October 9, 2024 • 38 mins
What if you could reclaim hours of your day to focus on what truly energizes you? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dan Martell, celebrated SaaS visionary and author of "Buy Back Your Time." Dan shares his journey from a challenging past to becoming a successful entrepreneur dedicated to empowering others to create businesses they love. We explore the serendipitous events that shaped his path, including a life-changing snowboarding trip and a transformative conference encounter.
Uncover the secrets behind Dan’s innovative "buyback principle," a game-changer for entrepreneurs facing the complexities and pressures of business growth. Discover how conducting time and energy audits can help you identify and delegate low-value tasks, paving the way for a more fulfilling and sustainable business environment. You'll hear compelling stories and actionable strategies that highlight the importance of reclaiming your time, preventing burnout, and focusing on high-value activities that truly inspire.
Dan reveals practical approaches to efficient calendar management and delegation, drawing inspiration from successful figures like Richard Branson. Learn about the "replacement ladder" strategy and the powerful "camcorder method" for seamless training and process documentation. Plus, Dan offers access to his exclusive 42-page Executive Assistant playbook, a valuable resource for enhancing productivity. Tune in to discover how you can build a thriving business without losing your passion or sacrificing your well-being.
Watch the free training: https://selfpublishing.com/freetraining
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Here are some links that might come in handy:
- Apply for a free book consultation
- Register for our free on-demand training
Must-watch episodes:
- SPS 044: Using A Free + Shipping Book Funnel with Anik Singal
- SPS 115: Using Atomic Habits To Write & Publish A Book with James Clear
- SPS 127: Traditional vs. Self Publishing: Which You Should Choose with Ruth Soukup
- SPS 095: The Five Love Languages: Selling 15 Million Copies with Gary Chapman
- SPS 056: How I Sold 46M Copies of My Self Published Book with Robert Kiyosaki
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A decade ago, if you remember that story, I told you
beginning of day one aboutvolunteering at the conference.
Right, volunteering was myconference or volunteering was
my hustle to just get in theroom, right, and I remember
volunteering that conference.
I meet this guy and we have acouple interactions and then I
see he goes on this snowboardingtrip every year.
All right, and I'm like, hey, Iwould love to go on this
(00:23):
snowboarding trip.
So eventually he's like, yeah,come on this snowboarding trip.
And then we're on the way tothis other mastermind and he's
talking to someone I think it'sRyan Levesque at the time and he
says to Ryan he says, hey, Itell people all the time, don't
even come on this snowboardingtrip unless you're willing to
jump 10 feet off a cliff intopowder.
(00:44):
And I'm sitting in the sideseat, already committed to this
snowboarding trip, thinking hedidn't tell me that.
Well, I'm like, all right, I'mgonna go anyway.
And we have been going to thattrip, gosh, for probably seven,
eight years now and he's justbecome a dear friend.
He's one of the most intense,inspiring people I've ever met.
His name's Dan Martell.
If you see that red mug thatI'm always carrying around, it's
(01:06):
from a snowboarding trip we goon every year.
If you haven't met Dan, he's thefounder of SaaS Academy, the
creator of the Martell Method.
He's the author of a bookcalled Buy Back your Time.
It's going like crazy over thelast year and some change.
He's an angel investor.
He scaled a bunch of SaaScompanies exited multiple times.
If you've ever heard of thecompany Clarity FM, like back in
the day it was like where youcould just get on the phone with
(01:27):
mentors and get advice.
He created that.
He's just an incrediblyinspiring guy.
I'm really excited he's gonnabe talking about buying back
your time.
Join me, give an AuthorAdvantage.
Live welcome for Mr Dan Martell.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Let's go.
Chandler, bolt Guys, I want youall to know I love Chandler.
Chandler, thank you for thisopportunity.
I'm excited to be here.
It's a privilege, it's an honorand I'm 100% committed to
giving you guys 110% of me andeverything I've got.
I've got some crazy stories,some really powerful frameworks,
(02:02):
and my mission today okay, thisis what I want to hopefully
deliver to every one of you hereis I want to teach you how to
build the business you don'tgrow to hate.
That is what we're going to dotoday.
So I'm just going to pull up myslides, share my screen and
we're going to kick into this,because I believe this has the
(02:24):
opportunity to be some of themost transformational training
that you ever get.
And the reason why is becauseit has to do with your time, and
the truth is you don't have anymore time than Warren Buffett
or Bill Gates or any reallywealthy person.
You have the same amount oftime as I have and, at the end
of the day, what we're trying todo is we're trying to increase
(02:47):
our output.
How much do we get done in thesame hour of time?
And the equation is very simpleit's time multiplied by
leverage equals output, so somepeople have massive amounts of
output, they get a lot done inan hour, and other people they
seem to get nothing done.
I want to actually share withyou the secrets of buying back
(03:10):
your time so that you can investit in yourself to become bigger
and better today.
Now I'm just got a quickquestion for everybody in the
audience Am I the only personthat ended up in a high-speed
chase, in jail twice and inrehab before the age of 17?
I'm just curious if anybodyelse had that experience.
I'm sure there's a few of youin the audience.
(03:33):
Some of you guys have had somecolorful childhoods.
Here's why I share that.
And are his slides up?
My slides are sharing you guyssee them.
Yes, yes, yes, cool.
The reason I share that isbecause when people see the
frameworks I'm about to sharewith you, they, they, they learn
(03:54):
about the way I coach people.
I'm very much a models designtype of thinker, systems thinker
Chandler, and I talk about thisoften about just business
growth and strategy.
One of the main reasons isbecause in rehab, after doing 11
months of therapy, essentiallyrebuilding myself from somebody
(04:15):
who is an addicted young drugaddict to, honestly, the
beginning of just being aproductive contribution to
society.
I mean, I wasn't.
I didn't have any big visionwhen I got out.
Um, I was there for 11 months,and what happened at the end of
that program is, I was helpingthe maintenance guy, rick, clean
out one of the cabins becauseit's built on an old church camp
(04:37):
, and in one of the rooms Idiscovered this old computer,
this 486 computer, and sittingright next to it, funny funny
enough, a book on Javaprogramming.
And that book opened up andread like English.
I always thought that computerprogramming was like hexadecimal
numbers or hieroglyphics.
(04:57):
It wasn't legible to a meremortal and, for whatever reason,
the programming language readif this, then that, and it just
spoke to me.
So I sat there and followedchapter one of this book it was
a Ziff Davis computer book and Ijust started typing into the
computer what it shared, and youknow, after about 20 minutes I
(05:18):
sat back, I hit enter and theprogram ran, and on the screen
it printed off hello world.
I know you guys are probablythinking what I was thinking,
which is I may be a computergenius.
Unfortunately, it turns out I'mnot.
It didn't matter though,because what happened is my new
(05:39):
obsession became writing code,building software products and
eventually I discovered thissmall thing called the internet.
This is 1997.
And for me, building softwareproducts became essentially my
new focus and what I've learnedis entrepreneurship is the
(06:00):
ultimate personal developmentprogram.
So, even though my journey fromthen to where I'm at today, you
know, took a decade plus oftrial and error and two failed
companies, and, you know,finally having financial success
but absolutely cratering mylife at the exact same time,
over the years I've discoveredthat for many of us, our mess
(06:20):
becomes our message, that formany of us, our mess becomes our
message.
The wisdom lies in the pressureof our lives.
Right, you know, there's thisgreat quote that says no
pressure, no diamonds, and Ibelieve I'm a by-product of that
.
So today, you know, we do over100 million in revenue in
Martell Ventures, which includesa lot of different companies.
(06:41):
I am sought at, after the roundthe world, to come speak at
events, talking about theconcepts of buying back your
time, because I want to helpeverybody listening today build
what I call an empire, and anempire for me is a completely
different thing than what youmight be thinking.
An empire is a life ofunlimited creation you never
have to retire from.
I want that for you, more thanyou'll ever understand.
(07:03):
I believe that the world'sproblems are going to be solved
by entrepreneurs, andentrepreneurs wake up every day
to solve those problems.
For other people, like our,life doesn't get better until an
entrepreneur decides to solve aproblem.
Everything is simple, as lawncare and snow removal up in
(07:23):
Canada, to our biggest marketingchallenges, including creating
and writing our books.
Somebody needs to step up, andI just believe the entrepreneurs
.
If they could get themselvesout of their own way, they would
create more.
So I want you to write down theanswer to this question If you
had more time, what would you dowith that?
How would you invest that time?
(07:44):
Because that's what I want toteach you today is how to buy
back that time.
So what I've learned over theyears is this thing called the
pain line.
