Dan Martell - Who Should You Hire Next

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martelli here.

00:00:01.660 Dan Martelli here, a serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:04.000 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:04.940 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:06.940 how to decide who to hire next

00:00:09.420 so you can unlock your growth without losing control.

00:00:13.000 Because if you've ever felt nervous

00:00:14.900 about making a new hire,

00:00:16.480 you need to get more people to support you.

00:00:18.240 It's key for you to continue growing.

00:00:20.280 I'm gonna share with you exactly who to hire next

00:00:22.700 in this episode.

00:00:24.420 Be sure to stay at the end.

00:00:25.120 We're gonna tell you how to get access

00:00:26.140 to my business playbooks

00:00:27.260 because you need the templates and structures

00:00:29.740 is to systematize and document so that you can get that person

00:00:32.680 to hit the ground running and feel like they're gonna follow

00:00:35.040 a proven process so you don't have to worry.

00:00:37.840 Let's get into it.

00:00:51.620 So a few months ago, I was in San Diego with my JFDI group.

00:00:54.640 These are my 10 million plus annual reoccurring revenue

00:00:57.340 software founders and one of the exercises I love to do is

00:01:01.240 sit down and ask them to write out their top three challenges

00:01:04.680 that they're facing in their business and then I go up to

00:01:06.680 a whiteboard and I write out exactly what they say their

00:01:10.020 challenges are so that A, I can serve them and help them

00:01:14.620 overcome those challenges but B, more importantly,

00:01:16.800 I actually use that challenge and that language to drive my

00:01:21.260 content, my YouTube videos, my ideas, my frameworks, my

00:01:25.000 strategies because these people have problems.

00:01:27.500 I want more people like them because they're amazing so I

00:01:29.300 keep producing content for them and one of the questions that I

00:01:33.380 got asked was, who do I hire next?

00:01:35.940 What is my next hire?

00:01:37.280 Which is funny because yesterday I was actually on

00:01:40.320 another coaching call with a client doing a strategic game

00:01:42.780 plan session, kind of looking at the next three years and the

00:01:45.180 one year and the first 90 days of the year to kind of lock

00:01:48.760 things in and they asked the exact same question.

00:01:51.800 I actually have built a framework over the years

00:01:55.180 to help me answer that question for myself

00:01:56.880 and help my clients that I wanna share with you today

00:01:59.740 that is powerful.

00:02:00.580 I've read all the books on leadership, scaling teams,

00:02:04.180 you name it from Good to Great to Scaling Up

00:02:06.940 from Vern Harnish to Traction by Gina Wickman

00:02:09.520 to Back Pocket CEO Double Double by Cameron Harreld

00:02:15.820 and many others, over a thousand business books

00:02:18.160 and this is my unique perspective.

00:02:21.740 It's a lot different than anything you're gonna read out there

00:02:24.480 on how to not only identify the areas of your business

00:02:27.780 that needs the most support, but how to do it in a way

00:02:29.820 that continues to add value and energy to your life

00:02:33.360 and not screw it up.

00:02:34.520 Number one, time study.

00:02:36.780 Analyzing your time.

00:02:38.020 Figuring out where you're spending your time

00:02:40.400 is probably the most critical thing you can do at this step.

00:02:43.760 So I have other videos that I've done

00:02:46.100 on the Founder Scorecard to talk about the $10, $100,

00:02:50.060 $500 and $5,000 areas of your business.

00:02:53.560 I learned this framework from my buddy, Todd Herman.

00:02:56.540 But once we understand that there's different types

00:02:58.720 of tasks that create different value,

00:03:00.500 and there's this thing called the effective hourly rate,

00:03:03.000 which I talk about in that training,

00:03:04.420 I'm not gonna get into it,

00:03:05.760 then we have the opportunity to understand

00:03:07.940 where are we spending our time

00:03:09.340 in regards to tactical versus strategic initiatives, okay?

00:03:13.440 So here's what I want you to do, it's called a time study.

