Dan Martell - 27 Years of No Bullsh＊t Business Advice in 27 Mins

00:00:00.000 Since the age of 17, I've only done one thing, build businesses.

00:00:04.040 Today, 27 years later, I'm the founder of Martell Ventures,

00:00:07.440 a portfolio company that makes over $100 million a year in revenue.

00:00:10.960 And I get thousands of business owners DMing me on Instagram every day for help,

00:00:14.920 but I only have time to respond to a few a day.

00:00:16.980 So today, I want to give you all of my knowledge for free.

00:00:20.060 Everything you need to start, grow, and exit your business in as little time as possible.

00:00:24.880 The first thing you need to do is start.

00:00:26.620 so the first business i ever started was a vacation rental website think airbnb

00:00:32.400 but i built it for my dad he was asking me to build a web page for his cottage and i thought

00:00:37.660 my dad needs a web page for his cottage maybe there's other people so that's what i did i

00:00:41.780 essentially convinced my dad it was going to cost like 500 bucks to host his web page he's like i

00:00:46.180 thought it was free i'm like trust me took the 500 bucks went and paid for hosting for a server

00:00:51.500 for a year which allowed me to build this site this app then i had to figure out how do i get

00:00:55.900 more customers to pay me for a webpage for their cottage. And my buddy Dave gave me this crazy

00:01:01.860 idea. He said, there's a tourism guide that's got all the bed and breakfasts. You should talk to

00:01:06.280 that. So what I did is I had my little brother enter in all the contact information from this

00:01:11.180 tourism guide into a Microsoft Access database. Then I opened up Microsoft Word and I did a mail

00:01:16.360 merge, printed out all these letters that said something to the fact that, hi, we're Maritime

00:01:20.940 Vacation. We allow you to have a webpage for your listing where you can manage the availability and

00:01:25.820 the rules and people to reach out to you and book if you want a web page then just fill out this

00:01:30.460 form include some photos thirty dollars for the web page ten dollars if you want your photos back

00:01:35.500 and we sent out i think like 400 pieces of mail manually just folding letters licking stamps put

00:01:42.060 it in the mail and it's funny because maybe a week later my dad and i came home to our apartment he

00:01:47.100 checked the mail and there was like a stack of envelopes and in the envelopes was dollars and

00:01:52.540 that's how maritimevacation.ca was born i remember somebody saying that if you can get a stranger

00:01:58.620 that's not your cousin your uncle your aunt to send you money over the internet then you've

00:02:02.220 gone pro so at 17 18 years old i went pro indirectly by helping my dad deal with all

00:02:07.100 these phone calls that was my first dollar on the internet most people think that they need more

00:02:16.860 ready to charge somebody money. I always ask myself, what's the minimum I have to do to present

00:02:23.780 something to a potential customer to get them to give me money? Dollar bills exchanging hands. It

00:02:29.840 doesn't matter if it's a product or a service. I don't have to have the product to sell it. I don't

00:02:33.520 need to deliver the service to sell it. I can have the conversation to see if there's a problem that

00:02:37.440 needs to be solved and ask the person to pay me to solve that problem. I think that is the biggest

00:02:43.200 thing stopping people is they think i need the business cards i need the website i need the

00:02:46.960 logo i need the team i need the credentials unless you're doing brain surgery you don't

00:02:51.280 need any of that you just need to go find a customer and get them to pay you

00:02:59.040 i think the best industry to start in is something you're passionate about and the reason why is

00:03:04.320 because and steve jobs said this a long time ago any sane person receiving the amount of friction

00:03:09.200 or pushback or challenges would give up.

00:03:11.400 But because you're passionate about it,

00:03:12.840 you keep pushing and that's why you'll be successful.

00:03:15.440 It's almost like you have to be unreasonable

00:03:17.100 about what you wanna achieve

00:03:18.700 because you may not see proof

00:03:20.180 that it's working for a long period of time.

00:03:22.000 The best case is get into an industry that you love,

00:03:25.520 that you're interested in,

00:03:26.560 that in many ways you would do for free

00:03:28.060 just so that you can be in it even if you make no money

00:03:30.860 because being in it is the actual reward.

