Dan Martell - Every Level of Success： Which One Are You Stuck In？

00:00:00.000 When we think of entrepreneurs, we often think of working 100 hours a week and having no time

00:00:04.780 for our family. But as I climbed the ladder of success and I met billionaires along the way,

00:00:09.460 I learned something simple. Top level entrepreneurs run their businesses in

00:00:13.460 completely different ways, making way more money by working way less hours. And if you don't master

00:00:18.920 every level, you'll be stuck in the hamster wheel of entrepreneurship, never getting the freedom

00:00:23.500 you started the business for in the first place. So I'm going to show you what it looks like to

00:00:27.660 run a business at every level and how to adapt to each one. Level one, 100K to 300K, this is what I

00:00:34.340 call the hustler. So at this level, you sell your time. Your goal is to prove to other people that

00:00:41.360 you can deliver value. It's the proof, not the polish. So there's two signs that you're stuck 1.00

00:00:45.740 at this level. The first one is you're doing everything. Everybody wishes it wasn't that way,

00:00:49.800 but guess what? That's where we all start. We have to do everything. The other thing is we're selling

00:00:53.680 our time. Meaning that when people buy from us, we're the ones that are doing the work. That's

00:00:58.040 why we call it the hustler. Here's a very clear framework to help you level up to the next stage.

00:01:02.600 I call it the scaling credo. The whole point is to focus, which stands for follow one course until

00:01:08.280 successful, which means we have to pick one target customer, sometimes called an ICP, an ideal

00:01:14.640 customer profile. Pick one customer that has the pain that your product can solve. The second is

00:01:20.080 one product. Don't sell 14 offers, sell one offer. The third is one conversion tool, one way of

00:01:26.740 selling. Most of the time at this level, it's you getting on a phone and talking to the buyer and

00:01:30.980 communicating the value that your product solves and getting good at communication, getting good

00:01:36.480 at sales. That is a meta skill you're going to take to the next levels. The fourth is one channel,

00:01:41.400 one way to get awareness, one way to create marketing and just stick with it. The fifth

00:01:46.440 Part of the scaling credo is to do all those four

00:01:50.060 for one year.

00:01:51.260 I dare you to focus for one year on four things

00:01:54.400 and just hit it back to back to back.

00:01:57.440 And every time you think, oh, I could do more,

00:01:59.680 stop yourself.

00:02:00.920 If you do that, you'll get to a million in revenue.

00:02:04.100 So I wanna share some hacks

00:02:05.420 that I only teach in my elite coaching.

00:02:07.340 These are the five daily non-negotiables

00:02:09.300 that I use every day that's really added

00:02:10.800 the most value to my life.

00:02:11.820 I wanna give you three that if you do,

00:02:14.660 will change everything.

00:02:15.520 One is you post three posts every day

00:02:17.740 where you're talking to your camera as stories.

00:02:19.840 It's gonna teach you to get better at communicating.

00:02:22.900 The second habit is five daily outreaches,

00:02:25.580 five times a day, where you either message somebody

00:02:27.940 that follows you, you message somebody new,

00:02:29.760 you message somebody as a mentor,

00:02:31.020 but if you do five outreaches every day,

00:02:33.380 that's gonna build your relationships

00:02:35.120 and the more hands you shake,

00:02:36.520 the more money you're gonna make.

00:02:37.580 The last one is one offer made every day.

00:02:41.080 Force yourself to do enough reps to get to a point

00:02:43.840 where you're making an offer for your service every day.

00:02:46.740 If you can get one per day over 10 days,

00:02:49.580 you'll probably get one sale.

00:02:50.720 That's three sales a month.

00:02:51.980 That'll get you into the flow

00:02:53.500 to go from 100K to 300K no problem.

00:02:55.920 A few years ago, I was coaching this freelancer

00:02:57.720 and I remember he was stuck at 100K, 150K

00:03:00.340 and he wanted to grow.

00:03:01.180 And I said, well, what are you selling?

00:03:02.140 He showed me 14 different offers

00:03:05.100 and nobody was buying quickly.

00:03:06.660 All we did was go through and say,

00:03:08.560 hey, what are you great at?

00:03:10.080 What do you love to do?

00:03:11.760 And what do you think the market wants?

00:03:13.360 and then we cut all of them except for one.

00:03:15.740 He found out that the one thing he loved to do

00:03:17.620 is build websites for local gyms.

00:03:19.660 In 30 days, he sold 10.

00:03:21.800 The money and the confidence followed.

00:03:24.100 That is how we solve things at this level.

00:03:26.260 We do less, we focus on few,

00:03:28.480 and we try to build that revenue up.

00:03:30.380 Most people will stop doing this

00:03:32.260 because they don't want to repeat what works,

00:03:35.560 even if it's boring.

00:03:36.700 So now that you know how to handle the boring stuff,

00:03:39.940 it's time to level up.

00:03:41.040 Level two, 300K to a million, the specialist.

00:03:45.700 At this level, you're essentially getting full of work.

