Dan Martell - December 31, 2018


How to Lead Your Startup Team Through Change

Topics
committing to the change
Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Stephen Covey
How To Exchange Startup Equity For Services How To Deal With Too Many Leads in Your SaaS Business

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

199.89

Word count

1,957

Sentence count

94

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I teach you how to lead change amongst your team, and how to make tough decisions, like pivots, price changes, or firing a ton of customers, to get the most out of your team.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur, investor and
00:00:02.540 creator of SaaS Academy and in this video I'm going to teach
00:00:05.480 you how to lead change amongst your team aka making tough
00:00:11.540 decisions, I mean we're talking pivots or price changes or
00:00:16.480 firing a ton of customers.
00:00:18.680 These are big changes.
00:00:20.060 Now be sure to stay at the end where I also share with you a
00:00:22.360 weekly sync format.
00:00:24.020 It's how I manage my teams today and have been for over a
00:00:27.560 a decade to get the most out of their productivity.
00:00:31.400 Specifically, once you've made your decision to change,
00:00:33.900 you're going to want to use this.
00:00:35.100 I'll teach you how to get that at the end.
00:00:49.980 So one of the big things that's going to come up when you
00:00:52.160 build your company as you're innovating, as you're pushing,
00:00:54.480 as you're growing to build this into a big,
00:00:57.480 meaningful entity is you're gonna have to disrupt yourself.
00:01:00.820 You're gonna have to change things.
00:01:02.060 You're gonna have to reevaluate the way you've done things
00:01:05.260 in the past to see if it's gonna serve you going forward.
00:01:07.500 And I gotta tell you, there are dozens of examples
00:01:10.100 in my own career building companies where this has come up.
00:01:13.900 Recently, just one of my coaching clients,
00:01:15.840 they were trying to go through a price change.
00:01:17.640 If you've ever thought about doubling, tripling,
00:01:21.040 quadrupling your prices and worrying that you're gonna
00:01:24.080 lose your customers, these are the kind of challenges that come
00:01:27.460 up that we need to kind of guide our teams through.
00:01:30.120 I know for me, I was building my company Clarity.
00:01:31.960 It was a marketplace for entrepreneurs to get advice
00:01:34.220 over the phone and before as a marketplace,
00:01:37.200 it was a utility, it was like a destination.
00:01:39.620 It was a software that people could use to kind of make
00:01:41.800 themselves available for creating a call list and that decision
00:01:45.440 to essentially shut down that part of the business and pivot
00:01:48.240 the whole thing into a marketplace was a tough one
00:01:50.340 because essentially, we had to get rid of 70%
00:01:54.080 of the seekers or people that thought they were experts 0.99
00:01:57.980 and make them seekers and we sent the email,
00:02:01.580 we timed it, we did all the things,
00:02:02.920 but it was still a big kick in the stomach
00:02:06.160 when it came to making the change.
00:02:07.660 It was a big, scary decision.
00:02:10.100 It turned out to be the best one.
00:02:11.420 We 4X our growth in the next three months
00:02:13.900 because of the clarity of focus on the product.
00:02:16.060 I even have one of my friends right now
00:02:17.900 struggling with essentially having to get rid
00:02:20.460 of 80% of their SKUs.
00:02:22.540 They sell a bunch of stuff that isn't profitable
00:02:25.540 but because they're worried about losing their customers,
00:02:27.740 they haven't made this decision.
00:02:29.080 It's been years and it continues to add complexity
00:02:31.980 into their operations and challenges.
00:02:34.480 These are the kind of challenges or frustrations
00:02:36.960 I'm gonna teach you how to overcome.
00:02:38.480 The change that needs to happen in your business.
00:02:41.020 It really comes down, for me, to these five key areas.
00:02:44.920 Number one, define the outcome.
00:02:47.020 Stephen Covey said it best, he says,
00:02:48.460 we need to begin with the end in mind.
00:02:50.280 For us to make big change in our business,
00:02:52.600 for us to disrupt ourself, when you look at companies
00:02:55.120 like Netflix and Apple, et cetera,
00:02:57.160 they're always asking themselves,
00:02:58.700 where is the market going and what are we doing today
00:03:01.160 that's just not gonna be relevant into the future?
00:03:03.300 Do we wanna wait for the market to push us to change
00:03:06.300 or are we gonna have enough courage today
