Dan Martell - The only skill you need to become a millionaire [Buy Back Your Time]

00:00:00.000 first thing i've learned a long time ago about building businesses when you start

00:00:03.760 over time if you're growing you will experience a thing called the pain line

00:00:09.200 some of you guys have experienced that sometimes at 300 000 in revenue

00:00:12.560 sometimes at 600 it's all different levels sometimes at 80 000 in revenue and what most

00:00:17.760 entrepreneurs do at this moment is they do one of three things i call them the three s's the three

00:00:22.480 what three s's the first s is stall i have my buddy matt come to me and he goes hey dan i watch

00:00:28.960 your stuff i love your growth minded stuff all that but is it okay if i just don't want to grow

00:00:33.760 can i just have a business and just be in business i said matt you could but let me tell you what's

00:00:38.800 going to happen first off do you think your customers are going to want less from you or more

00:00:42.960 from you more what do they want everybody what do they want more they want more from you the world

00:00:50.560 is growing yes or yes yes the girl the world is growing gdp growth is going to happen whether you

00:00:55.120 you want it or not. And I said, the third thing is your top people. You have a staff right now?

00:01:00.220 He's like, yeah, I got about a dozen people. I said, your top people have a vision for their life.

00:01:04.300 And if you can't paint a future big enough for their dreams and goals to fit inside of,

00:01:09.220 they're going to leave. I said, so whether you like it or not, you have to have a vision for

00:01:14.140 your life. So think about it. If you got nothing from my presentation other than the idea that if

00:01:18.660 you want to build a team, you have to have a vision big enough for their dreams and goals

00:01:22.900 that fit inside. If not, they will find somebody that will do that for them. The second S is

00:01:26.580 sabotage. Anybody get an email for an opportunity to potentially double your business and you get

00:01:33.100 that email and you open it up and you read it and your heart kind of skips a beat and then you mark

00:01:37.160 it as unread. Maybe you star it and you'll get to it tomorrow and then you open it up because you

00:01:41.500 see it there and then you're like, ooh, not yet. Because like you're thinking of what that would

00:01:45.220 mean to your calendar if you said yes. Maybe you went to the gym, you're feeling good about yourself

00:01:49.300 so you decide to get into your inbox and you open that email and you finally hit reply.

00:01:54.100 I had a client do that to me once. I had an opportunity that would transform his business

00:01:57.860 and when I messaged him, no reply, no reply, no reply. It was 14 days later, two weeks.

00:02:03.940 He finally hit reply. Dan, I'd love to chat about that. My response to him, I'd love to as well.

00:02:08.660 Unfortunately, I found another vendor. Most people are scared not of failure but scared of success.

00:02:14.820 That's why they don't even know they're sabotaging themselves. I had a client,

00:02:17.780 trevor huge company was struggling i showed him the buyback principle he implemented it his whole

00:02:24.020 team took everything over and he messages me he goes dude i'm so excited my life has changed i'm

00:02:28.740 going on vacation i'm heading away for six weeks to europe let's see how the team handles this

00:02:33.780 uh sabotage question mark like when did the ceo of the business just takes a six weeks vacation

00:02:40.980 off and say hey team figure it out you're gonna come back to chaos or the third area is sell

00:02:47.780 I get this call every week friends of mine that are like you know Dan I love

00:02:52.760 what I'm doing but it's getting crazy I think I'm gonna sell the business and I

00:02:56.100 say well if the issues you were having weren't issues would you want to sell

00:02:59.600 and they go no and I said well here's what you just discovered I call your

00:03:02.000 complexity ceiling John calls it the law of the lid see whether you do it in this

00:03:07.340 business or the next business you will figure out what your complexity ceiling

00:03:11.940 is and decide to stop and you might want to sell because you think the grass is

00:03:15.580 greener do you know why the grass is greener sometimes because the grass

00:03:17.720 is fake just just throwing that out there if you guys are on the internet you might see some of

00:03:23.320 this stuff yeah it's not because it's greener it's fake and selling to go start something new means

00:03:28.840 you're just going to get to the same place you're at right now and just experience your complexity

00:03:32.840 ceiling my buddy chad and we go out in the mountains with these things called snow bikes

00:03:36.760 they're like dirt bikes with um tracks on them like a snowmobile and he owns a shop and we text

00:03:43.160 at like six in the morning replies don't text me at six in the morning i'm sleeping

00:03:49.000 okay you know you can put your phone and do not disturb well that must be nice for you i have to

00:03:53.720 have the alarm notify me if somebody gets into my shop chad do you think the ceo of the other

00:04:01.560 retail stores on your street have their phone tied to their alarm system or do you think maybe it goes

00:04:08.360 to the authorities and that sounds like a funny example but that for chad was his complexity

00:04:13.560 ceiling and he just figured out where he's at so i want to share with you a philosophy that

00:04:18.760 transformed my life and it's this the buyback principle states we don't hire to grow our

00:04:23.480 business we hire to buy back your time because if you do the first i call that capacity you will add

00:04:30.120 capacity the problem is you'll create chaos in your calendar and why systems speak so deep to

00:04:36.280 to who I am in my core is because I grew up with so much chaos.

00:04:39.620 Anybody else grew up in chaos in their life a little bit?

00:04:41.780 A little bit or a lot?

00:04:43.280 Whole bunch for me? Okay.

00:04:45.560 Well, what software and systems did for me was taught me how to build

00:04:50.160 predictability or certainty into my life.

