I just wanted to set some time aside to have a conversation with you. And he keeps shaking his head, he's like, "you guys never fucking learn." Okay, you know, I'm like, haha, you know, I'm not really sure how to- I have no idea how to handle the situation. He reaches into his desk. He grabs something. I don't know what he grabs. He pulls it out. He puts it on the table. It's a gun. And immediately I stop talking. I'm like, oh, okay. You know what? Obviously, I caught you at a terrible time. I will be on my way. And I started backing away. And picks the gun up, and starts walking toward me, "you guys never learn." I'm like, oh my God. I just raced out. I just take off. Now fortunately he didn't come after me, right? And I'm freaked out. Completely freaked out. This has never happened to me before. Because, you know, number one, no one's ever pulled a gun on me before. Number two, didn't expect it to happen. Number three, I'm walking like businesses. So this is like not someone's residential home. This is like an actual business. So I'm like, I'm freaking out. So I don't know what to do. So I sit in my car. You know. First I drove off, like in case he comes out. I drove somewhere. I'm like, I just need to like, kind of like- I'm frazzled. I don't know how to deal with this. So, I call my boss. And my boss is like, kind of old school, but you know, been around like, seen some- he served in one of the wars, and he was just kind of rough around the edges. And I call him and I'm like, "Hey, Paul. Uh, something just happened. I don't know if we need to report this. I don't know if we should do something. But this guy that I've been like, trying to like cold call and knock on the door and try and, you know meet with. I just saw him." "Oh, great, how'd it go?" I'm like, "terrible, he pulled a gun on me." He's like, "oh, pulled a gun on you?...did he fire any shots?" I'm like, "no." "Are you okay?" I'm like, "I'm kind of freaked out but like, didn't get shot. Yeah. "Did you get hurt?" I'm like, "No, no, I'm totally fine." He's like, "Oh, so hold on- you didn't get shot, you're not hurt, and he didn't fire any shots at you. He just pulled a gun out. That's it?" "Yeah." He's like, "but you're okay?" I'm like, "I guess." "Okay, get back to work." And that was our conversation. All right. Okay. Now, I wish I could say that I was so tenacious, and I worked so hard, and then a year later, I went and closed him. I never called that guy ever again. Never again.

Callan Harrington  08:20

Oh, man. Here's what's probably the worst part. For me what stuck in my head is 100% your manager. It's like, alright, we'll finish your rounds. (laughs)

Marcus Chan  08:30

I know. I know. I was like, okay, okay, okay. You know, he was like, every door every floor. Right? More hands you shake the more money you make. I'm like, alright, okay, well, got it. Got it.

Callan Harrington  08:42

Noted, that is now sticking in. Oh, that's such a good story. I love that you share that. So to segue into that, where where are you at this point in your career?

Marcus Chan  08:54

Yeah. So at that point, I was like, it's still- I was about about six months into my career. I had never wanted to be in sales. I didn't really see it as a career. I saw that more of a stepping stone at the time. It was more so I didn't know I wanted to do. So when this opportunity came up when I graduated. It was right before the recession started, things started getting kind of crazy. It was this opportunity for B2B sales for a stock division for major Fortune 500 company. So I'm like, okay, cool. Like, let's go do. It was this opportunity to build something from scratch. I didn't realize and you kind of learn a lot at that time, like I didn't realize we didn't really have product market fit. And there's things I learned later on, that I didn't know it was called the time. There was no inbound leads. So I didn't know about lead flow. I didn't know about marketing. So we had to become our own marketing and sales machine. So that was like a lot to learn, because even on day one- you know, I'm excited because you know, fresh college grad, fresh haircut, I had to wear a full suit at the time, or wear a shirt and tie at the time. And I go to my boss's office on day one, he gives me a manual that's like, you know, two inches thick. Written by people who had never done the job before. He's like, "Here you go. Good luck." Right? So that was my first taste into B2B sales. And then I didn't know what to do. So what should I do first? He's like, "Oh, cool, I want you to go knock on some doors first." Because remember, we did have a CRM, but we didn't have any leads inside. So-

Callan Harrington  10:04

Great place to be. Yeah.

