Secrets to Sales and Personal Branding Success with Marcus Chan

Secrets to Sales and Personal Branding Success with Marcus Chan

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 204 of the business development podcast. And on today's expert guest interview, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Marcus Chan. I absolutely loved his book, Six Figure Sales Secrets. And today we're talking sales and personal branding in 2025 and beyond. Stick with us. You are not going to want to miss.

This episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 204 of the business development podcast. And today's expert guest is Marcus Chan. Marcus is a towering figure in the realm of B2B sales. Celebrated for his profound impact on the industry through transformative coaching and training programs. His illustrious career spans over a decade with fortune 500 companies, marked by an exceptional trajectory that saw him rise through the ranks with unprecedented speed.

Achieving an impressive 12 promotions in just eight years, landing one of the top sales regions, Marcus consistently delivered outstanding results. Driving over 700 million in total contract value and surpassing sales quotas with unmatched consistency. Recognized as a Salesforce top sales influencer, Marcus has channeled his experience into founding Venli Consulting Group.

Where he now dedicates himself to empowering B2B sales teams and startups alike. His mission extends beyond mere metrics. Marcus strives to inspire and equip sales professionals globally to achieve their highest potential. Fostering a legacy of excellence and impact in the field of sales. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Marcus Chan is known for his commitment to elevating others and leaving a lasting impression on the sales landscape.

His approach blends strategic insight with a genuine passion for mentoring and guiding others towards success. Through his coaching and thought leadership, Marcus continues to shape the future of B2B sales, embodying a relentless drive for excellence and a profound dedication to empowering individuals to thrive in their careers.

Marcus, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Marcus Chan: Hey, I'm pumped to be here. That's the first time someone called me towering. So I, I appreciate that. My, my towering five foot seven half inch a figure, but all jokes aside, I'm excited to be here and I think we'll have some fun today.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, I think so too, dude.

I love having sales experts on because, you know, at the end of the day, business development and sales are very closely aligned, you know, in a lot of ways, a lot of people think they're the same thing and in some ways they are. In some ways they are, but in a lot of ways they aren't. But, you know, I don't, I don't position myself as a sales expert.

Right. I really do position myself in that like lead generation. Here's how you build relationships. Here's how you establish them and here's how we lead it to next steps. But you, sir, our next steps.

Marcus Chan: Perfect combination.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, How did you end up on this field? I know you've been doing sales a long time, but, you know, who is Marcus Chan?

How did you end up on this journey?

Marcus Chan: You know, it's interesting because, you know, I would never say you know, I never believe that someone's a born salesperson. I definitely was not that, you know, so, I mean, I grew up, you know, in small town, Springfield, Oregon, working my parents restaurant. So kind of growing up, even as a kid, I.

That maybe I just probably go in the restaurant business, really didn't know what I was going to do, didn't know what I was going to go to college for, et cetera end up going to college you know, end up with a double major in marketing and Chinese, but still didn't know what I wanted to do after that.

And for me, I'm like, well, my first step was basic was a B2B sales job. And to me, I saw it as more of a stepping stone at the time, which was, Hey, I'm going to go into this opportunity, learn about skills, learn about business development, learn about building a territory from scratch, help build a startup division up and we'll see where it goes.

And hopefully I can like lead people. Maybe I can be like, you know, managing like an operation because of my background working in the restaurant, it's more like a more operational base. I'm like, maybe that's what I'll end up doing anyways. Right. Yeah. Just in the. Business business side and what was really interesting was when I dove into sales for the first time, you know, I thought I'd be decent at it just because, you know, we talked about this before.

I thought you just needed hard work. You needed to grit, you know, you need a smile on your face. You just kind of smile and don't kind of push forward and it'll make you successful. And because my past of working in a restaurant as a kid, I'm like, I work super hard. Like I'll probably be like, Be probably pretty good at this, I think.

And I almost got fired in my first two months because turns out that wasn't, it wasn't enough, frankly. Right. Other skills as well. So that was interesting. And eventually figured it out, had success, got promoted, et cetera. But as I went through my journey I just didn't, I didn't realize how much I enjoyed and loved this for almost a decade later.

And this was, I was like, I was almost 30 and I just got promoted to a leadership role where I was running a sales or 85 employees. And a lot of people were saying, Hey, Marcus, like, how did you do this? I'm like, do what they're like, how'd you get promoted so many times? How'd you have this consistent track record?

Like, how did you like, how did you even hit an exceeded number literally every year, even through the last recession? I'm like, well, you know, I think I just kind of work hard or whatever. And they're like, well, Marcus, you should, you should write a book at the time. I didn't have a book now, but at the time I didn't have a book.

And I was like, no, I don't, I don't know how to write, but this is like 2015, 2016. But I was like, you know what I'll do is I'll write an ebook. Yeah, I'll write an ebook and how I got from what I call it 10 times in 10 years. It sounded better than 12 times in eight years. It wasn't smooth. I'm like, how do you promote 10 times in 10 years?

It's kind of flow kind of 10x mentality, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. And and people bought that ebook and people loved it and that was really interesting. And this is this is actually my first experience of having an impact outside of just my main, the main company I was at. Cause at this point, even with the big org.

Where I absolutely love, I mean, I love closing deals. I love being the product. I love every part of the sales process. But what I really enjoyed the most was actually helping my teams crush it. So like bringing like past versions of me into the company, helping train, develop them and make them really great.

And I loved doing that at my company. And now this ebook was an example of being able to do it even beyond my company, which is kind of cool. Right. So eventually kind of spiral off over time and. I mean, that eventually that little side hustle I added more products on it, basically expanded out for, I did for another four or five years, kept having success in my corporate career and decided at that point, it was time for me to go bigger, right?

To help more people. Cause it got to the point where I'm like, I love my chem, I love all these things, but like, I want to have a real impact. Like I want to help other people. Yeah. And that was where I dove headed to my business, you know. Almost five years ago. And it's been an incredible journey now, which is helping the sales team and sales reps, absolutely crushing sales and just achieve stuff that they've never thought possible before.

So that's how I kind of dove into it. That's why I'm still doing it to this day.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing, dude. I look at your story and I got, I got into business development running from sales, which is really ironic.

Marcus Chan: Oh yeah,

I don't want to do that, it'll be easy to do that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, just like you, I, I'd been in sales from like, honestly, like 18 all the way to like my early 20s and I, I kind of hit a wall.

Like I'd gotten, I'd gotten let go. We were in a tough time in Canada and I'd gotten let go from a position. I was like, what am I going to do? And my sister's like, Kelly, you like, just. Go to college, go to, what are you doing? Go to college. And so I did, and I went to business school and I got a diploma in business admin, and my thought was, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to get a diploma in business admin, and I'm going to go work operations somewhere because I don't want to do sales anymore.

Well, about six months into that job, I was working business development. I remember I had to Google what is business development? Cause I'd never even come across it in college. Right. Right. And yeah, it was really interesting doing the rest is history, but yeah, I had a love hate relationship with sales and business development for a long time.

