Dan Martell - How to Build Your Startup Team Full of A Players

00:00:00.200 No, I wish I could embarrass them.

00:00:02.920 My kids are like super secure in who they are.

00:00:06.120 And I know, they're three and four, but I can't,

00:00:09.040 I mean, I can't even scare them anymore.

00:00:11.960 They're like little dudes.

00:00:13.000 They're like, they went from being toddlers

00:00:14.880 to being little men.

00:00:23.760 What to look for in high performing teams

00:00:26.360 if you have no trust in your team.

00:00:28.480 I get it, I get it, that's where you're at today.

00:00:30.340 Maybe you don't feel like they take any initiative whatsoever

00:00:33.520 to step up and say like, oh, this is what we need to work on

00:00:36.180 or you feel like you're always micromanaging them

00:00:39.060 and because of the lack of trust, you're like,

00:00:41.400 hey, I need your report, I need you to show me this,

00:00:43.260 I need you to put everything in here.

00:00:44.600 Whatever it is, I get the pain and the frustration, right?

00:00:47.860 But I also know that if you do it right,

00:00:50.600 you can have a team that you're crazy proud of

00:00:53.140 that are bringing to you more ideas about solutions

00:00:56.880 to the problems that you didn't even know existed

00:00:58.840 that they proactively took on and you're like,

00:01:01.380 you really get to a point where you're editing, right?

00:01:04.120 They're doing the work, they're executing,

00:01:06.420 they're delivering on the customer.

00:01:07.760 Whatever you promised the market, they're doing for you

00:01:10.360 and you just edit, you tweak.

00:01:11.860 You're like, yeah, let's do that.

00:01:12.860 Oh, we don't have a budget for this.

00:01:13.900 Let's hold off for now, we'll do it in Q3,

00:01:16.000 but great suggestions and it just changes the dynamic

00:01:19.260 of how you grow the business.

00:01:20.680 That is the opportunity, you know?

00:01:22.640 I really learned this before I built my company Spheric

00:01:25.240 because I kept trying to build these little companies

00:01:27.640 and I called them projects.

00:01:28.640 They were never incorporated, but it was a consultancy.

00:01:31.680 I mean, I built this one, it's called WTF,

00:01:33.680 wantthefuture.com, like, and I won't get into the backstory

00:01:38.120 of what it was about, but the truth is is I started it

00:01:40.480 with a guy that was half interested and there was no team.

00:01:44.000 There was no, like, shared mission.

00:01:46.100 There was no testing them, recruiting, 0.62

00:01:48.740 finding out if we're a good fit together.

00:01:50.200 It was just like, like, oh, you can do this work.

00:01:53.160 Let's do something together.

00:01:54.500 And that never builds a strong team.

00:01:57.060 And what I see a lot of time with companies

00:01:58.620 and clients that I coach is that

00:02:00.520 they started with that approach

00:02:02.280 and then all of a sudden they grow

00:02:04.380 and now they've got to deal with this infrastructure.

00:02:06.760 The way they manage the team,

00:02:07.900 the way that their team collaborates is not mature.

00:02:10.660 It's not a high-performing team.

00:02:12.440 So what I wanna share with you guys today

00:02:13.740 is my thoughts on six different characteristics

00:02:18.300 that I look for when hiring.

00:02:20.840 And I've been doing this now for over 20 years,

00:02:23.360 building and scaling companies.

00:02:24.500 And to me, these are the non-negotiables.

00:02:26.840 If the core team doesn't have this,

00:02:29.140 then I can't have them part of the team

00:02:31.040 because I know that A players wanna work with other A players.

00:02:33.640 They don't want a C.

00:02:35.140 They're not gonna accept somebody coming into the business

00:02:37.480 and not meeting them at their level, right?

00:02:39.680 They wanna be inspired by working with people

00:02:41.780 that teach them new things, right?

00:02:43.820 So the first thing is you want somebody that takes initiative.

00:02:46.720 Somebody that doesn't wait to be told what to do.

00:02:49.900 In the world, there's two types of people.

00:02:51.920 There are people that need a to-do list

00:02:54.100 and they're people that create to-do lists.

00:02:56.300 And to me, somebody that takes initiative

00:02:58.380 knows how to create a to-do list.

00:02:59.440 So I'm saying like, oh, here's the challenge.

00:03:01.600 We need more customers.

00:03:02.840 Here's our current marketing program.

00:03:04.320 What can we do?

00:03:05.220 Boom, they'll come up with an idea, right?

00:03:07.340 They take initiative.

00:03:08.480 They don't sit back and be like,

00:03:09.980 nobody asked me to do anything,

00:03:11.120 so I'm just gonna sit here.

00:03:12.760 No, they don't do that.

00:03:13.880 They show up ready to go.

00:03:15.580 That's the way they work.

