In this advice-filled episode, Wayne Mullins, Founder and Marketing Manager of Ugly Mug Marketing, shares how he is a passionate entrepreneur committed to creating remarkable experiences and building a team at Ugly Mug Marketing that produces extraordinary results for their clients.
You will discover:
– How to identify the true culture of your organization
– The difference between freedom from and freedom to
– A simple process for translating your culture into action
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I am here with Wayne Mullins. Now Wayne is a husband, a father of four, and entrepreneur. He’s a founder, the founder, I should say, of ugly mug marketing. He’s creator of the freelance accelerator, and author of full circle marketing. He focuses on helping entrepreneurs to build exceptional teams and create high performance cultures. He is also an out of the box against the grain thinker, and it has more than paid off for his company and his clients. He leads from the heart, he’s passionate and unapologetic about doing so. And as founder of ugly mug marketing, he’s inspired clients from over 100 industries. And his work directly influences more than 250,000 entrepreneurs annually. absolutely remarkable. Well, Wayne, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here. I’d love to just add a little color to this story you’ve done a lot in your career, tell us a little bit about how you being an entrepreneur has actually thrust you into influencing and affecting and helping entrepreneurs around the world.
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, what I would say to that, Scott is, first of all, thanks for having me, thanks for the opportunity to come on and share. I love being around entrepreneurs, I love talking about business and talking about, you know, the challenges and the opportunities that we face as entrepreneurs. And I think for me, really what has shifted my purpose or my passion, has been living through some of these difficult challenges, right? I remember in the early days of my journey, that I was trying to figure out how to make this agency work, how to make this business work. And I would turn to people for what I thought was advice, and they would pour their heart out to me, they would give me these things that they thought I should do or shouldn’t do. And I would go and attempt to implement what I was hearing. And what I learned over time, though, Scott is this that there’s a big difference between advice and opinion, you see, anyone can give you their opinion. But you have to be careful about who you go to, to get advice from. And so for me, what I’ve learned is that there are certain groups of people, there are certain types of people that I am able, I’m uniquely gifted, based on my experience my skills to give advice to, and it’s those people that I love pouring my life into pouring my knowledge into and helping them get where they’re trying to get to.
Scott Ritzheimer
There’s just so much in that even go to some of the work of lots of coaches. So one of the mistakes that coaches make is they don’t catch that difference. I did marketing in the past, I can help you with your content, or, you know, I look at a p&l once sure I can help you with that. Right. They have lots of opinions, maybe even educated opinions. But do those really qualify as the right advice, particularly at the right times, I love that. And and so when it comes to one of the things that I was, I was kind of doing some research or the opposite, one of the things that I saw you refer to something called the Freedom formula, I’d love for you to share a little bit, what is the freedom formula? How does it work? And how can folks start to even implement it in their own businesses?
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, so the short version of that, because I could spend all day talking about this is for a lot of entrepreneurs, for a lot of churches, we go into these pursuits with this idea that we won’t read them, right, we don’t want someone telling us when to show up. We don’t want someone putting a cap on how much money we can make and all these other things. But what I discovered very early on, is that there’s a difference between freedom from and freedom to. And if we’re not careful about that simple distinction, what happens is, we are running from something. In other words, we’re running from having a boss tell us when to show up, or running from a cap on our salary, our income, versus running to a mission, a purpose, some value some things that drive us and so at the end of the day, what I would say, the succinct version of this is that you have to be crystal clear on what freedom are you seeking? Are you merely seeking freedom from? Or are you seeking freedom to because if you’re running from something, you’re always going to fall into that trap of constantly running from something else?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. This is so so good. I love that language freedom, instead of freedom from going freedom to and, and, you know, I’ve said that same thing to multiple people is like, hey, you know, even even at the very end of the entrepreneurial journey, you’re looking at getting out of selling. I tell folks, hey, like, are you trying to go from something you’re trying to run away from the business you built? Or are you actually moving to something so I absolutely love that. But if we dialed down kind of earlier in the process, I always talk about the how not to lose, right? Yeah, that first stage of that journey. You’re like you’re dissatisfied. It’s like comfortable you don’t want to be doing so that you got a boss you don’t like you’re doing a job, you don’t like whatever it may be. And we build this whole kind of reservoir of how not to say, I’m not going to treat my employees that way. I’m not going to treat my clients that way. But how not twos are not a strategy, right? They’re just ruling out one possibility. And and so I love this idea of you not just trying to get rid of the boss, if you’re really looking at Should I start a business? Or do I have what it takes, but it’s not the right step for me, what separates dissatisfied employees or just in a bad environment from those who are destined to be founders. And this isn’t as a hard word, but who are ready to make that leap is exactly what you’re talking about. They’re not looking to just get away from something, they’ve got this thing inside them say, hey, there’s a better way, right? There’s, there’s a different way that I can do this. So I absolutely love that. And now one of the things that happens, let’s say you make the leap, you’re founder, you do those initial steps, right? And you start bringing some people around, right, you need some help you bring some employees. And I don’t know about you, but I have never met a founder, who started their business so that they could manage people and hold them accountable. Right, that’s it’s not really high on the list of inspiring activities, particularly for the type of people who tend to found businesses. So you again, you talk a lot about this idea of self accountability. So how do we move from being chief accountability officer, right, just constantly like trying to get people to do what they’re supposed to do to building a self accountable culture?