Just like you. I think I really found my passion for it probably eight to 10 years in where I was like, this is what I am meant to do. Like I actually love this. But it took a while for me to get there. It took a while for me to understand. Yeah. Like. You know, I just finished Six Figure Sales Secrets, which is your book, and we're going to talk about it, you know, during the show, and I love the book, dude it's very well written, it's, and I would recommend it to anybody who has to grow a business or who has to sell on their own behalf or on behalf of another company, it's an amazing book, congratulations, because you wrote it in a way that I can really get behind, I think a lot of books nowadays that I'm seeing, people are really trying to push the digital marketing, they're trying to push that like passive side, and really what it's doing is it's just preying on people, because me and you both know It getting in front of people is what's going to sell, not, not just endless inbound, like 80%, 90 percent needs to be on that, that active marketing process.

Marcus Chan: 100%, 100 percent because it's, if you only rely just on inbound, you know, you, you, you have to succumb to the pressures of just the market, right? So market fluctuations, et cetera, external things that you can't control, but outbound, you can always control.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And we need to focus more of our time on things that we can control, right?

Like who wants to be completely out of control over your future, right? A hundred percent. 100 percent Marcus, I want to chat about your top five rules to social selling. That was a part of the book that I found really interesting and especially in a world now where we're all learning. How do we even use socials to sell?

Right? Can you walk me through your top five rules to social selling?

Marcus Chan: You know, it's funny. I think I probably had to trim it down. So I'm, I don't, I don't remember even the top five off the top of my head now, because at the time I think I had way more. Yeah, sure. Editors like. That's too many, you gotta, you gotta trim it down.

You have to trim it down. Right. So I'll walk through at least at the time of this recording, and I'll talk about some of my favorite top ones for, for social selling. Right. And it might pivot a little bit from the book, but it'll still be very, very relevant. So I think the the first piece is for social selling, it's a must.

Like, I think it's, especially in today's time you take a look at in the garter stats, but majority of businesses if they're looking at any type of vendor, they're going to do so much research on you far in advance. So before you'd be like, so if you're, if you, if you are not online and you're not, people can't find you when they Google you on any of the platforms, you're actually at a disadvantage versus somebody else who's already there.

Right. Especially if it's like social media. I mean, It's basically free advertising if you do it right. Now the second, I'll say a key rule to social selling is it can't, it should be like, I call it the 90 10 rule, which is like, it should be like 90 percent peer value, 10 percent ask.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Marcus Chan: So the mistake I see some people make is they say, Oh, Mark, it makes sense.

I should be everywhere. I should be on Instagram, TikTok. You know, I should be on access should be on whatever. So they go on there. All we do is just promote, promote, promote. Now, aside from like a promotional campaign that you might be running the rest of the time, like 90 percent of the time should be, how can I add value to my target market?

How can I give them so much value that they, they, it's ba they basically, they're like, wow, I feel guilty consuming this company, this person's content that I like. Whenever they make me an offer, I'm gonna say yes. Right? Like, like, like the saying goes like, make the free stuff so good is better than you can competitors paid stuff.

So I think it's having that mind space is really, really important as part of that social selling strategy to be doing that level output. Because when, what's really powerful about this is if we talk about the outbound piece. Number one, when you, when you have, when you post this way, you'll get inbound leads, but let's just say, for example, you do outbound, they don't answer your call.

They don't read your emails. You hit them up on LinkedIn, but they still don't respond, but they check you out now and they see your content. That's consistent as high value and actually useful and relevant. That actually will nurture them like a salesperson for you. So that's really, really powerful. But if it's only like, just like pitches nonstop, Hey, look, this is this demo.

My, my product, it's called amazing. We are, here's just more testimonials. That's not good. Now, over time, you can kind of, you can, you can go from like a 90, 10 to maybe like 80, 20. But still consistently, how can you add more value? So I think it's definitely number two. It's like, how can you add a lot of value for 90, 90, 90 percent value?

10 percent like the pitch. Right. I would say number three is you want to utilize social selling for like inbound and outbound. So I think it's really, really powerful. I mentioned the inbound already, which is your, your posting content up and your, your high value, but also using tools like, for example, like LinkedIn is probably my favorite tools for B2B, like LinkedIn sales navigator.

Right. And there's no problem. We don't get paid for it, for LinkedIn sales navigator, but. The way you can target people and build a hyper targeted list, right? And then you can like reach out those triggers on there. You can see for by intent or at least like what they're into being able to utilize that is like really, really powerful as part of that strategy too.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, you know what? I think like, for instance, for me, I'm still I've been using social selling pretty hard for the last, say, five years, but before that I wasn't using it at all. And so I think we're all still learning. And like post COVID, especially COVID was kind of, for me, the big shift where it's like, okay, LinkedIn is really critical.

We need to start utilizing it. And for me, it was a learning experience and I would say I'm still learning every day.

Marcus Chan: Yeah. A few other things I would say as well this is, this is always a key basic is you want to, every, every profile page of any platform. It is designed to be a sales page. Right.

And what we, what I mean my sales pages is it should be designed to build trust, credibility, and potentially convert them into a lead or even an opportunity, right? So I think it's gonna be, it's a really big one where I see a lot of people miss the, but on this, which is you, you get on there, they maybe, like their banner for example on LinkedIn is just like some motivational versus being really clear about what you do or credibility or what to do next, right?

Sure. As you kinda like scroll through, they have it written kinda like a resume. You know, and depending on what you do, then maybe that makes sense. But for most people, it doesn't make sense versus like, Hey, how can you help people? What are some results people have achieved? Right? Where are some resources and redirecting to places?

It's going to really be also useful for them too. I think it's also going to be very, very powerful. So to your website, to free resources. So like that's going to be very powerful, but having every page to do the same thing is very key because once how you optimize, then if you do an outbound. They're going to check out your profile and hopefully I'll convert them or at least make them open to conversation.

Or if it's your content, that's going to lead to them, you know, checking out your profile again. They might go into the, they might opt in, they might reach out, they might, they might do whatever. Right. I'll say that the next tip as well is in terms of social selling is If you are consistent be consistent, you're gonna be posting content, be really consistent.

So like, yeah, doesn't mean you have to like post like 10 times a day. But be consistent with it. Whatever the cadence you're going to choose, if you're like a business owner, like I'm really busy, like, okay, like I'm going to, I'm going to like. Posts like, you know, once, once a month, well, that's probably not going to hack it.

Right. So you have to also view it as an investment in your time for generating future opportunities. Right. So, you know, because some kids have say, you know, even it's like. Once a day consistently. Right. And if you're thinking about how can I create content, can you, can you share a story about, you know, which problems your customers are running into?

Can you record a quick video or if you do a long form video, can you repurpose conversations? So there's many ways to kind of create content as part of it. Right. But the key is obviously being really, really consistent with it.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay.

Marcus Chan: And then I'll say the fifth one, especially from this will help inbound and outbound is you want to maximize your content.

Right. So for instance, a lot of times when people start posting content out there, you know, they'll have people like like comment or engage on their post. Yeah. They'll be able to check out their profiles, you know? But most people are not reaching out to those people. So if you post a, you know, let's say for example, if you sell I don't know, let's say you sell like a, a customer support ticketing software.

Right. You look for a company like Zendesk, right. And you, you post just like a, a really powerful, I don't know, testimonial or, you know, easy ways to reduce, reduce your, your, your, your customer churn by way to reduce customer churn, other powerful posts. And you can, all these people that's your target market, like liking and commenting, gauging on it.

Well, those are opportunities for you then to go and comment back, but also engage, send a message. Right. Or you have the people kind of lurk in which they don't necessarily, they, they see the post, they know it's useful, but they just don't want to like it. They don't want to comment. They'll check out your profile.

