Dan Martell - How To Stop Micromanaging And Start Leading

00:00:00.000 The best thing ever is finding people that are better than you at different things and just

00:00:05.500 letting them do it and get it out of their way. Mr. Corey, what's up, dude? Not a whole lot.

00:00:22.940 Bananatag.com. Always wearing the brand. Corey, when I see you, people probably, well, if you're

00:00:28.200 Listen, you're definitely gonna see,

00:00:29.260 but you've got the shoes on.

00:00:31.040 How many pairs of yellow shoes do you own?

00:00:34.560 I mean, right now I probably just own two,

00:00:36.820 but over my life, it hasn't been that many.

00:00:39.640 It's been probably like six different pairs,

00:00:41.240 but I buy them multiples at a time now,

00:00:42.860 so that I make sure that I always have one ready to go.

00:00:45.140 They always look fresh.

00:00:46.360 The shoes are fresh.

00:00:48.980 Tell us about BananaTag.

00:00:50.140 What is it?

00:00:51.520 What do you guys do?

00:00:52.600 And how long you been doing it?

00:00:53.720 Because it's been a while.

00:00:54.700 It's been a while.

00:00:55.920 So BananaTag is internal communications.

00:00:58.180 software. So we're a software as a service platform. We help internal communicators of the

00:01:02.800 biggest companies in the world, basically create really engaging emails, send them out and then

00:01:07.780 measure them. So they get to see how people are interacting. So it's an internal comms tool for

00:01:12.200 employees inside of the company, as opposed to like a marketing tool that's hammering out

00:01:16.160 marketing messages. We've been doing that since 2011 now, started off as a sales tool, but

00:01:22.000 after a few years, moved into the internal communication space. And that's what we do

00:01:26.060 today was it called banana tag prior to the communications that's called banana tag prior

00:01:31.040 to the communications so and so how long did when did banana tag start the domain uh probably around

00:01:37.980 the same time so august 2011 give or take somewhere around there okay but before when it was the sales

00:01:43.740 tool that it was still banana tag so we came with a name from the very beginning and then uh launched

00:01:48.960 it as a sales tool and over time as people were using it people said hey can i use it for my

00:01:53.420 internal communications, and we said, sure, why not?

00:01:55.960 And then we found out more about that market.

00:01:57.920 And in around 2015, basically fully focused

00:02:02.120 on that side of the market.

00:02:03.160 Got it, and I believe your family's involved,

00:02:06.300 I know your brothers, was your dad involved in the early days?

00:02:09.480 Almost everyone's involved, or was involved at some point,

00:02:12.540 funny enough, so my brother's one of the co-founders,

00:02:15.720 my older brother, and then my mom was actually,

00:02:18.540 she wrote the first version of the Outlook Add-in,

00:02:20.640 So she was a programmer, is a programmer, I guess.

00:02:23.740 She wrote that and then my best friend growing up,

00:02:26.300 he is also one of the co-founders, he's a CTO

00:02:29.200 and his sister married my brother who's in the business.

00:02:32.560 So we're all very, fairly tight knit group.

00:02:35.440 Dude, and you guys are what, a hundred and some people now?

00:02:37.860 Yeah, a hundred, I think about 120 people now.

00:02:40.080 Crazy business.

00:02:41.300 And you know, we got to spend time on,

00:02:44.340 I do an annual trip bald face

00:02:46.080 and the hotel we were staying in,

00:02:48.200 I don't know your dad, I'd love to meet him someday,

00:02:49.940 but it sounds like he's a bit of an inventor.

00:02:51.780 Cause you said we're in this hotel

00:02:54.160 and there's a, on the doors, next to the doors,

00:02:56.180 there's like essentially a clean or not clean

00:02:59.360 and a busy don't like a, like a light system.

00:03:02.140 And you're like joking, like, yeah, my dad,

00:03:04.160 my dad created that.

00:03:05.060 And this was his first customer

00:03:06.200 at this hotel we're staying at.

00:03:07.260 Yeah, so I think they created it like jointly,

00:03:09.860 maybe with someone involved there,

00:03:11.040 but my dad today still actually is, is part of that

00:03:14.400 and does what is that, what is that?

00:03:16.900 It's called Access Industries.

00:03:18.180 So they do hotel electronics.

00:03:19.560 There's the do not disturb, housekeeping type sign, signage outside.

00:03:23.760 But then also it's gotten into motion sensors, contact sensors, occupancy detection,

00:03:29.560 tray tracking in the halls.

00:03:30.580 So a lot of different stuff.

00:03:32.440 They even have stuff that I don't know about these days.

00:03:34.100 That's crazy.

00:03:35.160 And did you learn about entrepreneurship from your dad?

00:03:38.740 Yep, I definitely did.

00:03:40.060 So I learned how much work it can be, definitely.

00:03:44.060 And also just the exciting parts of it.

00:03:46.600 So I went to Africa for a few years

00:03:48.740 and kind of started a water bottling company there

00:03:51.700 for an NGO.

00:03:52.820 And then when I came back, I was working with my dad

00:03:54.800 and that's where I really got to see

00:03:55.980 sort of the sales function.

00:03:57.220 That's actually where we had the idea for banana tags.