00:03:16.680 They cannot do nothing.

00:03:18.860 So one is they take initiative.

00:03:20.500 Number two is they have a desire for excellence.

00:03:23.200 They have a pursuit of excellence, okay?

00:03:26.000 Excellent means world class.

00:03:27.900 When I talk to an entrepreneur,

00:03:29.040 one of the questions I ask them,

00:03:30.040 do you want to build a world class company?

00:03:31.840 Because if you don't, I can't help you.

00:03:34.320 That's not my style, it's not how I roll.

00:03:36.480 I want to work with entrepreneurs

00:03:37.980 that have a desire for excellence.

00:03:40.280 It's the same for my team.

00:03:41.980 I want to make sure that the people,

00:03:43.580 even in their own life, whatever their passions are,

00:03:45.680 they have a pursuit for that passion.

00:03:47.760 Even if during the day they work with me

00:03:49.220 on a specific project, I want to know that they,

00:03:51.820 in the way they approach life has a strive for excellence.

00:03:55.720 You need that desire.

00:03:56.800 That's not something you can coach.

00:03:58.620 It's either natively there or it's not.

00:04:00.560 So that's number two.

00:04:01.400 Three is a bias for solution.

00:04:03.840 You know, you can, it's really simple.

00:04:05.860 You can talk to somebody and be like,

00:04:07.100 hey, this is what's going on in my life.

00:04:08.440 See how they react.

00:04:09.580 See if they default to, oh, that sounds like this problem,

00:04:13.040 problem, problem, problem.

00:04:14.540 Again, there's two types of people in the world.

00:04:16.240 There's people that default to solutions,

00:04:18.140 like, oh, that sounds challenging, you can do X, Y, and Z.

00:04:21.320 Or they're like, wow, that's challenging.

00:04:23.460 Did you know that this could probably happen?

00:04:25.160 Or this problem could probably happen?

00:04:26.460 Or if you don't fix that, this problem.

00:04:28.200 Look, I want people that come to me with solutions.

00:04:31.700 I want solutions people.

00:04:32.700 I do not need problem people.

00:04:34.260 I need people that get excited by the opportunity

00:04:37.500 to create an outcome, to create a solution.

00:04:39.380 So that is big.

00:04:40.600 The other one for me is about transparency.

00:04:42.940 Now, some people talk about trust.

00:04:45.440 To me, it's not about trust.

00:04:46.640 Transparency is different.

00:04:47.920 Transparency means, look, here's what I'm working with.

00:04:51.320 Here's the numbers, here's my project, here's the team,

00:04:54.500 here's where I feel the challenges are.

00:04:56.060 They're honest, right?

00:04:57.760 They're not complaining, they're just being open

00:05:00.320 and transparent, especially amongst a team.

00:05:02.240 There's no reason to hold things close to the chest.

00:05:05.500 Maybe they, you know, I've seen this so many times

00:05:07.800 when I'm working on projects and I'm like,

00:05:09.200 hey, what are your tasks?

00:05:10.440 What do your to-do lists look like?

00:05:11.780 And they're like, oh, well, I'm working on this.

00:05:13.500 It's like, no, can I just see, I just want to know.

00:05:15.580 I want to know, is my team over capacity?

00:05:18.380 And they get to this point where they're like holding back

00:05:21.020 and I'm like, what are you holding back from?

00:05:23.120 If we don't have the trust,

00:05:24.800 if you're not willing to be transparent with me,

00:05:26.560 then that's a thing we need to solve.

00:05:28.920 Because at the end of the day,

00:05:30.060 we're an organization, we're a company,

00:05:31.800 we have a mission, we want to deliver for our customers,

00:05:34.440 and the more information that's available,

00:05:36.400 I run an open book company,

00:05:37.440 I'm not saying that everybody should know

00:05:38.980 everybody's salaries, but I'm saying

00:05:40.600 everybody should understand how the business makes money.

00:05:43.400 And that transparency starts with the leader,

00:05:45.880 and you want to hire people that also share

00:05:48.020 in that desire, right?

00:05:50.240 You want them that their default state is to share information,

00:05:53.380 not hold it close to the chest.

00:05:55.680 The next one is sense of urgency, all right?

00:05:58.580 There's nothing that'll frustrate me more than to be like,

00:06:00.980 oh, what's the problem, this is the solution, great.

00:06:03.460 What are we gonna do about it?

00:06:07.620 It's like where is the excitement to knock it out of the park?

00:06:11.920 Where is that excitement to jump out of bed to get it done?

00:06:15.060 That sense of urgency is not, again,

00:06:17.300 something you can teach people.

00:06:19.760 They either have it, they either find challenges

00:06:22.200 and they step up, or they look at problems

00:06:24.900 and they just sit there like a deer in the headlight.

