Mark:
We would steal the packets of Koolaid and whatever other, you know, and. And that's how we survived.
Greg :
You guys were talking to someone who has become a multimillionaire.
Mark:
This is secrets for success.
Greg :
You guys were talking to someone who has become a multimillionaire. And I think this is really important for people to understand, because the reality is that if you're on your path to getting to where you want to go, and, you know, the vehicle to get on that path is business, which you learned at six years old from that conversation that dad had with you. And that's wonderful, and you know it. But there's going to be so many things that are going to have to happen. So many highs, so many lows. And the question is, do you have the perseverance and the persistence to push through? So when I started this episode, I said, does it take money to make money? The answer is no. My brother just gave you his story of basically all the things that he's had to do in order to get the things that he wants in his life. He's had to be creative, he's had to take action, and he's had to be persistent and perseverant.
Greg :
And so we could talk about all the great things which we'll do for another episode. But I think that that's just so important for you all to understand and that he's giving you some of the lowest lows. And I remember some of those. Remember, you know, going back to Brian, our cousin that was killed, I can't even imagine the pain you were going through, because for me, he wasn't as obviously. You and him were like this, right. But I got accepted into physical therapy school, and I didn't want to go. I mean, that was my dream, you know, that was my dream. And I said, I'm not going.
Greg :
That's how much it affected me. I could never imagine how much it affected you, being like, you guys were closer than even what me and you were. And I just always respect you for. And then your car getting repoed and having to steal food in order for you guys just to make it. And I've always had. Even though you're my older brother and you always want to beat your older brother, I've always had such a massive level of respect for you of just fighting through it. Honestly, bro, a lot of people are like, not everybody can make. Yeah, everybody could do it in their own way.
Greg :
They just don't have the ability to fight through what you have fought through and what I have fought through. In order to get there, because what you're doing today is not what you were doing back then, but you have been willing to go through all those things to get to where you are today. Before we finish up this part of the episode, I do want to acknowledge you, and I want to acknowledge you. After he's gone through all those things, through his whole journey of being in the club business and this and that and whatnot, he explored enough and failed enough to realize that there was actually something that he could bring to the marketplace, and that was Flyers and their promotion. And so something you said earlier in the episode was, hey, we were really good at DJing, but we weren't really good at finding people that wanted to come to our event. Right. But then you started to realize that, crap, that's where the issue is. It's the marketing, the promotion.
Greg :
And you started to get really good at doing graphics and doing promotional flyers, and that ended up being your first million dollar business, correct?
Mark:
Absolutely. We struggled with the club for maybe about a year and a half, and we just got to a point I'll never forget. It was towards the end of the year in 1998, I had just had my first child, and I didn't have money to take care of him, and I was really just struggling bad. But going and getting a job wasn't an option. Moving back home.
Greg :
Why wasn't an option?
Mark:
I don't know. I felt like that just wasn't an option. Moving back home wasn't an option. Definitely wasn't an option. Because I already know that my parents, because at that time, they were looking at me as a loser anyway.
Greg :
I think this is a huge thing, because I think that for so many people, don't you believe? Because remembeR, we said it doesn't take money to make money. It takes creativity, takes action, and it takes perseverance and persistence. For so many people, they have that option. You could have moved back home. You could have. But the repercussions of it would be that they would tell you, you're a loser. You're this I told you not to do, but you made it to where it wasn't an option. Yeah, you could have gotten another job, Mark.
Greg :
You could have. You could have gone and worked at.
Greg :
I don't know, maybe you were working at Steinbard at one point. Maybe you could have worked at JCPenney, or you could have worked at this one or that one or whatever. It was an option, but you made it that it was not an option. And I think that for so many people, the reason why they don't make it is because they have another option. How many people are half in and they're half into something else because they're so afraid of not having an option?
