Mark Monchek on Mapping the Networks Already Around You

Robby Bryant:0:01
Mark Manchek, I have to start here. Somebody tried to burn your house down and you turned it into a TEDx talk about networks. What's the two sentence version for the people who haven't seen it?

Mark Monchek:0:04
Yeah.

Mark Monchek:0:15
well, I'll give you the two-sentence version and I'll give you the 15-sentence version. The two-sentence version is first married, bought our dream house, which we wanted to live in and to build a family there. And with six days after we moved in, we didn't even know anybody in the neighborhood, an arsonist trying to kill the person who had been living in the house who we bought the house from, thinking he was living in there. And then within the next four days, Vandals broke in and sold four hand car fireplace mantles.

Six stained glass windows, bike, TV, and microwave. So we moved back into this house in the high crime rate year of nineteen eighty-one, two thousand murders and a hundred thousand robberies a year in New York City with no heat, no electricity, no plumbing, no kitchen, and no money. And the name of the TED Talk is what survived the fire and what I learned about life myself and business from that experience.

Robby Bryant:1:10
Amazing. Do you wanna go on to the the fifteen second version? I wasn't counting the sentences.

Mark Monchek:1:16
Well well, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you what I what I learned because I wanna make sure this is relevant to the audience, and I think this is highly relevant now. So, Robbie, we didn't know we were gonna survive. We had no money, we didn't know anybody in the neighborhood, and we had a house that was barely livable. Suddenly, people show up. People we didn't even know from the neighborhood show up with food, with clothing, with recommendations for plumbers and carpenters.

Robby Bryant:1:23
Please.

Mark Monchek:1:46
a friend of mine moved in, my wife's brother moved in, and we did a miracle. We we revived this house in well, it took us six years to get it back to the normal. It took us nine months to actually get a kitchen. But what I learned in there that there's these hidden networks that everybody has, that once we could see those networks and activate those networks, we can do anything that we want. And we ended up doing anything that we wanted. So I learned about that, but back then there wasn't technology.

To be able to actually visualize these networks and understand how they connected. LinkedIn wasn't around, social media wasn't around, right? All that stuff we have now was not around. But in 2011, we were called in by a small nonprofit called the Literacy Assistance Center in New York City. Now, a lot of people don't know. 15% of American adults are illiterate. They cannot read, write, or do arithmetic enough to succeed in society. So this nonprofit.

Wanted to raise awareness of this issue and raise enough money to start an academy to license the teachers of adults. Teachers of children are licensed, teachers of adults are not. So they said we have a lot of relationships, but we don't know how to do this. We want to launch the first ever national summit on adult literacy to raise money for this issue and raise our brand awareness. How do we do it? So we did our first network map, Robbie. First network map, we mapped 26 people.

Strategic, 17 organizations, five markets, lots of knowledge, lots of communication, only three sources of capital. They're three funders. They could never get beyond those three funders. So then we said, all right, let's have the whole board and all of the staff members map the second map, expand the expand the map around a burning platform hypothetical question. If you had to raise $3 million in three months or you're out of business, how would you do it? Suddenly, 17 new sources of capital come on the map. Three of them.

With the last name of Soros, as in George Soros and his two kids who have foundations. Robbie, you could have heard a pin drop in the room. And then you heard the loudest scream you've ever heard in a conference room. Who knows George Soros? And how come nobody ever said anything? Well, Marilyn Sokoloff, the director of education, sitting in the back, meekly said, Well, he's my neighbor. How come he never said anything? Nobody ever asked me. So, Robbie.

Mark Monchek:4:10
The director of development sitting 10 feet from the directory of education, there was no methodology to share their resources. So we did. Now we built the next map and we invited the Soros Foundations. We got a documentary from CNN. We got researchers from Harvard. We got a Pulitzer Prize winner from the New York Times. We launched the first ever summit on national national literacy national literacy, and we raised Huge amount of money and brand awareness, and we took the organization to the next level. That was my proof of concept that this idea of unlock your network was real and useful. And we've been doing it ever since. But the technology was a challenge. We didn't we we couldn't find the technology that made the map look beautiful, but made the relationships functional. It was just very time. So we did a lot of them. We made some really good success with some of the organizations we talked about before, but it wasn't until AI came around. two years ago that we understood how we could actually interconnect the networks of people in an organization to make them super powerful. And now we've done that. And now that we've done that, we are now taking organizations to the next level in a in a matter of a couple of months, if not even sooner.

