How to Grow From A 7-Figure 'Small Business' To An 8- or 9-Figure Empire w/ Jeff Hoffman

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Good morning and thanks, my friends, for being here in this section. Oh, you guys, today if we can bring the slides up, Ryan and I had a long talk about what we should talk about. And I decided we're going to talk about teams, building teams, the hiring, the talent process, and the fact that the truth is in life that the best team really does win. So that's going to be my topic for today. Can we get the slides up over. Okay, there we go. And I'm just going to jump right in. I start with sports, something that Ryan and I very much have in common. If you haven't seen this, this is something that Ryan posted. From the day Ryan and I met, Ryan told me he was going to buy the Cleveland Indians. In the last couple years, their price seems to have gone up because they're actually playing good baseball. But it made me think about something that in sports, the concept of team is so obvious. And it's just not so obvious in business and especially in entrepreneurship. And I want to start there. I have a lot of friends who are professional athletes and when they start their discussion about anything in sports, this is. Well, think about this. Whether you love or hate the New England Patriots, what is it they keep on doing? They just keep on winning. What is it that, why is it that they keep on winning? Because that is probably the team that does the best job of filling every position on the team. Granted, Tom Brady may be a star now, but the dude was a 6 round draft pick for years. They were winning with no big stars on the team because they rounded out the team. In fact, some of you may not know, I've known Brady for a little while. Brady gave up several years in a row and he gave back part of his salary to sign two defensive backs. I don't even know if that's public information. What Tom said is, I want to win. So take some of my salary, get me these two defensive backs because we need to round out the defense. That is why they always win, because they focus on the total team picture, whether people like that or not. By the way, Peyton Manning did that. If you don't know. When he went to Denver, he said, you're paying me too much, and our team's not rounded out. Peyton Manning gave back part of his salary, so to make sure that he had a winning team, one of the guys, I was here last year visiting a school in Austin called Acton, because I've been working on a intercity school in Akron, Ohio, with LeBron James. And if you don't know LeBron's story, LeBron never said, I can come back to Cleveland and win a title. What LeBron said was, I have to have Kevin Love. I have to have a guy down in the post to get rebounds. I need a point guard like Kyrie. Then guess what LeBron did. He gave back part of his salary to make sure they could sign a rebounder named Tristan Thompson. There's a common theme here. The most successful people aren't greedy about. Give it all to me. The most successful people don't want to own 100% of nothing. They want to own a smaller piece of a winning team. And it amazes me how we don't always get that in business. Think about the deal. So this is a friend of mine, Derek Jeter. I hope you guys know Derek, even if you're not Yankee fans. But Derek can tell you whenever we talk. Derek can tell you on any big win. The man won five World Series. But could you ever picture this Derek coming out and saying, we don't need a pitcher. We're good. We don't need. We got me. I'm Derek Jeter. We don't need a catcher. Don't worry about left field. I'll just cover everything from shortstop. Never going to happen. So why do you, as entrepreneurs, do that? I meet so many entrepreneurs that pretty much say, I got this. I'm great. They tell the story of me when they're pitching to me, how great they are and all the things they're doing. They're bragging about the fact that they're wearing seven hats when what they should be doing is finding someone better than them to wear the other six. Quit trying to kid yourself thinking that Derek Jeter could have won any World Series playing by himself. The same thing. This is another buddy of mine, Ray Lewis, played for the Ravens his whole life. When Ray got to Baltimore, they were 2 and 14. Ray didn't say, I will personally win Super Bowls, although he did win Super Bowls. What he said on day one was, let's start making a list of all the areas we're not great and figure out how we can get great in every one of those areas, we won't win anything until every position is well played. We need to do that. The best businesses in the world are the ones that have actually figured out that you have to build a team around you. I don't care how smart you think you are, by the way, you're never as smart as you think you are or as capable. So I want to start by saying this. When people, you know, it's funny because when I do a lot of media stuff in television, they say, what is the one thing businesses, entrepreneurs, startups need most? And everybody says funding. It's not funding, it's talent. If I gave you a bunch of average people money, what do you think would happen? Average results. If I gave three rock stars money, they would do more. But by using that money to build a team and create, talent is the scarcest resource in the world. Not funding, talent. Human capital is the most valuable asset that you can acquire. Okay. Creative genius, inspired determination. I just gotta tell you, one of my early startups, I'll talk about it in a minute. One of my earliest startups, I spent so much time rounding up people. Not trying to run the business myself, but trying to find great people. And I got us an office. This was a brand new startup. And when we went to the office, we opened the door. This was a big moment, day one of work. We opened the door and there was this awkward silence because it was empty. And they were like, dude, you didn't buy furniture. I was so focused on talent. I didn't buy computers or furniture, but I had six people. And I said, geez, I'll be back. I said, I'll go to Target or something. I left. When I came back to the office, this is what was going on. They had unscrewed all the doors from the hinges. They had taken all the trash cans. They laid the trash cans down, put the doors on top of them, sat on the ground under them, pulled out their personal laptops, and they were already building the product. Right. Talent overcomes everything. It overcomes lack of resources, it creates innovation. Inspired, talented people do amazing things. Average people just don't. So your job is to find that talent and surround yourself with those people. And that's what I want to talk about today. I'm going to just tell you very briefly. I know Ryan mentioned it, but I've built companies in a lot of different areas. Every time where people mistakenly said to me, jeff, you don't know what you're doing. That implies that you, as the founder, leader, or CEO are the most important person or the one that counts the most. That was never the case. This was my first startup, the one I just mentioned. I was stuck in an airport line for a long time. It took an hour. I was 20 something years old and unemployed. I was stuck in the line at the airport. It took forever to get an hour to get through. I missed the flight waiting to get a boarding pass. I have this DNA problem with inefficiency. It makes me nuts. I'm always that guy in the back of a line saying, how could this take so long? And everyone's yelling, jeff, calm down. I don't calm down. I walk to the front of the line and saying, what are you doing that it takes one hour to print out a boarding pass. So I was unemployed. Like I said, 20 something years old. I quit my good job that Friday. I started my first company. If you guys have ever gone to the airport and checked in on a kiosk, we invented those. We built these things and sold them to airport. Thank you. We built these things.

