Dan Martell - Business is Hard Until You Build These Systems

00:00:00.000 How do you actually scale a business?

00:00:01.940 Right now, you're in one of two groups.

00:00:04.440 Group number one, the chaos builder.

00:00:06.500 You wake up every day reacting to what happens around you

00:00:09.440 and your business runs you instead of you running it.

00:00:12.080 Now, group number two is the empire builder.

00:00:14.520 This is where you've built a machine

00:00:16.320 that builds your business, a business that grows

00:00:18.360 whether you're in the office, on vacation, or even sleeping.

00:00:21.360 If you're in group number one right now,

00:00:23.040 this course is gonna get you into group number two

00:00:25.520 and save you years and millions of dollars worth of mistakes.

00:00:28.620 And if you're in group number two, you've probably hit a ceiling where your business

00:00:32.580 has stalled out.

00:00:33.900 And this course is going to help you break through that ceiling and actually scale your

00:00:37.540 business to the next level.

00:00:38.660 This course isn't about theory.

00:00:40.260 It's built from real experience and 28 years of scaling businesses.

00:00:44.340 So here's what we'll go over.

00:00:50.580 Phase number one, buying back your time.

00:00:53.300 Phase number two, clarifying your strategy and offer.

00:00:56.660 Phase number three, building a predictable growth engine.

00:01:00.300 Phase number four, systematizing delivery and operations.

00:01:03.880 Phase number five, installing leadership

00:01:06.040 and management systems.

00:01:07.480 And phase number six, scaling culture and vision.

00:01:10.740 And look, don't skip ahead

00:01:12.160 because the concepts we talk about in each phase

00:01:14.800 are needed to understand the one after that.

00:01:17.340 I really wanna ensure that you can use this process

00:01:19.980 to get what you need out of it.

00:01:21.840 So I put a whole PDF together covering everything

00:01:24.600 that we're gonna go over in this course.

00:01:26.740 So click the link in the description to download it

00:01:28.700 and follow along at home.

00:01:30.140 Let's get into it.

00:01:31.260 Starting with phase one, buying back your time.

00:01:34.560 Broke people spend time to save money. 0.93

00:01:37.060 Rich people spend money to save time.

00:01:39.420 You can't build a multimillion dollar company

00:01:42.040 off $10 tasks.

00:01:43.740 It's impossible.

00:01:44.840 You can't outwork the fact that per hour,

00:01:48.160 you have to create more value, you have to get better.

00:01:50.760 And if you're not learning how to get more time back,

00:01:52.960 you'll always be stuck.

00:01:54.600 buyback principle states you don't hire to grow your business that's what everybody else does

00:01:58.760 you hire people only if it buys back your time because if you get the time back out of your

00:02:04.520 calendar then you the most valuable resource in the business can reinvest that time in things that

00:02:09.720 make you more money i need to get out of the doing and have other people do and when they bring me

00:02:14.920 their work i get to edit i call it being the editor not the author what's cool is we're going

00:02:19.560 to touch on a framework that's going to teach you exactly that in a second here are some of the

00:02:23.400 the symptoms that you're at this stage. Most founders are still touching every part of the

00:02:27.980 business. You're approving invoices. You're jumping on sales calls. You're answering customer tickets

00:02:32.680 at 10 p.m. I get it. Somewhere along your life, somebody told you that you have to do whatever

00:02:38.520 it takes to be successful. You got to be willing to take out the garbage. You got to be willing to

00:02:42.240 roll up your sleeves and work till two in the morning. Yes, a little bit, not forever. If you're

00:02:48.720 running the company and it's two, three, four years later and you're still doing this, it's a

00:02:53.160 strategy. Here's the truth. Your business is capped at the speed of your delegation. Imagine

00:02:58.900 this. You're trying to drive a race car with one hand on the wheel while trying to fill it up with

00:03:06.360 gas, changing the tires. What, with your foot? I don't know. Checking the oil pressure. That is

00:03:12.440 what happens when you try to be all things to all people and you get stuck in the business.

00:03:17.120 So here's the framework that I need you to consider anytime you feel stuck. When you're

00:03:22.080 build in and more opportunity would create pain in your calendar, come back to this framework.

00:03:27.660 It's called the buyback loop. So you're growing, you're building, you have a little time at the

00:03:31.220 beginning, but eventually you start getting a few clients and it starts to hurt. The moment there's

00:03:36.040 pain in the calendar, do the first step. It's called audit. We need to look at everything you're

00:03:41.680 doing in your calendar and track everything for a two week period. The reason it's two weeks is

00:03:47.200 because it gives you enough variety in your week

00:03:50.140 to understand how the rhythm of your life looks today.

00:03:53.720 So what we do is we set up a timer

00:03:55.160 that goes off every 15 minutes

00:03:56.840 and you write in your journal

00:03:58.240 what you did in that 15 minutes.

00:04:00.000 And if you scrolled Facebook, right, scrolled Facebook.

00:04:03.180 If you talk to your friend for an hour and 15 minutes,

00:04:05.740 right, talk to my friend, talk to my friend,

00:04:07.520 talk to my friend.

00:04:08.260 I need you to get a sense

00:04:09.680 of what you're doing with your time.

00:04:11.180 See, most people don't need to buy it back.

00:04:13.220 They just need to stop wasting it.

00:04:14.860 So once we audit all those different tasks, activities,

00:04:18.840 places we spend our time,

00:04:20.100 then we go through and we highlight in green

00:04:22.480 things that we enjoy doing

00:04:23.780 and red things that zap our energy. 0.75

00:04:26.600 And I mean, it could be meetings with your team,

00:04:29.280 zap your energy.

00:04:30.020 It could be doing sales calls for you, zap your energy.

00:04:32.540 For me, those are green.

00:04:33.680 I love talking to people.

00:04:34.880 Maybe for you doing accounting, that's green.

00:04:37.760 Guess what?

00:04:38.440 Hate it.

00:04:39.360 It's bright red in my life.

00:04:41.420 But once we have that,

00:04:43.000 then we go through and we rate each task

00:04:45.200 by a cost to pay somebody else to do it.

00:04:47.940 $1 sign to $4 signs.

00:04:49.760 It's not scientific.

00:04:50.680 We're not trying to overcomplicate this.

00:04:52.280 I go through everything and I say,

00:04:53.800 is that a $4 sign?

00:04:54.920 Really expensive,

00:04:55.640 essentially paying somebody to do my job.

00:04:57.080 Or is it $1 sign,

00:04:58.820 somebody to do the work

00:04:59.780 because it's administrative in nature.

00:05:01.580 Obviously somebody to help do the work,

00:05:03.480 that might be $2 or $3 signs.

00:05:04.960 Manage the work,

00:05:05.680 that could be $3 signs.

00:05:06.940 You get the drift, right?

00:05:08.180 Now that we have that,

00:05:09.400 we put all the things that zap our energy

00:05:11.720 or we don't like to do that would cost very little,

00:05:14.560 one or $2 signs into a bucket.

00:05:17.340 And if you're gonna buy back any time,

00:05:19.000 it has to come out of that bucket.