Wayne Mullins
And that question, Scott is one that plagued me, literally for probably the first seven or eight years of owning this particular business, because I was the person you just described, I was the person who started this business. And I absolutely hated having to manage a team having to lead a team having to hold them accountable, having to, you know, every little thing that they did. And so that question was what drove me to start really studying? How do you actually build a culture in an organization that is self accountable, and high performance. And if I could boil it down to just two simple things, as entrepreneurs, or as coaches, we have to learn to balance these two things. Element number one, we have to learn to balance alignment. In other words, getting all the right people pulling in the right direction. Do we have as cliche as this is gonna sound but do we have a clear vision? Do we have a mission? Do we have a purpose? Do we have values? And then are our people aligned around those things that fall solely on our shoulders? The other element of this is autonomy. Right? And so for most entrepreneurs, here’s what I’ve discovered is we vacillate between micromanagement, which is all about alignment, making sure every i is dotted T is crossed. Or the other side of that is ends off, let people run free, do what they want to do. And then we go to them. And we look at what they’ve done. And we say, What in the world, think and why did you do this? This isn’t what I wanted. And so we jump back and forth between these two things. And what I will tell you is that when you are great at building alignment around those things that are so cliche, right, the things that we we know, we should create, we know we should have but then they sit in a drawer somewhere they sit on a file in Google Drive somewhere, versus bringing those documents to wiping graining them into the culture that we have.
Scott Ritzheimer
And just how do you do that? Because I’ve found, I mean, it’s actually not uncommon for folks to have at least thought about vision, mission values, or some aspect of culture. And I would say, if all you do is take the step of defining those, but you never really go from there. I actually think that’s worse than having not done that in the first place. Because you just you never reinforce it. Sometimes you hold people up to that standard. Sometimes you don’t, you put it on T shirts, but you don’t live it yourself, you know, it’s just it gets it gets really ugly really quickly. So how do you bring what is otherwise a document a drawer? How do you bring that to life?
Wayne Mullins
Step number one is you have to live it, right. I see this all the time. We as owners, as entrepreneurs, we often give ourselves a pass. In other words, our general rule here is we show up at eight o’clock, we end at five o’clock. And so let’s just say the best rule you have set for your organization. It’s eight to five, Monday through Friday with an hour for lunch. Okay. Well, what happens is as the owner, I think, well, I own this place, like I don’t have to show up at eight o’clock if I roll in the door at 807 815. It’s okay, right? Because it’s my business, I can do what I want. What we’re communicating to the team is this rule, this value of being on time and being present and ready to show up isn’t really that valuable? It’s valuable to you. But you know, I’m not going to hold myself to that standard. And so I think we have to start with looking at ourselves in the mirror, and being completely honest. Am I giving myself a pass? In other words, do I have different standards for my team than I have for myself or for myself. And that I think, is the starting lease for us to ensure that our values are actually lived out, because your values are not your values until they cost you something, right. So I can talk all day about how we value creating remarkable experiences. But until it actually cost us something to create remarkable experience, in other words, until I have to dip into the profit to create a remarkable experience for someone who deserves that experience, then it’s really not a value, or I can say we value integrity, or we value trust. But until those things cost us something, there really aren’t values. They’re merely merely platitudes. Their words, on a wall, they’re only t shirt, like you said, Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes, fantastic. It is so so very true. And I think that goes right to the heart of the issue of if you know, if you put it on the t shirt, but the person wearing this t shirt doesn’t live it out right? Now folks have to like, what’s the what’s up with this gap? What do I do? Do I follow your actions? Do I follow your words, and you and you look at the studies around it, you know, I think it’s 60 70% of the time we will follow their actions and not their words. And then you know, then as entrepreneur, we’re thinking, what’s wrong with these people? Right? The Oh, you get there, the one day you show up at eight, nobody else is there. Yeah, you throw a big temper tantrum doesn’t work that way. So let’s go back to this idea. Because it’s, I agree, it’s really, really important. This idea of, you know, self accountable culture, self accountable employees. And the question that I have for you, is this something that any employee can learn? Is it something that an entrepreneur should have to teach to everybody? Or is it something that you actually hire in? Tell me a little bit what, how you navigate that?
