August 18, 2025 • 41 mins
Have you ever thought or wondered if there happened to be a few simple things you can implement to drive success? Is such an idea a fairy tale? Well, if you've ever thought that, then this podcast episode is for you. Our guest today is Mark Spencer Cook, who shares with us his research-backed top five proven drivers to finding success.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Mark S. Cook, is a New York Times‑bestselling Author, CEO, and creates elite CEOs with a plan he calls Bold Encounters. As Host of the YouTube and Podcast, Bold Encounters, Cook brings amazing guests, like the inventor of the cell phone, a top Shark Tank winner, Mother Teresa's coworker, a founding Swiftie, $8-billion CEO, and brings purpose to your life's work. Cook has led startups, turnarounds, the largest-ever studies of award‑winning pivots, and thousands of valuable client wins. He is the way to your pivot, where career becomes calling
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
as we open today, I'm wonderinghave you ever thought or
wondered if there happened to bea few simple things you can
implement to drive success?
(00:22):
Is such an idea a fairy tale?
Well, if you've ever thoughtthat, then this podcast episode
is for you.
Our guest today is Mark S Cook,who shares with us his
research-backed top five provendrivers to finding success.
Now Mark S Cook is a New YorkTimes bestselling author, ceo
(00:42):
and creates elite CEOs with aplan he calls Bold Encounters.
As host of the YouTube andpodcast, bold Encounters, cook
brings amazing guests like theinventor of the cell phone, a
top Shark Tank winner, motherTeresa's coworker, a founding
Swifty, $8 billion CEO, andbrings purpose to your life's
work.
He has led startups turnarounds, the largest ever study on
(01:05):
award winning pivots andthousands of valuable client
wins.
You're going to love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
Mark S. Cook (01:13):
My name is Mark Spencer Cook.
I tell you all three becausethere are a million Mark Cooks.
So Mark Spencer Cook and I'mthe president and owner of
Windfall Partners.
We're a consultancy that takesowners and leaders through a
five-step plan that's massivelyresearch-based by Harvard,
Stanford, Cambridge, PhDs withmy team, and also led to a New
(01:37):
York Times bestseller.
So that's kind of what I do ona weekly basis with people.
Tom DuFore (01:42):
I'd love for you to talk through maybe some of these
steps, this process, and evenwhat led you to talk through
maybe some of these steps, thisprocess and even what led you to
do the research in the firstplace.
Mark S. Cook (01:55):
I've done several research projects with teams and
alone, and some subjective.
Some are very empirical, and onone of the empirical, it was
the largest ever study ofaward-winning pivots People,
leaders who'd won awards notfrom just their industry, for
political reasons or, you know,for favoritism or something, but
internally from their board,from their community, that they
really actually drove somethingforward with customers and their
(02:19):
market.
And so it's really.
My target is really for peoplethat are trying to make a pivot,
not necessarily changingdirections, but they're in a new
era, they're at a crossroadsand they need to do something to
get an uptick.
And so those are the peoplethat buy a business from their
(02:40):
parents or a private equityhires them or, in your case,
they sign up for a franchise andthey get going.
So people that are crossroads,that are leading a company, are
my best clients.
So what I do is I recommend.
Not all 50 things that wediscovered were really essential
(03:00):
and important.
One of them was focus, so wefocused on five, the top five
that go best.
Together.
They have the best mathematicalprediction of great client
outcomes and financial success.
And then there's a third Ithrow in because it's third
place, still on the podium.
Third place and it is what wealways talk about everyone in
(03:23):
the business passion, you know.
That seems a little backwards.
Maybe we should focus onourselves first and then we'll
do better for customers andstuff.
That's just not what the datashows.
The data shows that we shouldtake care of our ideal client
and those outcomes, theconsequences we create, first,
and then we should worry aboutthe money second.
And I think the reason it'sthird and it seems natural to me
(03:47):
I live in passion, I want it tobe.
Passion is number one, but Ithink speculation on what we
found, the reason the data showsit's third place is because if
you're making amazing outcomesand consequences for people that
are your perfect customer andyou're making a lot of money for
them and yourself and your owncompany, I think you're going to
(04:09):
love what you're doing.
That's just how the nature ofthings in this world work.
Tom DuFore (04:13):
I believe I don't know how many times in my career
I've heard someone say well, Ididn't set out to get into
industry X or Y or into thisbusiness, but and then they tell
you oh, I've spent the last 20,30, 40 years in this industry
and I think you know to supportwhat you're saying is they were
(04:34):
producing outcomes that werehelping the customer and you
know going through those steps,and then it turned into a
passion through those first twosteps.
Mark S. Cook (04:43):
Yeah, you know, several years after discovering
all that, I was doing some of myown personal contemplation.
I am not even close to theperfect person and I know and
experience that every day, but Ido have a strong faith that I
want to get better and I want tofollow the best.
(05:03):
And once upon a time, theperson who's had more people
follow him than anyone else inhistory and it's not even close
was asked hey, what's mostimportant?
And I dove into this study ofthat, which I won't go into here
because it's not the place, butanyone who knows what I'm
talking about, Go reread thatanswer and figure out what it is
(05:24):
Like.
I said.
Several years later Idiscovered oh, that's what we're
talking about, it's the sameorder, it's what everything's
all about.
So business is about finding outwho you can help best.
If you can't help them best,don't try Get a partner like an
innkeeper or someone else tohelp you help anyone, but focus
(05:48):
on the people you can serve bestand create great consequences.
So that's the first thing thatyou've got to do, and the first
step I take with people is Ihave a very interesting and now
proprietary sort of way where weidentify who your ideal client
or your ideal prospect is andpeople think they know it or a
lot of people don't want to haveone.
(06:10):
They want to serve everybody.
It spans that spectrum and Ineither say you can't serve
everybody, nor do I say that youmust only have one.
But there is a vast improvementin a lot of things like
capability and efficiency andall sorts of benefits from just
(06:32):
knowing who your ideal client is.
That's pretty common.
It's called an ICP.
A lot of people talk about it.
What we discover that ispowerful is about what happens
next, which is you have tocreate an outcome, and they
don't even know how toarticulate it.
So there's a lot of deep andbold immersion that takes place
(06:54):
to figure out how you need toserve them.
It's not customer service,that's a very baby pool depth
version of it.
But it is about why they showedup that they don't even know
and in all the nuances that theyneed, and we go through that
process and we figure out whatthat outcome should really look
like for that specific businessin that specific business not
(07:17):
the industry, but in thatspecific business.
So that's number one.
Does that make sense to you?
Tom DuFore (07:22):
That makes a lot of sense.
That customer and that profileit's a lot deeper that I was
thinking coming in as you firstdescribed it.
Mark S. Cook (07:29):
I'll give you a quick spoiler on that one before
we move anywhere else.
You know, if you don't know thedifferent nuances and depth of
the challenges, inconveniencesand massive or catastrophic
problems your ideal customerfaces, then you really don't
know how to help them.
And that's just one of fouritems.
(07:51):
That are the details that arejust as powerful.
The others are very different.
You've got to make a difference.
It's got to be on the positiveside.
So if someone's coming to you,I have two clients that make
desserts.
Interestingly, one's chocolate,one is an apple production
facility that produces thethings that we eat in pies and
desserts.
So you'd think, well, theydon't have any problems, they're
(08:13):
just coming to get a greatpiece of pie.
There are nuances aboutinconvenience, about what they
felt last time.
There's also so many negativeversions that they're dealing
with that they don't evenarticulate or even know how to
articulate that we can go anddiscover and figure out.
And then, on the positive side,they want to go from A to B or
A to Z in a lot of cases.
(08:34):
So even if it's somethingsimple and unnecessary as those
two, you can take your productto the right place from where it
is right now in a state.
If you know chasm, you've gotto jump.
So that's the second one.
The last two one is emotional.
People don't like to talk aboutemotion in business.
There are so many proofs abouthow important emotions are in
(09:00):
decision making and how you viewthe work that you've received
in decision making and how youview the work that you've
received, and there's NobelPrizes that say that emotions
primarily affect some of ourdecisions in business.
So if you want to understandyour ideal client, you have to
explore the 600, and we have asystematic way to go through
(09:20):
that the 600 most importantemotions and experiential
experiences for human beings,and we identify just the top two
that your clients are feelingand thinking about in their
private, without even knowing it, in their private life.