00:05:20.520 At this point, you're probably thinking,

00:05:22.360 well, how can I afford to pay somebody else

00:05:24.120 to do something when I'm just getting going?

00:05:25.860 Here's the way I look at it.

00:05:27.240 Everyone should know their buyback rate.

00:05:29.760 The buyback rate is how much money you're willing to invest

00:05:32.440 to buy back an hour of your time.

00:05:34.640 So here's what we do.

00:05:35.440 We take last year's income, okay?

00:05:37.840 All the money you made, maybe dividends from your business,

00:05:40.300 profit from your business, your salary that you paid you.

00:05:42.780 Then what we do is we divide that amount,

00:05:44.820 if it's $100,000, into the amount of hours worked.

00:05:47.820 On average, for most people, it's about 2,000.

00:05:49.800 Once we take weekends away and vacations,

00:05:51.700 and I know as entrepreneurs, we don't get those,

00:05:53.140 but let's just say it's 2,000.

00:05:54.840 That gives us a number per hour.

00:05:57.220 And because we wanna get a four times return on investment

00:06:01.500 or a return on buying back our time,

00:06:04.100 then we take a quarter of that amount.

00:06:06.260 So $100,000 worth of income or value

00:06:09.180 divided by 2000 is $50 divided by a quarter is $12 and 50 cents. When I look at my bucket of

00:06:16.480 stuff I don't want to do anymore, I have to find people that can pay less than $12 and 50 cents to

00:06:21.940 do or I'm being inefficient. The coolest part about this is there are people in other parts

00:06:27.700 of the world that will work for $3 an hour doing research, processing your email, following

00:06:32.700 processes, getting things automated, literally supporting you in other areas. You just need to

00:06:38.440 get better at letting go and delegating. Then we got to go to step two, which is transfer. Now that

00:06:43.620 you know what your time is worth and you found somebody to take over the work, how do we get it

00:06:47.160 to them so that it gets done the way we do it? The biggest fear that people have is somebody

00:06:51.360 embarrassing them or costing them money. And usually I hear, well, I'll just do it myself.

00:06:56.500 Well, if you just keep doing it yourself, guess what? You will always feel stuck. Does that make

00:07:00.140 sense? Here's the easiest way to get anybody else to do the work I was doing. I call it the camcorder

00:07:05.480 method when i'm doing the work i'm recording my screen and i'm talking out loud what i'm doing

00:07:11.000 okay let me show you an example i'm processing my inbox i go on a zoom call it's just me i share my

00:07:17.800 screen so it's recording my screen i save it to the cloud so now i have a link to a recording

00:07:22.840 and i process my inbox and i start at the top and i'm going through it and i might be there for

00:07:27.640 three hours but i have a three hour recording of how i manage my inbox how i label things

00:07:32.760 who the people are how i search my inbox find a context on who they are and essentially what

00:07:37.800 happens is i have a recording of doing the work if i'm gonna hire an executive assistant to help

00:07:43.400 me immediately when they start having already recorded three or four of those sessions i can

00:07:48.440 ask them to watch those videos and then they create the document see that's the big mistake

00:07:53.880 people make is thinking i gotta sit down for an hour or two to create a document to train somebody

00:07:59.560 when you just need to do the work,

00:08:00.980 record yourself doing the work, talk about it,

00:08:02.820 and then have them watch the video

00:08:04.260 and create the document in the process.

00:08:05.700 The coolest part about this is after they do that,

00:08:08.220 you can use the document as feedback to you

00:08:10.820 if the person got it or not.

00:08:13.140 Think about it, right?

00:08:13.980 Because now they've been trained themselves

00:08:15.820 and tried to create an outcome that you can go,

00:08:18.380 oh, they got what I was saying,

00:08:19.840 or they didn't, and you can fill in the blanks.

00:08:21.760 And I know you want to plug it into ChatGPT

00:08:23.880 and say, hey, create the document for me,

00:08:25.580 but then you miss the feedback loop

00:08:27.360 of the person processing the video

00:08:29.020 to see if they got it now if they're smart they're going to do that themselves and then they'll 100

00:08:34.220 get it and that's a great person to hire essentially this becomes the easiest way to get

00:08:39.500 the highest roi on your dollar if you're going to spend money to get time back you have to get a

00:08:45.180 return so you can't be spending a hundred dollars to buy a hundred dollar hour does that make sense

00:08:49.980 now the big unlock for a lot of you is getting out of telling people what to do and to do that

00:08:55.980 i have this principle called the 1080 10 rule the way it works is when i sit down with somebody

00:09:01.500 especially a creative project like this video i want to sit down on the first 10 okay and i call

00:09:06.780 this the ideation step where we talk about the concept here's what i want to talk about here's

00:09:11.340 the outcome here's some high level steps what do you think we create agreement on the road map

00:09:16.860 then the next is the 80 of the doing is the execution i let them put together the draft

00:09:22.380 and the outline and the whole thing that way they're the author the last 10 percent is them

00:09:27.500 coming back and us working together to integrate so we go ideation execution integration when they

00:09:34.860 come back that's where i get the chance to refine to put my magic fingerprint on it when you think

00:09:39.340 of steve jobs and johnny i right steve jobs you know the past ceo and founder of apple he would

00:09:44.780 go into the design studio with johnny ive his head of design they would ideate they would talk about

00:09:49.340 product ideas johnny would go back to his design team try to find materials that they could use

00:09:53.900 that would innovate like the translucent cover on the imac and then only at the end once they

00:09:59.260 found a product they want to bring to market does steve sit down with johnny and his team

00:10:03.180 where they create the deck where steve gets on stage and presents it to the world that's

00:10:07.820 the integration that is his magic so that's how we transfer things on our plate to somebody else

00:10:13.420 without losing control so we did audit we did transfer the last step is fill this is where

00:10:19.340 most people miss the boat and they don't get the loop right that last part creates a slingshot for

00:10:24.540 growth so if you know that your time is worth a hundred dollars an hour you actually have to start

00:10:29.420 telling yourself that it's worth 150 or 200 you gotta fight for that time because you don't want

00:10:35.740 to buy back your time and then just slide backwards doing a bunch of stuff that you shouldn't be doing

00:10:39.420 now that we got your time back what do we do with that time first off we want to look at things that

00:10:44.220 make us money immediately if you're a programmer write code whatever the client's paying you to

00:10:51.020 do right now you buy back all that admin stuff go do more of the thing they're willing to pay you

00:10:55.980 for because that's guaranteed income see how that works then if all of a sudden your calendar gets

00:11:01.180 full of all the stuff doing the work now we have to look at tasks within that and start hiring

00:11:05.820 people to do the work for us see the mistake most people do is just filling their time with nothing

00:11:10.300 right talking to their friends watching netflix listening to podcasts to get all high on hopium

00:11:15.660 like that is not what we do here we try to find leverage in our time i look at three things

00:11:20.780 one i ask myself what are the habits that i need to stop or add to get to my new level because

00:11:26.300 every new level is going to require you to fight a new devil then i look at the beliefs what are

00:11:30.220 the world views that i have about how the world operates that might be holding me back if you

00:11:35.260 believe rich people are evil you're gonna have a hard time getting rich those are beliefs the