Marcus Chan  10:06

Great. Exactly. Like, you know, they didn't buy it. They didn't do any of those things. It was we had to go get the data and put it inside. So like, okay, so like, what do I do? He's like, "go outside, and go right, and don't come back until you get thirty business cards." I'm like, "okay, all right, that sounds good." Right? So that was like my first dive into B2B sales was like learning right in the field, in the recession, where businesses are shutting down, how to knock on doors, cold call, and actually sell people within four zip codes somthing that did not product market fit.

Callan Harrington  10:38

Man, it's funny. I started out as an insurance agent and financial advisor at the exact same time. And I'm from Toledo, Ohio, which is directly tied to Detroit. Well, if you weren't following along, Detroit didn't do so hot during that recession.

Marcus Chan  10:52

Oh, yeah.

Callan Harrington  10:53

So I could empathize with that. So when did you start to have that turning point in sales, just in general, where you started to click, you clearly wanted to do it, because you kept doing it, as you've mentioned, when you didn't really know what you're doing. Doesn't sound like and I've read in some of your posts, like "I wasn't that great at it when I started." What were those turning points that it was like, okay, I started to figure this out and I started to see a lot of success after that?

Marcus Chan  11:18

Well, I think the first point of self actualization is realizing you suck. And that's like, first point, right? And I think a lot of times people aren't willing to admit that and own that. And if that's the case, they can't fix it. So I went to a library, I went and got books. One of the things that I ran into was Tony Robbins book, Awaken the Giant Within. And this is kind of my first step into like, the personal growth space. And then, inside the book, one of the things he said that really stuck with me ever since was, "if you don't like the answer, ask a better question." And that was really interesting to me. Because I realized at that point, every time something bad happened to me, I walk into business and someone pulls a gun on me. I'm like, oh, my God, what's wrong with them? They're crazy, etc. I've walked in the businesses and dogs have bitten me. I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong with them? Why did they let that dog loose? I've had you know, people yell at me, curse at me, etc. and I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong with him? Why is he a con man? Why is there a recession? Why don't I get any training? Why don't I have a tech stack? Why is my boss terrible? Why is everyone doing better than me? And all these excuses... And because of that, I was asking myself these bad questions and I got bad answers. So the first turning point was realizing I should ask better questions. And it sounds so simple, but that was the first stage, which was being able to learn from a mistake, but learn the right lesson from the mistake. Because most people learn the wrong lessons. Can you learn the right lesson when you make a mistake, so you can actually get better from there. So for example, let's say I had a cold call, let's say I got absolutely destroyed, which happened a lot. And instead of saying, what's wrong with me? I could shoot the question, what have I learned from this? You know, I learned I need to do better research beforehand, because when I called I asked for someone who wasn't even there and never been there before. Interesting. So lesson from that, do research in advance, so I have the right people in advance. Interesting, small detail, big difference. The second transitional point was about seven weeks in, because I was still not performing well. I was still the worst rep possible. That's when I got threatened with a PIP. Sometimes we don't realize how one dot connects the other dot until a little bit later on. So one of the dots that happened up front first was, at this point, I was pretty stressed, and I go get an annual checkup with my doctor, you know, blood tests, etc, do all the normal things. And my blood pressure had really skyrocketed since the last time I'd been there like a year prior. You know, and I'd gained a little bit of weight as well. And I probably wasn't as healthy as I could have been. You know, the doctor kind of started to dive into my situation. And by the end of the conversation, I basically had committed to eating healthy, right, working out more, being healthier, and making some changes to my life. And I thought to myself, like, wait a minute, how did my doctor convince me to do that? And I realized there was no convincing. They influenced me. But I was like, how did they influence me? All they really did wass just ask me questions. Really good questions that made me become insightful to my own situation, they made me realize, I've been making all these mistakes. And because now I knew there was a problem, they just show me a very simple solution. So there's no selling, they suddenly influenced me to that point. And I realized this whole time, in my sales process, I had been doing the opposite. I walk in, ask a couple questions, and be so focused on the pitch, you know, the feature, maybe some of the benefits, trying to pitch them, trying to convince them to buy from me, and I realized that was actually holding me back from selling. So from there, I started kind of realizing like, man, I could really improve my process. And I kept refining, refining, refining it. And that third month I went from like bottom to number one in month three. And then, what's really interesting was, so I stayed number one for next four months in a row. And then my boss's boss said, "okay, Marcus, you're doing pretty good. We have opportunity for you." I'm like, great, what's up? He's like, "we're gonna move you to a different operation. And we want you to do is we want you to go over there, we're not going to pay you more, we're not gonna give you a title bump, we want you to lead the small team there (three people total, two actual reps there) and we want you to turn the place around."

