Time Saving Strategies to Super Scale Your Business

Our leaders should be showing up as people that are aspirational and teaching and like, that's the other thing. It's like some people, like this person wouldn't listen to me. It's like you don't even listen to you.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Scale up method podcast where we teach you how to reach the next level in business, build your dream team and scale well beyond eight figures. Too many business owners are stuck trying to do everything themselves and their businesses are suffering as a result. And I don't want you to be one of those people. I'm Alison Maslin and my company Pinnacle Global Network has helped thousands of business owners scale their companies using our framework, the scale it method. All business owners face similar challenges when it comes to growth. And on this podcast we're delivering the tactics you need to finally scale your company, your team and your life. So now talk about business owners feeling stuck. Our guest today can help you get unstuck. I'm really excited to have Dan Martell. He is a Wall Street Journal best selling author of buy back your time. We're going to dive into that today. It's a game changing book. He is an entrepreneur, he's an angel investor. He became a highly sought after coach in the SaaS industry. He has a whole coaching program around that. And after exiting three technology companies within a 10 year period, he is also an ironman, athlete, philanthropist, husband and father of two incredible boys. So Dan, welcome.

Oh, it's a pleasure and it's an honor, Alison. I've been a big fan of your work and getting the chance to share the message means the world to me. So thank you.

Yeah, for sure. I know we've been kind of going in close circles, so I'm glad that we get this time together. So I'm being a little selfish here. I just, I wanted you to come on here so I can have some time with you and learn from you as well. So I have also been very familiar with your work and when I read buy back your time and we're going to dive into that today, it's really one of those books that you read a few pages. There are some books, you know, that you read a few pages at a time, but then there's some books that really suck you in and that was your book. So I've already told so many people about it and so thank you for taking the time to write it. I know what commitment that takes to do that and you know, buying back your time has been a massive lesson for me and you know over 40 years in business. It was about 30 years ago that I practically killed myself from not having my time. And I know you have your story as well, but I was working night and day and from the total exhaustion of trying to run my business that way, I had a full on car accident that just about took my life and that was a big wake up call. So I've been on a mission for years and years once I figured out this formula to scale, scale to help millions of business owners operate differently in their business. So I've always said it's not about the hustle, it's about creative strategy. And what you've put together in this book is brilliant because it really is about creative strategy. So thank you for the work that you do.

Oh, it's my pleasure. As you know, writing a book is no small feat, but you know, I actually left it at the end kind of the, the, the reveal. But I actually put together a book team. So I worked on for two and a half years. But I had some incredible people creatively and my writing partner Paul kind of support the idea and I couldn't be more proud of kind of what we put together because I wanted, I wrote a book for the people I cared about the most. The, the small entrepreneurs, my friends and family members that are not in software. That's my background and that I knew could answer the question like, okay, Dan, I want to do this, I'm willing to do the work, but where do I start? And that, that's why even the way that I wrote the book and the chapters and the five time assassins like it was to address the creatives, the artists.

Right.

Nobody can do it, just like me. And you know, I use the very specific case studies in the book like Andy Warhol story and, and many others to kind of illuminate that. So I appreciate you sharing that.

Yeah, it really is. The way that you have crafted the book and weaving in and out the stories, you can definitely relate and you can also visualize. I love when a book brings pictures to your mind. You can see yourself in those scenarios as well. Let's talk about time. Let's just talk about time for a minute. Because you know I always say money comes and goes, time does not. And I'm fascinated by this idea of time because, you know, when you're immersed in something that you love, time just flies. Like, you know, you're trying to outwit time, but then when you're dreading something, it takes forever. Isn't it interesting with time? What's just Your philosophy of time in general?

Yeah. I mean, time is not a constant. You know, I think people have been doing this a long, long enough time as you alluded to. We realize that our energy of how we look at what we're doing, I mean you can have people without purpose and vision. The same activity or task can feel like pulling teeth and in a different scenario can feel like you're doing God's work. I mean, it's really fascinating that the frame of even why you do something can change the whole thing. You know, it's like I could design something, but if I designed it and I knew that the world was going to throw it away as soon as I'm done, I'm not going to be that enthusiastic about it. But if I knew that that work was going to be put on the, you know, on a commercial on TV, seen by 100 million people, same time, same focus, same activity is going to feel so much better. So the way I think about time is it's the thing that everybody has that most people don't realize they're investing every day.

Right.