00:03:33.380 So a kid this morning was talking to me

00:03:34.860 about his business idea.

00:03:35.940 He wants to get paid to modify cars.

00:03:38.000 Truth is, if he never makes a profit for the first three years,

00:03:40.920 he's pumped because he's talking to people that own these cars

00:03:43.980 that he's involved in modifying, and that's his real passion.

00:03:47.000 So whatever you have an interest in, that's the best place to start.

00:03:55.060 My favorite thing to do if I'm starting off is find people

00:03:57.980 that are already selling to the people I need to talk to.

00:04:00.160 So if I want to start a business selling a Harley memorabilia,

00:04:04.580 I would find out who sells to Harley owners.

00:04:06.840 Obviously the Harley dealership, but there might be some other brands and clothing lines online websites some service stations

00:04:13.040 Whatever and talking to them and figure out how you can promote what you've got inside their store or online through their channels

00:04:20.360 Through their facebook page through their instagram account. That's the easiest way. That's the best way

00:04:25.000 And the cool part is if you do that instead of getting one customer

00:04:27.560 You might get 12 customers instead of spending all this time trying to get one new sale

00:04:31.780 you can do the same amount of effort to get in front of that partner that audience and then

00:04:36.240 get a lot of people to buy from you most people make the mistake they go well if somebody's

00:04:40.140 already selling these customers why would they let me in there to help well the truth is is

00:04:44.440 i need to figure out what are the other problems my customers have and introduce them to people

00:04:48.140 who can solve those problems because then they look at me as somebody helps them solve their

00:04:51.240 problems if i'm a barber shop there's no downside to me promoting a garage shop around the corner

00:04:55.540 that i really like the owner that's where a lot of folks have these like limiting beliefs around

00:04:59.840 what other business owners will or won't do

00:05:01.980 when the truth is just start talking to them

00:05:03.900 and ask and see what they are willing to do.

00:05:06.300 Are they willing to send an email

00:05:07.340 letting people know about your business

00:05:08.720 or at least let you put your business cards

00:05:10.320 on the counter in their store

00:05:11.560 or pin it up on one of their community bulletin boards

00:05:14.320 or whatever it is.

00:05:15.060 That's the easiest way to find a customer.

00:05:22.540 Number one skill is the skill of sales.

00:05:25.660 Nothing happens until somebody sells something

00:05:27.840 and that's just the truth.

00:05:28.960 Most people are so scared about being rejected

00:05:30.920 that they will sit at home

00:05:33.100 and play what I call business theater.

00:05:35.120 Business theater is doing all the stuff

00:05:36.880 to get ready to actually do business.

00:05:39.040 It's the logo design, it's the webpage,

00:05:41.640 it's the letterhead, the business cards.

00:05:44.520 And it's fascinating just how elaborate people will go

00:05:47.740 to play business, to be, I'm an entrepreneur.

00:05:51.540 It's like, you don't have any revenue

00:05:53.680 or your only customer is your dad.

00:05:56.000 That's not a business.

00:05:57.040 you're essentially a low paid employee you just happen to bill through a corporation anything

00:06:02.360 that is not trying to get in front of customers and asking for the order is just distractions

00:06:07.580 it's just procrastination it's literally business theater

00:06:11.100 my whole thing in regards to like the core functions of a business it's awareness also

00:06:21.100 known as marketing it's selling getting somebody to buy and then there's fulfillment how do you

00:06:26.120 deliver what you just sold. Everything else can kind of fall into operations or administration.

