How to work less and make more | Leila Answers Live

Summary

• Entering a new industry often requires understanding your skills and transferring those to the new context effectively.
• It's crucial to familiarize yourself with the new industry through methods such as consulting with industry experts, attending relevant conferences, and gaining firsthand experiences with clients already in the industry.
• When managing multiple teams remotely, making sure each team has a strong leader is key. Remote teams often need more robust leadership due to the lack of physical proximity.
• To create cohesiveness among different teams led by different managers, establish goals that require collaboration and incentivize teamwork, not just individual team success.
• Core values should be more than just words; they should guide daily decisions and actions within the company. If an organization doesn't practice their stated values, they become meaningless.
• Leadership roles are not always suitable for high-performing individual contributors. Some employees thrive in roles like sales lead or coach rather than traditional management.
• For new leaders, understanding you've made a mistake is often evident through your team's performance. Creating a feedback loop can help leaders catch and address issues early.
• It's often best to ask for referrals after delivering significant value—when clients feel a tangible benefit from your services.
• On a personal note, balancing friendliness with authority in a leadership role requires being aware of when personal feelings might be influencing professional decisions. Maintaining professionalism and ensuring instructions and expectations are clear should mitigate potential issues.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by understanding what skills you currently have and how they can be used in the new industry. Talk to experts in that industry, attend relevant conferences, and gain firsthand experience with clients who are already doing well.

It's also important to make sure every team you manage has a strong leader. This is especially necessary when teams work remotely. Giving each team clear goals that need them to work together can help. Make sure these goals are big and ask teamwork to reach them, not just individual teams' successes.

Remember, your company's core values should be real things that guide every choice each day. If you say one thing and do another, no one will believe in those values.

Not everyone is born to lead. Sometimes a great salesperson or coach is more valuable than making them a traditional manager. For new leaders, keep an eye on your team's work. If they're struggling, it might mean you've made a mistake. Setting up ways to get honest feedback can help you find problems early.

When you have done a good job and your clients are happy, that's the best time to ask for referrals. That way, they feel excited about your work and want to share it with others.

Balancing being nice and being the boss can be tough. You have to be careful to not let personal feelings get in the way of making tough choices or giving clear orders.

Always be clear with your team about what's expected. And don't forget to stay professional, even if you're friends with your team members. This will help prevent confusion and keep everyone on track.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Your role prior to that was as a general manager for a franchise and um I was uh I was leading three different locations there but they were all sort of in the same region and these are split up across two or three different states"

– Leila Hormozi

"I think the best way to create I guess you could say like healthy competition I don't even know if I've used the term but I would say like a cohesive Team how to make a cohesive team is to give them projects that require them to work with another person to achieve"

– Leila Hormozi

"I think that getting them to act cohesively as a team of its own is probably a more challenging ask as in like how do you get those five people to act as one team versus people that are leaders of their own individual teams"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you can incentivize them on things that requires acquiring the skill of being a better teammate then you will buy consequence raise the standard for all of them and I think that they will all perform at a higher level in general"

– Leila Hormozi

"I look at the values as they drive behaviors right people who value let's say sincere Candor or an impeachable character exhibit these behaviors"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