I think it's 86,000 or 400 seconds or 84,600 seconds every day. We all have the same amount and we choose what we do with it. So a long time ago I realized that you can't build a million dollar company off $10 tasks. Right there just physically isn't an amount enough hours in a week for you to do that. And if you don't start looking at the things you say yes to and that'll uncover the beliefs and the blockers and the mindset if you issues that come with, you know, entrepreneurship that you'll wake up one day and you'll realize you spent a lot of times building something that you've grown to hate. And I think that's the movement I want to create in the world is I want to help entrepreneurs avoid building companies that they grow to hate. And it's all going to start by them understanding how time works and how they're they their energy es and flows based on the types of activities they're doing.

Yeah, 100%. And you said one word, you said invest. So this idea of investing your time, so when you invest something, you should be getting something back. Right. So if you're looking at your day or all the things that you're choosing to do to be really intentional about that and think about what is the return.

A thousand.

What I'm choosing to do.

Yeah. It's interesting because in the book I have this. This matrix called the drip matrix, which stands for delegate, replace, invest and produce. And it's become quite famous. A lot of people read the book. They use it, they teach it, and they share it. And if you think of the drip matrix, the left side of the quadrant is essentially, you know, how to buy back your time.

Right?

It's the delegate and replace. And I have this framework for replacement ladder. So the left side will teach you how to get more time back. And. And I've had. Yesterday I had lunch with a entrepreneur locally. Finally made the decision to hire an assistant. He's bought back 35 hours a week. You know, I asked them, how would you feel if you found out tomorrow they were leaving? He said, I would cry. Like, it's been the most meaningful hire in my life. However, where people make the mistake is. And I. And I hope I make this argument really clear in the book, is we buy back our time to fill it with things that light us up, that produce more value for our lives, more revenue for our business. So the right side of the drip matrix is actually how to think about what to do with that newfound time.

Right?

And it's. It's starting with investing, you know, investing in yourself, investing in your beliefs, investing in your skills, and then it's using that upgraded capacity to then produce more for the business. Right. It's not about buying back your time to go hang out on the beach. That's not my style. Like, the subtitle of my book is get unstuck, reclaim your freedom, and build your empire. And I know the word empire may scare some people, not your audience, though. Some tells me, Allison, that you've got folks that want to learn how to build meaningful companies. But the word empire in my world stands for a life of unlimited creation we never have to retire from.

Right.

It's not about a thousand employees or 50 million in revenue. It could be. And if that's your. They're your direction, your vision, it should be. But it's really about getting to a place where that your input in the business shouldn't be required. It's additive. It's not required. And that is a beautiful place that every entrepreneur should run towards, which is why I created the replacement ladder, so that they don't become the number one, like, you know, bottleneck. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I think it's irresponsible for a lot of entrepreneurs to not really focus on this stuff when they've got a family and they've got other people. They got A team that depends on them, that if something unfortunately could happen to them, you know, Covid happened for the whole world.

Right.

Like, we don't know when it's going to be our time. So I just don't want anybody that works for me to not be able to. To be employed just because something happens to me. So that the. The whole idea of buying back our time is there to reinvest it in things that help us produce more, have more, give more.

Oh, yeah, 100%. I. The thing that's so interesting is that business owners are holding on so tightly because they're afraid of losing something or something that can fall apart. But actually, they're so in the way that they end up losing way more, you know, so in Pinnacle Global Network, we work with established business owners in the seven to nine figures. What gets them stuck is that as they've grown and they've added more people on the team, even though they're bigger, they're still running the company the way they did when they started. And I believe that it becomes this addiction where you feel like you still have to be the hero to answer all the big questions, jump in and save the day. And there's no judgment there. It's hard to let go. It's scary to let go. Until, like, you were talking to this guy now, it was probably a lot of fear. Now he's like, oh, my gosh, I can't imagine my life without this person. But they get buried in their business for decades. Burned out. The businesses running them instead of them. Them running it. So what do you say, Dan, to these people that are just. It's. They're like, well, I. You know, this is the way that it has to be.

Or.

Or, you know, I do like working like this, but they just don't know any different.