As we start in life, as we growas an entrepreneur, at some
point over time and we'regrowing, we will hit a thing
called the pain line, and whathappens is that becomes our
complexity ceiling.
It becomes the place where anymore growth feels hard, and what
happens is that becomes ourcomplexity ceiling.
(08:05):
It becomes the place where anymore growth feels hard, and
usually I get the call from myfriends when this happens,
because they usually come to oneof three conclusions.
Okay, I call them the three S's.
Write that down Three S's.
The first S is stall.
This is where the persondecides.
You know what?
Last year I made more money.
(08:27):
I had less headaches.
Sure, we didn't have as muchtop line revenue, but we were
more profitable and I think I'mjust good stopping here.
The challenge with that is Iremember my buddy, matt.
He's an electrician and heasked me that.
He says, dan, I watch yourstuff.
I see you talk about growth andexpansion and believing in
yourself and all that stuff.
But what if I just want to staywhere I'm at?
(08:50):
So that's an awesome question,matt.
The challenge with that is onethe world continues to expand.
Gross domestic product is athing, so the market's expanding
your customers every year,whether you like it or not, are
going to expect more from youbetter, faster, cheaper, more
impact, keeping up with thetimes.
So that's not an option.
(09:10):
And I said, the biggestchallenge of all is if you have
a team member and you enjoyworking with them and they are
incredible they probably have avision for their life that's
bigger than the one they haveright now, and if you decide to
stall, they're probably gonna gofind somebody else that's gonna
be able to deliver on thatvision.
So in that moment your bestpeople will leave you and it's
(09:31):
kind of crazy.
So stalling is not an option.
The other S is sabotage.
Sabotage is a funny one.
So think about you have theopportunity to maybe triple the
size of your revenue, yourbusiness, your opportunities in
your life.
But you know, in that growth,your calendar is going to get
chaotic, it's going to justabsolutely explode.
Most people, unfortunately, inthat moment where they could,
(09:52):
you know, say yes to anopportunity, they don't even
realize they're doing this, butthey drag their feet, they don't
show up confidently, they'rescared, so they don't push on
the gas.
They've got the handbrake fullycranked, but they're trying to
grow.
But it's just.
It creates a lot of friction.
I mean, have you ever been in asituation where you have an
email from somebody that wantsto ask you to speak at an event
(10:16):
and you know that one talk couldturn into enough business to
double, triple the size of your?
You know your exposure, yourrevenue, and instead of
immediately replying yeah, I'min, you wait, you wait till you
have time to think about it.
You wait till you feelemotionally ready.
You wait till you clean up somethings in the office so that
(10:36):
you have the capacity andeventually, maybe a few days
later, a week later, you comeback from the gym, you're
feeling all great.
You finally go to your starredfolder and you hit reply and you
hit send.
I'd love to do that, let'sschedule it.
And they replied and they go.
Unfortunately, I've gone.
You know, took too long and Iwent a different way.
That's self-sabotage.
Most people don't know wherethey are hitting their pain line
(10:59):
and self-sabotaging theiropportunity for growth.
The third S is sell, and thisone I get all the time.
I have a buddy call me onMonday and he's like hey man, I
think I'm ready to sell mycompany.
And I said, oh, that'sinteresting, I thought you were
really enjoying it.
He goes yeah, I know I've justhad a few things with some
people and a customer didn't payme and this and that, and I
(11:20):
think I'm ready, I'm probablygoing to, I think I'm ready to
sell.
And I said well, what's goingon?
Like, let's talk about the topthree things that's going on.
He kind of shared them in moredetail and I just asked him a
simple question If theseproblems weren't present, would
you sell the business?
And he's like well, of coursenot.
So well, here's what I'vediscovered.
Whether you sell it or not, whatyou've discovered is your
(11:42):
complexity.
So you discovered where yourcurrent capabilities, your
abilities, your skills, yourbeliefs, your character traits.
This is the level of businessyou can support, and anything
above that gets hard and it'scomplex and you haven't learned
how to deal with it.
So you just want to get out ofit.
So when you go start that nextthing what's going to happen is
(12:02):
you're going to hit thatcomplexity ceiling once again.
That next thing what's going tohappen is you're going to hit
that complexity ceiling onceagain, and whether you solve it
now or solve it later, that isyours to resolve.
So selling is also not anotheroption.
So instead, what I would offereverybody listening is this
concept called the buybackprinciple, and the big idea is
million-dollar companies are notbuilt off $10 tasks.
(12:24):
It's impossible.
If you have an aspiration tobuild a million-dollar,
companies are not built off $10tasks.
It's impossible.
If you have an aspiration tobuild a million-dollar company,
you can't build that company.
Working 100-hour weeks doing$10 tasks it's impossible.
When you start off, you wear alot of hats, but as soon as
you've got revenue coming in,you got to start looking at
getting up your time.
So the buyback principle stateswe don't hire to grow our
business, which is what 99% ofpeople do.
(12:45):
Instead, we hire to buy backour time.
So I call it a calendar overcapacity problem.
See, some people getoverwhelmed.
They think, well, I got to hireanother logo designer, another
salesperson, another marketer,another, whatever the thing you
sell, or do you need somebody tohelp you with it?
What I encourage people to do,first and foremost, is to look
(13:06):
at their calendar and identifywhere they feel blocked, because
that is the only way you'llever be able to build the
business that you grow, not tohate, because any other way
you're just going to end up with.
Usually it's about 12 employees, about one and a half million
in revenue, where you wake upand you spend all your time just
putting out fires, tellingpeople what to do, and it gets
(13:29):
overwhelming.
So the way we do that is thisconcept called the buyback loop.
So when we feel the pain line,when we feel like we're over
capacity, where the loved onesin our lives are starting to
complain, our friends tell usthey haven't seen us in a while,
we haven't been to the gym in afew months.
You know what I'm saying whenwe feel that pain.
(13:50):
The three steps that I want youto do is audit, transfer, fill
Everybody, write this down, draw, take notes.
This is really going to be someof the most valuable
productivity strategies or everbeen presented, but nobody talks
about it.
Took me 10 years of strugglingto finally get to a place where
I understood this, and when Iapplied it to my business world,
(14:13):
it took off.
When I applied it to myprofessional life or my personal
life, it flourished okay.
So, first off, you feel thepain.
We go to the audit.
Step one is what's called a timeand energy audit.
What I do is I pull up mycalendar and if I don't have one
, I log it and essentially fortwo weeks, what I want you to do
is log every 15 minutes exactlywhat you do with your time.
(14:36):
Every 15 minutes, you log itdown and then, after two weeks,
because you want enough time tokind of not have like, oh, I
spent all this time in one weekdoing one thing no, you want two
weeks worth of effort and yougot 15 minutes logged everything
you did If you searched theinternet, if you worked on, if
you went to Facebook.
I don't know if you guys haveever had this scenario where you
(14:57):
open up a browser to go dosomething important.
All of a sudden you end up twohours later on Facebook and
you're like what just happened?
You want to write that down.
So then what you do is you gothrough all the things you've
done for the last two weeks andyou highlight in green or in red
and I still do this process.
Even a month ago, I got to aplace where I was involved in.
You know, we're buying acompany every month.
(15:17):
Right now, I had the mediacompany requiring a lot of my
time.
We've just grown to millions offollowers on social media.
I've got, obviously, sometravel commitments.
My wife, my two boys and I justgot overwhelmed and I sat down
with my assistant and I said,hey, it's time to do a time and
energy audit.
So I followed the exact sameprocess and what I do is I
highlight in red the things thatsuck my energy, and they could
(15:40):
have been things that gave meenergy in the past, but now they
just feel a little.
They just don't feel as fun.
So things in red that are notas fun Green are things that
light me up.
This is bright green Anytime Ihave the opportunity to share
some lessons learned over theyears.
Obviously, see an old friendhelp and support his projects
and dreams I'm in, that's brightgreen.
So, friend, help and supporthis projects and dreams, I'm in,
(16:01):
that's bright green.
So I highlight everything in mycalendar yellow, red or green.
Yellow is kind of like I don'tknow, but I kind of don't really
love it.
And then what you do is you puta dollar sign next to each one
of those items, those tasks, andjust say is it $1 sign, meaning
that if I had to think about myhourly rate or what I charge
people for my time, is it like aquarter of that or is it $4?
So it's kind of like the costof a restaurant.
(16:22):
Right, you know, is it verylittle?
Is it very expensive?
It's not simple science, butit's just.
You know, you just gotta gaugeit.
And then what you do is, onceyou've got that audit, you grab
everything that is red that youdon't enjoy doing.
That sucks your energy, andthen everything that's one or $2
(16:43):
signs in cost to have somebodyelse do for you and you put that
into a bucket and that is theonly next hire you make.