time I feel like having a little bit more anonymity actually creates a better conversation if you have a question regarding anything and all things leadership that's kind of what I want to focus on today specifically then hopefully I can help with that Jennifer can you hear me I can hear you can you hear me okay absolutely how's it going awesome I'm getting ready to start a new Roy and I've been listening this time and watching your videos and all those kinds of things and um definitely feel like you are uh you have helped my career thus far and so hopefully you can help me a little bit more oh well I appreciate that uh how can I help yeah so like I said I'm getting ready to start a new role here soon uh with a uh Nationwide non-profit organization um as a campaign development director and this will be I uh this will be my first time leading multiple teams of this size I've had other roles where I've LED multiple teams in multiple locations this particular role I'll be leading about five teams of between eight to ten people each in five different markets so each team is working on the Sam same campaign but in five different markets so just was curious what some of your maybe best practices are for leading uh you know multiple teams in multiple markets how to motivate them how to you know um how to kind of help each team individually where their their pain points maybe and things like that well one congratulations that's freaking awesome uh it sounds super exciting yeah that's crazy exciting so what were you managing before this in terms of like was it one team more so that you're managing and now you've gone to like five yeah yeah well uh my my most recent role was a very very small team so I was I was managing basically um besides myself two other people my role prior to that was as a general manager for a franchise and um I was uh I was leading three different locations there but they were all sort of in the same region and these are split up across two or three different states oh heard okay so yeah remote you know that kind of thing too so yeah before I was I was leading in person so yeah super interesting so I think well we actually have quite a few um like inner portfolio companies that are set up in that way like you know franchises are licensed or even actually corporate owned uh chains of different businesses and what I've seen work best is that when you have multiple teams that you are leading that are in different locations is one it's more important than ever that the leader of that team is stronger than you would be of normal if they were in the same area and the reason for that is often um I don't know are these brick and mortar locations are they fully remote because you're managing remotely but are they remote are they brick and mortar no they're fully remote this is this will be for uh uh Nationwide um non-profit organizations okay that's much easier yeah basically each team um will be um we'll be working on the same campaign just in different markets okay that's much easier then um okay well dude I mean in that case it's really just like I don't think that that's terribly different except for does each of the locations do they have a leader in that pod so you have like five direct reports essentially yes so there are there's a manager for each team and then however many people below them um you know doing the feet on the ground kind of work and then I will be managing essentially yeah my direct reports will be those five managers and so I will have the most contact with them obviously but um I'm a servant leader I definitely like to be involved as much as I can so I'll be traveling to each of the markets at least once a month um so that will be some in-person things as well then I want to get to know all of the team members but yeah um I will be mainly primarily focused on those five managers yeah that's great I mean I don't think that if if they're not dealing with real estate and you're not dealing with like the laws per state which obviously there's like some differences in like very little things like employment but besides that I think it's really just like them being across locations won't be too much of a difference for you I think that getting them to act cohesively as a team of its own is probably a more challenging ask as in like how do you get those five people to act as one team versus people that are leaders of their own individual teams gotcha okay so it's whatever I've seen most companies where there's points of contention is where you don't have individual contributors on a team I feel like a team of individual contributors tends to mesh pretty well versus a team of leaders where people have uh there's more opinions they have more experience uh typically used to more autonomy and when they have like some sort of I would say like a Competitive Edge right so there's like a in a sense they might feel like they're competing against the other locations I think that's probably where you're going to find the biggest hurdle for yourself I think that you're you know given everything you're saying it sounds like and even just looking at like EOS integrator level 10 like you're probably running a Cadence with them you probably know how to have the the conversations keep the one-on-ones do the quarterly reviews it's really just going to be how do you get them to be better teammates with each other okay so yeah you mentioned like competition yeah so what I've done in the past with various you know kind of made it that healthy competition but like how do you balance that with what you're saying you know making sure that they are a cohesive team first yeah I I think that rather than speaking I think the best way to create I guess you could say like healthy competition I don't even know if I've used the term but I would say like a cohesive Team how to make a cohesive team is to give them projects that require them to work with another person to achieve so it's like we have to achieve X goal and I think it's like chunking up your goals which is like I wouldn't I honestly would even not make the goals specific to the locations or regions and you can measure that on your own right but when you're speaking to those five people I would make the goals chunked up a level in terms of how do you make goals that where they have to work together and help each other even teach each other things that others might not know in order for them all to achieve this goal together which is like say it's like total revenues or total profits or average revenues or average profits of X and they in order for them to achieve that goal they have to recruit the other four people to help you see what I'm saying yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense and that's something that I haven't really focused on in the past with multiple teams so I'm excited to try that yeah I think that you'll like the results because I in I think most organizations the levels where you have leaders on a team who have their own teams beneath them tend to have the most contention and I think a lot of it is because if you look at what are they incentivized to do they're often only incentivized on their area of expertise and not on anything that's honestly it's like why would you expect them to be better teammates when you don't incentivize them on anything that would require them to learn the skill of being a better teammate and if you can incentivize them on things that requires acquiring the skill of being a better teammate then you will buy consequence raise the standard for all of them and I think that they will all perform at a higher level in general great thank you so much Leila I really appreciate it absolutely Jennifer I hope you have a great day hey Joey how's it going I'm doing wonderful and yourself good good I'll say thank you for for having me up and my question actually uh ties into the the person in front I I become really interested in core values of companies and the power that they have to bring people together and and really act as a tool for solving problems and I'm wondering given all the companies that you work with where do you start looking at your core values how do you use them and that and I'm just wondering those sorts of questions so where do I use the core values in terms of like on a daily basis uh yes that would actually be a great place when I think of core values I think of how you get things done so I think it's very interesting actually so I was just reading a study the other day about like uh it had nothing to do with business and everything to do with psychology which is like people