Dan Martell - 5 Business Lessons Learned Riding Backcountry Snowbikes

00:00:00.000 Hey there.

00:00:00.400 Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.120 and creator of SAS Academy.

00:00:03.400 In this video, I'm going to teach you the five business

00:00:06.480 lessons learned I took away from riding snow bikes

00:00:10.120 in the back country of British Columbia.

00:00:12.480 If you don't know what a snow bike is, Google it.

00:00:14.800 Imagine this.

00:00:15.520 If the devil built the bike, it would probably

00:00:18.800 look like a snow bike.

00:00:20.680 Be sure to stay at the end.

00:00:21.600 We're going to tell you how to get access

00:00:22.760 to my free download of all the top books

00:00:26.040 that I've read for you to grow your business.

00:00:27.840 I've been categorized by different sections.

00:00:29.440 I've read over 1,000 business books,

00:00:31.480 and I distill it into about 45 books

00:00:34.000 that you can download at the end.

00:00:35.660 But let's get into it.

00:00:36.540 Boom! 0.99

00:00:49.720 So I have to start off by telling you

00:00:51.060 the story of how we ended up in the backcountry

00:00:53.260 on these snow bikes.

00:00:54.080 My buddy Brad recently moved to a place called Kelowna.

00:00:56.660 He invited us because he bought two

00:00:58.480 of these snow bikes and said, hey, my other friend

00:01:01.160 can rent us a couple more if we want to get a group together.

00:01:03.580 So we went.

00:01:04.940 And the crazy part is one of us, Matt,

00:01:07.660 had never been on a motorbike in his life.

00:01:10.200 I've never really been on a motorbike

00:01:12.400 or a snowmobile that much.

00:01:14.900 My other friend, Nick, one of my best friends,

00:01:16.660 he had been on snowmobiles, never on a snowbike.

00:01:18.740 My brother is world class at snowmobiles and motorbikes.

00:01:21.900 And Brad had been on it before.

00:01:23.340 So we all went out.

00:01:24.400 Within the first 30 seconds, Matt pops the clutch

00:01:28.140 and ends up right into the trees, breaks his collarbone.

00:01:30.900 He kept riding for the rest of the day.

00:01:32.400 It wasn't until that night that we realized

00:01:34.080 he had a broken collarbone.

00:01:36.020 That afternoon, or maybe the next morning,

00:01:38.580 I'm forgetting timelines, Nick smashed into a tree,

00:01:42.080 kind of hurt himself, so he took a day off.

00:01:44.900 And then on day two, I was trying to keep up to the pack,

00:01:48.040 going way out of control through the trees,

00:01:50.500 bobbing and weaving.

00:01:51.640 I hit a jump.

00:01:52.580 I ended up casing it, not clearing it,

00:01:54.940 landed on the transition, fell in a tree well.

00:01:57.940 My brother came running behind me, trying to find me.

00:02:00.560 He landed on my bike.

00:02:02.140 I mean, it was crazy.

00:02:04.120 And to top it all off, on the third day,

00:02:07.200 Brad, who organized the trip, was he

00:02:10.000 saw us stopped at a clearing and gunned it straight

00:02:13.040 through the woods to catch up to us.

00:02:14.680 And there was a river.

00:02:16.040 He ended up falling into the river,

00:02:18.280 catching the front of his bike.

00:02:19.780 His handlebars hit him in his pelvis,

00:02:21.980 and he fractured his pelvis in the backcountry.

00:02:25.040 And we didn't know this at the time,

00:02:26.420 the crazy part is it like it split his pelvis open about three centimeters wider and he drove

00:02:32.660 himself out 22 miles on a snow bike standing up in excruciating pain went to the doctors when they

00:02:40.540 saw they said you should have been heli backed this is crazy so i tell you this crazy story

00:02:45.320 because one it was some of the most fun i've ever had hands down not gonna lie even though it's

00:02:50.120 unfortunate some people got injured that that sucked but we'll all say it's awesome and two

00:02:54.660 I learned some incredible business lessons

00:02:57.380 by just spending time with incredible entrepreneurs

00:02:59.820 that are smart, brilliant, passionate about what they do

00:03:03.600 and incredibly generous in their advice

00:03:05.460 that I want to share with you guys today.

00:03:07.080 The 1-3-1 rule of management.

00:03:10.940 So, Brad, I gotta give you full credit on this.

00:03:13.160 I don't know where you learned it, but I love it.

00:03:14.720 I use it every day.

00:03:16.180 The idea is that if somebody on your team comes to you

00:03:18.500 and they have a challenge,

00:03:19.620 you want to teach them the 1-3-1 rule.

00:03:22.600 So the rule goes like this.

00:03:23.840 one challenge, one specific,

00:03:26.120 because too often when you're talking to somebody,

00:03:27.920 they're like, this is an issue.