Sold them to airports all over the world, sold the company three years later for over $100 million. I'm not a money guy. That's not what I was building for. But it ain't bad when you're 20 something years old and unemployed. The day before that, however, I had no idea how to build any of this. So when I told somebody, I'm going to create a kiosk and it's going to be in airports all over the world, everyone said, you're a software guy. It's a hardware thing. You have no idea what we're talking about. I never intended to do this myself. Okay? The next company while I was part of this, you guys already have heard this story and hopefully know it. But I got to tell you, I remember days walking around the halls at Priceline early on, looking at the people and thinking, this team is so amazing that if we changed industries right now, we would probably still win. And does the best team win? I just pulled these. You can sort of see that's the stock performance of the company over the years. That top chart, Priceline, was the first stock in S and P history, not Google and not Apple, to hit $1,000 a share. That was two years ago. That $1,399, if you look at it, or $39 down below, the stock today is at $1,800. The company does business in 200 countries and it's worth $88 billion. Now. That only happened because we had the best team on the planet, and we spent time finding them. I launched the music company. Everybody said, jeff, you're a software engineer. What are you doing launching a music company? I wasn't planning to play the music. It turns out Elton's pretty good on the piano. There are other people that can do the stuff that you can't if you build a team. So when I went to launch the music company and everybody said, you can't do that, we recruited talent from all over. My job, your job as a leader is to spend time finding the best people in every industry and building a place they all want to work. That's what I spent my time doing. In the end, my music company, that could never work, according to all my friends. We did concerts with Elton John. This is an embarrassing picture. We did tours with NSYNC and Britney Spears. That's me on tour with nsync. That's Justin Timberlake standing over my shoulder there. But these are all things that can't happen because I'm a software engineer. Remember, it doesn't matter your background. You are only playing one position on the team. I don't care if you own the company, if you're the CEO or the founder, and you're doing seven jobs today, you. Your job is to be finding people better than you at every other position as fast as you can, like LeBron did, to build a team around you. It was kind of a funny moment because a couple years ago, our music company that could never succeed actually won a Grammy. And this is me on the Grammy red carpet when we won the Grammy. And everybody is. I'm taking picture of all them taking my picture because it's so silly. But somebody said this to me on the Grammy red carpet when we won. They said, jeff, I said, what? They said, how does it feel? And I said, this is the dream of software engineers everywhere. And they're like, what? The little guy with the headset came up and goes, dude, you're crushing the vibe on the red carpet. Shut up. I was like, never mind. But you know what I was thinking? These moments can't happen if you believe you are smarter than you are. These moments can only happen when you surround yourself with people better than you in every single area. We did one more after that, even I said, hey, I want to make a movie. I want to go to Hollywood and make a movie. And everybody said, again, Jeff, you're a software engineer. I said, guys, I'm not actually planning to act. Just like I wasn't planning to sing on the NSync tour. Right. I'm not actually planning to star in the movie to operate the camera, but I can play a part. I can finance it, I can distribute it, I can market it. There are a set of skills you have. You need to stick to your skill set and quit trying to pretend you're anything more than you are. Every one of us has one skill set and you need people around you that do everything else. This was our first little independent film that we made as a movie called Cabin Fever. That's me actually dying in the movie, in that picture. And my business partner behind the camera is a guy named Eli Roth. That's the first movie Eli and I ever made. But again, everybody said it can never be done. We made this movie for 1.2 million bucks. That's like startup money. And we were able to sell it because this is actually something I know how to do. It opened in 3,000 theaters. We sold it in 46 countries. It made about $100 million on a million dollar investment if you surround yourself with the right team.

Hey guys, this is Ryan. We're going to take a quick break and we'll return to the show in a second.

Hey, fastlaners. Ryan here and I wanted to take a second and brag on one of our backroom members. Our backroom is our mastermind, really. We're focused on getting to 10, $10 million in top line revenue. And I wanted to brag on athletic greens. They're in the back room and they have just absolutely killed it, not only with expanding their sales, but really by making incredible frickin products. So the products were made out of need by the founders and as a result they've been featured on Tim Ferriss. They were featured in the four Hour Body and you've probably seen them all over the web. The reason why I'm telling you about them today is because I want to support them by encouraging you to go over to athleticgreens.com Amazon obviously you know that I am really big on maximizing your Amazon presence and I also just really believe in the product. So for example, I like to wake up in the morning, put my greens in a water bottle, add in some creatine. Sometimes I add in a fat burner. If I'm on a cut, shake it up. And that's sometimes my morning pick me up if you've ever heard me talk about my tribe. 5. I have five habits that I practice on a daily basis. My B point every day is getting to the gym and having my greens. And when I don't have time for a big salad or making a smoothie. I supplement with athletic greens. So I'd highly encourage you to support them. Head over to athleticgreens.com Amazon give their 30 day packs a try. All right, let's head into the episode.

