Mark Stern: How to Build a “Top of Mind” Experience People Keep

Wendy & Rich 0:00
Hey, everyone is Rich Bennett. Can you believe it? The show is turning 10 this year. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've tuned in, shared a episode, or even joined the conversation over the years. You're the reason that this podcast has grown into what it is today. Together, we've shared laughs, tears, and moments that truly matter. So I want to thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make the next 10 years even better. Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios Harford County Living Presence conversations with Rich Bennett. 

No. No, no. It's just who it is. 

Rich Bennett 1:00
So what if your next client didn't just sign a contract, but became a lifelong fan? Today's guest is Mark Stern and he's flipping the script on how financial professionals attract on board and retain high value clients. If you're a financial advisor, CPA, wealth manager, or consultant looking to deliver results faster and keep clients coming back, this episode is your playbook. So Mark is the CEO of Custom Box Agency, an award-winning experiential marketing firm that's powered over 100 campaigns for get this six, seven, and eight figure businesses, named one of Forbes's next 1,000 entrepreneurs to watch and featured in Joey Coleman's Wall Street Journal bestseller "Never Lose an Employee Again." Mark is a master of blending physical and digital experiences to drive loyalty and revenue. In this conversation, you're going to learn, you know what? I'm not even going to say you're going to learn 

Mark Stern 2:11
a 

Rich Bennett 2:11
lot because I mean, I just, before we even started recording, Mark and I were chatting and I'm blown away already by what he does and I'd never seen another company like this. First of all, how's it going, Mark? 

Mark Stern 2:29
I'm thrilled to be here, Rich. Thanks for having me. 

Rich Bennett 2:31
All right, so one of the questions I'd like to ask people, because I know we're going to be talking a lot about your business, but one of the things I always like to ask people is back in high school, what was it that you always wanted to do? What was your career path? 

Mark Stern 2:46
It's so funny. You know what? It's my gosh. High school. I think that the bread comes over there about marketing and some capacity, 

Rich Bennett 3:02
because 

Mark Stern 3:03
I was the kid who couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in high school and I didn't know. I tried and tried and tried. When I was born, my feet towed in really badly and I'm from Alabama. When you're from Alabama, everyone wants to be a football player. Everyone loves watching Alabama and Auburn Play and I tried to play sports and I just trip over my feet, and so I had to accept it at a young age. Maybe I'm not an athlete. Maybe sports is not for me. 

Rich Bennett 3:26
Right. 

Mark Stern 3:26
What was this pursuit of like, what am I good at? And I tried drama and speech and debate and everything and just failed, failed. From a high school standpoint, what I found was I love student government. I love creating programs that brought people together. I love just like being very in tune with the student body. At the time, because that really got me excited and creating programs that were relevant to where we were in that part of our lives, that was a theme that has then continued on because when I was in college, it was the same thing. I was class president. I went to college in DC, at American, not too far from you. Then worked in experiential marketing afterwards. This pathway of experiential marketing and marketing, the themes of it before I even knew it was marketing. The breadcrumbs were always there about do you understand your audience and do you understand how to create something that provides value to your audience and then watch you monitoring, grow it in that capacity. I would love to say, I thought it'd be a doctor or a lawyer or something else, but I think my bones and my body knew deep down. And I'm going to have the meter and being a marketer was truly who I was. 

Rich Bennett 4:37
One thing is, and I learned this the hard way because I definitely wasn't doing sales at first, but if you want to make money, marketing and sales is where it's at. And fun! 

Mark Stern 4:50
And fun, and that's the cool thing about sales is that like for any business when people start voting with their wallet and start paying with the wallet, you know, that's the best part of this all is it's not about what I want. It is, you know, what is the market asking for and what are they underserved? And in that 

Rich Bennett 5:06
Yeah. 

Mark Stern 5:06
capacity, I can start to create value by creating things that are relevant to not what I think is interesting, but what they're asking for. 

Rich Bennett 5:13
So what was your first marketing job? 

Mark Stern 5:16
Oh, so right out of undergrad, from undergrad to business school, I don't know what it was. I had this dream of working on national marketing campaigns in the beverage industry. And so I moved to Chicago after undergrad and worked for a company called Legacy Art Core Client was per-no record. And we were in charge of all their nationwide marketing on premise. So what happens at bars for brands like Absolute Jameson, Malibu, Shibba's. 

Rich Bennett 5:41
Right. 

Mark Stern 5:42
Peter, Calua. So having in the spirits realm, dream job at 22 because they'd be like you create a program for Stolee or Malibu or Jamison and they'd say, Mark, we need you to go out to Miami or New York, can you go secret shop. So it's a 22 year old to be flown to big cities to just sit in the bar or a venue and watch how they were executing our programs was like a dream at that age. 

Rich Bennett 6:07
I thought you were going to tell me that they were sending you out the sample the product 

Mark Stern 6:11
lots of sampling the product. 

Rich Bennett 6:12
Yeah. 

Mark Stern 6:13
It's funny because I in that one job, I collected, I probably had over 100 bottles of liquor. 

Rich Bennett 6:21
God. 

Mark Stern 6:21
And you flashed for today, I don't even drink. But at the time I went to business school at Duke's and not too too far from you and walked into business school, with over 100 bottles of liquor. And I just wanted to get rid of it. And anytime someone came over to drink it, they'd bring two more bottles of something and so it would just continue to grow 

Rich Bennett 6:39
collection. 

Mark Stern 6:39
this 

Rich Bennett 6:40
I was going to say I bet a lot of fraternities were trying to recruit you, weren't they. So he's got the bar already, man. Wow. Holy cow. Yeah, that's that God. That just sounds like so much fun. What is that see was it secret marketers 

Mark Stern 6:59
Secret shoppers. So 

Rich Bennett 7:00
or 

Mark Stern 7:00
it's 

Rich Bennett 7:00
shoppers 

Mark Stern 7:01
why the idea is we incubate and create a program for one of these brands. Then we're deploying it nationwide. So 

Rich Bennett 7:08
right? 

Mark Stern 7:08
we have local market representatives all over the country. And so they would take it and they'd own their local market and how all the venues and relationships with the local bars. And what we needed to do is sometimes after we incubated and created the program, you'd be sent to a market to say are they executing it as planned or are they you know you want to make sure are they compliant are they making sure that no one's drinking on the job. All those little things that you are is the program being delivered. What is the response of the consumer. So as a secret shopper was kind of fun, just a set of our and observe and see what was going on and interact with the models. And just see like are they executing right or not? 

Rich Bennett 7:47
I remember seeing ads for that where you could become a secret shoppers. That's still a thing. 

Mark Stern 7:52
It's a thing in different industries. But it's a the whole concept of I for me it's like a. I don't know you go undercover. It's kind of fun because you have this guy's that nobody knows about and you're evaluating whatever the. The situation is you know I know in Chicago when I live there there's a group called let us entertain you and they would have secret diners that literally less entertain you the restaurant group would pay consumers who got into the program to go eat at their restaurants. But they had a full list of things from like is the host walking with you or in front of you. How is the bathroom clean and so the secret shoppers would go in and be able to do an unbiased report. Just to see like our restaurants in Chicago and let us as tons of restaurants or out 

Rich Bennett 8:33
there. Yeah. 