Robby Bryant:5:27
Wow, amazing. I think something that you kind of glossed over was that back when this all started and in your house burnt down, there was no social media, internet wasn't really a thing yet. that's pretty amazing. How did that feel in that moment to think that you've lost everything and then to see all these people start to come together and realize what your network truly was?

Mark Monchek:5:55
That's a great question. So there's a few things I want to share with you about that question. First of all, networks have been around ever since people have been around, right? Tribes, clans, right, are networks. And so my ancestors coming from Eastern Europe, from Lithuania, from Poland, from Russia, from all those countries where my family were Jews, were not allowed to live in a lot of places.

They came to the United States through family circles and community networks before there was any technology, where it took one week on a boat to get from Russia to New York. So I want to I want the audience to know technology is an enabler, but technology is not the heart of it, is your mindset, your ability to develop relationships with generosity and with collaboration, and your focus on. what you actually want to do and staying committed to what you want to do, not trying to do everything, but trying to do a few things that will move the needle for your company.

So the second part of your question is this the more mindset part of it is my parents and my grandparents have survived all kinds of crisis. My mother escaped the Holocaust. My father lived in poverty. The power you and I couldn't even understand. He lived in a 500 square foot apartment with seven kids, two parents with a sink and a toilet, no bathtub, no shower. They literally had nine people bathing in a sink every day. In the hot weather, they slept on a fire escape and a roof. So I had in my DNA a survival mindset and then the generosity of the people showed up and you know we we accepted it and we also tried to give it back.

Robby Bryant:7:43
Amazing to everyone listening. This is the High Ticket AI Systems podcast where we talk with real coaches, call consultants and agency owners about what is really working to scale their business. I'm here with Mark Monchek, a legend in the making, perhaps legend already in consulting, working with some quite large industry leaders and businesses that we'll get into. Mark, for the people who don't know, can you describe in your own words what is it that you exactly do and who do you serve?

Mark Monchek:8:14
Well, our mission is to empower leaders to build conscious companies that make a difference in the world. What's a conscious company? A company that cares deeply about its employees, its customers, and the communities they do business in, that they're making a contribution to the world, that their profit is a result of that contribution. So contribution first, profit result results out of that contribution.

So strategy, leadership, and culture are the three areas that we have worked in for several decades. And unlock your network is a combination actually of strategy, leadership, and culture. We start with what is the disruption that your company is facing? My first book, which came out in 2017, Culture of Opportunity, How to Grow Your Business in an Age of Disruption, understood that 2017 was the beginning of a massive era of tremendous disruption. And now we're even in More disruption now, you know, almost 10 years later. So we start with and we ask the company, what is your major disruption? And how could you turn that disruption into an opportunity? So AI, obviously, your your podcast is about high-ticket AI systems. AI is a disruptor, and that disruptor could be good or could be bad for your company. But you have to decide what is your particular company being disrupted by and how does that disruption turn into an opportunity?

So alignment is key. Your leadership team, your ownership team, whoever they're the key decision makers, have to be aligned on what that disruption is and what would be the one strategic initiative that would turn that disruption into an opportunity. Right? I'll give you, I'll give you an example of one of our most recent clients. So one of one of our clients was working in healthcare compliance and accreditation. So he would help. pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, get their accreditation and be in compliance with the regulations of their state or of the federal government. Well, AI started disrupting his company because a lot of their clients were trying to use AI to be able to do the work that he did. So we said, well what what can I do? So we we said, all right, let's turn your disruption into an opportunity. So his strategic initiative was to become an AI native company.

Mark Monchek:10:37
That used AI to be able to do what he did faster and less expensively, but add other services that he couldn't add before because he didn't have the staff to do it. Suddenly, Robbie, he went from one qualified referral a month to one qualified referral a day. He booked $150,000 of business within the first six weeks of working with us. So he turned that disruption into an opportunity. understanding where AI was a strength and where he then could leverage his humanity and his personal experience and his trust using AI as an empowerment tool.

Robby Bryant:11:18
Yeah, I I'd love to keep going down this AI route. At least from my perspective as the AI revolution, as you want to call it, is is happening. I think I'm noticing a lot of agencies who are trying to take AI and make it the foundation of their business. They're trying to build a business based on AI, rather than what I see works more often is people who have a business, a a business model that has already functioned and they're just trying to use AI to fill some of the gaps, if you want to say, to make things more efficient or to you know, take away some more minuscule tasks. What's kind of your input? What what are your thoughts on how a lot of businesses are using AI? What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong?