So some people they spenddollars to hire people
contractors, freelancers withouta strategy.
They're just like, oh, I needmore leads, so I hire a Facebook
agency, or I need help withthis, so I hire this, and it's
the end of the day.
You need to fix your calendar.
That's what we're trying tooptimize for, because, if not,
(17:04):
we will grow a business that wegrow to aid instead of building
a life of unlimited creationthat we never have to retire
from.
So now that we know what we'regoing to give to somebody else,
then we go to transfer.
Transfer is quite uniquebecause the way I do it is
unlike anybody else.
Okay, so I believe, because I'ma software guy, I believe that
(17:25):
we want to create a processwhere, as we're documenting the
system, we're actually doing thework, and I call it the
camcorder method.
Write that down camcordermethod.
I remember my buddy Mark came tome one day.
He's a professional speaker andhe was overwhelmed.
You know he was speaking a lot200 gigs that year, best year
(17:48):
ever but he was still doingthings like sending invoices,
emails, scheduling his calendar,and it became too much and he
calls me up and he's like Dan, Iknow you have the answer, but
my problem is I think you knowtoo much about creating systems
because your software backgroundthat I have a hard time when I
hire somebody to actually liketell them how to do the work.
Does anybody else resonate withthat?
Where you know, sometimesyou're like I know I could hire
(18:11):
somebody, but I don't even knowwhat they would do.
I was like, totally I get you,mark, but let me try something
different.
I said what's one thing thatyou do a lot of and he's like
well, invoices.
I hate invoices.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I hate honestly financial.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Anything financial I'd rather never do, ever again.
I said perfect, how much timedo you spend on financial stuff?
I don't know On a weekly basis?
Five hours, you know 20, 25hours on a monthly basis.
Said, okay, so there's, there'sa meaningful amount of work.
I said, well, here's what Iwant you to do Next time you sit
down to do any aspect ofaccounts receivable reconciling
your bank accounts, invoices,anything at all financials, tax
(18:48):
stuff.
I want to encourage you torecord your screen.
He's like, well, how do I dothat?
I was like you have Zoom, yep,cool.
Start a meeting.
You're the only person Recordto the cloud and share your
screen doing the work, recordingyou on camera and your screen.
And as you're doing the work, Iwant you to talk out loud.
I want you to be descriptive.
That's the key.
(19:09):
Everybody write that down, bedescriptive.
So if you're creating an invoiceand you're going to the CRM to
get the customer and you'relooking at your emails to get
the information to create theinvoice, talk about why.
Why did you go there?
How did you know?
Is it in your calendar?
How did that email come in?
And document everything you canaround the financials.
Because here's the kicker.
If you do this for the next fewmonths, mark, you're going to
(19:31):
have these videos recorded ofyou doing different parts of the
financial system.
Then I want you to hire abookkeeper.
So just find somebody in yourlocal town that's a bookkeeper
and when you bring them on theirfirst 10 hours with you is
probably just watching thosevideos, that's it.
You might be polite and invitethem and create their emails and
all that, but then I want youto just give them the videos,
(19:54):
have them watch it and then theycreate what's called the
standard operating procedure.
They create what's called thestandard operating procedure.
They create what I call theplaybook.
See, most entrepreneurs read abook like mine and they're like
oh, I need to create the XYZ way, our business name, way.
We got to create this manual,this franchise prototype.
The problem is is that's moreof your time?
(20:15):
What I'd rather do is justrecord myself doing the work and
then have somebody else watchthe video, do the playbook, and
then what's cool for me is thenI'll have feedback on how well
they did.
So if I can watch the qualityof the checklist they made, I'll
know if they actuallyunderstood and retained the
information that I put In thevideo.
So I knew they watched thevideos and mark's like, oh my
(20:38):
gosh, this is a game changer.
I said Mark, here's the coolpart.
If you do it this way and forwhatever reason, the bookkeeper
you find in six months a yearmaybe there's a situation where
they go on maternity leave andthey're not available anymore.
When you hire the next person,they got the training videos and
your SOP, so it'll be evenfaster to get them ramped up and
for them to follow the processyou've outlined.
(21:01):
And it's net time no extra timeto create.
It's a game changer.
So that's transfer.
The last part, and arguably themost important, is fill, because
if we don't fill properly inthe loop, we don't get the
forward movement right.
You get that last little bridgearea.
It takes it away.
So essentially, a lot of people, they buy back their time and
then they go on the beach orwatch Netflix Not very
(21:23):
productive.
I'm not a four-hour workweekguy.
I'm here to help you createmore.
So fill is an interesting one.
Fill is, first and foremost,doing more of the thing that
makes you money.
If you're a writer and you makemoney writing, write more.
If you logo design, design more.
If you're a software personwrite more code, but after that
(21:44):
you need to look at you becausethe world is only going to be a
reflection of the value youcreate in the world.
Write that down, okay, themarket rewards you for the value
.
If you think of your income,your income is usually, on
average, about 10% of the valuecreated in the world.
So if you want to make amillion dollars, then you got to
go create $10 million worth ofvalue.
(22:05):
If you want to make a hundredgrand, you got to create, you
know, a million dollars worth ofvalue.
So how do we do that?
We fill our calendar becausewe've got this time back with
things that make us morevaluable.
So, the three areas I alwaystell people I call it the three
ladder, the ladder of success.
Right, the left side of theladder is the skills.
We got to ask ourselves, if I'mhere and I want to go there,
(22:26):
I'm starting off here and I'vegot this vision for my life what
are the skills I have toacquire to become more valuable?
Right, that's the left side ofthe ladder.
The right side of the ladder isthe character traits.
What are the character traits?
The ladder is the charactertraits.
What are the character traitsDetermined, grit, consistent.
(22:46):
There's all these charactertraits of a high performer,
somebody that's operating atthis level of your goals.
They act a certain way thatmaybe today you don't act like
that.
So, for example, vices I meanthis is one of them.
If you follow any of my content,I will be very clear on it.
Most of you work against yourdreams and goals.
Most of you self-sabotage.
Most of you have time assassins.
It would cost you nothing tobuy back.
(23:08):
You just need to stop.
When people watch me and theysee what I'm doing, they're
always asking me what do you do,dan, to be successful?
And sometimes I just want toreply I'm like it's what I don't
do.
What I don't do is I don't vape, I don't do drugs, I don't
drink, I don't gamble, I don'tplay games, I don't watch porn.
I don't do anything that'sgoing to take me away from being
(23:28):
in the best emotional state formy family or for my team.
So that's the character traits.
And then in the center of thisladder, if you think of, like,
the two sides of skills andcharacter traits, the center are
your beliefs.
The rungs on the ladder iswhere you put your feet to build
your beliefs, your moneybeliefs Some of you guys will
never get a penny more than youthink you deserve.
Your people beliefs you believethat nobody could do anything
(23:50):
else because it takes more timeto teach people.
You have beliefs that are goingto keep you small.
And I learned a long time agoone of the most inspiring things
, or one of the most importantthings you can do for your loved
ones, is to inspire them, andplaying small never inspired
anybody.
So that is the buyback loop.
When we feel that pain line, wecome into our calendar, audit
(24:12):
it to figure out where we haveto get stuff out of our calendar
, transfer it to the personwho's going to take it over and
then fill it with things thatare going to make you money.
Now people always ask well,what's the order of hiring, Dan?
If I want to build thisbusiness, if I want to scale,
what's the sequence of hiring?
And that's why I created thisframework called the Replacement
Ladder.
(24:32):
I learned this in many ways.
Credit to a guy named RichardBranson Most of you guys have
probably heard the name Founderof Virgin Group.
Virgin has 400 companies, theVirgin Group has two co-CEOs and
a multi-billion dollarorganization, and probably 8-9
years ago I got invited to spenda week with Richard at his home
(24:56):
in Verbier, switzerland, andI'll tell you, as a young
entrepreneur growing up on theEast Coast of Canada in a small
town, there was no reality in myfuture that I ever believed
that somehow I would ever notonly meet him, have the
opportunity to spend a week withhim in his own home, and
(25:16):
through just pure fate and aseries of luck and chance, I got
the invite and I remembershowing up other people there,
just so you know, I had massiveimposter syndrome.
I was like, okay, they're goingto find out who I am and kick
me out of here.
We've got Tim Ferriss is there.
You've got Brian Johnson, who alot of people know is the
blueprint guy.
You've got the co-founder ofSquare.
(25:39):
I mean, it was stacked Justthese absolutely legends of the
entrepreneurial business authorspace.
