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Every year I make a podcast on the lessons and failures from the year before and every year it is my most listened to podcast

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And the wait is over.

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This is my lessons and failures from 2024

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To give you context on the companies that I own our average position at acquisition.com is just about 40%

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And the reason it's just about is because we have options.

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We have performance kickers things like that, but it's about 40%

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Our EBITDA growth meaning basically the profit of those companies in total

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went from just over 50 million to this year, we'll probably finish just under 100 million in EBITDA.

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So really good growth here for us.

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For back of napkin math, if you assume a 10x multiple on the

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valuation, the company in total and aggregate is over a billion dollars, probably pretty easily

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because the bigger the company is in general, the larger the multiple.

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Now, to be clear, I don't

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want to claim that until we have some sort of third party validation, but it was a very good

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year for acquisition.com.

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And so we'll likely cross $300 million in revenue up from $85 million

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in 2020.

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And so we have consistently grown year over year.

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And so this video is about what changed

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from $85 million in revenue to $300 plus.

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My first piece of advice is set fewer goals and do less

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long-term planning.

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Hear me out.

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The first big shift that I would say that's happened

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And over the last year has been, I have emphasized less and less long-term planning.

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And so this may sound contradictory to some of my content about being patient.

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And so I think the patience is about being able to figure out what you're going to do in the meantime as you pursue your long-term goals.

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And I think long-term goals are very important.

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But the obsession over the minutiae of how you're going to get there is, I believe, an act of mental masturbation.

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You try and create these massive projections that are based on hundreds of variables that in reality you just don't know what's going to happen.

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And so over time I've consistently trimmed and trimmed and trimmed our planning processes such that at this point I pretty much only care what we're going to do in the next 12 weeks.

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And beyond that we might have one target or two targets by the end of the year, but we're not going to dedicate a lot of resources to this.

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And this is somebody who's a big fan of preparation.

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But I've just found that it ended up being a huge waste of time, mostly because whenever I looked at the plans that I made the year before, one year later, I was like, man, half this stuff isn't even relevant anymore because of new changes in conditions.

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I will probably continue to lean more in this direction.

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And I think this has become a little bit more popularized by some of the CEOs like Jensen Huang, who, despite having NVIDIA over 30 plus years, has recently talked about how he basically doesn't do a lot of long term planning.

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Because fundamentally, you have things that you can do today and those are the things that you begin to allocate.

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Now, sometimes what you need to do today is work for something that's going to happen in the future, but you can only control what you do today.

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And so I've shifted more and more in terms of what will this change about our behavior and the rest of it I more or less toss out.

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The first thing is that we think that you're going to have this really neat line of how the growth is going to happen.

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But reality is very messy.

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And so what's likely going to happen is that you will flatline and then figure something out.

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And then you'll flatline and then figure something out and then flatline to figure something out.

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This is what it looks like if you were to zoom in on this little area here.

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If you were to zoom in here, it actually looks closer to what this is,

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which is you have the stagnation and then you have these improvements that occur and then increase revenue.

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Now, one of the things that's also shifted my perspective on how to plan is,

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let's say that we've got thing A, thing B, thing C, thing D, thing E that we need to do.

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Well, before this, I would try and, you know, diverse, you know, delegate each of these things to person one, person two, person three, person four, person five and so on.

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But I would say that that appears to me like I have not done my job because I need to do a better job prioritizing.

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One of these things is the most important.

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And if you can't decide what that is, then you are not doing your job.

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And you certainly can't expect your team to make that decision for you.

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And so I've had to look at this and say, if I could only pick one of these things and we only accomplish that thing,

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which of these would get us closer to our vision for what the company should be?

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Which ones would move us the furthest forward?

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Which of these is the biggest domino?

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And so what I've redone is I say, okay, A is actually the priority.

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I don't need to order B through C here.

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I don't need to worry about what order these are in.

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And then I will take 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5 and get all of these resources concentrated on solving A.

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and then what I found is that once you solve A with all those resources because everyone's aligned

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then all of a sudden B happens faster C happens faster D happens faster than trying to do them

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all at once and the reason I say this is because I tried the other way first and what ended up

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happening is I would have A B C D E and then by the end of the year you know A would be half done

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B would be you know half you know one third done C we hadn't tried D was no longer relevant E was

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no longer relevant.

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And so what ends up happening is that when you do it this other way, after you've

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accomplished A, what you might find is that if you have B, C, D, and E as your remaining options,

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you might figure out that actually these are now irrelevant.

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There was no point in allocating that

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effort originally.

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So the two people in your original scenario who are working on these,

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four and five, were basically doing wasted work because it's no longer a priority.

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Because once

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you accomplished A, basically all the variables change.

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The context of the entire business will

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change if it's truly a good priority, right?

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It means that it's going to make a big dent.

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And so if it does make a big dent, then it doesn't make sense to spend all of this time

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wasting on trying to plan out how D and E are going to work out because the whole scenario,

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all the players on the board and the rules will change.

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And so what happens is once you do hit A

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and that changes the paradigm, we change, we hit A, all of a sudden you might have F that becomes

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number one.

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So this is now the priority.

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And then you align yet again, those resources to making F

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come true.

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And part of the reason that solving problems this way, I think is more effective,

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is that because all of the rules change and the paradigm changes, so too do your resources.

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And so

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your original plan for how you were going to do D and E is based on today's resources and today's

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solutions.

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But in the future, once you've accomplished A and the paradigm changes,

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then all of a sudden F becomes the priority, but you have all the resources of a business

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that has now accomplished A.

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And so this further changes why I think long-term planning,

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it's good to have long-term goals, but the obsession around every single little task and

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item and who's going to do what, I think oftentimes is just a waste.

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So let's say that you ran an

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agency, right?

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So you do, you know, meta ads for small businesses, like a very typical business.

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So if that was your business, you might say, okay, we need to, you know, get more leads.

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So that means we're going to increase ads.

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Okay, that's one of the things we're going to,

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you know, increase show up rate because our show up rate sucks.

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So we're going to,

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we're going to try and fix that.

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We've got to hire, you know, a sales manager and whatever

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else, right?

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Like you've got your task.

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Now, if this was your objective, a good strategist says,

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given the resources I currently have, what one thing could I do that would make all of these

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problems disappear?

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Well, the good strategist would then say, well, if I had a brand and I

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invested in my brand, well, would that accomplish my leads thing?

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Yep.

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Now, I wouldn't have ads,

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but it would accomplish my problem of getting leads.

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Now, would show up rates be higher

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if I have a warm audience?

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Yes.

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Would my close rate be okay

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because everyone is being warmer?

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Probably.

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Now, you might have to still hire the sales manager,

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but you can see how the entire dynamic would change

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if only this were true.

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And so then it follows,

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okay, well, what are the resources required

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to make this happen?

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And if I know what those resources are

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and I have those resources available,

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then it would follow that I should do this one thing

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and then in so doing accomplish all of these other things as a consequence.

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And this is why, to be clear, if you're like, wait, well, they're just going to say build a better product

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because if you have a good product, you're not going to lose people, you're going to get word of mouth,

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you're going to have higher LTV, or they're just going to say, you know, Alex is just going to say build a good brand

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because if you build a good brand, then all these other problems go away.

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No shit.

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That's called leverage.

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And so you're like, no, no, no, I don't want to do the one thing that would solve all my problems.

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I want to try and solve each of my problems individually.

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Well, that's amazing for you and you should probably get that looked at.

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But the point is, is that a good strategist has to look at all available options,

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given the resources they have, and say, which one of these gets me the most?

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And fundamentally, that is leverage.

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Next up is the strongest force in all of business.

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And so I believe in this so thoroughly that there are only two concepts that are embedded within the acquisition.com logo.

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The first is this cross here, which is the supply and demand curve that exists in any market.

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The second part is why is this a triangle?

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The triangle is there to exist as a fulcrum for leverage.

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And so fundamentally, if you can have a supply-demand curve that is dramatically in your favor,

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that alone will dictate this.

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If you are the only person who sells this one thing and the entire world wants it,

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you are going to make a lot of money pretty much no matter what.

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It doesn't matter how good you are at marketing.

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It doesn't matter how good you are at sales.

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It doesn't matter how good you are at pricing.

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You're going to make a ton of money.

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And so I try to think, what are the fewest things that have to be true in order for me to win?

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And I would rather just get those things right.

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and then everything else can fall away.

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And so think about this in sequence.

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Supply-demand is the first and most important thing.

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As long as we have those things,

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then if you had that hypothetical example

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of the entire world wants something

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and you're the only one who does it,

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what's the next thing you would need?

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Which is leverage.

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You'd want to be able to get as much

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for the effort that you put in

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because you would get bottlenecked

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based on maybe your supply chain.

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You'd have other dependencies

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that would prevent you from capitalizing

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on the opportunity that the supply-demand curve

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has put in front of you.

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And so in a perfect world,

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you have all of that and unlimited leverage.

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And that allows you to maximally capitalize

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on opportunities.

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And that is why I designed the acquisition.com logo

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to exhibit those things.

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Now, the first piece here is understanding

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whether your business is supply or demand constrained.

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And so a supply constrained business, for example,

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is one that's like cleaning.

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Like cleaners often don't have a hard time

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finding other businesses or other homes to do cleaning for.

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A lot of people just don't want to

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do it.

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The issue they have is finding staff who can do the cleaning with them or for them.

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And

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so that means that your supply side of how you can deliver to the demand is usually the issue.

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And this happens a lot of times with what I would consider nuisance services.

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So services that people

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might know how to do, but just don't want to do.

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And so a different example of this in a

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professional setting would be like accounting firms.

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Accounting firms, a lot of people don't

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want to hire accountants.

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And for a big period of time in a lot of companies growth in the beginning,

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you don't have in-house accounting.

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And so having an out-of-house accountant, there's plenty of

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demand for them.

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The issue they have is recruiting really good accountants.

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Yet again, they are a

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supply-constrained business.

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Now, this works, again, with legal.

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It works with high-end consulting.

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Like, if you're a very good consultant in a niche, it's very, like, easy to get people to want to buy

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from you.

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Very hard to get other people to do what you can do because you're really good at this

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thing, right?

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And so, this is very typical in a lot of businesses, especially service.

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That would be

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supply-constrained businesses.

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And if that is the constraint, then what do we do to gain leverage

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over the constraint.

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And so this is where, okay, is there a way that we can build a community

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of accountants that we can then recruit from?

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Is there a way that we can create some sort of

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environment that attracts more cleaners?

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Can our compensation structure, can we have a referral

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system internally for our team or our employees?

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Because I know what a cleaner, I know what a

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legal person, I know what another consultant is worth to me, to my business in total gross profit

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per year.

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And why would I not be willing to pay 20% of that to somebody?

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Now, you might do that

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math and be like, holy cow, I make $250,000 a year per new lawyer who joins my firm.

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It'd probably

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be a lot more than that, honestly.

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In that case, then why would I be unwilling to spend $50,000

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to go and not only that, give that $50,000 to someone on my team for bringing another great

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lawyer in?

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And so this scales all the way up and all the way down based on the revenue that each

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of these high-end or supply-constrained employees provides the business.

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Now, those are supply-

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constrained businesses.

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And if you're in one of those, you need to recognize it because the real

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businesses you're in is attracting, hiring, training, managing, and incentivizing these

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people to perform.

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That's the real business because the demand kind of takes care of itself.

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Of course, you have to do the basics, but the real issue is going to be on the back end,

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not the front end.

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Now, let's flip the tables.

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There are some businesses that are demand-constrained.

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Now, demand-constrained businesses will be typically like e-commerce businesses.

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Oftentimes, software businesses, specifically B2B software businesses, can be demand-constrained.

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Typical consumer products.

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Weight loss, for example, is a very demand-constrained business.

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Now, this might sound wild to you, like, wait, I think so many people want to lose weight.

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Yeah, there's just even more people who supply it and so many different methods for doing it.

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Now, again, all of these things can shift, right?

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Supply and demand is a curve, like it can move, right?

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This is dynamic and this video exists in time and unfortunately the environments change.

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But anybody who's been in fitness would understand that getting customers is actually typically the hardest part.

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Finding trainers, not that hard.

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There's lots of people that like training and they'll even do it for free.

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Same thing with musicians.

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Like if you teach music classes, right, one of the difficulties there is attracting people who want to buy music lessons,

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but there's tons of people who play music and do it for free, right?

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And so the idea is which side of this curve are you on?

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And then whatever that side is, is asking yourself, how can I gain more leverage over this problem so that I can solve it at scale once and for all, rather than having to solve it continuously over and over and over again?

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So I'll give you an example.

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I had a company who came out that we were looking at, and they were a little bit on the smaller side, but they were a home services company.

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And so the issue they had is they were struggling to attract plumbers.

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One of the things that we put in place for the business was, well, what does a plumber bring in every year?

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And let's call it $400,000 in gross profit.

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Okay, so if you have a nut of $400,000 that you know you've got the demand for,

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they're turning away business because their phone's ringing too much and they can't even take it.

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It says you've got a $400,000 nut.

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What are you willing to pay one time to unlock $400,000 every year in gross profit?

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Well, if you were to think about that like an investment, right, which would be like,

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okay, I've got this stock that yields $400,000 in gross profit per year to me.

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What would I be willing to pay for it?

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And that's every year.

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Well, shoot, I'd be at least willing to pay $400,000 if it was a stock, right?

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That's 100% return because next year I'm going to make $400,000 too.

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Now, there is an element of risk that comes into the equation.

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What if the person leaves?

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What if they get fired?

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What if they're not good?

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All of those things.

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So those are for sure there, which means that we would then apply some sort of discount

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to account for that risk.

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But I think that one of the big misconceptions that business owners have is they're not willing to pay enough for talent that is the constraint of their business.

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Like right now, if you could get 10 more, like if you are in a supply-constrained business, if you could get 10 more of not star, just appropriately competent employees who could service the demand that you have, would that double or triple your business?

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If so, yes.

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What would you pay in order to double or triple your business?

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probably a lot more than it costs you to attract those people.

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Cool.

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Then what do we do?

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Well, the easiest thing is incentivize all the people in your existing workforce

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to go do that recruiting for you.

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Like too many business owners will give like a $1,000 referral bonus

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on something that makes $400,000 a year in gross profit.

301
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Well, that's dumb.

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If I can give $25,000 away or $50,000 away and I can get it solved in a month,

303
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then every month, because that $400,000 doesn't happen at once.

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It happens over this period of time.

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And so if I can actually solve the problem two months earlier, then that means I get to collect $35,000 for two more months of gross profit.

306
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Okay, so there is a time component of this.

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So maybe you can get the referral.

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Maybe it does take you six months instead of three.

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But you missed out on whatever that is, $105,000 in gross profit that you could have had had you just been willing to pay a little bit more.

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But still less overall.

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And you still get to keep that person for life.

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So you'll notice that I'm talking a lot about who in these examples.

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And, you know, it's one of those big, obvious, trite responses that everyone who is a senior entrepreneur or senior investor or Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs, they all say the same thing, which it's just about the people.

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Right.

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Bet on the jockey, not the horse.

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There's tons of isms in this world and everyone nods along.

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But the problem is that people don't have the context to understand the levels of talent that exist.

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And this is why these mistakes are so hard to bear.

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Because you have to have some sort of pattern recognition of having worked with, one, terrible people to know how to avoid them.

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And then secondarily, what star talent looks like.

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And sometimes it takes luck in the beginning.

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And then over time, you start recognizing what that looks like so that you can do it on purpose rather than on accident.

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And if you think about people as one of the highest leverage things you can do.

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So think about this as hypothetical.

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If your business had people who could do everything that currently exists and you could simply own it,

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that would mean that you could work zero and make almost the same amount that you do now.

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You'd only have to find someone who could do what you do.

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Like literally, just think about what you currently make.

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Think about what you currently do.

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If you could pay someone less than what you currently make in distributions to do 100% of what you currently do,

331
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you could feasibly retire at your current income level just with that one hire.

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The idea of getting really good people is still undervalued in the marketplace, which is why there's always an opportunity for people who know how to attract and retain the best talent.

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There's a reason that the most expensive companies in the world in the stock market are at war for talent.

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I think, I want to say like 18 months ago, one of the headlines of I think like the New York Times or something was the talent war.

335
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And the whole idea was just that it's an onslaught of signing bonuses and kumbaya and free lunch and all this stuff to try and attract the top talent.

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Because they know that the leverage of having somebody who's a 10x engineer or a 100x marketer for their business is always worth more than what they're going to pay the individual.

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And so they're just doing everything they can to get them.

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And this is me trying to translate that to you in terms of my emphasis over the last year or years that has yielded this outcome.

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If we're thinking about more or less in terms of my focus, this is one that I'm doing more of.

340
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I'm more focused on talent.

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I'm more focused on better people, fewer better people, and incentivizing them and incentivizing other people to bring them in.

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Yeah, and there's some semiconductor companies that are offering 3x salaries, their current salary, to poach people from one company to another because the cost of switching is obviously high.

343
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If they're making more money than you, you should look at what they're doing.

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So next point up for me is of the first 100 days this year, I took zero days off.

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And I bring this up because this is a very taboo topic.

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And I want to be clear.

347
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Do whatever you want.

348
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All right.

349
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I'm just saying that when I see the entrepreneurs who are obsessed with their work, they do better than people who aren't.

350
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And it's basically that their discretionary time that would go to hobbies, that would go to other things, basically all flows into this one thing.

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And so I'm going to paint a different picture for you.

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If I played video games all day and someone came up to me and said, hey, why don't you go outside?

353
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And I say, I don't want to go outside.

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I want to keep playing video games.

355
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The thing is, is that that person's making some moral judgment that I should do something that they have projected onto my life.

356
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Now, I'm a big believer in personal freedom,

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which is if you want to play video games every hour of every day until the day you die,

358
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that's your prerogative.

359
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It's not how I would want to live my life, but more power to you.

360
00:21:18.382 --> 00:21:20.820
If you have an outcome that you're optimizing towards,

361
00:21:21.181 --> 00:21:24.840
which would be financial wealth, which is kind of the point of my channel,

362
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the people who work the most tend to make the most money.

363
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And there's a number of reasons for that.

364
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So number one is you make more money when you work more because you have less time to spend it.

365
00:21:35.261 --> 00:21:37.600
That sounds obvious, but I think it's like kind of silly.

366
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If you work, you make more.

367
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If you stop working, you not only don't make, you also spend.

368
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So it's a negative to positive swing.

369
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It's actually disproportionate.

370
00:21:47.201 --> 00:21:52.959
The next thing is that a friend of mine messaged Elon about his vacation.

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He's like, hey, you should go on vacation or we should go here for vacation.

372
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And Elon's response was, I don't do vacations.

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And I was like, man, I love this guy.

374
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I bring this up yet again because I feel like the more you get in the game, the more addicted to the game you get.

375
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And I think that addiction is just a term that society uses for activities that people do that have negative consequences rather than simply things that you do on a regular basis.

376
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Well, I'm addicted to food because I do it every day.

377
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I'm addicted to sleep because I do it every day.

378
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I'm addicted to talking to Layla because I do it every day.

379
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And so it's just that addictions is when they decide that the outcome of that thing is somehow negative.

380
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But if the outcome of what I do helps more businesses grow and is something that I enjoy, why is this wrong?

381
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Big picture for me, we did end up doing one vacation in, we did two very bad vacations this year.

382
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One was in July 4th, which I ended up basically just traveling and then working the whole time.

383
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So I don't know if I would consider that a vacation.

384
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And then the other one, we went to truly do a vacation.

385
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And so this one was going to be two days.

386
00:22:54.862 --> 00:22:57.480
We got there and it was this beautiful luxury resort.

387
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and there's only 22 villas.

388
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It's like three or four people per villa,

389
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like very ritzy, whatever.

390
00:23:03.022 --> 00:23:04.920
And I look out on the patio of the villa

391
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that we have over the mountains

392
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and I'm like, man, this is beautiful.

393
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And I don't care.

394
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And I think it was this realization

395
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that even vacations were something

396
00:23:16.602 --> 00:23:18.280
that had been passed on to me

397
00:23:18.401 --> 00:23:19.979
from someone earlier in my life

398
00:23:20.584 --> 00:23:22.660
that it was something that I should do,

399
00:23:23.043 --> 00:23:24.199
that I must do this

400
00:23:24.482 --> 00:23:26.540
or else I will not gain their approval

401
00:23:26.741 --> 00:23:30.280
and I will get judgment from people that I care about.

402
00:23:30.641 --> 00:23:32.580
But when I think about who do I care about,

403
00:23:32.640 --> 00:23:34.800
who would care about whether or not I go on vacation,

404
00:23:35.362 --> 00:23:36.140
there are very few.

405
00:23:36.260 --> 00:23:38.280
And they certainly don't have the things that I want

406
00:23:38.643 --> 00:23:40.380
or have accomplished what I would like to accomplish.

407
00:23:40.580 --> 00:23:41.980
And so why would I listen to them?

408
00:23:42.561 --> 00:23:44.220
And so one of the other things that we did this year

409
00:23:44.280 --> 00:23:45.860
is that we traveled significantly less.

410
00:23:46.080 --> 00:23:48.300
And so this year in total,

411
00:23:48.420 --> 00:23:50.098
I think we took somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,

412
00:23:51.123 --> 00:23:52.880
10 to 12 days off in total.

413
00:23:53.382 --> 00:23:57.540
and I would define a day off as not working at all,

414
00:23:57.942 --> 00:23:58.839
that would be a day off.

415
00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:00.780
And so I would say a work day,

416
00:24:00.860 --> 00:24:02.818
I would define as more than,

417
00:24:03.420 --> 00:24:04.840
call it four hours of work as a work day.

418
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.400
So maybe on the days off, I would still consider

419
00:24:06.482 --> 00:24:07.320
I worked for a few hours,

420
00:24:07.420 --> 00:24:08.700
but I'll count that as a day off.

421
00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:11.400
So big picture, the increased focus

422
00:24:11.823 --> 00:24:14.620
and decrease in change in variables in my environment

423
00:24:14.903 --> 00:24:16.700
allowed me to work more

424
00:24:17.144 --> 00:24:19.000
because I had fewer changing variables

425
00:24:19.121 --> 00:24:21.300
that I had to accommodate on a regular basis.

426
00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:24.100
And so Layla and I were looking over our calendars yesterday.

427
00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.400
We did a joint podcast going over each month of the year,

428
00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:28.920
like what we focused on in that month.

429
00:24:29.621 --> 00:24:31.700
And what was interesting is that we kept swiping through it.

430
00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:34.620
It was just like work, work, work,

431
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:37.680
just like an onslaught of things that we did over and over and over again.

432
00:24:38.042 --> 00:24:41.940
I can tell you this is that the periods where I've had tremendous financial growth

433
00:24:42.605 --> 00:24:44.260
across different companies that I founded

434
00:24:44.822 --> 00:24:48.780
have almost always had these very long periods

435
00:24:49.424 --> 00:24:51.760
where I just have to do reps.

436
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:53.620
And this is like, I'm in a rocky cut scene

437
00:24:53.701 --> 00:24:54.499
of my own right now.

438
00:24:54.962 --> 00:24:58.400
And I know that it's likely going to take three-ish years.

439
00:24:58.501 --> 00:25:00.039
And I'm probably about a year in

440
00:25:00.080 --> 00:25:01.420
and I probably have two more years

441
00:25:01.927 --> 00:25:02.860
to get to the other side.

442
00:25:03.361 --> 00:25:05.980
And it's just that I've been on this roller coaster before

443
00:25:06.202 --> 00:25:08.279
and I know how the song goes.

444
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:11.300
And so it's less like weird for me.

445
00:25:11.441 --> 00:25:13.180
And also I don't have the anxiety of,

446
00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:14.015
will this be forever?

447
00:25:14.744 --> 00:25:15.920
I know it's not going to be forever.

448
00:25:16.143 --> 00:25:17.220
And I know that it's a season.

449
00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:28.020
And even if it is forever, I have found that it's far more productive for me to work seven days a week, eight to ten hours a day, than it is for me to work five and take two.

450
00:25:28.501 --> 00:25:33.639
People have different preferences, but for me, it's kind of like the summer gap in learning.

451
00:25:34.420 --> 00:25:42.200
So when kids take three months off for the summer, they have this whole summer catch-up that they have to do, which takes like another quarter for them to just get back to where they were.

452
00:25:42.601 --> 00:25:50.020
And so if you think about the three months plus the catch up, it's like kids are only like net positive for like six months of the year and the other six months they're not.

453
00:25:50.080 --> 00:25:55.860
So basically learning at half speed, not to mention you're learning at the slowest person in the class, which we won't even get into.

454
00:25:56.380 --> 00:26:01.380
But from an entrepreneur perspective, we're incentivized to get as much quality work done as possible.

455
00:26:01.820 --> 00:26:07.040
And so for me, I work very well on realistically a 10 to 12 hour a day schedule.

456
00:26:08.141 --> 00:26:11.157
Obviously, there's probably two or three days a week that I'll work 16 to 18.

457
00:26:12.842 --> 00:26:17.159
But I would say my true average is probably seven days a week of 12.

458
00:26:17.902 --> 00:26:19.320
And I'd say weekends are shorter.

459
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:22.137
And I probably have two or three days, like I said, during the week that are probably 18s.

460
00:26:23.502 --> 00:26:26.000
And so that gets me somewhere in the 90 hours a week range.

461
00:26:26.080 --> 00:26:30.740
But for me, that's actually fairly doable because my wife's here with me.

462
00:26:31.083 --> 00:26:32.019
I have a gym downstairs.

463
00:26:32.721 --> 00:26:34.340
I have all the people that I care about.

464
00:26:35.003 --> 00:26:37.120
And I care about them because they support me.

465
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:40.200
They take interest in my goals and they want to help me accomplish them.

466
00:26:40.620 --> 00:26:42.640
And so they increase the likelihood that those goals occur.

467
00:26:42.840 --> 00:26:45.300
And so how could I, like what else could I ask from someone?

468
00:26:45.420 --> 00:26:48.460
Like for my life, like I'm very happy with my life.

469
00:26:48.560 --> 00:26:51.820
And I think that a lot of people take offense to me being happy about my life

470
00:26:51.901 --> 00:26:54.280
because they think that I cast judgment on them living differently.

471
00:26:54.461 --> 00:26:55.260
You can do whatever you want.

472
00:26:55.721 --> 00:26:58.300
I make this channel because I've been trying to document this since I had nothing

473
00:26:59.285 --> 00:27:02.580
all the way to a billion dollars plus and just say what's worked for me.

474
00:27:03.141 --> 00:27:09.860
Now, when we think about heaven, a lot of people see heaven as this place where no one works, right?

475
00:27:10.606 --> 00:27:11.640
But that sounds like hell.

476
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:17.400
And what's interesting to me is that biblically, and I'm not a Christian, so don't get upset,

477
00:27:18.442 --> 00:27:22.196
but the Bible begins with giving Adam a job before God gives Adam a wife.

478
00:27:23.781 --> 00:27:28.880
And I see that as God seeing work as just as, if not more important, to our life.

479
00:27:28.980 --> 00:27:30.980
Like he's modeling what we're supposed to do.

480
00:27:31.060 --> 00:27:32.440
And to be clear, I have a lot of Christian values.

481
00:27:32.520 --> 00:27:35.040
I just don't necessarily believe in the narrative overall.

482
00:27:36.604 --> 00:27:37.540
Not the point of this video.

483
00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:42.400
But I see work as integrally human.

484
00:27:43.060 --> 00:27:47.280
So in case you're watching this before the end of the year and you've got someone in your life who's like, dude, just chill out.

485
00:27:47.340 --> 00:27:48.059
Hey, just relax.

486
00:27:48.823 --> 00:27:51.920
I wrote this thing in response to this because it was something that I got a lot.

487
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:52.960
It was like, dude, relax.

488
00:27:53.100 --> 00:27:54.000
Like, hey, everything's fine.

489
00:27:54.060 --> 00:27:54.899
Like, you're doing great.

490
00:27:55.741 --> 00:27:58.500
And I got really violent about it.

491
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:02.480
And so almost no one in my life would describe me as a chill guy.

492
00:28:03.824 --> 00:28:04.860
And I don't think I ever will be.

493
00:28:05.746 --> 00:28:07.439
and it got me thinking about this

494
00:28:07.963 --> 00:28:10.440
and it's that greatness isn't chill.

495
00:28:11.500 --> 00:28:12.740
Greatness is jealous.

496
00:28:13.020 --> 00:28:13.720
It's obsessive.

497
00:28:13.860 --> 00:28:14.340
It's demanding.

498
00:28:14.800 --> 00:28:16.260
It required me to sleep on the gym floor,

499
00:28:16.360 --> 00:28:16.896
to live on the road

500
00:28:17.545 --> 00:28:19.060
and lose everything I had twice.

501
00:28:20.123 --> 00:28:21.440
Greatness required me to quit my job,

502
00:28:21.540 --> 00:28:21.919
leave home,

503
00:28:22.040 --> 00:28:22.640
enter a new industry

504
00:28:22.701 --> 00:28:23.860
where I knew nothing and no one.

505
00:28:24.340 --> 00:28:27.140
Greatness required me to use all of my savings

506
00:28:27.466 --> 00:28:28.200
to make new partnerships

507
00:28:28.343 --> 00:28:29.220
and then break old ones.

508
00:28:29.621 --> 00:28:31.260
It required me to get rejected by strangers,

509
00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:32.320
have people laugh at me,

510
00:28:32.603 --> 00:28:33.460
have money get stolen,

511
00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:34.619
get betrayed by friends.

512
00:28:35.322 --> 00:28:40.240
And today requires me to work longer hours than I did even in the beginning with fewer days off and do it with a smile

513
00:28:40.944 --> 00:28:43.920
And I still work like my life depends on it because I believe that it does

514
00:28:44.661 --> 00:28:50.020
So my point is every time you hear someone tell you to relax telling you to ease off the gas

515
00:28:50.962 --> 00:28:54.400
Just remember that it just means there's gonna be more for the few

516
00:28:54.981 --> 00:28:59.699
more for those who hunt who fight and persevere and it means more for you and more for me and

517
00:29:00.201 --> 00:29:05.180
And the thing is, is that it's so easy to beat people nowadays because people are so soft and they can't stick with anything.

518
00:29:05.361 --> 00:29:06.120
They're distracted.

519
00:29:06.660 --> 00:29:14.860
Instead of doing what they know they should, they waste their time counting their notifications rather than the tasks they should get done.

520
00:29:15.621 --> 00:29:19.580
And so they want the goals without the pain, without the focus, and without the sacrifice.

521
00:29:19.760 --> 00:29:21.140
They want the promise without the price.

522
00:29:21.581 --> 00:29:23.760
And people think they need work-life balance.

523
00:29:24.141 --> 00:29:31.220
But work-life balance is a great goal if you're okay with being balanced in the middle between the best and the rest.

524
00:29:31.900 --> 00:29:35.460
But if you want to be the best, chill is not going to be good enough.

525
00:29:36.100 --> 00:29:37.639
Greatness is just too fickle.

526
00:29:38.100 --> 00:29:39.319
She demands too much.

527
00:29:39.761 --> 00:29:41.300
And she doesn't let you split your attention.

528
00:29:41.861 --> 00:29:43.140
She won't let you coast.

529
00:29:43.562 --> 00:29:44.880
She won't let you relax.

530
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:46.220
She won't let you chill.

531
00:29:47.381 --> 00:29:50.300
And the moment you do, she'll leave you for someone who will give her more.

532
00:29:50.662 --> 00:29:51.940
Who will put more on the altar.

533
00:29:52.540 --> 00:29:54.920
And so whatever you're not willing to sacrifice to keep her,

534
00:29:55.560 --> 00:29:57.540
someone else who wants greatness more will.

535
00:29:58.600 --> 00:30:02.120
And so the TLDR is, I want to achieve great things.

536
00:30:02.721 --> 00:30:04.420
And great things have a great price.

537
00:30:04.961 --> 00:30:09.760
And that price never feels, looks, or pretends to be relaxed.

538
00:30:10.243 --> 00:30:13.240
So my little message is, if you want what you say you want,

539
00:30:14.020 --> 00:30:18.140
being relaxed, being chill, easing off the gas won't get you there.

540
00:30:18.863 --> 00:30:23.540
and being willing to sacrifice more for longer than anyone else probably will.

541
00:30:24.401 --> 00:30:26.480
And don't expect anyone else to understand.

542
00:30:27.061 --> 00:30:29.820
It will be a lonely path because if they could understand,

543
00:30:30.183 --> 00:30:31.059
they'd be right there with you.

544
00:30:31.964 --> 00:30:32.980
So play by your own rules.

545
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:34.399
Win the game that you want to play.

546
00:30:34.641 --> 00:30:39.840
You know, my grandfather, when he died before I was old enough to remember him,

547
00:30:40.581 --> 00:30:45.040
every picture I've seen of him, he's standing up, bones straight, like proud.

548
00:30:45.823 --> 00:30:50.940
and he ended up getting taken to prison and tortured for many years in Iran during the

549
00:30:50.940 --> 00:30:57.220
revolution and when he came out he was a very changed man he didn't remember anyone because

550
00:30:57.621 --> 00:31:02.980
just torture was tough he didn't yeah I'll just leave it there and so what's interesting about

551
00:31:03.080 --> 00:31:10.060
that is like I see him as a great man but many people describe my grandfather and I've talked to

552
00:31:10.663 --> 00:31:11.065
countless.

553
00:31:11.125 --> 00:31:13.075
And the thing is, is they've all said the same thing.

554
00:31:13.518 --> 00:31:13.920
They were like,

555
00:31:14.540 --> 00:31:15.824
Hussein was a serious man.

556
00:31:17.028 --> 00:31:21.180
And if I had to choose between how people would describe me,

557
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:25.453
like he was a really relaxed guy or like he was a serious man.

558
00:31:25.995 --> 00:31:27.520
Like if I had to describe those two

559
00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:31.200
people with just only those two descriptions, which one of those people do you think will

560
00:31:31.220 --> 00:31:32.063
impact the world greater?

561
00:31:33.247 --> 00:31:37.280
And for me, I would rather sacrifice cool points in the eyes of

562
00:31:37.280 --> 00:31:39.813
people that I don't care about to do what I feel like I came here to do.

563
00:31:40.014 --> 00:31:40.979
On the back end of that

564
00:31:41.661 --> 00:31:45.090
serious note, fun things did happen this year.

565
00:31:45.250 --> 00:31:49.220
And so I ended up buying acq.com, a three-letter

566
00:31:49.320 --> 00:31:51.306
domain from Yahoo.

567
00:31:51.386 --> 00:31:53.211
And so they'd owned that since 1998 or 96.

568
00:31:53.231 --> 00:31:54.154
I can't remember.

569
00:31:54.234 --> 00:31:54.976
It was 96 through

570
00:31:56.541 --> 00:31:56.641
98.

571
00:31:56.922 --> 00:32:00.232
They said they'd owned it for like 26 years, something like that.

572
00:32:00.934 --> 00:32:02.840
And I finally was able to

573
00:32:02.980 --> 00:32:05.070
wrestle it from their grip.

574
00:32:05.110 --> 00:32:06.174
And so that was really cool.

575
00:32:06.195 --> 00:32:07.420
For those of you who are curious,

576
00:32:08.162 --> 00:32:10.628
it was $480,000 to buy the domain.

577
00:32:11.089 --> 00:32:11.531
You know what?

578
00:32:11.972 --> 00:32:15.080
I don't buy a lot of crazy shit and I'm allowed to

579
00:32:15.100 --> 00:32:16.564
spend my money however I want to spend it.

580
00:32:17.086 --> 00:32:19.172
And I think ACQ.com is dope.

581
00:32:19.654 --> 00:32:21.780
And so on the back end of

582
00:32:21.800 --> 00:32:25.337
that, part of the reason I did that was because we just stood up ACQ Ventures.

583
00:32:25.397 --> 00:32:25.980
So really proud of

584
00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:26.923
that.

585
00:32:26.963 --> 00:32:28.208
That was a project that we took on.

586
00:32:28.328 --> 00:32:30.616
Zach Choi, we brought in house.

587
00:32:30.977 --> 00:32:31.860
He's basically managing

588
00:32:31.980 --> 00:32:33.025
the investments on that side.

589
00:32:33.808 --> 00:32:35.736
Long history of venture capital work.

590
00:32:35.776 --> 00:32:36.780
It's primarily focused

591
00:32:37.543 --> 00:32:39.790
on SaaS and tech-enabled services.

592
00:32:40.473 --> 00:32:42.640
The reason that we're doing it is basically because

593
00:32:43.142 --> 00:32:47.000
our family office, which functions like a private equity, but it's a family office in that we don't

594
00:32:47.120 --> 00:32:50.176
have outside LPs or limited partners, people who give us money.

595
00:32:50.216 --> 00:32:51.000
So we don't have any people

596
00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:51.403
who give us money.

597
00:32:51.423 --> 00:32:53.235
It's all our money, which is why it's a family office.

598
00:32:53.557 --> 00:32:54.000
But in terms of the

599
00:32:54.060 --> 00:32:56.012
day-to-day, most family offices tend to be passive.

600
00:32:56.052 --> 00:32:57.300
We are very active in our investments,

601
00:32:57.725 --> 00:32:59.100
and we take significantly larger positions.

602
00:32:59.961 --> 00:33:04.599
We stood this up because we have a tremendous amount of people who are entrepreneurs

603
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:09.400
who we meet through the various things that we do that would like investment,

604
00:33:09.600 --> 00:33:12.140
they would like help, but they don't want to necessarily hand over control

605
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:14.440
or have that level of engagement.

606
00:33:15.040 --> 00:33:18.400
And so we stood up ACQ Ventures because there's just honestly a ton of demand

607
00:33:18.822 --> 00:33:22.800
for a different capital structure for our investments.

608
00:33:23.703 --> 00:33:25.980
We just did our first three deals in ACQ Ventures.

609
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.240
I think should finalize in the next week or two, so before the end of the year.

610
00:33:28.867 --> 00:33:29.239
Kind of cool.

611
00:33:30.220 --> 00:33:36.099
And so that will be a much higher volume deal side for acquisition.com,

612
00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:38.020
and that branch will just be on the venture side.

613
00:33:38.621 --> 00:33:40.480
Also, a free gift for you.

614
00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:44.680
One of the big things that I worked on this year, probably a month of my life, honestly,

615
00:33:45.141 --> 00:33:48.753
went into building out $0 to $100 million scaling.

616
00:33:51.561 --> 00:33:53.817
And what that looks like from a headcount, from 0 to 500 people,

617
00:33:54.764 --> 00:33:55.853
and from $0 to $100 million plus.

618
00:33:57.522 --> 00:33:59.280
And I did it across all eight departments.

619
00:33:59.821 --> 00:34:02.580
So the departments were sales, marketing,

620
00:34:03.660 --> 00:34:07.980
customer service, product, IT, HR, recruiting, and finance.

621
00:34:08.560 --> 00:34:10.820
And so what problem exists at every level,

622
00:34:10.940 --> 00:34:12.020
and I broke it into 10 stages,

623
00:34:13.162 --> 00:34:15.440
and what you need to do to graduate from that level.

624
00:34:15.841 --> 00:34:17.320
So you can literally just look at your own business

625
00:34:17.502 --> 00:34:19.640
and see what things you're missing,

626
00:34:19.740 --> 00:34:20.580
what things you're lagging on,

627
00:34:20.620 --> 00:34:22.160
maybe sometimes what things you're ahead on,

628
00:34:22.462 --> 00:34:25.320
because it's very neat to put these things into 10 stages,

629
00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:26.540
but reality is messy.

630
00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:29.320
And so it's more that you'll be at stage five,

631
00:34:29.581 --> 00:34:31.440
you'll have some things that you're at stage seven on

632
00:34:31.561 --> 00:34:33.040
and some things that you're at stage three on,

633
00:34:33.342 --> 00:34:35.380
but those stage three things will likely be things

634
00:34:35.400 --> 00:34:36.660
that you will need to fix sooner

635
00:34:37.044 --> 00:34:38.780
than the things that you're at stage seven on, right?

636
00:34:38.820 --> 00:34:40.440
And so it's very much the constraints concept

637
00:34:40.542 --> 00:34:41.479
where you have a weak link

638
00:34:41.823 --> 00:34:43.860
and this helps you see where you're the furthest behind

639
00:34:44.264 --> 00:34:46.140
so that you kind of up-level those things faster.

