The VICI Code: Purpose-Driven Profits
Welcome to The VICI Code — the podcast where small business owners stop pretending, start confessing, and finally get what it takes to win financially.
We talk real numbers. Real faith. Real stories of underdogs who got hit hard — by bad decisions, burnout, even bankruptcy — and chose to rise anyway.
I’m Joe Dunaway, founder of VICI Financial, and every week, I sit down with entrepreneurs who’ve walked through fire, fixed their finances, and found purpose in the process.
If you’ve ever felt like the only one who doesn’t “get it” when it comes to business money…
If your story feels too messy, too behind, or too far gone…
You belong here.
Because the comeback isn’t just possible — it’s coded into you.
This is The VICI Code.
Let’s crack it together.
The VICI Code: Purpose-Driven Profits
The Growth Engine: Marko Bizjak on Automating Home Services, Killing Operational Chaos, and the Path to Seven Figures
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In episode 42 of The VICI Code, Joe Dunaway interviews Marko Bizjak, Founder of Marvix Digital & Creator of the Marvix Growth Engine™, as he explores everything from the “prisoner” realization that traps talented entrepreneurs, to creating pipeline command centers that turn every inquiry into a tracked opportunity, and building company culture through discipline, relationships, and faith.
Tune in to learn actionable strategies for buying back your time, scaling what matters, and building a business that serves your life!
TIMESTAMPS
[00:00:02] The "prisoner" realization—why most business owners get stuck
[00:03:00] Marko Bizjak’s breakthrough: systems over manual chaos
[00:04:23] The mindset shift: Moving from technician to leader
[00:05:41] Tracking every lead—financial impact of governed systems
[00:06:53] Social proof and the review magnet system
[00:08:40] Buying back your time—family and freedom stories
[00:11:41] Overcoming mindset blockers and embracing tech
[00:15:08] Discipline, daily routines, and leading by example
[00:17:23] Building personal and business fitness
[00:21:20] The mission driving Marko Bizjak and his passion for trades
[00:24:02] Key takeaways and how to connect with Marko Bizjak
QUOTES
- "It's a vicious cycle that keeps repeating—until you build a system that allows you to buy back your time." – Marko Bizjak
- "Websites are not a system, but they’re your biggest opportunity to build system-driven intake and communication." – Joe Dunaway
- "When you lead by example, the energy is different. The people around you rise to another level, too." – Marko Bizjak
SOCIAL MEDIA
Joe Dunaway
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejoedunaway/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-dunaway
Marko Bizjak
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markob777/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markobizjak/
WEBSITE
VICI Finance: https://www.vicifinance.com/
Marvix Digital: https://marvixdigital.com/
Welcome to the Vici Code where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt and conquered their challenges, faith, family and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory one story at a time. All right, all right, what is up? Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose driven journey, the Growth engine, where we focus on reclaiming freedom through systems, how to replace manual hustle with a pipeline command center, and why high performing tradespeople fail without digital governance. Most home service business owners are incredible at their trade, no doubt about that. But. But very but. But they are prisoners to their phones. If the phone stops ringing, their business dies. If it keeps ringing, the owner risks burning out. Our guest today found the jailbreak for that psycho. Marco Bizzeck is the architect behind the Marvix growth engine. Marco doesn't just build websites, he builds done for you. Systems that handle visibility, lead tracking and automated follow ups for six figure electricians, plumbers and H vac contractors. Marco is once again another elite member of Dan Martell's elite group. He is a master at building the connective tissue between a business owner's skill and their actual freedom. He has turned the chaotic world of home services, often run on sticky notes and sheer willpower, into a predictable science. His approach aligns perfectly with the Vici philosophy of moving from operator to to leader through the use of proprietary systems. Today we are exploring the tradition, the transition from craft to company. We're diving into why being good at your job isn't good enough to scale and how to build a system that allows you to buy back your time. We will of course filter Marco systems first mindset through the Vici pillars, Faith, family, fitness and finance. Marco, been waiting so long for this episode, man. I'm Sue Happy. Super happy to have you on. I know that there's a lot of people that listen to this show and a lot of my clients that this episode's going to resonate with. I really appreciate you making the time for us. Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So we want to jump right in. Always love starting with those breakthroughs. And this first question circles around the prisoner realization. You speak about tradespeople being prisoners in their own businesses. You saw amazing craftsmen losing their jobs to simple follow up mistakes. What was the specific breakthrough moment where you realized that getting the phone to ring was only 10% of the battle? Yeah, so basically started with a friend of mine who runs a home service business. His specialty is basically pipe relining with epoxy stuff. So the deal with him was he was fully booked. He had more than enough work to do, great reputation, a hard working guy, but he was drowning in his work. He had sticky notes everywhere. Some inquiries were on his phone, some were on the emails, some were left at home back on the fridge. So Misha, he also had missed calls he didn't even know about because while he was down doing the dirty work, the phone was waiting in the truck and all those calls just kept stacking up, stacking up. And he didn't get back to them because there was no system behind it. So no automatic call back or text back, no reminders to call them back. So basically no systems. And he was losing jobs to competitors who was worse at the actual work, but who had better systems in place. And that moment actually stuck with me and I realized it wasn't just his problem, it's an entire industry problem. I think this industry is unserved in this area and can be much improved by it. And why do you, why do so many six figure owners resist moving from manual to automated even when they are clearly overwhelmed? Well, it's interesting. I just read a book called Emit recently and it calls about three personalities, basically being a technician, being an entrepreneur, and being a manager. And most are. I was also guilty of this and still am. In part. Most of us are stuck in being the technician, doing all the work, managing everything ourselves. Because in the end this seems easier because when, when you have systems and other people, you think like you have to manage those and if something comes up, the technician just kicks in and you automatically start doing the work again yourself. And it's a vicious cycle that keeps repeating. Yeah, and I'm also guilty of it too. In the moment it seems so much easier just to do the technician move and just keep moving and not take time to build the system. That will make things easier. But over time, you know, chaos ensues, you lose business, you lose good talent on your team because you resist actual taking the time to build systems. Next question. In the finance pillar, clarity is king. You use a pipeline command center to track every inquiry. For a business owner who is currently managing their leads via text message and and sticky notes, what is the immediate financial impact of seeing their data in a governed system? Well, first of all, you know what you're working with, what you're working with basically so you know what your revenue is coming in. Probably those are still opportunities, but in my friend's example, he lands most of those jobs because they are immediate jobs that need to be done. So if he's quick to respond, which he usually is, but he can't do them all, he basically lands them. And if you have a common center where you can see every inquiry, what's worth, what's everything and you can start planning the next moves inside your business, basically, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And how does social proof through your review magnet system act as a compounding asset for a local business? Oh well, just imagine it. You go online, you're looking for a service, you see the top three in the map pack, which Google promotes. The more reviews you have. Which one are you choosing? The one with the thousandth record and thousand reviews and high quality rating or the one with three reviews that came from their friends? Probably the one with the most social proof. So asking for reviews, it's also an important thing which often gets overlooked, especially in this industry, I think. Yeah. And there's two types of, well there might be more types than two, but I, I, my wife are the two different types of people that I can think of. I'm the kind of guy who, you know, if I'm like on Amazon or whatever, I want to see a lot of people who've rated it, I want to see a lot of action. I, I'm not going to read the reviews. Right. Just knowing that there is a thousand reviews on this one versus a hundred on this one, that's almost enough for me social proof just to say, okay, enough people have made, you know, the effort to make a comment. My wife will go in and she'll read all of those reviews. So it serves those two different types of people. So I totally agree. Having that review magnet system is essential for people help making that decision. Depending on it doesn't matter how they look at it, whether they read the comments or not, it shows that that business is, you know, doing a lot more and people are responding to it. Yeah. And it's basically not a guarantee that's going to be a perfect service. But if you can see a track record, they have multiple people basically who helped. It's a strong indicator that they're good. Absolutely, I agree. Now let's jump into some buying back your time questions here. Family in the buyback time philosophy, you mentioned that the ultimate goal of the Marvix growth engine is to allow owners to step out of the daily grind. When you look at the family pillar, what is the