Thought Leadership Studio Podcast Episodes:
Exponential Business Growth with Mark Newsome
Episode 92 - Unlocking Hidden Revenue: The Power of Customer Lifetime Value, Strategic Upsells, and Jay Abraham-Inspired Marketing for Thought Leaders
#, #consulting, #contentmarketing, #emailmarketing, #entrepreneurship, #influence, #interviews, #jayabraham, #marketing, #marketingstrategy, #persuasion, #sales, #systemsthinking, #thoughtleadership, #thoughtleadershipmarketing
Or Click here to listen or subscribe on appWhat this episode will do for you
:- Mark Newsome’s Marketing Evolution: Learn how Mark transitioned from real estate investing to small business marketing, discovering innovative strategies for cash flow optimization.
- Jay Abraham’s Influence on Growth Strategies: Explore how Jay Abraham’s marketing principles shaped Mark’s approach and influenced the Thaut Process of Strategic Thought Leadership.
- The Power of Customer Lifetime Value: Understand why treating customers as long-term partners—not just one-time transactions—leads to exponential business growth.
- Leveraging Upsells and Cross-Promotions: Discover how small businesses can boost revenue by strategically offering complementary products and services.
- Owning Your Marketing Assets: Learn why relying solely on social media is risky and how building an email list provides long-term stability and control.
- Exponential Growth in the Digital Age: Uncover the three key levers of business growth—more customers, higher purchase frequency, and increased transaction value—and how to optimize them.
Mark Newsome.
In this episode, I’m excited to introduce *Mr. Marketing* himself, Mark Newsome, a small business marketing expert known for innovative, cash flow-boosting strategies.
We talk a lot about the strategies of a mutual influence, Jay Abraham, and how these timeless marketing strategies apply in the digital age, and how they connect to Strategic Thought Leadership.
Strategic Thought Leadership is largely about shifting perspectives to uncover hidden value, much like principles we discuss do, such as exponential growth. These ideas emphasize maximizing customer relationships, leveraging strategic partnerships, and optimizing hidden assets—key themes in Mark’s approach to marketing.
Mark and I explore how these classic strategies translate to today’s digital landscape, where businesses can scale faster than ever by combining email marketing, joint ventures, and customer lifetime value optimization. He breaks down the three levers of exponential growth—more customers, higher purchase frequency, and increased transaction value—offering practical ways to implement them now.
By the end of this episode, you’ll have actionable strategies to rethink your marketing, optimize cash flow, and apply proven thought leadership principles for sustainable, scalable success.
Some of Mark's coordinates:
Curated Transcript of Interview with Mark Newsome
The following partial transcript is lightly edited for clarity - the full interview is on audio. Click here to listen.
Chris McNeil: I'm your host of Thought Leadership Studio, Chris McNeil, and I have the pleasure today of sitting across Zoom with Mark Newsom, who is a seasoned small business marketing consultant, renowned for his innovative non-traditional strategies to boost cashflow with a wealth of expertise he has empowered numerous entrepreneurs to think outside the box and achieve remarkable growth. Great to have you here. Mark. Welcome.
Mark Newsome: It's my pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much again for inviting me and allowing me to share some time with you.
Chris McNeil: Fantastic. Well, to give our listener a little context, in case the listener's not already familiar with you and your work, was there a pivotal moment or a shift in circumstances or sudden awakening or awareness that set you on a path that's brought you to where you are today that you could share with the listener as a story to give them some context and background about where you're coming from?
Mark Newsome: Absolutely. Great question. Well, lemme give you the super condensed version, Chris. Sure. I started out in a niche of real estate investing called Paper. That's a fancy way, as you know, saying debt. And when the whole creative financing thing was exploding, when people would take back financing in order to sell their house because interest rates were too high or the buyer couldn't qualify. Those privately held notes, what we call paper could be sold or borrowed against and all kinds of other stuff.
The Pivot That Changed Everything
So a group of entrepreneurs started teaching workshops on a how to invest in paper, no money down creative finance or how to be what I became in essence a broker, a middleman who almost like a real estate agent. You'd go out, prospect, find these people who had these notes and you could help them either sell what's called a full or partial and the difference in the price.