who set goals um versus people who set behaviors um and I think many people have heard that and so I look at the values as they drive behaviors right people who value let's say sincere Candor or an impeachable character exhibit these behaviors and so when I think of like how do you distill those down it's like okay well what do those behaviors look like on a macro level in terms of like what decisions do we make as a business and then what do those behaviors look like in terms of what what we do on a quarterly basis all the way down to what am I doing on a daily basis how do I have this conversation so for example you know I can even give you an example today you know I saw something that somebody did in the company that I didn't like um I have a value of sincere Candor but I also value praise over punishment which is like I don't want to punish people so I'm like okay I have to think more creatively about how I'm going to guide somebody in correcting their behavior than I would if I were somebody who only valued sincere Candor and didn't give a [ __ ] about people's feelings um and so I look at them more as like decision making filters that we run our daily activities through to get us to be cohesive with the values that we represent does that make sense yes absolutely it's very much aligned with uh what I thought I I burnt out in January of 2022 and uh through that process I heard the story from Navy Seals who say they put everything in sets of three because you can remember it easier and I took five core values I had and just reduced it down to three because I was so I just was exhausted and burned and what that did for me was allowed me to be able to because my core values are courage curiosity and belonging and that process allowed me to really start to ask how can I bring more courage to my day more curiosity more more belonging yeah for baby steps totally one of the things that I see really interesting is that you know there's you know a massive amount of leadership material out in the world you know saying do this do that you know plan this and plan this but there's not a lot of conversation to say okay let's go back to say okay what are our core values how can we bring them more to this situation because I look at our core values as like when you're operating at your best like when you're totally kicking butt like that's when you're being all of your core values you know to the highest degree you can so I'm wondering like why wouldn't you want to have that as many places as possible in your company you mean like why do most work police says not do that yeah and oh yeah I've been I I've been trying to figure out how to put this in because core values have a sense of like you know they're kind of a hard thing to talk about because everyone's like really skeptical and don't believe in them because of all the bad experiences they've had hmm yeah interesting you know I have never addressed that with people that maybe they've had bad experiences I just I just speak to what I know which is like this is how I've built the companies it's been based on these values this is what ours are and then I allow them to just see it and you know I think most people come in skeptical but they change their minds very quickly and so I think you just have to let the evidence speak for itself you know anyone can say they've got core values but people will experience it when they're in your company and so I think that you let you almost let the team speak for you in terms of you know the core values don't really matter if it's just the leader preaching them because then you don't know how to disseminate them down then it's not really the values of the organizations the values of the leader and so I think it's like allowing people to be immersed with the team and just experience it um I think that's that's one piece I do think that most people don't use core values because if you look at like where work originated from work basically it was like and I'm sorry Joey but like there's some kind of static on your end so it's really hard to hear um I don't think that values were needed in the workplace when people like if you really think about like the work we do now versus when we were you know like doing manufacturing and like loading a supply chain um now we do like a lot more knowledge work creative work intellectual work and so I think that the reason people say that you don't need those things is they're probably stuck in an older way of doing things that served what work was at that point in time and probably doesn't serve what work is at this point in time and so you know that's the only thing that I can think of also the second to that is that a lot of organizations have enough demand for workers that they don't need to treat them in a way that is ethical and I know that sounds ridiculous to say but it's true look at some of the biggest organizations out there the reason that they don't need to treat people well and act with like moral Authority is because they have a line of thousands of people out the door who are going to take that person's spot the moment they leave and so because of that what pressure does that organization feel besides social pressure like their social pressure of course but like a lot of the organizations they're just looking at dollars and cents and I think it's unfortunate and I hope it changes but I do think that's the reality of why a lot of places don't don't align on a set of values they would like to you know exemplify and don't actually abide by them yeah yeah I would agree and the interesting part is it's it's actually probably costing the money not to because if they're not operating at their best it's you know wasting time and money and I want to share this one thing and I'll go something that's been really interesting is I don't know if you've ever done this but have you ever asked people like what core values mean to them because I find that oftentimes the core values mean something very different to different people it just makes for really interesting kind of connection building conversation so I just just share that because that's been something really it's been fun and interesting for me yeah love it I think it's a great idea thank you very much you have a wonderful day you too bye Joey Romy I'm gonna pull you up hey Leila how are you doing today hey good how are you doing so much for having us oh absolutely so what's up um so I'm a co-founder of damn person that's in dance events and outdoor locations how awesome you should get tourists out and put to place that normally don't have dance I've been the event manager of this for years and we recently had a new team member come in and take over the management of the events but I'm noticing that um that my old contacts when he's working with them they always ask for me to be the final decision maker and so it kind of slows down his process and I was wondering how do you set up new team members so that they're the authority figure in their domain and where you're kind of staying away from it but you still make sure that they're staying on track well I would ask first is he as good as you yeah okay very good that's great um I think a lot of the times in that situation because the first would be like okay was this person performing at the same level if not like let's figure out what it is because what it is is that when someone else is asking for you it's like there's something that you were giving them that they no longer are getting and often then they want to ask the second is that I think in those situations it's not an event that occurs it's a process so when somebody is if you're transferring authority to somebody else you truly have to transfer it you don't just like decide today is the day that now this new person has Authority you have to sell that other person on the other side on why that person has Authority and so I look at it more as like for example with our portfolio companies when when we first start acquisition.com I was directly talking to all of the CEOs every day and then I brought somebody in as an executive to lead the portfolio on a day-to-day basis and I had to not not even but like it even started before that person came in I was like guys I gotta tell you I'm so excited I've got this guy here's who he is here's his experience here's why I'm so excited he's going to come in he's going to do all this [ __ ] that and I made it sound like I just sucked I was like I'm not doing any of this he's going to do all this and here's what he's gonna do for you and so before he even came on I was positioning him as taking