640
00:34:46.641 --> 00:34:48.320
And so I just dropped the training.

641
00:34:48.842 --> 00:34:51.600
It's at acquisition.com forward slash training.

642
00:34:52.243 --> 00:34:55.380
and just click the $100 million scaling roadmap.

643
00:34:55.781 --> 00:34:56.580
And you can go there.

644
00:34:56.821 --> 00:34:57.940
We also have a little button there

645
00:34:57.940 --> 00:34:59.900
that you can get a personalized plan made for you

646
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:00.840
so you can answer some questions.

647
00:35:01.240 --> 00:35:04.120
And we'll tell you what stage you are at

648
00:35:04.281 --> 00:35:05.640
and we'll give you the one before and the one after

649
00:35:05.640 --> 00:35:06.720
so you know what you should be finished

650
00:35:06.720 --> 00:35:07.759
and what you have a line of sight to.

651
00:35:08.321 --> 00:35:09.179
It's absolutely free.

652
00:35:09.660 --> 00:35:11.240
You can just go there and enjoy.

653
00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:12.040
It's 14 hours.

654
00:35:12.180 --> 00:35:13.100
You don't need to watch the whole thing.

655
00:35:13.180 --> 00:35:14.560
Just watch the section that's specific

656
00:35:14.683 --> 00:35:15.440
to your business right now.

657
00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:19.440
So big thing right now is growth trends.

658
00:35:19.761 --> 00:35:24.800
And historically, when I would do my podcast recap of the year, it was always my most popular episode.

659
00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:26.160
And so now I'm just doing it on YouTube.

660
00:35:26.380 --> 00:35:31.240
But these are the things that I would say we learned or that we doubled down on in the portfolio that yielded really good results.

661
00:35:32.060 --> 00:35:37.760
So number one is we focused a lot on leadership talent recruiting.

662
00:35:37.980 --> 00:35:38.140
All right.

663
00:35:38.200 --> 00:35:39.960
So you call this key player recruiting.

664
00:35:41.161 --> 00:35:49.200
And the big thing here is that I kind of switched my perspective on this, which is fundamentally, if you listen to Steve Jobs, you listen to Bezos.

665
00:35:49.340 --> 00:35:56.760
you listen to Zuckerberg, Elon, a lot of them take a hugely active role in bringing in top talent.

666
00:35:57.260 --> 00:36:00.600
My understanding of talent has been probably the single largest shift that I've had this year in

667
00:36:00.680 --> 00:36:04.420
terms of my understanding of business and why I think that we're disproportionately growing across

668
00:36:04.420 --> 00:36:04.902
the portfolio.

669
00:36:04.923 --> 00:36:08.260
The companies that are doing the best are the ones that we've been able to place

670
00:36:08.420 --> 00:36:09.102
key players.

671
00:36:09.283 --> 00:36:15.520
Part of that is being willing as the CEO, as the founder, to actively show interest

672
00:36:16.087 --> 00:36:17.040
in these types of people.

673
00:36:17.100 --> 00:36:18.000
And they are the type of people

674
00:36:18.081 --> 00:36:21.040
that would not respond to a traditional recruiter

675
00:36:21.161 --> 00:36:23.679
because they are either so good at what they do

676
00:36:24.043 --> 00:36:25.900
and they want to know that their investment

677
00:36:26.063 --> 00:36:27.060
in the company is going to be valuable.

678
00:36:27.421 --> 00:36:28.740
These are not the type of people

679
00:36:29.205 --> 00:36:30.560
who feel like you're giving them

680
00:36:30.601 --> 00:36:32.119
an opportunity to work for you.

681
00:36:32.542 --> 00:36:33.420
These are the types of people

682
00:36:33.521 --> 00:36:35.580
that they are giving you the opportunity

683
00:36:36.226 --> 00:36:37.620
of helping build your business,

684
00:36:38.062 --> 00:36:39.619
bringing their entire Rolodex

685
00:36:40.025 --> 00:36:41.039
of people they already know,

686
00:36:41.701 --> 00:36:44.300
of teams that sometimes they can bring with them,

687
00:36:44.721 --> 00:36:49.940
and just a huge stack of skills that ideally should disproportionately benefit the business.

688
00:36:50.060 --> 00:36:54.160
And fundamentally, this is one of the highest leverage things that you can do.

689
00:36:54.560 --> 00:37:00.460
Because at the most basic level, what you need to do as a CEO is attract the absolute best people

690
00:37:00.962 --> 00:37:05.020
and align incentives ruthlessly for them to work and then get out of their way.

691
00:37:05.521 --> 00:37:06.692
Number two was focus.

692
00:37:08.161 --> 00:37:11.740
Now, I talk about focus a lot, so I'm going to try and say this in a different way than I normally do.

693
00:37:12.623 --> 00:37:17.920
So it's really top-down focus and prioritization, which is just another word for strategy.

694
00:37:18.060 --> 00:37:22.040
But just how much more important strategy is for businesses.

695
00:37:22.560 --> 00:37:28.860
Because what happens is when they pursue too many paths, they look up a year later and they haven't grown much at all.

696
00:37:29.341 --> 00:37:36.340
And if you're a small business, you absolutely can double, triple, quadruple, 5X every year for a few years before sometimes that'll slow down.

697
00:37:36.420 --> 00:37:39.440
Now, if you have a compounding mechanism, it could even keep going and getting faster.

698
00:37:39.900 --> 00:37:43.880
But at the very least, growing at 10% a year, again, there's nothing wrong with that.

699
00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:47.059
But if you're at a million bucks a year or five million bucks a year or even $10 million a year,

700
00:37:47.681 --> 00:37:49.660
you should be able to grow a lot faster than that.

701
00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:53.280
And typically, it's because you lack people and because you lack focus.

702
00:37:53.781 --> 00:37:56.340
And when I say people, it means you lack good enough people.

703
00:37:56.641 --> 00:38:00.520
The people you have, you might have a high head count but a low talent count.

704
00:38:01.460 --> 00:38:04.640
And focus, you might have lots of priorities, but they're the wrong ones.

705
00:38:05.720 --> 00:38:12.320
And so fundamentally, if you can't focus on one thing, one objective that is most important,

706
00:38:12.620 --> 00:38:16.800
that makes the rest of your objectives less important, then you are not doing your job as

707
00:38:16.860 --> 00:38:21.556
the CEO to tell the team how they should be allocating their attention.

708
00:38:21.877 --> 00:38:22.720
And that, and here's

709
00:38:22.740 --> 00:38:26.753
the important part, is deleting everything that is not this.

710
00:38:28.098 --> 00:38:28.820
And so a lot of people are like,

711
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:31.474
these are our objectives, also keep doing everything else.

712
00:38:31.836 --> 00:38:32.680
It's like you can't do that.

713
00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:37.160
You can't just add more because now you've even further diluted what's important.

714
00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:39.300
Now, for sure, people need to continue to transact.

715
00:38:39.501 --> 00:38:40.260
Sales guys still need to sell.

716
00:38:40.360 --> 00:38:41.379
Customer service still needs to serve.

717
00:38:41.860 --> 00:38:58.800
But the discretionary effort that exists in the top talent, the leaders of the company who aren't as involved in the day-to-day and are basically all times they have between aligning teams should be dedicated to a single priority that, if accomplished, would be an order of magnitude improvement in the business.

718
00:38:59.901 --> 00:39:08.320
And so this level of focus is what I continue to drill with the founders and the CEOs of the portfolio companies, and it has yielded outsized returns.

719
00:39:08.700 --> 00:39:17.460
And there's a great razor for this, which is when I want to fix a system or when I go into a department, the first thing I do is eliminate as much as humanly possible.

720
00:39:18.120 --> 00:39:22.780
And here's the thing is people are afraid of eliminating meetings, eliminating communication lines, eliminating processes.

721
00:39:23.425 --> 00:39:25.400
but if you eliminate just about everything,

722
00:39:25.802 --> 00:39:27.660
you'll find out that the vast majority of that stuff

723
00:39:27.700 --> 00:39:29.480
was complete waste and complete distraction.

724
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:30.700
And here's the cool thing.

725
00:39:31.021 --> 00:39:32.179
You can always add it back.

726
00:39:32.581 --> 00:39:33.696
So there's this fear of loss.

727
00:39:34.140 --> 00:39:36.080
People literally have fear of loss

728
00:39:36.241 --> 00:39:38.820
around processes and meetings, which is ridiculous,

729
00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:40.680
but that's just how we're wired psychologically,

730
00:39:40.900 --> 00:39:42.720
which is why companies in general,

731
00:39:42.861 --> 00:39:44.319
as they grow, create bloat.

732
00:39:44.721 --> 00:39:46.980
There's too many people doing too many things

733
00:39:47.020 --> 00:39:49.860
that don't matter or not enough stuff to begin with.

734
00:39:50.223 --> 00:39:52.360
And all of them together don't know

735
00:39:52.460 --> 00:39:54.668
how what they do makes the company money.

736
00:39:55.109 --> 00:39:58.440
One of the easiest tasks that you can do is zoom all the

737
00:39:58.460 --> 00:40:01.833
way out and think, what is the output of this department?

738
00:40:02.034 --> 00:40:03.359
What is the output of finance?

739
00:40:03.500 --> 00:40:03.600
Have

740
00:40:03.600 --> 00:40:05.511
you ever thought about like, what is the output of finance?

741
00:40:05.873 --> 00:40:07.220
The output of finance is information

742
00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:07.963
to make decisions.

743
00:40:08.485 --> 00:40:09.007
That's it.

744
00:40:09.489 --> 00:40:12.360
And so if you're getting too much information or you're getting

745
00:40:12.440 --> 00:40:15.900
the wrong information or the information that you're getting doesn't change your decisions,

746
00:40:16.241 --> 00:40:18.308
then the function of finance is inadequate.

747
00:40:18.589 --> 00:40:21.420
You're not getting enough of what you need of output from

748
00:40:21.440 --> 00:40:21.962
that department.

749
00:40:22.525 --> 00:40:26.140
If the function of IT is to gather, store, display, and analyze information,

750
00:40:27.683 --> 00:40:30.772
then are you getting the correct data?

751
00:40:30.832 --> 00:40:32.296
Are you able to analyze it?

752
00:40:32.557 --> 00:40:33.540
Are you able to display it

753
00:40:33.560 --> 00:40:36.391
and see in real time and be able to make decisions off it?

754
00:40:36.632 --> 00:40:38.520
Also, another information output department.

755
00:40:38.660 --> 00:40:39.644
Kind of interesting, right?

756
00:40:40.026 --> 00:40:43.340
So many of these departments really exist just to have information

757
00:40:43.460 --> 00:40:44.163
to make decisions.

758
00:40:44.906 --> 00:40:48.560
I bring this up because you have to delete until you have the fewest things

759
00:40:48.600 --> 00:40:48.922
that matter.

760
00:40:48.942 --> 00:40:50.209
It's like you want to cut to the bone.

761
00:40:50.511 --> 00:40:52.080
You don't want to cut to fat or cut muscle.

762
00:40:52.160 --> 00:40:56.160
You want to go all the way to the bone and then add the few things that matter most back in.

763
00:40:56.620 --> 00:41:00.139
And I think that I'm doing this better now because honestly, I think I'm just more ruthless.

764
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:00.280
And I

765
00:41:00.320 --> 00:41:04.453
think I care less about judgments of other people.

766
00:41:04.975 --> 00:41:06.560
I think honestly, I think it's just like I'm more

767
00:41:06.620 --> 00:41:07.624
confident what I'm doing now.

768
00:41:08.226 --> 00:41:10.976
And so it's like, I think I conceptually felt the same way.

769
00:41:10.996 --> 00:41:11.960
I just

770
00:41:12.422 --> 00:41:15.716
was like, this feels crazy, even though it makes sense to me.

771
00:41:16.078 --> 00:41:16.600
And so fundamentally,

772
00:41:16.801 --> 00:41:21.640
first principles thinking operates from this perspective of like, okay, physics are laws that

773
00:41:21.660 --> 00:41:22.463
we have to obey.

774
00:41:22.885 --> 00:41:24.169
What else do we have to obey?

775
00:41:24.631 --> 00:41:25.936
The law of the land.

776
00:41:25.956 --> 00:41:27.080
So we've got government laws that

777
00:41:27.080 --> 00:41:27.722
we have to obey.

778
00:41:28.024 --> 00:41:32.280
Besides that, tell me a physical law or government law that prevents us from doing

779
00:41:32.340 --> 00:41:34.007
this thing in one tenth of the time.

780
00:41:34.409 --> 00:41:35.031
Tell me the law.

781
00:41:35.132 --> 00:41:36.216
If not, then there is a way.

782
00:41:36.578 --> 00:41:37.080
And here's the

783
00:41:37.120 --> 00:41:40.335
thing, is that there will simply be resources that are required.

784
00:41:40.777 --> 00:41:41.520
And so one of the things that I'm

785
00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:46.340
trying to get my team to understand is, if I ask to do something and they say we can't do it,

786
00:41:46.541 --> 00:41:49.320
That's saying it's impossible and it's ridiculous and of course they're wrong.

787
00:41:49.621 --> 00:41:50.760
So it's a terrible position to take.

788
00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:51.760
It's also very frustrating.

789
00:41:52.780 --> 00:41:55.300
Instead, tell me what it would take.

790
00:41:55.760 --> 00:41:59.280
Tell me the resources that would be required that we'd have to take from something else

791
00:41:59.662 --> 00:42:03.300
and then we together can decide whether it's worth the trade.

792
00:42:03.720 --> 00:42:08.700
So for example, if my whole media team, I said, hey, I want to make a motion picture,

793
00:42:09.021 --> 00:42:09.820
for example, right?

794
00:42:09.840 --> 00:42:10.580
I'm not saying I want to do that.

795
00:42:10.620 --> 00:42:13.438
Let's say that we decided that was a big strategic priority.

796
00:42:14.021 --> 00:42:20.760
If we were to get one big motion picture that was as big as Avatar, then maybe it would do things for the business.

797
00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:21.060
Okay.

798
00:42:21.761 --> 00:42:23.680
Then they might say, well, we can't do that.

799
00:42:24.080 --> 00:42:29.300
Now, implicit in that statement is we can't do that and keep making content at the level that we're at.

800
00:42:29.700 --> 00:42:42.320
So then we'd say, okay, well, if we allocated all the resources and stopped making content and we actually were able to get a feature-length film with the existing media team, would the benefit of that be worth the cost?

801
00:42:42.763 --> 00:42:45.099
and if it is, then great, we'll do it.

802
00:42:45.521 --> 00:42:46.892
But a lot of times we get a soft no

803
00:42:48.084 --> 00:42:49.100
immediately out the gate

804
00:42:49.404 --> 00:42:50.519
rather than a what it would take.

805
00:42:51.061 --> 00:42:52.360
And this has been one of the biggest shifts

806
00:42:52.643 --> 00:42:54.079
that I think has empowered me

807
00:42:54.626 --> 00:42:55.820
is asking better questions.

808
00:42:56.240 --> 00:42:58.440
And so one of the most frequently asked questions

809
00:42:58.521 --> 00:43:00.180
that I will probably, my question of the year

810
00:43:00.200 --> 00:43:01.739
is what would it take?

811
00:43:02.443 --> 00:43:03.200
And by doing this,

812
00:43:03.320 --> 00:43:04.640
the reason I think it's such a powerful question,

813
00:43:04.740 --> 00:43:06.540
it also works for deals, it works for sales,

814
00:43:06.641 --> 00:43:07.360
it works for anything,

815
00:43:07.921 --> 00:43:10.520
is that it assumes the result occurs.

816
00:43:11.102 --> 00:43:12.319
It assumes success.

817
00:43:12.820 --> 00:43:16.900
And so because it assumes success, you work backwards from the reality that you want to create

818
00:43:17.342 --> 00:43:20.460
rather than forwards trying to figure it out as you go.

819
00:43:20.822 --> 00:43:21.880
I'll tell you something funny.

820
00:43:22.161 --> 00:43:25.900
So we had a company that we were looking at in the diligence process.

821
00:43:26.160 --> 00:43:28.100
I said, hey, you've got this down sell.

822
00:43:28.261 --> 00:43:29.379
Basically, no one takes it.

823
00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:32.140
Have you considered just giving it away for free to get more leads?

824
00:43:33.641 --> 00:43:37.820
And they ended up doing it, and they tripled their lead flow the next week.

825
00:43:39.665 --> 00:43:44.920
and so that downsell was worth maybe five percent of revenue but what's the value of tripling lead

826
00:43:44.980 --> 00:43:49.760
flow tripling revenue and probably disproportionately dropping to the bottom line so tripling really

827
00:43:49.820 --> 00:43:54.960
would triple lead flow so it would cut cac by two-thirds but fundamentally it would it would

828
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.960
triple the business there are so many of these little things that exist inside of companies and

829
00:44:00.121 --> 00:44:04.640
just being focused enough to say no this is our core product this is where we make all our money

830
00:44:05.043 --> 00:44:07.440
Anything that's not that distracts us from making this thing better.

831
00:44:08.160 --> 00:44:11.318
So theme number three was CRO.

832
00:44:12.240 --> 00:44:19.700
And so I'd say this year, the companies that made the biggest gains had a discipline around conversion rate optimization.

833
00:44:20.220 --> 00:44:30.900
That means that at any given point, they're running, call it, three to ten different split tests on the key parts of the pipeline for revenue generation.

834
00:44:31.201 --> 00:44:40.980
Meaning, if you have a landing page where you get a lot of traffic, or you have a homepage that you get a lot of traffic, or you have a follow-up sequence that a huge percentage of your customers are in, actually testing things out there.

835
00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:46.420
So one of the companies we had had three CRO improvements.

836
00:44:46.540 --> 00:44:48.540
And this was the largest company we have in the portfolio.

837
00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:56.560
So we got a plus 20% CRO test improvement, which is a monster win, especially at the level of optimization that this company is in.

838
00:44:56.580 --> 00:44:58.320
So we're talking eight figures plus a month in revenue.

839
00:44:58.580 --> 00:44:59.560
Like, it's a big company.

840
00:45:00.020 --> 00:45:01.562
And so 20% lift is huge.

841
00:45:01.862 --> 00:45:06.585
But on top of that, we got a 50% lift, then we got a 28% lift.

842
00:45:06.846 --> 00:45:08.547
So we had three mega wins.

843
00:45:08.587 --> 00:45:11.389
Now the question is, how many split tests did we have to do for that?

844
00:45:11.909 --> 00:45:13.110
I mean, probably 100.

845
00:45:13.531 --> 00:45:22.117
But the thing is, is that that was basically one guy and a couple devs split basically running these sprints on a regular basis.

846
00:45:22.137 --> 00:45:24.199
But how valuable is that to the company?

847
00:45:24.699 --> 00:45:25.620
Tremendously valuable.

848
00:45:26.003 --> 00:45:28.380
because things that are efficiency improvements

849
00:45:28.987 --> 00:45:30.240
typically are long lasting.

850
00:45:30.900 --> 00:45:32.100
And so what's cool about that

851
00:45:32.100 --> 00:45:33.660
is that when you have an efficiency improvement,

852
00:45:33.820 --> 00:45:35.780
it means your LTV to CAC ratio expands,

853
00:45:35.881 --> 00:45:38.740
which allows you to spend more money in advertising,

854
00:45:39.161 --> 00:45:40.940
more money in talent acquisition,

855
00:45:41.346 --> 00:45:42.220
all the way around the business.

856
00:45:42.300 --> 00:45:43.880
It literally just makes the business stronger.

857
00:45:44.680 --> 00:45:45.739
And so I'll give you a little hack

858
00:45:46.146 --> 00:45:47.100
that is worth looking at,

859
00:45:47.180 --> 00:45:50.660
which is many businesses integrate third-party tools

860
00:45:50.964 --> 00:45:52.200
into your processes, right?

861
00:45:52.200 --> 00:45:53.780
You've got 100 different softwares

862
00:45:53.780 --> 00:45:54.519
that you probably pay for.

863
00:45:55.002 --> 00:45:59.640
What none of those softwares typically advertise is what their conversion rate is.

864
00:46:00.060 --> 00:46:15.020
And so if anything is customer facing that a prospect might interact with, I would look at three or four other tools within the exact same use case and see which one has a higher conversion rate on the UX, so the user experience.

865
00:46:16.002 --> 00:46:19.340
I think you will get disproportionate returns on that.

866
00:46:19.621 --> 00:46:23.140
It's typically a heavier lift because splitting between multiple tools is a pain in the ass.

867
00:46:23.764 --> 00:46:26.140
but I've seen monster lifts there.

868
00:46:26.961 --> 00:46:29.160
So those are the three probably biggest themes

869
00:46:29.803 --> 00:46:32.660
which was people, focus, and then optimization

870
00:46:32.680 --> 00:46:34.679
around the things that worked really well

871
00:46:35.023 --> 00:46:36.657
across the portfolio in 2025.

872
00:46:37.700 --> 00:46:40.200
Now, the next part is, okay, well, what are the detractors?

873
00:46:40.381 --> 00:46:42.480
These are the things that grew those businesses

874
00:46:43.084 --> 00:46:45.100
but what are some of the things that hurt those businesses?

875
00:46:45.700 --> 00:46:48.960
And so I actually see this as the personal stuff.

876
00:46:49.641 --> 00:46:51.860
So we had a few entrepreneurs, I think,

877
00:46:52.082 --> 00:46:53.060
took their foot off the gas.

878
00:46:53.180 --> 00:46:54.920
They started making more money than they'd been accustomed to.

879
00:46:55.663 --> 00:46:56.820
And we're like, this is good enough.

880
00:46:56.960 --> 00:47:00.380
And so this is where having, you know, some people call it a big reason why.

881
00:47:01.342 --> 00:47:03.400
You can have whatever you want as long as you change your behavior.

882
00:47:03.500 --> 00:47:05.620
I don't really care whether it's a big reason why or you just change.

883
00:47:06.361 --> 00:47:10.580
But either way, you have to find something that's going to keep driving you.

884
00:47:10.921 --> 00:47:12.120
So for me, it's the love of the game.

885
00:47:12.220 --> 00:47:13.220
I just enjoy business.

886
00:47:13.340 --> 00:47:14.640
And so I spend all my time doing business.

887
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:16.080
Some people don't enjoy business as much.

888
00:47:16.540 --> 00:47:20.480
It either has to be some mission that you have around the problem that you solve.

889
00:47:20.521 --> 00:47:21.999
Like it actually has to light you up.

890
00:47:22.521 --> 00:47:24.060
Otherwise, you will make enough money

891
00:47:24.525 --> 00:47:25.880
and you'll stop pushing that.

892
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:27.160
Now, again, if you accomplish your goals,

893
00:47:27.220 --> 00:47:28.060
it's amazing, that's great.

894
00:47:28.481 --> 00:47:29.660
Again, I make my channel for people

895
00:47:29.660 --> 00:47:30.760
who just want to consistently grow,

896
00:47:30.860 --> 00:47:32.800
consistently grow in personal development

897
00:47:33.204 --> 00:47:34.760
and using money as just a stick

898
00:47:34.860 --> 00:47:38.120
for seeing how far you've stacked your skills, right?

899
00:47:38.541 --> 00:47:40.536
Also, not saying that money is a virtue

900
00:47:41.344 --> 00:47:42.340
or having money is a virtue,

901
00:47:42.640 --> 00:47:45.060
just saying that in general, you become more skilled

902
00:47:45.304 --> 00:47:46.360
and you can measure how skilled you are

903
00:47:46.481 --> 00:47:48.080
in the game of business by the amount of money you make.

904
00:47:48.401 --> 00:47:49.660
Here's one that's gonna be uncomfortable

905
00:47:49.824 --> 00:47:50.380
for a lot of people,

906
00:47:51.245 --> 00:47:53.700
is spouses and or partners.

907
00:47:54.001 --> 00:47:56.400
One of the big detractors, believe it or not,

908
00:47:56.460 --> 00:47:57.999
and I've seen this and this is a big focus

909
00:47:58.080 --> 00:48:00.160
that Layla and I have across the team is,

910
00:48:01.020 --> 00:48:06.120
how much support do the key players on your team

911
00:48:06.643 --> 00:48:09.100
and or the entrepreneurs have from their spouses?

912
00:48:09.461 --> 00:48:11.720
You basically have the worst type of spouse,

913
00:48:12.001 --> 00:48:13.560
which is a spouse who actively decreases

914
00:48:13.621 --> 00:48:14.460
the likelihood you hit your goals.

915
00:48:14.981 --> 00:48:16.700
So they are constantly reminding you

916
00:48:16.720 --> 00:48:18.080
of the negatives that exist.

917
00:48:18.581 --> 00:48:20.360
They're trying to constantly distract you,

918
00:48:20.420 --> 00:48:22.220
say, hey, stop working, stop talking about that,

919
00:48:22.280 --> 00:48:23.020
let's do this instead.

920
00:48:23.481 --> 00:48:25.060
So not only do they try to get you to stop working,

921
00:48:25.120 --> 00:48:27.520
they try and incentivize you by doing something else.

922
00:48:28.080 --> 00:48:29.880
And so it's reversing a negative and a positive.

923
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:30.919
It's like a double whammy.

924
00:48:31.340 --> 00:48:32.780
And the thing is, is that, I want to be clear,

925
00:48:33.161 --> 00:48:34.680
I don't think there's malicious intention here,

926
00:48:35.042 --> 00:48:36.299
but the result of what they do

927
00:48:36.461 --> 00:48:38.400
still massively damages the business.

928
00:48:38.601 --> 00:48:39.780
Like, if you were to think of an enemy,

929
00:48:39.920 --> 00:48:40.618
what would an enemy do?

930
00:48:41.061 --> 00:48:43.080
They would try and get you to not think about the business

931
00:48:43.423 --> 00:48:45.720
and then do something else that you get addicted to instead.

932
00:48:46.261 --> 00:48:49.500
It's almost like going to your competitor and being like, try some heroin.

933
00:48:49.601 --> 00:48:50.297
I think you might like it.

934
00:48:50.700 --> 00:48:55.100
Like, fundamentally, the actual what occurs is more or less the same.

935
00:48:55.200 --> 00:48:56.720
And again, I'm not talking about intention here.

936
00:48:56.740 --> 00:48:57.619
I'm just talking about what happens.

937
00:48:58.240 --> 00:49:02.100
And so when we look back, so we did like a retroactive analysis of this, of like, who

938
00:49:02.140 --> 00:49:05.380
were the stars who just crushed and kept growing?

939
00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:09.720
They were the ones who had absolute spousal support, who were like, if they need to work

940
00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:13.380
late, they need to work the weekends, I'll pack them with a lunch, I'm here at home.

941
00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:15.360
And this happened for husbands and wives, both sides.

942
00:49:15.761 --> 00:49:30.840
The ones where you had somebody who came in who presented like a star, but then eventually fizzled was typically because, and this is where it's so nefarious, is that they would get into a relationship at some point, or they would upgrade the relationship like they'd move in together, something like that.

943
00:49:31.601 --> 00:49:36.360
And that person would have a disproportionate effect on the entrepreneur.

944
00:49:36.940 --> 00:49:44.220
And so what's really interesting is that entrepreneurs are typically, we're so concerned with our surroundings, who we want in our space, who's good, who's helping us out.

945
00:49:44.561 --> 00:49:49.180
And then for some reason, the person who has a 0.71 correlation with your subjective well-being,

946
00:49:49.520 --> 00:49:52.540
the person who will probably have the largest influence on your behavior in your life,

947
00:49:52.901 --> 00:49:54.080
you don't hold to the same standard.

948
00:49:54.341 --> 00:49:55.180
And I find that crazy.

949
00:49:56.083 --> 00:49:57.100
But it happens all the time.

950
00:49:57.460 --> 00:49:59.819
And just because everyone else does it doesn't mean that it makes sense.

951
00:50:00.221 --> 00:50:01.379
It's also why most people are mediocre.

952
00:50:01.901 --> 00:50:05.000
One is that if you're looking to bring a high-level person onto the team,

953
00:50:05.461 --> 00:50:06.740
I would consider talking to their spouse.

954
00:50:07.446 --> 00:50:08.700
Just gauge their interest level.

955
00:50:08.841 --> 00:50:09.600
See if they're supportive.

956
00:50:10.060 --> 00:50:11.320
Like in the middle, they're neutral.

957
00:50:11.420 --> 00:50:13.280
But I think neutral becomes negative over time.

958
00:50:13.621 --> 00:50:23.240
So you need someone who's active, who when the employee inevitably has a bad day, because everyone does, they say, hey, this is a great job.

959
00:50:23.340 --> 00:50:24.760
This is great for us as a family.

960
00:50:25.243 --> 00:50:25.880
You got this.

961
00:50:26.083 --> 00:50:26.640
I trust you.

962
00:50:26.762 --> 00:50:27.320
I believe in you.

963
00:50:27.463 --> 00:50:28.000
I support you.

964
00:50:28.080 --> 00:50:28.960
What can I do to help?

965
00:50:29.321 --> 00:50:31.140
Tell me how I can make this easier for you.

966
00:50:31.662 --> 00:50:33.180
That is the type of support you want.

967
00:50:33.520 --> 00:50:37.360
Whereas if you have somebody who says, let's put work, let's leave work outside.

968
00:50:37.703 --> 00:50:38.419
It's home now.

969
00:50:38.943 --> 00:50:40.140
And I don't want to hear about that.

970
00:50:40.220 --> 00:50:41.420
Let's do all this other stuff instead.

971
00:50:41.946 --> 00:50:43.140
That sounds innocent.

972
00:50:43.844 --> 00:50:45.980
the problem is that it decreases the likelihood they win.

973
00:50:46.401 --> 00:50:47.440
And again, I know this will be controversial.

974
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:49.319
So, you know, take it or leave it.

975
00:50:49.681 --> 00:50:51.800
Again, my two cents, you can tell me to shove it.

976
00:50:51.962 --> 00:50:52.360
It's up to you.

977
00:50:52.501 --> 00:50:53.540
Let's talk about the next big one.

978
00:50:53.840 --> 00:50:55.760
So in creating that scaling roadmap

979
00:50:55.780 --> 00:50:56.800
that I was talking about earlier,

980
00:50:57.944 --> 00:50:59.780
I wanted to create like a micro cycle

981
00:51:00.383 --> 00:51:03.360
I felt had to exist within every process, right?

982
00:51:03.722 --> 00:51:05.640
And so I'm going to break down two different processes

983
00:51:05.867 --> 00:51:06.299
that are different.

984
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:08.380
One is scaling, the other is optimization.

985
00:51:08.580 --> 00:51:09.780
All right, so I'm going to walk through both.

986
00:51:10.342 --> 00:51:11.940
So whenever you have a system,

987
00:51:12.743 --> 00:51:15.833
you'll typically start as the first step.

988
00:51:16.595 --> 00:51:18.000
So whatever you're doing, you want to start out,

989
00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:18.642
you have to start.

990
00:51:18.903 --> 00:51:22.675
Number one, S. Then you have C, which is compound.

991
00:51:23.176 --> 00:51:23.437
All right.

992
00:51:23.477 --> 00:51:24.140
So you have to do

993
00:51:24.882 --> 00:51:25.162
more.

994
00:51:25.964 --> 00:51:26.566
Okay, great.

995
00:51:26.586 --> 00:51:27.147
We're doing more.

996
00:51:27.649 --> 00:51:29.152
The next is augment.

997
00:51:29.694 --> 00:51:31.137
So how do we do better?

998
00:51:31.418 --> 00:51:32.200
Then we have

999
00:51:32.280 --> 00:51:35.733
leverage, which is how do we make it consistent, right?

1000
00:51:35.773 --> 00:51:36.697
How do we automate it?

1001
00:51:37.078 --> 00:51:37.640
And so I'll just,

1002
00:51:37.842 --> 00:51:39.900
I'll make this a little infinite thing.

1003
00:51:40.400 --> 00:51:43.440
And then finally, how do we expand again?

1004
00:51:44.041 --> 00:51:47.780
And so this is actually a loop between each of these steps.

1005
00:51:48.382 --> 00:51:50.220
So you start and then you do more.

1006
00:51:50.521 --> 00:51:52.480
And then once you do more, you try to get better.

1007
00:51:52.841 --> 00:51:54.259
Once you get better and you know what works,

1008
00:51:54.561 --> 00:51:56.320
you try and automate it and make it consistent

1009
00:51:56.706 --> 00:51:57.700
and have low volatility.

1010
00:51:58.282 --> 00:52:00.420
And then you expand to the next territory.

1011
00:52:00.680 --> 00:52:01.780
You expand to the next channel.

1012
00:52:02.142 --> 00:52:03.860
You expand to the next type of content.

1013
00:52:04.160 --> 00:52:05.760
You expand to the next product.

1014
00:52:06.489 --> 00:52:07.440
the same process

1015
00:52:07.460 --> 00:52:08.560
and it's nice

1016
00:52:08.621 --> 00:52:09.380
because it has this little

1017
00:52:09.461 --> 00:52:10.380
what are these called

1018
00:52:10.710 --> 00:52:11.020
acronyms

1019
00:52:11.191 --> 00:52:11.320
yeah

1020
00:52:11.988 --> 00:52:12.940
it's got this nice acronym

1021
00:52:13.396 --> 00:52:13.417
S

1022
00:52:13.852 --> 00:52:13.872
C

1023
00:52:14.536 --> 00:52:14.557
A

1024
00:52:14.640 --> 00:52:14.661
L

1025
00:52:15.080 --> 00:52:15.101
E

1026
00:52:15.644 --> 00:52:16.659
and so it actually fit in there

1027
00:52:17.146 --> 00:52:18.160
and I was super pumped about that

1028
00:52:18.201 --> 00:52:19.220
and so now when I think about

1029
00:52:19.645 --> 00:52:20.780
what someone has to do next

1030
00:52:20.821 --> 00:52:21.400
with an apartment

1031
00:52:21.421 --> 00:52:22.100
I often think

1032
00:52:22.161 --> 00:52:22.858
okay where are they at

1033
00:52:23.387 --> 00:52:24.260
okay they just started this thing

1034
00:52:24.301 --> 00:52:25.219
so they just need to do more

1035
00:52:25.546 --> 00:52:26.240
oh they've done a lot

1036
00:52:26.342 --> 00:52:27.180
okay so maybe there's probably

1037
00:52:27.200 --> 00:52:27.660
a lot of waste

1038
00:52:27.701 --> 00:52:28.699
so now we probably should do

1039
00:52:29.114 --> 00:52:29.260
better

1040
00:52:29.363 --> 00:52:29.960
how can we augment

1041
00:52:30.063 --> 00:52:30.580
how can we streamline

1042
00:52:30.703 --> 00:52:31.299
how can we optimize

1043
00:52:31.748 --> 00:52:32.360
once they're doing better

1044
00:52:32.360 --> 00:52:32.718
it's like okay

1045
00:52:32.760 --> 00:52:33.599
they're doing really well

1046
00:52:34.006 --> 00:52:34.740
but there's more demand

1047
00:52:34.740 --> 00:52:35.279
that's coming in

1048
00:52:35.420 --> 00:52:36.687
how can we make this consistent?

1049
00:52:36.727 --> 00:52:39.058
How can we automate this or portions of this work?

1050
00:52:39.339 --> 00:52:39.500
And then

1051
00:52:39.580 --> 00:52:42.517
finally, once we have this thing airtight, we're like, cool, how can we do this again?

1052
00:52:42.819 --> 00:52:43.000
And we

1053
00:52:43.040 --> 00:52:43.362
expand.

1054
00:52:43.583 --> 00:52:46.940
If we're thinking about this within the context of content, it's like we start on a

1055
00:52:46.980 --> 00:52:49.931
channel, then we start posting on a channel.

1056
00:52:50.252 --> 00:52:52.059
Then we say, okay, well, one post a day works.

1057
00:52:52.099 --> 00:52:52.260
Can we

1058
00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:53.085
do three posts a day?

1059
00:52:53.105 --> 00:52:53.668
So we do more.

1060
00:52:54.110 --> 00:52:55.780
Then we're like, hey, some of these posts do better than

1061
00:52:55.840 --> 00:52:56.081
others.

1062
00:52:56.343 --> 00:52:57.468
How can we make our posts better?

1063
00:52:57.970 --> 00:53:00.220
And then we say, cool, what percentage of these processes

1064
00:53:00.401 --> 00:53:01.866
can we use AI for?

1065
00:53:01.926 --> 00:53:03.050
What things can we pre-prep?

1066
00:53:03.331 --> 00:53:05.880
How that we can basically make better happen more

1067
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:07.225
easily and more consistently.

1068
00:53:07.245 --> 00:53:10.820
How can we make it, instead of having one do 10K views and one have

1069
00:53:11.101 --> 00:53:13.431
a million views, how can we get all of them over 100K?

1070
00:53:13.451 --> 00:53:14.696
How can we get all of them over 250K?

1071
00:53:14.736 --> 00:53:14.796
And

1072
00:53:15.740 --> 00:53:18.694
then finally, we're like, okay, I think we've maxed out this specific channel.

1073
00:53:19.015 --> 00:53:19.960
How do we now go to

1074
00:53:20.301 --> 00:53:20.663
TikTok?

1075
00:53:20.683 --> 00:53:22.874
How do we take this process and go to Snapchat or whatever?

1076
00:53:23.236 --> 00:53:24.120
So it works for anything.

1077
00:53:24.760 --> 00:53:27.150
Now, the second process, so that's about scaling.

1078
00:53:27.571 --> 00:53:28.816
This is about optimization.

1079
00:53:29.178 --> 00:53:29.660
And so this is

1080
00:53:29.740 --> 00:53:32.292
typically when you come in and fix something that already exists.

1081
00:53:32.715 --> 00:53:33.840
And so I got to have a lot of

1082
00:53:33.880 --> 00:53:41.220
experience with this this year because I took over media and conversion within acquisition.com.

1083
00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:41.340
And I

1084
00:53:41.380 --> 00:53:43.451
haven't operated day to day probably like five years.

1085
00:53:43.833 --> 00:53:45.160
And so it was actually a ton of fun for me

1086
00:53:45.200 --> 00:53:48.780
because honestly, it's just like I've developed a lot of skills since the last time I operated.

1087
00:53:49.160 --> 00:53:49.602
It's been great.

1088
00:53:49.743 --> 00:53:52.938
So anyways, so the first thing is you question the requirements.

1089
00:53:52.958 --> 00:53:53.440
And I got this

1090
00:53:53.520 --> 00:53:56.131
framework from Elon and it's freaking awesome.

1091
00:53:56.573 --> 00:53:57.557
So question the requirements.

1092
00:53:57.658 --> 00:53:58.220
Why are we doing

1093
00:53:58.320 --> 00:53:59.044
everything that we're doing.

1094
00:53:59.446 --> 00:54:02.260
Please explain to me, how does this thing relate to this output?

1095
00:54:02.620 --> 00:54:07.359
And this is why defining what each department is supposed to create is so valuable, right?

1096
00:54:07.379 --> 00:54:07.600
It's like,

1097
00:54:08.060 --> 00:54:08.804
you're the content team.

1098
00:54:09.186 --> 00:54:11.378
The goal here is to make as much good content as possible.

1099
00:54:11.438 --> 00:54:11.780
Anything that

1100
00:54:11.800 --> 00:54:15.135
does not facilitate content creation in terms of volume and quality is waste.

1101
00:54:15.437 --> 00:54:15.798
If you're an

1102
00:54:16.200 --> 00:54:20.820
engineering team, it's like, you have code that you must type, which then creates software that

1103
00:54:20.840 --> 00:54:23.174
people can use, and we want the quality of that software to be really high.

1104
00:54:23.576 --> 00:54:24.280
And so anything that

1105
00:54:24.320 --> 00:54:26.512
does not relate to those things are things that are waste.

1106
00:54:26.532 --> 00:54:27.960
So we question why we do everything.

1107
00:54:28.600 --> 00:54:31.865
The second was you kind of get lay of the land after questioning is you delete.

1108
00:54:32.706 --> 00:54:37.632
And you delete because the next few steps are going to be adding resources to the system.

1109
00:54:37.972 --> 00:54:39.754
And so you delete everything that doesn't matter.

1110
00:54:39.835 --> 00:54:44.200
So the first step that I did when I took over the media team was I deleted all meetings.

1111
00:54:44.821 --> 00:54:47.460
Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that we're never going to have meetings again.

1112
00:54:47.660 --> 00:54:51.000
It just means that I will find out which meetings matter, and then we will add those in proportionally.