Callan Harrington  14:57

Did you want to be in sales leadership?

Marcus Chan  14:59

I didn't really know. I thought I did. Right? I wasn't really sure. But I was like, okay, this makes sense. Cuz there's kind of a linear path that comes in on the B2C business side, they kind of have a linear path, right? At the time it was like an eighteen billion dollar company. So it was a very linear path. I'm like, cool. So it's kind of a incentive to try and meet on the B2B side. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. I'd be cool with that, I guess. Yeah, for sure. That sounds exciting. That's a good opportunity for me. So, I took it. And this is another turning point. Because that first step into leadership, I realized how hard leadership is. Anyone who's gone from an individual contributor to leadership, you realize pretty quickly no one's you. And, you know, from a value systems, beliefs, execution, habits, routine, work ethic. You realize very quickly, they're not you. So, I botched up pretty badly, at first.

Callan Harrington  15:40

How so?

Marcus Chan  15:41

So, I'm a planner by nature. Most people closed maybe two accounts a month. I was closing eight to ten accounts every single month, new fresh blood, right? Completely cold. Okay, so I'm like, I'm doing something right, obviously. So how can I replicate success? So I went, and I mapped out a thirty, sixty, ninety day plan. And I'm like this is what we're going to do. So, I had it all together. And then day one, I'm with the small crew. And I'm excited, right? Now, I'm also not really reading the room, because their manager just quit and they actually really liked the manager, but they're doing terrible. So I came in, new guy who actually was younger than all of them, been at the company for less time, running circles around, them did not realize that they had painted me as the golden boy. I was like the guy who was like hotshot intern, crushed it as an intern. Yeah, he struggled at first, but now he's crushing it here. He's like, the teacher's pet basically. I didn't realize that at the time. So day one, I'm huddling with them, I'm like, "hey everyone, listen, like, I know, you know, you guys haven't performed here, but I got a plan for thirty, sixty... we're gonna do A, B, C, we're gonna change all these things..." I go through my whole plan. I look at their faces after like fifteen minutes. And they're just, they're just not having it. I don't know how to handle that. All right, cool, like, let's just do our thing today, you know, ha ha ha, alright... I tried to roll it off. I remember going to my girlfriend, now wife, girlfriend at the time. And she's like, how was your first day? You know, as you're like, pseudo manager. You know, I'm like, I think I should just stay just in the sales role. Right? She's like, "what do you mean?" I'm like, well, they just don't get it. I was so naive and so egotistical about myself, right? I'm like, I've been number one for the last four months, which is a pretty short time when you think about it, all things considered. I'm like I've been it for four months. And I have this master plan and they wouldn't even listen to me, right? And she's like, "well, how are they feeling?" Like, I don't know. They just do what I say. She's like, "do you really think so?" I'm like, yeah. She's like, in a nicer way, she's like, no dummy. They don't think you have their back. They think you already have this reputation  Now you have that, you're already put on a pedestal already a different way. They're gonna have some envy and jealousy towards you. So you coming in, trying to like, you know, bring the hammer down on them, it won't influence change. And I'm like, oh, my God, you're right. Because she usually is. So the next day, and this is a good lesson I learned at the time, I sat them all down. I just apologized. I was like, listen, like, I think I just came off totally wrong. I had this plan, but here's the reality, I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is, I want us to win. I want to help you win. And I'll do whatever we can we can together. So what do you guys think? What are you guys's ideas, you know? What are you guys's thoughts. And they had all these ideas. And we worked together, and we partnered up, you know, and really learned about how to like actually, like lead without a title, and how to actually influence. And on top of that, when I was able to learn how to do these things, it also taught me how do I take the process that I kind of developed in my head and be able to systemize it to teach other people. That's what I had to do. Because the nature of what we were in, because also like, I mean, if we fail, this branch will close down and we'll get fired. I'm like, that wasn't an option. So that was another interesting learning point as well, where I learned about how to build sales playbook, how to actually scale it, because that- we were able to replicate success. That was interesting to learn as well. Like okay, interesting, I'm not a one hit wonder. I didn't get lucky.