Mark Stern 8:34
Being deployed the way like being executed the way that is up to their standards. 

Rich Bennett 8:40
interesting 

Mark Stern 8:41
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 8:42
so after that job how long was it before? Well let me back up is custom box agency your first business that you started. 

Mark Stern 8:50
No it's actually not so the after that job I got my MBA at Duke and then I worked for a big consulting firm called Deloitte for many years. And so I was. Go warrior traveling and it wasn't until I had a moment that was is this is this going to be my life. I'm just gonna continue to go up the ranks and become a partner Deloitte or you know I've always had this entrepreneur. 

You 

know I had a fear at one point that just the intensity of traveling weekly and not ever turning off. You work 24/7 in that role you're never off. This job in this lifestyle will kill me and that was kind of the motivation in 2018 to say you've always wanted to scratch this it should be an entrepreneur. It's time to explore it. And when all in with no plan had no idea what I was going to do. So the first business was virtual events. How to launch a virtual event. This is pre-COVID. And we always, when we launched a virtual event, because it was so heavy digital, 

Rich Bennett 9:53
Yeah! 

Mark Stern 9:54
I was like, I just want to send them tools and resources to make the digital experience more engaging. And it started with just crafting these experiences, the complement of what I was doing. And they just started to take off people are like, how are you doing this. How are you thinking through this? How did you structure this? And then we were getting all these unboxing videos of people promoting the event. Then we didn't ask them to. And these videos were averaging three to seven minutes of people just talking about the physical product we sent. And that was for me to say, okay, people need to pay attention. If you have a digital product, it's a no-brainer to complement it with something physical, because 

Rich Bennett 10:31
right, 

Mark Stern 10:32
this doesn't elevates that experience that helps people get results faster. And that's where it started. And I wasn't paying attention to the signs of what people were asking me. I was so focused on growing the virtual event business. But we started doing these boxes. And the long short of it is this. It's, I launched a product called custom box challenge teaching others how to do this. And I did it as I wanted to buy back my time to focus on virtual events. So people are like, how are you doing these experiences? I could say, "Oh, go buy this product for $27." And they would have everything they need. People went and bought the product. The product took off and was a hit. And they all came back to me saying, "But we want you to build the box." And so it was COVID and my mentor looked at me and he said, "You have this business and boxes that you're starting and you have this business and virtual events." So you're confusing the market, are you the box guy or the virtual event guy? Like, pick a lane and it's 

Rich Bennett 11:26
right. 

Mark Stern 11:27
The ownership that people don't want you to be good at everything. They want you to be known for something. And if any of COVID when everyone was becoming a virtual event expert overnight, that one ended up saying, "You know what? Virtual events isn't where I need to be. There's something with these box experiences that are really powerful." That pivot to go on on a box was the difference between having lots of competitors to having all my competitors being potential partners of us, because now we've provided a complimentary service instead of a competitive service. So that's just where it started. And it's just 

Rich Bennett 11:57
Wow. 

Mark Stern 11:58
evolved and evolved and evolved since then. 

Rich Bennett 12:01
and I think I had it wrong because in the intro, it sounded like I said, it was more or less focused for your business now. It was focused more for like financial professionals, but maybe 

Mark Stern 12:14
Anyway, 

Rich Bennett 12:14
if I'm wrong, it's real for anybody, right? 

Mark Stern 12:16
For anyone, the way we anchor people is customer life cycle. There's three phases to your customer life cycle. Phase one is, "How do people find you to buy in your products and services?" So that's acquisition. How do you acquire customers? After you acquire phase two, is you on board and deliver your products and services? And then phase three is retention. How do you extend lifetime value? So in clients work with us. And we work with clients across the gamut, doctors, lawyers, chiropractors. We've worked with people that have software as a service platform, coaching programs, online courses. You name it. The use case is very versatile, but we always anchor to say, "What is the goal? Is your goal acquisition? Or is it on boarding and delivery? Or is it retention?" And we can create an entire physical experience to help them drive that result faster. 

Rich Bennett 13:04
You said online courses? 

Mark Stern 13:06
Yeah, online courses are great. We can turn it into a whole gamified experience. 

Rich Bennett 13:09
I was going to say, I would think as that with people doing the online courses, your product would probably attract even more people and get people to finish the course as well. 

Mark Stern 13:21
And how we do it and how I love to do it is if you have a course, then you have a pathway that has a beginning, middle, and end. 

Rich Bennett 13:27
Right. 

Mark Stern 13:28
If I know how you structure it. We look to gamify a course. And what we may do is create a journey map or some type of dashboard that shows that these are all the main stops you're going to go through as you go through my product or my course. And then we may have a box that has a series of envelopes that they are in the right to open envelope one or envelope two as they progress through the different phases or the different modules. And so imagine it being in a way that you have your game board. And as you consume one of the modules or one of the lessons, you are in the right to open a new envelope that has the tools and resources for that lesson, as well as the badge you earned for the previous lesson you completed. And you can start to peel off these badges and put them on your dashboard until you collect all the pieces. So a box experience can take a course and turn it truly into a game. And then we can take it a step further and say, you know, when you create a course, sometimes people buy a course and go through it and forget that they even have access to it. 

Rich Bennett 14:23
Right. 

Mark Stern 14:24
Think about gaming in board games. We play it again and again and again. So how do we think about our products in a way that we can educate our customers that if they experience it once, tell them that if you go through this again in six months, it's going to have a whole different outcome. So you can increase the longevity. So there's just so much strategy that you can build into when you build a physical product to a digital experience. 

Rich Bennett 14:45
All right. So for those people that are listening because if they don't really understand what custom box agency is, give them your elevator pitch, especially those business owners out there. 

Mark Stern 14:59
Totally totally. So a lot of what we look at is you have a product or service that you're selling to your customers, your clients, your members, your students. And so a lot of what we're trying to do is how do we get into your genius? The thing that you're already doing in deploying and create a physical product in a way that buys back your time because we're able to extend your genius into the product itself. So that's how we look at your customers. It's how do we gamify it or make it interesting in a way that it feels one like a new opportunity. And two, they have a clear action plan from beginning middle to end to getting the result. So a lot of what we try and look at is businesses need to do a better job defining what is success for their customer. And what I mean by that is when I run a race or marathon, I know when I cross the starting line, I've started the race, but I also know when I cross the finish line, I've finished the race. It's the same thing if you look at things like Taekwondo or Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts. If you want to go from a Cub Scout to an Eagle Scout, if you want to go from a White Belt to a Black Belt, there is a defined pathway for success that takes you all the way to getting the result of that goal, if you set that goal. And so what we want businesses to do is do a better job defining success. And when you do, it makes it easier when your customer hits that mark. They know they've achieved it. So a lot of what we're trying to do across the board is, do you have a seamless, simple process that will help get your customer's results faster? And they know that they've achieved the results. And for you, is there a way that I can scale your genius by taking what you do and creating a physical product around it that buys back your time and makes it so I can scale you in a really powerful way? 