So let's talk about the three pieces. Acquiring talent, retaining talent and then expanding your network. That's what I'm share today. So I want to tell you a story about talent acquisition. And here's the problem. The way we hire is so one sided. So let me tell you the story of how I learned that. I was building my startup and this guy called me and he said, hey, Jeff, I'm building a company, I need people. Can I hire you? And he said, come interview. And I was like, I got my own company, my own money, I don't want to interview. But then I thought this. I actually am a software engineer and I'm not that good at hiring. No one ever trained me. I'm building a company. Whatever your background is, were you trained in hr, but suddenly you're the CEO and you're hiring people and you've never taken a single course in hiring or managing people. I hadn't. So I said, I'm going to go to the interview just to learn how to interview. So I go to the interview and I listen to this guy and at the end, here's what he does. He said, jeff, this is my company. This is our goals, our mission, our dream, right? This is what you do. You talk about your company, you present your goals, then you say, here's the transaction, here is a job description. I give you a resume and you say to me, if you can do this list of tasks, I will give you money. If not, you're fired. So I said to the guy, let me think, see if I got this straight. You want me to work my butt off seven days a week so that one day you can buy that boat you dream of? And he's like, well, kind of. And I was like, yeah, I was being sarcastic. Way it came across to me is help me achieve my goal. I will pay you a salary. And then one day I'll drive, you know, sail away in my giant boat. So I got in my car and I started going home. And I was thinking, man, what do I do? What do you do? When you hire someone, do you start with a job description and description of your company that is not motivating, that is your interest, that's what you care about. But as an employee, do you think they care about your Retirement plan or your boat? Not at all. They got their own life, their own family, their own plans. Yet that's how we hire. It's very one way. And I realized something. You need to stop telling everybody what your dream is. If you want. This is the premise. If you want the best people who could work anywhere, they want to come work for you, right? One of the best compliments I ever got was I sold one of my companies. And on the way, I was doing a television interview and they were saying, Mr. Hoffman, they were talking about our revenue growth and our profits and our margins and all these numbers. She said, Mr. Hoffman, this is really impressive. We've built multiple companies that were worth billions of dollars. And she said, what accomplishment are you most proud of? And I remember on the way there, the girl that ran HR for me called me on the way to the studio and she said, jeff, check this out. She said, I just verified this. From the day you started the company, in all those years to the day you sold it, not one person that worked for you ever quit. And I said, that is the single coolest thing I've ever done as a leader. And I don't even know how I started calling people saying, why don't you guys ever quit? And they're like, do you want us to quit? I said, no. I'm just trying to understand. I'm gonna tell you what they told me, okay? But this is what it all starts with, is talking about their dream. So before I go to this trailer, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you my definition of success. Because the typical pitch that you give is your path to success. This is my company. I am growing it. I need you as a teammate, employee to do these things so I can achieve my goals. I have changed that. Now what I want to know when I interview somebody is what is your definition of success? And how do I help you as your employer, as your boss? How do I help you get there? But I want to tell you guys my new definition of success. Because it really. Well, I'll tell you the real story. When I was a kid. So I'm going to redefine success, because success is this great balancing act. We are raised to believe that success is the combination of one of two or three of these things. Money, power, and fame. If you're rich, you're successful. If you're famous, you're successful. If you have power, you're successful. Yet I have many billionaire friends and world famous friends who are miserable. So that must not be it. And I Have friends who don't have anything, who love their life. And I realize those are the people that I wanna model. You might have money, you might have fame. That's not the point. The point is somebody that loves their life just as it is, that's who you should be modeling. So let me tell you, the day I learned this lesson, I made a bet. I won't get into this in detail, but I made a bet with myself when I was a kid. I saw a picture when I was a kid of a Ferrari. I didn't even know what it was. I'm not a car guy. And I thought it was cool, though. And everybody thought it was cool. So I went to school the next day and I told people, when I grow up, I'm gonna buy a Ferrari, whatever that thing is, right? And everybody laughed at me. And I said, why is that so funny? And they're like, you'll never drive a Ferrari. And I said, why not? And they said, because they cost like a million bucks and you'd have to be super successful in business to ever buy a car like that. I said, why can't I do that? You know what people told me? They said, cause you're not enough of an asshole. I was actually told that you're too nice of a guy. You'll never make it in business. So I will tell you the bet I made with myself as a kid. I said, I fundamentally believe that doing the right thing and treating people right should be the formula for success. Somebody said, yeah. Then where did the phrase nice guys finish last come from? I said, I don't know, but I don't believe it. And I said, so here's the bet I made as a kid. I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to take the high road, and I'm going to treat everybody like they were family to me. And if I can succeed doing that, I'm going to buy that car just to prove that it can be done. So I bought that car. I was out driving one day, and I got to tell you what happened. I decided to take the race. It's like a Ferrari race car. I took the car out and I'm out driving. I'm not even a car guy, okay? I just was closing the loop to prove a point. I'm out driving one day, and I'm going to see how fast I can go. Ultimately, I went just under 180 miles an hour on a freeway south of Atlanta at 5 in the morning on a Sunday. But the car is really Loud. It's a race car. And when you drive this car, it makes so much noise. It's like encased in a glass cockpit. And. And I was driving the car 80 miles an hour. 90, 100, 110. In the super loud car, a weird thing happened. When I hit 130 miles an hour, the car went dead silent. I thought I broke it. I was like, oh, my God. I spent all this money in a car and I broke it on the highway, dead silent at 130. And then I kicked it up a little bit more and it made noise again. And I was like, I wonder what happened. I got home, I called the Ferrari dealer, I said I was driving the car and it suddenly went dead silent. I thought it went off. He said, how fast were you going? I said, 130 miles an hour. He said, that explains it. I said, what? He said, the car hit resonant frequency. Want you to pay attention to those two words. I said, what is resonant frequency? He said, we designed the car to be at its happiest moment to cruise at 130 miles an hour. At 130, every gear, every piston, everything in that car was. Was in perfect harmony. That's resonant frequency. You know what happened when I hung up the phone, I looked in the mirror and I said, man, what's mine? What is my resonant frequency? So I'm gonna ask you this. What is your resonant frequency? What is the balance of money, right? Of family relationships, of friends, of physical health, of mental health that are all in perfect tune? So one day you look