Dan Martell - Why Social Responsibility Is Important For Any Successful Business with Jason Atkins @ 360insights

00:00:00.120 360 will never fail.

00:00:01.760 One, because I'm determined as hell

00:00:03.800 and I will never let it fail.

00:00:05.340 Two is because like, if it failed here

00:00:07.380 and I only had employees in North America,

00:00:08.860 we'd all be on unemployment

00:00:09.920 and we would still be able to have a house

00:00:11.700 and eat food everywhere.

00:00:12.700 In Haiti, they have nothing. 0.99

00:00:27.380 Boom, Jason, welcome to the show, man.

00:00:29.440 Thank you, Dan.

00:00:29.900 This is fun.

00:00:30.460 Jason, you're one of my good friends.

00:00:32.240 We know each other very well,

00:00:33.580 so we can go all over the place through this conversation.

00:00:35.800 Oh, well?

00:00:36.520 Very well.

00:00:37.900 Wow.

00:00:39.820 I had a whole, like, my whole brain just went through

00:00:42.540 all this stuff Jason could bring up,

00:00:44.140 and then I thought of the video at the last trip,

00:00:46.280 and I was like, uh-oh.

00:00:48.860 Anyway, this is about you, not me.

00:00:50.420 Anyway, so you're the founder of 360 Insights.

00:00:54.460 I am.

00:00:54.980 Serial entrepreneur.

00:00:56.820 Hardest working person I've ever seen.

00:00:58.540 Dude, it's impressive.

00:00:59.440 cultures, world class

00:01:01.820 you know business

00:01:03.960 and just like drive

00:01:05.280 and the giving side as you know

00:01:07.660 we actually got to

00:01:09.400 bring the family down to Haiti with you and

00:01:11.820 Brenda and the kids to go visit your work

00:01:13.800 that you've been doing there which has been incredibly inspiring

00:01:16.080 which most people don't

00:01:17.900 do like when you invite someone to Haiti

00:01:19.420 they're like yeah sure

00:01:21.140 and that's what's funny I remember the day we were

00:01:23.800 like wow we've invited so many people

00:01:25.820 nobody's actually taking us up on it I was like

00:01:27.480 dan's like i'm coming and i'm bringing my family and my boys yeah and they were like four and five

00:01:32.680 at the time yeah um but i mean dude just like what you do but for everybody listening talk

00:01:39.240 about 360 insights kind of size of the business it is today number of employees customers that

00:01:43.320 kind of thing yeah so 360 uh about 600 people uh manage about three and a half billion dollars

00:01:51.880 for large brands, uh, like Samsung, Sony, LG, Whirlpool, Electrolux. Um, yeah, lots of big

00:01:59.320 brands. And, um, yeah, we have offices. Whippy Ontario. Whippy Ontario's headquarters. 125,000

00:02:05.660 population. I saw the sign when I ran by it this morning. Yeah. Yeah. And we have, uh, like 300

00:02:10.640 people in Whippy. Damn. Yeah. And then we have offices in, uh, Moncton, which just opened up 0.99

00:02:16.200 Moncton. Yeah. I thought you were joking when you messaged me like, yeah, we're going to open

00:02:19.620 up a call center. I'm like, yeah, right. Well, you're connecting with the mayor. It was really

00:02:23.600 important. You know, I try to do what I can for economic development, you know, I'll do a whole

00:02:28.320 lot. So then we have Chicago, Detroit, Boston, London, England, and then Haiti, which you 0.72

00:02:34.380 visited in Haiti, which has like 130 people. That's crazy. And the work in Haiti specifically,

00:02:40.940 because I really want to dive into the, you know, the impact side of your world, because I love the

00:02:47.320 way you've integrated both the business and the personal side um what's the like the work that

00:02:52.260 you provide there uh which is predominantly data entry i'm assuming and yeah claim processing

00:02:57.500 processing like what's the like because i met a lot of these these the workers yeah um their life

00:03:04.240 would look dramatically different if they weren't working with you like what's the pay scale

00:03:08.300 difference like yeah i mean in haiti i'll give a little context to haiti because like how we got

00:03:12.840 there why we do it and then what impact it's had yeah um so uh lila janna um uh who we both know

00:03:21.280 uh who's uh his past um was the the person who really put me onto this concept of source

00:03:26.780 digital work and and what it was actually i was on uh facebook uh in like november 2012

00:03:35.000 we had a hard time staffing people to do data entry in north america both u.s and canada

00:03:40.100 and a friend of mine's like,

00:03:41.800 Jay, you always talk about

00:03:43.120 leveraging your company to do good.

00:03:45.420 You do tons of stuff yourself,

00:03:47.960 but you can only do so much

00:03:49.160 when you're a person.

00:03:50.160 But if you build a little army around it,

00:03:51.560 you can do so much more.

00:03:52.880 And they're like,

00:03:53.340 you've got this problem with data entry.

00:03:54.740 Why don't you try to bring it

00:03:56.060 somewhere where there's opportunity?

00:03:57.100 And I was like, that's amazing.

00:03:58.460 I don't even know where to start.

00:03:59.500 So of course, what you do,

00:04:00.280 you go to Facebook.

00:04:00.840 I'm like, anybody know anything

00:04:02.080 about doing digital work around the world?