Rich Bennett 16:34
Okay, so because you help all types of businesses. 

Mark Stern 16:40
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 16:40
I'm just going to pull one out of thin air here. 

Mark Stern 16:44
I told you everything's off. Everything's off lemon. 

Rich Bennett 16:49
Actually, no, they're not thin air, it's one of my sponsors. So like, let's say a realtor. 

Mark Stern 16:55
Okay, 

Rich Bennett 16:56
how can your product help a realtor? 

Mark Stern 16:58
Yeah, and so there's a lot of different ways of it. We've leveraged it for realtors. So one of the things that we can do and actually you can see right here, Christmas or coaching, Christa runs a business and she has a coaching program that people pay, I think, a minimum for her core coaching program. It's like 25k for the year. And 

Rich Bennett 17:14
Wow. 

Mark Stern 17:14
so what they're learning is realtors. She teaches people how to dominate their local markets, even if they're brand new to the game. So how do you take the people who are allowed and have been in the game for years and have a bigger market presence and be able to compete with them head on? And so what we did was we went through her program, her whole methodology, and build out the workbooks, the tools, the resources. So as she takes her genius and then sells this product and she sold millions and millions and millions of dollars of her services, tens of millions of dollars. Rather than her having to use her genius and like her time to educate, we were able to turn her into a whole physical box form that help people have a step-by-step guide to understanding the steps they need to take to really dominate their local market. Other areas that we've seen in the Real Estate Space is you may have something to say, how can I do an acquisition piece and create a local market, welcome pack that may be low-budget or inexpensive? So I can send that out to people because oftentimes when it comes to whether it's a realtor or insert any profession, sometimes people will move forward with the person that's really top of mind in front of them. 

Rich Bennett 18:21
Right. 

Mark Stern 18:21
How do we create a top of mind campaign that provides value to them without having too much of an ask, but starting to build a relationship. And then when it's time for them to say, okay, I'm in the market for a house, whether you're a buyer or a seller, we could send them a kit or a package of best practices and then leverage and extend it as another excuse to get them on a call to be able to close them as a client and work with them as their realtor. So there's all different ways that you can leverage it, but if it's an acquisition play, top of mind is a big strategy. If it's onboarding delivery play like with Christa, Misha, approaching, it's, you bought my program as a realtor teaching you how to be a better realtor in your local market. Now you have your step-by-step game plan that you literally have your journey map. Here's the journey and then literally she did the envelopes too, because she had 10 different phases that literally guide you step-by-step through the process and a fun game of high fashion. 

Rich Bennett 19:14
So have you helped any podcasters out? 

Mark Stern 19:17
Yeah, one of the things we've done, so we've had conversations with podcasters, but what we have done for people in the podcast spaces, we've had clients, we had a client that we did a book box experience. He did a book launch and we basically turned, brought the book to life. So not only did you get the book, but you had supporting tools and resources that as you read the book, all the frameworks, all the insights, all the exercises, there were supporting tools and resources in the box. So he leveraged this box to get on podcast, so he leveraged it as an acquisition strategy to bring awareness, and he would send it out to different podcasters who then wouldn't bite him onto their platform because they had never received, like it's uncommon for a podcast host. 

Rich Bennett 19:56
Right, 

Mark Stern 19:57
Steve, a physical product of someone trying to pitch them to be on their product. They're just used to getting a bunch of email saying, you 

Rich Bennett 20:04
yup. 

Mark Stern 20:04
know, or you don't mind match or other things, but it was just a different strategy that just makes you stand out in a different way and it was cool to see, like he got on well over 100 podcasts when he was doing that book launch as a result of doing that strategy. 

Rich Bennett 20:16
That's brilliant. I liked that idea. 

All right, so if you listen, if you want to come on my podcast, you got to get a hold of Mark. Get it. Get it done and send it to me, you're 

Mark Stern 20:31
on. 

Rich Bennett 20:31
coming 

Mark Stern 20:31
He just. You just have to send rich gifts, if you send rich gifts you get on his blog. Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 20:37
I so explain because there's two tools that you create 57 hats and activate 

Mark Stern 20:44
deck. Activate deck is one of them, this one's a dash, and so there's a couple tools we created. Yeah, do you mean service me some hats. 

Rich Bennett 20:51
Yes, 

Mark Stern 20:52
57 hats is a product that is my product, but it shows you that like you can take anything and turn it into a box experience. And this product was designed in the spirit of is it an acquisition or an onboarding delivery or retention play. This is an acquisition play. This is a way to get clients or customers into our universe. And so what 57 hats is, is it started with just a simple idea I was driving home to Alabama for Thanksgiving one year. This was maybe two years ago. 

Rich Bennett 21:21
mm-hmm. 

Mark Stern 21:21
And me as a business owner as my business was growing one of the big problems that I saw in my team was as we grew. I was taking hats off of team members. So when we were team of three to five people were wearing many, many hats in the business. They were taking on many roles. Now we're a team of over 20 in my core team and then we have another 20 or so at our warehouse. So we're a lot bigger right now. But as we started to grow I was pulling hats off because I could see my teammates zones of genius. And I wanted them to not be distracted by all these other insulerry roles that didn't help them focus on their own a genius. They went through a morning period which caught me off guard because they thought I was taking hats off because they weren't performing at the same level. Or I didn't respect their work ethic and that was not the case. It was literally I want you to be stepping into the role that I hired you for and just live in your zone of genius. So once they were able to get through that to see how the business of all was incredible. So what the box set is is it just opened up this question, do business owners actually know all the different roles that they serve in their business. What we did was the box experience is very simple and less than 15 minutes. There is a game board. So I think monopoly material that has. And there's a series of cards inside it. They're representing all different roles that your business organization could have. And you know we broke it down into five core departments. Here are the five core departments that businesses should consider operations finance delivery marketing and sales. And for each of those we have cards that represent. what a hat would look like. So we played off this magnetic hat of if you're a founder or CEO or for in the sales organization, a sales manager, a sales trainer. So the exercise that you do is you simply go through the deck, pull out the hats that you're currently wearing, then we'll take you through an exercise that says, should you do this, should you delete it, or should you delegate it? And it just kind of gives you the evaluation criteria on whether or not this is a role you should be doing. And for those that you delegate, we ask you the question, do you have someone in your team or can AI or automation replace it, or is this a role you need to hire? And so that's the physical experience, the digital experience behind it, is that for all the cards inside 57 hats, in the online portal, we give you job descriptions that you can swipe and edit, we give you KPIs, we give you roles and responsibilities, interview questions, sample, 

Rich Bennett 23:48
oh wow, 

Mark Stern 23:49
candidate skill set, all the personality tests, Myers-Brake strength finders, disk assessments, that make you get candidates. So the whole idea is, I need you to have a vernacular on the hats you're wearing. And once you have a vernacular, now we can have a conversation if you should keep it or delegate or delete it. And if you need to delegate it, now you have the tools to start to delegate it. And so part of what we wanted to do is not only showcase this as a product, but also on the backend, one of the businesses in our ecosystem is a staffing agency. So people are overwhelmed when they realize all the hats they're wearing. 

