I built a $1M brand (here's what it REALLY takes)

Summary

In this insightful video, Marcus Zanquila shares his journey and the essential principles behind building a million-dollar brand. While acknowledging that success in the business world doesn't come easy or overnight, Marcus offers a candid look into the crucial elements that differentiate thriving brands from others. He emphasizes the importance of understanding one's skill set, the power of collaborating with people who have complementary skills, and the critical role of having a clear vision and setting ambitious goals. Marcus underscores that while the path is challenging, with the right mindset and strategy, reaching new heights is achievable.

Highlights

• Understanding your skills and focusing on them can simplify your path to success. 💡
• Building a successful brand requires a synergy of complementary skills among partners. 🧩
• Setting far-reaching goals transforms potential challenges into opportunities for massive growth. 🌟
• Marcus emphasizes learning from past mistakes and collaborating effectively to scale. 📈
• The journey involves adapting, evolving, and redefining one’s approach for bigger achievements. 🔥

Key Takeaways

• Identify and leverage your unique skill set for success. 🎯
• Collaborate with partners who complement your strengths. 🤝
• A clear and ambitious vision is crucial to 10x your growth. 🚀
• Unlearning old habits is essential to scale up effectively. 🔄
• Persistence amidst challenges leads to major breakthroughs. 💪

Overview

Marcus Zanquila dives deep into what it genuinely takes to build a million-dollar brand, pulling back the curtain on the reality versus myths. He veers away from the typical quick-fix talk, instead focusing on the importance of awareness about one’s skills and how crucial it is to zero in on those to forge a successful path.

During his video, Marcus articulately highlights the significance of assembling a team with complementary skills. With examples from his own multimillion-dollar endeavors, he stresses that no successful brand is built single-handedly. This collaborative approach is a cornerstone for achieving extraordinary growth and navigating complex business landscapes effectively.

The crux of Marcus’s message revolves around having a compelling vision and sticking to it. He draws on his experience to illustrate that setting audacious goals is less about daunting effort and more about shaping the right path and mindset. Marcus urges budding entrepreneurs to think big, unlearn limiting practices, and embrace new strategies for dynamic growth.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction: Building a Brand is both Hard and Easy Building a brand can be challenging but also simple if you know the right approach. The chapter emphasizes that creating a million-dollar brand isn’t about quick hacks or solutions. Instead, it’s about understanding the process and recognizing what to focus on. The speaker promises an honest discussion without oversimplifying the journey to brand success.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Sharing My Journey to a Million-Dollar Brand In this chapter, the author shares insights and personal experiences on building a million-dollar brand, aiming to provide value not just for e-commerce brands but for brands in general. They focus on identifying uncommon, non-tactical factors that are essential for brand success, emphasizing the importance of skill sets in achieving business milestones.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Skill Set Clarity and Its Importance In this chapter titled 'Skill Set Clarity and Its Importance', the speaker emphasizes the significance of understanding and defining one's skill sets clearly. The focus is on having the right mindset and vision as a founder, which can accelerate success and help avoid common pitfalls. By the end of the session, the goal is for the audience to feel empowered and realize that achieving their objectives may not be as difficult as they initially perceived.
• 02:30 - 04:00: Finding Your Unique Strengths This chapter emphasizes the importance of identifying and being clear about one’s skill set to effectively find and leverage unique strengths. It suggests that understanding your skills paves a clearer path towards achieving goals in an efficient manner, by focusing on what you are uniquely good at—your 'one thing'.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Creating a Supportive Environment This chapter discusses the journey of an entrepreneur who has been in the field for around 8 to 10 years. The speaker admits to trying out several different avenues at the start of their career, including Amazon FBA, copywriting, Facebook ads, and landing page creation. The theme revolves around embracing the exploratory phase in entrepreneurship, acknowledging that experimenting with various opportunities is a natural part of the path to eventually finding one's niche or creating a supportive business environment.
• 05:00 - 05:30: The Power of Complementary Teams The chapter titled 'The Power of Complementary Teams' revolves around the speaker's personal experience in understanding their strengths and preferences. The speaker emphasizes the importance of identifying tasks that not only align with one's skills but also bring joy and garner positive feedback from clients or colleagues. It suggests that this self-discovery phase is crucial and should not be rushed, although there is a caution against being in a perpetual cycle of self-assessment without action.
• 09:00 - 11:00: The Role of Vision in Success The chapter 'The Role of Vision in Success' emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and understanding one's strengths. It suggests creating an environment that enhances and utilizes these strengths, which is a critical component of achieving success. The narrative underscores knowing oneself and focusing on areas where one excels as a strategy for success.
• 12:00 - 14:00: Unlearning and Learning for Growth The chapter "Unlearning and Learning for Growth" discusses the importance of leveraging one's best skills for personal and professional growth. By creating a supportive environment, individuals can maximize their potential. The skills highlighted could range from communication, motivation, and understanding customer needs to specific talents like copywriting.
• 14:30 - 16:00: Summary and Key Takeaways The chapter emphasizes the importance of enjoying one's work and going beyond the required effort, stating that when you enjoy what you do, it doesn't feel like work. The author highlights a personal affinity for understanding target audiences and crafting messages that convey value, emphasizing the necessity to hone one's skills. Key takeaways include the importance of loving what you do, understanding your audience, and continuously improving your skill set to provide real value to others.

