From $0 to $1 BILLION - The One Thing That Built This Empire

What if I told you building a billion dollar company doesn't require a genius idea or getting money from investors?

Instead, it comes down to this boring word, culture.

Most people think culture is ping-pong tables, pizza parties, and work from home.

It's not.

I'm going to take you behind the scenes at First Form HQ, the billion-dollar supplement brand, and share with you five things that I observed with my own eyes this billion-dollar company do.

Oh, and how you can apply them in your business today, even if you don't have a team.

Welcome to the Martel Method.

I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal best-selling author.

In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate.

And make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter at martelmethod.com.

Let's start with step number one.

Design not default.

You have to define your company values.

Most people have these words they put on a wall and they like look at them and sometimes they recite them in meetings.

But to me, hires are only integrated into the business by how you hire, how you inspire, and how you fire.

If those three things are not considered in all parts of your value integration, then the culture can't possibly work.

What's wild is getting to know Andy and Sal and watching their approach to their own life apply in the business.

So one thing to note, I mean, just so you can kind of see,

The place is not clean because you guys are here.

This is a standard in which we operate.

So this is what the expectation is for you to look into and walk into every day.

There's not the desks are not cluttered, the trash cans are not full, there's not things on the ground, the chairs are pushed back.

This is a standard in which we operate every single day.

Somebody doesn't push your chair in, like a good little party trick is a tank and put it in my office.

Then they got to walk in, and you got to have a conversation why you didn't push your chair back in, right?

So, it's this is the standard in which we operate.

Our building's five years old.

You would look at it and probably think it's six months old.

Three years ago, I woke up in my own company and realized that I didn't want to come to work.

I didn't enjoy the people I worked with.

I used to get annoyed by the conversations they were having, but that started a process that taught me that your business should be a hundred percent reflection of you.

I discovered that I had hired somebody in HR

that had an opinion about what kind of people we should hire that was completely different than what I would have done.

Guess what her name was?

Karen.

Karen.

I can't even make this up.

And out of inspiration and desperation, I pull up Slack and I go to the general channel and I write essentially a call to arms.

I said, here's why we exist as a company.

Here's what we're going to go create.

Here's why we do what we do.

Here are the customers that we want to serve.

Here's what we're about.

And if for whatever reason, You're not on board,

I will pay you $15,000 to remove yourself from the team and I will be happy about it and we'll remain friends.

It'll be no issues.

Because there was so much turmoil going on, some of my best people decided to take the offer, not because they didn't want to be there, because they didn't know what the future was going to look like.

The worst part, and just in case you guys decide to do this, I didn't even think to call my executive leadership team and tell them I was going to do this.

That made things worse.

Every day was a fire.

I'm in Costa Rica with my family and I walk outside the coffee shop where where we're having breakfast and I call my COO at the time and I said, if you're not in, that's fine and it's my fault and I'm so sorry that this is not going to work out.

But if you're in, I need you to know you're in because then I know who I can fix this problem with, build the business with, build the people with.

I just need to get some sense of what this monster looks like.

And she goes, of course there.

Like, I'm in.

We're doing this.

Three weeks later.

She quits.

If you think about it, values are an extraction of the founding team.

Values are the process of communicating to other people how you think.

The whole reason you're successful is because of those things.

So you want to ingrain them into the culture.

If who you are is how your business operates, then you'll love to go to work.

Your standards are not what you say they are.

They're what you accept.

You teach people in your company how to treat you.

If somebody does something that wasn't up to standard and you accept it, even if it's little, you've just told them that it's okay.

I think if you have a strong culture, you don't need an HR department.

Sure, somebody has to manage benefits and all that fun stuff.

People build HR departments when there's problems and it's usually with a small amount of people and they change the whole culture of the business for a few people.

And that's what happened to me.

I had a few people in my business that were causing all the commotion.

Once I cleared things up, reset the culture, set my standards, the business turned around.

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Now let's get back to the episode, which brings us to step number two, train, don't tell.

What I love most about being at First Form was that they built a dedicated training room where they get together as a team often throughout the week to just elevate people, to remind people, to teach people, to support them.

When there's a problem in the business, most people default to blame the person.

This person did this.

This person did this.

This person's not good enough.

I like to ask, was there a checklist and a system that they followed to create that outcome that they didn't follow?

And if so, show it to me.

Most of the time, they can't show me that.

So they don't have a process.

And I go, okay, well, if you have a process, show me where in the calendar you train them on that process.

Oh, well, you know, I hired them to do a job.

They should know how to do the job.

People need to be reminded just like we all do.

So like we need to also train them.

Now, if you have a process and you train them and then they don't perform, now you have a conversation about people.

The core philosophy that I saw executed to build that business is they build the people.

The people build the business.

I want to share with you a few leadership and culture philosophies that I think allow me to scale my empire.

First off, most people get stuck in the tell check next doom loop where they wake up in the morning and they have a dozen people that report to them and they tell them what to do.

They check that it got done and they tell them what to do next.

The challenge with that is that they'll always be the bottleneck for the person understanding what they should work on next.

