159 – From secretary to CEO: Tom interviews Mary Agnes Antonopoulos

Episode 159 – Mary Agnes Antonopoulos
Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

Hey, everybody it's Tom here with episode 159 of Screw the Commute podcast. We got Mary Agnes Antonopoulos here and known this lady for a long time. Everybody loves her. She's worked with lots of big names and brands and I can't wait to you hear her story now. Hope you didn't miss episode 158. That was Jack Turk. What a colorful story. This guy this guy actually made Bill Gates look bad on stage one time. And he quit a big corporate job, walked in on his fiftieth birthday and said, hey, boss. And they were actually making a birthday party for him, hey, boss, I'm quitting to become a magician. He did. He left, built up a big magic firm. And so great story. Check him out of episode 158. That was a couple of days ago. All right. You got a big freebie for you for listening to the podcast. It's my 27 dollar e-book, How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips in this e-book has saved me over seven and a half million keystrokes. Definitely go over to screwthecommute.com later. And of course, everything I say will be in the show notes where you just click on it, screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Get your automation e-book. And also I got an extra special surprise over there for you, so check it out. And our podcast app's in the iTunes store. You can check it out at ScrewtheCommute.com/app and it's got complete instructions on how to use it to you can be in your car and on a phone call and then it'll pause the podcast while you take the call and then as soon as you hang up. It'll start playing again. Just all kinds of cool stuff. All right then please tell your friends about this. If anybody is in business or wants to start a business, this is the place to be. Screwthecommute.com. And also, if you would be so kind, if you think I've helped you with this show, then give us a rating over at iTunes and a review too. So that would help us out. Thank you so much. Now I turn the internet marketing training world on its head around the year 2000. I like this. Call it the turn of the century. People at my level were charged in 50 or 100 thousand bucks up front to teach what we knew to generally clueless business people that either wouldn't learn it or didn't feel they could learn how to do all this online stuff. But, you know, I just thought that's too much money to put a small business burden on them. And and where's the incentive for that supposed guru to keep helping the person once they get all their money upfront. So I kind of flipped the whole world on its head at that time and made the gurus mad, which I don't really care. And I charged a relatively small entry fee and then took a percentage of profits that's capped. So for me to get my big money, you got to make really big money and then you're not stuck with me forever. So that's the nature of my program. You can check it out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And I'll tell you more details later because this got some very cool perks.

All right. Let's bring on the main event. Mary Agnes Antonopoulos has a client list that reads like the Who's Who. And she's created successful marketing and copywriting campaigns for clients like Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street and JJ Virgin and some of the chicken soup people. And thousands of others. And she teaches what works and how to work it. Mary, are you ready to screw? The commute. So. Hey, Mary, how you doing?

Hey, Tom, I'm great. How are you today?

I'm peachy and I'm glad we finally got together. You're a hard woman to catch. I mean, you're a globetrotter. And then, of course, the I kind of warned you when we had this booked a couple days ago. Well, what if the plane's late? Oh, well, no problem. And what'd you do it was a day and a half later you got home?

Yeah. I was speaking for Gail Kingsbury, at her Speak and Grow Rich event, and it was fantastic. Wow. What a rough ride home. It took Two days.

Oh, my goodness. Now, what did she take over that that trademark or something from Dottie? I didn't know that.

Dottie gave Gail speak and grow rich. And Gail is out there making a big impact with authors, speakers and entrepreneurs all over the world. And I get to be part of that. I'm really excited about that.

Wow. I had no idea. I mean. I don't know if you know this, but I used the Dottie called me her right coast son because anytime she was on the East Coast, I would go help her with the seminar just to learn. And I spoke at her memorial service in Glendora a few years back. And then that's where the producer saw me that is making the documentary called The American Entrepreneur about me. So it's crazy that I didn't know they gave up that speak and grow rich to anybody. I thought the grandson had it.

They were very good friends with Gail Kingsbury Dottie and the grandson. And they had a conversation with Gail a few years ago. And it took Gail quite some time to get to a place where she was really ready to bring it to the world. She had to create something stellar, meaningful and really up to what Dottie would have been proud of this. Does everybody know who Dottie is.

Well, I don't know. I've mentioned her several times before, but Dottie Walters is considered like the grandmother of professional speaking. She wrote the book Speak and Grow Rich and was the speaker's bureau owner and very instrumental in the National Speakers Association. And she's the one who got me started in 1991.