most rewarding story you've heard from a client who, who finally had the freedom to present because the system was on autopilot? Well, I Don't know about the concrete example, but people had basically more time on their hands. We didn't really talk about the impact on their families and stuff like that, but I'm guessing that was the number one priority when they got some time back for themselves and didn't have to be down in the trenches doing pipe work, for example. Yeah. And I mean, you've got more time for, for obviously family and if, you know, and what are you building this for, you know, if it's not for supporting your family and all that, but it's also buying back your time to continue building the company. Right. Pouring more time into building the company, more time with family, more time for yourself. A lot of these guys, these blue collar guys, you know, they, they barely have enough time for themselves. And honestly, it shows. They're the, the guys that are overworked and burnout, just, they're just not happy. They're not very pleasant to be around. You know, the guys that are, you know, you know, leveraging systems, spending more time with family, building their business, they just have this glow about them. You can tell that they're doing something different and they're doing something right. Yeah. And without systems, I have, I have a lot of friends in this, in this niche actually. And one of them just recently told me he stopped answering the phone numbers he doesn't recognize because he's so overwhelmed by work and he's stuck still in the technician phase because he's still doing everything himself. And we had a chat about it and he said, who's going to do the work if not me? He's stuck in that transition phase and he doesn't really know where the next job is coming from. He has enough work, but if he would have a pipeline where he could review how many inquiries are, how many revenue is going to come in. He could plan out things, he could hire someone to train and then start basically delegating work to them and buying back time and get more freedom and more time to work back on the business. Yeah. And what is it, what is it usually that's stopping businesses like that from, you know, really developing those systems? You know, when they meet you, obviously you can kind of explain to them all that, but like, what is, what is stopping them from, from actually building the systems? Well, the number one issue is, well, I'm not a tech guy, I can't build this. And they usually just give up at that point. And I get that when they're working like they are, they don't have time to sit around the computer and figure out CRM systems, email marketing and stuff like that. So I get that. But you need to look it from another angle where when you set this up, it can save you basically a lot of time. You can automate outreach, you can automate response to get feedback faster back. You can automate review requests and everything like that, which takes a lot of time doing manually. But the thing when they say I'm not very technical just scares them, basically. That's where we saw an opportunity to help them because we were very skilled in tech. So. Yeah, that's why we recently niched down into the home service businesses. Yeah. And it sounds like there's a, there's a mindset limiter there with some of those business owners that, like, I can't, I'm not this. It's just, it's just a matter of, you know, you got to really kind of be vulnerable and say, you know what, this isn't my area of expertise, but I want to be happy. I want to feel better than, you know, how I'm feeling now. I want to be able to not lose jobs, you know, so, you know, getting out there and being vulnerable and making mistakes, they can be avoided. When they meet people like you, Marco, to set these things up for them, you know, I, I have to imagine a big part of your job is like, really kind of like mentoring and motivating some of these business owners to, to, to open their eyes and say, hey, listen, it doesn't have to be that hard. I know that it's. I know that it's, it's intimidating, but when you've got a plug and play system like yours, like the Mavericks growth engine, you know, what, what, what's. Why, is there any reason to say no to that? Yeah, there, there's basically not. It's just, I don't know, maybe. Maybe it's overwhelming because they're like afraid to take on more work and it scares them a bit. Oh, no, because they don't have actually any systems in place. And what happens then if jobs just start coming in and I can't handle those, I can't be on the phone the whole time. I can't read the hundred emails and things like that. So that might be one of the things that scares them a bit. Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think they, I think what, what's really rewarding about that industry is that it's. You feel accomplished, right? You're working, you're doing a job. I think a lot of these guys don't want to get out of doing the job. You know, they don't want to manage the company. You know, they don't mind managing the people right there, there in front of them, but they don't really want to step away from getting their hands dirty and you know, wearing the suit, so to speak, and managing. So I think that's also, you know, a belief limiter as well that's got, that you got to break through. Now how did your journey in digital marketing shape your perspective on protecting your time for what matters most? Oh, well, like with them, I try to systemize everything that I can. It's been hard the journey to get here, it wasn't easy. I had also a lot of those belief blockers myself. It wasn't easy to get over them. But once I started creating some systems, making things more automatic, I could then delegate some of my work to others and things got a lot, a lot easier for me as an owner. Because let's face it, once you become a business owner, eventually you're gonna stop doing the work that you started doing it. Usually when you start, when people in general start a business, they go from a job they did very well, then they had an idea, a moment, I'm gonna do this for myself. And then they open the business, they start working in it, but they create a job instead of a business. Because your role eventually is gonna change. If you're gonna scale, if you're gonna have systems in place, if you don't wanna be digging trenches instead of being at home with your family at 5pm, eventually your role inside your business gonna have to change. And that was one of the realization also for me. I had to stop doing everything myself and switching to delegating stuff basically and creating systems that can support that. Because if you just delegate a task without any systems in place, it then happens again, it doesn't get done, then you jump right back in and then you're out. First step again. Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely agree. Now let's jump more into, you know, fitness, face some of these other fun things. Building a growth machine requires massive mental fitness and a high level of discipline. How do you maintain your own edge so that you can lead your team and your clients with clarity? Well, since we're coming from elite and we have the five daily non negotiables, those have been have played a major role in my life, helping me stay more disciplined. Basically the one that did the most change was working out every day. I was having trouble with this all my life and once I started doing this, I saw how my how the ability to believe in myself became true. Actually, I started getting more confident, not because of the way I look, but because I saw that I could be consistent in one thing, then the consistency spilled over into other areas of my life. So that had a big role in it. Yeah. And I think there's a chemical shift in our bodies, too. Like, we're happier when we're happier, we do better. And I think when we do better, it just becomes that cycle where, you know, the, the endorphins of working out and you do. You are going to look better regardless. So, like, you now, now, now you're feeling better, you're looking better, you're doing better, you're. You're emotionally regulated and, and you have more energy and, and for, for the work day, and you got more energy for the family. So it just becomes like, we talk about, you know, bad cycles. These are like good cycles that keep feeding itself. So, yeah, it's. And, and the interesting is. The interesting thing is it fills you up with energy. You would think it will be otherwise, but when you see you accomplish one thing and you accomplish another thing, it just fires you up. And you. You get that internal fire that pushes you forward. Amen, brother. Amen. Does your personal discipline mirror the predictable systems you build for others? I think it does, yeah. I think you can see when someone is disciplined, you can basically. I don't know how I would say you can inherit their discipline. When you communicate with them, you can see how they perform and things like that. And peer pressure is a real thing. And I saw it actually with my wife when I started doing things like this, staying consistent with workouts. She's just started doing it also. She's not part of the elite coaching. She doesn't know about it. Well, she does from. From me saying to her what it is, but, yeah, it just, it just influences people around you. The energy is different. They see how you perform, and they just rise to another level, too. Yeah, it's interesting how that works when you lead by example, whether you're trying to or not. You know, people that you're closest to take notice and they either, you know, fear it or they get on board with it. Right? They, you know, they start feeling like, oh, you know, the defensive, or they like, yeah, this guy's got it figured out or this girl's got it figured out. Like, I like the results they're getting. I. I'm going to. And it's like, if you, if you got to, if you're going to talk to talk, you Got to walk the walk. It's. It's hard to be a physical trainer if you're, you know, out of shape, you know. Yeah. So if you're talking about being disciplined in business and that's how you're coaching, it would make sense that you have to be the same way in your personal life. Otherwise it's just lip service. Right? Yeah, of course. And the same goes for, like, Bookola's guide. They have websites and they don't show their best work. They don't show their reviews, even if they have. Don't have a lot of reviews. But they should show the work. They should put everything forward and lead by example and show people what can be done if done correctly. Absolutely. In