00:06:31.100 The truth is most owners or the CEO or the founder, whatever you want to call them,

00:06:35.220 they should spend all their time on marketing and sale. Then if they get customers, obviously

00:06:39.360 fulfill over deliver to get referrals to help with the marketing and sales. The first level

00:06:45.100 of getting things off your plate is administrative and operational tasks. People wear those as badges

00:06:50.340 of honor but the truth is is taking time away from doing the other areas is just not time well

00:06:56.100 spent so as soon as you have revenue and you can afford to pay anybody to do any task that's

00:07:00.820 administrative in nature operational in nature it's money well spent because then you're going

00:07:04.660 to take that time and reinvest it in marketing sales it's going to generate more resources

00:07:08.580 dollars revenue that you can then pay other people to help you on the delivery side and then we move

00:07:13.700 in to grow. So the biggest mistake people make is they don't focus on the biggest lever that

00:07:21.840 they've got, which is sell more things to your current customers. I can't tell you the amount

00:07:26.380 of entrepreneurs that I work with where they're like, Hey, we need to get more customers, more

00:07:30.000 customers. I call it the chocolate, right? Where they're like spending all their time on marketing

00:07:33.460 and the real broccoli, the thing that's really going to move the needle is looking at their

00:07:37.780 existing customer and say, how do we get them to buy more, more frequently, bigger packages.

00:07:41.820 and usually if they have a hard time doing that

00:07:43.820 is because they don't actually have a great process

00:07:46.400 for delivering what they promise.

00:07:48.700 Because if you call a customer up

00:07:49.820 and they're not willing to buy anymore,

00:07:51.320 it's probably because they didn't have

00:07:52.040 a great first experience.

00:07:53.160 So we really have to focus on the existing customers

00:07:56.060 to make sure that they're happy,

00:07:57.300 they're referring, they're buying more,

00:07:58.960 you give them offers, you design that conversation

00:08:02.100 and really build a system around monetizing

00:08:05.020 your existing customer base.

00:08:06.620 Once you have that, then you go and try to find more.

00:08:11.820 the most underrated skill is having a level head i can't tell you the amount of entrepreneurs that

00:08:19.500 self-sabotage by screaming at customers that's not fair when it's their fault they didn't set

00:08:24.220 the expectations they didn't manage the expectations they didn't look and communicate

00:08:27.820 properly and all of a sudden the customer is upset especially if you tried to make it better

00:08:31.340 that's where it's really tough for entrepreneurs where they showed up and went above and beyond

00:08:34.700 and the customer's still saying things but the funny part is then they overreact they create

00:08:39.340 what i call emotional shrapnel they explode the most underrated skill is somebody that can

00:08:45.180 disconnect the emotion from the action no matter what somebody says to you you can hold your

00:08:50.300 composure those are the ceos the founders and leaders that end up growing big teams because

00:08:55.900 they don't self-sabotage throw hand grenades in their business like fire half their team get pissed

00:09:01.580 off at their bank manager i've seen it all and literally the bigger the business the more composed

00:09:07.500 you'll see the ceo when it comes to heated customers the way i think about learning i call

00:09:20.460 it just in time versus just in case we always want to try to find the information that's going

00:09:24.700 to help us solve the current problems can have the biggest impact on our business just in case

00:09:29.340 learning is what they teach us in university or what i like to call shelf help in the world of

00:09:33.980 personal development some people they just in case consume 14 different podcasts because they

00:09:38.620 don't want to actually do the business doing the business is marketing sales and then delivering

00:09:42.460 listening to the podcast is not doing the business now if you want to get better figure out what skill

00:09:47.660 you want to learn that's going to have the biggest impact to your business and then go find the

00:09:51.660 resources things like the top five books the top five online programs the other areas it's the

00:09:56.940 fastest is finding a mentor finding somebody that's done it before so that you can not pay

00:10:02.620 the ignorance tax by trying to make the same mistakes they've already made figured out and

00:10:07.200 give you the blueprint i mean it's crazy to see people feel like what they're doing is this magical

00:10:12.480 unique snowflake when it's no different than anybody's gone before you and a lot of people

00:10:17.300 try to sit there and reinvent the wheel and it's slow finding a mentor a coach that's been there

00:10:22.640 before they can literally take 15 years of learning and compress it into a year it's probably the best

00:10:27.960 trade and then i would say build a peer group sometimes we have to do a friend inventory we

00:10:32.440 need to audit our friend group and say do these people support my dreams or when i share do they