Let's say you were the investor, you would give price a, we would take a little bit off for our fee and the paper holder would receive the difference. Well, long story short, I didn't know Chris then. I didn't know anything about marketing or promoting the industry was archaic. It was dinosaurs men. So I finally in desperation, started looking outside the industry and that's when I found the likes of legends like Dan Kennedy, direct response, marketing legend, Jay Abraham, the late, great Gary Howard, all these people.
So I finally started to learn how to promote and a good friend of mine, bill, who was in what they call a car paper business, in other words, when somebody financed a car, his company would sell those notes and get a percentage and he was rocking full guns and one day we're talking and he said, mark, listen man.
He said, I know you think this paper thing is the bomb. He said, but I promise you the average small business person in America, a service provider could use these strategies you talk about. I had never thought about it, Chris, and as I started to realize when I would walk into a local business, I said, man, this guy is right. They weren't doing any of this stuff. So I sort of pivoted and went into that and I've been going full guns ever since. I'm meeting people like yourself. It's just gotten better and better and more relevant now with AI and all this stuff.
It's just no end to it. So that's really like the super condensed story. And I became, since my first name with Mark, I ran with Mr. Marketing. There's several of us out there, but I just thought, Hey, that's kind of catchy and I'll go with that. And I've been learning and sharing and growing and trying to spread the word to small business owners that you don't have to waste all this money on what we call DOA Dead on Arrival traditional type advertising and marketing.
Chris McNeil: Totally agree with that. And I know those names you spoke of, especially Jay Abraham, I've been a fan of his for decades.
Mark Newsome: Absolutely.
Chris McNeil: And similarly I was in the fitness business and seeing how hardly anybody knew how to market effectively.
Mark Newsome: Exactly.
Chris McNeil: Especially, one thing I really like about Jay is is he markets from a customer advocacy standpoint.
Mark Newsome: Yes.
Chris McNeil: It's not about just how many people can you convert. It's about another kind of relationship that reveres the customer and honors the customer and helps them get more value by empowering them. He was one of my early influences on developing Strategic Thought Leadership and the Thaut process. Actually, he's the guy who taught me that marketing can be a positive force that helps people.
Mark Newsome: Absolutely. In fact, you know what, just to kind of piggyback what you're saying, years ago in the nothing down industry, there was a guy, Dr. Albert J. Lowry, I think he was out of Canada. When you trace back the lineage, Chris, you found out that all of these men and women were either a former student or former salesman or somehow connected to this guy.
And I would dare say the same with Gary Howard, great. Gary Howard and Jay Abraham. It's the same thing. There's a lot of brilliant people out there, don't get me wrong, as you well know, but as you listen to them, you'll start to hear pieces of Jay Abraham. There's just no two ways about. He's fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. Yeah,
Jay Abraham’s 3 Most Powerful Marketing Strategies—And How to Apply Them
Chris McNeil: Huge out of the box thinker. So for our listener, what are your favorite Jay Abraham strategies?
Mark Newsome: Oh man. How much time do we have, my friend? We got time, the simplest one. Is it okay if I name three?
Chris McNeil: Yeah, absolutely.
Mark Newsome: Okay. The first one you've already elaborated on, Jay is a master of not just teaching tactics, but a strategical thinking that elevates you. Because as you said, when it's all said and done, you're friends with your customers. For instance, one of my collaborative partners, just unfortunately his godfather just passed. So I sent him an email, this has nothing to do with making money. He's a friend. I care about him. And I said, Hey man, unfortunately, I just lost a loved one a year ago. My oldest brother unfortunately passed away.
So we know the pain of what happens when you lose somebody. It's close to you. So I just wrote him an email and said, Hey man, I feel your pain and I wish you and your family the best that has nothing to do with making money. Well, that's the kind of thing Jay Abraham suggests that you fall in love with your customers and their process.
So much to the point that let's say Chris is one of my customers, but I can't help him, but I know somebody who can, who can't. Pardon me. I'm behooved because Chris is my friend first and my customer to let him know about this source that could potentially help them. Now, the shortsighted, there's no money. That's why you're not going to reach the maximum level that he and I are trying to get you to because of your shortsighted played a short game type of think.