Like that's interesting. Yeah. I like what Kelly's all about now fully maximize that. But then, you know, go to Kelly, reach out to Kelly. Hey Kelly, you know, you know, so I check out my profile, you know, anything that helps support you with something like that. It just opens up a conversation. Right. Which goes on the same point where you don't want to be pitching there.

You're just going to open the conversation up and then in the DMs should be a conversational should be seeing what they're all about. Questions. We have questions for them and it's even open up to an actual live conversation on the phone or Zoom.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing, dude. Like even I haven't been following that.

That's a really smart way. Right? Like, I guess for me, it's like, I've always engaged with people who would comment or who would message me, but yeah, obviously we got checked out all the time, but I haven't really taken the time to mess. I'm going to start doing that. That's a great tip.

Marcus Chan: Yeah, it works super well.

And same thing also of like, I mean. If you have sales navigator, you can take a look at some of the lowest hanging fruit are people that follow your company page or just check out your profile and you can build specific lists for that. So every single day you're going there and you're engaging with those people as part of it, you know, and that's really powerful, but it kind of ties in the whole ecosystem we talked about where you know you have a well optimized page.

You're consistent with your content. And that's going to ultimately going to help as well.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that. Let's spend some time on the pages. Cause I think this is something that unless you're Marcus Chan, we don't quite understand how to make the best pages. I think I've done as good as I can. I, although I've seen better and I'm always looking to upgrade, like I'm never good with just where I'm at.

Like I, we reevaluate everything all the time and we make updates and we're getting better every day, but I am by no means the best page on LinkedIn. You know, talk to me. What are, what are the best things that we need to make sure are on all of our LinkedIn pages when we're doing any type of social selling?

Marcus Chan: So I think the first piece is I'm always seeking like, okay, what's the first impression you're going to have when they, when they check you out. Right. So let's just say for example, if they go and they let's say they you know, you call, you cold message them right on sales navigator. So the first thing I'm gonna do, they're going to click on your headshot.

And go to your profile. So the first thing I'm going to see is your headshot. So it's simple as that sounds, but does your headshot align to the image that that person's expecting out of a trusted advisor, out of a professional. And I think a lot of people overcomplicate this, you know, or they use like, they just got married, the wedding photos up there.

Right. But like just taking your phone, putting it in portrait mode, having someone take it with good lighting can make the world of difference for you. Right. Even like in my headshot is literally. Me and my, at home, my wife took the photo and then I put in Canva, I put the yellow background and blue and blue ring and that's it.

That's all we did. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: It's a great photo.

Marcus Chan: Super simple. Right. It's like, you know, and also it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's so, it's so simple. We'll just don't do that. So get your headshot dialed. headshot dial looks professional matches the image. And again, I think it's really important because let's say, for example, if you were like a, like a suit and tie in your photo, but most of your prospects are just not really like the shirt shirt and tie type don't have that, you know, maybe we're a polo, maybe just we're a button up, right?

Maybe we're something in between. Right. Yeah. Like like for me I still like even corporations are maybe a more suit and tie. So like. You know, the, the t shirt and jeans company, right? So mine's like in between, I'm like, okay, the best way I'll just do suit. No tie. It's not a bridge in between. It's not perfect.

It is what it is. Right. Yeah. Stuff like that. Right. Then, so that's the first piece. The second piece is also what's your tagline. So your tagline is basically what's going to show up. So if you are say commenting somewhere, they're going to see what was going to say your name and basically what's the tagline say below it.

And you can make it very simple, which could be like, you know, we help target market achieve this. It can be as simple as that, right? Which is very, very easy. Right? Then you can add some other credibility if you want to, right? So some people want to go super simple. It's all they say, Hey, I help companies do this.

You know, I help CFOs do this. I have CXOs do that, which, which is totally fine. If I have more credibility, you can add more credibility. Right? That's totally fine. But that's, that's also really important too. So now let's say, for example, they click on your page, then they're checking your profile. Now what's your banner look like?

So the banner by itself is, is it basically, is they may not, this is what's called above the fold. So they may not scroll below this. Okay. They might just literally stay there. So if they, if they stay there, is that going to be something that's going to be, when they see it, will that person say, this is a high value for me?

So, you know, for example, like even on mine, I'm pretty clear on what we do. Right. You know, we help sales teams and reps, you know, like basically blow the numbers out, you know, and I'll change, I'll change the wording depending on whenever, but it's always basically the same stuff. Right. I have some credibility and where I've been featured.

Right. And then I have a little CTA, which is like, you know, head of the featured section. Yeah, that's it. Very simple. So same concept. You just basically, they get the, is this person for me? Can I trust this person? And then they start scrolling down. There's a couple of things just to make it easy, but like link to things that you're going to want them to click on.

So, you know, there's, there's, there's little links to get out in there, whether you want them to opt into a lead magnet or just head to your website or check out case studies or testimonials, whatever, you can easily link that. Right. And then if they decide, keep scrolling down, if they decide to, right, then you can have the about section and the about section again, is, is an opportunity to be some sales copy there.

So some people just post in there what they do, which is totally fine. Yeah. But if you can write a little story. In terms of storage, really powerful. So I do a combination of a little bit of a story and then also like some CTA as well and how we can help. Okay. And then there's going to be the request services section.

So if you're, you know, if you're running your own business, you want to fill it out, like, what do you do and how do you serve them, make it very easy for them to just reach out if they want to, and then you keep going down and then it's going to be your history. So, you know, your job history is definitely important for sure as well.

Like if you have your own business, that's your opportunity to write more about your business, include links to whatever you want, right? Some people leave completely blank, but again, this is just, if, if they want to, if someone wants to keep scrolling, we'll help convert them and build trust with you. So I, I write what we do and I share examples of how we help people.

Right. And they won't keep scrolling. Now they can see my other past history as well. So I'm in the coaching consulting space. A lot of people want to know, like, did this person actually do what they're trying to coach and consult people on? Yeah. So. I have my, my, my work history on there that elaborates on my results intentionally.

So I don't share what I did, like terms, like my, like I manage a team of this, this people, this is where I read reports like this. I analyze this. I'm like, here's results, results, results, results, results. And then I back it all up with proof. Yeah, I show screenshots, attachments, et cetera. So people can keep going down.

So again, like if they happen to look down there, it's an healthfully, hopefully they're going to be like this person knows what they're all about. And then if they keep going, all right, it's going to be the the testimonial, the recommendation section. So having that is, I think it's also really key to like, you know, I think I don't remember how many we have now.

I think we have like 70 or 80, but it's like. But I've been getting those since like, I don't know, 2009. So like getting a consistent over time is really powerful as well. Because again, if they were to stand on a single page, it's going to hopefully get them to like convert into a lead or to reach out or be more open to conversation.

So it takes a little time to get all set up, but that's really key. And then of course, if you're doing content consistently. That's also going to be a section they might check as well on LinkedIn, too.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Okay. So it's all in alignment. So you want everything. You don't want anything to feel out of place.

You want it all to tell the story. And the story is that you're awesome.

Marcus Chan: Remove, you want to remove any type of doubt in their mind, right? Or at least open them up to be a little more open, because the thing is, is what they don't realize is if you structure your page, right, it's going to be one of your top SEO ranked pages.