Callan Harrington  18:46

You had a ton of success here. And you rose up the ranks, you cracked the code on sales leadership as well. Why start your own company?

Marcus Chan  18:57

That's a really good question. So I ended up working for that company for several more years. And then I went to a whole different company, because I actually was- I wanted to see if I could do it again. I wasn't sure if I got lucky. Right? Like maybe I'm lucky, maybe it is this industry, maybe whatever. Okay, I got promoted several times there. And then I went to a whole new industry, whole new company. Fortunately, I had a lot of success there too. Right, and fortunately made lots of mistakes early on. So I was able to kind of learn from those. It's kind of cool. It was awesome. And that was really cool. Because I got some roles in a really big org. And what's interesting is I never wanted to start my own business.

Callan Harrington  19:28

Really, like never growing up or anything? Never wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Marcus Chan  19:32

No, never.

Callan Harrington  19:33

Interesting.

Marcus Chan  19:34

And it's because my parents were entrepreneurs. So they were- they had a restaurant. They did like festivals as well. They had a bunch of real estate as well. But growing up, we grew up really poor,and I grew up working in a restaurant. I remember like literally like sleeping at the restaurant, waking up, working there. I remember helping my parents out. I remember like as a kid, I was working like twenty, thirty hours a week, like as a seven year old. So I'm like, oh my god is entrepreneur life. Your parents work eighty hours a week. They don't come to any of your school events or activities. That sounds terrible to me, right? And it seemed like it was a very unstable thing. Now I just didn't realize the opportunity. There's different types of entrepreneurs, right? And opportunity vehicles to be in. So my whole life, I was almost essentially, I don't think brainwashed, but I was led to believe the best path is working somewhere safe. Now, they wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, something more prestigious. It's very normal for Asian parents. But I didn't do any of those things, right, because right away, I got a corporate job. So it's like, there's some stability there. So what's really interesting was, I went- 2007 is when I graduatee. I went and started working and worked for several years. So by 2015, I was on my second company already, and I've been out in the corporate world for what like, you know, eight years at that point, and I've been promoted ten times at that point. In eight years. And I was leading, at this point I was one of the youngest directors in the company, leading the salesforce of about eighty five total employees, working for a Fortune 500 company. So people are like, wow, this is crazy, dude, like, how did you do this? And even at my second company, most people were at that- took them like ten years to get to that level. I did it in four and a half years. People were like, how did you do these things? I'm like, do what things? I'm just showing up. I'm giving 100% everything I do. I truly cared. I'm passionate. This is what I do. And at that time, people were like, dude, you should write a book. Write a book? That sounds crazy. I would never write a book, right? I'm like, whatever. But I may be able to write an ebook. So at this time, I started to like, learn about you know, online marketing, and like ebooks, etc. Now, everyone and their mother has an ebook, and course, etc. But the time it was really only certain- only the internet crowd knew that. So I'm like, okay, this is interesting. So I bought a program, I learned how to write an ebook, how to turn it into the ebook. I learned how to automate it, so someone could pay online, and it get distributed automatically. At the time, it was way more complex. So now it's super easy, but at the time was way more complex. And I remember like writing this first book, it was called The Corporate Climb, I call it how to get promoted ten times in ten years, right? Which sounds way better than ten times in eight years. Right?

Callan Harrington  21:54

I love that. That's a really good title and headline there.

