“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Mark Whitman Tweet
Mark Whitman is a serial entrepreneur. He has founded, scaled, and sold several businesses. He is currently the CEO and Founder of Contentellect, a productized content marketing agency. Launched in 2018, Contentellect focuses on the foundational elements of winning websites: Quality Content & Powerful Links. In addition to Contentellect, Mark also runs the adventure travel booking platform, Mountain IQ.
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Tell us a little bit about your current projects. What exciting milestone would you like to share with our readers? (Don’t hesitate to delve into your achievements, they will inspire the audience)
Mark Whitman: I’m currently working on two businesses – Contentellect and Mountain IQ. Contentellect is a content marketing and SEO agency. We launched the agency in 2018 as a content writing service, but as we’ve scaled we’ve added more services, including a link building offer and a fully managed SEO service. We have over 100 active clients, 11 full-time staff, and over 100 freelance writers and VAs. We have ambitious goals for Contentellect and aim to hit $80k monthly recurring revenue by the end of the year.
We’re sharing our journey on how we plan to grow to 7 figures in revenue in this public case study. Mountain IQ is a business I launched over 7 years ago. We help adventure-seekers plan and book travel to some of the most popular mountain destinations around the World. We specialize in connecting travelers with the best local guides in each destination. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, we’ve had to put this business on hold for the last two years, but we have big plans to scale Mountain IQ into the leading booking platform for travelers looking for mountain adventures. Watch this space!
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up?
Mark Whitman: I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2010 and to be honest I’ve never considered giving up despite many hard times and big failures. I’ve had some serious lows where I’ve questioned what I’m doing and why, but somehow I’ve managed to pick myself up again and keep going. I think resilience and determination is key characteristic for an entrepreneur. Failure and hard times are almost guaranteed when you start your own business. It took me over three years before I started earning the same amount of money I was in my job. I had to take a massive step back in lifestyle to pursue my entrepreneurial goals, but in some way, this sacrifice made it difficult to give up and gave me the drive to succeed. As Tony Robbins says, if you are a general in an army and want to take an island, the easiest way is to burn the boats. There is no option to give up then.
What are the most common mistakes you see entrepreneurs make and what would you suggest they do?
Mark Whitman: True entrepreneurs make mistakes all the time. It’s the only way they learn and improve. The most common mistake doesn’t apply to entrepreneurs, it applies to people who want to be entrepreneurs (i.e. wantrepreneurs). The most common mistake I see with wannaprenuers is they never start. They have ideas and they talk a lot about them, but they never start. They find great excuses like they are too busy or they need funding etc. To these people I say, just start. Launch today. Fail forward. The greatest failure is never starting.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons you learned from that?
Mark Whitman: I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2010 and to be honest I’ve never considered giving up despite many hard times and big failures. I’ve had some serious lows where I’ve questioned what I’m doing and why, but somehow I’ve managed to pick myself up again and keep going. I think resilience and determination is key characteristic for an entrepreneur. Failure and hard times are almost guaranteed when you start your own business. It took me over three years before I started earning the same amount of money I was in my job. I had to take a massive step back in lifestyle to pursue my entrepreneurial goals, but in some way, this sacrifice made it difficult to give up and gave me the drive to succeed. As Tony Robbins says, if you are a general in an army and want to take an island, the easiest way is to burn the boats. There is no option to give up then.
Has the pandemic and transitioning into mostly online shopping affected your company positively or negatively?
Mark Whitman: We’re a digital and remote-first company so adapting to the challenges posed by the pandemic from a work perspective was very straightforward. Unfortunately, one of the sectors we’re in – travel – was massively impacted by the pandemic. We’re hopeful that things will bounce back in 2022, but it has been a very rough 24 months for this business. Fortunately, I have quite a few businesses, including Contentellect, which weren’t affected by the pandemic. One thing the pandemic has taught me is the value of being anti-fragile.
This idea was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and essentially means being resilient to large changes, shocks, or stresses. The pandemic has been one such shock and if we had all our eggs in one basket (i.e. just travel), we would have been wiped out. Thankfully we are well diversified across multiple sectors, business models, and geographies, so we’ve managed to weather the storm so far.
What is most important to your organization—mission, vision, or values?
Mark Whitman: At Contentellect we have a very clear mission, which is to help ambitious entrepreneurs succeed online. This mission drives everything we do at our agency. We love seeing our clients succeed and it’s the yardstick by which we measure our performance as an agency. We apply this mission internally too. As a company, we’re very ambitious and want to succeed too. And indeed we want everyone who works at Contentellect to succeed in their lives. Everything we do is aligned to this mission internally and externally.
Delegating is part of being a great leader, but what have you found helpful to get your managers to become valiant leaders as well?
Mark Whitman: I’m a massive advocate of autonomy in an organization. Autonomy is underpinned by trust, which is an amazing motivator for people. As David Brent once said, trust people, and they will be good to you. At Contentellect we take autonomy to another level. We don’t have an office and we don’t have standard office hours. Staff can work whenever and wherever they like. All we care about are outputs – are you doing a good job and are you delivering on time? This mindset is critical to our success. We hate micromanagement. We trust our staff to do the right thing and hold them accountable for their actions, not their time inputs.
Being a CEO of the company, do you think that your brand reflects your company’s values?
Mark Whitman: I’m not much of a personal brand CEO, although over time I’ve become more confident to have a public profile and I can certainly see the value of it, I do think that one’s public profile should embody the values of their company. I’m not sure how a CEO could have opposed personal values to their company and not created a toxic culture.
What’s your favorite leadership style and why?
Mark Whitman: Leading by example is for me the most powerful leadership style. I also think an effective leader is okay with being vulnerable. This means being honest and transparent. People trust and are willing to follow those that let their guard down and share their truth. Being vulnerable doesn’t have to come from a position of weakness. It can come from a position of strength. Knowing the difference is what separates great leaders from the rest.
What’s your favorite “life lesson” quote and how has it affected your life?
Mark Whitman: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” Seneca
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Mark Whitman for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Mark Whitman or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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