00:10:39.080 talk it down do they tell me i'm not thinking about stuff even though they've never done the

00:10:42.920 thing that you want to do and then go find other peers other people in business doing similar to

00:10:48.360 you and spend more time with them that is another great way to learn because they're going to be

00:10:52.680 trying different things at the same pace as you so you'll be able to learn from their trial and error

00:10:57.560 mr beast did this great i remember back in the day he talked about having like 10 friends and

00:11:01.480 they would get on skype and stay on skype all day long for 20 hours straight they would just stay

00:11:06.600 there and every one of them was trying to learn and do new things and then they would share it

00:11:10.600 they're like hey i just tested out these thumbnails check this out or hey i just tried this new

00:11:14.600 storyboard in my video i found this book and it had all these weird ideas so now i'm using them

00:11:18.360 for title ideas and it's just having a peer group of people that are passionate about their future

00:11:23.560 and personal development and growth I think is a great way to learn new stuff when you don't know

00:11:28.140 what you're doing. So there's only four ways to generate demand in your business. I call these

00:11:35.640 the four Ps. You have partner, publish, press or PR, and paid, paid acquisition, ads. The fastest

00:11:42.460 one is partners. Why? Having somebody that's done all the heavy lifting, all the work to build an

00:11:49.460 audience of people that you could sell to. It's kind of like you have a train and the person that

00:11:54.400 has the train going from one city to another city had to build the train tracks. They had to clear

00:11:58.840 the land, build the train tracks, put down all the rocks, put down all the beams, then put down the

00:12:03.340 steel so that the train can roll on it. Then they had to build the train for the passengers to get

00:12:06.840 inside of it, fill it up with cargo, and then the train goes over the track. What you do with a

00:12:11.220 partner, you're starting a new business, all you got to build is a hook. You got to build a long

00:12:15.380 hook when the train comes by that you just latch onto the train and you get to hitch a ride of

00:12:20.660 all the effort building that train, that track, and getting those people on board just by creating

00:12:26.300 an offer, an opportunity for the owner of the track and the train to get you in front of their

00:12:31.320 audience. It is the fastest way to go from zero to hero in your business. Most people are scared

00:12:36.740 of it. So that's number one. Publish is social media. It's content. It's SEO. The problem with

00:12:41.820 publish is that it can be slow. It's great to have it there because people are going to check

00:12:46.000 you out online. You don't want to come up empty, but spending too much time there and not on the

00:12:50.120 other ones is probably not a good move. Paid is very fast. It's the fastest channel. It's just,

00:12:54.740 you got to spend money up front to get a customer. And most people starting off don't have enough

00:12:58.800 money to be able to invest and spend over a long period of time to learn how to do paid. So it's a

00:13:04.180 tougher one to activate. PR is a great one. This is the Richard Branson strategy of trying to get

00:13:08.960 people to talk about you, but trying to figure out what's already a trend or a topic in the market

00:13:14.280 and how you can introduce your business, your personal story, what you're doing that's

00:13:18.660 complimentary to that and insert yourself into those stories so that when people write about it,

00:13:23.280 they mention you. That's a very fast way to get in front of tens of thousands of people,

00:13:27.520 but you just got to be super creative and try to understand how what you're doing aligns with

00:13:31.780 what people want to know about today in the world. My favorite way to sell anything is to

00:13:38.740 talk to somebody and I'll tell you why because the goal isn't to just sell the goal is to learn

00:13:44.140 I can learn faster by talking to somebody about their interests their challenges their problems

00:13:49.780 their reality to then present them a solution way faster than doing it over email doing it over chat

00:13:56.760 even doing it through a partner sometimes if the partner's promoting you I'm not getting any

00:14:00.800 feedback to know what part of the offer is not working for the buyer my big thing is get out of

00:14:06.200 your office. Do not sit in your office and do this. Go to the streets, show up at somebody else's

00:14:10.940 office, go to the mall, go into the streets, stop people, ask them questions, try to figure out your

00:14:15.820 talk tracks for your sales process or your sales script. But the best way to sell is to get on a

00:14:21.640 phone or in person or Zoom so that you can not only get somebody to buy, but learn faster what's

00:14:28.060 working, what's not so that you can make every shot on goal better.