Mark:
Yeah. When you make up your mind that whatever you're doing, it either has to work or it has to work, then that's just what it is. And I just remember, I don't know, I just remember I never once thought maybe I should go get a job, right? I never once thought that no matter how bad things were, I never, ever once thought that maybe I should go get a job. It was just like, yo, I got to figure this thing out, right? And when you're working in a college town, you know that once it gets to the wintertime, like December, end of November, December, people are not going out partying anymore. Everyone's getting ready for final exams. Then everybody goes home for December for winter break or whatever. And I just remember having a club, and I knew that we were getting ready to break, so I knew we weren't going to make any money. If we didn't make any money before that, we damn sure wasn't going to make any money during winter break.
Mark:
And I remember throwing this team party and we had times where we did well, but in the club business, we probably did horrible. Two weekends out of the month, we probably did okay, one weekend and then one weekend, kind of good one weekend. And then one weekend we did okay. So you can't survive on a business if 75% of the time you're not making any money, right? And I just remember saying to myself, I was just so frustrated, I was so upset, I was so mad. And I just was like, you know what? And keep in mind, this is probably a couple of months after my cousin passed away. And I said, man, we got this one team party coming up, and if we don't make any money, I'm done. And we had the party. And I think that there was a fair going on at the time, so all the teens were going to go to the fair.
Mark:
And I remember we didn't make any money. And I was like, I'm done. And I remember calling the landlord and said, I'm done. And we didn't know what we were going to do. And then my roommate at the time, so I'm kind of hustling a little bit. The great thing that came out of the experience, and you just alluded to it, was that I didn't have the money to pay people to design flyers for me. So I had to learn to design it myself. And my cousin that got killed, he was big into computers, so he kind of showed me a couple of things on how to do it, and then I just took it from there and started designing flyers.
Mark:
And then the flyers I designed, I was never artistic, but I just knew what looked good, what I thought would attract people, so people would get me to design the flyers. I remember I was doing that. I was always into music, so I got, like, a couple, and I bought a computer. When I'd gotten this credit card from Circuit City, I had bought this computer with the money on credit, so I knew how to design, and then I would record people. So I had, the guys would come to my house, I got a microphone, and I would record their demos. They would go into my closet and record their little rap demos, and I would charge them, like, $25 or whatever. So I was hustling my roommate at the time, so I was like, yeah, we're done. Club's over.
Mark:
And then he was like, all right, well, he was going to drive taxis. So he was like, mAn, I'm going to drive taxis. And he was like, I'm going to sell weed. So he gets some weed, and he was like, the worst drug dealer ever, because he would kind of did it the same way. So I wasn't selling the weed, he was selling the weed, but he was like, I'm going to drive the taxi. Because if I drive the taxi, I'll have a car to get around. And then while I'm driving the taxi, I could deliver the weed. And then I had a bunch of cousins and friends that always sold weed or whatever, so they would give it to him, and they'd be like, bring me back 150 and whatever.
Mark:
You could keep the difference. Well, he supposedly sold all of it and would have 130. I'm like, how are you losing? I thought, you a drug dealer, you're supposed to make money. You're losing money. What are you doing? But I think he was probably giving it away for free or smoking it up. So we did that for a couple of months, and I remember during that time, so he was doing that. And then one of our competitors, when we had a nightclub, I had to go and work for him now, and I would work at his nightclub, and I was just kind of like an all purpose guy. So I would come help set up the club.
Mark:
I would be a bouncer at the club during the night, and then after, I would have to clean up the club. So the same job that the guy I had doing for me, I'm there cleaning the bathrooms and sweeping up the club away. I had to just do whatever, and he might give me $50. I'd be with him the whole day and maybe make 50. I was just doing whatever I had to do to make it. I was doing that for a couple of months, and it was just really rough, man. I just remember it just being really rough. All the low money that I had had to pay rent.
Mark:
And then after a couple of months, my roommate, he dipped out on me. I never forget. I noticed. So he's selling the weed or whatever. He's telling me he doesn't have any money, but he is making money. And he was giving me a little bit towards rent, but I'll never forget that. One time he came to the house, and I noticed that he wasn't staying at the house as often. So he would come by every two or three days, and he would get a couple of his stuff, put it in his car and leave.
