The ONLY Skill You Need to Build a $10M Business Empire

I'm going to unpack how I built my businesses from zero revenue to over 10 million. I'm going

to give you a success ladder. The buyback principle, this is the formula.
This will

transform your life. Welcome to the Martell Method.
I went from rehab at 17 to building

a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling 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 martellmethod.com. First thing I've learned a long time ago about building businesses, when you start, over time, if you're growing, you will experience a thing called the pain line.
Some of you guys have experienced that. Sometimes at $300,000 in revenue, sometimes at $600,000.
It's all different levels. Sometimes at $80,000 in revenue.
And what most entrepreneurs do at this moment is they do one of three things. I call them the three S's.
The three what? Three S's. The first S is stall.
I had my buddy, Matt, come to me and he goes, hey, Dan, I watch your stuff. I love your growth-minded stuff, all that.
But is it okay if I just don't want to grow? Can I just have a business and just be in business? I said, Matt, you could, but let me tell you what's going to happen. First off, do you think your customers are going to want less from you or more from you? More.
What do they want? Everybody, what do they want? More. They want more from you.
The world is growing. Yes or yes? Yes.
The world is growing. GDP growth is going to happen whether you want it or not.
And I said, the third thing is your top people. You have a staff right now? He's like, yeah, I got about a dozen people.
I said, your top people have a vision for their life. And if you can't paint a future big enough for their dreams and goals to fit inside of, they're going to leave.
I said, so whether you like it or not, you have to have a vision for your life. So think about it.

If you got nothing from my presentation

other than the idea that if you want to build a team,

you have to have a vision big enough

for their dreams and goals to fit inside.

If not, they will find somebody that will do that for them.

The second S is sabotage.

Anybody get an email for an opportunity

to potentially double your business

and you get that email and you open it up

and you read it and your heart kind of skips a beat

and then you mark it as unread,

maybe you star it and you'll get to it tomorrow

and then you open it up because you see it there

and then you're like, ooh, not yet.

Because like you're thinking of what that would mean

to your calendar if you said yes.

Maybe you went to the gym,

you're feeling good about yourself

so you decide to get into your inbox

and you open that email and you finally hit reply.

I had a client do that to me once. I had an opportunity that would transform his business.
And when I messaged him, no reply, no reply, no reply. It was 14 days later, two weeks.
He finally hit reply. Dan, I'd love to chat about that.
My response to him, I'd love to as well. Unfortunately, I found another vendor.
Most people are scared, not of failure, but scared of success. That's why they don't even know they're sabotaging themselves.
I had a client, Trevor, huge company, was struggling. I showed him the buyback principle.
He implemented it. His whole team took everything over.
And he messages me. He goes, dude, I'm so excited.
My life has changed. I'm going on vacation.
I'm heading away for six weeks to Europe. Let's see how the team handles this.
Sabotage? When did the CEO of the business just take a six-week vacation off and say, hey team, figure it out. You're going to come back to chaos.
Or the third area is sell. I get this call every week, friends of mine that are like, you know Dan, I love what I'm doing, but it's getting crazy.
I think I'm gonna sell the business.

And I say, well, if the issues you were having weren't issues,

would you wanna sell them?

They go, no.

And I say, well, here's what you just discovered.

I call it your complexity ceiling.

John calls it the law of the lid.

See, whether you do it in this business

or the next business,

you will figure out what your complexity ceiling is

and decide to stop.

And you might wanna sell

because you think the grass is greener. Do you know why the grass is greener sometimes? Because the grass is fake.
Just throwing that out there. If you guys are on the internet, you might see some of this stuff.
Yeah. It's not because it's greener, it's fake.
And selling to go start something new means you're just going to get to the same place you're at right now and just experience your complexity ceiling. My buddy Chad, we go up in the mountains with these things called snow bikes.
They're like dirt bikes with tracks on them, like a snowmobile. And he owns a shop and we text him at like six in the morning.
He replies, don't text me at six in the morning. I'm sleeping.
Okay. You know, you can put your phone in do not disturb.
Well, that must be nice for you. I have to have the alarm notify me if somebody gets into my shop.

