Dan Martell - The Only Skill You Need to Make Your First $1M

00:00:00.000 I taught a hundred kids this one skill that if you learn it, you're almost guaranteed to make

00:00:05.480 your first million. I've gone from dead broke at 24 to a millionaire at 27. And today I help

00:00:11.380 business owners generate millions for themselves. In fact, I've helped over 10,000 business owners

00:00:16.600 around the world get rich, but I'm on a mission to make young millionaires. So I'm going to take

00:00:21.540 you behind the scenes and show you how to make millions. Even if you're starting from nothing,

00:00:30.000 Now, this one skill will make you a millionaire, but there's also three other skills that if you

00:00:35.460 stack them, it's a guarantee. The first skill is sales and persuasion. A business is started the

00:00:41.860 moment you sell something to a stranger. Not before, not getting ready, not registering your

00:00:47.700 incorporation, not setting up your Stripe account, not getting the website ready, not setting up your

00:00:52.260 Instagram. The moment a stranger buys from you, the business is started. Now, there's only three

00:00:57.420 s's of selling that if you understand you're able to get somebody to part with their money which is

00:01:02.540 wild and awesome the first time you do it the first point is that the first sale starts with

00:01:07.980 yourself you ever talk to somebody and they're saying all the right things but you know damn well

00:01:11.580 they don't believe in themselves yeah their eyes are twitchy or they're too aggressive or they're

00:01:16.140 like it's almost like they're reading from a script and it's it's it feels bull like it's not real

00:01:22.060 whereas other people when they talk they don't even have to talk fast they don't have to use big 0.97

00:01:26.380 words they don't have to be aggressive in their ass they just talk with a level of confidence 0.97

00:01:31.100 and certainty and you go oh that person believes in what they're talking about does that make sense 0.99

00:01:36.060 say yes see when i'm talking to somebody about what they sell and i look them in the eyes it's

00:01:40.700 not do i believe you it's do i believe you believe in what you're saying i can tell and if i feel you

00:01:47.020 haven't sold yourself i'm not buying the second is signal your body language how you show up

00:01:52.620 Have you ever talked to somebody and they can't even look you in the eyes?

00:01:57.220 As soon as I look somebody in the eye and they look away, especially if they're a salesperson,

00:02:01.500 I just see somebody that's not confident in themselves, hence they're not confident in

00:02:04.940 the product and they're not confident in the ability to service the sale.

00:02:07.760 Anytime you buy something from somebody, you're asking yourself, will this person take care

00:02:11.640 of me after the sale?

00:02:13.560 So if you want to go door to door, like I said, if I'm standing like this in somebody's

00:02:17.600 door versus like this, what do you think that communicates?

00:02:22.620 This feels pushy, right?

00:02:25.900 Imagine you open the door and there's a person like this.

00:02:28.560 Hey, I'm just asking about your gutters

00:02:30.540 or, you know, the painting in your house.

00:02:32.460 You're gonna be like, yo, like get out of my yard. 0.99

00:02:36.240 Versus I go knock, knock.

00:02:38.660 And as soon as I knock, knock, I take a step back

00:02:40.800 and I'm looking away.

00:02:42.960 They open up the door, I'm doing this.

00:02:45.840 And I just like, oh, I didn't even think

00:02:47.900 you're gonna be home.

00:02:49.260 Hey, my name's Dan.

00:02:50.080 I just was just noticing da da da da da. And then you got a coffee cup and they're like,

00:02:54.740 oh, this is just a person in the neighborhood. They're trying to help me out. Way different

00:02:58.460 communication. If you just show up with a coffee cup, you all of a sudden communicate to the person

00:03:04.760 that you're chill, you're relaxed, you're just walking around trying to help people out. Not

00:03:09.640 sure if you're a fit. That style with that coffee cup will make you more money. And most people

00:03:15.360 don't realize how they're signaling to a buyer that they're not serious. The third is secure.

00:03:20.540 You have to get a commitment.

00:03:22.620 Most people do all the work, literally the whole conversation

00:03:25.840 and never ask for the sale.

00:03:28.280 First sales call, I get on a sales call and I'm selling

00:03:30.960 and I've got like my outline, okay?

00:03:33.120 Start here, then I go there, then I go there,

00:03:35.420 then I go there, then I go there, okay?

00:03:37.320 So I feel like I've listened to a bunch of CDs

00:03:39.540 and I've taught myself how to sell and I'm really excited.