00:14:36.200 In the early days, the brand that matters is your personal reputation.

00:14:40.260 I think too many people worry about the logo, your color palette,

00:14:43.740 but that's not what's going to get people to make a decision.

00:14:47.520 What they're debating when they're looking at you

00:14:50.180 is your ability to understand their problems.

00:14:53.200 And this is where an expert and an amateur are separated.

00:14:56.420 An expert asks questions that make them sound like an expert.

00:14:59.700 An amateur can't talk intelligently about the problem.

00:15:02.860 and if you can't describe to me as the buyer my problem better than i can explain it then you're

00:15:08.620 not the expert your ability to ask me questions to communicate my personal challenges and be more

00:15:14.300 descriptive and accurate than i can makes you the expert so if you want to get somebody to buy

00:15:19.500 then i would say the brand is understanding how do you present yourself in a way that makes you

00:15:24.620 separated from everybody else out there the brand is a byproduct of how the customer experiences

00:15:29.420 is your service, not what you tell them it is.

00:15:31.740 Too many people say, well, the brand is our tagline.

00:15:33.740 No, no, the brand is customer buys, has an experience

00:15:36.860 and decides to explain it to their friend,

00:15:38.380 what it was like.

00:15:39.220 And if that's not a positive experience

00:15:40.740 and you don't have a brand,

00:15:41.700 a brand is what people say about you when you're not around.

00:15:49.360 Most people do a lot of things wrong.

00:15:51.480 There's levels, zero to 300,000 in income.

00:15:54.880 The problem they're trying to solve is to learn to delegate.

00:15:58.520 unfortunately there's a lot of high paid experts they call themselves entrepreneurs but they're

00:16:03.520 really vsbs very small businesses because they don't have a business they're just a high paid

00:16:07.940 consultant a high paid expert and this is true for doctors lawyers dentists etc some of them don't

00:16:13.620 have teams because they don't know how to let go so they just rather do everything and i'm talking

00:16:17.860 about they're lucky if they even have a front desk person doing the billing and scheduling

00:16:21.500 appointments i've seen a lot of barber shops the barber who owns the shop he's doing everything he's

00:16:26.820 answering the phone he's cutting hair he's scheduling stuff and that'll keep you stuck at

00:16:31.300 about 300k the next level is to get to 2 million the problem that people get wrong there is they

00:16:36.860 don't know what to let go in what order they think because they're busy putting on roofs on houses

00:16:41.900 they got to go hire more people to put roofs on houses the challenge with that is then you step

00:16:47.500 away from the work and if it doesn't get done right then you're spending so much time fixing

00:16:52.060 problems because you're not there. So then people will, how do I do that and free up my time to go

00:16:57.020 to the marketing and sales? It's by not doing any operational work. So think non-customer facing.

00:17:02.480 So anything that is marketing, customer facing. Sales, customer facing. The delivery of it,

00:17:08.280 customer facing. And then once I get bigger, a million plus on my way to two million, then I

00:17:12.940 hire leaders that can run those areas of the business. I can hire a consultant to help me

00:17:17.420 with the marketing. I can hire another salesperson to take those calls and do follow-up. And I can

00:17:21.080 and hire a team lead to manage the projects

00:17:23.320 that I've properly trained.

00:17:24.440 To even do that, you gotta build systems.

00:17:26.520 Most people do not document the process

00:17:28.900 for how they do what they do.

00:17:30.160 They just think everybody understands it

00:17:32.080 and then they get upset when things go wrong.

00:17:33.600 To go from two to let's say 10 million eight figures,

00:17:36.660 the real skill is to learn how to work through people.

00:17:40.680 It's a different skill.

00:17:41.940 Delegating to people at scale, you can get to two million.

00:17:44.440 You might run around the day like you're spinning plates

00:17:47.180 and you're worried that one of them's gonna drop

00:17:48.540 and smash all over the place, 0.66

00:17:49.760 but you've got leaders that are managing people.