And then the last one is clear,and it's before you make your
(09:43):
own money, make them money if atall possible.
And that doesn't mean loweryour price, it means create more
valuable deliverables as anoutcome so your price can be
maintained.
Or if you have a steep price,if you're the best chicken
franchise in the world, youdon't mess with your price.
So how do you create more valuewith the human experience?
(10:05):
And it's not just service, it'sunderstanding some of these
depths.
Tom DuFore (10:09):
As you go through this process.
Obviously there's a lot, evenas you described, 600 emotions
trying to narrow that down to acouple and first off, identify
what's driving your clients andthen narrowing that down.
There's obviously a lot there.
Are there any steps orsuggestions?
Maybe someone I always like tolook for just one little thing
(10:30):
someone might be able to do justto get their mind starting to
think down this pathway.
Mark S. Cook (10:36):
I would suggest this week you put something on
your calendar that is an houraway from everyone, something on
your calendar that is an houraway from everyone, and you turn
off your phone and you spendthe first half hour thinking how
can I make a difference in thistype of person, this type of
(10:57):
person and that type of person'slife?
Maybe your top three guesses ofwho you think A you really can
make a huge difference.
You're built as a company, as aperson, as a leader, to make a
huge difference in thesepeople's lives.
And then B wow, you thrive as abusiness.
(11:18):
It not only makes you lots ofmoney, but you have a culture
that improves.
You have motivation of youremployees that improve.
You feel that passion we talkedabout at the beginning of the
interview.
And if you find a few let's saythree people that fit that bill
, then you think for the firsthalf hour how could I create a
(11:39):
massively better outcome?
And you start piling the ideasup.
Better outcome and you startpiling the ideas up.
And then you take the secondhalf hour and you make a plan
where you're going to drive.
You make a plan to go.
See Now some of these.
You have to request and getpermission to come take a tour.
But if you're careful andyou're sneaky in this day and
(12:02):
age, I'm not suggesting youbreak any laws.
I would say don't, becauseyou'll end up on the other end
of the police, trust me.
But you can go see proxies, youcan go see competitors, clients
, you can see prospectsespecially prospects and new
customers that you haven'ttalked to or seen what they do,
(12:22):
and you can discover some ofthese things, how they need you
and the proximate visit, andthink of it as a tour, don't
think of it as a conversation.
That's a different tool andit's different people that I
would recommend doing that with.
Next, but this one's aboutseeing with your own eyes, doing
(12:44):
some ethnography.
Every innovation expert ofdifferent flavors does this the
serious ones.
If you're going to lean, theycall it go to Gemba.
If you're going to productdevelopment, it's called product
ethnography.
We called it see it foryourself on our New York Times
bestseller Great Work.
I call it bold immersion.
(13:06):
You've got to get out there andyou've got to know these people
and see their spaces and places.
And you've got to see itbecause you don't know what
you're going to find when yousee it with your own eyes.
I can't even predict it, itjust is always a surprise.
The end of that is that, ofeverything I've ever studied,
this seeing things for yourselfcontributes more ideas.
(13:31):
That drives 1200% the realstatistics 12 times the odds
that you will have clients thatare passionate about what you do
, are passionate about what youdo.
This is amazing to me.
(13:51):
17 times the odds that you as aperson or anyone you ask to do
this voluntarily.
Of course they will have apassion for what you do and the
work involved.
Nothing has ever come close tothat.
You see that for yourself.
You get in the space of theproblem and feel it and see it,
and see the problems and theopportunities and the emotions
and the money that can be made,and it just trumps everything.
Tom DuFore (14:11):
For this customer, this prospect.
Mark S. Cook (14:13):
Whomever you're suggesting, get out, go to their
place of business, essentially,most importantly, where they
buy and they use what you do.
And I'll tell you, I've hadpeople say I already do that
every day, I live in it.
For example, I did a workshopwith ER doctors once in the very
beginning, right after theresearch was done, and I had to
(14:35):
do it again to other ER doctorsthe next day and I thought, oh
my gosh, I must have missed.
How do I tell an ER doctor togo to the place where his
customers or patients buy andaccept and use what they do?
And so I called a couple ofpeople from that workshop the
day before and I said help, Ihave it wrong, don't I?
(14:59):
Oh, you don't know how rightyou got it.
And I started to hear all thesestories, and one was about
sepsis, and I've had sepsis, soI have a little empathy towards
this.
But you know, sepsis killsbetween half and 75% of people
that go to the ER before thishappened.
(15:19):
And so one of the biggest topthree hospital teams, anywhere
they went out and went to theERs, asked the doctors and
nurses what do you do?
Everyone seemed to be doingpretty well.
They didn't improve a thing.
One of the doctors wasfrustrated.
He says I don't know, let's goback out and say nothing, let's
just watch.
So they each got assigned one ofa dozen ERs and they camped out
(15:43):
until a sepsis presented itselfand when it did, they made
changes immediately that tookmortality from 50 to 75% down to
9%, because they saw forthemselves.
Because we make up stuff aspeople.
So when you go out and you talkto customers and see their
(16:04):
spaces and they start giving youall these ideas, I will bet you
a crisp $100 bill that they'renot going to get their wallet
out for all of those ideas.
But when you step back and youlook through the lens of a
problem and you say what can wedo to better this person's life
and job and family and theircustomers and everything, and
you find some nuggets, they getout their wallet because you see
(16:28):
it and witness it and you getpassionate enough to do it well.
So that's what we're talkingabout.
Tom DuFore (16:33):
That's very good.
What's next on the list thatyou're going to be walking
through?
Mark S. Cook (16:58):
asking really one, only one question is really the
most important.
And the most important questionis when did you have this sort
of a problem or this sort of adesire, inconvenience, whatever
it is the negative version andcan you tell me step-by-step,
chronologically, what happened?
If you ask their ideas, like Isaid, they're just going to,
they're going to spew all overand they're not going to get out
their wallet for anything.
(17:18):
But if you say what happenedstep-by-step and they take you
through it, you get somewhat youknow no wit, eyewitness is
perfect but that you get muchmore reality that way and you
discover much more valuable,much more valuable set of things
that you can make an impact on.
So that's the first one.
The second one is go see foryourself.
(17:39):
The third one to answer yourquestion, and I think the last
two I'll just say becausethey're a little longer and
they're about executing but thisthird one to do this week to
answer your first question.
This last one is to reallythink who else in this economy
and this geography serves thesame ideal client or set of
(18:04):
clients that I do, my primary,my secondary, my tertiary, you
know, not always the perfectclient, but the top three types
of clients, who serves them, butthey don't do what I do.
And then go out and youinterview them.
You say look, you know we'resmart people, but we have a
(18:24):
continuous improvement practice,we like to innovate, so we do
these interviews all the time.
We go out to adjacent expertsI'll say it again, because
that's what I call them Adjacentexperts they're people that do
what you do, but not in yourindustry.
They help the people that youhelp, but they do it in a
different way.
(18:45):
And when you go out and you canask something as mundane as
well how do you greet people asthey walk in?
You could ask something asmundane as what do you do when
you get a bid?
You can do it, you can ask themanything.
And if you ask, if you get toabout three to five adjacent
experts, you might bedisappointed the first time, but
(19:05):
the fifth you're going to sayboy, that cook knew what he was
talking about.
This is valuable stuff.
It always happens.
It's happened workshop afterworkshop for me.
Tom DuFore (19:17):
Certainly it makes a ton of sense.
You can learn so much justthrough a few of those
conversations and certainlyyou'd be helping each other
along the way.
And ultimately to that firstpiece here finding new ways to
better serve your customer orthe client that you're targeting
, and figuring out better waysto serve them.
Mark S. Cook (19:36):
One quick follow-up on those.
Yeah, please, these are noteven my main topics.
These are my pivot topicsbecause we started off on that
foot.
These are things when you getstuck that are super helpful,
and what I really do is I go outpeople and I'll just I won't
tell you, explain all of thembecause we don't have the time
for that.
We're almost at the end of ourtime but I'll tell you the five
(20:00):
things that I focus on most.
The first one is similar.
It is that ideal client andoutcome and I go through that
process.
The second is to get to thedestination.
People talk about visions, thenew vision boards and it's
dreams and it's BHAG and it'sgood to good to great and I love
good to great.