Rich Bennett 24:21
Right. 

Mark Stern 24:21
We can then help them place those roles. But we have all different types of products on the back and to support that. So that's kind of where it's an acquisition play to get them into our ecosystem. And when we launch this in April, we launch you to Cold Traffic and it's already sold to a couple thousand units, which is insane. 

Rich Bennett 24:37
How many? 

Mark Stern 24:39
A couple thousand. 

Rich Bennett 24:40
Wow. 

Mark Stern 24:41
So like out of the gates, you know, I think by day five on Cold Traffic on meta ads, it was cool to see that it was already a profitable campaign pretty quickly, but that's what's powerful about physical is that everyone's going digital. 

Rich Bennett 24:55
Yeah. 

Mark Stern 24:56
You're seeing this rise of AI in a big way. It's a content was already on an exponential pre-AI. Now it's on an even more of an exponential and you're seeing this rise of digital distrust as a result of content being such a commodity, physical, all of a sudden becomes this stand-out outlier. And especially when you blend the worlds together, it's just a really powerful domain. In some ways, it could be even cheaper than those acquisition you'd cost you have for your digital assets or digital products. So that's that's why we love it. So 

Rich Bennett 25:29
I was gonna say, I could see 57 hats, 

Mark Stern 25:35
I 

Rich Bennett 25:36
don't even know if you can answer this or not, but have you had anybody that has gotten 57 hats, get back to you and respond about how you back actually help their business because of the game, they were able to remove some of them hats. 

Mark Stern 25:56
It has been incredible. We've had people to us saying they broke down in tears because they now have what they're going through. We received emails all the time that people took their leadership team through and they sat down with the cards to sit down and see what are the different hats. We've had people do it in specific departments. So if you ran a department, take it at a department level, we've had people use it as a self-diagnosis tool, which is what we thought. But more importantly, we've had people use it as a sales tool, which is not what we expected. And so we've had people that have literally sat down with prospects or leads and taken them through the exercise and said, "If you hire us, we'll replace all these roles in your business and to hold up a pile of cards that you could replace. It's a powerful visual in the sales process." And so we've seen so many different, and like this is the part that I love, is that we built the product, but this is why you have to pay attention to the market because the use case you may think that it's for, it's been like, like we found all new use cases. We've had people take it to high schools and teach it in entrepreneurship classes. We've had university professors buy it. We've had people come up to us about sponsorships and co-branding because they want to co-brand the product for their audience. And so just by having this physical product, it's open up all of these conversations that we were not anticipating. And it's just fun. Right now, there's a big client of ours that operates their POE that has over I think 200,000 businesses in their network. 

Rich Bennett 27:26
Wow. 

Mark Stern 27:26
And now we're about to do local market meetups with some of the businesses in their local markets using 57 hats as the feature at the Happy Hour dinner that we're hosting with them. So there's just all different things that have started to happen as a result of just having a physical product. 

Rich Bennett 27:43
I could see how nonprofits could benefit from this as well. 

Mark Stern 27:49
Totally, with non-profits, there's so many different angles 'cause you may have wanted to a do-in-aroute, you may have a capital campaign that you incorporate this in some capacity. 

Rich Bennett 28:05
Right, 

Mark Stern 28:20
So, I can easily create limited edition products, and to create a limited edition product versus a non-limited edition product, it doesn't cost any different because it's how you message and put the- the terminology on the packaging. So there's so many strategies like that that you can deploy that are really powerful with the physical product. So when we- like we have on the first thousand units, we have a gold seal that says Founding So, with the first thousand units of 57 hats, say Founding Member, subsequent units that we have don't have the gold foil 

Rich Bennett 28:51
it. 

Mark Stern 28:51
seal on 

Rich Bennett 28:51
Right. 

Mark Stern 28:52
It's printed, and it's just a regular edition, but that's just showing you that like really the cost between the two may have been 10 cents difference to have the gold seal versus printed. But at 10 cents, it's nothing compared to, oh I'm a Founding Member or I have a Founding Member edition of 57 hats. And so that's just feeding into the story for the customer and it's all marketing. 

Rich Bennett 29:14
Wow! 

You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

I've got to share something with you. If you're a Maryland and thinking about real estate, you've got to check out Daniel McGee into Victory Teen. The close friend of mine sold their house with them, and honestly, I was blown away by the smoothness of the process and the level of care they received. And it's not just them, several others in my circle have had similar experiences. Daniel and his team have this personal touch that's just so rare these days. They actually listen and tell their services to fit exactly what you need. And with fees way lower than the industry standard, you really feel like you're getting luxury service without that hefty price tag. So whether you're buying or selling, go to victoryteamselz.com. And get started with Daniel McGee and his incredible team. Believe me with them, it's not just a transaction, it's a relationship. What's the other two activate deck and you said dash? 

Mark Stern 30:22
Yeah, so activate deck is, you know, and that was one because I was like, I think cards are such a powerful modality, because you can move them around, especially when thinking through business strategy. 

Rich Bennett 30:32
Right. 

Mark Stern 30:32
Or that one came about, and for those who were listening, like, there are frameworks and systems that you're deploying in your business that could easily be turned into a physical product. So one of the things that I did with every single client we worked with is I asked in the simple question, walk me through how your clients or your customers discover you to buying your products or services. But walk me through your acquisition journey. What activate deck is is it's a brainstorming tool for people. 

Rich Bennett 30:59
Oh, 

Mark Stern 30:59
they out, their customer acquisition strategy. It's broken down into four phases. How do people discover you? And we have a whole series of cards that represent different channels that people can find you on. The second category is how do you nurture them? So now they're in my world, how do I start to build a relationship and provide value to them? The third card is how do I capture them or close them? So all the means that you can, whether you close them via a sales funnel or a website or in person or a kiosk. And the last category is what you're actually delivering. So what's the product? And so with these cards, you can lay out your strategy of how you people discover you, how you nurture them, how you close them, and for your products or services. And you can just, with the activate deck, visualize and see, oh, here's all the things that I'm doing. If you lay it out, what's been amazing about that product is sometimes when I speak on stages, I'll bring one to everyone in the audience and take it through them live. People start to like, again, I've seen people break down in tears because they're like, this explains why I'm so overwhelmed. I'm right now active on 15 different marketing channels and I have a team of three. And so like, like, that's what I would hear from them. And like, well, can you look at these 15 and tell me which ones are working well and which ones are not? And can we prioritize them based on which ones actually adding the right value? And oh, by the way, because you have other discovery cards, are there other channels you've not explored that we can now say, I haven't thought about this as a channel, but this is a strategy, I should implement. So that card deck is designed to just help you visualize your customer acquisition strategy. 

Rich Bennett 32:29
Wow. 

