492 | Wayne Mullins’ Genius Marketing Strategies That Generated Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Dec 30

00:00
Wayne Mullins
We talk about likes, we talk about shares, we talk about comments, we talk about impressions, and we talk about reach. And don't get me wrong, all of those things are important, but at the end of the day, you can't put a, like a share or comment into your bank account. Right. You have to convert those things into something more, into customers, people who are willing to pull out their wallet and hand you money.

00:21
Chaz Wolfe
What's up? Driven to win nation. Chaz Wolfe here. Does your marketing suck? Do you struggle with work, life balance? Well, good for you because I've got Wayne Mullins here, the founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, to not only talk about how he's crushed it in his digital marketing agency and made hundreds of millions for his clients, but also how he's integrated presence into his family. So grab your pin, let's dive in.

00:43
Chaz Wolfe
I appreciate Wayne just taking the time and jumping in here. I loved one of the things that I read about you. It said something about you've taken a creative approach and that's paid off for you and your clients. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on that first.

00:59
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, you can kind of get a hint of the uniqueness, differentness with the couch and the colors. We've always taken just a very non traditional approach, which often means it's a more difficult path for our clients. For example, we actually invented a very cheesy fictitious superhero who went around and visited. I forget the total number. It's 30 plus something high schools and dressed in a full superhero outfit. He was called the Jobinator and he actually was at an event today. He's been doing this now for almost 10 years, promoting the certain program in high schools.

01:41
Chaz Wolfe
Okay.

01:41
Wayne Mullins
Very non traditional.

01:43
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah. Now I'm gonna go tactical on you. Why? I mean, I'm with you creative and do something different and get attention. But what did you hope that would do originally and what does it do now, if any different?

01:56
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, so it's a program for high school students. It's actually for them to take another test. It's skills based assessment test and it's voluntary so they don't have to do it. And so the question is, how do you motivate and inspire teens to take a voluntary test that they don't have to take? And so, you know, social would be almost impossible. Television, radio, Internet, how do you convey that message? And so it's just for this region that we're, you know, the client was focused on. So we invented this superhero that went around to all these high schools during lunch breaks and made personal appearances and talked about the reasons why they need to know their skills.

02:37
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, I love that. That's cool. Let's. Let's talk marketing for a minute here, because you're creative, and I know a lot of marketers are, but there's this, you know, against the grayness that I would describe your bio as well as just, you know, your background and just the things that we talked about just right now. But a lot of marketing is like, no, hey, don't actually. Don't reinvent the wheel. Don't get too colorful. Find what works and duplicate it. What are your thoughts on that? Because that definitely doesn't sound like your style.

03:07
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to be said for. I think it was Austin Keloin's book, Great Artists still or still like an Artist, I think was the official title of that. So there's certainly something to be said for copying what works. Right, instead of reinventing the will from scratch. On the other hand, being better is a quick path to going out of business. In other words, being slightly better than a competitor is not going to work. Whether it's customer service, whether it's product, the only thing that works is different. I mean, that's the only thing that causes you to stand out.

03:41
Wayne Mullins
And so it's really using the core principles, the foundational elements that do work and have been proven over time, and then figuring out, how do we actually take these core principles, but how do we do something different in terms of standing out, capturing attention of the audiences?

04:00
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, it's really powerful. What have you seen just in 2024, you know, people, whether your clients or things that you've done for your own business, that's captured that attention, that standoutness that you're referencing?

04:13
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think. I mean, number one, right now we're in this, you know, this space, in this race with AI, Everyone, particularly in the marketing space, is attempting to, quote, unquote, embrace AI and figure out how to use AI and what I believe to be true at this point is in the business world right now, for the most part, a lot of this noise we're hearing around AI is very similar to the gold rush in the 1800s. The people who are making the most money are the people who are selling the tools to the gold prospectors. So in this case, it's the people selling the courses, selling the training, selling the, you know, the plugins and the things for AI that are Making the most money. The people actually using AI are not actually making that much. Now.

05:00
Wayne Mullins
That doesn't mean I'm against AI and that doesn't mean we don't use AI. So I think to stand out right now when everyone is running towards this thing, I believe this is an opportunity to. You could take a stand, somebody could take a stand and say, you know what, as the world moves towards more automation and more robots interacting with you, we're going to take the opposite approach. We're going to be more human. When you reach out to us, it's a 100% human 100% of the time. So that'd be one example.

