Mark Wills [00:00:00]:

You know, 75,000 people have paid for for my online course. I have 11,000 people currently in a in a notary mentorship group. And and I say that because everyone always asks me how did I do it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:11]:

Welcome to the creator's adventure where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about Growing a business. Today's guest has had over 75,000 people pay for his online course, and you'll wanna hear what he says to do if you wanna grow in 2024. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. We're here today with Mark Wills. He is one of the highest producing notary loan signing agents in the US, the owner of a national loan signing service, A best selling author and the course instructor of Loan Signing System.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:50]:

He's taken everything he learned in the Nearly 20 years of being a top producing notary and created a step by step system anyone can apply to make money As a notary signing agent. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Wills [00:01:03]:

Man, thank you for having me. So glad to be here, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:07]:

Yeah. So my first question for you is, what is the biggest thing that you did or are doing that helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Mark Wills [00:01:17]:

Helping other humans. I mean, without the ability to help other humans, I wouldn't be in the position I am today. And so, you know, when I set set out day 1 with the with the notary training course, it was to make sure that I can teach another notary how to feed their families and how to make sure their families got what they need. And so, the way I got where I am today is by really focusing on just transformation of other people, and I always tell people it's the truest win win. My family wins with a very, you know, good revenue business, but more importantly, I get to help other families. And so focusing on transformations is really how I got where I am today.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:51]:

Awesome. Yeah. I love that. And, that's a a really big motivator for me as well in my business The online course software. Building online courses, helping other people learn, helping other people earn money.

Mark Wills [00:02:03]:

Mhmm.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:03]:

It's really a fulfilling thing to do. And, ultimately, I think it's important for have some kind of goal in your business where the fulfillment is beyond The money that you can earn from it. Well, if I can if we can rip off that point,

Mark Wills [00:02:17]:

you know, I've I've built a pretty big, you know, online, community. I mean, I have 75,000 people who have paid for for my online course. I have 11,000 people currently in a in a notary mentorship group, and and I say that because everyone always asks me how did I do it? And the answer was I only focused on helping 1 human. And I think a lot of people come into online course, because they see the big money. And they're really focused on, oh, I can monetize my knowledge versus saying I can help another human. And so to your point, I love that you're you're you're the same way I've built my business, and that's really focusing on the helping of the human, not the money. If you focus on helping a human, then I believe the money always comes. And so people always ask me, Mark, how'd you build this? And I said, look, I only cared about helping 1 other notary.

Mark Wills [00:03:00]:

If I can help 1 notary, I know I can help a second. I know I can help a third one. So I think a lot of people enter this this industry with the end in mind of money, not the end of mind of transformation, someone taking your course. And so if we can if I can really help someone today really realize that the money comes from transformation because nothing better than social proof in our business. Doesn't matter how smart you are. It matters can how smart you are. Can you help somebody else? And so my my my notary course can help people. And and that's what leads me to to making sure I'm so passionate and and wake up every single day and do what I do.

Mark Wills [00:03:28]:

So I love that you're on the same path as that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:31]:

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I love to hear that because I always say that you want your course, your product to get people results. That's all That's right. That's what keeps them around. That's what helps everything move forward. And you see people that they they come up all of a sudden.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:44]:

You you hear about this person. They're selling something, and all of a sudden, they disappear. That's right. And you wonder, like, is that are they not really getting people the results that they're looking for? So well, I think that once that

Mark Wills [00:03:57]:

you know, I'll take one step further, man. You know? I don't know where people are in their online course journey, but there's gonna be a point where you gotta do paid and paid traffic is only going up. You know what? I pay now for a Facebook ad. What I paid versus 7 years ago is exponentially different. And so I yeah. Right? It's crazy. So I tell anyone who who asked me for advice is the way to offset future increase in digital marketing costs is by getting referrals. And the only way you get referrals is if your product works.