Yeah, I don't. I would say I don't disagree that they like to work that way or that it has worked to this point. You know, and oftentimes what I discover when I. When I talk to friends of mine that are stuck with this stuff is they think that's their. Their separator. They think that is their superpower. They think that's their edge. Right. Because I'm in the nitty gritty and I come into the office and I inspect with. I expect I'm double clicking and they're super active in Slack and they're doing all this stuff. They think because of that, that that's why they're successful. My argument is it's in spite of that because the truth is that companies that scale, the ones that we write about in books, the people that we admire, the reason why they've been able to do those things is they've been able to work through their people to scale, right? And there's different reasons at different levels of revenue that entrepreneurs get stuck. Stuck from 1 to 5 to 10 to whatever, right? But one of the big ones is learning the skill of working through people that then manage people that then work with individual contributors that touch the customer. It's a scary thing, Allison, as you know. Like that's, you know, when you have that level of separation, when you, when, especially if you grew fast and, and not too many years ago, you were the person doing the thing with the customer. That's a right man. Like the last thing you want is for somebody to have a bad experience that then shows negatively on your own personal name, right? So letting go is scary. I get that. But here's what I know. There's a difference between transactional management, right? And I share this in the book. Around the tell, check, next loop, right? I, I tell people what to do, I check that they got it done, and then I tell them what to do next. The, the challenge with that is that you become the bottleneck. The reason why it's called a bottleneck is because it's at the top, right? So it's like, I don't want to be a bottleneck. The way I look at the way I lead teams is I don't delegate tasks. And you can tell. I can literally, if somebody said somebody sent me the audio of a meeting they've had, I could transcribe it, analyze it, and tell them what they're doing. Because it's language, right? It's task focused language versus outcome focused language, right? So a great transformational leader, which is what I talk about in the book, is they start with the outcome, okay? So they don't hire somebody to do a task, they hire somebody to do a role. They assign the outcomes of that role to the individual. And, and then they set the rules of engagement or the ability to measure their success so that the person has a clear scorecard of how to. I mean, it's like, Alison, if somebody said, let's go play cricket right now, and they didn't tell me the rules, and then they started screaming at me because I'm swinging the bat backwards, hitting the friggin ball the wrong direction. It's like, why are you upset? I don't know how this thing is played, right? So to me, it's the right measurement. And then finally it's coach's success. The under investment, the. The lack of investment I've seen in companies, in their people. Okay. Like, I just ask clients all the time, especially if they're coaches. Those are the easiest one to kind of nail on this. When I ask them, it's like, okay, what percentage of time do you spend coaching your clients? There's like, Well, I don't know, 80%. Perfect. What percent of your time do you spend coaching your team? What do you mean? Well, you know, what you do with your clients. Think of that. How much do you spend with your team? And they're like 5%. Okay, I need to start looking more. 50. 50. I mean, if you want to scale, as you know, we need to look at our people no different than our clients. Like, if we're doing product marketing, we should be doing team marketing.

Right?

We should be doing our all hands. We should be doing our one on ones. We should be investing in their training. Our leaders should be showing up as people that are aspirational and teaching. And like, that's the other thing. It's like some people, like, this person wouldn't listen to me. It's like, you don't even listen to you. Like, you know what I mean? Like, look at yourself. So to me, I think about scale is all about outcomes, measurement and coaching to success. And if we build a team that does that, then the CEO is never the bottleneck. Because the big difference you'll see in those companies, Allison, and I know you teach this, and I love that about you, is that the company that can scale, the CEO comes to work and, and the people do not work for them. They work for their people. I do not have people that work for me. I don't even like the word boss. I refuse to allow people to call me that. I am a team member and we are a team. And I'm. I'm the talent. I show up and I'm like, hey, team, what do you need from me? I'm here to unblock things. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I don't know what you're doing. I don't want to know. I don't even have login to HubSpot. I don't want. I want to develop people.

Right?

And that is. That, to me, is the biggest unlock that if people could grasp that from the book, I think would be like a fundamental paradigm shift on how they're showing up with their teams.

Yeah. That is so beautiful. Thank you for Sharing that, I know that's going to be mind blowing for a lot of people to hear this. And I do agree fully. You've got to, I mean, it's, you've got to invest in yourself as a leader to grow. I mean, I work on myself every single day. I still have a lot of work, a lot of years of work ahead there to continue to improve as a leader. I've been investing in myself for years. But it's also investing in the team and their growth as well. Because if you're elevating, you need your team to elevate too. And so that's just super, super smart. We actually, we run a program called Scale Team where we actually go into the company and work with the employees. And when you're able to support the CEO and the team members, it's just, it really is a beautiful thing. So you, you were inspired by people like Oprah and Richard Branson, two really incredible, successful people that, you know, I'm also a big fan of. And they, they run their time very differently. Can you share about that? You talk about it in the book?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's kind of like, where did they start versus where they're at, right? Like, everybody starts at the same place. We all have 100 things we should be doing and not enough time to get it done.

Right.

And, you know, we run out of money before the end of the month. You know, like, this is just normal entrepreneurial stuff. What people that have scaled, have figured out is like, what's a normal problem, an abnormal problem, right? And so like being required for the company to grow, if you're 10 years in and you're over 10 million in revenue, that's an abnormal thing. That doesn't have to be that way. That can be resolved. And when you look at people like Warren and many others and Elon and Steve Jobs, like the best. And I use their names because they're notable, but literally, I also like, you know, meeting my, the local aviation company in my hometown that does 150 million a year and just watching how the CEO of that company comes to work. And you'll find the same traits. These are people that typically spend their day working on one or two critical things that they know exactly what it is. They know that they've only got one or two great decisions to make. I mean, Jeff Bezos made this concept popular, right? He says, look, I putter in the morning and you know, I really don't go to the office to do anything meaningful till about 10am because I know I only got one or two real big decisions that are going to move the needle to set up. And he's like, I don't even set up this quarter that's baked. It's not next quarter. Kind of figured out. It's like things that are 16 months into the future at his level. And so what do they do with their time? They're reading, they're investing in their energy, they're taking care of their health, they're learning themselves. They've got a peer network. They do all the things that I know you do for your clients.