00:17:52.700 To scale the 10 million,

00:17:53.940 you gotta be good at communicating through outcomes,

00:17:56.620 not tasks, because the outcome is where the person now

00:17:59.860 has a vision for what they gotta do,

00:18:01.280 and it's up to them to figure out the task.

00:18:03.100 The worst thing you could do is hire somebody

00:18:04.780 and tell them what to do.

00:18:05.900 You wanna hire somebody and have them tell you what to do,

00:18:08.540 and that's how you go from two to 10 million,

00:18:10.520 and that's the biggest thing is hiring driven people,

00:18:13.120 learning to work through them and let them figure out

00:18:15.720 how to solve problems at scale,

00:18:17.760 the volume two to ten i mean if you're a barber you might have ten barber shops not one or two

00:18:22.720 managing ten that's a completely different set of complexity that you got to figure out because

00:18:26.800 if you don't your ceiling of complexity will be where you naturally hit a glass ceiling of growth

00:18:32.720 might be at 300 000 1.5 million even 10 million and then 30 million there's all different levels

00:18:37.760 of these glass ceilings of growth or what i call the complexity ceilings that you have to learn how

00:18:41.920 to deal with and overcome. If every time you hire somebody new, you start first with the premise

00:18:53.480 that they have to buy time out of your calendar, something you're currently doing, then as you grow

00:18:58.900 and you hire new people, your calendar should get freer and freer and freer. See, most people don't

00:19:05.220 do this. They hire for capacity. I need another logo designer. I need another programmer. I need

00:19:09.880 another roofing guy. The challenge is if you're early days, then what happens is you still do the

00:19:14.900 work and then you get stuck with all the other stuff as well. And you can burn yourself out

00:19:18.940 where you're literally working 30, 40 hours a week billing or doing customer facing stuff,

00:19:24.040 fulfillment, delivery. And then you spend the other 30, 40 hours a week trying to run the business.

00:19:29.360 So the best way is to start with your calendar, find out what you're doing that is low cost to

00:19:35.140 pay somebody else to do that you don't enjoy doing in the first place and build the process,

00:19:39.320 the standard operating procedure to do that work

00:19:42.240 so that you're not present and give it to somebody else.

00:19:45.180 And I'll tell you, the first day,

00:19:46.860 you don't do all your invoicing,

00:19:48.940 you don't do all your follow-ups,

00:19:50.600 you don't do scheduling,

00:19:52.180 and somebody else takes those tasks

00:19:54.220 and gets them done for you.

00:19:55.360 And they're done as good, if not better,

00:19:57.580 because they actually have the time to do it right

00:19:59.300 where you were rushing before.

00:20:00.540 It is a beautiful moment.

00:20:02.520 My philosophy is 80% done by somebody else

00:20:04.740 is 100% freaking awesome.

00:20:06.200 Because I'll tell you, the faster you get to a point

00:20:09.020 where you're making money that's not connected to your time,

00:20:11.840 that will be the freedom point where business becomes fun.

00:20:15.300 And you can get there a lot faster than you think

00:20:17.060 if you use that process of looking at your calendar

00:20:19.660 and only hiring people that's gonna buy time

00:20:22.280 out of your calendar first.

00:20:28.120 Most people overcomplicate the training of the new person.

00:20:31.680 And I think it's because they wanna be seen

00:20:33.320 as like competent.

00:20:34.340 You start off and you're like,

00:20:35.220 I don't want somebody to think that I'm incompetent.

00:20:36.840 But the truth is, if all the person does

00:20:39.720 the first day they start is sit there and watch videos

00:20:43.200 of you doing the work that you've been doing

00:20:45.380 that they now have to take over,

00:20:46.820 then you didn't have to train them.

00:20:48.920 And then it's up to them to tell you

00:20:51.280 what they learned watching those videos.

00:20:53.040 But that might be the first week or two weeks.

00:20:55.380 So yes, you're thinking,

00:20:56.260 oh, I can't afford to pay somebody to do that.