00:03:43.320 So I do the thing, hey, tell me about your situation.

00:03:45.780 They're talking, oh my God, they're talking, it's so great.

00:03:47.700 Okay. Then I go, well, tell me more about that pain. That sounds hard. Tell me about that.

00:03:53.180 And they're like, oh yeah, it is hard. And I'm like, okay, now they're telling me about their

00:03:55.440 problem. And then I say, well, what made you decide to reach out? Now they're selling them

00:04:00.260 on me and why they reached out. Oh my God, this is so good. And then I go, well, where do you

00:04:05.120 want to go from here? And they go, well, how does it work working with your software? And I go,

00:04:07.940 oh, geez, ask me about my software. And I tell them about the software. And I go, does that

00:04:11.620 sound good? And they sound, that's great. And guess what I do? I get too excited. I get nervous

00:04:15.900 i'm scared what do i forget to do ask for the order do you know most sales people are scared

00:04:24.940 to ask for the sale why because they don't want to know if i never ask you you never say no i can't

00:04:33.180 be rejected i have a guy in one of my companies on the sales team and every time you look at the

00:04:38.140 leaderboard this guy does three times more than everybody else and everybody that sees the leader

00:04:43.580 board goes hey what makes that guy special i'll tell you yeah he's good he follows the process

00:04:49.100 but he just makes more offers i think most people reject themselves before the buyer ever rejects

00:04:54.620 them if you don't learn the three s's you'll always be wondering what does it look like to

00:04:59.660 actually build a real business now that's the first skill but you need two more before you

00:05:04.220 get to stack it with the master skill which brings us to the second skill public speaking

00:05:09.100 in communication people see me talk and they see this confident clear concise person they go hey

00:05:15.020 man how did you learn to speak you're so good at it my first talk was a complete mess you can

00:05:21.260 literally go on youtube and search my name and find me on a dark stage i didn't even make sense

00:05:27.180 to me i'm watching that going what was i thinking i need you to understand we all start horrible

00:05:33.420 The only difference is how fast can you get good.

00:05:57.160 Your ability to communicate clearly and concisely will open more doors than your degree ever will.

00:06:03.100 When I'm teaching my friends on how to communicate and speak,

00:06:06.680 these are three steps that I teach every time

00:06:09.700 so they speak like a pro.

00:06:11.340 The first one is you gotta embrace the nerves.

00:06:13.360 I will tell you, before I shoot videos,

00:06:15.720 I shoot reels, I go on stage,

00:06:18.220 I literally get nervous.

00:06:19.780 Why?

00:06:20.200 Because I care.

00:06:21.300 I always go, hey Dan, just serve, man.

00:06:24.120 Just like be here, be with the people.

00:06:26.560 Here's the kicker though,

00:06:27.880 don't make it about you, make it about the audience.

00:06:30.500 All the hard work's done.

00:06:31.980 You know, you got invited to speak.

00:06:33.560 You're on the stage.

00:06:34.940 Maybe you got paid.

00:06:36.320 Let's just deliver.

00:06:38.380 And when you embrace those nerves

00:06:39.860 and make it about the audience and not about yourself,

00:06:41.860 all of a sudden that energy is felt by people. 1.00

00:06:44.700 The second area is know your shit. 1.00

00:06:46.860 I can't tell you the amount of times I see people 1.00

00:06:49.780 nervous, stumbling, turn red, freaking out.

00:06:54.420 Why?

00:06:55.320 They're talking about stuff they've never done.

00:06:57.620 And you don't have to be further along.

00:06:59.160 It's not like you can't teach a millionaire

00:07:00.720 how to improve their marketing if you're not a millionaire.

00:07:03.840 But there needs to be something you've done

00:07:05.880 within that area of marketing that is impressive

00:07:08.940 and that will teach that person.

00:07:10.480 Ideally, it comes on the back end of volume,

00:07:13.180 10,000 hours type of stuff.

00:07:15.380 There's reps required.

00:07:17.120 Can you imagine somebody saying,

00:07:18.440 I didn't make the NBA and I only shot

00:07:20.420 like 10 free throws a month?

00:07:23.040 Okay, Steph Curry, does anybody know how many free throws

00:07:25.400 he shoots before a game every time, 100% of the time?

00:07:28.920 Does anybody know that number?