00:11:40.460 third area i think about is your character traits when i think about success or making more money

00:11:45.340 it's about being the person who acts like the person at that next level if you want to get to

00:11:49.900 a million or five million in revenue or 50 million of revenue ask yourself how does that person act

00:11:56.220 act that way today start investing in seminars coaching training programs for you to evolve

00:12:02.620 to become that person today before it ever shows up in your bank account those activities of where

00:12:07.900 you invest in you to get better more valuable is what you have to keep in mind to fill your

00:12:13.580 calendar back up with so that you don't start sliding backwards so here's a quick recap until

00:12:18.620 you buy back your time you'll always be capped you essentially hit your complexity ceiling too much

00:12:23.580 complexity you can't get past it that's why we have to buy back our time to become more you can

00:12:28.220 only scale past your ability to let go it's scary it's gonna give you anxiety you're gonna be worried

00:12:35.020 trust me it's never as bad as you think because fear is nothing more than false evidence appearing

00:12:41.020 real it's not there go go create some problems first go let go a little bit and see what happens

00:12:46.700 you'd be surprised how when you let go magically it happens it gets done if you don't value your

00:12:53.580 time nobody else will and the people who don't value their time will go out of their way to waste

00:13:00.380 yours so now that we've freed up all this space let's point your energy at the right strategy so

00:13:06.720 you're not just running faster in the wrong direction that brings us to phase number two

00:13:11.120 clarify strategy and offer here's what this means see you can't scale confusion simple scales

00:13:18.900 complex fails. Early growth in any business is because you say yes to everything. You're trying

00:13:24.680 to find opportunities. But at this phase, at scale, saying yes to everything becomes the very

00:13:30.720 thing that breaks you. When I started, I was worried I wouldn't have any business. So anything

00:13:35.540 that sounded like an opportunity was like, I can help you with that. I can help you with that. And

00:13:38.980 then what happens is you wake up and you got a lot of work, but it's a lot of different work.

00:13:43.140 There's no process. There's no structure. Everything is very bespoke and boutique and

00:13:47.640 it makes it incredibly hard to actually grow. This is what you will feel at this phase. You're

00:13:52.720 probably juggling too many offers or every new client feels like a custom deal. There's no

00:13:58.280 repeatability in it or the revenue looks good on paper and everybody's like, oh, wow, congrats.

00:14:03.460 But your margins are razor thin and you're exhausted and profit is non-existent. So if you

00:14:10.780 feel any of these symptoms, we have to get you out of this phase. Here's a simple metaphor to help

00:14:15.560 really understand this if i'm cutting down a tree and i start attacking it from every direction and

00:14:21.480 i'm just super mad and i've got my axe and i'm hitting the tree but i'm hitting it up here and

00:14:25.480 i'm hitting it down there and i'm hitting on the other side i've got no strategy there's zero

00:14:29.720 chance that tree's coming down it's going to look like somebody attacked it but it's not going to

00:14:33.080 fall over that's what we need to fix here so here's what we need to get you so you can get

00:14:38.120 to the next phase first off you need a sharp irresistible offer that scales essentially we

00:14:44.760 We need to look at everything you've done,

00:14:47.120 figure out what's the one thing

00:14:48.740 that actually makes you profit, that you enjoy doing,

00:14:51.720 that the market wants, that you can sell easily

00:14:55.000 and do just that.

00:14:56.520 If we can figure out that and create a system

00:14:59.180 that we'll talk about in a bit to deliver on that,

00:15:02.000 that is how we scale.

00:15:03.580 A couple of years ago, I was working with a client

00:15:05.460 and they were running a 3 million a year agency,

00:15:07.720 doing everything, you know, SEO, PPC, branding, PR,

00:15:12.080 even podcasts, but the founder was drowning.

00:15:14.360 The whole team was frustrated.

00:15:15.780 They were trying to do great work,

00:15:17.820 but everything just seemed all over the place.

00:15:20.340 So I ran an offer audit with them

00:15:22.040 and I found that 80% of profits came from one service,

00:15:25.680 paid ads for SaaS companies.

00:15:27.400 So we cut the rest.

00:15:28.820 And then in 18 months, surprise, surprise,

00:15:31.520 revenue doubled, 6 million with less clients

00:15:34.960 and way higher margins.

00:15:36.480 This is the big idea.

00:15:38.320 Most businesses don't need to do more.

00:15:41.060 No, no, no.

00:15:42.400 They need to do less and focus, blinders on,

00:15:46.460 on the right thing.

00:15:47.720 This is the simple framework that's gonna get you there.

00:15:50.560 I call it the value creation Venn diagram.

00:15:53.860 There's three parts.

00:15:54.880 The first part is what do customers value most?

00:15:58.240 Not necessarily what you wanna do,

00:15:59.860 not necessarily what they're asking for,

00:16:01.340 what are they gonna pay for?

00:16:03.140 See, a lot of you say, well, everybody's asking me for this.

00:16:05.360 Are they paying top dollar for it?

00:16:06.720 No, they nickel and dime me, not a good fit.

00:16:09.780 See, what do they pay for?

00:16:11.520 What are they gonna pay the most for?

00:16:12.960 What is the most demand for?

00:16:14.380 That's number one.

00:16:15.680 Number two is what do we do best?

00:16:18.280 As a team, when I look at my capacity

00:16:20.720 and I look at my capability,

00:16:22.680 what is the thing that we do better than most?

00:16:25.140 And some people call it an unfair advantage.

00:16:26.920 When I look at the structure and the team

00:16:28.720 and the consultants and what we do better than most people,

00:16:32.140 what is that?

00:16:33.320 And then the third part is, and this is my favorite one,

00:16:35.620 is what's the most profitable?

00:16:37.500 When I look at it, what can I charge the most for?

00:16:40.360 higher dollar what makes me the most profit usually a product or service with high margins

00:16:45.340 and that is the sweet spot for most profitable and the middle that overlap that's your scalable

00:16:51.640 offer and some people get confused between number one and number three here's the deal number one

00:16:56.700 is what does the customers want what is the market saying right now ai super hot number three is

00:17:02.360 what's the most profitable like of the stuff you sell where are you making your most profit one

00:17:06.760 time one of my best friends he's struggling his business he wants to grow but he's doing too many

00:17:10.720 things I said hey man all I need from you is a printout of all the things you've sold in the

00:17:15.060 last 30 days and we went through all the bottom 20 lowest dollar amount things okay then I went

00:17:21.540 through the high dollar amount stuff and I made him go through the whole list and I said what are

00:17:25.880 your margins for each one of those products and then I looked at it and I said it's very simple

00:17:29.480 we cut the bottom low ticket amount stuff that have no margins tell the sales team sell more

00:17:35.740 of the high dollar amount, high margin stuff.

00:17:38.440 And that will give you the profitability to reinvest

00:17:41.440 in solving your problems, AKA buying back your time.

00:17:44.960 Once he saw the math, he couldn't unsee it

00:17:47.700 because he knew what the customers wanted.

00:17:49.580 He knew where he was making his money.

00:17:50.900 He knew what his team was good at.

00:17:52.500 He just didn't look at it

00:17:53.840 and was ruthless with the assessment.