Authority and then when he came on first it was it was I was there and I was leading as normal and he was watching then I would lead with him so we would both kind of lead conversations and calls and then eventually he was leading and all I was doing is I was edifying him in front of everybody so you know whether if it's on a zoom call it's like in the chat I'm like this is so spot on so good love it great idea and so that they could see that I completely am advocating for this person and believe that they have authority and then eventually I phased myself out of those calls and so I found that by doing that um there's been like a very small Gap in terms of people feeling like they need to come to me for Authority instead I think that most the times when Authority isn't transferred it's because it's like it's a very like cut and dry event and there's logical and then there's psychological and that's logical but it's not psychological it's not how people uh that's not how their brains are going to adapt to the situation so I think that we have to play to that which is like they need a process and a slow change of event rather than like one day it changes over does that make sense that makes absolute sense uh thank you so much his I all I did was hey he's in he's a New Year talk to him and everything you're saying is like I didn't do anything I didn't set him up to 16 in that instance so thank you so much oh absolutely well I am glad that that was solved then thank you all right thanks Romy hello hey can you hear me yeah oh my gosh this is amazing thing thank you Layla oh yeah absolutely I've been watching your YouTube channel I run a bookkeeping business with my husband and we just won the uh an amazing award um in our industry and so we're growing like crazy and I'm stuck I'm just thinking how do I build like a dream team to take this forward because I'm kind of with the technical requirements I need for the roles that I need I'm kind of choosing between do I hire someone who has more of like a positive attitude or like someone I think I can get along with better and has less skills or do I go with someone who has more skills but maybe I don't get along with them as much well I guess my question would be there's a few things that I'll give you this to think with okay one how fast is the organization growing and is the opportunity the rate at which the opportunity is exposing itself to you outpacing how quickly you could train somebody who didn't have the experience because I think that in many cases if you have the experience to train people up then finding people who have the values is a big Advantage because um it also shows higher rates of retention amongst employees if the more that we train them and they often will be able to do it more in line with how you want it done so in a lot of situations where you have the skill you have the ability to train them and you have the time to train them then that makes sense the next question is does the business have the time for you to train them can you wait how long will it take to get this person trained up can you wait six months to have a fully operating bookkeeper can you wait eight months like however long it takes and so those are the things that I'm thinking through on the other side I would say that if I don't have time and I don't have skill to train somebody I would bring somebody in who does have already have the skill and then I would I mean I wouldn't even say that I would compromise on like culture or liking them I would say that it's just harder to find them and therefore it requires a higher level of recruiting you might have to like engage with a firm or learn a little bit more and like hone in on recruiting skills to find that person does that make sense yes it does and I've also it's just with me I've also watched your video about like hiring an assistant so that's what I'm trying to do now as well to like free up my time and thank you so much this has been like so valuable um what you've told me oh great well I'm glad and good luck with everything and congratulations okay have a good one hey how's it going there we go it's great to be here thanks for taking questions today absolutely so my question is about vision and I'll give you a quick uh little overview to give you some context yeah so I'm the CEO of organic reading skincare and we help people with sensitive skin to reduce redness and calm their skin with calming skin care products cool and I've read both of Alex's books and they've helped a lot oh great um and I'm really passionate about changing the way we think about skin care that it's not just about beauty and the way we look I want to take it to beyond that into more of a self-care ritual or like a mindfulness ritual to help people de-stress because people will really need that these days um so I and I also like to encourage a holistic approach to skin care because there's such a connection between the skin and the signs that it shows and people's overall health so um let's see I I want to bring skin care into more of like a self-care and Health Care type of um just changing the way people think about skin care routines so um that I can help people be you know go on a healthcare journey be more compassionate with themselves and build people's confidence that's what I'm really passionate about so now my question for you is as a leader how do you rally and motivate your team around your vision so that we can all attract the right customers how big is your company right now it's small we have a three-person team I think that the vision can scale over time but I think that when you're smaller and you're first starting out if you have this vision of like here's I'm going to completely change the industry I think that it will attract some people it will also deter some people because I think that what I have noticed and this is just like my personal opinion so you know like take it take it with a grain of salt if it's not your Vibe that's fine um I don't think that if I had started gym launch and said like I'm going to build a company that's going to change the entire industry if I had said it on day one and where it's like me Alex and an assistant I feel like people would have been this lady's [ __ ] cracked out you know what I mean like they would have been like they'd be like okay um and you're what 23. and so instead I feel like what I did over time was I inched my way towards that greater Vision as I realized that there was more evidence to support that it was possible because I got more people on board we had more customers we had more revenue and so I think that even the vision that you cast in the beginning I think that you can think of like what is something possible like what's a great vision for three years from now Candace and it doesn't even need to be their 10-year Vision but what is your three-year Vision that is something that's close enough that people can see it and they can believe that it could happen because more than anything I think that when I hear and I've talked to a lot of people who don't take jobs and when they don't take jobs a huge reason as well is like I just don't think they can achieve that vision and I'm like [ __ ] they completely over pitched it because that's more of like a 10-year Vision versus a three year or a five-year vision and if there's not evidence to support it it's hard to recruit talent to help unless you have a track record you've you know started and sold a company before you've gotten some like crazy in with Pastor who's put in 300 million dollars like there has to be evidence to support that great vision and so if there's not I think that paring it down in a way that is more comprehensive for people in the short term is not a bad idea and I think that some people might be like this is stupid and what she's saying is wrong and that's fine but uh evidence would support otherwise for me which is that the more that you can pare it down and make it sound reasonable and like you can actually achieve it I actually do think that that is better in the beginning and as you gain more evidence you can fit into and like fill out the shoes for that greater Vision does that make sense absolutely so let me ask you this I I wanted to bring skin care to a deeper level because I used to work for the maker of Botox I come from Pharma and I wanted it to be more than just about you know like OC housewives and yeah Skin Deep um so because I used to live in Huntington Beach and it was all about that so um what do you think about taking it deeper do you think that's like I understand that beauty is a huge