Right.

And because of that, then their ability to reflect and make better decision over time gets better. And that's really what entrepreneurship is. And growth in business, it's. Are your decisions directionally more accurate this year than last year?

Right.

And to the degree that they're better, you will have growth to the degree that you ask your team to do too many things because you overloaded them and nothing got done. That's a leadership problem. And you mentioned, like, as leaders, we have to invest in ourselves. Yeah. John Maxwell calls it the law of the lid, which I love, because it's true. Your company will never surpass your growth of personal development. Like, it's just. It's correlated. If you want more revenue in your business, you got to go become more. Because if you already have what you needed to have to get the thing you want, you would already got it by now. So the question is not, you know, what hack am I missing? Because that might have been relevant when you were small. The truth is, as you grow, it's, how are you showing up? How are you making people feel like really stuff that leaders don't talk about? How are you communicating? Are you consistent? I remember one time I was working with a leader, and he admitted to me that he doesn't even show up for half of his meetings. And I'm like, how do you have a team that wants to show up and fight and go to war for you if you can't even be consistent to them? I can't imagine what you're communicating to them, to how they show up for your clients. You know, so it's like, no wonder you haven't grown in four years. It's because you, you personally have not demonstrated the characteristics that are required to actually compete. So my whole thing is, yeah, when you look at the top folks in the world, it, it, it doesn't look like work.

Right.

Warren Buffet talks about this all the time. I tap dance to work. He literally spends Most of the time reading information to make one or two. And then at his scale, I mean, he's sitting on billions of dollars of capital to deploy, and he just needs to make one or two really meaningful investments per year. And. And he only collaborates with people that he enjoys working with. That's another thing. You'll find the top folks, right? They have their. Their dream team. These are people that are special. I mean, most people don't even understand compensation. Like Netflix's top executive vice presidents makes tens of millions of dollars per year as compensation.

Right.

Tim Cook at Apple makes 100 million plus a year in compensation. Like, even the idea of asking yourself, how do I create an environment where I can create millionaires in my company? Because if they made you a million dollars or if they made $1 million in the company, then you've made. They've made you $10 million.

Right?

And, like, setting up the scenario so where, again, you come to work and you're. You're there to work for them, and they're setting this up. That's why, like, the way they work their day to. Again, the uneducated eye. They see somebody that doesn't seem like they're doing much, but what they're doing is being the example of what's required to have their team feel motivated, excited, and have a clear vision, and that. That'll drive a group of people forward. And that's all a business is. It's just an organization of people. And to the degree they have clear vision of what they got to go attack, and the leader is setting the example, they will have success.

Yeah, it's such a learning process. And I love how you really detail this in the book. I wish I would have had this years ago. It would have saved me so much grief. I mean, we have over 50 employees now, and really my role is to live in vision and inspire the team and really make those few critical decisions of the future. And I love doing that. And that's what excites me most. And that's really where my gift is, is getting the team pumped up behind the vision. But I will tell you the mistakes that I made along the way, Dan. I remember one time this team member came to me and said, allison, you are like a red Ferrari, and you're going so fast, and we are all running so fast behind you, trying to catch up. And, you know, my first thought, I didn't say it, but my first thought was, why don't you just run faster? Like, what's your problem? But then I realized you know, that's not, you know, your people are going to be operating differently than you. Everybody has different personalities, different ways that they process. And I was going too fast. I was on this, you know, race to get somewhere, but I was actually causing so much chaos that it was slowing everybody way down. Instead of really understanding that we only needed to make or to work on maybe two, one or two major initiatives as a company and then within each department. So there was just a lot of those things. I used to think, you know, well, I can't make this meeting today. I'm running late with this and they're just going to have to move the meeting. And then I, you know, I realized, well, that was pretty self centered, you know, they're planning their whole day. So. But I was like, I almost had to go through all that to see what didn't work. But I would have rather learn, learn this sooner and saved a lot of aggravation. But it's a evolution to become a leader. It's so much of your own personal growth, don't you think?

I mean, again, it's, you know, when I tell people, and I think it was Jim Marone used to say this, you know, don't wish the world was easier. Wish you were better.

Right?