Well, you know, I'm not surprised because you and Gail are probably two of the greatest leaders I've ever worked with. I mean, you're really focused on supporting entrepreneurs and speakers and authors and helping them to create their little impact or big impact in the world.

That's for sure. And I don't want to take too much time of hearing from you, but I got to tell you the crazy story of how I met Dottie. Well, I had this practical joke. I had an crazy entertainment company in Washington, D.C. and I always thought that there was something bigger out there for me. I didn't know when it was a movie or TV show. This was long before punk'd or any of those jackass shows or any of those came around. And I'm in Crown Books in Greenbelt, Maryland, in the middle of the day, cause, you know, I set my own schedule and I'm just looking at books and they had a bunch of boxes in the aisles because they're stocking the shelves and a lady was pushing a baby carriage. You know, I kind of got out of the way to let her pass while I hit my head on a book. It was Speak and Grow Rich. That's totally how it happened, I get goose pimples every time I talk about it. But you may not know this, how bizarre this is. Dottie started her career pushing a baby carriage, selling advertising door to door.

I did not know that.

I still got goose pimples because I'm not much of a woo woo kind of guy. But that was about as woo woo as you can get. She said she drove by in her baby carriage and had me hit her head on her book. So. So that's how I met her. I read the book. I thought, this is perfect for me. I'm funny, you know. And. And I can make way more money speaking than doing parties. So. So I called her up for a consultation and the rest is history. That's how I got started.

Wow, that's a fantastic story. Weird coincidence, I also started my marketing career selling advertising door to door.

No kidding were you pushing a baby carriage.

No, I didn't have the baby. Relocated to Monroe, New York, where I grew up and try to figure out what to do here. And that's how I got started.

Well, tell us what you're doing now and then let's take you back and bring you up through how you got to where you are today. So what? But what are you doing now?

You know, I guess I have I have been privileged to work with some of the really great leaders. And right now is no exception. And I'm really grateful to be speaking at J.J. Virgin's event in just a few weeks. That's the MindshareSummit.com if nobody knows what it is. It's for health entrepreneurs. And I get to work with Gail on Speak and Grow Rich. And that's just a fantastic opportunity and a real privilege. I mean, she's bringing together some of the many wonderful people she's worked with over the years, and I'm one of them. So I'm super happy about that.

So you're speaking there. But I mean, are you or you just did speak there.

I'm mentoring some of her authors and speakers and marketing techniques.

All right. And what are you going to be doing to J.J. Virgin's event?

At J.J.'s we're going to be talking about how YouTube ties into the Google algorithm because everybody wants to be searchable. We think about Facebook as the marketing platform, but it really isn't. Some matter what we do. It's always Google.

Well, yeah. And you know, we gave up on on the search positioning several years ago. To me, it's not worth the trouble. But the best bargain from my point of view is is paid search, especially video search on YouTube like instream ads and Discovery ads. I'm getting some 3, 4 or 5 cent views and stuff. And a lot of people don't know. You don't even pay at all if they hit the skip button.

That's right. Paid search is fantastic and it's also geo located. So if you're somebody with a brick and mortar business and to some degree we all have that, I think like I'm New York based. So people like a New York entrepreneur if they're in New York. And so that is really emphasized by Google and YouTube. They watch the locations of your viewers.

Yes. It's just so crazy. I mean, you can almost target across the street.

Yes. It's very specific. You can target right down to the zip code you have. Right. And in larger cities, that might be the building you're in.

Exactly target your neighbor. So. But tell tell everybody what you're actually helping people with.

So at the core of my competency, I'm a copywriter. I like short copy. And that translates really well to e mail, copy blogs, web pages, things like that. And what happened over time is some of the blog copy and articles we did for what would now be like the equivalent of medium.com started to get picked up by real magazines. I'm a ghostwriter, so don't look for it you'll have to look closely. But as things like that happen, we've moved into social media and we were a social media agency for 11 years.

When you say we who's we.

I always say we by habit because I have a team. I'm graced to have a team of five full time employees and 10 interns and part timers who help with copywriting.

And they all work. Work. Do you have an office or you work out of your house or what?

We are a virtual, but we do get together quite often in the real world. I try and employ a lot of people who live near me. I think it's good for the economy and I do have some global employees as well. So I try and see them all as often as I can.