1113
00:54:51.460 --> 00:54:56.040
And so I said, you can have ad hoc discussions about clear things, but otherwise I'm canceling the recurring meetings,

1114
00:54:56.481 --> 00:54:59.680
and I replaced all team meetings, all one-on-ones, with just a daily huddle.

1115
00:55:00.040 --> 00:55:04.100
That way, basically the entire day, and these were also deep workers.

1116
00:55:04.522 --> 00:55:07.360
So everyone who's creating content really just wants to get into flow,

1117
00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:10.920
and anything that prevents flow massively impacts their performance.

1118
00:55:11.320 --> 00:55:15.680
And so it's like the solution of just adding more people and adding more meetings just gets more people to not work.

1119
00:55:15.820 --> 00:55:16.197
It's terrible.

1120
00:55:16.842 --> 00:55:17.899
And most people also hate it.

1121
00:55:18.221 --> 00:55:19.139
Most people want to work.

1122
00:55:19.700 --> 00:55:27.760
And so once you delete, then you optimize, which is saying, okay, what of the things that we're doing right now get us the most results?

1123
00:55:28.483 --> 00:55:30.420
What are these things that get us the least results?

1124
00:55:30.780 --> 00:55:34.940
What are the resources required to do them, as in like time spent or money spent in order to get it?

1125
00:55:35.283 --> 00:55:36.360
And then we optimize it.

1126
00:55:36.380 --> 00:55:40.000
So we say the things that give us the most for the least, we put as the first priority.

1127
00:55:40.422 --> 00:55:44.180
the next thing that gets us uh you know the most for the most we put it's the second priority the

1128
00:55:44.200 --> 00:55:47.660
things that get us a very little amount that cost a lot we put at the end and we're just basically

1129
00:55:47.660 --> 00:55:52.120
going to not do those things and so you re-optimize the actual processes once you've deleted everything

1130
00:55:52.261 --> 00:55:57.480
else then you pull up timelines you say how can we make this happen faster how can we do this in

1131
00:55:57.761 --> 00:56:02.779
one tenth of time and what's crazy is that you honestly can increase the speed of things by 5x

1132
00:56:03.220 --> 00:56:07.580
10x it's mind-blowing when you do it because you're like i can't believe how much waste we've

1133
00:56:07.600 --> 00:56:08.242
had this whole time.

1134
00:56:08.905 --> 00:56:13.040
But all you do is when you ask questions, you say, how many hours does that

1135
00:56:13.140 --> 00:56:13.402
take?

1136
00:56:14.085 --> 00:56:16.537
And so then someone's going to respond with how many hours it takes.

1137
00:56:16.557 --> 00:56:17.060
So rather than,

1138
00:56:17.300 --> 00:56:22.060
this is the classic, instead of doing end of week deadlines, you just make it end of day.

1139
00:56:22.940 --> 00:56:27.980
And so if a team is used to delivering something to a team meeting every Monday, and you say,

1140
00:56:28.080 --> 00:56:29.408
cool, how many hours does it take?

1141
00:56:29.428 --> 00:56:29.690
Great.

1142
00:56:30.112 --> 00:56:31.460
Let's have it done by the end of the day.

1143
00:56:31.823 --> 00:56:34.180
you 7x the speed of that team.

1144
00:56:35.671 --> 00:56:35.776
7x.

1145
00:56:36.301 --> 00:56:37.500
And so some people can't comprehend

1146
00:56:37.602 --> 00:56:38.560
how one company can grow

1147
00:56:38.601 --> 00:56:39.700
at so much faster rate than others.

1148
00:56:40.061 --> 00:56:41.640
And it's because of this resource allocation.

1149
00:56:41.780 --> 00:56:42.680
They pull up time.

1150
00:56:43.042 --> 00:56:44.118
If you accomplish a goal in 100 years,

1151
00:56:44.321 --> 00:56:44.739
who cares?

1152
00:56:45.361 --> 00:56:46.660
Time is a huge function of business.

1153
00:56:47.020 --> 00:56:47.888
And so if you don't have a process

1154
00:56:49.181 --> 00:56:50.900
around pulling up timelines consistently,

1155
00:56:51.281 --> 00:56:52.340
then here's why it's so important.

1156
00:56:53.162 --> 00:56:55.860
Let's say there's more utilization on the team.

1157
00:56:56.000 --> 00:56:56.900
They have bandwidth.

1158
00:56:57.442 --> 00:56:58.540
And you pull stuff up and they're like,

1159
00:56:58.581 --> 00:56:59.860
hey, we don't need that for another week.

1160
00:56:59.920 --> 00:57:02.440
Like, why are you making me do it by the end of today?

1161
00:57:02.882 --> 00:57:04.760
Because we don't know what's going to happen next week.

1162
00:57:05.041 --> 00:57:07.880
And we might have a priority next week that we do need to get end of day.

1163
00:57:08.101 --> 00:57:10.580
And then when that happens, we still won't have done this other thing.

1164
00:57:10.983 --> 00:57:12.119
And now we have to do the other one.

1165
00:57:12.481 --> 00:57:14.020
So this other thing is now two weeks delayed.

1166
00:57:14.480 --> 00:57:22.660
And so basically, you want to use up all available resources that are renewable on a consistent basis to get the highest return.

1167
00:57:22.920 --> 00:57:25.660
So I want to make sure you understand the argument there because you're going to have to tell it to your team.

1168
00:57:26.361 --> 00:57:31.080
The reason I'm going to drive this outcome, even though there's no apparent outside urgency,

1169
00:57:31.502 --> 00:57:35.860
is because it assumes that the future is going to be exactly like today.

1170
00:57:36.160 --> 00:57:38.960
And one of the things I can guarantee is that the future won't be,

1171
00:57:39.200 --> 00:57:41.180
and that there will be things that you didn't expect.

1172
00:57:41.480 --> 00:57:46.740
And when that day comes, you will want to have all of the things that you've accomplished behind you,

1173
00:57:46.820 --> 00:57:52.940
supporting you, and have as many resources as humanly possible available to you to deploy in that moment.

1174
00:57:53.663 --> 00:57:57.220
because the most adaptable player in the system survives.

1175
00:57:57.820 --> 00:57:59.720
That is what the survival of the fittest means

1176
00:57:59.761 --> 00:58:00.660
within the context of business.

1177
00:58:00.921 --> 00:58:03.620
It's the most adaptable player, the most flexible.

1178
00:58:04.160 --> 00:58:07.420
And so the final step here is automate, same as before.

1179
00:58:07.660 --> 00:58:08.540
And so this is what you look at

1180
00:58:08.560 --> 00:58:10.000
when you're trying to fix something

1181
00:58:10.061 --> 00:58:11.100
or turn something around or make it better.

1182
00:58:11.540 --> 00:58:12.859
All right, this is when you're trying to scale something.

1183
00:58:13.401 --> 00:58:14.600
I could probably come up with something cute

1184
00:58:14.620 --> 00:58:15.880
around optimize, but it has too many letters.

1185
00:58:16.040 --> 00:58:16.920
Hopefully those two frameworks

1186
00:58:17.424 --> 00:58:19.640
give you two different ways to look at departments

1187
00:58:19.640 --> 00:58:20.200
where you come in and you're like,

1188
00:58:20.300 --> 00:58:21.260
okay, is this a scale thing?

1189
00:58:21.340 --> 00:58:22.780
So we need to do more, we need to do better,

1190
00:58:22.881 --> 00:58:25.876
we need to make it reliable or automate a portion of it, or do we need to expand?

1191
00:58:26.278 --> 00:58:26.580
Or is this

1192
00:58:26.801 --> 00:58:27.485
everything's screwed up?

1193
00:58:27.605 --> 00:58:28.550
Why are we doing what we're doing?

1194
00:58:28.651 --> 00:58:29.716
Okay, delete all that stuff.

1195
00:58:30.098 --> 00:58:30.420
Optimize

1196
00:58:30.460 --> 00:58:31.747
the things that get us the most outcome.

1197
00:58:32.028 --> 00:58:33.596
Pull up time requirements, then automate.

1198
00:58:34.018 --> 00:58:34.440
Having these

1199
00:58:34.480 --> 00:58:38.120
types of frameworks to solve problems makes life so much easier, which is why I share it with you.

1200
00:58:38.300 --> 00:58:41.171
So the next one is about success and failure and knowing why.

1201
00:58:41.694 --> 00:58:43.280
So Professor Bergman from Stanford

1202
00:58:43.601 --> 00:58:48.780
has this statement where he says, it's better to fail and know why you failed than to succeed and

1203
00:58:48.860 --> 00:58:49.081
not.

1204
00:58:49.403 --> 00:58:52.639
Now, notwithstanding the outcome itself, but he's talking about you as an individual.

1205
00:58:52.659 --> 00:58:52.740
It's

1206
00:58:52.760 --> 00:58:56.940
better to know why you lost than not know why you won because you can't learn anything from it.

1207
00:58:57.040 --> 00:58:59.534
Essentially, it means that the success is purely chance, right?

1208
00:58:59.555 --> 00:59:00.440
Which means you can't repeat it.

1209
00:59:00.860 --> 00:59:04.499
And so Edison, you know, had 10,000 ways not to know how to make a light bulb, right?

1210
00:59:04.519 --> 00:59:04.700
It's the

1211
00:59:04.700 --> 00:59:05.324
same kind of idea.

1212
00:59:05.344 --> 00:59:08.120
And like, as long as you learn from your failures on a long enough time horizon

1213
00:59:08.120 --> 00:59:10.290
and you don't give up, you will win, period.

1214
00:59:10.933 --> 00:59:12.480
And so an expert you can define as somebody who's

1215
00:59:12.520 --> 00:59:14.614
made all the mistakes that you can possibly make in a very narrow field.

1216
00:59:15.157 --> 00:59:15.640
And so fundamentally,

1217
00:59:15.740 --> 00:59:17.768
that's what we want to be within our businesses.

1218
00:59:18.229 --> 00:59:21.240
And so within that context, I have now spoken to

1219
00:59:21.341 --> 00:59:24.720
a lot of business owners because we started this workshop division so we could meet more businesses,

1220
00:59:24.820 --> 00:59:27.993
so we could do ACQ Ventures, and obviously within the main portfolio.

1221
00:59:28.736 --> 00:59:29.580
You're noticing I'm lining up

1222
00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:30.202
a lot of sheets here.

1223
00:59:30.623 --> 00:59:35.978
So there are what I call the six horsemen of business stagnation.

1224
00:59:36.479 --> 00:59:36.760
And so

1225
00:59:37.141 --> 00:59:39.489
if you are stuck, this is for you.

1226
00:59:40.191 --> 00:59:42.880
So there are six reasons that I've seen that have been continuous

1227
00:59:43.864 --> 00:59:44.989
rock and hard place scenarios.

1228
00:59:45.009 --> 00:59:47.340
And the reason that business owners get stuck here is because

1229
00:59:47.340 --> 00:59:51.120
is you have to choose between two apparently impossible choices.

1230
00:59:51.684 --> 00:59:52.500
One is pain today.

1231
00:59:52.802 --> 00:59:53.740
The other is pain forever.

1232
00:59:54.444 --> 00:59:55.480
And both of them sting.

1233
00:59:55.781 --> 00:59:57.780
And that's why people just wade water in pain,

1234
00:59:57.840 --> 01:00:00.480
because it hurts a little bit less to keep pain forever

1235
01:00:00.823 --> 01:00:02.780
than have a lot of short-term pain now.

1236
01:00:03.260 --> 01:00:03.480
All right?

1237
01:00:03.721 --> 01:00:04.919
So these are the big six.

1238
01:00:05.720 --> 01:00:08.920
So number one is being underpriced.

1239
01:00:09.162 --> 01:00:09.960
This is how it presents.

1240
01:00:10.182 --> 01:00:12.620
A business owner is at close to full capacity.

1241
01:00:13.140 --> 01:00:14.920
Let's say they provide some services,

1242
01:00:15.061 --> 01:00:17.360
and they're like, I can't work any more than I already have

1243
01:00:17.420 --> 01:00:19.559
or my team can't work any more than it already is.

1244
01:00:19.780 --> 01:00:20.780
And, and this is the key point,

1245
01:00:21.063 --> 01:00:21.900
and we're not making money.

1246
01:00:22.142 --> 01:00:22.937
So when that occurs,

1247
01:00:23.744 --> 01:00:24.940
they want to look at all these different things,

1248
01:00:25.020 --> 01:00:26.579
but the problem is you're just mispriced.

1249
01:00:27.141 --> 01:00:30.240
Now there's the fear that if I raise my price,

1250
01:00:30.401 --> 01:00:32.480
I will lose my customers and then it will get worse.

1251
01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:35.940
But the thing is, is that I have shepherded

1252
01:00:36.122 --> 01:00:37.759
so many businesses through price raises

1253
01:00:38.468 --> 01:00:39.340
that it makes me sick.

1254
01:00:39.941 --> 01:00:42.560
And the process of raising price works like this.

1255
01:00:43.061 --> 01:00:49.060
You get to the price and then you say a higher number and you keep going up until people stop buying

1256
01:00:49.783 --> 01:00:51.960
That is how you do it in the back of napkin

1257
01:00:52.620 --> 01:00:55.410
Redneck logic way that I prefer most times.

1258
01:00:55.891 --> 01:00:58.480
All right, and so if you're in that situation you get to pick

1259
01:00:59.103 --> 01:01:01.900
Do you want to have a few people say no and you make more money?

1260
01:01:02.743 --> 01:01:06.880
Or do you want to be barely above water and not be able to expand forever?

1261
01:01:07.502 --> 01:01:11.200
Because the reason you can't expand the business because you don't have cash flow you don't cash flow because your prices are wrong

1262
01:01:11.420 --> 01:01:12.381
We need to fix the price.

1263
01:01:13.081 --> 01:01:15.083
Once we fix the price, we'll free up cash.

1264
01:01:15.343 --> 01:01:17.825
With the freed up cash, we can expand into locations.

1265
01:01:18.105 --> 01:01:20.106
We can hire that key person that you need to bring in.

1266
01:01:20.667 --> 01:01:25.670
Number one, if you are full capacity and you aren't making money, you need to raise your price.

1267
01:01:25.970 --> 01:01:28.892
An easy way to do it is every five plus 20.

1268
01:01:28.972 --> 01:01:29.933
All right.

1269
01:01:30.393 --> 01:01:40.080
So I actually got this from lifting weights, believe it or not, which is basically once you, it's the reverse of this, which is once you increase volume by 20%,

1270
01:01:40.300 --> 01:01:43.953
percent, bump your intensity up by five, meaning add five pounds, right?

1271
01:01:43.993 --> 01:01:45.298
Or 5%, right?

1272
01:01:45.318 --> 01:01:45.780
So bump

1273
01:01:45.981 --> 01:01:50.360
volume by 20, bump intensity by five, and then volume will drop again, but now you have higher

1274
01:01:50.400 --> 01:01:50.782
intensity.

1275
01:01:51.063 --> 01:01:54.957
And so it's this kind of balanced progression process.

1276
01:01:54.997 --> 01:01:55.920
It's just a very simple one,

1277
01:01:56.201 --> 01:01:57.448
but it actually works the same way for price.

1278
01:01:57.810 --> 01:01:59.358
And so it's like you sell five customers.

1279
01:01:59.458 --> 01:01:59.780
If they all

1280
01:02:00.543 --> 01:02:04.680
say yes to that price or around the same percentage, or you net more money overall,

1281
01:02:05.021 --> 01:02:07.210
you bump the price by 20% and do it again.

1282
01:02:07.551 --> 01:02:09.339
And you just keep doing the five and 20,

1283
01:02:09.800 --> 01:02:13.960
keep doing five and 20 until eventually not enough people are saying yes, so you're netting

1284
01:02:14.020 --> 01:02:14.461
less money.

1285
01:02:14.903 --> 01:02:20.880
Now, the problem is if you have small sales numbers, it's harder to hear no more often

1286
01:02:21.342 --> 01:02:24.617
because your brain isn't going to calculate the fact that you made 20% more.

1287
01:02:24.958 --> 01:02:25.320
It's going to be

1288
01:02:25.460 --> 01:02:27.909
binary in its thinking of like it was a yes or a no.

1289
01:02:28.471 --> 01:02:31.080
And the thing is, is that if you sell three

1290
01:02:31.240 --> 01:02:36.914
people at twice the price, it's better than selling five people at half the price, but you're

1291
01:02:39.740 --> 01:02:41.247
better for the business for two reasons.

1292
01:02:41.729 --> 01:02:42.874
One, you actually make more money.

1293
01:02:43.537 --> 01:02:44.280
Secondly, and this is

1294
01:02:44.320 --> 01:02:46.649
the big one people forget, you also have fewer people to service.

1295
01:02:47.131 --> 01:02:49.420
So you have less cost and more

1296
01:02:49.480 --> 01:02:53.615
revenue, which those two things together create a disproportionate increase in profit.

1297
01:02:53.956 --> 01:02:55.020
So big thing

1298
01:02:55.040 --> 01:02:56.423
number one, fix your price.

1299
01:02:57.927 --> 01:03:02.136
So the second big problem is overcompensation.

1300
01:03:02.758 --> 01:03:03.720
Now what I mean by

1301
01:03:03.800 --> 01:03:07.156
this is actually paying people, not like you're overcompensating for stuff, okay?

1302
01:03:07.578 --> 01:03:07.980
This typically

1303
01:03:08.081 --> 01:03:11.300
happens when you have a set of employees, especially in service businesses, where you

1304
01:03:11.460 --> 01:03:16.479
accidentally in the beginning give some sort of revenue share or something like that.

1305
01:03:16.699 --> 01:03:16.860
So it

1306
01:03:16.860 --> 01:03:17.182
doesn't matter.

1307
01:03:17.202 --> 01:03:18.531
You can't out-earn it, right?

1308
01:03:18.551 --> 01:03:19.960
Like if you grow the business, they just grow

1309
01:03:20.020 --> 01:03:20.442
their revenue.

1310
01:03:20.462 --> 01:03:23.515
Like you overcompensate them or you miscompensate them.

1311
01:03:24.177 --> 01:03:24.820
And maybe you did that

1312
01:03:24.820 --> 01:03:27.860
in the beginning because the revenue was really low and you never thought you'd get to where you're

1313
01:03:27.860 --> 01:03:28.322
at now.

1314
01:03:28.684 --> 01:03:30.011
And then your big fear, right?

1315
01:03:30.071 --> 01:03:31.639
Each one of these has a rock and hard place scenario.

1316
01:03:31.660 --> 01:03:31.720
The

1317
01:03:31.760 --> 01:03:36.297
big fear is if I tell them that I have to change the compensation, they're going to leave.

1318
01:03:36.979 --> 01:03:37.180
And the

1319
01:03:37.240 --> 01:03:38.405
answer is maybe.

1320
01:03:38.746 --> 01:03:39.991
But if you don't, you'll never grow.

1321
01:03:40.353 --> 01:03:41.578
So what are you going to do?

1322
01:03:41.738 --> 01:03:42.160
You have to

1323
01:03:42.843 --> 01:03:45.193
go through the short-term pain to get the long-term gain.

1324
01:03:45.293 --> 01:03:46.920
The process that I'd recommend doing,

1325
01:03:47.040 --> 01:03:49.819
number one, is you shore up the infrastructure, which means that you bring someone else in

1326
01:03:50.382 --> 01:03:56.260
that can do the same thing as that person and do it at the new price that you want to pay them for.

1327
01:03:57.081 --> 01:03:59.960
Then you can have the conversation with them with more leverage and saying, hey,

1328
01:04:00.742 --> 01:04:01.766
the market is this.

1329
01:04:01.887 --> 01:04:02.750
I'm paying you this.

1330
01:04:03.212 --> 01:04:05.140
I understand this is what I need to pay you in

1331
01:04:05.180 --> 01:04:08.160
order for us to accomplish our goals, which is what I sold you on, is that we want to accomplish

1332
01:04:08.240 --> 01:04:09.285
this big vision with the business.

1333
01:04:09.747 --> 01:04:12.199
Now, I understand that isn't like I'm changing expectations.

1334
01:04:12.259 --> 01:04:12.460
And so

1335
01:04:12.620 --> 01:04:15.230
go home, talk to your wife, sleep on it, and come back.

1336
01:04:15.611 --> 01:04:17.880
Tomorrow, if you want to stay here for that

1337
01:04:17.980 --> 01:04:19.788
compensation, I'll give you a delay.

1338
01:04:20.129 --> 01:04:22.720
So this is the key part is you say, hey, I'll keep paying you

1339
01:04:22.760 --> 01:04:25.489
this for the next two months or three months, whatever.

1340
01:04:26.192 --> 01:04:28.119
And after that, then you'll go to this

1341
01:04:29.082 --> 01:04:31.250
new kind of compensation philosophy.

1342
01:04:31.531 --> 01:04:33.760
If they come back and say, no, I feel underappreciated,

1343
01:04:33.800 --> 01:04:34.808
blah, blah, blah, then that's fine.

1344
01:04:34.848 --> 01:04:36.420
And the good news is you already have somebody who's right

1345
01:04:36.460 --> 01:04:37.002
there ready to go.

1346
01:04:37.123 --> 01:04:38.790
That's the second big, big issue.

1347
01:04:39.191 --> 01:04:41.340
The third big problem, and this is a big

1348
01:04:41.461 --> 01:04:44.011
one, is this is really common when you're smaller.

1349
01:04:44.232 --> 01:04:45.980
So I'd say sub 3 million, this is you guys.

1350
01:04:46.540 --> 01:04:46.741
All right.

1351
01:04:46.881 --> 01:04:47.664
Serve too many.

1352
01:04:47.684 --> 01:04:49.130
I'll just say infinite avatars.

1353
01:04:49.953 --> 01:04:50.214
All right.

1354
01:04:50.536 --> 01:04:51.680
Meaning you serve too many

1355
01:04:51.720 --> 01:04:52.142
customers.

1356
01:04:52.483 --> 01:04:53.789
So you're serving too many people.

1357
01:04:54.552 --> 01:04:56.540
And what happens is all these different people

1358
01:04:56.600 --> 01:04:57.363
have different demands.

1359
01:04:57.885 --> 01:05:01.840
And so they are telling you all these different things and you can't get

1360
01:05:01.880 --> 01:05:02.544
your offer right.

1361
01:05:02.564 --> 01:05:05.360
You can't get your advertising right because you're serving too many people.

1362
01:05:05.840 --> 01:05:08.010
Now, again, what's the rock and hard place scenario?

1363
01:05:08.392 --> 01:05:10.180
Well, if I get narrower on my avatar,

1364
01:05:10.520 --> 01:05:13.112
I'm going to sell fewer customers and I'm getting all these other people.

1365
01:05:13.594 --> 01:05:14.860
Well, to me, number one

1366
01:05:14.920 --> 01:05:19.740
is if you fix your messaging, you will attract more of the right people, but you haven't been

1367
01:05:19.780 --> 01:05:20.745
willing to take that bet.

1368
01:05:20.966 --> 01:05:23.840
The alternative is you can try and be everything to everyone, which you

1369
01:05:23.880 --> 01:05:27.060
know isn't going to work because it's what you're already doing and you know it's not working.

1370
01:05:27.663 --> 01:05:31.740
And so you have the evidence that your your existing path is going to stagnate you again

1371
01:05:31.841 --> 01:05:34.240
The impossible choice is do you want to keep stagnating forever?

1372
01:05:34.360 --> 01:05:39.920
And maybe you make some money now, but it's preventing you from growing or are you willing to and that business is about risk?

1373
01:05:40.260 --> 01:05:42.579
Like you have to be comfortable with risk all of these are risks

1374
01:05:42.982 --> 01:05:45.880
But the alternative is you never risk and you stay exactly where you are

1375
01:05:45.921 --> 01:05:47.420
And so for me that is a much greater risk

1376
01:05:47.480 --> 01:05:51.460
It's like when you get into investing anything you invest money into can go down

1377
01:05:51.621 --> 01:05:54.900
So you incur that risk, but if you never invest you absolutely will never get wealthy

1378
01:05:55.281 --> 01:05:56.342
So what are you going to do?

1379
01:05:56.362 --> 01:06:00.570
You have to take the small risk so that you avoid the much larger long-term risk.

1380
01:06:00.630 --> 01:06:06.700
And each of these is small short-term risk to avoid large long-term risk.

1381
01:06:07.681 --> 01:06:09.720
Here, you have to niche down who you're serving,

1382
01:06:10.062 --> 01:06:10.794
which you do by 80-20.

1383
01:06:11.681 --> 01:06:13.960
So that means you look at all of your customers

1384
01:06:15.049 --> 01:06:16.057
and you say, what are the top 20%?

1385
01:06:17.305 --> 01:06:18.120
Who are these people?

1386
01:06:18.762 --> 01:06:19.459
What do they do?

1387
01:06:19.902 --> 01:06:20.600
Where are they from?

1388
01:06:20.981 --> 01:06:23.820
And you say, how do I make this my message?

1389
01:06:24.461 --> 01:06:27.460
And how do I make an offer that's only for them

1390
01:06:27.723 --> 01:06:28.780
that they would go nuts for?

1391
01:06:28.900 --> 01:06:29.939
And here's the part people miss.

1392
01:06:30.664 --> 01:06:32.080
And price it accordingly.

1393
01:06:32.665 --> 01:06:33.840
So if you have customers

1394
01:06:34.505 --> 01:06:36.520
that you provide five times the value to

1395
01:06:36.661 --> 01:06:38.400
and I'm sure you do have those people,

1396
01:06:39.062 --> 01:06:39.920
well, all of a sudden,

1397
01:06:40.060 --> 01:06:42.160
if you were to turn some of these bad ones away,

1398
01:06:42.621 --> 01:06:44.360
then your price could reflect the value

1399
01:06:44.481 --> 01:06:47.160
that you serve to only that much narrower avatar.

1400
01:06:47.723 --> 01:06:48.580
And that's okay.

1401
01:06:48.884 --> 01:06:49.500
And that's great.

1402
01:06:49.861 --> 01:06:51.100
So you may, yet again,

1403
01:06:51.160 --> 01:06:52.140
and by the way, this is the point,

1404
01:06:52.541 --> 01:06:53.220
make more money.

1405
01:06:54.181 --> 01:06:56.000
Again, all of these are counterintuitive,

1406
01:06:56.120 --> 01:06:57.060
which is why people get stuck.

1407
01:06:58.662 --> 01:07:00.100
So the next one,

1408
01:07:00.902 --> 01:07:02.380
the next rock and hard place scenarios

1409
01:07:03.189 --> 01:07:04.100
is overextension.

1410
01:07:04.430 --> 01:07:04.780
All right.

1411
01:07:05.403 --> 01:07:07.754
So this one is Alex's favorite.

1412
01:07:09.320 --> 01:07:11.460
This is Alex's greatest hits of mistakes.

1413
01:07:12.562 --> 01:07:14.940
Is me trying to take on too many things.

1414
01:07:16.383 --> 01:07:20.480
I have a plate that's this big and I start putting food on the table because I can't fit it on the plate.

1415
01:07:21.220 --> 01:07:23.660
And typically, this is where you get ahead of your skis.

1416
01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:29.600
Where you open that second location when the first location isn't really operating as well as you think it is.

1417
01:07:29.821 --> 01:07:32.220
And as soon as you go there, the revenue from the first one drops.

1418
01:07:32.542 --> 01:07:34.600
And you're like, uh-oh, but a lot of that was my profit.

1419
01:07:35.041 --> 01:07:40.460
And so now you've got these fixed costs, the revenue's down, and then you've got this one, but this one's new, so it's not doing as well as the first one was.

1420
01:07:40.861 --> 01:07:42.760
And your start person's there, but you're not there.

1421
01:07:43.060 --> 01:07:48.700
And so now you're splitting between two locations, and you're like, oh man, now I'm actually making the same amount as I was with one, but now I have twice the risk.

1422
01:07:49.021 --> 01:07:50.392
And you're like, oh, you know what the solution should be?

1423
01:07:50.634 --> 01:07:51.320
I'll open a third.

1424
01:07:51.740 --> 01:07:58.920
And then between the three, now your profit goes down even more, and now you're not making any money, but you have three locations, and you have three times the risk, and you're stressed out of your mind.

1425
01:07:59.323 --> 01:07:59.939
So what do you do?

1426
01:08:01.100 --> 01:08:02.820
Honestly, you have two solutions.

1427
01:08:03.621 --> 01:08:06.340
You either have to hire incredibly impressive people,

1428
01:08:06.500 --> 01:08:09.080
which means that you're going to probably give up your income

1429
01:08:09.485 --> 01:08:10.680
in order to bring this person on,

1430
01:08:11.426 --> 01:08:12.399
or you have to cut your losses.

1431
01:08:12.560 --> 01:08:15.180
You have to prune the tree, you have to re-concentrate,

1432
01:08:15.802 --> 01:08:18.880
get it right, and then scale back out again the right way.

1433
01:08:19.220 --> 01:08:21.600
And so overextension is typically a who problem,

1434
01:08:22.101 --> 01:08:24.480
which is you don't have enough good people that you left behind

1435
01:08:24.724 --> 01:08:25.840
who can actually run it without you.

1436
01:08:26.201 --> 01:08:29.640
This happens a lot of times in like the $1 to $3 million range.

1437
01:08:29.640 --> 01:08:31.380
It happens at all ranges, but a lot there,

1438
01:08:31.722 --> 01:08:34.400
because when you get there,

1439
01:08:34.520 --> 01:08:36.100
you typically suck yourself out of the day-to-day.

1440
01:08:36.281 --> 01:08:38.220
You're not actually selling people.

1441
01:08:38.661 --> 01:08:40.300
You're not doing customer service

1442
01:08:40.747 --> 01:08:41.520
and you're not doing delivery.

1443
01:08:42.144 --> 01:08:42.940
But the issue is,

1444
01:08:43.441 --> 01:08:45.340
you think that because you're not involved

1445
01:08:45.985 --> 01:08:47.700
in the acquisition and delivery

1446
01:08:47.983 --> 01:08:49.840
that you're not required to run the business.

1447
01:08:50.385 --> 01:08:50.839
But the thing is,

1448
01:08:50.880 --> 01:08:52.400
is that you work every hour of the day right now.

1449
01:08:52.901 --> 01:08:54.219
And so if you work every hour of the day,

1450
01:08:54.401 --> 01:08:56.140
but you're not selling and you're not delivering,

1451
01:08:56.380 --> 01:08:57.540
then it means you're doing other stuff.

1452
01:08:57.905 --> 01:08:58.840
And that other stuff you're doing

1453
01:08:59.224 --> 01:09:01.000
is very much operating the business.

1454
01:09:01.440 --> 01:09:05.860
And so a lot of owners will mistakenly think that CEO and owner mean the same thing.

1455
01:09:06.721 --> 01:09:08.860
You happen to be both, but they are not the same.

1456
01:09:09.300 --> 01:09:10.780
And so right now is you leave.

1457
01:09:10.840 --> 01:09:12.620
So it's like the CEO leaves the business.

1458
01:09:13.441 --> 01:09:16.680
And all of a sudden, the business stops running as well because the CEO is gone.

1459
01:09:17.422 --> 01:09:20.220
So you have to have somebody who's going to operate behind you.

1460
01:09:20.220 --> 01:09:22.160
You have to basically backfill yourself.

1461
01:09:22.820 --> 01:09:25.080
And in my opinion, I like a six-month test.

1462
01:09:25.120 --> 01:09:28.080
At the very least, do a one-month test, which is go away for a month.

1463
01:09:28.523 --> 01:09:30.115
and you show your phone to your operator

1464
01:09:30.880 --> 01:09:31.760
and you say, hey, here's the deal.

1465
01:09:32.161 --> 01:09:34.960
You're going to get this override on the business.

1466
01:09:35.341 --> 01:09:37.020
So a little profit share, whatever, some stock.

1467
01:09:37.721 --> 01:09:38.739
And in doing that,

1468
01:09:39.342 --> 01:09:40.740
I'm doing this in exchange for this not ringing.

1469
01:09:41.062 --> 01:09:41.520
That's the deal.

1470
01:09:41.923 --> 01:09:42.540
That's the trade.

1471
01:09:42.901 --> 01:09:45.220
And if this rings, then that's not the deal.

1472
01:09:45.760 --> 01:09:47.680
And so it's like, then you role play it out.

1473
01:09:47.720 --> 01:09:48.979
So it's like, let's say a pipe burst.

1474
01:09:49.383 --> 01:09:49.758
What do you do?

1475
01:09:50.102 --> 01:09:51.480
If it's call you, wrong answer.

1476
01:09:51.540 --> 01:09:52.220
Because what do you think I'm going to do?

1477
01:09:52.240 --> 01:09:52.800
I'm going to call a plumber.

1478
01:09:53.020 --> 01:09:53.639
So what are you going to do?

1479
01:09:53.822 --> 01:09:54.660
Just call the plumber directly.

1480
01:09:54.740 --> 01:09:55.840
You don't need to call me to call the plumber.

1481
01:09:56.484 --> 01:09:56.780
Same idea.

1482
01:09:57.365 --> 01:09:59.139
If it's an emergency, call 911.

1483
01:09:59.621 --> 01:10:01.400
If it's not an emergency, don't call me.

1484
01:10:02.102 --> 01:10:03.179
Either way, don't call me.

1485
01:10:03.760 --> 01:10:04.920
And so this is the trade.

1486
01:10:05.380 --> 01:10:08.660
So if you're overextended, you either got to dip into your own paycheck to bring someone in,

1487
01:10:09.321 --> 01:10:13.020
or you got to prune the tree, re-concentrate, and then build it back right.

1488
01:10:13.581 --> 01:10:18.060
And the six-month test that I was alluding to is the business has to either maintain

1489
01:10:18.402 --> 01:10:21.760
or grow for six straight months without your direct involvement.

1490
01:10:22.200 --> 01:10:24.800
Now, that last point is the big one, without your direct involvement.

1491
01:10:25.120 --> 01:10:26.399
Now, some of you are going to run that test,

1492
01:10:26.801 --> 01:10:28.760
still continue to work in the day-to-day for six months,

1493
01:10:28.800 --> 01:10:29.940
and then say, oh, I think I did it.

1494
01:10:30.261 --> 01:10:31.680
But you just didn't change what you did at all,

1495
01:10:31.941 --> 01:10:33.400
and the business continued to operate with you as CEO,

1496
01:10:33.601 --> 01:10:34.220
which is not the case.

1497
01:10:34.260 --> 01:10:35.100
So you just delay six months,

1498
01:10:35.140 --> 01:10:35.960
and then you open the next location.

1499
01:10:36.401 --> 01:10:37.880
Well, which will still make you a little bit better

1500
01:10:37.941 --> 01:10:38.840
in terms of your cash position,

1501
01:10:39.261 --> 01:10:40.520
but not my recommendation.

1502
01:10:41.160 --> 01:10:43.060
So what's number five?

1503
01:10:43.640 --> 01:10:47.580
So number five is more than one business.

1504
01:10:48.482 --> 01:10:49.960
So this is also an Alex special.

1505
01:10:50.844 --> 01:10:51.740
I have a lot of specials here.

1506
01:10:52.342 --> 01:10:54.400
Four and five are my personal favorites.

1507
01:10:55.121 --> 01:10:59.660
that I've made the most often, which is you've got two businesses or you've got three businesses

1508
01:10:59.881 --> 01:11:00.965
because you don't know how to pick.

1509
01:11:01.748 --> 01:11:04.960
And you operate from the fallacy that Zuckerberg had

1510
01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:05.523
a side hustle.

1511
01:11:05.704 --> 01:11:08.660
Zuckerberg was also flipping Airbnbs and doing wholesaling on the side,

1512
01:11:09.020 --> 01:11:09.141
right?

1513
01:11:09.161 --> 01:11:10.004
And that's how he built Facebook.

1514
01:11:10.286 --> 01:11:10.929
Of course not.

1515
01:11:11.672 --> 01:11:13.480
One of these businesses is the business you

1516
01:11:13.500 --> 01:11:13.982
should be doing.

1517
01:11:14.525 --> 01:11:17.700
And the thing is, is that the opportunity is the problems that you need to

1518
01:11:17.740 --> 01:11:18.403
solve and aren't.

1519
01:11:18.926 --> 01:11:20.996
It's not in the missed opportunities.

1520
01:11:21.076 --> 01:11:21.940
It's the problems that need

1521
01:11:21.960 --> 01:11:23.668
to be solved.

1522
01:11:23.708 --> 01:11:26.360
It's the hairy work that you're not sure what the answer is, but you know you need to

1523
01:11:26.380 --> 01:11:26.682
fix it.

1524
01:11:27.064 --> 01:11:28.211
That is where the opportunity is.

1525
01:11:28.231 --> 01:11:29.860
Because fundamentally, if the product were exceptional

1526
01:11:29.880 --> 01:11:31.391
and everybody loved it, you wouldn't have an issue.

1527
01:11:31.412 --> 01:11:32.540
You'd be going all in on that business.

1528
01:11:33.040 --> 01:11:35.288
And so if that's the case, then just do it.

1529
01:11:37.214 --> 01:11:39.020
Now, you're going to have this sunk cost fallacy of

1530
01:11:39.040 --> 01:11:41.676
like, I already put all this money into this and I already got it going.

1531
01:11:41.696 --> 01:11:42.340
I already have a partner

1532
01:11:42.460 --> 01:11:42.641
there.

1533
01:11:43.042 --> 01:11:46.173
Yes, short-term risk, you lose a relationship.

1534
01:11:46.655 --> 01:11:48.160
You lose maybe short-term income from that

1535
01:11:48.201 --> 01:11:48.879
from that business.

1536
01:11:49.382 --> 01:11:49.840
Long-term risk,

1537
01:11:50.060 --> 01:11:51.600
you never grow any of these things

1538
01:11:51.620 --> 01:11:52.359
to any material size

1539
01:11:52.522 --> 01:11:53.660
because you're too distracted.

1540
01:11:54.122 --> 01:11:54.231
Pick.

1541
01:11:55.204 --> 01:11:55.900
Again, do whatever you want.

1542
01:11:56.302 --> 01:11:56.740
But I'm just saying,

1543
01:11:57.626 --> 01:11:58.980
these are the most common ones.

1544
01:11:59.521 --> 01:12:00.200
And then finally,

1545
01:12:00.740 --> 01:12:02.520
we've got no data daddy.

1546
01:12:03.184 --> 01:12:03.520
All right?

1547
01:12:03.903 --> 01:12:04.600
No data, papa.

1548
01:12:05.221 --> 01:12:07.080
I have no projections, papa.

1549
01:12:07.620 --> 01:12:07.733
Okay.

1550
01:12:08.462 --> 01:12:09.680
So with no data daddy,

1551
01:12:09.881 --> 01:12:10.659
the issue is

1552
01:12:11.148 --> 01:12:11.820
you don't even know

1553
01:12:11.840 --> 01:12:12.698
what your problem is

1554
01:12:13.084 --> 01:12:14.320
because you don't collect any data.

1555
01:12:14.941 --> 01:12:16.120
And so it'd be like,

1556
01:12:16.221 --> 01:12:17.720
hey, what do we need to grow?

1557
01:12:17.840 --> 01:12:18.543
what's our lead cost?

1558
01:12:18.583 --> 01:12:19.025
No idea.

1559
01:12:19.266 --> 01:12:20.009
What's our close rate?

1560
01:12:20.029 --> 01:12:20.531
No idea.

1561
01:12:20.792 --> 01:12:21.474
What's our churn?

1562
01:12:21.494 --> 01:12:21.755
No idea.

1563
01:12:21.775 --> 01:12:21.876
Well,

1564
01:12:23.020 --> 01:12:25.051
you can't really do much if you have no idea what's going on.

1565
01:12:25.413 --> 01:12:26.720
And so this then becomes the

1566
01:12:26.740 --> 01:12:29.535
constraint of the business, which is we need to start collecting data.

1567
01:12:29.656 --> 01:12:30.420
Now, to be clear,

1568
01:12:30.680 --> 01:12:33.831
the first five have what I consider an impossible scenario.

1569
01:12:33.851 --> 01:12:35.256
There's some cost.

1570
01:12:35.577 --> 01:12:36.420
The cost here is that

1571
01:12:36.440 --> 01:12:37.224
you give up a business.

1572
01:12:37.506 --> 01:12:40.280
The cost here is that you have to cut, you have to prune things, or you have

1573
01:12:40.280 --> 01:12:41.547
to hire someone and hurt your own income.