00:03:49.400 The marketing's working, the demand's coming in,

00:03:52.300 but the calendar is busy.

00:03:54.100 The challenge is, is that you're now the bottleneck.

00:03:56.460 It's kind of like if you open up a restaurant,

00:03:58.380 you just couldn't do everything yourself.

00:04:00.120 You can't take orders, you can't cook,

00:04:02.140 you can't serve at the same time.

00:04:03.540 So then you think about it,

00:04:04.540 it's like, okay, I gotta buy back some time.

00:04:06.120 So you hire a line cook and a server first 0.89

00:04:08.140 so that you can get more time in your calendar

00:04:10.080 so that not only can you be in the business,

00:04:12.140 you can start working on the business.

00:04:13.980 If you learn how not to be the bottleneck,

00:04:16.380 you can get to a million a year.

00:04:17.660 I remember one time I was chatting with this woman, Sarah,

00:04:19.520 in my DMs on Instagram and she had a design shop

00:04:22.260 and she was feeling overwhelmed.

00:04:23.620 She was answering all of her emails,

00:04:25.580 staying up till midnight.

00:04:26.800 She's freaking out saying, Dan, I need some help.

00:04:28.960 So what I suggested, and I teach this in my book,

00:04:31.280 Buy Back Your Time, is hire somebody to help

00:04:33.620 with the administrative assistant work.

00:04:35.180 Essentially in 30 days of her working through her EA,

00:04:39.180 she ended up getting back 20 hours a week.

00:04:42.240 Revenue went up, why?

00:04:43.860 She had time to do marketing and sales again.

00:04:46.520 So if you wanna level up just like Sarah,

00:04:48.480 here's the exact frameworks you need to get your time back.

00:04:51.280 The first one is called the buyback loop.

00:04:53.080 And it is a simple but crazy powerful strategy.

00:04:56.200 Anytime I feel overwhelmed,

00:04:58.160 my calendar has turned into chaos.

00:05:00.260 I stop and I first do a time and energy audit.

00:05:02.980 That's the first step.

00:05:03.980 And I kind of use that audit to find the bucket of things

00:05:07.700 that I need to give to somebody else

00:05:09.580 so that I can get some freedom back

00:05:11.200 so I can focus on things that light me up

00:05:13.020 that make me the most money.

00:05:14.200 The second step is transfer,

00:05:15.580 which is I audit my calendar to find that bucket,

00:05:18.000 then I hire somebody, now I gotta transfer it to them.

00:05:20.280 The best way to do this is called the camcorder method.

00:05:22.800 Whatever work you wanna give to somebody else to transfer,

00:05:25.360 you just record yourself doing it.

00:05:26.980 That way when they join, the first week they're with you

00:05:29.340 is essentially watching these videos

00:05:31.120 and creating the SOP that you don't have to create

00:05:33.900 because you've already documented it in the videos.

00:05:36.180 And that way you can see if they got

00:05:37.800 what you were teaching in the videos

00:05:39.120 by what they documented.

00:05:40.660 See how powerful this is?

00:05:41.880 The last step is to fill.

00:05:43.240 Fill your calendar back up immediately

00:05:45.880 with things that make you more money.

00:05:47.400 Once that is filled, then you wanna upgrade your skills,

00:05:50.500 your habits, and your character traits

00:05:52.060 so that you can become more

00:05:53.220 because each new level we talk about

00:05:55.080 is gonna require a different version of you

00:05:57.120 to overcome that level.

00:05:58.680 As I always say, new level, new devil.

00:06:01.200 So you gotta become a new person

00:06:02.720 to attack and defeat that new devil.

00:06:04.600 And the second framework is called the 1080-10 rule.

00:06:07.560 The first 10% is the ideation.

00:06:09.300 When I sit down with somebody and I'm working on a project,

00:06:11.720 like right now I'm working on a really cool car project,

00:06:13.740 that first 10% is getting clear on the vision.

00:06:16.620 This is what it's gonna look like,

00:06:17.780 here's the specs, ask me the questions,

00:06:19.720 because once I give you that, that's the plan,

00:06:22.680 I'm gonna then go to the 80%, which is execution.

00:06:25.440 I'm gonna allow them to execute that ideation.

00:06:28.560 Because when I come back at the end of it,

00:06:30.180 that 10% integration,

00:06:32.000 That's where I get to refine things and tweak things.

00:06:34.680 And even if they're not doing it

00:06:36.740 at a hundred percent of what you can do,

00:06:38.520 80% done by somebody else is a hundred percent awesome.

00:06:41.760 The truth is at this level,

00:06:43.660 the non-negotiable first hire is an executive assistant.

00:06:46.760 You know your time is worth more.

00:06:49.160 And like not having that person

00:06:50.940 is kind of playing entrepreneurship on hard mode.

00:06:53.220 And the truth is at this level,

00:06:54.720 you should be able to afford it.

00:06:55.980 And look, I get a lot of people don't even know

00:06:57.800 what I would give my assistant.