Ok. All right. So that's who we is. So it's you as the head honcho and then you have other employees and contractors or their employees or contractors.

It's a mix. It's a mix. We've got five full time employees, so only work for us and a handful of other contractors that we support. And this year, we have six summer interns. It's insane.

And they work remotely also.

No, they're all local.

Oh, wow. Wow. So. Well, when you say they're local, I mean, they come into your house or they don't come into your house.

You're their New York City and Monroe, New York, where I live about an hour from New York City. So we get together about twice a week and we work at a Starbucks across the table from each other. Six interns. It's crazy.

So. All right. So exactly what you know, what kind of customer you look for in and what are the nuts and bolts of what you actually do for them?

You know what we generally tend to work with as an established entrepreneur in the health space, but we're open to anybody. We do personal development also and we design their funnels, their e-mail marketing funnels and often create the assets that walks them through the funnel we're a do-for-you digital agency. Now, some people show up with their assets and others don't have a clue what they need. So we tend to mentor them. What do you think your audience needs? How do we know? How do we tag them and give them more of not only the copy or the assets they need, but what type of assets they need?

Explain the term assets for us schmucks here that don't know.

Human beings learn by reading, watching, listening or doing. So assets would be videos, audio or written content like e-books or blogs. And then there are kinetic learners, which we all are to some degree. And so for those people, we want to provide quizzes and, you know, guiding worksheets, tangible things. Recipes would be kinetic learners style of asset.

What software to use for quizzes?

You know, I have to be honest, I don't know someone on my team does it. I write the contract that somebody else employs all of the technology because I am a tech moron and can barely do anything.

Yeah, yeah. But the writing is the important part because it is quizzes. I mean, you look at BuzzFeed, some of these quizzes have 50 million. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally crazy.

And the technology is always changing. Things we used for quizzes, you know, three years ago are now obsolete and there are great assets for quiz delivery where you can deliver a little videos and you can answer yes or no questions and walk people through a process that's highly engaging.

Okay. So you either create them or put them together when people, you know, already have them. Now, if you run into situations when people come to you with these so-called assets and they stink and they put a fortune into developing them, and then they that you have to tell them that they stink.

We have a wonderful client. Dr. Mary Clifton, who is an expert in CBD, and she did 150 short videos answering questions about CBD and other eno cannabinoids which shall go nameless. And the videos were just not high enough in their production quality to be really useful except for a handful of desperate people. So we helped her to reshoot those with a really great gray screen behind her and some great music and intros a lot of things that makes video engaging.

But how did you break it to her after all that effort?

I have to be honest. I'm such a gentle soul. She didn't believe me. And a year later, a publicist told her and she redid them all.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I knew there would be something because people we have the same thing. We have a protection dog company and people come to us all the time. I would you to train my dog to be a protection dog. And the dog is like like equivalent to a little kid that plays the violin and piano and doesn't want to wrestle and does want to play football. And she wants to make him into a professional fighter. So we have to tell him. No, no, no, it's not. You're being cruel to the dog and you're wasting your money.

You know, there are people who are just naturally great at what they do. JJ Virgin gets on camera with, you know, she can have morning hair no makeup and she's just such a pro. And then you get people who are so well put together and credentialed like Dr. Mary Clifton an M.D. and highly recognized expert. And you just have to have the right production quality because what she's delivering is so cited and so many medical terms. It has to be easy on the eyes. So the whole focus is on the words.

Exactly. And unfortunately, doctors are like targets for a lot of the scummier side of our business because they don't know. I mean, they're great at what they do, but they don't know our end of it. And so they're easily overspend for substandard stuff. So I hate that.

It's true for marketing. You're absolutely right. I was the marketing director for Dr. Tom O'BRIEN for several years and watched him go through consultants like like you would run through dirty laundry. And just one after another who really didn't do a great job, understand his industry, understand his personality. And then you run into issues with the client like they don't necessarily listen to you. Right. But he, thank goodness, is a really smart, brilliant man and understands marketing a little better than most. So he's got a good team now.

My favorite quote from a guy named John Kramer is really big in the book industry. I heard him speak one time and he said he said, I'm five hundred dollars an hour for consulting and I'm thinking about raising my fee to a thousand an hour and giving you a five hundred dollar an hour rebate if you just do what I tell you.

