Dan Martell - 8 Business Lessons Learned From DirtFish (Rally Racing)

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy. In this

00:00:04.640 video, we have a special edition coming from just outside Seattle here at Dirtfish Rally School.

00:00:10.600 I'm going to share with you the eight business lessons learned, hucking and hoping into corners,

00:00:16.640 racing around the trees, almost killing ourselves. And this is a two-part video. So in this video,

00:00:21.640 I'll share the business lessons. And in the second video, I'm going to share a little something

00:00:25.480 different but be sure to watch next week because at the end i'm going to include a snippet of our

00:00:30.600 time and journey here at dirt fish so a few years ago i got an email from my buddy jason who runs a

00:00:48.520 group called mastermind talks or mmt asking if i wanted to join him in a group to come rally car

00:00:54.120 racing at Dirtfish and when I click the play button on the YouTube video to see

00:00:58.580 what this place is about my brain exploded because I was like I can't

00:01:02.520 believe this exists we're literally on acres of open terrains we've got

00:01:07.260 buildings we've got tight turns into the trees and I'm here with a group of

00:01:12.780 incredible entrepreneurs learning not only how to rally but in between

00:01:16.740 sessions also talking about our business and and you know having fun and talking

00:01:20.880 about opportunities and what I've learned the most what I want to share

00:01:23.700 with you guys is in listening to the instructors

00:01:26.480 and understanding what it takes to drive fast,

00:01:29.240 how to get around these turns with momentum

00:01:31.640 and to keep the lines and to actually be smooth.

00:01:34.980 There's all these business corollaries

00:01:37.220 that I had no clue would even come to me.

00:01:39.280 And what I wanna share in this video are the eight things

00:01:41.640 that I've taken away from racing that you can apply

00:01:45.080 to your business today to help you grow.

00:01:48.040 One, in like a lamb, out like a lion.

00:01:51.400 When it comes to racing and you're taking a turn, you're going to attack that turn.

00:01:55.700 It's better to come in, get rid of some speed, and come in slow so that once you get lined up for your exit,

00:02:01.560 you can power on, gas on, and just take off like a rocket ship out of that corner.

00:02:06.860 And I think too often in business, there's a lot of opportunities where we see these things that could be huge,

00:02:12.300 and we go all in. We charge hard. We're like committed, JFDI style.

00:02:17.180 But what I think is a better approach that I've really learned on this track is the idea that I first got from Jim Collins who talks about, you know, shoot bullets, then a cannonball, right?

00:02:27.740 If we're trying to aim towards a target, we want to take some shots with bullets and bullets, and we want to try to figure out where that bullet hits on the target.

00:02:34.400 and only once we feel like we've truly aligned

00:02:37.460 with the opportunity, we wanna fill up that cannonball 0.99

00:02:40.400 with some gunpowder and some cotton

00:02:42.000 and a big old steel circle sphere 0.55

00:02:45.020 and shoot it right out of that

00:02:46.860 to take advantage of the opportunity.

00:02:48.380 And I feel like that, when I heard that saying,

00:02:50.520 Michelle, one of our instructors said that,

00:02:52.060 in like a lamb, out like a lion,

00:02:54.680 I was like, all right, this applies to business hardcore.

00:02:57.700 Number two, sacrifice speed for stability.

00:03:02.240 You know, when you come out of a corner,

00:03:04.760 sometimes you wanna just step on the gas

00:03:07.400 and you're trying to connect to another turn.

00:03:09.560 And what you wanna do is kind of let the car get settled,

00:03:12.660 get stable, and once you've got that,

00:03:14.780 then you can take that opportunity to build the speed.

00:03:17.380 And I think too often in our business,

00:03:19.300 if we're growing really well,

00:03:20.800 these opportunities to grow, you know, 30, 40, 50%.

00:03:23.580 You know, one of my coaching clients, ClickFunnels,

00:03:25.380 they went from zero to 100 million in five years.

00:03:29.300 Imagine that level of growth.

00:03:30.640 But in doing that, you have to measure the state of the business, the stability of the business.