00:17:56.360 Everything else is just noise.

00:17:58.900 Stealing your attention, your focus, distractions,

00:18:01.800 convincing you, you should keep doing it.

00:18:03.560 People are gonna be mad at you.

00:18:04.800 I get it.

00:18:05.480 you're scared. If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to be disliked. You may have

00:18:11.400 to fire some customers. But if you trust me on the backside of that decision is going to create

00:18:17.240 a business that can scale. Okay. Now we have clarity. The next step is build the machine

00:18:22.400 that sells this thing on repeat. That brings us to phase three, building a predictable growth

00:18:27.380 engine. Here's what I mean. Companies that can scale don't gamble on growth. They build a machine

00:18:35.000 that is predictable they build a system that makes it inevitable there's no hopium involved

00:18:41.800 there's no like i wonder if next month's going to be better than this month they create a system

00:18:46.920 for growth here's some symptoms that you might be feeling that means you got to get out of this

00:18:51.240 phase asap one revenue feels like a roller coaster okay it's spiky it's up it's down it's unpredictable

00:18:59.320 you have a good month you have a bad month you get pissed off at your team you apologize for

00:19:02.840 for getting pissed off.

00:19:03.680 Like it's just up and down.

00:19:05.340 Or maybe one big client leaves

00:19:07.520 and the whole business starts to panic.

00:19:09.400 Maybe you have to lay off 20, 30% of your team

00:19:11.640 because you didn't plan for it.

00:19:12.980 Or another symptom is you might be over-relying

00:19:15.140 on referrals or a single marketing channel.

00:19:18.360 It's kind of like flying a plane that's got four engines

00:19:21.200 but only using one. 1.00

00:19:22.580 And if that engine gets cut off, you're fucked. 1.00

00:19:25.340 There's no growth and it's gambling. 1.00

00:19:27.280 That is not how we build predictable revenue.

00:19:29.780 That's why predictable growth

00:19:31.540 is like flying on autopilot with all four engines.

00:19:34.760 You want revenue that's steady, scalable,

00:19:37.280 and not dependent on luck.

00:19:39.180 A couple of weeks ago,

00:19:40.080 I'm chatting with the founder on Instagram

00:19:41.600 and he's telling me about his revenue

00:19:43.320 and it literally looked like a theme park ride,

00:19:46.640 a roller coaster.

00:19:47.640 He closed one deal and then his revenue spiked

00:19:49.440 because I'd be like, hey, what happened there?

00:19:51.040 And then all of a sudden he lost two clients

00:19:52.760 and then all of a sudden his revenue spiked again.

00:19:54.880 And I was like, dude, you need to change your process.

00:19:57.400 So I shared with him the process for doing outbound.

00:20:00.420 then we layered in paid ads and then we added a simple upsell. The whole roller coaster

00:20:07.040 flattened. The investors leaned in. This founder finally found time to sleep at night

00:20:12.140 and it's not complicated. You can do this. Here's a simple framework to solve this problem. It's

00:20:18.660 called the growth engine triangle. When I think about the center, which is predictable growth,

00:20:24.020 it comes from three repeatable systems that compound together to create the predictability.

00:20:29.700 the first one is inbound essentially attracting demand how do i get customers to know who i am

00:20:35.620 to trust me to lean in to fill out a form to reach out to me that's through our content marketing

00:20:41.460 that's through social proof i know so many people they're the best kept secret in their industry

00:20:47.540 because they never tell anybody about the results they've gotten for clients

00:20:51.060 they literally have worked with the top people it's so wild the best of the best nobody knows

00:20:56.420 because they're insecure about asking because they're worried the person won't say yes to a

00:21:00.320 testimonial. Come on now. Okay. And they haven't really built out their organic channels, meaning

00:21:05.340 that if there is a lead that comes into the world and they Google their name and they look at what's

00:21:09.240 been written about that person, there's not a lot there. They go to their Instagram account,

00:21:12.560 there's 12 followers. They go to their Twitter, there's 126. It's all their family members.

00:21:16.560 You have to become a magnet in your market, pulling people out of it without manual effort.

00:21:23.580 They literally lean in because of the quality of the messages you put out on social media.

00:21:29.100 If you just look at what I've created, okay, the fact that you're here and you're listening

00:21:32.900 to this, I generate hundreds of thousands of leads every month.

00:21:37.280 I know it sounds crazy to partner with people at Martell Ventures, my AI venture studio

00:21:42.360 to work with me in one of my programs to literally do cool things.

00:21:47.380 Have me speak at their events every month, hundreds of thousands of people all by creating

00:21:52.540 content that pulls them in by building that inbound engine. The second part is outbound,

00:21:57.680 essentially creating demand. And this is an area where a lot of people think it doesn't work

00:22:02.540 anymore. Cold emails, cold calling. These are still strategies that many companies have perfected,

00:22:08.280 repeated, created, iterated against that generate predictable leads. And the last one, number three,

00:22:14.240 is partners and referrals. See, when I think of referrals, these are people that went out of their

00:22:18.900 way to talk to somebody, to convince them to reach back out to you to maybe do work for them.

00:22:24.680 When I think of partners, it's kind of the same thing. A partner is somebody that has a massive

00:22:28.180 audience of potential clients that you could serve for them that's non-competitive and you

00:22:32.300 figuring out how do I incentivize them to tell their clients about you. It's kind of like a

00:22:37.180 referral program, but for an audience that doesn't know you yet. If you build that out, find one,

00:22:42.700 two, three people that have massive audiences of people you can serve and give them a piece

00:22:48.100 of the business that they bring to you to incentivize them to tell other people about you

00:22:51.940 you will create massive amounts of demand the analogy i like to think about is the effort it

00:22:57.980 would take if i wanted to build a train track or a railroad that goes from one city to another

00:23:03.140 like just to have that i'd have to you know plow through the forest and then create tunnels through

00:23:09.260 the mountains then i'd have to lay down the track then i'd have to build the train that has the

00:23:14.860 engine and a caboose and carts and all my stuff. And it's pulling my products or service through

00:23:20.500 the mountains. Or I could find somebody that's already done all the heavy lifting, all the work

00:23:25.420 and lay down that track and then build a big hook. And as they come by, I just hook on to the train

00:23:31.080 because they've done all the work. That's what a partner does. And it is the most powerful way

00:23:36.140 to get customers. So here are some examples. Podcasts, incredible way. Stages, speaking at

00:23:43.740 people's event incredible way webinars where you co-host a webinar somebody else markets your

00:23:48.620 webinar and you get on there and you add value and then you ask them if they want help and if

00:23:52.600 they buy you give them a piece of the action or creating a referral program where you incentivize

00:23:57.400 your customers when they get a win hey you ask them do you know one or two other people just

00:24:01.800 like you then we might be able to serve same way we did you and if they end up buying from us

00:24:07.360 through your referral we'll give you a discount on your service such a simple framework to create

00:24:12.560 massive amounts of demand that's predictable so quick recap we have inbound which creates a magnet

00:24:18.160 of people aware of who you are number two we got outbound where we're tapping people on the shoulder

00:24:22.960 and saying do you have this problem and we have number three partners we have people that have