Mark Monchek:12:09
So I think it's a it's a really important point that you're making is that they're thinking AI is a solution to everything, and that if they can master AI, they can be better. Well, if your business is not successful, AI isn't going to make it more successful. If your business is not successful, you have to understand why it's not successful. The core of every business is serving a customer need better, differently, faster.

Robby Bryant:12:19
Yeah.

Mark Monchek:12:37
what what whatever that customer wants than your competitors. So it's always the passion has to be, what do our customers need now? But what are they going to need six months from now, a year from now, and continually being passionate and caring about what that customer needs. Now AI can empower what you do to make that customer much, much more satisfied. And maybe AI could be at the center of it, but it's got to start with the what the customer needs and what your company actually cares about.

So I don't if you remember many years ago, one of the biggest best selling books of of all time in business was Jim Collins, Good to Great. And he had this concept of the hedgehog principle, which is basically you would we would call it your unique value proposition. What makes your company unique and gives it a competitive advantage against your competitors? So he said three things. One is passion. What are your comp what is your company most passionate about? And if you're not passionate about something, I don't care.

How much AI you use, you're not going to succeed. You have to actually care about what you do and show that caring in everything that you do. Passion is at the top of the triangle. Then there's excellence. What are you so good at that you're better than anybody else and you can deliver some value in a way that the customers really, really need? The third is what is the market opportunity? What are customers needing now that you have? So if you match your passion.

With your excellence and your opportunity, right in the middle of that is what he called your hedgehog principle, or what makes you you unique and different. That's how we think about AI is how can we improve our excellence of what we do, understand that we can do something in the market opportunity better, but we have to be passionate about it. If we're not passionate about it, AI cannot create passion. It only helps passion be more better executed in the world, if that's if that's a helpful response.

Robby Bryant:14:32
Yeah, totally. So just to get a a good picture of it, it's kind of like a Venn diagram with three circles. You have your passion, what you're excellent at, and what the I guess the pain of the market, what do people need? Of those three, where does AI I guess help the most? Where does it come in the most, or is it kind of in all three in its own way?

Mark Monchek:14:46
Yeah, yep.

Mark Monchek:14:56
All right, let's take all three separately. So I feel like I am doing my best work that I've ever done in my entire life because AI has taken away a lot of the things that were taking up time or distracting me or just not to the core of what I can contribute. My biggest contribution is I can go into a company and understand what is the root cause of what is not going right and what is the root cause of a superpower that they have that they have not yet unlocked or a network that they could unlock even more. AI helps me do that because I can focus more and I can learn more about the company and about the marketplace much faster than I ever could before. So when I'm on with you, I am a hundred percent focused on you, not on the thing that I had to do before or the thing I have to do afterwards. So passion gets more fuel through AI. excellence is something like with with Our Unlock Your Network program, we can map networks in a way that nobody else can because we've we've programmed and prompted AI to take brainstorming conversations. So let's say we have six leaders on our Unlock Your Network mapping session. Your relationships are going to come out when we're going to deep dive deep into your unconscious and you're going to find people that were central to your biggest success, Robbie, five years ago you haven't talked to.

We're going uncover it in that session. And John is and Sally is and and you so imagine there's hundred names flying around, right? We're able to using AI to map the your networks in a way that we could never could. AI is going to superpower that. So that creates an excellence that we never had before because we never had a way to take those names in relational context and put them on a map that you could actually use to. bring in new clients, bring in new products, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then the the market demand is that people want things faster and simpler and more human. And so we can deliver all those things because AI allows us to do us what we do better.

Robby Bryant:17:08
Yeah. So none of those aspects of what makes a good business are changing at all. They're just being enhanced by AI where it's necessary. you said something, you know, when you're meeting with let's say a a group of people, you're meeting with a business where you you are going to help. How does that start? What does that look like when you sit down with let's say a a group of executives?

Where do you start? What how do you start digging to find out what they need and what direction you have to send them off in?

Mark Monchek:17:43
Great question. So I start with if you could make your business exactly the way you want it, with no limitations, with with with no constraint, just in your highest and best imagination. A year and a half, two years from now, what would your business look like if it did exactly what you wished it could do? I wanna I wanna get the aspiration so clearly specified.