And, true to the essence of whoI thought he was, richard was
super kind, inviting, and Iremember just hanging out with
him and just watching how lighthe was with his emotions and
(26:02):
even though he had all theseincredible companies and there's
probably millions of peoplethat wanted his time, he was
there with us and what I learnedwas this very important thing
is that he has an assistant.
Her name is Helen.
She's still with him today.
She's been there for 14 yearsand what she does is she
protects Richard's time in avery beautiful way.
(26:24):
Essentially, all requests forRichard's time, all of his PR
stunts and team members and CEOsthat need his time, all go
through Helen, and then whatthey do is every morning for
breakfast they sit down for 60minutes, sometimes 90 minutes,
and she only brings to hisattention the things that she
doesn't know how to handle andhe might give her some feedback,
(26:47):
they might review the calendar,but that's to the extent that I
saw him work.
The rest of the day he's withus, he's shopping, he's training
for this next charity race he'sdoing, and then Helen's off to
the races with her informationto move all those dreams, goals,
projects forward while we're onthe ski hill and I thought this
(27:07):
guy's got it figured out.
I mean, a lot of people saythat Richard Branson is the
billionaire that every otherbillionaire wants to be like,
and I saw him do it.
It was incredible.
So I got back and I integratedthese philosophies into my life
and it's allowed me to build aworld where I get to experience
the best parts, with none of thedownside for me.
(27:29):
It's just my own personalpreferences.
I want to spend either my timedoing things that are uniquely
for me or with my loved ones.
So here's how the replacementladder works.
Okay, and everybody again pullyour journals.
I want you guys to walk awaywith some very tactical,
actionable steps.
First step of the ladder is youmight be feeling stuck.
So the key hire to make is theadmin, an administrative
(27:51):
assistant.
It can be part-time, virtual,you can do task-based, but the
key is that over time, theyeventually take over 100% of
your inbox and 100% of yourcalendar, because your inbox is
nothing more than a public to-dolist for other people's
requests on your time.
Think about that.
Your inbox is just this openrequest to-do list of you from
(28:15):
many times strangers off theinternet on your time and you
have no person to protect it,and that's where your assistant
comes in.
It's also their place to work Alot of people that I remember.
My brother hired an assistantonce and I was all excited for
him because he hadn't had onefor years and I was like you
know, I saw him at the barbecueand I was like hey man, how's it
(28:35):
going with your new assistant.
He's like, hmm, it's going okay, and I was like, ah, I think I
know what happened.
He goes what do you mean?
I said you're delegating thingsto them.
You're not having them manage100% of the emails coming to
your world.
He goes well, how else wouldyou do it?
I was like the way I told youto do it, the way I've always
done it, which is this is howRichard does it with Helen All
(29:02):
messages come in first to theinbox and then are triaged by my
assistant, then only reviewedwith me with the key elements
that I don't know how to dealwith.
That way, somebody else ismoving your life forward.
While you're for me on thispresentation, like while I'm
here, there could beopportunities and requests and
coordination for even thingsthat are happening tonight, and
while I'm here, my team ishandling it for me, so I can be
(29:23):
100% present with you.
The second thing is yourcalendar.
You know I want somebody elseto be working with me as a
partner to try to figure out howcan I get the most out of my
day, how can we batch thingstogether, how can I reschedule
things, how can I renegotiatedifferent block time so that I
can get the most energeticallyand productively Is that a word?
I don't know being moreproductive in my hour?
(29:46):
So that's level one is admin.
The second hire is somebody tohelp with customer success
delivery Essentially somebodythat can help you with the
onboarding and support.
I remember when I was startingoff I thought I had to do
everything because I had aspecial skill I was a programmer
.
Then I realized there's a lotof.
When I was starting off Ithought I had to do everything
because I had a special skill Iwas a programmer.
Then I realized there's a lotof stuff I was doing that had
nothing to do with programming,that I could have somebody else
(30:08):
help me with, and I just calledthem an account manager.
So every time I get newprojects, I would just have the
account manager talk to thecustomer, pull out all the
requirements, negotiate withthem, get all the assets,
everything I would need to be agreat programmer and they would
manage it.
So the onboarding and thesupport is the key area that you
need to look at, but you mightstill be feeling stalled because
you're not really building thatmomentum yet.
(30:29):
The third level is marketing,and this is where some people
still feel friction when itcomes to their growth, because
they've got a great service.
They're like the best keptsecret and what happens is when
they market, they get customers,and then they get busy and they
don't have time to market, andthen they don't have customers
and they got to market more toget customers.
And it goes up and down, up anddown, up and down.
I had a friend named Rachel.
(30:50):
She had a design agency, afreelance agency, and that was
her reality.
And she asked me one day she'slike, what's wrong with me?
I've been going sideways nowfor three years and her revenue
literally went up and downalmost every three to four
months.
And I said, rachel, it's likelybecause you don't have a
marketing system.
A marketing system is arepeatable process for
(31:12):
generating awareness and leadsfor your business and the key is
it doesn't matter if it's apart-time person, full-time
person, an agency.
You want to create one anddocument it and then have
somebody run it and ideally,when they wake up, the ownership
is on traffic and campaigns.
Do the web pages that you setup to get the leads still get
(31:33):
traffic?
I can't tell you the amount oftimes I've changed some link and
broke something, or changed thebackground color of a button to
the same color as the page andthe customer can't check.
I mean, it's you name it, I'vedone it.
So are somebody waking up everyday to monitor traffic and
campaigns?
That's level three.
If you do that, then you startbuilding some level of
consistency.
The fourth level, freedom.
(31:54):
This rung on the ladder is themost powerful and it's sales.
The reason why is because atthis stage, if you can get
somebody else that takes allopportunities I literally got an
opportunity for one of mycompanies came in through a
friend just now, text message mybuddy Raph.
He's like hey, man, I need somehelp.
I said, no problem, I'llconnect you with Jay.
(32:15):
Jay is one of my sales guys.
Boom Screenshot the image sentthe text message off to the
races.
I'm over here Now.
I have somebody who's gonnatake that call in real time.
So it's better for my friend.
I have somebody that caresabout getting that thing brought
forward.
So they're gonna work it.
They're gonna get them all theresources they need to make
decisions and they're gonna dofollow-up.
(32:36):
The truth is, I don't knowabout you, but I'm a great
salesperson on the call.
I do not like following process, I do not like doing the
follow-ups.
I don't like anything thatisn't the conversation.
The cool part is my buddy, jay,who's on my team.
He loves that.
He will follow that because heincentivized to do this.
So here's why it's freedomright now.
With four hires, you foundyourself in a place where you
(32:59):
can go on vacation and somebodyelse is responsible for
generating awareness, getting alead, selling that person in
your business and starting themwithin your product or service,
meaning that they can begin.
They might not be able tofinish the whole thing, but four
hires and you finally gotyourself to a place where you've
got what the business wasalways supposed to deliver,
(33:20):
which is freedom.
The highest level level five isexecutive leadership, team or
just leadership, and this iswhere you get into flow and this
is where I've spent the lastdecade of my life, where I don't
even CEO the companies I ownanymore.
I'd rather hire somebody to runthem.
The companies I own anymore,I'd rather hire somebody to run
(33:44):
them.
So I have CEOs that run all mycompanies and I want to be
partnered with them.
I want to be in conversationwhere we're talking strategy,
we're talking outcomes, but thekey is is they're coming to me
with a strategy, they're owningthe outcomes.
So the conversations we have isjust fun, flow, problem
solution, ideation, creativity.
(34:05):
And my gut tells me that thisis your happy place, that you
like to create, you like toideate, you like to help people,
but you don't like creating ato-do list.
You don't want to add a bunchof stuff to your, your projects.
You don't want to get on a calland hang up and just add
another hour of work you have todo on Saturday or Sunday
morning.
And if you do the replacementladder in this sequence, it
(34:27):
starts at the bottom, where youspend the least amount of money
to buy back your time and workyour way up, where most people
do the opposite, trust me.
They're like I need to hire anintegrator, I need to hire an
operations person.
It's like you don't even havean assistant.
An integrator, I need to hirean operations person.
It's like you don't even havean assistant.
So how about we start there?
(34:48):
If you do it this way, you'llget your time back and it'll be
financially very productive.
If you don't, it'll cost you alot of headaches and money.
And here's what I believe Ifyou don't have an assistant, you
actually do have one.
It's you and two things yousuck and you're overpaid.
I know that might not feel funto hear, but there's a good
chance.
You're not very good at the joband you're overpaid, so that is
(35:12):
the replacement ladder.
If you haven't check out mybook, buy Back your Time.
And actually, for Chandler, foreverybody that wants to get
access to my internal SOP forworking with my assistant, my EA
internal Google Doc direct link, just find me on Instagram.