Mark Wills [00:04:23]:

And so what I tell a lot of people is your current customer is your best revenue generator. Because if they tell 3 people, you've now offset the cost for your Google Ad click. Right? You've now offset the cost for your YouTube, pre roll ad. And so it it again, I think people are lost in this, like, oh, Mark, teach me how to, you know, what's your digital funnel look like? And I said, it starts with actually helping somebody, because that how it lowers my my ROAS. And then I don't and I think that's lost on people is your best salesperson is someone you've transformed. Your best salesperson isn't how sophisticated my 3 part funnel is, and isn't how sophisticated your email is. It's can my product actually help? My product helps people. I can help someone make money.

Mark Wills [00:05:02]:

And I and I know I can help someone make money because I I put everything into that, where I find a lot of people who try to put everything into the digital funnel. And it says you're backwards, man. Put everything into your course. Put everything you got. Well, Mark, I bought Russell Brunson. I bought so, Bronson, I buy

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:16]:

you get that perfect with that complicated funnel, you get somebody to buy. You got 1 person to buy. Whereas the other guy Right. Who didn't have that complicated process, they got somebody to buy, and they were so happy with the result they got. They went and told 3 friends.

Mark Wills [00:05:29]:

That's exactly right. And so, yes. And, you know, like, I I love this conversation because if that clicks, then you'll change your life in someone else's, and that's the true win win in this business, you know. And so, you know, I said my notary course works and and why? Because I literally put 18 months into the course. People don't see that. People say, Omar, you know, you're you have 11,000 paying monthly subscribers. What they don't see is the 1st 2 years. All they focus was on the course, not the digital funnel.

Mark Wills [00:05:54]:

I focused on getting it better and getting feedback and getting it better and feedback. And so now people see and go, Mark, what you know, what'd you do to get here? And I'm like, I focused on my product. I focused on transformation.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:05]:

Awesome. Well, yeah, I'm so glad to hear that because, I I love to hear when creators really focus on the product like that. And that's Exactly how I think about everything as we're we're finding out with each other here. But for those watching and listening, I didn't know this about Mark beforehand. We're just getting to meet each other now. So, I'm, glad that we get to connect over that. So you've built a highly successful career as a notary loan signing agent. For our listeners who may not be really familiar with that, could you explain a little bit what exactly a notary does? And then Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:35]:

How did you become one of the top producers in the country?

Mark Wills [00:06:38]:

Yeah, so and so a lot of people a lot of people hear the word notary, and they think to themselves like receptionist, you know, at a law firm. They think to themselves, oh, $2, per stamp. What a lot of people don't realize is mortgage closings in America cannot close without a notary. And those notaries watching someone sign their loan documents literally make $150 per appointment, these appointments rarely take more than an hour. And so what I have done, and I build a really good career within the notary space, but then I'm like, hey. Why am I not helping other people do this? And so the way I built my online course and my notary business is really being hyper focused on the customer experience. And so, you know, what I love about business is business is business is business. If you can build an insurance company, you can build a restaurant.

Mark Wills [00:07:18]:

You can build a restaurant. You can build a, you know, online course. And once you understand the principles of business and it's really over over delivering, you can really build anything. And so in my notary business, you know, I focused on every real estate agent and how I can accept exceed their expectations. I would make a $150 per appointment. It just takes simple math. You do 2 or 3 appointments a day. I was making a $150 a year as a 25 year old.

Mark Wills [00:07:40]:

I was, like, blown away. And so then all my friends were blown away. They're like, man, I'm still struggling as a bartender. Can you teach me? And so in the beginning, it was just very innocent where I was just like, look. I'm making this money in the real estate, notary real estate niche. Let me teach you. And so then from teaching other friends, you know, my business partner was actually like, let's take this nationwide and try to help everybody. And so, a lot of people don't realize that every real estate transaction in America, a notary is needed to be hired, and they actually don't charge per signature.

Mark Wills [00:08:09]:

They charge for the service of walking someone through their loan documents. You don't need a college education. You don't need any experience. You don't need any real estate experience. You can learn all that. And so that's why my course has been so successful because, you know, you I can take somebody who's an Uber driver, a stay at home mom, someone looking for a side hustle. I'm like, look. Real estate agents need a notary.

