The Keys To Building a Team Of A+ Players & Operating Business At Scale

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Integrator Secrets with myself, Andre Hakel Jr. And my fellow caffeine addict, Joey Yoheim. We're just. Just indulging in the caffeine on this one.

Hyper caffeinated today. Ready to fire out the gate.

We have to switch up, like, the whole camera angle. Joey's not wearing a hat. Just to keep the content fresh for you guys.

Yeah, camera angles, new haircuts, new drugs are involved in the pod now. It's. We're just firing on all cylinders today. At least natural. Mine is just sourced from all these preservatives and everything, but that's all right.

Oh, man, this is great, dude. So this episode, this is the fourth episode. So we're still really just diving into this one topic that we haven't covered, surprisingly, which is interesting because, like, this topic is actually why we're sitting here on this call and able to talk about student success and product in general. Is the team behind it all. And, like, the team is literally the advantage that people just don't see or understand, I feel like, at least. And so I'm excited to talk about it here with Joey, who not just with his partner and co founder Gabe, who is a big part of the team, but just the rest of your team. You guys have just built an incredible team at the Fault King. So maybe just talk about your thoughts on team and then we'll get into some of the more granular topics there.

Yeah, man. I think the biggest thing that you get out of a team is leverage ultimately. And I think everybody as a business owner, you start as on the front lines, you're doing the grunt work. I kind of call it the doing. So that's, if you think about it, from the front end. If you think about it, let's just go front to back, like marketing. You're doing all the editing yourself in Cap cut or Canva. You're doing all your own thumbnails, you're doing all your own posts, you're doing all your repurposing. In the middle, you're taking all the sales calls, you're following up and nurturing all these leads. And on the back end, you're doing the coaching, you're doing the fulfilling, you're doing everything. You're a doer when you start, and there's tiers. So the first thing that basically everybody needs to hire out is the doing. And then you move yourself to a position where it's more management style. And that's pretty much the rung that we're at right now is it's more managing doers. Beyond that, you're going to move to more of a director type situation and you're going to actually manage the managers that are managing the doers. So you keep going up layers and rings, but ultimately what that allows you to do is it allows you to have leverage and actually do more with the same amount of work because you literally have more hours available to you. When you have a team, if you have 10 people on your team, you go from having 24 hours in a day to 240 hours in a day.

Dude, it's a quick math, baby.

This is the caffeine math, bro. No calculator needed, no pause needed. Right. But that's literally leverage. Is it? It comes from other people. You can only do so much.

Absolutely, bro. And so for the audience, just because I'm guessing a lot of guys watching this are either in the coaching space or eventually want to get into the coaching space. And I feel like that's an industry where the team structure doesn't get talked about enough. And so for us, like, like you said, there's, there's three aspects to running business. There's marketing, there's sales, and then there's fulfillment or quote unquote coaching. And so you have guys that focus in those areas. And then for us, like a big part of it is the sales team. Like we have setters and closers, right. And they're commission based. And then we have a sales team manager. On the legion side, we have people that are running cold email campaigns. We have people like media buyers that are doing ad campaigns. Right. And then on the fulfillment side, which is where I focus the most, and I know you do as well, we have expert coaches that host weekly calls on different topics that our students need help with. And then we have student success coaches, which are really like guidance counselors, if you remember back in high school and college, but also like in the business world, more like account managers. They're just responsible for a select group of students. They're not necessarily an expert in any one topic, but they're an expert in the program and its teachings overall and how to get students results the fastest. So that's our team structure. What is your team structure look that look like over at Default Kings?

Yes. I think the difference that I noticed just being in your program versus looking at our program is you guys have more of that connector style csm, right? You don't necessarily have a guy that's like some main big G tells you actually everything about business but he connects you to the people that do have that. So that's what you guys have where we actually have more of an expert CSM model where you're one on one, your accountability guy. What for you guys as like a guidance counselor for us truly is an expert that will answer all your questions in the training, nutrition, supplements, sleep, whatever it may be like they are your go to guy for every question that you have. So I think that's the two ways that you can go on the fulfillment side of things is you can either have connectors or you can have experts. We have experts, you guys have connectors and there's no right or wrong way to do it. That's the other thing as well. You have to figure out what works for you.