Chad, do you think the CEO of the other retail stores

on your street have their phone tied to their alarm system?

Or do you think maybe it goes to the authorities?

And that sounds like a funny example,

but that for Chad was his complexity ceiling.

And he just figured out where he's at. So I want to share with you a philosophy that transformed my life.
And it's this. The buyback principle states we don't hire to grow our business, we hire to buy back your time.
Because if you do the first, I call that capacity, you will add capacity. The problem is you'll create chaos in your calendar.
And why systems speak so deep to who I am in my core is because I grew up with so much chaos. Anybody else grew up in chaos in their life a little bit? A little bit or a lot? A whole bunch for me? Okay.
Well, what software and systems did for me was taught me how to build predictability or certainty into my life. So I always look at my calendar first because the more I grow, the more freedom I want.
And if I just hire people to do work, then I'm paying people the top amount of money to do the work that I could do. And I'm still stuck with everything else.
So that's why the buyback principle is so key. Just never forget this.
You don't hire to grow your business. You hire to buy back your time.
So it's a calendar problem first, not a capacity problem. So how do we do that? Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube.
I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube.
Just subscribe to the channel, turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you.
We've got a new episode, so you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode.
It's called the buyback loop. Everybody draw this in your notes.
When we feel pain, three things you've got to do. How many things? Three.
One, two, three. How many things? Three.
Three things. First thing you've got to do is you've got to audit your calendar.
Most of us are doing things we should absolutely not be doing. When it comes to coaching, what should we be doing? Everybody in this room.
If you just think about that, look at your calendar, how much time you actually spend in coaching, you want that to be every hour. Anything that doesn't get you in front of a client, working with the team, coaching is a distraction.
So when I feel overwhelmed and I do this process probably two or three times a year, I always look at my calendar first and I do a time and energy audit. Because here's a big, big idea.
Don't let this get missed. Broke people spend time to save money.
Rich people spend money to save time. I'll say this again because I had this money mindset when I was growing up because, you know, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself.
You've all heard this. Broke people spend time to save money.
Rich people spend money to save time. And the reason why is people don't value their time enough.
Every person in this room, if you want to get to your first million dollars in revenue, at minimum, you should set your hour worth to $500 an hour, even if you're charging 50 today. That lens of your calendar at $500 an hour will transform what you say yes and no to.
You will fight for your time back because of this. So step one, we audit.
Step two is transfer. So my whole thing is I want to take everything I'm doing and give it to somebody else in a way that's very easy.
So most people, the way they transfer things is they just tell somebody, here's the thing, just get it done. Have you guys ever had somebody work for you and you ask them to do something and it didn't get done right? Show of hands.
Anybody? How many of you guys wouldn't raise your hand no matter how many times I say it? All right, at least you're honest. So the philosophy I use is called the camcorder method.
When I am doing the work, I record myself doing the work. The technology is very simple, Zoom.
Okay, everybody use Zoom? Yes or yes? Perfect, just do the meeting by yourself, share your screen, record it to the cloud. And just talk out loud what you're doing.
Then when I hire somebody to do the work from my time and energy audit, I give them the videos and that's their onboarding and training. Then they create the SOP or the checklist so that I know if they watch the videos.
See, once I do my time and energy audit, I want to take everything that feels like red that takes my energy, anything that costs very little for somebody else to do, and I put that in a bucket. And that's the only other person I hire.
So think about that. You do your time and energy audit.
You highlight in red everything that you don't like to do that takes your energy. Anything to be a $1 sign.
So if you look at it, $4 sign, it's like a restaurant. How expensive is the restaurant? $1 sign is not very expensive.
$4 sign is anniversary. Make sense? Same thing with the person you're going to hire.
Is this somebody that is administrative type work or is it somebody who could run a department of my business? So everybody, it's $1 sign and red, goes in the bucket. That's who I hire.
Because I've recorded those videos, then it's easy to transfer to that person. Third step is fill.
You will never grow your business further than you grow yourself. That's why you're all in this room.
That's why I love that your room. John says this often.
He says, if you're the smartest person in the class, find a new class. If you're the smartest person in this room, like you need to that you need to grow.
So the business will never grow past your growth. Your personal income will never grow further than your personal development.
So Phil, once you get that hour back, it's not to go on vacation. It's not to go Netflix and chill.
It is to become better. My buddy one time called me up.
He lived in New York and he's like, Dan, my life's changed. Other than this conversation today, I've got nothing else in my calendar.
I was like, Clint, dude, did you read my book? He's like, yeah, it's a great book. Loved it.
I was like, what part of my book told you to do nothing with your time? He's like, what should I be doing? I go, go reread it, man. There's a whole section on how to fill.
So I'm going to give you guys a success ladder. You guys want the success ladder? Okay, everybody write this down.
Three things you should be focusing on by priority. The left side of the ladder is skills.
What are the skills I need to go adopt next or learn next to grow that's gonna have the biggest return on the business? For a lot of us, it's marketing. So that's the left side of the ladder.
On the right side of the ladder over here, we want to look at our beliefs. What beliefs do I have?