You know, it's funny. I teach all over the country and one of the big subgroups I teach are authors. And I'll stand on stage and give my cell phone and say, you know, the one person you probably need to hear in this whole conference is me. Here is my cell phone to answer questions. And I've only had about 20 people ever call in the whole 15 years. I have the company and not because they don't need help or they don't love me because overcoming that hurdle of influencing and asking for help is huge.

Exactly. So first, take you back. I mean, were you entrepreneurial when you were a little little girl with a lemonade stand or how did you come up through the ranks?

I wasn't, but I was always a teacher when I was a little kid. I would make dittos and mimeographs of worksheets and I would copy them in notebooks, you know, studiously and hand them out to all my friends all summer. And I would hold school all summer long. Then a teacher, which I still am, I had. But no, I went out and had a very normal, very mundane career. I was a secretary for 20 years.

What kind of secretary?

You know, I was always a good writer, so that will land you quickly with the CEO of any company you're in. So I almost always worked for the CEO and I ended up in private equity. So I was able to contribute to the black books, if anyone knows what that is. And to help raise funds through investors for the private equity group I worked with. They were wonderful men. I never worked with better men in my whole life.

So well you're working with me right now.

That's true.

So, yeah. So you're high work and high end stuff. No, this was. Yes.

You know, it's true. But still, I'm a humble person.

I know you are. But you weren't filing your nails all day.

Katharine Gibbs, where I went to school way back in the day, said the secretary keeps the secrets. And you should be proud of that every day of your careers. Always was, you know. And there were a lot of secrets to keep. Right. You know, high end people. And that bodes well for this career, because as a done for you agency, we really have to crawl into how does this person do business? What did they do and who is their audience? And it's very, very intimate.

Well, don't tell me anything, because you'll have to kill me. So how did that transition into where you are now? Did you have money saved up that you just quit one day? How did how did you transition?

I'm that old story where one day I thought, I'm 41 and this is my life. And it's all that ever will be my plan B to be a secretary. So I could write as a writer has taken over my whole life. And I'm going to stop. And I went in the next day. I gave notice I had eleven thousand dollars and I got a part time job near home. And I launched my ghost blogging company called Rockaway Writer.

Ghost blogging, is that what you call it?

Yeah. Rockaway writer. It was this little tiny company and I would write blogs for anybody for sixty dollars A blog.

Did you have any clients before you quit?

I quit. And I I went home that day panicking like I haven't got a portfolio, I don't have a degree, I don't have any clients.

And I thought, well, the one thing I do know is that writers write. And so I started four blogs and researching. So I wrote four blogs. And one was called Fat Gorgeous Ass because people were always telling me I was beautiful, but a little too heavy. Story of my life.

People were telling you this.

To this day.

In the corporate world you'd be rich now for harassment.

Well, like I said, I'm a gentle soul. I don't need to correct others. But, you know, I went through my whole life and, you know, knowing that if I were just thinner, I could be successful, which is so absurd. And I started reaching out to this woman, Laura Fenimore, who has something called one pinky nail, which is like a little pinky promise. And I said, you know, your message is so beautiful. It was a body image blog, but you're a terrible writer. Could I interview you and write your blog each week for sixty dollars? And I got 10 of those people. So I had six hundred dollars a week. And that's how I started my company.

Good for you. Good for you. But I mean, you know, and now when you're you just don't feel like the spontaneous type is going to go in tomorrow and just give notice. So what was it like? Were you fighting with yourself at that moment?

You know, you would think I'm not spontaneous, but what I've discovered is I'm ferociously fearless about money. I don't think money is anything but a tool. And I have a lot of faith in myself, which you also wouldn't know by my demeanor. I'm just humble, but I knew here's what I know you. You can stand on the firing lines if you do the work you're meant to do, because the universe needs you to do what it instilled in you. And it instilled in me a gift for writing that's very uncommonly beautiful. And I started writing for others and I've never looked back. The company was twenty thousand in the black successful year one, and it's half a million now. And I'm really grateful for that. We employ a lot of people and do a lot of good work.

Good for you. Good for you. Now, what kind of tips would you have for for some of our we call screwballs, the people that listen to this.