1574
01:12:41.949 --> 01:12:44.160
Here, the issue is that you have to say no to customers

1575
01:12:44.241 --> 01:12:45.420
that you're currently making money from.

1576
01:12:45.841 --> 01:12:48.760
Here, the issue is that you have to say no to employees

1577
01:12:48.760 --> 01:12:49.678
that you're currently overcompensating.

1578
01:12:50.201 --> 01:12:52.620
Here, you have to turn down customers at a lower price

1579
01:12:52.943 --> 01:12:54.280
and hear no more often.

1580
01:12:54.621 --> 01:12:55.739
Those are the short-term costs.

1581
01:12:56.101 --> 01:12:57.240
But the one big risk of all of these

1582
01:12:57.240 --> 01:12:58.480
is that your business isn't going to grow.

1583
01:12:58.841 --> 01:12:59.760
And you've been stuck for long enough

1584
01:12:59.801 --> 01:13:00.740
to know it's already not happening

1585
01:13:00.862 --> 01:13:01.960
and there's not going to be a silver bullet.

1586
01:13:02.140 --> 01:13:03.040
You've got to confront this.

1587
01:13:03.521 --> 01:13:05.140
The no data daddy issue is just,

1588
01:13:05.382 --> 01:13:07.180
hey, silly pants, get your data.

1589
01:13:07.842 --> 01:13:08.860
Then you'll actually be able to grow.

1590
01:13:09.121 --> 01:13:10.480
Now, there's no downside to this one.

1591
01:13:10.901 --> 01:13:12.780
The only downside here is that you've got some shiny object

1592
01:13:12.820 --> 01:13:14.640
that you think is really sexy and interesting,

1593
01:13:14.961 --> 01:13:17.360
and you don't get to do that because you need to do this.

1594
01:13:17.881 --> 01:13:18.719
So do this first.

1595
01:13:19.100 --> 01:13:22.120
And I'll give you a really useful razor

1596
01:13:22.844 --> 01:13:25.358
for how to think about what data to collect.

1597
01:13:26.403 --> 01:13:28.780
The easiest test for is this data valuable

1598
01:13:29.343 --> 01:13:32.180
is when it changes, does it change behavior?

1599
01:13:32.480 --> 01:13:36.480
So if we track our views on a social media channel,

1600
01:13:37.062 --> 01:13:38.860
if the views go up, does it change what we do?

1601
01:13:39.163 --> 01:13:41.020
If the views go down, does it change what we do?

1602
01:13:41.202 --> 01:13:42.860
If the answer is no, then we don't need to track it.

1603
01:13:43.181 --> 01:13:45.960
Because you can track unlimited variables in the world.

1604
01:13:46.020 --> 01:13:48.920
Like you could track the temperature of the room when people are walking in.

1605
01:13:49.060 --> 01:13:51.980
You could track it, but will it change your behavior?

1606
01:13:52.440 --> 01:13:56.980
You can also reverse engineer into what are the behaviors we do, what data affects it,

1607
01:13:57.201 --> 01:13:59.100
and those are the only pieces of data that need to track.

1608
01:13:59.521 --> 01:14:03.340
So my biggest personal growth lesson of the year, so I give you all the portfolio growth things,

1609
01:14:03.780 --> 01:14:07.479
but my number one was rush is imaginary.

1610
01:14:08.741 --> 01:14:11.020
Now, I just gave you that whole speech on urgency.

1611
01:14:11.980 --> 01:14:20.479
But one of the things that I've had to learn is my biggest mistakes have been shiny object or woman in the red dress and overextension.

1612
01:14:21.820 --> 01:14:28.800
And so I have these arbitrary goals that I set for myself that I never say out loud, that I think about every day, that mean nothing to no one.

1613
01:14:28.980 --> 01:14:33.180
And then I try and force everything to happen on this arbitrary timeline that I made up.

1614
01:14:33.501 --> 01:14:41.440
And then I'm upset when people who don't know my arbitrary timeline fall short of the speed that I wanted to happen, even though I made it up to begin with.

1615
01:14:41.720 --> 01:14:48.280
Layla gave me this frame that I alluded to briefly earlier, but it's probably been, I'd say, talent focus.

1616
01:14:49.020 --> 01:14:55.620
And this is a subset of focus, but it's missed opportunities is less than problems.

1617
01:14:55.900 --> 01:15:01.560
So what I mean by that is that the opportunities that you're looking for are in the problems that you need to solve.

1618
01:15:01.841 --> 01:15:06.420
And me understanding this, I've repeated it because it's really been singed into my brain.

1619
01:15:07.200 --> 01:15:11.840
There are, for example, if you're starting to get low reviews, these are things that threaten the livelihood of the business.

1620
01:15:12.102 --> 01:15:12.800
That is a problem.

1621
01:15:13.401 --> 01:15:15.840
If you're not doing email follow-up, that is a missed opportunity.

1622
01:15:16.740 --> 01:15:27.960
And unless your, call it, you know, payback rate or your LTV or some sort of conversion mechanism is the risk of the business, then that would be a missed opportunity.

1623
01:15:28.682 --> 01:15:35.060
If the number one risk in the business right now is that you can't make money because you aren't converting a higher percentage of leads, then that would shift into a problem.

1624
01:15:36.182 --> 01:15:39.640
And so it's not that any specific thing is one or the other.

1625
01:15:40.140 --> 01:15:46.240
It's recognizing contextually within your business, is this something that would be nice to do?

1626
01:15:46.901 --> 01:15:51.400
Or is this something that we must do in order for us to achieve our ultimate goal?

1627
01:15:52.162 --> 01:15:54.900
We might be able to achieve our ultimate goal without doing email follow-up.

1628
01:15:55.442 --> 01:15:57.780
If our product sucks, we will never achieve our ultimate goal.

1629
01:15:58.482 --> 01:16:03.880
And so it's understanding the order of magnitude or the importance of the potential tasks that you have.

1630
01:16:04.260 --> 01:16:11.100
The reason that this stressed me out for so long, and this is the big one, is that problems in your business are actually finite.

1631
01:16:11.560 --> 01:16:14.640
You can list all the number of problems in your business, by and large.

1632
01:16:15.740 --> 01:16:16.939
Missed opportunities are infinite.

1633
01:16:18.120 --> 01:16:21.420
And so I basically took, I would look at the world of all the things that we could do.

1634
01:16:21.480 --> 01:16:24.919
And here's the thing is the better you get at business, the more things you know you should be doing that you aren't.

1635
01:16:25.843 --> 01:16:29.320
and you see this huge, unlimited potential options of things,

1636
01:16:29.400 --> 01:16:31.600
and you look at these tiny little resources that you have,

1637
01:16:32.142 --> 01:16:34.480
and then it's like, we need to do all of these things.

1638
01:16:35.182 --> 01:16:36.940
And this is where you stress out your team,

1639
01:16:36.980 --> 01:16:39.520
and you stress out yourself for literally no reason.

1640
01:16:40.021 --> 01:16:42.900
It's been difficult for me, and it's been a discipline now

1641
01:16:43.061 --> 01:16:45.500
to ask myself first, when I want something to happen,

1642
01:16:45.981 --> 01:16:48.340
is this a missed opportunity, or is this a problem?

1643
01:16:49.442 --> 01:16:51.780
And nine times out of 10, it's a missed opportunity.

1644
01:16:52.401 --> 01:16:54.360
And so I've been doubling down on problems

1645
01:16:54.360 --> 01:16:55.280
and solving those.

1646
01:16:55.340 --> 01:16:57.599
The thing is that problems are typically not nearly as fun

1647
01:16:57.824 --> 01:16:58.560
as missed opportunities.

1648
01:16:59.020 --> 01:17:01.460
Because missed opportunities have all the new gloss on them.

1649
01:17:01.960 --> 01:17:03.440
They're still in the wrapping paper.

1650
01:17:03.560 --> 01:17:05.380
You're like, oh my God, this is going to be amazing.

1651
01:17:05.761 --> 01:17:06.840
But as soon as you get into it, you're like,

1652
01:17:07.002 --> 01:17:08.340
oh, there's problems here too.

1653
01:17:08.780 --> 01:17:11.660
And I've said this before, but what ends up happening is

1654
01:17:11.741 --> 01:17:13.660
when you have this missed opportunity bug,

1655
01:17:14.140 --> 01:17:16.980
you start building all of these half-built bridges.

1656
01:17:17.702 --> 01:17:19.040
You never actually get all the way across.

1657
01:17:19.100 --> 01:17:22.177
You've got a dollar here, but you're standing on this side of the land.

1658
01:17:22.982 --> 01:17:26.740
right and you need to get this dollar across and you start building and then you find out that

1659
01:17:26.740 --> 01:17:30.680
there's problems and then you're like oh no so you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna build a second

1660
01:17:30.760 --> 01:17:35.280
bridge and then you find out that there's problems and you're like oh no i hate problems i'm gonna go

1661
01:17:35.360 --> 01:17:38.840
find another one that doesn't have problems it immediately just makes me more money but there's

1662
01:17:39.001 --> 01:17:43.460
always problems there's always problems and so it's like i have to just use the problems and i've

1663
01:17:43.480 --> 01:17:48.260
got to stitch this thing together so that i can get the dollar all the way across and then into

1664
01:17:48.360 --> 01:17:49.385
my very large pocket.

1665
01:17:49.405 --> 01:17:52.420
Here's the difficult part of this for an entrepreneur is that when you

1666
01:17:53.323 --> 01:17:57.700
quit your job, when you started this business, you were very reinforced for pursuing a missed

1667
01:17:57.800 --> 01:17:58.343
opportunity.

1668
01:17:58.705 --> 01:18:01.980
You weren't doing this thing, you start this business, and you get rewarded for

1669
01:18:02.020 --> 01:18:02.402
doing it.

1670
01:18:02.763 --> 01:18:06.820
And the problem is that you need to unlearn that behavior because it's a behavior

1671
01:18:06.921 --> 01:18:08.732
that you only want to do once when you start your business.

1672
01:18:08.752 --> 01:18:10.080
And then every time after that,

1673
01:18:10.421 --> 01:18:15.600
you have to confront, you have to endure, you have to stick through the problem and see it to its

1674
01:18:15.660 --> 01:18:16.102
natural land.

1675
01:18:16.363 --> 01:18:20.498
You have to get it all the way there so the dollars can make it across the bridge.

1676
01:18:20.980 --> 01:18:21.020
Or

1677
01:18:21.341 --> 01:18:27.340
you'll just have spent all the resources, all the distraction to build and reinforce this thing that

1678
01:18:27.560 --> 01:18:28.923
actually results in nothing.

1679
01:18:30.988 --> 01:18:36.120
And so this has been probably my single biggest tier of lesson,

1680
01:18:36.320 --> 01:18:39.412
because this is a subset of focus for me specifically.

1681
01:18:39.794 --> 01:18:41.440
I ask, is this a missed opportunity

1682
01:18:41.725 --> 01:18:42.540
or is this a problem?

1683
01:18:43.042 --> 01:18:45.000
And if it's a problem, then I need to solve it.

1684
01:18:45.420 --> 01:18:47.120
And I just need to confront a lot of the problems

1685
01:18:47.161 --> 01:18:48.679
or things that you don't know how to solve yet.

1686
01:18:48.860 --> 01:18:50.180
That's why they're still unsolved.

1687
01:18:50.660 --> 01:18:52.040
And so you have to become comfortable

1688
01:18:52.562 --> 01:18:57.260
in enduring the failure of working with limited information

1689
01:18:57.280 --> 01:18:58.440
or incomplete information.

1690
01:18:58.942 --> 01:19:00.560
Because the reality of businesses

1691
01:19:00.600 --> 01:19:03.260
is that you will almost always not have enough information

1692
01:19:03.824 --> 01:19:06.220
to know perfectly whether this is the right call.

1693
01:19:06.582 --> 01:19:09.940
And so you have to be comfortable in ambiguity.

1694
01:19:10.141 --> 01:19:13.580
You have to be comfortable with incomplete data sets and still making the call.

1695
01:19:13.901 --> 01:19:16.580
Because when you have a complete data set, there's really no stress.

1696
01:19:16.920 --> 01:19:18.460
The answer is obvious because you have the data.

1697
01:19:19.160 --> 01:19:25.840
It's all the times where you're like, oh, well, I wish I had tracked that one thing that I didn't know was going to be important now and I can't go back six months to get it.

1698
01:19:26.542 --> 01:19:27.460
That happens all the time.

1699
01:19:28.021 --> 01:19:29.360
And you just got to be able to make the call.

1700
01:19:29.801 --> 01:19:34.000
Because the thing is that we have this fear that we're leaving money on the table.

1701
01:19:34.943 --> 01:19:36.820
We feel like this missed opportunity right here.

1702
01:19:37.300 --> 01:19:39.160
We're like, man, there's so much money on the table.

1703
01:19:39.724 --> 01:19:41.680
but the real money on the table

1704
01:19:42.164 --> 01:19:43.780
sits in the problems that you know

1705
01:19:43.800 --> 01:19:45.020
you should be solving but aren't.

1706
01:19:45.120 --> 01:19:46.960
And so once I realize that the problems

1707
01:19:47.021 --> 01:19:48.140
are the things that I need to be solving,

1708
01:19:48.581 --> 01:19:50.660
then I can deploy all of the resources

1709
01:19:50.801 --> 01:19:52.920
that I normally would use to distract myself

1710
01:19:53.021 --> 01:19:54.960
to reinforce this bridge and reinforce this bridge

1711
01:19:55.001 --> 01:19:55.920
and reinforce this bridge

1712
01:19:56.244 --> 01:19:57.720
before I've made a dollar go across

1713
01:19:58.124 --> 01:19:59.700
and then point all of those resources

1714
01:19:59.822 --> 01:20:01.140
to one this big dollar sign

1715
01:20:01.424 --> 01:20:02.640
so I can go put it into my pocket

1716
01:20:02.681 --> 01:20:03.679
and actually solve it.

1717
01:20:04.880 --> 01:20:07.220
And so the compounding that occurs in business

1718
01:20:07.322 --> 01:20:08.279
happens from focus.

1719
01:20:08.721 --> 01:20:14.000
It's from doing one or two things exceptionally well, not doing many things mediocre.

1720
01:20:14.640 --> 01:20:18.300
And missed opportunities are the gateway drug to mediocrity.

1721
01:20:18.620 --> 01:20:25.720
And how I deal with this emotionally is I have a big list of Alex's big money ideas.

1722
01:20:26.040 --> 01:20:27.900
And I've done this at very different times in my life.

1723
01:20:28.220 --> 01:20:31.180
Like when I know what we need to do and we just have to keep doing more of it.

1724
01:20:31.601 --> 01:20:33.780
And the thing is, you probably know this too.

1725
01:20:34.260 --> 01:20:37.520
And yet you have this need for novelty.

1726
01:20:37.900 --> 01:20:38.037
Right?

1727
01:20:38.243 --> 01:20:38.719
I get it.

1728
01:20:38.860 --> 01:20:39.259
Believe me.

1729
01:20:39.880 --> 01:20:44.600
And so what I do is I add this idea to my big money list.

1730
01:20:45.121 --> 01:20:50.500
And then when we do have bandwidth, I say, what one big thing on this big money list are we going to attack?

1731
01:20:50.580 --> 01:20:53.960
What's crazy is I'm like, I've got a hundred ideas on this list.

1732
01:20:54.341 --> 01:21:00.120
And then it's a fun problem for you to be like, okay, which of these things is the biggest thing that will get us the furthest?

1733
01:21:00.520 --> 01:21:05.760
And what's crazy is, and if you actually do this, I have found so many times that I'm in love with an idea.

1734
01:21:06.225 --> 01:21:07.720
and then a month later, two months later,

1735
01:21:07.821 --> 01:21:09.320
I look at that idea on the list and I'm like,

1736
01:21:09.360 --> 01:21:11.220
I can't even believe I was so into that, right?

1737
01:21:11.561 --> 01:21:13.220
And so the thing is that if you don't have that discipline,

1738
01:21:13.280 --> 01:21:14.000
you don't just write on it,

1739
01:21:14.040 --> 01:21:16.420
you don't let it marinate for a little bit,

1740
01:21:16.801 --> 01:21:18.360
sometimes you end up deploying all these resources

1741
01:21:18.421 --> 01:21:20.020
into something that you, a month or two later,

1742
01:21:20.060 --> 01:21:21.360
would be like, I don't even know why I did that.

1743
01:21:21.821 --> 01:21:23.599
If this is resonating with you right now,

1744
01:21:24.301 --> 01:21:26.360
then do more of this.

1745
01:21:27.121 --> 01:21:28.780
Put more of the ideas on a big idea list

1746
01:21:28.881 --> 01:21:30.560
and then just let it cook and don't tell anybody

1747
01:21:30.905 --> 01:21:31.960
because you have this need to share,

1748
01:21:32.060 --> 01:21:33.580
you have this need to talk the idea out loud.

1749
01:21:33.721 --> 01:21:34.559
I get it, I do it.

1750
01:21:35.565 --> 01:21:38.320
just write out as much as you need to there.

1751
01:21:38.440 --> 01:21:39.880
And then it's like you get it out of your head

1752
01:21:39.900 --> 01:21:40.439
so you didn't have to,

1753
01:21:40.922 --> 01:21:42.500
you got all the details and all the craziness out

1754
01:21:42.500 --> 01:21:43.720
and you're like, I can shelve it.

1755
01:21:43.861 --> 01:21:44.479
I'll deal with it later.

1756
01:21:44.943 --> 01:21:46.020
It's kind of like Abraham Lincoln.

1757
01:21:46.140 --> 01:21:47.000
He used to write these letters

1758
01:21:47.081 --> 01:21:48.140
when he was really angry at people.

1759
01:21:48.621 --> 01:21:49.580
He'd write these huge letters,

1760
01:21:49.700 --> 01:21:51.140
just scathing letters to these people.

1761
01:21:51.644 --> 01:21:52.580
And then he would seal them

1762
01:21:52.621 --> 01:21:53.699
and then he'd put them in his desk

1763
01:21:54.025 --> 01:21:55.000
and he said he'd sleep on it.

1764
01:21:55.040 --> 01:21:56.660
The next day, if he wanted to send it, he could.

1765
01:21:57.200 --> 01:21:59.420
And so his desk after years was just filled

1766
01:21:59.844 --> 01:22:01.460
with all these letters that he never sent.

1767
01:22:02.422 --> 01:22:04.220
But it allowed him to get through the moment.

1768
01:22:04.580 --> 01:22:07.884
So I want to hit on this rush piece because I think this is important.

1769
01:22:08.104 --> 01:22:09.185
Rush is imaginary.

1770
01:22:09.265 --> 01:22:13.389
So something that I've been thinking about is like, where does this rush come from?

1771
01:22:14.030 --> 01:22:24.740
So fundamentally, unless you have a network effect business, so you have a winner take all market, like you're trying to become the Uber of whatever, right?

1772
01:22:25.403 --> 01:22:28.737
there's a network effect that there's one winner who will win and that's it.

1773
01:22:28.797 --> 01:22:29.419
Like if you're either

1774
01:22:29.661 --> 01:22:32.058
going to be Apple or you're going to be Android, there's no one else in the market.

1775
01:22:32.078 --> 01:22:32.380
Like you've got

1776
01:22:32.440 --> 01:22:34.892
two spots in the market for phone creators and that's it.

1777
01:22:34.912 --> 01:22:35.776
That's the monopoly, right?

1778
01:22:36.278 --> 01:22:36.620
Unless

1779
01:22:36.660 --> 01:22:40.636
you're in one of those settings, which 99% of businesses are not in that situation.

1780
01:22:41.419 --> 01:22:41.620
I have

1781
01:22:41.660 --> 01:22:48.120
realized that for me, rush is actually linked to one thing, which is my competition reference point,

1782
01:22:48.781 --> 01:22:51.491
which is fundamentally who I choose to compare myself to.

1783
01:22:52.013 --> 01:22:53.820
And so my rush is entirely arbitrary

1784
01:22:54.002 --> 01:22:56.040
because I just pick who I'm comparing myself to.

1785
01:22:56.582 --> 01:22:57.620
Now, here's what's kind of crazy.

1786
01:22:58.821 --> 01:23:00.459
Do you compare yourself to a five-year-old

1787
01:23:01.067 --> 01:23:02.080
who doesn't actually, like,

1788
01:23:02.643 --> 01:23:03.560
do you look at a five-year-old and be like,

1789
01:23:03.640 --> 01:23:04.140
what a loser.

1790
01:23:04.660 --> 01:23:06.520
They don't have a business as big as me.

1791
01:23:06.982 --> 01:23:08.340
No, of course not, right?

1792
01:23:08.842 --> 01:23:10.520
But the thing is, is that you,

1793
01:23:10.780 --> 01:23:12.940
like, why wouldn't you compare yourself to a five-year-old?

1794
01:23:13.381 --> 01:23:15.420
Well, because they haven't had any time

1795
01:23:16.184 --> 01:23:18.880
and because they are not developed yet.

1796
01:23:19.282 --> 01:23:21.020
But the thing is, is that they're another human,

1797
01:23:21.282 --> 01:23:22.760
just like you, and they will eventually,

1798
01:23:23.184 --> 01:23:24.680
Now, let's fast forward 20 years.

1799
01:23:25.021 --> 01:23:27.320
Now they're 25, and let's say they're crushing it.

1800
01:23:27.400 --> 01:23:28.620
Do you now compare yourself to them?

1801
01:23:29.041 --> 01:23:31.158
Why do you compare themselves at 25 and not at 5?

1802
01:23:32.684 --> 01:23:33.360
No real reason.

1803
01:23:33.880 --> 01:23:37.280
Because we think it's acceptable to compete against that particular person.

1804
01:23:37.760 --> 01:23:43.340
And so, for me, the realization that Rush is entirely linked to who I choose to compare myself to

1805
01:23:43.803 --> 01:23:45.760
meant that it's entirely made up in my mind.

1806
01:23:46.001 --> 01:23:50.060
So I can just change who I compare myself to, or I could try to compare myself less, much more difficult.

1807
01:23:50.381 --> 01:23:56.040
And so in thinking about this, it's more, how does this comparison change what I do every day?

1808
01:23:56.401 --> 01:24:01.060
And if it changes my actions that decreases the likelihood that I achieve my long-term goals,

1809
01:24:01.361 --> 01:24:03.460
then these comparisons hurt me.

1810
01:24:04.081 --> 01:24:07.180
The question that follows from the comparisons is, how does this serve me?

1811
01:24:07.662 --> 01:24:09.360
And if it doesn't, then why do it?

1812
01:24:09.921 --> 01:24:13.060
Like, do you feel guilty in middle school that you aren't the richest person in the world?

1813
01:24:14.242 --> 01:24:15.559
Well, then why do you feel guilty at 30?

1814
01:24:16.241 --> 01:24:17.616
I'm not saying that's my goal in life.

1815
01:24:17.981 --> 01:24:18.400
It's not.

1816
01:24:19.420 --> 01:24:23.120
But like fundamentally, you don't like flipping roles.

1817
01:24:23.401 --> 01:24:26.060
When you're in middle school, do you feel like a loser because you're not making money?

1818
01:24:26.261 --> 01:24:27.660
Maybe a couple people, right?

1819
01:24:27.741 --> 01:24:28.820
But y'all are weird, right?

1820
01:24:28.880 --> 01:24:33.440
But most people in middle school, you're like, oh my God, I have, you know, I'm getting chest hair or whatever the hell, right?

1821
01:24:33.681 --> 01:24:35.500
You're like, I'm navigating life right now.

1822
01:24:35.580 --> 01:24:36.280
Like I'm a child.

1823
01:24:36.360 --> 01:24:36.899
Look at my limbs.

1824
01:24:37.020 --> 01:24:37.719
They're longer, right?

1825
01:24:38.180 --> 01:24:44.420
And so the thing is, is that we just choose to enter this comparison game.

1826
01:24:45.084 --> 01:24:46.240
But we're all going to die.

1827
01:24:46.881 --> 01:24:48.900
And all of our stuff's going to go right back into the middle,

1828
01:24:49.020 --> 01:24:51.320
and other people are going to play with our chips, so who cares?

1829
01:24:52.120 --> 01:24:57.500
And if this rush is impacting your business, then you need to find a way to quell it.

1830
01:24:57.900 --> 01:25:03.200
Now, a third door is to compare yourself to your heroes at that stage in their lives, right?

1831
01:25:03.260 --> 01:25:04.917
Which is, where was Warren Buffett at age 35?

1832
01:25:06.122 --> 01:25:07.340
Okay, am I on track with him?

1833
01:25:07.781 --> 01:25:10.500
But again, you're not going to be Warren Buffett,

1834
01:25:10.721 --> 01:25:13.660
because Warren Buffett lived through the greatest growth in American history

1835
01:25:13.700 --> 01:25:15.600
and was born at the perfect time, right?

1836
01:25:15.600 --> 01:25:17.160
And he also bought his first stock when he was seven.

1837
01:25:17.240 --> 01:25:18.740
Did you buy your first stock when you were seven?

1838
01:25:19.128 --> 01:25:19.277
No.

1839
01:25:19.903 --> 01:25:21.640
There goes my five-year-old analogy, right?

1840
01:25:21.941 --> 01:25:22.376
But did you?

1841
01:25:22.720 --> 01:25:25.560
So if you didn't buy your first stock when you were seven, you're not Warren Buffett.

1842
01:25:25.660 --> 01:25:29.620
Now, you can model his behavior to have outcomes that will be probably proportionally smaller than his.

1843
01:25:30.122 --> 01:25:31.420
But that's okay.

1844
01:25:32.021 --> 01:25:33.260
It's only a problem if you think it's a problem.

1845
01:25:33.600 --> 01:25:40.660
So the next big category of kind of growth trends or focuses for the year of 2025, my big lessons, was branding.

1846
01:25:40.820 --> 01:25:43.520
So I talk about branding a lot, and that's because it's really important.

1847
01:25:43.982 --> 01:25:47.880
but I had a one day where I spent with Ben Francis.

1848
01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:49.319
So he came out to Vegas for the Olympia

1849
01:25:49.421 --> 01:25:50.300
and then we spent the day together.

1850
01:25:50.400 --> 01:25:51.400
He came a day early, which is great.

1851
01:25:51.861 --> 01:25:53.260
And we just hung out and Noel Mack,

1852
01:25:53.380 --> 01:25:56.140
who's his head of brand, was there with him.

1853
01:25:56.862 --> 01:25:59.000
And we got to spend a wonderful time

1854
01:25:59.122 --> 01:26:00.240
talking about brand in general.

1855
01:26:00.801 --> 01:26:03.840
They told me this story that has really stuck with me.

1856
01:26:04.621 --> 01:26:06.539
And I got to actually connect through them

1857
01:26:06.883 --> 01:26:08.280
with the CMO of New Balance.

1858
01:26:08.500 --> 01:26:09.340
And so this is the story.

1859
01:26:09.920 --> 01:26:13.280
New Balance's CMO, their growth had plateaued

1860
01:26:13.460 --> 01:26:14.365
after a number of years.

1861
01:26:14.425 --> 01:26:17.400
And so they were kind of stagnant and they needed to shake things up.

1862
01:26:17.460 --> 01:26:19.049
So he became the CMO of everything.

1863
01:26:19.189 --> 01:26:21.140
And he went to the CEO and said, hey, can I just swing really

1864
01:26:21.220 --> 01:26:21.421
big?

1865
01:26:22.082 --> 01:26:23.084
And the CEO said, sure.

1866
01:26:23.605 --> 01:26:30.118
And so then he said, I want to take our spend, which right now is 70%

1867
01:26:31.662 --> 01:26:34.771
bottom of funnel and 30% top of funnel.

1868
01:26:35.393 --> 01:26:36.797
And I want to flip these two things.

1869
01:26:37.279 --> 01:26:37.720
I want to make

1870
01:26:38.121 --> 01:26:40.347
30% bottom and 70% top.

1871
01:26:40.447 --> 01:26:41.910
And you're like, what does that mean?

1872
01:26:42.472 --> 01:26:45.700
This is brand awareness, storytelling,

1873
01:26:46.921 --> 01:26:51.071
associations that you make with different athletes.

1874
01:26:51.973 --> 01:26:54.820
That is all top of funnel, like,

1875
01:26:55.240 --> 01:26:57.526
wow, new balance is cool, right?

1876
01:26:58.047 --> 01:27:01.897
The bottom of funnel stuff is buy shoes, right?

1877
01:27:02.679 --> 01:27:02.980
And so

1878
01:27:03.562 --> 01:27:08.900
After doing this, what was crazy is that for the first 18 months, they made less money.

1879
01:27:10.562 --> 01:27:15.437
The company's return on their advertising budget went down for 18 months.

1880
01:27:17.160 --> 01:27:20.000
But on month 19, it went like this.

1881
01:27:20.140 --> 01:27:20.251
Boop.

1882
01:27:20.862 --> 01:27:21.460
It started going up.

1883
01:27:22.042 --> 01:27:22.980
Then it went up even more.

1884
01:27:23.242 --> 01:27:24.200
Then it went up even more.

1885
01:27:24.841 --> 01:27:29.280
They've had this massive rebirth from this shift in strategy.

1886
01:27:29.920 --> 01:27:33.900
And so when I heard that story, it was really compelling for a number of reasons for me.

1887
01:27:34.141 --> 01:27:35.160
And it changed my behavior.

1888
01:27:35.280 --> 01:27:43.320
So number one was this is a good ratio to think about in terms of investing in an audience versus kind of withdrawing from the audience.

1889
01:27:43.440 --> 01:27:48.840
And the reason the 70-30 I found interesting is that in the $100 million leads book, I talk about this at length,

1890
01:27:48.940 --> 01:27:58.700
but there's been a 3-to-1 ratio that's been studied by television, it's been studied by radio, which is content, right?

1891
01:27:59.320 --> 01:27:59.842
to ads.

1892
01:28:00.825 --> 01:28:06.120
So if you're on your Facebook newsfeed and you scroll, every three posts, the fourth post

1893
01:28:06.180 --> 01:28:06.883
will be an ad.

1894
01:28:07.044 --> 01:28:07.927
All right.

1895
01:28:08.168 --> 01:28:10.056
If you're on YouTube, it might be number of minutes.

1896
01:28:10.096 --> 01:28:10.799
Now they have AI and

1897
01:28:11.080 --> 01:28:13.871
all this stuff, but for the typical one, it's a three to one ratio.

1898
01:28:14.293 --> 01:28:15.799
Now this ratio is what is

1899
01:28:16.020 --> 01:28:19.552
required to basically keep a brand, keep a channel.

1900
01:28:19.572 --> 01:28:20.476
People keep coming back.

1901
01:28:20.756 --> 01:28:21.760
Now, if they change this

1902
01:28:21.800 --> 01:28:23.852
to two to one, all of a sudden people stop watching that channel.

1903
01:28:24.113 --> 01:28:25.240
They stop watching, they switch to

1904
01:28:25.280 --> 01:28:26.063
something else, right?

1905
01:28:26.184 --> 01:28:29.055
That ratio being reflected here I see as a human thing.

1906
01:28:29.818 --> 01:28:30.320
And so I think to

1907
01:28:30.360 --> 01:28:36.960
myself, okay, I need to make sure that I always keep my ratio at least three to one in terms of

1908
01:28:37.501 --> 01:28:38.544
value-driven.

1909
01:28:39.206 --> 01:28:43.720
And you can think about this in terms of views, like impressions per person,

1910
01:28:43.740 --> 01:28:44.766
because that's what really matter.

1911
01:28:45.389 --> 01:28:47.280
Or you can think about this in dollar spend if you want

1912
01:28:47.280 --> 01:28:48.747
to think about it from a budgeting perspective.

1913
01:28:49.249 --> 01:28:51.580
But for me, I think about this at the individual

1914
01:28:51.700 --> 01:28:56.417
level, I want to make sure that someone's getting at least three or four positives before they have

1915
01:28:57.220 --> 01:28:59.087
any kind of ask for me to do something.

1916
01:28:59.127 --> 01:29:02.559
Now, the net-net world is that if your product is

1917
01:29:02.880 --> 01:29:08.400
exceptional, the ask is not an ask because they're excited to buy something else from you.

1918
01:29:08.980 --> 01:29:14.455
And so this is why brand and product long-term are interwoven together.

1919
01:29:14.836 --> 01:29:16.340
Your reputation with

1920
01:29:16.400 --> 01:29:21.860
somebody will be reinforced or diminished by the quality of the product because you make a promise

1921
01:29:21.980 --> 01:29:27.478
with your advertisement and you deliver on that promise or over to real quick the rumors are true

1922
01:29:28.942 --> 01:29:36.480
100 million dollar scaling is live on my site at acquisition.com forward slash training it is the

1923
01:29:36.640 --> 01:29:43.820
full 14 hour saga of going from zero to 100 million across eight functional departments at

1924
01:29:43.960 --> 01:29:45.487
10 different stages in the business.

1925
01:29:45.587 --> 01:29:48.620
There's so much time went into putting this together for you.

1926
01:29:49.321 --> 01:29:51.470
And yes, it's absolutely free.

1927
01:29:51.671 --> 01:29:53.600
So if you're a business owner and you're trying to get to

1928
01:29:53.680 --> 01:29:56.520
whatever the next level of scale is for you, whether you're trying to go from 50 to 100

1929
01:29:56.660 --> 01:30:01.000
employees or 100 to 250, or you're just going from, you know, five to 10, there are clear

1930
01:30:01.121 --> 01:30:02.528
things that you have to do at each stage.

1931
01:30:02.568 --> 01:30:05.000
Having done it multiple times in a row now,

1932
01:30:05.501 --> 01:30:10.078
I feel really proud of this and it's all yours.

1933
01:30:10.198 --> 01:30:10.640
So if you want that,

1934
01:30:10.640 --> 01:30:13.380
you can go to acquisition.com forward slash training and enjoy.

1935
01:30:17.249 --> 01:30:21.760
flavor on their promise with the product and if it's worse now you got to put more in the bucket

1936
01:30:21.921 --> 01:30:27.820
here to kind of like get them to be willing to take another shot with you again or if you have

1937
01:30:27.880 --> 01:30:32.120
a really good product the amount they have to put back in here is actually less you could sell

1938
01:30:32.180 --> 01:30:38.420
something else even faster so if apple came out with the next ipod right people be really excited

1939
01:30:38.520 --> 01:30:38.761
about it.

1940
01:30:38.821 --> 01:30:44.500
And if the next day they said, hey, we also have this other amazing thing that doesn't

1941
01:30:44.600 --> 01:30:48.500
necessarily compete with the iPod, as long as you had the money, which is a different question,

1942
01:30:48.560 --> 01:30:52.080
as long as you had the money or financing available, you'd be excited to buy the next

1943
01:30:52.120 --> 01:30:53.928
thing too, provided the first thing was awesome.

1944
01:30:54.691 --> 01:30:56.920
And so this is the idea is that products can

1945
01:30:57.061 --> 01:31:00.320
reinforce brand and should be the thing that reinforced brand over the long term, which is why

1946
01:31:00.741 --> 01:31:06.000
I want everybody to read my books first, because the books have been the pieces of content that I

1947
01:31:06.100 --> 01:31:08.149
put more single time in than anything else.

1948
01:31:08.611 --> 01:31:10.679
I put 2,000 plus hours in each of those books.

1949
01:31:10.719 --> 01:31:10.860
Like,

1950
01:31:11.260 --> 01:31:13.269
no joke, 2,000 plus hours.

1951
01:31:13.650 --> 01:31:16.000
And so they are the single best pieces of content that I will likely

1952
01:31:16.120 --> 01:31:16.482
ever make.

1953
01:31:16.803 --> 01:31:17.747
And they will outlive me.

1954
01:31:18.028 --> 01:31:21.180
These videos will go away, like podcasts will disappear,

1955
01:31:21.681 --> 01:31:22.646
but the books will remain.

1956
01:31:23.048 --> 01:31:25.280
That is why I want everyone to read them, which is why I've made

1957
01:31:25.340 --> 01:31:25.984
them free.

1958
01:31:26.104 --> 01:31:28.015
Like, you can listen to them on my podcast for free.

1959
01:31:28.035 --> 01:31:29.020
And if you like hard versions,

1960
01:31:29.400 --> 01:31:32.317
you go on my site or you go on Amazon, you can grab them, all right?

1961
01:31:32.337 --> 01:31:32.900
They have, you know,

1962
01:31:33.101 --> 01:31:34.508
26,000 five stars.

1963
01:31:34.528 --> 01:31:36.920
There's a million copies that have been sold and it's because they're good,

1964
01:31:37.502 --> 01:31:37.863
right?

1965
01:31:37.964 --> 01:31:39.731
And it's because I put so much time into them.

1966
01:31:39.951 --> 01:31:42.160
This lesson, first off, was important for

1967
01:31:42.180 --> 01:31:46.160
me because the ratio and it corroborated what I kind of already think about in terms of content

1968
01:31:46.281 --> 01:31:47.024
and giving to asking.

1969
01:31:47.527 --> 01:31:50.260
The other piece that I thought was really interesting was the time delay,

1970
01:31:50.741 --> 01:31:53.696
which is that he made this shift and then he had to wait a year and a half.

1971
01:31:53.736 --> 01:31:54.500
And that's given the

1972
01:31:54.560 --> 01:31:58.760
size budget New Balance has, which means that if you want to build a brand, you've got to expect,

1973
01:31:58.980 --> 01:32:00.067
you've got to measure in years.

1974
01:32:00.470 --> 01:32:01.939
You just, you're not going to build a brand in months.

1975
01:32:01.959 --> 01:32:02.140
It's just

1976
01:32:02.140 --> 01:32:02.763
not going to happen.

1977
01:32:03.184 --> 01:32:03.305
Right.

1978
01:32:03.325 --> 01:32:06.880
And people, people see my brand now, but like my first YouTube videos

1979
01:32:07.021 --> 01:32:07.946
also started at zero.

1980
01:32:08.006 --> 01:32:09.936
My first Facebook page started at zero.

1981
01:32:09.956 --> 01:32:10.620
Like everyone, not my first

1982
01:32:10.660 --> 01:32:12.308
Instagram started like at zero, like everybody else.

1983
01:32:12.690 --> 01:32:14.117
And so it just takes time.

1984
01:32:14.197 --> 01:32:14.680
Like my first

1985
01:32:14.820 --> 01:32:16.187
YouTube videos, I think it was 2019.

1986
01:32:16.609 --> 01:32:18.800
Don't expect to have a 10 year outcome in 12 months.

1987
01:32:19.240 --> 01:32:24.479
One of the questions that I asked myself is like, okay, for branding for CPG companies.

1988
01:32:24.499 --> 01:32:24.720
So for

1989
01:32:24.780 --> 01:32:30.240
companies that sell to consumers, direct to consumer, the branding playbook is very well

1990
01:32:30.340 --> 01:32:30.722
tested.

1991
01:32:31.003 --> 01:32:34.757
You go find influencers in that world or brands that are similar.

1992
01:32:34.837 --> 01:32:35.580
You do collaborations

1993
01:32:35.761 --> 01:32:36.082
with them.

1994
01:32:36.444 --> 01:32:38.332
You basically cross over on values.

1995
01:32:38.594 --> 01:32:39.799
Their values become similar to yours.

1996
01:32:39.839 --> 01:32:40.020
You kind

1997
01:32:40.040 --> 01:32:40.904
of rub off on one another.

1998
01:32:41.165 --> 01:32:43.777
You go find champions and athletes that are top of their field.

1999
01:32:44.099 --> 01:32:44.360
You make

2000
01:32:44.400 --> 01:32:45.305
the associations.

2001
01:32:45.587 --> 01:32:48.040
People then want to buy your product because of that association and the

2002
01:32:48.100 --> 01:32:51.236
history of positive reinforcement they had with that particular athlete.

2003
01:32:51.256 --> 01:32:52.100
I was like, how do I do

2004
01:32:52.160 --> 01:32:53.806
this in a B2B setting, right?

2005
01:32:54.529 --> 01:32:57.660
And so I have split this up into basically two major categories.

2006
01:32:58.681 --> 01:33:05.500
If I want to build a brand in a B2B setting, right, you typically want to educate your audience because you want to be positioned as an authority.

2007
01:33:05.600 --> 01:33:10.260
So if you're an accountant, you're a lawyer, whatever it is, you want to be known as somebody who knows what they're doing, right?