05:27
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, I love that. I think that 100% human 100% of the time, I think is probably something that a lot of people are gonna to use. But, you know, I, I even have an experience from this past weekend. I was traveling and, you know, I, I called up American Express about an issue that I was having and I had to talk to like four different people and I think four different countries, and I never actually spoke to anybody that could help me. And, and that in itself, even though I was speaking to a human, was challenging. And I can only imagine if it was all bots, you know, especially early on, the way that it is now, because you're right, there is that element for marketing. What, do you want to stay on the AI vein for a minute?

06:05
Chaz Wolfe
What tools are you using that are helping you crush it for clients, crush it for yourself? What's working with AI in marketing today?

06:13
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, what I would say is most people who are in marketing, whether you're, you know, agency side or you're just doing marketing for your own business, if you've been using Facebook at all, Facebook ads at all, whether that's Boost Post or Ads Manager, AI has been a part of those platforms for years now. Because of who? Like, because we're an agency, we get access to some stuff from Facebook as, you know, quote, unquote, agency partners, where they share kind of their roadmap and what they're working on. And in 2017 or 18, I don't remember the year, they shared this presentation with us. And in that presentation, they showed the power of machine learning, which we would call AI today for photos. And so they showed this picture during their presentation. It was a picture of someone standing in their kitchen.

07:02
Wayne Mullins
And they explained that their machine learning could read the brand of the refrigerator, the brand of the bread sitting on the counter. If it was glasses, like glass silverware or plastic or paper on the counter. It could read things on the side of jars and determine what brands of products were sitting in the kitchen at that time. So this was again, this was five, six, seven years ago now. And so inside the actual platforms themselves, now the advertising platforms themselves, they're making it where you have fewer and fewer choices as the user. They're forcing you to rely on their recommendations. So there's in that whole side AI is embedded into. We don't even talk about it as AI because it's just like, it's the way the platform works. So that's one.

07:53
Wayne Mullins
The other, you know, I'll stop short here, but the other, obviously, Chat GPT, that is another big one. You know, just for helping with content. I want to go down that rabbit trail, but I've got a whole rabbit trail about that there's, there's surveys and studies around this, that state at 77% of people can still tell the difference between AI generated content versus human generated written content.

08:17
Chaz Wolfe
So, yeah, that's a big, that's a big deal. I think probably the thing that we could give the listener there is, okay, fine, use Chat gbt, but then put some human eyes on it and make it sound human. Yeah, yeah, don't leave it with.

08:31
Wayne Mullins
Chat GBD fully, you know, yeah, 100% it is. Those tools can make us better or they can make us lazier. And my fear is for most, they're going to make us lazier.

08:43
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, you're. You're right. Anytime, even just organically, if I see, you know, LinkedIn or Facebook post, it's like a little cringy, you know. That was definitely created by Chat GPT.

08:54
Wayne Mullins
Yeah. Yep.

08:55
Chaz Wolfe
What do you think, what do you think that element is like, how is it that I can tell that something is written by a human vs chatgpt? What's the missing link?

09:05
Wayne Mullins
So the missing link in that study or that survey that I referenced was Chat ggp. Any AI generated content was too perfect. And that doesn't mean there weren't, you know, that human had typos or, you know, bad punctuation or things like that. It was just, it sounded too perfect. It didn't sound human. And so I think that's it. I think, I think we can. It tries too hard maybe to sound human, therefore it doesn't sound human.

09:33
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good assessment. Just, you knowing that that piece, that two perfectness. Would you, would you say that good copy then is Fill in the blank story form. More human, a little bit less perfect. More. More how we normally talk. How would you describe copy in this environment?

09:58
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think more, maybe more conversational. That may be the best term. It's. It's more dialogue, less monologue.

10:06
Chaz Wolfe
Okay. Yeah. What do you think that the listener right now who's, you know, maybe they have a garage door business or maybe they're a real estate investor. You know, different types of industries. Listening. What. What can they take from. From what you just said there? What does conversational sound like in a couple of different examples from maybe some clients that you're working with?