00:03:28.780 And then you're like, okay, let's talk about that.

00:03:29.900 Then they like somehow switch to this other issue.

00:03:32.340 So one thing at a time,

00:03:34.240 they need to present three options for you to evaluate,

00:03:38.240 three things that they thought about that said,

00:03:40.200 well, you know, we've got this problem.

00:03:41.640 Here are the three things we could do to make them better.

00:03:43.840 And then the one recommendation they're suggesting to you.

00:03:47.700 So too often as a leader, as a CEO,

00:03:50.140 we get into the habit of just like solving problems

00:03:52.640 because it's easy for us.

00:03:53.580 We have perfect visibility into the vision of the business

00:03:56.600 and understanding where we're at and where we want to go

00:03:58.520 and the resources available to us.

00:03:59.960 So it's really easy for us to do that for our team members.

00:04:02.980 But the downside is we don't teach them how to think.

00:04:05.860 We don't teach them how to problem solve.

00:04:07.840 We don't allow them to be accountable to the outcome.

00:04:10.960 So the one, three, one rule of management, one problem,

00:04:15.340 three opportunities to make it better,

00:04:17.820 and one specific recommendation to move forward.

00:04:20.800 Number two, quickest to grow.

00:04:23.020 So Brad, I've got to give another shout out.

00:04:25.000 Brad Pedersen, I'll link up a Facebook interview video

00:04:28.200 that I did with Brad below if you guys want to check it out.

00:04:30.960 He built $120 million a year toy company.

00:04:34.940 He almost went through bankruptcy twice doing this.

00:04:37.780 It's an incredibly inspirational conversation.

00:04:41.160 But he shared with us on this trip the teams

00:04:44.620 that are quickest to develop their teams,

00:04:46.480 the fastest grow the fastest.

00:04:47.780 So the quickest to grow are the ones

00:04:49.960 are the quickest to develop their leadership team.

00:04:53.140 And when I think about that for my business,

00:04:55.420 that's always been true.

00:04:57.000 If you have a star player, you need to invest in them.

00:04:59.800 You need to develop them.

00:05:00.820 You need to coach them because the more you can do that,

00:05:04.240 the faster you'll grow because you'll

00:05:05.960 have more high performers pushing, creating, changing,

00:05:09.380 implementing, executing, thinking the way you would think.

00:05:12.740 So just remember, the quickest to grow their team,

00:05:15.460 the company that's quickest to grow their team,

00:05:17.740 the fastest, will grow the fastest, OK?

00:05:20.420 So remember that.

00:05:21.500 Don't forget it.

00:05:22.320 It is an amazing strategy that's available to all of us.

00:05:25.620 Number three, the three things that break.

00:05:28.180 So again, Brad, it's like a whole video just on you.

00:05:31.600 There were other people on the trip,

00:05:32.920 but I mean, he's literally like an encyclopedia of just

00:05:37.880 business principles, et cetera.

00:05:39.720 So his rule is the three things that

00:05:42.340 break when you're growing and you're scaling, 50% plus per

00:05:45.820 year are the people, the processes, and the capital, okay? So remember this. If you're growing

00:05:52.040 more than 50% a year, which a lot of you guys in the software world, coaching clients of mine,

00:05:56.400 definitely grow that fast, you need to look at the people side. You need to look at your processes,

00:06:01.600 and you need to understand the capital needs of your business, okay? So a lot of times people

00:06:06.180 don't realize, just on the financial side, the sound of growth is the sound of air sucking cash

00:06:12.880 out of your business. And the reason why is because a lot of our business models require

00:06:17.720 us to put money out upfront to acquire customers, to hire team members, to support a new distribution

00:06:23.100 channel like Facebook ads or a partnership program or going to events. And it's all things

00:06:28.440 that we invest upfront to get a return after the fact. So there's a negative cashflow position

00:06:34.420 that could be created as you grow really fast. Processes. I mean, things that you did when you

00:06:39.780 where one employee, 10 customers,

00:06:42.300 is not going to be the same process

00:06:43.980 that you are when you're at 100, 1,000, 10,000 customers

00:06:47.180 and a team of 50 people.

00:06:48.960 So you always need to evaluate, do they have the right team

00:06:52.200 or the right people?

00:06:52.960 Do I have the right processes?

00:06:54.180 And do we have the capital required to grow?

00:06:56.900 Number four, hands and hearts.

00:06:58.900 Now, I'm not sure if I got this from Nick or my brother Pierre,

00:07:01.920 but the idea is that as much as we

00:07:04.580 want to build repeatable, scalable systems and checklists

00:07:07.540 and procedures, and SOPs, and playbooks,

00:07:10.600 and whatever you want to call it, OK?

00:07:12.940 There's an aspect which is heart-based.

00:07:15.540 It's does the team member care about the business?

00:07:19.780 Are they bought into the vision?