00:04:04.320 And Mike Walsh, good friend of mine,

00:04:07.380 uh um uh says hey do you know you're part of at the time part of summit series and she's like

00:04:12.800 have you ever met lila at summit series and i'm like i haven't but please intro introduce me

00:04:17.700 started doing work in kenya challenging kenya's time change um so googled poorest country western

00:04:23.540 hemisphere in december of 2012 haiti is the result hopefully it's still not but i'm sure it still is

00:04:28.380 um haiti comes up and uh i messaged lila said i'm going to haiti she's like you're crazy like

00:04:32.900 we've tried haiti it doesn't work in haiti really she'd already been they tried to do it once in

00:04:36.780 haiti before and i was like well first of all don't tell me no because that means yes like

00:04:41.140 now i want to do it even more and uh hot stove so i'm like i'm going so the following week i booked

00:04:46.880 a flight went to haiti and met duquesne who you've met who's one of my greatest friends what a ball

00:04:51.280 of energy oh my gosh and like so so focused on making impact in this country so you met duquesne

00:04:56.680 your first trip very first you didn't meet him i may not be there i mean that's real talk yeah

00:05:01.540 may not be there like i mean the guy literally navigates helps people understand what they're

00:05:06.300 getting into what to avoid and and salt of the earth guy you know like uh selfless yeah man do

00:05:12.580 you yeah i could go what he goes through for what he does yeah to hate even like unbelievable and

00:05:20.760 yeah so we started there it started i was like i love him fell in love with him and his family

00:05:24.340 they have a little technical school i was like give me a room uh i'll renovate it and i'll make

00:05:28.240 it an office we hired 11 people uh we have 130 today and the crazy thing is is that we've had

00:05:33.800 maybe two people in seven years leave. So like retention is insane. Quality is unbelievable.

00:05:39.020 It's like they crush everywhere because they're so focused. But what we've seen is we, I laugh when

00:05:43.660 I go there now, when I used to go there, there's like parking lots dead. You know, everybody's

00:05:48.080 taking tap-taps, which is their public transport, you know, to the office every day. Now it's full.

00:05:52.420 There's not room for cars. Everybody has a car. Everybody has a house.

00:05:56.380 Everybody upgraded their lives.

00:05:57.800 Yeah. So it's like, you've taken all these people, you know, that didn't have money for food or

00:06:02.300 housing or transportation and now they have their middle class middle class you know like doesn't

00:06:07.360 exist in haiti because i think most of the people say middle class pretty much lives in the u.s yeah

00:06:11.720 because they support the brain drain yeah 85 of all haitians leave the country that are educated 0.98

00:06:16.920 yeah like think like 85 leave the country that are educated and what i found fascinating being

00:06:22.520 there is that most of these workers are supporting i think on average seven family members or seven

00:06:28.800 families what's the yeah like they're so what they say in haiti the rule in haiti is if you

00:06:33.380 have a job because unemployment rates like 66 if you have a job you support 10 people

00:06:38.640 if you have a job and our jobs um uh pay on average uh 10 times more than the normal jobs

00:06:47.780 out there so you could in theory say that our jobs like support like 100 people you know because

00:06:53.020 what they're getting paid and what they're doing and you see it like every day when we're there

00:06:56.820 Like, they're, you know, we have a bunch of people where their parents don't have to work now because their children are able to support them.

00:07:04.140 Their siblings are all in school now because they're able to support the education of them.

00:07:09.780 And so it's unbelievable the impact that we've been able to do there.

00:07:13.860 And, you know, I'm thankful every day when I go there and I see them and how appreciative they are of it.

00:07:19.180 And I always say, like, it's crazy here.

00:07:21.280 I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but, like, when snow comes in, people are like, I got to work from home.

00:07:24.720 There's, like, snowstorm coming through.

00:07:26.020 you know in Haiti it's like there is like a hurricane coming over and I'll get a text message

00:07:30.100 to be like okay I have the storm is coming over in 15 minutes that's our gap we're gonna go offline

00:07:35.160 for 15 minutes back online in 30 minutes like nobody's going home nobody's like because they're

00:07:40.900 just their tenacity to to deliver committed and they're so committed because they know like I

00:07:45.840 always say to people like 360 will never fail one because I'm determined as hell and I will never

00:07:51.120 let it fail two is because like if it failed here and I only had pull employees in North America we

00:07:55.580 all be on unemployment and we would still be able to have a house and eat food in haiti

00:07:59.800 they have nothing like they will be on streets you know your why is strong and so it's like for

00:08:06.160 me and i remember like a long time ago um i was talking with like winter regime arcade fire we're

00:08:11.320 talking about i wasn't in haiti during the earthquake they were already doing work in haiti

00:08:15.280 and i was like you know it's on stage with when talking about it and i was like when like what

00:08:19.460 happened when that earthquake happened he's like we reached out to our manager and we're like

00:08:23.240 because they give a dollar per ticket to Haiti, right?

00:08:25.240 And he's like, any show you can book us, book us.

00:08:28.760 Like if it's 100 people, 500 people, 1,000 people, 10,000,

00:08:33.360 book us up, fill our calendar

00:08:34.900 because we're sending money to Haiti.

00:08:36.700 And I'm like, the drive that it gives you

00:08:39.240 when you see the good you're able to do,

00:08:42.040 you know, it's unbelievable.

00:08:42.960 And they've done great things.

00:08:43.880 We do a lot with them there,

00:08:44.860 but you just see these people

00:08:46.280 and the opportunity is like, they're so appreciative.

00:08:49.180 So it's interesting because the benefit is clearly,

00:08:51.720 um, a, a bigger why than just solving the market problem. Yeah. Um, but I've also seen just the

00:08:58.420 impact it's had on your culture and the people, right? Like, you know, I brought my, my group of

00:09:03.520 clients that I coach, uh, I think about a year ago last May, uh, to come visit and just see like

00:09:08.600 the culture. I mean, it's, it's very reminiscent to like Zappos, but in Canada, I know you were

00:09:13.780 voted like best top place to work. Um, how, how much of that is your culture driven approach

00:09:21.240 versus the Haiti component

00:09:24.480 or even just like the other charities

00:09:25.960 that you support within the organization?

00:09:27.580 Like, is it one of the same?

00:09:29.140 Are they separate?

00:09:30.380 Yeah, I think it all intertwined.

00:09:32.200 Like what I always tell people

00:09:33.300 is that we are building a company.

00:09:35.500 Like one of our core commitments

00:09:36.500 is make a difference in the world.

00:09:37.940 You know, and I always say

00:09:38.720 we're building a company where we care.

00:09:40.820 And if you want to be part of 360,

00:09:42.420 you have to care.

00:09:43.560 You know, it's an important fabric.