00:03:59.160 So we were looking for a way to get metrics on sales emails

00:04:02.680 that marketers and other people had when they were sending.

00:04:06.120 This is like early days of like the toad apps and like.

00:04:08.720 Yeah, that would have been, so it was all around

00:04:10.420 when we had the idea, we looked online

00:04:13.060 and nothing else was there.

00:04:14.540 And so we started working away at it

00:04:16.360 And by the time we launched,

00:04:17.760 there were the other early ones like ToutApp and Yesware.

00:04:21.020 I think we're all sort of coming out at that time.

00:04:22.900 So very early days of that.

00:04:25.120 That's crazy.

00:04:26.520 What was your first business venture?

00:04:29.680 And yeah, like, let's just start with that.

00:04:32.360 Like, how did you start in the entrepreneurial world?

00:04:35.600 Yeah, so really my first business venture

00:04:37.640 would have been Banana Tag.

00:04:38.680 So from working for my dad,

00:04:41.480 it was the first company that I started.

00:04:44.960 had ideas before that, but never, never really got into something there. The first, the first

00:04:50.780 time I had a taste, I always, um, I always thought I liked running a business. I always said back in

00:04:55.440 the day, maybe now I like running it again. But, uh, when I started, I said, Hey, I really like

00:04:59.820 running a business. And I got my first taste, I would say of kind of like a startup in, uh, when

00:05:04.320 I was in Africa and I got to set up that water bottling plant and the whole, the concept of

00:05:08.980 just figuring something out, reading about it, making it happen and creating this thing. That's

00:05:13.200 when I realized I like creating this stuff.

00:05:16.520 And then when I came back

00:05:18.640 and started working with my dad,

00:05:19.940 that's when I got probably more

00:05:21.080 into the other facets of the business

00:05:22.920 and really learn more about the sales

00:05:24.860 and management side of things and how all that works.

00:05:27.640 But that would have been my,

00:05:29.160 banana tag was really my first foray

00:05:32.240 into that myself, yeah.

00:05:34.080 And what's it been like running this company?

00:05:39.000 I'm assuming you guys have raised very little capital,

00:05:42.240 big team, you are the CEO, but you have these partners.

00:05:46.740 How did you end up CEO and what's it been like

00:05:50.780 having so many family members involved?

00:05:53.240 Yeah, so it's been interesting.

00:05:54.880 I think there's some things,

00:05:56.620 a lot of people think it's probably really difficult

00:05:59.340 having family involved.

00:06:00.760 I think there's pluses to it.

00:06:02.360 And then also there's times where it's difficult too.

00:06:04.740 So I'd say one of the biggest strengths

00:06:06.780 of having the different family members and friends involved

00:06:09.780 you you're really able to rely on people you have that trust and you have each other's backs and so

00:06:16.160 when times are tough if it was you know there have been times where if it was just random people

00:06:21.900 banded together doing it uh looking back on it you wonder if you would have made it through

00:06:26.860 everything but having it be the family group it's made that easier and we kind of knew we

00:06:32.340 you know we can't fail at this uh we're all in it but then at the same time you definitely have

00:06:37.280 interesting relationships where I have my best friend as well, like I work with them all the

00:06:44.140 time. And so you don't have the normal, I would say, reporting relationships that you might have

00:06:48.100 in a traditional business where there's a CEO and hires people and they can just like kind of do

00:06:53.120 whatever. You're always kind of taking that family portion into account as well and making sure to

00:06:57.880 consider that. So I'd say it's definitely been interesting. When you say interesting, I feel

00:07:03.160 I don't know if there's stories behind that.

00:07:05.360 I don't know if there's stories.

00:07:06.380 I mean, I think all of us would have different stories.

00:07:09.540 It's just the, there's an added element, I think

00:07:12.780 of stuff to consider and so.

00:07:15.100 Has there been any members that didn't make the cut

00:07:17.760 that you had to let go?

00:07:18.880 Nope, no, so we're all still involved.

00:07:20.980 So there's no like interesting, crazy stories

00:07:22.840 or anything like that.

00:07:24.100 It's, no, it's just, it's been great.

00:07:27.180 I think the, I think one of the interesting things

00:07:30.280 is like we're all, I would say maybe we're all fairly

00:07:33.040 stubborn. I know I can be a little stubborn. And so there's times where like my brother will

00:07:37.920 think he's right. I think I'm right. And Isaac thinks he's right. And we have this great way

00:07:43.060 of kind of balancing in the middle and maybe being the best version of right with all the

00:07:49.080 different people's thoughts and opinions. So it's been cool. And I think in the early days as well,

00:07:54.900 it was really especially a strength of ours because we had the Vancouver office and the

00:07:59.980 Kelowna office. And so with Chris and Isaac in the Vancouver office and me up here, we were really

00:08:05.540 able to run two smaller companies for a longer time rather than having this like big, you know,

00:08:10.580 50 person company or something that they had to take care of or try to figure out a remote office

00:08:15.460 with remote employees. We always had people there who were pretty invested in the business and

00:08:21.060 and could sort of lead that part of the business. So, so, you know, when you made the pivot from

00:08:27.400 from the email sales tool to the email communication tool.