Mark Wills [00:08:27]:

Here's what you gotta say to get that notary that that real estate agent to use you, and I've been able to find a pre reproducible, digital funnel to help get more people to change their lives. But, yeah, it was just a very organic. I'm crushing it as a notary. Well, my buddies were like, I wanna crush it. And then one of my buddies that just clicked, well, why aren't we taking this online? And you you can help more people than just, you know, the 8 buddies I've helped. So it was a really cool stair step of me trying to figuring out the old school way, you know, failing, learning, failing, learning, then teaching my friends from don't do what I did. This is how you exit. So, I mean, I have so many students today.

Mark Wills [00:09:02]:

I have some students making $1,000,000 a year. Wow. And then I yeah. With the notary replacement business, and then I have actual signing agents. I have more than I can count making 6 figures a year. And so, you know, part of the online screwing this back to your audience, Brian, is you know, it's really about trying to find a reproducible system. And that's what I found with with what I do, and that's why that course is so successful. It's it's a really reproducible through social proof.

Mark Wills [00:09:29]:

But, yeah, man. That's how it started. I was, kinda lost out of college, got a notary. My buddy's like my buddy's a realtor. He's like, dude, these notaries are making a $150 a pop. You should be doing the same thing. I'm like, say what? And he's like, yeah. And so then I realized that real estate agents, loan officers, escrow sort of hire notaries every day, and here we are, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an interesting example that a lot of especially beginner entrepreneurs have this, Suffer from the the grass is always greener syndrome Yes. And always think, oh, somebody said I can do this and I can make money or or do this. And I think this is a an interesting example. Like, didn't know a notary could make that much money and be that successful. And, like so, really, whatever it is that you start working on, eventually, there's a way to make significant money in it. So Rather than jump back and forth, just keep working on it, keep learning it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:18]:

And, like, as as you did, now not only did you become so experienced in making all that money from doing it, but now you can teach other people and impact them as well.

Mark Wills [00:10:27]:

Yeah. No. You you said it so perfectly. And and what what I had a little imposter syndrome in the beginning of my course. It is I'm like, I'm a random notary in San Diego. Right? I I'm doing well myself, but I'm like, why would this person in the middle of Tennessee take a course for me when I'm just at random notary, you know, in San Diego? And and then what I realized is, you know, a 4th grader is a rock star to a 3rd grader. Meaning that, like, you know, I just need to know a little bit more than someone I can help. And that's when my impostor syndrome went away.

Mark Wills [00:10:58]:

I was like, look. I don't need to I may not be this, you know, a teacher of somebody for 90 years. I'm someone who has a skill set, and I can teach that skill set to someone who doesn't have it. And so once I got kind of over that imposter syndrome, realized that, like, I can help other humans by just knowing a little bit more than them. And then it's tried and tested, and and and now, you know, it's still the limit, man. I will I I go on podcast like yours and trying to try to help everybody I can whether it's making money as a notary or or someone starting the 1st online course, so I can give value in both of those. I just wanted to see everybody win.

Bryan McAnulty [00:11:29]:

Yeah. Yeah. We saw how you mentioned on your website, that loan signing system has become a top 1% online course in America. Yeah, What would you say are some marketing strategies that you kinda be effective for promoting that? Because I imagine or may maybe there's similarities, but I imagine the the way that you promote that is different than The notary business itself.

Mark Wills [00:11:50]:

Yeah. No. It's a Heights and day different, frankly. But, you know, here's what I'll tell every new online course grader. I doubt it doesn't matter if you're at half $1,000,000 a year is social proof is your best friend. And so what I think a lot of Nuke online course creators, the mistake they make is they're trying to make money in the beginning instead of creating and gathering social proof. Because you should be giving your course away for free in exchange for a testimonial or transformation, some proof that you can Platform, I get hit up all the time. Mark, you know, I I wanna send $1,000 for a course.