00:24:27.360 access to our customers promoting us to them when you run all three in parallel growth becomes

00:24:35.040 consistent not random because maybe one month inbound's working really well outbound's not

00:24:41.280 the next month outbound's down partners are up and that's what creates consistency in your growth

00:24:46.720 engine if you get anything out of this understand hope is not a growth strategy systems are we're

00:24:54.000 building systems to get you customers without worrying but here's the problem we have to dial

00:25:00.160 in your delivery for this next one that brings us to phase four systematized delivery and operations

00:25:06.080 so here's what it means if right now when you take on a customer if there's issues there's

00:25:11.440 mistakes you can't scale mistakes i had a friend and he has defects in his business 30 of their

00:25:17.200 work comes back that means there's a broken process that they haven't stopped to slow down

00:25:22.400 to fix so they can actually grow and at scale a broken delivery becomes a death sentence this is

00:25:28.240 what you're probably feeling you got a support inbox it's piling up you can't stay on top of

00:25:32.960 customers they're coming and they're slipping through the cracks scheduling conflicts the

00:25:37.440 work that you were promised doesn't show up on time you've got people slowly churning out

00:25:41.920 essentially coming in and quietly leaving your business as you spend more money on ads trying

00:25:46.880 to replenish all the people that left you're essentially a professional firefighter trying

00:25:52.000 to put out fires to get out of this phase we need to create simple clear and airtight systems

00:25:59.920 because without a checklist for somebody else to follow to do the work you're never going to be

00:26:04.320 able to grow here's a crazy story i had a friend a few years ago go from zero to 27 million dollars

00:26:12.000 in three years he figured out how to market he figured out how to sell better than anybody had

00:26:16.640 ever figured it out but he didn't have a process to deliver the fulfillment well what happened

00:26:22.560 all the people that bought didn't get what they thought they were going to get and immediately

00:26:27.520 started complaining and it took a while 18 months 24 months and it kept going why because the whole

00:26:33.600 business was focused on selling the whole business was focused on growth nobody stopped to say hey

00:26:40.400 how much time are we spending on actually delivering what we sold what are we doing from a

00:26:45.040 systems point of view from our team point of view how are we tracking monitoring all these new

00:26:50.080 clients literally thousands per month coming into the business and instead word got out see if you 0.98

00:26:55.680 use a scorch earth strategy to growing it doesn't take long for everybody to hear how shitty you are

00:27:02.160 you've built this foundation in your business but it's a house of cards and you keep trying to add

00:27:06.720 more cards on top and it keeps falling it has to be able to withstand the weight of the growth

00:27:12.880 and that's why we had to build sops so that's when i talked to my buddy and like he had to rebuild

00:27:19.040 the business from almost scratch we started with the delivery we started with the simplicity we

00:27:24.800 started with the people to make sure that he didn't scale and cause the same thing six months

00:27:31.120 later he almost got back to half the revenue turn dropped people were happy it was a way easier

00:27:36.480 business to run this is the big idea in this phase retention which is how many people stay in your

00:27:41.600 business that's the hidden growth lever everybody wants to talk about facebook ads or content

00:27:47.200 marketing or social media how about i got a customer i keep a customer so i want to teach

00:27:53.200 you a very simple framework i call it the three p's of delivery the first is playbooks we have a

00:27:58.560 document that talks about how somebody learns the skill executes the work how they measure their

00:28:05.360 progress how they're trained on it what frequency they need to do certain tasks and how to report

00:28:11.360 any issues if they come up essentially make decisions if you have one document that covers

00:28:16.000 all of that then you have something you can give to somebody else and they can learn how to deliver

00:28:21.920 on that promise think about it just like in football they execute a play and all the players

00:28:27.520 understand their position and what they got to do so that they get a touchdown and the cool part is

00:28:31.760 because there's a playbook it doesn't matter who's running the play the different players could come

00:28:37.040 and go and change on teams and they'll still get the same result essentially every client gets the

00:28:42.080 same experience it doesn't matter who's running the play there's no issues there's no surprises

00:28:46.480 there's no mess ups. Number two is the people. And this is where we have to find people that are

00:28:51.600 accountable to their role. Meaning that if I hire somebody to help with onboarding, help with

00:28:57.960 customer success, operations, marketing, not only do they need to do the work, but they actually

00:29:03.960 have to be accountable to the results. See too often people hire folks and then tell them what

00:29:09.020 to do. I like to hire people and have them tell me what to do. And I know this might feel slow,

00:29:13.500 but the upfront investment to slow down,

00:29:16.100 to have them think, to present a plan

00:29:18.000 means they won't fight the plan.

00:29:20.180 When they help build the plan, they don't fight the plan.

00:29:22.620 And that way, when you bring them on

00:29:24.540 to be consistent for your clients,

00:29:26.580 you're buying back your time.

00:29:28.200 See how we tie that back to the first step?

00:29:30.260 What you want to ensure happens is clear ownership

00:29:33.260 because that ensures nothing falls through the crack

00:29:35.840 because there's honestly no way

00:29:37.380 you could possibly write down all the scenarios

00:29:39.760 that somebody would have to do

00:29:40.940 to make sure that something doesn't happen.

00:29:43.100 You have to say, look,

00:29:43.900 I'm not gonna tell you how to do your job.

00:29:45.380 I've trained you, I've coached you,

00:29:46.960 I'm gonna support you, there's tools to use,

00:29:49.160 but I need you to own this outcome.

00:29:52.440 If your job is customer success,

00:29:54.440 it means the customer needs to feel successful with us.

00:29:58.200 Ask them, check in,

00:30:00.420 look at what they're doing within our world,

00:30:02.740 make sure that you feel confident that they would say,

00:30:05.660 yes, I feel successful with your business.

00:30:08.660 If they don't own it,

00:30:10.140 There's no level of like structure you could create

00:30:13.500 other than they just have to understand they own it,

00:30:16.040 which means they're gonna look at it through that lens

00:30:17.680 and they're gonna realize that nobody's there

00:30:19.380 to tell them how to do it.

00:30:20.360 They're expected to step up and solve that problem.

00:30:22.360 You could hire somebody to manage your Instagram account

00:30:24.500 and you can give them an SOP and all the steps and checks.

00:30:27.920 Or you could say you're accountable

00:30:30.000 to grow our Instagram account.

00:30:32.360 See the difference?

00:30:33.720 You tell me what you think you should do.