Like our, you know, oftentimes I get the call because, you know, friends of mine read my book and they're like, all right, Dan, I read the book, doing all this stuff. Got an assistant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, my team's pissing me off. Like, I just, I'm frustrated. Like I, they, they don't deliver on projects or whatever. And I listen and then I asked them a simple question. I said, make a list of all, all the frustrations you have got right now with your team. Like all them, like list them all out. And they do. And I said, okay, now rank order them based on most frustrating.

Right?

So let's say, you know, one, one client said, oh, it was, you know, their, their time management, like they, they're not responsive, blah, blah, blah, I don't think they're managing their time, etc. And I said, all right, start with the first one. Have you taught them as a team how to do that? Well, no. Okay, there's your opportunity as a leader because all CEOs for the most part, Allison and I, and I, I'm in the same camp. I like to be in vision, right? And if I want to run fast, if I want to race the car, if I want to keep the engine going cool, but I also have to take that energy and then circle back and go, where's the deficits? And how can I support the team to overcome those? And instead of going out to the world and being exposed to cool ideas and coming back and saying, hey, I read this book, let's do this or I was at this mastermind, I learned this, let's do this. Like just slow down a little bit and first go, go pay down some organizational debt.

Right?

That's why I call it like go find the bottlenecks and help resolve them through your. Like so many of us, the reason why we're high performers because we figured out a few things along the way about how things work. But again, back to the point of how much time do we spend training our people? Like to me, if you have a list of frustration with your team, you may have the wrong person. That's, that's a given. But if you haven't at least first tried to coach them up, train them, giving them a framework and showed them the difference, the way you think about stuff versus them, then just going out there and coming back and putting more stuff on them, that is a leadership deficit. That is a CEO deficit. It's not your team. Right. And those are the, the, the challenges that will surface. That should be a feedback loop to self development, right? And I talk about this in the book, in the clearing conversations. I think feedback is like the oxygen of a company, right. If nobody's given anybody feedback, then you're destined like there's something broken. And the question I ask on all my one on ones is what do you need most from me? How can I show up better as a leader for you? And if those words have never left the. If you're listening to this, you've never asked those questions like stop listening and go get on the phone, talk to people, hey, how do I show up better as a leader for you? What do you need most for me to help you in your work?

Right.

Because that's the, that is the highest priority hit list if I'm going to go out the world and improve myself, right. If I want to become more so I have more to give or capable of dealing with more. I want it to be driven by the people that report to me so I can become the person they need to. That's how we unlock resources.

I love that. And you know, it's interesting too, and I was thinking as you were sharing that Dan, when we hire somebody, we just sort of, and I know I have. Is that you expect that they already come with the skills that are going to operate and roll out and be executed in the way that you, as the leader would want them to, instead of thinking, well, let's see, they've come with these skills, they've had this level of excess or experience, but they don't really know exactly the way that I want it to be, that I want it executed. So they need to be trained and coached on that. And so if you don't have, if your expectations are mixed, like if I have a certain way of I want it done, but they don't know what those expectations are, then they can never win. And then you're always feeling frustrated.

What typically happens is, especially when we recruit people, you know, again, it's a skill, like when you start, you don't know how to do it. You hire anybody that's got a pulse or can fog a mirror, right? And you learn over time that that might not be the best move, right? And hopefully you build a recruiting process. Chapter six in my book, I teach this whole test first hiring method. But you still may get people that are not performing right. And oftentimes I always ask, do I have a people problem or do I have a process problem? And a process problem. The way I think about it is that you can have an incredible athlete, right? Great basketball player, and under the guidance of one coach, they could be an all star player. And then they change teams and they go to a different team and under a different coach, they're mediocre. Well, what changed? What change was the construct in the context of how they, they probably practice, how they were communicated to how good of a job the coach was able to see the strengths and pair that with other teams that helped kind of pull them up or cover their, their deficits or whatever. And I think like that's the process thing is even if, you know, I hire somebody that's quote unquote, a high performer or they were in another organization, if I don't create a scenario around reporting and the tooling and the data that the person needs to follow to make decisions. Because this is our rhythm of success, right? And I know you teach this like there's a rhythm of how teams should, should organize and execute. So every company has their own flavor of it. Sometimes it's the same thing. They call it something different. Some people might index more towards, you know, baseline data, other people might be towards gap. But whatever it is, it has to be communicated. And I always put it on the leader. If you have somebody that's underperforming, I never default to go to the people I go first to the process. Have we communicated to this person how we practice as a concept, right? How we do feedback, how we look at performance, how we do strategic planning, right? How we negotiate agreements? I mean, these are things I had to learn with my kids. I got two young boys. And I remember a friend of mine, you know, he shared with me, he's a leadership coach, and he shares with me how to. How to do an agreement. And I was like, oh, I don't do it that way. And he goes, yeah, it's the most important thing you could probably learn. It's the most important with your kids, right? Because sometimes we tell our kids to do something. If they don't do it, something's going to happen. And you go, do you understand? They go, yeah. That wasn't an agreement. An agreement is something that was negotiated and mutually agreed upon, not a direction. So even the concept of do we have an agreement in most companies, their definition of what truly that means is flawed at best. I mean, it's not. So it's like, then we get upset because a person didn't deliver the thing that we agreed on, but we didn't agree. We told them what to do. So, like, even the concept of the 131-you- know, that was one of my favorite frameworks to get out to the world, right? My buddy Brad taught to me a long time ago. And the concept's simple. Anybody that comes to you with problems, you just politely stop them and say, hey, can we just distill this into what's the one issue you're dealing with that you want my help on? And can you. Can you communicate that?