Mark Wills [00:12:22]:

I'm like, we can get a whole I I take it course. I have an opinion on the high ticket courses. We can get to that later. But, you know, they're more focused on, like, trying to monetize out of the gate. And I'm, like, how are you gonna get someone to give you $1,000 if you haven't shown you can help 20 people transform their lives and whatever it is? And so to answer your question, it's my complete funnel was about social proof. It's it's I get social proof from every single class a student of mine, and I wanted collected from different people from different walks of life. I want people to see yourself in the person they're listening to. So another mistake people do is they get social proof right out the gate, and they forget to keep collecting it.

Mark Wills [00:13:00]:

But I want someone of all ethnicities, all ages, all backgrounds. You know, I want former firefighters, former police officers, former teachers. You know? I want someone who's 18. I want someone who's 70. I want who is black, white, Asian, Latina. So I'm constantly in this social because I need somebody to see themselves in that person. So to answer your question, I've hyper focused on collecting social proof, but not just to collect it. There's also a lot of intention behind who I'm collecting it from.

Mark Wills [00:13:27]:

And so I marketed my business through my my product actually working. I can help you make be make money as a notary. I'm uber confident in that. So in the beginning, I just wanted to get it out people's hands. Can you take my course? Can you get results from it? And once you get results, can you just give me a video testimonial back? And I think of all my course creators focused information. The money follows. So that's the that's your answer, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:54]:

Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I do think that There are some creators who you tell them, you know what? You should give it away for free in the beginning. You should make it really cheap. Just try to help people get that social proof. And I think there's some that will listen to that, and they go along with it. And they say, yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:10]:

You know, that all makes sense, but they don't Really go as far as you're telling them to.

Mark Wills [00:14:16]:

That's right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:16]:

And I think they they worry that they're they're not really thinking from abundance, and they're thinking, like, I'm gonna use up all my clients and and then give it away for free. And, like, you will get so many more clients when you get those testimonials rather than just convincing, like, the couple, like, 100 in your email list right now.

Mark Wills [00:14:35]:

Well, I'm gonna say something that might might Heights, bummed online course community out. But here's the truth. Information is commoditized in 2024. You can go to chat GPT and be like, teach me how to lose Heights, teach me how you know, give me a a nutritional plan based upon my being a vegan and allergic to fish, and it'll give you the best meal plan in the history of meal plans. Right? The truth is someone could go on the Internet and be like, oh, notary. How do you make money as a notary? But but what I think people need to understand in 2024 if you're building an online course is you gotta build a community. And so Yep. Part of the social proof is creating a community as my point.

Mark Wills [00:15:10]:

So I have 11,000 community members. They're not students. They're community members. And I actually have 70,000. We're LSS nation like we recognize. And so I think what people need to understand when you're building a course is very few times will people buy information in 2024. What they will buy is a movement. What they will buy is a community.

Mark Wills [00:15:29]:

What they will buy is support. And my my my course has transitioned over the years. It used to be just information. Now it's community. I have 11,000. I have free community meetups all over the country because I understand the importance of making someone feel like they're seen, heard, and and part of something bigger than them. And so people go, Mark, well, how do you have such a, you know, a large subscription basis? Because it's a community, man. I I give you can find out how to do notary stuff on the Internet, but you feel alone.

Mark Wills [00:15:56]:

Right? You're gonna wanna have a question answered, and you wanna find someone who looks like you, feels like you, and and is next to you in geographic location. And that's what I really focus on ladder, and currently as my my course is still growing. It's community, community, community, and if I can get to know any online course creator listening right now, like, you should be more focused on trying to create a per community. And by the way, you get that through social proof. Right, you get people different walks. Oh, man. A Mark's community is so amazing. If you go on my website, it's all about Mark's community.