00:04:53.160 So I always look at my calendar first because the more I grow,

00:04:57.240 the more freedom I want.

00:04:58.680 If I just hire people to do work,

00:05:00.780 then I'm paying people the top amount of money to do the work that I could do,

00:05:04.560 and I'm still stuck with everything else.

00:05:06.880 So that's why the buyback principle is so key.

00:05:08.840 Just never forget this.

00:05:09.720 You don't hire to grow your business,

00:05:10.640 you hire to buy back your time.

00:05:11.720 So it's a calendar problem first, not a capacity problem.

00:05:15.540 So how do we do that?

00:05:16.620 It's called the buyback loop.

00:05:18.600 Everybody draw this in your notes.

00:05:20.580 When we feel pain, three things you gotta do.

00:05:23.440 How many things?

00:05:24.820 Three.

00:05:25.660 One, two, three.

00:05:26.500 How many things?

00:05:27.340 Three.

00:05:28.180 Three things.

00:05:28.960 First thing you gotta do is you gotta audit your calendar.

00:05:30.780 Most of us are doing things

00:05:32.220 we should absolutely not be doing.

00:05:34.460 When it comes to coaching, what should we be doing?

00:05:37.740 Everybody in this room.

00:05:39.260 If you just think about that, look at your calendar,

00:05:41.140 how much time you actually spend in coaching,

00:05:42.960 you want that to be every hour.

00:05:44.920 Anything that doesn't get you in front of a client,

00:05:46.780 working with the team, coaching is a distraction.

00:05:49.740 So when I feel overwhelmed and I do this process

00:05:52.180 probably two or three times a year,

00:05:54.060 I always look at my calendar first

00:05:55.700 and I do a time and energy audit.

00:05:57.380 Because here's a big, big idea.

00:06:00.220 Don't let this get missed.

00:06:01.300 Broke people spend time to save money. 0.93

00:06:03.420 Rich people spend money to save time.

00:06:05.940 I'll say this again,

00:06:06.680 because I had this money mindset when I was growing up,

00:06:08.600 because if you want something done right,

00:06:10.360 you got to do it yourself.

00:06:11.420 You've all heard this.

00:06:12.560 Broke people spend time to save money. 0.93

00:06:15.200 Rich people spend money to save time.

00:06:17.360 And the reason why is people don't value their time enough.

00:06:21.340 Every person in this room,

00:06:22.500 if you want to get to your first million dollars in revenue,

00:06:25.240 at minimum, you should set your hour worth to $500 an hour,

00:06:29.120 even if you're charging 50 today.

00:06:31.300 That lens of your calendar at $500 an hour

00:06:34.160 will transform what you say yes and no to.

00:06:36.520 You will fight for your time back because of this.

00:06:39.080 So step one, we audit.

00:06:41.180 Step two is transfer.

00:06:43.960 So my whole thing is I want to take everything I'm doing

00:06:48.180 and give it to somebody else in a way that's very easy.

00:06:51.540 So most people, the way they transfer things

00:06:53.800 is they just tell somebody, here's the thing,

00:06:55.740 just get it done.

00:06:56.580 Have you guys ever had somebody work for you

00:06:58.020 and you ask them to do something

00:06:58.960 that didn't get done right?

00:06:59.740 Show of hands, anybody?

00:07:01.300 How many of you guys wouldn't raise your hand no matter how many times I say it?

00:07:04.120 All right, at least you're honest.

00:07:07.120 So the philosophy I use is called the camcorder method.

00:07:10.040 When I am doing the work, I record myself doing the work.

00:07:14.020 The technology is very simple, Zoom.

00:07:16.120 Okay, everybody use Zoom?

00:07:18.800 Yes or yes?

00:07:20.740 Perfect.

00:07:21.740 Just do the meeting by yourself, share your screen, record it to the cloud.

00:07:26.840 And just talk out loud what you're doing.

00:07:29.500 Then when I hire somebody to do the work from my time and energy audit, I give them the

00:07:34.360 videos and that's their onboarding and training.

00:07:37.500 Then they create the SOP or the checklist so that I know if they watch the videos.

00:07:44.380 Ah.

00:07:45.380 See, once I do my time and energy audit, I want to take everything that feels like red 1.00

00:07:51.740 that takes my energy, anything that costs very little for somebody else to do, and I

00:07:56.640 I put that in a bucket and that's the only other person I hire.

00:07:59.960 So think about that. You do your time and energy audit.

00:08:02.120 You highlight in red everything that you don't like to do that takes your energy.

00:08:06.040 Anything to be a $1 sign.

00:08:08.040 So if you look at it, $4 signs like restaurant,

00:08:10.020 how expensive is the restaurant?

00:08:11.620 $1 sign is not very expensive.

00:08:13.900 $4 sign is anniversary. Make sense?

00:08:17.120 Same thing with the person you're going to hire.

00:08:18.740 Is this somebody that is administrative type work or is it somebody

00:08:22.800 could run a department of my business?

00:08:24.840 So everybody, it's $1 a sign and read, goes in the bucket, that's who I hire.

00:08:30.180 Because I've recorded those videos, then it's easy to transfer to that person.

00:08:35.940 The third step is fill.

00:08:38.380 You will never grow your business further than you grow yourself.

00:08:42.100 That's why you're all in this room.

00:08:43.380 That's why I love that you're in a room.

00:08:44.480 John says this often.

00:08:45.340 He says, if you're the smartest person in the class, find a new class.

