Meet Mark Preston

My personal story, in my own words... From mechanic to professional speaker...

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Hi, I'm Mark Preston, 'THE' Digital Growth Speaker, Growth Partner, Author, and the Founders Growth Partner. I'm also a father of four, a grandfather of a wonderful little lad who keeps me young, and a little Shih Tzu dog that forces me to get away from the screen and go on our walks along the beach which is located just 10 minutes walk from our house. My family are my why and my personal goal is to buy a nice house overlooking the beach. I'm also a huge fan of F1.

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Everything I have done and achieved over the past 25 years is for my family. With two son's on the autistic spectrum and a daughter with a heart condition, life has been tough and we have faced many challenges as a family that gave me a hidden strength when it came to work and business.

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The past 25 years of building and scaling my own businesses, plus helping others to grow theirs has built the foundations of what I now... Connect Those Dots Growth Framework™. And yes... in that time, I have personally been responsible for generating over one billion pounds in profitable revenue... with ZERO paid marketing spend.

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Over the past two and a half decades of being in the trenches, I have scaled my own lead generation business servicing hundreds of local businesses in many different industries with quality leads through my network of around 120 websites. All powered by organic growth... I've built and scaled my own multi-office digital growth agency turning unknown brands into trusted recognised brands within their field of expertise... Founded and scaled my own white label digital growth franchise network to over fifty franchisees all around the UK... Trained hundreds of professional digital marketers around the world... Scaled the digital growth ecosystem of the UK's largest group of independent opticians (Hakim Group) from just 65 locations (low-8-figure revenue) when I started, to over 500 locations (modest 9-figure turnover), driving over fifty thousand quality appointments per month through organic growth.

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Everything I have achieved over the years with my own businesses has been fully self-funded and organically grown. Yes, I admit that I have made decisions along the way that didn't go the way I expected them to, but that is all part of the learning process. And... if I am totally honest... without those mistakes, my Connect Those Dots Growth Framework™ would not be as powerful as it is today. It probably wouldn't exist at all.

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Fast forward to today...

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I'm the author of multiple business growth books, including the best-seller 'The Business Side of SEO' where I share my real and honest journey of building and scaling a digital growth agency with zero investment, and my growth books 'Connect Those Dots' the foundation of my  Connect Those Dots Growth Framework™, plus 'Customer Growth Unlocked' where I guide founders through 101 customer growth challenges (via storytelling) and gives them an actionable checklist for each.

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I'm the Director and Shareholder of multiple businesses that I have partnered with through my Founders Growth Partner model. Installing my  Connect Those Dots Growth Framework™ into their businesses in return for a % equity share of the business instead of a consultancy fee.

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And as 'THE' Digital Growth Speaker, I give franchises, SMEs, and founder-led businesses their own dot connecting growth framework through my talks, workshops, and growth advisory, so they stop getting ripped off with shiny object growth tactics and build their digital ecosystem by connecting all those unlinked dots which allows them to scale their business in a dot connecting way.

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Oh yes... I've also run my own small events and was on the events team at Hakim Group connecting all those events dots at their large scale conferences hosting over a thousand attendees. So... in a small way, I can relate to what you go through as a speaker booker or event organiser. I'm here as a safe pair of hands.