Dan Martell - The Only Scorecard You Need to Build a $10M Business

00:00:00.000 You're spending over 60 hours a week

00:00:02.040 juggling all the responsibilities in your business

00:00:04.200 and you still feel like nothing's getting done.

00:00:06.220 I know how you feel because I used to be there too.

00:00:08.320 I went from being overwhelmed, distracted, burnt out

00:00:11.140 to running a 10 million a year business

00:00:13.080 in just 45 minutes per week using a single scorecard.

00:00:16.760 And I'm gonna share with you

00:00:17.580 the easy step-by-step process I took

00:00:19.800 to remove myself from the day-to-day of the business

00:00:21.940 and how you can do it too.

00:00:23.520 So whether you're just starting your business

00:00:24.960 or already making millions,

00:00:26.680 this scorecard's gonna show you

00:00:27.880 how to run your business on autopilot.

00:00:29.840 Here's the actual scorecard I use.

00:00:31.580 But if you wanna copy yourself,

00:00:32.820 just follow me on Instagram

00:00:33.880 and send me a message, scorecard,

00:00:36.400 and I'll send you the direct link.

00:00:37.960 I'm Dan Martell, 12s and Martell on Instagram.

00:00:40.280 Before you freak out and get overwhelmed,

00:00:42.220 here are some simple rules you need to follow.

00:00:44.320 Number one, every number in the scorecard has a name

00:00:47.940 or a DRI, direct responsible individual.

00:00:51.040 I got this from Steve Jobs at Apple.

00:00:52.840 Many other companies do this.

00:00:54.820 If you have a number, somebody needs to own it

00:00:57.100 because I believe sunlight sanitizes all.

00:00:59.640 If you have an issue in your business,

00:01:00.680 it's probably because nobody owns the number.

00:01:02.860 And every goal has a color.

00:01:04.700 Is it red?

00:01:05.620 Not on track?

00:01:06.340 Is it yellow?

00:01:06.940 Kind of off track?

00:01:07.820 Is it green?

00:01:08.380 Everything's good to go.

00:01:09.420 See, what I've learned is something as simple

00:01:10.920 as a traffic light system

00:01:12.500 keeps people focused on the right things.

00:01:14.440 People literally self-adjust

00:01:15.920 if you just put a box red that their name's associated to.

00:01:18.840 Number three, every row has a trend line.

00:01:21.120 What does this look like?

00:01:22.140 Think about left to right.

00:01:23.540 What's a positive trend line?

00:01:25.000 The graph goes from little bit to a lot.

00:01:27.100 So everything can actually be measured on a weekly basis,

00:01:30.380 some kind of net new count that somebody's responsible for.

00:01:33.900 Here's a way to think about it.

00:01:35.460 Spreadsheet whispers, graphs shout.

00:01:37.940 If you want somebody to self-correct

00:01:39.500 and have everybody on the team know how well they're doing,

00:01:41.320 design a graph that goes down if they're not doing good

00:01:43.580 and everybody's gonna ask them why.

00:01:45.040 I remember one time I was working with my media team

00:01:46.920 and they were telling me about all their great projects

00:01:48.820 they were working on.

00:01:49.440 And yet the revenue team is waking up every day

00:01:52.300 and absolutely crushing and hustling.

00:01:54.000 And they have this graph that everybody looks at

00:01:55.900 in the office that goes up into the right and i just asked the team from a media point of view

00:01:59.900 what's your graph what's your up into the right what are you measuring to tell you that on a daily

00:02:05.020 basis you're making progress because they didn't have one it was hard to figure out what was

00:02:09.260 important once we designed it then they self-corrected then they prioritized the projects

00:02:14.300 based on what was going to make that graph go up into the right easy peasy but needed somebody to

00:02:18.460 do it number four every week has a reporting meeting meaning that when you sit down everybody

00:02:23.500 has to self-report. I'll get into this in a second. So think about it this way. When a plane

00:02:27.280 leaves New York City, it's heading to LA. Did you know the whole time the pilot's flying,