Mark Wills [00:16:26]:

And I always tell people, I'm just 1 person of 11 so, man, I I am not I am the least coolest part of my community. It is the members that make it amazing. And so,

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:35]:

you know, like Well, I mean, that's exactly it. So I completely agree that you're 100% right there. You have to make that community because, like, that can't be replaced by ChatCBT. Right. Because that's the the connection with all these other people who are like minded, who are doing the same thing, who are all working towards that same goal. Heights. And you just touched on it there that the value is not just you. It's the whole community and everybody in it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:59]:

And so you could actually not even be there anymore, And it could just be everybody else, and it still has all that value.

Mark Wills [00:17:05]:

Right. And, you know, and it goes back to my beginning statement with you, man. If people would put themselves here's I mean, I don't know if you read this before, but the best marketers have the characteristic of being empathetic. And so the best marketers are truly the most has the most empathy. And not of us have empathy. Right? As I believe empathy is a skill. But my point is if you put yourself in the shoe of who you're trying to transform, ask yourself what do they need to succeed? That's being empathetic. Like, what do they need? And if you really think about it, they need community.

Mark Wills [00:17:35]:

They don't need information. They need people to know that if they're down, like, someone can bring them back up. And so I I and, again, when it comes being empathetic, the the the the movement, the transformation has to be bigger than money. And it's not about money with me. It's about, you know, I have a pretty massive online course. I still do in the new student webinars. People are mark you have 75 1,000 students, and you still get on every Wednesday, and you talk to new students. Absolutely.

Mark Wills [00:18:05]:

Because it's not about me. It's about them. Like, I would be so appalled if I paid somebody money and I don't actually get to talk to them. And so it's because I'm empathetic. And so if I can and and it's because I actually it's not about the money. It's about transformation. It's about helping another human. And I think the online course industry is so unbelievable because the in this time in history, we can share our our experience like no other time in history.

Mark Wills [00:18:31]:

And if we share it with your heart being first, money always follows. But I get people like, Mark, I wanna charge $5 for a course. The fact you're even thinking about money tells me you're gonna fail, because I get it all the time. I'm Anna Mark. I do oh my god. I am so good at x y z. Do you think this is a $5,000 product? And I'm like, dude, I you've lost already. You gotta be in for the human aspect of trying to help and transform.

Mark Wills [00:18:54]:

And when that happens, you know, I have 75,000 people take your course in 7 years. Right, and it's it's really speaking to them from an empathetic standpoint. I I've been in your shoes, and I wanna help you through whatever you're going through. So if if an online course creator has really dive into that and I tell this to my students, it's actually not relative to being an online course. If you're a business owner, my my my students are notaries. And you're talking to realtors. Be empathetic to the realtor. Like, what does the realtor need out of you to help their family? And so this thing of empathy, if you really get to that level of your clients, like, you'll make a ton of money because you're changing a ton of people's lives.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:33]:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And, like, for me, like, I a lot of people say, like, oh, I wanna, like, not have to deal with my customers. I wanna I wanna just make all the money, and I agree that's the wrong way to look at it. For me, I actually spend more time in our support ticket inbox than my own personal inbox. So I don't check my personal email. I have an assistant to check that because it's people trying to sell me something or something like this.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:56]:

But the support inbox, that's my customers. That's the people I care about. I wanna make sure that I'm serving them to the best of my abilities. So that's where I actually spend more of my time

Mark Wills [00:20:04]:

when it comes to the phone. And your your your community is lucky to have you, man, because there's not a lot of people who really have that what I carve a heartfelt business. And so it's beautiful that your community have you, man. So there's a lot of online course creators out there who are just in it for the money. And so when I meet someone else who just realizes that it's about human transformation, it's a beautiful thing, man. So I'm I'm definitely glad our paths have crossed, brother.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate that. So you touched earlier on Facebook ads and online advertising continuously getting more expensive. What do you think is is the best place for a creator in 2024 to advertise if they're gonna start with paid advertising?