00:20:58.220 You can't afford not to do it

00:20:59.800 because if it costs you your time

00:21:02.500 when you hire somebody new to get them up to speed

00:21:04.920 where they can actually create value for your business,

00:21:07.800 then you will accept yourself

00:21:09.600 to have an underperformer on your team

00:21:12.180 because that underperformer is easier to deal with

00:21:15.320 than not having them and having to find

00:21:17.600 and train somebody new because it takes your time.

00:21:19.800 But I think that part is really

00:21:21.660 where people overcomplicate it.

00:21:23.200 It doesn't have to be a fancy document

00:21:24.860 that's thought through all the different scenarios

00:21:26.640 and can be as simple as just a bunch of recordings

00:21:28.700 of you doing the work and having them watch you do it

00:21:30.940 and then figure out what makes sense for them.

00:21:33.020 And then the last step is to exit.

00:21:34.920 here's my philosophy if you don't build a business to sell then you'll always feel

00:21:43.380 like you're a prisoner of your company but a business that you could sell is a great business

00:21:48.660 to operate so in many ways just having the decision that someday I will sell this changes

00:21:54.380 your whole relationship with the energy of building the business it doesn't mean you're

00:21:58.340 less passionate or not committed to the future what you're doing is saying hey I want this thing

00:22:02.860 to be bigger than me.

00:22:04.240 I don't wanna be needed for this thing to add value

00:22:07.640 to people I love in my community, online, in the world.

00:22:11.500 I want it to continue past my time.

00:22:13.960 If something happens to me where I get hit by a bus,

00:22:16.380 I don't want the business to not keep going.

00:22:18.340 So I think that if you start with the premise

00:22:20.120 that someday somebody's gonna buy this,

00:22:22.560 it's gonna be worth something,

00:22:23.920 and realize that for most entrepreneurs,

00:22:25.720 the real payday is by creating a business

00:22:27.920 that is valuable to somebody else,

00:22:29.600 then they should wanna create it to exit. 0.94

00:22:32.860 You can sell your business for anything.

00:22:35.980 Doesn't matter what industry you're in.

00:22:37.740 Restaurants, home services, tech.

00:22:40.620 There is a business out there in your kind of industry

00:22:43.260 similar to yours that is sold for a billion dollars.

00:22:46.560 So the amount you could sell it for

00:22:48.860 is literally whatever you want

00:22:50.860 if you're willing to do the work.

00:22:52.540 But it starts with the belief that,

00:22:54.500 hey, somebody could build it

00:22:55.640 if I learn how to build it in a way

00:22:57.040 that's valuable to somebody else.

00:22:58.240 The only reason it's valuable

00:22:59.560 is if it makes profit consistently

00:23:01.980 without you needing to be there.

00:23:03.820 That's what makes it valid.

00:23:04.740 People don't buy businesses as charity projects.

00:23:07.180 They buy businesses because whatever amount they gave you,

00:23:10.220 it generates a return on that amount over a period of time

00:23:14.040 and they expect it to grow.

00:23:15.360 When you're at a million,

00:23:16.320 they're not gonna pay you a whole lot.

00:23:17.540 If you're five million,

00:23:18.740 that's the beginning of where it's interesting

00:23:20.420 to other people.

00:23:21.260 If you're at 10 million,

00:23:22.280 all of a sudden now people are like,

00:23:23.600 oh, I'd pay you three, four, five, six times

00:23:25.980 on your profit, your EBITDA.

00:23:27.520 If you're at 50 million,

00:23:29.100 that's like real life-changing dollar amount.

00:23:31.980 that's the cool part. It's not like one day, maybe I'm going to have this big payday. And

00:23:36.300 all of a sudden I'm going to live differently. It's like, if you do it right and the business

00:23:39.000 makes profit from the first year, second year, third year, et cetera, your life changes right

00:23:43.260 away. The more the business can one operate without you there a hundred percent. If you need

00:23:55.180 to be there every day, that's not as valuable to it doesn't make profit. If it makes a lot of

00:24:00.760 profit. That's obviously awesome. Three, there's a business operating system, a way you do it.