00:02:31.700 they're off track, they're off course? What happens is they've got the dashboard in front

00:02:35.980 of them that's telling them how to respond and readjust. See, most businesses are off target

00:02:41.140 on a daily basis, but if they know they're off target, they can make an adjustment. And that's

00:02:45.400 why it's important to measure on a weekly cadence, and if not daily, right? The more frequently you

00:02:50.200 measure the less likely you'll get off track you probably don't want to know how bad it is that's

00:02:54.780 why people don't measure they don't want to know that their bank account is overdraft they don't

00:02:58.300 want to know that their lead generation isn't working that they haven't made enough sales to

00:03:02.140 make their bills because then it gets them down it's kind of crazy because like the feeling

00:03:06.520 associated to knowing is the reason why they don't know which causes them to fail even harder

00:03:11.360 if you want to absolutely win in business you have to measure you have to monitor you have to set a

00:03:16.940 frequency for review so that you can make adjustments in real time so it doesn't just

00:03:21.300 add up. It's actually a self-sabotaging behavior that people do put their head in the sand and

00:03:27.060 pretend like they don't know. So don't do that. I could never run the business remotely without

00:03:32.220 having these sensors in place, these measurements in place, the metrics in place. Financials are

00:03:37.620 after the fact. They're not real time. So I don't want to find out 45 days later, 60 days later,

00:03:42.160 that there's an issue. I want to find out in real time that there's something wrong with the

00:03:45.120 business? And where in the revenue stack is it broken? And if I have these sensors in place and

00:03:50.820 they turn from green to yellow to red, then I also know who's responsible for it. So I know who to

00:03:55.120 call. So it'd be impossible for me to sleep good at night without having a scorecard. Which brings

00:03:59.980 us to number two, which is the weekly sync meeting. I remember one time I was coaching

00:04:03.500 this company, they're doing about 16 million in revenue, a software company. And I remember asking

00:04:08.020 the CEO, well, how frequently do you sit down with your team to review your quarterly rocks,

00:04:13.300 your planning your strategy every week is it twice a week and he looks at me he goes oh we meet once

00:04:19.540 a month and i was like once a month like do you understand what think about how much changes in

00:04:26.260 four weeks let alone two weeks let alone week over week some companies that i know they they do it

00:04:30.660 twice a week just because there's so much change and it's so dynamic and when he shared this with

00:04:35.140 me i said look you need to install a weekly sync meeting where everybody resets because it's all

00:04:40.340 about having every person on your team pulling on strings in the same direction there's nothing more

00:04:45.460 wasteful than to find out if you have a small team of five people that each person is pulling

00:04:49.060 on a different string in a different direction and nobody's making any progress well why because the

00:04:53.060 other person's canceling out their effort so the weekly sync structure helps you align and focus

00:04:57.460 your team on the most important priorities so here's what's required to have a great weekly

00:05:02.180 sync structure first off is who's the meeting owner i personally don't like to run any of my

00:05:07.380 meetings i'd rather be a participant so what i've done several times in companies is just have

00:05:11.700 somebody else on the executive leadership team own the meeting and they might own it for a quarter

00:05:16.260 or you might rotate through different people but essentially just responsible for the agenda they

00:05:20.740 move topics they they're the time keepers they're capturing things they're making sure that the

00:05:25.140 meeting is run really well the second thing is to review the vision in the mission of the business

00:05:29.780 and this should be part of your agenda template because at the end of the day there's two things

00:05:34.180 i know they're going to move businesses forward why are they doing it and who are they doing it

00:05:38.180 with and both of those things are covered in the mission and the vision of your business you want

00:05:43.460 to review it at the beginning of the meeting and make sure that everybody on your team is on the

00:05:47.460 same page so they're singing from the same song sheet you don't want to be out of tune for whatever

00:05:52.340 reason you fall out of passion with the vision and the mission you probably should have a conversation

00:05:55.780 number three is reporting and this is so important most people get this wrong everyone has to update

00:06:01.780 their own numbers. That's why the scorecard is a spreadsheet. It's not automated. I do it manually

00:06:06.960 on purpose because I want the person who owns that number to go into the other system, pull the

00:06:12.500 report, validate that it's accurate, and then update the spreadsheet. They update their numbers,

00:06:18.300 not their assistant, not you, not your assistant. Have them do it. And then the team needs a report

00:06:23.120 back on how they're doing. They need to let everybody know, I'm on pace, I'm below, I'm red,

00:06:28.740 Here's why.