00:03:15.320 For the past two weeks, or for two weeks going forward,

00:03:18.660 you're gonna review the past two weeks,

00:03:19.860 is I want you to write down every 15 minutes

00:03:21.900 exactly what you were doing.

00:03:23.640 If you were talking to a client, talking to a team member,

00:03:26.200 working on receivables, working on code,

00:03:29.500 marketing initiatives, you name it,

00:03:30.980 I want you to, every 15 minutes,

00:03:32.380 it has to be done physically in a book.

00:03:34.140 This is what I do with my team when they're like,

00:03:35.740 I'm overwhelmed, I don't know what to do.

00:03:37.820 Time study, and they sit there with their journal

00:03:40.520 and they log it.

00:03:41.940 Here's what's cool, is that will give you

00:03:45.020 the data points that you need to actually decide

00:03:48.620 where you should spend your time.

00:03:49.520 because here's what happens is most people make the mistakes

00:03:52.520 of keep hiring new people to solve problems in their business

00:03:56.260 or to build more stuff, which just adds more to you

00:03:58.920 as the entrepreneur, as the founder.

00:04:00.740 What we wanna do is hire people,

00:04:02.740 totally different distinction, check it out.

00:04:04.600 One, hire people, team gets bigger.

00:04:07.000 You have more stuff to do.

00:04:08.480 My approach, hire people to buy back time, okay?

00:04:12.180 It sounds subtle, but it'll change your life.

00:04:14.980 You wanna hire people that are gonna take things

00:04:17.440 off of your calendar to free up your time

00:04:19.800 to work on things that are more impactful

00:04:21.940 that you are uniquely qualified to do.

00:04:24.380 $10 task, eventually $100 task,

00:04:26.380 should not be done by the founder and CEO

00:04:28.780 because you have to think about vision,

00:04:31.420 money, culture, hiring, et cetera, okay?

00:04:35.060 So time study is number one.

00:04:37.060 Number two, hire an assistant. 1.00

00:04:39.200 Here's the deal, okay, if you're watching this video

00:04:41.000 and you're asking me who do you need to hire next

00:04:42.700 and you don't have an assistant, guess what?

00:04:44.060 You do have an assistant, it is you.

00:04:47.000 And there is nothing wrong.

00:04:48.420 I think the perfect EA is one of the most valuable team members in the company.

00:04:54.860 Literally, I've been blessed to have several over the years,

00:04:58.600 but my assistant is one of the most important people in my life

00:05:02.380 because not only do they take care of me

00:05:04.800 and ensure that I'm working on the most valuable things,

00:05:07.920 they're making sure that everybody else that I interact with,

00:05:10.240 that they know I care about are also being taken care of

00:05:12.740 and communicating with them so that they have what they need,

00:05:15.560 you know, personal and professional to move things forward.

00:05:18.200 So here's the test, okay?

00:05:20.740 If you have an assistant, but they do not manage

00:05:24.300 100% of the incoming emails that come in your inbox

00:05:27.580 and manage 100% of your calendar entries,

00:05:30.440 they're the person entering stuff or working with

00:05:33.120 whatever tool to get stuff added to your calendar.

00:05:35.820 If those things are not true, then you don't have

00:05:37.440 an assistant the way I think about it.

00:05:39.320 And for leverage, from a time point of view,

00:05:41.680 from an investment point of view,

00:05:43.020 There is no better next hire for you

00:05:45.720 than getting somebody on your team

00:05:48.360 that can buy back literally, for many of you,

00:05:50.800 30 to 40 hours a week of things

00:05:53.660 that you shouldn't be doing, okay?

00:05:55.500 And if you're worried about training them

00:05:56.860 and worried about control, there is a process

00:05:59.060 that if you search how to hire assistant, manage assistant,

00:06:01.100 I've done videos on this,

00:06:02.600 but an assistant is probably your next big hire.

00:06:05.540 Number three, the one thing.

00:06:07.940 So every company has, no matter where you wanna grow,

00:06:12.480 what you wanna do next, there's probably one thing

00:06:14.920 that needs to be done to get things moving forward

00:06:18.760 and I believe that that's where you should stay

00:06:21.520 in regards to your commitment to the business.