So if someone Googles your name or company, it's going to link that LinkedIn page is going to be one of the top ones that's going to show up.

Kelly Kennedy: Like we're talking obviously to a lot of entrepreneurs and maybe a lot of coaches actually, which is kind of what I think we aligned here. How does this how does this apply to say, you know, a regular salesperson or a regular business development person?

Marcus Chan: Really good question. So. I think if, if you've been around for any short, any period of time, we've all had, have had bad experiences with salespeople, like some way, shape, or form. So, unfortunately, the bar is really, really low and you know, people, we get looked down upon as sales professionals, right? So.

This is an opportunity for yourself professional. It's like, okay, if I have one, I'm going to reach out to them. How can I position myself as a trusted device? Someone, even I'm new with the company, someone who actually knows what they're all about. So this, this becomes an opportunity for you now to do the same thing I just mentioned.

So if you do outreach or someone checks, checks you out, that you're going to be able to hopefully convert as well. It's the same type of concept, but. Now, instead of just doing it for yourself, it's for your company as well. But the mistake a lot of people make is they, all they do is when they get a new job, they just change where they work.

And then it's kind of left as a, as like, you know, just a job history. Yeah. Like, Oh, I was a, I was a BDR here. Here's, here's how many calls I'm hearing appointments I've booked. Hey, I was here. Now, if you're trying to get a new job, you're basically optimizing for that. That's fine. But if you're looking to convert customers, how can you optimize for that?

So maybe if it's good, some people, the examples of that are watching this, like for your current company, you can write who you help and how do you help them and link out to case studies or testimonials or examples, or in your office, it might be useful. Right. You know, or if you close clients, like share who, who, who, who you've helped if it's your past companies, you know, you can just share about like you know, like the results that you got that help customers.

So instead of saying, Hey, I booked X number of meetings. It's like, Hey, who are some clients you served? So again, this will be this way. You're focused on them and say, Hey, I'm a, I'm a credible professional. Yeah. Who's out there to help other people, not just to close people.

Kelly Kennedy: You have to change your thought process.

Instead of trying to job shop, essentially you need to customer shop. You need to speak to the customer. That's what you're trying to do.

Marcus Chan: 100 percent like what's, what's on their mind, right? And this, your goal is, do you want to just minimize that friction? So this way they see this guy's actually like this guy or Dow is actually legitimate and you know, I'll entertain a conversation with them and I'll help them out.

And this is actually why the content can be really powerful because you're, if you're consistently posting a useful content, even if you're pretty new to the industry or new to the company, huh. Actually, that was a pretty interesting post that they posted up about, you know, XYZ about the CX experience or whatever it's going to be.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, let's talk about content.

I know we kind of got into it. Obviously you didn't get to where you're at without a pretty impressive content strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about your content strategy, Marcus?

Marcus Chan: Yeah. So I'll say what I do now is a little different than what I used to do. Right. Cause you know, typically we pump out over a hundred pieces of content every single month.

Wow. It's like all the channels. So it's a little bit different now, cause now the team of people, I asked staff to help me, it's a little bit different when I got started. It was just me and only me. Yeah. So I'm gonna kind of share from that perspective how to really kind of get started because I think that's the hardest part.

So I think the first piece is you know, you always want to have like an idea bucket, so meaning like. You'll get different ideas about like, you know, what customers talk about. It could be in sales conversations. It could be just talking with friends. It could be in reading books in the industry. It can be reading other posts you want to place.

We kind of dump your ideas. Okay. That's, that's the first piece. So even to this day, I still do the same thing. I have an idea area. I use clicker as a software with, I throw all the ideas inside there. Yeah. Right. And then from there, I basically organize it into like, what, what what I'm going to create for when so, you know, in the, the process that really hasn't changed now in five years, but like literally on the 15th of each 15th, 20th of each month, I literally will just map out the next third of next month's content, what the topic's going to be for each day.

So then from there every single week I'll create the content. And because I've been doing it for so long now, I've also learned how important it is to get ahead. So I used to just wake up, okay, here's this idea. Yeah, I'll try, try, create the idea on the spot, which is very hard by the way. So that's not fun to do that at all.

So I realized it's, I, I can create better content on what's pressured. So I got to the point where At the very minimum, I'm two weeks completely written out. So meaning like today and two weeks after today, I've already written all the content. I've already created all the content. So I I'm good to go.

So that way each week, if I have my content day, which is usually Tuesday. Then I just got to wake up and I got to create content for basically three weeks out. And as long as I'm really consistent with that, then it just multiplies over time. So now I think I'm like three or four weeks out, right.

Consistently. So it makes it much easier. Right. But then from a content perspective, like what I used to do is I would create the content and then I would basically schedule it. To post on linkedin or whatever platform and that's how it was right pretty simple Now my work was a little bit different, but that's kind of like the high level of it now because now it's like it's a little bit different where we have so much long form content and we have more more repurposed content Yeah, it's become a little bit easier over time.

So my strategy is kind of pivot So now what I do now as a kind of a pivot If you're at stage one try and get started. That's kind of how I did it, right? Just being consistent is the key and stage two is like put some systems in place. So for example Now that how the strategy works is every week, I'll create one pillar piece of content.

So this is like a 30 minute to 60 minute long form video on YouTube, super high value, super tactical. That same video is in a turn into a carousel and then turn into like multiple posts. The video clip is cut into like eight to 10 different clips as well. Yeah. So that single piece of pillar content can now turn into.

10, 20, 30 pieces of content that happens every single week. Right. And that, and then the rest of those pieces get dispersed all throughout the content calendar. And then and then we'll solve other ones we create as well as part of it. Right. But then also on top of that, we'll take a look at like content from last three months, find the best performing ones.

Repurpose it and reuse it in a different way for the future too. So because it's ongoing, the system, like we just have so much content now where it makes it much easier for the creation process because now the flywheel is in motion, we just gotta keep it in motion. It's all we gotta do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I mean, obviously I'm getting better and better and better.

Like I started this show. By the time this show airs, it'll be out for a little over two years. So this particular show has been, yeah, we've been at it, right. And we've been consistent and consistency over time breeds success. I've known that forever since I've been in business development. So we took that to the podcast.

We haven't missed a single episode. We've been just flying through we do two episodes a week. But the content strategy was something that I didn't have a lot of background in. Like you would think I get it business development. I should have a ton. But like reality is I used I use socials in the way that I needed to use them.

And it wasn't until I really started to show that I felt like, okay, I need to start to learn. How do you repurpose content? How do you use all this stuff? And I am by no means a pro. I'm getting better all the time. But we use things like Opus Clips. We use Canva to create a whole lot of posts. But you know, what are some of the what are some of the programs that you're using to kind of help?

Make your life easier because you and me both know content creation is a monster.

Marcus Chan: So I think if the first piece is actually the who, right, is how do the right people in play make it so much easier. So like we use OpusClip, we use Canva, we use all the same guys, the same type of tools, but like. From a workflow perspective, I'll kind of walk through the workflow, but it makes it a little bit easier.

You can kind of see it. So on my content day. So we manage everything within a project manager software called ClickUp. There's many tools out there. Notion's great. Trello's great. They all work some way, shape or form. So it's all managed within ClickUp for us. So I create the content that's scheduled on a certain day.