00:08:48.300 If you're the smartest person in this room, you need to understand that you need to grow.

00:08:54.100 Okay? So the business will never grow past your growth. Your personal income will never grow

00:08:58.900 further than your personal development. So Phil, once you get that hour back, it's not to go on

00:09:03.880 vacation. It's not to go Netflix and chill. It is to become better. Okay? My buddy one time called

00:09:10.620 me up. He lived in New York and he's like, Dan, my life's changed. Other than this conversation

00:09:15.820 today, I've got nothing else on my calendar. I was like, Clint, dude, did you read my book? He's

00:09:20.760 yeah it's a great book loved it i was like what part of my book told you to do nothing with your

00:09:25.240 time he's like what should i be doing i go go reread it man there's a whole section on how to

00:09:31.160 fill so i'm going to give you guys a success ladder you guys want the success ladder okay

00:09:35.240 everybody write this down three things you should be focusing on by priority the left side of the

00:09:39.640 ladder is skills what are the skills i need to go adopt next or learn next to grow that's going to

00:09:46.360 have the biggest return on the business for a lot of us it's marketing so that's the left side of

00:09:50.680 the ladder on the right side of the ladder over here we want to look at our beliefs what beliefs

00:09:56.440 do i have what world views do i have that i know are holding me back is it around money is around

00:10:00.920 my my time what it's worth did you know you'll never get a penny more than you think you're worth

00:10:07.480 that's a writer downer people we gotta write that one down in your notes you'll never get

00:10:12.840 a penny more than you think you're worth and a lot of us have beliefs around our self-worth that hold

00:10:17.880 us playing small and if you love the people your family around you do you know the most important

00:10:23.000 thing you can do for them is to inspire them and playing small never spired anybody so that's the

00:10:29.000 belief side and then what we want to do to build that ladder is the habits the habits the character

00:10:36.120 traits what kind of daily habits you have what's your consistency look like do you keep the

00:10:41.640 commitments you make to yourself in private if you want to build your confidence you want to

00:10:44.760 know how to build your confidence yes yes keep the commitments you make to yourself in private

00:10:50.600 keep the commitments you make to yourself in private that's how we build our confidence so

00:10:54.920 once we buy back our time we want to fill it with the skills that are going to grow the business

00:11:01.480 the beliefs around the world that's going to unlock where we're blocked and then the

00:11:05.320 habits to go to the next level here's the big idea million dollar companies are not built on

00:11:11.000 $10 tasks. I used to be that person. I used to work 100 hours a week, burning the candle at both ends,

00:11:16.920 thinking I could outwork the pain. And I had a flawed philosophy. And after it cost me my

00:11:23.640 fiance at the time, my relationships, my family didn't want to talk to me because I wasn't a very

00:11:29.080 good brother or son, I realized I needed a different way. And the buyback principle is how I did it.

00:11:36.840 So, how many of you guys would like to learn the sequence for hiring?

00:11:40.740 Show of hands.

00:11:41.600 How many of you guys?

00:11:42.220 The sequence for hiring.

00:11:43.840 All right.

00:11:44.360 I call this the replacement ladder.

00:11:45.900 A friend of mine called me one day and said, Dan, if you had to prioritize the people you

00:11:50.200 wanted to hire to build your coaching business, what order would you do it in?

00:11:54.520 And that was a great question.

00:11:55.800 I'd done it a couple times.

00:11:57.300 I thought about it.

00:11:58.720 And I sat down and I really argued who would go in what order.

00:12:02.960 And a big inspiration of that came from a guy named Richard.

00:12:05.880 This is about eight years ago. I'm in San Francisco. I get an email from my buddy and it says,

00:12:13.040 Dan, my friends and I are going to Switzerland to hang out with Richard Branson. Would you like to

00:12:20.240 come? Let me check my schedule. Clear. I thought it was an April Fool's joke. I grew up in a small

00:12:27.000 town in Eastern Canada. That email made no sense to me. True to his word, Richard was an investor

00:12:34.420 and his tech company. I had done something nice for him at a dinner one time. He thought of me

00:12:38.920 and he invites me to Richard Branson's house in Verbier, Switzerland. And I honestly, the whole

00:12:44.740 time I thought this ain't true. This can't be true. And I'm sitting on the couch. That's the

00:12:49.220 picture. That's the inside of his house, AKA lodge, AKA 14 staff. Imposter syndrome going

00:12:55.480 through the roof. Like I was like, as soon as they find out who I am, they're going to be like,

00:13:00.140 helicopter get him out of here and Richard comes out and I will tell you

00:13:04.760 nicest guy he's the billionaire other billionaires want to be like because he

00:13:09.680 truly lives his life you know to create to express to build and what was amazing

00:13:16.640 was watching him interact with a very key person in his life and her name is

00:13:20.720 Helen and Helen was his executive assistant and Helen's been with Richard

00:13:26.120 now for 17 years. Just like Linda is for John, Helen is for Richard. And here's what I noticed

00:13:33.160 because I couldn't understand. How does he have time to meet with all of us, to go skiing every

00:13:37.640 day, to stay up late with us? Like how does he do this and own 400 companies? Did you know the

00:13:41.620 Virgin Group of Businesses, 400 companies, two CEOs that runs the whole group? How does he have

00:13:48.460 time for us and do that? Every morning for breakfast, Richard and Helen would have breakfast

00:13:54.300 and she would only bring to him the things that she didn't know how to deal with and it was about

00:13:59.100 a 60 minute 90 minute meeting after that richard was gone he was with us and she moved the business