00:06:27.000 And it's like, what did you think would happen

00:06:30.080 with this problem?

00:06:30.900 Do you think it was just gonna resolve itself?

00:06:32.780 They have no sense of urgency.

00:06:34.640 There's ways to test for this, but at the end of the day,

00:06:36.740 these are the characteristics that I think

00:06:38.940 are super important.

00:06:39.920 The last one I wanna share with you is customer empathy.

00:06:43.320 If people don't wanna love on the customer,

00:06:45.360 that's the way I look at it, when I think of my businesses

00:06:47.360 that I'm involved in, I always ask my team,

00:06:48.920 Can you please love on the customer?

00:06:50.460 At the end of the day, the purpose of a business

00:06:53.320 is to create a customer that creates a customer.

00:06:55.620 It's to create, deliver, and capture value for a customer.

00:07:00.400 There is no business without a customer, right?

00:07:03.800 A profitable customer, I might add.

00:07:05.160 But you want teammates that have empathy for the customer,

00:07:10.200 that just love on them.

00:07:11.180 I have an incredible person on my team, Stephanie.

00:07:13.380 Have you guys ever had the privilege

00:07:14.740 of interacting with her?

00:07:15.740 She's incredible.

00:07:17.640 That is, when I think of like the best example

00:07:20.980 of customer, I think of Stephanie.

00:07:22.340 I mean, the other day I was looking at feedback form

00:07:25.420 for an event we did in Toronto,

00:07:27.180 and in the feedback form is like,

00:07:29.060 what was the best part of the event?

00:07:30.080 The fact that Stephanie hugged everybody

00:07:31.960 that came in the room for the event,

00:07:33.420 and I'm sitting there going,

00:07:34.260 because I was in the green room,

00:07:35.700 I'm going, did she really hug every person that came?

00:07:39.520 There was 100 plus people at this event.

00:07:41.500 And I messaged her, I was like,

00:07:43.000 Stephanie, is it possible that you hugged everybody

00:07:45.260 that came in the room?

00:07:46.100 She's like, yes, why?

00:07:47.400 And I was like, that's crazy, that's what I'm talking about.

00:07:50.300 Can I coach somebody and do that?

00:07:52.040 I don't think it's legal for me to ask my team

00:07:54.700 to hug my customers.

00:07:55.840 I think there's probably some HR violations there.

00:07:59.640 But she did it and it was appreciated

00:08:02.280 and I think that that's what you want is

00:08:04.520 you want people, again, that take initiative, right?

00:08:07.420 That are not gonna stand by,

00:08:08.960 they're willing to take initiative.

00:08:09.980 They desire for excellence, they wanna create world class.

00:08:12.760 They wanna pursue the next level, always.

00:08:15.300 They have a bias for solution.

00:08:17.440 That when they see a problem, they default to solution,

00:08:19.500 not more problems.

00:08:20.880 They're transparent, they're open.

00:08:22.440 They don't hold their cards close to their chest.

00:08:24.180 They overshare so that there's more information

00:08:26.500 for the rest of the team to make better decisions.

00:08:28.560 They have a sense of urgency when they approach problems.

00:08:31.500 They don't sit back, wait for somebody else to deal with it.

00:08:33.980 They're the first ones there.

00:08:35.300 They're urgent about addressing problems.

00:08:37.560 And then finally, they have customer empathy.

00:08:39.660 They care about the customer.

00:08:40.720 They wanna love on the customer.

00:08:42.640 Those are the characteristics of high-performing teams

00:08:45.400 that are probably totally different than what you're doing

00:08:47.340 or how you're hiring right now.

00:08:48.720 The good news is if you have those people,

00:08:51.120 find more people like them.

00:08:52.280 Ask them.

00:08:53.460 Birds of a feather flock together.

00:08:55.160 If you have great people on your team,

00:08:56.820 you might want to start transitioning the other people off,

00:08:59.320 finding those great people and saying,

00:09:00.720 how can we find more people like you?

00:09:03.200 Because you embody what I want to do

00:09:05.200 or how I want to work and who I want to work with

00:09:08.000 in my company.

00:09:09.040 So as per usual, I want to challenge you

00:09:12.140 to live a bigger life and build a better team

00:09:15.080 in this week's video.

00:09:16.040 I'll see you next Monday.

00:09:16.920 Have a great day.

00:09:18.040 If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel

00:09:20.780 to get weekly updates.

00:09:21.820 Also encourage you to join my newsletter

00:09:23.480 where I share exclusive invites to events

00:09:25.860 and other free training videos.

00:09:27.120 And if you're ready to get going,

00:09:27.960 I got a couple more queued up for you now.

00:09:30.160 See you next week.

00:09:31.000 Cheers.

Dan Martell - February 27, 2017

How to Build Your Startup Team Full of A Players

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