Mark:
I'll be like, yo, are you moving out? No, I'm not moving out. I'm like, okay. And he would come and get. And I remember it was like the last of his stuff. And he's like, all right, well, I'm going to pay you for. Yeah, I'm going to go live with my sister at something. And he's like, I'm going to bring the rent money back for you, though. Let me drive around, make some money, and bring it back to you.
Mark:
So in the back of my head, I'm like, man, this dude ain't coming back. But I was like, all right. And I remember a couple of hours passed, and I called him on, no, I didn't call him because he had a phone, but I paged him, and then he called me back. I'm like, he's not going to call me back, but he calls me back. He's like, yo, give me a few minutes. Give me a couple of hours. When I make it back to that side of town, I'll bring the rent money from you. And I never saw him again.
Mark:
Wow. I never saw him again. And I had a little bit of money saved up because I was recording people's demos. I was making bootleg CDs. I remember at the time I had a CD burner, and CD burners weren't that popular. So I remember the biggie album came out, and I would record, I'd bootleg it, record it, and then sell the CDs or whatever to make money. I was doing the little ODs at ends, and I was doing graphic work, and I was starting to make a little bit of money. And then he dipped out on me.
Mark:
I remember my mom, I needed a car, and I had a budy selling a car for $600. It was a Subaru. This is 1998. And I remember telling my mom, I never asked, like, during the whole time that I was going through the really rough time, I never told anybody in the family, so no one knew what I was going through. Never called for money, not once. And I remember telling my mom once, like, yeah, this guy has this car for $600. And she was just like, okay. She went and took money out of her IRA account or her retirement account and sent me the 600.
Mark:
And, right, I was about to buy the car. I had to go to court because I was behind in my child support, right? And I remember I had saved up. I had about $1,400. Saved up, $1,428. I never forget the right amount. And the judge was like, how much money do you have? I owed, like, $1,387. And the judge was like, how much money you have? No, I'm lying. I didn't have 1420.
Mark:
I had 1387. And I told the judge I had 13. No, I don't remember what I told judge. Right. But that's like, 800. And the judge was like, bailiff. Because I was the first person that went before the judge. So the bailiff came and got me and put me in handcuffs.
Greg :
Wow.
Mark:
I told the judge I only had $800, but I kind of said it with a smart. Because the last time I had to see her, I said $800, too. I was like, $800. And he says, like, bailiff. So then, now I'm in the handcuffs. And at that time, I had a good friend of mine that was in Jacksonville that I had to go see him that day, and some of his friends were going to bring me to Jacksonville, and I knew what, I got some money. It's like, there's no way I could go to jail, because if I go to jail, I can't get out. I don't have any money to bail.
Mark:
So I remember just watching everybody. So there's a bunch of people that came after me that didn't have any money until I don't got any money. And they were like, okay, and let them go. So I'm the only person that she's going to send to jail. So I remember she's like, courts adjourned. And she stands up. I said, your honor, your honor, I didn't even raise my hand because I was handcuffed. I was like, your honor.
Mark:
I was like, your honor, it was my rent money, which it was. She's like, I got $1,387, right? I could give you 1386, just leave me one dollars so I could take the bus home. And she said, all right, bailiff, if he goes down there and pays the money, you can let him go. If not, take him to jail. So I went down, I gave all my money. So that other $600, the extra money I had, was the money my mom sent me to buy the car. So I had to give it to tHem. And I had $1 left.
Mark:
And I remember I had someone come and pick me up because I wasn't about to spend that one dollars on a bus, right? I needed to buy something to eat because I had no food. So I remember going to McDonald's, and the guys who I was going to ride to Jacksonville with, we went to McDonald's before we rode to Jacksonville, and I bought a double cheeseburger for ninety nine cents. And I couldn't even afford fries, and I couldn't afford a drink, so I got a cup of water and a double cheeseburger. And I knew that once I got to Jacksonville, my partner down there, he was going to give me some money, and I was going to stay with him, and I didn't have to worry about things. But that was a life changing moment for start, because I was doing graphic design work from him, and that's how my graphic design business started. And. And then at the end of. So then I'm hustling, trying to get by.