00:14:04.300 forward again most of you don't value your time high enough or you have some beliefs around well

00:14:10.060 i don't want to come off as like too good to do this work or i'm going to reply to my email whatever

00:14:14.860 it is but i want to encourage you to consider any time that you're spending investing and not

00:14:20.540 coaching is not things you should be doing you should be on the phone with your clients to get

00:14:25.180 the biggest return so here's the replacement ladder and you can draw this out everybody draw

00:14:30.380 this out five rows the first hire the admin hire because you might be feeling stuck you've got this

00:14:37.500 business idea you want to grow but it'd be nice to have somebody else support you when emails come

00:14:43.420 into my life that i'm emotionally not ready to respond to does anybody ever get to that place

00:14:48.620 you got an email just like i'm not ready emotionally anybody show hands really high come on

00:14:54.780 do you think my assistant cares about my emotions when those emails come in 0.90

00:14:59.260 no ann is here am i just here just the fact that somebody else is just processing just

00:15:05.900 moving things forward think about how much revenue in a year because i'm on stage with

00:15:10.620 you guys and then new opportunities come into my inbox all day long and then she moves those

00:15:14.700 opportunities forward and think about how many months you know revenue in an annual calendar

00:15:20.780 are pulled forward because those opportunities are moving forward while you're sitting here

00:15:25.500 growing yourself see i want you to spend more time in a room like this i want you to be in

00:15:30.460 a program that grows you i want you to choose goals that grow you you need somebody else to

00:15:36.220 support you if you don't have that person even part-time virtual it doesn't matter then you'll

00:15:41.340 always feel stuck and they need to own two things your inbox and your calendar my brother's a home

00:15:45.420 builder built a really successful home building company didn't have an assistant going crazy

00:15:49.980 calls me up one day he's like hey i need your playbook could you send it to me i said on what

00:15:54.460 he goes to hire an assistant ah i got you send it over to him maybe like two months later i'm at his

00:15:59.900 house we're having a barbecue and i ask him bro how's it going with your assistant he's like i

00:16:05.820 I don't understand what the big deal is.

00:16:07.420 Like, she's good, she's helping out,

00:16:10.240 but it's not like transform my life

00:16:12.000 the way you talk about it.

00:16:12.920 I said, ah, I know what the problem is.

00:16:15.180 It's like, what?

00:16:16.020 You didn't give access to your inbox to them.

00:16:19.320 You've just triaged every email that came into your life.

00:16:22.260 It's not what I'm talking about.

00:16:23.860 I'm talking about somebody owning

00:16:25.800 the two ownership areas right there, inbox and calendar.

00:16:29.460 I just interviewed John for my podcast,

00:16:31.900 asked him about Linda, what she means to him.

00:16:35.820 and he shared the exact same sentiment they figured out 30 plus years ago.

00:16:40.220 Having somebody else focused on moving conversations forward,

00:16:43.760 making sure the schedule is in line so that he can do the thing only he can do,

00:16:47.260 change the game. He even said,

00:16:48.920 I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Linda.

00:16:51.800 I give that same credit to Anne on my team.

00:16:54.460 I wouldn't be on this stage if it wasn't for her.

00:16:57.280 I want that for you more than you'll ever know.

00:16:59.780 That partnership, that relationship is something you want to invest in,

00:17:03.680 partner with the person so they can really get to know you. Now, level two, what level?

00:17:08.660 Okay, do you guys want to learn level two? Yes. All right, level two is stull. And this is where

00:17:14.280 you need somebody to help you with the fulfillment, the delivery. Okay, so you're a coach now,

00:17:18.360 you've got customers. Okay, imagine you're here, you meet somebody who want to work with you.

00:17:22.340 As soon as you take a credit card, you want somebody else to immediately onboard that person

00:17:26.300 into your life. So first hire was my assistant. The second one was a lady named Kelsey. And 1.00

00:17:32.740 Kelsey's only job. It was super cool. Every time I bring a new client to my world, her job was to

00:17:38.180 bring them and onboard them. Here's the intake form, schedule the calls, answer support questions,

00:17:44.780 make sure the billing worked, because that way I could free up my time from doing any of the

00:17:49.440 account management side and really just be coaching. Make sense? That's level two. Level

00:17:55.960 three what level everybody level all right level three is marketing this is so important okay

00:18:05.640 because i have a friend rachel and her business goes like this

00:18:12.120 and she goes dan why does my business do this well rachel here's how it works when you have

00:18:17.640 no clients you do marketing you get clients you get busy you stop marketing then you do

00:18:21.720 all the work you stop having clients you don't have any clients you do marketing you get more

00:18:25.240 clients and her revenue for three years went like this so what you need is a marketing system

00:18:32.040 a marketing system and specifically you want somebody that manages the traffic to your website

00:18:38.600 or to your social media and then they run campaigns we're so busy thinking of other stuff

00:18:43.640 that oh it's you know it's summertime it's christmas time it's you know cyber sunday

00:18:48.280 whatever it's like you need somebody else that manages the campaigns for you

00:18:52.280 so for me i had a guy named jared jared was my videographer at the time and i don't know about

00:18:56.600 you guys but like this social media doesn't it feel a little overwhelming yes or yes it's like

00:19:01.240 where should i post and how often and what should the videos say and it just becomes like a lot

00:19:08.040 and i used to shoot edit post what when that's a that's like a whole company on its own like it it

00:19:17.080 It felt like, and the crazy part is, because it was so hard, it made me not want to do

00:19:22.520 it.