around and you say, I am exactly where I am supposed to be doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing in life. So here's what I want you to do. I to want. I want you to write those things down. Cause you know why you cannot fine tune the engine of your life if you don't even know what optimal performance looks like. So I made a list. How much money do I need to be happy? What relationships? Give you an example. Say you've never forgiven your father. You'll never hit resonant frequency until you get past that. What is the list of things you need to get right in your life? So one day, when someone reaches over to touch your life, you say, don't touch mine. It's perfect. I don't want to change anything. Leave me alone. That is success. When I meet people who nod and say, man, what a ride. I love my life. Don't touch it. This is exactly how I Wanted it. They've made mistakes, but they wouldn't change anything and they wouldn't trade their life with anyone. That is success. Okay? So I started asking people. This is the first question I ask when I interview people. I don't say, can I tell you about my company and my dream? And I don't say, let me see your resume. What I say is, is name one thing on that list that you have to do in your life so that when you look back one day, you say, my life was well lived. I found my resonant frequency. What I could ask all of you. I'd love to hear some of them. I'm going to stay with you guys for the rest of the day. What is one thing you need to do with your life? So when you look back, you say, I used my time well. I wouldn't change it. So first interview, I'm talking to this guy named Chris, and I changed my interviewing. The first thing I said to Chris was, name one thing you need to do with your life before it ends so you'll look back and say, I spent my time well. See this picture that's up here, this trailer? Without hesitation. I didn't know what he was gonna say. I thought he may say, are you some kind of California Zen or something? What are you asking me at? Without hesitation, Chris said, buy my mom a house in Florida, fully paid, so she can spend the rest of her life there as a thank you for her sacrifices. I said, what? That was oddly specific. Chris said, jeff, I grew up in an Airstream trailer in eastern Pennsylvania that looked like that. He said, it was a mobile home park, but we were so poor, we didn't have a mobile home. We had a trailer, and it was rusted. It had holes in it. We had one blanket. So why didn't you ask for blankets? He said, my mom's pride. She thought that if everyone at work knew we were so poor, we didn't have blankets, they'd look down on her at work, and she's probably right. So I said, what'd you do? He said, in winter, at night, when the snow came in the holes of our rusted Airstream, I used a blanket to cover the holes and watch my mom and my sister, they had no dad, shiver all night. I said, how'd you get through the night? Chris said, every night I laid there and said, one day, somehow through my career, I will buy my mom a house in Florida where she can spend the rest of her life without a worry ever again. I hired that guy immediately. You Want to talk about passion? Driven, focused. You gonna stop that guy? Not a chance. Because he's on a mission. And he knows what his resonant frequency is. He knows what's gonna make him feel fulfilled. So I went home and I printed this. A picture of a house in Florida. And I stuck it on the wall near where Chris works. People came into work the next day and they said, what is that? I said, it's the reason Chris comes into this office every day. What's yours? I went around to every employee in my company. I do this still. And I said, tell me one thing you gotta do with your life. So you look back and say, I spent my time well. If you walk through my office, you'll see all these weird pictures on the wall. They're not weird at all. They're people's lives and their dreams. You know what? My job is to make those happen. That's why my employees never leave. Because they understand that their mission is my mission. Tell you what happened. We sold this company. We bought the house. Chris bought the house. We took Chris's mom down to Florida. We set her up. We got her out of the house for a few days. She got down to Florida, she thought this was my house. She was very upset. She turned to her son and said, really? You brought me down to Florida to show me your boss bought a brand new house in the sun while I live in a trailer in eastern Pennsylvania filled with holes? She got upset. She turned to me and said, take me to the airport right now. And I said, I'll take you to the airport, but you gotta do me a favor. She said, what? And I said, I need you to come see my bedroom. She's like, okay, this is getting weird. She turned to her son, said, son, your boss is trying to get me into his bedroom. And Chris said something I had to turn away because I was laughing. He said, I'm sorry, Mom, but he did drive. So I said, if you want to ride, you gotta come with me. So she angrily said, fine, I'll look at your bedroom and get me to the airport. She was angry. We went down the hall. Now, remember I told you that Chris's mom, they lived in a trailer. Trailers have one room at least. Mobile homes have doors and bedrooms. They had no furniture. So the reason she thought it was my house was because all the furniture in the place was brand new. But I'll tell you what we did. I had them send me a picture of his mom's bedroom and I recreated it. We moved everything while she Was traveling every single detail. I even took the hairbrush, put it on her nightstand and put it at the angle she puts it on every night next to her mirror. When she opened the bedroom door and looked in there and realized, wait a minute, this is my house, guys. That was one of the best days of my life. It's not even my mom. And I was crying. We're all in tears. And she said, this is my house, isn't it? And we said, for the rest of your life because of your son's hard work. I turned while we were all crying and I turned to Chris. You know what I thought he was going to say? I thought he was going to say, I'm done. I'm good. See you. Thanks, Jeff. I thought I'd never see him again. You know what he said? We should go back to work. I said, why, Chris? He said, let's go do another one. Let's go do this for something else. Everybody on my team can tell you what the people that work for me care about and live for. And we know what we can do to make everybody's life more fulfilled. Those pictures are still in the wall at all times. Part of my job is to make sure other people reach their resonant frequency in their lives. You gotta surround yourself with. With people smarter than you. But get out of the way. Quit holding on. And you know that old phrase, if you want something done right, do it yourself. That's the worst advice ever, right? That would be Derek Jeter coming from shortstop, asking a Cy Young award winning pitcher, saying, can you give me the ball? I'll just pitch. It ain't gonna happen. You're only good at one thing. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. So I wanna tell you a story of that. I used to write the innovation and entrepreneurship column for Inc. Magazine. And one day they said, could you write about talent? And I said, sure. And I wrote an article, it's still out there in ink.com if you want to find it, called Hire the Best and pick up their Laundry. And I want to explain it to you one day because you think your job is to run the company because it's your company. So one day I was out on the road, my team called me. They said, jeff, we met this 20 year old whiz kid. He's brilliant. I said, don't wait for me, hire him. He's a designer, product developer. I get back to the office, I look at his work to see what this kid's working on. I go down the hall and the team's in the conference room now. The 20 year old doesn't know I own the company and he doesn't know I'm the CEO. We've never met. So I go down the hall, open the conference room door. I said, hey, can I get you guys anything now? I meant like Diet Coke and pizza. That's usually what they want. Or Chinese food. The 20 year old kid who doesn't know I'm the CEO turns to me and goes, yeah, would you go pick up my dry cleaning? My whole staff does this. They're like, oh man, that kid just stepped on it, right? They're all upset. They're like, kid, you can't ask the CEO to pick up your dry cleaning. They. So then they all look at me. What's the boss going to say? I said this. I said, sure, where's the ticket? He said, it's on my chair. I said, I'll see you guys in 20 minutes. I went outside and walk into my car. My VPs come running out. They're like, jeff, you're picking up the kids dry cleaning. We're so sorry. I said, you're sorry? He said, we're sorry he asked you to do that. They said, why would you pick up his dry cleaning? I said, let me tell you something. I said, that kid is indeed the brilliant, most brilliant designer I've ever seen. He's building a product that will triple our revenues. He's building a product that will win every award in our industry. And it did. I got to go on stage in Silicon Valley and collect the trophies. I said, that kid is going to make everybody in this building rich and famous, if that's what you care about. So you know what I said? Not only am I going to pick up his dry cleaning, but if you guys need me this afternoon, I will be outside washing that kid's car, okay? Your job is to build the place where the world's. Where the best people in your industry all want to work and never want to leave. You got to literally schedule time to stop running the company and start building it. Start creating an environment where the best people want to be. You spend time doing that. I was willing to leave my office to do that. One day later, years later, I come into the office, I go to my desk, I pull up my calendar. We're using Outlook. It's obviously Outlook's down. And I call my assistant. I said, hey, outlook's down. She said, outlook's fine. Why? I said, no, outlook's down. She said, why do you think it's Down. I said, I have zero. There's nothing on my calendar. She said, yeah, no one wants to talk to you. I said, wait, I spent my whole life with 4,000 appointments a week. And she said, well, no one wants to talk to you. I said, how could that be? She said, I don't know. You got no appointments. So I get up and I walk down the hall, and I go down to customer service. I'm looking for something to do. It's my company. I'm the CEO. I said, hey, guys, what's up? I'm trying to find something to do. Like, yeah, we're in the middle of a planning session. Can you come back tomorrow? And I said, well, they're like, seriously, Jeff, we're right in the middle of something. Why don't you take the day off and golf? And I was like, I don't play golf. I don't want to go home and golf. So they're like, we'll take a hike. So I walk down the hall, I go down to product development. I said, hey, guys, I'm looking for something to do. Nothing on my calendar. Like, yeah, Jeff, we're doing a code review. I said, okay, can I sit in? They're like, why don't you? It's a nice day. Why don't you golf? By the way, guys, I don't golf because I don't play sports that don't have defense. If I could block other golfers shots with my club on the tee, I would totally golf. But to stand there passively while someone kicks my ass, that is not a sport. So they're like. They're like, we're busy. Come back. So I walk down to finance and I'm like, hey, guys. And my CFO is like, really, Jeff? Because if I showed this you to you, it'd be like showing physics to a five year old. He said, I'm not going to waste our time. Go take the day off. I went back to my office. I sat down. I was depressed. I am totally useless in my own company. No one needs me. I look up, see a shadow. It's my three vice presidents. They're like, are you sad? I said, I'm really sad. I'm useless in my own company. Nobody needs me. They said, you should be drinking that champagne that's in the fridge. I said, why? And they said, you did it. I said, did what? And they said, you achieved your goal. I said, what do you mean? They said, the reason you have no meetings today is because you hired people so competent, so well trained. And so empowered that we literally do not have any problems anywhere. The company is kicking butt, growing. Everything is working perfectly. You can just go home. Your job is to design yourself out of a job. All right? I said, am I fired? My employees said, no, you're promoted. I said, to what? And they said, we want you to go back to dreaming, because that's how we got here in the first place. They said, you keep talking about Europe. Why don't you take two months off and go explore the European market? And we got everything back here. The day that you can leave and your phone doesn't ring is the day you are a leader, because you have empowered the right people that are so talented that they literally don't have any questions for you that day. That is the goal. You are not important because they're calling you the whole time you're at this conference. You are, in fact, the bottleneck that is slowing them down, because until you call them back, they can't get something done. Let's talk about talent retention for a minute. And I want to tell you, just one day, I just want to spend a couple minutes on how you keep people happy at work. One day, an employee came up to me and said, hey, I got a question. This just happened, and I don't know how to react to it. And he said, what does our employee policy manual say? I said, our employee what? He said, employee policy manual. We have one, right? Tells us how to behave at work. I was like, meet me in the conference room. So I told the whole company about 60 people, everyone in the conference room. I said, everybody, take out a sheet of paper. I said, draw a line down the middle. And I said, here's what I want you to do. On the left side of this paper, I want everyone in the company to write down anything anyone's ever done to you at any job that made you feel unimportant, undervalued, just unappreciated, and literally want to quit. What demotivated you? What has anybody ever done or said to you that made you feel bad? They all wrote it down. I said, now, on the right side of the paper, I want you to write down the opposite. What has anybody ever done that made you love your job? Couldn't wait to get back to work. You feel important, you feel respected, you feel valued, Write those down. Then I passed out thumbtacks. And they said, what's this for? I said, stick it on the wall. That's the employee manual. If I see you ever do anything on the left side of that sheet, you are fired because you just told me that's what devalued you. And I said, once a month, I want you to go down that list, Pick something off of it that made you feel valued. That. And go do that to somebody else at this company. They're still on the wall. One day, I was walking behind a girl that works for me. I saw her go to her office, take the list, go down, pick something, look around. She's in marketing. She walked over to an engineer she doesn't know and said, any way I could take you and your family, my family and your family to dinner tonight? He said, what for? She said, just get to know each other. I just appreciate that you work here. I saw him light up. It was just a dinner, but it was on her list of things that made her feel good. It ain't rocket science. Ask people what makes you love the places you loved and what makes you not like the other ones. That is your bible for running a company. Just ask at the very beginning. And here's a crazy one. I had a CEO say this to me once. He said, jeff, how do I get my employees to really think I care? I said, wait, what? He said, I want them to think I care. And I said, here's a crazy idea. Try actually caring. And he laughed. He said, yeah, that's funny. Tell me how to make him think I care. Blew me away. Try actually caring. Schedule some of your time to put down everything you're holding and go care about somebody in your company and show that. That is why I found out later, I've had people that worked all these years for me, that never