And I want to make sure it's aligned with all of the key players on that company. Once I understand that, I say, okay, what is getting in the way? What are the obstacles that are getting in the way of you getting to that ideal result? What are the underutilized resources that could help us get there? And then what are the new opportunities that are there for you right now that which one would you want to focus on the most? So that's that's what we call.

Points of leverage. So the only thing I remember from tenth gate, tenth grade geometry was Archimedes said, Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, said, Give me a lever and a fulcrum and a place to stand, and I can lift the earth. Well, the earth is your company. It's the place to stand that's the hardest thing to do. Because everybody is so wrapped up in the day-to-day functioning of their company that they don't. have the ability to step back and do the strategic planning and have the, you know, 50,000 foot view to say, where should I put that lever in that fulcrum to actually get some leverage? And that's what we help them do is to step back and look at their company from a more objective point of view and seeing what are the critical obstacles you have to face, what are the underutilized resources, and what are the just one or two new opportunities that will take you to the next level. That's where we start.

Robby Bryant:19:41
Awesome. W do you find it's almost like you're asking an all an artist to step back from their canvas? They've been so close, they've been working on one thing and they they think maybe the project it's not what they turn they wanted it to turn out to be. And part of your job is helping them stand back from that canvas and see the work as a whole and maybe kind of finding where do you want to go from here?

Mark Monchek:20:08
Yeah, that's that's a great that's great analogy because artists are very personally attached to their work. Right? And so are entrepreneurs and business leaders. So you might love that work, but you might then somebody might say, you know what, that piece is so big that only a few people in the world have a living room big enough to put that painting in. Right?

And if you want to sell that painting, right, if you if you really want to get a market for it, you might need to make it a third smaller. I'm I'm I'm using obviously, you know, a way out example. So it's really about getting clear on the objective reality of your business and not taking away the passion, but taking away the attachment to a specific result that's not necessarily what the customers want.

So as I'm a writer. And so one of the things I learned going to the Gotham Writers Workshop, which I took several years of classes, is if I really care about my readers, I gotta understand how they read.

So when I would so in in the memoir class, I'm writing my second book is a memoir called How the Light Gets In, which that story about the fire will be in there. I would write something and I had no idea that the audience, my fellow students, took it a different way than I intended it. So I was able to rewrite it. Still what I cared about writing, but I understood better how people read things. Because you're you're so close to your own story, it's hard to know.

How other people are going to receive it. And the same thing in a business. You're so close to your business. You gotta understand what your customers care about, what your partners care about, what the marketplace is doing, and all that. And that's why stepping outside of it is so important.

Robby Bryant:22:02
Yeah. What role do you think ego has in this whole process? like you said, it's similar between artists and business owners. They most of the time they they love their creation or at least they have some attachment to it. Do you ever ha find that you have to say something to a business owner or an executive that almost offends them or you know takes a shot at their ego and makes them have to step back and say, Hmm, I I do have to think about that and do that differently.

Mark Monchek:22:38
that's a great question, Robbie. One of the things that somebody who is an advisor or consultant or coach has to be able to do is empathize deeply with your clients, at the same time, tell them a truth that they might not want to hear in a kind way that they would have the best chance of hearing. So yeah, I I think one of the questions that I ask eventually, maybe not in the first meeting, maybe in the second meeting, is what's your purpose here?

What is your purpose in life? Why are you on this earth? And what do you want your legacy to be? And at the end of your physical life, what would you like to be said about you? So, one of our programs is called The Power of Purpose, where we actually start with having our clients write their eulogy and then say, Well, if this was the life that you created that you're most proud of.

How would you start living that life right now? And is there anything that you might want to change? And that gives them a different view. That's where the ego comes in, is the ego is not probably going to be on your headstone. It's probably going to be that higher self that you have that understands there's a bigger contribution. And then your ego will get fed maybe in a different way than you thought that it would.

Robby Bryant:24:01
Yeah, I I really like that. I find that really fascinating actually. In a way, you're almost like a salesman and your goal is to get these people to come to realizations on their own without saying it directly. And I feel like if you have them write their eulogy, there's no running. They have to write out exactly what their life looks like. They have to see all the answers right in front of right in front of them. without you might know it, you might be able to look at it from the outside and say, Hey, you're doing this wrong and you need to change this. and this is the trajectory of your business. But they're the artists, they're way too close to the canvas. By getting them to write their own eulogy, they have to face everything that they currently are without you directly telling them. Is that kind of the way you see it too?