00:08:32.840 I'm assuming there was revenue involved

00:08:34.840 and like, how did you make that decision?

00:08:37.220 Was it easy?

00:08:38.920 Yeah, so there were a couple of things at play there.

00:08:41.760 The one piece was definitely more revenue.

00:08:45.160 I mean, the subscriptions we were selling were,

00:08:48.540 I think originally something like $5 a month.

00:08:51.480 So $60 a year.

00:08:53.240 And then as we started looking

00:08:54.740 at the whole internal communication side of things,

00:08:57.200 We were talking thousands of dollars a year.

00:08:59.540 So what that really allowed us to do was actually create a sales team and build out that way.

00:09:04.560 Whereas with the $5 a month product, that just wasn't a possibility.

00:09:07.620 We kind of had to grow as fast as we would grow by people finding us and signing up.

00:09:12.940 So that was one piece.

00:09:14.320 And then I think the other part that was a big thing for us and really spoke to us was the whole,

00:09:20.420 that problem of solving an internal communications problem.

00:09:23.340 that got us all really excited because we started to learn more about it and what some of the

00:09:27.940 challenges were and what people were facing the whole idea of employee engagement and being

00:09:33.040 you know happy at work knowing what's going on that was something that that spoke to us i think

00:09:37.880 as a founding team and and a direction that we wanted to go um as well so a combination of those

00:09:43.400 two things i would say are the the main things that drove drove it that way it was there a chance

00:09:48.000 that you almost didn't make the pivot?

00:09:50.860 No, there wasn't a chance that we didn't make the pivot.

00:09:54.540 Like we-

00:09:55.380 So this was the, once you realized,

00:09:56.680 and what did you see to make you decide

00:09:58.440 you should pull on that string?

00:09:59.900 So we had a few people,

00:10:02.760 I think maybe in support calls, I think is what it was.

00:10:05.560 And it was actually funny enough,

00:10:07.320 our database was getting,

00:10:09.960 it was like the CPU was getting high on it.

00:10:12.180 And we were trying to figure out, you know,

00:10:14.160 what it was that was causing all this extra load.

00:10:16.320 And CTO was like looking at queries and going like, okay, what's going on?

00:10:20.540 We realized that people were sending these emails that we thought were like

00:10:24.080 meant to be one-to-one emails because that's what you do to lists and lists of people.

00:10:28.840 And we'd never, we'd never actually designed the software to handle something like that.

00:10:33.460 And so that once we realized that we're like, why are these people doing it?

00:10:37.020 And then we started watching and there'd be like spikes and spikes.

00:10:40.900 They, they were trying to try in this email, it was, it was just aggregate data as well.

00:10:45.700 So they were just interested in knowing, not necessarily who opened up the email at the company,

00:10:50.500 but how the email was performing because they just had no metrics up until that point.

00:10:56.660 And so we saw that people were using the software in a way, or at least we could see the load in

00:11:02.020 our systems and then knew what was causing it and started talking to people more. I was getting on

00:11:08.180 the phone call with different customers or people who were looking to use the software. And suddenly

00:11:14.180 we started to create this picture of like what people were actually trying to do and the need

00:11:18.020 that they were trying to solve and so once we found that um we just kind of kept on going with

00:11:23.220 that and i think that's something we've probably done fairly well since the since the beginning is

00:11:28.420 listening to customers listening to how people are using the tool what the struggles are and

00:11:32.900 pinpointing you know what it is and how we can best help them and we still do that today i would

00:11:37.700 say it's one of our one of our strengths so as ceo was it natural that you were going to be the ceo

00:11:44.020 based on like how did you end up with that role um yeah that's a great question i mean when we

00:11:50.640 when we initially started my brother are both entrepreneurs and if we started business together

00:11:54.300 i'm not sure it'd be as obvious who yeah so i mean originally like isaac my my co-founder and

00:12:02.560 best friend he built kind of the first version of the software and we were working together on that

00:12:06.820 piece and so there like it was obvious he was a cto my mom was programming the add-in and so

00:12:13.640 she was helping on that side of things. And that piece is pretty obvious. I think for me,

00:12:18.280 I was kind of pulling the different pieces together, um, and doing that. And so it was

00:12:22.560 just kind of, you're the only person who wasn't writing code that, yeah, I wasn't. Yeah, exactly.

00:12:27.040 I wasn't writing code. And then Chris, um, came in on the marketing side. And so that was that.

00:12:31.940 So there, there wasn't a lot of, um, yeah, there, it wasn't like a big battle or anything like that.

00:12:36.840 It was kind of just how things fit together and piece together. And it sounds glamorous,

00:12:40.440 but in the early days,

00:12:41.280 you're the guy that's getting the sandwiches

00:12:42.600 and making sure everybody.

00:12:44.240 I was doing a lot of support,

00:12:45.980 like a lot and a lot of support.

00:12:47.680 I must say, I think Isaac probably worked twice as hard

00:12:50.520 as I did in the early days,

00:12:51.940 building everything and making that.

00:12:53.180 And I was kind of there for moral support

00:12:55.200 and then trying to convince him to quit his job

00:12:57.200 so that we could put more time into that.