Wayne Mullins
So I’m going to cheat with this answer. And I’m gonna say it’s a combination of both Scott. So your culture, whether you are intentional about building your culture, or whether it’s just unintentional, right? There’s a culture that exist. And if you want to know the true culture of your organization, it is how people behave, how they act, when the boss is away. That is the true culture that exists in your organization. And so what I think to be true, is that when we understand that element, that it’s what takes place, when I’m not here, it shifts our mentality from I am a boss, I am a manager, I am a leader, I have to do all these things. And what it really does is it shifts my mindset, at least, into this idea that I’m a coach, I am here to help each of these people become a little better each and every day. Now, again, what I view that does, for me at least is it, it helps me view them as a peer as someone I’m coming along beside, not from the top down, but from beside them, or even from behind them and helping push them up helping elevate them and stretch them. And I firmly believe that if you’re going to create this culture of high accountability, that from a coaching perspective, you have to number one have their best interests at heart. Now, it’s easy to say that, like I can say all day long, I have my team’s best interests at heart. The question is, do they genuinely believe that, because if they don’t believe that they don’t feel that in their core, then it’s not true. Number two, I must be willing to push my team out of their comfort zones, I must push them into discomfort. And here’s the other important point that is different for each and every person. So what is uncomfortable for Person A is going to be different than Person B. But my role as a coach is to push them into that discomfort because we all know this to be true. When we go to the gym to get in shape. It’s the discomfort that pushes us to that next level, it’s the discomfort that enables us to grow. So we have to one have their best interest at heart. Number two, push them into discomfort. And number three, we must give them space and help them learn from that period of discomfort. You see, we’re always pushing them constantly pushing them. That’s not an organization that people want to be a part of. Right, we have to give the space for recovery. And to quickly jump back to the exercise analogy. muscles don’t grow while you’re at the gym. Muscles actually grow during recovery. And the same is true for building your culture in your team.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, wow. Yeah, that is so true. And because when you look at it, you know different leaders will have kind of a different vise in this right some will they have the best interests of their culture, but they they won’t stand in the discomfort with them right and they shy away from the discomfort or you have somewhere like there Find out the discomfort. And they actually start to think something’s wrong if there’s not discomfort. And so what you’ve got to do and what you’ve, you’ve nailed it really, throughout this episode is the tension between these realities. Right? And hanging on to both of those. I love that. And another question for you along the same lines, and that is, you talk about having their best interests in mind and laying that as kind of the foundation for these different steps. If you look at it through that lens, what are the benefits that your employees gain, when they learn to lead themselves?
Wayne Mullins
Man, that’s, that could get on a soapbox on that one. So they gain so much, they gain a lot more self confidence, self respect, they also gain the respect of their peers, because their peers see their evolution, they see them progressing. They see them going from someone who, you know, is just out of school or just coming over, you know, no experience in the industry, and they see that progression in those person. You know, I, when you have their best interests at heart, what that means is, you are vested in what is best for the channel over what is best for you and your business. And that is extremely difficult to get to. But it is that mentality. It is that belief that leads to the culture, it leads to the type of organization where people want to show up, they want to sacrifice for the team. They want to be there after hours or only weekends whenever it’s necessary, because they know that you have their best interests at heart. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
So we’ve covered so much ground. Just want to kind of put a bow on it here. Because you know, folks, like you’ve hit them with like the one two punch here just as such great stuff. If you’re listening to this, go back and just listen to it again, because I’m sure you missed about half of what Wayne has put out. It’s just fantastic. But I’m wondering, again, if you could put a bow on this for us. Tell us? What do you think is the biggest secret? That shouldn’t be a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Wayne Mullins
The one is a tough one, narrowing it to one specific thing. But what I will say is this consistency creates miracles. So when it comes to building a self accountable culture, you have to be consistent. And I get it like we are so incredibly busy, we have a million different things going on. We have all these plates that we have to keep spinning in the air at the same time. And so I get it being consistent can be the biggest challenge that we face. But being consistent in those little disciplines, make all the difference in the world.