Mark Stern 32:29
And dash this other product, which is landing at my warehouse this week is for people who want to do create a physical product. It's a system to help you do it in 30 days or less. And so you can literally go through the cards and we leverage all through my products up cards because I think cards, but you don't have to do cards there's all different modalities but it made sense for the experiences and the tactile nature um but all of these cause I wanted that like monopoly game word material. 

Rich Bennett 32:56
Ya! 

Mark Stern 32:57
It has the game word it has the guidance and then with dash what's great about it is once you figure out the make up of your experience you know we can help you with so many different uh possibilities but once you have those cards to say this is the experience I want you can call our team and uh we can work with you to bring it to life and the whole thing is we wanted an entry product because sometimes people don't need a fully custom product solution they just need a faster and a market solution and so that's what that product is designed to do to help you quickly build your own physical product in no time. 

Rich Bennett 33:28
The there's no other businesses out there like this is there. 

Mark Stern 33:34
It's a blessing and a curse at the same time because um the one piece of feedback I was given is emulate before you innovate and of course I go into the innovation category but it all started because I was just like I just like I keep buying these products online and businesses make it so hard for me to get started because like I'm confused like how to get started or what I have access to 

Rich Bennett 33:56
right 

Mark Stern 33:57
and when you're confused what do you do you disappear because you don't want to feel like a failure or you ask for a refund because you're overwhelmed and just except the fact that maybe like people blame themselves when the reality is the experience that the business created may not have been a good one to set you up for success alleviates anyways. 

Rich Bennett 34:14
there 

Mark Stern 34:14
So that's where this all started for me was like my frustration um and so that's kind of where the innovation happened of like just send me what I need just send what I need and um it evolved and evolved from there

Rich Bennett 34:28
but yeah I just find it amazing because and you're right that when you go online to try to either figure out a way to start a business to make businesses better or whatever it can get overwhelming it can get frustrating. I can't tell you how many courses I signed up for online and started them and never finished 

Mark Stern 34:49
yeah

Rich Bennett 34:50
it's ridiculous but something that people love to do at least I know a lot of me and my friends too are the games and cards especially how many people play like cards against humanity or stuff like that or like you said even Monopoly 

Mark Stern 35:09
still yeah

Rich Bennett 35:10
but for stuff like this will help your business and I think especially you know to help relieve stress as well. 

Mark Stern 35:20
And the other thing I want people to think about with this is um there are things you naturally save in your life and so when we're talking about this concept of top of mind like don't engineer something that doesn't resemble something naturally that you already save so instance um a book I know people's behavior that when you read a book or buy a book typically you don't throw it out you put it on a bookshelf 

Rich Bennett 35:46
right 

Mark Stern 35:47
we'll see a lot of our boxes are shaped like a book because I want you to take it and I want you to put it on your bookshelf you know we've had people have a trilogy of boxes that when you stack them all on the bookshelf they start to connect and spell already you can see behind me the word insider that was three different boxes that when you collected them they spelled out insider 

Rich Bennett 36:07
oh wow right 

Mark Stern 36:07
so like that's an example of something that we save so this is why we engineer boxes to be the size size size of a book I know things with replayability you save so that Monopoly game you may play twice a year but the Monopoly board that I played as a kid was the same set my mother played as a little girl like whatever reason we don't play Monopoly and take the box and throw it out we keep the container for years if not decades if not generations and so how do we start to engineer that replayability element because I want to take up real estate in your house I want to create something that is of such value that you don't throw it out and it does take up and it keeps us top of mind and I want to educate you to revisit it again and again fifty seven hats go through it now but I want you to revisit this in next three to six months because your environment changes you 

Rich Bennett 36:55
yes 

Mark Stern 36:55
change changes and so the outcome of it so if it's something that has that replayability are you more or less likely to keep it and so all of these elements there's so many that we look at to say how do I engineer this in a way that makes you want to keep it and go back to it again and it keeps us of mind 

Rich Bennett 37:12
man I this is wow I could see how a lot no actually I can see how all types of businesses can benefit from this yeah I mean even like I told you before if what I do in the beginning with with the good the good news website I could see because that's like I get sponsors for that I could say I can benefit from this one of the things I really love to hear from people are the I feel good story. 

Mark Stern 37:40
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 37:40
share a feel good story of a business or person, non-prote, whatever, that you were able to help out because of your products. 

Mark Stern 37:50
Yeah, it's a, my God. I think this is what inspires me with the business because when a box drops in market and you see the client hold the box for the first time, it's probably my favorite part of the process because they see their genius truly come to life. And the one piece of feedback we consistently get is, when you go physical, physical is not as forgiving as digital digital, I upload a PDF and I need to make edits, I can just upload a new PDF or re-film the video. Physical, once it goes to print, you want to make sure that it's ready to go to print and you're happy with where it is because the only other option is reprint. And so there's a different threshold when it comes to that. And so this is kind of where we always get the feedback of, you know, we force our clients to get clear on what they're asking their customers to do. And just by doing that, they get excited because it reduces so much pressure off of them because now they have a whole box set that kind of is their genius coming to life. And then for consumers, like, I remember when we launched a whole physical product experience for my friend Maya Camarota in the, she helps women 30 to 70 years of age. Who have devoted their life to their kids or their significant others, she's like, she helps them reclaim their identity and reclaim their power in a really beautiful way. 

Rich Bennett 39:09
Wow, 

Mark Stern 39:10
that like there's a like your genius and what you have in front of you. There's something that you were born to do. It's already written in the stars. It's time for you to step into that identity. And how we brought Maya to life. What was amazing was we introduced this box and she had a virtual event with a couple hundred people and out of the gates when the box landed before the event, you had about 20 to 25% of people post videos or pictures or updates as a result of getting the box. We had people who we're going through a program, literally break down in tears. Because they started to realize I am worthy of this. I'm worthy of this mission. I'm worthy of this. It's rewiring the self-love and self-beliefs. And so to see all of these people, you know, it started with 25% but then when you have a virtual event in about 25% are getting loud from getting the box. It creates this ripple effect to all the other members to start to actually pay attention to this. And then you just see those numbers grow and grow over the couple of days for her virtual event and the exercises we did that were all about taking a concept that was digital and making it real, you know, she has this concept of be heard now. And she told me the story that people started getting tattoos of her quote in her script, be her now identified with it. And so what do we put in the box for one of the days? Temporary tattoos that said be her now. And so all the sudden when she introduced the exercise, you see hundreds of people having the be her now tattoo on their arm. And 

Rich Bennett 40:41
wow, 

Mark Stern 40:42
or the she tied to the despite with her message is as the tattoo fades, it's not disappearing. It's absorbing into your body. It's absorbing into your identity. And so this is the power of a physical experience that can really transform how your customers are engaging with you. We're thinking about you. And for her, it's heavy on rewiring beliefs. And that's what the box was set out to do is can I shape your beliefs, but keep in mind, now that you have this box, it can in this situation become the thing that continues to hold your hopes and dreams and wishes. And so the box is not just a box. It's a container for your life. 

Rich Bennett 41:18
It sounds like this is the new type of business card. 