Mark:
Hustling, hustling. And at the end of the year. This is 99 now. Yeah, this is 99. And we had a big. At college, you have homecoming, and homecoming is the time of year to make money. And I remember by that time, I'm kind of known as the Flyer guy. So I'm designing all these flyers for people.
Mark:
So I made a little bit of money then. And then me and one of my partners at the time, we collaborated with the guy who I told you I was working for. And we ended up going in and negotiating a deal with this guy that had a movie theater. And we got the movie theater. We had no money. We had absolutely no money at all. The guy who I told you I was working for, he put up a little bit of money, but we went and got the place, the venue, and we were going to throw a big party for had. At the time, Pastor Troy was hot.
Mark:
He had a rapper, and me and him are good friends. All. He calls me all the time. And whatnot. But at the time, I'm going to tell you how he screwed us over. We hired him. He had just came out and he had that song, we're ready. And it was huge.
Mark:
So we got a friend of ours, this other club owner, to get him for a $1,000 for us. So we had this big party for homecoming men and me and the guy, his name is John Mosley. He's good friend to this day. We promoted. So we got the guy, Seymour, the other club owner, to put up a little bit of money. And at the time, I was DJing on the radio, this new radio station. I had a reggae show every Sunday night. I made a deal with the radio station to give them a percentage of the door in exchange for them allowing us to run a bunch of ads for it.
Mark:
We got the venue from the owner, right? I don't think we had to put any money down or whatever. And we got a little money from the investor to pay for flyers. And, man, we worked, man, me and that dude John, he didn't even have a car at the time. And I didn't have a car. His girlfriend, one of the girls he was talking to, had this pink geo tracker. And I remember, man, we would drive around. Everybody was calling us saying that we were gay or whatever because it's two dudes driving around in this pink Geo tracker. But we had to get it.
Mark:
We were hustling, man, and we hustled. And that homecoming, that was at the end of 99, they ended up shutting us. It was the biggest event ever, probably in the history of Tallahassee. We have 1500 people inside and it was 5000 people outside that couldn't get in. And the fire marshal ended up shutting us down. And we made about $18,000 that night. But we probably could have made 50, and I'll never forget. So we made 18,000.
Mark:
Pastor Troy comes to the event, him and his manager see all the people outside. And he was like, his manager is like, yeah, you got to give us 2500. But we had the deal for 1000, right? And I was like, no, we can't give him 2500. And I remember my partner went over to him and he was sitting in a big Mercedes Benz. It was two cars. It was a Range Rover and a Mercedes in front of him. And I remember he was just sitting there in the back and he wind down his window. And my part's like, look, Troy, the deal that we made was for $1,000, man.
Mark:
I'm a man of my word. And my man dropped a $1,000 on his lap and he's like, man, hopefully you're a man of your word to it, something like that. And then all he did, he looked up for a second and he went to the window, wind the window up. And after he dropped $1,000 on his lap and they drove off with our money. Wow. They drove off with our money. And it's crazy. He doesn't remember that.
Mark:
I'm sure he doesn't remember that. But me and him are great friends now, really good friends now. He calls me all the time, wants to do business with me or whatever. But fortunately what happened was the fire marshal came and shut us down because if not we would have been screwed because we told everybody. And he drove off. We were like, yeah, he was there, but he left. Yeah. So anyway, that night was a changing moment for me because like I said, we made about 18,000.
Mark:
We gave the radio station their cut and paid all expenses and we had about $9,000 left. And the guy that put up the money, he got like 4000. I got 3000 and my buddy got 3000. And I remember just thinking to myself, man, I'm rich. I'm rich. I remember my buddy Drew, who I was living with at the time, one of my best friends to this day had let me borrow. He had rented a car because it was homecoming. He wanted a nice car, so he let me borrow.