00:06:23.620 So whatever that one thing is,

00:06:27.200 you should own that because you're the founder.

00:06:29.200 It is the most critical.

00:06:30.100 For many of you guys, it's lead generation.

00:06:31.740 Some of you guys, it's sales.

00:06:32.840 Other of you, it's product design.

00:06:34.100 But whatever that is, I want you to give yourself

00:06:36.100 permission to own that and look around other areas

00:06:39.380 of your day and your work life that you do

00:06:41.740 that somebody else could do for you

00:06:43.400 to give you more time to deal with that critical next step.

00:06:46.620 So it's very important that you understand your numbers,

00:06:49.080 your metrics, the performance, your funnels,

00:06:51.920 to see where that one thing is.

00:06:53.680 Where is that force multiplier

00:06:56.820 that if I invested the time and energy

00:06:58.720 could have a geometric impact to my growth in the business?

00:07:02.620 That is the opportunity.

00:07:04.700 So if you don't know what that one thing is,

00:07:06.600 do the analysis, look at the data,

00:07:08.940 look at where you wanna go and ask yourself,

00:07:10.640 What is the one thing we need to get right

00:07:12.580 to move the business?

00:07:13.700 Keep that and look around that area

00:07:16.880 to who you could hire to free up some time.

00:07:19.380 That's another step, okay?

00:07:21.680 Number four, avoid pain, okay?

00:07:24.320 So who you should hire next.

00:07:26.060 So one, you could definitely hire somebody

00:07:28.320 to help you take stuff off so you can do the one thing.

00:07:30.800 The other thing is anywhere that you are doing work

00:07:34.020 that you don't enjoy doing.

00:07:35.260 Here's what I've learned a long time ago

00:07:36.900 is entrepreneurs will not grow themselves into pain.

00:07:39.740 What does that mean?

00:07:41.140 If you are doing the delivery side of the business,

00:07:44.280 you know, delivering customer success

00:07:46.240 or client enrollments or whatever it is,

00:07:48.640 onboarding customers and you're also selling,

00:07:51.220 you will actually sabotage selling and marketing

00:07:54.120 because every time you sell a new customer,

00:07:56.760 it creates pain on the delivery side of the business

00:07:59.560 and if you're doing both, then you'll avoid it.

00:08:02.520 You won't even realize you're doing this.

00:08:04.160 Isn't this crazy?

00:08:05.000 You could actually be holding back,

00:08:06.440 taking your foot off the gas.

00:08:07.700 You have opportunity and growth.

00:08:09.040 You get an email from a potential partner who wants to

00:08:10.700 triple your business next year but you don't even reply to

00:08:13.280 the email and you don't even know you're doing this but I

00:08:15.280 know because you're not wanting to feel that pain on the

00:08:19.580 delivery side.

00:08:20.280 So here's the deal, if you know that's true for you,

00:08:23.280 wherever that is, if it's sales, if it's on, you know,

00:08:27.720 customer success or delivering the product or writing code,

00:08:30.260 you want to get somebody to take that over as fast as

00:08:33.260 possible because you will not grow into pain.

00:08:36.460 You will not want to grow and you don't even know it.

00:08:40.000 So you need to hire somebody to take that pain

00:08:42.340 off of your calendar so that you can keep moving forward.

00:08:46.240 Number five, value and energy.

00:08:48.740 So this is the last filter that I'm gonna,

00:08:50.640 cause I can't tell you exactly like,

00:08:52.140 if you're here you need to hire this.

00:08:53.540 It's subjective to who you are,

00:08:55.320 how you wanna build your business,

00:08:56.720 how you show up in your business.

00:08:57.720 But here's what I'm gonna say is,

00:08:58.620 everything I've said so far will give you criteria

00:09:01.520 understanding who that next key hire is

00:09:04.220 and do it in a way that won't feel like you're losing control

00:09:07.560 because it's not too big of a decision.