00:07:29.660 it's 500. Okay. Like if you listen to Kobe and his practices, he would do three days. He realized

00:07:38.440 if I wake up early, I could practice at four in the morning, then go back with the family,

00:07:43.580 recover, go back, practice again at like noon, and then go back and meet up with the team at

00:07:48.260 four and practice again. Well, everybody else is doing one. He's doing three. I'm going to say this

00:07:54.700 so that you guys really understand it. Like listen to my words. Cause as I share it, you might not

00:07:59.080 hear it. So pay attention. Winners lose more than losers. And to the parents, if you're watching the

00:08:05.560 live feed, let your kids fail or they'll become losers. If you know your and you practice, it's 0.66

00:08:11.680 hard to mess it up. The last one, number three is tell stories, not facts. You've probably heard this

00:08:17.180 quote that nobody's going to remember what you said. They're going to remember how you made them

00:08:21.220 feel. What I've seen the best of the best do when it comes to speaking communication is they tell

00:08:26.200 stories they tell emotional heartfelt stories now not just any story this is the kicker they tell

00:08:32.360 the story that explains to the audience why they know that information they use the story to connect

00:08:39.240 with the audience to have them self-reflect on their journey where they're at in that process

00:08:44.520 and it's not about the facts yes you can talk about like deep ai networking like some of the

00:08:49.800 nerdy stuff i do but that's not what's going to get them to remember me what's going to get them

00:08:54.600 to remember is using my story to connect the information with the heart when you do those

00:09:00.440 things you can't lose before we get to the master skill there's one more skill you need to learn

00:09:05.960 now the third skill to stack is connecting and networking i believe that your life is a byproduct

00:09:12.280 of your environment and the people in your environment are going to dictate your success

00:09:16.600 when i was in my early 30s and i moved back to my hometown where i grew up but i didn't know

00:09:21.080 other millionaires i had to do the work to re-establish my network i was coming back from

00:09:25.480 living in san francisco where you can't throw a rock and not hit other successful tech entrepreneurs

00:09:30.360 i couldn't even tell you one successful person in my hometown other than my brother and my best

00:09:34.680 friends because i just was disconnected so here's what i did i decided to organize an event essentially

00:09:39.880 a dinner with my buddy who's a chef a great friend sha who came and spoke and then curate each table

00:09:45.400 and then I cold called a handful of entrepreneurs

00:09:49.460 that I got names for

00:09:50.500 and I tried to figure out if they were the right fit.

00:09:53.580 So it was crazy is the night it happens,

00:09:55.600 you gotta understand, there's 80 people in the room

00:09:57.980 and I've never met any of them in person.

00:10:01.360 It was almost like the world's largest blind date

00:10:04.220 and they were all like, how do you know Dan?

00:10:05.900 They're like, I've never met him, he cold called me.

00:10:07.660 It was wild, but I will tell you,

00:10:09.320 that night, that event,

00:10:10.960 having moved back from San Francisco,

00:10:12.580 not knowing anybody,

00:10:13.380 established my relationships in that city.

00:10:15.860 And those people went on to be people

00:10:17.580 I invest in their businesses with,

00:10:19.060 I partnered with in business,

00:10:20.840 I did playdates with my kids,

00:10:22.500 or traveled the world with.

00:10:24.060 And it's available to everybody

00:10:26.000 no matter how small your town is.

00:10:27.740 If you're the smartest person in the room,

00:10:30.400 you're in the wrong room.

00:10:31.240 So when young people ask me how to upgrade your network,

00:10:34.600 this is exactly what I tell them.

00:10:36.660 First off, think of events.

00:10:38.960 Why are events so powerful?

00:10:40.280 Well, one, you have a reason to reach out

00:10:42.900 to these really successful people

00:10:44.300 and bring them into your world.

00:10:45.960 When my buddy Marcel called me up one day,

00:10:47.920 he's like, hey man, I wanna get to know more people.

00:10:50.280 I said, run an event.

00:10:51.640 He's like, but I don't know anybody.

00:10:52.700 I said, that's the whole point.

00:10:53.960 You have a platform you create, which is a stage.

00:10:56.800 You invite them to speak on it,

00:10:58.320 which gives them a reason to show up.

00:11:00.420 You're the one that coordinates the conversation

00:11:02.480 with that person so you get to know them.

00:11:04.120 Then you use that person speaking

00:11:05.740 to go recruit people to come listen,

00:11:08.000 which is a wildly productive strategy.