00:03:36.780 And one of the metrics that I teach my clients to measure is this thing called LER.

00:03:40.480 And I got it from Greg Crabtree, the author of Simple Numbers.

00:03:43.600 And it's this concept of the labor efficiency rate.

00:03:46.680 Now, I'm not going to get into the math and the financial side of this.

00:03:51.600 But the concept is that ratio will let you know how taxed your team is.

00:03:56.180 In regards to new customers, new sales, you have so much amount of money that you put

00:04:00.240 into labor. If that ratio gets out of whack, you're running too hot. The way I think about it, it's

00:04:04.640 just like these cars, they're banging off the rev limiter and you need to slow it down, get the

00:04:09.660 stability so that you can get that speed. Number three, model then modify. You know, one of my

00:04:15.700 favorite conversations with was with one of the instructors, Nate, and asking him just about like,

00:04:20.460 you know, people come to Dirtfish and I'm sure there's a lot of egos, very wealthy people come

00:04:24.600 here that have huge car collections and feel like they're professional racers and have track

00:04:29.720 experience but i'll tell you if you've been on asphalt going into that stuff into the trees

00:04:35.560 completely different approach and what happens is people want to drive the way they want to drive

00:04:40.840 they don't want to hear the input and what i really love about the instruction here at dirt

00:04:45.080 fish is they say look just you know it's a progression do this try that do this try this

00:04:50.600 i've been here this is my second time and the first time was very structured they walked us

00:04:55.000 through kind of a learning path to get ourselves comfortable with the car in different terrains and

00:04:59.160 different techniques now we are in the advanced group where we're cruising

00:05:03.240 getting up to 80 miles an hour on these back straights and then taking these

00:05:06.900 sharp turns into with some real serious consequence but what's awesome is that

00:05:12.060 in this this time we've come now they said hey I want you guys to to be a

00:05:15.480 little freer with the course I want you to experiment with the course I want you

00:05:18.600 to maybe take a different line like feel get a feel for the vibe so a lot of

00:05:23.760 times when we're building businesses we're learning from a coach where we've

00:05:26.580 bought a course and you know they tell us to do something it's a recipe and we

00:05:30.080 start mucking with it we start saying well that won't work in my industry so

00:05:32.940 I'm gonna do a little different and what I've learned if you want to get the

00:05:35.560 biggest results in your business you need to first commit to the strategy

00:05:39.780 that you've been taught once you've gotten results and you've perfected that

00:05:43.100 you've understood the science then you got the permission to modify to add a

00:05:47.700 little artistic approach to make it your own but that's only after you've modeled

00:05:52.680 the successful behavior. Number four, don't commit to chaos, lift to vision. This one here, I've been

00:06:01.040 bitten so many times out there on the track. And it's really this concept that when you're driving

00:06:05.580 and you do something wrong and you take a turn too fast or you're too late or whatever, and you just

00:06:10.700 get really handsy, right? My instructor, Michelle said, hey, Dan, you know, calming down on the

00:06:14.720 hands. That what you need to do is actually take a second to just breathe and reset. And how often

00:06:21.740 if you found yourself and you're like something bad happens to you you know you wake up on in the

00:06:26.300 morning you feel like you're gonna take over the world and by noon you find out that a key employee

00:06:30.060 quits or a big deal just you know got lost or you know the hire you're trying to make decides to go

00:06:36.440 to a different firm and you you feel this chaos in your business and what you need to do in those

00:06:42.180 moments because people like well dan how do you deal with that how do you deal with i mean check

00:06:45.720 this out like just the chaotic aspect of driving when you feel out of control and the answer is

00:06:51.600 you gotta look up to vision.

00:06:52.860 And that's what they taught us here at Dirtfish,

00:06:54.380 that when we feel like the car in the moment is crazy,

00:06:58.920 we need to stop, get our heads high,

00:07:01.480 have a feel, like look to the next turn, get settled in.