00:12:59.360 So that was probably one of my bigger contributions

00:13:02.520 and everything.

00:13:03.360 But yeah, he was working away

00:13:05.260 and I was answering support tickets, yeah, nonstop.

00:13:08.760 How did you fund the business in the early days?

00:13:11.300 So in the early days, so my mom and dad

00:13:15.020 are both part of the business as well.

00:13:17.020 And at the time I was working, still working for my dad.

00:13:21.700 And then this was kind of evenings and weekends

00:13:23.520 in terms of when we were working on it.

00:13:25.060 So we'd finish the job or Isaac had a full-time job.

00:13:28.760 I had a full-time job.

00:13:29.820 And then in the evening we'd be plugging away

00:13:32.220 and up early in the morning, plugging away

00:13:34.000 and then back at work.

00:13:34.860 So weekends as well?

00:13:36.560 weekends as well. Like every day, um, yeah, every day, a lot of strain on relationships and things

00:13:43.120 like that. But, you know, at the time we were, uh, it was early and we're like, this is what we need

00:13:47.940 to do to make it happen. And so we were, we were basically all in and doing that. So that's how we

00:13:53.320 funded everything to, um, to begin with. And then, yeah, I mean, then Isaac, you know, at some point

00:13:59.400 we started getting a little bit of revenue trickling in, then Isaac was able to reduce to, you know,

00:14:04.520 one day off a week and then two days off a week. And, uh, and I had a little bit of flexibility.

00:14:11.220 He went first. I had a little bit of flexibility in that I could still answer some support tickets

00:14:16.120 and things while I was, um, you know, also helping my dad with the stuff there. So, um, so yeah,

00:14:22.200 that's how we were kind of able to fund the first bit. And then eventually we had enough money in

00:14:26.480 the bank where we're like, Oh, Hey, we can hire someone. And like, this is a crazy novel concept

00:14:30.860 and learned a lot of stuff along the way there.

00:14:33.820 But initially it was from that, yeah.

00:14:36.720 Just sweat equity.

00:14:38.420 Yeah, sweat equity.

00:14:39.540 And then benefiting from the fact

00:14:41.540 that I was actually able to work for my dad

00:14:46.040 while I was able to do that.

00:14:47.620 So yeah, so that helped as well, for sure.

00:14:51.340 What does it look like today though,

00:14:53.200 running a 100 person company?

00:14:54.880 What does your day look like?

00:14:56.660 So it can depend quite a bit.

00:14:59.300 I find one week to the next, I'm always kind of trying to figure out what my job looks like.

00:15:05.160 I've always kind of seen it as whenever I'm doing something, my job is to find someone else to do that.

00:15:11.900 And then I fall into the next thing and that's like the next thing that needs to be fixed.

00:15:14.940 And so I keep rotating.

00:15:16.100 So it changes quite a bit.

00:15:17.820 Where I spend most of my time though, and I think it's probably because I gravitate towards it more than anything,

00:15:24.200 is the whole piece kind of between the customer and sales.

00:15:28.160 and then tech and product and how these two things really fit together.

00:15:33.880 So on any given day, I'm trying to look at like revenue.

00:15:38.340 Revenue for me is like the main thing.

00:15:39.920 How do we grow?

00:15:40.520 How do we grow faster?

00:15:41.560 How do we do that?

00:15:42.700 And what pieces do we need to make this engine like go faster, work faster,

00:15:47.220 hit our targets quicker, all that.

00:15:50.420 And so some of it still, I'm connected to that whole tech,

00:15:55.120 kind of the solution engineering, um, part of the role. Cause I, I, I think cause I like it,

00:16:01.520 but, um, I find it gives me really good insight into how customers are trying to use things and

00:16:05.560 where we can structure things differently to, uh, to create a better system overall and, uh,

00:16:12.500 and be more efficient with all that. So on the product side on the customer.

00:16:16.040 Yeah, I'd say like customer facing and then, uh, and then just some of the general things,

00:16:20.800 some of the general more boring stuff

00:16:22.760 that goes with the business.

00:16:24.680 And then the chatting with the co-founders

00:16:27.720 and looking at different parts of the market,

00:16:29.900 looking at different partnership opportunities,

00:16:32.600 all those different types of pieces.

00:16:35.680 I mean, how did you learn to build the company?

00:16:37.840 If you look back in the last decade,

00:16:40.040 it's very rare companies even make it to 10 years.

00:16:44.320 How did you learn how to do that?

00:16:46.120 Um, yeah, I mean, I guess probably just by, I grew up definitely around, you know, watching my dad and watching him build the business. And so some lessons that I took from there, a lot of lessons that I took from there, to be honest, I think a lot around hard work and, and just making sure you give it your all. Yeah, I got to work with sales teams, see product people. So I got a lot of, I'd say general knowledge around different pieces with it being electronics.