Marcus Chan  21:58

And I remember like, I was learning about internet marketing on social selling. I was using Instagram as my test place. So I was testing on Instagram. And this was when Instagram was really starting to get really hot, because it was like 2015, 2016. So built a little following there. And I just launched this ebook, right? And I remember like, within an hour, I made 995. And I'm like, oh my God, someone from the internet paid me money. For a B2B guy, right? For someone in B2B sales, who's used to sitting in front of someone having a conversation, right? To extract money in value from them- in value. Now I'm doing it online. That's weird. And I'm like, wow, this is really interesting. And that, like, blew my mind. So I'm like, okay, you know, I should do is like, I want to do something bigger. And I'm like, the next step is an online course, the natural progression. And I'm getting asked the most basic questions that literally, I thought everyone should know, things I just thought was normal at this point, because I just didn't know, people didn't know. So then I'm like, okay, I should build an online course. Now, this took me a long time to build out, because again, the technology is different back then. So I'm like, okay, I should build this out, you know, so I bought another program, learned how to do it, started to do it. And started building it in my free time. Now, this is kind of a crazy time for me, because, you know, I was traveling about 100 nights a year in hotel, we had a baby during this time. And the company I was with ultimately took a major acquisition. So it took me two years, January 2019, I'm finally done. I'm like, oh, man, awesome. But then I'm like, what if nobody buys it? What if this is a bad product, right? Because again, when you create something of your own versus selling for someone else, you don't realize how much work it takes to build your own offering, your product, and your solution. I didn't have PMF, I didn't test anything out. I'm just like, let me just see what happens. So I'm like, fuck it, I just launched it. Right? Woke up, made $2,000, overnight. I'm like, oh my God, that's amazing! At that point, it was like, wow, this is an opportunity. Like, this is scalable. Now, one of the things where you also get to a point in your career where you start realizing what's really important and it's not to say money is not important, but when you made a pretty good amount of money, and you're pretty good at managing money, investing and multiplying, do all this stuff, like you start realizing like money is totally cool, but like if you're pretty simple, you don't spend nearly that much and you put yourself a spot where you can do whatever you want. And that's waht I did. I'm like what I really want is more time. I want to time and freedom. I want to be able to do what I want with who I want whenever I want. That's really important to me, right? I just one more time back. Time with family, friends, relationships, do what I want and just have fun. Do stuff. I didn't just like quit my job on spot, like I'm out, see you later. Right? I want to be strategic about this, and I had a President's Club trip coming up in August. I won that. I'm just going to go to that. Okay, I want that. My year-end bonuses, stock. I want all that for sure. That happened in June. We had our earnings call that happened in September that would skyrocket everything. So then I'm like, okay, I'm like I'm just going to time this all out. Because it will be the earnings call in it September. I'm like, if I kind of time it all out, I'll get everything I need, and then wait for my vesting period to also hit as well. And I can just exit out right after that. So that's exactly what I did. Timed everything out, and then exit out and left. September 19, 2019 I went all in on the business, because at that point, it was about time and freedom. The second piece was, what's important to you? And one other thing was really important to me is impact. And the thing was, even though I had built like- even at the company I was at, I had built a pretty good reputation. Like everyone knew me, all the execs knew me, I was riding on corporate jets periodically and stuff, and that was cool. I'm still in the corporate training videos, people still talk about me, so we just kind of weird some people hate on me. No, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. But anyways, it was cool. But um, what I realized was like, I'm like, I want to have more impact. I had, like my team, etc. I'd also like mentor ten other people within the organization as well to help them rise up. I wanted to make more of an impact. What was really interesting was, even with the course, when I first launched it, and people started buying it, even after the launch, I would get emails from people that were like, "wow, this really helped me, this really works." It was like, wow, this proves to me that this works outside of my industry. This proves to me I could scale this. That also made me realize that like, if I stay at this company, I can impact people within the company. Or I can untether myself, and better myself, and be able to create a business where I can impact way more people. That's why that was a big part of the business was being able to be in a spot where I can do whatever I want with who I want, but also help the people I want to help. That's why I made the leap.

Callan Harrington  26:11

That freedom of money, freedom of time, freedom of relationship are- Do you do Strategic Coach? What do you mean?  So there's an organization called Strategic Coach, and what you just described is their whole thing. First you get freedom of time, then you get freedom of money, then you get freedom of relationship. So it's essentially: I can work when I want, with who I want, whenever I want.