Mark Stern 41:23
I mean, for me, I like it a lot more than business cards, because my 

Rich Bennett 41:26
right 

Mark Stern 41:27
missing. So 

Rich Bennett 41:29
yeah, 

Mark Stern 41:29
it's something physical that takes up a little bit more space in the business card. I love that concept and idea, especially as an acquisition play, you know, 57 hats. You may not hire us now, but you know, we exist. And if we continue to introduce more products and services. That compliment the people who are going down that that route. We've started to build that no like in trust by giving them a lot of value in a simple box experience 15 minutes. If we introduced other elements of that, how to optimize your hiring process, how to be a better manager, and here's tools to support that. All of a sudden, we have this ecosystem that people are going to be a lot more comfortable purchasing more and more from us and extend life time value, because they had such a good experience with our initial product. 

Rich Bennett 42:13
So what advice would you give the companies looking to integrate X entrepreneurial marketing into their strategies. 

Mark Stern 42:20
Yeah, great, great question. For us, it starts with the anchors. When I say the anchor, it starts with the back end. What is success for you? I want to get really clear on what is success for the company because a business needs revenue to thrive. It is the lifeblood of the 

Rich Bennett 42:38
Yep. 

Mark Stern 42:38
business. Since your part of what I want to know is in any experience, what is success for whatever this campaign is that we're doing? Success can be broken down into two ways. What is success for the business and what is success for your customer? Those are two very different things. After we really get clear on what that is on the back end or on the front end, I want to understand how are we educating them and preparing them for the journey? So that onboarding process is critical. We want to minimize your customer saying, I don't have what it takes. I'm overwhelmed. I don't think I'll be able to be successful. We want them to understand and like remind them why they started this, but understand that there is a clear pathway. Why do we love the pathway? Because if I have a pathway that is broken down into five phases, start here then phase one, two, three, four, five and you get the outcome. If you go from phase one to phase two and I can show you that you have, I'm getting you into momentum because it's the micro steps getting to the outcome as to why they bought your product and service. That's something that we look at. If you tell me you're in phase two, then I say without a shadow of it out, you have gone through a transformation. You're no longer at start here, you're no longer at phase one, you've gotten one step closer and if you complete phase two, you're just a step closer to phase three before you know it, you're going to be done. And so this is kind of where just like as a business owner, if I know where you are in my process, I can coach or advise you to quickly get unstuck into the next place. But if I don't have that structure in place, then you're kind of operating blind. And if you really don't understand or can't successfully diagnose what's going on with the customer's clients you're working with, how do they know when they've achieved success? And so this is kind of why like when you cross the finish line of a marathon, you know that you've completed it. I'm working with the coach right now, last year, I've been going through my midlife crisis. And what I mean by that is I, when I cross from 39 to 40, that was a massive awakening for me. Because in my late 30s, I got up to 250 pounds. I started the beginning of last year, I think it was in the 220s. Now I'm in the 160s and that physical transformation, the program that I'm working with, the guy works with men CEOs, who are anywhere from 30 to 70 and he helps lean you out to a six pack. So what is success? Do you have a six pack? Yes or no, I love the shape I'm in. I'm in the best shape of my life. But I'm not 100% at six pack, the six packs coming, 

Rich Bennett 45:01
I'm right, 

Mark Stern 45:02
but it's a marker to say, am I successful with this program? Right now the answer is no because I don't have a six pack, like a fully defined six pack. 

Rich Bennett 45:09
Yeah, 

Mark Stern 45:10
but the second I do, it's black and white. I do have it. So I know I've been successful. So like, this is why from a business perspective, defining success for you and your customer is such critical thing and businesses just don't do it. 

Rich Bennett 45:24
Now, now, something very important, tell everybody how they can find you and 

Mark Stern 45:30
product. 

Rich Bennett 45:30
get your 

Mark Stern 45:31
Yeah, no, thank you. You can always get a custom box agency.com book of free consultation with us. We love hearing what people are doing. We love to chat and learn more about your business. But we have so much fun with what we do. And then LinkedIn, you can find me in Mark Arsternow, LinkedIn or you can hit me up on Facebook as well. But I say that's the easiest way to find us. 

Rich Bennett 45:51
All right. So have you started the podcast yet? 

Mark Stern 45:53
It's coming. About two. 

Rich Bennett 45:55
And what's the name? 

Mark Stern 45:57
Game maker is what's the name of it. And part of the reason we went with Game Maker is in the world of experience design. And especially if you've ever seen Hunger Games or 

Rich Bennett 46:07
Yes. 

Mark Stern 46:08
even what are the popular ones? Squid games or game. For example, the Game Maker is close to the game. This is the person who creates an engineer's and the thing about it is, do you want to be the player or do you want to be the person who creates the universe for your people? And for me, I love being the role of creating the universe that helps them get results faster. So this identity of a Game Maker and thinking about crafting the experience for our customer is what we're going to be exploring. And it also gives us an opportunity to kind of unveil some of our own products and the step-by-step process of people can see the creation of some of the things that we're doing. I'm totally taking my bed like crisis that I've been going through and turning into a physical product to help other people who are going through that shift that I went through. And I see it rampant with men in their 40s. But like I can take something that's a life experience and turn into a physical product to help other people. But I'm truly the Game Maker defining the rules and the experience and the terms of what success is, and so that's kind of why that's the name of the block, guys. 

Rich Bennett 47:12
All right, you have to get a shirt that says I'm the Game Maker. 

Mark Stern 47:16
I will. I will. 

Rich Bennett 47:17
You have to get a W 

Mark Stern 47:18
run. 

Rich Bennett 47:19
You wear it out there, everybody's gonna be asking you what, what, why are you, what are you the game me? It just have a giant QR code on the facts 

Mark Stern 47:28
cuz 

Rich Bennett 47:28
of people 

Mark Stern 47:28
they're gonna 

Rich Bennett 47:29
go right to your website. 

Mark Stern 47:31
We love QR codes. 

Rich Bennett 47:32
Now, are you gonna actually, when you start the podcast, are you gonna be interviewing any of the clients you've had? 

Mark Stern 47:39
totally. So I didn't reply to my guests. I want people who are doing exciting things, you know 

Rich Bennett 47:43
Yeah, 

Mark Stern 47:43
for us. Experience design, uhm, is any type of customer experience. All of that category to me is I think that like, experience is, as, as a differentiator is becoming more relevant now than ever, especially in the age of AI, and for me, again, you know, physical, we are physical beings. Humans are physical, physical touch. I remember when Kindle came out, and I was like, I'll never buy another book again. And yet, what do I do now? I don't like reading from an e-reader. 

Rich Bennett 48:09
like... 

Mark Stern 48:09
I 

Rich Bennett 48:09
either do 

Mark Stern 48:10
I? Oh, but I don't like journaling typing. I like pen to paper to write. So for me, that physical element, we keep getting more disassociated from it, and it could not be more relevant now than ever. 

Rich Bennett 48:22
Yeah, that's one of the things that gets me about, even the younger generation, like my daughter's 23. 