Billion dollar companies don't tell them what to do.

They train them what to do.

And it was crazy watching how they've integrated this concept of teaching, training, mentorship across the company.

I mean, they took it to another level.

They even have the first form app, which is a mobile app that everybody gets access to.

And it's designed with all the SOPs in there, the training, the communication protocol, ways to connect with each other, features to get questions answered.

I mean, it is integration into their culture.

Essentially, they have a process for everything.

And I loved it.

Sal called it a culture system.

Not our culture, a culture system.

Why?

Because a system has routine, it has rhythms, it has structure and it's always moving and improving.

Which brings us to step number three, understand their five-year goals.

Most people treat strangers way better than their own team.

It's funny because it's also in relationships.

Your parent is going to get the worst version of you more than the person you just meet walking down the street.

And what I saw is billion-dollar companies understand their team's goals and more specifically, how to motivate them and align to theirs.

When you connect the internal motivation to the external needs of the company, then they will propel themselves forward.

Once I get them to tell me what their dream is, I ask them to visualize it and put it as a wallpaper on their phone.

Why is this super duper cool?

Because when I walk around the office,

I just tap the phone.

I literally just tap the phone and I look at what they have and I remember.

So when I'm about to go up and talk to them about like performance, I say, hey, man, you know that thing you wanted to create or you want to go live on that yacht?

I want you to live on that yacht.

Work with me.

You're not showing up the way somebody that lives on a yacht shows up, just so you know.

What would you do

for somebody that showed up for you for years

and put their own personal life essentially on pause to help you?

build your dream.

I have somebody like that on my team.

And I would talk to people he reported to and they they would all say great things.

And he would just like, keep getting more responsibility, keep stepping up, keep doing it.

And when I went through that shit storm of a life in that company three years ago, one amongst a handful of others that I never had to worry about was that person.

And when I decided after I got through that pain to then go start my media company to support the book,

that person was the person I called to help me create that with.

And he lived 4,000 miles away.

And I said, hey, man, if you want this opportunity, the only thing is you're going to have to move here.

10 days later, he shows up at my door.

Knock, knock, knock.

Open the door.

He's standing there.

We're early days startups trying to figure it out.

We had to find a studio space.

We were like committed to doing this.

And he started building and showing up and doing this stuff with his team.

And I would tell him along the way, I was like, hey, man, I need you to be rich.

I literally say that to him, I need you to be rich.

I want to give him a raise.

You know what he says to me?

Give it to the team.

And I'm like, you know, hitting his phone.

I said, dude, I think that car, it's about time.

Instead, he buys himself a house.

22 years old.

I went down to Cabo for an event.

He was with me.

I was flying back.

I talked to my wife about it and I said,

we're going to surprise it.

And we called it Project White Monster, okay?

So that he would never figure it out because the whole team drinks energy drinks, right?

They thought we were just buying a pallet or something.

And when we land, I said, hey, man,

Lowen's going to meet us at the car dealership because the, you know, the team there wants, they'll show me a new car because I buy a lot of cars.

And he's like, they want me to buy another car.

So can you just come with me?

I want your opinion.

He's like, cool.

So we're walking and I look and I was like, hey, man,

what's your dream car?

And he says, a Porsche GT4.

I said, isn't that a GT3 GT?

And sales guy goes, no, that's a GT4.

And we walk over and we're walking around.

And I said,

isn't it white the one you wanted?

And he pulls out his phone and he shows it to me.

And I tell her.

what I just told you guys

about how much it meant to me that I never have to think about him, that he always does for the the team.

And I took the keys out and I said, I know because you'll never do it for yourself.

I did it for you.

I will tell you this: buying cars are cool, giving people cars is way fucking cool.

His name is Sam Gadette, and he's standing right there.

That's why this is so important.

If you think about it, there's only four ways to motivate a person.

The first one is money.

Some people want to be rich.

Some people want to know, like, hey, if I do this work, if I show up, if I invest myself, if I give you my best years of my life, tell me how I'm going to get rich.

The second one is title.

People want to have teams.

They want to be in a position to grow, to develop, to be part of strategic conversations, and titles matter to them.

And the third is have more responsibility.

Just see what their potential is.

Number four is growth, but I want to talk about it in detail in the next step.

Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram, DanMartel, to LZMartel on Instagram.

It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time.

I'd love to see you there.

Have an amazing day.

Which brings us to step number four: show them the future.

The reason I went to First Form is because I was doing a benchmarking trip.

This is a strategy I learned 20 years ago.

And I encourage all the CEOs in my companies to do this with their teams, which is go visit, see with their eyes what other great companies are doing.

What I've learned is some things can only be caught, not taught.

You need to put the person in the room so that they can have a physical reaction to this space.

And I will tell you, I brought seven CEOs of First Form, and all of them had the same experience.

They were like, wow, there's another level.

We have to operate there.

The reason why is because people can only grow into the container that they believe in their mind that's possible.

And when you bring them into a space, into a physical location and show them what other people are doing at the highest level, they now have this new reference point.