00:17:16.100 company there's some like tech there so got to talk with programmers and see how they talk and

00:17:22.140 then also talk with a lot of customers and learned a lot about customer success and and just um yeah

00:17:28.700 listening to the customer and trying to solution things for them and come up with things that can

00:17:33.560 make stuff work and so I'd say that's the that's probably the place where I where I got a lot of

00:17:39.180 the foundation for things but then after that um would have been I mean really just kind of being

00:17:45.240 thrown into it and having to figure it out. I think we were all probably naive when we started

00:17:50.120 it. Actually, definitely were naive when we started it. And a little while along the way,

00:17:55.740 actually Accelerate Okanagan, someone mentioned that we should join Accelerate and get some

00:18:00.080 mentorship through there. And that was probably the first time where we had people outside

00:18:04.820 giving us recommendations. I remember that someone's like, hey, you guys have money. You

00:18:08.900 could hire someone now. Why don't you do that? And kind of sat back and went, oh, hey, that's

00:18:13.620 a great point. I guess we could hire someone. It just never really crossed our minds that we were

00:18:18.080 at that point where now we had like cash and we could do things like that. And so there definitely

00:18:23.620 over the years, a lot of support, a lot of things. I remember Jeff Keen, who was the CEO there at the

00:18:29.180 time. He's like, guys, like get an office. Why don't you, why don't you actually come in if

00:18:33.280 you're taking this seriously, do that. And so we did that. And again, that, that helped and just

00:18:37.960 like suddenly hired more people.

00:18:40.220 And yeah, different advice along the way

00:18:43.280 from different people.

00:18:44.720 Jason Richards as well, one of our investors,

00:18:47.300 he was really helpful as we looked at that sort of market

00:18:50.540 and we're raising money and what that looks like,

00:18:54.560 how we think about the industry,

00:18:56.460 how we think about tech in general.

00:18:59.320 Lance Schaefer was another person at Accelerate Okanagan.

00:19:02.820 From the Club Penguin?

00:19:04.200 No.

00:19:05.040 No, that's different Lance.

00:19:05.880 Yeah, that's different Lance.

00:19:07.020 Lance was lemon free.

00:19:08.640 I'm not sure actually where he is now,

00:19:10.800 but he taught me the most simple thing

00:19:13.900 that was at the time, the most life-changing thing.

00:19:16.840 I used to keep everything in my head

00:19:18.240 in terms of like my tasks and stuff I had to do

00:19:20.300 when I was starting out.

00:19:21.720 And I just getting incredibly stressed

00:19:24.320 by the amount of things that I,

00:19:26.880 like the weight of everything that I had to do.

00:19:29.480 And he's like, oh, I put everything in my calendar,

00:19:31.460 even like loading the dishwasher.

00:19:33.360 And I've never gotten to that extent,

00:19:34.940 But yeah, the freedom in putting the,

00:19:38.860 like once I got it on my calendar,

00:19:40.120 I'm like, oh, it's not that many items.

00:19:41.800 And that's actually really easy to deal with.

00:19:43.640 So I think there's a lot of little lessons

00:19:45.640 from a lot of people along the way

00:19:46.980 that had a really huge impact on the business.

00:19:49.100 And that just continues today, so.

00:19:51.380 But joining Accelerate Okanagan was a big factor

00:19:55.420 in building that network.

00:19:56.820 It's really cool because, you know,

00:20:00.500 you got successful in the email tool,

00:20:05.000 but then saw this bigger opportunity from the customer,

00:20:07.660 which is awesome,

00:20:09.000 and then realized that there was maybe

00:20:11.060 a more efficient go-to-market.

00:20:12.760 What, you know, if you had to start a SaaS company

00:20:15.460 tomorrow from scratch,

00:20:16.600 what would you say are the characteristics of that company

00:20:20.200 that you'd wanna be true?

00:20:23.100 Yeah, it's interesting.

00:20:23.940 Because it's fun, you got 10 years to say,

00:20:25.360 okay, take all that learning and then blank slate.

00:20:28.200 A lot of people are watching this

00:20:29.300 and they've never, they haven't started yet.

00:20:31.780 So what would you say?

00:20:33.800 So I would say in terms of,

00:20:35.600 if I was going to do things again

00:20:37.200 and I could build my kind of ideal, perfect company

00:20:40.360 in terms of making my life easy,

00:20:44.000 I would try to find something that has a huge sticker price

00:20:47.540 that I was selling to enterprise or something like that

00:20:50.300 or something that people would buy themselves.

00:20:51.980 But something with a really big sticker price

00:20:56.320 didn't require a lot of employees

00:20:58.320 And yeah, and probably something that I would be able to sell

00:21:03.320 and do that to enterprise.

00:21:05.320 It's interesting how much, the one thing I think that we learned

00:21:10.320 is the whole like that sales engine and the marketing engine

00:21:13.320 and how many people it actually takes in coordinating

00:21:17.320 all the different people at scale.

00:21:19.320 It's amazing.

00:21:20.320 And I remember at the beginning in the early days,

00:21:22.320 we were talking predictable revenue is what we based

00:21:25.320 to start our sales model off of.

00:21:27.440 And initially, I think there was talk

00:21:30.480 or some speakers came into town.

00:21:31.940 They said, you need to have a product

00:21:34.000 that's worth like $10,000 a year

00:21:35.840 in order to really make money at this

00:21:38.580 if you're doing this sales system.

00:21:40.360 And I was looking at it going like,

00:21:42.320 well, we're selling for $2,000, sorry, $10,000 a year.