driver for a multi-billion dollar Industries do you think it's uh trying to to change human nature I think that you will get a subset of the market I think that you will limit yourself and the first thing I thought when you said that is why can't you do both like I specifically right I want to look good like there's nothing wrong with that I also want to have healthy skin and like I Vibe with your vision I also Vibe with like I want to look presentable right and so I think that the reality is that I do think until women are not valued and this is just like listen I'm not saying that the world is fair and this is like right but like women a lot of values placed on how they look so I think that in terms of what you're selling women care about what they look they will stop caring about what they look like when people stop caring about how women look which means men would have to not care about how attractive a woman is to marry them which is not going to happen so right so I think that there's this great place in the middle which is like can you do both because like do you care what you look like absolutely right so like I don't think that you can you need to exclude women who want to buy skin care because of what they look like but I think that you can speak to a greater mission of can we bridge the gap between the two which is like can we take care of our skin and look good I can tell you that I have a hair girl and she the way that she does my hair is one in which like it's health-based first but it turns out looking [ __ ] awesome and so I'm like this is great because my hair is growing but it also looks great it's also healthy and strong so it's like I feel like that's a great way so because then you're not excluding because what happens is when you focus on just like the health of your skin what you don't realize you're actually excluding a lot of the market who wants both because they think oh just like all you care about is a healthier skin no way that's going to make me look better and by saying that you focus on the health of the skin their mind is going to go to oh they it's not going to make my skin look better but it will be good for it and so a lot of women are going to just go use something else in my opinion okay I think that you could find a really great vision in the Middle where you talk about Bridging the Gap between both like you don't have to choose one or the other I I like that a lot that's really valuable okay okay just shooting well thanks for your time today I really appreciate it hi there Layla can you hear me yeah how's it going it's going good how are you doing fantastic awesome so yeah my name is Adriana I'm one of the co-founders at ongoing and we power Shopify stores with subscriptions and ongoing payments and right now my husband and I are the ones running this company so we're definitely grinding and we have built a previous software company so we're going through an acquisition right now to be all in so that we can oh wow Focus all in on ongoing so we are going through um the process right now of hiring our first team and of course you know I've been listening to you and I think all of your strategies are just incredibly insightful and Powerful so my question uh for you is you know if you could go back in time what advice would you have given yourself about building your first team if I had to go back in time what advice would I give myself about building my first team I think that when you're building your first team there's a lot of advice about hire people with experience or hire people that are culture fits and I think a lot of people tend to sway one other way or the other and I think that the reality is is that it really depends on the role and I think that when you're first starting a team you're just looking for someone to tell you like what do I need to do and the reality is I think it requires a little more thought than that it's being strategic about what roles do I have no effing clue what they require or how to do them that I need to hire for experience and on the other side what roles do I have all the training in the world on I'm actually like it's my complete strength and I feel very comfortable training people on and then can I find people that are culture fits that I can train up in those roles and so I think that's the first piece because it's very painful if you go one way or the other because I think it's like a separate size of the pendulum it's like on one side you're training everybody all the time and you have no time to do your job as the co-founder on the other side you have all of these people that are bringing in all this outside experience um but it's almost like at a point like it becomes too many competing uh opinions and points of views and so it's like you need a good mix of both uh I think in order to build a strong team and so I think that that's probably what I would have done differently I think I swayed between like in the beginning I trained everybody myself and I had no time to actually like lead the company and then I went towards like hiring everybody from the outside and then it was like a lot of competing opinions and less cohesion of the culture and I think that the reality is you want to mix it both and it is truly dependent on you and your co-founder skill sets you know like what do you bring into the organization where are you strong and where you're not strong hire the experience where you are strong bring people in that you can train to be your successors and I think that if you can do that I think that is a big piece I think the second piece I would say is that I think it's a lot more simple than people make it out to be um I think that people over complicate having a team with like I don't know there's always like hacks on LinkedIn I like makes me want to kill myself it's like this is how you can do this and you get three percent this and all this and I'm like if you treat people well and you reward them you constantly talk to them you give them attention you pour into them you invest in them like how would you treat a friend how would you treat and actually I shouldn't say that because people treat their friend shitty uh but like how would you treat somebody who you who inspired you who you liked who you wanted to have a relationship with it's like treat your team that way and so I think if you have you know any uh natural inclination towards like already wanting to treat people well I think that you will do just fine building a team I think that where people need all the hacks and tactics and things is when their natural inclination is to avoid people and not talk to people and work in the dark right and so I think if you naturally have the inclination towards people you like people you like talking to people you like making sure that you can help people then I think that this will actually not be too hard yeah that is actually really valuable advice and yeah we definitely do want to be included in the vision so I that really does speak to me um yeah thank you so much this is incredibly valuable and I really feel honored to be able to speak to you so thank you so much for taking the time take questions today of course well uh I hope everything goes well closing the deal and good luck on your new endeavor thank you so much all right bye Adriana hey how's it going oh it's going well going well you I've been listening so sounds like it awesome uh yeah no I think I think it's been going well besides me just uh not clicking the right buttons so I think we're doing okay yes uh well um my I guess context for me we're in a second year of a startup company we do Staffing and recruiting and Contracting and we've we've grown tremendously we're gonna do between three and probably 4.5 this year to see how Q4 goes um and I don't have any managers in place I've got seven recruiters four sales reps oh wow I'm a finance person and I'm at the cusp of you know running around like a chicken with my head cut off and yeah you know do I promote from within um how do I know if I do and or hire a sales manager from the outside what would your thought process um be for you know promoting or hiring from the outside do you have anybody internally who if their resume came across your desk you would say this person could definitely be our sales manager not based off the resume no I basically farmed and groomed everyone from like fresh out of school do you are you strong in sales I'm guessing yes yeah do you have time to train somebody up so if you have somebody do you have anyone on the team who has the potential if you trained them to be sales