2lzmartel Dan Martel onInstagram, give me a follow and
then just send me a directmessage and ask for the EA
(35:34):
playbook and I'll send that linkright over to you.
No opt-in as a gift.
It's like 42 pages sanitized.
I've shared it with Chandlerand many of my other friends.
But just as a gift, it's like42 pages sanitized.
I've shared it with Chandlerand many of my other friends,
but just mentioned Chandler inthe message EA Chandler.
So I know it came from here, soI'm not giving it to everybody,
but then you'll have myinternal playbook to start the
process or, if you have anexecutive assistant, to refine
the process, to work your way upthat ladder with that.
(35:57):
Appreciate you guys having meand I hope you guys enjoy the
rest of the event.
Appreciate you guys having meand I hope you guys enjoy the
rest of the event.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Give it up for dan.
How awesome was that.
Give it up.
Give it up.
Come on now.
This.
A decade ago, if you remember that story, I told you
beginning of day one aboutvolunteering at the conference.
Right, volunteering was myconference or volunteering was
my hustle to just get in theroom, right, and I remember
volunteering that conference.
I meet this guy and we have acouple interactions and then I
see he goes on this snowboardingtrip every year.
All right, and I'm like, hey, Iwould love to go on this
(00:23):
snowboarding trip.
So eventually he's like, yeah,come on this snowboarding trip.
And then we're on the way tothis other mastermind and he's
talking to someone I think it'sRyan Levesque at the time and he
says to Ryan he says, hey, Itell people all the time, don't
even come on this snowboardingtrip unless you're willing to
jump 10 feet off a cliff intopowder.
(00:44):
And I'm sitting in the sideseat, already committed to this
snowboarding trip, thinking hedidn't tell me that.
Well, I'm like, all right, I'mgonna go anyway.
And we have been going to thattrip, gosh, for probably seven,
eight years now and he's justbecome a dear friend.
He's one of the most intense,inspiring people I've ever met.
His name's Dan Martell.
If you see that red mug thatI'm always carrying around, it's
(01:06):
from a snowboarding trip we goon every year.
If you haven't met Dan, he's thefounder of SaaS Academy, the
creator of the Martell Method.
He's the author of a bookcalled Buy Back your Time.
It's going like crazy over thelast year and some change.
He's an angel investor.
He scaled a bunch of SaaScompanies exited multiple times.
If you've ever heard of thecompany Clarity FM, like back in
the day it was like where youcould just get on the phone with
(01:27):
mentors and get advice.
He created that.
He's just an incrediblyinspiring guy.
I'm really excited he's gonnabe talking about buying back
your time.
Join me, give an AuthorAdvantage.
Live welcome for Mr Dan Martell.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Let's go.
Chandler, bolt Guys, I want youall to know I love Chandler.
Chandler, thank you for thisopportunity.
I'm excited to be here.
It's a privilege, it's an honorand I'm 100% committed to
giving you guys 110% of me andeverything I've got.
I've got some crazy stories,some really powerful frameworks,
(02:02):
and my mission today okay, thisis what I want to hopefully
deliver to every one of you hereis I want to teach you how to
build the business you don'tgrow to hate.
That is what we're going to dotoday.
So I'm just going to pull up myslides, share my screen and
we're going to kick into this,because I believe this has the
(02:24):
opportunity to be some of themost transformational training
that you ever get.
And the reason why is becauseit has to do with your time, and
the truth is you don't have anymore time than Warren Buffett
or Bill Gates or any reallywealthy person.
You have the same amount oftime as I have and, at the end
of the day, what we're trying todo is we're trying to increase
(02:47):
our output.
How much do we get done in thesame hour of time?
And the equation is very simpleit's time multiplied by
leverage equals output, so somepeople have massive amounts of
output, they get a lot done inan hour, and other people they
seem to get nothing done.
I want to actually share withyou the secrets of buying back
(03:10):
your time so that you can investit in yourself to become bigger
and better today.
Now I'm just got a quickquestion for everybody in the
audience Am I the only personthat ended up in a high-speed
chase, in jail twice and inrehab before the age of 17?
I'm just curious if anybodyelse had that experience.
I'm sure there's a few of youin the audience.
(03:33):
Some of you guys have had somecolorful childhoods.
Here's why I share that.
And are his slides up?
My slides are sharing you guyssee them.
Yes, yes, yes, cool.
The reason I share that isbecause when people see the
frameworks I'm about to sharewith you, they, they, they learn
(03:54):
about the way I coach people.
I'm very much a models designtype of thinker, systems thinker
Chandler, and I talk about thisoften about just business
growth and strategy.
One of the main reasons isbecause in rehab, after doing 11
months of therapy, essentiallyrebuilding myself from somebody
(04:15):
who is an addicted young drugaddict to, honestly, the
beginning of just being aproductive contribution to
society.
I mean, I wasn't.
I didn't have any big visionwhen I got out.
Um, I was there for 11 months,and what happened at the end of
that program is, I was helpingthe maintenance guy, rick, clean
out one of the cabins becauseit's built on an old church camp
(04:37):
, and in one of the rooms Idiscovered this old computer,
this 486 computer, and sittingright next to it, funny funny
enough, a book on Javaprogramming.
And that book opened up andread like English.
I always thought that computerprogramming was like hexadecimal
numbers or hieroglyphics.
(04:57):
It wasn't legible to a meremortal and, for whatever reason,
the programming language readif this, then that, and it just
spoke to me.
So I sat there and followedchapter one of this book it was
a Ziff Davis computer book and Ijust started typing into the
computer what it shared, and youknow, after about 20 minutes I
(05:18):
sat back, I hit enter and theprogram ran, and on the screen
it printed off hello world.
I know you guys are probablythinking what I was thinking,
which is I may be a computergenius.
Unfortunately, it turns out I'mnot.
It didn't matter though,because what happened is my new
(05:39):
obsession became writing code,building software products and
eventually I discovered thissmall thing called the internet.
This is 1997.
And for me, building softwareproducts became essentially my
new focus and what I've learnedis entrepreneurship is the
(06:00):
ultimate personal developmentprogram.
So, even though my journey fromthen to where I'm at today, you
know, took a decade plus oftrial and error and two failed
companies, and, you know,finally having financial success
but absolutely cratering mylife at the exact same time,
over the years I've discoveredthat for many of us, our mess
(06:20):
becomes our message, that formany of us, our mess becomes our
message.
The wisdom lies in the pressureof our lives.
Right, you know, there's thisgreat quote that says no
pressure, no diamonds, and Ibelieve I'm a by-product of that
.
So today, you know, we do over100 million in revenue in
Martell Ventures, which includesa lot of different companies.
(06:41):
I am sought at, after the roundthe world, to come speak at
events, talking about theconcepts of buying back your
time, because I want to helpeverybody listening today build
what I call an empire, and anempire for me is a completely
different thing than what youmight be thinking.
An empire is a life ofunlimited creation you never
have to retire from.
I want that for you, more thanyou'll ever understand.
(07:03):
I believe that the world'sproblems are going to be solved
by entrepreneurs, andentrepreneurs wake up every day
to solve those problems.
For other people, like our,life doesn't get better until an
entrepreneur decides to solve aproblem.
Everything is simple, as lawncare and snow removal up in
(07:23):
Canada, to our biggest marketingchallenges, including creating
and writing our books.
Somebody needs to step up, andI just believe the entrepreneurs
.
If they could get themselvesout of their own way, they would
create more.
So I want you to write down theanswer to this question If you
had more time, what would you dowith that?
How would you invest that time?
(07:44):
Because that's what I want toteach you today is how to buy
back that time.
So what I've learned over theyears is this thing called the
pain line.
As we start in life, as we growas an entrepreneur, at some
point over time and we'regrowing, we will hit a thing
called the pain line, and whathappens is that becomes our
complexity ceiling.
It becomes the place where anymore growth feels hard, and what
happens is that becomes ourcomplexity ceiling.
(08:05):
It becomes the place where anymore growth feels hard, and
usually I get the call from myfriends when this happens,
because they usually come to oneof three conclusions.
Okay, I call them the three S's.
Write that down Three S's.
The first S is stall.
This is where the persondecides.
You know what?
Last year I made more money.
(08:27):
I had less headaches.
Sure, we didn't have as muchtop line revenue, but we were
more profitable and I think I'mjust good stopping here.
The challenge with that is Iremember my buddy, matt.
He's an electrician and heasked me that.
He says, dan, I watch yourstuff.
I see you talk about growth andexpansion and believing in
yourself and all that stuff.
But what if I just want to staywhere I'm at?
(08:50):
So that's an awesome question,matt.