Mark:
His car was a blue 300 ZX. And I remember driving home with the $3,000 and I'm looking behind me and I'm like, man, someone's going to try to rob me. I was so scared. I was driving like 304:00 in the morning and I took that money and I made it home, man. And I remember I took that money and I bought a car. One of my homeboys at the time was selling this Honda Accord. So I had that 3000 and I probably made another thousand or so from doing fly because that time now my flyer companies is starting to making a little bit of money. And the only reason why is because one, I knew how to design flyers.
Mark:
But then I found this connect to get the Flyers made. And nobody didn't know where to get the Flyers made. So I let everybody, I would mark it up like $50 and make some money. And I remember I took all My money and I bought the car from my friend. I probably had like $4,000. I bought the car from my friend. My license had been suspended because I didn't pay some tickets. So I reinstated my license.
Mark:
I paid for my insurance for like six months. And the little bit of money I had left, I bought a box of flyers to promote that. I was doing flyers that I would pass out and I had no money left, but I had that box of Flyers. And that box of flyers changed my life. Wow. And after that, I told myself, I said, you know what? I'm not going to do anything else. I'm just going to focus on this flyer company. Wow.
Mark:
And that was it. Because of the success that we had, everybody's coming up like, oh, man, come and promote with us. It's like, no, I'm going to focus on this one business, this flyer business, and that's it.
Greg :
This episode didn't go in the direction that I thought it was going to go, but I've done 800 podcasts. This has been the most inspirational podcast I've ever done because this is what it takes. I could even see the pain in your face of just remembering that and what it really looks like and all the downs in order for you to get that one break, that one break, that one break you only got after so many things happened. And I'm just thinking of pretty much 99. There's now it's so clear. Why 99%, 99 out of 100, they just won't do it. Yeah, it's so clear.
Mark:
Yeah. I know that we're probably over time, but I just want to kind of finish up to when things really got going. So now I have a car and I have a box of flyers, and that's it. I don't have any money. And I remember just like, man, I got to figure out how to make this money. And I'll never forget I was telling somebody this story about a week ago, and I had this guy, a friend of mine, we had worked at the same place, and he got fired. He got caught for stealing, and he moved back home to Pensacola. And I remember him calling me up all the time, like, man, you need to come to Pensacola and promote.
Mark:
He's like, if you come to Pensacola, I'll take you all over PensacoLA, and I'll take you to Mobile, Alabama, which is about an hour away. So I remember I probably had enough money for gas, and that was it. I had the Honda Accord at the time. So I was like, all right, man, I'm going to go. And at the time, I didn't have a cell phone, so me going, people could have been calling me to order flyers, but I was like, I got to go. So I remember driving down there on a Friday afternoon, and I get there, I get to his house. And I'm like, all right, man, let's go. And he's like, yeah, man, a little bit.
Mark:
In a little bit. So he's smoking weed, and the time, I don't smoke weed or anything. So I'm just there at his house. He's playing video games, and I'm like, what the hell is this dude doing? We got to go. And finally, after about an hour or two, he's like, all right, let's go by this one place. And I'm thinking that the way he made it sounds like I could stay with him or whatever. So I'd plan to kind of be there for the weekend, but I didn't have any money. I might have had $30 or $50 on me.
Mark:
And I remember he finally takes me to this one place, and I remember leaving a stack of flyers there. And he took me to somewhere else, but it was so late, and then. So I'm thinking, okay, well, we're going to go back to his house, probably go to sleep, and then get up in the morning and finish, and then go over to Mobile. So I remember getting back to his house, and he was just like, all right, man, where are you staying at? I'm thinking. My head. What? I'm thinking, like, man, I'm supposed to be staying with you. I was like, I don't know. Is there any hotels around here? He was like, he told me some motel or something like that.