10:25
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I would say that, number one, pretty much everything you were taught in school is incorrect when it comes to learning copywriting and true copywriting skills. What you were taught in Eng. Is not the way that most people have conversation and have dialogue. And so that is a very difficult thing. We'll hire people. We've got a couple people with master's degrees, very well educated, and they'll come in and we will start teaching them how to do copywriting. And it goes against everything they've been taught. Right. Because, you know, conversationally, it's usually shorter sentences. It's usually no real long paragraphs. Right. Maybe a couple of sentences, and then it's a dialogue back and forth. So I would say that is the thing that as other people start embracing AI and again, I'm not.

11:14
Wayne Mullins
It sounds like I'm against AI or no, don't believe in using it. It's not that. I do believe, though, it creates a wonderful opportunity to lean against the grain here and talk about the human connection and talk about, you know, 100 human. 100 of the time.

11:29
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah. Yeah. I used to do the same thing in the sales process when I was training, you know, hundreds of salespeople. You know, it. It was, you know, listen to a call and it's like that. Do you hear yourself that's not how you talked over here in the meeting? You know, so whether it's a phone voice, whether it's an AI Too perfect scenario. It's like if the more genuine really that we can be, whether it be talking actually in a sales environment or before the. The sales environment, and it's in the marketing environment, what you're saying is a dialogue or. Or a more normal or more regular approach, which is what's going to catch people. And then obviously what we want them to do is keep reading. And so if it's challenging or. Or too many words or too perfect, then. Then we.

12:16
Chaz Wolfe
We lose the attention, basically.

12:18
Wayne Mullins
Right, Yeah. I would say that another misnomer, though, along those same lines is that shorter copy is better. And that is not always true. That is not always the case. You know, if you're about to make a big purchasing decision, you know, and it's multiple thousand dollars, like, you're probably willing to read quite a bit of information to make sure it's the right decision. One of the simplest copywriting facts, if you will, that we teach people is this, that the only job of your head buying is to capture people's attention. So much so that they have to read the first sentence. Your first sentence's job, the only job of that sentence is to be so compelling they have to read the second line.

13:00
Wayne Mullins
And if you just think about that as you progress down through your copy, each line's job is just to get the reader to read the next line. That is it. That's. That's the key to success in copywriting.

13:11
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, that's good. One of the things that I was reading, you know, about you, is that you're. You think of digital marketing more than just likes, comments and shares. How. Well, how would you describe that for your agency, what you guys are able to do for your clients, what you guys been able to do for yourselves? Why is digital marketing so much more than that?

13:30
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think, first of all, the marketing world has done a huge disservice, marketing agencies, advertising agencies, because we've embraced these metrics that are very easy and tangible to communicate. So we talk about likes, we talk about shares, we talk about comments, we talk about impressions, and we talk about reach. And don't get me wrong, all of those things are important. But at the end of the day, you can't put a, like a share or comment into your bank account. Right? You have to convert those things into something more into customers, people who are willing to pull out their wallet and hand you money. And what I would say is that most people don't know any better. Right. And Facebook is so clever. They're brilliant. They've almost gamified this.

14:18
Wayne Mullins
They know that if they can show you a bunch of likes and engagement with the post that you just boosted, you're much more likely to click it again because subconsciously you believe that thing is working. That is, I mean, it's that simple. It's human psychology. And Facebook has embedded and ingrained it into what they do as it relates to advertisers.

14:41
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, let's talk about, like, shares Comments that probably come from more of like a boost as opposed to actual digital advertising. For the person that doesn't understand the difference here and when they think of Facebook advertising, they're thinking about, oh, I just need to boost my post, which is obviously not what we really want them to do. What's the major difference here that this person doesn't quite understand yet?

15:02
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, Boost post button is what enabled Mark Zuckerberg to buy his $300 million yacht. It is. It is designed for one thing and one thing only. It's designed to be super simple to give you as an advertiser feedback that makes you believe that it's effective and efficient for you to advertise on their platform. The problem with the boost post button is this, that you are relegating your responsibility as a marketer to Facebook. You're saying, I'm trusting that they have my best interests at heart. Yeah, they're a for profit company. Their best interest is the profitability of the company. When you go into Ads Manager, you have the ability to dial in targeting unlike anything you can do with the boost post button. So you can get super specific. You can run ads at exact times of the day.