00:09:45.000 And then it's not for everybody.

00:09:46.080 It's like all cultures actually, 0.92

00:09:47.300 like you should be able to figure out

00:09:48.160 the people coming to the door

00:09:48.940 and not going to the door.

00:09:49.320 You use it to hire and fire.

00:09:50.340 Hire and Fire.

00:09:52.020 You know, like you've met Travis a ton of times.

00:09:53.920 Yeah, amazing guy.

00:09:56.520 What's his title?

00:09:57.440 Is he just head of culture?

00:09:58.400 Culture Curator.

00:09:59.500 Culture Curator.

00:10:00.680 He curates the culture, you know?

00:10:01.980 It's amazing.

00:10:02.580 He is amazing.

00:10:03.280 He's like the culture whisperer.

00:10:04.020 And like we bring him to like, we bring him to sales meetings.

00:10:06.380 Like they always say like we support large brands and we're like,

00:10:09.220 so how many people that you met brought their culture curator?

00:10:12.380 We brought him here because he's responsible for the experience that our team gets.

00:10:16.280 And the experience that our team gets is the experience that your customers get.

00:10:19.640 because you guys essentially support your big brands to deliver an experience to their customers

00:10:25.200 yeah exactly and i remember you telling me that um one of your like closing moves is essentially

00:10:30.460 bringing some of these deals to would be 100 walking them around yep why is that how does

00:10:37.100 that materialize into infectious like people want to work with people that they like you know if you

00:10:41.580 got you've been to 360 before like walk around for the monday was it the monday meeting or

00:10:45.380 Friday. I don't know what day it was, but it was like

00:10:47.600 you guys. I thought you threw us a party,

00:10:49.780 but I guess that's what you do. We do huddles every

00:10:51.680 day. Yeah. So you're there for a huddle. But it was like

00:10:53.500 the new person one. Like the first time I came, it was

00:10:55.680 like, you're like, all right, Dan, it's going off

00:10:57.700 and all I heard, I think it was like in the bathroom and all

00:10:59.600 I heard was like, he likes long

00:11:01.700 walks on the beach.

00:11:03.340 He's a tech nerd by her.

00:11:05.100 And then I like come out and there's

00:11:07.540 like high fives and cheering.

00:11:09.960 Yeah. And that's just

00:11:11.420 like one of so many different things that you

00:11:13.600 guys do but like we still thinks from everyone is you know who i got that from was um uh so jack

00:11:18.220 daily is like your first day at work yeah but that's what jack said to me he goes most companies

00:11:23.380 celebrate when people leave what is wrong with that when you retire yeah you're done he's like

00:11:29.540 you celebrate the day they came i remember the first time there's like jack jack from accounting

00:11:34.860 she's like he's just like what's going on you know never high-fived another human being in his life

00:11:39.700 And now, you know, it was just like the energy.

00:11:42.760 I think Travis was there kind of,

00:11:44.340 and then another lady screaming through the megaphone, Christy. 1.00

00:11:46.580 She's always screaming.

00:11:47.500 I mean, and then the name tags on the roof.

00:11:50.420 Like when you look at, you know,

00:11:52.680 for those that are fascinated around the culture side,

00:11:55.740 do you guys have like critical things

00:11:57.540 that you think are important?

00:11:58.840 I know you guys have like, what are the teams called?

00:12:02.920 Houses.

00:12:03.460 Houses, yeah, just like Harry Potter, buddy.

00:12:05.140 Harry Potter.

00:12:05.860 And it's just a breakdown,

00:12:07.240 to break down the walls between the departments.

00:12:08.860 you know so what we do is we have we have a culture ambassadors that get

00:12:12.220 voted in every year just like student council yeah and we started that years

00:12:16.900 I mean the culture really started from I wanted to build a place where I wanted

00:12:19.480 to go every day and I had a good friend Todd Skinner who was hired him to be in

00:12:25.420 sales like two weeks in he's like nobody's talked to me he's like employee

00:12:29.140 12 or something like that he's like it feels like you talk this one a culture

00:12:32.260 but I'm like you know what's amazing is that's your job now so I made him chief

00:12:35.560 You pretty much are like, I love that idea.

00:12:37.980 You're now in charge of that.

00:12:39.360 Rule one of running a business is empowering people.

00:12:41.920 And the one that says it,

00:12:44.240 they're the ones that have an opinion about it.

00:12:45.840 Let them do it.

00:12:46.800 A hundred percent.

00:12:48.280 So he became chief of staff.

00:12:50.020 That's a really good idea.

00:12:51.460 And Todd, one of the people that impacted me in life, passed.

00:12:56.920 Remember that.

00:12:57.500 You guys do an annual workout for Todd.

00:12:58.960 Yeah, Todd Watt every year.

00:13:01.100 And so Todd passed, and we were trying to figure out how do you live,

00:13:04.460 how do you carry like that what that guy brought like he was focused on how do you make people

00:13:09.520 achieve the things they never thought was possible that was like his his goal in life right so we're

00:13:14.060 like well it's too hard for a person but let's build a group of people so we created this culture

00:13:19.620 ambassadors from it to you know and and so they get voted in uh uh every year on the day he was

00:13:25.700 passed and they kind of carry the torch forward and um and they spend their time on figuring out

00:13:30.800 what are the things we can do to make it a better experience to connect people better to help

00:13:34.900 collaborate so houses came from that so houses was like j wheezy was on the team and she's like

00:13:40.200 harry potter has houses to connect people together and we have different departments we need to keep

00:13:45.200 so can somebody be in a different department on the same house yeah yeah it's all like so the idea

00:13:51.580 what are they what's their like um do they get together do they like collude to like so there's

00:13:56.980 stuff together? There's like, there's events that happen, right? And we try to put it around

00:14:01.360 everything. Like there's right now, we're going through security training. Like when you, the

00:14:04.840 first people to get security training done, get points for the houses, you know, like tomorrow's

00:14:08.620 Jersey day for, you know, for hockey. And they're like, whoever wears jerseys gets points. It's