Mark Stern 48:29
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:29
And when it comes to books, cuz I got her e-reader when she was younger, didn't like it. All her and all her friends have the physical books, and they don't get rid of 

Mark Stern 48:41
And they don't get rid of them. 

Rich Bennett 48:42
them. They'll 

Mark Stern 48:42
Pay 

Rich Bennett 48:42
keep, 

Mark Stern 48:42
attention. 

Rich Bennett 48:43
yeah. 

Mark Stern 48:43
That's the key. Like, this is the thing. There are things in your home. You just do not--my father and mother. When they moved out of my childhood homes, this was like three, two years ago? 

Rich Bennett 48:53
Mmm-hmm. 

Mark Stern 48:54
I did had a-- I think it was like an ebbsen printer box from 

Rich Bennett 48:58
the--Oh, 

Mark Stern 48:58
like 

Rich Bennett 48:58
my 

Mark Stern 48:59
knees that had like the holes that you had to line up the paper. 

Rich Bennett 49:02
"uh-huh, 

Mark Stern 49:03
And he was 

Rich Bennett 49:04
the 

Mark Stern 49:04
like, 

Rich Bennett 49:04
dot matrix." 

Mark Stern 49:06
He's a dot matrix, yeah. And he was like, "Do you want this?" And I looked 

Rich Bennett 49:09
"What 

Mark Stern 49:09
at him like, 

am I gonna do with it?" He's like, "It's like a collector's item, but he still saved the box for 30 plus years." Um, he still has his eight track tapes. And no means to-- it 

Rich Bennett 49:21
Well, 

Mark Stern 49:21
has his record player. But why is it that we save these items? It's the replayability for this case, because someday you may want to go back and play it again. 

Rich Bennett 49:29
Yeah. 

Mark Stern 49:30
So it's like-- there's things that-- if you just pay attention, how do I take that insight and engineer it into things that as a business owner allow me to stay top of mine and relevant to my people? 

Rich Bennett 49:40
As you say that, I look over to the right, and I can still see all my records. 

Mark Stern 49:46
Oh, I love it. 

Rich Bennett 49:47
Hey, from what I've played. Oh, my God. You put your right. We don't get rid of stuff. 

Mark Stern 49:53
Yeah. And there's other things you're taking just toss in two seconds. 

Rich Bennett 49:57
Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Some of the things you wish you never did tossed like the old G. I. Jones with the real hair. It's like, oh, my God, there were so many 

Mark Stern 50:06
buttons. Yeah, my parents gave me a box of original Nintendo games from when I was a kid. 

Rich Bennett 50:12
Oh, my 

Mark Stern 50:12
I 

Rich Bennett 50:12
God. 

Mark Stern 50:12
put the Nintendo to my TV because the outlet, like the plugs, just aren't the same anymore. 

Rich Bennett 50:18
No. 

Mark Stern 50:18
But I was just like-- I honestly-- and like-- I can't throw them out because I'm like, these are collector's items. This is my childhood. But I have like literally have no means to play it. And then with like other modern like, uh, Nintendo Switch or whatnot, you can just get it for free. It's just built into the emulator. 

Rich Bennett 50:33
uh, 

Mark Stern 50:33
So, 

Rich Bennett 50:34
it's 

Mark Stern 50:34
amazing that like I can't-- I have a means to play the game, but I can't be apart from the actual cartridge from the 1980s, 

Rich Bennett 50:41
That's like my son and my son's in his 30s, but we-- there's-- we have a ton of his things over here. 

Mark Stern 50:49
don't. 

Rich Bennett 50:49
From when he was a kid, like the Buzz Lightyear stuff and Woody and-- yeah, all his Pokemon cards. And he won't take him. My wife's like, well, we can't get rid of him. 

Mark Stern 51:01
amazing. 

Rich Bennett 51:02
It's 

Mark Stern 51:02
And another example is like, there are empty nesters all throughout the country. 

Rich Bennett 51:07
Yes. 

Mark Stern 51:07
have trophies for their kids that when they were three or four years old playing T-Ball or soccer, that trophy you got for just playing. But for whatever reason, even though they've been out of the house for years, we can't get rid of these. So, like pay attention because things that have your name and recognize you. We do a terrible job recognizing people, but you put your-- like my graduate diploma from Duke, it's a 

Rich Bennett 51:32
I 

Mark Stern 51:32
piece of paper. It probably costs the university a book or two. 

Rich Bennett 51:35
We 

Mark Stern 51:36
keep that piece of paper for the rest of our lives, but it's a piece of paper. 

Rich Bennett 51:39
like, 

Mark Stern 51:39
But 

Rich Bennett 51:40
and 

Mark Stern 51:40
there's just like again, it's personalized. It's about achievement, but I will never throw out that piece of paper, but it's literally a piece of paper. 

Rich Bennett 51:47
Oh my god. You mentioned trophies. I had a flashback because I bought my parents' house. The house I'm in now, I grew up in and I bought it from my parents back in 95. I didn't realize that when they sold it to me and they moved, they weren't going to take stuff. So yeah, all the trophies from God, everybody. And I'm still finding stuff. It's ridiculous. It's not ridiculous. It brings back memories, but it's like, okay, finally, I just said if I'm not going to be using it, I need to get rid of it. 

Mark Stern 52:22
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 52:23
and then I look at other things like something by five. Yeah, it's like, 

Mark Stern 52:26
you want to get a little bit longer. 

Rich Bennett 52:28
Yeah. I 

Mark Stern 52:29
guess 5 or 10 years. 

Rich Bennett 52:30
Yeah. All right. So before I get to my last last question, Mark, is there anything you would like to add? 

Mark Stern 52:37
Anything I would like to add, the biggest thing that I tell any business owner and it's what changed the game for me. I came from 

Rich Bennett 52:43
Mm-hmm. 

Mark Stern 52:43
corporate. Anyone came from corporate or more traditional America and made the game to wanting to start a business and be an entrepreneur. The biggest lesson I learned, and it took me a while to get there, is the best analogy I can use is corporate versus entrepreneurship is like checkers versus chess. Like the game board looks the same. The game board is the same, but the rules are completely different. So if you're playing checkers with chess rolls, you will lose if you play chess with checkers roles, you will lose. And I mentioned that because I was in corporate America, I considered myself a high performer in corporate America. And I was like, when I make the leap into entrepreneurship, I'm going to crush it. I'm going to be a high performer and it's going to be great. And that was so far from the truth I crashed and burned and could not figure out how to navigate the game at all. And then it was a moment that I paused and was like, you're playing entrepreneurship with corporate roles. So like, once I took a step back and said, let me understand how to play and build a business and navigate this game. Once I learned how to play the game of entrepreneurship, my competitive edge was all the experiences I had before. So the corporate experience that I had was the thing that truly was my competitive edge when I learned to play the game that everyone else is playing in entrepreneurship. And so that's something that is important is, if you're struggling with what you're doing, are you playing the right game, do you have the right lens on how to play the game, are you trying to play a game that worked in a different domain in this. That's just something to think about, but the second I did that and was like, you're approaching this entrepreneurship completely wrong and humbled myself and took a step back. And then learned to play and then layered on my skills. That was where things really started to change for me. 