We have different stages for it. So, so my, my my EA knows once I put it into pre approval, it gets sent to her.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Marcus Chan: So this way, it's like whatever it's going to be right. If it's like you know, if it's a short from video, whatever it's going to be, or if it's a carousel, whatever I write the content, I create the content.

I put it into pre approval. You can send over to her. She'll review my work. Cause sometimes I just, of course, it's just like there's errors, grammatical errors, or I'll change like, you know, the tense I'm talking. Right. So she'll kind of adjust a little bit. And if it's just like a text only post or a text and an image only post, she'll then send over to you know one of the content schedulers.

She'll the kind of schedule, then schedule onto the, whatever platform is going to be. Right. So pretty easy. If it's like a carousel, that same person wants to create the carousel, then there's an approval process back and forth. It has to look a certain way. Yeah. So. My EA will work with the content scheduler and creator of the content of the Canva doc and go back and forth until it's nails.

Yeah. Right. Once it's nails, she gets a thumbs up that gets scheduled again into the platforms. Right. And it gets marked accordingly. Click up. If it's a video, if it's a short form video we have a short form editor. So same principle, like video gets done. Little clip gets done. Or if it's a, if it's a repurposed clip, I'll write the copy for everything and then send it over to my EA.

She double checks everything. She'll then upload to to Descript and then from Descript, it'll get sent over to the the the short form editor who then actually will create the reel.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Marcus Chan: And then she'll work with an improvement of the proving that we're putting that piece of real. And then once that's good, it goes back to the content scheduler who then schedules on the right platform.

And then if it's a long form video on YouTube, it's like 30 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever. We have a different person for that. So my EA will first put it through the script. Review everything, just kind of cleaning up a little bit because sometimes if it's like a long form video for 60 minutes, she like, ah, we could probably like Marcus messed up a hundred different times.

Let's just cut these parts out already. And Descript.

Kelly Kennedy: Is amazing.

Marcus Chan: Exactly. And then send it right over to the long form editor. Then they'll go back and forth to basically approve it. So like now the process is simpler because. You know I create it, I pass it to my team to take care of everything else.

Yes. And then they'll use Opus Clip. They'll use Adobe Premiere Pro. They'll use Canva. They use this other tool, what's it called? But it's like a plugin into Adobe where it helps you jump cutting for you automatically. So it saves a lot of time. I don't plugin for that. And I think I think my short form guy, I think he uses CapCut.

I'm not even sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like you listening. This is the mess of having to create content these days. We're using like five to six programs to create content. And yes, we're all doing this. It's bonkers. Someone needs to come along and make one program to rule them all. And make it easy to use now. Like it shouldn't be an issue.

No learning curve. Oh, yeah, dude. It's like I got into this and I didn't know how to use any of that stuff. And it's been like, Holy cow. The amount I've learned in two years has been absolutely next level. But at the same time.

Marcus Chan: Figuring out the workflow, you know, like, all right, the workflow, that it takes a while to figure out.

Then like, what tools should I use? You know, I can make it easier. It's this whole thing, you know?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. But trust me guys, if I can learn it, anybody can learn it. Like I'm not technically deficient by any means, but these are all things that I had to learn from square zero, including Adobe audition, which is what we use to record this show.

And, and Riverside, which is what we're talking on right now. Yeah, man, I had no idea. Like the, the longer I go down this road, I'm like, my God, do I really need another program? I know I'm old. Like what can I cut? I got, I already been using this, right? It's like, everything is trying to do everything, but it only does the one thing that it does really great.

And it half asses the other things you still need. It's like, even if Descript and Riverside. Put out transcripts, Descripts, transcripts are still better.

Marcus Chan: Sometimes you just need the best tool for the job. It is what it is.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. That's right. Yeah, dude. It's, but you know what? I love this. Like I love doing this podcast.

I've, I've learned to love content creation. So it's like, I, I hated it. And then I got better and better and better at it. Now I actually really enjoy the creative process of content creation. And yeah, you know, if you're not doing it right now, I don't want to discourage you. I know this sounds a little scary.

We've talked about a lot of different programs, but just start with one. Yeah, just start with one, like do something doing anything is better than doing nothing.

Marcus Chan: Yeah, I would say like lean into your strengths, right? So like for me video is easier for me, you know, but the issue I actually have a video early on was because the editing piece.

I didn't know how to do that. So I didn't really start with that. So I started like text. I'm like, I'm pretty good writer. I'm like, I'll start with writing first. So I go, ideally, whatever you're naturally better at, you know, start with that first.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. You know, you you do a lot of personal video and, you know, I wanted to chat with you about that because that's something that, you know, we're looking at on our side too.

Honestly, my introvertedness has kept me away from video. To be honest, I, I love podcasts. I love talking, but honestly, I've never really felt comfortable in front of a camera. I just never have. You know, what was it that led you to that? You know how were you able to build up the confidence to really start to put yourself out there in front of a camera?

Marcus Chan: Well, I appreciate you saying that because if I look at my videos, when I first started doing videos, like videos like this, or even just teaching something, it's been almost it's probably been nine years since I started. Wow. And when I take a look back on those videos, I mean, super awkward, like very stiff.

Sound quality was terrible. I didn't know anything about lighting or cameras or even acoustics or any of that type of jazz and make a good video. And they just weren't good videos. Like just very, very awkward. That's what I found. But here's the thing. I, I just first started doing it and I just kept doing it more and more.

And then over time I started to realize I'm like, I can, this is actually useful for a skill for me to learn. And I got better over time by simply doing it right. So I had to just, I basically embrace the suck. That's what broke down to, and that's what it was. It's like putting myself out there because I'm, I'm, I'm naturally more introverted, actually.

I mean, I would test it and be avert now. But doing videos, I just hate the way I looked. Hey, the way I look, Hey, the way it sounded. And just, just didn't like it now. Now it's like been, let me think, let me back up a little bit because I kept, I kept doing videos. I did like once a week. It was what I did.

I had a video like once a week video and it's only to my website. So it got no traffic at the time. And then it was 2019. I'm like, I'm gonna start posting on social like once a week. Right. And just like committing to that. So I started like the micro commitment and I'm like, okay, one minute video record about something and just do it again.

Not very good, not very good. And then I kept doing it and then got to two videos a week. Right. And then start what was interesting was this is early. My business was getting started. I started getting a lot I started getting invited to a lot of podcasts because of my social media content and it wasn't, I was still only like one video a week or so though at the time, I remember, but I was getting all these podcast interviews and actually was a really good for me to practice.

So it kind of forced me to like, get good on having a conversation, like via, like, just like, like an interview style that I can repurpose. So that also made me better as well. Yeah. And then that allowed me to cut into micro clips, which is useful. And then I just kept, I mean, I just kept doing it.

Like, I just kept doing it and I kept watching people who look way better than me. I'm like, how do you do such a good job? You know, like, and also I found too was. Even with video, man, like editing makes a big, big difference. Yes. So like being able to like, I have someone who actually know what they're doing for editing could take a, you know, an okay video recorded and make it look much better by cutting out my errors and whatever thing they stumble over.

So that was a big for sure. Yeah. And then long form videos. I mean, I, I started getting real good long form was still uncomfortable for me. Sure. That's what it was long form. Like, cause I, I got, once I got the short form dial, it was really, so you picture now, this is 2022 now. So this is me six years in my trying to create video journey.