00:30:35.820 We can negotiate it, but at the end of the day,

00:30:37.740 if you feel confident in your plan,

00:30:39.460 go execute the plan i'm going to hold you accountable to the growth of the instagram

00:30:43.460 account i can give you a playbook of what's worked for us in the past but i also expect you to come

00:30:48.100 in and innovate and grow that and make it better so the ownership is the growth of the instagram

00:30:53.380 account not did you schedule a post on thursday at 2 p.m that's on you to choose to do or change

00:30:59.380 number three is the platforms right these are the tools the automation the systems the software

00:31:05.620 think about it if you have onboarding where somebody buys and you want to onboard them in

00:31:09.300 your business is it manual or do we automate it using like a type form and maybe some kind of

00:31:14.980 automation with like zapier the way i like to think about it is that technology becomes the glue

00:31:21.540 that keeps the delivery together and scales without ballooning your head count see if every

00:31:27.940 time you want to grow you got to add people to grow and you're not looking to make it more efficient

00:31:32.260 then you're going to eat into your profit if you force yourself to operate with the same people

00:31:37.620 but get the people more efficient using the platforms that exist ai automation tools software

00:31:46.020 that's when delivery becomes scalable most people should just start with two areas one scheduling 0.58

00:31:52.020 right customers come in they have to schedule their first onboarding call they got to schedule

00:31:55.860 some other stuff have that done through the software the second one is support using a tool

00:32:01.060 like intercom.com where you can set it up it's literally click click configure done and it'll

00:32:07.940 respond to all the customer inbound requests to email or chat on your website so that you can

00:32:13.220 spend your time actually getting new customers and ensuring they're happy the first p playbooks

00:32:19.060 the second p people the third p platform so what i need you to take away from this phase is one

00:32:26.740 One, revenue without retention is a treadmill

00:32:30.060 and you're not going anywhere.

00:32:31.760 Revenue is vanity, retention is sanity.

00:32:34.600 Even if you have all the systems in the world,

00:32:37.100 you'll still be the reason that things stall

00:32:39.860 if every decision flows through you.

00:32:42.300 That brings us to phase five,

00:32:44.160 installing leadership and management.

00:32:46.220 This is why this phase matters so much

00:32:48.260 is businesses don't scale through the founders.

00:32:50.980 The only way they can actually scale is through leaders.

00:32:54.240 Here's how you know you're stuck at this phase.

00:32:57.540 Every decision in the business keeps coming back to you.

00:33:00.660 You're literally the bottleneck

00:33:02.540 in moving any project forward.

00:33:04.700 Your team's getting pissed off.

00:33:06.600 They might be a little frustrated

00:33:07.620 because they're drowning

00:33:09.340 and you're not available to help them

00:33:11.960 or when they offer feedback, you shut it down.

00:33:14.880 The analogy I like to use is kind of like

00:33:17.280 you're like the architect

00:33:19.320 and a construction worker at the same time.

00:33:21.780 you're doing a little bit of architecture,

00:33:24.340 but a lot of construction working.

00:33:26.380 And that means there's not enough of the blueprint

00:33:28.660 or the decisions on the conflicts

00:33:30.620 within designing the architecture resolved.

00:33:32.760 And everybody's trying to be really helpful

00:33:34.620 and they're putting up the wall here

00:33:35.740 and they're pouring cement there,

00:33:36.680 but because they don't have a plan

00:33:38.000 and even the plan probably has issues,

00:33:39.820 but there's no way for them to talk to you about it

00:33:41.560 because you're just heads down doing the construction work.

00:33:43.640 You end up building a building that isn't complete.

00:33:46.760 And if you're feeling this,

00:33:48.500 this is the reason the building isn't rising.

00:33:51.540 This is what you need at this specific phase.

00:33:53.940 You need leaders who own outcomes.

00:33:56.320 You cannot tell people to do enough things

00:33:58.500 for them to do it.

00:33:59.200 You just gotta give them the outcome.

00:34:00.620 That way you can finally step in to being the CEO.

00:34:04.240 The reason I'm so intimate with this specific pain

00:34:06.820 is that it was my story.

00:34:08.660 Essentially, when I built my company Spheric

00:34:10.280 when I was 24 to 28, I did everything.

00:34:13.060 I ran around and spun plates, didn't know how I was doing it,

00:34:16.720 had a bunch of people that are willing to work really hard

00:34:18.880 because they didn't have direction

00:34:20.080 then I was always fixing mistakes and it just felt heavy. Like it almost killed me. I'm not

00:34:25.220 even joking. Like I had anxiety attacks. I had adrenal fatigue. And then I had to go see a doctor

00:34:30.220 because I had like this pain, bruise, rash thing on my back. And he's like, bro, are you stressed

00:34:35.140 out? I'm like, no. He goes, well, take this. I said, what's that for? He goes, you got shingles.

00:34:40.560 My own body was saying, ew, I'm not doing this. Please don't wait to get to this point to solve

00:34:48.020 this problem. Then once I figured out a completely different way of running businesses, not only did

00:34:53.160 my companies literally triple in growth, but I found a different way of being inside my business

00:34:59.720 that felt almost like too easy. Like I felt guilty because it was not hard anymore. And that's what I

00:35:05.640 want to share with you. Here's the big idea. Your capacity doubles the moment you stop making every

00:35:12.420 decision so here are three very tactical frameworks you need in this phase to get free from the

00:35:18.460 decision making the first one is my favorite it's called the one three one rule essentially if

00:35:24.920 somebody comes to you i want you to ask them this question what's the one problem we're talking about

00:35:30.540 because i've been in so many conversations with people they're like this is broken this is broken

00:35:34.460 this is broken what's the problem like what is the one problem we're trying to solve that's a

00:35:40.100 writer down or you might want to save that one what's the one problem we're trying to solve

00:35:43.620 then ask them what are the three ideas or solutions you've considered to solve that one problem

00:35:49.620 oftentimes they'll go well i haven't that's why i'm coming to you and i said i understand why

00:35:53.640 don't you try and then the third one is the one recommendation i remember a long time ago a guy

00:35:58.760 named adam came to me he was the director of hr and he was struggling because he had to hire 11

00:36:03.720 people in 90 days and he's freaking out i said adam what is your 131 well i don't know

00:36:10.560 How long would it take you to figure it out?

00:36:13.260 I don't know, like a day.

00:36:14.640 I said, cool, how about you just come back tomorrow

00:36:16.300 at the same time and let me know what your 131 is?

00:36:18.200 He's like, all right.

00:36:19.280 Next morning, I get a text message.

00:36:20.740 Ping, I'm good.

00:36:23.100 I thought so.

00:36:24.320 Like once people understand they're empowered

00:36:26.820 to make a decision, they'll make it.

00:36:29.100 98% of the time, they come to me with the problem,

00:36:32.100 three solutions, with the recommendation.

00:36:33.820 I go, sounds good.

00:36:35.280 Winner, winner, chicken dinner, do that. 1.00

00:36:37.920 It's so funny how the entrepreneur feels the need

00:36:41.240 to have to be involved, to want to be involved,

00:36:44.240 to feel needed, and that creates a dependency

00:36:47.560 their team have on them.

00:36:49.440 Then they get pissed off

00:36:50.940 that the person can't make a decision without them,

00:36:53.540 but you taught them to do that every time they're stuck.

00:36:56.320 So use the one-three-one rule to avoid all that.

00:36:59.420 The second one is a leadership rhythm.

00:37:01.620 See, a business is the byproducts of its meanings.

00:37:05.040 It's the only tool we have as entrepreneurs.

00:37:07.660 Essentially, there's meetings,

00:37:08.900 there's goals of those meetings,

00:37:09.940 and there's people on that meeting.

00:37:11.540 And the conversations that happen on those meetings

00:37:13.520 will dictate if you grow the business,

00:37:15.660 if you have consistency, if you can scale.

00:37:18.860 So I always ask myself,

00:37:20.300 what are the daily rhythms every day

00:37:22.800 to create awareness and alignment for my team?