I built a $1M brand (here's what it REALLY takes) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 is the hardest thing to do and at the same time the easiest thing to do if you know how it's done and what to look for So in the next couple of minutes I don't want to you know gaslight you about that it's so easy and you only need to follow these three hacks and within the next couple of days you will be there and you will have a million dollar brand That's not what I'm going to do because that
• 00:30 - 01:00 would be a lie What I want you to take away and what I want to share from my own experiences of getting to a million and even five million with my e-commerce brands but this is really for brands in general is what should you look for and what are the mo most likely uncommon things um that are not so tactical but they're are more about you know your skill set the
• 01:00 - 01:30 people you work with your mindset uh your vision as a founder um that I think will really help you to get there faster right and get there with not all the mistakes that I have done so the very first thing So by the end of the video I want you to you know go out of this video and really have the feeling of okay it's not as hard as I thought It's
• 01:30 - 02:00 still going to be hard but at least I I have I see a path and I know the sequence of things that I have to look for in order to get there in the most you know efficient way possible let's say So the very first thing I would say is really to be clear about your skill set Get clear about your skill set and and make sure that you find your one thing
• 02:00 - 02:30 And this is something that took me a long time I'm doing uh I'm an entrepreneur for what eight years almost 10 8 years nine years 10 years depending on how you define it And in the beginning it's normal you know you you try out a bunch of different things At least that was my that was my case right i I did Amazon FBA I did copywriting I did Facebook ads then I did landing page building Um all
• 02:30 - 03:00 sorts of crazy things Um but this helped me to figure out what I'm good at right and what um what I actually also enjoy doing and where clients or whoever I'm working with gives me positive feedback So this is a very important face and I don't want you to shortcut that At the same time there's the risk that at some point you're just doing
• 03:00 - 03:30 everything but not really you know knowing something really really well And this is what I've seen now looking back that that's one of the most important things to know yourself and know what you're good at and play to your strengths right so basically to create an environment and that would be my second point to create an environment where your strengths are getting
• 03:30 - 04:00 maximized right so you're essentially leveraging what you're best at um by the surrounding that you create for yourself okay so it's really it can be any skill right it could be that you're very good communicator you're great at motivating people it could be that you are good at copywriting right and you really understand like you're trying to understand customers and you're going
• 04:00 - 04:30 the extra mile there but it doesn't feel like work You know you just enjoy doing it and you're good at that So this is for example something that I'm very good at I love to understand who I'm selling to right i love to do research I love to um then also you know copyright and try to communicate whatever I'm offering the right way so that it gives value to other people So make sure to get your skill set right
• 04:30 - 05:00 and get clear on what you're really really good at Once you know that and this is a this is a process that you know for some people it's very fast for for some people it takes years like in my case but what's important then as the next step is that you make sure that you work with people that have complimentary skill sets to yours and this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs are struggling with for
• 05:00 - 05:30 example I I'm mentoring uh you know e-commerce founders you know on how to run their ads in-house how to build up their acquisition how to finally grow their brand to a million to 10 million a year And what I see often times is that you know they have a hard time understanding what their real value is what their real skill set is where they're like what only they can do and
• 05:30 - 06:00 where they're better than everybody else and then making sure that all the other things are done by people that have their genius zone in these you know in these different skill sets Because if you look at you know big big brands like Amazon Meta whatever you look at most likely you will see one person as the founder the glorified founder But when you take
• 06:00 - 06:30 a a closer look none of these businesses none of these brands were built by one person alone from start to finish It's not possible But these people were very very good at understanding what is their role and what is their genius zone and what are all the other things that they need in order to you know um essentially realize their vision Which is my last point right that brings it all together
• 06:30 - 07:00 And for that you need people that have same as you have your genius zone they have their genius zones in other parts of the business And as a group you will get there way way faster The important thing is that they are complimentary So for example with my business partners um we're in in one of my e-commerce brands We're doing over 900k a month now We started this brand a year ago a
• 07:00 - 07:30 little bit more than a year ago maybe 14 months And um we have very complimentary skill sets right i could have never ever done that by myself right because especially in an e-commerce there's so many different parts of the business supply chain Then you have uh you know the the paid ads the acquisition you have the retention part you have all the operations And I'm not good at most of that but
• 07:30 - 08:00 what I'm good at is making sure that our paid ads acquisition is profitable that we can scale And then obviously I sprinkle in whatever I know in the other parts but all the other parts the people that take care of that have their genius zones in those parts And that's where why we were able to scale so rapidly And this is why we will scale even more and even quicker going forward And that's the same thing that I