So it wasn't like overnight. Yes. And I'm like, like, you know, I'm pretty bullish on YouTube. But man, I got to do these YouTube videos. Like it's kind of a long video. Like I got to like do 15 minute, 20 video video. Like I have no problem presenting a live in front of people, but there's something about just like looking into a camera by myself doing something.

Yeah. Very daunting for that long of time. So then I'm like, okay, what's, what could I do to make it easier for myself? I'm like, well, you know what? I could script the video. So I started to script the videos out. Yep. So I'll write the whole script out, you know, got a teleprompter. Started, started doing that, and that was like, that really helped a lot, quite a bit.

So I started getting, got used to it and then I made a commitment where I'm like, I'm gonna do like one a week. So that was like 20, 22, I think. Yeah. 20, 22, 1 a week. So then from there I mean for the most part, I mean literally up until probably this. A year ago every video is scripted up like I'll script from start to finish.

Kelly Kennedy: Like the whole thing. Like you didn't ad hoc anything. I didn't ad hoc anything. Wow. That's like, that's harder. That's much harder. Like people don't realize that people think that scripts are easy. They are not.

Marcus Chan: Not at all. So I was really script everything out. So like So the first, I mean, and that, but I'll, I'll have to practice.

And so it sounded natural. Yes. Right. So like you get that, you can't just like read off a script. You sound natural. So I started practicing. And so I got really, really comfortable with that. And then about a year ago, I'm like, well, first of all, this is taking too long. Because like to script it all, like to script a 20 minute video out, it's like actually quite a bit of time actually to do.

Kelly Kennedy: It's probably like 4, 000 words.

Marcus Chan: It takes a minute. Like I'm basically writing like a mini college essay each time. Right. I'm like, ah, it's like a lot of work. That's great. So then I'm like, okay, you almost started doing like, let me just like, let me just do bolt points now. So like, I'll just, I'll, I'll write the hook.

The hook is most important for like, for like videos and then I'll write like the, the, the back end CTA and then everything else in between is just going to be bolts, right? Just like high level was going to be about, so that's what I've been doing now for a year now. Right. And I have way more mess ups for sure.

Yeah. But like. It's usually more dense and better videos because I got more stuff, you know?

Kelly Kennedy: I was just thinking that yeah, like, you know, what's really funny. I've been doing it that way for a long time and I've had plenty of shows where frankly, I probably, I don't know, like, I don't know what was with me that day.

I was just really struggling to talk and I had way more edits that I'm freaking even comfortable admitting and the show still came out. Absolutely amazing. You would never know, but I remember releasing shows just thinking like, man, that was a horrible show. And then the next day, that was an amazing show.

Like great, great show, Kelly. And it's funny, like it's amazing what editing can do. And I would say to you, you know, like you said, by, by using bullet points, it allows you to speak to your expertise and in a lot of ways, you're going to say something better than if you scripted it anyway.

Marcus Chan: Totally. And on top of that, like, it's just like if you don't even know the contents, that's not, it's just totally fine.

Yeah. But also. Because, you know, I'm sure it's the same with you when you do, when you do this for a while, like you, you're, you're actually getting better over time. You may not even realize it. Yeah. So like your, your standard for like, that was bad, like today, you know, a year ago, really, you know, that's right.

I look like even now when I, when I do like with the bolt point video, I'm like, ha, I don't think it was that good. But then once I say the final, I'm like, actually, it's way better than I expected. Actually, like, actually, you know what? Like this is still a hundred X better than my videos from like, you know, from 2016, you know, it's still a progression, but I think the best way to get better on videos, you just have to practice it and like be really consistent with it.

Like that's really, really key. Well, I forgot to mention, there's other things I did as well. That got me more comfortable on video, which was This was big, my first year of business, which was like every, every time I got a guy connection request I would accept it and then I sent a video message on my phone.

So this got me comfortable, like on the fly as well. So it was like these little things that I kept incorporating as part of the video journey to get to the point where now it's like, I can riff no problem. You know, on a video really quick. But it took a long time to actually get there, actually just doing the work to actually build the confidence up and then frankly not caring because now I'm like, yeah, it's not like a dope still.

I think, you know, I still sound goofy. I hate my voice, but it is what it is. What am I going to do? Like, this is who I am.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Let's get into that because a big part of your book is really about confidence and authenticity.

Marcus Chan: That's right. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Like I find confidence is like a bank account, right?

Everything you do either as a deposit or withdrawal. And every time you commit yourself and you do the things you know, you're supposed to do, you build more confidence over time. Right. And that's just, that's just what happens. And if you, if you don't do it, like for, like, for example, why can we do videos consistent?

I'm like, yeah, it sucks. If I do it consistently, it start building up my confidence. And also on top of that, you know, like when the video is not perfect, there's a level of authenticity and realness that comes with it was not like perfectly scripted. You know, like for instance, like I've, I've done like I don't want to name the tool, but I've tested some AI videos out.

Where it's like, it's, it is me. It looks just like me. It sounds like me. Yeah. Right. But it's like too perfect. Yeah. It's too perfect. So, you know, like it actually didn't convert as well as a super raw one where I like ums like pauses that's way more organic. It's just. How it is, you know I think it's also because I think, you know, now we're into like a trust recession, right?

People don't really trust people. Right? Sure. They see, see things that are too perfect. They, they, they, they, they question it. And I think that's why people love to talk these days because it's far more real and authentically feel least. Right? Yeah. So that's, that's, that's, that's why I think it's, it's key to be able to showcase who you are as part of your whole sales process.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Well, I always say, you know, in a time of AI and robots, be human, right? Like that's the differentiator these days, guys. Like we're going back. You got to be yourself. That's what people want. People want more authenticity. They want more. They want a real person that they can trust, right? We have this like idea that AI is going to kill everything and mark my words, it will never kill salespeople and it'll never kill a real relationship.

You will never be able to replace it.

Marcus Chan: I'll tell you what, when I get a handwritten note, I still struggle throwing that away. And I'm saying like, you know, versus like you get so many emails, you get something that you know, it's on like that handwritten note. You're like, okay, that's a, it's pretty nice.

It's like, cause you know, they took the time to do it. There's a, there's an emotional field to it. So you can't go wrong by just being a good human as part of your process.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. And I think that's really important. Like in this time of creating content, we talked a lot about content, but people don't just want to be sold or sent a bunch of marketing content, right?

They want something that they can connect with. Can we maybe talk about personalizing content and how you do it, Marcus?

Marcus Chan: Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think the, at the end of the day, when you create content, you always want to create with the end user in mind. Right. So like, like I have this little prompt here on my, on my email, my computer here.

So like when I'm creating content, the first thing I ask myself is who am I writing to specifically? So I imagine like my personal writing is on the other side of my computer screen. They're going to consume a piece of content. They're going to either read it. They're going to watch or whatever they're going to do.

They're going to scroll through it. Who is that person specifically? What's what's on their mind. And that's really, really important because you want to be writing to what's on their mind. And generally speaking, most time they have their problems, right? And then what I was thinking about is like, how do I want them to make them?

How do I want to make them feel after they consume a piece of content? And I think it's really important piece. This allows you to create depth to your content. So, for example, I have some prompts. I'm like, okay, do I want them to feel inspired or motivated? Do I want them to feel enlightened? Do I want them to feel empathy or connection to me?