00:06:59.220 So if you want access to my internal playbook,

00:07:01.560 my executive assistant playbook,

00:07:02.860 just click the link in the description below

00:07:04.560 and I'll send a copy over to you.

00:07:06.000 Just make sure to check your junk folder

00:07:07.420 because sometimes those emails don't go directly to you.

00:07:09.720 This is why people find this hard

00:07:11.520 because if you don't value your time, no one else will.

00:07:14.380 And the people that don't value their time

00:07:16.500 are gonna be the first ones to waste yours.

00:07:18.480 Great, you just bought back all your time.

00:07:20.900 Now we need a simple system to stop all the fires.

00:07:24.000 Level three, 1 million to 3 million.

00:07:26.440 I call this the operator.

00:07:28.660 Now you've built something real.

00:07:30.480 You have a business, it's making money,

00:07:33.260 but it's time to operate it.

00:07:34.540 See, without it, chaos slowly creeps in.

00:07:37.900 And what we need to do, and this word, nobody likes it,

00:07:40.640 is we gotta standardize delivery.

00:07:42.300 We have to raise prices

00:07:43.520 and we have to make onboarding smooth.

00:07:45.740 Here's some signs that you might be stuck at this level.

00:07:48.240 You have a strong business, but it feels crazy chaotic.

00:07:52.140 And you think it's normal.

00:07:53.340 That's the worst part is nobody's taught you

00:07:55.200 that these kinds of problems at this level are abnormal.

00:07:58.240 That's why I like to use like a laundromat example,

00:08:00.480 because you wanna get to a place

00:08:02.080 where your business just runs on a rhythm.

00:08:04.380 I go to a laundromat, clothes goes in, it washes,

00:08:07.340 it gets rinsed, it dries out, it gets folded.

00:08:09.980 Boom, see that cycle?

00:08:11.380 Same step every time.

00:08:12.960 You don't do a different thing

00:08:14.440 for t-shirts or socks or your underwear.

00:08:17.440 It's kinda like my buddy Veve,

00:08:18.520 he has a software called Revio.

00:08:20.020 It's like an AI powered sell by chat software.

00:08:22.940 And for a while when he launched it,

00:08:24.740 he was just trying to do the best thing for the customer.

00:08:26.920 So every time he got a new customer,

00:08:28.400 he created a custom solution for them.

00:08:30.280 Problem is, there was no repeatability with it.

00:08:32.380 He felt stuck.

00:08:33.700 And then we sat down, I said, bro,

00:08:35.440 let's just create a simple path for every new customer.

00:08:38.500 The software did all the heavy lifting,

00:08:40.460 but people still needed some process

00:08:42.560 to make sure it got integrated, deployed,

00:08:44.460 and used by the team.

00:08:45.800 That simple streamlining of his onboarding

00:08:48.560 cut churn in half, and he was able to raise his rates

00:08:51.180 by 20%, making the business a lot more fun to own.

00:08:54.200 So if you wanna level up like Veve,

00:08:55.720 here's a framework for leveling up.

00:08:57.740 This framework's called the four S's.

00:08:59.440 The first one is scope.

00:09:01.520 I think of it this way.

00:09:02.800 I need to define exactly what needs to be done

00:09:06.060 to the degree I can communicate the specificity

00:09:09.860 of what complete looks like

00:09:11.380 or what I call the definition of done,

00:09:13.680 then the better chance,

00:09:15.200 the person I'm asking to do the thing,

00:09:17.960 they give it back to me the way I want.

00:09:19.740 That's the scope.

00:09:21.040 The second step is the steps.

00:09:23.400 You gotta outline the process, the sequence of actions.

00:09:26.720 Now I know for a lot of creators, this is not fun,

00:09:29.020 But if you wanna grow, you have to have system.

00:09:31.840 System stands for save yourself time, energy, money,

00:09:36.020 and stress.

00:09:37.020 Without a system, nobody else can do the thing,

00:09:39.680 your magic sauce, without you involved.

00:09:41.820 So here's where you give them the steps

00:09:44.420 that they follow in the checklist, that system,

00:09:47.360 so that they can load the washer,

00:09:49.360 ensure they get everything done right,

00:09:50.840 dry it, and fold it properly as per your standards,

00:09:53.560 so you're no longer involved.

00:09:54.740 Number three is standards.

00:09:56.040 And I kind of alluded to this,

00:09:57.220 but it's worth mentioning

00:09:58.640 that standards are not what you say they are.

00:10:00.960 Standards are what you accept.

00:10:02.600 Establishing the quality expectation or rules or principles,

00:10:06.800 those are the standards.

00:10:07.880 So for example, we have a standard

00:10:09.840 that you have to keep the kitchen clean.

00:10:11.400 If you don't, we're gonna ask whose plate that was,

00:10:13.880 we're gonna bring the plate to their desk

00:10:15.260 and we're informing them that they've lost the privilege

00:10:17.260 of using the kitchen for the next week.