2008
01:33:10.540 --> 01:33:17.000
And so category one is you help them accomplish their goals for free.

2009
01:33:18.388 --> 01:33:18.780
Very simple.

2010
01:33:19.301 --> 01:33:20.840
So a lot of this is going to be content, right?

2011
01:33:20.900 --> 01:33:25.800
Like this is why we brand with content is that if you, like what's the most positive association someone can have?

2012
01:33:25.880 --> 01:33:26.979
They have a goal, you help them achieve it.

2013
01:33:27.064 --> 01:33:27.216
Okay.

2014
01:33:27.662 --> 01:33:30.500
So they will link their goal achievement to your help.

2015
01:33:31.049 --> 01:33:31.200
Great.

2016
01:33:32.123 --> 01:33:34.760
The next thing is that you help someone like them.

2017
01:33:35.344 --> 01:33:36.040
So it's an approximation.

2018
01:33:36.941 --> 01:33:39.780
I am a lawyer and I help someone negotiate some deal.

2019
01:33:40.340 --> 01:33:43.180
And that person, and I have to advertise it.

2020
01:33:43.280 --> 01:33:44.180
I have to let people know about it.

2021
01:33:44.501 --> 01:33:48.680
Me seeing that as a plumber, and this lawyer only helps plumbers negotiate these deals,

2022
01:33:48.820 --> 01:33:50.840
I say, oh, someone just like me got exactly what I want.

2023
01:33:51.141 --> 01:33:52.420
So this is a degree removed.

2024
01:33:52.780 --> 01:33:55.400
The next one is that you do the aspirational outcome yourself.

2025
01:33:55.521 --> 01:33:57.220
Now, both of these can be aspirational, to be clear.

2026
01:33:58.305 --> 01:34:01.780
and this was actually something that Ben and I talked about a lot, Ben Francis,

2027
01:34:02.521 --> 01:34:08.840
which was oftentimes brands are built on the aspirational because it's almost like an extreme

2028
01:34:08.980 --> 01:34:12.290
version that I translate into decreasing risk of purchase.

2029
01:34:12.411 --> 01:34:13.173
So let me explain.

2030
01:34:13.875 --> 01:34:15.460
So North Face

2031
01:34:16.142 --> 01:34:21.380
can help people get to Everest and so if it's really cold at the top of Everest, if I buy that

2032
01:34:21.480 --> 01:34:26.714
jacket, it will likely keep me warm on the way to work from my car to the door, right?

2033
01:34:27.316 --> 01:34:29.020
If Range Rover

2034
01:34:29.542 --> 01:34:35.040
makes an ultimate outdoor vehicle and that they're the ultimate off-roader, then it'll probably

2035
01:34:35.421 --> 01:34:37.750
help me if I have to get over a curb, right?

2036
01:34:37.930 --> 01:34:40.640
It's these extreme versions that get regressed down to,

2037
01:34:40.660 --> 01:34:43.911
well, if it can do that, then it'll probably help me with my thing, right?

2038
01:34:44.413 --> 01:34:45.818
Seabum is the best

2039
01:34:46.761 --> 01:34:48.908
fitness influencer right now in this generation.

2040
01:34:49.349 --> 01:34:52.680
And so if he wears this stuff to compete at the

2041
01:34:52.720 --> 01:34:57.620
Olympia and train for the Olympia, then for me to just try and be the strongest guy at my gym,

2042
01:34:57.820 --> 01:34:59.326
it'll probably work for me.

2043
01:34:59.908 --> 01:35:02.559
And so the question is, what is that aspirational outcome?

2044
01:35:02.579 --> 01:35:02.900
Like Red

2045
01:35:02.940 --> 01:35:03.101
Bull.

2046
01:35:03.141 --> 01:35:07.780
If I could drink the Red Bull and jump out of space, then it'll probably get me a little bit

2047
01:35:07.820 --> 01:35:09.849
motivated when I have five hours of sleep, right?

2048
01:35:09.869 --> 01:35:12.380
Like you notice the theme here, like all of these

2049
01:35:12.480 --> 01:35:14.549
brands have these big aspirational outcomes.

2050
01:35:14.891 --> 01:35:17.080
There's a reason that my brand grew when I had

2051
01:35:17.140 --> 01:35:20.534
a $46 million exit, because it was an aspirational outcome.

2052
01:35:20.775 --> 01:35:22.120
Now, what I'm trying to do now, and I've

2053
01:35:22.120 --> 01:35:24.413
been public about that, is cross a billion dollars.

2054
01:35:24.433 --> 01:35:24.936
That's the goal.

2055
01:35:24.956 --> 01:35:25.680
And when that occurs,

2056
01:35:25.940 --> 01:35:27.307
my brand will be reinforced.

2057
01:35:27.327 --> 01:35:30.260
It'll be strengthened, because it'll be an aspirational goal for more

2058
01:35:30.340 --> 01:35:30.601
people.

2059
01:35:30.942 --> 01:35:37.100
Now, the good news is a $50 million exit or $46 million exit is a good enough occurrence

2060
01:35:37.381 --> 01:35:38.064
for many people.

2061
01:35:38.305 --> 01:35:41.760
Now, a different aspirational thing might be our portfolio performance now,

2062
01:35:41.962 --> 01:35:44.020
were worth significantly more than when we had that exit.

2063
01:35:44.401 --> 01:35:45.920
But it's less validated.

2064
01:35:46.100 --> 01:35:48.180
It's less third-party signed off.

2065
01:35:48.240 --> 01:35:50.120
And when we have that sign off, it'll become validated.

2066
01:35:50.260 --> 01:35:51.320
Now, I'll give you a fun story on this.

2067
01:35:51.841 --> 01:35:54.720
The amount of people that gave me kudos

2068
01:35:55.464 --> 01:35:58.280
for selling Gym Launch was significantly more

2069
01:35:58.280 --> 01:36:00.460
than the people who gave me kudos for owning Gym Launch.

2070
01:36:00.962 --> 01:36:02.340
But the owning of Gym Launch,

2071
01:36:02.801 --> 01:36:05.340
I was richer the day before I sold the company

2072
01:36:05.503 --> 01:36:06.300
than the day after.

2073
01:36:06.761 --> 01:36:09.400
Because the equity in the business compounded tax-free.

2074
01:36:10.083 --> 01:36:11.339
And the moment I sold it,

2075
01:36:11.662 --> 01:36:13.620
I had to pay taxes on what I gained.

2076
01:36:13.960 --> 01:36:14.920
And so by definition,

2077
01:36:15.120 --> 01:36:18.220
I had less money after the transaction than before.

2078
01:36:18.522 --> 01:36:19.660
But everyone perceived it

2079
01:36:19.720 --> 01:36:21.860
because there was the third-party edification that occurred

2080
01:36:21.941 --> 01:36:23.200
because the third party at arm's length

2081
01:36:23.485 --> 01:36:24.380
made the transaction happen.

2082
01:36:24.622 --> 01:36:25.540
And so it was real.

2083
01:36:26.001 --> 01:36:27.420
But as long as you don't live in the minds

2084
01:36:27.440 --> 01:36:28.418
of other people's perceptions,

2085
01:36:28.740 --> 01:36:30.560
which to be fair, in branding you kind of do,

2086
01:36:30.761 --> 01:36:31.800
you don't want your self-worth

2087
01:36:31.800 --> 01:36:33.000
to be tied in their perception,

2088
01:36:33.200 --> 01:36:34.500
but your brand ultimately will be.

2089
01:36:34.841 --> 01:36:36.500
The idea is the question to answer

2090
01:36:36.581 --> 01:36:38.900
if you're a B2B business and you're trying,

2091
01:36:39.021 --> 01:36:40.758
which is over half of businesses are B2B,

2092
01:36:41.001 --> 01:36:41.880
Fun stat, I didn't know.

2093
01:36:42.341 --> 01:36:44.060
I was looking this up for school, actually.

2094
01:36:44.602 --> 01:36:46.240
Is that these are basically your buckets.

2095
01:36:46.801 --> 01:36:48.980
Is how do I help them do what they want?

2096
01:36:49.502 --> 01:36:50.620
How do I help people like them?

2097
01:36:51.281 --> 01:36:54.080
And how can I accomplish something aspirational in their mind?

2098
01:36:54.540 --> 01:36:54.716
Right?

2099
01:36:54.921 --> 01:36:57.280
Or help other people like them accomplish that aspirational thing.

2100
01:36:57.641 --> 01:37:00.720
And this is where, like, you can help them accomplish their goals or the aspirational goal.

2101
01:37:00.861 --> 01:37:01.780
It's either of those things.

2102
01:37:02.080 --> 01:37:08.800
But the aspirational one I find incredibly interesting because, like, some people saw the book launch last year for the $100 million leads.

2103
01:37:08.980 --> 01:37:10.299
We had a gazillion people there live.

2104
01:37:10.440 --> 01:37:10.899
It was awesome.

2105
01:37:11.584 --> 01:37:13.719
and they were like, I would like to do something like that.

2106
01:37:14.341 --> 01:37:16.840
And so that in and of itself was a brand reinforcing event.

2107
01:37:17.040 --> 01:37:19.980
Big picture, this is what I see as the process

2108
01:37:20.323 --> 01:37:22.400
for building a B2B brand

2109
01:37:22.642 --> 01:37:24.480
because it's not like you're going to,

2110
01:37:24.580 --> 01:37:25.200
like think about it like this.

2111
01:37:25.401 --> 01:37:26.052
If you're an attorney,

2112
01:37:26.781 --> 01:37:28.260
you're not going to sign the top attorney.

2113
01:37:28.720 --> 01:37:30.100
You know, OJ Simpson's attorney, I can't remember.

2114
01:37:30.200 --> 01:37:31.660
It's the Kardashians X, I can't remember.

2115
01:37:31.844 --> 01:37:32.140
Jenner?

2116
01:37:32.682 --> 01:37:33.880
Anyways, no, that's Bruce Jenner.

2117
01:37:34.202 --> 01:37:34.700
Forget about it.

2118
01:37:34.761 --> 01:37:35.300
You get the idea.

2119
01:37:35.502 --> 01:37:37.220
If you're a business person,

2120
01:37:37.740 --> 01:37:40.080
then it's like Elon's not going to endorse you, right?

2121
01:37:40.080 --> 01:37:40.760
It's not going to happen.

2122
01:37:41.682 --> 01:37:46.940
And so it's like you have to do the other things that can approximate your proficiency with proof.

2123
01:37:47.161 --> 01:37:50.200
The final TLDR of this is you have resources.

2124
01:37:51.121 --> 01:37:52.520
This is what your brand must accomplish.

2125
01:37:53.261 --> 01:37:55.600
This is the timeline that it has to go off of.

2126
01:37:56.022 --> 01:37:57.600
This is the ratio you need to follow.

2127
01:37:58.020 --> 01:38:03.600
And this is how you spend your money and time to make these things happen for the audience.

2128
01:38:04.002 --> 01:38:04.619
And that's how you do it.

2129
01:38:04.900 --> 01:38:05.899
And so this has been my focus.

2130
01:38:06.583 --> 01:38:10.740
one of the big kind of like crystallizations of knowledge maybe deepened my understanding

2131
01:38:10.820 --> 01:38:14.551
of branding and how it translates back and forth between D2C and B2B.

2132
01:38:14.912 --> 01:38:17.760
Next up, I had more legal

2133
01:38:17.900 --> 01:38:20.848
issues this year than I think I've ever had.

2134
01:38:21.711 --> 01:38:23.536
And I don't see it as a problem.

2135
01:38:23.957 --> 01:38:25.080
I have positioned it

2136
01:38:25.180 --> 01:38:30.860
as a cost of doing business, which is that the more you have stuff, the more people will want

2137
01:38:30.880 --> 01:38:31.722
to take it from you.

2138
01:38:32.565 --> 01:38:38.200
Or alternatively, people will believe that you don't deserve it because

2139
01:38:38.260 --> 01:38:39.264
you don't need it anymore.

2140
01:38:40.429 --> 01:38:43.320
And so both of those situations are obviously outside of an original

2141
01:38:43.421 --> 01:38:43.803
agreement.

2142
01:38:43.924 --> 01:38:46.100
And so I'll give you some of my takeaways that might be helpful for you.

2143
01:38:46.740 --> 01:38:49.877
So number one is the point of an agreement is not for when things are good.

2144
01:38:49.897 --> 01:38:50.460
It's for when things are

2145
01:38:50.480 --> 01:38:50.721
bad.

2146
01:38:51.083 --> 01:38:55.060
And I think this is a mistake I made earlier on in my career, which is like, oh, it'll be fine.

2147
01:38:55.120 --> 01:38:56.365
It's like, this is always going to work.

2148
01:38:56.406 --> 01:38:58.334
The whole point is for when it's not working.

2149
01:38:59.077 --> 01:38:59.680
And I probably

2150
01:38:59.680 --> 01:39:04.660
would have been more vigilant in how I thought through some of the agreements that I made earlier

2151
01:39:04.841 --> 01:39:08.153
on in assuming, like, assume that this does not work out.

2152
01:39:08.173 --> 01:39:09.920
Like, think about, really think about

2153
01:39:10.382 --> 01:39:15.160
all the ways this could go wrong and then assume it is 100% wrong or worse and then operate from

2154
01:39:15.180 --> 01:39:15.843
that perspective.

2155
01:39:16.184 --> 01:39:20.060
Now, that doesn't mean that you want to have negotiations in an agreement that are

2156
01:39:21.863 --> 01:39:25.190
contentious, but it's good to operate from that angle.

2157
01:39:25.832 --> 01:39:29.260
So, the second thing is I would look at

2158
01:39:29.661 --> 01:39:32.729
legal stuff purely based on a return on time.

2159
01:39:33.331 --> 01:39:36.138
And so at least in the U.S., the bar for suing,

2160
01:39:36.960 --> 01:39:38.849
getting sued, whatever, is basically zero.

2161
01:39:38.949 --> 01:39:41.400
And so it's a very litigious country that we have a lot

2162
01:39:41.460 --> 01:39:42.824
more lawsuits, a lot more lawyers.

2163
01:39:43.486 --> 01:39:48.180
In Europe, for example, it's very difficult to get malpractice

2164
01:39:48.421 --> 01:39:48.984
lawsuits.

2165
01:39:49.225 --> 01:39:50.070
It's really hard.

2166
01:39:50.090 --> 01:39:52.060
So they don't have all the malpractice insurance industry.

2167
01:39:52.944 --> 01:39:54.068
All of that doesn't exist there.

2168
01:39:54.089 --> 01:39:56.780
And so it is very much dependent on the laws of the land.

2169
01:39:57.461 --> 01:40:01.440
But for me, I look at everything from the business perspective of dollars and cents.

2170
01:40:02.320 --> 01:40:16.500
And the idea is, okay, if we have to go through some sort of litigation or some arbitration or some sort of thing that we have to deal with, I up front like to understand what does it look like to have to go all the way.

2171
01:40:16.641 --> 01:40:17.640
Obviously, you want to settle.

2172
01:40:17.860 --> 01:40:21.700
You want to like do things in mediations because it just saves time for everybody, right?

2173
01:40:22.221 --> 01:40:26.380
But if you have to go all the way, then this is my absolute highest cost, right, which is going to be time.

2174
01:40:27.342 --> 01:40:30.494
Um, if you are smaller in the business, then money would be an issue.

2175
01:40:31.177 --> 01:40:31.960
Um, obviously, you know,

2176
01:40:32.100 --> 01:40:33.829
the lawyer bills can go as high as you want, I guess.

2177
01:40:33.869 --> 01:40:36.180
But, um, for me, limitations, this hasn't

2178
01:40:36.200 --> 01:40:37.104
really been financial.

2179
01:40:37.164 --> 01:40:37.927
It's just been time.

2180
01:40:38.550 --> 01:40:41.060
And so the process that I apply to this is like, okay,

2181
01:40:41.781 --> 01:40:46.500
walk me through every single piece of time requirement I will have to do and contribute

2182
01:40:46.560 --> 01:40:49.572
to this that an attorney cannot do on their own.

2183
01:40:49.933 --> 01:40:51.800
Once I have an understanding of how much actual

2184
01:40:51.900 --> 01:40:54.312
time it's going to take, and I look at it at total time.

2185
01:40:54.332 --> 01:40:56.120
So if it's like, it might take two years for

2186
01:40:56.140 --> 01:40:56.944
this to come to fruition.

2187
01:40:57.547 --> 01:41:00.060
Well, if it's two years, but there's literally six days that are going to

2188
01:41:00.080 --> 01:41:02.370
be taken over this two years, then I really just think about the six days.

2189
01:41:03.395 --> 01:41:04.480
And then I think, okay,

2190
01:41:04.721 --> 01:41:08.233
what is the potential cost in terms of downside risk?

2191
01:41:08.294 --> 01:41:09.578
And then what is the potential gain in

2192
01:41:10.000 --> 01:41:12.348
terms of upside of a six-day cost?

2193
01:41:12.849 --> 01:41:16.040
And so from there, I'm able to look at how much do I make

2194
01:41:16.080 --> 01:41:16.562
per day now?

2195
01:41:17.184 --> 01:41:20.093
What would it cost me to pursue this or defend this or whatever?

2196
01:41:21.497 --> 01:41:22.400
And in those instances,

2197
01:41:22.460 --> 01:41:24.466
I just use that as my cost.

2198
01:41:25.309 --> 01:41:28.800
In the defensive situation, you obviously have to defend yourself

2199
01:41:31.628 --> 01:41:34.396
because it's one of those things that's very hurry up and wait.

2200
01:41:34.777 --> 01:41:35.760
And so it will take all of

2201
01:41:35.760 --> 01:41:39.820
your attention for a very small period of time, and then it will disappear again for a few months,

2202
01:41:39.900 --> 01:41:44.960
and then the next kind of move kind of moves forward because the legal process is incredibly

2203
01:41:45.101 --> 01:41:45.703
long and difficult.

2204
01:41:46.044 --> 01:41:50.500
And so the TLDR of all of this is, by all means, at all costs, try to avoid any

2205
01:41:50.540 --> 01:41:55.100
kind of legal conflicts because it will typically take more attention and time than it is worth.

2206
01:41:55.560 --> 01:42:01.960
But there are times where you must defend yourself where when that occurs, I would just look at the

2207
01:42:01.980 --> 01:42:06.576
dollars and cents, does this make sense, and then not try and make the decision again.

2208
01:42:07.077 --> 01:42:07.358
Because as

2209
01:42:07.880 --> 01:42:11.560
things go on, your emotions will move, but the dollars and cents will remain the same.

2210
01:42:12.000 --> 01:42:17.680
Sharon Sravatsa, good friend of Leila Nain, currently the CEO of Real, also has Sorolo

2211
01:42:17.760 --> 01:42:20.829
Capital, which is his investment firm.

2212
01:42:21.933 --> 01:42:23.919
He gave me this little quip that I really like.

2213
01:42:23.959 --> 01:42:24.320
And he said,

2214
01:42:25.120 --> 01:42:28.009
talent only gets better in the future.

2215
01:42:28.972 --> 01:42:31.660
And that has been, I mean, you'll notice a common theme

2216
01:42:31.680 --> 01:42:32.726
around people in this.

2217
01:42:32.746 --> 01:42:35.160
And that's because when I look at the things that we did really well with

2218
01:42:35.341 --> 01:42:38.072
this year is bring good people in, get bad people out.

2219
01:42:38.956 --> 01:42:39.860
And the companies that did the best

2220
01:42:39.920 --> 01:42:42.351
portfolio, like that strategy ring fruit.

2221
01:42:42.371 --> 01:42:44.480
Like the highest performing company in the portfolio,

2222
01:42:45.003 --> 01:42:48.600
we put in probably like six great leaders and it's just crushing.

2223
01:42:50.181 --> 01:42:52.240
And that's not an accident, right?

2224
01:42:52.841 --> 01:42:55.020
So that's thing number one in terms of talent.

2225
01:42:55.640 --> 01:43:00.240
The second thing is work with the people who move towards you.

2226
01:43:00.800 --> 01:43:08.700
And so I have spent too much time in my life trying to sell people on why they should do things my way

2227
01:43:10.147 --> 01:43:13.000
or with my values or with my kind of rules,

2228
01:43:13.120 --> 01:43:16.080
which I define culture as rules of reinforcement in a business.

2229
01:43:16.500 --> 01:43:19.079
So like these are the rules of the game as I would like to play it.

2230
01:43:19.841 --> 01:43:24.600
And I noticed that if I kind of had this kind of recurring conflict

2231
01:43:24.901 --> 01:43:28.979
with a handful of people, I was like, I don't need to do this.

2232
01:43:29.441 --> 01:43:32.940
Like there's another person who is stoked to be here,

2233
01:43:33.181 --> 01:43:37.240
will agree with the path, and it will be so much more efficient

2234
01:43:37.746 --> 01:43:38.800
because they'll want to talk to me.

2235
01:43:38.962 --> 01:43:39.719
I want to talk to them.

2236
01:43:40.162 --> 01:43:41.320
We agree to the rules of the game

2237
01:43:41.361 --> 01:43:42.779
the way we both want to play it.

2238
01:43:43.081 --> 01:43:44.280
And so we'll just play that much better,

2239
01:43:44.361 --> 01:43:44.880
that much longer.

2240
01:43:45.560 --> 01:43:47.860
And so this is more of like a warning shot

2241
01:43:47.920 --> 01:43:50.520
because I think what happens is you habituate,

2242
01:43:50.600 --> 01:43:51.380
especially if you're an entrepreneur,

2243
01:43:51.500 --> 01:43:52.360
you have a high pain tolerance.

2244
01:43:52.502 --> 01:43:53.634
You're used to suffering.

2245
01:43:54.280 --> 01:43:55.940
Suffering is just the current state.

2246
01:43:56.660 --> 01:43:58.179
And so sometimes someone comes in,

2247
01:43:58.742 --> 01:43:59.240
things are okay.

2248
01:43:59.441 --> 01:44:00.120
Sometimes they change,

2249
01:44:00.180 --> 01:44:01.140
sometimes you change, whatever.

2250
01:44:01.941 --> 01:44:04.320
But fundamentally, conflict emerges.

2251
01:44:04.660 --> 01:44:06.780
And if you cannot resolve the conflict,

2252
01:44:07.042 --> 01:44:09.940
then over time, your communication cycle lessens and lessens.

2253
01:44:10.040 --> 01:44:11.420
You start talking less and less frequently.

2254
01:44:12.000 --> 01:44:14.660
And if this person is close to you or close to your function,

2255
01:44:15.361 --> 01:44:19.160
it becomes very difficult for them to do their job

2256
01:44:19.261 --> 01:44:21.020
and for you to get what you need out of the role.

2257
01:44:21.800 --> 01:44:26.720
And so my single line of advice is work with the people who move towards you.

2258
01:44:27.700 --> 01:44:29.840
And so a corollary or second point of that,

2259
01:44:29.900 --> 01:44:31.300
that's a different frame to think through,

2260
01:44:31.842 --> 01:44:34.560
is if your team doesn't admire some aspects of you,

2261
01:44:34.903 --> 01:44:37.200
you either have to change them or you have to change you.

2262
01:44:37.760 --> 01:44:38.920
Like this is a tough one though.

2263
01:44:39.420 --> 01:44:41.520
Because you want, like this is my opinion.

2264
01:44:43.001 --> 01:44:45.420
If your team doesn't admire certain things about you,

2265
01:44:45.500 --> 01:44:48.380
then the likely that you have a strong influencer of their behavior

2266
01:44:48.581 --> 01:44:51.420
outside of basically punishment is low.

2267
01:44:52.243 --> 01:44:53.800
And it's much better, in my opinion,

2268
01:44:53.920 --> 01:44:55.960
to have a team who admire different traits of yours.

2269
01:44:56.060 --> 01:44:58.060
Now they don't have to say everything you do is amazing.

2270
01:44:58.240 --> 01:45:00.519
But like there are skills you have,

2271
01:45:00.840 --> 01:45:02.680
there are behaviors you do that they're like,

2272
01:45:02.781 --> 01:45:04.200
man, it'd be really cool if I had that.

2273
01:45:04.240 --> 01:45:06.040
or it's really cool that he has that or she has that.

2274
01:45:06.601 --> 01:45:09.860
That creates this element of respect in the relationship

2275
01:45:11.227 --> 01:45:13.540
that I think is really required for high performance.

2276
01:45:14.421 --> 01:45:16.120
And you have two choices there.

2277
01:45:16.320 --> 01:45:18.160
Like either you change or they change

2278
01:45:18.727 --> 01:45:19.720
or you get someone else.

2279
01:45:19.820 --> 01:45:20.960
So you change the whole thing, right?

2280
01:45:21.201 --> 01:45:22.800
I think making sure that you've established

2281
01:45:22.921 --> 01:45:25.200
the rules of the game and just subtly noticing,

2282
01:45:25.781 --> 01:45:28.020
like is there someone who just like disrespects you

2283
01:45:28.060 --> 01:45:29.519
on a regular basis or they tried

2284
01:45:29.641 --> 01:45:31.340
or they're the first one to disagree.

2285
01:45:31.643 --> 01:45:32.340
I want to be clear here.

2286
01:45:32.742 --> 01:45:35.980
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have healthy tension and disagreement at the top.

2287
01:45:36.040 --> 01:45:36.800
It's actually very common.

2288
01:45:37.160 --> 01:45:41.200
Everybody who has different perspectives to yield the best outcome, that's how you get truth.

2289
01:45:41.340 --> 01:45:42.260
So that's good.

2290
01:45:42.820 --> 01:45:49.800
But if you're consistently blocked on what you consider to be par for course behaviors, that can grate on you.

2291
01:45:49.880 --> 01:45:52.560
And I think that I tolerated that for too long.

2292
01:45:53.181 --> 01:45:55.940
And I have done that in different occasions.

2293
01:45:56.100 --> 01:45:59.880
And I want to shorten the time that I tolerate those kind of dynamics.

2294
01:46:00.983 --> 01:46:03.600
So next up is sawdust.

2295
01:46:04.080 --> 01:46:09.380
My favorite businesses in the world are businesses that are started off of waste from someone else.

2296
01:46:09.903 --> 01:46:10.580
So let me explain.

2297
01:46:11.200 --> 01:46:18.300
So I love the Airbnb and I love Uber the way that people have excess capacity or sawdust.

2298
01:46:18.682 --> 01:46:21.680
They have something that they're not using that would be valuable for someone else.

2299
01:46:22.320 --> 01:46:26.680
And so an easy example in a brick and mortar scenario is like I don't use my gym.

2300
01:46:26.760 --> 01:46:27.916
My gym was closed after 830.

2301
01:46:28.884 --> 01:46:31.479
and it was no one used it until 4.30 in the morning.

2302
01:46:32.120 --> 01:46:35.140
And so I'm paying for this rent and I have this space.

2303
01:46:35.481 --> 01:46:40.420
And there's probably some people who would like to have that space, but can't, right?

2304
01:46:41.322 --> 01:46:43.960
And I didn't have, you know, weekend hours ended afternoon, right?

2305
01:46:44.302 --> 01:46:48.260
And so there are many of us, and Airbnb did this on the residential side, obviously,

2306
01:46:48.440 --> 01:46:51.100
like you have a spare bedroom, you can let someone crash there and you can make money for it.

2307
01:46:52.141 --> 01:46:56.680
But the thing is, is that within businesses, you also have excess capacity.

2308
01:46:57.182 --> 01:47:02.440
you have sawdust and so the sawdust analogy comes from lumber mills when they would they would strip

2309
01:47:02.520 --> 01:47:07.520
the trees of bark they would turn them into planks and then uh you know they ship the planks out but

2310
01:47:08.123 --> 01:47:11.180
a smart foreman of the factory looked on the ground one day and they had to just keep sweeping

2311
01:47:11.320 --> 01:47:17.539
up all this dust from the saw and then finally one guy said hey could we just mix this with glue

2312
01:47:18.542 --> 01:47:23.540
and make plywood and then if all of a sudden a whole new kind of industry was born from that

2313
01:47:23.801 --> 01:47:26.320
where you could take the scraps and then turn it into something else.

2314
01:47:26.800 --> 01:47:30.356
And in the fur business that I did when I was 16, 17, 18 in there,

2315
01:47:31.841 --> 01:47:36.720
the owner would have to make these jackets and he would cut off these snippets.

2316
01:47:37.562 --> 01:47:39.760
From the snippets, he was able to make earmuffs.

2317
01:47:40.742 --> 01:47:43.280
And then he was able to sell his earmuffs or give the earmuffs away as bonuses.

2318
01:47:43.901 --> 01:47:45.460
And so he was able to make something from nothing.

2319
01:47:46.060 --> 01:47:50.580
And so there are sawdust things that exist in your business.

2320
01:47:50.660 --> 01:47:52.860
And I'll tell you one of the big ones that came from acquisition.com.

2321
01:47:52.981 --> 01:47:55.200
So our primary business is obviously the portfolio.

2322
01:47:56.041 --> 01:47:59.640
And that's where the majority of our resources are allocated towards.

2323
01:48:00.220 --> 01:48:04.620
We tried to figure out a way where we could meet more potential portfolio companies.

2324
01:48:04.941 --> 01:48:06.219
So I tried a few different things.

2325
01:48:06.800 --> 01:48:12.740
So one thing I tried was, okay, could we just like invite people out to come out?

2326
01:48:12.860 --> 01:48:14.320
Well, the barrier was too low.

2327
01:48:14.440 --> 01:48:16.440
We got mixy-matchy and I was like, that's not good.

2328
01:48:16.601 --> 01:48:18.440
So we tried that one and we didn't meet good people.

2329
01:48:18.500 --> 01:48:19.200
And I was like, all right, that's not good.

2330
01:48:19.701 --> 01:48:23.120
So the next thing I did was like, okay, what if we raise the qualifications really high,

2331
01:48:23.221 --> 01:48:24.620
and then we kind of have these dinners?

2332
01:48:25.301 --> 01:48:28.980
So we did like four or five dinners where people would fly out.

2333
01:48:29.902 --> 01:48:30.460
We'd meet them.

2334
01:48:30.520 --> 01:48:33.500
The whole idea for me was like, I have to eat either way, so I might as well eat with people.

2335
01:48:34.040 --> 01:48:35.220
Like, again, like sawdust.

2336
01:48:35.320 --> 01:48:35.860
Like, what do I have to do?

2337
01:48:35.901 --> 01:48:36.720
I also have to make content.

2338
01:48:36.860 --> 01:48:39.160
So if I go to dinner, I make content, and I meet people.

2339
01:48:39.280 --> 01:48:39.800
This is all good.

2340
01:48:39.840 --> 01:48:41.120
This helps us generate deals.

2341
01:48:41.601 --> 01:48:45.140
And the reason that I was trying to figure this out was because the best portfolio companies we have

2342
01:48:45.160 --> 01:48:47.120
are number one, number two, number four best performing company,

2343
01:48:47.563 --> 01:48:49.680
were companies that we'd worked with for six or 12 months prior.

2344
01:48:49.821 --> 01:48:50.880
So we had an existing relationship.

2345
01:48:51.401 --> 01:48:52.260
We had helped them grow.

2346
01:48:52.640 --> 01:48:54.340
And then we were like, okay, I think they're portfolio ready now.

2347
01:48:54.400 --> 01:48:56.020
Then we made our investment and we grew them from there.

2348
01:48:56.282 --> 01:48:57.580
And our best performers were like that.

2349
01:48:57.620 --> 01:49:00.780
So I was like, how can I have this happen on purpose rather than by accident?

2350
01:49:01.020 --> 01:49:03.059
So I was really struggling with this.

2351
01:49:03.642 --> 01:49:05.320
Mind you, I was also like running the portfolio too.

2352
01:49:05.420 --> 01:49:07.080
So it was like I wasn't putting full attention towards it.

2353
01:49:07.260 --> 01:49:10.160
And then in January, I was like, okay, well, we have this building.

2354
01:49:10.840 --> 01:49:11.934
There's an open floor space.

2355
01:49:12.440 --> 01:49:13.440
There were a whole bunch of desks there.

2356
01:49:13.480 --> 01:49:15.200
But I was like, we weren't using those desks.

2357
01:49:15.341 --> 01:49:16.059
Everybody had offices.

2358
01:49:16.522 --> 01:49:19.820
and because we do a lot of like confidential calls and whatnot, we're more of an office closed door

2359
01:49:19.880 --> 01:49:20.161
setup.

2360
01:49:20.683 --> 01:49:26.300
And so we cleared the desks and we're like, okay, well, let's see if some businesses

2361
01:49:26.300 --> 01:49:30.920
would want to fly out to our headquarters and have us spend like two days kind of going over

2362
01:49:31.061 --> 01:49:34.320
how we create value because then that way it's like, it will provide value to them.

2363
01:49:34.420 --> 01:49:36.250
And then the people who are like, oh, this is really cool.

2364
01:49:36.673 --> 01:49:38.000
I would love to potentially like

2365
01:49:38.080 --> 01:49:39.308
follow up with them over the long haul.

2366
01:49:39.570 --> 01:49:41.120
They become, they kind of enter a longer term nurture

2367
01:49:41.281 --> 01:49:43.874
process and we can potentially do deals with those people, et cetera.

2368
01:49:43.894 --> 01:49:44.939
That's also why we spun up ACQ

2369
01:49:45.100 --> 01:49:45.983
ventures, et cetera.

2370
01:49:46.504 --> 01:49:51.680
And so that whole division of workshops came out of, we have extra space

2371
01:49:52.583 --> 01:49:55.553
and the portfolio team isn't fully allocated.

2372
01:49:56.055 --> 01:49:57.560
Like they work on the portfolio, obviously,

2373
01:49:57.720 --> 01:50:02.100
but like they can step down for a day or two during the month to meet other companies,

2374
01:50:02.982 --> 01:50:06.540
network with them, share how they are turning around different companies in our portfolio,

2375
01:50:06.960 --> 01:50:08.307
specific divisions or departments.

2376
01:50:08.568 --> 01:50:09.634
And that'll be very additive.

2377
01:50:09.654 --> 01:50:10.820
Like we can add value to everyone

2378
01:50:10.820 --> 01:50:13.291
and it adds value to us, it adds value to them, and I get content from it.

2379
01:50:13.733 --> 01:50:15.080
And so that was a big W.

2380
01:50:15.880 --> 01:50:22.500
And the reason I bring this up is there are some things in your business that check more than one

2381
01:50:22.560 --> 01:50:22.881
box.

2382
01:50:23.262 --> 01:50:25.670
And so it's like, I don't want a single box check.

2383
01:50:25.790 --> 01:50:27.696
I want like four boxes checked.

2384
01:50:28.158 --> 01:50:28.780
And so this

2385
01:50:28.880 --> 01:50:30.544
generates deal flow.

2386
01:50:31.245 --> 01:50:33.269
This generates cash flow.

2387
01:50:33.811 --> 01:50:35.695
This generates content.

2388
01:50:36.356 --> 01:50:38.240
This generates talent flow.

2389
01:50:38.960 --> 01:50:43.720
And so all of these things, and it utilizes a resource that I already have paid.

2390
01:50:43.861 --> 01:50:46.060
I have to pay, I pay this building every month, right?

2391
01:50:46.120 --> 01:50:47.480
Like this cost exists.

2392
01:50:47.821 --> 01:50:49.740
I pay my team every month, no matter what, either way.

2393
01:50:50.180 --> 01:50:55.960
And so it used an existing cost basis to create a new opportunity for content and deal flow.

2394
01:50:56.802 --> 01:51:00.220
And so from that, it's like, if you can just look at the pieces you have on the board,

2395
01:51:00.280 --> 01:51:04.000
and this is actually what I do is I look at, I try and write down with as much detail,

2396
01:51:04.280 --> 01:51:06.500
what are all the things we do on a regular basis?

2397
01:51:06.621 --> 01:51:07.820
Like, what are the calls we take?

2398
01:51:08.140 --> 01:51:09.600
What are the conferences we attend?

2399
01:51:09.740 --> 01:51:11.540
What are the, like, every single thing we do.

2400
01:51:11.580 --> 01:51:17.180
And I'm like, is there a way I can recombine these things into something that would be valuable at no cost to me?

2401
01:51:17.641 --> 01:51:24.600
And that's where I've had these really disproportionate gains in profitable divisions or products in our company, obviously, and then within the portfolio.

2402
01:51:25.020 --> 01:51:29.340
You probably have SOPs and checklists within your business, right, of how you do whatever you do.

2403
01:51:30.440 --> 01:51:37.560
Well, if you can take that and then turn those into lead magnets, then not only are they valuable for you, they also generate demand.

2404
01:51:38.140 --> 01:51:44.100
And so that's just a very micro example of like take something you're already doing and find another use for it that requires no extra work.

2405
01:51:45.005 --> 01:51:46.100
The next one's really big.

2406
01:51:46.440 --> 01:51:50.337
And so this is a little bit leaking, you know, like looking forward into 2025 and beyond.

2407
01:51:52.000 --> 01:51:53.414
And so I believe this.

2408
01:51:54.040 --> 01:51:54.699
So this is a bet.

2409
01:51:54.800 --> 01:51:55.440
So I'll be clear.

2410
01:51:55.560 --> 01:51:57.760
This is this is me making a bet and calling a shot.

2411
01:51:58.701 --> 01:52:05.388
So I believe that IRL and AI exist on polar opposite sides of a continuum.

2412
01:52:06.168 --> 01:52:12.435
And I think that doubling down on both of these is a good decision.

2413
01:52:12.855 --> 01:52:17.600
And so within our portfolio, we are pushing heavily on both sides.

2414
01:52:18.160 --> 01:52:23.380
And so post-COVID, I still feel like there's unmet demand for people who want to connect.

2415
01:52:23.500 --> 01:52:25.060
I mean, obviously, this is why I invested in school.

2416
01:52:25.200 --> 01:52:29.040
Like, I believe community is really good, and I think it's lacking right now, so I think there's huge demand for it.

2417
01:52:29.621 --> 01:52:33.320
And we've never been more connected and also feel so apart.

2418
01:52:33.820 --> 01:52:39.039
And so it's almost like we have a lot of false solutions.

2419
01:52:39.441 --> 01:52:42.600
It's like we're eating fake food that keeps you full but doesn't satisfy you.

2420
01:52:43.063 --> 01:52:44.299
It's kind of like porn to sex.

2421
01:52:44.420 --> 01:52:46.140
Like, it's not the real thing, right?

2422
01:52:46.523 --> 01:52:49.060
And so the idea is this is the real thing.

2423
01:52:49.481 --> 01:52:50.300
This is efficiency.

2424
01:52:51.120 --> 01:52:58.620
And so it's like how can I get as much efficiency as possible so that I can do as many of the unscalable things that are the real thing?

2425
01:52:59.501 --> 01:53:04.700
And this IRL push that I'm doing, I'm doing across all the portfolio companies.

2426
01:53:05.200 --> 01:53:13.540
Because the interesting thing about IRL is customers who have in-person experiences have tremendously different brand affinity.

2427
01:53:14.200 --> 01:53:15.080
They're more loyal.

2428
01:53:15.240 --> 01:53:16.040
They refer more.

2429
01:53:16.201 --> 01:53:18.160
they rate higher, they buy more often.

2430
01:53:18.622 --> 01:53:20.120
And if you have a strong culture

2431
01:53:20.403 --> 01:53:21.940
within your marketing or your branding,

2432
01:53:22.461 --> 01:53:24.520
you will attract like-minded people.

2433
01:53:25.040 --> 01:53:28.680
And so that allows you to provide them value

2434
01:53:28.923 --> 01:53:29.860
at no extra cost.

2435
01:53:29.980 --> 01:53:30.640
So think of it like this.

2436
01:53:31.322 --> 01:53:34.560
If I assemble a party, I'm the host of the party,

2437
01:53:36.422 --> 01:53:37.720
everybody who meets at the party

2438
01:53:38.205 --> 01:53:39.760
feels like the party was awesome

2439
01:53:39.841 --> 01:53:41.140
if everyone else at the party was great.

2440
01:53:41.943 --> 01:53:43.419
I could not talk to any of the guests

2441
01:53:43.763 --> 01:53:45.560
and have them think, Alex's party was awesome

2442
01:53:45.701 --> 01:53:50.840
And I will get a disproportionate amount of the reward from the associations and the time they had.

2443
01:53:51.620 --> 01:54:00.540
But that network allows people who assemble to provide value to each other, which is almost like you're not, you just organize it and you let them provide the value.