Scott Ritzheimer
That is so true. It’s so true. It’s um, it’s interesting to mistake the dynamism of entrepreneurism, right. You’re just constantly trying and figuring to mistake that as right to be sloppy. Right? And you’re right, when you look at those who really pull through those, those relatively earlier stages who create that growth, and then it doesn’t collapse in on it. So they have a value baked in of consistency. And I love that point. So I’m gonna have you shift gears for a moment and have you take off your your kind of entrepreneurial advisor hat, put on your CEO, how to get in touch with what’s the next stage of growth look like for you as a leader? And what challenge will you have to overcome to get there?
Wayne Mullins
So my answer is not that sexy. But it’s consistent with what I believe to be true. And, you know, I would love to get on here and say, you know, our goal is, you know, we’re going to 1,000x growth next year, you know, all these things are, you know, triple our profit margins and all that. And although the entrepreneur in me won’t say those things, what I’ve conditioned myself to understand is that what I would rather want is what is best for my team. And what is best for my team is solid incremental growth. So there are I believe there’s kind of these four stages that exist in an organization. So at the very bottom, it’s stagnant. Right, so that is not where we want to be. The next one is comfort. That’s where everyone is comfortable. The one above that is complexity. And above that is chaos. So the fastest growing companies, the ones that make the Inc 5000. If you peered inside of those organizations, they are complete chaos, complete and total chaos. We have a client who’s going from, let’s just call it 15 million, and over a five year period, they’re now in excess of 500 million in a five year period. The inside of that organization is complete chaos pandemonium, and the culture reflects that. Right? The culture reflects that. And so what I’ve learned is I want to vacillate between complexity, which is where I take people out of their comfort zone, because that that is where growth occurs. growth occurs when we step up into that level of complexity where we’re breaking through things that are comfortable when we’re breaking things that got us to where we are today so that we can go to the next level. So I want to vacillate between complexity, and then back into comfort, which means I have to be willing to say it’s okay to grow incrementally, right? We don’t have to have triple digits across the board and every single team. So that’s, that’s my challenge, staying focused on that. Because at the end of the day, I believe that’s what’s best for the team and best for the culture.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. That’s so good. It would, it would be remiss to not at least give a little bit of time here to the book, you’ve got a book out, it’s full, full circle marketing, is that right? I had my notes here. So what was the big idea that you wanted to share that ultimately drove you to write that book?
Wayne Mullins
The big idea is simply this that we live in a world today, where 6.46 point 5 billion people have this little device that I’m holding up called a smartphone. And that means within a matter of seconds, anyone in this world can share their thoughts and opinions about you and your business. And yet, as businesses, we are so still focused on finding new strangers in getting them to buy our products or services, versus turning our existing customers and clients into evangelist for us. And so the question, the big question is this, what percent of your marketing budget goes to finding and attracting new customers or clients, versus what percent of your budget goes to actually converting your existing customers into evangelists? So the premise is, you’re not spending enough on your existing customers, getting them to be evangelists for you? And then how do you go about doing that?
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, wow, fantastic. I know, I want to read it. So where can we find the book? First? And then next question is Where can find folks find more out about you and the work that you and your team do?
Wayne Mullins
Yep. For the book, it’s available to all online retailers, you can find it there. And then with regards to connecting with me, our websites probably the simplest place uglymugmarketing.com contact information, social medias, emails, all that stuff is there. And then from a kind of a personal slash leadership slash not directly marketing related stuff. On Instagram, I share quite a bit and it’s @fireyourself.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, Wayne, just a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for being here. I deeply appreciate it. And for those of you watching or listening, you know that your time and attention means the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Guest Name
Wayne is a husband, father of 4, entrepreneur, Founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, creator of the Freelance Accelerator, and author of Full Circle Marketing. He focuses on helping entrepreneurs build exceptional teams and create high-performance cultures. He is an out-of-the-box, against-the-grain thinker, and it has more than paid off for his company and clients. He leads from the heart and is passionate and unapologetic about doing so. As founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, he has inspired clients from over 100 industries, and his work directly influences more than 250K entrepreneurs annually.
Want to learn more about Wayne Mullins’s work at Ugly Mug Marketing? Check out his website at https://www.uglymugmarketing.com/
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