Mark Wills [00:20:42]:

YouTube I mean, YouTube, as you know and your audience probably knows, is the 2nd largest search engine. But what I love about YouTube is you still don't have to pay unless they interact or watch for a certain time. So you can still get branding across for free. I don't think a lot of people realize that. Right? So if you they they if you do a pre roll ad and they don't click or if they don't, watch a certain amount of time. You don't pay a dime for it. And so I think YouTube is one of the best ways to get free branding and also your best our ROAS because if they click, they're actually you've you've really filtered out the the intent. They're like, wow.

Mark Wills [00:21:15]:

They're clicking because they wanna know more. And so I think YouTube is is is a great place to start. But here's what I would tell people is, the actually, everyone always asks me about this too, and I tell people you your the main focus an online course creator should have is building an email list, period. And so, you know, I have a 300,000 opt in email list. So my main thing is how do I build an email list, not necessarily how do I run ads. And I think, again, I think people are looking for that quick answer, if I run an ad, they're gonna buy a course, and you really have to have a nurture process. Right? And so, you know, not to take a right turn on your answer, but I really think the key is to to getting an email list and then nurture in the email list. And what we do, you know, is, we use paid ads mainly as a way to retarget or nurture through the through the purchase.

Mark Wills [00:22:04]:

And so we don't really use, paid ads is top of the funnel because it's so difficult to discern that. Right? So, we usually really use our paid ad, and we do we do we have a hefty paid paid traffic, but it's usually in more of a nurture standpoint than a top of the funnel, if that makes sense.

Bryan McAnulty [00:22:22]:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And the email list is super important. Like, As a creator, I would say social media following, whatever platform it is, it's almost completely irrelevant if it's not directly contributing to the email

Mark Wills [00:22:35]:

that's correct.

Bryan McAnulty [00:22:36]:

You could have a social platform that's not actually growing, but if your email list is growing in the background, however that's happening, that's all that should really matter.

Mark Wills [00:22:43]:

That's Correct. That's correct. I mean, you should have, you know, the best way. Everybody always ask me what's the best way to get, you know, emails, and I'm, you know, in the industry, they call it a trip wire. Right, I like to call the value offer. And so the best way to have a your your value offer has to hurt you to give away. And so, you know, how do I get 300,000 people? I'm like, it hurts. I'm like, oh, god.

Mark Wills [00:23:05]:

They don't need to buy my course, but that's when you know the value is so good, they're gonna exchange an email for the value. And so I think a lot of times, you know, early online course creators think that, you know, by giving too much away, no one's gonna buy anything, but it's 2024, dude. Anything you anything you have here, they can get for free. So you just gotta be the person who can explain it the best in a way that connects with them. And so if you go to my value in fact, I encourage everyone go to loan signing system calm, go to opt in. You know what I mean? See what it is. You know? Look at my 48 person email drip. Like, kind of emulate what I've done.

Mark Wills [00:23:37]:

I mean, the the the system's right there. We do a 5 plus one. It's it's so what that means is we do 5 emails of value, and then 6 one's a sales email. So we actually don't ask for any money for 2 weeks where a lot of people go like, oh, here's a great email. Here's a great ad copy. Click here for, you know, for a 30 day trial. We don't even touch that. We wanna give you value value value then ask you, like, hey.

Mark Wills [00:24:04]:

Here you go. If you need some more help getting through this, you know, buy buy you know, we'd love to have a part of the LSS nation. So, yeah, I mean, we the the value offer is is the most important thing, and it should hurt giving it away.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:17]:

Yeah. That's great advice. For For somebody launching a course this year, this is their 1st course ever, should they be building that first in your opinion, or should they build, like, the flagship product first?

Mark Wills [00:24:28]:

Well, the very first thing you should do is build a product that transforms and gather social proof because your email should have your social proof. Your your your paid ad should be your social proof. Your, b roll on YouTube should have social proof. The number 1 thing that makes people buy something is social proof. That that goes almost without saying, I hope, your audience. Like, no one's gonna buy something fake. You they don't believe you can transform them by seeing other people being transformed. So the very first thing people should be doing is making their product unbelievable, then collecting social proof.