manager and they would be in line with their career goals uh I believe I do have the time I've never trained another sales manager before so the training portion would be new I've been a sales manager before my previous company so um does that give a little bit more context yeah I think that there's a right or wrong I think that the question is if you have somebody internally who I would say wants the role has the skills enough of the base level skills that training them up wouldn't be painful then you could do that it will take a lot of your time and that person likely won't have more skill than you have in the next 12 to 24 months on the other hand if you were to hire somebody from the outside what they would probably bring to the table is you could hire somebody who has more skill than you in that area which can be great depending on like right now like I actually I semi lean towards that one honestly just because of how the situation describing it just sounds like in general you need a little bit of relief and it wouldn't hurt to have somebody who has maybe even more experience than you in that area come in because I think it would just immensely relieve you now I don't think there's a right or wrong I do think that a lot of sales people don't make it into Sales Management not because they don't have the skill or the desire but because the reinforcement cycle is too long so in sales they get rewarded on you know when they close the sale however long that sales cycle is are you going to be a sales manager and all that reinforcement is taken away you basically have to get reinforcement through the team making sales and a lot of people just say I don't like it as much because it's not as exciting or I don't you know it's not as they don't know how to describe it but it's really just you have less reinforcement than you did as a salesperson and so it almost feels like they have something taken away rather than they're gaining something so I feel like the transition is a little tough um and that's why I do think I've seen it work less times than it has worked it does it definitely has worked in companies but it's worked less than it has um so because of that and just the fact you said you're running around with your head cough I feel like bringing somebody in as a leader from the outside who can not even just take the job but also like teach you things and add value to the organization in ways that maybe you haven't thought of I feel like given where you're at with your Revenue that's not a bad idea no that's solid advice and so if if I want that route uh I'm assuming I'll have to start communicating that to the team earlier on you know maybe I've given false impression of you know hey we're going to promote you guys and all that so how would you dialogue you know to the sales team of hey I'm going to start looking outside looking to bring someone in as a sales manager because you know people see job posts you know for your company I'm sure you can't really hide it per se so how would you how would you dialogue that out or you know would you just tell them straight up or warm them up how would you break it to the team I would 100 tell them straight up and I would explain exactly why which is I want to go bring somebody in to be sales manager I would like somebody who has more experience as sales manager than I do and who has experience in these areas here's the requirements of what I'm looking for here's the skills I'm looking for you are welcome to apply if you don't have the skills and requirements that I'm looking for I will turn you down just like another candidate um that's that's how I would message them and I would say like listen the reason that I I need to do this is because it's what's best for the business and at the end of the day the business feeds all of us so if the business doesn't eat we all don't eat and making the wrong decision in this area is going to be make everyone's lives worse not better and so at the end of the day the business to make the business function to the best of its ability it makes the most sense strategically that we hire somebody who has outside experience and you could even tell them dude like I'd be like I am overwhelmed I need somebody who has experience to come in and help me and it's not that I don't think that anyone here has the capability but I don't know if we have the time and I the truth is dude if somebody doesn't get that they don't have the skills to be the leader because a true leader will sacrifice what is best for them for what is best for the company every leader on my team consistently does that and if somebody I've had it where I post for a job and somebody from like a you know a lower level position says like hey I'd like that job and I'm like it's very clear why you don't have the fit the requirements here's why and here's why I don't have time and if they fight back and they're like that's not fair I'm like this is more reason as to why you're not going to be promoted and why like it's not that I don't think you could get there but I don't have a year and so I think there is also room for sales people to ascend an organization into roles that are not management like a sales lead or a sales coach and so I do think that that as a like as an aside I think that a lot of sales people do better ascending into a sales lead or a sales coach where they help with scripting objection overcomes call reviews with the team game tape reviews rather than managing the CRM like hiring recruiting firing you know managing the meeting Cadence like doing all that stuff that is great advice I uh I really really appreciate it so yeah yeah I wish you would have started a staffing company so I can see how you would have done it I know you wanted to I do like Staffing well cool yeah I hope everything goes great dude hey Leila how are you good how's it going it's good it's good it's good but an anxious await an anxious way all right well what's your question now I'm anxiously awaiting yeah first of all definitely appreciate your content I know me and many of my industry friends and the Twitter side love your content super helpful really Twitter yeah we come from the small the small land of the Twitter sphere okay I feel like this has been coming up as I try to scale to seven figures for contacts I run a Twitter dose writing agency doing around 50k a month with a team of four um including myself and I had a bit of a military background I was a team leader in the National Guard and it was just it was a lot easier because we had like a clear rank structure this you know ingrained discipline is in person all of that stuff yeah so my question my question is really how do you balance uh being friendly with a small team kind of we're all similar ages I'm 25 they're all like between 21 and 23 you know they're a few years younger we can joke around like I genuinely could be friends with them um but also staying disciplined and accountable you know kpi Mission driven and all those things because I'm I haven't mentioned ambitious goals for the company so I'm just curious how you'd handle that that balance well I would say that I don't see the problem being like okay I'll give you some like of my thoughts and then just like talk through the situation more I think that being a teammate is even in many ways and you might know this to be like a military background I think it is deeper than being a friend I think that it is a more meaningful relationship because often you are driving towards a goal together and I think that a lot that's why a lot of people end up being quote friends at work because if you can be a teammate with somebody I think it makes it easier to be a friend with them um you go through like hard times together you achieve hard goals you face challenges and so I think that it makes a lot of sense that people would become friends with people that they are good teammates with I don't think there's anything wrong with that either when I think it becomes a problem and I would ask you where is this showing up that you would consider a problem is when we feel an affinity towards somebody and because of that we don't give them the proper coaching feedback or treatment that we would if we didn't have such an affinity towards them so when it starts to Cloud judgment is when I feel that is a problem if it doesn't Cloud judgment I don't see it as a problem because the question is like okay well if we're friends with people and nothing is happening then is that a problem I would say no I'd say that's great it'd be great to work with people you're friends with all the time and actually