00:11:10.460 See, when I moved to San Francisco and I was asking myself,

00:11:12.540 of who is the person that knows all the people I want to meet,

00:11:15.600 it occurred to me that the event organizers,

00:11:17.780 they were the center of the hub.

00:11:19.660 They knew all the speakers, they knew all the people,

00:11:22.820 and they weren't being harassed every day

00:11:24.900 by people on social media because they have big audiences.

00:11:27.220 Most of these organizers didn't have a lot of people

00:11:29.620 who even knew who they were.

00:11:30.780 So that's who I built relationships with.

00:11:32.720 The second is hyper-personalized email.

00:11:35.300 Now, this one requires work

00:11:37.580 because you can't cold email somebody

00:11:40.120 and expect them to reply if they don't think

00:11:42.160 you've done a little bit of work to get to know who they are.

00:11:44.700 The amount of people that send me,

00:11:45.760 Mr. Martell, Dan Martell, comma,

00:11:48.400 like literally cold email templates gone wrong.

00:11:51.560 When my buddy Chris messaged me years ago

00:11:55.080 and not only referenced something he saw

00:11:57.300 on my stories on Facebook,

00:11:59.180 but he also mentioned a recent video

00:12:01.200 I had just uploaded on YouTube.

00:12:02.900 And he was very clear that he doesn't know me

00:12:05.600 or anybody that knows me,

00:12:07.120 but he has a way to help me support my business.

00:12:09.720 And that if I'd be open to it,

00:12:11.260 that it'd be really quick and it would take three minutes.

00:12:13.500 I replied and said, shoot the video, send it over.

00:12:15.940 These hyper-personalized emails are so powerful.

00:12:19.220 Chris not only delivered on his promise,

00:12:20.960 he's made me tens of millions of dollars

00:12:23.280 and is still somebody that is in my life.

00:12:25.260 He actually helped me edit my book, Buy Back Your Time,

00:12:27.660 which is wild.

00:12:28.500 How are you gonna stand out amongst all the emails?

00:12:32.140 What are you gonna do to make it seem like

00:12:34.460 you took the time and the effort

00:12:36.020 to actually get to know the person you're messaging?

00:12:37.860 If you want my email template for cold emailing people,

00:12:40.460 just find me on Instagram and just message me the word YouTube cold email and I'll send it to you

00:12:45.300 because in it talks about how do you mention something recent in their life that makes it

00:12:49.180 look hyper personalized and relevant and the second thing is how do you do an ask that is so

00:12:53.320 simple that gets the person to almost guarantee they give you a reply now the third is similar

00:12:57.600 to one which is host the meetup but I do these all the time virtually so for example I'm building

00:13:02.540 out my AI venture studio Martell Ventures and my only goal is to connect with other people in the

00:13:08.440 AI space. So all I do is I scroll on Instagram, scroll on TikTok, identify people talking about

00:13:14.380 this stuff, and I invite them to a meetup. It's essentially a Zoom lunch meeting. I call it the 0.92

00:13:18.960 AI expert roundtable. Everybody introduces themselves. They talk about what they're

00:13:22.540 working on, what's good, what's bad, and everybody else tries to just be helpful. It's super informal,

00:13:27.680 super easy, and anybody can run them. I actually have my team run them. I just show up as an

00:13:32.200 attendee. It makes it a lot of fun for me, and I can do it no matter where I'm traveling.

00:13:35.800 Now that you've learned sales, public speaking, and networking, there's one master skill that if

00:13:42.140 you learn, you're guaranteed to make millions. The final most important skill is content creation

00:13:48.180 and storytelling. What's wild is most people are new to me in the last 16 months, but I've been

00:13:54.220 doing YouTube religiously for almost 10 years. And I finally hit a million subscribers. It took

00:14:01.000 eight years to get to 100k and then things ramped up because i realized content creation building

00:14:07.880 my personal brand and learning how to communicate better tell stories is the future you've probably

00:14:13.380 heard this but attention is the new oil you have to learn to tell stories so well that people stop

00:14:19.380 scrolling and actually lean in there are only two bets that i think are worth making on the future

00:14:24.140 one is ai and the other one is personal brand so understanding this fourth master skill takes the

00:14:29.860 rest of them and amplifies it. So when I'm teaching this to young millionaires, I always start with

00:14:34.180 study the best so that you can make your social media feed a masterclass and a university of