Do I want them to feel challenged? Don't feel joy or comedy. Don't feel curious. Sometimes you have multiple of these feelings, but if you, if you begin with that end in mind, what your desire and result is, then you're going to hopefully create a piece of content kind of geared towards that. So for example, like this morning's post was about enlightenment.

I want to enlighten people on what to do, you know, when they, when someone gets added to a demo call with new stakeholders. So what to do then? So, you know, it's not designed to be funny. It's not designed to challenge people's mindset. It's not designed to make kids, it's going to be very tactical. Like it's like, this is how you do X.

So hopefully they'll walk away like, Oh, I need to be doing these things. Yeah. Right. Versus some other ones from posting about, you know, like you know, being married for 14 years, there's no conversion optimization I'm going for. I'm just going for connection. Yeah, you know, because sometimes people just we post this too much like business stuff.

Who is this person? Are they real? This person? Exactly. So you want to humanize it as part of it.

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh. Yeah. Like I'm definitely realizing like if you just look at engagement on LinkedIn, people are 10 times more likely to engage with personalized. Connecting content than they are with your marketing stuff.

And so like the reality is, if you're looking to just create a bunch of engagement, you need to stop posting about your job and start posting about you.

Marcus Chan: A hundred percent. Yeah. It, it, it makes it much more real, right? This is why, you know, like we, we, there's so much power in the brand. Right. I look at someone like, like the rock, like he can, he's been building this brand for like, you know, a couple of decades now, so launches a tequila brand crushes it.

Right. What's up? We got Ryan Ryan Reynolds, same thing. Right. You know, been building back for years, rolls up, I think he met mobile. I think he has a gin as well. Aviation gin crushes it. Yeah. Right. You know, the Kardashian hater hate them or love them, but when they roll a new product line. It crushes, like Oprah has been around for decades now.

She mentioned someone's product crushes. Right. So there's an association of that, which is really powerful. And, you know, I think most of our watchers, they probably don't want to be like an Oprah or a Kardashian, whatever, but. You can still own your niche and, you know, build a personal brand around it as well and still do a good balance everything.

So for, you know, there's, there's something I don't share on personally. I don't want to share about that, but like I'll share a lot of personal stuff though, because I know it's going to help break up my content a little bit and be entertaining.

Kelly Kennedy: I think that the time is coming, Marcus, where. If you don't have a personal brand of some level, you're in trouble, you're in trouble as a business owner, as a coach, whatever you're doing, whatever you want to do, even as an employee, I think on a certain level, if you aren't looking after in 2024, I guess this show's coming out early 2025, so this time and beyond.

Yeah. Like you, if you're not working on personal brand, you need to figure it out. And I know that that sucks. I know there's a lot of people who are like, but I just want to go to work. Right. Totally. But something's changed, man. I don't know what it is, but I can see it and I can feel it.

Marcus Chan: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's you hate him or love him, but look at Elon Musk.

They're like, he, he is on, he's on X. He's posting stuff. He, he knows how to get attention, but even if it's controversial attention, you know how to get attention. Right. And attention is a new current currency. So like, if you're able to gather attention, you're going to be able to get more eyeballs to your stuff.

You can have more conversations in reality. This is like. You know, I think what's, what's that say? No, no media is bad media. Yeah. You know, that's, that's the truth, right? Like even people that get hated on suddenly they explode, it goes crazy. So like, it's like now people are searching them. They're like, what's the Andrew Tate, right?

Like it's people love and hate that guy. Right. But then people are talking about them now and that's what makes them, makes them go viral. So he's, he's hacked that.

Kelly Kennedy: It's it's happening, man. There's no hiding from it. Like the reality is personal branding. And I've had plenty of people on the show. Now we're saying the same thing.

Personal branding is the, like, is the thing of 2024, 2025. If you're not working on like last year, everyone was talking AI. That was the new big thing. I would say the thing that I've seen, the big, like trend is personal branding. And you know, it's you can start tomorrow. Like if you haven't started yet, it's okay.

But it's time, it's time to start thinking about it. And you can start, like you said, just with your LinkedIn page, right?

Marcus Chan: Good place to start. A hundred percent. It's like, I think the ease always is, is like wherever your audiences go there first, that makes it much easier. Yeah. So if you know, they're already on LinkedIn, go LinkedIn.

If you know, they're on Instagram, go to Instagram, wherever they are, go to that place first. Right. And like, you want to build that muscle, build a habit of doing that. Because if you take a look at like two different people, I mean, I was talking to someone the other day, they're like, Hey, we're going to go with you.

And I was like, cool. Like, you know, what was exactly? And there, there is kind of like, well, I think it's, I think the offer is actually roughly the same, you know, what you guys kind of offer. I'm like, okay, it doesn't make me feel good. But they're like, the reason we go with you is like. I mean, you just like we Googled you, we found all the stuff about you from other people, like you just have a better, you just better online presence.

We actually know you're legit. Yeah. So like the risk, the risk level, if they had to turn risk level seem much less with me. You built trust before that interaction. 100%. 100%. So it's definitely a long game. That's where if people think about posting content, et cetera, it's like you have to think not just in like.

Well, I get leads today or tomorrow, even this year, like you want to be thinking like five, 10 years down the road. Like we have, we have little clients that come on board almost five years later. If I say, you know, this one piece of content, that's why I reached out. This is why I was even open to conversation.

Like I've been watching you from afar and this stuff, this thing had my personal life and also your timing. Worked out really well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, dude, you started your company. What just, just under five years ago at this point, you're talking to a lot of business owners who, you know, or maybe they're not yet business owners.

Maybe they're awesome salespeople who are looking to do their own thing. They want to be Marcus Chan. They want to step out on their own. But they're afraid, dude, they're afraid to take their future into their control. Incorporating a company and leaving that, you know, high salary job is a real hard choice.

So that you had to make. Yeah. So talk about that decision. Talk about, talk about the decision to do your own thing.

Marcus Chan: So I think the first piece is you have to really decide, like, what are you optimizing for in life? What do you really want? Like, I think it's really important. So sometime I find some people, it's not a bad thing, but they're running away from something.

I hate my job and start my own business. Not necessarily a bad thing. And I think you mentioned that's what you did as well. And it worked out really well for you, right? You're able to keep going for a lot of people that doesn't really work out, which is they do it for a while. Like, oh my God, this is, we have to learn so many more things that I got, I got to go back.

Right. I think the first thing I understand, what are you optimizing for? Like if you're like, Oh, I just want to have more free time. Let's be real here. Being a business owner, we start off, you don't have more free time. I mean, you're working like 80 to a hundred hour a week. So boy working 40 for someone else.

Right? Like understand what are you optimizing for, but what's your big end goal? Okay. So when you know that it's like, okay, you're gonna be more ones. You kind of do the hard things. All right. I think the second thing is like You want to like position yourself in a position, you won't position yourself ideally where you have freedom of choice.

And what I mean by that is I was really fortunate in a sense though, that I'm pretty frugal, like since I got started in sales. I have always lived below my means for most part, almost always live off my base alone. And the commission's most, I invested either to myself or to other investments. So I was really strategic with my money, my capital deployment.

So when I decided to make that leap and 35 years old, frankly, I could just not work for 20 years and be totally fine. So I put myself in a position where I had a free choice, but more importantly, I'm like, If I start this business, if I completely fail, like, are we going to be okay, you know, or am I going to just go out to the worst clients possible, you know, very little, very demanding clients.