And I'm not as smart as JimCollins, I guarantee it, but
(20:23):
I've led the largest ever studyof award-winning pivots not 11
companies to find out my data.
And I will tell you right nowif you think of a realistic
vision, which is where you areserving your future ideal client
(20:43):
in five years, and you envisionall the detail with your
non-crystal ball, how you willat that point serve them and you
are serious about it and thethings that you leave on your
list at the end of the exerciseare really going to happen Now.
All of a sudden, you can takeaim.
You can take aim and yourmission is no longer just some
(21:07):
nice statement in your lobby.
Your mission becomes a one-yearleap.
That's a real mission.
Like NASA or army or religiousgroups or those people that take
missions seriously.
They don't put a statement ontheir lobby's wall, they say we
have something to get done andit's got to happen now and we've
got to have an accomplishment.
And so what's that big one-yearleap is number three, and
(21:30):
that's what I call a mission.
Like JFK didn't stand up andsay, hey, we want to build the
best space program ever.
Or you know, when miners getstuck in search and rescue as
we're going on a mission, theydon't say, yeah, our mission is
to be the best search and rescueever.
They say we've got to get thoseChileans out of the mine.
We've got to get those SouthKoreans out of the mine, we've
(21:51):
got to get them now.
Let's do this an accomplishment.
And if we accomplish it, it'ssuccess.
If we don't, well, we failed.
If you can't fail your mission,you don't have a mission.
If you can't fail, you don'thave it.
So that's the third, and thenthe fourth is really where you
(22:12):
orchestrate as a leader.
It's about orchestrating teamsand how you do that.
We've done a massive.
We have a massive set ofinformation on how you lead
other human beings better, andteams especially, and I'd love
to share that.
It would take too long, butthat's orchestrating the five to
10 specialists.
If you're small teams, ifyou're large, if you're huge,
(22:35):
it's probably 10 times thebusiness lines.
And then the last thing is soradical I didn't see it coming
and that is you know, the peoplethat have success with their
workforce actually encourage notmandate.
Encourage and support weeklyindividual goal setting.
(22:57):
What do you think?
What does the typical companydo Once a year performance
review?
It's right after the pointwhere your boss says some
negative things just in casethey have to fire you someday to
cover their legal issues.
And then they say what did yousee as a goal this next year?
A year out, like they're goingto do it all alone and no one's
(23:18):
going to help them.
Nothing great happens alone.
The space of an individual goalis a week and it's a daily step
when the sun comes up and youfinish when the sun goes down
and you hopefully accomplish itthat week.
It's not once a year with HR,it's not.
So those are my five and I takepeople through them to the
(23:41):
summary level, obviously, but Ido them in that order because it
matters for various reasons,and that's what I do for a
living.
The second thing I do for aliving that I'd love to have
your listeners join me in is apodcast like yours.
It's probably not as good asyours.
In is a podcast like yours.
It's probably not as good asyours, but I am really excited
about it.
(24:08):
I used to publish a magazinewhen I was young.
It was a hobby to record myinterviews.
The last few years I reallydidn't pay attention to it, but
I started putting up interestingguests like you and the
inventor of the cell phone and aco-worker of Mother Teresa, and
I put up one of the top SharkTank winners ever and all of a
sudden I started gettingfollowers.
So I've got thousands offollowers across platforms and
(24:29):
I'm leaning in and soon this setbehind me will be radically
different and I'll get better.
My production is going to beserious and my marketing will
turn on.
I haven't even marketed itreally yet.
We're going to take BoldEncounters.
It's on everything, but I'dreally love you to subscribe on
YouTube if you're out there andthen listen where you want.
(24:51):
It's everywhere, Even Audible,I found out, so you can find it
anywhere.
Bold Encounters, mark S Cook.
That's me.
That's my favorite new project.
That's kind of my mission thisnext year is to get that thing
contributing to business.
Tom DuFore (25:06):
So that's what I'm doing.
How can people get in touchwith you and learn a little bit
more about what you're doing?
Mark S. Cook (25:13):
Really easy.
You can go toMarkSpencerCookcom, it'll
forward right to my company,windfallpartnerscom.
Or if you want to reach out tome on LinkedIn or anywhere, my
handle's always MarkSpencerCook,no spaces, and the social media
is.
It's always at or something, ofcourse, but MarkSpencerCookcom.
(25:34):
You can find me anywhere andyou'll get my help.
Perfect.
Tom DuFore (25:38):
Well, mark, this is a great time in the show we make
a transition and we ask everyguest the same four questions
before they go.
Oh boy.
And the first question we askis have you had a miss or two on
your journey and something youlearned from it?
Mark S. Cook (25:53):
Oh, wow, that's a great, interesting, fun question
.
I'm going to go way backbecause I think this is more
helpful for your audience thanmaybe if I talked about my
biggest miss when I was young.
I had a huge miss.
It's the biggest for my age.
So when I was young I waslocating stores for Franklin
(26:14):
Covey.
It was the actually it wasFranklin Quest before we merged
with the Covey organization andit was the day planner people.
And you know, unless you've gotsome 50-year-olds out in your
audience, they won't even knowwhat I'm talking about.
If they're 50, they will knowwhat I'm talking about.
So we were the day planner.
The Franklin Day Planner was abig deal 5 million users,
(26:35):
150,000 organizations, bestorganizations anywhere.
And I worked really hard and Iworked hard in school and I
talked to the vice president ofmarketing let me locate the
stores.
You guys are doing a lousy job.
I just took a class andarranged a second one to learn
how to do this better and I'vegot it.
(26:56):
He let me do it and I locatedthe first couple of stores and
they set records.
They were in perfect places.
Everything went well.
I got a little cocky.
I did the third one.
It was in Philadelphia.
I was young, I didn'tunderstand about Philadelphia.
It's very big pros and very bigcons.
It's a dynamic city, one of thetop five or 10.
(27:20):
So I locate, I locate with datathe store and I don't go.
I broke the rule I started thisshow talking about I didn't go
see for myself.
We go through with the deal.
We negotiate the lease.
We go through with the deal,negotiate the lease.
(27:44):
We go through with the deal.
And all of a sudden, the newmanager that we'd hired calls me
because I was the one who didit of a small team of three or
four that were doing theseexpansions, with different roles
, and he says you located this.
And I said yeah, that's my role.
And he said do you know thatthere's a machine gun turret
across the street from our mall?
This is the worst mall in theUnited States.
And you've located.
(28:05):
You signed a three-year leasein this mall.
None of my employees want tocome to work every day.
This is the wrong place.
And I said but the data showsthat everyone's there and our
demographics there and our usersare there, yeah, but when they
wake up at eight they gosomewhere else.
They don't stay here.
(28:31):
And it was nearly a $200,000immediate.
You know probably a little moreover the long three years, but
it was immediately a $200,000,just shy of $200,000.
Mistake I'd made is a 20something and I was expecting to
get fired, because that's a lotof money when you're 20, you
know, 30 years ago and my bosscalled me in and he said so, you
(28:51):
had a mistake.
And he had a smile on his faceand I said, yeah, I had a big
mistake.
And he said, okay, let's talkthrough it, let's figure out how
it never happens again.
We like you here.
You do a good job besides thisthing, so this can't happen
again, but we're going to keepyou on fast track and we're
(29:12):
going to make you successful.
And wow, I mean, how manypeople have a boss like that?
That's the kind of leader Iwant to be.
It's the kind of leader I'vetried to be.
I have fallen short, but thatis how you be a leader and that
mistake can teach you what youneed to know to be a leader.
(29:33):
The next one's just theopposite.
Tom DuFore (29:35):
Let's talk about a make or a highlight, a win you'd
like to share.
Mark S. Cook (29:41):
I grew up in that organization.
When we merged with Franklinthat's who I was working for is
Franklin.
When we merged with Covey, Iwas thrown over to the other
side, which was kind of a bigdeal.
If anyone's been through amerger, there are religious
battles over philosophy andbusiness practice and all sorts
of things and I said are youtrying to get rid of me?
No, they want you.
(30:02):
They want you over in marketingand marketing's going over
there, and so we're going totake you out of the retail and
put you in the marketing.
They think you can do more goodin consumer marketing and
opening the stores and doingthings like that.
So I went over.