2444
01:54:00.800 --> 01:54:04.780
IRL and AI, I'm heavily pushing on this this year.

2445
01:54:04.900 --> 01:54:07.719
Sam Altman said that this year is the year AGI will come out, 2025.

2446
01:54:08.181 --> 01:54:14.600
So artificial general intelligence, which basically AI is better than everyone at everything, which is frightening.

2447
01:54:15.662 --> 01:54:16.379
But we'll figure it out.

2448
01:54:16.860 --> 01:54:22.540
In the meantime, though, it'd be great if we could take some sales calls and set some appointments pretty accurately.

2449
01:54:23.562 --> 01:54:25.500
And maybe help with some content and things like that.

2450
01:54:26.080 --> 01:54:33.180
But in the meantime, we're staying really abreast on this and we're actively kind of like, I'm not trying to be the AI company.

2451
01:54:33.982 --> 01:54:37.860
I want to be a company that uses AI well, just to be clear about my position on this.

2452
01:54:38.160 --> 01:54:41.440
IRL, though, is something that I feel like AI will not disrupt.

2453
01:54:41.924 --> 01:54:43.960
and I think that the demand for in-person experiences

2454
01:54:44.689 --> 01:54:45.620
will continue to rise

2455
01:54:45.984 --> 01:54:47.540
and I think that it is a good bet to make.

2456
01:54:47.740 --> 01:54:49.620
And so this is what I'm betting on next year.

2457
01:54:49.841 --> 01:54:51.799
I will mention this because a lot of people don't like IRL

2458
01:54:52.001 --> 01:54:53.980
because they say it's unscalable, right?

2459
01:54:54.641 --> 01:54:57.520
But I care so much more about, is it valuable?

2460
01:54:58.462 --> 01:55:01.520
And if it's valuable enough, it's worth scaling.

2461
01:55:02.240 --> 01:55:04.480
And so the thing is, is that just because it's harder

2462
01:55:04.561 --> 01:55:05.559
doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

2463
01:55:06.342 --> 01:55:07.980
And the benefit of scaling something

2464
01:55:08.020 --> 01:55:09.740
that is harder to scale but also valuable

2465
01:55:09.902 --> 01:55:11.440
means that once you scale it a little bit more,

2466
01:55:11.740 --> 01:55:13.880
you'll have more resources to continue scaling it.

2467
01:55:14.340 --> 01:55:17.220
And so if we can build cities in the middle of the desert

2468
01:55:17.322 --> 01:55:18.340
or the middle of the ocean,

2469
01:55:18.641 --> 01:55:21.000
we can absolutely scale an in-person experience.

2470
01:55:21.480 --> 01:55:24.140
So next fun one is school.

2471
01:55:24.760 --> 01:55:28.020
So what's crazy about this is that this was this year,

2472
01:55:28.422 --> 01:55:30.320
which feels like an eternity ago,

2473
01:55:30.421 --> 01:55:32.458
but we negotiated the deal in 2023.

2474
01:55:33.420 --> 01:55:35.420
And then in January, we came out publicly with it.

2475
01:55:35.900 --> 01:55:38.220
So this was the first brand deal that I did this year,

2476
01:55:38.786 --> 01:55:40.140
or sorry, the first brand that I've ever done.

2477
01:55:40.462 --> 01:55:42.520
And the main reason behind doing it

2478
01:55:42.641 --> 01:55:43.840
was that I believed in the product

2479
01:55:44.024 --> 01:55:44.719
and I believed in the team.

2480
01:55:45.581 --> 01:55:47.400
And I thought it was the best one

2481
01:55:47.461 --> 01:55:48.320
and I think it's going to win.

2482
01:55:48.881 --> 01:55:50.700
And so that is why I was willing to make that bet.

2483
01:55:50.982 --> 01:55:51.900
And to be very clear,

2484
01:55:52.420 --> 01:55:55.600
opportunity always looks like risk today.

2485
01:55:56.825 --> 01:55:58.640
This bet has proven out very well.

2486
01:55:58.860 --> 01:56:00.480
The platform continues to grow like crazy.

2487
01:56:00.720 --> 01:56:01.839
We have millions and millions of users,

2488
01:56:02.849 --> 01:56:03.340
which is awesome.

2489
01:56:03.480 --> 01:56:04.300
And that was kind of the goal.

2490
01:56:04.400 --> 01:56:06.700
And the reason that I ended up betting on this

2491
01:56:06.780 --> 01:56:08.599
versus like any other potential thing I could do

2492
01:56:09.383 --> 01:56:13.920
was it felt very uniquely fit for me.

2493
01:56:14.140 --> 01:56:14.860
So I'll explain what I mean.

2494
01:56:15.241 --> 01:56:17.400
There's a make money component to school.

2495
01:56:18.482 --> 01:56:20.540
There's a education component to school.

2496
01:56:20.901 --> 01:56:23.240
There's a community component to school,

2497
01:56:23.300 --> 01:56:26.140
which I just see as like plus for social, right?

2498
01:56:26.663 --> 01:56:28.180
And then all of these together

2499
01:56:28.602 --> 01:56:31.380
are in an opportunity vehicle that is high leverage.

2500
01:56:32.363 --> 01:56:34.380
And so for those reasons, I was like,

2501
01:56:34.581 --> 01:56:38.540
I feel like I am uniquely qualified for education.

2502
01:56:39.181 --> 01:56:40.379
Media would be another one here.

2503
01:56:40.840 --> 01:56:43.180
There's definitely a huge media component with the business.

2504
01:56:43.700 --> 01:56:49.580
So it's like education, media, business, societal good, operational leverage.

2505
01:56:50.380 --> 01:56:56.480
Like this was, it was like if you could make a business that hit a lot of the things that I'm about.

2506
01:56:57.141 --> 01:56:59.820
And for me, it also helped people who are going zero to one.

2507
01:57:00.565 --> 01:57:02.680
and I have a huge percentage of the audience

2508
01:57:02.903 --> 01:57:04.380
that want to start a business,

2509
01:57:04.922 --> 01:57:07.520
don't have one and didn't know where to go

2510
01:57:07.722 --> 01:57:09.360
and so I wanted to have something that I could say,

2511
01:57:09.580 --> 01:57:11.240
if you aren't a business owner yet,

2512
01:57:11.621 --> 01:57:13.840
this is a very easy business to get started.

2513
01:57:14.302 --> 01:57:15.339
It's very low risk.

2514
01:57:16.321 --> 01:57:17.880
There's not many moving parts.

2515
01:57:17.980 --> 01:57:19.260
You can do it without any employees.

2516
01:57:19.440 --> 01:57:21.000
You don't have to have inventory.

2517
01:57:21.940 --> 01:57:24.220
You literally just need to learn the basic skills

2518
01:57:24.482 --> 01:57:26.740
and so this is a great vehicle for doing it

2519
01:57:26.841 --> 01:57:29.320
and so I was super pumped when we found out

2520
01:57:29.380 --> 01:57:31.430
that the average community made $1,360 per month

2521
01:57:33.645 --> 01:57:34.320
as paid communities.

2522
01:57:34.862 --> 01:57:35.859
And I think that's really cool

2523
01:57:36.062 --> 01:57:37.640
because it's like, no, this isn't,

2524
01:57:37.900 --> 01:57:39.859
you're not going to be a gazillionaire by doing this.

2525
01:57:40.322 --> 01:57:41.580
But it can help get you started.

2526
01:57:41.800 --> 01:57:43.780
And I see this as a great gateway

2527
01:57:44.004 --> 01:57:44.779
for getting into entrepreneurship.

2528
01:57:45.662 --> 01:57:47.640
As a side note, for existing businesses,

2529
01:57:47.800 --> 01:57:49.100
I think every existing business should have,

2530
01:57:49.281 --> 01:57:51.320
like every gym owner should have a school community.

2531
01:57:51.520 --> 01:57:54.778
Every realtor should have a community for their customers.

2532
01:57:55.380 --> 01:57:56.860
Every HOA should have a community,

2533
01:57:57.524 --> 01:57:59.836
a school community for the people in the neighborhood.

2534
01:58:00.760 --> 01:58:02.300
Like whatever business you have,

2535
01:58:02.380 --> 01:58:03.540
like if you have an e-commerce business,

2536
01:58:03.600 --> 01:58:04.800
there's a ton of e-commerce businesses

2537
01:58:04.963 --> 01:58:05.639
joining school right now

2538
01:58:06.002 --> 01:58:08.480
that realize that the email deliverability,

2539
01:58:08.780 --> 01:58:09.754
like if you can reach 100% of people

2540
01:58:10.222 --> 01:58:10.960
who bought your product,

2541
01:58:11.521 --> 01:58:13.520
the feedback that you can get on the product,

2542
01:58:13.660 --> 01:58:15.800
the reviews, the likely they buy the next thing

2543
01:58:15.841 --> 01:58:16.840
goes way up.

2544
01:58:17.240 --> 01:58:19.380
And so it's like, sure, add them to the email list,

2545
01:58:19.461 --> 01:58:21.100
but also add them to a live community.

2546
01:58:21.560 --> 01:58:23.659
And so I see that as, again, the IRL versus AI,

2547
01:58:24.041 --> 01:58:26.220
like how do we bring people together?

2548
01:58:26.721 --> 01:58:33.660
And so we're also doubling down on that with school because we are not, we don't see ourselves, I mean, obviously it's a technology business, but like it's a community business.

2549
01:58:34.141 --> 01:58:41.598
And so we're also doubling down on how can we facilitate in-person connections between people of similar interests.

2550
01:58:42.800 --> 01:58:50.060
So I'll give you some specific lessons that I've learned from growing school tremendously over the last year.

2551
01:58:50.321 --> 01:58:53.112
Number one is CRO usually decreases.

2552
01:58:55.580 --> 01:58:55.979
Hold on.

2553
01:58:56.401 --> 01:58:58.780
Usually your split test will fail.

2554
01:58:59.320 --> 01:59:01.040
And so basically the more optimized something is,

2555
01:59:01.100 --> 01:59:04.140
the more likely a change from optimal results in a decrease.

2556
01:59:04.720 --> 01:59:09.000
And so our first launch of the page, of the school games page,

2557
01:59:09.361 --> 01:59:11.513
did so well that we've done like 16 major split tests,

2558
01:59:13.403 --> 01:59:14.920
and only two of them have won.

2559
01:59:15.740 --> 01:59:17.280
And so like anything from the control,

2560
01:59:17.421 --> 01:59:19.260
so basically the control is really, really dialed.

2561
01:59:20.361 --> 01:59:29.080
So, and it's typically like if you have monstrous amounts of traffic, when you incur the cost of change, like it is a real cost.

2562
01:59:30.681 --> 01:59:39.960
The second kind of thing that I would say that like I've learned or rather been reinforced from school is kind of customers above everything, which is just always a great reminder.

2563
01:59:40.080 --> 01:59:48.480
Paul Graham has this statement that I probably feel like I've said a whole bunch of times this year, which is you can solve almost every problem in a business by talking to your customers more.

2564
01:59:48.823 --> 01:59:50.560
Like if your marketing isn't working, talk to your customers.

2565
01:59:50.680 --> 01:59:51.940
If your sales isn't working, talk to your customers.

2566
01:59:52.060 --> 01:59:53.520
If your product isn't working, talk to your customers.

2567
01:59:54.182 --> 01:59:57.460
You are never too big to not talk to your customers.

2568
01:59:59.120 --> 02:00:00.720
And so that was a big emphasis.

2569
02:00:03.041 --> 02:00:06.254
I would say the next one is the value of offers.

2570
02:00:08.201 --> 02:00:12.500
It was just the school games itself was a really cool offer that we came up with.

2571
02:00:12.620 --> 02:00:18.740
And then we added in, you can win a Cybertruck if you win, which made it even crazier.

2572
02:00:19.340 --> 02:00:24.280
And so the uplift that a business can get from having a superior offer, we got to see that.

2573
02:00:24.621 --> 02:00:26.320
It's nice to see things proven out.

2574
02:00:27.104 --> 02:00:28.320
So that was a really good one.

2575
02:00:29.040 --> 02:00:35.360
The next big lesson, I'll put this one, this is really big, is the value of deletion and simplicity.

2576
02:00:35.742 --> 02:00:36.560
So I'll explain what I mean here.

2577
02:00:37.160 --> 02:00:42.680
So we have tried to make it as easy as humanly possible for people to win on the platform.

2578
02:00:43.045 --> 02:00:44.120
And we get better and better every day.

2579
02:00:45.422 --> 02:00:49.038
But a big part of it is the number one reason people cancel things is overwhelm.

2580
02:00:50.140 --> 02:00:55.160
It's not, it's not, and so overwhelm translates into zero value because they stop.

2581
02:00:56.060 --> 02:01:00.340
And so if, so what happens is people hear overwhelm and then add more stuff.

2582
02:01:00.920 --> 02:01:05.060
And so it's rare that addition improves things

2583
02:01:05.423 --> 02:01:07.080
rather than simply making things better

2584
02:01:07.140 --> 02:01:09.359
or taking something out and replacing it

2585
02:01:10.488 --> 02:01:11.840
with something better or eliminating it altogether.

2586
02:01:12.241 --> 02:01:14.020
Like you want it to be as simple as possible,

2587
02:01:14.122 --> 02:01:14.960
but no simpler, right?

2588
02:01:15.181 --> 02:01:19.880
If you take away all the friction that occurs

2589
02:01:20.121 --> 02:01:23.220
from using a phone, what's left is an iPhone, right?

2590
02:01:23.823 --> 02:01:25.060
The only next version of that would be

2591
02:01:25.060 --> 02:01:25.957
you just talk in the air

2592
02:01:26.544 --> 02:01:28.380
and then you get connected with people.

2593
02:01:28.601 --> 02:01:29.820
That would be the next version of that.

2594
02:01:30.162 --> 02:01:33.440
But what Steve Jobs did was an order of magnitude improvement off of the existing phones.

2595
02:01:34.021 --> 02:01:37.600
And he just looked at all the things that suck about a phone, removed all of them, and what was left was the iPhone.

2596
02:01:38.120 --> 02:01:41.600
And so thinking about product and value this way, right?

2597
02:01:41.620 --> 02:01:45.500
So the value equation, you've got the outcome, you've got the risk, right?

2598
02:01:45.921 --> 02:01:48.133
You've got speed, and then you've got effort, right?

2599
02:01:50.040 --> 02:01:55.440
So the idea is how do we make it faster and easier?

2600
02:01:55.861 --> 02:01:56.880
Faster and easier.

2601
02:01:57.041 --> 02:02:00.160
Faster and easier over and over and over again on this value equation.

2602
02:02:00.740 --> 02:02:03.540
And a lot of times what makes things faster and easier is removing things.

2603
02:02:04.000 --> 02:02:07.960
I have grown more and more affinity towards looking at what's there and saying,

2604
02:02:08.120 --> 02:02:12.760
okay, we need to maximize value per second, not seconds of value.

2605
02:02:13.380 --> 02:02:16.480
And so this comes from the media side in terms of making content.

2606
02:02:16.840 --> 02:02:22.800
But on the product side, like as long as the, like every customer will ask you for different things

2607
02:02:23.302 --> 02:02:26.360
and they will, and if you give them every single thing they ask for,

2608
02:02:27.062 --> 02:02:29.160
they will cause their own demise and then leave.

2609
02:02:29.980 --> 02:02:31.720
And so then you get these Frankenstein products

2610
02:02:31.821 --> 02:02:33.900
that have a gazillion gizmos that no one knows how to use

2611
02:02:33.961 --> 02:02:34.939
because to fit it all in,

2612
02:02:35.581 --> 02:02:37.600
it's like there's a hundred specific use cases

2613
02:02:37.620 --> 02:02:38.500
that don't apply to everyone.

2614
02:02:38.640 --> 02:02:42.180
And so product discipline around keeping simplicity

2615
02:02:43.004 --> 02:02:45.860
and speed and ease as the primary goal

2616
02:02:46.404 --> 02:02:48.599
is an incredibly difficult thing to focus on

2617
02:02:49.265 --> 02:02:51.240
and making those strategic bets.

2618
02:02:51.763 --> 02:02:54.440
And so that has been a great focus

2619
02:02:55.083 --> 02:02:58.540
and kind of relearning, I would say, of this year with school.

2620
02:02:59.320 --> 02:03:02.892
And I would say finally, knowing what your loop is.

2621
02:03:05.821 --> 02:03:07.360
So it's like, what's your flywheel?

2622
02:03:07.680 --> 02:03:11.360
So Jim Collins has a short book on this called The Flywheel, I think, or Flywheel Effect.

2623
02:03:12.861 --> 02:03:16.580
And it's basically like, can you draw a circle within your business?

2624
02:03:17.081 --> 02:03:21.120
Which is, first we do this, which then, if we do this, this is what must occur.

2625
02:03:21.521 --> 02:03:23.240
When this happens, this next thing must occur.

2626
02:03:23.741 --> 02:03:25.980
If this occurs, this next must occur, right?

2627
02:03:26.080 --> 02:03:28.780
And so I'll show you what I'm talking about.

2628
02:03:29.180 --> 02:03:31.820
So if we make a lot of media for businesses,

2629
02:03:32.301 --> 02:03:33.540
so we make a lot of business media.

2630
02:03:34.262 --> 02:03:36.540
If we do that, then we will get business owners

2631
02:03:36.580 --> 02:03:38.280
who are interested in our stuff, right?

2632
02:03:38.881 --> 02:03:41.780
And if we get business owners who are interested in our stuff,

2633
02:03:42.301 --> 02:03:44.360
right, they will then do deals.

2634
02:03:44.743 --> 02:03:45.700
If we do deals with them,

2635
02:03:45.983 --> 02:03:47.300
we'll have stuff to make media about.

2636
02:03:48.460 --> 02:03:51.280
And so this is a basic wheel of acquisition.com.

2637
02:03:51.582 --> 02:03:52.620
We talk about business stuff.

2638
02:03:53.022 --> 02:03:54.307
that gets businesses interested.

2639
02:03:54.629 --> 02:03:55.894
We do deals with those businesses.

2640
02:03:56.175 --> 02:03:57.280
Those businesses get outcomes,

2641
02:03:57.440 --> 02:03:58.727
which then we talk about in the media.

2642
02:03:59.048 --> 02:04:00.073
And so around and around we go.

2643
02:04:00.093 --> 02:04:01.540
We want a wheel that

2644
02:04:01.660 --> 02:04:02.323
feeds itself.

2645
02:04:02.383 --> 02:04:05.035
And so the only thing that's required is to get the wheel moving.

2646
02:04:05.577 --> 02:04:06.280
And so within school,

2647
02:04:06.360 --> 02:04:12.440
we have multiple different loops that we have that generate the growth that compounds within

2648
02:04:12.460 --> 02:04:12.802
the business.

2649
02:04:12.822 --> 02:04:16.780
And these loops are so important because when you have a linear input output

2650
02:04:16.880 --> 02:04:21.000
equation in terms of how business grows, then it means that you just have to keep adding more on

2651
02:04:21.020 --> 02:04:21.542
the front end.

2652
02:04:22.024 --> 02:04:26.040
What you want is something that you spark once the engine runs and then all of a

2653
02:04:26.040 --> 02:04:29.676
sudden it spins and it spins and goes out of control and it just keeps growing, right?

2654
02:04:30.098 --> 02:04:30.380
And so

2655
02:04:31.484 --> 02:04:34.213
that is the ultimate goal is having multiple of these flywheels.

2656
02:04:34.535 --> 02:04:35.980
So a simple example is like

2657
02:04:36.140 --> 02:04:36.723
Amazon, right?

2658
02:04:36.743 --> 02:04:40.080
They have, they bring, you know, they make products that are really cheap.

2659
02:04:41.521 --> 02:04:42.607
Cheap, they don't make products.

2660
02:04:42.627 --> 02:04:44.860
So they create a marketplace that has the cheapest products that

2661
02:04:45.141 --> 02:04:50.760
have the highest fidelity in terms of the risk that someone has to make when they purchase

2662
02:04:50.760 --> 02:04:51.640
because they have the reviews.

2663
02:04:52.060 --> 02:04:53.800
So if they do that, then they will get more customers.

2664
02:04:54.540 --> 02:04:55.600
If they have more customers,

2665
02:04:55.780 --> 02:04:57.720
then they will be able to get more suppliers.

2666
02:04:57.980 --> 02:04:58.919
If they have more suppliers,

2667
02:04:59.080 --> 02:05:00.440
they'll be able to get more competition

2668
02:05:00.603 --> 02:05:01.580
and selection for customers,

2669
02:05:01.701 --> 02:05:02.940
which then brings in more customers, right?

2670
02:05:03.281 --> 02:05:04.219
And so around and around we go.

2671
02:05:04.660 --> 02:05:08.600
And so businesses often have multiple flywheels like this

2672
02:05:08.640 --> 02:05:10.040
that exist that self-reinforce.

2673
02:05:10.721 --> 02:05:12.100
And the quality of that flywheel,

2674
02:05:12.180 --> 02:05:12.760
what you want to figure out is

2675
02:05:12.801 --> 02:05:14.060
what are the friction points

2676
02:05:14.101 --> 02:05:15.240
that prevent this wheel from spinning?

2677
02:05:15.702 --> 02:05:17.559
And then smooth it out so it just runs.

2678
02:05:18.321 --> 02:05:20.360
So this is probably, I would say,

2679
02:05:21.284 --> 02:05:24.477
number five in terms of the things that I've gotten away from school this year.

2680
02:05:24.497 --> 02:05:25.180
And schools

2681
02:05:25.280 --> 02:05:34.600
probably, I'll also call, it'll probably have been one of the best investments I've ever made.

2682
02:05:35.320 --> 02:05:40.797
So this year and somewhat last year, we got this great office, right?

2683
02:05:40.977 --> 02:05:41.920
And part of the reason we

2684
02:05:41.960 --> 02:05:44.778
did this is because I wanted to have a massive gym, I'm being really honest with you.

2685
02:05:44.838 --> 02:05:45.059
I wanted

2686
02:05:45.160 --> 02:05:46.347
to have a really big gym, which I have.

2687
02:05:46.970 --> 02:05:48.740
And I wanted to have a place that I could record that

2688
02:05:48.800 --> 02:05:50.428
wasn't like out of my house or out of a closet.

2689
02:05:50.910 --> 02:05:53.000
As much as it is great to have my team in and out

2690
02:05:53.000 --> 02:05:55.888
of my personal space, I prefer it in a studio.

2691
02:05:56.390 --> 02:05:59.900
And so that was the reason for building this to

2692
02:05:59.960 --> 02:06:00.382
begin with.

2693
02:06:00.644 --> 02:06:03.660
Then we started having a lot of teammates just started like spending more time

2694
02:06:03.720 --> 02:06:05.148
here and they're like, maybe I'll move here.

2695
02:06:05.168 --> 02:06:07.220
And so then we started to become more and more in

2696
02:06:07.260 --> 02:06:08.003
person as a business.

2697
02:06:08.043 --> 02:06:12.220
And so I will remind anyone, I started in person exclusively with gyms.

2698
02:06:12.821 --> 02:06:15.352
Then we went to Gym Launch, which was entirely a remote business.

2699
02:06:16.336 --> 02:06:17.220
And we were entirely remote

2700
02:06:17.320 --> 02:06:18.044
before it was cool.

2701
02:06:18.406 --> 02:06:21.460
Like we were entirely remote when people were like, you can't be a remote

2702
02:06:21.560 --> 02:06:21.862
business.

2703
02:06:21.902 --> 02:06:23.629
It's not legit for real.

2704
02:06:24.071 --> 02:06:26.340
Like we, like we would struggle to get like some banking

2705
02:06:26.461 --> 02:06:27.185
relationships sometimes.

2706
02:06:27.205 --> 02:06:29.720
Cause they're like, we need to, I remember there was some software that

2707
02:06:29.740 --> 02:06:30.002
we needed.

2708
02:06:30.022 --> 02:06:32.457
They were like, we need to see a picture of your filing cabinet.

2709
02:06:32.477 --> 02:06:32.900
And I was like,

2710
02:06:33.700 --> 02:06:34.564
what year is it?

2711
02:06:34.966 --> 02:06:37.898
But it's like, it was antiquated until COVID and then became the norm.

2712
02:06:38.119 --> 02:06:38.320
I want to

2713
02:06:38.320 --> 02:06:39.328
talk about pros and cons of this.

2714
02:06:39.348 --> 02:06:40.880
Cause some of you guys are business owners and you're trying

2715
02:06:40.900 --> 02:06:41.683
to make this decision.

2716
02:06:42.205 --> 02:06:46.180
And so number one, I think is understanding which roles are remote and which

2717
02:06:46.260 --> 02:06:46.943
roles are in person.

2718
02:06:47.446 --> 02:06:50.620
So for us, because we know how to manage, I think remote teaches you how to

2719
02:06:50.680 --> 02:06:54.880
manage better than in-person does because there's so many ancillary small communications that occur

2720
02:06:54.940 --> 02:06:59.380
in person that don't get documented remotely that still have a material impact on the business.

2721
02:06:59.840 --> 02:07:02.478
And so if you're only remote, you have to be very structured with the communication.

2722
02:07:02.538 --> 02:07:02.800
If you're in

2723
02:07:02.800 --> 02:07:04.365
person, you can get away with a lot less.

2724
02:07:04.967 --> 02:07:08.660
Now, four roles, like fundamentally we say like, why does

2725
02:07:08.700 --> 02:07:09.583
this person need to be here?

2726
02:07:09.885 --> 02:07:12.334
We would only want people to be here who should be here.

2727
02:07:12.916 --> 02:07:13.960
If finance

2728
02:07:14.524 --> 02:07:16.360
doesn't really need to be in the office.

2729
02:07:16.541 --> 02:07:18.820
That allows us to recruit from a wider net.

2730
02:07:18.900 --> 02:07:20.240
So we can recruit from all over the United States

2731
02:07:20.321 --> 02:07:21.459
rather than requiring people to move

2732
02:07:21.983 --> 02:07:24.300
or only picking from, call it Las Vegas, right?

2733
02:07:24.781 --> 02:07:27.180
And so for us, the pros have been

2734
02:07:27.584 --> 02:07:29.060
training is much better in person.

2735
02:07:29.381 --> 02:07:30.400
Culture is much stronger.

2736
02:07:31.063 --> 02:07:32.299
I think you have an eye to efficiency,

2737
02:07:33.426 --> 02:07:34.640
which to be fair is somewhat offset

2738
02:07:34.721 --> 02:07:36.080
with the additional cost of the building.

2739
02:07:36.581 --> 02:07:38.900
You're able to see people in deep work

2740
02:07:39.061 --> 02:07:41.380
and correct meeting cadences, things like that.

2741
02:07:41.420 --> 02:07:42.100
Like if you're walking around,

2742
02:07:42.160 --> 02:07:42.940
everyone's on meetings all day.

2743
02:07:42.981 --> 02:07:43.699
You're like, who's working?

2744
02:07:44.221 --> 02:07:44.422
Right.

2745
02:07:45.045 --> 02:07:48.180
And so this allows you to you get faster feedback loops, which I think is important.

2746
02:07:48.860 --> 02:07:52.180
The cons of in-person is that harder to attract talent because they have to move.

2747
02:07:52.400 --> 02:07:52.983
That's a big one.

2748
02:07:53.003 --> 02:07:54.028
It's probably the biggest one.

2749
02:07:54.209 --> 02:07:56.580
But it's easier to attract other people.

2750
02:07:56.900 --> 02:08:04.720
So for us, what we did to accommodate this is we for some roles, depending on the level of the role, we will also include signing bonuses and things like that.

2751
02:08:04.760 --> 02:08:13.520
So if you're in that position, including more incentive for them to move or move their families to your place of business is a good way to do it.

2752
02:08:13.881 --> 02:08:20.460
I also recommend having them come out for like 30 days and stay at a hotel just so that they don't like, you know, de-plant their whole family.

2753
02:08:20.881 --> 02:08:24.280
If for some reason it doesn't work out, kind of the first month you'll know.

2754
02:08:24.720 --> 02:08:30.320
And so that's like a little in-between that I think is worth doing that has worked well for us.

2755
02:08:30.900 --> 02:08:34.717
And to be clear for me, I think 30% of our portfolio is in person, 70% are remote.

2756
02:08:35.500 --> 02:08:41.840
So I don't have, I don't care at all about how someone chooses to have, you know, structure their employee teams.

2757
02:08:42.341 --> 02:08:43.620
I think you should just, whatever way it is,

2758
02:08:43.721 --> 02:08:45.240
I just want there to be sound reasoning behind it.

2759
02:08:45.640 --> 02:08:47.120
And so for us, obviously we have a lot of media.

2760
02:08:47.280 --> 02:08:49.280
And so having the entire media team here makes sense

2761
02:08:49.280 --> 02:08:50.660
because I film here, I'm here.

2762
02:08:51.161 --> 02:08:52.379
And so they should be here too.

2763
02:08:53.201 --> 02:08:55.040
Whereas like I said, finance, it doesn't really make sense.

2764
02:08:55.100 --> 02:08:56.480
And so it's just making sure that like,

2765
02:08:56.500 --> 02:08:57.980
you're not being a stickler in either direction

2766
02:08:58.587 --> 02:08:59.620
for the sake of it.

2767
02:08:59.862 --> 02:09:01.580
And instead just saying like, what problem are we solving?

2768
02:09:02.201 --> 02:09:04.660
And which path increases the likelihood that it gets solved?

2769
02:09:05.041 --> 02:09:06.360
Here's a few productivity hacks

2770
02:09:06.441 --> 02:09:08.560
that helped me work a lot more this year.

2771
02:09:09.020 --> 02:09:10.040
And so as I was saying earlier,

2772
02:09:10.442 --> 02:09:14.260
I worked a lot more days this year, a lot more hours per day than I probably worked in recent history.

2773
02:09:14.981 --> 02:09:17.120
And I needed to optimize more things.

2774
02:09:17.220 --> 02:09:20.020
It's kind of like when a car is driving at 60 miles an hour, it's like it moves a little bit.

2775
02:09:20.100 --> 02:09:22.120
When you're at 200 miles an hour, a tiny movement makes a huge change.

2776
02:09:22.461 --> 02:09:23.920
It's kind of the same thing in terms of me.

2777
02:09:24.701 --> 02:09:28.059
With the increase in hours, the increase in days, I was like, I need to get everything else dialed.

2778
02:09:28.481 --> 02:09:32.780
One massive one, which is going to sound so silly, is the big three of sleep.

2779
02:09:33.300 --> 02:09:35.780
So number one is pitch black.

2780
02:09:35.880 --> 02:09:37.600
And when I say pitch black, I mean pitch black.

2781
02:09:38.021 --> 02:09:44.060
so tape the little lights on all the electronics in the room get blackout curtains i'm telling you

2782
02:09:44.200 --> 02:09:50.620
just do it i took way too long to do it just do it just do it please do it number one number two

2783
02:09:50.760 --> 02:09:56.100
is it's got to be cold like it has to be super cold and if you are in a different uh temperature

2784
02:09:56.341 --> 02:10:00.220
than the person you sleep with then get one of those mattress pads that has the temperature

2785
02:10:00.341 --> 02:10:03.880
control thing it will change your life and it will certainly change your sleep which could

2786
02:10:04.081 --> 02:10:04.906
very much change your life.

2787
02:10:05.046 --> 02:10:05.509
Just do it.

2788
02:10:05.589 --> 02:10:07.540
Like it's, it's, I think they're, they're like two grand

2789
02:10:08.263 --> 02:10:10.150
and you spend more time in bed than anywhere else.

2790
02:10:10.251 --> 02:10:12.419
Like it's the wellspring of youth.

2791
02:10:12.520 --> 02:10:12.600
It's

2792
02:10:12.680 --> 02:10:14.185
everything like worth doing.

2793
02:10:15.148 --> 02:10:18.540
Um, and the third one, and this is the most recent one is that I

2794
02:10:18.740 --> 02:10:20.164
actually added in earplugs.

2795
02:10:20.866 --> 02:10:25.920
So I now sleep with earplugs, uh, which you just the simple foam ones,

2796
02:10:26.000 --> 02:10:26.742
like nothing crazy.

2797
02:10:27.543 --> 02:10:35.360
And sleeping with earplugs had a four beats per minute drop to my resting

2798
02:10:35.861 --> 02:10:38.188
heart rate at the bottom of my sleep.

2799
02:10:39.091 --> 02:10:42.080
And so I bring this up because like it had a material

2800
02:10:42.260 --> 02:10:45.687
difference in basically how deeply I rest.

2801
02:10:46.870 --> 02:10:52.000
And my deep sleep is basically very chunky and front

2802
02:10:52.060 --> 02:10:55.856
loaded rather than like intermittent throughout the evening.

2803
02:10:55.876 --> 02:10:56.900
So it's like basically as soon as

2804
02:10:56.920 --> 02:11:00.453
I get to bed, I have like deep sleep because I hear nothing.

2805
02:11:00.513 --> 02:11:02.300
It's like I'm in this black float

2806
02:11:02.380 --> 02:11:07.196
tank essentially, this cold dark tank where I can't see anything or hear anything.

2807
02:11:07.598 --> 02:11:08.240
And so you'll

2808
02:11:08.361 --> 02:11:12.120
know when it's dark enough if when you open your eyes and when you close your eyes, it's the same.

2809
02:11:12.780 --> 02:11:13.763
That's where you want to be.

2810
02:11:14.325 --> 02:11:16.871
And so those are some significant ones.

2811
02:11:17.473 --> 02:11:19.980
The next big one for me was

2812
02:11:21.043 --> 02:11:24.536
making sure that my work environment was basically just as tailored.

2813
02:11:24.857 --> 02:11:25.780
And so I've usually been better

2814
02:11:25.840 --> 02:11:29.139
about this, but I always black out my windows because I get distracted with good weather.

2815
02:11:29.159 --> 02:11:29.179
I

2816
02:11:29.320 --> 02:11:30.122
just want to go outside.

2817
02:11:30.162 --> 02:11:31.526
And so I black all that stuff out.

2818
02:11:32.930 --> 02:11:36.340
I had two desks that I set up, one for

2819
02:11:36.400 --> 02:11:40.020
standing, one for sitting, because I realized that having a desk that moved, I ended up just not

2820
02:11:40.121 --> 02:11:42.639
moving it because I didn't want to like mess the wires up and like all the other stuff.

2821
02:11:42.659 --> 02:11:42.840
So I just

2822
02:11:42.860 --> 02:11:43.502
set up two desks.

2823
02:11:43.944 --> 02:11:45.409
And so that was helpful.

2824
02:11:45.991 --> 02:11:48.620
The biggest pain relief thing that I did this year,

2825
02:11:48.680 --> 02:11:55.180
because I spent a lot of time on my desk, is I got a kneeling chair, all right, which sounds

2826
02:11:55.481 --> 02:11:56.865
ridiculous and they look goofy.

2827
02:11:57.527 --> 02:12:01.380
But if you sit in one position all day, like I was getting really bad

2828
02:12:02.001 --> 02:12:04.528
neck pain, like it was very tough for me.

2829
02:12:04.929 --> 02:12:08.720
And so by switching the kneeling chair, originally I

2830
02:12:08.760 --> 02:12:11.253
thought I was going to do half my day in one chair, half my day in the other chair.

2831
02:12:11.736 --> 02:12:12.460
But then I realized

2832
02:12:12.520 --> 02:12:16.900
that when I was in the kneeling chair, I actually have like six different sitting positions that I

2833
02:12:17.020 --> 02:12:17.703
do in that chair.

2834
02:12:18.225 --> 02:12:22.040
And so by constantly varying my sitting position, because as soon as I get a

2835
02:12:22.080 --> 02:12:23.647
little bit uncomfortable, I just change it up.

2836
02:12:24.209 --> 02:12:26.640
I was able to basically decrease the resting stress

2837
02:12:26.841 --> 02:12:30.616
on like my muscles being in this one frozen position for an extended period.

2838
02:12:31.198 --> 02:12:31.560
And that

2839
02:12:32.342 --> 02:12:38.398
eliminated my shoulder pain, like gone, like really, really helped me out a lot.

2840
02:12:38.519 --> 02:12:38.880
And so I

2841
02:12:39.281 --> 02:12:43.500
don't know what you're doing, but like it was probably like a hundred bucks and like such high

2842
02:12:43.641 --> 02:12:44.243
ROI for me.

2843
02:12:45.207 --> 02:12:48.240
So the last thing was fitness wise, because I was in this very heavy season,

2844
02:12:49.684 --> 02:12:52.860
I decreased my workouts to two a week, which is pretty light for me.

2845
02:12:54.741 --> 02:12:56.650
But I just made those the absolutes.

2846
02:12:56.830 --> 02:12:59.000
So I basically did Saturday, Sundays, my two workout days.

2847
02:12:59.921 --> 02:13:02.210
And I just go really hard on those days.

2848
02:13:02.933 --> 02:13:04.399
And that's actually kind of a weird way.

2849
02:13:04.419 --> 02:13:04.640
It's been

2850
02:13:04.760 --> 02:13:07.873
more fun for me than trying to do shorter, more frequent workouts.

2851
02:13:08.656 --> 02:13:09.660
And so it's actually kind of

2852
02:13:09.740 --> 02:13:13.820
brought some like more life back into my training even though i'm doing it less frequently i'm like

2853
02:13:13.900 --> 02:13:20.200
looking forward to it and i realized that for me i love training on one condition that i'm not in a

2854
02:13:20.300 --> 02:13:27.900
rush like i hate having to like do a workout in 45 minutes because i have a call like it takes all

2855
02:13:27.960 --> 02:13:34.000
the fun out of it for me and so i do it on saturdays and sundays because i can just wake up i will work

2856
02:13:34.040 --> 02:13:39.020
out as long as i feel like and then i'll start working um and that's been like really really

2857
02:13:39.120 --> 02:13:39.542
good for me.

2858
02:13:39.923 --> 02:13:42.472
But part of this has also been my transition.

2859
02:13:42.974 --> 02:13:44.720
At 35, I told myself, you know,

2860
02:13:44.760 --> 02:13:48.834
when I was 15, I get 35, I will transition to longevity.

2861
02:13:49.295 --> 02:13:50.720
And so I have made that transition

2862
02:13:50.921 --> 02:13:51.141
now.

2863
02:13:51.242 --> 02:13:53.610
And so I'm probably the lightest I've been in a long time.

2864
02:13:54.092 --> 02:13:56.580
I'm like 203-ish right now,

2865
02:13:56.600 --> 02:13:57.545
which is very light for me.

2866
02:13:57.927 --> 02:13:58.973
For context, I'm heaviest.

2867
02:13:59.013 --> 02:13:59.556
I was 250.

2868
02:13:59.676 --> 02:14:00.380
So I was very buzzed.

2869
02:14:00.881 --> 02:14:02.707
And it's all steak.

2870
02:14:02.807 --> 02:14:04.271
And so now I'm 203.

2871
02:14:04.813 --> 02:14:07.380
And basically, chihuahuas live longer than Great

2872
02:14:07.440 --> 02:14:09.988
Danes, which is small dogs live longer.

2873
02:14:10.128 --> 02:14:13.900
And so I want to put less stress on my heart.

2874
02:14:15.301 --> 02:14:18.900
And so for those of you who are like, Alex looks smaller, that's true because I have lost weight.

2875
02:14:19.521 --> 02:14:20.766
I've lost about 10 or 15 pounds.

2876
02:14:21.730 --> 02:14:23.437
And so I'll probably stay around here.

2877
02:14:23.537 --> 02:14:24.140
Maybe I'll get in

2878
02:14:24.160 --> 02:14:28.130
the high 190s, but I maintain here pretty easily.

2879
02:14:28.311 --> 02:14:31.299
And so that's my update on that part.

2880
02:14:31.559 --> 02:14:31.840
And I do

2881
02:14:31.940 --> 02:14:35.074
think that it's okay to have seasons.

2882
02:14:35.114 --> 02:14:36.360
I'm not saying I'm only going to work out twice a week

2883
02:14:36.380 --> 02:14:36.642
forever.

2884
02:14:36.682 --> 02:14:37.870
I'm saying I'm going to work out twice a week now.

2885
02:14:37.890 --> 02:14:39.260
Like I worked out three times this week.

2886
02:14:40.242 --> 02:14:41.549
And so it's not like I have these rules.