terms of faith. In terms of faith, what is the core mission that drives you to help these local business owners? Specifically? Why are the trades so close to your heart? I don't know. I got a lot of friends in this niche. It just struck me while I was doing research and things like this, I think they get overlooked because they could improve their systems, improve their website, improve their online visibility. And there's a lot of potential there, I think. And I don't know why this niche is a bit underserved, in my opinion, but it is like that and I saw it with my friends, how overwhelmed they were with all the work with no systems, and I don't know, it just hit a nerve and we decided to niche down into this space because before that we were in a larger digital marketing space, basically. We didn't have a specific niche we worked with. And I don't know, they just resonated with me because we had a lot of work done at our house and I really respect their work, the ones that do it well, and I just wanted to return something back to them and help them build their businesses. Like they helped build our house, for example. Yeah, and they build so many other things be beyond our house. You know, their infrastructure, you know, the, the. There's so much that they do and quite honestly, you know, when, when you meet a good, a good skilled guy, they're so impressive. What, what they're able to do in such a short amount of time or with the precision that they do is, is really special. And that's why we can rely on so many things. We can rely on, you know, know our mechanics to fix our cars. We can rely on our home service people to make sure that, you know, everything's working right. And it's definitely an area that, you know, it's close to me. We have a lot of home service and trades people as clients. So you know, that's, that's why I, I was really excited to have you on and, and share your story. Yeah, but we're, we're getting here towards the end. I just want to do a couple recaps, Marco, for our audience. You know, we, we kind of went over websites briefly, but websites are not a system. However, websites are a good opportunity to build systems. They can be very efficient in intake and an incoming and outgoing system driven notifications and communication. And then you know, the power of automated follow ups. You know, there's a lot of missed opportunities or miscommunication when there, when you don't have automation set up. And right now in 2026, it's kind of, if, if you're in a business that could benefit from follow ups, it's almost ridiculous that you're not pursuing that because you're, you're missing out on touch points, you're missing out on providing customer service without doing anything. And you know, it just makes sure that your, your, your clients know that you're thinking of them. Even if they know it's an automated response, they know that you went through the effort to set that automated response up. So it, it helps you, you may think you lose a little bit of that personal touch, but you can always make up for it in that conversation. When you do have that, you know, one on one follow up. But in the meantime those automated follow ups are so important and then the necess necessity of a command center to scale from six to seven figures. You know, you don't know your business if you don't know your numbers, you're, you're operating in the blind. If you're not operating based on the data that you're collecting. That data is, is, is incredible decision making material on if it's sitting there just being ignored, you know, you're missing a big opportunity to understand your company on a deeper level and make decisions that are, you know, better for you, your team, your family, saving you time and buying back your time. Marco, thank you so much for showing us how to turn operational chaos into the growth machine. I want to just let our, our listeners know. If you're tired of missing calls and tired of sticky notes, visit marvixdigital.com or connect with Marco on LinkedIn to see how the growth engine can help you reclaim your freedom. In the show notes, you're going to see a link to his Instagram account, you're going to see a link to his LinkedIn account. You're going to, you're going to see a link to marvx digital.com try all these out. Do you have any special prompts that our listeners can send you if they have any inquiries? Yeah, I have a couple of tools I built also so they can calculate what the impact is on those missed calls on revenue and some audits for their website they can do on their own and like small wins, they can do by themselves that would inevitably show results just by themselves. And if they hit me up and message me chaos on Instagram, I can send all those over or on LinkedIn or on Facebook, it doesn't matter which channel. And I'll be happy to help. And also do an audit of the website and their Google business profile to see where they stand, actually. Oh, those are great. Those are great giveaways, man. Well, if you have, if you guys want any more of that, just check out the show notes. In the meantime, stay blessed, stay automated, and keep leading with purpose. We'll see you on the next episode of the Vici Code. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels a fight and your comeback is already in progress.