And that's one, but the other one is the McDonald's. Would you like fries with that simple six word phrase on top of a sale you're already making, ladies and gentlemen is golden. Now of course, if you don't sell fast food, you're probably thinking, well, how do I use an upsell? Mark, anytime your customers purchase something for you, Chris will tell you they're at the hottest level they're going to be.
That's why you make an additional offer. You notice when McDonald's says, would you like fries or coke with that? It's POS, I mean POB point of purchase or PPOS point of sale. It's now Chris, I like to describe it like this. You're walking down a hill with a steep incline. I don't have to shove you to get you to move forward. I just give you a little tap. And the forward momentum makes you lenient, doesn't it?
That's the power of upselling. And let me show you another thing that Chris, this one is so mind boggling. I just did a video. I want to make it real. I did this thing about seriously eight, nine years ago if maybe seven to eight years ago or something. Don't quote me on that. But here's my point. A good friend of mine who's in the video editor, he's a genius.
He came to my house, put up this white background, he said, mark, we can't do to that wall the way it is. So he put up this background and I shot about a four minute video. It's still up on YouTube. Well, I met a contact on LinkedIn. I don't know how he found this video, but he said, mark, I'd like to make a real out of this video maybe one minute. I said, okay, go for it. I'll send it to you, Chris. He sliced it up and it about the fact that ladies and gentlemen, when you typical now, now people like Chris that are experienced, but the typical entrepreneur, what is the number, Chris? They say it's something like between 500 and 700%.
More to create a first time one-time customer. That's ludicrous. Well, when you mail something, let's say Chris has a product, he mails it out. I'm his joint venture partner and he says, mark, I'm going to stick your market tested. That's Steve. Your market tested, extremely time sensitive offer in my product that I'm mailing out. So when my customers open it up, just like if you open up an envelope, ladies and gentlemen, there'll be an extremely time tested offer.
The way I work it out with Chris is two things I could say to Chris, I give you 25 or x percent off the gross. Or once you produce so much revenue or so many customers, I'll bump you to 50% of that front end. Chris is happy because you know what he's really doing? He's lowering the cost of his advertising, his postage. He might eventually now think about this later because Chris, Chris is a genius. So here's what Chris is already doing because I'll do that one with Mark. I'll find another non directly competing vendor. I'll have two or three offers in there. So ultimately my postage is free and I'm making money on the front and the back end because isn't that how we go exponential?
Chris McNeil: That's right.
Think Outside the Box: Leveraging Partnerships to Cut Costs and Boost Profits
Mark Newsome: That's how you go exponential, ladies and gentlemen. But the point is, I'm sorry, I don't want to get too far off. Ladies. You have a additional market tested, extremely time sensitive. You don't give them to next year to make a decision. They have between 72 hours and maybe 10 days or whatever Chris thinks is best. Maybe Chris has already tested it already and says, "Mark, we can't give him no more than 72 hours if we want to make a quality decision."
But the point is, if you don't have an additional product or something, you'll find somebody who's non directly competing. In fact, let's reverse this around Chris so we can show how we got it going on. Let's say I'm the one, excuse me, who's marketing a product? I don't know. I should have what we call the backend. So Chris points this out to me and he says, mark, how much are you paying on postage?
What percentage of your sales posts? I do the math. I said, oh, Chris, it's like 27%, 34%. And Chris says, how would you like to get that ultimately down to zero in the next six months or less? Zero postage? No, I didn't say that. I said, how would you like to lower that cost debt? I said, well, Chris, how are we doing? Chris, here's the first thing we're going to, I have this product and service that's perfect for your customers. It's non directly competing. It's something they're going to buy anyway, but instead of them buying it out there, they're going to buy it from me. And I said, okay, what do you want me to do? Chris says, just stick this offer in there. I said, oh man. Okay. And anybody that buys, it'll be coated. I know it comes from you. I'm going to give you X.
And I said, okay. And then Chris says, now let's take it a step further. Mark, I want you to find two other vendors or I'll help you find them, and you're going to stick their offers in there too. And what you're going to do is create a contest in a sense without saying it, and whoever ends up getting the most money, you're going to drop the other two, no offense, and you're just going to roll with one that brings you the most money. Now, do you think for Chris showing me that I wouldn't give him a testimonial letter. You better believe it. That's right. Now, does he even have to do this with me after telling me this to still get that testimonial letter? No, not in my book anyway. No, but that's the kind of thing he and I are talking about. We talk about think outside the box.