And the cool part is once you expand, you can't contract.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

This is how I integrated into my companies.

First off, show your team what best looks like.

Show them.

Show them reports.

Show them operations.

Show them people.

Have them watch videos.

Like if you can't pay to go fly somewheres, just go online and watch the best people talk about their industry and their business as a team and then share notes.

The other thing is to inspire them through other people.

My favorite thing was one of my GMs wanted to build a relationship with Sal because he's such a great operator and he's like, man, I really need somebody like that in my life.

And I'm like, yes.

That's what I'm talking about.

Be inspired by the other people and actually look at ways to build relationships with them.

here's my philosophy and i tell this to my team all the time if you're only learning from everybody else in this room we're all screwed you need to be outside of these walls talking to people in other companies learning from people doing your job in those companies to try to understand what's working for them because we don't have the answers the whole point of building a company is to do things you've never done before so where are they supposed to learn if you don't encourage them to go outside of your own company to get those answers you see the inspiration all around you And I mean, I remember Andy talking about this, but First Form got inspired by Nike, but their plan is to be way bigger than Nike.

That vision inspires everybody else because they hear and see it all around them.

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Let's get back to the episode, which brings us to step five, invest in your people's growth.

This is one of my favorite things I saw that might sound simple to a lot of people that I immediately integrated into all my companies that I think you should do as well.

First form gives a $2 an hour raise to everybody that reads three recommended books and then give a verbal book report to their leader.

And they have a whole library with copies of these books.

Anybody can get them.

And the philosophy is just so simple.

If I invest in my people and they make better decisions and they learn how to show up for the team better, then the whole business wins.

The ROI is like 20X.

These are three ways that you can start investing in your team just like first form.

The first one is just knowledge investment.

It's more than just books.

I mean, there are so many online courses that you can have people research and buy for them.

You can also get them coaches.

I think that's one of the moves that most leaders don't consider is actually getting people mentorship for their teams, especially if the person has a lot of potential.

The second one is health investment.

I have a rule in my life and I have an an unlimited budget for two things.

One is investments in my mind and my growth and the other one is investments in my health.

What did I see?

I saw that they had a kitchen with healthy food.

I saw a gym that was world class.

They have literally like a high rocks course, a CrossFit course, a full-size basketball court.

I mean, this place was freaking beautiful.

They believe that healthy teams are strong teams, and that's how we build culture.

The third is networking events.

Think about this.

The more you can put your top leaders in places where they're going to interact and interface with other people doing really cool things, you're going to win.

So I think of like events they need to identify for their industry.

I help them create masterminds.

To me, that's a pro move.

Like if I know one of my leaders doesn't have the network to actually learn and grow, I'll support them by introducing to people I know that could help them.

I did this last night.

I was at a dinner and one of the guys' top guys was looking for some advice.

I connected with somebody on my team and I said, hey, you guys should connect.

You should create an internal mastermind.

You can encourage them to host roundtables with their peers and they're the facilitator because then they're going to be the one learning from everybody else when they bring them together after the trip was all done on the flight back i sat down with everybody and i asked them to write down their three biggest takeaways and we went around the plane there was about eight of us everybody listened to what they took away and the why the why was so important because that's the integration is i heard this this is why it's important to me and other people were like oh yeah i didn't consider that and then we locked those in we just asked everybody to say what's the one action item you're going to integrate in the next two weeks based on that experience?

And that's it.

Some people overwhelm themselves when they learn new things.

I'm all about just get 1% better.

You've been inspired.

You'll take that knowledge with you for the rest of your life.

So you'll be able to pull on it when it's needed, but don't get overwhelmed.

For me, the big thing was have a crystal clear picture of the future.

Andy told this incredible story where in 2009, he presented the vision for the building we were in, 180,000 square foot HQ, and there were 30 people on his team at the time.

How long did you think of building it before

you got to building it?

Building this?

Yeah, like knowing this.

I gave a meeting in 2009

where I drew this on a board.

Right up the road, about a quarter mile, there's an interchange at 141 and 44.

And there was an open lot there.

I didn't have any money.

So I started talking to the guys who owned it, and I'm like, there was a

trade season or waiting for me to make it happen, you you know buy it out pay later yeah

and i drew it out and i went so far it was pretty cool because tom young who drew our original supplement superstores logo which was i paid him 50 bucks for it it took me three years to pay him the 50 bucks back oh yeah dude when i said we were broke we were broke one of the best stores ever yeah so it took me three so the same guy I paid him to make a sketch of the outside of the building and the inside of the building so that i can show my team where we're going

and uh

we did the meeting there was like i don't know 30 people there at that time and i think three are still here yeah most everybody you know kind of thought i was full of you see it in your head way before it actually happened just to hold it man just hold it and hold it and hold it yeah you gotta understand not everybody is gonna be on board but the ones that are are the people that are gonna build the business with you so now that you've watched this i want you to write down three takeaways that really resonated with you, but make a commitment to one action item that you're going to integrate into your business or your team and leave a comment below.

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