00:07:21.620 Are they believers on the mission

00:07:23.660 that you're trying to create?

00:07:24.920 Because as much as you can hire people for their hands, OK?

00:07:27.880 Outsource VAs through Upwork or whatever site you want to use,

00:07:32.440 that isn't going to get you where you need

00:07:34.500 if you really want to build something enduring and durable.

00:07:37.540 You have to also incorporate the heart.

00:07:39.980 They need to be committed to the vision.

00:07:41.860 And the way I think about it is it's kind of like top of mind.

00:07:46.320 Is the business, my business, the challenges,

00:07:49.280 our customers, top of mind for your team

00:07:53.000 when they're not at work?

00:07:55.580 Are they using the background cycles of their mind

00:08:00.500 to solve problems for your business?

00:08:02.420 because that, to me, is the heart, not the hands, OK?

00:08:05.380 And that's a really important concept

00:08:07.360 to just ask yourself, do I have that from my team,

00:08:10.840 hearts versus hands?

00:08:12.240 And what would need to change for me to pull that off?

00:08:14.580 Because that's when you see some of the best companies

00:08:17.740 in the world, all the top brands that you're thinking about,

00:08:19.920 OK?

00:08:20.420 And you can Google what they are from the Apples, the Ferraris,

00:08:22.780 the Amazons, the Teslas.

00:08:26.500 They definitely have that.

00:08:28.320 They don't just have a bunch of checklists

00:08:30.100 that people follow to get results.

00:08:32.200 they've got inside the mind and the heart of their teams

00:08:35.560 to be able to produce incredible outcomes.

00:08:37.600 Number five, magical moments.

00:08:40.120 This came from Brad.

00:08:41.620 Again, pretty much this whole show

00:08:42.920 is a commercial for Brad Pedersen.

00:08:44.380 He's an amazing dude, one of my best buds.

00:08:46.940 Magical moments are really just these,

00:08:53.680 like taking the opportunity to ask yourself,

00:08:55.600 what would make today special?

00:08:56.980 What could I create?

00:08:57.900 I remember one time we were driving back.

00:08:59.380 We were downhill mountain biking.

00:09:01.720 And we had the opportunity.

00:09:03.460 It was like 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

00:09:04.960 It's like, hey, we could either go back to my house,

00:09:07.280 or we could go jump off the dock in the water

00:09:11.740 and have dinner with my dad, OK?

00:09:14.320 And Brad just says, well, my belief

00:09:17.080 is our goal in life should be to create magical moments, OK?

00:09:21.380 And we should increase them in frequency and intensity.

00:09:25.340 And he goes, I think it would be super fun

00:09:28.220 to do running backflips off the dock, into the water,

00:09:30.960 and to meet your dad and have dinner out at the beach.

00:09:34.260 So that's what we did.

00:09:35.880 And that is how he approaches his life.

00:09:37.620 That's why we went on those snow bikes

00:09:40.200 right before our heli-skiing trip,

00:09:42.640 even though it didn't work out for Brad

00:09:44.200 because he hurt his pelvis.

00:09:45.240 But it's just about increasing those magical moments.

00:09:49.680 I don't know why it's such a weird word to say.

00:09:52.020 Increasing those magical moments by intensity and frequency.

00:09:55.620 It's such a great life principle.

00:09:57.620 I'd love for you to implement it in your life.

00:09:59.580 So real quick recap, the five business lessons

00:10:02.280 that I learned running around on snow bikes in the back country

00:10:06.820 is one, the 1-3-1 rule.

00:10:09.600 Number two, the quickest to grow is the one

00:10:12.700 that develops their team the fastest.

00:10:14.160 Number three is the three things that break,

00:10:16.580 process people, and capital.

00:10:18.180 Four is hands versus hearts in five magical moments.

00:10:23.580 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:10:25.460 I want to share with you my free top business books resource.

00:10:29.100 You can click the link download below.

00:10:30.760 But as I mentioned, I've read over 1,000 business books,

00:10:33.580 listened and read.

00:10:35.120 And these are the ones that I've outlined

00:10:37.320 for every area of your business, from personal development

00:10:39.780 to marketing to sales to just operational growth.

00:10:43.620 You can click the link below to download your copy.

00:10:46.320 It's absolutely free.

00:10:47.580 And if you like this show, be sure

00:10:49.740 to click the subscribe button.

00:10:51.600 Smash that notification bell so that you get notified

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00:10:56.220 And if there's somebody you care about that you think

00:10:58.100 this could serve, feel free to share them the video directly.

00:11:01.640 As for usual, I want to challenge you

00:11:03.300 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,

00:11:05.540 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:11:06.720 And we drove up, and he's like, you know,

00:11:09.560 like when you knock the wind out of yourself.

Dan Martell - January 20, 2020

5 Business Lessons Learned Riding Backcountry Snowbikes

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