What worldviews do I have that I know are holding me back? Is it around money? Is it around my time,

what it's worth? Did you know you'll never get a penny more than you think you're worth?

That's a writer downer, people. We got to write that one down in your notes.
You'll never get a

penny more than you think you're worth. And a lot of us have beliefs around our self-worth that

Thank you. That's a writer downer, people.
We got to write that one down in your notes. You'll never get a penny more than you think you're worth.

And a lot of us have beliefs around our self-worth that hold us playing small.

And if you love the people, your family around you,

do you know the most important thing you could do for them

is to inspire them?

And playing small never inspired anybody?

So that's the belief side.

And then what we want to do to build that ladder

is the habits, the habits.

The character traits.

What could happen? So that's the belief side. And then what we want to do to build that ladder is the habits.
The habits. The character traits.
What kind of daily habits do you have? What's your consistency look like? Do you keep the commitments you make to yourself in private? If you want to build your confidence, you want to know how to build your confidence? Yes or yes? Keep the commitments you make to yourself in private. Keep the commitments you make to yourself in private.
That's how we build our confidence. So once we buy back our time, we want to fill it with the skills that are going to grow the business, the beliefs around the world that's going to unlock where we're blocked, and then the habits to go to the next level.
Here's the big idea. Million-dollar companies are not built on $10 tasks.
I used to be that person. I used to work 100 hours a week, burning the candle at both ends, thinking I could outwork the pain.
And I had a flawed philosophy. And after it cost me my fiance at the time, my relationships, my family didn't want to talk to me because I wasn't a very good brother or son, I realized I needed a different way.
And the buyback principle is how I did it. So how many of you guys would like to learn the sequence for hiring? Show of hands.
How many of you guys? The sequence for hiring. All right.
I call this the replacement ladder. A friend of mine called me one day.
He said, Dan, if you had to prioritize the people you wanted to hire to build your coaching business, what order would you do it in?

And that was a great question.

I'd done it a couple times. I thought about it.
And I sat down and I really argued who would go in what order. And a big inspiration of that came from a guy named Richard.
This is about eight years ago. I'm in San Francisco.
I get an email from my buddy and it says,

Dan, my friends and I are going to Switzerland to hang out with Richard Branson. Would you like to come? Let me check my schedule.
Clear. I thought it was an April Fool's joke.
I grew up in a small town in Eastern Canada. Like that email made no sense to me.
True to his word, Richard was an investor in his tech company. I had done something nice for him at a dinner one time.
He thought of me and he invites me to Richard Branson's house in Verbier, Switzerland. And I honestly, the whole time I thought this ain't true.
This can't be true. And I'm sitting on the couch.
That's the picture. That's the inside of his house, AK Lodge, AK 14 staff.

Imposter syndrome going through the roof. Like I was like, as soon as they find out who I am, they're going to be like, helicopter, get them out of here.
And Richard comes out and I will tell you, nicest guy. He's the billionaire other billionaires want to be like because he truly lives his life, you know, to create, to express, to build.