00:14:13.900 all department. And then they, then every quarter you have a house winner and you have a huge party

00:14:17.800 for that, right? So you do a celebration, you bring in food. For the house winner. Exactly. For who

00:14:22.480 wins. And we, you know, do a big reveal every quarter. And it's just, how do you connect people

00:14:25.940 across the company because you don't always have somebody in finance working with somebody and so

00:14:30.020 no this is what blows my mind is like i i can't think of another company where people in different

00:14:36.420 like the engineering team and the accounting team are like there's a reason for them to connect yeah

00:14:42.100 right and and and you know so like you join and do you pick your house or they no it's drawn from

00:14:47.140 the shark hat so we draw from the shark and you get it and then we also like so the idea is like

00:14:51.780 that was one of the ones another one we did is we did clubs and one of my favorite things is

00:14:55.620 Uh, so you, anybody in the company can social clubs. Yeah. Yeah. Start a club and you get

00:15:00.520 $10 per person per month that shows up. What's the weirdest social club you guys got?

00:15:04.280 Not weird. I'm not going to say any because somebody else is going to listen to me like,

00:15:07.640 Oh, Jason's favorites. This one. What are, what are, I love you? Like the beer club,

00:15:12.520 the wine club, the cigar club. I see where your interest lies. Uh, there's like the running club.

00:15:18.740 I don't go to that one. That's close for other people. There's the outdoor club. You know,

00:15:24.400 there's like curling and baseball and like all these clubs that and is there a minimum amount

00:15:29.520 of members they need to keep 10 people okay yeah 10 10 people and you get the money okay right and

00:15:34.520 how much is it 10 bucks per member per month 10 bucks per member per whatever event you do right

00:15:39.260 okay what off the 100 bucks every okay so if you do once a month so you can even do like a coding

00:15:43.320 camp yeah club yeah whatever you want wow yeah but it's a connection i mean it's like you i mean

00:15:50.240 Wine club's a pretty big one.

00:15:51.440 But if you go to like the gym,

00:15:53.020 gym wine club.

00:15:53.900 I should ask you to rank over to the size.

00:15:55.580 There's like 60 or 70 people that show up to it.

00:15:58.780 They have a gym club.

00:15:59.820 No, no, no.

00:16:00.380 The wine club goes to the gym

00:16:01.360 because you need a space that big, right?

00:16:02.640 At the school.

00:16:03.820 What are they doing?

00:16:04.480 Taste testing?

00:16:05.040 Taste testing wine.

00:16:06.000 They're bringing people.

00:16:07.620 And you give them the space at your company.

00:16:09.920 We give them the space and the money.

00:16:11.560 Wow.

00:16:12.060 So they can drink during the day.

00:16:13.280 So I mean, how would you distill culture?

00:16:15.500 If you had to describe culture to another,

00:16:17.080 because I mean, you're such a staple in the city.

00:16:19.620 I'm sure people come all the time for tours and stuff.

00:16:22.540 What do you hope they take away as this is what culture means?

00:16:26.520 Culture is the way that people operate when you're not looking.

00:16:30.320 That's my view of it.

00:16:31.820 That's what I always tell people.

00:16:33.660 And that's why you want to build a great culture.

00:16:36.020 And there's different types of culture.

00:16:37.860 We have a culture of empathy, a culture of caring,

00:16:41.320 a culture where people want to do what's good for our customer

00:16:45.820 and do what's good for the other people within our company.

00:16:48.160 Like if you look at our core commitments,

00:16:49.680 unbelievable experience for a team.

00:16:50.180 Why do you call them commitments, not values?

00:16:52.060 We have values too.

00:16:53.100 Commitments are the higher arching thing.

00:16:55.920 And then values are how we actually deliver

00:16:57.760 on those commitments, right?

00:16:59.120 So you've got like, you know,

00:17:00.460 unbelievable experience for our clients,

00:17:02.100 unbelievable experience for our team

00:17:03.560 and to make a difference in the world.

00:17:04.900 That's our core commitment.

00:17:06.440 Those are three.

00:17:07.980 And then values, right?

00:17:09.220 We have like, don't find a fault, find a remedy,

00:17:11.040 like live in the possible, you know,

00:17:12.840 be a fountain, not a drain,

00:17:14.100 like give more than you take, right?

00:17:16.060 So those are values that help us deliver on our commitments.

00:17:19.620 Commitments, got it.

00:17:21.640 In regards to the connection part,

00:17:24.220 which I find fascinating,

00:17:26.740 do you feel like that's, is that a retention thing?

00:17:29.880 Is that a work ethic thing?

00:17:32.020 Like why is it important for people to feel connected?

00:17:35.700 If somebody called you into the problem,

00:17:37.500 who is the person you're gonna help?

00:17:38.980 The person you're connected to, right?

00:17:40.640 I mean, at the end of the day, 0.99

00:17:41.400 like shit happens every day. 0.99

00:17:43.220 You know, who are you gonna go to bat for, right? 0.99

00:17:45.260 So the more people you have connection for, the more people are going to be supportive of just solving problems.

00:17:51.440 There's not going to be like this attitude of like, that's call somebody else.

00:17:55.080 That's not my problem.

00:17:56.140 How do you ROI this?

00:17:57.260 Yeah.

00:17:57.520 So everybody's like, how do you ROI culture?

00:17:59.820 And I always say, well, if you look at a software company, typical churns, like 15%, 10%, whatever it is.

00:18:05.200 So you take whatever the churn is, you know, of a business and then you divide it by, you know, the spend you have on culture and you get an ROI, right?

00:18:13.100 So whatever your churn is, if you're doing nothing right now, that's your baseline.

00:18:17.500 $100 million company, churn should be $15 million.

00:18:20.300 I spend $2 million on culture.

00:18:22.960 You know, I got a 725% ROI on culture.

00:18:26.540 Yeah.

00:18:27.140 Right?

00:18:27.440 I mean, it's pretty simple when you think about it.