00:10:18.880 Saying pretty please, asking them every time,

00:10:21.180 having them continue to leave their stuff in the sink,

00:10:22.940 that's not a standard, that's a request.

00:10:25.300 Standards are what you enforce.

00:10:27.580 Number four is a scorecard.

00:10:29.040 Without the scorecard, there's no way for somebody to know

00:10:32.500 if the work they're doing is at the level you want.

00:10:35.000 So create a simple way for them to track

00:10:37.780 and measure their performance

00:10:39.200 so that there's accountability to them for you

00:10:41.740 and also a quality metric so that they're doing it

00:10:44.580 at a level that's gonna make you feel confidence

00:10:46.780 that the customer is not gonna be upset.

00:10:48.240 At this level, this is where you hire someone for delivery

00:10:51.140 and all you do is market and sell.

00:10:53.700 That is your job now.

00:10:54.720 This is how we get out of this level.

00:10:56.140 Now, 3 million in revenue is pretty great.

00:10:58.240 Don't get me wrong.

00:10:59.080 But if you're like me and you don't wanna stop there,

00:11:01.720 don't, we need to really dial in to get to the next level.

00:11:05.480 Level four, that's 3 million to 10 million.

00:11:07.880 This is what I call the growth creator.

00:11:10.580 Essentially at this level, you stop gambling.

00:11:13.420 You start making bets that you know are gonna work out.

00:11:15.880 You build a predictable growth engine,

00:11:18.220 meaning inbound, outbound,

00:11:19.560 and partners are really working for you.

00:11:21.400 And you can start to see how the whole thing works

00:11:23.840 to get you to eight figures.

00:11:25.240 If I gave you a million dollars in cash

00:11:27.560 and said, what are you gonna do to invest in your business

00:11:30.060 that's gonna guarantee 3 million back

00:11:32.160 in the next six months?

00:11:33.420 If you can't give me that answer,

00:11:35.360 then you're stuck here, because that's gambling.

00:11:37.360 For example, if you have a plane

00:11:39.500 that's got two engines and one fails, you can still fly.

00:11:43.020 But that's iffy as .

00:11:44.480 You got four engine and one fails?

00:11:46.840 You just keep going, it goes,

00:11:48.680 they change that dimension.

00:11:50.000 It's kind of like one of my private coaching clients.

00:11:52.000 He has lawn care software

00:11:53.280 and he was heavily dependent on ads.

00:11:55.500 Problem was, if he had any issues with the ads,

00:11:57.860 he wouldn't hit his revenue targets.

00:11:59.180 All we did is said, hey, let's go take some of that content

00:12:02.680 that you're running ads against,

00:12:03.720 create some content answering the questions

00:12:05.680 your buyers are already asking on your sales calls.

00:12:07.960 That created not only different lead source,

00:12:10.040 but it also made the ads work better.

00:12:12.000 He wasn't dependent on one strategy.

00:12:14.880 He had several, which made the revenue more predictable

00:12:17.940 because it took all the anomalies and smoothed them out.

00:12:20.800 So an easy framework for you to do this yourself

00:12:23.340 in your business, if you're at this level,

00:12:24.980 is called the growth triangle.

00:12:26.260 The first area is inbound magnet.

00:12:29.200 We need to create a simple way for you to create content

00:12:32.480 where you're teaching, essentially educating your market

00:12:35.460 for free around the thing that you do.

00:12:37.880 What's crazy is most people don't realize

00:12:39.880 that same content becomes training for your internal team.

00:12:42.920 Teaching them how to get the result

00:12:44.260 without ever paying you,

00:12:45.520 giving them a thing that gets them a quick result,

00:12:47.540 and then all of a sudden you build trust.

00:12:49.480 that will create leads.

00:12:50.880 The second is an outbound megaphone,

00:12:52.920 is essentially working with somebody that can sell you leads

00:12:56.060 so that you can reach out to them.

00:12:57.560 The whole process is following a service-based approach,

00:13:00.800 meaning I'm just here to see if you have a problem.

00:13:02.980 If you do, reply and see if I can be helpful.

00:13:05.060 The third is a partner program.

00:13:06.640 Finding people that have access

00:13:08.860 to the audience of potential customers

00:13:10.860 that are perfect for you

00:13:12.000 and having them share you with them.

00:13:14.840 And then what happens is you just pay them a fee

00:13:16.800 for every new customer that comes from the referral.

00:13:19.060 and can allow you to go from three to 10 million in months.

00:13:21.920 At this level, this is where you hire

00:13:24.120 a head of demand generation.

00:13:25.660 Essentially somebody that comes in is responsible

00:13:27.860 for all the campaigns and the traffic to your website.

00:13:30.880 You still might be the face of the company,

00:13:33.280 but they're making sure that that traffic

00:13:35.180 and those conversions keep happening day over day

00:13:37.600 for the consistency.

00:13:38.860 They're accountable for generating leads

00:13:40.760 that becomes customers.

00:13:41.900 All your focus at this stage is on sales and leadership.

00:13:45.300 Here's why, to go from three to 10,

00:13:48.760 It's not doing anything different.