And what was amazing was watching him interact with a very key person in his life. And her name is Helen.
And Helen was his executive assistant. And Helen's been with Richard now for 17 years.
Just like Linda is for John, Helen is for Richard. And here's what I noticed, because I couldn't understand, how does he have time to meet with all of us, to go skiing every day, to stay up late with us? Like, how does he do this and own 400 companies? Did you know the Virgin Group of businesses, 400 companies, two CEOs that runs the whole group? How does he have time for us and do that? Every morning for breakfast, Richard and Helen would have breakfast.
And she would only bring to him the things that she didn't know how to deal with. And it was about a 60-minute, 90-minute meeting.
After that, Richard was gone. He was with us.
And she moved the business forward. Again, most of you don't value your time high enough or you have some beliefs around, well, I don't want to come off as like too good to do this work or I'm going to reply to my email, whatever it is.
But I want to encourage you to consider any time that you're spending, investing and not coaching is not things you should be doing. You should be on the phone with your clients to get the biggest return.
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, Dan Martell, 2Ls and Martell 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.
So here's the replacement ladder. You can draw this out.
Everybody draw this out. Five rows.
The first hire, the admin hire, because you might be feeling stuck. You've got this business idea, you want to grow, but it'd be nice to have somebody else support you.
When emails come into my life that I'm emotionally not ready to respond to, does anybody ever get to that place? You got an email and you're just like, I'm not ready emotionally. Anybody show hands really high? Come on.
Do you think my assistant cares about my emotions when those emails come in? No, Ann is here. Okay, my assistant is here.
Just the fact that somebody else is just processing, just moving things forward. Think about how much revenue in a year, because I'm on stage with you guys and then new opportunities come into my inbox all day long.
And then she moves those opportunities forward. And think about how many months, revenue in an annual calendar are pulled forward because those opportunities are moving forward while you're sitting here growing yourself.
See, I want you to spend more time in a room like this. I want you to be in a program that grows you.
I want you to choose goals that grow you. You need somebody else to support you.
If you don't have that person, even part-time, virtual, it doesn't matter, then you'll always feel stuck. And they need to own two things, your inbox and your calendar.
My brother's a home builder, built a really successful home building company, didn't have an assistant, going crazy. Calls me up one day, he's like, hey, I need your playbook.
Could you send it to me? I said, on what? He goes to hire an assistant. Ah, I got you.
Send it over to him. Maybe like two months later, I'm at his house, we're having a barbecue.
And I ask him, bro, how's it going with your assistant? He's like, I don't understand what the big deal is. Like, she's good.
She's helping out. But it's not like transform my life the way you talk about it.
I said, ah, I know what the problem is. It's like, what? You didn't give access to your inbox to them.
You've just triaged every email that came into your life. It's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about somebody owning the two ownership areas right there, inbox and calendar. I just interviewed John for my podcast, asked him about Linda, what she means to him.
And he shared the exact same sentiment they figured out 30 plus years ago. Having somebody else focused on moving conversations forward, making sure the schedule is in line so that he can do the thing only he can do, change the game.
He even said, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Linda. And I give that same credit to Anne on my team.
I wouldn't be on this stage if it wasn't for her. I want that for you more than you'll ever know.
That partnership, that relationship is something you wanna invest in, partner with the person so they can really get to know you. Now, level two, what level? Okay, do you guys want to learn level two? Yes.
All right, level two is stalled. And this is where you need somebody to help you with the fulfillment, the delivery.
Okay, so you're a coach now, you've got customers. Okay, imagine you're here, you meet somebody, you want to work with you.
As soon as you take a credit card, you want somebody else to immediately onboard that person into your life. So first hire was my assistant.
The second one was a lady named Kelsey. And Kelsey's only job, it was super cool.
Every time I bring a new client to my world, her job was to bring them and onboard them. Here's the intake form, schedule the calls, answer support questions, make sure the billing worked.
Because that way I could free up my time from doing any of the account management side and really just be coaching. Make sense?

That's level two. Level three, what level? Everybody level? All right.
Level three is marketing.

This is so important, okay? Because I have a friend, Rachel,

and her business goes like this.