I worked for Stephen R Covey,who's the son of Stephen R Covey
(30:25):
, who's the son of Stephen RCovey.
I sold my heart out to get theopportunity with the previous
company and this company tostart a magazine and, in
addition to doing the storemarketing and 13 million
catalogs in 13 countries, Icreated a magazine, which is how
I've fallen in love with thismedium that we're doing right
now.
I could not believe that theycould have all the fun and so
(30:48):
when I switched employment,finally after a startup that was
very successful and got intoanother big company that someone
else owned and there were a lotof people.
I had to write a book.
You know I had never written abook and I talked my wife into
nights and weekends for threeyears to put together a book and
(31:11):
I'm not going to refer anyonein your audience.
It's called Sales Blazers.
If you've done somethingnaughty and you think you
deserve punishment, go read it,but it's out of date.
I wrote it.
It's funny.
I got the largest publisher inthe world, mcgraw-hill, and
they're the largest publisher insales category to publish it to
(31:32):
.
But it's got some greatchapters.
It's got a great chapter onfeedback, it's got a great
chapter on passion, but there'sa lot of out of date stuff in
that very old book.
But I remember the day this isthe.
I'm burying my lead, I'mbreaking all the writing rules.
But to tell you the lead on inthe answer to your question, I'd
(31:55):
done all that and I went in andI tried to sell my executives
on funding the completionbecause I had only written a
manuscript and before I did Idecided to reach out to 26
publishers and try to sell themon it and I sold them like no, I
(32:17):
don't have support by mycompany version and a yes, I
have lots of support by mycompany version, and a yes, I
have lots of support by mycompany version.
And I only got four.
But four is a lot to get.
And I picked McGraw Hill.
I walked into my executives andI said here is an eight page
executive summary of amanuscript I have over on my
(32:37):
desk.
I've spent my nights andweekends for the past few years
creating a sales leadership bookand I also have a proposal for
McGraw-Hill and three otherpublishers, including another of
the biggest, and I'd like youto partner with me on it.
I don't want to quit, I want todo it here, and you can guess
(32:59):
that they wanted me to do it.
And I left the yes meeting.
They said yes, right.
Then I left that and I wentright into the bathroom and I
did the cliche movie scream on awoo.
I was just like yes.
For someone who grew up at thefeet of Stephen Covey, the
greatest business author ever,it was just.
(33:21):
It was mind boggling and I hadto avoid the politics until I
had the proposal down, becausethey would have killed it at any
second.
It wasn't me, it was just a lotof great people on the side and
outside and internally thatended up making that happen.
And you know, by anyone else'sstandards they might say, well,
that wasn't a very big success.
It was an average sale.
(33:43):
I sold 9,000 copies, which isactually really pretty good for
a sales book.
No one else would think thatthat's a huge success.
It's probably the closest to myheart ever.
Maybe Maybe this podcast isclose, but that was big.
That was a big bathroom break.
That's my long answer.
Tom DuFore (34:09):
Yeah, no, that's a great story.
Thank you for sharing.
Well, let's talk about amultiplier you've used to
multiply yourself, personally,professionally, or organizations
you've run.
Mark S. Cook (34:16):
I just had someone yesterday say hey, I want to do
a podcast.
How do you do a podcast?
And I said well, I'll give youtwo pieces of advice.
The first I steal from LewisHowes, one of the top ten there
are.
He's a self-help guy and Iwould tell you not to do it.
It's brutal If you don't knowanything about video and filming
(34:38):
and such and you haven't had tocreate interviews and wow, you
know what I'm talking about,don't you, tom?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you thinkthat's a kitty cat, it is a
Bengal tiger with its claws out.
So if you want to do a podcast,you join the other millions
that are doing it and realizethat out of 100, this is this I
(35:01):
got from Spotify.
It may not be current, but it'sit's pretty, pretty current
from the hundred that start apodcast, one, one person creates
the second episode and of thosepeople, if you take 10 of those
10 that did the second episode,one gets to 20.
(35:25):
So don't do it unless you justcan't help yourself.
And you think you can helpthousands like Tom.
I think we can't because it'sbrutal.
The second piece of advice is ifyou want to multiply yourself,
you want and let me define whatI think that means.
For me, there's two ways tomultiply yourself.
(35:45):
It's really the two of the mostbasic things in life.
If you're going to learn a tonand you're going to meet more
people than other ways, youshould be doing whatever it is.
Learn and meet new people.
That's what you should be doing.
Whether you make a ton of moneyor not, your life will be
happier.
You'll likely make more moneyif you're a giving person, when
(36:10):
you meet the people and you'rethinking of them first, as we've
already discussed.
But a podcast, what else?
That's what all you do is learnand meet people, and even the
ones that say no.
You're calling and get rejectedand you have a little
conversation, those that reachout to you and you just can't
put on your show.
You get to learn from them,even though you don't have time
(36:31):
or schedule slots available.
So you want to multiplyyourself.
Put on your serious war armorand do a podcast.
That's what I would say.
Tom DuFore (36:41):
Thank you, and the final question we ask every
guest is what does success meanto you?
Who?
Mark S. Cook (36:47):
else do you want to listen to?
I mean, I know that people havedifferent feelings about who
they follow in life.
I just I don't know how you getaround the great idea to follow
the person that's had morefollowers than ever, the great
idea to follow the person that'shad more followers than ever.
And when he was asked what'smost important in this life, he
said a different version thatI'll spare you because of the
(37:09):
business nature of this show,but I'll tell you the essentials
of it.
If you aren't seeking the idealperson who is beyond this world
that is complete.
Perfect anciently meant 80%.
(37:29):
Complete it didn't mean withoutflaw, it meant 20% without flaw
.
That's what the word meantanciently.
But perfect meant complete.
What else do you want to bedoing in life?
But trying to emulatecompleteness and loving people
that have perfect love,especially if you feel it deeper
than your soul.
And so that's the first pieceof advice he said.
(37:52):
He said look, love the idealwho loves you most and try to be
complete.
The second piece of advice waslove your neighbor.
And he was asked who's myneighbor?
And he tells this unbelievablestory.
The symbolism in it is justcrazy.
I've never read anything asprofound ever.
(38:12):
He says love your neighbor.
And they say who's yourneighbor?
And he says here's a story.
And basically what it is is youare the neighbor and only a
neighbor.
If you're serving someone who'seven your enemy, even your
enemy.
And if you serve someone who'seven your enemy and when you run
(38:34):
out of capability, it's notyour thing, for example, to put
someone up in an inn or feedthem like an innkeeper.
You find an innkeeper and scaleyourself.
That's what success is, thosetwo things.
Tom DuFore (38:50):
Fantastic.
Well, as we bring this to aclose, Mark, is there anything
else you were hoping to share orget across that you haven't had
a chance to yet?
Mark S. Cook (38:58):
Yeah, I'm dying to have your audience go find Bold
Encounters on YouTube and hitthe subscribe button.
I don't need you to getnotifications, I don't want to
bother you all the time.
But if you hit subscribe and goto your favorite listening
podcast platform and hit follow,then when I do a new episode
(39:19):
I'll pop up somewhere near thetop and you'll see me and you'll
check it out and you'll say, no, I'm not interested in that
episode.
Or hopefully, I've provided aguest with amazing insights and
how to's this week that you wantto watch, and watch the whole
episode, because that wouldreally help me.
That's what I would loveeveryone to do.
Tom DuFore (39:41):
Mark, thank you so much for a fantastic interview
and let's go ahead and jump intotoday's three key takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenMark gave his top five for
pivots and drivers and he saidnumber one is find the ideal
client.
Two, get to the idealdestination.
(40:01):
Three, think about a realisticvision.
Four, orchestrate as a leader.
And five, set weekly goals withyour staff and team.
Takeaway number two is when heshared his miss and he learned a
great lesson in leadership whenhe made a big mistake and his
boss was understanding and usedit as a learning lesson and he
(40:22):
said that boss inspired him tobe a great leader.
I thought that was a greattakeaway from that.
Takeaway number three is whenhe talked about in his
multiplier and the see it foryourself idea, where he talked
about learning and meeting newpeople as a main multiplier for
(40:43):
him.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win is when Marktalked about being clear on
what you want and finding thespecific people to help you
achieve it by helping them getwhat they want.