15:53
Wayne Mullins
A great example of this, if you have a restaurant that's open for, maybe it's just for lunch, like it does you no good to promote your lunch special late at night maybe. Right. Unless you're targeting and you're saying things that say, have you thought about what's for lunch tomorrow? Right. So we actually use that targeting, for example, for a restaurant client of ours where we run it in the morning time and it says, we know what you're craving for lunch today. And each day we'll even use the exact day of the week. So on Monday we'll have an ad that just says it's Monday. We know how you feel. Stop by and have, you know, whatever at our restaurant for lunch today. So again, you can dial into the targeting and speak directly to your audience.

16:36
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, I think that's great. What would you say, you know, as a marketer, as an agency entrepreneur, however, what realm? We want to talk about your story, but what would you say is the number one single biggest success that you've had?

16:51
Wayne Mullins
I would say my family. I know that's not in the business world or context at all. I've been married 22 years, my wife Heather, and we have four amazing kids. I realize everyone says that about their kids, but we have a 17 year old who's a senior this year. Then we have a 14 year old who happens to be in driver ed this week, 13 year old and then our 11 year old. So three boys and a girl. And we actually genuinely love hanging out together. Just being together, it's, it's great. That's my biggest success.

17:22
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, I mean, I love that we talk a lot inside of gathering the kings about, you know, how their, you know, work life balance really doesn't exist. And that's more work life obsession and going, you know, all in on both areas and also health and faith and lifestyle, all the other elements we talk about as well. But what would you say that's given you the ability to focus on your family? Like, like you have, clearly, if that's your answer, even outside of growing this.

17:46
Wayne Mullins
Incredible business, I would say it's a decision. You just have to decide. To decide means to cut off, right? I don't remember the exact. But somebody can Google this and figure it out, but you have to cut off all the excuses that you can't make family a priority. For years that wasn't true for me. I mean, for the first probably six or seven years of growing this business, I didn't believe that I had the time to spend with my family like I should, that it was the business's fault. Right. We were trying to grow, we're trying to do all this stuff. And then one day it just dawned on me. Like the stories I'm telling myself are so powerful and they are in so many ways manifesting and becoming real.

18:32
Wayne Mullins
Because the more I told myself I didn't have much free time, the less free time I had. But when I decided I was going to change the story, my life changed. It's as simple and as complex as that is.

18:46
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Simple and complex. That decision to just do it differently. What, in that moment when you made that decision, what did that look like tactically? Calendar timing, business availability, anything that comes to your mind?

19:01
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think learning to say no was a huge one for me. As your business or as your endeavors that you go into become more successful. The, the problem is you have more opportunities and the more opportunities you have, it becomes very tempting to say yes too many things. And so number one, I had to learn to say no to some really good opportunities. But I had to say the better opportunity was to leave every day by 5:00 and not be addicted to the phone, the email, the computer from the time I got home till I went to bed.

19:35
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah. What do you think that's done? In your family, and I would even say in your future family because of, you know, your kids eventually getting married and having kids, your grandkids. What. What are those decisions of not taking on those extra things and saying no, what has that done long term even?

19:52
Wayne Mullins
Yeah. I mean, number one, I would say, you know, I. I have friends and colleagues and, you know, acquaintances in the business world who have kids the same ages as our kids, and they don't actually enjoy being together as a family. I mean, none of them directly come out and say those things, but, you know, on the weekends, they all try to go separate ways and do separate things, and they don't want to spend that time together. We actually attempt to spend that time together. So, number one, I would say it's evidenced, if that's a word, in the way we live. And I don't know that you can calculate the roi, the return on investment for those decisions because, you know, no matter what we.

20:35
Wayne Mullins
No matter how big a business we grow, no matter how quote, unquote, successful we are in this outside world that we live in, at the end of the day, we all know, and we all would, for the most part say this, that family is the most important group in our lives. And if we believe that to be true, the question simply is this. Why aren't our actions aligning with that?

21:01
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. It's tough to be a, a man or a woman of integrity and be doing something different than what you say is important to you.

21:10
Wayne Mullins
Absolutely.

21:12
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah. That's a, That's a tough place to be. What would you say? I mean, you've got a phrase here. I'm kind of switching gears on you. You got a phrase around like self leadership or self accountability. I know you talk a lot about leadership when you're on shows like this and leading yourself first. What's this concept of self leadership unto being a great leader? Self accountability. There's several items here that I know you like to talk about. I'd like to open up that can and see where you want to take us.