Mark Monchek:24:51
yeah, that's exactly the way I see it. I would I wouldn't say salesperson. I would probably say more of a of a of an advisor, a guide, a teacher, a convener of people, to try to not sell them anything or convince them of anything, but ask the questions and reflect back what I'm seeing in a caring way that they can they can have the opportunity to be their best self. Because I think everybody wants to be their best self. I think businesses and our society has prioritized profit and status first. And I think that's gotten into got us into some trouble. I think we got to prioritize our customers, our employees and our communities first, provide the value that they really want and need. And then the profits will come and they will be more sustainable and more you'll be more proud of those profits if you start with the service first.

Robby Bryant:25:50
I completely agree. And the more and more successful business owners I talk to or or coaches and consultants, excuse me, that's something I hear a lot. The businesses that they go into that are failing and that need a lot of work, they are focusing on the profits. They're focusing on how can I maximize AI to save the next dollar. The businesses that are really working in twenty twenty-six are the ones that are going the complete opposite direction. They're saying we're not going to remove that personal touch. We are going to be there personally. We are going to act like humans. We are going to recognize that connection is a huge lever. It's it's the thing that people are craving for in today's day and age. so I I find that very interesting. I'm just I I keep hearing that and I obviously I think it's a very big key to success, especially in something like a consulting firm that you have. you know, Mark, these days it seems like everybody and their brother is opening up some type of consulting firm or or agency. What do you do at Opportunity Lab that you think put you in a position to let you work with some of the biggest minds behind Google, Apple, JP Morgan, Chase, and so many other household names?

Mark Monchek:27:14
Well, I say Robbie, our our sweet spot over the many, many years has really been with privately held mid-market companies. So yeah, I mean I love working with those larger companies, but they typically work with McKinsey and Booz Allen, and that's fine. You know, like we're we're not big enough really to serve JP Morgan Chase at a global level. I mean, I could do a talk there, I can consult somebody there, but we love to scale privately held mid market companies that actually can move faster and that truly can be directly in touch with their communities, their customers, and their people. So to give you a a couple of recent examples, is this unlock your network has helped us do things that took us so much more time and money and give an affordable solution that both is strategic and very practical at the at the same time.

So I gave the example of the healthcare accreditation firm. So one of our other recent clients was a real estate development company. And it was a woman who had done real estate sales and development over many years. And her husband was had a family conflict that could not be solved. So he decided, you know what? I love my wife. I love working with her. And they joined together in a business. So the disruption was the husband is now changing his career.

And the two of them are coming together not just as romantic partners but as business partners. So when we did our first session of Unlock Your Network, we looked, we identified the disruption, and then what what would be the strategic initiative that would take this disruption and make it tremendously successful? So when they did that, they said, Well, we want to have a certain amount of revenue, we want to serve our client base, which are privately held companies, commercial real estate, people we care about, serve them in ways that they can then.

Pass the wealth on to their kids. But the one thing that they they had not thought of was in actually investing in real estate and developing in themselves. So when we got them all aligned, they said, you know what, actually, we're really good because the husband was in plumbing contracting and he knew the contracting, the structural side, the physical side of businesses really well, which his wife did not. And once they determined, Robbie, that that was a key part of their strategic initiative.

Mark Monchek:29:39
Two weeks later, they see a property in San Francisco that had not been open to the market, that they got an opportunity to bid on. They bid on it, they bought it, they renovated, or renovating it now, and they they're probably gonna make six hundred thousand dollars out of that. And but they got their kids involved. They got their kids working with them, teaching them about their business, actually working in the actual physical renovation, which was great. And these are kids who are teenagers. So it was really identifying the strategic initiative and once it was identified, the opportunity just came right to them.

Robby Bryant:30:16
Amazing. I find that really interesting. You have the capacity and the the knowledge and the comprehension to work with these I guess you could call them A tier businesses, but you find that you can serve maybe the tier below it just slightly better, slightly more efficiently. it's kind of like shoot for the stars, but aim for the moon and you're still gonna end up somewhere great. i it sounds like you've carved out a very nice niche for yourself. do you mind if I go into a a bit of business mechanics because we do love to talk about that on this show. what does like your pricing model look like? Does it change a lot as you go to, you know, consulting a a super large A tier business versus a slightly smaller business? How do you w what's your pricing model?