get you done but if you're not able to get you done and they are not you know I would say maybe they are not upholding your standards because they see you as more of a friend I would consider that to be a quote problem that would need to be addressed okay yeah that's fair it's it's interesting because it's more of a gray area where sometimes I can feel myself being perhaps you know one percent nicer and I might not get my point across on our on our team huddle that day because I'm feeling like a bit friendlier and sometimes I feel like I miss that and it might take two meetings to get my point across where like if there's an attention to detail missing or something like that so I I feel it creeping I'm just trying to get ahead of the problem I think being cognizant of it is the first step and I would say like in what capacity are you friends with them like are you like going out and like doing stuff with them on the weekend nights are you taking them to dinner are you like like what does it look like right now yeah it's definitely not that we're not even in the same region of the world at the moment um it's more so just like I we can spend the first five ten minutes of a meeting joking around you know we reply to each other on social media like we all we all have the same interests so there's definitely a lot of cohesion there and like you said that you know to an extent that's a good thing but it's definitely not you know crossing a line so has anything not happened in the business that you want to have happen because of it I'd say there's been like little misses on attention to detail and as a you know as a ghostwriting agency it's like thing little things matter like you know spelling for example or deadlines and stuff like that so I'd say those are the littlest those little things do we have a process in place that clearly states like a sop of how to double check their work before publishing yes and no I think it could be clear because I might even just start there more than like thinking it's because you're friendly with them is it might be like do we actually have a clear process because I think you know something I was talking to my friend about this morning he was like people can do a 10 out of 10 in their job but you may not have outlined what the job is to the best of your ability therefore you set them up for failure you say you didn't do the job and they're like well this is the job that has been given to me and the instructions I've been given it's like well they're shitty instructions yeah that's fair that's something I want to dive into today I appreciate it yeah absolutely and we all do that so I think it's like try to figure out is it the instructions if it's not the instructions then maybe just desensitizing them to more candid conversations with you perfect I appreciate it thank you yeah have a good one Marcos hey can you hear me yes I can Raquel how's it going good and about Sops and systems and processes Marcos I was like high-fiving you yeah a fractional Co makes sense yeah um so as a fraction of CEO and integrator for companies who run on EOS something that I've seen helping companies scale with systems processes and people is companies especially Visionaries they want this idea of continued Innovation but at the same time my job is organizational stability so a lot of times when I put systems processes in place um the leadership team can want to say hey let's be Innovative and change those things and so how do you handle that and not cause your leadership team whiplash I would say that there's a difference between permanently changing something and testing something to find out if it works better and what it sounds like to me is I think that for a lot of visionary leaders they need to have room to test at all points in times and I do think that it is an operator's uh like it's in the best interest of the company that we operationalize that how do we make sure that we're constantly testing against our assumptions of what works best for the business against what we see changing in the market against and I think that we have to create an environment in which we can test those things I think that what happens is like the word test and change get conflated and then people say we want to change you know the Visionary says I want to do this to change this and it's like okay but do you actually want to change it if it doesn't work better and I'm sure they're going to say well no it's like okay so we want to test this we don't want to change it you see what I'm saying yeah that's it too yeah that's a really really good team members because that's where I come in right I'm like the middlemen team members and I don't when you say change to a team member it's very distraught like we're changing something again right so testing I think is that's that's a really good one I'm going to keep in my pocket yeah I appreciate that yeah absolutely and I'll just give you an example just to if it helps more it's like you know from next quarter for acquisition.com I was literally just going over like okay what are our and I don't use EOS I made up my own system which I call like a vfo but like what are vital few objectives for the Year and have they changed and then I was like okay well I have one that is it basically it's a test and if this test proves out to be better than current standard or status quo then I would change more things but first this quarter I want to test this so one of my objectives will be like all the other ones are more Improvement objectives and then I have one objective that is a test objective that could lead to a change objective that makes sense but I do think that the best way that you can mitigate any of that like Whiplash is just by like we don't change anything we test and then decide if we're going to change um I love that process yeah and I think that's a win-win for everybody because they want to know if the idea works or not and they don't want to have to wait forever and you want to make sure that the business still functions and can keep improving in the areas it needs to so it can be effective and you know continue operating and so I think that's a good middle ground I agree well I appreciate that Insight I'm definitely keeping that in my pocket absolutely well have a great one Raquel you too thanks Ella see ya oh hell yeah that was a great reaction what's up Grayson hey not much I'm doing well uh so what I was asking about was as a new leader with zero leadership experience how do I catch that I failed my team how do you know if you have failed your team as a new leader I mean how do I catch the mistakes what are the signs and and I expect that there's a problem of maybe I didn't set up a way for my team to give speed Bad Company I would say that the performance of your team that reports to you is a reflection of you as a leader so how has your current team performing are they meeting their performance objectives that is how I would measure the effectiveness of the leader like if I take you and put you over my team do they perform better or worse if you leave your team and put somebody else in who's a more experienced leader do they perform better or worse and I think that's how you would measure your own performance is Honestly by the performance of everybody underneath of you yeah yeah that makes sense uh I think I'd rephrase it a little bit okay um I want to make sure that my team and each team member is getting what they need and that I'm not negatively affecting their performance so what do I look for uh in an employee or in a team team member who doesn't have an obvious sign that they're failing but maybe it's like I'm contributing to their burnout or or something like that can you give me an example of something that might be happening right now no I don't have a team I just expect to have one in the future yeah that's funny um I think that like even burnout in its own like burnout is usually people are working and getting no reinforcement or reward for their work and then they start to say they're burnt out like they have more negatives than positives and that leads to burnout at least that's the way that I've been able to operationalize it um I think as a leader when you have a team you know keeping regular one-on-one Cadence I have no I've seen a million studies on different like one-on-one setups cadences ways of communicating you know I have seen that having 30 minutes every week with my direct reports tends to be the best way of doing it um it flexes during in different times sometimes we even talk more um and I may get an hour a week it just depends