And she goes, Dan, why does my business do this?

Well, Rachel, here's how it works.

When you have no clients, you do marketing,

you get clients, you get busy, you stop marketing.

Then you do all the work, you stop having clients,

you don't have any clients, you do marketing,

you get more clients, and her revenue for three years went like this. So what you need is a marketing system.
A marketing system. And specifically, you want somebody that manages the traffic to your website or to your social media.
And then they run campaigns. We're so busy thinking of other stuff that, oh, it's summertime.
It's Christmas time. It's Cyber Sunday, whatever.
It's like you need somebody else that manages the campaigns for you. So for me, I had a guy named Jarrett.
Jarrett was my videographer at the time. And I don't know about you guys, but like this social media, doesn't it feel a little overwhelming? Yes or yes? It's like, where should I post and how often and what should the videos say? And it just becomes like a lot.
And I used to shoot, edit, post. What? That's like a whole company on its own.
Like it felt like, and the crazy part is because it was so hard, it made me not want to do it. And it's kind of like, I know how many people I can help with my message, but if I don't love it.
And this is really why I think the market isn't the issue for all of us in this room. The biggest risk to our business is that we build a business we don't want to do anymore.
And especially the coaches. You guys are in the best position to help other people.
And the coolest part about marketing, you want to know what the coolest part about marketing is? Is that if you do it right, it'll help more people than your product or service ever will. Like marketing will help more people than you could ever possibly imagine.
I get 36 million views on my content every month. It's the size of Canada.
That's crazy. The population of my country sees my content every month because I worked my way out of editing,

publishing. I still need to be on camera until AI gets really good.
I'm still the guy talking, but having somebody like Jared come into my life and just take that off of my plate and build a system for marketing and get customers that I love to work with, invaluable. Cool? Is that cool? Yes Yes.
Marketing system. Fourth level, sales.
I call this freedom. You want to know why I call this freedom? Because at this stage, you can actually go on vacation, have somebody else create an opportunity, somebody else sell that person, enroll them into your world, somebody else onboard them while you're in the pool,

when you're with your kids, while you're doing some crazy adventure. So how many hires? How many hires? Four key people in your life.
If you want to ask, how did you build eight-figure business really fast, Dan? This is the formula. It's that simple.
I just went one, two, three, four. Before we get back to the episode, if you're enjoying it so far, could you go ahead and do me a huge favor and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? Reviews help us get up in the rankings, which gives us credibility to reach out to bigger and bigger guests.
We can bring them to you. It would mean so much.
Let's get back to the episode. The key though, is you want somebody else to do the follow-up in the calls.
Okay. So somebody else has to, I'll just, I'm assuming I'll do it.
The follow-up in the calls. So opportunity comes into my world.
Somebody sends me a message on Instagram. I go, cool.
I'd love to work with you. Let me introduce you to Jay.
Now I know this is crazy. Has anybody else like freaked out by the idea that somebody else is going to sell your coaching for you? Am I the only one? Come on.
Nobody else is freaked out having somebody else talk to a potential coaching. Exactly.
I was the same way. And I remember, my wife's here.
Renee, do you mind standing up? She is, like, the most beautiful woman in the world. Can you please stand up? That's my wife, Renee.
She loves photos. She loves talking to people.
So if you see her, we'll be around. I remember I was doing a bunch of calls, sales calls and enrollment calls and my wife, and this is like six, seven years ago.
And she's like, why are you on the phone all the time? And I go, well, a lot of the people who want to talk to me are on the West coast and I'm on the East coast. So I do all the dad stuff, dinner, and then go into the sunroom and just be on discovery calls back to back to back.
She's like, aren't you the buy back your time guy? I was like, oh, oh. But isn't that what your partner should do for you? Hold a mirror to your face? Yeah.
So that's why my wife is awesome. So I hired a guy named Michael.
And I remember I hired Michael. I gave him the call recordings, right? Camcorder method.
I said, Michael, I don't know if you can do this. I don't know, just try it.
Get on the phone with some people. So I started sending half my opportunities to Michael, first day, first call, hangs up.
He gets the person full pay, full year credit card on the call. I know, it sounds crazy.
Michael, what did you promise them? What do you mean? Are they coming to my house for dinner tonight? Did you tell them that I'm flying to their office? What did you sell them? He's like, no, Dan, I just... And this is what he said to me, I'll never forget.
He goes, I just did what you said on the call and I think it was better that I was doing and not you because then you're more in integrity with what you're selling. Oh.
so his numbers were better than mine. That blew my mind.
So that's level four. Level five, very key, is leadership.