00:18:29.120 And at the end of the day, like, you know, we win deals because people come to our culture.

00:18:32.980 We keep deals because people come to our culture, right?

00:18:35.240 Clients come and visit.

00:18:36.420 Because, I mean, just employee turnover, like, to a customer, like, even they, relationships,

00:18:41.340 Like they've built a relationship with an account manager.

00:18:43.780 If that account manager bounces,

00:18:45.360 then when it's up for renewal,

00:18:46.280 it's like we should probably go to the market

00:18:47.840 and figure out what other options are

00:18:49.920 because I don't really have a connection anymore.

00:18:52.200 What if you built a company

00:18:53.400 where all the account managers have the same values

00:18:56.580 and deliver the same way

00:18:58.440 and treat customers the same way?

00:18:59.920 When Dan leaves, which is going to happen,

00:19:02.360 then Jason can step in.

00:19:05.460 And they're like, he operates the same way as Dan did.

00:19:08.080 He has the same values as Dan.

00:19:09.540 And I think that's what's important.

00:19:10.500 And it was like, you know, when companies come in, they build a relationship, clients build a relationship with somebody typically.

00:19:16.220 But you have to always hand that over.

00:19:17.620 Like a lot of times the first deals, I won the deals.

00:19:19.640 And then we had somebody else win the deals.

00:19:21.140 And then, but you're handing those customers to somebody else to take care of them.

00:19:23.800 That are operating at the same.

00:19:25.520 The same way, same value system, right?

00:19:27.540 If you're operating the same value system, then people are going to keep connected with you and your people.

00:19:30.980 How much of it is it you?

00:19:33.060 Because, you know, even last night we were flying in here watching you sitting down, doing work.

00:19:38.000 Everybody else had a seat.

00:19:39.280 You know what I mean?

00:19:39.740 like you can't a lot of it's from the top so like how much of it do you feel is about your

00:19:48.640 leadership style um versus created from the teams because i'm sure you guys allow them to i don't

00:19:55.480 know who created the commitments and the values but it sounds like there's a lot of collaboration

00:19:58.840 around that you know like there's got to be an alignment between jason executive leadership team

00:20:04.420 100 yeah i mean i think that there's you know the culture 360 wouldn't be the same if i wasn't there

00:20:09.300 uh and i think it's my responsibility to empower people uh to operate the way that i would want

00:20:14.700 to operate you know and so uh i do think it's really important and i think that it that's why

00:20:19.300 it's so important to hire and fire on that right like uh i hire my necks and commands based on

00:20:24.720 those those value systems right like who's gonna be ones like we just hired to bp people like she's 1.00

00:20:29.980 responsible to carry that torch that's trinda that's trinda you know and uh she's amazing and

00:20:35.740 And it's like all the people,

00:20:37.700 it's like you have to ensure

00:20:38.860 that you are hiring people

00:20:40.120 with the same value system as you

00:20:41.520 because everybody looks at

00:20:43.220 how the top operates

00:20:44.480 within the organization.

00:20:46.220 Why does Trinda share your office? 1.00

00:20:48.500 Is there a strategic reason to that?

00:20:50.200 Yeah, I mean,

00:20:50.640 what's the most important thing

00:20:51.400 in the company?

00:20:52.280 People.

00:20:52.540 That's crazy, dude.

00:20:53.400 It's literally Barb, your assistant,

00:20:56.040 and Trinda, and you.

00:20:57.160 In an office.

00:20:58.120 It's not the CFO,

00:20:59.260 which you talk to every morning, I guess,

00:21:01.180 like as he drives to work.

00:21:02.240 Yeah, as you heard the story.

00:21:03.320 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:03.780 But also look at the position of the office.

00:21:06.220 Most of the things they do in life are intentional.

00:21:07.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:08.080 So I'm at the door.

00:21:09.060 Yeah, right when you walk in, it's like...

00:21:10.600 And they're both behind me

00:21:11.480 and can see everything on my screen at all times.

00:21:13.260 Yeah.

00:21:13.880 Right?

00:21:14.340 Nothing to hide.

00:21:14.940 Nothing to hide.

00:21:15.740 Is that one of your core values, transparency, or...?

00:21:17.500 It's not, but I mean, it's like...

00:21:18.800 You don't have to have it if it's just who you are.

00:21:19.780 For me, that's one of the things.

00:21:20.860 Like, Barb has access to everything.

00:21:23.760 Yeah.

00:21:24.200 Like, she has access to all my accounts of everything.

00:21:26.760 Yeah.

00:21:26.900 She has access to all of my email.

00:21:28.580 She has access to all of my...

00:21:29.840 Everything, you know?

00:21:30.780 and to me that's just about to build and barb's my my ea and she's unbelievable uh to to build a 0.96

00:21:36.880 relationship you need a person that you trust right and it's like so how do you build trust

00:21:41.060 with your people person you put them in your office with you listen to my phone calls like

00:21:45.060 you know everything how many people do that not many i i didn't it just occurred to me today when

00:21:50.440 you're walking us around that that i was like it's not the the cfo or you know your exec it's

00:21:55.420 it's trinda um that's fascinating what i mean how do you deal with the firing then like how do you

00:22:02.840 deal with whatever you want to call it transitioning moving people to alumni like yeah things are not

00:22:08.880 going to go good i'm sure you've had moments in your business like if you don't don't mind sharing

00:22:13.020 like kind of you know if there was ever a system-wide outage or like some bad thing to happen

00:22:16.600 and how you stepped up or like how does that work yeah i mean i think that like the the core to

00:22:21.860 everything because people know that we'll always treat people with respect and take care of people

00:22:25.560 right um so how does that look so on every single time if we part ways to somebody you know whatever

00:22:32.100 the rules are okay like two weeks like we have four months severance six months severance well

00:22:36.420 depending how long you live in the company we'll take care of people you know and and i've always

00:22:40.760 believed in like we've done a bunch of acquisitions and in acquisitions you have to do consolidations

00:22:45.360 of team and movement and those are all really tough things the way you do it is through