That's kind of a summary ofwhat I think he was sharing
(41:05):
today and that's a perfectwin-win.
Isn't that the whole idea tohelp others get what they want,
and it helps you get toaccomplish your objective as
well.
And so that's the episode today.
Folks, please make sure yousubscribe to the podcast and
give us a review, and rememberif you or anyone you know might
be ready to franchise ourbusiness or take their franchise
company to the next level.
(41:26):
Please connect with us atBigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
next week.
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
as we open today, I'm wonderinghave you ever thought or
wondered if there happened to bea few simple things you can
implement to drive success?
(00:22):
Is such an idea a fairy tale?
Well, if you've ever thoughtthat, then this podcast episode
is for you.
Our guest today is Mark S Cook,who shares with us his
research-backed top five provendrivers to finding success.
Now Mark S Cook is a New YorkTimes bestselling author, ceo
(00:42):
and creates elite CEOs with aplan he calls Bold Encounters.
As host of the YouTube andpodcast, bold Encounters, cook
brings amazing guests like theinventor of the cell phone, a
top Shark Tank winner, motherTeresa's coworker, a founding
Swifty, $8 billion CEO, andbrings purpose to your life's
work.
He has led startups turnarounds, the largest ever study on
(01:05):
award winning pivots andthousands of valuable client
wins.
You're going to love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
Mark S. Cook (01:13):
My name is Mark Spencer Cook.
I tell you all three becausethere are a million Mark Cooks.
So Mark Spencer Cook and I'mthe president and owner of
Windfall Partners.
We're a consultancy that takesowners and leaders through a
five-step plan that's massivelyresearch-based by Harvard,
Stanford, Cambridge, PhDs withmy team, and also led to a New
(01:37):
York Times bestseller.
So that's kind of what I do ona weekly basis with people.
Tom DuFore (01:42):
I'd love for you to talk through maybe some of these
steps, this process, and evenwhat led you to talk through
maybe some of these steps, thisprocess and even what led you to
do the research in the firstplace.
Mark S. Cook (01:55):
I've done several research projects with teams and
alone, and some subjective.
Some are very empirical, and onone of the empirical, it was
the largest ever study ofaward-winning pivots People,
leaders who'd won awards notfrom just their industry, for
political reasons or, you know,for favoritism or something, but
internally from their board,from their community, that they
really actually drove somethingforward with customers and their
(02:19):
market.
And so it's really.
My target is really for peoplethat are trying to make a pivot,
not necessarily changingdirections, but they're in a new
era, they're at a crossroadsand they need to do something to
get an uptick.
And so those are the peoplethat buy a business from their
(02:40):
parents or a private equityhires them or, in your case,
they sign up for a franchise andthey get going.
So people that are crossroads,that are leading a company, are
my best clients.
So what I do is I recommend.
Not all 50 things that wediscovered were really essential
(03:00):
and important.
One of them was focus, so wefocused on five, the top five
that go best.
Together.
They have the best mathematicalprediction of great client
outcomes and financial success.
And then there's a third Ithrow in because it's third
place, still on the podium.
Third place and it is what wealways talk about everyone in
(03:23):
the business passion, you know.
That seems a little backwards.
Maybe we should focus onourselves first and then we'll
do better for customers andstuff.
That's just not what the datashows.
The data shows that we shouldtake care of our ideal client
and those outcomes, theconsequences we create, first,
and then we should worry aboutthe money second.
And I think the reason it'sthird and it seems natural to me
(03:47):
I live in passion, I want it tobe.
Passion is number one, but Ithink speculation on what we
found, the reason the data showsit's third place is because if
you're making amazing outcomesand consequences for people that
are your perfect customer andyou're making a lot of money for
them and yourself and your owncompany, I think you're going to
(04:09):
love what you're doing.
That's just how the nature ofthings in this world work.
Tom DuFore (04:13):
I believe I don't know how many times in my career
I've heard someone say well, Ididn't set out to get into
industry X or Y or into thisbusiness, but and then they tell
you oh, I've spent the last 20,30, 40 years in this industry
and I think you know to supportwhat you're saying is they were
(04:34):
producing outcomes that werehelping the customer and you
know going through those steps,and then it turned into a
passion through those first twosteps.
Mark S. Cook (04:43):
Yeah, you know, several years after discovering
all that, I was doing some of myown personal contemplation.
I am not even close to theperfect person and I know and
experience that every day, but Ido have a strong faith that I
want to get better and I want tofollow the best.
(05:03):
And once upon a time, theperson who's had more people
follow him than anyone else inhistory and it's not even close
was asked hey, what's mostimportant?
And I dove into this study ofthat, which I won't go into here
because it's not the place, butanyone who knows what I'm
talking about, Go reread thatanswer and figure out what it is
(05:24):
Like.
I said.
Several years later Idiscovered oh, that's what we're
talking about, it's the sameorder, it's what everything's
all about.
So business is about finding outwho you can help best.
If you can't help them best,don't try Get a partner like an
innkeeper or someone else tohelp you help anyone, but focus
(05:48):
on the people you can serve bestand create great consequences.
So that's the first thing thatyou've got to do, and the first
step I take with people is Ihave a very interesting and now
proprietary sort of way where weidentify who your ideal client
or your ideal prospect is andpeople think they know it or a
lot of people don't want to haveone.
(06:10):
They want to serve everybody.
It spans that spectrum and Ineither say you can't serve
everybody, nor do I say that youmust only have one.
But there is a vast improvementin a lot of things like
capability and efficiency andall sorts of benefits from just
(06:32):
knowing who your ideal client is.
That's pretty common.
It's called an ICP.
A lot of people talk about it.
What we discover that ispowerful is about what happens
next, which is you have tocreate an outcome, and they
don't even know how toarticulate it.
So there's a lot of deep andbold immersion that takes place
(06:54):
to figure out how you need toserve them.
It's not customer service,that's a very baby pool depth
version of it.
But it is about why they showedup that they don't even know
and in all the nuances that theyneed, and we go through that
process and we figure out whatthat outcome should really look
like for that specific businessin that specific business not
(07:17):
the industry, but in thatspecific business.
So that's number one.
Does that make sense to you?
Tom DuFore (07:22):
That makes a lot of sense.
That customer and that profileit's a lot deeper that I was
thinking coming in as you firstdescribed it.
Mark S. Cook (07:29):
I'll give you a quick spoiler on that one before
we move anywhere else.
You know, if you don't know thedifferent nuances and depth of
the challenges, inconveniencesand massive or catastrophic
problems your ideal customerfaces, then you really don't
know how to help them.
And that's just one of fouritems.
(07:51):
That are the details that arejust as powerful.
The others are very different.
You've got to make a difference.
It's got to be on the positiveside.
So if someone's coming to you,I have two clients that make
desserts.
Interestingly, one's chocolate,one is an apple production
facility that produces thethings that we eat in pies and
desserts.
So you'd think, well, theydon't have any problems, they're
(08:13):
just coming to get a greatpiece of pie.
There are nuances aboutinconvenience, about what they
felt last time.
There's also so many negativeversions that they're dealing
with that they don't evenarticulate or even know how to
articulate that we can go anddiscover and figure out.
And then, on the positive side,they want to go from A to B or
A to Z in a lot of cases.
(08:34):
So even if it's somethingsimple and unnecessary as those
two, you can take your productto the right place from where it
is right now in a state.
If you know chasm, you've gotto jump.
So that's the second one.
The last two one is emotional.
People don't like to talk aboutemotion in business.
There are so many proofs abouthow important emotions are in
(09:00):
decision making and how you viewthe work that you've received
in decision making and how youview the work that you've
received, and there's NobelPrizes that say that emotions
primarily affect some of ourdecisions in business.
So if you want to understandyour ideal client, you have to
explore the 600, and we have asystematic way to go through
(09:20):
that the 600 most importantemotions and experiential
experiences for human beings,and we identify just the top two
that your clients are feelingand thinking about in their
private, without even knowing it, in their private life.
And then the last one is clear,and it's before you make your
(09:43):
own money, make them money if atall possible.
And that doesn't mean loweryour price, it means create more
valuable deliverables as anoutcome so your price can be
maintained.
Or if you have a steep price,if you're the best chicken
franchise in the world, youdon't mess with your price.
So how do you create more valuewith the human experience?
(10:05):
And it's not just service, it'sunderstanding some of these
depths.