That's why we're all in this room. You will never outgrow your investment in yourself.
When you hire

somebody to lead your business, like John did with Mark, right, as a CEO, you need to make sure they own two key things. The strategy for growth and they have ownership on the outcomes.
You can't ask somebody to be responsible for something not giving those things. So those are the two things.
That is a replacement ladder. Now here's the big idea and this one's going to hurt a little bit.
If you do not have an assistant, you are one. And you're overpaid and you suck at your job.
Just throwing that out there. Just gonna give you that, do what you want with it.
The second big idea to build that first 100K, that first 500K coaching business is to do transformational leadership, okay? When I moved to San Francisco in 2008 after selling my first technology company, I realized there's a reason why 20-year-old founders start these tech companies and build them into billion-dollar businesses. Isn't that crazy? I was 28 at the time, and I'd meet these kids.
I'd call them kids. They're only eight years younger than me.
I'm like, how are they doing this? And then I'm meeting a guy named Naval Ravikant. And Naval today, he's been on Joe Rogan.
He's arguably one of the top thinkers in Silicon Valley. And he showed me the difference between transactional leadership and transformational leadership.
And this is what shifted my whole entrepreneurial career. See, most of us, when we hire somebody, because it sounds normal, we're gonna hire them, we're gonna tell them what to do.
We're gonna check it got done. And then what are we going to do right after that? Tell them what to do next.
That's how my first boss did it with me. Do this, Dan.
Tell them when you're done. He came, checked it, got done.
Tell me what to do next. So when I hired people, I did this.
The problem with this strategy is that about 10 employees, 12 employees, 1.4 million in revenue, you are redlining.

Some of you guys feel that pain.

You get to a place where you wake up in the morning and you've got stuff you wanna get done,

you've got your projects listed out,

and all of a sudden the first phone call comes in,

the first email comes in, and boom, boom, boom,

you're on phone calls, you're on meetings,

you're on da-da-da, clients upset,

and you just keep going and going

until six o'clock rolls around.

You didn't do anything for yourself all day.

You go be with your family, and that eight, nine o'clock, you get back on your computer to actually

do the work you were supposed to do first thing in the morning. I know.
I've been there. It almost

cost me my health, like serious anxiety, shingles. Like I was in pain because I didn't understand

this. Transformational leadership is completely different.
We start with the outcome. Here's what

it looks like. The second part is we measure.
This is the thing I'm going to measure your progress against. And then the third part is we coach.
And we coach is different than telling people what to do next. So for example, with my marketing team, I wanted them to grow our Instagram account.
So what did I say? I said the outcome is to grow the Instagram account where we're creating more value for our customers than anybody else in the world. And I would highly recommend you write that one down.
Your life will change when you make a decision to create more value for your customers than anybody else in the world and just strive to be that person for them in their life. And that's the outcome.
Mountaintop. This is what it looks like.
Measure followers per day. Very simple.
Every day on Instagram, how many followers do we get? Are we growing? Third is coach. See, a lot of us, when we see something going wrong or there's no growth, we just wanna jump in and tell them what to do.
The problem is if you do that, you're always gonna be needed. Do you know why they call it a bottleneck? Because it's at the top.
Yes, bottlenecks are at the top. We don't wanna be a bottleneck to our team and their growth.
So what coaching is, and this is very key, write this down. You want to coach the principle, not the action.
So the principle is the thing they're violating. The action is what they should do.
If you coach the principle, it takes care of a hundred different situations. If you coach the action, it only takes care of one situation.
So the email didn't get replied to properly.

Next time, say this.

That's one action.

Here's how we do email.