• 08:00 - 08:30 teach you know other founders But I had to go through a lot of pain and you know failed projects where I did not respect that So this is the second thing that I would you know share with you and and give you that you really look for who are what are the other things that I have to do in order to become a $1 million brand $10 million brand whatever your goal is And
• 08:30 - 09:00 then how do I make sure that I get these people right get people that are in their genius zones working alongside of me The third thing then is and this is a big one is essentially what is your vision what is your ultimate goal like what do you see in the brand and I give you an example I see you know I'm coaching brand owners every single week
• 09:00 - 09:30 and I've had the situation a couple of times now where I have basically two brand owners and you could say they're fairly equal when it comes to their development when when it comes to their like profits and and revenue yet three to six months down the line one founder is crushing it Right so for example went from like 12K a month to
• 09:30 - 10:00 300K a month right amazing Yet on the other hand you have the other founder that started with the same base but is still maybe at the same pace or let's say double triple but it's not a 10x 20x growth So what I'm asking myself when I see that is okay what's the difference because they're pretty equal when I look at the data let's say but what's the
• 10:00 - 10:30 difference is most of the times the vision of the founder and therefore also then the mindset of the founder what's important and this is this is something that I you know I'm I'm continuing to learn and I'm continuing to remind myself of that is that going 10x is not necessarily harder than setting your goals uh 2x right there's actually an amazing book uh which is called 10x is easier than 2x
• 10:30 - 11:00 Highly recommend you reading that And um essentially you know if you let's say your goal is to um become a $1 million brand and you're making 100K right now the path to the $1 million is not necessarily harder than the part path to 200,000 right so to double you will always have problems You will always have customer complaints You will always
• 11:00 - 11:30 have products that launch and fail at any given level But the difference is just when your vision is that high and and you have a north star like hitting a million a month hitting 5 million a month hitting 10 million a month whatever it is hitting 100k per month Um this really helps you to essentially decide okay what is actually important
• 11:30 - 12:00 to set the priorities and this is the difference right if your goal is just to double then your mind will try to optimize things that you've done up until now right so you're you're in this optimization uh you know mindset which doesn't get you really far in my in my experience right this is just like trying to make something that is working okay a little bit better but
• 12:00 - 12:30 this is not what gets you huge jumps when it comes to the revenue the profit of your brand So the way to think about it is really when when you when you decide and when you set that vision to 10x to 20x whatever it is in your case um let's say it's for for your brand and you want to get to a million a month or a million a year first of all you will have to stop doing 80% of
• 12:30 - 13:00 what you're doing that got you to the point where you're at and learn So basically unlearn the stuff that got you here and learn the new skills that you need to know to get to the next level And this is something that you know took me some time and what I see like a lot of times when I coach founders and um I obviously tell them and I tell you now
• 13:00 - 13:30 also think big think big because the path like the effort the grind and you're an entrepreneur so you know exactly what I'm talking about The the sleepless nights the um late night sessions like the one that I'm doing right now um they're not going to go away This is the same If your goal is 2x or 10x it doesn't change So set the higher goal
• 13:30 - 14:00 and then be open to unlearn what got you to this point Right so one big thing and that's actually the whole video that I shared with you right now is I had to unlearn to do everything by myself right to try to uh you know be good at every single thing I had to unlearn that to get to the next level right to to then understand oh it's actually actually not
• 14:00 - 14:30 harder but I'm just doing different things right and in that case I'm finding other people that are uh that have complimentary skill sets so I can do what I do best more right so it's actually easier if you think like that It's easier it's more fun and um and the results speak for themselves So this this is really the last point Make sure
• 14:30 - 15:00 that you are clear on your vision because this is something that you know keeps a lot of entrepreneurs in general in the hamster wheel right um the vision is just not big enough because they think that the bigger the goal the bigger the effort which is not true which is which sounds weird but it's at least that's what what I experienced and um what I also learn from from mentors uh all the time So yeah to to summarize
• 15:00 - 15:30 I think to get your brand to a million a month or a million a year whatever your goal is make sure that you're clear on your skill set What are you good at double down on that Create a setting in which you can do what you do best all the time and you have other people that take care of the rest and they have
• 15:30 - 16:00 their genius zones in that space This is the fastest most efficient most fun way I've discovered to get brands to a million a month Uh get them to 10 million a year A million a year Um so yeah that's what I do in in my e-commerce brands uh which are doing uh over 900k per month combined And this this month actually we're going to hit the million a month
• 16:00 - 16:30 You can check out the rest of my channel I have more tactical videos Um but I wanted to I wanted to share this uh you know non-tactical more behind the scenes uh video so that you see that it's uh yeah it's not necessarily harder um or as hard as you think if you respect these three principles that I shared with you So yeah um I hope that was helpful and um I let me know in the in
• 16:30 - 17:00 the comments super curious what what your experiences are and um yeah make sure to follow these three steps and um and let me know how it worked out So see you in the next one Take care