Mark Monchek:31:12
that's a really good question. I'm gonna I'm gonna reference a a new book that I just finished that I would highly recommend anybody who's an entrepreneur to read. It's called Pattern Breakers by Mike Maples and Peter Ziebelman. So Mike Maples is the founder, co-founder, and CEO of Floodgate, which is an early stage venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. He invested in Twitter. He invested in In Lyft and in Twitch, at literally at the the early stage, a seed funding investor before the venture capital even got involved. So he's got 30 years of experience of picking extraordinary companies, and he calls companies that change the world pattern breakers. That so if you think about let's say Lyft and Uber, who came around about the same time, nobody except for Mike and his partner and the founders of Lyft.

And Uber thought somebody's gonna get in a car with somebody that they don't know and risk their life taking them somewhere? That's that's never gonna happen. Right? So they they broke a pattern. But what they did right is they didn't compete with taxis. They didn't say we're a better taxi. They said we're a ride-sharing app. And they did things radically differently than taxis did.

Even as simple as you don't have to pay for the ride when you're in the car. Your app pays for the ride. Just that little simple thing, right? You want to get out of the car, you want to get so you're in the taxi, you're you're you're messing with change, or you get your credit card in there. So pattern breakers actually take longer in the beginning because people are not necessarily understanding that this new pattern is good for them. So there's a There's a mindset shift that has to take place. So, how does this apply to pricing? Is we price our pattern breaking programs, like Unlike Your Network, lower in the beginning because we want to get a lot of new adoptees, we want to get a lot of champions, we want to get a lot of data, and we want to get a lot of case studies and testimonials. So when you're bringing something new into the market that is proven but doesn't have the full brand recognition, you want to start that pricing.

Mark Monchek:33:40
You know, a a bit lower. And you also want to understand how many that you can do. So with AI, we can do probably literally, Robbie, we could do nine programs a week. So even the pricing is lower, we we can still get volume because like I can turn around a deliverable in five minutes where it could have would have taken me five days just a couple of years ago.

Robby Bryant:34:06
And when you say program, what does that entail?

Mark Monchek:34:10
So Unlock Your Network is a program. You could call it a product, but let's say we call it program. It starts with defining, as I mentioned earlier, your disruption and turning that disruption into a measurable outcome strategic initiative. That's session one. It's 90 minutes with your leadership team. Session two is the network mapping session where we use a series of prompts and questions and guided meditations to actually map the ecosystem of your company.

And then session three is the network activation plan. We show you your network map. We show you a 30, 60, 90 day network activation plan. What is Robin Robbie going to do? What is Jordan going to do? What is Mark going to do? And what are the relationships we're going to focus on? What are the asks and what are the offers, even down to to suggested emails or scripts for phone conversations? And then we follow up with you half an hour every other week for three months to make sure that you're launching this thing well.

That's unlock your network in in a nutshell.

Robby Bryant:35:13
Amazing. So you have essentially one blueprint that you'll follow that you'll c take into any company that you're working with.

Mark Monchek:35:22
Yeah, what's brilliant about it is we can customize it 100% to your company, but the program, the customization on our end because of the AI takes a very little amount of time. So it's gonna you're gonna feel it to be very customized, because it will be very customized to you. Your map will be totally different than my map or somebody else's map, but the process is so streamlined because of AI that it's faster and easier for you and for us.

So we can move a lot of companies through this process and be extremely hands-on because the AI allows us to focus on the human part of it.

Robby Bryant:36:01
Yeah. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. When you think about your I guess dream clients, the clients that you want to be working with, maybe think about the your most favorite clients that you've served. How did you attract those clients? Where did they come from?

Mark Monchek:36:21
So our clients that are our favorite clients, well, we let's say we only work with clients that we actually care about and share values with. So I don't know, I I have a hard time with a favorite because we literally don't if if we don't have similar values and if our clients cannot maximize what we do, we don't want to work with them. We will politely find another resource for them. So mindset Relationships and focus. So we we would love to work with clients who have an opportunity mindset and who are willing to uncover the limiting beliefs that will that they will need to challenge to make sure their mindset is truly opportunity focused. Relationships. We really want to work with companies who understand that generosity and collaboration are essential to what we think are long-term relationships.