I want to say to screwballs. That's so cute. It does take balls, doesn't it? It takes nerve. But if you want to work for yourself and your writer. Absolutely do what I did. You know, you can make a living very quickly and supplement living you have while you make the transition. If you're a little more cautious. So I started by reaching out to people who had newsletters. You just search the Web sites you love, sign up for their newsletters and look for those that could use the help of a good writer or graphics. Designer or maybe they don't have a podcast and you're great at that. And I started reaching out to these people and very, very quickly worked for some of the biggest people in my industry because people recommend you to others. And that's what happened.

Yeah. And you seem to me you started out reasonably priced.

Very reasonably priced. And I think that's a superbly important thing to do when you're new. You know, our our agency was six hundred dollars a month to do a full service done for you social media spread when we started. So we were hired by a lot of people. Six hundred dollars a month. Ten clients. Six thousand. And we were solvent. We were successful at that little tiny level and stay reasonably priced to get the jobs you want. You know, my advice is choose your job by the person you want to work with, the project they're doing, and then the pay they're going to give you.

Yeah. And I wrote a book recently called The One Sentence Business Plan. If every company would just live by it, everybody would be better off. I create quality products at a reasonable price that somebody actually wants and I service them after the sale. That's my whole business. My whole business plan since I'm 10 years old reasonably priced was in there because some of these people want to gouge them and a lot of the ones that want to gouge you are gonna give you the least quality work. They just want everything for themselves and they could care less whether you're successful. So you've got to be very careful.

Well, I think that's also the other piece is, you know, be a great vendor. You know, we don't. People will ask me, what did they get for their six thousand dollar a month fee now. And I lay it out and say. But the real question that I have at the end of the list is what else do you need? I'm I come in. It's your marketing director and I work with your team. So there is an inherent leadership role. And to do a really good job, I want to know the things that you wish would be taken off your plate and what else do you need? That I didn't put in this contract.

Yeah. And. And I have to tell you, I do tease a lot about the term done for you, because in most cases it doesn't sound like yours. But in most cases, that should be called done to you.

Well, you know what I like to say? The agency is called a done for you digital agency. So people understand we create the assets if they need that. But the truth is, it's not. It's a DIWe. Right. It's not DIY. Not Do it yourself and it's done for you is you know, it's really a done together. It's DIWe. They have to invest the time to help me do my best work. And if they won't do that, I usually give them back their money.

Exactly. Because, I mean, people don't understand. This is where I'm saying a lot of people could take in somebody, let's say in today's atmosphere says, okay, I'll do everything you do for six hundred dollars a month. Well, there's just no way that they would do anything but a substandard job, because what you do takes enormous effort. And so and those people that are buying the service 600 a month rather than six thousand. Oh, wow. Yeah. The same thing. I'll get it. Well, it's not the same thing. That's what they don't understand.

You and I talked about this recently and that the growth of the agency, it's it's always going to be a micro success because the way we the way that we do our work is so intimate. I can only take six clients at a time. So we have these six to eight clients, depending on how large they are, what their needs are. But at eight, we're really closed. So over and over and over. The agency closes just because eight to 10 hours a week goes to each client of my own personal time. And if we start to have eight client, I'm working 80 hours a week. So, you know, we we have a team. But a whole lot of this is really me working with those clients, figuring out what their audience needs to hear and then crafting it in a way they'll deliver it to me. Right. I work with Boomer Natural Wellness right now. They're one of the best companies I've ever worked with. Their doctor, Dr. Larry McCleary, is not a guy who wants to get on camera. So we worked and worked and worked to figure out what would support Dr. McCleary to support Boomer natural wellness. And, you know, if anybody else has a marketing agency, you know, what we finally figured out was he's very comfortable doing audio and that means we're creating video over his audio with moving images and it's a whole lot of work.

I mean, there's automated things, but it's stupid looking for a guy like that.

Yeah. We have to do it by hand. Videohive.net and a few other resources that'll be around for a few years and we grab moving images and splice them together over is audio. And it just it's gotta be a great job or boomer natural wellness system isn't represented well, so everybody's just marketing agencies, they've got to be willing to bob and weave, you know.

So you say you're closed all the time. Well, what would you put it like a sign on your door at the house?

I have a Web site like as I speak all over and I teach, but I never charge to speak or teach. Very rarely will I accept somebody's fee. I think it's good karma to teach what you're good at. And so for the most part, that's how we give back. So there's a Web site for that. MaryAgnes.com. But yeah, the company doesn't have a Web site and it never did. I know I have the opposite problem of most entrepreneurs. And when I'm overwhelmed by work, I remind myself that this is somebody else's fantasy to have so much work. They're drowning.