00:09:09.720 But here's the other one, is anything that creates

00:09:12.800 a ton of value for the business,

00:09:14.760 and here's the other criteria, and brings you energy,

00:09:18.500 you wanna keep that on your plate.

00:09:20.500 I can't tell you how often founders pivot themselves

00:09:24.980 or hire themselves out of an area of joy,

00:09:27.640 of energy, of passion from the business

00:09:29.420 because they were told like,

00:09:30.480 okay, I need to hire a VP of product

00:09:32.220 or I need to hire a VP of marketing

00:09:33.820 I need to hire, whatever it is, VP of sales,

00:09:35.960 and you actually love that part of the business,

00:09:39.300 I would much rather suggest,

00:09:40.920 and this is what I do for my clients,

00:09:42.360 is you keep that and hire somebody to run other stuff.

00:09:45.860 So that's why I think, you know,

00:09:47.500 when you look at Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook,

00:09:50.400 he hired Sheryl to run the business

00:09:52.280 because it was sucking energy out of him

00:09:54.400 and he knew that he loved the innovation side,

00:09:56.440 the deal side, the product side,

00:09:58.780 and he needed to create more space in his calendar

00:10:00.540 to be able to do that.

00:10:01.380 He couldn't be the guy running the meetings.

00:10:03.080 So it's very, there's a chance that if you enjoy

00:10:06.540 a different area of the business,

00:10:07.960 instead of hiring somebody to take that over,

00:10:09.680 you keep it, hire somebody else that could fill the gap

00:10:12.700 of what you're not doing that you should be doing

00:10:14.380 around vision, money, and people, you know,

00:10:17.440 and have that person deal with that so that you could do it

00:10:19.640 because I'm telling you, if when you wake up on Monday,

00:10:23.800 you're loving to run to work and the work you get to do

00:10:26.060 creates a ton of value for the business

00:10:27.460 and brings you a lot of energy,

00:10:29.640 you reduce the risk of what typically kills companies,

00:10:32.640 which is the founder falls out of love,

00:10:34.580 the founder gets frustrated, the founder gets bored,

00:10:36.980 the founder, whatever it is,

00:10:39.020 because they haven't structured their day

00:10:40.960 to create that level of value and energy.

00:10:43.200 So look at that for you

00:10:44.540 and make sure you don't make the mistake

00:10:45.900 of actually hiring somebody to replace that

00:10:47.720 and then your day just becomes bland.

00:10:50.220 So quick recap, how to decide who to hire next

00:10:52.540 to unlock growth within your business

00:10:54.340 without losing control.

00:10:55.700 Number one, time study.

00:10:57.460 Figure out where your time's going, buy back some time.

00:10:59.760 Two, hire an assistant.

00:11:01.380 make sure that they have access to 100% of your email

00:11:04.140 and your calendar.

00:11:05.220 Number three, one thing, where is the growth opportunity?

00:11:09.260 Lean into that.

00:11:10.320 Four, you will not grow yourself into pain,

00:11:12.960 so you gotta avoid pain.

00:11:13.960 And five, focus on things that create value

00:11:16.260 and bring you a lot of energy.

00:11:18.660 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:11:20.240 I wanna share with you my playbooks templates.

00:11:22.740 If you're wondering how to systematize, document,

00:11:25.640 and create structure in your business,

00:11:27.140 these are the Google Doc templates that I use

00:11:29.680 to build and scale my playbooks, my business playbooks.

00:11:32.540 You can click the link below to download a copy of that for

00:11:35.680 yourself and if you think there's anybody this video can

00:11:37.980 serve, feel free to share it with them directly.

00:11:39.620 Smash that like button.

00:11:40.760 Subscribe to my channel and as per usual, I want to challenge

00:11:44.020 you to live a bigger life and a bigger business and I'll see

00:11:46.660 you next Monday.

00:11:48.660 Test, test, test.

00:11:49.400 Yo, what's up?

00:11:50.200 Everything good?

00:11:50.960 Yeah.

Dan Martell - April 27, 2020

Who Should You Hire Next

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