00:03:08.180 to change it ourselves?
00:03:09.800 So knowing where we're going and getting your whole team
00:03:13.180 clear on that outcome, okay,
00:03:15.440 even if you're not excited about but the rest of the team
00:03:18.280 has hinted towards it, this is the decision we gotta make.
00:03:20.780 I think this will really be the most beneficial path.
00:03:23.180 Once you've gotten clear on the outcome,
00:03:25.980 you gotta define it, you gotta keep it as the true north star.
00:03:29.780 This is where people screw it up.
00:03:31.260 They start down the path but they forget why they're going
00:03:33.500 down there and then something might come up and you might
00:03:35.760 learn something new and then it gets,
00:03:37.160 the whole thing gets diverted.
00:03:38.600 You need to define the outcome.
00:03:40.340 As a business, where are you going?
00:03:41.660 Why is it important so that that being the outcome,
00:03:44.500 every decision is going to align with it.
00:03:46.040 So that's number one.
00:03:47.300 Number two is to sit down and discuss the challenges.
00:03:50.880 Your team has so much insights into their area of the business
00:03:55.240 that they could bring some knowledge and expertise around
00:03:58.880 what are the challenges going to be as you make this transition,
00:04:01.620 as you make this big change in your business.
00:04:04.780 And having them engage with that is how you're going to be able
00:04:07.460 to really fast track that or reduce the amount of missteps
00:04:11.460 you're going to have along that path.
00:04:12.860 So getting a clear list of challenges,
00:04:14.860 once you want to know where you're going,
00:04:16.440 clear list of things that you're going to have to overcome,
00:04:19.600 driven from the team, this is critical,
00:04:22.000 that it comes from the team,
00:04:23.600 is how you're going to build that action step
00:04:25.980 to move forward.
00:04:27.040 Number three, review the resources.
00:04:29.340 Once you know where you're going
00:04:30.680 and what things you need to overcome to get you there,
00:04:33.080 then you've got to ask yourselves,
00:04:34.180 what resources are we going to need
00:04:35.780 to make this change successful?
00:04:37.820 What capital are we going to need to reinvest?
00:04:40.160 Are we going to need some new software?
00:04:41.280 We're gonna need some new teammates.
00:04:43.880 Are people gonna need to be retrained?
00:04:46.180 There's so many things that I feel like founders or CEOs,
00:04:49.020 we just make decisions and we move on
00:04:50.660 and we don't ever ask ourselves,
00:04:52.660 to make this change, what are the resources
00:04:54.820 we're gonna require so that we don't find out
00:04:58.360 that we're understaffed, our teams maxed out,
00:05:01.740 or our customers are experiences suffering
00:05:04.800 because we didn't consider all the different challenges
00:05:09.040 that were gonna come up.
00:05:09.880 So understanding the resources, the funding, the capital.
00:05:12.720 The last thing you want to do is go down a path
00:05:14.380 and find out your cash flow is constrained
00:05:16.680 because you didn't realize how much money it was going to take
00:05:18.960 to invest in some new area of the business.
00:05:21.400 But understanding that, that's number three.
00:05:23.160 Review the challenges and the resources
00:05:25.760 required to get you there.
00:05:27.040 Number four, make it their mission.
00:05:30.140 So you have a team.
00:05:31.300 You're the founder, you're the CEO.
00:05:32.800 You're moving forward, you've set the outcome,
00:05:36.000 you've made the list, you look at the resources.
00:05:38.440 But now it's about making it the team's job
00:05:42.140 or sense of mission for them to carry it forward.
00:05:45.520 If you're the person always having to push and push and push,
00:05:49.280 it's just gonna be a never ending battle.
00:05:52.120 If you can make it the call to arms for your team
00:05:56.460 and said this is the vision we're going,
00:05:58.220 this is what needs to happen, if we do these things,
00:06:00.720 these great things will be unlocked for us
00:06:03.060 as an organization, as a team, right?
00:06:05.140 And you map their work to those outcomes,
00:06:07.800 That's how you can make it their mission.
00:06:10.740 That is the most critical part.
00:06:12.400 If you can't get buy-in from your team,
00:06:14.380 then you gotta take a step back and find out what's missing
00:06:17.200 because without their buy-in, you're gonna move forward
00:06:20.040 and you're gonna have people that sometimes,
00:06:22.440 not that they mean to, not that they're bad people,
00:06:24.120 but sabotage the progress.
00:06:26.360 They drag their feet.