The challenge with that is onethe world continues to expand.
Gross domestic product is athing, so the market's expanding
your customers every year,whether you like it or not, are
going to expect more from youbetter, faster, cheaper, more
impact, keeping up with thetimes.
So that's not an option.
(09:10):
And I said, the biggestchallenge of all is if you have
a team member and you enjoyworking with them and they are
incredible they probably have avision for their life that's
bigger than the one they haveright now, and if you decide to
stall, they're probably gonna gofind somebody else that's gonna
be able to deliver on thatvision.
So in that moment your bestpeople will leave you and it's
(09:31):
kind of crazy.
So stalling is not an option.
The other S is sabotage.
Sabotage is a funny one.
So think about you have theopportunity to maybe triple the
size of your revenue, yourbusiness, your opportunities in
your life.
But you know, in that growth,your calendar is going to get
chaotic, it's going to justabsolutely explode.
Most people, unfortunately, inthat moment where they could,
(09:52):
you know, say yes to anopportunity, they don't even
realize they're doing this, butthey drag their feet, they don't
show up confidently, they'rescared, so they don't push on
the gas.
They've got the handbrake fullycranked, but they're trying to
grow.
But it's just.
It creates a lot of friction.
I mean, have you ever been in asituation where you have an
email from somebody that wantsto ask you to speak at an event
(10:16):
and you know that one talk couldturn into enough business to
double, triple the size of your?
You know your exposure, yourrevenue, and instead of
immediately replying yeah, I'min, you wait, you wait till you
have time to think about it.
You wait till you feelemotionally ready.
You wait till you clean up somethings in the office so that
(10:36):
you have the capacity andeventually, maybe a few days
later, a week later, you comeback from the gym, you're
feeling all great.
You finally go to your starredfolder and you hit reply and you
hit send.
I'd love to do that, let'sschedule it.
And they replied and they go.
Unfortunately, I've gone.
You know, took too long and Iwent a different way.
That's self-sabotage.
Most people don't know wherethey are hitting their pain line
(10:59):
and self-sabotaging theiropportunity for growth.
The third S is sell, and thisone I get all the time.
I have a buddy call me onMonday and he's like hey man, I
think I'm ready to sell mycompany.
And I said, oh, that'sinteresting, I thought you were
really enjoying it.
He goes yeah, I know I've justhad a few things with some
people and a customer didn't payme and this and that, and I
(11:20):
think I'm ready, I'm probablygoing to, I think I'm ready to
sell.
And I said well, what's goingon?
Like, let's talk about the topthree things that's going on.
He kind of shared them in moredetail and I just asked him a
simple question If theseproblems weren't present, would
you sell the business?
And he's like well, of coursenot.
So well, here's what I'vediscovered.
Whether you sell it or not, whatyou've discovered is your
(11:42):
complexity.
So you discovered where yourcurrent capabilities, your
abilities, your skills, yourbeliefs, your character traits.
This is the level of businessyou can support, and anything
above that gets hard and it'scomplex and you haven't learned
how to deal with it.
So you just want to get out ofit.
So when you go start that nextthing what's going to happen is
(12:02):
you're going to hit thatcomplexity ceiling once again.
That next thing what's going tohappen is you're going to hit
that complexity ceiling onceagain, and whether you solve it
now or solve it later, that isyours to resolve.
So selling is also not anotheroption.
So instead, what I would offereverybody listening is this
concept called the buybackprinciple, and the big idea is
million-dollar companies are notbuilt off $10 tasks.
(12:24):
It's impossible.
If you have an aspiration tobuild a million-dollar,
companies are not built off $10tasks.
It's impossible.
If you have an aspiration tobuild a million-dollar company,
you can't build that company.
Working 100-hour weeks doing$10 tasks it's impossible.
When you start off, you wear alot of hats, but as soon as
you've got revenue coming in,you got to start looking at
getting up your time.
So the buyback principle stateswe don't hire to grow our
business, which is what 99% ofpeople do.
(12:45):
Instead, we hire to buy backour time.
So I call it a calendar overcapacity problem.
See, some people getoverwhelmed.
They think, well, I got to hireanother logo designer, another
salesperson, another marketer,another, whatever the thing you
sell, or do you need somebody tohelp you with it?
What I encourage people to do,first and foremost, is to look
(13:06):
at their calendar and identifywhere they feel blocked, because
that is the only way you'llever be able to build the
business that you grow, not tohate, because any other way
you're just going to end up with.
Usually it's about 12 employees, about one and a half million
in revenue, where you wake upand you spend all your time just
putting out fires, tellingpeople what to do, and it gets
(13:29):
overwhelming.
So the way we do that is thisconcept called the buyback loop.
So when we feel the pain line,when we feel like we're over
capacity, where the loved onesin our lives are starting to
complain, our friends tell usthey haven't seen us in a while,
we haven't been to the gym in afew months.
You know what I'm saying whenwe feel that pain.
(13:50):
The three steps that I want youto do is audit, transfer, fill
Everybody, write this down, draw, take notes.
This is really going to be someof the most valuable
productivity strategies or everbeen presented, but nobody talks
about it.
Took me 10 years of strugglingto finally get to a place where
I understood this, and when Iapplied it to my business world,
(14:13):
it took off.
When I applied it to myprofessional life or my personal
life, it flourished okay.
So, first off, you feel thepain.
We go to the audit.
Step one is what's called a timeand energy audit.
What I do is I pull up mycalendar and if I don't have one
, I log it and essentially fortwo weeks, what I want you to do
is log every 15 minutes exactlywhat you do with your time.
(14:36):
Every 15 minutes, you log itdown and then, after two weeks,
because you want enough time tokind of not have like, oh, I
spent all this time in one weekdoing one thing no, you want two
weeks worth of effort and yougot 15 minutes logged everything
you did If you searched theinternet, if you worked on, if
you went to Facebook.
I don't know if you guys haveever had this scenario where you
(14:57):
open up a browser to go dosomething important.
All of a sudden you end up twohours later on Facebook and
you're like what just happened?
You want to write that down.
So then what you do is you gothrough all the things you've
done for the last two weeks andyou highlight in green or in red
and I still do this process.
Even a month ago, I got to aplace where I was involved in.
You know, we're buying acompany every month.
(15:17):
Right now, I had the mediacompany requiring a lot of my
time.
We've just grown to millions offollowers on social media.
I've got, obviously, sometravel commitments.
My wife, my two boys and I justgot overwhelmed and I sat down
with my assistant and I said,hey, it's time to do a time and
energy audit.
So I followed the exact sameprocess and what I do is I
highlight in red the things thatsuck my energy, and they could
(15:40):
have been things that gave meenergy in the past, but now they
just feel a little.
They just don't feel as fun.
So things in red that are notas fun Green are things that
light me up.
This is bright green Anytime Ihave the opportunity to share
some lessons learned over theyears.
Obviously, see an old friendhelp and support his projects
and dreams I'm in, that's brightgreen.
So, friend, help and supporthis projects and dreams, I'm in,
(16:01):
that's bright green.
So I highlight everything in mycalendar yellow, red or green.
Yellow is kind of like I don'tknow, but I kind of don't really
love it.
And then what you do is you puta dollar sign next to each one
of those items, those tasks, andjust say is it $1 sign, meaning
that if I had to think about myhourly rate or what I charge
people for my time, is it like aquarter of that or is it $4?
So it's kind of like the costof a restaurant.
(16:22):
Right, you know, is it verylittle?
Is it very expensive?
It's not simple science, butit's just.
You know, you just gotta gaugeit.
And then what you do is, onceyou've got that audit, you grab
everything that is red that youdon't enjoy doing.
That sucks your energy, andthen everything that's one or $2
(16:43):
signs in cost to have somebodyelse do for you and you put that
into a bucket and that is theonly next hire you make.
So some people they spenddollars to hire people
contractors, freelancers withouta strategy.
They're just like, oh, I needmore leads, so I hire a Facebook
agency, or I need help withthis, so I hire this, and it's
the end of the day.
You need to fix your calendar.
That's what we're trying tooptimize for, because, if not,
(17:04):
we will grow a business that wegrow to aid instead of building
a life of unlimited creationthat we never have to retire
from.
So now that we know what we'regoing to give to somebody else,
then we go to transfer.
Transfer is quite uniquebecause the way I do it is
unlike anybody else.
Okay, so I believe, because I'ma software guy, I believe that
(17:25):
we want to create a processwhere, as we're documenting the
system, we're actually doing thework, and I call it the
camcorder method.
Write that down camcordermethod.
I remember my buddy Mark came tome one day.
He's a professional speaker andhe was overwhelmed.