00:21:46.160 And we were selling at $2,000 a year.

00:21:47.820 And I'm like, nah, I mean, it seems like we're fine.

00:21:49.560 We can still grow the business.

00:21:51.160 And then suddenly as we got bigger and bigger,

00:21:52.860 it's like, oh, right, we need to add like legal.

00:21:55.200 and we need to add like more SDRs and we need to add this

00:21:58.100 and we need to add that and all this overhead

00:22:00.260 of the business that we didn't, you know,

00:22:02.200 we got away without when we were a small company

00:22:05.100 and just adding all those pieces

00:22:07.980 and making sure they work together efficiently

00:22:09.760 and having the right people in place to run all them.

00:22:11.660 That was a huge learning experience.

00:22:14.020 And I think that's one of the neatest things that we did.

00:22:18.300 And, you know, we found the right people

00:22:19.740 in order to run those different pieces

00:22:21.340 and they've done like an incredible job.

00:22:23.760 But yeah, the learning of how many different pieces

00:22:27.540 there are in every day, there's a new thing

00:22:30.400 that we figure out with like tweaking some efficiency

00:22:32.680 of some handoff process between this team and that team

00:22:35.800 or changing the way that we're looking at leads

00:22:40.060 or the areas that we're going after

00:22:41.700 and all the cascading effects through different teams

00:22:43.980 that that looks at, changing trial processes, everything.

00:22:47.040 So yeah, if I was gonna build my perfect thing,

00:22:49.580 I don't know what it would be, but I'd say like-

00:22:52.740 expensive, easy to sell, and ideally, yeah, the less people, the better for making your life

00:23:00.240 easy. That being said, I love all our people. Yeah, you're like, team's rocking. But no,

00:23:06.100 it's always interesting to start, ask yourself that question to see what comes up. When you look

00:23:12.560 at, you mentioned some people that supported your journey. I'm not sure if you're an avid reader,

00:23:17.280 but is there any books that, you mentioned Predictable Revenue, is there other books

00:23:20.820 that kind of had an impact on your career?

00:23:23.540 Yeah, I mean, Predictable Revenue, I think was the,

00:23:25.940 that would have been the really big one

00:23:27.300 where I was listening to the audio book at the time

00:23:30.880 and I just heard this and I was like,

00:23:32.220 oh, sales process, like you can build a sales process.

00:23:35.200 Looking back on it now, it all seems kind of funny,

00:23:37.600 but at the time it was like a revelation,

00:23:39.760 I think just with our inexperience.

00:23:42.040 And so that one was the big one.

00:23:43.900 I mean, over time, a number of different books,

00:23:45.660 I loved reading books on sort of sales process

00:23:48.100 and different things like that.

00:23:50.820 And then, you know what?

00:23:54.420 I read a lot of books on sales process.

00:23:56.340 That was probably the-

00:23:57.180 Sales acceleration, have you read that one?

00:23:58.040 Sales acceleration formula, that was another one.

00:23:59.980 Oh, so good.

00:24:00.820 Yeah, so that was another one that I really enjoyed.

00:24:03.680 And what I liked with the different ones is everyone,

00:24:06.700 over time stuff changes as well.

00:24:08.160 And so hearing different perspectives and, you know,

00:24:11.740 one book will teach you a lot about sort of like sales

00:24:14.560 process and how to do that.

00:24:15.820 And another one talks about the kinds of people

00:24:17.420 that you wanna look for in that role.

00:24:19.400 And it's interesting reading some of those things,

00:24:20.940 especially after we had made a lot of those decisions

00:24:23.620 and like learned a lot of things through hiring

00:24:25.760 and, you know, what to look for,

00:24:27.800 what we found worked and what we found didn't work.

00:24:30.620 And then you read a book and you go, oh, funny,

00:24:32.780 that's like, I wish I read that a couple of years ago

00:24:35.440 because that would have been a lot easier, so.

00:24:38.020 Yeah, no, it's always interesting, you know,

00:24:41.440 reading books about things to look for

00:24:44.440 and you ended up there,

00:24:46.620 but it would have been a lot easier to learn it

00:24:49.160 up front as my buddy, Ryan, he calls it the stupid tax.

00:24:53.720 I was just like, dude, there's a lot of stupid tax

00:24:55.560 you gotta pay, but that's the journey.

00:24:58.800 What do you think from a mindset point of view?

00:25:01.840 There's the skillset and then there's the mindset.

00:25:04.240 You know, what did you do to kind of develop

00:25:08.520 the CEO mindset?

00:25:11.100 Yeah, it's interesting.

00:25:13.260 It's one of those things as well that I always think about

00:25:16.600 as maybe like an evolving journey all the time.

00:25:18.800 Like I, when I look at myself, I go, man, there's probably like 80,000 things I could be doing better.

00:25:26.160 And I think maybe at least for me personally, that's been a great thing to drive, drive me.

00:25:32.460 And as I look at things, I go, okay, like, did I do as good as I could have with what I had?

00:25:39.100 And every day I go like, no, I didn't.

00:25:41.320 And then I kick myself and go, okay, you got to be better and do that better.

00:25:44.740 So for me, I think that's really driven us.