Marcus Chan  26:34

I didn't know that was a thing! Basically. I guess I'll say, yeah.

Callan Harrington  26:38

It's pretty interesting. That's pretty cool. And that's something that with me personally, that's 100%. It's something that's been on my mind a lot more, right, you can do it two ways, you can just grind it out, and you'll make an absolute ton of money. But I think it gets to a certain point where it's: I really want more freedom of time than I care as much about the next thing, because you can only buy so many cool things. That's just kind of the reality.

Marcus Chan  27:04

Oh, yeah. I remember when I made the right decision and when it hit, because when you go and start your own business, there's always that fear, right? There's a lot of uncertainty. Like I think a lot of people think, oh, founders they don't have fear. Actually, hell yeah. I got tons of fear and anxiety, right? But it's acting in spite of the fear and anxiety. And, you know, I remember, you know, one month after, I was second guessing myself. I was like, oh, man, like, was that a right decision? I left behind like seven figures in equity. Was that really the right move? Like, you know, you can start kind of going back and forth and start questioning, like maybe it's easier to go back to work for somebody else. I don't know. You just have all these doubts. And about one month in, and my kid was pretty young, he's about two and a half at the time. And before, this is what happened, because I traveled so much, anytime he would get upset, cry hurt, he would naturally go to mom, right? That was like, go to mommy, race to mommy. Right? Yeah, I didn't really think much about it. Even when I was there, it was just a habit, because she was around more. But a month after- and I remember after, what happened after I made the move, he's like, "oh, Dad, you're here." I'm like yeah, I'm here, you know, whatever. He got to see me every day, which is interesting. I got to take him to school, drop him off, I could do all these things I couldn't do before. A month after, I remember he hurt himself, got upset, and he ran to me. And that's when I realized I'm like, this is why. That's pure freedom. You don't get that time back. Your kid, they're probably going to love hanging out with you for the first ten years of their life, and after that, who knows what's gonna happen? So I'm like, I'd better capitalize on that now. Because now he's six, so I'm still thinking that same way.

Callan Harrington  28:29

That's so cool. I love that. As you're growing this business, what's your goal? You've already been incredibly successful in the business that you've grown. You've got a gigantic presence across multiple social channels, LinkedIn newsletter, all sorts of different outlets. What is the goal for you? What do you want out of this?

Marcus Chan  28:51

Yeah. So I think I'm gonna continue to optimize for the four F's that I talk about, right? The four Fs, so fortune, right? That's building wealth, stacking cash. Family, freedom, and fulfillment, right? This is what I optimize for every single day. So I'm always doing things to optimize for that. It's really really important. But also when you have that understanding, you start realizing I can't just create whatever solution and offer, because that may require me sacrificing time for my family, which I'm not willing to do. So it's finding that really good balance. So that's the key as part of my business, so when I think about that, it's like okay, if I build a new offer what's going to have more impact and do I enjoy doing that? That's what I always think about. At the end of the day, it's like I have goals in mind, but not really, right? If that makes sense? Because there's a certain thing that I obviously want more in my life, and I don't really want those. It's more so like, how can I create the life that I actually want? Like to wake up when I want, do what I want, etc. How do I design it to be fully optimized to me only doing the things I like to do? That's what the top people do, when we look at someone like Oprah Winfrey. She probably works like one to two hours a day. Why? She freakin loves that part of it. And the rest of the day, she does whatever she wants. And I think about how can I create my life to be the same way? You know? And it's also, when you add to this as well, you get addicted to the process, if you will, as Scott Lee says. Like, you get addicted to the process. Over time and everything I've done, I learned to enjoy- I hate to say, I don't want to say "enjoy the grind," because I think people read that wrong way. But I enjoy the process. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy the building. I enjoy this. There's something about when you are able to take something in your mind's eye, and you're able to turn it to reality. It's very hard to put into words what that really means. So for me, yeah, maybe there's some end goals, kind of, but not really, because I see it as more seasons. Right? Like even like this current program that I'm running right now, for BV salespeople. We're doing really well. We're helping a lot of people. It's really awesome. It's great. This is my current season. I'll do this for a while. I'm still good with it right? But over time, sure, like, okay, what's my next season gonna be? You know, what do I want to do next? Who do I want to help next? Or do I keep building upon that? I don't know. Right? I think it's good to think in like long time horizons like ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years out. But also in the season, the season may shift a little bit. It's kind of like, when you're driving on a freeway, you know where you're going to go for the end destination, but you're enjoying the drive. And sometimes you can go off the freeway, you can speed up, you can change lanes, depending on what's in the road. You may detour off a little bit, go a different path, then get back on, because this is all part of life.