00:19:23.520 It's kind of like, I know how many people I can help with my message, but if I don't

00:19:27.080 love it.

00:19:28.080 This is really why I think the market isn't the issue for all of us in this room.

00:19:32.400 The biggest risk to our business is that we build a business we don't want to do anymore,

00:19:36.760 and especially the coaches.

00:19:38.920 You guys are in the best position to help other people.

00:19:41.240 The coolest part about marketing, you want to know what the coolest part about marketing

00:19:43.980 is that if you do it right,

00:19:46.060 it'll help more people than your product or service ever will.

00:19:48.720 Like marketing will help more people

00:19:50.860 than you could ever possibly imagine.

00:19:52.780 I get 36 million views on my content every month.

00:19:55.380 It's the size of Canada.

00:19:59.020 That's crazy.

00:20:01.120 The population of my country sees my content every month

00:20:05.420 because I worked my way out of editing, publishing.

00:20:09.080 I still need to be on camera until AI gets really good.

00:20:11.580 I'm still the guy talking.

00:20:13.460 But having somebody like Jared come into my life and just take that off of my plate and build a

00:20:17.960 system for marketing and get customers that I love to work with, invaluable. Cool? Is that cool? Yes

00:20:24.080 or yes? Marketing system. Fourth, sales. I call this freedom. You want to know why I call this

00:20:31.840 freedom? Because at this stage, you can actually go on vacation, have somebody else create an

00:20:38.060 opportunity, somebody else sell that person, enroll them into your world, somebody else onboard them

00:20:45.500 while you're in the pool, while you're with your kids, while you're doing some crazy adventure.

00:20:51.240 So how many hires? How many hires? Four key people in your life. If you want to ask, how did you

00:20:59.720 build eight-figure business really fast, Dan? This is the formula. It's that simple. I just went one,

00:21:05.920 two, three, four. The key though is you want somebody else to do the follow-up in the calls,

00:21:11.200 okay? So somebody else has to, I'll just, I'm assuming I'll do it, the follow-up in the calls.

00:21:16.780 So opportunity comes into my world, somebody sends me a message on Instagram, I go, cool,

00:21:20.700 I'd love to work with you, let me introduce you to Jay. Now, I know this is crazy. Has anybody

00:21:25.080 else like freaked out by the idea that somebody else is going to sell your coaching for you? Am I

00:21:29.280 the only one? Come on, nobody else is freaked out having somebody else talk to a potential coaching

00:21:34.540 Exactly. I was the same way.

00:21:37.360 I remember my wife's here.

00:21:39.160 Renee, do you mind standing up?

00:21:40.080 She is like the most beautiful woman in the world.

00:21:41.860 Can you please stand up?

00:21:42.880 That's my wife, Renee.

00:21:44.800 She loves photos.

00:21:46.320 She loves talking to people.

00:21:47.480 So if you see her, we'll be around.

00:21:48.880 I remember I was doing a bunch of calls,

00:21:51.280 sales calls and enrollment calls.

00:21:53.040 And my wife, and this is like six, seven years ago,

00:21:55.120 and she's like, why are you on the phone all the time?

00:21:56.900 And I go, well, a lot of the people who want to talk to me

00:21:58.480 are on the West Coast, and I'm on the East Coast.

00:22:00.240 So I do all the dad stuff, dinner,

00:22:02.340 and then go into the sunroom and just be on discovery calls back to back to back.

00:22:07.540 She's like, aren't you the buy back your time guy?

00:22:10.420 I was like, oh, oh, but isn't that what your partner should do for you?

00:22:17.460 Hold a mirror to your face.

00:22:18.580 Yeah. So that's why my wife is awesome. 1.00

00:22:20.180 So I hired a guy named Michael.

00:22:22.660 And I remember I hired Michael.

00:22:24.180 I gave him the call recordings, right?

00:22:25.860 Camcorder method.

00:22:27.060 I said, Michael, I don't know if you can do this.

00:22:29.060 I don't know. Just try it. Get on the phone with some people. So I started sending half my

00:22:33.920 opportunities to Michael first day. First call. Hangs up. He gets the person full pay, full year

00:22:40.100 credit card on the call. I know. It sounds crazy. Michael, what did you promise them?

00:22:45.780 What do you mean? Are they coming to my house for dinner tonight? Did you tell them that I'm

00:22:51.460 flying to their office? What did you sell them? He's like, no, Dan. And this is what he said to

00:22:55.820 i'll never forget he goes i just did what you said on the call and i think it was better that

00:23:00.860 i was doing not you because then you're more in integrity with what you're selling oh

00:23:07.660 so his numbers were better than mine that blew my mind so that's level four level five very key

00:23:13.340 is leadership that's why we're all in this room you will never outgrow your investment in yourself

00:23:19.740 When you hire somebody to lead your business, like John did with Mark, right?

00:23:24.240 As a CEO, you need to make sure they own two key things.

00:23:27.720 The strategy for growth, and they have ownership on the outcomes.

00:23:31.540 You can't ask somebody to be responsible for something and not give them those things.

00:23:34.740 So those are the two things.

00:23:36.180 That is a replacement ladder.

00:23:37.940 Now, here's the big idea, and this one's going to hurt a little bit.

00:23:40.620 If you do not have an assistant, you are one. 0.99

00:23:43.980 And you're overpaid, and you suck at your job. 0.99

00:23:47.840 Just throwing that out there. 0.99

00:23:49.740 Just gonna give you that, do what you want with it.