00:14:40.020 growth. I want to learn about AI. Oh, my favorite topic. What passion topic do you like? What are

00:14:45.360 you passionate about? Okay, look at this. AI, UFC. Look at that. This guy's using AI to create UFC

00:14:53.740 fighters so now what you do is you go and you go f-y-p f-y-p by doing that i told the algorithm i

00:15:00.700 like that send me more you're gonna do it pick this guy this guy looks like he's talking about

00:15:05.020 stuff what's he talking about chat should be predicts ufc that's cool that's cool wouldn't

00:15:09.180 you want to know how to do that okay now go to his comments and then type f-y-p for you page so what

00:15:15.340 that does is it tells the algorithm that you want to receive more content like this so next time you

00:15:21.180 you go on TikTok, guess what you're going to get? You're going to learn AI by going on social media.

00:15:26.100 Do you like going on social media? So do I, but I don't like to waste my time. I want to learn

00:15:30.580 stuff that's going to help my future. So now you go do a thing you like to do. And while you're

00:15:33.980 doing it, you're learning cool stuff. Cool. Awesome question. The second is you got to create

00:15:39.500 daily. Most people can't be consistent. So just creating daily sets you apart from everybody else.

00:15:45.880 It's about volume over perfection.

00:15:48.280 And the more you iterate and learn,

00:15:50.820 not just repeat, because that's what most people do,

00:15:53.180 is how you will learn faster than most.

00:15:55.300 Trust me, it doesn't take a long time to get good.

00:15:57.800 You just have to start to get good.

00:15:59.840 The third area is about getting feedback.

00:16:02.280 Does anybody know Jimmy's YouTube name?

00:16:04.620 There we go.

00:16:05.760 You guys all know Jimmy, that's good.

00:16:07.680 Mr. Beast today, I think is mid-20s

00:16:11.300 and is one of the first billion dollar YouTubers.

00:16:15.400 If you didn't know that, he's a billionaire.

00:16:16.920 He's a YouTuber.

00:16:18.520 What I love about Mr. Beast is the fact that he started,

00:16:23.840 I think, at 11 years old and posted 100 videos.

00:16:27.860 What's up, guys?

00:16:28.680 What's up, guys?

00:16:29.160 I'm recording on my phone.

00:16:30.180 Anyways, but he literally published and published and published

00:16:34.720 and didn't have any traction.

00:16:36.680 Didn't have, like, some of the people today come out of nowhere

00:16:39.320 and all of a sudden they have 100,000 subscribers, right?

00:16:42.360 Sam Sulek, if anybody's in the fitness space, literally.

00:16:44.760 blew up, million subs, million views per video. Mr. Beast doesn't have that story. He has the

00:16:51.140 normal story. So you might see me today and go, damn, that's cool, bro. Million. Wow. But are you 0.96

00:16:57.820 willing to do what I've done? Are you willing to do what Mr. Beast did? He published, he published,

00:17:03.740 he published, he tried things. It didn't work. He kept trying. He became addicted. He became obsessed.

00:17:08.300 He went all in. And if you're not willing to do the reps, you're not going to get the results.

00:17:12.780 okay reps equal results does that make sense say yes what he's saying is do a video iterate something

00:17:21.200 to make it one percent better post it do it again post it look at the analytics look at your

00:17:26.160 retention graphs look at the tweaks ask for feedback if you're just posting and ghosting

00:17:30.760 and not getting anybody else in your life to review what you did and give you feedback or

00:17:34.580 reading the comments or looking the fact that nobody watched then you're never going to get

00:17:37.900 good at this the fourth is pick one format most people make the mistake of doing all things at

00:17:43.220 the same time and they get overwhelmed and they can't be consistent and they can't find the time

00:17:47.140 to edit the videos and tweak the content it's crazy just pick one format long form short form

00:17:52.840 carousel posts podcasts it could be tweets just choose the one that you know you would love to do

00:17:59.160 and you would do it for a really long period of time my philosophy is dedicate a decade if you

00:18:03.660 give me 10 years of posting, learning how to tell stories, being a content creator, and you go all

00:18:08.580 in, I guarantee on the backside of that, you will have a million dollars in your bank account.

00:18:13.240 Now, if you want to learn how to build a business that runs itself,

00:18:16.080 click the video and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - May 27, 2025

The Only Skill You Need to Make Your First $1M

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