Dan Martell - How To Identify & Connect With The Right Mentor In Your City

00:00:00.200 What's up? Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur,

00:00:02.100 investor and creator of SaaS Academy and in this video I'm

00:00:05.200 gonna teach you how to start focusing on the who, not the how

00:00:09.100 in achieving any goal you set out for your life and be sure to

00:00:12.100 stay to the end where I share with you a strategy called the

00:00:14.700 Dream 100 which is my way for identifying the 100 people you

00:00:18.900 need in your life, the three big buckets or categories of

00:00:21.500 people and how to research and recruit them.

00:00:24.200 I'm gonna share that link at the end.

00:00:30.000 You know, I was super fortunate to have a mentor named Ken

00:00:42.040 Nickerson show up in my life and share these words of wisdom.

00:00:45.880 He said, your job as an entrepreneur is try to find the

00:00:48.380 smartest people you can and spend as much time as you can with

00:00:51.720 them without being creepy.

00:00:53.720 Now, when I was building my company, Flowtown, I had a

00:00:55.960 co-founder, Ethan, and I remember one day he came to me

00:00:58.200 because he was having a challenge.

00:00:59.840 He was wondering if he should accept this incredibly generous

00:01:03.340 offer from one of his mentors.

00:01:04.900 What happened is he had got invited to an event called

00:01:07.580 Summit Series that, you know, was somewhat new back then.

00:01:10.720 This is about eight years ago.

00:01:12.320 And he couldn't afford to go.

00:01:14.220 He was a starving CEO.

00:01:15.480 I was his co-founder but I invested in the technology

00:01:18.220 platform, et cetera.

00:01:19.780 And, you know, his mentor essentially said,

00:01:22.260 hey, I really think you'd get incredible value from going to

00:01:24.700 this and if you want, I would love to pay, you know,

00:01:28.200 You don't even have to pay me back.

00:01:29.260 I'd love to pay your way to go there." 0.84

00:01:30.440 And Ethan being the kind of integrity that he's from,

00:01:35.440 he just was like, I don't know if I should take his money.

00:01:37.700 He's asking me and one thing that I've always leaned into is

00:01:41.720 the value of relationships.

00:01:42.880 I said, hey man, if this guy thinks it's that good and he's

00:01:45.660 willing to cover it, I would absolutely go and look at it as

00:01:49.480 an opportunity for you someday when you're successful to pay

00:01:52.120 it forward to another entrepreneur.

00:01:53.800 And not only did he go, he met some incredible people that

00:01:57.460 had and this is the crazy part, Full Circle had an incredible

00:02:00.400 impact on the outcome of Flowtown.

00:02:02.500 It was the next event where I met Mark Cuban who eventually

00:02:05.540 invested in my company Clarity.

00:02:07.400 We met some of our early customers at Flowtown that allowed

00:02:10.680 us to get to cash flow breakeven and many of the people we ended

00:02:14.180 up hiring came from a direct referral from that network.

00:02:17.780 So I'm going to tell you that when we think of accomplishing

00:02:20.920 things we're always thinking of the who or the how.

00:02:23.520 What program do I need to buy?

00:02:24.820 What are the top three books?

00:02:25.820 all this stuff and I agree those are important things but

00:02:28.280 I'll tell you, you take those strategies or five people that

00:02:32.060 have already been to that level, to that kind of destination

00:02:35.600 of success, I'm gonna say spend as much time as you can with

00:02:38.540 those five people and this stuff kind of figures itself out.

00:02:41.840 So I wanna teach you the four steps to looking at the who,

00:02:45.940 not the how to achieve anything in your life.

00:02:48.380 Number one, what are your goals?

00:02:50.520 If you don't know where you wanna go then any road will get

00:02:53.420 you there and I can't tell you how many times I talked to

00:02:55.640 founders and I say, well, someday you're going to climb the

00:02:59.280 ladder of success and it's going to be leaning against the

00:03:02.040 wall and you actually will be successful but you might end up

00:03:05.720 at the top of this ladder and looking around and going, hey,

00:03:08.480 I think I leaned this against the wrong wall.

00:03:10.820 So ask yourself if you fast forward and the easiest way is

00:03:14.060 go out 25 years.

00:03:15.660 25 years, fast forward, you're there, you're sitting there at

00:03:18.960 this spot, whatever age you're going to be and you look around

00:03:21.500 and you ask yourself, what are some of the accomplishments I

00:03:24.860 would have hoped or I want to accomplish that if I didn't,

00:03:28.300 I would feel kind of crappy if I didn't get those things done.