And we're all about long-term relationships, not transactional, see you later relationships. And then focus, we need to work with companies that can focus on a few things and do them really well, not to try to do so many things and not do any of them well. Mindset, relationships, and focus. Those are our ideal clients.

Robby Bryant:37:38
Yeah, awesome. At at our agency we focus very similarly on working with with the right fits because I think that's everything. doesn't matter how good your your service is, doesn't matter how good your delivery is. If you're not working with a client who's receptive and actually wants to be working with you as well, you know, it doesn't matter what strategy you give them, they're it's not necessarily gonna work, it's not gonna be the best case study. how are you like I guess a attracting clients. Is it all just through relations more relationships, more word of mouth? Or what does like a a consulting firm like you yours do to get new clients in the door, get new conversations, new relationships in the door?

Mark Monchek:38:23
Well, like I said at the beginning of the program, all the clients we will ever need exist three degrees of separation from us. So we use unlocker network for ourselves. So we do an unlike your network for ourselves every quarter. We update it every quarter, right? So our clients come from satisfied clients that we've had. We also have partnerships with other companies so we can train.

A facilitator, train somebody who's a coach, a facilitator, a consultant, an advisor to do our program, and they can do it for their clients. And then there's a revenue share where you know they they join with us in in the revenue. So we are scaling this through people who are really good coaches, facilitators, and advisors. We can our program is so operationalized. We we have a we have a dashboard, we have a platform.

And you can go in there and you can see everything that everybody has to do at every step of the way. So we're also scaling it through strategic relationships with companies that have clients that they can introduce this to pretty quickly because the use cases are super relevant. So the use case, as I mentioned earlier, is expand and deepen your customer base. That's number one. Launch new products and services, number two, to attract funding, investors.

Partners, number three, and then solve complex business problems that you can't solve within your own company. I think those are all four use cases that are really relevant today.

Robby Bryant:40:00
Yeah, I I agree. Are those four use cases, are they in the same order that you just mentioned them when you come into a company? Do you help them with one, do you help them with attracting new clients before you even get into looking for more funding or investors?

Mark Monchek:40:15
No, I every client has their own need. So we we like I said, we I start with what would your company look like if you could make it to be the best company you can imagine two years from now, what would it be like? And then what is the missing piece? And out of that question would be okay, which one of these use cases is most important to you right now? And it might be more than one, but we start with one. We do one at a time.

So we could do one unlock your network for expanding customer base because the network for that, and this is where people don't understand networks, your networks are specific to an initiative that you're focused on. Right? You could have a network that's vast, but that network doesn't is not useful to you unless it's focused around an initiative that you care about and you're putting some effort into. So we could do one unlock your network to expand your customer base.

And we could do another different one for attracting investors or funding. Now, there might be some of the same people, but some of the people will not be the same people.

Robby Bryant:41:20
Right. It's almost like if if you have a million followers on Instagram, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a million people you can sell to or on the other hand go and look for funding from.

Mark Monchek:41:36
Yeah, yes. exactly. Exact and and people mistake quantity for quality. Like you could have a million fans on Facebook and they they do nothing for you. Like Seth Seth Godin, who's one of my favorite authors, you know, in his book Tribes, he says, Don't think about the thousands and thousands of people. Think about your hundred raving fans.

Robby Bryant:41:49
Right.

Robby Bryant:41:52
I love him.

Mark Monchek:42:02
Or it could be it could be your 10 raving fans, depending on what kind of business you're in. It's those people who are your champions, who are your case studies, who are your testimonials, who go out of the way to say, hey, you got to work with Opportunity Lab. They changed my life. You got to get on high-ticket AI systems because that was the biggest thing that helped propel my business in there. Right? It's it's those raving fans who are your best assets. It's not necessarily the quantity of people you have.

Robby Bryant:42:29
Yeah, absolutely. I I've been hearing that a lot lately. Mark, you've been on I think I saw over one hundred podcasts in the last year or so, is that right?

Mark Monchek:42:42
I've been on a hundred over the last probably four years or so. I guess maybe twenty, twenty five a year.

Robby Bryant:42:48
Regardless, a lot. A lot more than most people. What's one thing that you've never been asked on a podcast that you totally wish you'd been asked and you think would make a huge difference if people got your answer of?

Mark Monchek:43:03
that's a great question. I would say, what do I want the future to look like for my grandchildren?

Robby Bryant:43:14
What do you want the future to look like for your grandchildren?