This is our philosophy for email.

See the difference?

Here's my philosophy for our content.

Our content has to be value first, less about me, more for the client.

These three things we posted violated that principle.

Next time, can we create content that looks like this? Got it. Perfect.
On to the next thing. We've added, because I follow this process, okay? In the last 12 months, we added from 80,000 followers to almost half a million.
I know. I want that for every person in this room.
I really do. And you guys think, well, I can't be that person.
You know what's cool about the world we live in today? It's a level playing field. Level playing field.
Did you know the amount of followers I have is a vanity metric? It does not matter. Every person in this room has the same advantage right now if you shoot a video to go viral as I do.
My followers do not matter. Think how cool this is.
This has never existed in the history of social media. Right now, most of you guys consume your YouTube for you page.
You don't go to your subscribers. So understanding this, it'll transform the way you create content.
And if you focus on outcomes, this is what we want to accomplish. Measure, just simple followers.
And then, because you want to talk to the followers. And then coach, that's how we unlock the people that are stuck.
Cool? This is a big idea. People buy your standards, they don't buy your presence.
They buy your standards. When you build a team, you're coaching them to a standard.
You're showing up with a standard. The clients see your team, they see the standard.
So understand, some of you guys, I had a, this guy Rick, he owned the bike shop where I did all my like triathlon and Ironman stuff. And Rick had this philosophy that somebody must have taught him that every time I went to the store, his job was to run out of his office and shake my hand, which I appreciated.
However, you know what I appreciate even more than that? Is that my bike got fixed on time. The thing I ordered showed up when you told me it was.
That when you told me to come back, you were ready. And I mean, this went on for two years.
And I remember one time I pulled him aside. I said, Rick, can you spend less time at the front door and more time in your desk running the business? You got to set the standard.
And I know you have a belief that you need to be the person to shake my hand, but I'll be honest with you. I'm going to the guy next door because you can't even do the basics.
Think about that. Some of you guys have these beliefs.
I got to be the person. I got to do this.
I got to do that. I'm telling you, set the standard, coach the standard.
That's the biggest one, especially for coaching companies. I see most coaching companies spend more time coaching their clients than they ever do their team.
That's kind of weird. I show, show me your calendar.
They show me your calendar. Okay.
50% is coaching calls with clients. Where's the coaching with your team? Hmm.
That's interesting. Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter.
It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it at martellmethod.com.
The next hot principle is the 131 rule. This one will transform your life.
You guys ready to have your life transformed? Yes, yes. All right.
This one is the most important because like I said, the bottleneck exists at the top. So I remember one time I had this guy, Adam, he worked for me in operations, and we were growing like crazy.
And just for what it's worth, if you're growing more than 50% a year, you're probably breaking every system in your business every six months. It's good to know, okay? If you grow more than 50% per year every six months, everything's kind of breaking.
So we had 11 people to hire in a month. And Adam's freaking out.
And he comes to me. He's like, Dan, I don't know what to do.
I said, what's that? He goes, we've got to hire 11 people. I'm like, I know.
But I don't know how to do that. Okay.
Well, what do I do? Hmm. How to do your job? Then I guess I'm just curious.
Why did I hire you? And he's like, oh yeah. I said, do you have a one, three, one? He goes, oh, you're one, three, one.
Do you have a one, three, one? He's like, give me some time. I said, tomorrow, same time.
He goes, yeah, I'll get back to you tomorrow, same time. So Adam goes away.
Next morning, 10 AM, Text me. Hey, Dan, I'm good.
Of course you're good. See, most people can actually figure out the answer to the test without you telling them the answer.
But if you keep telling them the answer, they're going to keep coming to you for the answer. Because if they give you the answer and it's wrong, whose fault is it? Fine.
Okay, so when people help build the plan, they don't fight the plan. That's a writer downer.
So I want them to come up with the idea. So here's how I do it, really quick.
I always want to get one specific challenge, or a problem well stated is half solved. Okay, that's Albert Einstein.
You ever have somebody come to you on your team and they're like, okay, I got issues. I'm like, what's going on? They're like, this is an issue.
I'm like, oh, let's talk about that. And they're like, well, then there's this issue too.
Okay. Well, that's totally different.
Yeah. But then there's this issue too.
I'm a little confused. What is the issue? So just help people.
What is the problem you're trying to solve? That question has made me more money than any other question in the history of business. What problem are you trying to solve? If you're coaching, ask that question.
You know, one of the things I do with my clients, and it's one of the bonuses, is I teach them how to use social media to make revenue. Actually, how to convert their followers into dollars, not just vanity metrics, but actually into money.
It's part of the bonuses that I've added to the folks that continue working with John. So the key is that when I'm working with people, I always say, what's the specific, the one

