[#004] My First Billion: My #1 Rule for Negotiation (Most Ignore This)
Here’s what happened inside the business this week…
The real numbers, systems, breakthroughs, and breakdowns on the path to building a billion-dollar portfolio.
My #1 Rule for Negotiation (That Most Ignore)
This week, I was finalizing a deal with a new portfolio partner.
As we wrapped terms, it reminded me of something I hold firm on:
My rule for negotiation is simple: all parties should win.
Not “I win, you lose.”
Not short-term cash grabs.
I’m not interested in deals that don’t build something long-term.
Equity. Profit share. Growth we’re both invested in.
Most people think negotiation is about “getting the upper hand.”
But if one side walks away feeling slighted, resentment will follow.
That’s a loss.
We’re playing long-term games with long-term people.
That’s it.
Infrastructure, Enrollment & Systems
→ We onboarded a new enrollment advisor last week, and he’s off to a strong start, getting solid reps in.
→ We’ve intentionally kept the enrollment team lean, but this was a necessary hire because:
We have more leads than we can touch.
A good challenge to have, but a challenge nonetheless.
→ On our Monday enrollment meeting, we uncovered follow-up gaps and training opportunities.
This surfaced:
→ A lack of SOPs around specific enrollment and training points
→ Gaps in the lead nurture + follow-up sequence
→ Missed opportunities in handoff between SDRs and closers
We created a fresh SOP list to tighten operations and ensure every lead gets the attention it deserves. Our Sales lead said the SOPs will be done by Monday.
Two-Day Intensive Locked & Loaded
We’re hosting the Strategic Scale 2-Day Intensive this weekend.
Session one kicks off with our Co-Founder and Director of Client Success, Aundrae Gaskin, helping attendees excavate the internal blocks that keep high-performers from their next level…
After his session and a quick break…
I’m kicking off a session, walking the attendees through build their Personal Strategic Scale Marketing Bot™…
…a custom GPT trained on their tone, language, and messaging to generate content, emails, sales scripts, and more.
This will save them ~18 hours/week. That’s 936 hours/year,
a part-time hire they won’t need.
This intensive will become a productized asset soon.
Ad Campaigns & Email List Learnings
Client Attraction Machine book ads = still inconsistent.
We’re testing angles and traffic sources.
Relaunching:
→ Paid Ad Playbook funnel
→ Predictable Scale Playbook funnel
We’re building a Goodwill Vortex, multiple entry points to bring people into our ecosystem and move them toward conversion through high-value nurturing.
Email data:
After testing different timeframes, we’re now only sending
to people who opened in the last 6 months, better
engagement, better deliverability.
And we’re aggressively cleaning bounced emails via
an automation.
We went from last 6 months open to 12 month opens
and our open rates tanked.
Here’s an example:
As you see we went from 19% to 5% opened.
So yeah, we’re emailing more people (20k+), but getting the same amount of people opening when we email less (~6k).
Less is truly more, and the email service providers penalize you for emailing tons of people who aren’t opening the emails.
Media, Messaging & Momentum
→ Podcast with Ash Cash + Jay White (Crime Pays show)
→ Alexandria Nicole has me come on to do an AI masterclass on attracting 5K–10K clients
→ Strategic Scale Summit launch strategy + registration page 90% done
→ Mapped out Dec. 4 virtual event, messaging, and offer
What I’m Reading
Nothing changed here. Same as last week.
And David Perceived He Was King by Dale Mast: A reminder that just because you’re anointed doesn’t mean you’re appointed yet.
This one’s been shifting how I move.
As always, making sure I build with Kingdom at the center.My Daily Devotionals are:
For my business book…
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work from the founders of Basecamp. Big shift in how to think about scale, margin, and sustainability.
Quick Friday Insight
Most bottlenecks aren't about capacity. They're about clarity.
We think we need more leads, more people, more sales.
But more without better systems just multiplies chaos.
That’s why we’re refining enrollment, SOPs, email hygiene; not just to scale faster, but to scale smarter.
Let me know what stood out to you, reply to this email or DM me on IG @marquelrussell.
Keep building (strategically),
Marquel