00:07:05.060 And I think so often, as an entrepreneur,

00:07:07.080 we need to remind ourselves what our vision is

00:07:09.160 for our business, why we started this thing.

00:07:11.020 And in doing that, it's gonna allow us

00:07:12.800 to deal with the chaos, get through it,

00:07:15.020 and then punch it hard to get that momentum going.

00:07:17.620 Number five, adapt for success.

00:07:20.280 Now this one might sound a little crazy,

00:07:22.680 but the idea is that sometimes

00:07:24.900 you actually nail the turn, nail the follow-up turn.

00:07:28.400 You're cruising and you don't realize

00:07:30.300 that all of a sudden the whole thing,

00:07:32.180 the whole trail, the route changes

00:07:34.720 because you've got so much more momentum

00:07:37.160 going into the next turn.

00:07:38.780 And it's really this concept of adapt.

00:07:40.780 Once you're successful, I think too often

00:07:42.500 and as an entrepreneur, we make money,

00:07:45.900 but here's what's impressive.

00:07:46.980 It's not making the money that's impressive to me,

00:07:49.660 it's keeping the money, right?

00:07:51.700 I know a lot of guys that make a lot of money

00:07:53.380 in a two week, three week, year period,

00:07:56.320 and then just give it back.

00:07:58.000 They had that success, they had the gas pedal down,

00:08:01.240 everything worked out, and all of a sudden now

00:08:03.080 they take their foot off the gas.

00:08:04.720 They start to, they don't even realize

00:08:06.460 they're hitting the brake.

00:08:07.660 And what I've learned to do is adapt at that new higher pace.

00:08:11.840 As you get that momentum, you wanna now say,

00:08:14.280 okay, what are the things that I need around me

00:08:17.120 to keep that new level of success?

00:08:19.080 How am I going to approach this turn if we're talking, you know, hucking ourselves around,

00:08:23.220 praying, you know, pitching and praying ourselves into the corner here at Dirtfish, or we're

00:08:28.680 getting to a new level of revenue and team size, what do we need to adapt to ensure that

00:08:33.220 we continue that level of success and momentum?

00:08:35.780 That, to me, is a really important thing.

00:08:37.580 And maybe some of you guys are in that state, that position today where you've got success.

00:08:42.020 I want you to take a second to step back and really ask yourself, what do you need to change

00:08:46.220 that's different from before because you've got more momentum going into that next deal,

00:08:50.800 those more hires. Maybe it's a cash flow thing that you've never had to worry about. All of a

00:08:54.380 sudden now it becomes an issue. Adapt for success. Number six, be patient, set it, and wait. I will

00:09:01.760 tell you this is my number one culprit out there when I'm taking turns. Sometimes you need to get

00:09:07.580 the car into position, hit the gas, and make your turn and let the car do its job. And instead what

00:09:15.420 I do sometimes is I get back on the gas too hard or I turn the wheel because I don't feel like I'm

00:09:20.200 quite going to make the turn. And my instructors are always saying, Dan, set it and be patient,

00:09:26.180 right? How often have you been working in your business and you've got maybe a new webinar

00:09:29.920 funnel or some Facebook ads or a content marketing strategy or partnership process,

00:09:35.700 and you just don't feel like it's getting the kind of momentum. And all of a sudden you go

00:09:40.200 to an event or you hear from a friend, they have this other silver bullet, this shiny object,

00:09:45.420 and you change your strategy,

00:09:47.120 I'm telling you, the number one reason

00:09:49.480 you aren't growing if you're challenging

00:09:51.160 is because you don't focus, you don't go deep,

00:09:53.800 and you're going shallow and moving to the next thing.

00:09:55.900 You're not being patient once you set it.

00:09:58.040 And that's a huge opportunity

00:09:59.540 to not only know that you've got the right strategy,

00:10:02.640 execute on it, and be patient with the strategy

00:10:05.460 so that you go deep enough so that it generates the return.

00:10:08.300 And that's what I call growth stacking.