lived, that never left company culture. It's critical for employee retention. Let's talk about that for a minute. What is a culture, and how do you retain that? I'm going to tell you what a culture looks like. I'm going to tell you the end product. When I bring people in to interview, they come in, and they might have six, seven interviews lined up. They're going to spend the day with us. But here's what happens. I send them to the breakfast, to the break room. Everybody's having breakfast. They're hanging out with my employees. I remember one day before the interviews, everybody's coming out of the break room going like this. I said, what? They said, he's not one of us. I said, well, we haven't done any of the interviews. They said, we don't need to. I said, okay. The next day, a girl came in. Before she started interviews, she was in the break room. And everyone's like, she's one of us. She's in. I was like, guys, you haven't even interviewed her. And they said, she's one of us, Jeff. We want her. She's in. So this is my question to you. What is one of us? What are you? You gotta write that down. You gotta define what is one of us. If you can't meet someone in chat and say, she's one of us, then you don't have a company culture. A company culture is a set of values. What do you believe in? What do you care about? I have values. For example. Tell you a quick story. One of my values. And they're in writing. This is not your mission or your vision statement. These are your values. This is your culture. One of my cultural things is all human beings, regardless of level or stature in life, deserve the same level of respect. I was raised that way, right? I literally recently came from a trip where I was meeting with kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers of countries. And then the next day, I was on the banks of the Mekong river in Laos, sitting with a bunch of kids who live in the dirt, talking about their lives. To me, there's no difference between those days when I'm with the king in the palace or on the banks of a river. All human beings deserve your same level of respect and dignity. That is a core value. That is my culture. So one day I was coming into work, and I was in our lobby, and I was talking to Frank. And as I walked away, I. I said, thanks, Frank. And I said, I hope your daughter liked the toy. And he said, she's feeling better, and thank you very much for sending that. My family really appreciates it. I turned to get on the elevator. My VP of sales was on the elevator. My VP of sales turned to me and said, you know, the janitor like that, like he'd just eaten something sour. I said, wait, what? I said, you talking about Frank? He said, that's just the cleaning guy. I said, no, that's Frank. And he rolled his eyes. I said, what's that about? And he said, you're the CEO. You don't really need to chat with the janitor. I said, you know what? I think you're done working here. And he said, jeff, I outsell everybody in sales three to one. I'm your number one salesperson. I said, and still, I think we're done here. And he said, are you that stupid you're gonna fire a guy that outsells everybody three to one? I said, well, let me tell you this. You out asshole them 10 to 1, okay? And he said, you're not gonna fire me. I said, this is the last time I've seen you disrespect people, people below you. I said, you can't work for me. Your culture has to be something you live. You know what happened? He said, you'll regret this because of my sales numbers. I did worry about it, but you know what happened? By the end of the quarter, without replacing, our sales went up. I called the team in and I said, how did sales go up when I got rid of the best sales guy? And they said, because you removed the big dark cloud that brought everybody down. Every day we are in such better spirits that everybody's performing better, okay? Your culture has to be something you live. I want to share one more example of culture and how you demonstrate it as a leader. So I'm doing a joint venture, debating it with another company. I go to the other guy's building, the CEO. I meet his company the next day. The next week, it's his turn. He comes to my office. My office is at the end of our company, down a long hallway. He gets to my office, this CEO. So I'm in a CEO to CEO meeting about our company's working together and he's kind of red faced. I said, what's wrong? I thought somebody would do some of my employees rude to you because we don't do that here. He said, no, no, no, not at all. I said, well, you look angry. He said, I am angry. I said, what are you upset about? He said, Jeff, it's 10:25 in the morning and your employees are playing baseball in the hallway. I couldn't find a picture of an indoor baseball game. Stupid Internet, in fact, does not know everything. They're playing baseball with a miniature bat and a beach ball at 10:25 in the morning. I said, yeah, you know what? That does upset me. And he said, good, I'm glad you're angry like I am. He said, you gonna fire somebody? I said, fire somebody. He said, I thought you said you were angry. I said, I am angry. And he said, then what are you angry about? I said, I'm angry because it's supposed to be a 10:30 game. I got up, I walked down the hall. A few minutes later, I was on second base. My employee said, hey, man, don't you have a guy in your office? I said, he'll leave. Eventually he came out of my office. He wasn't even mad. I'm on Second base. I said, see ya. And he said, we're not doing business together, are we? I said, not a chance. And he said, all right. It wouldn't have worked anyway. And I said, it sure wouldn't. And he left. And my employees turned and looked at me, and I said, don't worry about it. I'll tell you what. They told that story over and over again, and I never said a word. You know why? Because you know what his core assumption was? That if you turn your back on your people, they will cheat, they'll slack off, they won't work. You can't turn your back on people. You know what my culture is? If I hired you, I believe in you. And if I believe in you, I will never question you. If you. My employees need to play baseball. In the middle of the day, they probably need to play baseball. They know exactly what's due. They know when. And I trust them 100%. If somebody says, I'm going to the beach Friday, I don't count vacation. I say, siya. You know why? Because if you are performing, you can do whatever you want. And if you're not, you're fired anyway. What was I counting vacation for? To fire somebody? No. It's performance. I trust my people to make good decisions. Once I hire you, it means I trust you and I don't question you anymore. Our culture was so strong, but I couldn't believe how many times they would tell. I said, guys, it was just a baseball game. They said, no, it was you trusting us, believing in us, and showing somebody that you had our back. Your culture has to be visible, and you have to live it every single day. Keep your team focused on results. I just want to cover a couple more things today. This is important. You want to know why? Because you want to know what's the best way to keep people on a team win. Okay. One day when I was watching one of Derek's games, they were back when Jeter was playing for the Yankees. They were in their dugout, and they were throwing paper cups and teasing each other and playing practical jokes. And the other dugout, the team they were playing was dead silent, just sitting there like this. I said, you guys look like you're having fun. And Jeter said, yeah, winning's fun. He said, when you're on the winning team, it's fun to go to work every day. Right? We're the ones playing jokes because we're having a good time. Your employees are the same way. People want to win. When they're winning, it helps them Achieve their resonant frequency in their lives. So your job is to make sure that everybody wins. And let me tell you just one technique on how to do that. And let me explain what this means. I met this florist. His company was one of 25,000 florists in the United States. He was in the 24,000 range, a little tiny