Tom DuFore (10:09):
As you go through this process.
Obviously there's a lot, evenas you described, 600 emotions
trying to narrow that down to acouple and first off, identify
what's driving your clients andthen narrowing that down.
There's obviously a lot there.
Are there any steps orsuggestions?
Maybe someone I always like tolook for just one little thing
(10:30):
someone might be able to do justto get their mind starting to
think down this pathway.
Mark S. Cook (10:36):
I would suggest this week you put something on
your calendar that is an houraway from everyone, something on
your calendar that is an houraway from everyone, and you turn
off your phone and you spendthe first half hour thinking how
can I make a difference in thistype of person, this type of
(10:57):
person and that type of person'slife?
Maybe your top three guesses ofwho you think A you really can
make a huge difference.
You're built as a company, as aperson, as a leader, to make a
huge difference in thesepeople's lives.
And then B wow, you thrive as abusiness.
(11:18):
It not only makes you lots ofmoney, but you have a culture
that improves.
You have motivation of youremployees that improve.
You feel that passion we talkedabout at the beginning of the
interview.
And if you find a few let's saythree people that fit that bill
, then you think for the firsthalf hour how could I create a
(11:39):
massively better outcome?
And you start piling the ideasup.
Better outcome and you startpiling the ideas up.
And then you take the secondhalf hour and you make a plan
where you're going to drive.
You make a plan to go.
See Now some of these.
You have to request and getpermission to come take a tour.
But if you're careful andyou're sneaky in this day and
(12:02):
age, I'm not suggesting youbreak any laws.
I would say don't, becauseyou'll end up on the other end
of the police, trust me.
But you can go see proxies, youcan go see competitors, clients
, you can see prospectsespecially prospects and new
customers that you haven'ttalked to or seen what they do,
(12:22):
and you can discover some ofthese things, how they need you
and the proximate visit, andthink of it as a tour, don't
think of it as a conversation.
That's a different tool andit's different people that I
would recommend doing that with.
Next, but this one's aboutseeing with your own eyes, doing
(12:44):
some ethnography.
Every innovation expert ofdifferent flavors does this the
serious ones.
If you're going to lean, theycall it go to Gemba.
If you're going to productdevelopment, it's called product
ethnography.
We called it see it foryourself on our New York Times
bestseller Great Work.
I call it bold immersion.
(13:06):
You've got to get out there andyou've got to know these people
and see their spaces and places.
And you've got to see itbecause you don't know what
you're going to find when yousee it with your own eyes.
I can't even predict it, itjust is always a surprise.
The end of that is that, ofeverything I've ever studied,
this seeing things for yourselfcontributes more ideas.
(13:31):
That drives 1200% the realstatistics 12 times the odds
that you will have clients thatare passionate about what you do
, are passionate about what youdo.
This is amazing to me.
(13:51):
17 times the odds that you as aperson or anyone you ask to do
this voluntarily.
Of course they will have apassion for what you do and the
work involved.
Nothing has ever come close tothat.
You see that for yourself.
You get in the space of theproblem and feel it and see it,
and see the problems and theopportunities and the emotions
and the money that can be made,and it just trumps everything.
Tom DuFore (14:11):
For this customer, this prospect.
Mark S. Cook (14:13):
Whomever you're suggesting, get out, go to their
place of business, essentially,most importantly, where they
buy and they use what you do.
And I'll tell you, I've hadpeople say I already do that
every day, I live in it.
For example, I did a workshopwith ER doctors once in the very
beginning, right after theresearch was done, and I had to
(14:35):
do it again to other ER doctorsthe next day and I thought, oh
my gosh, I must have missed.
How do I tell an ER doctor togo to the place where his
customers or patients buy andaccept and use what they do?
And so I called a couple ofpeople from that workshop the
day before and I said help, Ihave it wrong, don't I?
(14:59):
Oh, you don't know how rightyou got it.
And I started to hear all thesestories, and one was about
sepsis, and I've had sepsis, soI have a little empathy towards
this.
But you know, sepsis killsbetween half and 75% of people
that go to the ER before thishappened.
(15:19):
And so one of the biggest topthree hospital teams, anywhere
they went out and went to theERs, asked the doctors and
nurses what do you do?
Everyone seemed to be doingpretty well.
They didn't improve a thing.
One of the doctors wasfrustrated.
He says I don't know, let's goback out and say nothing, let's
just watch.
So they each got assigned one ofa dozen ERs and they camped out
(15:43):
until a sepsis presented itselfand when it did, they made
changes immediately that tookmortality from 50 to 75% down to
9%, because they saw forthemselves.
Because we make up stuff aspeople.
So when you go out and you talkto customers and see their
(16:04):
spaces and they start giving youall these ideas, I will bet you
a crisp $100 bill that they'renot going to get their wallet
out for all of those ideas.
But when you step back and youlook through the lens of a
problem and you say what can wedo to better this person's life
and job and family and theircustomers and everything, and
you find some nuggets, they getout their wallet because you see
(16:28):
it and witness it and you getpassionate enough to do it well.
So that's what we're talkingabout.
Tom DuFore (16:33):
That's very good.
What's next on the list thatyou're going to be walking
through?
Mark S. Cook (16:58):
asking really one, only one question is really the
most important.
And the most important questionis when did you have this sort
of a problem or this sort of adesire, inconvenience, whatever
it is the negative version andcan you tell me step-by-step,
chronologically, what happened?
If you ask their ideas, like Isaid, they're just going to,
they're going to spew all overand they're not going to get out
their wallet for anything.
(17:18):
But if you say what happenedstep-by-step and they take you
through it, you get somewhat youknow no wit, eyewitness is
perfect but that you get muchmore reality that way and you
discover much more valuable,much more valuable set of things
that you can make an impact on.
So that's the first one.
The second one is go see foryourself.
(17:39):
The third one to answer yourquestion, and I think the last
two I'll just say becausethey're a little longer and
they're about executing but thisthird one to do this week to
answer your first question.
This last one is to reallythink who else in this economy
and this geography serves thesame ideal client or set of
(18:04):
clients that I do, my primary,my secondary, my tertiary, you
know, not always the perfectclient, but the top three types
of clients, who serves them, butthey don't do what I do.
And then go out and youinterview them.
You say look, you know we'resmart people, but we have a
(18:24):
continuous improvement practice,we like to innovate, so we do
these interviews all the time.
We go out to adjacent expertsI'll say it again, because
that's what I call them Adjacentexperts they're people that do
what you do, but not in yourindustry.
They help the people that youhelp, but they do it in a
different way.
(18:45):
And when you go out and you canask something as mundane as
well how do you greet people asthey walk in?
You could ask something asmundane as what do you do when
you get a bid?
You can do it, you can ask themanything.
And if you ask, if you get toabout three to five adjacent
experts, you might bedisappointed the first time, but
(19:05):
the fifth you're going to sayboy, that cook knew what he was
talking about.
This is valuable stuff.
It always happens.
It's happened workshop afterworkshop for me.
Tom DuFore (19:17):
Certainly it makes a ton of sense.
You can learn so much justthrough a few of those
conversations and certainlyyou'd be helping each other
along the way.
And ultimately to that firstpiece here finding new ways to
better serve your customer orthe client that you're targeting
, and figuring out better waysto serve them.
Mark S. Cook (19:36):
One quick follow-up on those.
Yeah, please, these are noteven my main topics.
These are my pivot topicsbecause we started off on that
foot.
These are things when you getstuck that are super helpful,
and what I really do is I go outpeople and I'll just I won't
tell you, explain all of thembecause we don't have the time
for that.
We're almost at the end of ourtime but I'll tell you the five
(20:00):
things that I focus on most.
The first one is similar.
It is that ideal client andoutcome and I go through that
process.
The second is to get to thedestination.
People talk about visions, thenew vision boards and it's
dreams and it's BHAG and it'sgood to good to great and I love
good to great.
And I'm not as smart as JimCollins, I guarantee it, but
(20:23):
I've led the largest ever studyof award-winning pivots not 11
companies to find out my data.
And I will tell you right nowif you think of a realistic
vision, which is where you areserving your future ideal client
(20:43):
in five years, and you envisionall the detail with your
non-crystal ball, how you willat that point serve them and you
are serious about it and thethings that you leave on your
list at the end of the exerciseare really going to happen Now.