00:37:26.120 For most people, it's just a daily standup.

00:37:27.900 Takes 15 minutes.

00:37:28.960 Everybody talks about what they did yesterday,

00:37:31.000 the top three things.

00:37:32.080 What are the three things they're planning on doing today?

00:37:34.200 And if they're stuck.

00:37:35.380 That way, as a leader, 0.91

00:37:36.160 my only job is to take all the stucks

00:37:38.260 and make them unstuck throughout the day

00:37:40.360 to help my team, and then they keep building.

00:37:42.760 The weekly meeting is ideally at least a sync meeting

00:37:46.320 where everybody comes together

00:37:47.800 and they talk about the goals,

00:37:50.280 how they're doing to those goals,

00:37:51.560 and any issues that are holding them back

00:37:53.680 so that we have a focused meeting on solving problems,

00:37:56.240 not got a second meetings, not three-hour meetings,

00:37:59.300 not Saturday night phone calls,

00:38:01.260 a structure to solve problems.

00:38:03.420 Then we wanna think about quarterly.

00:38:04.640 Ideally, a meeting once a quarter, end of year, where you sit down and you plan.

00:38:10.420 You review the performance of the previous quarter, the goals for the next quarter,

00:38:14.860 where are the projects getting stuck, what needs to be resolved, what does the hiring look like.

00:38:19.280 You sit down, you plan once, and then you decide and you execute for the next 90 days.

00:38:24.640 That leadership rhythm is a winning strategy to get unstuck.

00:38:29.300 So we want to do a daily standup where we figure out where we're stuck to help your team.

00:38:32.820 We want to do weekly meetings to make sure everybody's aligned with their goals and discuss

00:38:36.540 any open issues. Quarterly is for planning and alignment. And yearly is for strategic reviews

00:38:42.260 and focusing on the big picture. The final one is a decision ladder. See, if you don't create a

00:38:47.520 framework for other people to make decisions, they're always going to come back to you.

00:38:52.200 What's got two thumbs and likes to make decisions? The founders. Stop that. In every one of my

00:38:57.160 companies, I have these rules. It's 50 to fix it. Anybody on the team that runs into an issue with

00:39:02.620 The customer and the business can spend up to $50,

00:39:05.180 no questions asked, to solve a problem.

00:39:06.880 All I ask is they tell their manager or leader

00:39:08.860 that they did it.

00:39:09.840 They expense it, we pay them no matter what.

00:39:12.380 Managers can spend up to $500, no question asked.

00:39:15.280 Directors, $5,000.

00:39:17.500 Executives, $50,000.

00:39:19.680 And the reason why is that I want to empower

00:39:22.380 everybody on the team to make decisions on their own.

00:39:25.540 If they gotta stop, wait, review, plan,

00:39:28.360 it slows things down.

00:39:29.620 The biggest thing that makes a founder go bananas in their mind when it comes to growing the

00:39:35.460 business is seeing it slow down as you grow, but you have to design the machine so that people make

00:39:40.060 decisions so it doesn't slow down. And all of this ties back to the phase of ownership in people so

00:39:45.800 that it never gets to that point in the first place. So if I can give you one thing in this

00:39:49.880 phase to summarize everything is give your team ownership and they'll go from great players to

00:39:55.500 great leaders. And again, if every road leads back to you, you're not a CEO, you're a traffic

00:40:02.840 jam. But even the best leaders need glue, and that glue is culture. Which brings us to the final

00:40:09.300 phase to scale your business, scaling culture and vision. Here's what you need to know. Culture is

00:40:15.480 the ultimate growth multiplier. If you ignore it, it becomes the silent killer. If you don't have a

00:40:22.580 vision for where you want to go, you're only going to attract people that are looking for safety in

00:40:28.220 a job. Nobody's going to show up willing to put in the extra work because you haven't told them

00:40:32.740 why they should. If you don't design the culture, how people participate, get rewarded, support

00:40:39.600 other people, then you're just going to have people acting by default. And that doesn't create

00:40:44.660 a strong culture. It doesn't create a place that people want to work. You know, this morning I had

00:40:49.800 a buddy of mine, he's like, hey, found somebody who wants to work. And I'm thinking to myself,

00:40:53.980 bro, you just became somebody that people want to work for. Like there's no lack of people that

00:40:58.360 will work. It's do they want to work for you? Here's how you know there's an issue. Team morale,

00:41:04.400 it's slipping. People aren't excited and jumping to work. You've got toxic hires. Somehow they

00:41:11.120 made it on your team and they're poisoning the company. And the worst part is your best people

00:41:17.120 are quiet, quitting. They're still there, but they're not showing up the way they used to

00:41:21.940 because that extra effort is just being eroded by the crappy people that you've got.

00:41:26.540 The best way to think about culture, it's like gravity. If it's not strong, people just float

00:41:32.900 away. The best people. If it's really strong, it retains them. It attracts them. It creates like a

00:41:39.320 magnet pulling them into your orbit. So you can't see it just like gravity, but it actually pulls

00:41:45.820 everything in one direction towards growth or destruction here's an example this coming monday

00:41:52.880 is a stat holiday somebody mentioned in the office half the team didn't even know why they don't care

00:41:58.980 they're more excited about coming in to create and build the future together than worrying about

00:42:04.900 getting that extra stat holiday got my time off that's not the kind of culture that creates

00:42:09.920 something magical, but it starts with you. Here's the benefit of doing this right. A strong culture

00:42:15.760 fuels customer retention, right? Why? Because there's A players on the team that show up and

00:42:20.440 care about your customers and all of that compounds your growth. Maybe you've never heard this, but

00:42:25.140 there's a company called Zappos and they sell shoes online. Many other things that were bought

00:42:29.080 by Amazon for a billion bucks, but they had a culture that was so strong. People would fly in

00:42:34.440 all over the world just to go study it, to be toured around it, to learn from them. Even to the

00:42:39.560 point where when employees were leaving to go do something bigger or better, they would cry. It was

00:42:44.560 like they were breaking up with their best friend. That to me is the gold standard. I've also seen

00:42:49.520 the opposite. Founders that thought culture or schmaltzer, like they didn't invest in it. They

00:42:53.660 thought it was fluff. So surprise, surprise, toxic management spread across the company.

00:42:59.360 Customers churned and the company collapsed under the weight of people that didn't care.

00:43:05.100 The big idea that I wanna leave you for this phase

00:43:07.980 is that at scale, culture isn't optional.

00:43:12.300 It's the oxygen for your growth.

00:43:14.400 So here are three frameworks that you need

00:43:17.000 to design your culture and vision.

00:43:19.000 First off, core values.

00:43:20.780 And trust me, when I started, I was like,

00:43:22.240 what does this even mean?

00:43:23.440 Words, you see it at these companies,

00:43:25.240 it's like integrity and do the extra work

00:43:29.960 and they're just words on a wall.

00:43:31.180 And guess what?

00:43:31.660 That's what they are if that's how you treat them.

00:43:33.600 This is the way I want you to think about core values.