00:23:54.000 The second big idea to build that first 100K,

00:23:56.560 that first 500K coaching business

00:23:58.440 is to do transformational leadership, okay?

00:24:01.080 When I moved to San Francisco in 2008

00:24:02.980 after selling my first technology company,

00:24:05.700 I realized there's a reason why 20 year old founders

00:24:10.540 start these tech companies

00:24:11.760 and build them into billion dollar businesses.

00:24:13.560 Isn't that crazy?

00:24:15.300 I was 28 at the time and I'd meet these kids,

00:24:17.500 I'd call them kids, they're only eight years younger than me.

00:24:19.420 I'm like, how are they doing this?

00:24:21.940 And I ended up meeting a guy named Naval Ravikant.

00:24:24.420 And Naval today, he's been on Joe Rogan,

00:24:26.520 he's arguably one of the top thinkers in Silicon Valley.

00:24:29.880 And he showed me the difference

00:24:31.620 between transactional leadership

00:24:33.840 and transformational leadership.

00:24:35.700 And this is what shifted my whole entrepreneurial career.

00:24:39.360 See, most of us, when we hire somebody,

00:24:41.540 because it sounds normal,

00:24:42.700 we're gonna hire them, we're gonna tell them what to do.

00:24:45.060 We're gonna check that it got done.

00:24:47.360 And then what are we gonna do right after that?

00:24:49.700 Tell them what to do next.

00:24:50.980 That's how my first boss did it with me.

00:24:53.000 Do this Dan, tell me when you're done,

00:24:54.540 he came, checked it, he got done,

00:24:55.680 told me what to do next.

00:24:56.800 So when I hired people, I did this.

00:24:58.080 The problem with this strategy is that about 10 employees,

00:25:02.420 12 employees, 1.4 million in revenue, you are redlining.

00:25:08.040 Some of you guys feel that pain.

00:25:10.020 You get to a place where you wake up in the morning

00:25:12.140 and you've got stuff you wanna get done,

00:25:13.540 you got your projects listed out,

00:25:14.680 and all of a sudden the first phone call comes in,

00:25:16.100 First email comes in and boom, boom, boom.

00:25:17.800 You're on phone calls, you're on meetings,

00:25:18.900 you're on da-da-da, clients upset.

00:25:20.520 And you just keep going and going

00:25:21.800 until six o'clock rolls around.

00:25:23.360 You didn't do anything for yourself all day.

00:25:25.960 You go be with your family and that eight, nine o'clock,

00:25:28.100 you get back on your computer to actually do the work

00:25:29.880 you were supposed to do first thing in the morning.

00:25:31.340 I know, I've been there.

00:25:33.520 It almost cost me my health.

00:25:35.900 Like serious anxiety, shingles.

00:25:39.300 Like I was in pain because I didn't understand this.

00:25:42.000 Transformational leadership is completely different.

00:25:43.580 We start with the outcome.

00:25:44.680 here's what it looks like the second part is we measure this is the thing I'm

00:25:50.140 gonna measure your progress against and then the third part is we coach and we

00:25:55.540 coach is different than telling people what to do next so for example with my

00:25:59.060 marketing team I wanted them to grow our Instagram account so what did I say I

00:26:03.340 said the outcome is to grow the Instagram account where we're creating

00:26:07.660 more value for our customers than anybody else in the world and I would

00:26:10.540 highly recommend you write that one down your life will change when you make a

00:26:13.660 a decision to create more value for your customers than anybody else in the world and just strive

00:26:17.220 to be that person for them in their life. And that's the outcome, mountaintop. This is what

00:26:21.860 it looks like. Measure followers per day. Very simple. Every day on Instagram, how many followers

00:26:27.860 do we get? Are we growing? Third is coach. See, a lot of us, when we see something going wrong or

00:26:32.680 there's no growth, we just want to jump in and tell them what to do. The problem is if you do

00:26:35.800 that, you're always going to be needed. Do you know why they call it a bottleneck? Because it's

00:26:38.820 at the top. Yes, bottlenecks are at the top. We don't want to be a bottleneck to our team and

00:26:43.460 growth so what coaching is and this is very key write this down you want to coach the principle

00:26:50.340 not the action so the principle is the thing they're violating the action is what they should

00:26:57.220 do if you coach the principle it takes care of a hundred different situations if you coach the

00:27:02.500 action it only takes care of one situation so the email didn't get replied to properly next time say

00:27:07.300 this that's one action here's how we do email this is our philosophy for email see the difference

00:27:12.980 Here's my philosophy for our content, okay?

00:27:15.640 Our content has to be value first,

00:27:17.920 less about me, more for the client.

00:27:20.460 These three things we posted violated that principle.

00:27:24.140 Next time, can we create content that looks like this?

00:27:26.660 Got it, perfect.

00:27:28.260 On to the next thing.

00:27:29.120 We've added, because I follow this process, okay?

00:27:32.600 In the last 12 months,

00:27:33.720 we added from 80,000 followers to almost half a million.

00:27:37.160 I know, I want that for every person in this room.

00:27:39.700 I really do, and you guys think,

00:27:40.600 well, I can't be that person.

00:27:41.580 You know what's cool about the world we live in today?

00:27:43.800 It's a level playing field, level playing field.

00:27:47.520 Did you know the amount of followers I have

00:27:49.420 is a vanity metric?

00:27:50.580 It does not matter.