Right?

Because a problem well communicated is half solved, right? Then it's, what are the three viable options you've evaluated or you're considering? Can you explain them to me right off the bat? At that point, people are going to go like, well, I know what I want to do. No, no, I need three viable options, right? And they go, well, I don't have them.

Great.

Can you go work on it? You know, I had an HR person, Adam, come to me once, and he's like, you know, after our strategic planning, we had to identify we have to hire 13 people in the next, like, month. And he comes to me, he's like, hey, man, I don't know how we're gonna do this. I said, what? He goes, recruiting. I was like, what? What do you mean? He goes, well, we got 13 people to hire. I was like, cool, what do you need from me? He goes, well, I don't know how we're gonna do it. I said, adam, you're the director of hr. If I hire you and tell you what to do, why am I doing your job? Like, I love you, man, but, like, I'm not here to do your job. Steve Jobs said this a while ago. He said, it's easy to hire people and tell them what to do. It's hard to hire them and have them tell you what to do. So I said, adam, go work on your one three one. And he's like, oh, yeah, he's heard me say this so many times. He's like, so how much time do you need? He's like, give me a day. I said, cool. The next morning at 10am, he texts me, we're good. He figured it out. Why is that powerful? Because the last 13 viable option, the last one is the one recommendation. The reason the 131 rule is so valuable is it really educates your team, your direct reports to solve the problems they see in real time. Honestly, most of the time that people bring stuff to me, the 90% of the time, whatever they suggest, of course that's what I want to do. We want to know that they thought through the problem, through the different options, and that they, they, they. It wasn't just from the hip, but the more you can empower people or teach them the 131 framework, you'll get individual contributors at the front line who have the most context around the issue to solve problems in real time. If you want to debottle neck your whole organization, you teach this to them tomorrow and you. And you coach them and ask them about it and model it for them, and it'll probably be the biggest unblock in a company that you've ever deployed out of anything any software could ever do. Is that principle?

Yeah, it is totally a new way of approaching for them. Instead of coming for the answers, they are bringing the solutions. And that's a game changer. That is a game changer. So you told the story of Richard Branson. I want to talk a little bit about having an executive assistant and the power of that. But I got to meet Richard in 2019 when he was speaking, speaking at Traffic and Conversion. I was also an emcee at that time, and I got to have a great discussion with him. I know that you spent some time with him, which I'm sure that was just wonderful. And I said to him, I said, richard, I've always thought that I was a big thinker, but the way that you think is like on a whole other planet. I said, where do you go in your head when you think like that? And he said to me, you know, Alison, we only have so much time on this earth, so you might as well go right for the top. And he went in and kind of explained that a little bit. But basically what he was saying was don't do, you know, sort of climbing the ladder. Just go directly to the top. Like, don't waste your time. And that was so powerful for me to hear that from him. And I loved your story about how he meets with his assistant every morning and they debrief, and then she really is kind of his protection in a sense. She knows the kind of meetings he should have and so forth. Can you speak to that a little bit? In that a lot of our clients have a lot of employees. Some of them have hundreds employees, and they don't have an executive assistant. I've had. My issue is I've had executive assistants, and then they end up rising in the ranks of the company. So I have them for a while and then I lose them because, you know, they've gone up. One's an operations coordinator now one's, you know, another role. But I'd love for you to speak to what would be the ideal scenario in setting up an executive assistant for. For the CEO?

Great question. First off, let's start with titles. Executive assistant isn't something you give to a virtual assistant, right?

The.