00:10:10.040 That's why this show is called the Growth Stacking Show,

00:10:12.900 is because it's about locking in,

00:10:14.760 being patient, getting those returns and then adding the next stack of growth to your business

00:10:20.240 and rinse and repeat as you build that velocity. Number seven, you can't look ahead if you are

00:10:26.940 patting yourself on the back. Think about it. You just crushed it. You're like, yay, I'm so good.

00:10:32.580 Yay. And then all of a sudden this next turn comes up. I mean, this is, this is, I see this

00:10:37.760 all the time. You can see people as a spectator. We're watching them take the turn. They'll crush.

00:10:42.380 I may have done this just now they'll crush the turn and then they'll be so excited that it worked

00:10:48.420 out that they don't set themselves up for the next turn and then they give it all back they

00:10:52.340 literally lose it I almost plowed into those tires right there and I was so disappointed because it

00:10:57.300 took so much energy and flow just to get to that level and then you give it all back and I think

00:11:02.420 too often we do that we celebrate somebody raises a round of funding yay congratulations yay I mean

00:11:09.400 it's really hard to look ahead if you're you're too busy giving yourself a huge

00:11:13.060 pat on the back I'm not saying don't celebrate I'm just saying celebrate

00:11:16.480 recognize for what it is and get back to the play because you're still in the

00:11:20.200 race you know many times I think of businesses running a marathon with

00:11:23.980 sprints within you're not done running the marathon just because you had a good

00:11:27.520 section so get back in the game stay focused get ready for that next

00:11:31.300 obstacle and commit number eight you got to be chill to kill this is probably

00:11:37.180 one of my favorite there's an instructor here named mitch and they call them mitch isms here 0.98

00:11:41.020 at dirt fish and uh one of his one of the ones i like the most is he got to be chill to kill you

00:11:47.100 know and the idea is that smooth is fast i think too often if we're thinking racing it's all about

00:11:53.260 like aggressive and being full on and like you know being you know way outside of our comfort

00:11:58.460 zone but really being tenacious regardless of you know how scared we are and what i've learned the

00:12:03.900 fastest people around this track right now we're running like a eight minute lap and the way to do

00:12:09.900 those times is to actually be chill to breathe and then if you do that if you chill and you commit

00:12:16.540 that's how you kill and in your business there's moments where you just need to breathe and reset

00:12:21.660 maybe this is going on for you right now where you're just struggling with some you know some

00:12:25.660 team issues or some financial cash flow issues or you just don't really feel energized by the work

00:12:31.180 you're doing, take a step back. Chill, chill. Take a chill pill. Relax. And through that, you're going

00:12:38.340 to kill it in your business. You're going to stay in the game. You're going to push forward, build

00:12:41.600 that momentum, and crush your business race. I just want to do a quick recap. One, in like a lamb,

00:12:48.160 out like a lion. Number two, sacrifice speed for stability. Number three, model then modify.

00:12:57.440 Number four, don't commit to chaos, lift to vision.

00:13:01.700 Number five, adapt for success.

00:13:04.300 Number six, be patient, set it, and wait.

00:13:08.020 Number seven, you can't look ahead

00:13:10.060 if you are patting yourself on the back. 0.99

00:13:12.480 Number eight, you gotta be chill to kill.

00:13:15.820 I hope you found this video fun, exciting.

00:13:18.180 I thought it'd be kind of neat

00:13:19.040 to bring you behind the scenes.

00:13:20.280 In next week's video, we're gonna do part two

00:13:23.060 where I talk about, you know what?

00:13:26.360 I'm gonna leave that open.

00:13:27.780 I'm gonna share with you guys next week

00:13:29.000 when I drop that video.

00:13:30.340 But if you feel like this video has added value to you

00:13:32.180 or could serve somebody else,

00:13:33.240 be sure to share it with them.

00:13:34.600 Click the subscribe button, smash the like button,

00:13:37.480 and be sure to leave a comment.

00:13:38.740 I hope this video finds you incredibly well,

00:13:40.920 and I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - May 20, 2019

8 Business Lessons Learned From DirtFish (Rally Racing)

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