All of a sudden, you can takeaim.
You can take aim and yourmission is no longer just some
(21:07):
nice statement in your lobby.
Your mission becomes a one-yearleap.
That's a real mission.
Like NASA or army or religiousgroups or those people that take
missions seriously.
They don't put a statement ontheir lobby's wall, they say we
have something to get done andit's got to happen now and we've
got to have an accomplishment.
And so what's that big one-yearleap is number three, and
(21:30):
that's what I call a mission.
Like JFK didn't stand up andsay, hey, we want to build the
best space program ever.
Or you know, when miners getstuck in search and rescue as
we're going on a mission, theydon't say, yeah, our mission is
to be the best search and rescueever.
They say we've got to get thoseChileans out of the mine.
We've got to get those SouthKoreans out of the mine, we've
(21:51):
got to get them now.
Let's do this an accomplishment.
And if we accomplish it, it'ssuccess.
If we don't, well, we failed.
If you can't fail your mission,you don't have a mission.
If you can't fail, you don'thave it.
So that's the third, and thenthe fourth is really where you
(22:12):
orchestrate as a leader.
It's about orchestrating teamsand how you do that.
We've done a massive.
We have a massive set ofinformation on how you lead
other human beings better, andteams especially, and I'd love
to share that.
It would take too long, butthat's orchestrating the five to
10 specialists.
If you're small teams, ifyou're large, if you're huge,
(22:35):
it's probably 10 times thebusiness lines.
And then the last thing is soradical I didn't see it coming
and that is you know, the peoplethat have success with their
workforce actually encourage notmandate.
Encourage and support weeklyindividual goal setting.
(22:57):
What do you think?
What does the typical companydo Once a year performance
review?
It's right after the pointwhere your boss says some
negative things just in casethey have to fire you someday to
cover their legal issues.
And then they say what did yousee as a goal this next year?
A year out, like they're goingto do it all alone and no one's
(23:18):
going to help them.
Nothing great happens alone.
The space of an individual goalis a week and it's a daily step
when the sun comes up and youfinish when the sun goes down
and you hopefully accomplish itthat week.
It's not once a year with HR,it's not.
So those are my five and I takepeople through them to the
(23:41):
summary level, obviously, but Ido them in that order because it
matters for various reasons,and that's what I do for a
living.
The second thing I do for aliving that I'd love to have
your listeners join me in is apodcast like yours.
It's probably not as good asyours.
In is a podcast like yours.
It's probably not as good asyours, but I am really excited
about it.
(24:08):
I used to publish a magazinewhen I was young.
It was a hobby to record myinterviews.
The last few years I reallydidn't pay attention to it, but
I started putting up interestingguests like you and the
inventor of the cell phone and aco-worker of Mother Teresa, and
I put up one of the top SharkTank winners ever and all of a
sudden I started gettingfollowers.
So I've got thousands offollowers across platforms and
(24:29):
I'm leaning in and soon this setbehind me will be radically
different and I'll get better.
My production is going to beserious and my marketing will
turn on.
I haven't even marketed itreally yet.
We're going to take BoldEncounters.
It's on everything, but I'dreally love you to subscribe on
YouTube if you're out there andthen listen where you want.
(24:51):
It's everywhere, Even Audible,I found out, so you can find it
anywhere.
Bold Encounters, mark S Cook.
That's me.
That's my favorite new project.
That's kind of my mission thisnext year is to get that thing
contributing to business.
Tom DuFore (25:06):
So that's what I'm doing.
How can people get in touchwith you and learn a little bit
more about what you're doing?
Mark S. Cook (25:13):
Really easy.
You can go toMarkSpencerCookcom, it'll
forward right to my company,windfallpartnerscom.
Or if you want to reach out tome on LinkedIn or anywhere, my
handle's always MarkSpencerCook,no spaces, and the social media
is.
It's always at or something, ofcourse, but MarkSpencerCookcom.
(25:34):
You can find me anywhere andyou'll get my help.
Perfect.
Tom DuFore (25:38):
Well, mark, this is a great time in the show we make
a transition and we ask everyguest the same four questions
before they go.
Oh boy.
And the first question we askis have you had a miss or two on
your journey and something youlearned from it?
Mark S. Cook (25:53):
Oh, wow, that's a great, interesting, fun question
.
I'm going to go way backbecause I think this is more
helpful for your audience thanmaybe if I talked about my
biggest miss when I was young.
I had a huge miss.
It's the biggest for my age.
So when I was young I waslocating stores for Franklin
(26:14):
Covey.
It was the actually it wasFranklin Quest before we merged
with the Covey organization andit was the day planner people.
And you know, unless you've gotsome 50-year-olds out in your
audience, they won't even knowwhat I'm talking about.
If they're 50, they will knowwhat I'm talking about.
So we were the day planner.
The Franklin Day Planner was abig deal 5 million users,
(26:35):
150,000 organizations, bestorganizations anywhere.
And I worked really hard and Iworked hard in school and I
talked to the vice president ofmarketing let me locate the
stores.
You guys are doing a lousy job.
I just took a class andarranged a second one to learn
how to do this better and I'vegot it.
(26:56):
He let me do it and I locatedthe first couple of stores and
they set records.
They were in perfect places.
Everything went well.
I got a little cocky.
I did the third one.
It was in Philadelphia.
I was young, I didn'tunderstand about Philadelphia.
It's very big pros and very bigcons.
It's a dynamic city, one of thetop five or 10.
(27:20):
So I locate, I locate with datathe store and I don't go.
I broke the rule I started thisshow talking about I didn't go
see for myself.
We go through with the deal.
We negotiate the lease.
We go through with the deal,negotiate the lease.
(27:44):
We go through with the deal.
And all of a sudden, the newmanager that we'd hired calls me
because I was the one who didit of a small team of three or
four that were doing theseexpansions, with different roles
, and he says you located this.
And I said yeah, that's my role.
And he said do you know thatthere's a machine gun turret
across the street from our mall?
This is the worst mall in theUnited States.
And you've located.
(28:05):
You signed a three-year leasein this mall.
None of my employees want tocome to work every day.
This is the wrong place.
And I said but the data showsthat everyone's there and our
demographics there and our usersare there, yeah, but when they
wake up at eight they gosomewhere else.
They don't stay here.
(28:31):
And it was nearly a $200,000immediate.
You know probably a little moreover the long three years, but
it was immediately a $200,000,just shy of $200,000.
Mistake I'd made is a 20something and I was expecting to
get fired, because that's a lotof money when you're 20, you
know, 30 years ago and my bosscalled me in and he said so, you
(28:51):
had a mistake.
And he had a smile on his faceand I said, yeah, I had a big
mistake.
And he said, okay, let's talkthrough it, let's figure out how
it never happens again.
We like you here.
You do a good job besides thisthing, so this can't happen
again, but we're going to keepyou on fast track and we're
(29:12):
going to make you successful.
And wow, I mean, how manypeople have a boss like that?
That's the kind of leader Iwant to be.
It's the kind of leader I'vetried to be.
I have fallen short, but thatis how you be a leader and that
mistake can teach you what youneed to know to be a leader.
(29:33):
The next one's just theopposite.
Tom DuFore (29:35):
Let's talk about a make or a highlight, a win you'd
like to share.
Mark S. Cook (29:41):
I grew up in that organization.
When we merged with Franklinthat's who I was working for is
Franklin.
When we merged with Covey, Iwas thrown over to the other
side, which was kind of a bigdeal.
If anyone's been through amerger, there are religious
battles over philosophy andbusiness practice and all sorts
of things and I said are youtrying to get rid of me?
No, they want you.
(30:02):
They want you over in marketingand marketing's going over
there, and so we're going totake you out of the retail and
put you in the marketing.
They think you can do more goodin consumer marketing and
opening the stores and doingthings like that.
So I went over.
I worked for Stephen R Covey,who's the son of Stephen R Covey
(30:25):
, who's the son of Stephen RCovey.
I sold my heart out to get theopportunity with the previous
company and this company tostart a magazine and, in
addition to doing the storemarketing and 13 million
catalogs in 13 countries, Icreated a magazine, which is how
I've fallen in love with thismedium that we're doing right
now.
I could not believe that theycould have all the fun and so
(30:48):
when I switched employment,finally after a startup that was
very successful and got intoanother big company that someone
else owned and there were a lotof people.