Mark Wills [00:24:58]:

And then all that social proof goes into your massive funnel. People create these funnels without a social proof. I'm like, no one's gonna buy anything. Because how do they believe you've helped somebody else? And so the first thing in my opinion is create your course, and then get social proof, and then those social proof should be based around your whatever your funnel like.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:16]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it's all about, like, show, don't tell. Like, you could go ahead and explain all about the benefits of

Mark Wills [00:25:22]:

That's right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:23]:

Whatever it is that your program's gonna offer, but you could also just show, like, look. Here's the result. Here's what I did for this person and this person, And that speaks so much louder.

Mark Wills [00:25:32]:

Yeah. The classic adage is facts tell story sell. Like, you should be telling stories all day. You know, you like, you just said, as facts tell. So, you know, just because your car goes 0 to 60 in 2 seconds, that's the facts. The story is you get this new car, you're gonna get a hot check. And so what's gonna sell? The fact it goes 0 to 60, or are you gonna get a you're gonna get a great date? And so facts tell story sells. You gotta be sharing stories, man, and your stories need to be a real transformation.

Mark Wills [00:25:57]:

The only thing I focused on was helping notaries in the 1st 2 years. Nothing else mattered. I knew if I could help other notaries, they would be my best sales force, and I get enough social proof to help the rest of the world, the rest of the country. And so, again, I think new online course credits have a backwards dude. Don't worry about the money. Worry about their transformation and and the and the funnel won't be built off the transformation.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:19]:

Yeah. That's great. I'm curious. Is there anything maybe different from what you've already mentioned that in the course of building all of this That you only realized after, I don't know, much longer than you you would've wanted to. Yeah. And, that this was actually the right way to do it when it came to Promoting this business.

Mark Wills [00:26:38]:

Yeah. I mean, what we what we learned and we need to constantly remind ourselves is SEO is one of the best with free ways to offset paid traffic costs. And I think a lot of people I'll speak for me me and my team, you know, it's a constant reminding of ourselves, SEO, are the blogs updated? Can we still drop traffic through just people doing good old fashioned search? That is free. And there's it's there's talk to be free. You know what I mean? And so, you know, what we say now is constantly remember SEO is still a very good free traffic source. And so making sure that we don't forget about people typing into Google, Yahoo, Bing. We do them all, by the way. We run paid ads on Yahoo, Bing, and and at Google.

Mark Wills [00:27:20]:

So we're not just focused on Google. But what I will say is, you know, really remembering that SEO is king. That's what we always say inside our our team meetings is remember SEO is king. And so it's really reminding us that SEO is kind of the the highway and everything else or exit off of it. Right? So our you know, but it's the SEO is the Heights and reminding ourselves of that, is something that we constantly need to do, in our marketing meetings internally. And then I maybe that helps somebody else here because it's you can't beat free. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so forgetting about

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:51]:

those who, who are wanting to get started with that, do you happen to know the numbers of, like, how many blogs you guys have published or published per week or per month?

Mark Wills [00:28:01]:

Hundreds. We have hundreds of blogs. And so yeah. I mean, it's and it's reminding ourselves we still need new ones because Google ranks for new new blogs posted. And and so it's a constant battle of reminding ourselves that just because we're on top of notary, may if you type in notary notary loan signing agent or number 1, but it sometimes you forget that if you get stagnant that Google penalizes you. And the next notary training course behind me is making massive blogs to, like, rank up Heights because free is free. And so it it is really reminding ourselves that we try to do 2 or 3 blog posts a week every week and just really focus on the, you know, the 20%, not the 80. Which brings me to another point is, you know, which I teach my students is, I think online course creators focus on the 80, not the 20.

Mark Wills [00:28:43]:

I mean, the percent of things that really gonna sell your course and and lead to transformation is all you need to worry about. Too many time, all my course creators are worried about the 80. Oh, my lighting's not perfect, bro. Your lighting is not gonna be determined whether you transform somebody or not. It's the information inside that. And so it's focusing on the 20. And for us, the 20 is always reminding yourself SEO is is is king, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:03]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great advice. And I've heard people say about, oh, well, there's ChatChiPT now. Don't worry about Google anymore. But, like, I can attest to, like, the majority of the Internet, they're still searching on Google all the time.