2887
02:14:41.610 --> 02:14:43.320
It's just that I absolutely committed to Saturdays

2888
02:14:43.340 --> 02:14:44.665
and Sundays and being a weekend warrior.

2889
02:14:46.111 --> 02:14:48.480
And that has worked well for me to not work, basically give

2890
02:14:48.520 --> 02:14:51.940
myself permission to do that so that I could keep working harder on the stuff that needed to get

2891
02:14:51.980 --> 02:14:52.422
moved forward.

2892
02:14:52.582 --> 02:14:54.188
So next one is culture.

2893
02:14:54.770 --> 02:14:57.500
So I define culture as the rules that govern reinforcement in

2894
02:14:57.540 --> 02:14:58.022
a business.

2895
02:14:58.183 --> 02:14:59.751
And so that means like the rules of behavior.

2896
02:14:59.791 --> 02:15:00.333
What is good?

2897
02:15:00.454 --> 02:15:00.956
What is neutral?

2898
02:15:00.997 --> 02:15:01.177
What is

2899
02:15:01.740 --> 02:15:02.001
bad.

2900
02:15:02.743 --> 02:15:07.900
And typically people have some sort of values that they create that are supposed to embody that

2901
02:15:08.020 --> 02:15:08.421
culture.

2902
02:15:08.963 --> 02:15:14.960
But those values typically are either phrases or they're one or two words, and you have

2903
02:15:15.702 --> 02:15:17.288
three to ten of them, right?

2904
02:15:17.910 --> 02:15:20.740
And so for us, I've always believed in three because I don't think

2905
02:15:20.760 --> 02:15:22.230
anyone remembers more than three.

2906
02:15:22.250 --> 02:15:23.780
And if they can't remember them, there's no point in having

2907
02:15:23.840 --> 02:15:23.961
them.

2908
02:15:24.422 --> 02:15:30.440
But those three typically are very bucketed terms that then need to have hundreds of behaviors

2909
02:15:30.561 --> 02:15:33.214
underneath them that kind of roll into that culture.

2910
02:15:33.234 --> 02:15:34.380
It's not like you only have three rules

2911
02:15:34.440 --> 02:15:35.042
of behaving.

2912
02:15:35.424 --> 02:15:40.180
You have three concepts that have many applications across different conditions.

2913
02:15:40.480 --> 02:15:45.855
A big one that we've been focusing on, Layla and I together, has been kind, not nice.

2914
02:15:47.158 --> 02:15:47.740
And so I think

2915
02:15:47.800 --> 02:15:56.600
that in the wake of wokeism, if you will, there has been a lot of accommodation that has been

2916
02:15:58.109 --> 02:15:59.840
accepted or tolerated within businesses,

2917
02:16:00.103 --> 02:16:01.500
which is like, you know,

2918
02:16:01.661 --> 02:16:03.560
everybody needs to have these like,

2919
02:16:03.720 --> 02:16:04.719
you know, safety zones

2920
02:16:05.062 --> 02:16:06.050
and everyone has to feel hugged

2921
02:16:07.301 --> 02:16:09.620
and fluffy and like all this stuff.

2922
02:16:09.921 --> 02:16:12.720
And I believe that this is a pendulum, right?

2923
02:16:12.760 --> 02:16:15.660
And I think that the pendulum swung here

2924
02:16:15.822 --> 02:16:16.720
and I think a lot of brands,

2925
02:16:16.860 --> 02:16:17.920
Walmart just came out recently

2926
02:16:18.042 --> 02:16:19.280
rolling back some of its initiatives.

2927
02:16:19.921 --> 02:16:21.920
I know Victoria's Secret did last year.

2928
02:16:22.060 --> 02:16:23.800
Like a lot of them are starting to swing back.

2929
02:16:23.900 --> 02:16:25.100
Now, I do think that we're going to swing

2930
02:16:25.141 --> 02:16:26.300
too far the other way, to be clear,

2931
02:16:26.300 --> 02:16:27.160
because that's how we do things.

2932
02:16:27.180 --> 02:16:28.460
That's how us humans do things, right?

2933
02:16:28.881 --> 02:16:30.680
But I think it's going in the right direction right now,

2934
02:16:30.781 --> 02:16:31.860
which is going back towards the middle.

2935
02:16:32.380 --> 02:16:34.360
And so within acquisition.com,

2936
02:16:34.762 --> 02:16:37.560
we have this big belief that we're very good at training.

2937
02:16:37.760 --> 02:16:38.840
Like we're very good at training skills

2938
02:16:38.860 --> 02:16:40.560
because it's something that Layla and I pride ourselves on.

2939
02:16:40.741 --> 02:16:41.840
And we're in this in-person environment.

2940
02:16:41.940 --> 02:16:42.900
We're good at fast feedback loops.

2941
02:16:43.181 --> 02:16:44.479
We're very good at breaking skills down

2942
02:16:44.964 --> 02:16:46.500
into smaller chunks to make them manageable

2943
02:16:46.541 --> 02:16:47.200
for somebody who's new.

2944
02:16:47.801 --> 02:16:50.620
The problem is that sometimes that goes into

2945
02:16:50.722 --> 02:16:51.460
no man left behind.

2946
02:16:52.422 --> 02:16:53.900
And we are not a government program.

2947
02:16:54.981 --> 02:16:58.080
Instead, it should be, if you can't keep up, you can't come.

2948
02:16:59.341 --> 02:17:04.540
And so I think this is a departure from the traditional, like, all accepting, let's all arms open.

2949
02:17:04.660 --> 02:17:08.360
Like if someone, you know, has, like, they don't like working late.

2950
02:17:08.400 --> 02:17:09.720
It's like, well, then this isn't for them.

2951
02:17:09.780 --> 02:17:12.440
And they can find another job that will accommodate that.

2952
02:17:12.520 --> 02:17:13.198
But I do not.

2953
02:17:13.741 --> 02:17:15.440
Because we're trying to accomplish great things.

2954
02:17:16.002 --> 02:17:17.400
And great things require great sacrifice.

2955
02:17:17.882 --> 02:17:21.420
And it doesn't feel like a sacrifice to the person who also wants the great thing.

2956
02:17:21.742 --> 02:17:23.599
It only feels like a sacrifice for someone who doesn't.

2957
02:17:24.443 --> 02:17:27.280
And so that price diminishes for someone who's aligned.

2958
02:17:28.440 --> 02:17:31.059
And so kind, not nice also brings into light,

2959
02:17:31.340 --> 02:17:34.840
like being able to have these sincerely candorous conversations of saying like,

2960
02:17:34.940 --> 02:17:36.960
you are not where you need to be.

2961
02:17:37.240 --> 02:17:38.859
And I'm going to give you a really good nug on this.

2962
02:17:39.140 --> 02:17:42.680
Is that right now you can pause this video and I need you to show it to your team

2963
02:17:43.163 --> 02:17:45.620
because what they don't understand is the difference between an insult,

2964
02:17:45.720 --> 02:17:46.780
and you might not understand it either.

2965
02:17:47.181 --> 02:17:48.499
And this like changed my life.

2966
02:17:49.180 --> 02:17:50.360
Insult and criticism.

2967
02:17:50.621 --> 02:17:53.860
So an insult is where basically you slander the other person.

2968
02:17:54.283 --> 02:17:56.580
You assign a word that has a negative connotation.

2969
02:17:56.720 --> 02:17:58.300
So I say something like, you are lazy.

2970
02:17:58.902 --> 02:18:00.740
You are a piece of shit.

2971
02:18:00.820 --> 02:18:01.198
You're a dick.

2972
02:18:01.480 --> 02:18:02.180
You whatever.

2973
02:18:02.741 --> 02:18:04.660
Whatever, insert the insult you want.

2974
02:18:05.360 --> 02:18:10.040
A criticism is the gap between desired and actual.

2975
02:18:10.501 --> 02:18:12.520
This is a commentary which is factual.

2976
02:18:12.980 --> 02:18:14.936
The expectation is that you show up every day by 9 a.m.

2977
02:18:16.202 --> 02:18:18.235
You've shown up every day at 9.05.

2978
02:18:20.321 --> 02:18:22.740
Therefore, there's a discrepancy here.

2979
02:18:23.506 --> 02:18:25.340
in order for you to continue maintaining your employment,

2980
02:18:25.641 --> 02:18:27.000
you need to be here before nine.

2981
02:18:27.864 --> 02:18:29.000
So this is a criticism.

2982
02:18:29.261 --> 02:18:30.719
It's simply observing reality.

2983
02:18:31.522 --> 02:18:32.899
And if you can do this,

2984
02:18:34.063 --> 02:18:35.360
this will allow you to help people

2985
02:18:35.441 --> 02:18:36.839
without having the emotional charge.

2986
02:18:37.221 --> 02:18:39.040
Now, if I say you're five minutes late

2987
02:18:39.706 --> 02:18:41.120
and that makes you lazy

2988
02:18:41.626 --> 02:18:42.920
or that makes you uncommitted

2989
02:18:43.283 --> 02:18:45.520
or that makes you insert whatever insult,

2990
02:18:46.262 --> 02:18:48.780
it then turns this into an emotionally charged conversation.

2991
02:18:49.400 --> 02:18:50.360
And so what happens is,

2992
02:18:50.420 --> 02:18:51.420
and this is why I think it's important,

2993
02:18:51.520 --> 02:18:52.700
is that you need to explain to your team,

2994
02:18:53.222 --> 02:18:54.827
criticism is not negative.

2995
02:18:55.128 --> 02:18:56.553
It's an observation of reality.

2996
02:18:57.034 --> 02:18:58.760
An insult is where we attach judgment

2997
02:18:59.221 --> 02:19:00.244
to that discrepancy.

2998
02:19:00.665 --> 02:19:03.351
Like your content sucks.

2999
02:19:03.933 --> 02:19:04.534
That's tough.

3000
02:19:05.015 --> 02:19:06.880
And the secondary of that is you

3001
02:19:07.000 --> 02:19:09.469
suck because your content sucks, which is even harsher.

3002
02:19:09.970 --> 02:19:12.940
But instead it says our channel average

3003
02:19:13.141 --> 02:19:13.822
is 100,000.

3004
02:19:14.865 --> 02:19:17.433
The content that you make is 75,000.

3005
02:19:18.074 --> 02:19:20.100
In order for you to keep your employment here,

3006
02:19:20.641 --> 02:19:22.185
you need to be above 100,000.

3007
02:19:22.646 --> 02:19:28.200
And now let's break down what do we need to do behaviorally that will

3008
02:19:28.300 --> 02:19:31.573
increase the likelihood that you meet desired or exceeded.

3009
02:19:32.115 --> 02:19:33.440
And so then this is where you get to

3010
02:19:33.560 --> 02:19:33.862
teach.

3011
02:19:33.922 --> 02:19:34.947
This is where you get to train.

3012
02:19:35.208 --> 02:19:37.520
If someone's always late to meetings, they might not be lazy.

3013
02:19:37.861 --> 02:19:41.114
They just might not have the skill of showing up on time, which is a skill.

3014
02:19:41.796 --> 02:19:42.780
And so you then say,

3015
02:19:43.100 --> 02:19:44.485
okay, do you set alarms?

3016
02:19:44.927 --> 02:19:46.653
How do you estimate your time of driving?

3017
02:19:47.035 --> 02:19:48.480
Do you do it on the fastest time

3018
02:19:48.500 --> 02:19:51.958
you've ever driven somewhere or the slowest time you've ever driven somewhere, right?

3019
02:19:51.978 --> 02:19:52.300
Do you do it

3020
02:19:52.340 --> 02:19:55.460
on the fastest time you've ever gotten dressed or the slowest time you've ever gotten dressed?

3021
02:19:55.720 --> 02:19:59.440
And so typically when people estimate time, they usually just skew to one of these two things.

3022
02:19:59.701 --> 02:20:01.110
There's the people who are always way too early.

3023
02:20:01.130 --> 02:20:02.600
It's because they do worst case on everything.

3024
02:20:02.840 --> 02:20:06.080
And then you've got the people who are, they do best case on everything and they're always late,

3025
02:20:06.440 --> 02:20:06.621
right?

3026
02:20:06.641 --> 02:20:11.080
So it's like, how do you estimate time and how do you set reminders for yourself to get

3027
02:20:11.160 --> 02:20:12.767
places by the time you need to?

3028
02:20:13.330 --> 02:20:15.780
And so literally breaking down that skill, which seems obvious,

3029
02:20:16.141 --> 02:20:21.780
And yet there's many young people, and to be fair, sometimes old people, who don't know how to show up on time.

3030
02:20:22.060 --> 02:20:27.040
Understanding this and saying, if we don't share this criticism, we are being nice, not kind.

3031
02:20:27.920 --> 02:20:28.925
We are seeking contentment.

3032
02:20:31.981 --> 02:20:34.080
We are seeking approval from everyone.

3033
02:20:34.463 --> 02:20:35.440
We are seeking consensus.

3034
02:20:35.962 --> 02:20:37.039
We're not seeking truth.

3035
02:20:38.681 --> 02:20:40.700
And so we need to be truth-seeking as a business.

3036
02:20:41.201 --> 02:20:43.440
And so we must always state the facts and tell the truth.

3037
02:20:43.702 --> 02:20:45.580
and if someone is not up to snuff,

3038
02:20:46.021 --> 02:20:48.620
we need to communicate that as fast as possible

3039
02:20:48.962 --> 02:20:51.500
and give them the steps in order to remedy the situation.

3040
02:20:52.121 --> 02:20:52.860
And so this is the part,

3041
02:20:52.880 --> 02:20:54.260
I think both of these things get missed.

3042
02:20:54.800 --> 02:20:57.360
Bosses will say, he's a dick, he's lazy, he's whatever.

3043
02:20:57.682 --> 02:20:58.680
And sometimes they'll say it to the person,

3044
02:20:58.780 --> 02:20:59.660
sometimes they'll say it behind their back.

3045
02:21:00.283 --> 02:21:00.960
Both of those are bad.

3046
02:21:01.460 --> 02:21:03.300
Instead, I would encourage you to go criticism

3047
02:21:03.928 --> 02:21:04.780
and then steps.

3048
02:21:05.341 --> 02:21:06.940
So the way to do this is you say,

3049
02:21:07.401 --> 02:21:08.640
tell them what to do instead.

3050
02:21:09.260 --> 02:21:12.199
So don't just say, don't do this.

3051
02:21:12.603 --> 02:21:14.259
say do this instead of this

3052
02:21:14.987 --> 02:21:16.280
that way you give them directions

3053
02:21:16.361 --> 02:21:17.940
because no one can operate on a negative

3054
02:21:18.427 --> 02:21:19.279
give them what to do

3055
02:21:20.246 --> 02:21:22.480
and this has dramatically improved

3056
02:21:22.763 --> 02:21:24.440
my skill as an operator within the business

3057
02:21:25.025 --> 02:21:26.840
and hopefully the kind not nice

3058
02:21:27.002 --> 02:21:28.399
is something that you can give to your team

3059
02:21:28.440 --> 02:21:29.340
and that you can say is like

3060
02:21:29.624 --> 02:21:30.560
we are here to be kind

3061
02:21:30.742 --> 02:21:32.340
I want to help you win

3062
02:21:33.026 --> 02:21:34.560
but I'm not here to be your friend

3063
02:21:35.549 --> 02:21:36.700
like and I think Reed Hastings

3064
02:21:36.781 --> 02:21:38.060
has a really wonderful frame around this

3065
02:21:38.060 --> 02:21:39.720
which is like we're a professional sports team

3066
02:21:40.044 --> 02:21:41.220
trying to win the world championships

3067
02:21:41.722 --> 02:21:42.800
We are not a family.

3068
02:21:43.702 --> 02:21:45.040
Because you're not going to fire your kid.

3069
02:21:45.080 --> 02:21:46.200
You're not going to fire your spouse.

3070
02:21:46.280 --> 02:21:47.240
You're not going to fire your mother.

3071
02:21:48.001 --> 02:21:51.180
But if you're on a professional sports team, it's like, we are all here to win.

3072
02:21:51.781 --> 02:21:53.780
And if you don't want to win, this is not the team for you.

3073
02:21:53.820 --> 02:21:54.240
There's AAA.

3074
02:21:54.380 --> 02:21:54.939
There's other teams.

3075
02:21:55.181 --> 02:21:56.660
There's other teams that are pros that don't want to win.

3076
02:21:56.842 --> 02:21:57.420
And that's fine.

3077
02:21:57.682 --> 02:21:58.860
But that's not what we have here.

3078
02:21:59.561 --> 02:22:05.380
And so the kindest thing that I can do for someone is give them clear feedback and opportunity to improve.

3079
02:22:05.820 --> 02:22:10.680
And if they don't improve, give them the opportunity to work at a place where they will better fit in.

3080
02:22:11.380 --> 02:22:18.480
Now that it's been five years and I'm back into operating day-to-day on the media and conversion team that we have at acquisition.com, it's been fun to turn things around.

3081
02:22:18.600 --> 02:22:21.340
Now, I already went through the optimization framework, and that's what I executed.

3082
02:22:21.921 --> 02:22:25.280
But the output of that was, number one, I removed all meetings.

3083
02:22:26.220 --> 02:22:31.060
Number two, I said you can have ad hoc stand-ups between each other when you want to solve a specific problem.

3084
02:22:31.140 --> 02:22:32.820
So I don't want to stop communication.

3085
02:22:33.341 --> 02:22:37.740
I just want to stop regular wasted time blocks that don't increase your output.

3086
02:22:37.740 --> 02:22:37.800
it.

3087
02:22:38.564 --> 02:22:42.200
The next thing, and to be fair, when I did all my one-on-ones with every single person in the

3088
02:22:42.200 --> 02:22:45.720
department to understand what they were struggling with, one of the biggest things that came back was

3089
02:22:45.881 --> 02:22:46.667
we're in meetings all day.

3090
02:22:46.768 --> 02:22:47.453
We hate being in meetings.

3091
02:22:47.473 --> 02:22:48.037
I just want to work.

3092
02:22:48.078 --> 02:22:48.380
And I was like,

3093
02:22:48.400 --> 02:22:50.528
great, let me make it easier for you to work.

3094
02:22:51.050 --> 02:22:53.880
The next thing was, and this was feedback that I got

3095
02:22:53.980 --> 02:23:00.420
from some of the managers when they saw me running this, was they saw a framework that I like a lot,

3096
02:23:00.861 --> 02:23:03.491
which is what, who, when.

3097
02:23:03.952 --> 02:23:06.040
So think about when you have a meeting and you're like, hey, we got to do

3098
02:23:06.060 --> 02:23:06.803
this thing, right?

3099
02:23:06.884 --> 02:23:07.506
That's the what.

3100
02:23:08.129 --> 02:23:08.410
All right.

3101
02:23:08.691 --> 02:23:10.077
Then a lot of times, that's it.

3102
02:23:10.158 --> 02:23:10.680
That's the meeting.

3103
02:23:10.800 --> 02:23:12.427
Everyone just goes about their separate way.

3104
02:23:12.668 --> 02:23:15.480
The next level of that is, okay, this is what it is,

3105
02:23:15.640 --> 02:23:17.028
and this is who needs to do it.

3106
02:23:17.430 --> 02:23:18.254
So who's going to own this?

3107
02:23:18.274 --> 02:23:19.420
Who's going to own this one, right?

3108
02:23:19.480 --> 02:23:22.435
Who's the chest to poke, the throat to choke, all right?

3109
02:23:22.455 --> 02:23:23.400
Who's the one who's responsible?

3110
02:23:24.361 --> 02:23:27.154
Now, if you have what and who, that's already a better start.

3111
02:23:27.355 --> 02:23:28.440
But where it gets really nasty

3112
02:23:28.862 --> 02:23:29.706
is when you put in when.

3113
02:23:30.148 --> 02:23:32.840
And so the question that I like to ask here is, how many hours will this

3114
02:23:32.880 --> 02:23:33.041
take?

3115
02:23:33.081 --> 02:23:34.006
I don't ask how many days.

3116
02:23:34.087 --> 02:23:35.796
I don't ask what day you're going to get it done by.

3117
02:23:36.118 --> 02:23:36.520
I say, how

3118
02:23:36.580 --> 02:23:37.705
many hours will this take?

3119
02:23:38.449 --> 02:23:40.880
And then that person will say, it'll probably take, because then you

3120
02:23:40.920 --> 02:23:41.482
get to hear it.

3121
02:23:41.803 --> 02:23:45.937
So it's like, if someone says like 20 hours, I'm like 20 hours, right?

3122
02:23:46.158 --> 02:23:46.780
But if you ask

3123
02:23:46.820 --> 02:23:48.632
them what day, they might be like, oh, today's Tuesday.

3124
02:23:48.652 --> 02:23:49.579
I can get to you by Friday.

3125
02:23:49.599 --> 02:23:49.780
I'm like,

3126
02:23:49.820 --> 02:23:51.026
why is it going to take three days?

3127
02:23:51.668 --> 02:23:51.789
Right?

3128
02:23:51.809 --> 02:23:54.200
So when you ask hours, it's like, this will probably take,

3129
02:23:54.461 --> 02:23:55.264
I don't know, 90 minutes.

3130
02:23:55.364 --> 02:23:56.528
I'm like, okay, cool.

3131
02:23:57.010 --> 02:23:59.057
So you can get this done in the next 90.

3132
02:23:59.077 --> 02:23:59.197
Now,

3133
02:24:00.583 --> 02:24:02.332
they will then say, well, I have other things to do.

3134
02:24:02.352 --> 02:24:03.820
And I'm like, okay, what are those things?

3135
02:24:04.401 --> 02:24:05.428
And then you get to dive in.

3136
02:24:05.449 --> 02:24:07.020
And this is fundamentally, I think, the job of the boss

3137
02:24:07.120 --> 02:24:07.764
is to prioritize.

3138
02:24:07.784 --> 02:24:08.528
This is strategy.

3139
02:24:08.990 --> 02:24:10.780
And they're like, oh, well, I have this other thing that's

3140
02:24:10.840 --> 02:24:13.234
for this massive project and I have to get that done.

3141
02:24:13.254 --> 02:24:14.180
I'm like, well, how long does that take?

3142
02:24:14.240 --> 02:24:15.505
And they'll say, okay, this many hours.

3143
02:24:15.887 --> 02:24:18.096
And say, okay, do that first.

3144
02:24:18.418 --> 02:24:18.940
And then this one,

3145
02:24:18.980 --> 02:24:19.826
you can start on tomorrow morning.

3146
02:24:19.846 --> 02:24:20.611
You'll have it done by lunch.

3147
02:24:20.632 --> 02:24:21.820
So hit me up at noon tomorrow

3148
02:24:21.920 --> 02:24:22.463
when you have it done.

3149
02:24:22.925 --> 02:24:25.960
Now, people get scared about this because they're like, why are you

3150
02:24:25.980 --> 02:24:26.924
driving all these deadlines.

3151
02:24:27.727 --> 02:24:30.900
The more deadlines you have, the more opportunities you have to say

3152
02:24:30.980 --> 02:24:31.482
nice job.

3153
02:24:32.165 --> 02:24:36.220
I would rather tell someone you did a great job seven times in a week than once a week.

3154
02:24:37.160 --> 02:24:42.940
And so I also have found that the best performers want to work and they hate not working and they

3155
02:24:42.960 --> 02:24:44.007
hate things that get in the way of work.

3156
02:24:44.027 --> 02:24:46.040
They hate office politics, they hate meetings, they hate

3157
02:24:46.060 --> 02:24:46.442
gossip.

3158
02:24:46.703 --> 02:24:47.446
They just want to work.

3159
02:24:47.828 --> 02:24:49.836
And so I want to create an environment for those people.

3160
02:24:50.379 --> 02:24:50.680
And if

3161
02:24:50.720 --> 02:24:54.480
there are a bunch of people who want to gossip and want to have lots of meetings and want to ideate

3162
02:24:54.560 --> 02:24:54.961
all day.

3163
02:24:54.982 --> 02:24:56.165
Amazing.

3164
02:24:56.366 --> 02:24:56.767
Just not here.

3165
02:24:57.269 --> 02:25:00.960
With the who, what, when framework, this also gets stacked and

3166
02:25:01.060 --> 02:25:01.603
recapped.

3167
02:25:01.944 --> 02:25:02.165
All right.

3168
02:25:02.647 --> 02:25:04.515
So think about how a meeting runs, right?

3169
02:25:04.535 --> 02:25:04.937
So, okay.

3170
02:25:05.077 --> 02:25:05.760
First thing we got to do

3171
02:25:05.760 --> 02:25:06.122
is this.

3172
02:25:06.202 --> 02:25:06.463
Okay.

3173
02:25:06.744 --> 02:25:07.186
What is it?

3174
02:25:07.266 --> 02:25:07.749
Who's got it?

3175
02:25:07.769 --> 02:25:08.773
When are you going to get done by?

3176
02:25:08.793 --> 02:25:10.360
How long is that going

3177
02:25:10.400 --> 02:25:10.722
to take?

3178
02:25:10.862 --> 02:25:11.446
Can I pull it up?

3179
02:25:11.486 --> 02:25:12.009
Can I pull it up?

3180
02:25:12.029 --> 02:25:12.551
Can I pull it up?

3181
02:25:12.592 --> 02:25:12.732
Yep.

3182
02:25:12.773 --> 02:25:13.275
That's fine.

3183
02:25:13.698 --> 02:25:13.939
All right.

3184
02:25:13.979 --> 02:25:14.160
Great.

3185
02:25:14.721 --> 02:25:15.123
Next one.

3186
02:25:15.163 --> 02:25:15.786
What's the next thing?

3187
02:25:16.047 --> 02:25:16.269
Great.

3188
02:25:16.309 --> 02:25:16.952
Who's going to own it?

3189
02:25:17.575 --> 02:25:18.480
How long is it going to take?

3190
02:25:18.560 --> 02:25:18.681
Great.

3191
02:25:18.701 --> 02:25:19.484
You'll do it by this time.

3192
02:25:20.046 --> 02:25:23.440
And then, so what we do is, is I will recap every one of them

3193
02:25:23.560 --> 02:25:24.022
every time.

3194
02:25:24.303 --> 02:25:28.500
And so by the time I've done my fourth one, they've heard one, four times, two, three

3195
02:25:28.600 --> 02:25:30.387
times, the third one, two times.

3196
02:25:30.708 --> 02:25:33.217
And so there's this repetition that gets built in.

3197
02:25:33.699 --> 02:25:33.940
And then

3198
02:25:34.061 --> 02:25:35.812
obviously the thing at the very end is also going to be the freshest.

3199
02:25:35.853 --> 02:25:36.880
So it's like, I can repeat the

3200
02:25:37.000 --> 02:25:38.870
least, the thing that's the most fresh.

3201
02:25:39.272 --> 02:25:40.960
And the thing that I started with, which is like way out

3202
02:25:40.980 --> 02:25:43.230
of their mind at this point has been repeated like seven times.

3203
02:25:43.672 --> 02:25:45.600
And so it makes it more likely that

3204
02:25:45.660 --> 02:25:46.606
they will actually do it.

3205
02:25:46.867 --> 02:25:49.180
Now, if you want to go the 201 version, which I had to do for a little

3206
02:25:49.260 --> 02:25:51.029
bit was repeat it back to me.

3207
02:25:51.209 --> 02:25:52.737
So I would say, okay, got it.

3208
02:25:52.757 --> 02:25:53.440
That's what you're going to do.

3209
02:25:53.640 --> 02:25:54.282
Say it back to me.

3210
02:25:54.904 --> 02:25:59.778
And I kid you not, if you ask them to say it back, this is crazy.

3211
02:25:59.879 --> 02:26:00.220
Like one out

3212
02:26:00.340 --> 02:26:01.911
of three times, they'll just completely get it wrong.

3213
02:26:02.253 --> 02:26:03.139
It's because they weren't listening.

3214
02:26:03.159 --> 02:26:03.240
They

3215
02:26:03.240 --> 02:26:04.126
weren't paying attention, whatever.

3216
02:26:04.428 --> 02:26:06.260
And so I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe that I was about

3217
02:26:06.320 --> 02:26:07.164
to leave this meeting.

3218
02:26:07.184 --> 02:26:09.534
And they still, they didn't understand what they needed to do.

3219
02:26:09.976 --> 02:26:10.820
And so you can

3220
02:26:10.860 --> 02:26:13.213
stack the who, what, when you recap it all the way through.

3221
02:26:13.455 --> 02:26:14.440
And then if you have a team that's

3222
02:26:14.500 --> 02:26:19.558
not doing as well, have them explain it back to you so they know what needs to happen.

3223
02:26:19.900 --> 02:26:20.000
Now,

3224
02:26:20.181 --> 02:26:22.030
once you have this loop in place, what do we do?

3225
02:26:22.151 --> 02:26:22.774
We lubricate it.

3226
02:26:22.874 --> 02:26:23.317
We add money.

3227
02:26:23.457 --> 02:26:23.920
We add incentives.

3228
02:26:24.280 --> 02:26:27.391
So how can we align what they do with the outcome of the business?

3229
02:26:27.993 --> 02:26:29.800
And so back into ops, I looked at

3230
02:26:29.820 --> 02:26:34.520
everything, eliminated all the meetings, and then I said, okay, in this department, everything is

3231
02:26:34.520 --> 02:26:35.202
based on quality.

3232
02:26:35.704 --> 02:26:38.273
And so we just need to make better stuff.

3233
02:26:38.513 --> 02:26:40.460
I said, if you make better stuff,

3234
02:26:40.581 --> 02:26:41.163
I will pay you more.

3235
02:26:42.187 --> 02:26:45.240
I'd rather have one guy who makes three times the money than three mediocre

3236
02:26:45.360 --> 02:26:45.601
guys.

3237
02:26:46.485 --> 02:26:49.416
In a very real way, it's easier for me to manage one person.

3238
02:26:49.617 --> 02:26:50.520
There's way less communication,

3239
02:26:50.680 --> 02:26:54.897
there's way less overhead, way less waste, and we'll get better outcomes.

3240
02:26:55.218 --> 02:26:55.740
And so if you're like,

3241
02:26:55.800 --> 02:26:59.520
okay, I understand how you did all this, but how did you communicate with them if they had no

3242
02:26:59.640 --> 02:26:59.921
meetings?

3243
02:27:00.523 --> 02:27:05.459
So I just switched to a daily standup, which is every day, same time, we all hop on.

3244
02:27:05.719 --> 02:27:05.840
And

3245
02:27:07.046 --> 02:27:09.560
I run departments like sales teams, all right?

3246
02:27:09.580 --> 02:27:11.420
And I think that you can do this with any business.

3247
02:27:11.500 --> 02:27:12.880
And the reason that I like modeling sales teams

3248
02:27:12.963 --> 02:27:13.359
for two reasons.

3249
02:27:13.542 --> 02:27:14.500
One, I have a lot of experience with them.

3250
02:27:14.900 --> 02:27:17.020
Two, I believe that the way sales teams are structured

3251
02:27:17.322 --> 02:27:20.480
and operated have already been optimized for performance

3252
02:27:20.602 --> 02:27:22.020
because the feedback loops are so tight.

3253
02:27:22.563 --> 02:27:23.900
If you're not managing your sales team well,

3254
02:27:24.020 --> 02:27:25.180
you find out very quickly.

3255
02:27:25.642 --> 02:27:26.860
And as soon as you fix how you operate it,

3256
02:27:26.921 --> 02:27:27.720
you find out very quickly.

3257
02:27:27.840 --> 02:27:29.940
And so I think that sales teams overall

3258
02:27:30.163 --> 02:27:31.520
are run typically very well.

3259
02:27:32.020 --> 02:27:34.800
Now, what are the things about sales teams?

3260
02:27:35.022 --> 02:27:36.860
So for new people, when they come in, what do they do?

3261
02:27:36.920 --> 02:27:38.000
They listen to a lot of game tape.

3262
02:27:38.100 --> 02:27:39.160
This works for customer service.

3263
02:27:39.280 --> 02:27:40.580
This works for media.

3264
02:27:40.740 --> 02:27:41.479
This works for sales.

3265
02:27:41.841 --> 02:27:44.160
They watch a lot of the right way to do things.

3266
02:27:45.081 --> 02:27:46.380
Then what happens?

3267
02:27:46.742 --> 02:27:48.420
There's a lot of role play in sales.

3268
02:27:48.801 --> 02:27:50.580
So you could role play in customer service.

3269
02:27:50.940 --> 02:27:55.300
You could role play around what would you look at with this piece of content?

3270
02:27:55.821 --> 02:27:57.820
What would be the moments that you would clip out?

3271
02:27:58.202 --> 02:27:59.200
How would you structure it?

3272
02:27:59.441 --> 02:28:01.300
And you ask them to explain the work that they would do.

3273
02:28:02.601 --> 02:28:04.420
That's when someone new is coming in.

3274
02:28:04.802 --> 02:28:07.780
and then we say, okay, we're going to give you a half calendar if you're a sales guy.

3275
02:28:07.920 --> 02:28:09.700
I'm going to give you a half calendar for your customer service.

3276
02:28:09.920 --> 02:28:12.740
I'm going to give you a half calendar for media to make sure you're not posting tons of crap.

3277
02:28:12.820 --> 02:28:13.740
You're just going to get one post a day.

3278
02:28:14.321 --> 02:28:17.960
And then if you do a good job, you meet KPIs, then you get a full calendar.

3279
02:28:18.521 --> 02:28:20.540
Then I can give you an uncapped calendar, right?

3280
02:28:20.680 --> 02:28:24.100
So we have these progressions as long as they maintain their quality metrics.

3281
02:28:24.720 --> 02:28:27.560
And so like sales, we have a similar onboarding process.

3282
02:28:27.921 --> 02:28:33.480
The huddle process itself is let's look at the good stuff and let's tear apart the bad stuff.

3283
02:28:33.541 --> 02:28:35.280
So we've reviewed a call that went well, great.

3284
02:28:35.740 --> 02:28:39.700
And the far more valuable, let's look at a call that didn't go the way it should have.

3285
02:28:40.221 --> 02:28:42.980
And then we let the person who did the call correct themselves.

3286
02:28:43.441 --> 02:28:47.120
So it's really tough if you go jump in and jump down to everyone's throat and tell them why they sucked.

3287
02:28:47.480 --> 02:28:50.120
It's much easier for them to say, these are the things that I messed up.

3288
02:28:50.180 --> 02:28:52.620
And then the team gets to say, here's all the things you did well.

3289
02:28:52.720 --> 02:28:56.200
That way, they get some praise from everybody else, but they still get to have that feedback.

3290
02:28:56.380 --> 02:28:58.920
And then you can prioritize, okay, this is the thing that's the most important.

3291
02:28:59.321 --> 02:29:01.200
But that still works for customer service.

3292
02:29:01.506 --> 02:29:02.260
It works for product.

3293
02:29:02.644 --> 02:29:03.440
It works for media.

3294
02:29:03.862 --> 02:29:07.000
which is, okay, why did this clip suck?

3295
02:29:07.823 --> 02:29:08.739
And let's look at it.

3296
02:29:08.941 --> 02:29:11.000
And if you notice a common theme for when clips suck,

3297
02:29:11.722 --> 02:29:13.559
then you just repeating it and reinforcing it

3298
02:29:13.864 --> 02:29:14.800
keeps it top of mind.

3299
02:29:15.783 --> 02:29:17.400
We have switched to that process

3300
02:29:17.584 --> 02:29:18.360
and it has been very good.

3301
02:29:19.041 --> 02:29:21.660
I also got people off the bus who weren't aligned with it.

3302
02:29:22.101 --> 02:29:23.780
And so if you have a change that you want to do

3303
02:29:23.941 --> 02:29:25.680
and you foresee that people will not be aligned

3304
02:29:25.782 --> 02:29:26.540
with that change,

3305
02:29:27.141 --> 02:29:30.160
then I think that you owe it to the high performers

3306
02:29:30.904 --> 02:29:34.000
to create an environment that is only other high-performance.

3307
02:29:34.100 --> 02:29:38.280
You want to get it to the point where it's so self-managed and self-policed

3308
02:29:38.542 --> 02:29:40.620
that if someone comes in and isn't pulling their weight,

3309
02:29:40.981 --> 02:29:41.740
they just get removed.

3310
02:29:42.424 --> 02:29:42.978
Simple as that.

3311
02:29:43.482 --> 02:29:44.520
And the whole team comes to you and is like,

3312
02:29:44.580 --> 02:29:45.359
dude, I don't think this is the guy.

3313
02:29:46.126 --> 02:29:46.980
It shouldn't come from you.

3314
02:29:47.040 --> 02:29:48.239
It should come from the culture of the team.

3315
02:29:48.741 --> 02:29:50.900
And that's why you can't have a culture of acceptance

3316
02:29:51.163 --> 02:29:52.760
where it's no man left behind.

3317
02:29:52.900 --> 02:29:54.040
Like, oh, they're not as good as we thought,

3318
02:29:54.120 --> 02:29:55.420
but we're just going to keep training them.

3319
02:29:55.701 --> 02:29:57.060
We're going to keep deploying these resources.

3320
02:29:57.682 --> 02:29:59.560
It's not to say that you can't train someone.

3321
02:30:00.201 --> 02:30:01.900
The question is, is it worth it?

3322
02:30:02.120 --> 02:30:07.560
The next big theme along operations, I'll break this into another chunk, is technical versus management.

3323
02:30:08.404 --> 02:30:12.200
And so this is very common in tech companies.

3324
02:30:12.560 --> 02:30:20.700
You have an engineer who's exceptionally talented, and you want to give them a way to move up in the company.

3325
02:30:20.942 --> 02:30:21.920
But they don't want to manage people.

3326
02:30:22.420 --> 02:30:25.960
And in most companies, the only way to move up is to increase the headcount that's underneath of you.

3327
02:30:26.500 --> 02:30:30.240
And so when I saw this within our company, I was like, this feels dumb.

3328
02:30:30.440 --> 02:30:33.060
We should find a way for the best sales guys to keep making more and more money.

3329
02:30:33.340 --> 02:30:35.960
We should find ways for the best media guys to make more and more money.

3330
02:30:36.040 --> 02:30:40.640
The best customer service starts making more and more money, especially in the roles that have high leverage.

3331
02:30:41.281 --> 02:30:44.980
So basically, the best content creator has more leverage than the best sales guy.

3332
02:30:45.121 --> 02:30:47.600
The best sales guy is closer to the reward, though, to be fair.

3333
02:30:47.960 --> 02:30:55.480
And so the likelihood that what they do generates revenue is much closer, whereas marketing or content could be significantly further away.

3334
02:30:55.541 --> 02:30:57.100
So there's a discount that's applied there, right?

3335
02:30:57.601 --> 02:31:01.760
But big picture is, is there a track for both types of people?

3336
02:31:01.860 --> 02:31:06.020
Because the people who are experts at something, you just want to let them cook, right?

3337
02:31:06.781 --> 02:31:11.740
And so when I realized that the orgs that I, basically the divisions that I took over,

3338
02:31:12.843 --> 02:31:15.520
the only way that someone would win was by moving up.

3339
02:31:16.020 --> 02:31:20.060
And when you have a, the only reward structure is people underneath of you,

3340
02:31:20.160 --> 02:31:21.180
then what does that incentivize?

3341
02:31:21.861 --> 02:31:23.720
It incentivizes you keeping against yourself,

3342
02:31:23.901 --> 02:31:27.660
because if someone gets better than you, then they move ahead of you in the line, number one.

3343
02:31:28.341 --> 02:31:33.040
Number two is it incentivizes the managers and the whole team to always ask to hire more people

3344
02:31:33.362 --> 02:31:36.340
because if you hire more people, then it means they, by default, move up in the organization.

3345
02:31:37.781 --> 02:31:43.900
The third thing is that whoever is in charge of the promotions and the titles

3346
02:31:44.564 --> 02:31:47.380
becomes chief person who's asked we must kiss.

3347
02:31:48.323 --> 02:31:54.780
and that means that if you it basically becomes entirely subjective as to who gets promoted and

3348
02:31:54.780 --> 02:31:59.919
so then the job so then the next incentive that comes up that's perverse is you want to show how

3349
02:32:00.160 --> 02:32:06.720
much you're working rather than do work which are different and so this is where people are like if

3350
02:32:06.920 --> 02:32:10.340
i said what did you do yesterday and i was like you need to give me a thousand bullets you could

3351
02:32:10.400 --> 02:32:14.160
probably come up with a thousand bullets you're like i tied my shoes and then i stood up straight

3352
02:32:14.603 --> 02:32:16.620
and then I put one panel on my right panel leg on

3353
02:32:16.640 --> 02:32:17.660
and I put my left panel leg on.