Mark Monchek:43:14
I'm I'm I'm sure I'm sure nobody's ever asked that on your podcast, but hopefully they will. I have well I have I have two grandchildren. one one just turned six and the other will be four in November. And I get so much gratification from watching my daughter and my son in law raise them. They live three miles from me, so I'm I would see them once a week, twice a week. I want them to understand how to give back how to how to contribute to society in in whatever talents and gifts that they have, because they they've they've gotten a lot from their parents and from you know my wife and and myself. and to be able to under find their purpose and and live it in the best possible way. And that's what that's the people that I see who have the best life have a clear life purpose. They work on sh serving that life purpose well.

And they feel very grateful for for the ability to do that.

And I hope the planet is is inhabitable enough so that they will be able to not have hundred and twenty degree summers in New York City as an example where I live, where they live.

Robby Bryant:44:29
Yeah. I I appreciate you being real about that. I think that's something a lot of people feel, but it's not something that typically comes up on a a business podcast. So thank you for that. I wanna end looking forward over the next twelve months, as far as Mark Moncek, as far as Opportunity Lab, what you know, goals, numbers, visions do you have for yourself and your business?

Mark Monchek:44:54
I'm just gonna get very specific and practical because this this will be more helpful. So we have two clients we're working with now that I am beyond excited and extremely honored to work with. One of them is a nonprofit in San Mateo, California called Empowerment Through Action. They take high school kids, freshmen in high school, who have Robbie less than a two point GPA. They won't take anybody with a higher than two point GPA.

Robby Bryant:44:57
Please.

Mark Monchek:45:23
GPA. These are kids who are failing in school. And they put them through an embedded school program, which is mentoring, tutoring, after school programs, coaching, trauma intervention. They have a nearly 100% graduation rate that they've gained since they started in 2018. So we are doing an unlocking network for them, and we are super excited about scaling this program throughout Northern California.

Starting in San Mateo County and eventually going to Silicon Valley and beyond that. If we can solve the problem of high school dropouts, if we can ha solve the problem of high school illiteracy, of high school all kinds of things that happen bad to kids coming to high school, that's a contribution that I'm excited about. We're working with a another client who was master sergeant in the Coast Guard. I'm sorry, in the National Guard.

And she is working with veterans who have severe PTSD. Twenty-two veterans in the United States kill themselves suicide every day because they can't solve their problems with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. So we're working with her, Crystal Romero is her name, to be able to get this message out there and help scale the services to veterans who need help getting back into society and overcoming the effects that they've had from being in war or being in service. So I really want those two to succeed and we're on the process of getting them there. And I want with more clients like that who are making that positive impact in the world.

Robby Bryant:46:58
That's genuinely surprised me. this whole time I thought, you know, I think businesses and agencies, but how does it feel to be able to work with these businesses or these organizations that are genuinely changing the world, making it a better place?

Mark Monchek:47:17
Well, it just it's it's it's very inspiring and it helps me deal with some of the negative things that are going on in the world. You know, I I watch the news every day, not maybe ten minutes at the most, or listen to it. And it's sometimes hard to stay hopeful and positive. And these these organizations make me feel positive. My brother is on the board of ETA, so he and I get to work together and that's beyond, you know, gratitude for me. So I just I I enjoy it and I and I get to learn so much about how other people deal with circumstances. that are that are really difficult in the world and and help them get out of those circumstances.

Robby Bryant:47:51
That that's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing all that. Mark, if people want to get more into your work or find out more about what Opportunity Lab could do for them, where can they find you?

Mark Monchek:48:02
first of all go to oplab.com. That's our website, oplab.com. You can go to YouTube and you watch my TEDx talk. It's Mark Moncek on YouTube and it is what survived the fire. And if you want to call talk to me directly, markm at oplab.com. That's my email address. And somebody, me or somebody on my team will respond to you, you know, within a couple of days.

Robby Bryant:48:29
Awesome. Mark, I genuinely appreciate you getting into the weeds on specifically your connections and relationships and how that not only changes your life but is what is necessary for a lot of business owners to involve in their own businesses today. That's this kind of stuff that I think people don't hear enough of and what will actually propel co a coach, a consultant or an agency owner in today's day and age. So thank you very much for going into the weeds on that. And to everyone listening, that's the episode. We will see you on the next one.

Mark Monchek:49:02
Thank you, Robbie.