Now, if we wanted to, Chris and I weren't here for eight hours, we'd go a whole lot deeper, but we don't need to. So the first thing is treat your customers like a relative or a close friend or colleague. That's the second thing or first thing. Second thing, have a backup offer. Inexpensive market tested offer that you always send out in your outgoing mail. And I'm going to throw upsells in there too, Chris, but that's the second one, B of the second one. Here's the third one, ladies and gentlemen, that is super, super, super powerful.
The Power of Knowing Lifetime Customer Value
And this isn't really a Jay Abraham, but it could fall into that. Ladies and gentlemen, stop treating your customers like a one night stand.
But that's this guy talking about Chris, you spend this 500, 700 x percent to get them, and the moment you get them, you drop them like it's hot and you head off in search of a new first time customer. We just told you it's going to cost you between five and 700%. And no offense if you really don't know what you're doing, those figures going to be a lot higher. Chris, they don't do that drill down. What are you saying? You try to get that same customer to spend more, come back more often and to stay with you long. We're getting into something we're going to call total lifetime customer value. If you don't know that figure, excuse me, that term concept, Google it, go watch a video or two.
Chris McNeil: Yes.
Mark Newsome: You have the concept down because Chris, I know you tell your customers, and I know I tell my customers and clients, ladies and gentlemen, until you know what your customer is worth, you're playing Russian roulette with advertising.
If your customers only worth $2,000 over three years or $10,000 over five years, you are going to go broke, spending 15, $20,000 on advertising market, whatever you call it. You can't spend more than you're bringing in, right? I don't care if you're online, offline, it doesn't matter. So you've got to know what your customer is worth.
Now, let's say, Chris, this is what's going to happen. They're going to say, but Mark, I'm just starting out. How do I know? Then you use the industry, but a caveat, don't use the people at the top of the pyramid like Chris, because he's already been through the integrations. He knows what to test, what to do. You take somebody who's in that mid or lower rank, whatever their total lifetime customer valued, you start with that, and then you keep notes because this is an individual thing. So you'll know for your business, your service, your products, this is the average and that's what you start basing your market on. If you need any more help, you reach out to Christopher.
Chris McNeil: So you are making so many good points, Marcus, that it's hard to choose which one to dive deeper into. I'm going to take kind a stab at it ...
Mark Newsome: Take your pick!
Exponential Growth Through Customer Relationship Mastery
Chris McNeil: ... but to help the listener have context who might be thinking, "Well, isn't this kind of manipulative?: It's not. And the reason it's not is because the overriding strategy of falling in love with your customer, as you mentioned, because we all tend to fall in love with our business, our product or our service ...
Mark Newsome: Right!
Chris McNeil: ... But the customers the one who sets the value. They're one who decides what it's worth. And it is weird. I saw a survey of customers, of financial advisors who were asked, what was the main deciding factor in choosing a financial advisor? And somebody would immediately say, "well, financial performance". But that was like number six. Number one was the sincere desire for a long-term relationship.
Mark Newsome: There you go.
Chris McNeil: And when you start studying things like you're talking about the net margin lifetime value of a customer and realize how much people spend over, especially when you consider if you have a referral-centric business.
Mark Newsome: Yes sir.
Chris McNeil: But the customer's the one who sets the value. They're one who decides what it's worth. And it is weird. I saw a survey of customers, of financial advisors who were asked, what was the main deciding factor in choosing a financial advisor? And somebody would immediately say, well, financial performance, that was like number six, be there. Number one was the sincere desire for a long-term relationship. There you go. And when you start studying things like you're talking about the net margin lifetime value of a customer and realize how much people spend over, especially when you consider if you have a referral centric business.
Mark Newsome: Yes, sir
Chris McNeil: And certain businesses really lend themselves to that. I mean, I had a fitness training business and we had multiple locations, and the thing was, how do you help people stay motivated? So on their behalf, it's like, we want you to build a support network. Who do you know you'd like to see getting the same kind of benefits you're doing this for? I'll send them a no obligation free fitness profile that will show them what they can achieve, what kind of programs are best suited for them, what kind of timeframe they can expect results in. There's no obligation to continue at all courtesy of you and to help you build a network of people who are aligned with the same kind of goals that you are doing this for. And the thing that really hooked me on Jay, Mark, was the exponential growth model ...