00:13:50.780 It's just doing a lot more of what's working

00:13:54.120 and scaling that to eight figures.

00:13:56.300 But the mindset has to be right.

00:13:58.320 And that's where I always say, hope isn't a growth strategy.

00:14:01.000 Systems are, change your hope to expect.

00:14:04.360 When I think of growth, it just exposes all the cracks.

00:14:07.200 It's like the pressure in a foundation.

00:14:09.380 If the foundation breaks, you break.

00:14:11.980 So let's move beyond 10 million.

00:14:13.660 Level five, 10 to 30 million.

00:14:15.800 I call this the CEO.

00:14:18.400 At this level, the business can no longer be you.

00:14:22.200 It can't even work through you.

00:14:24.260 At this level, you have to install leaders

00:14:26.800 to work through them to get outcomes.

00:14:29.040 That's why we have to install weekly and quarterly rhythms.

00:14:31.840 At this stage, you become the real chief executive officer,

00:14:36.260 not a chief firefighter.

00:14:37.820 If I'm building a building, my job is to be the architect.

00:14:41.240 I'm not pouring concrete.

00:14:42.760 The foreman doesn't drill screws.

00:14:44.840 They set the plan with you and inspect what you expect.

00:14:48.160 These are some of the signs

00:14:49.380 that you're still doing things at this level

00:14:51.540 that's gonna keep you stuck from moving forward.

00:14:53.520 First off, you still approve every decision.

00:14:56.180 The other thing is, and this is the worst for entrepreneurs,

00:14:58.480 is that the bigger it's getting,

00:14:59.880 the slower you feel you're moving.

00:15:01.960 It's so funny because I was working with a CEO

00:15:03.960 the other day and he told me he approves every expense.

00:15:08.520 I said, hey, first off, do you have a financial leader?

00:15:12.320 Well, of course.

00:15:13.360 How about you let them leave?

00:15:14.840 How about you ask them to work with each department

00:15:16.960 to create a budget, a structure for them spending money,

00:15:20.620 making decisions so that you feel comfortable

00:15:22.340 with that framework, then you can empower them.

00:15:25.600 And all of a sudden, revenue grew by 40% in nine months

00:15:29.060 and he took his first real vacation with his family.

00:15:32.160 I call this the decision ladder.

00:15:33.940 The first one is 50 to fix it.

00:15:35.660 Everybody on any of my teams have permission to spend $50

00:15:38.940 to solve any problem they see.

00:15:41.200 That $50 can be spent.

00:15:42.780 I'll always pay them back.

00:15:44.040 they just get expensive. All I ask is that they tell their leader. That way there's somebody in

00:15:48.420 the loop that knows there was a problem and it actually is a feedback loop for the leader to go

00:15:52.580 fix that problem. Managers can spend up to $500. Directors up to $5,000. Executive C-level people

00:15:59.240 up to $50,000 without needing my approval. You can pick your budgets. That strategy is going to

00:16:06.060 empower your leaders and you're going to start to learn how to work through them. If you want to

00:16:10.360 level this up. There's a second part to this. It's called leadership rhythms. Most businesses don't

00:16:14.740 have a rhythm for meetings. When it comes to leadership rhythms, these are the meetings. One,

00:16:19.760 a daily 15-minute stand-up. Simple format. What are the three things you did yesterday? What are

00:16:24.580 the three things you're committing to do today? Are you stuck? The leader then spends the rest

00:16:28.500 of the day getting his team unstuck. Every week, I call it a weekly sync, a 60-minute meeting per

00:16:33.340 team and for the company with the leaders where you review their scorecard, their key projects,

00:16:38.940 and then any issues that might've come up

00:16:40.940 that you need to solve.

00:16:41.940 Monthly financial review, quarterly planning,

00:16:45.260 sitting down once a quarter,

00:16:47.020 not every week to change strategy.

00:16:49.440 Too often CEOs aren't CEOing

00:16:51.860 and they're just always coming in

00:16:53.160 and creating new priorities for their team.

00:16:55.100 They can't even give them at least 90 days

00:16:57.320 to just work and get the thing done.

00:16:59.400 And last, the yearly offsite.

00:17:00.940 At the end of the year to sit back

00:17:02.640 and review the whole year,

00:17:04.780 talk about the 10-year vision, the five-year vision,

00:17:07.420 and the three-year goals and break that down

00:17:09.300 into one-year plan with your team

00:17:11.420 and do some really fun exercises,

00:17:13.040 it's one of those things that I can't imagine not doing

00:17:16.220 to try to grow your business.

00:17:17.560 And you're definitely gonna be stuck way below 30 million

00:17:20.620 if you're not doing that.

00:17:21.720 The key thing is to get out of this level,

00:17:24.600 you have to work through the people.

00:17:27.560 If every road leads to you, you're the traffic jam.

00:17:31.800 So now that we've got leaders in place,

00:17:33.820 we're gonna make this a real company,

00:17:35.740 not just a lifestyle business.