00:25:47.460 we kind of put our heads down and said like,

00:25:49.900 hey, we need to figure this out.

00:25:51.640 We cannot fail and we just need to give it our all

00:25:55.940 and make sure that we do that.

00:25:57.540 And so I think that part of the mindset

00:26:00.680 of just like drive, get it done.

00:26:02.500 We're not like waiting for things to happen.

00:26:04.580 And then combined with listening to people and taking advice,

00:26:08.480 that's something that I think we've done well as well

00:26:11.960 is, you know, the like mentorship

00:26:14.820 and different people who can give you advice.

00:26:17.120 it's really great, but sometimes those people are wrong

00:26:19.920 and they don't necessarily know your industry.

00:26:22.800 Even as I give advice to people,

00:26:24.660 I find myself like making a disclaimer and being like,

00:26:27.660 hey, I haven't done that part that you're talking about

00:26:30.040 for like five years, so this might not be right,

00:26:32.880 but here are my thoughts.

00:26:34.440 Being able to discern and then make a decision

00:26:37.580 and confidently move forward with something,

00:26:40.120 I think is really huge.

00:26:41.580 That combination of like head down and just get it done,

00:26:43.960 but like listen to advice,

00:26:46.740 but still make sure that you're thinking about it

00:26:49.600 like rationally and making your own decision

00:26:51.900 that you think is best for your business

00:26:53.340 would be kind of those two big things.

00:26:56.160 And then, sorry, I had two things now, add a third,

00:26:59.700 finding the right people.

00:27:00.720 Like I'll always say, no matter what,

00:27:02.660 the best thing ever is finding people

00:27:06.400 that are better than you at different things

00:27:08.380 and just letting them do it and get it out of their way.

00:27:10.460 But how do you get comfortable with doing that?

00:27:12.660 Were you ever worried they'd join and realize

00:27:16.080 you may not be as smart as they might've thought you were?

00:27:18.600 Yeah, I mean, it probably still happens every day.

00:27:23.740 So for me, I had this realization before

00:27:26.760 because I used to really need to know

00:27:29.480 everything that was going on.

00:27:30.540 And I thought I could do it better,

00:27:33.140 a little bit of a perfectionist back in the day.

00:27:35.580 And I just remember one day sitting there,

00:27:38.260 I was doing an accounting thing

00:27:39.540 at actually the water bottling plant in Africa.

00:27:43.340 And I ran out of hours in the day

00:27:45.660 and I had this realization that like,

00:27:47.640 if I try to do everything myself

00:27:50.300 and I need to have everything running through me,

00:27:53.340 I just, I don't have enough time.

00:27:55.460 And so I like made that conscious decision to,

00:27:58.180 what I figured was sacrifice and quality

00:28:00.540 in order to just out of necessity.

00:28:05.000 And then I watched the person who was doing it

00:28:09.380 do a better job than me and went, oh, okay.

00:28:11.940 So from there, I think that's the thing that I've always,

00:28:17.060 I try to look at and I go like, okay,

00:28:21.140 this person can do it better than me.

00:28:22.600 And they're like fully concentrated on that.

00:28:24.620 I don't need to do everything.

00:28:26.620 And I think we've done a pretty good job of that.

00:28:28.500 The biggest, I think the biggest thing

00:28:30.220 and one of the biggest things that I've learned

00:28:32.060 that I wish, there's no book on,

00:28:35.440 Um, but once you work with someone who's an amazing person in that role and your mind

00:28:42.260 just like flips and you realize what an incredible person that role looks like, that to me is

00:28:47.760 like one of those biggest learnings because next time you meet someone like that, I feel

00:28:52.280 like you can recognize it right away and you go, Oh, like that's one of those people.

00:28:56.320 But when you start out, you don't know that those people exist.

00:28:59.760 You don't know those people exist.

00:29:01.280 10 X people.

00:29:01.860 Yeah.

00:29:02.060 And they join your business and you're just like,

00:29:03.840 oh, wow, that's how good it could have been

00:29:05.600 for the last four years.

00:29:07.940 And if there's something that I wish

00:29:09.240 I could like give advice on or figure out

00:29:11.040 is like how to find those people ahead of time

00:29:14.300 so that when you're actually going out and hiring,

00:29:16.280 you really truly know what to look for.

00:29:18.840 That's huge.

00:29:19.680 Yeah, I know when I go through life

00:29:20.940 and I like see somebody at Starbucks or at the mall

00:29:24.180 and I'm just like, man, I need to find a way

00:29:26.480 I can hire this person.

00:29:27.960 Like you can just tell that they're special,

00:29:31.120 they're different.

00:29:32.060 Entrepreneurship can be tough, even on a personal level,

00:29:38.560 especially if your head's down.

00:29:40.220 What are some of the sacrifices you've had to make

00:29:43.620 to be the successful entrepreneur that you are today?

00:29:48.220 Yeah, it's definitely a tough road.

00:29:52.540 I mean, personal life, a lot of sacrifices there.

00:29:55.900 I know Isaac and I, we chat about it quite a bit.

00:29:59.560 Like this'll be the year where we go

00:30:01.740 and we take some holidays and we take time off

00:30:04.680 and we really spend some time like focusing on our health.