... The three ways to grow a customer. And it's like you can increase the number of customers, but you can also increase the number of purchases per customer. Now lifetime value and the amount of the purchase per customer. And if you work on optimizing all three through new changes in all three areas, you can get exponential growth. I mean, if you only increase 10% on each of those, if you get 10% more customers do a little harder work on the marketing or smarter work as you're promoting. If you get a 10% greater sale through side selling or upselling, and through that long-term relationship, looking out for the customer, putting them first, you have a greater number of purchases because you value the relationship first. You've grown, not 10%, but 33%
Mark Newsome: There you go. Do the math. And based on the rule of 72, what do we know people 33 divided in 72. That's how much time is going to take for that figure to double you, man, like you said, you're talking exponentiality, Chris, just from what you said, is it okay if I piggyback off of this?
Chris McNeil: Yes, please.
Mark Newsome: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, Chris, this is real what I'm about to share, but because of what you talked about, I'm going to try to put this all in there so they can really see the big picture. I had the pleasure of seeing one of the, I don't think we should say the name, but a big box retailer had a grand opening right now. You know the kind of money they got fucking millions of dollars. Oh yeah. If I was the manager of this store now the night before, because like three, 4:00 AM kids are lined up. Basically, I'm saying kids, young people, okay, in their thirties, twenties, or thirties, they're lined up outside in the parking lot. They're throwing the Frisbee around. They're not having a good time.
Now, I said, if I would've managed that store, of course I would've got corporate approval. Or if you're an independent retail, say you're a furniture store or a retail appliance center and you're about to have this grand opening, whether this is your first or second location, just get the concept.
Follow this. Here's what I would've done. I would've gone outside, introduced myself, Hey, how you guys doing? Glad you showed up. I'm Mark Newsome. I'm the manager of the store. Hey, listen, pizza's on us. In about 30 minutes, we're going to have 50, 75 people, whatever it is, and the pizza's on us. That's the first thing. Now, in this age of social media, my friend, what do you think would've happened when those pizzas showed up? Those young people would've whipped out their phones started blowing up all over social media. We're here for the grand opening store at Noia. The manager just came out, bought pizza in there. You don't get no pizza, right? That's the person thing. Second thing I would've done said, what do you guys like? Do you any coffee drinkers in cocoa? I would. Let's say Chris owns a non franchise gourmet bakery.
I say, Chris, about three or four in the morning, I want you to show up with your portable man. I'm going to pay for this. We're going to buy X number of pounds of gourmet coffee. And you know that big giant cup you sell, Chris, that big gulp, one sells for 11, retails for 1199. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to pay you for the cups and we're going to pay you for the gourmet coffee, and all you're going to do is show up Chris's coffee and you're going to pass out coffee and refills until the store opens. But here's the clincher. Ladies know this is how Chris is going to turn a one time sale into a perpetual gold mine. But when he was talking about getting the customers to come back for more, Chris is going to tell him and his assistant and whoever's there is helping him, every time he passes out a cup, he says, Hey, I'm Chris's coffee shop two blocks over there, and I, oh, yeah, I've seen your shop.
Every time you bring this cup back from now on, you don't pay 1199. You pay 3 99. Now, is that going to increase my repeat customers? Now, Chris is, he's crazy like a fox. He already knows he's going to make the money on the back end. What do you mean, mark? When he sells the birthday cakes, when he gets the cookies, the muffins, and Chris is going to say to everybody who comes up to his booth, I mean, it is a little van, he's going to say, by the way, do you own a business? Do you have your card? Because every month we do a drawing. We pull out one card, you get a gallon of coffee for free and muffins, you could get up to $30 worth of goods at our hard cost. What does he want? Word of mouth and mouth are You follow me or ladies, gentlemen? So he's working the individuals and he's working the local businesses because he's going to set up some joint ventures.
Chris McNeil: Love it.
***************************************
The transcript is lightly edited for clarity and is a partial transcript- the full interview is on audio. Click here to listen.
***************************************
Free Stuff and Offers Mentioned in Podcast
***************************************
***************************************