00:17:37.060 So let's expand beyond 30 million.

00:17:39.420 Level six, 30 to 50 million.

00:17:42.180 I call this the professional.

00:17:44.660 At this stage, you're no longer just running a business.

00:17:48.360 You're running a real company with professional standards,

00:17:51.520 the right people in the right seats,

00:17:53.500 structured pay, performance systems,

00:17:56.440 and cash discipline that keeps you safe in storms.

00:17:59.260 So some of the signs that you haven't done the right things

00:18:01.600 that gets you out of this level

00:18:02.860 is you don't have pros in the seats.

00:18:05.500 You say, I got leaders, are they the best?

00:18:08.620 Here's my question, do they make your life easier?

00:18:11.560 Do they teach you things?

00:18:13.060 Did they come with playbooks?

00:18:15.100 And the other part is every decision is data informed.

00:18:18.860 It's backed by numbers.

00:18:20.880 If you're still shooting from the hip,

00:18:23.260 making gut decisions, there's no way

00:18:25.500 you're gonna be able to go from 30 to 50 million.

00:18:27.500 For example, Martell Ventures,

00:18:28.940 which is a relatively new company,

00:18:30.400 but we're already on pace to create a billion dollars

00:18:32.440 in the next 32 months.

00:18:34.100 We had a head of finance,

00:18:35.460 but they weren't as strong as they needed to be.

00:18:37.220 And we found that out really quick.

00:18:38.920 We swapped them out for a new head of finance,

00:18:40.960 somebody that had experience managing multiple companies

00:18:44.140 and creating portfolio strategies.

00:18:46.060 That person came in and immediately found opportunities,

00:18:49.280 things we were spending money on that we shouldn't,

00:18:51.500 systems and processes that were broken.

00:18:53.760 That one hire paid for themselves five times

00:18:57.040 in the first three months.

00:18:58.340 That's the caliber of hiring you need

00:19:00.500 to really move on to the next level.

00:19:02.240 So the framework to level up are called the three P's, okay?

00:19:05.580 And you need all three to become the professional.

00:19:08.380 The first P is the people. 0.55

00:19:09.900 We hire leaders, we develop leaders, we retain leaders.

00:19:14.020 That is how you level up.

00:19:15.640 Those people have to own the outcomes.

00:19:17.600 You can't tell them what to do.

00:19:19.040 Steve Jobs said this a long time ago.

00:19:20.560 He says it's easy to hire people and tell them what to do.

00:19:23.000 It's really hard to hire other people

00:19:24.540 and have them tell you what to do.

00:19:25.820 When I hire one of these people,

00:19:27.560 their test project to even getting on the team

00:19:29.940 is to tell me what they're gonna do in the first 90 days.

00:19:32.680 Number two is playbooks.

00:19:33.960 We need to document and create repeatable systems

00:19:36.600 to scale the business, but here's the kicker.

00:19:38.340 If you're growing 30, 40, 50% per year,

00:19:41.860 I want you to know that your playbooks

00:19:43.460 will break every six months.

00:19:45.320 The people you bring in

00:19:46.540 need to be able to design those playbooks,

00:19:48.460 come with the appropriate playbooks

00:19:49.840 for that new level of operation.

00:19:51.620 You need to create repeatability, not heroics.

00:19:54.580 The third P is profits.

00:19:56.140 It's not about just tracking revenue.

00:19:57.860 You have to track your margins.

00:19:58.940 You have to look at your cost to acquire a customer,

00:20:01.600 the lifetime value of your customer,

00:20:03.260 essentially the CAC to LTV ratio.

00:20:05.740 And on that, sell things that have high gross margin.

00:20:08.920 And if you wanna learn what these terms mean,

00:20:10.920 just search Dan Martell and like how to grow your business

00:20:13.640 without adding any new customers

00:20:15.040 where I do a deep dive into the metrics.

00:20:17.580 If you don't have a system for negotiating things

00:20:20.260 or doing performance reviews,

00:20:22.200 then you just aren't operating at this level.

00:20:24.940 All these have to be in place

00:20:26.480 for you to scale to 30 million and beyond.

00:20:28.240 My favorite part about this is that when you implement these,

00:20:31.720 everyone gets a scorecard and clarity kills drama.

00:20:35.180 So one of the philosophies I like to think about

00:20:37.060 is that like what I tolerate will grow.

00:20:40.320 So if I tolerate people doing scorecards, the business grows.

00:20:43.640 If I tolerate people giving me excuses, the excuses grows. 0.98

00:20:47.100 So raise your standard and stop tolerating sh** 0.84

00:20:49.840 that's not gonna allow you to grow your business. 0.60

00:20:51.200 So now that you've got the people, the playbooks

00:20:53.160 and the profit in place, it's time to level up again.

00:20:55.600 Level seven, 50 to a hundred million.

00:20:58.620 I call this the architect.

00:21:00.640 The big shift at this level is a mindset shift

00:21:04.680 because now you have to stop playing for years

00:21:07.520 and you have to start playing for decades.