Callan Harrington  31:21

100%. And I think you hit on something that's always been important to me, to just love to practice, right? Like love to practice as much as you like playing the game. And if you can find something where you love to practice as much as you love playing in the game, run with it. You're probably going to be really successful at it. So the last question I have for you is, if you could have a conversation with your younger self, age totally up to you, what would that conversation be? What advice would you give them?

Marcus Chan  31:51

Think in longer time horizons and make decisions based off that. You know, I think when you're young, you're always thinking very short term, like you always think you have the rest of your life. You always think you have all this time, you know, oh, I'm young, it's fine. But you end up just making dumb decisions, frankly. Right? And when you think in a longer time horizon, you end up becoming much more well rounded, you make more strategic decisions. So for example, there's always pros and cons, because some people might say, hey, Marcus, that's really cool. Like, two companies in like, fourteen plus years. That's really cool. You've had a lot of success. That's really awesome. You know, and then there's some people that look at me and say, Marcus man, you're doing pretty well as an entrepreneur. Maybe you should have started that sooner. And I think one of the things is that early on, I was very risk adverse, very risk adverse. And, you know, there's always gonna be pros and cons, everything, but because of that, I was probably more gun shy making some bigger changes and decisions. I'll give you a really simple example. I remember even when the market tanked in 2007, 2008, I'm like, now probably a good time to buy some stock, right? Like, you know, but like, I'm too scared. I'm too scared. Right? And that was like, you know, in hindsight, odds are you probably could have made even more money because of that, right? You know, who would have known right? But it's one of those things where the principle is still the same. It's more so of you think on a longer time horizon, you start realizing there's always patterns to everything. And you can hopefully make better decisions now, you know, that will pay long term dividends. And if you started thinking of it this way, it helps you in every part of your life, whether it's relationships, or anything else, you know? For instance, and I think in some parts of my life, I did a good job of that. And other parts that I didn't do a good job. For example, like, I think back to one good decision I made was early on. In college, I went to the run of date whomever. That was cool, right? Meeting people was really fun or whatever. And then I got sick of the game. And I'm like, this isn't what I want. And I had a very set criteria. I was like that psycho had an idea, like, who he wants to be with right? Within my head at least, right? And I found her. I found her. It was my senior year, right? Well, I'd known her, never realized it was her, my senior year. And that was a good long term decision. Right? That was a good long term decision. She was resistant to it, but we started dating eventually, and now married her and great life. We have a kid now. Right? So that's a good example of long term thinking that I think most people would have given up at the first rejection. She rejected me for really five years, until we started dating. Four years and we'd started dating, but it was a long term move. That's my point. So if you think long term, you will make better decisions hopefully in the short term, that'll pay you long term dividends.

Callan Harrington  34:16

The beauty about long term thinking is it makes the short term setbacks don't sting as bad because you understand it's just a bump on the long road. So, I think that's excellent. Marcus, this has been a blast. Thanks for coming on today, man.

Marcus Chan  34:35

Thank you so much for having me on. It's been an absolute blast.

Callan Harrington  34:37

I love it. I hope you enjoyed Marcus and I's conversation. Asking yourself better questions is something that I'm really trying to work on. It's a great way to challenge and expand your way of thinking and viewpoint. And if you're not following Marcus on LinkedIn, I highly recommend going on there and giving him a follow. He posts a ton of great content every day. Also, if you liked this episode, you could find me on LinkedIn to let me know. And if you really want to support the show, a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify is very much appreciated. Thanks for listening, everybody, and I'll see you next week.