thing?

What problem are you trying to sell?

It's always sales.

It's always sales.

So I teach them this very simple strategy to convert their followers into customers.

Okay?

It's called sell by chat.

So when they come to me and they go sales, I go, what are the three things you've tried?

That's the three.

Three viable options.

So three viable options.

Why do we do this?

That's the three, three viable options. So three viable options, why do we do this? As entrepreneurs, we want to know that our team members have considered everything.
That's why we get anxious. We're like, if they make decisions, we're not involved, I'm just scared that they're gonna make a decision that I'm not gonna be aligned with.
So I always ask them to present those three options to me so that I can review them with them, okay? So when people are having sales issues, they're like, well, we could improve our show rates or we could fix our script or we'd probably hire an agency. And I'm like, out of those three options, what do you think would make the most sense? And then it's one recommendation.
And they usually say, our show rates are only 17%. One out of five show up for the call? Yeah.
Okay, let's fix that. And when they say it out loud, I feel comfortable because they presented me the problem.
As soon as we can move decisions down to the frontline people, it changes our whole company. Okay? So I have this rule called 50 to fix it.

For frontline workers, write this down. If you can solve the problem for less than $50, you don't need my permission.
Solve the problem and just tell me you spent the money after the fact. I'll pay for it.
For leaders, it's 500. If you're leading a little team of three or four, $500.
If you can fix the problem, just spend the money. Tell me afterwards.
For managers, it's 5,000. And for executives, it's 50,000.
But that's CEOs, COOs, et cetera. As soon as you create the one-three-one rule and you empower people at the front line to make decisions, your life will get transformed.
You will be no longer brought into fires because the fires will be put out by the team and your life will transform. Does that make sense? Yes or yes? Cool.
Thank you. Clap that up.
I like that. Clap it up.
One, three, one rule. It's huge.
Transform everything. I want to leave you with this.
Your biggest expense is not doing the thing that makes you the most money. When people are like, how much does that cost? How much is it? No, no, no, no.
The biggest expense is not doing the thing that makes you the most money. And not understanding how to get that time back is where you are investing your money improperly, your time improperly.
So I want to leave you with one big idea. You guys want that? Yes or yes? Here's my big idea.
I believe every person in the world is here to do two things. And it's the difference between being successful and living a life of fulfillment.

John lives a life of fulfillment. Success, you can figure out.
It's actually a science. It's not complicated.
If you sell more than you pay for the stuff and you have profit, financially,

you're successful. Fulfillment is totally different.
So I'm going to ask everybody to stand up.

Everybody stand up. I believe every person on earth is here to do two things.

Everybody standing? Close your eyes. The first thing is to become the 10.0 version of yourself.
I like to say, become the person you needed most in your darkest days. I believe you are most equipped to help the people that you once were.
And you might strive your whole life to become that person, but that's why you're in this room. That's why you're growing.
This is why you want to shift and expand. You want to become the 10.0 version of yourself.
That's one. The second part of that is to share what's worked with you with the world.
Teach everything you know. Maybe the world is your family.
Maybe that world is your community. Maybe that world is your church, your CrossFit gym, your online community, it doesn't matter.

But I believe every person here

is to become the person that God saw,

created them in his image.

And while he's on that path and that journey in real time,

they're sharing, they're sharing everything.

And if you do that, you will live a life of absolute fulfillment.

Thanks for having me. the podcast more ears and helps more people get unstuck reclaim their freedom and build their empire