The term executive is a thousand percent earned, right? I remember my buddy Jason, you know, I was talking to him about how he, he set up his relationship with his, his executive assistant. And, you know, he hired this woman. She was ex SAP, big software company, multi billion dollar company, and she ran his life like these. If you set it up right, it's. It's probably not the best word to describe how they interact with you as a CEO. You know, I think chief of staff's another interesting language for this. But the way I think about my executive assistant, and her name is Ann, is she's my partner in life, right? I have all this demand on my time, just like Richard has with his. And her name was Helen. And because Ann is in my inbox, in my calendar, in my, my, you know, if I need her in meetings or whatever, she's built this context, right? And every day we have our meeting. And in the book, I, I share that. I literally had one today with her. And we follow the exact same format. I teach in my book, right? And because of that, over time, she keeps being able to take more Things off our plate. And the way I think about it is Ann works with Anne's, Dan's executive assistant. She's not even SaaS, academy or high Speed Ventures, all the different companies I'm involved in. So that way she builds a team under her. Because I've run into that Allison, where you have great VAs or assistants, and they want a career path, so. And operations is a beautiful place or customer success or account manager, because they just know so much.

Right.

But what I'd rather do is build a team under her and those people can eventually I'm going to keep that relationship. And if, if that means I got to pay them six figures, that's what I pay them.

Right.

Because they truly are a clone.

Right.

Helen, when I met her, she was early 30s and she traveled the world with Richard. Wherever he went, she was there. She got time off to, you know, to do family stuff. But I mean, it wasn't, it was, you know, the agreement was you are going to essentially put your life on pause to come live in our context. And, and for her, that worked really well.

Right.

And what, what happens is if you learn to let go and invest and then at the same time build the, the, the SOPs, the standard operating procedures, or what I call playbooks. Because the other thing is, is I want to make sure that I backfill the opportunity that if, if they do go, that there's not this massive hole in my life.

Right.

Yes.

So even today, once a month, we usually kind of review kind of what's been updated in our admin playbooks. And like today, it was just an issue with some scheduling that was six weeks out and she added to the checklist. So now doesn't matter if it's her doing or somebody else in the future. Every. I think it's once a month, she. Or every week she looks six weeks out in the future, she just makes her. All the travel stuff is entered in the calendar in a certain way, and that's just part of her weekly rhythm. So it's like it's having the faith to give somebody. But. But Ann's my project manager. She interacts with the lawyers, she interacts with the banks. Everybody knows who she is. She travels with me. She, my house manager reports to her like she is. If she says something, everybody in my life knows it's gospel. Like, you don't have to second guess her.

Right.

She's earned that ability and that's allowed me to do the things. I only do two things in life. I spend time with people I really enjoy or I work on really cool, creative stuff. I do zero anything else. And some people, you know, my family, you know, they. They sometimes think, like, you know, you don't do anything. It's like, no, I actually do. I work really hard. I get up really early and I get it done. I just don't do a lot of other stuff people do that that takes up their time. Like, zero. I'm on.

Like.

Like, I haven't been to a grocery store in forever. I don't fill a gas in my car. I don't. And I don't say that to brag, but it's just true. Like, if you can get to the place where you truly say, I'm going to buy back my time, to reinvest it in things that make me more money and over time, you know what your buyback rate is, and I teach the formula in my book, then it's kind of dumb for you to do the stuff that you shouldn't be doing when you're, you know, your wife or your partner is upset at you for not spending more time with them, or your kids don't want to talk to you because you're not around, or your health has gone to crap because you haven't been doing the. The fitness stuff. So, like, that's my philosophy. And. And I'll tell you, Richard inspired it in the biggest way, because before that, I had a va. I had somebody managing my inbox or. Or what I call looping them in. I had somebody, I would loop into stuff to do things for me, okay? So I would, like, gotta sign a contract. I loop in my va hey, set this up in whatever software, and I'll sign it. Or, you know, know schedule this, and I loop them in. That's not what I'm talking about in my book. I'm very clear. They manage all inbound requests on your time. They're the first pass at all requests. And they put it together and they present it to you with the information and context you need, because they know if you're available or not right off the bat. So why does it have to wait for me to get the information to go and check myself? So it's a completely different approach. And anybody that says, well, I like, because I have people that tell me all the time, it's like, yeah, well, this person does that for me, and this person does that. It's like, yeah, let's do a time and energy audit, right? I t. It's the first thing I teach in my book. Let's do a time and energy audit and really look at where you're spending your time. Well, I don't mind doing my own travel stuff. I'm not saying you don't like choosing where you're going to go on vacation. I'm just saying going on airbnb and searching 1500 different listings to find the top three that you could pick from. Somebody else can do that, right? Coordinating. I just bought a new car. I wasn't involved in the process. The sales guy kept trying to text me Allison, and I called him and I said, if you call me one more time and you disrespect Betty, because Betty manages all that for me, I'm going to let her know. And trust me, she'll tell you, you got to work with her because I don't own this. I'm not negotiating the price of the car. I'm not dealing with whatever stuff you want to sell me. She's the, she's the buyer. Just because my name might be on the check, that's not the person you should be talking to. And even that is, like, weird for people. They're like, why weren't you involved? It's like, that is not the best use of my time. I'm going to go and, you know, we buy companies like, I'm not. I don't care. Like, I know what I want. Let them deal with it.