00:06:27.680 They're not committed to it.
00:06:29.060 They're in meetings and they're bringing up
00:06:31.560 all these objections that you thought you've already
00:06:33.420 resolved in the past and they're still bringing them up.
00:06:35.120 So you gotta make sure that when the decision is made
00:06:37.360 and everything is clear and the resources are allocated
00:06:39.260 that you make it their mission to move forward
00:06:41.400 and get this change done.
00:06:42.740 Number five, commit to the change.
00:06:45.240 Once the decision's made, it's all about committing.
00:06:48.240 I think too many people are interested in change.
00:06:50.540 I think they're interested in outcomes,
00:06:52.240 but they're not freaking committed.
00:06:53.980 I'm talking about making a cadence on a weekly basis, okay?
00:06:58.020 And that's why the weekly sync is such a powerful training.
00:07:00.380 It's maybe it's a daily huddle.
00:07:02.120 Maybe it's a buy daily sit down with key folks in your team.
00:07:06.860 Maybe it's product or sales or marketing or whatever areas of
00:07:09.600 your business are gonna be most impacted by this change.
00:07:12.500 Making sure that as you start that process the frequency of
00:07:16.000 conversation is heightened so that you have that feedback loop
00:07:20.540 early so that you can resolve things to build that momentum
00:07:23.100 to make sure that people understand this is not an area
00:07:26.140 of interest for us.
00:07:27.280 We are committed to going through this change and we're
00:07:29.960 gonna make this, again, it could be cutting skews,
00:07:32.780 letting divisions of the business go.
00:07:34.980 it could be price changes, it could be raising capital,
00:07:38.520 it could be redesigning and pivoting the whole business.
00:07:41.160 But once it's a decision, you need to drive it forward
00:07:44.860 with a level of commitment that is maniacal so your team knows
00:07:48.660 that this is not something we're gonna pull back for.
00:07:50.620 We're going way, we're burning the bridges,
00:07:53.160 we're taking the beach ahead and we're gonna make this happen.
00:07:56.260 And that's the level of commitment that's required
00:07:57.860 to really drive change in your company.
00:08:00.400 So to really lead change in your organization
00:08:02.640 around these big decisions, you gotta focus on
00:08:04.740 these five key phases.
00:08:06.340 Number one, you have to define the outcome.
00:08:08.240 Begin with the end in mind.
00:08:09.520 Number two, discuss the challenges as a group openly.
00:08:13.380 What could go wrong?
00:08:14.620 Number three, review resources.
00:08:17.120 What capital, what team, what technology do we need to make
00:08:21.080 sure that we make this transition?
00:08:22.500 Four, make it their mission.
00:08:24.620 Make it so that the team adopts this call to arms,
00:08:28.840 this charge, this focus.
00:08:30.540 It's them that wants the change.
00:08:32.200 And number five, you need to commit to the change through
00:08:34.900 the frequency of conversation with different team members.
00:08:37.840 Higher frequency in the beginning to really build the momentum.
00:08:42.520 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
00:08:43.820 I want to share an incredible resource to really help you not
00:08:46.740 only get your team performing but if you're making a change to
00:08:49.980 make sure you're measuring the right outcomes and that is
00:08:52.560 called the Weekly Sync.
00:08:53.580 You can click the link below to download your copy of the format
00:08:58.560 that I use every week.
00:08:59.800 we use this structure to go through as a team to make sure
00:09:02.740 everybody's on the same page,
00:09:04.140 everybody's driving forward the key metrics.
00:09:06.340 Be sure to check out the scorecard section
00:09:08.200 and the ROC review to really help you get clear
00:09:11.920 on what every person in the business is driving for.
00:09:15.180 And I also like the customer headlines.
00:09:16.720 That's just one of my favorite parts
00:09:17.980 where we actually open up the meeting
00:09:19.760 so people can kind of provide some customer wins
00:09:24.120 so that everybody else in the company are made aware.
00:09:26.600 So you can click the link below, download your copy.
00:09:28.760 If you like this video, smash that like button.
00:09:31.660 Be sure to subscribe to my channel.
00:09:32.960 If there's anybody that you care about that you think this
00:09:35.000 video could serve, feel free to share it with them.
00:09:37.300 And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger
00:09:39.400 life and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.
00:09:44.000 Ready?
00:09:45.000 Three, two, one.