00:03:31.460 So you're looking around and you're seeing who's in my life,

00:03:34.040 where do I live, what kind of role am I playing,

00:03:36.440 what kind of business have I built, what kind of legacy,

00:03:39.040 what kind of impact I've had.

00:03:40.580 Just ask yourself what are those goals if you fast forward

00:03:43.240 25 years, that's number one.

00:03:44.920 You need that to even start this process.

00:03:47.480 Number two, who's done this before?

00:03:49.880 And for me, I always ask, in my city, if I want to, you know,

00:03:53.120 Build a technology company.

00:03:54.480 When I was 17, I started off.

00:03:55.960 I wasn't even smart enough to ask this question that you're

00:03:58.360 getting today is, who's in my city has done this before?

00:04:02.860 Not maybe the kind of business,

00:04:04.640 because if you have aspirations to create a business like,

00:04:07.100 you know, Richard Branson or Gary Vee or Mark Zuckerberg,

00:04:10.340 then maybe in your city of, you know, Omaha, Nebraska,

00:04:13.140 you don't have folks like that.

00:04:14.800 But just think about, like, if it's fundraising or marketing

00:04:17.820 or building an incredible culture, who's done it?

00:04:21.540 Because what you need to do is you gotta start making the list.

00:04:24.100 And these are people, look, I always like to focus on your

00:04:26.720 local city, but maybe those people don't exist there.

00:04:29.540 Go a little broader, your state or province, your country,

00:04:33.580 because people will be more inclined to support those that

00:04:36.580 they have an affinity towards.

00:04:38.420 The country they're from, the location they're from,

00:04:40.720 the city they're from, maybe the university.

00:04:43.320 But making that list, starting to write down those names and

00:04:46.140 asking yourself who's done this before in regards to a goal is

00:04:49.700 gonna be transformational and focusing on the who not the how.

00:04:52.660 Number three is asking yourself,

00:04:54.340 how can I add value to this person?

00:04:56.680 This is probably the area that's gonna hold up a lot of

00:04:59.680 people in this strategy because as soon as you start making

00:05:01.920 the list of these names, you're like,

00:05:03.320 what could I possibly offer this person?

00:05:06.360 Why would they ever take a meeting with me?

00:05:08.280 Why would they allow me to spend time with them?

00:05:10.920 And the thing that I always go back to is,

00:05:13.920 they're here and you're there but they've got some big dreams

00:05:18.000 and goals themselves.

00:05:18.820 Nobody at that scale, if you know their name,

00:05:21.380 they are successful, they've got a place they wanna go.

00:05:24.660 So you've gotta ask yourself, what is it about their journey

00:05:27.800 and the skills or the knowledge or the relationships you have

00:05:31.060 that you might be able to support them on that?

00:05:32.760 The easiest one, just so you know, the easiest one is if you

00:05:35.640 have a podcast, a blog, an event, is to invite them to speak.

00:05:38.940 If they have a message, like myself, and they wanna get that

00:05:41.680 out to the world, then one of the lowest hanging fruits you

00:05:44.740 can do is just say, hey, I've got this thing,

00:05:46.840 I'd love to interview you for it.

00:05:48.320 I would love to write about your story.

00:05:50.160 I'd love to invite you to speak at my event.

00:05:52.420 But think of that concept.

00:05:54.000 If you have a small group of entrepreneurs

00:05:55.820 where you can host a webinar, invite them in

00:05:57.760 as a guest speaker for that webinar,

00:05:59.260 there's so many different ways.

00:06:00.560 You could maybe buy copies of their books

00:06:03.700 and pre-sell them to your group that you're a member of

00:06:06.140 to kinda add value, but my question is always,

00:06:09.000 here's where they're at, where are they going,

00:06:10.780 what are some of the obstacles that they're gonna face

00:06:12.820 and how can I add value to that?

00:06:14.380 It's crazy, I'm just gonna throw out another idea.

00:06:16.620 How many people want to do work with a successful person

00:06:21.260 and don't offer to apprentice?

00:06:23.200 Don't look at the work, the body of work they're doing and say,

00:06:25.900 oh, you know what, maybe from a design point of view or a

00:06:27.740 programming point of view or a logistics point of view,

00:06:30.060 there's things that are off.

00:06:30.960 Not offering to fix it but actually fixing it,

00:06:33.800 doing it right now and then offer it up as a done solution

00:06:37.540 for them and just say, hey, I heard you mention this.

00:06:40.180 Here, I actually took the initiative, got it done and I

00:06:43.280 just wanted you to have that.

00:06:44.480 That goes above, beyond everything else.