00:22:49.300 transparency right so like we made a change and we have a team being moved

00:22:53.020 and you know we told them eight months before we made the move and we give them

00:22:56.140 a four-month package on the back end of that move you know and so how many

00:22:59.380 people get a 12-month notice you know that it's gonna be disrupted yeah and

00:23:04.720 that's the team even if even if I I hired you know and it's so I'm very very

00:23:10.240 into hiring firearm values higher VP sales recommendation for the chairman of

00:23:15.400 board 23 days later let the guy go paid him six months so but that's a tough decision like you

00:23:20.620 hire an executive you gotta tell your board you hired an executive especially if they supported

00:23:23.640 it yeah and it's like somebody they know yeah they recommended the guy quit his other thing

00:23:27.900 he probably was doing okay to come um and then you had to make that tough decision yeah so

00:23:33.260 i mean there's treating people fairly and then it sounds like this is you know giving people

00:23:38.580 four months like is there ever a point where it's just not good business to do that or how do you

00:23:45.280 or do you just think how you treat people when they're leaving is how people are going to feel

00:23:49.380 if they stay like i i i think that we we though it's a big world it's a small world and we're all

00:23:55.780 digitally connected and and you want to just i mean you want to take care of people not because

00:24:00.820 just the business ends which means like if you have a bad brand out there you can't hire whatever

00:24:04.380 but it's like i actually care about people like i don't i never want to put somebody in a position

00:24:08.540 where it's like they can't go pay their mortgage because they didn't fit it in our company like

00:24:12.400 the end of the day, it's our responsibility. We hired them. If you hire somebody, you have a

00:24:15.960 responsibility. That's important, you know? And so if you hire the person and you need to transition

00:24:20.860 them out, you take care of that person because you disrupted their life and you're going to

00:24:24.600 disrupt it. You made a mistake because you should have caught it. Yeah. And it's the same as when

00:24:29.140 we buy a company, we buy a company, we buy it and there's people there and we need to make a change.

00:24:33.780 It's our responsibility to take care of those people, right? To help them be successful in life,

00:24:38.800 not to kick them down you know and um what do you guys do to when you recruit like how do you

00:24:47.440 test values or like what's your process for recruiting to make sure that you don't make

00:24:52.280 those mistakes yeah so i can't tell you all the things because then everybody get around the

00:24:55.500 system but there is there is multiple pretty sure i'm not sure people that are watching this

00:25:00.300 yeah okay so so there's there's a ton of things that will happen like you've got the testing

00:25:05.900 to have the good ones will though now that i think of it they'll search okay jason ceo let's see if

00:25:09.580 you have a podcast oh and then yeah which is good yeah that'd be good i'd want that inside information

00:25:14.600 yeah like the fact that they went down that process to interview well i think would be

00:25:17.660 fascinating yeah so you apply to the company 24 hours congratulations next round you get sent a

00:25:22.880 assessment which so you even look at the timeline for application to response because that just

00:25:26.880 sets yeah i mean that's the trend right now is like one of her her things she's focused on this

00:25:30.380 is like a posting to hire, you know?

00:25:33.420 How fast posting to hire and interview to hire.

00:25:36.500 Like that's the funnel.

00:25:37.680 Yeah, like so she's-

00:25:38.600 Job posting online to fill the role.

00:25:40.500 You should treat it like sales and marketing, man.

00:25:42.080 Like you have top of the funnel.

00:25:43.200 How do you build the funnel?

00:25:44.200 Boom.

00:25:44.440 How do you-

00:25:44.900 I just hired a full-time,

00:25:46.160 well, part-time marketing recruiting coordinator

00:25:48.620 just because I wanted somebody dedicated to this.

00:25:51.520 Yeah.

00:25:52.160 I didn't think of going top funnel.

00:25:53.500 So posting to hire is the full funnel.

00:25:55.520 Yeah, posting to hire, right?

00:25:56.640 And so how do you build that funnel?

00:25:58.260 so then what's a automatically congratulations you get an assessment you can now get a character we

00:26:03.240 use pi as you know you do a character assessment to see how they line up is that first step that's

00:26:08.400 a very first step wow so you automate it so you don't have people have to deal with it right so

00:26:12.120 you're essentially doing a filter based on that then depending on role you might have a cognitive

00:26:15.200 thing so they have to do a video submission or no they don't do video we tried that a couple

00:26:19.180 times and then we decided not to do it well if you're doing pi i think but we do pi and then

00:26:23.800 we'll do cognitive for certain roles and then people will come in and they'll meet with different

00:26:27.700 people in the organization but but how they cognitive isn't like specific to a role how fast

00:26:31.820 you can learn yeah right how fast you can learn um and then they'll meet different people what do

00:26:36.820 you use for that the cognitive side pi has a tool oh does it yeah i just bought a license so i should

00:26:40.900 yeah yeah you should hopefully it comes with it i don't want to buy the add-on module

00:26:45.720 you have this thing he's like shit it's expansion revenue uh but yeah you're going to you're going 0.83

00:26:51.320 to you know then have them meet multiple people as they're in the office they're going to meet 0.99

00:26:54.880 people randomly in the office that aren't set to schedule meetings you know that's by design

00:26:59.720 and they like plant people that's so good and then like other candidates like this company's 0.96

00:27:05.180 bullshit it's like yeah me too how are you in the parking lot wow how are you in the parking lot 0.94

00:27:10.540 right like how do you treat uh front desk it's back to what you said culture is what people do 1.00

00:27:16.480 when nobody's looking culture is what people do when nobody's looking so how do you find out what

00:27:19.840 they're going to do when nobody's looking so i mean we're not great at it we're getting better

00:27:23.320 at it every day but like we for sure it's an important thing for us you gotta hire the right

00:27:26.980 people that's it i mean if you look at businesses like producing you know sales marketing but then

00:27:33.200 there's also like people to like demand fulfillment yeah and like if you can get the people part

00:27:37.940 figured out i mean i i would challenge anybody that if you have a if you have the right values

00:27:43.880 and attitude of a person you can teach them anything like yeah we've all learned stuff

00:27:47.060 right in life like if you if they want to learn something and they have a passion for it and they

00:27:51.440 or have the right attitude and value alignment,

00:27:53.560 you can teach them that.