Mark:
I was like, all right, man, I'll probably just go stay there. But I didn't have the money. So I remember it was late, and I drove back to Tallahassee and I drove back to Tallahassee because I just didn't have any money to stay at the hotel. So it's either I'm going to sleep in my car, drive. So I was like, man, screw it. I just drove back. But I'll tell you what. Even though he kind of screwed me over because he was supposed to take me to a bunch of places and I was supposed to stay with him, the one set of flies that I put in that place that he told me, I ended up probably, over the next two years, probably got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business from that one place.
Mark:
I know three guys that spent a lot of money with me that got my flyers from that place. So that one place. And I remember I had a car and I had a box of flyers, and I'm starting to get calls now. And my only goal was to make, like, $50,000 a year, right? I remember always hearing my dad saying $50,000, that was the gold benchmark, right? And I couldn't see anything past that. And I figured that if I could make at least $50,000 a year, my dad wouldn't call me a loser anymore. And that was my goal. And I think that first year that I really got serious and I cut everything out. I probably made 100,000.
Greg :
Wow.
Mark:
I probably made 100,000. So now I'm not a loser anymore. And I just gave up my all. Wow.
Greg :
This episode. I hope you all. Personally, bro, I got so much from this. There are so many stories that you shared that I've never heard before. And you've taught me a lot. You've taught me a lot. But this last hour, plus, it's the most you've ever taught me. I've learned so much from you just because I have to do what my old brother tells me to do.
Greg :
But I didn't realize there's so many little nuances and things that you shared that I never heard before. So I don't know if anybody has listened to this point, but I know that this is going to take me to another level. And I feel so bad for so many painful moments that you've gone through, just like I've gone through some painful moments as well. But I think you might take the cake with this one. But I think what you have taught me here, and I just want to honor you right now. So thank you. Want to honor you for your resourcefulness, even when you didn't have the resources. I want to honor you for your creativity, for your ability to take action, and for your perseverance when you've just continually been told no over and over and over again.
Greg :
If I've never told you this, I want to tell you that I've always admired you and looked up to you, not just because you're the older sibling, but because of you being able to fight through a lot of moments that I know I couldn't have done it, especially with Brian. We've never really talked about this before until now. So, anyways, I just want to thank you. I probably should cut you a check.
Greg :
Because of the amount of. Because.
Greg :
You'Ve made me a lot of money. Because basically you were the reason why I took the path that I've taken today. But I hope every single one of you listening to this episode can understand that if you're expecting that the road is going to be perfectly paved, you've got another thing coming. And you might not be willing to do what Mark did you might not be willing to do what I did, but the reality is that I'm even asking myself, would I been willing to push the way that you push? I can't answer that unequivocally.
Mark:
Yes, I think you would have. I think for most people, we can only perform when our backs are against the wall. Yeah.
Greg :
I feel like every time my back has been against the wall, I've had no other choice.
Mark:
Yeah, when you have no other choice, it has to work or it has to work. And that's just it.
Greg :
Okay, so that's going to be the title of today's episode. Yeah, it has to work or it has to work. The story of Mark Tod. So thank you for being on a podcast.
Mark:
Absolutely. My pleasure. This has been epic. Yeah.
Greg :
And where can the people find you?
Mark:
Before we finish on Instagram, it's Mark is marketing, but it's M-A-R-K-I-Z marketing on Instagram. And then I also have a group, a free group that they could join where I just share marketing tips and tricks. And you go to wWW Dot Wearmarketers Co.
Greg :
Okay.
Mark:
So we W-E-A-R-E. Marketers. Marketers Co.
Greg :
Okay, so let's do this. By the way, he actually is a marketer, and he is the main advisor and consultants to my biggest projects that I've ever done. But I do think that today's episode is one of those episodes that is not out there. And a lot of people don't know why things aren't happening for them. And it comes from within. And so thank you for being on a podcast.
Mark:
I appreciate it. My pleasure. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. Awesome.