00:06:29.720 Have them tell you the status of their metrics

00:06:32.340 so that they can be 100% accountable

00:06:34.620 and let everybody else on the team know

00:06:36.240 if they're performing or they're not.

00:06:38.260 That way you don't have to be the bad cop.

00:06:39.880 Number four is discussions.

00:06:41.220 As people are reporting their numbers,

00:06:43.040 that's not the place to have the conversation.

00:06:45.160 Write down questions you might have for them.

00:06:47.000 Write down any other ideas.

00:06:48.520 Write down any discussions you wanna have.

00:06:50.440 And then what happens is after you do the scorecard review

00:06:52.800 so everybody's on the same page

00:06:53.900 on how well the business is performing,

00:06:55.100 then you have the space to have conversations.

00:06:57.800 Look at the problems.

00:06:59.460 Brainstorm with other people on your team

00:07:01.140 for creative solutions.

00:07:02.680 Oftentimes, something that might help one department

00:07:04.860 would also help another department.

00:07:06.520 So having that conversation as a group

00:07:08.260 in the time allocated for the discussion, so important.

00:07:11.440 You just wanna separate it

00:07:12.540 from when you're reviewing the numbers

00:07:13.820 versus trying to solve the problem.

00:07:15.320 It's a different headspace to be in.

00:07:16.640 Number five is rate the meeting.

00:07:18.400 Now, this might sound silly,

00:07:19.840 but I'm a big fan of rating every meeting.

00:07:21.620 The reason why is I want whoever ran the meeting

00:07:23.500 to get some direct feedback on how well they did.

00:07:26.340 If they let conversations fly off into the night

00:07:28.500 and nobody brought it back, they need to know.

00:07:30.480 If you were on a meeting

00:07:31.220 and you didn't feel like you should have been there,

00:07:33.060 you need a way to give the feedback

00:07:34.100 to the person who ran it.

00:07:35.200 And essentially you want to give the score

00:07:37.040 and then what would have needed to change

00:07:38.900 to improve that score.

00:07:40.080 It might be that you went over time

00:07:41.260 or it's that nobody wrote down any notes

00:07:43.440 or that you didn't hold anybody accountable

00:07:46.240 when they were reporting on their numbers

00:07:47.760 and they just absolutely missed the mark.

00:07:49.840 Whatever your feedback is, you can give it.

00:07:51.580 Because my rule is,

00:07:52.560 if you don't feel like that meeting was useful,

00:07:54.820 don't show up.

00:07:55.480 I know that sounds crazy, but in my world,

00:07:57.140 if I feel like I've given the feedback and it's a four

00:07:59.540 and here's why, and it's the same thing the next meeting,

00:08:01.780 I don't show up anymore.

00:08:02.720 This is the big idea.

00:08:04.120 Bad meetings waste time, productive ones drive success.

00:08:07.400 Which brings us to number three,

00:08:08.760 which is work through your team.

00:08:10.580 But before we move into that,

00:08:11.800 we've got a goal of hitting 500,000 subscribers.

00:08:15.300 So if you haven't already, click subscribe.

00:08:17.340 It takes just a second.

00:08:18.480 So the other day I was actually working

00:08:19.680 with one of my leaders and he was frustrated

00:08:21.800 because he had a team member

00:08:23.180 that he just couldn't get the outcomes from them

00:08:25.740 without him getting involved, which is frustrating

00:08:28.160 because you want the business to get better.

00:08:29.680 It's like, well, if I have to jump in

00:08:30.820 just to solve problems every time,

00:08:32.100 then how am I actually moving things forward?