00:27:54.420 Like, you know, we always talk about in our company,

00:27:56.000 now the farm team.

00:27:56.760 Like, we're a big enough company now.

00:27:57.860 What's our farm team?

00:27:58.580 How are we creating the farm team for different roles, right?

00:28:00.940 Farm team is kind of like,

00:28:02.220 I remember just as Steve Jobs talked about,

00:28:03.880 they're like 100 people.

00:28:05.060 He did these off-sites with like the 100 people

00:28:06.640 if he had to start Apple over again.

00:28:08.320 Is that like the farm team?

00:28:09.180 So we have like an extended leadership team,

00:28:11.340 like 50 people get together.

00:28:13.340 How do we help bring them up?

00:28:15.700 And then even every role in the company,

00:28:17.260 it's like, you know, we have a hard time hiring salespeople.

00:28:19.480 One of the hardest jobs in the world to hire, right?

00:28:21.440 So what do you do is you build a system when you hire your ADMs, how they move from ADMs to inside sales to outside sales.

00:28:26.600 So there's a career progression.

00:28:27.720 Career progressions in every role.

00:28:29.260 Give them education and training throughout all of it.

00:28:31.640 And some are going to make it through and some are going to stay where they are.

00:28:35.040 But I think that companies don't spend enough time hiring from within.

00:28:39.360 And you can't hire from within because Dan's a good guy and I want Dan to be hired within.

00:28:42.480 You've got to educate Dan.

00:28:43.320 You've got to give him opportunity.

00:28:44.520 You've got to train him.

00:28:45.080 You've got to coach him.

00:28:45.720 You've got to mentor him.

00:28:46.420 You've got to give him the outside education, right?

00:28:48.640 Because if we give him all that, then Dan will be successful.

00:28:51.040 Oh, by the way, if we invest in Dan, Dan's going to stay because we're the ones that helped him get from $40,000 a year to $125,000 a year.

00:29:00.560 Because of all of that, he's going to have a commitment to us.

00:29:03.860 Yeah.

00:29:04.120 It's funny.

00:29:04.500 I remember, I think it was Cameron.

00:29:05.600 Harold said, you know, somebody said to him, you know, what if I do all that training and then they leave?

00:29:10.560 And he's like, well, what if you do the training?

00:29:12.480 And they stay.

00:29:13.360 If you don't do the training, they stay.

00:29:14.160 Yeah, you don't stay.

00:29:14.900 It's like, yeah, you have a bunch of untrained people and they're sticking around.

00:29:18.400 Yeah.

00:29:18.580 because like that's the thing is a lot of the seat players are just going to hang out as long

00:29:21.260 as they can until somebody but it also goes back to philosophy in life like if like one of my

00:29:25.460 beliefs is that i'm put here to make the world a better place and how do you do that is to help

00:29:29.380 people so you should always be training people should always be coaching should always mentoring

00:29:33.220 should help everybody be better than they're there i should be better every day than i was

00:29:37.140 yesterday right like you know i every day i wake up i'm like what what did i learn yesterday and

00:29:41.680 what am i going to do today to make a difference right and if i can't answer those then i've done

00:29:45.600 something wrong we should learn every single day so you run a 600 person company and you're

00:29:49.580 incredibly active in the community um how do you too active yeah crazy active uh you know a couple

00:29:55.920 million bucks in angel investments and like accelerators like how do you prioritize like

00:30:03.880 what's your filter barb really is she like is she like but is no and this is good because i have i

00:30:09.780 have my team uh is she the one that kind of like is whispers in your ear and say you really got to

00:30:15.140 do this maybe not this thing or like how do you yeah yeah i mean barb for sure control calendar

00:30:20.140 and like the best thing to do is like never answer things on your calendar always let them answer

00:30:24.420 let barbara answer yes or no's because then people always go to her and then she came up my filter for 1.00

00:30:28.700 the nose which i think is important uh because there is always so much going on and the other

00:30:32.700 is like you know and i suck at this but it's like checking in with my wife all the time is you know

00:30:36.600 a challenging thing so barb sends uh brenda uh a weekly summary of like what's going on over the

00:30:42.060 next three weeks. I think you're the one that inspired me to have my assistant talk with Renee

00:30:45.860 every Friday. Yeah. On that purpose. Brenda, Brenda interviewed Barb and she helped make 0.99

00:30:51.120 the decision on who we're hiring. Yeah. Right. Because to me it was, it's super important. That

00:30:55.200 has to be a strong connection between the two because there's always so much going on. Like

00:30:58.860 sometimes like something will happen and like Barb will go pick up my kids from school if

00:31:02.760 needs to, right? Like, you know, and those are the things that like, and so, so that connection

00:31:07.040 between the two is really, really important. And that helps keep me grounded so that I can

00:31:11.440 get stuff done that i need to get done yeah um and i take on way too much all the time you know

00:31:16.100 and i know that but it's like i wake up every day and i'm like you know i i'm thankful to be here

00:31:22.180 i've had some people in my life that aren't here and i'm thankful to be todd my brother um you know

00:31:27.620 uh now you know um that so i should make every day the fullest right like squeezes much out of

00:31:34.000 which is horrible like i went to bed at 2 30 last night yeah he got up 6 30 today like that's my

00:31:38.180 normal day you know four hours in bed yeah you know not you still wear you still wear the ring

00:31:41.740 too i don't know why you do it so like so i wear the ring to hack my sleep and i like you know

00:31:48.980 94s okay he's gonna die i mean i think he had like a 27 or something like some low 40s and 50s

00:31:58.540 or is like i've never seen like somebody call call in the team we need to find out who this

00:32:04.440 individual is um yeah so i guess that's the byproduct of being over committed um in regards