21:39
Wayne Mullins
Yeah. So I believe from my experience that the most difficult person that you will ever have to lead in your entire life is the person who looks back at you in the mirror every single day. I know for me, I shared a little bit about this earlier, but for the first seven years of growing this particular business, my employees didn't want to show up on time. They didn't want to work. They were always complaining. The list goes on and on. Right. I had all these reasons that my team Wasn't performing and they weren't great. And I was the victim of the situation. Right. But, yeah, I decided that I would address that. And there's a whole story, whole catalyst that took place around this. But I decided that it all was a reflection of me and what I was willing tolerate.

22:23
Wayne Mullins
And when I decided to take full ownership of that, it's amazing. I have a team now that is very high performing, self, accountable, you know, all the wonderful things. And. And we. On a regular basis. It's a problem, actually. We have clients trying to poach our employees. It happens over and over again to the point where we've actually had to incorporate into our contracts that they can't do it without paying a penalty because this has happened over and over again. And I don't fault the employees. It's just we fostered this culture. And here's the crazy thing. The difference between when my employees complained and didn't want to work and all these things, and now most of the employees were the exact same people. The difference is the person in the mirror that. That I was in charge of leading first.

23:11
Wayne Mullins
I was so busy pointing out everyone else's falls and everyone else's weaknesses and all the things they were doing wrong that, you know, it's the. The Bible adage. You can't point out the splinter in someone else's eye when you have the plank in yours. And I had this big log in my own eye, and yet I'm sitting here nitpicking everybody else's splinters.

23:28
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. I want you to talk on that a little bit more because, you know, I've seen this. Even just this past weekend, were at a marriage retreat, and we hosted a marriage mastermind retreat. And, you know, a couple of folks that I got to interact with, you could tell they're good people. But even in our slight interactions in this event, you could tell that they were just super hypercritical. And almost like we're sabotaging real growth in their marriage simply because they didn't get this one little bitty thing correct. And. And I think there's a difference between always wanting to go to the next level and always being willing to improve and. And grow versus being just hypercritical, you know, constantly. What are your thoughts on that, especially in the environment and culture that you've created?

24:17
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think it comes down to feedback and how do we give feedback in constructive ways. And the reality is most of us are never taught how to give feedback. I think we tend to vacillate between one of two extremes where like you were just describing hyper critical about every single little thing. Or we're the other extreme, which is completely passive in those situations where we're unwilling to confront, unwilling to give feedback. And then on the same hand, we go around talking about those people behind their backs instead of addressing it directly to them. So I completely agree. And I think that feedback is the fuel of champions. I mean, you have to, number one, learn to give feedback. Number two, you have to learn to actually receive feedback.

25:04
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. That skill set, I don't know if I've ever actually seen it as a skill set, but we host a monthly roundtable inside of our community and part of that obviously is where someone gets to share in a hot seat and we go around and ask questions and then a feedback loop. And you know, feedback might be tough love, it might be a connection, it might be a book recommendation, it might be some encouragement, you know, and you don't really know what you're going to get. That's the part of being vulnerable, but also, like you said, being able to give good feedback, but then also being able to receive. Sometimes we get feedback that really isn't applicable. It seems applicable to the other person.

25:41
Chaz Wolfe
But we've, you know, through our own filter, through our own, you know, Raz, it's like, yeah, that's not really for me today, you know, but that given that give and receive feedback I think is a huge skill set. How have you seen switching back over to family? How have you seen that element of giving, receiving feedback either grow or harm marriage or family with your kiddos?

26:02
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think it's an important element. Right. I think again with kids so often we tend to hold things in and then we tend to blow up, you know, and we get frustrated and you know, we let these little minor things build up over time. And what I've learned or what I've discovered is this, that, you know, it's, it comes down to standards. It's so much like in the business world, like when you have clearly defined standards for your family and for your relationships within your family context. For example, no name calling, very simple standard that we have. And so, you know, we've got teenage kids and, you know, they pick and they back and forth, banter. But one of the things is we do not call names like you.

26:49
Wayne Mullins
You can pick, you can banter, you can joke around with each other, but there's no name calling allowed. And so it's little things like that create the boundaries, I believe, number one, for healthy relationships, but number two, for healthy conflict. Because conflict is a part of every relationship that we have. And what I would say, even the most important relationships in our lives, the healthiest ones, have good, healthy conflict within them. Because if not, what one person or the other person is doing is they're bottling up these little things and they're not addressing them. And so I think having those standards and being willing to, I think, learn, I think it's a learned skill. I know I certainly didn't. I wasn't born with the skill of how to receive feedback well, nor how to give it well.