but I do think that the more time that you spend with your team um I would argue that almost all performance can be tied back to their boss and so I think people choose should choose their boss not a company and I think that if somebody's feeling burnt out maybe their leader is not recognizing them if somebody is not performing has the leader given clear kpis I mean honestly man it's like a you could write 20 books on all the things that go into leadership so it's hard to pinpoint just one um but I think if you have proper measurement in place when you do get a team in terms of measuring I mean [ __ ] you can get a well what's it called let's look at one culture amp and you can measure kpis in there as well as they can rate themselves on a week-to-week basis in terms of how they're feeling their Wellness Etc then on a weekly basis you're not even just measuring just their results and output but you're also measuring how are they feeling what's their sentiment and I think as long as you're giving people a place where they can they can self-report uh results of theirs then I think you are constantly reviewing those and then giving them feedback on the self-reporting I think that that's probably the best way you can get ahead of those issues okay so just to spit it back is create a feedback loop so that I can track their how they're doing over time 100 and I think it should be self-reported it shouldn't be you capturing it yep okay that sounds great thanks Layla cool well when you get a team good luck all right bye Grayson hey Layla can you hear me okay yes I can how's it going good um so first I just want to say like a huge thank you to you and Alex for making all the content and everything um I started a digital marketing agency about nine months ago you know ended up having a falling out with my parents about not wanting to go back to college um I was a college soccer player got injured didn't want to go back and then started a company and really didn't want to go back yeah so I ended up having pulling out kind of living in my car and in my office or you know four or five months while I was building my business and I just you know have you guys my ear every day um for that um dude super cool that you're you got out of that congratulations yeah I appreciate it um you know we're not a huge company but we're doing about five thousand dollars a month in profit um little marketing company so we do like Facebook Google ads as well as like catalog revamps and like social media management um so right now we're switching industries from like the Home Improvement industry to more like the medical supply space I was really just wondering like do you as someone who's been super successful in a bunch of different Industries do you have kind of a checklist you go through when entering a new one well why are you switching yep so uh just from from my experience it was hard to pitch the home improvement company it was more difficult it's the home improvement companies as they have a lot less money and you know we just found that they're really blue collar guys they have a limited amount of marketing spend whereas like some of these larger medical companies and really switch can because we already landed one of them and it was so much easier to sell them initially get good results and then upsell them yeah uh so so that's why we're here okay that makes sense um checklist for Industries so interesting yeah I would say that more so you know for us we like if even like acquisition.com like we really work with companies that in some way we have experience through our own companies that we built right so it's like you know gym launch we understand brick and mortar gyms we also understand service companies and Consulting Prestige Labs we understand supplement companies and e-commerce and Allen we understood you know SAS companies to a degree so usually like when we're taking on a company like I'm we're we are playing to our strengths and that like most of our Acquisitions and as of recently especially are like brick and mortar chains because the skill of building a chain of 100 200 gyms is the same skill to build in many ways is a very transferable skill to building a chain of 100 nail salons or Med spas or Etc so I look at like skill transfer and across Industries like when we are for example like doing diligence on a company that's in an industry that I don't necessarily understand I will go find and pay a consultant from that industry to educate me on it and so okay and we'll go to conferences from the industry and attend them so like last weekend you know our head of um I guess managing director of um Business Development went to a med spa convention because we've been talking about getting into med spa Chains It's like okay well that's a lot of Health there's a lot of legalities around it and compliance so we need to start going to all the conferences and really figuring out if this is something we want to get into and so I would say for you how do you do your diligence in that manner like are there conferences you can go to are there Consultants you can pay like how can you get an edge on the industry more than anybody else because if anything that'll help your business right okay gotcha yeah I started um just like I heard Alex say like offer to pay people for their time or like marketing managers within the medical supply and use so I've done that and then that's great uh so just after that like any next steps or just kind of do that and then see where that takes me dude you're going to learn more working with the one that you have right now then you will talking to anybody okay so I think like the more that you can learn from the current client that you have the better like how can you learn more from them how can you get deeper into understanding their needs how they like working with you what other companies they work with like I would use that to your advantage you already have one right there so it's like what can you how can you leverage that because a lot of people that are starting off where you are they don't even have one right okay and then just real quick last question um like this company that we're working with they also do like white label and so there is a potential for like a ton of referrals um so like when you typically I know a lot of people that have a different answer to this but when do you typically ask for those referrals like after you get the the best with like good results for them I know Jordan Belfort says to like ask as soon as you close them but there's a lot of different opinions so I was just curious on that interesting you know I think typically it's after you've provided your first significant amount of value so like in SAS we call it time to Value so it's like what's the first when does that customer first experience value from the product or service you provide and then at that same time or right after that event can you ask for a referral okay so for you is it is it when you get ads live is it when they close a deal from the ads like what would you say is the most when are they like hell yeah I'm so glad that I partnered with you yep so right now we're working with them to redo their Facebook page um and then we're also redoing all of their catalogs and like brochures so maybe after we do the three catalogs in the in the brochure which should take maybe like after this like two or three week period Then you know once they get the catalogs in there they're really pleased then maybe ask for the referrals no because what do they hire you for is it to make catalogs or to get customers yeah so so we're doing both for them so we're doing social media management for them uh he wants to start running Facebook ads in the future but we're gonna kind of dive into that whole thing after we do all their catalog revamps so they just want pretty catalogs so for now yeah we're doing redoing their catalogs and their brochures and then we're working with them to redo their Facebook page wow okay and you should keep doing that then because that's a lot easier than [ __ ] Facebook ads so I mean if that's if that's what they want then yeah sure do it right after you redo the catalogs okay that's a more scalable agency than running ads so if you can just find agent if you can just find more of them that want catalogs you should just do that okay yeah I was hoping to just kind of um yeah okay that makes sense usually it's like a yearly thing so I was hoping to get a few companies on that and then just yearly we'll be able to do those for them um answer me yeah absolutely dude have a great rest of your day