Right. Keep thinking you're closed all the time. It kind of like the restaurant that has the sign that says out to lunch.

So that's hilarious. My lawyer would love that. You know, it's it's almost like that restaurant that has the closed sign. But you look inside and there's a party going run. That's us. So the other thing that we'll do is help anybody that needs 15 minutes. So we'll listen to who you are, what you do, and at conferences where I speak. That's what we'll do. We'll do 15 minute hot seats and support humanity with that, because the agency is always closed. And we teach a class we teach a class called supersimplesocialmedia.com.

We'll have that in the show notes because I won't be able to say it in a hurry.

So it's a really unique class. It's got a library of assets. So if you want to know about LinkedIn, you can go in there and look at the LinkedIn class. It's got downloadable worksheets. And every other week I teach live so you can come on and I'll teach the new class and replace the last one for social media changes so quickly and answer individual questions for the students. It's delivered like a membership, but the assets are downloadable so you can come in for ninety seven dollars a month. But if you're broke, just download all the assets and then leave.

You don't hear marketers tell people that very often.

You know, we get a lot of authors who just as you know, by the time they get to marketing, they're broke. And this is a good way for 100 bucks to download some really great assets and then come back later when you have a few dollars so that you can be in those live classes and ask some questions.

Anything crazy bizarre happened to you in your travels?

Well, I like the Mary Anus story.

Remember, this is the family show.

I promise it's clean. I was in the private equity firm the last few months I worked there and the partners who were running the investor meeting were all running late and I was there with the investor from India. And I started the meeting. I had written the beginning of the black book and I had written the pitch deck. And so I started. And when the partners came running in, the investors said, no, no, no. Mary Anus is doing a wonderful job. And for the rest of my career they all called me Mary Anus. And I am happy to tell people all the time it's you know, MaryAgnes.com.

So what do you like best about working for yourself or what's the worst part?

I think the best part about working for myself is the freedom to work with the people I want to work with. We've taken some amazing people who couldn't afford us, and it would surprise you, who doesn't have the marketing to hire their marketing. Yeah, I mean, sometimes people just the biggest people are under and under. I don't know what words to say under revenued. It's really the right word. And, you know, some small people are very well able to pay. So I have the freedom to take those people and, you know, work for them to my heart's content. I don't have anybody over my shoulder saying they're not paying you enough. So I like that freedom. I think the hardest part is that you really don't work for yourself. You really work for everybody who hires you. Even the free, you know, even the pro bono cases you take. And sometimes they're the toughest ones, believe it or not, you know, so. So that's the hardest part as you answer to a lot of people. But you answer in a rhythm that is unique and hopefully self respectful.

Got it. Got it. We got to take a brief sponsor break. And when we come back, we're going to ask Mary Agnes. What's a typical day look like for her and how she stays motivated.

Folks, if you want of that, actually hold your hand through this and all the other things you need to know to be successful online. And I have a training institution. I don't really do everything for you. I have a little different angle on it where I teach you how to bring it in-house or do it yourself. And it's the longest running, most successful and most unique Internet marketing mentor program ever. I have no problem saying that started around the year 2000. I was actually teaching people starting in nineteen ninety seven and seventeen hundred students later. We're still going strong. And the reason I say it's unique is you have a year long training program, but you don't. It doesn't take you a year to start making money. But as part of the training program, you get a immersion weekend where you actually live in the house. We call it the Great Internet Marketing Retreat Center, the biggest state home in Virginia Beach. And we have a TV studio here. And it's a big mansion that you actually stay here with me. So that's one thing that's unique. The other thing is unique is you get a scholarship to the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing school in the country. IMTCVA.org, which took me three years to get the license background checks. There's nobody in the Internet marketing community anywhere that went through the scrutiny that I did to get this license. The scholarships worth nineteen thousand one hundred dollars and you can either use it yourself or gift it to somebody else. So check out all the details. That's only a fraction of the things we give you in the program. Check it out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And of course, that will be in the show notes this is episode 159. And for those of you just checking in, whenever you want to go back and check the show notes so you can get Mary's link and all of all the other stuff we talk about. You just put screwthecommute.com and the slash the episode number. So this would be 159.