27:42
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. How would you. How did you learn it? How would you recommend that the. That the listener learns it?

27:50
Wayne Mullins
I am very much a reader. I love to read. And so I would say I picked it up from actually reading. As a team. We read this really great book. I won't get the title right, so I'm not even sorry. But it was on giving Feedback. I mean, the whole book was about giving feedback. Another book we read as a team as well was Crucial Conversations. Really, really great book. And, you know, boundaries. Dr. Henry Cloud's a fabulous book on establishing those boundaries, setting those standards. He has another book, Boundaries for Kids, another great book. Recommend pretty much all of his books, but really great stuff. I think. I think the answer is this. Like, everyone's going to learn those things differently. I think what matters most is the intention. In other words, are you intentional in leaning into those areas?

28:42
Wayne Mullins
And number two, do your actions actually align with those intentions? Because it's easy for me to sit here and tell you all day long, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm working on this thing, but if my actions never align with that or, you know, then I'm just sitting here lying to you.

28:58
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, you're. I mean, we've kind of touched on that integrity piece a couple of times now. What do you see as, you know, maybe whether the team members of yours, other business owners that, you know, maybe even you in the past, what's the biggest gap between that intention and then action taking that you've seen people struggle with and how they've overcome it and how maybe you overcame it?

29:21
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, I think again, faulted on education system, faulted on society, fault on whatever you'd like. But I don't think that most of us come into adulthood with this understanding that be. There's a gap between when we give our word, whether it's explicit. In other words, I tell you, I'm going to do something or implicit implied. So in other words, when people come to work here, we have core values. We have an expectation guide. And they've seen these things before. They can work here. In one of the conversations we have before they come work here is like, is there anything here that you could not live up to? Like, we want to talk about this. If there's something in our expectations and our values that you don't think you could live up to, let's talk about it.

30:05
Wayne Mullins
And so then the first conversation that I have with the new hire when they're actually hardened in the business is this idea of the gap between when we give our word and the response. In other words, our actions after that. And there's power in that gap. In that gap is where we either continue building trust or we start building suspicion. It's in that gap. And so the first conversation that we have with people is this. Like, our default here is trust. We default to trust. Your job is to earn suspicion, not trust. So we don't want you to do that. But whenever you give your word and then you don't keep your word, you are now earning suspicion, which is what we don't want. We've imparted at the beginning, we filled our tank with trust.

31:02
Wayne Mullins
I think that's very different for most organizations and most relationships, most begin with you have to prove yourself trustworthy first.

31:12
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah.

31:14
Wayne Mullins
And I think, personally, I think that is a very counterproductive stance. I understand why most people take that stance, but I think it's very counterproductive because then both sides are having to constantly attempt to earn. Improve the other person that they are trustworthy versus if we enter a relationship and say, look, I trust your judgment. You wouldn't be here if we didn't trust you. So let's maintain that.

31:42
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah. What do you think, or what role do you think communication plays in that right there, the suspicion versus trust. I mean, you. You're saying you're giving trust right away. How much does communication or lack thereof possibly play in earning suspicion?

32:01
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, What I would say is almost always, sometimes I think people, they don't. They're afraid. I think, again, this is a thing I think we're. We're so bad at as entrepreneurs is that we create environments where people are not allowed to fail. And I think that's a mistake. Again, I don't want people to make mistakes, but I want an environment where there's safety if people do make mistakes. Because the only way we can grow, the only way we can try new things. The only way we can continue to be remarkable is to try things that don't work. Right. We can't keep doing the same things over and over again. So I think owning the communication and creating that safety where, look, if you screw up, the question is, you know, are you going to own up to it?

32:53
Wayne Mullins
Are we going to come talk about it? Are you going to try to sweep it on the rung, cover it up and act like nothing ever happened? So again, I think for us internally, it's a lot of teaching and training around the freedom to come share the failures.