00:21:09.620 See, most people don't grow to nine figures

00:21:12.620 because they think too small.

00:21:14.280 If you wanna get to that level,

00:21:16.120 you have to build moats around your market.

00:21:18.280 You can't be pushed around.

00:21:19.780 You have to start thinking strategically.

00:21:21.740 The job of an architect is to look around the corner,

00:21:25.320 18 months and anticipate how the ground is shifting. COVID's happening, deal with it.

00:21:32.060 Government changes, deal with it. So some of the signs that you're stuck at this stage is that all

00:21:37.180 your conversations were short-term. I want to talk about next year. I want to talk about sequencing

00:21:42.820 because sequence equals success. And you need to build these moats around your business to separate

00:21:48.800 and make it hard for your competitors to attack you. You know, I remember almost a decade ago,

00:21:52.960 I had the privilege of being invited to spend a week with Richard Branson and I just wanted to

00:21:57.100 study how does the billionaire that every other billionaire in the world wants to be like operate

00:22:01.420 and I asked him the question when it comes to business what's the most important thing and he

00:22:05.860 said it all comes down to brand I'll be honest with you I didn't get it I was like not operating

00:22:11.180 at that level of consciousness when he said that and I kind of dismissed it three years ago I

00:22:16.520 revisited his answer because it occurred to me that everything I wanted to accomplish would

00:22:22.140 that happen on the other side of brand,

00:22:24.180 reach and reputation.

00:22:25.900 How many people know me?

00:22:27.180 What do they think of me?

00:22:28.220 I wanna give you a framework to give you three key motes

00:22:31.680 that's gonna help you crack that nine figures in revenue.

00:22:34.400 The first one, I mentioned it,

00:22:36.060 but I wanna go deeper, is the brand.

00:22:38.080 See, a brand is not a logo.

00:22:40.040 Brand is trusted reputation

00:22:42.640 that makes your customers choose you by default.

00:22:45.280 The way to create a brand is through associations,

00:22:48.380 people you partner with, your employees you hire,

00:22:51.240 campaigns you run, the quality of your products,

00:22:54.220 all those tell a story.

00:22:55.800 That brand, if it creates goodwill,

00:22:58.220 has a positive association and connotation,

00:23:00.460 other people will represent it for you

00:23:03.380 out there in the world.

00:23:04.420 Like real brands get to a place where the market

00:23:08.080 talks about the businesses and the brands every day.

00:23:11.000 But without strategic focus, you don't have a brand,

00:23:13.940 you just got a name.

00:23:14.780 Number two is your network.

00:23:16.100 Oftentimes you hear people talk about relationships,

00:23:18.460 you gotta invest them, right?

00:23:19.680 and they'll say that your network is your net worth.

00:23:22.680 Only if you use it.

00:23:23.860 I know a lot of people, they know a lot of people,

00:23:26.300 and they never leverage their network.

00:23:28.340 They never ask them for anything.

00:23:29.860 They just happen to be in a role in a company

00:23:31.800 where they just talk to a lot of people,

00:23:33.240 and they take it for granted that those people

00:23:36.380 are potential partners in the future, co-founders,

00:23:39.540 team members, investors, I don't know.

00:23:42.640 But for you to just sit back and not invest in it

00:23:45.340 is a huge miss moat creation opportunity.

00:23:48.240 Number three is data.

00:23:49.640 This is the information advantage.

00:23:51.600 In that category, I think of like simple stuff

00:23:53.760 like Amazon recommendations or Google search data

00:23:57.140 or OpenAI.

00:23:58.800 It built all of that technology on top of information.

00:24:02.300 Every business today is sitting on a body of knowledge

00:24:06.720 that if they learn how to clean up, process,

00:24:09.220 and feed it into their information system

00:24:11.860 would be a massive moat to compete against their competitors.

00:24:15.200 Because remember, moats beat moves every single time.

00:24:18.660 Now that you've built the moat,

00:24:19.860 it's time to level up one last time.

00:24:22.080 That brings us to level eight,

00:24:23.940 a hundred million plus, the empire builder.

00:24:27.580 At this stage, you move from being just a CEO

00:24:31.320 or the architect to a capital allocator

00:24:34.620 and specifically a talent magnet.

00:24:36.800 Now you realize that you can accomplish anything

00:24:39.920 with the right people, capital, and vision.

00:24:42.820 That's what allows you to grow to a hundred million plus.

00:24:45.920 The empire builder understands that it's more

00:24:48.860 than about them, it's about the people

00:24:51.220 that get to make rich along the way. 0.96

00:24:53.180 20 years ago, one of my mentors said this to me.

00:24:55.980 Guy's worth a billion plus.

00:24:57.580 And he said, I have this one simple rule.

00:24:59.760 I make one big bet per year.

00:25:01.760 Every day I have one needle moving decision to be made.

00:25:05.540 And every night I'm home by dinner with my family.

00:25:08.120 He wins by picking the right people in the right problems.