Right? So this, this will mean a better position. I'm not saying you have to set yourself up where you have like 20 years of burn, right? But you want to put yourself in a position where. Let's say for example, like if you want to give yourself a year to be a great business owner, at least a year of like cash that's liquid or is accessible that the manager may be a little extra if you need to.

So you don't have as much pressure. So this allows you to make better decisions, right? I think that's really key. That helped me quite a bit where I've had friends where they try and make that leap. They didn't really do that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Marcus Chan: So six months later, they're back, you know, looking for a job and whatever, because they got kind of put in a tough spot and you know, it wasn't really great.

So this allows you to make better decisions. So I think it's really key.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I, I will, I will attest to that. I started capital with 10 grand. And I went out on my own and like, like it was really make it or die. And that was enough to like really get a client or two fairly quickly, make sure that I was charging enough that it made sense that it was going to cover my bills and start to make a small profit.

Right. But it was a necessity that kept me alive, dude. And like you, I was dialing until I, until I did it because it was that or, or. Fail. Yeah. Oh yeah. So for me, that worked, but that doesn't work for everybody. I agree completely. You you mentioned that I didn't hate my job. I actually, I actually hit the hit COVID and my boss pulled me aside.

I'd been there for 10 years and he said, Kelly, dude, we don't know what the next year looks like. And we're trying to make some hard decisions. And one of those decisions is going to be. You know, if we can bring you on contract, we're going to look at doing that. And so that was what the kickstart was.

Luckily they came on, they gave me, it was, it was not the best contract I've ever had, but a contract that was enough to cover my bills when I got my business going. And they paid me a severance, which was nice. So. Yeah, it was like, it was like that boost I needed, but you know what? It was that it was adversity.

It was a situation of you sink or swim, Kelly, figure it out. Like you're either going to have to get another job. You're going to start your own thing. And do you really want to work for someone else? And it was okay. I'm going to do it.

Marcus Chan: Yeah. And I would say the third thing is manage expectations for yourself.

So like, you know, I think it's like. I'm sure you've seen what you're like, Hey, if I'm a really good salesperson, this should be pretty easy, actually be a business owner. But then you realize sales is just one small part of what you do. Yes. There's so many other hatchets that we, you know, think about from, you know, product creation to offer fulfillment, to back end fulfillment.

It makes you be accustomed to happy to accounting, to finance, a cash flow, to strategic planning, to. Content marketing sales. And there's so many things to worry about. Right. So it makes it hard if you're not.

Kelly Kennedy: I don't know about you, but marketing my own company was always harder than marketing somebody else's way harder.

Marcus Chan: Way harder. You like, think about it differently versus like you're kind of told this is how you talk about your company. You know, when it's you, you have, you make every single decision. The buck stops there, which is, it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. So I think some people kind of walk in with the wrong expectation.

You're like, Oh, it's amazing. But like, I remember the first two weeks, like I was working like 80 hours a week, my first couple of weeks and. After my first two weeks, my wife's like, Hey, how's, how's it going? I'm like, great. I'm like, what have you been up to? I'm like, I don't know. I had no idea what I did for the last two weeks.

Yeah. You know? And I realized I'm like, oh man, like before I had a really clear structure and schedule, all these things just, I think that's took away. I had, you know, outlook calendar, I had tasks and all these things are kind of in place already, but I had to recreate from scratch, you know? So it's just like, there's all these things you just don't know.

And then I'll say if you can, like I would get like a business coach. Like this is a business coach upfront, like before you even see a star, if you can, that will help accelerate your learning curve because you just don't know what you don't know.

Intro: You don't know what you don't know.

You don't know a lot. Trust me.

Marcus Chan: You know, like nothing, you know, how do I file, how do I create a company?

Kelly Kennedy: I always say, Marcus, I'm a great business development person. I'm a everyday learning entrepreneur because I am so, I'm only four years into entrepreneurship and I have so much still to learn and I learn something new every day.

I learned something new in every one of these interviews, dude. Like entrepreneurship is, is a completely different monster.

Marcus Chan: Dude, it's totally different. And that's, that's where it's like, when I see people post, like, it's easy to break into a solo preneurship when you're, when you're a rep, I'm like, not necessarily, I mean, there's some things that are good, but like, let's just say, for example, if you work for a big company and you're used to a big logo backing you up and now you start your own company and no name, brand.

com, I mean, it's different, you know, there's. There's, there's, it's a wildly different situation, you know? And then you know, I would say if you can start a side hustle first, right? Like now I would say, don't start a side hustle at the cost of you not be able to perform. Like that means like you, you need to be able to consistently perform if you're a salesperson.

Cause reality is like, if you can't perform, if you can't sell for someone else. It's going to be pretty hard to sell for yourself. That's right. That's just reality. So you're just going to follow you everywhere. So if you're consistently performing and then building up a side hustle, even test out and build a little bit of an audience up can be a huge gift.

Like, you know, I know I have buddies who did a great job building a huge audience before they went into their own business.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Marcus Chan: And that paid them a massive dividends. That's right. You know, versus the ones who did not do it. Like, I mean, I didn't really do that myself. And it was more of an uphill battle.

So I'm like pushing a giant rock up the hill versus like someone that felt like they're just kind of like, Oh, it's so easy. I'm like, Oh man, that was not the same way for me. It was super hard. So yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Like I agree completely. It's like, you know, like you said, give away 90 percent charge 10. Like the reality is if you want to make an impact and you want to make a difference in the world, that is the, that's the approach you have to take.

100 percent 100 percent you know, we'll take us into Bentley, right? Like, obviously you're helping, you're helping other business development, people, salespeople, marketing, people, business owners, like your coach and talk about Venli. What are all the services you do?

Marcus Chan: So there's two parts of the business.

So we have the individual side, then the team side, the individual sides, like, you know, they're most of them are a lot of tech sales professionals, tech AEs, you know, they're coming in and we have a coaching program for them. So we're just helping them. Absolutely crushed their numbers and actually blow the numbers out.

So a lot, I'm just need a lot of help across the board from filling the pipeline to shortening the sales cycle, closing deals, stuff like that. So that's that part of the business, which is a lot of fun. And then on the other side is a B2B side, which is working with teams and companies and basically doing the same thing at scale.

So they have like, you know, eight reps, 10 reps, a hundred reps, different programs for them. Cause they just need something a little bit different, more, that's much more customized as a result, but we're helping their teams. It's absolutely crushed too on both sides of the business, but it's a lot of fun on the way.

Basically, if you need help crushing your numbers, I'm the guy.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. And Marcus, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you? If they want to hire you.

Marcus Chan: Super simple. You either head to you know, benleyconsulting. com or, you know, message me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome.

Awesome. And guys, like the reality is I connected with Marcus on LinkedIn before I read his book, but I did read his book. It is six figure sales secrets. You do not want to miss this. This is awesome. If you have any type of sales, if you're a business owner and you have to sell for yourself, if you're a sales rep, a business development specialist, whatever it is, trust me, pick up the book.

It's amazing. And I agree. I agree with everything Marcus wrote. Actually, it's, I can't say that for a lot of books, but dude, everything you wrote is exactly what I would recommend and promote. It's an amazing book. I agree. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And people can get your book where marcus?

Marcus Chan: So if you head to Venli.co/book, they can get a copy there.

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect. Perfect. Until next time, this has been episode 204 of the business development podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation. And business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.