one shop business. And it grew to one of the world's largest deliverers of flowers. I said, how did you grow to one of the world's most successful companies in your industry? And he said, check this out, Jeff, come with me. So I went to his office. When I got to his office, he said, watch this on the walls everywhere. It said, sell more flowers. The goal that drives the business. I'm going to come back to that for you guys. And he said, watch this. He stopped a person in the hall. He said, what are you doing right now? The person told him. He said, how does that help us sell more flowers? Here was the answer. You can either explain it or put it down and do something else. We go into the garage. Everybody in this company can tell you how every activity every day helps them sell more flowers, because that's how they win. We go in the garage, There's a mechanic, you, he's laying on a board, on a roller board under a car, all dirty, under a truck. He says, jeff, check this out. He says, george. Mechanic comes out and he said, george, what are you doing? George said, I'm putting fuel filters on delivery trucks. And then he nudges me and he goes, how does that help us sell more flowers? And I could not believe the mechanic's answer. He said, well, I did some research and I found fuel filters that save $13 per tank of gas per truck. They cost 5. So I bought them and I'm putting them on the trucks. That leaves $8 left over. He said, I give four back to the company's bottom line. And with the other $4, I'm printing $4 off delivery coupons and giving them to sales. He said, I'm pretty sure that a half off delivery coupon will sell more flowers. That is brilliance. So I will tell you what's on the walls of my company. It says, sell more flowers. I can ask any person that works for me any day what they're doing and, and how it helps us achieve our goal. We achieve our goals of that kind of growth rate because I keep people focused on the things that make us win. I'm gonna ask you to think about this. What is the thing that Drives your business at Priceline, it's get a butt in a bed until someone books a hotel room. Anything else we're doing shouldn't count. When I was building my companies, people would come up to me when I was doing the music company, hey, Jeff, can I show you something? And I would say, if this isn't gonna get someone in a concert seat for Friday night's concert, call me next year. Then when I was doing another Internet company, right, like I told you, the Priceline thing, if this isn't going to get someone booked into a hotel room, call me next year. What I want you to do is go back and think about what is the thing that drives your success and write it everywhere. When I walk into your office, I should see on your walls get butts and beds. And I should be able to ask people, what are you doing right now? And how is that getting one more person into a hotel room tonight? If it's not, stop doing it. The world's most efficient companies. I was particularly proud on Priceline's behalf that earlier this year, Forbes did a study of the Fortune 500 companies. The country's. The world's 500 biggest companies. Which company was the highest performing company in the entire Fortune 500 in the last decade? And I was so. I thought it was so cool. The highest performing company of the last decade in the whole world was priceline.com. the reason why the company had 40. That's 10 years, 40 consecutive quarters of increasing profits. What I loved at the bottom, it said, this is due to the company's relentless focus on operational efficiency. Your employees want to win constantly. Make sure everything you're doing is selling more flowers. You guide your team to that success, and nobody ever wants to leave. Everybody wants to be on the side of the winning team.

Last part I want to cover for today is about building your network. And here's the most important thing. Build it before you need it. You can't get to the day where you say, man, we need a salesperson. And that's the first day you think about it. You should be building your network every minute of every day. You know what's some really good news? This room is filled with high energy, intelligent, intelligent, motivated people. If you leave this conference sitting every time with the people you came with and the people you already know, you are wasting opportunity. If you leave this conference without introducing yourself to people every day at every break that you don't know, asking them their story, not yours. Don't start by saying, let's talk about me. Start by saying, tell me your story. What's your dream? What's your resonant frequency? Figure out how you can serve them and how you can work together. If you don't do that, think about this, guys. Every single human being you meet has the potential to completely change your life. But not if you don't say a word and walk past them. You have no idea if you just walk past your next co founder, business partner, investor, spouse, whatever it is. So building your network. I just put this picture out because everywhere I go in the world I have been. On a side note, I made a commitment to giving back by mentoring. So after 2011 I had one more Internet company. We had a company called ubid.com we became the fifth largest auction site in the world. We took that company public and then sold it private. And I made a commitment to doing what I'm doing now, mentoring. And I took a year off 2012 and I said I'm going to take one year off and spend the year giving back by mentoring people and helping other people achieve their resonant frequency. Get you wherever you're trying to go with your life. But I just got to tell you, kind of an interesting thing happened when I left to do that.

It became this year. Well, I'll tell you the social experiment I didn't tell people. I said, for one year I will say yes to every single person that asked me for help with anything for a year. I won't be in my office, I won't make a dime, I won't do any business. Whoever calls me, I'm just going to say yes and go there. So I'll just be on the road for a year helping people. This is year five of my 12 month commitment. I've been doing this for five straight years and it's been phenomenal. But I'm going to tell you something. The first, I can't help myself. The first thing I do every time I meet somebody new as I'm sitting there thinking, could she fit on our team? What are her skills? What are her dreams, what drives her and how could we work together? Everybody I meet, every time I'm thinking about my network, by the way, I make notes everywhere I go and I meet people, I try to figure out what are their skills, where do they fit. So by the time I need a team, I already know who I'm looking for. You build your network everywhere you go, all the time. But I want to give you two examples to close with here about being targeted and being creative about building your Network. So I gave you the easy one. The easy one is this room. Introduce yourself to everybody all the time and make notes, catalog people, question people, find out what drives them, find out what their skill set is, and find out if that's a potential super bowl winning quarterback that you need on your team. But that's the easy one. The hard ones are finding specific targets that you want to get to. And I want to give you two examples. Here's the first one. There was a company that I really wanted to talk to the CEO of and there was no way to get a call through. I'm just giving you two examples. I'm confessing of my. My techniques. I guess I feel bad even telling you, but here's what I did. I tried to call the CEO's office, and there's no way in hell some strange guy with his little company can call the CEO of this company. So I thought, creatively, how do I ever get to this person? So here's what I did. And I didn't even. There was no directory even published. So I dialed a number. I saw the main number, but calling the switchboard didn't help because I needed to know who I wanted. But the number was whatever it was, like 267 5,000. So I randomly dialed 267-5012. I made up a number and dialed