Yeah, well, you're losing money by distributing your time on those things, right? When somebody else can handle them. I always say, unless it's you're getting your hair cut or your teeth cleaned, it doesn't really have to be you. And so, but I'm wondering now, you.

Have.

If you, you have Ann, and then do you, you have a house manager, too, or is that like, can that be the same person? Do you see that?

It's. It's like everything. It's a great question. If you look at the time and energy audit, right when you start, you. You do everything right? And then over time, you look at the things that are low cost that you can pull out of your calendar, right? And that's the $10 task. That's why when I teach a replacement ladder, the executive admin, the admin stuff is the first place to start because it's the lowest cost of leverage, right. For the biggest amount of time. And over time, you can have some people call them PAs, personal assistants, and they'll manage, you know, the, the emails, the calendar, and the home life potentially.

Right.

But even at scale, that person, if you're growing will be at capacity. So the buyback principle applies to all the executives as well. Whole team members. Right. It's why my executive assistant has an assistant because her time is worth x doing very valuable projects and she should not be doing the things that are lower cost, lower value. Same thing with my house manager. Betty manages anything that's got literally a sin number, a VIN number, a credit card, an expiry date for my wife and I.

Right.

She's responsible for my real estate portfolio. She's responsible for vehicle, like everything. Okay, so should she be also cleaning my house? She doesn't have time because she's busy doing really meaningful stuff, negotiating car purchases.

Right.

So like we have Sarah that cleans the house. So, like, over time, what you'll do is you want to build teams under these people, right. Sometimes those teams are companies, right? So you have a good CEO in place, you have a good executive leadership team. And then your executive assistant is the buffer between you and them. That way if they need something from you, they know to call her or him and ask for it. And it gets put on the list and you review it in the daytime. Or they send an email, gets picked up, and they process it and. And you can even create some cool rules around like, priorities and stuff. Like so, for example, you know, we have like shorthand stuff that we do in email. 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, well, at the end of an email, let's say I'm, I'm. Somebody wants to do something with me, I'll just tell them to send me an email and then I'll go and I'll leave a draft and I'll leave a note in the draft to tell Anne what to do with it. Because I just had a conversation with them, but I'm not involved, so she can move it forward.

Right?

So you, over time, you learn kind of like tricks and hacks to like communication. But I will tell you this. You teach people how to treat you. So for example, the text messages is just as bad as an inbox. And for a lot of CEOs, you'll. If you don't do your inbox and your assistant manages it, and then people text you and you respond. You just taught them to circumvent your inbox to text you directly. The way I handle that, because it happens to me every day, clients, partners, whatever is, I'll screenshot the message they sent me. I'll send a text message to my assistant and the person and I'll paste the screenshot of the that they sent me and I'LL say and can you work with Kevin to move this forward? And that taught Kevin.

Wow.

Yeah.

I really shouldn't be messaging Dan. I should message. Yeah, you got to learn the tricks to kind of move the conversation flows back to the right places. If not, you didn't really buy back any time. You just changed a different communication paths.

Yeah. And you know what? I've always, I've told my team I'm not going to get into Slack. I'm not going to get into, you know, whatever, you know, project management software. It's just not going to happen. Just, just tell me the thing. Don't send me the link to the thing because I don't have time or to get in there.

But you. I just change my password. I get. My, My assistant literally changes the damn martell password for HubSpot project management and Slack. I don't do it. I just. You're. We're allowed to say no. We're allowed to set up our lives the way we want to and then let the people use the tools they want to run their departments. But I don't need those tools to run my leadership with my executive leadership team.

Right.

They bring the information to me in a format. I'm allowed to ask for that.

Yeah. Your formula for getting out of email is masterful. And so I'm in a process right now because like I said now my, my assistant has now moved up in the ranks, so I'm now hiring for that position. But that's going to be the first thing because I have to admit, I am still on email and it is the thing that I think slows me down the most. I have taken all of my social media off of my phone, so I'm not distracted by that anymore. But I definitely love the way that you laid that out. So for any of you, you have to read this book because Dan just, he makes it super clear this is what you do first, this is what you do second. This is what you do third. There's so much in the book, honestly, I could go on and on and we could make this a two hour. I have a lot more questions too, but we've been going on for quite a bit here. But I do want to just ask you, are there any last words of advice that you would like to share for those that are sitting here saying, gosh, I really hear what you're saying, Dan, but.