00:08:33.920 And I sat down with him and I shared with him

00:08:35.980 that we teach people how to treat us.

00:08:38.380 And every time he jumps in to save the day,

00:08:40.380 he's teaching that team member

00:08:41.940 that if they just sit back and create a problem,

00:08:44.360 he's gonna show up and fix the problem.

00:08:46.120 Instead, what I shared with him

00:08:47.260 is a completely different way of leading

00:08:49.240 called transformational leadership.

00:08:51.100 Here's the framework.

00:08:52.080 The first part is outcome.

00:08:53.880 The outcome is communicating clearly with your team

00:08:56.580 exactly what you want them to do.

00:08:58.560 Think of it as like the definition of done,

00:09:00.820 the success criteria.

00:09:02.320 When this project's done,

00:09:03.500 when you are completed this work,

00:09:05.100 it should look like this.

00:09:06.360 It should feel this way.

00:09:07.580 It should accomplish these results.

00:09:10.180 Make sure you really make it meaningful.

00:09:12.120 I mean, I like to even also add potentially some rewards.

00:09:14.820 If we do this by this timeline,

00:09:16.560 here are some of the things

00:09:17.360 that are gonna benefit the whole team.

00:09:18.940 If we don't, here's the downside.

00:09:21.140 What are the stakes?

00:09:21.860 most people need a little bit of carrot and stick 0.82

00:09:23.960 to motivate them to move forward.

00:09:25.660 So we focus with outcome, that's step one.

00:09:27.940 Number two is measure.

00:09:29.060 Using the scorecard, we have to choose the metric

00:09:32.000 that that work is gonna impact.

00:09:34.340 And then we put their name next to it,

00:09:35.760 which means they're accountable for that work.

00:09:38.020 Think about it.

00:09:38.540 They have a number that's gonna be moved or not

00:09:40.940 based on their work and their name is next to it.

00:09:43.080 And guess what?

00:09:43.920 Everybody can see it.

00:09:45.520 Once we measure and it's public,

00:09:47.500 that person will start self-adjusting the way they work

00:09:50.100 to move stuff without waiting on you to solve problems.

00:09:52.540 Number three is coach.

00:09:53.740 If they do trip and fall, if they do misstep,

00:09:57.300 if there's an issue,

00:09:58.400 instead of attacking them in real time, write it down.

00:10:01.100 And then what happens is once a week,

00:10:02.660 you sit down for your one-on-one.

00:10:04.140 And in that meeting, you have a chance

00:10:05.700 to look through all the things

00:10:06.900 that didn't go as well as it could have

00:10:08.180 and coach them up.

00:10:09.560 And in that moment,

00:10:10.600 you're talking about your own personal story

00:10:12.440 of how you overcame this.

00:10:13.580 You're teaching them the philosophy

00:10:15.540 or the principles that they missed,

00:10:17.120 not the actual behavior or the activity.

00:10:19.140 And then the third thing is

00:10:19.780 are getting commitment going forward that they're going to change their approach to never make that

00:10:23.780 mistake again. That's how we develop people. See, every time you start micromanaging someone,

00:10:28.720 it's usually the beginning of the end. If the trust is gone, then you already know you can't

00:10:33.060 work with them a long time. So don't think that your ability to jump in and solve problems is

00:10:37.280 the right solution. It actually creates a bottleneck and it's called that because it's

00:10:40.520 at the top and it's you. You probably want to jump in because it makes you feel useful. Sometimes

00:10:44.820 when we get more time back, we hire people and we have less to do. It makes us feel like a little

00:10:49.460 lazier we feel guilty for it but fight against that so that you don't get pulled back into the

00:10:53.700 work that you bought back i mean the big idea is that if you buy back your time make sure it stays

00:10:57.380 sold which brings us to number four which is to build your leaders i had a friend the other day

00:11:02.100 he's in the lawn care space and he had a team member not respond to a customer fast enough

00:11:06.980 and when i'm saying fast enough i mean within 45 minutes and the customer was upset and they

00:11:10.900 texted the owner he calls the manager and kind of gets upset the manager and why didn't you reply

00:11:15.460 and once you do, can you please text me

00:11:17.220 and verify they got all done?