it. Someone said, hi, this is Mike. I said, oh, man, I'm sorry, Mike. I meant to call Jane, the VP of Products, Product services or whatever it was. And he goes, jane? He said, the VP of Product Services is Sally Jones. And I said, oh, my bad. I was looking at the wrong name. And I said, yeah, I need to reach Sally. And he said, well, I can just connect you. So you know what happened? I said, that'd be great. It's Jeff, right? So what happened was if I had tried to call Sally, the call never would have gone through. But Mike called and said, sal, I got Jeff on the line for you. So Sally said, oh, Mike wants me to talk to this guy. That's the assumption, because he connected the call. So she took the call and I said, sorry, Sally, I was actually looking for Angie, the coo. And she said, well, the COO is Mike. I said, my bad. I said, I'm thinking of another thing. I said, I told him I would call. She said, I can connect you. So when she connected me, his assistant said, she's putting this call through. This must be someone she wants to talk to. My boss. I got all the way to the CEO that way. Because when I got up to the COO and now I knew that Stuart was the guy I was looking for. I said, sorry man, Stuart wanted me to call him back. That was a little bit untrue. I wanted to talk to Stuart. He called Stuart, this was his number two guy, and said, I got Jeff on the line for you. I just talked to him, you should talk to him. So when the COO CEO finally picked up the phone, the guy said to me, well, I guess he recommended I speak to you, so we should talk. I would have never gotten through to that guy. I just want you to think outside of the box. I'm going to tell you the ultimate one. I wanted to get to an investor. And what I'm telling you is I want you to be creative and you build your network. I wanted to get to an investor. I had no way to get to this guy. I called this office time and again of somebody that I was trying to get to and I couldn't get to him. I couldn't get to any of the investors. I was 20 something years old with a startup in travel tech. No track record, no reason for him to take my call. For months I called and I couldn't get through to anybody. So here's how you build your network. I want you to build your network targeted. So here's the problem in the investor world. If you want to build investors in your network, when I ask you who's an investor? Your answer is anybody that calls themselves an investor. That's like saying, who's a customer? Anybody. And so if you have a product that's for 12 year old girls and I introduce you to a middle aged man, you'd say, well, he's not a customer. My product is for 12 year old girls. You would never say anybody's a customer. You know who your customer is? Then why do you keep saying anybody who calls themselves as an investor is an investor? They are not. And I want you to think about this. In network building, investors should be segmented the same way. I was trying to build my network of investors to fund my company. I did not take meetings with anyone who identified themselves as investor or any firm. Here's what I did. I had a travel tech company and I couldn't get to this guy I was trying to get to. But let me tell you how I got to him. I went online. I just want to give you this example. I went online. Here's what I want you to do. If you're trying to raise money and build your investor network, take your company and do the research and find six companies that are, quote, like yours. So I started researching to find the six most similar companies in the world I could find to mine in size and age and product and market. Then I went to each of those six websites, and what I did was I looked to see if any of those companies had been funded, because if they are, it's in their news section. Everyone announces when they get funded. Then of the ones that I found that got funded, I wrote that down. Then I made another list of all the ones that are like mine, that got funded, who funded them. Then I went through that list and I found out that several of the companies were funded by the same fund. So then I went on that fund's website and I looked to see who in the fund did those actual transactions. And I found this guy. Then I made a look, I went on his profile and I looked at all the other things he'd ever invested in. He'd done six things in my industry. Then I researched all six of those other companies and I made a list. Three of them failed and three succeeded. I studied them to see why three failed and why three succeeded. And I wrote all that down. Then I tried to call his office and got shut down again. So then I went to his Facebook page, right? Because there was a link there. And on his Facebook page, I discovered that he likes the polo ponies. I don't even know what polo is. So guess what I did. I then went and researched polo in the area he lives and found out that next Saturday was a match. A polo match. So you know what I did next? I bought a ticket to the polo match. I went to the polo match. I looked around until I found the area where he sat. I waited around until I saw this guy get up and walk to the food table. I walked to the food table. At the same time, I pulled up next to him and I said, beautiful day for the ponies, isn't it? He said, it sure is. He said, do you come here often? And I told the truth. I said, no, sir. This is my first time ever at a polo match. I said, do you? He said, all the time. It's my passion, my favorite hobby. I said, maybe you could teach me a little about polo. He said, sure. Why don't you come back over to my area? Let's grab some lunch. So now we're walking along and I'm only talking polo. And he's loving because he's talking to me about his most favorite passion in the world. As we're going along he suddenly says to me, hey, what do you do? And I said, look, I said, it's Saturday. We're out here enjoying the horses. I don't want to talk business. Then I silently prayed that he would not take that bait. If he had said, you're right. Let's just talk horses. I wasted an entire Saturday. You know what he said? He said, it's okay. I asked you. I said, oh, I'm starting a travel tech company. And he said, wow, that's the thing. I invest in. I invest in travel tech companies. And I said, oh, my God, what a coincidence. And he said, what are the odds of that? We meet at the polo table and you're in travel tech. And then he said, can you come to my office Monday? And I was like, damn right. I've been trying four months to get into this office. When I walked into that office and I walked by that assistant, she said, what's your name? I said, I'm good. I'm with him. And she goes, wait a minute. I just slammed the door. She figured out I was the guy trying four months to get in there. Six months later, he said something. I've never seen you at polo again. I said, not really interested. He said, what were you doing there that day? I said, this is probably going to cause you to ask for your money back, but I'm going to tell you the truth. I said, I bought tickets to the polo match in hopes of coming across you. He said, what? I said, I research your interest. I was standing there that day, asked you to teach me about the ponies so I could get a chance to talk to you. And I said, am I fired? Is it over? And he said, no. He said, that's creative as hell, and I'd rather invest in people that are really creative than people who just give up. He said, we're good. I just want to close by saying the best team wins. I want you to schedule time to put all the weight of the world running the company and doing 17 things down and take time to go find people smarter than you in every area that you are not the best at. I want you to take time to build a culture, to care about those people, to find out what you can do for them, and to start to create other people's dreams, not yours. All I have to do for a living is build the place where. Where the smartest people in my industry all want to work and never leave. And then I could literally go to the golf course and my companies will kick ass every time. Thank you, guys. So much for having me today.