You know he was speaking a lot200 gigs that year, best year
(17:48):
ever but he was still doingthings like sending invoices,
emails, scheduling his calendar,and it became too much and he
calls me up and he's like Dan, Iknow you have the answer, but
my problem is I think you knowtoo much about creating systems
because your software backgroundthat I have a hard time when I
hire somebody to actually liketell them how to do the work.
Does anybody else resonate withthat?
Where you know, sometimesyou're like I know I could hire
(18:11):
somebody, but I don't even knowwhat they would do.
I was like, totally I get you,mark, but let me try something
different.
I said what's one thing thatyou do a lot of and he's like
well, invoices.
I hate invoices.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I hate honestly financial.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Anything financial I'd rather never do, ever again.
I said perfect, how much timedo you spend on financial stuff?
I don't know On a weekly basis?
Five hours, you know 20, 25hours on a monthly basis.
Said, okay, so there's, there'sa meaningful amount of work.
I said, well, here's what Iwant you to do Next time you sit
down to do any aspect ofaccounts receivable reconciling
your bank accounts, invoices,anything at all financials, tax
(18:48):
stuff.
I want to encourage you torecord your screen.
He's like, well, how do I dothat?
I was like you have Zoom, yep,cool.
Start a meeting.
You're the only person Recordto the cloud and share your
screen doing the work, recordingyou on camera and your screen.
And as you're doing the work, Iwant you to talk out loud.
I want you to be descriptive.
That's the key.
(19:09):
Everybody write that down, bedescriptive.
So if you're creating an invoiceand you're going to the CRM to
get the customer and you'relooking at your emails to get
the information to create theinvoice, talk about why.
Why did you go there?
How did you know?
Is it in your calendar?
How did that email come in?
And document everything you canaround the financials.
Because here's the kicker.
If you do this for the next fewmonths, mark, you're going to
(19:31):
have these videos recorded ofyou doing different parts of the
financial system.
Then I want you to hire abookkeeper.
So just find somebody in yourlocal town that's a bookkeeper
and when you bring them on theirfirst 10 hours with you is
probably just watching thosevideos, that's it.
You might be polite and invitethem and create their emails and
all that, but then I want youto just give them the videos,
(19:54):
have them watch it and then theycreate what's called the
standard operating procedure.
They create what's called thestandard operating procedure.
They create what I call theplaybook.
See, most entrepreneurs read abook like mine and they're like
oh, I need to create the XYZ way, our business name, way.
We got to create this manual,this franchise prototype.
The problem is is that's moreof your time?
(20:15):
What I'd rather do is justrecord myself doing the work and
then have somebody else watchthe video, do the playbook, and
then what's cool for me is thenI'll have feedback on how well
they did.
So if I can watch the qualityof the checklist they made, I'll
know if they actuallyunderstood and retained the
information that I put In thevideo.
So I knew they watched thevideos and mark's like, oh my
(20:38):
gosh, this is a game changer.
I said Mark, here's the coolpart.
If you do it this way and forwhatever reason, the bookkeeper
you find in six months a yearmaybe there's a situation where
they go on maternity leave andthey're not available anymore.
When you hire the next person,they got the training videos and
your SOP, so it'll be evenfaster to get them ramped up and
for them to follow the processyou've outlined.
(21:01):
And it's net time no extra timeto create.
It's a game changer.
So that's transfer.
The last part, and arguably themost important, is fill, because
if we don't fill properly inthe loop, we don't get the
forward movement right.
You get that last little bridgearea.
It takes it away.
So essentially, a lot of people, they buy back their time and
then they go on the beach orwatch Netflix Not very
(21:23):
productive.
I'm not a four-hour workweekguy.
I'm here to help you createmore.
So fill is an interesting one.
Fill is, first and foremost,doing more of the thing that
makes you money.
If you're a writer and you makemoney writing, write more.
If you logo design, design more.
If you're a software personwrite more code, but after that
(21:44):
you need to look at you becausethe world is only going to be a
reflection of the value youcreate in the world.
Write that down, okay, themarket rewards you for the value
.
If you think of your income,your income is usually, on
average, about 10% of the valuecreated in the world.
So if you want to make amillion dollars, then you got to
go create $10 million worth ofvalue.
(22:05):
If you want to make a hundredgrand, you got to create, you
know, a million dollars worth ofvalue.
So how do we do that?
We fill our calendar becausewe've got this time back with
things that make us morevaluable.
So, the three areas I alwaystell people I call it the three
ladder, the ladder of success.
Right, the left side of theladder is the skills.
We got to ask ourselves, if I'mhere and I want to go there,
(22:26):
I'm starting off here and I'vegot this vision for my life what
are the skills I have toacquire to become more valuable?
Right, that's the left side ofthe ladder.
The right side of the ladder isthe character traits.
What are the character traits?
The ladder is the charactertraits.
What are the character traitsDetermined, grit, consistent.
(22:46):
There's all these charactertraits of a high performer,
somebody that's operating atthis level of your goals.
They act a certain way thatmaybe today you don't act like
that.
So, for example, vices I meanthis is one of them.
If you follow any of my content,I will be very clear on it.
Most of you work against yourdreams and goals.
Most of you self-sabotage.
Most of you have time assassins.
It would cost you nothing tobuy back.
(23:08):
You just need to stop.
When people watch me and theysee what I'm doing, they're
always asking me what do you do,dan, to be successful?
And sometimes I just want toreply I'm like it's what I don't
do.
What I don't do is I don't vape, I don't do drugs, I don't
drink, I don't gamble, I don'tplay games, I don't watch porn.
I don't do anything that'sgoing to take me away from being
(23:28):
in the best emotional state formy family or for my team.
So that's the character traits.
And then in the center of thisladder, if you think of, like,
the two sides of skills andcharacter traits, the center are
your beliefs.
The rungs on the ladder iswhere you put your feet to build
your beliefs, your moneybeliefs Some of you guys will
never get a penny more than youthink you deserve.
Your people beliefs you believethat nobody could do anything
(23:50):
else because it takes more timeto teach people.
You have beliefs that are goingto keep you small.
And I learned a long time agoone of the most inspiring things
, or one of the most importantthings you can do for your loved
ones, is to inspire them, andplaying small never inspired
anybody.
So that is the buyback loop.
When we feel that pain line, wecome into our calendar, audit
(24:12):
it to figure out where we haveto get stuff out of our calendar
, transfer it to the personwho's going to take it over and
then fill it with things thatare going to make you money.
Now people always ask well,what's the order of hiring, Dan?
If I want to build thisbusiness, if I want to scale,
what's the sequence of hiring?
And that's why I created thisframework called the Replacement
Ladder.
(24:32):
I learned this in many ways.
Credit to a guy named RichardBranson Most of you guys have
probably heard the name Founderof Virgin Group.
Virgin has 400 companies, theVirgin Group has two co-CEOs and
a multi-billion dollarorganization, and probably 8-9
years ago I got invited to spenda week with Richard at his home
(24:56):
in Verbier, switzerland, andI'll tell you, as a young
entrepreneur growing up on theEast Coast of Canada in a small
town, there was no reality in myfuture that I ever believed
that somehow I would ever notonly meet him, have the
opportunity to spend a week withhim in his own home, and
(25:16):
through just pure fate and aseries of luck and chance, I got
the invite and I remembershowing up other people there,
just so you know, I had massiveimposter syndrome.
I was like, okay, they're goingto find out who I am and kick
me out of here.
We've got Tim Ferriss is there.
You've got Brian Johnson, who alot of people know is the
blueprint guy.
You've got the co-founder ofSquare.
(25:39):
I mean, it was stacked Justthese absolutely legends of the
entrepreneurial business authorspace.
And, true to the essence of whoI thought he was, richard was
super kind, inviting, and Iremember just hanging out with
him and just watching how lighthe was with his emotions and
(26:02):
even though he had all theseincredible companies and there's
probably millions of peoplethat wanted his time, he was
there with us and what I learnedwas this very important thing
is that he has an assistant.
Her name is Helen.
She's still with him today.
She's been there for 14 yearsand what she does is she
protects Richard's time in avery beautiful way.
(26:24):
Essentially, all requests forRichard's time, all of his PR
stunts and team members and CEOsthat need his time, all go
through Helen, and then whatthey do is every morning for
breakfast they sit down for 60minutes, sometimes 90 minutes,
and she only brings to hisattention the things that she
doesn't know how to handle andhe might give her some feedback,
(26:47):
they might review the calendar,but that's to the extent that I
saw him work.
The rest of the day he's withus, he's shopping, he's training
for this next charity race he'sdoing, and then Helen's off to
the races with her informationto move all those dreams, goals,
projects forward while we're onthe ski hill and I thought this
(27:07):
guy's got it figured out.