00:43:36.020 I want you to be so specific what it is you are and what you're not that you use it to

00:43:41.440 hire people, meaning it's a filter, meaning you test against it, meaning that if you think

00:43:45.980 going the extra mile is important, I want you to ask them when you interview somebody,

00:43:49.240 explain to me the last time in your work, you went the extra mile and how did that look?

00:43:52.760 If you say personal growth is a core value and you don't ask them what book they last

00:43:57.000 read to help them in their job or their life, and they don't have a book that they can mention,

00:44:01.260 then why would you bring them on your team?

00:44:03.000 Values are things you're trying to filter people for,

00:44:05.700 not try to get them to take them on.

00:44:07.840 They either have them or they don't.

00:44:09.240 That's hire.

00:44:10.360 Inspire.

00:44:11.520 Use them to celebrate.

00:44:13.400 I call this catching people doing right.

00:44:15.880 Find folks that are embodying the value

00:44:18.400 and acknowledge them, celebrate them.

00:44:21.360 Like go wild.

00:44:22.680 Like literally scream, oh my God, Bob is the best.

00:44:26.060 He literally went above and beyond.

00:44:27.660 I don't know, nobody else knows this.

00:44:28.800 Bob stayed up last night till 11 p.m.

00:44:31.240 to empty out the inbox

00:44:32.440 because he knows we're doing the new launch

00:44:33.680 and there was a bunch of support tickets

00:44:34.980 and he wanted us to make sure

00:44:36.300 that there was nothing left.

00:44:37.260 So he stayed here and he did the work.

00:44:39.940 Go crazy, okay?

00:44:41.420 That's how we inspire other people to adopt them.

00:44:43.920 And then the most important part

00:44:45.080 is you have to fire against them.

00:44:46.760 Meaning that the values aren't what you say they are,

00:44:49.620 they're what you accept.

00:44:51.140 And if somebody continuously misses

00:44:53.260 and refuses to adopt that value,

00:44:56.480 they can't stay on your team.

00:44:57.540 For example, at Martell Media,

00:44:59.160 I keep it really easy.

00:45:00.600 we have three one simple scales remember the values simple scales how many values i have three

00:45:07.480 not five not seven see how i just did that two be the example we will never teach you to do things

00:45:14.120 we don't do ourselves i think that's really up and some companies unfortunately are okay with that so

00:45:18.680 we are always the best example of what we teach and three build the people if we build the people

00:45:24.440 the people build the business i wake up every day and ask myself how can i make these people richer

00:45:29.080 how can I develop them? I think honestly, the point of a business is to have a place where you

00:45:34.140 can develop people. That's a big idea. It's also culture. So we use these three to hire, inspire,

00:45:40.940 and fire. The next framework to help design your culture is to have a vision narrative.

00:45:46.700 Essentially what you want is to paint the five-year future. And I'm talking visual,

00:45:52.240 a diagram an image make it visual put it on the wall i have one here it's right there it's

00:46:00.360 literally i can see it it's right there that five year vision is so visual clear that anybody with

00:46:08.140 their eyes closed could hit the target it's kind of like that game where you got to like flip

00:46:12.440 something open and see it and then it closes and you got to figure out where it was hiding again

00:46:15.780 if people don't see it clearly what it is they're trying to hit they won't be able to hit it again

00:46:20.240 and you're pissed off because nobody sees your vision well you haven't shown them a picture of

00:46:24.680 it now the key is is to repeat it until their eyes roll my rule is if they can't make fun of

00:46:32.020 you behind your back around the vision oh my god dan is always like oh we're gonna get five years

00:46:37.060 we're gonna look like this you know what i mean like they gotta make fun of you because of the

00:46:41.520 amount of times you've repeated it you think they get it trust me repeat it you think they heard it

00:46:47.160 trust me repeat it you think they see it they don't repeat it and the last one people systems

00:46:54.600 in my world i think there's two major things to focus on we already did the first one which is

00:46:59.480 customers how do we get customers into our world the other part is talent it's the people right

00:47:05.640 how do we attract hire develop and retain top talent and the way we do that how we select people

00:47:14.280 our process for doing that how we develop people our process for doing that how do we retain people

00:47:19.720 our compensation program our development programs all of that the values those aren't just things

00:47:26.440 that we say we do to attract the people that's what we do to build the people those people

00:47:31.320 systems is what makes your business unstoppable the best way to explain this is hire for the soul

00:47:38.600 train for the role hire the person that embodies the values the character traits and the kind of

00:47:43.560 person that you think you want to pour into you can train those people hire somebody that's great

00:47:49.400 at the skill like a world-class video editor world-class salesperson that has the worst values

00:47:55.800 that screws people over all the time that aren't fun to work with that's cancer inside your

00:48:00.280 business i don't care how much money they're making you you have to cut it out and move on

00:48:05.160 to summarize this whole thing culture is the invisible hand guiding your business when you're

00:48:10.680 not in the room it's how people make decisions when nobody's looking have a strong culture of

00:48:16.440 accountability of performance of execution watch people make really good decisions when you're not

00:48:22.360 around not design that not have a vision that's big enough for their dreams and goals to fit

00:48:27.240 inside of watch people sit on their hands and wait for you to show back up to actually start working

00:48:32.840 and now you know all six phases but the real question is this will you stay stuck as a chaos

00:48:39.480 builder or step in the role of an empire builder and if you're there are you going to elevate and

00:48:45.960 fully step into the role of ceo that's my question to you why not you

00:48:54.040 whoa i mean all right that was a lot but that's exactly how to scale your business

00:49:02.360 i was thinking of a dozen people when i shot this video people i care about

00:49:06.520 people I know that are struggling, people that I think have the potential to create something

00:49:10.480 magical. I wanted to share that so there was no confusion as to what to do at what stage.

00:49:17.500 Now, I don't want you to just watch this, feel motivated, but actually do nothing with it.

00:49:22.900 My question to you is leave a comment below and make a commitment to me. What's the one thing

00:49:28.380 you're going to do differently after watching this video? It could be small, but it needs to be done.

00:49:34.580 Commit below, let me know.

00:49:36.480 I'm excited to read your answer.

00:49:37.940 So as I mentioned at the beginning,

00:49:39.100 if you haven't done this yet,

00:49:40.700 please go download the full PDF.

00:49:43.120 It's linked in the description below.

00:49:44.720 Download it and go through this video,

00:49:47.020 rewatch it and fill it out.

00:49:48.780 I really want you to walk away

00:49:50.540 with a plan to attack your growth.

00:49:53.340 This is a lot to take in,

00:49:55.400 but I think the mindset

00:49:58.080 for how you approach your business

00:49:59.720 is more important to what to do in your business.

00:50:02.060 and this one changed my whole life.

00:50:04.860 The belief that I will acquire what I desire for others.

00:50:09.900 The moment I stop making business about me

00:50:12.640 and start making it about other people,

00:50:14.580 my team, my customers, my whole world changed.

00:50:17.520 If you do that, not only will this feel effortless,

00:50:20.760 it'll actually get really fun.

00:50:22.480 Now, if you wanna learn how to get ahead

00:50:24.220 of 99% of other people using AI,

00:50:26.660 click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - November 12, 2025

Business is Hard Until You Build These Systems

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