00:25:11.880 He knows that, nothing more.

00:25:13.920 His calendar is open, so he has the time to double-click

00:25:17.200 and have conversations and fix things

00:25:19.900 that are massive, not little.

00:25:21.960 The empire builder has learned

00:25:23.640 the most powerful thing he can do every day is play.

00:25:26.600 And in playing, he's creating a bigger vision.

00:25:29.620 So these are the signs that you're playing at this level.

00:25:32.300 First off, you're a talent magnet,

00:25:34.480 meaning that every day,

00:25:35.880 people are reaching out to you to work for you.

00:25:37.660 Your vision runs the machine, not you.

00:25:40.920 Your job is to just ask people to lift their chins up

00:25:43.140 and look higher.

00:25:44.480 Hey, can we dream bigger?

00:25:45.620 Hey, can we look at something bigger?

00:25:46.940 That is your job at the empire builder level.

00:25:49.260 To do that, you need a framework

00:25:50.680 I call the 40-40-20 rule. 0.97

00:25:52.800 This stage, the most precious resource

00:25:54.940 is where you spend your attention.

00:25:56.600 The first one is 40% of your time on people.

00:25:59.140 I'm talking about the key hires

00:26:01.220 that aren't on your team yet

00:26:02.360 to then get you ready for the new level of growth,

00:26:04.900 the recruiting that's gonna support that,

00:26:06.720 you reaching out to people, building relationships,

00:26:08.880 asking your team if they need mentorship,

00:26:10.780 going and recruiting those mentors for your team,

00:26:12.800 Retaining A players.

00:26:14.360 The second one is 40% of capital.

00:26:16.340 You're not just operating a business within budgets.

00:26:18.700 You're allocating large amounts of capital,

00:26:21.420 ideally aligned with things you know

00:26:23.020 how to do better than most

00:26:24.160 so that that compounds and grows within your zone of genius.

00:26:27.580 You can't look at a hundred thousand

00:26:29.300 or a million dollar bet anymore.

00:26:30.540 You have to look at the percentage of risk

00:26:32.540 allocated to the size of your goal.

00:26:34.980 And the final one is 20% vision.

00:26:37.300 That's where you get world-class

00:26:39.120 at painting the picture of the future.

00:26:40.840 The stories that align with investors,

00:26:43.180 with your leaders, with your customers, with your employees.

00:26:45.960 I think creating the future at this level

00:26:47.880 is easy if you understand these three things.

00:26:50.420 One, you wanna have 100% clarity.

00:26:52.420 You wanna see it in your mind completely done.

00:26:54.600 You wanna hold the belief,

00:26:56.320 literally bringing that level of confidence

00:26:57.900 to every conversation.

00:26:59.520 And the third is you wanna hold that 100% of the time.

00:27:02.480 100% clarity, 100% belief, 100% of the time.

00:27:05.200 If you do that, you will create that vision.

00:27:06.920 And if you've gotten to this level,

00:27:08.320 it means you've built the machine that builds the machine.

00:27:11.540 Most people live the same year over 50 times.

00:27:16.180 They don't grow.

00:27:17.420 Each level is designed with the strategy

00:27:19.840 to help you break through so that you continue to evolve.

00:27:23.280 You might be in one level for five years,

00:27:25.360 but no, you can get through the next level

00:27:26.900 in six months if you focus.

00:27:28.980 So don't worry about being overwhelmed.

00:27:31.000 Just realize that you just gotta take a step,

00:27:33.700 what I call admins, your most important next step.

00:27:36.520 So based on everything I just shared,

00:27:38.620 leave a comment below and write

00:27:40.860 what you needed to hear the most.

00:27:42.160 What is the one thing that you're like,

00:27:43.840 this is what I'm committing to.

00:27:45.060 You leave that comment below, that gets you in motion.

00:27:48.080 People that default to action

00:27:50.100 are the ones that win in life.

00:27:51.380 Again, if you feel like you're overwhelmed right now,

00:27:54.040 you probably need to get an executive assistant. 0.92

00:27:56.300 So click the link below to download my internal playbook

00:27:59.460 for how to hire and train that person

00:28:01.360 and have all the things they should do.

00:28:03.220 That's my gift to you for watching this

00:28:04.620 all the way till the end.

00:28:05.460 Just click the link in the description and get your copy.

00:28:07.740 The main reason I created this

00:28:09.660 is because I believe starting a business is about freedom.

00:28:12.820 You have to learn how to buy back your time

00:28:14.780 so you can buy back your life,

00:28:16.120 so you can have the freedom

00:28:17.480 to go and do the thing you wanna do.

00:28:19.320 Retirement is a weird concept.

00:28:21.040 How about we just create a life

00:28:22.140 we never have to retire from?

00:28:23.300 That's what I want for you.

00:28:24.260 And look, if you wanna learn the 30 brutal truths

00:28:26.700 that I wish I knew in my 20s,

00:28:28.000 click the video and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - November 18, 2025

Every Level of Success： Which One Are You Stuck In？

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