I mean, a lot of people saythat Richard Branson is the
billionaire that every otherbillionaire wants to be like,
and I saw him do it.
It was incredible.
So I got back and I integratedthese philosophies into my life
and it's allowed me to build aworld where I get to experience
the best parts, with none of thedownside for me.
(27:29):
It's just my own personalpreferences.
I want to spend either my timedoing things that are uniquely
for me or with my loved ones.
So here's how the replacementladder works.
Okay, and everybody again pullyour journals.
I want you guys to walk awaywith some very tactical,
actionable steps.
First step of the ladder is youmight be feeling stuck.
So the key hire to make is theadmin, an administrative
(27:51):
assistant.
It can be part-time, virtual,you can do task-based, but the
key is that over time, theyeventually take over 100% of
your inbox and 100% of yourcalendar, because your inbox is
nothing more than a public to-dolist for other people's
requests on your time.
Think about that.
Your inbox is just this openrequest to-do list of you from
(28:15):
many times strangers off theinternet on your time and you
have no person to protect it,and that's where your assistant
comes in.
It's also their place to work Alot of people that I remember.
My brother hired an assistantonce and I was all excited for
him because he hadn't had onefor years and I was like you
know, I saw him at the barbecueand I was like hey man, how's it
(28:35):
going with your new assistant.
He's like, hmm, it's going okay, and I was like, ah, I think I
know what happened.
He goes what do you mean?
I said you're delegating thingsto them.
You're not having them manage100% of the emails coming to
your world.
He goes well, how else wouldyou do it?
I was like the way I told youto do it, the way I've always
done it, which is this is howRichard does it with Helen All
(29:02):
messages come in first to theinbox and then are triaged by my
assistant, then only reviewedwith me with the key elements
that I don't know how to dealwith.
That way, somebody else ismoving your life forward.
While you're for me on thispresentation, like while I'm
here, there could beopportunities and requests and
coordination for even thingsthat are happening tonight, and
while I'm here, my team ishandling it for me, so I can be
(29:23):
100% present with you.
The second thing is yourcalendar.
You know I want somebody elseto be working with me as a
partner to try to figure out howcan I get the most out of my
day, how can we batch thingstogether, how can I reschedule
things, how can I renegotiatedifferent block time so that I
can get the most energeticallyand productively Is that a word?
I don't know being moreproductive in my hour?
(29:46):
So that's level one is admin.
The second hire is somebody tohelp with customer success
delivery Essentially somebodythat can help you with the
onboarding and support.
I remember when I was startingoff I thought I had to do
everything because I had aspecial skill I was a programmer
.
Then I realized there's a lotof.
When I was starting off Ithought I had to do everything
because I had a special skill Iwas a programmer.
Then I realized there's a lotof stuff I was doing that had
nothing to do with programming,that I could have somebody else
(30:08):
help me with, and I just calledthem an account manager.
So every time I get newprojects, I would just have the
account manager talk to thecustomer, pull out all the
requirements, negotiate withthem, get all the assets,
everything I would need to be agreat programmer and they would
manage it.
So the onboarding and thesupport is the key area that you
need to look at, but you mightstill be feeling stalled because
you're not really building thatmomentum yet.
(30:29):
The third level is marketing,and this is where some people
still feel friction when itcomes to their growth, because
they've got a great service.
They're like the best keptsecret and what happens is when
they market, they get customers,and then they get busy and they
don't have time to market, andthen they don't have customers
and they got to market more toget customers.
And it goes up and down, up anddown, up and down.
I had a friend named Rachel.
(30:50):
She had a design agency, afreelance agency, and that was
her reality.
And she asked me one day she'slike, what's wrong with me?
I've been going sideways nowfor three years and her revenue
literally went up and downalmost every three to four
months.
And I said, rachel, it's likelybecause you don't have a
marketing system.
A marketing system is arepeatable process for
(31:12):
generating awareness and leadsfor your business and the key is
it doesn't matter if it's apart-time person, full-time
person, an agency.
You want to create one anddocument it and then have
somebody run it and ideally,when they wake up, the ownership
is on traffic and campaigns.
Do the web pages that you setup to get the leads still get
(31:33):
traffic?
I can't tell you the amount oftimes I've changed some link and
broke something, or changed thebackground color of a button to
the same color as the page andthe customer can't check.
I mean, it's you name it, I'vedone it.
So are somebody waking up everyday to monitor traffic and
campaigns?
That's level three.
If you do that, then you startbuilding some level of
consistency.
The fourth level, freedom.
(31:54):
This rung on the ladder is themost powerful and it's sales.
The reason why is because atthis stage, if you can get
somebody else that takes allopportunities I literally got an
opportunity for one of mycompanies came in through a
friend just now, text message mybuddy Raph.
He's like hey, man, I need somehelp.
I said, no problem, I'llconnect you with Jay.
(32:15):
Jay is one of my sales guys.
Boom Screenshot the image sentthe text message off to the
races.
I'm over here Now.
I have somebody who's gonnatake that call in real time.
So it's better for my friend.
I have somebody that caresabout getting that thing brought
forward.
So they're gonna work it.
They're gonna get them all theresources they need to make
decisions and they're gonna dofollow-up.
(32:36):
The truth is, I don't knowabout you, but I'm a great
salesperson on the call.
I do not like following process, I do not like doing the
follow-ups.
I don't like anything thatisn't the conversation.
The cool part is my buddy, jay,who's on my team.
He loves that.
He will follow that because heincentivized to do this.
So here's why it's freedomright now.
With four hires, you foundyourself in a place where you
(32:59):
can go on vacation and somebodyelse is responsible for
generating awareness, getting alead, selling that person in
your business and starting themwithin your product or service,
meaning that they can begin.
They might not be able tofinish the whole thing, but four
hires and you finally gotyourself to a place where you've
got what the business wasalways supposed to deliver,
(33:20):
which is freedom.
The highest level level five isexecutive leadership, team or
just leadership, and this iswhere you get into flow and this
is where I've spent the lastdecade of my life, where I don't
even CEO the companies I ownanymore.
I'd rather hire somebody to runthem.
The companies I own anymore,I'd rather hire somebody to run
(33:44):
them.
So I have CEOs that run all mycompanies and I want to be
partnered with them.
I want to be in conversationwhere we're talking strategy,
we're talking outcomes, but thekey is is they're coming to me
with a strategy, they're owningthe outcomes.
So the conversations we have isjust fun, flow, problem
solution, ideation, creativity.
(34:05):
And my gut tells me that thisis your happy place, that you
like to create, you like toideate, you like to help people,
but you don't like creating ato-do list.
You don't want to add a bunchof stuff to your, your projects.
You don't want to get on a calland hang up and just add
another hour of work you have todo on Saturday or Sunday
morning.
And if you do the replacementladder in this sequence, it
(34:27):
starts at the bottom, where youspend the least amount of money
to buy back your time and workyour way up, where most people
do the opposite, trust me.
They're like I need to hire anintegrator, I need to hire an
operations person.
It's like you don't even havean assistant.
An integrator, I need to hirean operations person.
It's like you don't even havean assistant.
So how about we start there?
(34:48):
If you do it this way, you'llget your time back and it'll be
financially very productive.
If you don't, it'll cost you alot of headaches and money.
And here's what I believe Ifyou don't have an assistant, you
actually do have one.
It's you and two things yousuck and you're overpaid.
I know that might not feel funto hear, but there's a good
chance.
You're not very good at the joband you're overpaid, so that is
(35:12):
the replacement ladder.
If you haven't check out mybook, buy Back your Time.
And actually, for Chandler, foreverybody that wants to get
access to my internal SOP forworking with my assistant, my EA
internal Google Doc direct link, just find me on Instagram.
2lzmartel Dan Martel onInstagram, give me a follow and
then just send me a directmessage and ask for the EA
(35:34):
playbook and I'll send that linkright over to you.
No opt-in as a gift.
It's like 42 pages sanitized.
I've shared it with Chandlerand many of my other friends.
But just as a gift, it's like42 pages sanitized.
I've shared it with Chandlerand many of my other friends,
but just mentioned Chandler inthe message EA Chandler.
So I know it came from here, soI'm not giving it to everybody,
but then you'll have myinternal playbook to start the
process or, if you have anexecutive assistant, to refine
the process, to work your way upthat ladder with that.
(35:57):
Appreciate you guys having meand I hope you guys enjoy the
rest of the event.
Appreciate you guys having meand I hope you guys enjoy the
rest of the event.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Give it up for dan.
How awesome was that.
Give it up.
Give it up.
Come on now.
This.
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