00:27:52.580 Every person in this room has the same advantage right now

00:27:55.340 if you shoot a video to go viral as I do.

00:27:57.980 My followers do not matter.

00:27:59.780 Think how cool this is.

00:28:00.860 This has never existed in the history of social media.

00:28:03.600 Right now, most of you guys consume your YouTube for you page.

00:28:07.700 You don't go to your subscribers.

00:28:09.220 So understanding this,

00:28:10.520 it'll transform the way you create content.

00:28:12.820 And if you focus on outcomes,

00:28:14.940 this is what we want to accomplish,

00:28:15.960 measure, just simple followers,

00:28:17.680 and then, because you want to talk to the followers,

00:28:19.380 and then coach, that's how we unlock the people

00:28:23.000 that are stuck, cool?

00:28:25.320 This is a big idea.

00:28:26.420 People buy your standards, they don't buy your presence.

00:28:29.940 They buy your standards.

00:28:31.560 When you build a team, you're coaching them to a standard.

00:28:35.000 You're showing up with a standard.

00:28:37.580 The clients see your team, they see the standard.

00:28:41.060 So understand some of you guys, I had this guy, Rick,

00:28:45.000 he owned the bike shop where I did all my like

00:28:46.960 triathlon and Ironman stuff.

00:28:49.400 And Rick had this philosophy that somebody must've taught him

00:28:53.720 that every time I went to the store,

00:28:56.000 his job was to run out of his office and shake my hand,

00:28:58.600 which I appreciated.

00:28:59.880 However, you know what I appreciate even more than that?

00:29:03.960 Is that my bike got fixed on time.

00:29:06.060 The thing I ordered showed up when you told me it was.

00:29:09.340 That when you told me to come back, you were ready.

00:29:12.340 And I mean, this went on for two years.

00:29:15.220 And I remember one time I pulled him aside.

00:29:16.380 I said, Rick, can you spend less time at the front door and more time in your desk running the business?

00:29:22.880 You got to set the standard.

00:29:24.000 And I know you have a belief that you need to be the person to shake my hand.

00:29:26.320 But I'll be honest with you.

00:29:27.180 I'm going to the guy next door because you can't even do the basics.

00:29:30.460 Think about that.

00:29:31.240 Some of you guys have these beliefs.

00:29:32.320 I got to be the person.

00:29:33.280 I got to do this.

00:29:33.940 I got to do that.

00:29:34.360 I'm telling you, set the standard, coach the standard,

00:29:38.020 that's the biggest one.

00:29:39.280 Especially if you're coaching companies.

00:29:40.760 I see most coaching companies spend more time

00:29:42.740 coaching their clients than they ever do their team.

00:29:44.660 That's kind of weird.

00:29:46.540 Show me your calendar, they show me your calendar.

00:29:48.240 Okay, 50% is coaching calls with clients.

00:29:51.280 Where's the coaching with your team?

00:29:54.400 Hmm, that's interesting.

00:29:56.100 The next hot principle is the one-three-one rule.

00:29:59.160 This one will transform your life.

00:30:00.640 You guys ready to have your life transformed?

00:30:01.940 Yes, yes.

00:30:03.280 All right, this one is the most important

00:30:06.420 because like I said, the bottleneck exists at the top.

00:30:08.960 So I remember one time I had this guy, Adam,

00:30:10.900 he worked for me in operations,

00:30:12.240 and we were growing like crazy.

00:30:14.020 And just for what it's worth,

00:30:14.980 if you're growing more than 50% a year,

00:30:16.840 you're probably breaking every system

00:30:18.460 in your business every six months.

00:30:21.100 It's good to know, okay?

00:30:23.460 If you grow more than 50% per year every six months,

00:30:26.680 everything's kind of breaking.

00:30:27.900 So we had 11 people to hire in a month,

00:30:30.540 and Adam's freaking out and he comes to me,

00:30:32.500 He said, you know, he's like, Dan, I don't know what to do.

00:30:36.520 I said, what's that?

00:30:37.060 He goes, we've got to hire 11 people.

00:30:38.720 I'm like, I know, but I don't know how to do that.

00:30:42.540 Okay.

00:30:44.920 Well, what do I do?

00:30:47.020 Hmm.

00:30:47.740 How to do your job?

00:30:48.800 Then I guess, I'm just curious, why did I hire you?

00:30:51.740 And he's like, oh yeah.

00:30:53.880 I said, do you have a 131?

00:30:55.280 He goes, oh, you're 131.

00:30:57.180 Do you have a 131?

00:30:58.260 He's like, give me some time.

00:31:00.180 I said, tomorrow, same time?

00:31:01.300 He goes, yeah. I'll get back to you tomorrow at the same time. So Adam goes away. Next morning,

00:31:06.480 10 a.m., text me. Hey, Dan, I'm good. Of course you're good. See, most people can actually figure

00:31:13.540 out the answer to the test without you telling them the answer. But if you keep telling them

00:31:17.820 the answer, they're going to keep coming to you for the answer. Because if they give you the answer

00:31:22.180 and it's wrong, whose fault is it? Fine. Okay, so when people help build the plan, they don't fight

00:31:28.580 the plan. That's a writer downer. So I want them to come up with the idea. So here's how I do it

00:31:34.180 really quick. I always want to get one specific challenge or problem well stated is half solved.