33:07
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. I think being open, free, vulnerable, it's over. Communication in my book. I was just talking with a part of one of my teams earlier today about what it means or what it maybe feels like to the client or even just our own team when there's not enough communication. Well, it typically leads to questions or suspicion, as you called it. Suspicion might be a little strong in some circumstances, but if I have a question on something, whether it's an event that we're doing, part of my membership, how this podcast is going to go, like if I have any questions at all, that means communication wasn't the best it could have been. If communication delivered everything it was supposed to, we wouldn't have any questions. Right.

33:50
Chaz Wolfe
And then therefore there wouldn't be any suspicion because I would know, I would have trust that this is what it's going to be and then we'd be able to walk right through it together and it would all be good. And so I think that's probably the challenge for most teams is not assuming that the other person or for sure the client is following along. And it's like, well, we can't just tell them once and hey, they're an adult, they should get it. It's like actually that's not what client experiences or even team environment, team culture is what you're referencing it as. We've got to over communicate and make sure everybody's coming along because otherwise people have questions and then doubt creeps in. Suspicion, which is all lack of trust and then things start to erode pretty quickly. Would you agree?

34:30
Wayne Mullins
Yeah. A good friend of mine, he's a co founder of a company and they have about 650, 700 employees and he's the CEO of the organization. And I was just talking with them this last week and you know, just talking about his role and what he's doing now and all this other stuff and he said, you know, my official title is co founder and CEO. He said, but the reality is I am co founder and CRO. And I'm like, CRO? He's like, yeah, I'm the chief reminding officer. He said, because what I've discovered is that my job is to remind people, remind our team, remind our stakeholders. Why do we exist, where are we heading and what is your role in this mission that we're embarking on?

35:14
Wayne Mullins
And he said, you know, just when you're starting to get sick of saying it, they're just now starting to hear it.

35:23
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, that's so good. So good. It makes me think of a particular call that we've got our team right before we do a big event for some of our members. And I not loathe, but it's that rot. Like, hey, this is why we do this thing, you know, And I've said it so many times now, but it on the other side, it feels like you're probably right. They're probably just now hearing it for real and like it's settling in, going like, oh, yeah. Like we do create incredible spaces for people to be able to grow in and being able to see that come to life right before them, not just me. Say it. You know.

36:00
Wayne Mullins
Yep.

36:01
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, there's a lot of value there. Okay, well, I'd love to kind of wrap things up here by digging in just a smidge to some of this culture building. What tactically you said that, you know, early on business was, you know, kind of maybe took your focus away from the family and maybe it was a little harder. Now you've got maybe more a players. What was the, what was the number one thing tactically that you did in the business to kind of transition from, you know, like a, maybe a broken system or a broken culture to what you have now? And then we'll get to some other questions I've got around culture here in a second.

36:34
Wayne Mullins
Yeah, absolutely. So, number one, it started with the conversation with myself in the mirror. I, I do believe that it was Michael Gerber who said a quote somewhere where he says basically that your business is a reflection of your thinking. If you're thinking sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If your thinking's disorganized and chaotic, your business will be disorganized and chaotic. And I firmly believe that to be true. I see this time and time again. As an agency owner, we get kind of a behind the scenes book into a lot of businesses, a lot of organizations, and the outside and the inside often look Very different. So number one, it was the conversation with myself and taking full responsibility for my role in allowing that to happen. Number two, it's the apology to the team.

37:24
Wayne Mullins
It's the apology to the team and saying, look, I've allowed us to foster this culture that we currently have today. And it's not a good culture, it's not an acceptable culture. It's not in alignment with our values, our mission, nor our vision. And that apology has to be sincere. Right? You can't just say, I'm going to go apologize because it's the thing to do to fix the culture. You genuinely have to believe that and you have to first believe that it's your responsibility and your fault for allowing the culture to get to the spot it's in. Number two, I would say is this, that from a high level thing, it's some of the things that we all know we should do, but we say we're going to get to them one day. And I've referenced these before.

38:14
Wayne Mullins
But you need a clear, compelling vision of where you and your organization are going. It's gotta be written down. It's gotta be crystal clear. And it should be something that describes the sights, the sounds, maybe the smells of the future when it arrives. The vision should be written in such a way that people know when it actually arrives. Right? They can, they've already experienced it through the words on the page. Number two, it's the mission, which is why do we exist? Number three is we have to have clearly defined expectations and roles. So when it comes to culture, Gallup every year does this study where they study workplace culture and engaged versus disengaged employees. And they just released the 2024 findings. And this was global. So this was around the world. 62% of employees are disengaged in the workplace. Another 15% are actively disengaged.