All right. Let's get back to the main event. Mary Agnes Antonopoulos is here. And Mary, what's a typical day look like for you do you get up early? Do you work out, you eat, you play with the dog or what? How does it go for you on a daily basis?

I'm the worst entrepreneur in the world.

Obviously not if you're doing well.

I get up in the morning and I in my pajamas, make the coffee and check email. I break all the rules. You're not supposed to do it that way, but I do.

What's wrong with that?

They say it would be highly successful.

Probably somebody can't make their car payments trying to tell you how to be successful.

Yeah, I get up about six and about six thirty. I'm in my pajamas and I have coffee and I check email and I meditate and I make a to do list for the day. And then I start writing and then team meetings with clients start about 10:30. And I try and have those finished by 2:00 so I can go back to my to do list and feel accomplished each day. And probably around six o'clock we stop. And we do a team meeting with our own team. How'd everyone's day go. And what kind of education do we need? Because there are certainly things happening so fast in marketing, we just can't stay on top of it. So we'll all compare notes for things we've learned or things we think we might need. And I send them to class where necessary.

Ok. And you have a boy, right?

I do. I have a beautiful son who this summer is my intern and acts as my personal assistant. And he's just a dream. Everybody wishes they get to hire this kid because he's smart enough to interact with clients and friends.

Oh, wow. How old is he.

Nineteen.

Oh man. Yeah. I was going to ask you, is the part of the businesses they aspire to continue with this.

You know, I offered him a six figure job to come into the company instead of go to college. But he wants to teach history. He's transgender. He was born a girl and he wants to teach history because he sees that as a way to impact youth and help them all find their way in a confusing and difficult world.

High school or college.

At the high school level. He's my hero.

Oh, wow. Wow. So how do you stay motivated?

I think friendship at a mentor level is really important. I have you back in my life, which I am enjoying so much. Gail Kingbury. And, you know, it's really important to me to have friends who are higher than me professionally and intellectually. To be honest, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. So I and the other thing I do is I go to a lot of live events, conferences, training, you know, J.J. Virgin's Mindshare Summit, traffic and conversion. You know, I go to these events and I invest my time and money to stay and not just not just where the cutting edge training. It's like Amber Dodson, who teaches text marketing. You know, it's also where are my peers that I can continue to learn from. So I speak in a lot of these. But there are a whole list of things I won't speak up because I want to stay a student.

How do you mean that?

Well, like traffic and conversion, that's just a place where they bring in the most elite speakers. And once you're on stage, I'm sure so many of your students and entrepreneurs know this. But once you speak on stage, you have an obligation to your audience and you need to be the teacher. And that goes for wherever you are at that event. So there are some events I don't speak at just so I can stay anonymous.

I see so you can suck in all the knowledge.

That's right and not be a teacher which is a different kind of mindset.

Wow. So it's been so great catching up with you.

Thank you. You're one of my really one of my favorite teachers. We've been. Oh, gosh, how long have we been in the same room teaching together?

I have no idea either. When people hear people ask me stuff like that, they look like I'm lying because I just never look backwards. I don't know. I'm always forwards. I have a terrible memory for you know I've known you for a long time, but I would have no idea how or where I met you.

I would say eleven years.

We're not married are we.

No, but I did volunteer last time I saw you and you turned me down.

We're we're in Las Vegas. Something that I want to get married at the Elvis Chapel, drive through Elvis drive thru window.

So For anybody looking for Tom or I on August 15th, we're going to be at the Elvis Chapel getting married. I'll be the cutest size 20 in the room.

So anyway, we're going to have everybody go over to the. Take advantage, given that the website again.

Yeah, the class is supersimplesocialmedia.com. And if somebody from your community wants that class and can't afford it, I'm happy to scholarship them for a month or two so they can download.

Wow. Did everybody here that, all you screwballs. So anyway, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. Mary, I don't want to. You got this stuck in my head. You know what to call you. So it's Mary Agnes. You can call me honey, since we're getting married.

OK, honey. Mary Agnes, honey. Yeah. So thanks so much for for telling us. Your story is very inspiring. And you really build up a great, great, great business. That's that's closed all the time. So. All right. So thanks so much. Mary Agnes and everybody else. Make sure you check the next episode. Also, check the show notes. This is episode 159. So you can take advantage of all the great things Mary Agnes has to offer. So we'll catch all on the next episode. See you later.

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