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's a great point. Like this is a great distinction, right? Because for us we have expert coaches like guys that do the lead gen coaching call, the sales coaching call, the mindset coaching call, the hiring and operations coaching call. And so our CSM or student success coach is there as a connector to those expert coaches. Right. As like a liaison. And so that was a big hire for us and I know it was as well for you guys just to ensure that students are getting the time and attention they need to be held accountable. So like when, when you're going through and you're hiring people for default kings, like you guys have a really strong culture that is seen from like the outside perspective even, right? And so like what is, how does I guess culture play a role in your hiring process? Like how do you find these guys that are experts first off? Because that's pretty hard to do. There's not so many experts in the world that aren't doing their own thing. And then number two, like how do you make sure they're a fit for your culture?

That's a great question. I don't think you and I have ever actually talked about this.

That's why I love doing this bro.

Because I don't think we've talked about this. So I'm always in favor of culture. And that's not only on csms. I know we're talking about like integration and fulfillment operations. So I'll speak specifically about CSMs because that's probably where most people need help and there's the least amount of information available online compared to this world we're in. That's all acquisition minded.

Right?

So on the back end, when I think about a csm, somebody that's actually fulfilling for you, I'm always going to favor the culture over the skill set because I can teach the skill sets. I can take a guy that has a pretty base knowledge of personal training and give him exactly what he needs to do for our specific clientele to get them results. What I can't teach that guy is integrity, ownership, and drive. The three values that we hire through, I can't necessarily teach them that. You either have it or you don't for the most part. Can you develop those characteristics over time? Yes, but we're running a business. I don't have time to develop you as just being a good human being, like genuinely. Fact, I do have time to sit down and teach you the skill set required to deliver results to the people that we're selling on the front end. So for me, I'm always gonna favor culture over everything. And those three values that we hire through, you know, integrity. It's just honesty, man. Like, can I trust you alone with my money and my wife? That's integrity, ownership, even if it's not your fault. Do you take responsibility for it and drive? Do you have an unending desire to do the best work possible? If you have those three things and you have just a base knowledge for us of personal training, I can give you the rest. So that's the main priority for us. And again, I'm curious what yours is, because we haven't actually talked about the hiring processes before, just you and I.

It's the same methodology, actually. It's. I don't hire necessarily for experience, expertise, or skill sets because I know, because of the work I've done to get to where I'm at today, I can teach those things. Those are frameworks and strategies that are part of the training. Anyways, I can't change the type of person you are at the court, which is exactly what you said. And so one of our core competencies, we call them competencies instead of values, I guess. So every time I'm thinking of, okay, I want to hire a student success coach or I want to hire someone to be a closer, I think of the type of person that. What traits that type of person needs to have to do well in that role. And so of course, like we have our own values out client ascension that kind of like embody the entire team. Like stop being poor is one of them. No, not actually.

Must stop being poor to be on the team. That's a core competency.

Poor competency. But like each role has competencies that will attribute to the success in that role. Right. Like sales people are going to be way different types of people than student success coaches. Just as like operators or like guys like us are much different than like the acquisition minor people. And so I always try to tailor it to each role. And so like anytime I'm hiring for a role, I just sit there and the first thing I draw out is like, you, you build like the avid, like the ideal avatar of who this person is. Like, they care. They have close attention to detail. They're. They have extreme ownership, they have leadership. Right. Like they strive to be a leader not just of their team, but also of the other people on the team. They're unreasonably hospitable with our customers. Which is based on a book we're currently reading. So there's all these competencies that go into each role and. And exactly you said, bro. Like, that's what I'm actually hiring for. The rest is easy because we already have trainings and SOPs on like how to do these certain things. And a lot of it also comes from like the doing and the experience. And so we're more lenient with like if you don't know the strategies, we'll teach you those. We just need to make sure you're the right type of person for this role.

Completely. Yeah, man. See the caffeine is firing again, bro, because there's like three ways we could go with this. I think the first thing that's important to distinguish for people is the difference between training and SOPs, which I know you know this, but I think it's important for the viewers to understand as well. Like training is the mental frameworks.

Yes, it.

Training is teaching. It's. It's teaching people how to think. That's what training is. I actually don't have this. I should have this. It's on my list of like, we need to draw this up at some point.

I have a good idea. And for the audience on this. But.