Rich Bennett 54:20
It's actually a good voice. 

Mark Stern 54:21
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 54:22
How many times I've, this is my last question, how many times have you yourself played 57 hats for you? 

Mark Stern 54:29
Oh, many. Trust me. I love to pull it out because sometimes you start to think about a business problem 

Rich Bennett 54:35
Uh-huh. 

Mark Stern 54:35
and then you go to 57 hats. The lens of a business problem of like thinking about like, I need like for us, we are so good at delivery. We're exceptional at delivery. But, um, 

Rich Bennett 54:46
Uh-huh. 

Mark Stern 54:47
is something I can do and I'm good at. It's not my super power. And so one of the things we're looking at is, how do I start to think through a sales engine and how to structure it and what are the rules that we need. So I can go through and do a brainstorm to say, okay, if we truly want to grow and develop a department, what am I doing and what do I need? And if I go through 57 hats, it kind of helps me kind of create a blueprint that I can then start to pressure test. And then the question becomes, is this someone I need to hire, is this someone I need to train on my team? Or is this something that AI and automation could serve as some of the parts of the roles that, um, you know, so that's that's kind of for me where it's fun to go through and give it through the ones of that. 

Rich Bennett 55:24
Every business and nonprofit and I want to say even entrepreneur, solar, pro nord, author pro nor all need, they need this. They need actually 57 hats, activate deck and they just need it all. Just get it people. Plane and simple, it makes sense. I mean, go, go to the custom box agency dot com and get them. All right. So mark pick a number between one and 100. I have a funny feeling. I know what number you're going to pick. 

Mark Stern 55:50
We'll see 35. 

Rich Bennett 55:52
Oh, damn, you threw me off. I thought for sure, you were going to say 57. 

Mark Stern 55:57
7 was the next one, but 35. 

Rich Bennett 55:59
All right, why 35? 

Mark Stern 56:01
You know, I think growing up, I was for whatever reason my lucky number and so I love to see where it goes. 

Rich Bennett 56:07
Well, you know what the funny thing is. I think number 35, this question, uh, goes well with what we've been talking about better than number 57 would 

Mark Stern 56:17
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 56:17
have. 

Mark Stern 56:17
good. Then I called it right, all right? 

Rich Bennett 56:19
So if you had to describe your life's purpose in one sentence, what would it be? 

Mark Stern 56:27
In one sentence, I honestly, so more recently this would, this is, this is changed, 

Rich Bennett 56:36
mm-hmm. 

Mark Stern 56:36
Because I would have said that my life's purpose is about simplifying your customer's transformation. There's a lot of pain in the world and businesses make it too hard for the customer. We had a result. And so to make it easier, there's an upside for the customer because we can address the pain points and help them move on to the next thing. For the business, it's about lifetime value. So I would have said that to where I am right now, at now 41 years of age, I am going through kind of like that life crisis that I went through. 

Rich Bennett 57:07
Bye. 

Mark Stern 57:08
Uhm, I did not know that the average that, uhm, when it comes to suicide, uhm, that the average, uh, that 78% to 80% of suicides are min. 

, yeah, now you know, right, you can find it, for me it was, I read an article that said the average human in the US lives to 78%. And at 39, you are literally at the midpoint of life if you're accepting this age of 78. I reject 78, as like for me, I want to be a lot older than 78, but this is what the stat said that they did a report. And at 78, 39 is truly the midpoint. That's what sent me into my midlife crisis of, how I done what I want to do at this one life I'm giving, am I where I need to be. And who do I want to be in this next chapter of life. So like, that's why, you know, I call it 39 in life, but like my back was against the wall between being 39 years old in life. So to answer your question, I do think my life's missions of evolving into how do I help, especially men, uhm, navigate this chapter in a way that helps them step into their true authentic self, um, step into their power in terms of how they show up and serve. 

But that is kind of what's transitioning when I think of this next product we're going to build is, you know, I see a lot of men that fill in safe or full trapped or in a relationship that they may got into at a young age and they didn't know who they were. 

How 

Rich Bennett 58:46
Right. 

Mark Stern 58:47
do I give you back your power in a way that you can step into and like maximize the other half of whatever life crisis you're having or life opportunity or if you want to flip it but like, it was a heavy year of processing but now I've come out of it more excited about this next phase of life and I want to be able 

Rich Bennett 59:06
Good. 

Mark Stern 59:06
to get to other people. 

Rich Bennett 59:08
Good hey you and I had you're going to be like me to me. I have a goal. My goal is to make it to at least at least one hundred. 

Mark Stern 59:17
I love it. 

Rich Bennett 59:18
And I think I just heard on the news the other day, uh, the oldest person in the world just celebrated the 113th birthday. 

Mark Stern 59:29
Oh wow. 

Rich Bennett 59:29
Yeah. Well, uh, if I'm not mistaken, a few months ago, there was somebody that was 116 that had just passed 116. I mean, I had a we had a young lady on the podcast. It's 101 and still has a trainer and writing books ages. Nothing but a number 

Mark Stern 59:52
I 

Rich Bennett 59:52
brother. 

Mark Stern 59:53
mean, my dad's in his, like, my dad is in his late seventies and he is sharp as a tack. 

Rich Bennett 59:58
So, oh yeah, my mother loves to say why she's 90. three, I think, or 94, but very sharp and an active on Facebook. This is like, 

Mark Stern 1:00:11
So 

Rich Bennett 1:00:11
wow. And people love her. So 

Mark Stern 1:00:14
yeah, I know my dad reads all my posts because he comments to me about it. He doesn't comment on the post. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:18
He 

Mark Stern 1:00:19
sees something. He reads it and studies it. And then we'll have a conversation. I'm like, you're totally following me on Facebook, but it's totally fine. It's out. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:28
Oh, and my mother-in-law will call me and if I misspell something right away. Well, Mark, I want to thank you so much, man. It's been an honor and I cannot wait. Check out 57 hats and the other ones. Those of you listening. Make sure you get them. 

Mark Stern 1:00:45
Love it. Thank you so much, Rachel. Really enjoyed the time. So appreciate you having me on. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:49
Thanks. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:51
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. If you have a moment, I'd love it if you could leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at ConversationsWithRichBent.com for updates, giveaways, and more. Until next time, take care. Be kind and keep the conversations going. You know, it takes a lot to put a podcast together and my sponsors help add a lot, but I also have some supporters that actually help me when it comes to the editing software, the hosting and so forth. There's a lot that goes into putting this together. So I want to thank them and if you can, please, please visit their websites, visit their businesses, support them however you can. So please visit the following Full circle boards, nobody does charcuterie, like full circle boards, visit them at fullcircleboards.com. ...Sincerely Sawyer Photography Live in the moment, they'll capture it. Visit them at sincerelysoyer.com. The 'Joppatowne Lions Club', 'Serving the Community' since 1965. Visit them at www. joppatownelionsclub. org. Don't forget the 'E' at the end of 'Joppatowne', because they're extraordinary.