00:24:07.540 Think about your company way. You've documented the process for how you do production management

00:24:13.120 and planning and accounting and recruiting. Essentially, if somebody bought your business,

00:24:19.020 they could go through this manual for how you've been able to create the income and the profit and

00:24:25.340 the whole team structure. That's really valuable. And then you're in an industry that's growing,

00:24:30.760 that's also very valuable.

00:24:32.500 Ideally, if you have some intellectual property

00:24:34.360 or some patents or something that's kind of unique

00:24:36.340 to you guys and how you do it that nobody else has,

00:24:38.240 that makes it obviously very attractive

00:24:40.180 to a potential buyer.

00:24:41.280 But those are the big things you wanna think about.

00:24:43.400 It's stable, durable revenue.

00:24:45.980 Talent in the business is incentivized to stick around

00:24:48.520 that you're not needed for it to operate and grow.

00:24:51.380 And then a manual that defines the process

00:24:54.080 for how you get customers, sell those customers,

00:24:57.460 and keep those customers.

00:24:58.800 If you can do those things,

00:24:59.780 then you have a business that's valuable

00:25:01.280 and people will pay you top dollar to buy you.

00:25:06.680 So there's a bunch of different processes,

00:25:08.580 but the easiest one is to just reach out

00:25:10.320 to a business broker.

00:25:11.500 Depending on your industry,

00:25:12.520 there's somebody that has a job,

00:25:14.460 that his full-time job is to evaluate your business,

00:25:17.620 tell you what you need to fix to make it better,

00:25:19.860 and then go find somebody that would strategically

00:25:22.580 or financially buy your business

00:25:24.340 because it makes sense for them to expand their revenue.

00:25:26.860 And they will sit down with you,

00:25:28.160 for the most part for free to evaluate and assess where you're at and tell you hey go work on these

00:25:33.280 things and then i could probably present you to other businesses and you could do it in a way

00:25:37.280 that's anonymous and your customers don't find out but there's a whole market for doing this

00:25:43.920 so the interesting about selling a business is most people don't know what to do with the money

00:25:48.080 i'll tell you why if you are making five million a year in your business and a million in profit

00:25:54.320 that's 20% profit on $5 million.

00:25:57.920 So if somebody gives you $5 million,

00:26:00.040 where are you gonna take that 5 million

00:26:02.440 and invest it to get a 20% return?

00:26:05.000 So the fascinating part for most entrepreneurs,

00:26:07.400 selling the business economically doesn't make a lot of sense

00:26:11.460 because then they don't have a vehicle

00:26:14.060 that gonna continue to pay them that kind of return. 0.75

00:26:17.000 Usually what people do in these long journeys

00:26:19.940 of building the business is they will diversify

00:26:22.080 into other means of businesses.

00:26:24.640 You hear people say like multiple streams of income.

00:26:26.620 The truth is, is the multiple streams

00:26:27.900 are like real estate, consulting, passion projects

00:26:31.580 or businesses they co-found with other people.

00:26:33.860 But if you have those, then you would take the capital

00:26:36.440 that you just got from selling your business

00:26:37.900 and you would reinvest it in those other businesses.

00:26:40.120 Because again, you own a piece of those business

00:26:41.940 or they are your business

00:26:43.020 and that's gonna generate a better return.

00:26:44.640 If you don't have that,

00:26:45.620 then hopefully you have a wealth manager.

00:26:47.460 If you don't, you should get one that's a fiduciary

00:26:49.840 because if not, they're just gonna sell you stuff

00:26:51.200 make money off of it not a good look but it's also an opportunity for you to learn the next skill

00:26:55.600 creating wealth is a different skill than maintaining wealth making money is easy keeping it

00:27:01.120 hard most people that make money lose it very quickly after that was 27 years of business

00:27:06.000 knowledge but if you want to learn exactly what i would invest in in 2024 starting from scratch

00:27:10.880 Click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - July 26, 2024

27 Years of No Bullsh＊t Business Advice in 27 Mins

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