Mark Wills [00:29:14]:

All the time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:15]:

Like, there's there's so much traffic that you can capture from that. The the one thing is, like, it does take time to to build that up, so you should start that now. But it's really fulfilling. Like, we've gotten to the point now with our blog that We post something, and then the next day, like, we're getting trials from that article. And it used to be, like, you start off, and then it's like, hope something happens with this in 3 months. And but you've just gotta keep at it. And then eventually, Google starts to recognize, oh, okay. This person, they're really a publisher.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:43]:

They're publishing this Content starts to figure out all of that, and then it's just free traffic that keeps on coming from all of those posts that you've written.

Mark Wills [00:29:51]:

Yeah, I mean, look. And there's, like, I'm sure maybe people read books, but if not, let me just kinda give a little advice. So your blog post should have videos, and videos could make them stay on the page longer. The videos, if it's to YouTube, it may go back to your YouTube channel. Now your video has more views. And now if someone's on YouTube, your video gets ranked higher because you have more views, and you artificially pumped up the views because you posted on a blog page. So every blog page should have a video. And and so everything should be working in concert.

Mark Wills [00:30:15]:

So it shouldn't be 1 or the other. It's like you have

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:17]:

a blog, turn it to

Mark Wills [00:30:17]:

the video. Your video should go on YouTube. YouTube should link back to your website. Your website should link back to your your trip your trip wire. And so when you realize that it's all everything works in concert is when the real digital marketing magic so many people just focus on the blog. I'm like, yo, show video up there, and that should be connected to your YouTube channel. And so when someone's going over to YouTube, you're now ranking higher than that because you've artificially increased that view through your blog. And then your your know your blogs, you're going out in your email.

Mark Wills [00:30:45]:

And so now you're getting you're driving traffic to your your blog page artificially through an email traffic. Now Google's gonna rank it because now your blog page is getting more lands. And so it's really makes sure everything works in concert. And so I hope that helped a little bit.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:59]:

Yeah. Definitely. Alright. Awesome. Well, 1 more question I have is on show, I like to ask every guest to ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience on anything, whether it's something you're curious about, something you wanna get Everybody thinking about what would that be?

Mark Wills [00:31:14]:

I I think it's the theme of everything we talked about is why are you creating an online course? Like, why? Is it so you can get rich or to help transform somebody? And I hope it's the latter. And because if it's the latter, your life will change. So, ask yourself, sit with yourself, why am I really doing this? Is it a money grab? Odds are you're not gonna crush it. Now you could, but when I say odds are you're not gonna crush it because what is gonna keep you through the late nights? Usually, money is not enough to make you do the 20 hour days, do the reshoot the 14 YouTube videos because you stumbled so much. But if your goal is transformation, you'll do it. And so, you know, my question to the audience is why? Why did you choose to be an online course creator? And hope today brought you value. Every day I wake up trying to give another human value, and hopefully today brought someone value, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:08]:

Awesome. Love it. Alright. Well, Mark, before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Mark Wills [00:32:12]:

Yeah. Loan signing system .com. It's loan signing system .com. My YouTube channel is, you know, 8,000,000 views on it. Go there if you want more, like, interactive information. Instagram loan signing system, TikTok, Mark Wills. So I'm all over the place. You can't I'm not hard to find in the notary niche.

Mark Wills [00:32:31]:

And if you're looking to make money in a side house you never heard of, being a notary could supplement your online course creation. So, thank you so much, Brian. It's a pleasure meeting another heartfelt, driven entrepreneur, and, I wish you nothing more luck. And if I can be of any value to you, brother, you have my email address, and, keep building, keep crushing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:49]:

Alright. Awesome. Sounds great, Mark. Alright, man.

Mark Wills [00:32:51]:

Talk to you soon. Later.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:53]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at the creator's adventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.