00:32:11.140 to the impact though um like because it's it's it's it's the culture side but it's just who you

00:32:16.800 are um where does that drive come from yeah i so that's where i think that like i talked about it

00:32:24.380 um a while ago on offsite and i was saying like um my brother was a great guy uh always wanted

00:32:29.720 to help everybody was like getting counselor help the community all that stuff and then todd

00:32:34.320 and and uh and i think those two guys in my life it was like these are guys that focus all their 0.87

00:32:39.920 energy on helping others uh and at the time i was like an idiot more business i was like yeah i mean

00:32:45.760 i lived in ohio yeah you know i didn't see my brother for 90 days before he passed like you 0.82

00:32:51.040 know really shitty um or his kids or my kids probably um and you know i realized like all 0.57

00:32:57.120 i was trying to do is climb a corporate ladder and build like this wealth or whatever to do what 0.90

00:33:01.600 to die with it you can't die with your wealth yeah i can't take it with you can't take it with you

00:33:06.880 so since then i've just been like my responsibility in life is to do all the impact that i should have

00:33:11.440 done and they would have done so i got three people's impact to do you know and then i just

00:33:16.080 look at how do i build the systems and processes around me to to make that impact like i have a

00:33:20.400 company that has a ton of people at it and so you know we're like this group group in montreal called

00:33:25.440 company does amazing work in haiti and i was like well what if we just said we'll match uh if you

00:33:30.560 you give a dollar a week from your pay we'll match it it's like a coffee week we have 290 people in

00:33:36.560 the first four weeks signed up to give now 140 000 a year a year wow you want to talk about impact

00:33:45.100 that's impact so you can build the business and then do more good like you said earlier you said

00:33:53.800 like build build an army around it yeah you know and even um the accelerator we're in it's sponsored

00:33:59.380 by all your vendors essentially so it's like we pay you a lot of money you know support us yeah

00:34:06.140 yeah i just think it's yeah so i always everybody said to me like jay why are you still focused on

00:34:09.660 building a billion dollar company i'm like because at a million dollar company if i give one percent

00:34:15.640 it's nothing 10 grand yeah at a billion dollar company real money if i give one percent it's

00:34:21.660 real money yeah right it's 10 million dollars yeah and i'm like if i can do one percent of a

00:34:27.020 billion dollars every year every year i make real impact yeah you know and that's kind of what like

00:34:32.200 you know between 360 and myself uh and what we do and all of our people they're like we're well

00:34:38.080 over half a million dollars a year in impact yeah you know that's crazy yeah you know and and uh

00:34:43.240 you know and that's grown from 10 years ago i probably gave 15 grand a year now i'm a half a

00:34:49.820 million dollars a year and i'm going to be a million dollars and to me i i just i feel because

00:34:54.500 i've been around it i've seen i've traveled with you i mean it's just what you do it's who you are

00:34:58.140 the why behind that i'm sure pulls you through those tough times absolutely you know i mean it

00:35:03.880 also adds a lot of stress to it like i just for me it's like you know like i said because of my

00:35:08.680 my brother because of todd it's like this driver when you start doing stuff in haiti it's like i

00:35:13.340 will never fail because i'll never those people they'll always need that yeah you know uh and but

00:35:18.760 that also is like why we've been successful is because of those things because you have that

00:35:23.100 driving force. When you look back, Jason, to like the last 15, how long have you been building

00:35:29.240 companies now? 15, 15 years ish forever. 97. Yeah. I mean, and you look at that journal

00:35:38.980 personally for you, who have you had to become to be the entrepreneur that gets to lead a 600

00:35:43.300 person company, building a billion dollar company? I had to become a student, you know,

00:35:48.620 like I had to find the person or people that were where I wanted to go and to learn. And when I was

00:35:56.120 young, I thought I knew everything. And I thought I could do everything. And what I've learned is

00:36:00.000 that life is about learning. And you got to spend the time at the feet of the people that have done

00:36:04.180 it. And that's the fastest way to learn. And you got to empower people like people naturally or

00:36:10.240 inherently are good. And you have to believe in that. And so to do that, you have to trust and

00:36:17.660 higher and create values and and empower people to make decisions like i like i know jim estill's

00:36:24.380 like part of you know around with mastermind talks and stuff like that like he's one of my

00:36:27.660 very first mentors and like jim said to me like he's like how'd you learn anything in life and

00:36:32.200 i'm like i don't know and he's like how'd you learn to ride a bike you fell off right and so

00:36:36.740 one of his mantras which i love is fail fast fail often feel cheap right make decisions try stuff

00:36:43.220 and learn from it and move on we learn from failure cheap fast cheap we learn from failures

00:36:49.280 like that's that's we've all failed at stuff learn from it right but that's like before meeting Jim

00:36:55.780 I thought I knew everything and then I meet Jim and I'm like oh that's a really good nugget and

00:37:00.340 then you start to learn like holy crap a lot of people have lots of really good nuggets how do

00:37:03.720 you spend time learning those nuggets from people like I had you know David sounds early mentor my

00:37:08.400 now investor my company now my board but it was like I'd have quarterly dinners with David Stein

00:37:12.900 and i'd sit down and i'd sit down with him and i still would think i know a lot of stuff 0.99

00:37:16.700 and then he would challenge me on something i'd leave and i'm like god that guy idiot like he 0.99

00:37:20.760 doesn't know shit and then i'd be and then i'd like i'd try it and be like oh my god he was right 0.99

00:37:24.860 like next time i'm like you were right people will pay me annual in advance up front you know 0.94

00:37:28.940 like like really good nuggets that i would have said were impossible would come from those things

00:37:33.660 and then i just realized like spend a lot of time with people you know to up level your game that's

00:37:38.800 what life is about that's what business about become a learner become a learner jason atkins

00:37:43.420 man it's real honor everybody bud appreciate you yeah thanks for everything

Dan Martell - July 05, 2021

Why Social Responsibility Is Important For Any Successful Business with Jason Atkins @ 360insights

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