3354
02:32:17.940 --> 02:32:19.179
And so people make it seem like

3355
02:32:19.220 --> 02:32:20.980
they're just doing all of this work,

3356
02:32:21.322 --> 02:32:23.019
but they don't tie that work

3357
02:32:23.424 --> 02:32:24.599
to the output of the division.

3358
02:32:25.584 --> 02:32:26.439
And when that happens

3359
02:32:26.561 --> 02:32:27.960
is when you have misaligned incentives.

3360
02:32:28.501 --> 02:32:30.640
So every one of these incentives is perverse

3361
02:32:30.741 --> 02:32:32.040
in that it doesn't fuel the business,

3362
02:32:32.181 --> 02:32:33.299
but it does fuel costs.

3363
02:32:34.001 --> 02:32:35.920
With this and with the aligned incentives,

3364
02:32:37.306 --> 02:32:38.920
the team post-change

3365
02:32:39.303 --> 02:32:41.460
has more than doubled output.

3366
02:32:42.346 --> 02:32:42.760
More than.

3367
02:32:43.262 --> 02:32:47.340
And so I think the lesson here, and I think that we'll probably get to triple or quadruple, like for real.

3368
02:32:48.226 --> 02:32:49.180
Maybe I'll do an update later.

3369
02:32:49.420 --> 02:32:52.100
But this has been a recent takeover for me.

3370
02:32:52.660 --> 02:33:05.140
But the thing is, is that people typically have significantly more output potential if you can tap into what we call discretionary effort, which is what is that effort above and beyond the minimum required to keep their job?

3371
02:33:05.521 --> 02:33:09.559
So everything above you not getting fired is discretionary effort.

3372
02:33:10.381 --> 02:33:18.520
And in most companies, there's a massive amount of effort above not getting fired that is unlockable if the incentives are aligned.

3373
02:33:19.100 --> 02:33:25.760
Many people can, in a very real way, triple how much they're doing, quadruple how much they're doing, only if they're incentivized to.

3374
02:33:26.260 --> 02:33:37.100
When you have a political hierarchy, it just means elbowing, no one teaching each other anything, saying we always need to hire more people, decreasing your output to the lowest potential possible as long as you don't get fired.

3375
02:33:37.441 --> 02:33:43.520
And this, when coupled with a management style of never firing, is a great way to create waste.

3376
02:33:43.700 --> 02:33:47.940
So in order to facilitate this, there typically has to be a change in compensation.

3377
02:33:48.200 --> 02:33:49.940
So I've talked about incentives a couple times through here.

3378
02:33:50.440 --> 02:33:55.700
And so my goal is to try and have everything be pay for performance to the highest degree possible.

3379
02:33:56.300 --> 02:33:59.640
Now, here's where your operations and your finance team will push back.

3380
02:33:59.740 --> 02:34:01.680
They'll say, this is complicated.

3381
02:34:02.081 --> 02:34:04.480
Why can't we just do it the way everybody else does it?

3382
02:34:05.244 --> 02:34:07.859
because just because it's hard doesn't mean it's worth it.

3383
02:34:08.401 --> 02:34:10.300
So there's a price, but there's also a return.

3384
02:34:10.720 --> 02:34:13.640
And so all they are talking about is the price of this thing,

3385
02:34:13.781 --> 02:34:14.999
not what we're going to get from it.

3386
02:34:15.541 --> 02:34:17.820
If I could then go back to that finance person and say,

3387
02:34:18.080 --> 02:34:20.180
hey, and to be fair, this isn't me saying anything about my finance.

3388
02:34:20.200 --> 02:34:21.360
I'm saying you might have to deal with this.

3389
02:34:23.101 --> 02:34:25.739
Hey, if we were able to quadruple our output

3390
02:34:26.545 --> 02:34:28.900
by creating a more complex incentive structure

3391
02:34:29.242 --> 02:34:32.060
that might require someone full-time just to manage,

3392
02:34:32.664 --> 02:34:35.119
is the cost of that one person full-time managing it

3393
02:34:35.563 --> 02:34:37.620
worth the increased output of Forex

3394
02:34:37.721 --> 02:34:38.680
across the entire company?

3395
02:34:39.700 --> 02:34:40.779
Duh, of course it is.

3396
02:34:41.225 --> 02:34:42.260
But it's more complicated.

3397
02:34:43.123 --> 02:34:44.579
And it's also worth it.

3398
02:34:45.182 --> 02:34:46.540
And so I bring this up

3399
02:34:46.580 --> 02:34:48.060
because you will probably get pushback

3400
02:34:48.201 --> 02:34:50.440
if you try and incentivize people on performance.

3401
02:34:50.844 --> 02:34:51.760
It takes more math.

3402
02:34:52.020 --> 02:34:53.040
It takes more tracking.

3403
02:34:53.440 --> 02:34:55.060
But I will say one key part,

3404
02:34:55.140 --> 02:34:57.760
which is that if people are going to be paid on performance,

3405
02:34:57.940 --> 02:34:58.960
my recommendation is two things.

3406
02:34:59.302 --> 02:35:00.720
One, if you make the transition,

3407
02:35:01.445 --> 02:35:03.520
allow them to keep their existing salaries

3408
02:35:03.944 --> 02:35:05.439
and then add the performance on top.

3409
02:35:05.942 --> 02:35:07.639
And then for new people, bring them in

3410
02:35:07.822 --> 02:35:09.060
and then just have the performance.

3411
02:35:09.741 --> 02:35:12.160
But this allows complete adoption of the new way,

3412
02:35:12.620 --> 02:35:13.780
rapid reinforcement loops

3413
02:35:13.800 --> 02:35:15.020
so that they're like, this is way better.

3414
02:35:15.700 --> 02:35:18.580
And then ultimately, if you make the jumps in comp

3415
02:35:18.741 --> 02:35:21.000
proportional to the output that you seek to get,

3416
02:35:21.621 --> 02:35:23.800
then you will still make more than the cost.

3417
02:35:23.840 --> 02:35:25.195
So it's like going to the store,

3418
02:35:26.843 --> 02:35:29.959
buying 3X output at twice the price of your 1X.

3419
02:35:30.483 --> 02:35:32.680
It's still a better deal, even though it costs more.

3420
02:35:33.380 --> 02:35:38.680
Around this pay for performance, it will also very clearly demonstrate who is really good and who isn't.

3421
02:35:39.421 --> 02:35:42.780
And I haven't really talked about like letting people go who are low performers.

3422
02:35:42.920 --> 02:35:49.640
And I'll just only say this one word about it, which is bloat is like cancer in a business.

3423
02:35:50.205 --> 02:35:51.520
Or it's like weeds in a garden.

3424
02:35:51.920 --> 02:35:53.880
It's that bloat naturally occurs.

3425
02:35:54.120 --> 02:35:59.300
People hire more people because the simplest solution is throw money and bodies at stuff.

3426
02:35:59.643 --> 02:36:01.500
and it's often not the right one.

3427
02:36:02.840 --> 02:36:06.100
And so you have to keep your garden healthy

3428
02:36:06.624 --> 02:36:08.500
by pruning it, by de-weeding it.

3429
02:36:08.701 --> 02:36:11.740
You keep a tree healthy by cutting off the stray branches

3430
02:36:11.862 --> 02:36:13.060
that are growing in the wrong direction

3431
02:36:13.141 --> 02:36:16.120
because it's detracting from the growth of the overall trunk.

3432
02:36:16.860 --> 02:36:20.360
And so this is the part that is probably contrarian

3433
02:36:20.381 --> 02:36:20.960
for most of you.

3434
02:36:21.742 --> 02:36:23.720
Fire when things are good, not when they are bad.

3435
02:36:24.982 --> 02:36:27.460
So when things are good is when you have the most bloat.

3436
02:36:28.420 --> 02:36:34.600
And so it is far better to let people go at that point for low performance because it doesn't feel like the company's losing.

3437
02:36:35.100 --> 02:36:36.220
It feels like we're being disciplined.

3438
02:36:36.901 --> 02:36:40.540
If you let people go only when the company performance drops, it feels way worse.

3439
02:36:41.080 --> 02:36:43.560
Having done both, I strongly recommend the other.

3440
02:36:44.104 --> 02:36:45.940
So, for example, we were very fortunate.

3441
02:36:46.240 --> 02:36:56.340
But during COVID, prior to COVID, we had been very militant about making sure that we were making sure that everyone was efficient and that the headcount made sense based on the demand.

3442
02:36:56.842 --> 02:37:02.540
And so when COVID hit, we had very minimal amounts that we had to change internally in the business.

3443
02:37:03.260 --> 02:37:12.340
And so because of that, I think it was able to maintain morale relatively well during a time when my industry was getting destroyed.

3444
02:37:13.041 --> 02:37:15.100
And there's a number of ways you can do pay for performance.

3445
02:37:15.341 --> 02:37:19.600
And you don't need to have as much performance as you might think in order to incentivize action.

3446
02:37:20.040 --> 02:37:21.920
And so if you're like, I don't have budget for that, that's okay.

3447
02:37:22.343 --> 02:37:24.440
just make a couple tiers of performance

3448
02:37:24.582 --> 02:37:25.780
and then you can have flat bonuses

3449
02:37:26.165 --> 02:37:27.180
by hitting some tiers.

3450
02:37:28.085 --> 02:37:28.859
Like, I mean, literally,

3451
02:37:29.120 --> 02:37:30.580
you don't have to think in percentages.

3452
02:37:30.760 --> 02:37:32.457
It can just be flat amounts based on tiers

3453
02:37:32.760 --> 02:37:33.980
and I think it's a very good structure.

3454
02:37:34.983 --> 02:37:36.299
And a good way to test this out

3455
02:37:36.683 --> 02:37:38.580
is once you figure out your compensation thing

3456
02:37:38.600 --> 02:37:39.939
that you want to do, back test it.

3457
02:37:40.301 --> 02:37:42.240
So just look at what it would have been the month before

3458
02:37:42.747 --> 02:37:43.457
and then see what it is

3459
02:37:43.721 --> 02:37:44.640
and if that makes sense,

3460
02:37:44.901 --> 02:37:45.380
then it's like, cool,

3461
02:37:45.480 --> 02:37:47.159
well, I'm going to assume the performance is going to go up

3462
02:37:47.301 --> 02:37:48.500
if I pay for that added performance

3463
02:37:48.884 --> 02:37:50.520
and am I okay with this increase?

3464
02:37:50.600 --> 02:37:54.560
And if so, which if you aligned it with the incentives of the business, it should more than pay for itself.

3465
02:37:56.663 --> 02:38:04.180
The structures that I'm talking about with the sales team management functions best, in my opinion, when you have teams of similar function.

3466
02:38:05.000 --> 02:38:10.900
So what that means is like an executive team is going to be as many people with very different functions and expertise.

3467
02:38:12.621 --> 02:38:16.500
A customer service team has many people with the same function and expertise.

3468
02:38:17.121 --> 02:38:25.460
And so this style of management of reviews, onboarding, huddles, what could we do better here?

3469
02:38:25.861 --> 02:38:27.900
Those are great when everyone does the same thing.

3470
02:38:28.360 --> 02:38:40.060
If everyone does different things, you will have a different structure of, it's far more roundtable where everyone's more or less updating and then coming with the discussion topics that affect everybody else.

3471
02:38:41.002 --> 02:38:45.000
And problem solving together more than upskilling together.

3472
02:38:45.740 --> 02:38:51.140
So that's really probably the main difference between those is one is like we're really solving problems together for the majority of time.

3473
02:38:51.240 --> 02:38:52.300
Not to say you don't do it the other way.

3474
02:38:52.620 --> 02:38:56.920
But the majority of time we're solving big problems with disparate teams or different teams, diverse teams.

3475
02:38:57.342 --> 02:39:02.120
And then with similar teams, homogenous teams, it's typically upskilling together and aligning priorities.

3476
02:39:02.540 --> 02:39:03.219
This is huge.

3477
02:39:03.860 --> 02:39:07.660
So problems and solutions have delays.

3478
02:39:08.260 --> 02:39:09.359
All right, so hear me out on this.

3479
02:39:10.523 --> 02:39:15.515
right now you are living with problems that you created six months ago.

3480
02:39:16.618 --> 02:39:17.440
And when you begin

3481
02:39:17.801 --> 02:39:21.414
to implement your solution, the problem will not immediately go away.

3482
02:39:22.117 --> 02:39:22.960
And so there will be this

3483
02:39:23.040 --> 02:39:27.640
period of time where you're executing a solution on a problem that you caused six months ago,

3484
02:39:28.022 --> 02:39:31.320
and you will still continue to live with the problem because the solution has not

3485
02:39:31.802 --> 02:39:32.565
borne fruit yet.

3486
02:39:32.907 --> 02:39:34.976
It hasn't latched in yet.

3487
02:39:35.016 --> 02:39:35.920
It hasn't come to fruition.

3488
02:39:36.821 --> 02:39:49.260
And so you have to give solutions the amount of time they deserve to work before appraising whether or not they worked to begin with, which I recommend doing prior to implementing the solution.

3489
02:39:49.740 --> 02:39:56.320
So basically, when you're about to do something to fix some problem, say, how long do I think this should take before I can say if it worked or not?

3490
02:39:56.800 --> 02:40:01.800
And then stick to that because in the moment, you will only incur even more costs, which is why it's so painful.

3491
02:40:02.241 --> 02:40:06.440
It's like you have this problem, and now you're incurring more cost to try and solving it,

3492
02:40:07.343 --> 02:40:10.560
and you're still suffering the problem and the cost of solving it without the benefit.

3493
02:40:11.140 --> 02:40:13.300
And so this is kind of the endurance part of entrepreneurship,

3494
02:40:13.420 --> 02:40:16.880
is that you have to keep working without seeing the result of your work.

3495
02:40:17.341 --> 02:40:18.760
You don't need to change anything.

3496
02:40:19.280 --> 02:40:24.540
You need to learn to endure, because just because it's not working doesn't mean you're not on the right path.

3497
02:40:24.880 --> 02:40:27.500
And so the easiest way to think about this is like if you were to go to the gym,

3498
02:40:28.382 --> 02:40:31.200
and you start working out, and you start eating better,

3499
02:40:32.124 --> 02:40:33.300
You're 50 pounds overweight.

3500
02:40:34.141 --> 02:40:36.560
That problem was created years in the past.

3501
02:40:37.620 --> 02:40:48.440
You now incurring the solution is incurring the problem, you're still overweight, and the cost of the solution, which is now you go to the gym, now you're not eating the foods you like, whatever, but you're still overweight.

3502
02:40:49.200 --> 02:40:54.520
And so after seven days, you might think, okay, well, I should stop doing this because it's obviously not working.

3503
02:40:55.841 --> 02:41:01.120
You have to give time, time for the solution proportional to the size problem it's solving.

3504
02:41:01.721 --> 02:41:09.580
And if you don't approach it this way and you ignore your problems, when you scale, you scale your problems with you.

3505
02:41:10.121 --> 02:41:17.500
Which means that this is why I'm such a believer in solving the problems in order to scale rather than scaling despite my problems.

3506
02:41:17.861 --> 02:41:20.740
Because then it just makes my problems bigger, hairier, and nastier.

3507
02:41:21.080 --> 02:41:26.720
If you're living in good times right now, you can't rest on the laurels because it's not from the work you're doing today.

3508
02:41:26.881 --> 02:41:29.120
It's from the work that you did 6 or 12 months ago.

3509
02:41:29.683 --> 02:41:32.918
and this has been a constant reminder for Layla and I when we go through things.

3510
02:41:32.938 --> 02:41:33.380
When things are

3511
02:41:33.440 --> 02:41:36.534
good, we're like, what did we do six months ago that is causing this?

3512
02:41:36.976 --> 02:41:37.900
And if things are bad,

3513
02:41:38.101 --> 02:41:43.576
we ask, what did we stop doing or what did we add in in the past that created this?

3514
02:41:44.178 --> 02:41:44.800
Too often,

3515
02:41:45.201 --> 02:41:50.500
we look at today and think that our bad day is because of what we did yesterday and it often

3516
02:41:50.781 --> 02:41:51.042
isn't.

3517
02:41:51.604 --> 02:41:56.240
And so properly attributing where the cause of the solution or problem came from

3518
02:41:56.804 --> 02:41:59.220
can give you the outsized return that you're probably looking for.

3519
02:41:59.300 --> 02:42:00.860
And I'll give you this very tactical tip.

3520
02:42:01.261 --> 02:42:06.220
If you see a decline in performance in a division or a function of the business,

3521
02:42:07.184 --> 02:42:08.260
it'll typically look like this.

3522
02:42:08.541 --> 02:42:11.580
So let's say that you've got this, let's say it's lead flow, whatever,

3523
02:42:11.680 --> 02:42:14.680
and then it starts to flatten out, and then it starts going down, right?

3524
02:42:15.121 --> 02:42:16.960
So you notice, right?

3525
02:42:17.242 --> 02:42:20.160
So what happens is people wake up here and say,

3526
02:42:20.360 --> 02:42:22.160
we don't have enough leads, right?

3527
02:42:22.941 --> 02:42:25.940
And so they say, okay, well, show me the ads this week.

3528
02:42:27.183 --> 02:42:28.460
Show me the ads last week.

3529
02:42:29.420 --> 02:42:31.780
And so you have to look at where the delta first occurred,

3530
02:42:32.121 --> 02:42:34.920
and then what happened in this, what happened leading up to here,

3531
02:42:35.021 --> 02:42:35.599
what did we change?

3532
02:42:35.981 --> 02:42:37.600
Oftentimes, it's a who.

3533
02:42:38.741 --> 02:42:40.340
Who did, and here's a fun one.

3534
02:42:40.561 --> 02:42:42.460
A lot of people think, oh, we must have lost someone key.

3535
02:42:42.982 --> 02:42:44.020
Most of the times, you added someone.

3536
02:42:45.425 --> 02:42:46.240
You added someone terrible.

3537
02:42:47.846 --> 02:42:48.360
I'm dead serious.

3538
02:42:48.741 --> 02:42:53.340
We had an issue where our ascension rates all of a sudden,

3539
02:42:53.921 --> 02:42:54.880
I was like, why our ascension?

3540
02:42:55.262 --> 02:42:58.440
We started looking at all these different, we looked at the functions, we looked at messaging, all this stuff.

3541
02:42:59.040 --> 02:43:02.240
And finally, I was like, and Layla brought it up.

3542
02:43:02.280 --> 02:43:04.960
She's like, let's just look at the month when they stopped going up.

3543
02:43:05.381 --> 02:43:08.320
We looked at that month and we looked at what had happened.

3544
02:43:08.882 --> 02:43:11.360
The only change that had happened was that we had hired a new head.

3545
02:43:12.181 --> 02:43:15.500
We added someone to do the job.

3546
02:43:16.541 --> 02:43:19.660
And by adding this bad person, they destroyed the function.

3547
02:43:20.060 --> 02:43:23.540
Sometimes it's a how, sometimes you change your process, and sometimes that's the culprit.

3548
02:43:24.021 --> 02:43:27.632
But a lot of times you added someone who actively is destroying your business.

3549
02:43:28.274 --> 02:43:29.838
So another big lesson of this year was

3550
02:43:31.481 --> 02:43:34.940
Around content and so I made this video called back to business

3551
02:43:36.403 --> 02:43:40.920
I don't think was called that but that was my theme was basically we did this experiment for 16 weeks where we

3552
02:43:41.663 --> 02:43:43.760
Made very very wide content

3553
02:43:43.880 --> 02:43:49.640
So like, you know meals and workouts and vlogs and things like that where we wanted to see okay

3554
02:43:49.720 --> 02:43:53.780
well, if we get more views, then maybe a percentage of those people will be business owners.

3555
02:43:54.260 --> 02:43:58.900
And so our relative amount will go down that are business owners, but our absolute amount will go up.

3556
02:43:59.040 --> 02:44:00.440
And so that's all I care about is the absolute amount.

3557
02:44:01.021 --> 02:44:04.740
And so it turns out that that hypothesis was wrong, at least for us.

3558
02:44:05.320 --> 02:44:12.860
And so when we made wider content, we had fewer absolute amount of business owners who were opting in,

3559
02:44:13.469 --> 02:44:14.140
who were buying the books.

3560
02:44:14.200 --> 02:44:20.020
And so for me, book sales is actually a very leading indicator for the people who we want coming towards acquisition.com.

3561
02:44:20.680 --> 02:44:22.800
And email opt-ins on the site.

3562
02:44:22.921 --> 02:44:23.360
That's a big one.

3563
02:44:23.420 --> 02:44:27.860
By the way, if you're not subscribed to Mozy Money Minute, it's one of the best things that I put out there.

3564
02:44:28.484 --> 02:44:29.020
It takes a minute.

3565
02:44:29.860 --> 02:44:35.900
And I deliver two every week that are extremely tactical things that you can immediately use to make more money.

3566
02:44:36.300 --> 02:44:37.200
Like, very tactical.

3567
02:44:38.505 --> 02:44:39.380
One of the best things I put out there.

3568
02:44:39.521 --> 02:44:44.540
So I think you go to acquisition.com forward slash newsletter and it's there.

3569
02:44:44.802 --> 02:44:46.340
So you can opt in, grab that.

3570
02:44:46.785 --> 02:44:47.659
I think you will like it.

3571
02:44:47.862 --> 02:44:48.760
It's very good.

3572
02:44:48.820 --> 02:44:49.478
I put a lot of time into it.

3573
02:44:49.921 --> 02:44:51.160
Okay, back to business.

3574
02:44:51.581 --> 02:44:56.780
So in finding that out, we shifted our content indeed back to business.

3575
02:44:56.961 --> 02:44:59.320
And lo and behold, we got more business owners.

3576
02:45:00.126 --> 02:45:00.440
Crazy.

3577
02:45:01.001 --> 02:45:05.520
But I think this is important because a lot of us fall into this wide views vanity trap.

3578
02:45:06.102 --> 02:45:11.360
And so being clear about why you're making content to begin with is important.

3579
02:45:11.440 --> 02:45:17.280
If you're a business owner and you're making content because you want to make more money, then you need to stay on point.

3580
02:45:19.148 --> 02:45:20.820
Serve the avatar you serve.

3581
02:45:21.841 --> 02:45:26.760
And that has served us very well, especially in the longest forms content.

3582
02:45:27.201 --> 02:45:30.100
I think the shorter stuff you can get away with what I would consider adjacent.

3583
02:45:30.922 --> 02:45:37.580
right so like if you're if you're a salon lady uh and you sell haircuts then if you talk about

3584
02:45:37.660 --> 02:45:42.500
beauty in general you will probably attract the type of avatar who spends money on these types

3585
02:45:42.560 --> 02:45:47.880
of things and so i see that as okay but if you're going to do a long video probably don't do it on

3586
02:45:47.960 --> 02:45:52.800
makeup tutorials if you sell haircuts so another big part of this is that the structure of the

3587
02:45:52.880 --> 02:45:58.571
content for entertainment is not the same as education.

3588
02:45:59.774 --> 02:46:02.900
And so with education, a lot of the

3589
02:46:03.060 --> 02:46:05.188
effort is in the pre-production.

3590
02:46:05.649 --> 02:46:08.880
With entertainment, a lot of the effort goes into post-production.

3591
02:46:09.000 --> 02:46:12.420
There's obviously pre as well, but the post-production, there's just got, like think

3592
02:46:12.460 --> 02:46:13.627
about making the Transformers movie.

3593
02:46:13.727 --> 02:46:15.598
How much post-production is there in that movie?

3594
02:46:15.618 --> 02:46:15.920
A ton,

3595
02:46:16.140 --> 02:46:16.341
right?

3596
02:46:16.782 --> 02:46:22.740
Whereas some of the top education videos on the internet are just a dude with a whiteboard.

3597
02:46:23.162 --> 02:46:26.860
which just goes down to the quality and the simplicity of the content itself.

3598
02:46:27.400 --> 02:46:29.800
And so you can make something significantly more compelling

3599
02:46:30.362 --> 02:46:35.500
by making the language more readily accessible to your avatar.

3600
02:46:35.982 --> 02:46:37.160
Now, two components to this.

3601
02:46:37.561 --> 02:46:41.600
One is the examples that you use, you want it to be as relevant to the avatar as possible.

3602
02:46:41.680 --> 02:46:47.440
I'm talking to, if I'm talking to a bunch of mechanics, then I'll probably make a car analogy.

3603
02:46:48.081 --> 02:46:52.180
If I want to talk to a bunch of ladies, I might use a cooking analogy, right?

3604
02:46:52.261 --> 02:46:54.460
And that's with traditional gender roles and stereotypes.

3605
02:46:54.660 --> 02:46:55.057
Deal with it.

3606
02:46:55.440 --> 02:46:55.660
All right?

3607
02:46:55.880 --> 02:47:07.220
And so the idea here is I will try and speak in a way that I think has the highest likelihood of being language that will be comprehended by the widest slice of my target audience.

3608
02:47:07.400 --> 02:47:14.200
Now, if you have an even broader audience, then you would limit the amount of analogies to things that everyone understands.

3609
02:47:14.260 --> 02:47:15.400
So it would probably be human things.

3610
02:47:15.440 --> 02:47:22.520
So I might be talking about just eating in general, sleeping in general, brushing your teeth in general would be the analogies that I would use.

3611
02:47:23.121 --> 02:47:27.360
And the grade language of my speech would be as low as humanly possible.

3612
02:47:27.741 --> 02:47:30.440
So I looked at this politics thing.

3613
02:47:30.540 --> 02:47:31.560
This was before this election.

3614
02:47:32.021 --> 02:47:36.960
But they had shown that the politician that spoke at the lowest grade level won every election.

3615
02:47:37.340 --> 02:47:38.920
Now, I don't know if that's held true since then.

3616
02:47:39.282 --> 02:47:43.160
But I thought it was relatively telling with all of these different marketing strategies.

3617
02:47:43.581 --> 02:47:49.100
the one that mattered most was actually being understood which leads into one of the biggest

3618
02:47:49.381 --> 02:47:55.480
next things that we did which was we were focusing more on pre-production uh like this video right

3619
02:47:55.540 --> 02:47:59.880
now we prepared for hours like what are all the lessons i have what are the examples i want to

3620
02:47:59.920 --> 02:48:04.360
talk about like this isn't me just turning on the camera and saying like what's up um i actually put

3621
02:48:04.380 --> 02:48:07.880
a lot into this and because i it was a whole year it's also helpful for me because i like to

3622
02:48:07.920 --> 02:48:09.847
crystallize my own knowledge, but pre versus post.

3623
02:48:10.228 --> 02:48:13.660
And then another one is clear packaging, right?

3624
02:48:14.080 --> 02:48:19.760
Is just be very clear about what it is your content is about and what they're going to get

3625
02:48:19.820 --> 02:48:20.081
from it.

3626
02:48:20.462 --> 02:48:25.617
And so from that, we came up with the three Ps, which is proof, promise, plan.

3627
02:48:26.319 --> 02:48:26.520
And so

3628
02:48:26.721 --> 02:48:29.496
every introduction of every video has to have these three things.

3629
02:48:29.516 --> 02:48:30.200
Now it doesn't have to,

3630
02:48:30.481 --> 02:48:32.633
but we found that when we included those things, those videos did better.

3631
02:48:32.995 --> 02:48:33.940
And so you notice every

3632
02:48:34.000 --> 02:48:38.640
videos since this back to business theme, we have proof, promise, plan within the first,

3633
02:48:39.141 --> 02:48:40.104
call it 30 seconds.

3634
02:48:40.606 --> 02:48:43.396
And so it's, what are you going to get from the video?

3635
02:48:43.657 --> 02:48:44.560
Why should you believe me?

3636
02:48:44.660 --> 02:48:45.403
And this is how we're going to do it.

3637
02:48:46.347 --> 02:48:46.669
That's it.

3638
02:48:47.533 --> 02:48:49.240
And so in this video, I started with,

3639
02:48:50.062 --> 02:48:52.700
we have these three companies, you know, three of our companies are over a hundred million.

3640
02:48:53.461 --> 02:48:54.226
We scaled a lot this year.

3641
02:48:54.246 --> 02:48:56.480
We went from, you know, 50 million in EBITDA to just under a hundred.

3642
02:48:58.341 --> 02:49:00.835
You will learn the lessons from this so you can apply it to your business.

3643
02:49:01.177 --> 02:49:01.720
And the plan that we're

3644
02:49:01.720 --> 02:49:03.249
going to do it is I'm going to walk through them step by step.

3645
02:49:03.269 --> 02:49:04.194
All right, there we go.

3646
02:49:04.597 --> 02:49:04.758
Right.

3647
02:49:04.959 --> 02:49:05.160
Very

3648
02:49:05.240 --> 02:49:05.722
straightforward.

3649
02:49:06.284 --> 02:49:10.680
And the last piece, which was a small one, which I actually got pushback from my

3650
02:49:10.740 --> 02:49:13.673
team on, which is why I'm sharing it with you, is introduce yourself.

3651
02:49:14.336 --> 02:49:14.517
Right.

3652
02:49:14.557 --> 02:49:15.200
So a lot of people are

3653
02:49:15.200 --> 02:49:16.247
like, oh, we don't want to introduce myself.

3654
02:49:16.267 --> 02:49:17.355
Like my audience knows who we are.

3655
02:49:17.597 --> 02:49:18.100
Well, good thing

3656
02:49:18.100 --> 02:49:19.227
you're not just making it for them.

3657
02:49:19.830 --> 02:49:21.440
You're making it for people who don't know who you are yet.

3658
02:49:22.040 --> 02:49:22.221
Right.

3659
02:49:22.261 --> 02:49:26.017
And so what we did is that we've actually now consolidated this to lower third.

3660
02:49:26.499 --> 02:49:26.820
And so at

3661
02:49:26.860 --> 02:49:31.939
the beginning of this video, you should see, you know, Alex Ramosi, managingpartneracquisition.com.

3662
02:49:32.260 --> 02:49:35.680
So we actually able to cut that out of me saying it because we want to keep the intros really tight.

3663
02:49:36.140 --> 02:49:41.399
I also have taken out the, hey, if you don't know who I am, just say, I'm Alex Ramosi.

3664
02:49:41.519 --> 02:49:41.740
I'm the

3665
02:49:41.740 --> 02:49:43.106
managingpartneracquisition.com.

3666
02:49:43.126 --> 02:49:44.511
This is what we do.

3667
02:49:44.531 --> 02:49:46.660
Or put it lower third and then just skip forward,

3668
02:49:46.740 --> 02:49:46.921
right?

3669
02:49:47.504 --> 02:49:49.112
You want to keep it as tight as humanly possible.

3670
02:49:49.554 --> 02:49:50.840
And when we look back at the videos

3671
02:49:50.880 --> 02:49:54.037
that did exceptionally well, these were the things that, these were our common themes.

3672
02:49:54.057 --> 02:49:54.500
We put more

3673
02:49:54.540 --> 02:49:56.348
and pre, we introduced ourselves.

3674
02:49:56.649 --> 02:49:57.935
We made it very clear packaging.

3675
02:49:57.955 --> 02:49:59.120
We had a proof promise plan

3676
02:49:59.401 --> 02:50:00.124
that was laid out.

3677
02:50:00.405 --> 02:50:04.300
We had examples that were clear and relevant to our avatar, which is business

3678
02:50:04.481 --> 02:50:05.625
owners.

3679
02:50:06.006 --> 02:50:09.238
And so we made content about business and lo and behold, it has been good.

3680
02:50:09.318 --> 02:50:09.459
Yeah.

3681
02:50:09.499 --> 02:50:09.760
And on a

3682
02:50:09.800 --> 02:50:12.574
personal note, I prefer making business content to not business content.

3683
02:50:12.675 --> 02:50:13.760
I like resented, I'll be

3684
02:50:13.820 --> 02:50:14.403
really real with you.

3685
02:50:14.664 --> 02:50:17.959
I was so, I was afraid of the results that were going to come in.

3686
02:50:17.999 --> 02:50:18.160
Cause I

3687
02:50:18.180 --> 02:50:22.015
was like, if I'm going to have to make meal videos, I'm going to kill myself.

3688
02:50:22.818 --> 02:50:23.260
I just like,

3689
02:50:23.724 --> 02:50:25.420
Like, we'll do our workouts next.

3690
02:50:25.480 --> 02:50:26.900
I'm like, no, I'll just be dead.

3691
02:50:27.062 --> 02:50:27.519
It won't matter.

3692
02:50:27.841 --> 02:50:28.520
Like, it doesn't matter.

3693
02:50:28.601 --> 02:50:29.039
I'll just die.

3694
02:50:29.280 --> 02:50:32.880
And so, like, I'm sure from, like, the thing is that I relatively have pain tolerance.

3695
02:50:32.960 --> 02:50:38.440
So, like, if it was the way to win, I would, like, if you were like, hey, if you hit your hand with this hammer, your pistols keep growing.

3696
02:50:38.965 --> 02:50:40.340
Like, my hand would be a pancake.

3697
02:50:40.769 --> 02:50:40.900
Right?

3698
02:50:40.940 --> 02:50:42.080
I would just keep going at it.

3699
02:50:42.120 --> 02:50:44.660
But I would prefer not to do it that way.

3700
02:50:44.740 --> 02:50:48.460
And I'm very grateful that you guys like business concept better because that's what I like making too.

3701
02:50:48.900 --> 02:50:49.220
All right.

3702
02:50:49.681 --> 02:50:52.340
So, the next one is around platforms.

3703
02:50:52.461 --> 02:50:53.800
And I think this was really interesting.

3704
02:50:53.900 --> 02:50:57.060
So I looked really deeply at the platforms from this last year.

3705
02:50:57.402 --> 02:50:59.479
I made a whole tier list video about this.

3706
02:50:59.882 --> 02:51:01.859
So I'm not going to go in super depth on this.

3707
02:51:02.220 --> 02:51:08.020
But I would say that the MVP of the year was email or maybe most improved if you want to call it that way.

3708
02:51:08.901 --> 02:51:14.500
I have not traditionally spent a long time on email, which seems ridiculous because written word is my best format.

3709
02:51:15.483 --> 02:51:17.580
And so I started writing emails and they start doing well.

3710
02:51:18.080 --> 02:51:18.317
Duh.

3711
02:51:20.043 --> 02:51:21.320
Like maybe I should hate money less.

3712
02:51:21.567 --> 02:51:21.896
I don't know.

3713
02:51:22.161 --> 02:51:24.860
Anyways, so email was kind of the MVP of the year for me.

3714
02:51:24.920 --> 02:51:27.759
Probably the most improved, like didn't expect it.

3715
02:51:29.020 --> 02:51:31.780
The feedback I've gotten has been exceptional.

3716
02:51:32.261 --> 02:51:34.660
And I made also a separate video on how I just write my emails.

3717
02:51:34.820 --> 02:51:35.640
And so you can watch that.

3718
02:51:35.841 --> 02:51:37.060
I'm sure you can find it.

3719
02:51:37.200 --> 02:51:45.980
Beyond that, though, Facebook was a, in terms of like book sales per follower count and per view count,

3720
02:51:46.120 --> 02:51:48.760
was kind of like the highest leverage.

3721
02:51:48.960 --> 02:51:51.420
Like we actually got a lot from that, so we're investing more in Facebook right now.

3722
02:51:52.541 --> 02:51:59.900
The perennial champs were IG and YouTube in terms of percentage of traffic that came to Acquisition.com.

3723
02:52:00.040 --> 02:52:02.260
YouTube and Instagram were by far the biggest ones.

3724
02:52:02.640 --> 02:52:04.840
The unbeknownst one was books.

3725
02:52:05.180 --> 02:52:06.840
This is one that no one talks about.

3726
02:52:07.300 --> 02:52:11.800
But Amazon is actually responsible for like 15% of my traffic, which is kind of cool.

3727
02:52:11.840 --> 02:52:16.340
Meaning basically the amount of people who buy books and then read the books and then go to the site.

3728
02:52:17.380 --> 02:52:21.400
Like a huge percentage of my traffic indirectly comes from Amazon because they,

3729
02:52:21.860 --> 02:52:24.580
because my books do really well and have a lot of reviews.

3730
02:52:24.681 --> 02:52:28.340
And Amazon wants to have people buy products that they like on Amazon

3731
02:52:28.441 --> 02:52:30.680
because then they associate the good thing from that product with Amazon.

3732
02:52:31.641 --> 02:52:32.660
It's like they have a strategy.

3733
02:52:33.020 --> 02:52:38.000
And I also said in my tier list video that TikTok was something that I was deprioritizing.

3734
02:52:38.682 --> 02:52:40.200
And I thought more about that since that video.

3735
02:52:40.280 --> 02:52:42.340
So it's been like seven months, I think, since I made that video.

3736
02:52:43.264 --> 02:52:46.760
I think that it's not that TikTok is not a good platform for business.

3737
02:52:47.081 --> 02:52:49.920
I think that we had a skill gap around TikTok.

3738
02:52:50.160 --> 02:52:55.460
And so I'm actively trying to remedy that right now and bringing in some really amazing people from the TikTok side.

3739
02:52:55.540 --> 02:52:56.800
It's a platform I don't know very well.

3740
02:52:58.201 --> 02:53:02.480
And so we are going to just bring in great people and align their incentives and see what happens.

3741
02:53:02.580 --> 02:53:05.060
But fundamentally, I know there are business owners on TikTok.

3742
02:53:06.182 --> 02:53:10.140
I just haven't been able to package my content in a way that did well on that platform.

3743
02:53:10.441 --> 02:53:14.237
But if you're curious, since we made the incentive change, our TikTok is up 300% this week.

3744
02:53:16.102 --> 02:53:18.220
So, you know, incentives work.

3745
02:53:18.600 --> 02:53:25.080
And speaking of those platforms, I would recommend checking out my email.

3746
02:53:25.180 --> 02:53:27.140
I did say it earlier, MozyMoneyMinute.

3747
02:53:28.246 --> 02:53:29.180
I put a lot of time into them.

3748
02:53:29.321 --> 02:53:30.040
I think they're really good.

3749
02:53:30.662 --> 02:53:32.200
If you like my books, you'll love the emails.

3750
02:53:32.420 --> 02:53:35.920
It's like super, super distilled down that.

3751
02:53:36.980 --> 02:53:37.759
Really proud of them.

3752
02:53:38.022 --> 02:53:38.940
It's just worked out really well.

3753
02:53:39.061 --> 02:53:40.820
And so I think you will like them.

3754
02:53:41.480 --> 02:53:43.040
It's acquisition.com forward slash newsletter.

3755
02:53:44.043 --> 02:53:45.420
And by the way, if you haven't read the books,

3756
02:53:46.042 --> 02:53:47.740
for the love of God, it's the best stuff I have.

3757
02:53:48.241 --> 02:53:49.320
So like if you like my videos,

3758
02:53:49.420 --> 02:53:51.299
you will like the books more, straight up.

3759
02:53:51.762 --> 02:53:52.720
You'll like them more, they're better.

3760
02:53:53.641 --> 02:53:55.120
And I feel like I can say that objectively.

3761
02:53:55.340 --> 02:53:57.280
Like I work on both of them and I think that,

3762
02:53:57.400 --> 02:53:58.100
and it's just fundamentally,

3763
02:53:58.240 --> 02:53:59.800
it's because I haven't spent 2,000 hours on a video.

3764
02:54:00.142 --> 02:54:01.219
I have spent 2,000 hours on a book.

3765
02:54:01.780 --> 02:54:04.420
So $100 million offers, $100 million leads,

3766
02:54:04.662 --> 02:54:05.078
check them out.

3767
02:54:05.440 --> 02:54:07.017
Otherwise, stay awesome.

3768
02:54:07.801 --> 02:54:14.120
If this was valuable for you, it would mean the world to me if you shared it with another entrepreneur or people inside of your team.

3769
02:54:14.561 --> 02:54:16.540
It's the only way that the podcast grows.

3770
02:54:16.660 --> 02:54:20.740
And it's the only thing that encourages me to keep doing this as I shout into the dark abyss.

3771
02:54:21.800 --> 02:54:23.980
But no, share it on your stories, text it to friends.

3772
02:54:24.628 --> 02:54:25.220
It would mean a lot.

3773
02:54:25.280 --> 02:54:26.580
I don't have sponsors for this thing.

3774
02:54:27.665 --> 02:54:28.519
And so that is my only ask.