00:31:40.420 Okay. That's Albert Einstein. You ever have somebody come to you on your team and they're

00:31:44.560 like, okay, I got issues. I'm like, what's going on? They're like, this is an issue. I'm like,

00:31:47.640 oh, let's talk about that. And they're like, well, then there's this issue too. Okay. Well,

00:31:50.260 that's totally different. Yeah. But then there's this issue too. I'm a little confused. What is

00:31:54.640 the issue. So just help people. What is the problem you're trying to solve? That question

00:32:01.260 has made me more money than any other question in the history of business. What problem are you

00:32:06.080 trying to solve? If you're coaching, ask that question. You know, one of the things I do

00:32:10.920 with my clients, and it's one of the bonuses, is I teach them how to use social media to make

00:32:16.220 revenue. Actually, how to convert their followers into dollars, not just vanity metrics, but

00:32:21.640 actually into money it's part of the bonuses that i've added to the folks that continue working with

00:32:26.920 john so the key is is that when i'm working with people i always say what's the specific

00:32:31.240 the one thing what probably try yourself it's always sales it's always sales so i teach them

00:32:37.480 this very simple strategy to convert their followers into customers okay it's called sell

00:32:42.200 by chat so when they come to me and they go sales i go what are the three things you've tried that's

00:32:47.400 the three. Three viable options. So three viable options. Why do we do this? As

00:32:53.080 entrepreneurs we want to know that our team members have considered everything.

00:32:58.020 That's why we get anxious. We're like if they make decisions we're not involved

00:33:02.040 I'm just scared that they're gonna make a decision that I'm not gonna be aligned

00:33:05.160 with. So I always ask them to present those three options to me so that I can

00:33:09.360 review them with them. Okay so when people are having sales issues they're

00:33:13.080 like, well, we could improve our show rates or we could fix our script or we'd probably hire an

00:33:20.740 agency. And I'm like, out of those three options, what do you think would make the most sense?

00:33:25.600 And then it's one recommendation. And they usually say, our show rates are only 17%.

00:33:31.940 One out of five show up for the call? Yeah. Okay, let's fix that. And when they say it out loud,

00:33:37.920 I feel comfortable because they've presented me the problem. As soon as we can move decisions

00:33:42.360 down to the frontline people it changes our whole company okay so i have this rule called 50 to fix

00:33:48.680 it for frontline workers write this down if you can solve the problem for less than 50 dollars

00:33:54.360 you don't need my permission solve the problem and just tell me you spent the money after the

00:33:58.200 fact i'll pay for it for leaders it's 500 if you're leading a little team of three or four

00:34:04.120 five hundred dollars if you can fix the problem just spend the money tell me afterwards for

00:34:07.720 managers, it's 5,000, and for executives, it's 50,000. But that's CEOs, COOs, etc. As soon as you

00:34:16.120 create the 1-3-1 rule and you empower people at the front line to make decisions, your life will

00:34:20.660 get transformed. You will be no longer brought into fires because the fires will be put out by

00:34:25.900 the team and your life will transform. Does that make sense? Yes or yes? Cool. Thank you. Clap that

00:34:32.320 up. I like that. Clap it up. One, three, one rule. It's huge. Transform everything. I want to leave

00:34:38.880 you with this. Your biggest expense is not doing the thing that makes you the most money. When

00:34:44.580 people are like, how much does that cost? How much is it? No, no, no, no. The biggest expense is not

00:34:49.740 doing the thing that makes you the most money. And not understanding how to get that time back

00:34:54.320 is where you are investing your money improperly, your time improperly. So I want to leave you with

00:35:01.700 one big idea. You guys want that? Yes or yes? Here's my big idea. I believe every person in the

00:35:06.860 world is here to do two things, and it's the difference between being successful and living

00:35:11.460 a life of fulfillment. John lives a life of fulfillment. Success, you can figure out. It's

00:35:17.460 actually a science. It's not complicated. If you sell more than you pay for the stuff and you have

00:35:22.700 profit, financially, you're successful. Fulfillment is totally different. So I'm going to ask everybody

00:35:27.220 Everybody stand up.

00:35:29.660 Everybody stand up.

00:35:33.880 I believe every person on earth is here to do two things.

00:35:38.380 Everybody standing?

00:35:39.620 Close your eyes.

00:35:42.320 The first thing is to become the 10.0 version of yourself.

00:35:48.540 I like to say, become the person you needed most in your darkest days.

00:35:53.240 I believe you are most equipped

00:35:56.680 to help the people that you once were.

00:36:01.260 And you might strive your whole life to become that person,

00:36:03.680 but that's why you're in this room,

00:36:04.820 that's why you're growing,

00:36:05.780 this is why you wanna shift and expand,

00:36:07.480 you wanna become the 10.0 version of yourself, that's one.

00:36:10.980 The second part of that

00:36:13.840 is to share what's worked with you with the world.

00:36:18.360 Teach everything you know.

00:36:19.720 Maybe the world is your family,

00:36:22.380 Maybe that world is your community,

00:36:24.720 maybe that world is your church, your CrossFit gym,

00:36:27.460 your online community, it doesn't matter,

00:36:29.060 but I believe every person here is to become the person

00:36:33.200 that God saw created them in his image.

00:36:37.340 And while he's on that path and that journey in real time,

00:36:40.880 they're sharing, they're sharing everything.

00:36:44.800 And if you do that,

00:36:46.720 you will live a life of absolute fulfillment.

00:36:50.520 Thanks for having me.

00:36:52.380 Thank you, thank you.

Dan Martell - September 20, 2024

The only skill you need to become a millionaire [Buy Back Your Time]

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