I had to write a book.
You know I had never written abook and I talked my wife into
nights and weekends for threeyears to put together a book and
(31:11):
I'm not going to refer anyonein your audience.
It's called Sales Blazers.
If you've done somethingnaughty and you think you
deserve punishment, go read it,but it's out of date.
I wrote it.
It's funny.
I got the largest publisher inthe world, mcgraw-hill, and
they're the largest publisher insales category to publish it to
(31:32):
.
But it's got some greatchapters.
It's got a great chapter onfeedback, it's got a great
chapter on passion, but there'sa lot of out of date stuff in
that very old book.
But I remember the day this isthe.
I'm burying my lead, I'mbreaking all the writing rules.
But to tell you the lead on inthe answer to your question, I'd
(31:55):
done all that and I went in andI tried to sell my executives
on funding the completionbecause I had only written a
manuscript and before I did Idecided to reach out to 26
publishers and try to sell themon it and I sold them like no, I
(32:17):
don't have support by mycompany version and a yes, I
have lots of support by mycompany version, and a yes, I
have lots of support by mycompany version.
And I only got four.
But four is a lot to get.
And I picked McGraw Hill.
I walked into my executives andI said here is an eight page
executive summary of amanuscript I have over on my
(32:37):
desk.
I've spent my nights andweekends for the past few years
creating a sales leadership bookand I also have a proposal for
McGraw-Hill and three otherpublishers, including another of
the biggest, and I'd like youto partner with me on it.
I don't want to quit, I want todo it here, and you can guess
(32:59):
that they wanted me to do it.
And I left the yes meeting.
They said yes, right.
Then I left that and I wentright into the bathroom and I
did the cliche movie scream on awoo.
I was just like yes.
For someone who grew up at thefeet of Stephen Covey, the
greatest business author ever,it was just.
(33:21):
It was mind boggling and I hadto avoid the politics until I
had the proposal down, becausethey would have killed it at any
second.
It wasn't me, it was just a lotof great people on the side and
outside and internally thatended up making that happen.
And you know, by anyone else'sstandards they might say, well,
that wasn't a very big success.
It was an average sale.
(33:43):
I sold 9,000 copies, which isactually really pretty good for
a sales book.
No one else would think thatthat's a huge success.
It's probably the closest to myheart ever.
Maybe Maybe this podcast isclose, but that was big.
That was a big bathroom break.
That's my long answer.
Tom DuFore (34:09):
Yeah, no, that's a great story.
Thank you for sharing.
Well, let's talk about amultiplier you've used to
multiply yourself, personally,professionally, or organizations
you've run.
Mark S. Cook (34:16):
I just had someone yesterday say hey, I want to do
a podcast.
How do you do a podcast?
And I said well, I'll give youtwo pieces of advice.
The first I steal from LewisHowes, one of the top ten there
are.
He's a self-help guy and Iwould tell you not to do it.
It's brutal If you don't knowanything about video and filming
(34:38):
and such and you haven't had tocreate interviews and wow, you
know what I'm talking about,don't you, tom?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you thinkthat's a kitty cat, it is a
Bengal tiger with its claws out.
So if you want to do a podcast,you join the other millions
that are doing it and realizethat out of 100, this is this I
(35:01):
got from Spotify.
It may not be current, but it'sit's pretty, pretty current
from the hundred that start apodcast, one, one person creates
the second episode and of thosepeople, if you take 10 of those
10 that did the second episode,one gets to 20.
(35:25):
So don't do it unless you justcan't help yourself.
And you think you can helpthousands like Tom.
I think we can't because it'sbrutal.
The second piece of advice is ifyou want to multiply yourself,
you want and let me define whatI think that means.
For me, there's two ways tomultiply yourself.
(35:45):
It's really the two of the mostbasic things in life.
If you're going to learn a tonand you're going to meet more
people than other ways, youshould be doing whatever it is.
Learn and meet new people.
That's what you should be doing.
Whether you make a ton of moneyor not, your life will be
happier.
You'll likely make more moneyif you're a giving person, when
(36:10):
you meet the people and you'rethinking of them first, as we've
already discussed.
But a podcast, what else?
That's what all you do is learnand meet people, and even the
ones that say no.
You're calling and get rejectedand you have a little
conversation, those that reachout to you and you just can't
put on your show.
You get to learn from them,even though you don't have time
(36:31):
or schedule slots available.
So you want to multiplyyourself.
Put on your serious war armorand do a podcast.
That's what I would say.
Tom DuFore (36:41):
Thank you, and the final question we ask every
guest is what does success meanto you?
Who?
Mark S. Cook (36:47):
else do you want to listen to?
I mean, I know that people havedifferent feelings about who
they follow in life.
I just I don't know how you getaround the great idea to follow
the person that's had morefollowers than ever, the great
idea to follow the person that'shad more followers than ever.
And when he was asked what'smost important in this life, he
said a different version thatI'll spare you because of the
(37:09):
business nature of this show,but I'll tell you the essentials
of it.
If you aren't seeking the idealperson who is beyond this world
that is complete.
Perfect anciently meant 80%.
(37:29):
Complete it didn't mean withoutflaw, it meant 20% without flaw
.
That's what the word meantanciently.
But perfect meant complete.
What else do you want to bedoing in life?
But trying to emulatecompleteness and loving people
that have perfect love,especially if you feel it deeper
than your soul.
And so that's the first pieceof advice he said.
(37:52):
He said look, love the idealwho loves you most and try to be
complete.
The second piece of advice waslove your neighbor.
And he was asked who's myneighbor?
And he tells this unbelievablestory.
The symbolism in it is justcrazy.
I've never read anything asprofound ever.
(38:12):
He says love your neighbor.
And they say who's yourneighbor?
And he says here's a story.
And basically what it is is youare the neighbor and only a
neighbor.
If you're serving someone who'seven your enemy, even your
enemy.
And if you serve someone who'seven your enemy and when you run
(38:34):
out of capability, it's notyour thing, for example, to put
someone up in an inn or feedthem like an innkeeper.
You find an innkeeper and scaleyourself.
That's what success is, thosetwo things.
Tom DuFore (38:50):
Fantastic.
Well, as we bring this to aclose, Mark, is there anything
else you were hoping to share orget across that you haven't had
a chance to yet?
Mark S. Cook (38:58):
Yeah, I'm dying to have your audience go find Bold
Encounters on YouTube and hitthe subscribe button.
I don't need you to getnotifications, I don't want to
bother you all the time.
But if you hit subscribe and goto your favorite listening
podcast platform and hit follow,then when I do a new episode
(39:19):
I'll pop up somewhere near thetop and you'll see me and you'll
check it out and you'll say, no, I'm not interested in that
episode.
Or hopefully, I've provided aguest with amazing insights and
how to's this week that you wantto watch, and watch the whole
episode, because that wouldreally help me.
That's what I would loveeveryone to do.
Tom DuFore (39:41):
Mark, thank you so much for a fantastic interview
and let's go ahead and jump intotoday's three key takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenMark gave his top five for
pivots and drivers and he saidnumber one is find the ideal
client.
Two, get to the idealdestination.
(40:01):
Three, think about a realisticvision.
Four, orchestrate as a leader.
And five, set weekly goals withyour staff and team.
Takeaway number two is when heshared his miss and he learned a
great lesson in leadership whenhe made a big mistake and his
boss was understanding and usedit as a learning lesson and he
(40:22):
said that boss inspired him tobe a great leader.
I thought that was a greattakeaway from that.
Takeaway number three is whenhe talked about in his
multiplier and the see it foryourself idea, where he talked
about learning and meeting newpeople as a main multiplier for
(40:43):
him.
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
So today's win-win is when Marktalked about being clear on
what you want and finding thespecific people to help you
achieve it by helping them getwhat they want.
That's kind of a summary ofwhat I think he was sharing
(41:05):
today and that's a perfectwin-win.
Isn't that the whole idea tohelp others get what they want,
and it helps you get toaccomplish your objective as
well.
And so that's the episode today.
Folks, please make sure yousubscribe to the podcast and
give us a review, and rememberif you or anyone you know might
be ready to franchise ourbusiness or take their franchise
company to the next level.
(41:26):
Please connect with us atBigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
next week.
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