39:17
Wayne Mullins
And they define actively disengaged in a way that means basically they're actually undermining the mission of the organization. So you put those two things together, you're at almost 80% of employees today around the world are disengaged in some way, shape or form. And I believe it boils down to this. Number one, they don't clearly understand where we're going as an organization. Right? They don't see the future that we're trying to create. Number two, they don't understand why it matters. Like why does it matter that we're going after this thing that we're creating? Three, what is my role in helping bring this thing to Life. So in our application process, when you apply for a job here, one of the steps is you read our vision, which is written in the future.

40:04
Wayne Mullins
And then you have to record a video, short video explaining how you see yourself bringing that vision to life. Because. Because then what it does, it ties the role to their sense of purpose, their gifts and their abilities on helping bring that to life. And then the fourth thing you have to do is you have to let them know. Everyone on your team has to clearly understand how their performance will be measured as it relates to the role and to bringing the vision to life. So those are the four ingredients. So the answer is, number one, I got honest with myself. Number two, I apologize to the team for allowing the culture to exist that existed. And then I went back to some of those things that I had been putting off.

40:48
Wayne Mullins
I got crystal clear about where I was trying to take the team, why it mattered, what each person's role was in that. And then how would they be, how would their performance be measured along the way?

41:00
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, I love it. I'm curious video response from employee that says they're going to be part of this vision and this is how they're going to do it. Give me craziest video or story that you could think of a response that you've gotten.

41:14
Wayne Mullins
We've had some very creative ones to the point where they actually, they can be no longer than two minutes. That's one of the requirements. We've had some people produce like mini movies with that two minute space to get these jobs. I would say some of them aren't necessarily crazy. Although we did have one who gave us a tour of her farm on the video as she was answering some of the things that was interesting. The, the ones that I think are the, I guess the most surprising to me are the ones who you can tell didn't put any thought into it. So they've got a bright light behind them and you really can't see their face and you can't hear them. They move the phone all around or whatever they're recording with. Those definitely stand out in not such a great way.

42:00
Chaz Wolfe
Yeah, I love to end by asking you kind of a unique question and it's really because you said your number one success was your family. And I just so appreciate that about you. But I want to end in the same fashion if your kids were here, if your wife was here, maybe it's a collective voice, maybe it's one person that you're thinking of. And I asked them to describe you what do you think that they would say?

42:28
Wayne Mullins
H. So that's a great one. You know, obviously I, I can't speak directly for them but you know, I would hope that the kids would say that I am present. Not just in terms of there like at the things or at, you know, at the house, but present. You know, I, I would hope that all of them, my wife included, would say that I challenged them in meaningful ways that made them better.

43:03
Chaz Wolfe
That's good. That's good. Yeah, I, I just really appreciate that it was a pretty present answer, so thank you. How can, how can the listener find you? You know you've got this incredible business of course probably lots of cool things that you're working on outside of that but listener find you should simplest place.

43:24
Wayne Mullins
Our website, ugly mug marketing.com, all of our social emails, all that good stuff is right there in one spot. On the semi personal kind of leadership side, I share most of that on Instagram. It's at fireyourself.

43:39
Chaz Wolfe
Love it. Wayne, you've got just an incredible energy about you that just is humble and, and you've given so much here in just such a short time. So I just appreciate your experience and being able to articulate so well. And just on behalf of the audience, thanks for giving what you have. Blessings to your family and of course your incredible business and all the things you got your hand into. I appreciate you man. Thanks for being here.

44:05
Wayne Mullins
Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Tired of watching your competitors steal the spotlight? You’re in luck! Today’s guest, Wayne Mullins, has helped his clients generate hundreds of millions of dollars with bold, creative marketing strategies that stand out. Wayne is a marketing expert and the founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, and he’s here to share his secrets with you. In this interview, Wayne reveals why being different beats being better, why AI is overrated, how to build a winning business culture, and his best copywriting tips for captivating any audience. Plus, we chat about his thriving family life and how he manages to stay present with his loved ones while growing a successful business.

Wayne Mullins:

Website: https://www.uglymugmarketing.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireyourself/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fireyourself

Chaz's favorite morning drink to fuel him for his day:

10% off Code: GATHERINGKINGS10