00:30:08.140 Is this the first time in a long time?

00:30:09.820 I know we say it every year.

00:30:10.960 Oh, okay.

00:30:11.800 So it's like an ongoing, it's an ongoing thing.

00:30:15.300 But I think one of the biggest ones for sure

00:30:18.480 in the early days was just the amount of time in it.

00:30:20.420 And even these days, like after 10 years of, you know

00:30:24.100 late night phone calls on different items and things

00:30:26.400 because you're like, you're the person, it stops with you.

00:30:29.620 And those types of things can definitely be strenuous

00:30:34.100 on relationships and trying to balance that.

00:30:38.420 I think as entrepreneurs and just as people,

00:30:42.020 there's always, I'll speak for myself, I guess,

00:30:44.920 I have this balancing act of like balancing the family

00:30:48.720 and what I'm trying to do for the family.

00:30:52.900 and then the trying to do,

00:30:56.700 and then like maybe what the family needs.

00:30:58.880 And at times having my head down

00:31:01.800 and like really focusing on trying to make sure

00:31:05.140 that like everyone has everything they need,

00:31:07.680 I probably miss sight of sometimes

00:31:10.180 what is actually needed at the time.

00:31:11.820 And so some of those calls that I had to do

00:31:14.700 because I'm trying to take care,

00:31:15.780 they probably didn't need to get done all the time.

00:31:18.360 And so I think that's probably one of the biggest tolls

00:31:22.900 tolls on people around, but then also on yourself

00:31:26.020 because you're in this turmoil of trying to,

00:31:30.880 you kind of feel like you can't do the right thing

00:31:33.300 because if you do one, you're sacrificing that piece.

00:31:35.760 And if you do that, you're causing a problem here.

00:31:39.520 And so that would definitely be something that's there.

00:31:43.680 And then this would be the part probably with business,

00:31:46.220 with family and friends and things

00:31:48.140 that's one of the downsides I would say is

00:31:52.900 you know, working with my brother and working with Isaac, my best friend growing up,

00:32:00.500 every time we talk, it's about business. And so a lot of the, I'm probably the worst about it.

00:32:07.380 My brother's a lot better than me and Isaac's better than me. But yeah, so now my best friend

00:32:13.700 is actually a business partner. And so less friend conversations and more things about business. So

00:32:20.660 So those, yeah, those would be the main things sort of on a personal level.

00:32:26.040 And then just from a business level, I mean, again, at the end of the day, it stops with you.

00:32:32.480 And so a lot of people get to go home and not worry about stuff on the weekends.

00:32:37.220 But still to this day, as much as I've like really tried to now set a schedule so that I'm not working into the evenings and doing those late hours anymore,

00:32:46.380 I'll still have nights where I wake up

00:32:48.740 and I start thinking about some random company thing

00:32:51.620 and you're up all night just running that

00:32:54.140 through your head, ideas for tomorrow.

00:32:56.220 So yeah, I don't know.

00:32:59.400 It takes a toll.

00:33:00.900 It takes a toll.

00:33:03.160 As we wrap up, Corey, I love asking people,

00:33:06.820 when you look back at the person

00:33:09.220 when you started this journey versus who you are today,

00:33:11.780 managing this big company and responsibility

00:33:13.780 and working through kind of the learnings in your evolution,

00:33:17.980 who do you think you've had to become

00:33:19.720 to be the person that gets to run a 100-person company?

00:33:25.120 Yeah, I think sort of to my last point,

00:33:27.620 the person that I've had to become

00:33:29.440 in order to really do it

00:33:30.640 is not be the person who just like puts their head down

00:33:34.240 and pushes through and powers through everything

00:33:36.440 and grinds because I definitely hit a point

00:33:39.620 where that was not sustainable.

00:33:41.600 So I've had to really step back and, you know, still put my head down, still grind, still do that.

00:33:47.180 But at the same time, realize that I need to also take time to, you know, if I have a bad day or something like that and I need a day, like you can take a day.

00:33:55.900 It's fine. The world keeps on turning. And I think being able to step back a little bit, I guess, looking at the business from the outside and and all the different moving parts and things.

00:34:04.780 If you're deep in it all the time, grinding away the whole time, you'll probably miss you'll probably miss a lot of that stuff that's going on.

00:34:12.080 That's awesome.

00:34:13.080 Corey, if people want to reach out to you

00:34:15.460 to say thanks for the interview,

00:34:18.320 where's the best way they should find you online?

00:34:20.980 Best way to find me online is,

00:34:23.340 that's a great question.

00:34:24.300 Probably, I guess I'm on Twitter.

00:34:26.060 I don't really use it that much,

00:34:27.680 but I think I'm Corey J. Wagner on there.

00:34:30.420 Otherwise, you can probably find me on Instagram,

00:34:32.580 Corey J. Wagner.

00:34:33.860 It's Corey J. Wagner on the socials.

00:34:36.320 Thank you so much, Corey.

00:34:37.240 Appreciate it.

00:34:37.760 Thank you.

00:34:41.600 You

Dan Martell - November 22, 2021

How To Stop Micromanaging And Start Leading

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