00:06:47.880 Asking them to, all the stuff I mentioned so far,

00:06:50.180 doing something without them asking and showing it done

00:06:53.480 and offering to actually get it done

00:06:55.020 and not taking any of their time,

00:06:56.720 trust me, they will reciprocate.

00:06:58.160 That's adding a tremendous amount of value to their life

00:07:00.900 and that's a great way to start that relationship.

00:07:04.200 Number four, how can you spend more time with them?

00:07:06.660 The who side, the people that have been there before

00:07:08.800 that can help you overcome or achieve those goals

00:07:10.900 faster than before.

00:07:12.300 You know, the thing is is you just wanna keep in touch.

00:07:15.500 You know, if you have a mentor, you have an advisor,

00:07:17.800 you have a friend that's helped you out and you've never

00:07:19.800 circled back, this is my plea to you.

00:07:23.220 Please email them, call them and let them know the impact of

00:07:27.180 that conversation.

00:07:28.520 It is just the right thing to do and I think there's too many

00:07:33.060 people that forget to loop back but then they're like, man,

00:07:35.860 my friends are really not supporting me and my vision or

00:07:38.160 the people I spend the most time with are not really that great

00:07:40.900 or they're not that successful and I've got these,

00:07:42.700 you know, this is my vision for my life.

00:07:45.780 Look, if you circle back and you let those people know,

00:07:48.140 like that conversation, that email,

00:07:49.600 here's the impact it's had on my life,

00:07:51.880 then they'll be like, hey, that's awesome.

00:07:53.920 Hey, I'm doing this thing.

00:07:55.020 I'm in New York next week.

00:07:56.080 Are you free for dinner?

00:07:56.940 Can you join me?

00:07:58.020 You'd be surprised how just these little touch points,

00:08:01.120 every once in a while, maybe every three months,

00:08:03.260 every four months, will spark the potential thinking

00:08:07.200 for that person to invite you to do stuff.

00:08:09.700 Now you can create your own thing and invite them to join

00:08:12.040 you, that's an incredible way of doing it but you just want to

00:08:15.000 slowly add value, keep in touch, feedback cycles and make sure

00:08:20.240 that they know that their help, their feedback to you was super

00:08:24.080 impactful in your life and that's how we start to think

00:08:27.180 about the who not the how.

00:08:28.680 Too many people are rushing out and they're buying programs,

00:08:31.020 they're reading books, they're making checklists and look,

00:08:33.460 those things are really important because you actually

00:08:34.920 need to execute but at the end of the day if you get around

00:08:37.960 the right people, they're gonna elevate you.

00:08:40.560 High tides rise all boats and being around the right people is 0.99

00:08:44.800 gonna be way more powerful than learning a new Facebook

00:08:47.840 marketing strategy or how to do outbound cold emails.

00:08:51.400 So to recap, the four steps to start focusing on the who,

00:08:54.980 not the how is number one, get clear on your goals.

00:08:57.620 Where do you want to end up and what do you want to achieve?

00:09:00.540 Number two, who's done this before?

00:09:02.880 Ask the question, make the list.

00:09:04.680 Three, how can I add value to that person's life?

00:09:07.360 Where are they now?

00:09:08.200 Where do they want to go?

00:09:09.320 And where can I add value on their journey?

00:09:11.260 And then four, how can you spend more time with them?

00:09:13.960 What are ways that you can interact, support them?

00:09:16.860 As I mentioned in the beginning of this video,

00:09:18.000 I want to share with you an incredible training from my Idea

00:09:21.240 to Exit online program.

00:09:22.680 It's in the Founders Foundation.

00:09:24.040 I believe this is foundational to your growth.

00:09:26.120 It's called the Dream 100 and it's thinking strategically

00:09:29.120 about the hundred people that you need to focus on building

00:09:31.560 relationships with over the next three to four years that will

00:09:35.860 absolutely guarantee your success in your business.

00:09:38.160 It's something I've done for the last three companies.

00:09:40.360 I focus on the mentors, the advisors and the peers that you

00:09:43.860 should be aiming for and I also share in that video how to

00:09:48.240 research, build the list and recruit, reach out to those

00:09:50.980 people to start building those relationships with them.

00:09:54.540 So click the link below to watch that video and that training.

00:09:58.680 And if you like this video be sure to click the like button,

00:10:01.480 subscribe to my channel and leave a comment.

00:10:04.720 Let me know who's had an incredible impact on your life.

00:10:08.020 Leave a comment below.

00:10:09.360 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger

00:10:11.260 life and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.

00:10:14.860 Alright.

00:10:16.800 What's up, everybody?

00:10:17.760 Dan Martin, blah, blah, blah.

Dan Martell - September 03, 2018

How To Identify & Connect With The Right Mentor In Your City

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