00:11:18.400 And he was kind of heated about it.

00:11:19.720 And I sat back and I was intrigued.

00:11:21.880 Here's why.

00:11:22.980 Was there an agreement that the person should be responding

00:11:25.620 to all emails in real time?

00:11:27.400 Because I know I don't do that.

00:11:28.580 Do you feel that 45 minutes was too much time

00:11:32.000 for the person to expect a normal response?

00:11:35.000 Does every customer call you when they're upset?

00:11:37.440 It makes it really tough for their leader

00:11:39.400 to actually lead when they're being pulled

00:11:41.560 in different direction

00:11:42.340 instead of allowing them to actually do the work.

00:11:45.020 so my whole philosophy is build the people the people build the business how do we do that a

00:11:50.300 few things it comes down to leadership accountability first off you need to have reporting in place

00:11:54.700 that's why scorecards are so important that's why the weekly sync is so important you have

00:11:58.380 to set up the space for reflection and have a dashboard that reports everything so everybody's

00:12:03.500 on the same page second is you have to have the systems see if you're saying well you should have

00:12:07.500 known you should have done this better like why did you make that mistake but you don't have a

00:12:10.860 documented process for managing sales pipeline workflows in your business set up automation to

00:12:16.140 make things more efficient look at where the bottlenecks are and remove them and have a system

00:12:20.380 for cleaning things up then it's hard for people to actually work with you because you're not

00:12:24.300 properly setting up the expectations and creating a scenario where they can actually win number three

00:12:28.540 is strategy and this is one of the big things that leaders don't do strategy equals sequencing

00:12:32.940 right time right action how do i make a decision to solve a problem make sure it's the right problem

00:12:38.380 to solve right now deploy the right amount of money towards solving that problem and do it in

00:12:43.180 the right order and have the right people involved to actually move the business forward when

00:12:46.940 strategy is missing it can feel like a game of pinball for your team because every time you read

00:12:51.980 a book or go to a seminar you come back and you change something number four is people and i call

00:12:56.060 this htrt okay there's four areas you need to focus on when it comes to people you need to learn how

00:13:00.780 to hire great people most people don't have that skill you'll learn how to train them teach them

00:13:05.260 scale them up build skills number three is retain your top talent that's a skill set that most people

00:13:10.540 don't know how to do in regards to performance bonus and measurements and structure and the

00:13:13.820 fourth is transition transition up if they're awesome but most often transition out if they're

00:13:19.180 not able to perform at the standards you need them but that's the people side because there's

00:13:23.020 two funnels you have the customer funnel which is marketing and sales and getting new accounts

00:13:27.820 and then you have the team funnel or the people funnel which is finding the people to deliver on

00:13:31.900 or on the stuff that you've sold.

00:13:33.060 So when both of those are happening at the exact same time,

00:13:35.680 the more customers come in and the team is hired

00:13:37.700 and trained and ready to do the work,

00:13:39.200 then your life is awesome and you make a lot of money.

00:13:41.420 You get rich.

00:13:42.260 If those things are out of sync

00:13:43.380 where you don't have enough customers for the team

00:13:45.140 or you don't have enough team for the customer,

00:13:46.740 then that's where you lose opportunities or lose money

00:13:50.060 because your staff too high or don't have enough people.

00:13:52.520 So keeping those things in sync is the skill.

00:13:55.400 I believe in Reed Hasing, the CEO of Netflix philosophy,

00:13:58.220 which they have very little systems

00:13:59.980 and they just believe that we hire adults

00:14:01.480 and we don't expect them to behave like children.

00:14:03.340 So don't treat your team like they're children,

00:14:05.980 treat them like they're adults and let them do the work.

00:14:09.120 You'd be surprised what'll happen.

00:14:10.560 If you wanna learn how to start a business with no money,

00:14:12.520 click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - October 08, 2024

The Only Scorecard You Need to Build a $10M Business

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