Like literally drawing decision making trees, like you can have that for your team of like, if this, then this, you can make them like human zaps basically with decision making trees. But training is how your actual team member thinks. SOPS is just how you do the shit. Step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So a lot of people where I think they get it wrong is they'll go in and they'll hand a guy an SOP and they'll be like, yeah, he's trained, he's not trained. You gave him a system. The whole point of an SOP is that it's so simple, a monkey could do it.

Yeah.

So that's not training. You're not teaching the guy how to think. You're just putting them in a system. The whole idea of that is to be able to plug anybody in there, to be able to do it. The training is the differentiating factor. You're now teaching this person how to think in real time with nuanced situations.

Yeah.

So like that's, that's the difference between training and SOPs.

Yes. And this is how you build a players. Right. Because it is, I feel like very difficult to hire an A player who's like an A player today because it's a competitive place, like competitive marketplace. You might not be able to spend that much money on them as other people will. And a players go to where, you know, obviously the most impact can be had, but also the most earning potential. And a lot of guys in the coaching space are not at that point yet. And so how do you develop a players? I think it's exactly what we're talking about now is it's training rather than SOPs. Obviously the SOPs are important, but it's more so focused on the training side of things. And there's two ways that I've found to train effectively. The first way you'll love this is to look at yourself in the mirror.

Yeah.

Because what your team does is a reflection of what you do. So like you're, you're there sitting on an interview, vetting the, the prospect, saying, oh, like are you taking extreme ownership? Do you have integrity? Well, ask yourself, like, do you? And also, are you showcasing that to your team enough? Right. And so it falls back on you as a leader, number one. And then number two, one way to do training is through book studies. And so here's a great one. Right now I have all my student success coaches are just like any student facing team member are part of a book club with me right now. And we're reading this book is called Unreasonable Hospitality. And like just based on the title, you know exactly what the book is about. It's like, how do you treat your customers so well that they're like, these guys are insane. And so I know that this is the way I want my team to think. I can't put this into an sop, but what I can do is say, hey, read two chapters this week and then we'll discuss it as a group on Monday. And when we have these discussions, we've only had like three or four of these discussions because we just started. Is unbelievable how simple it is to get your team to think in the construct of like this book or the themes that you're trying to get across just by having them go out and do it on their own and then coming to the table. And they even add to the perspective that you thought you had the full view on, which is just a beautiful thing completely.

And I think the most important thing you said that whole time was the beginning part of it's a reflection of you. And I can speak on this because I know when I first started having a team, like sometimes I'd show up to a meeting like two minutes late, it'd be one o' clock and I'd roll in at 1:02 and everybody's there waiting for me. I'm like, ah, it's probably not good. And guess what happened after a month of doing that, I'd start showing up to the meeting at 1 because I'm like, I gotta correct myself. But my team's rolling in two, three minutes late because I set that standard early on. So it's always gonna be a reflection of you. And I think that's why being in a leadership position and this is just pulled straight from Jocko. It's fine though. It's, you know, you have to have that extreme ownership because whatever you're doing at the top is what everybody that's following you is going to do as well. So it's super important. And not to like totally pivot the discussion, but something that I think is helpful to think about in the hiring process as well is hiring processes, acquisition as well. So that's one thing. As an operator and integrator, you think you don't necessarily need to know how to market, but how you attract the best talent and how you attract a players is the exact same way that you're going to attract your ideal customer. Think about what a job post is. A job post is an offer. You're making an offer and you have to actually write copy on that offer, on that job post. It has to be attractive. And that offer is going to generate leads. You have people applying for it and then you need to nurture those leads. And then you have a sales call. That's the interview. Yeah. And then you have hiring and then you have ascension on the back end. Like, do you actually resell that customer? Do you actually ascend that teammate to a higher role? Do you pay them more? Do they earn more within the team? So the acquisition process from a marketing perspective, but also the acquisition process from a internal operations perspective, they're identical, they run in line. And you have to Have a lot of acquisition skill sets to actually be an effective operator and integrator when you get to higher and higher levels.

Dude, the moment I realized that like my mind just went just like, wow.

That'S when it clicked. Like, that's when the team like, how do I get good players? That's when the team clicked. Because if you think about like, I'll use us for an example, probably I don't have the numbers. It's probably like 95% of our customers have come from organic content. So have our hires.

Yep.

Having a personal brand where there's a bunch of people that love you that are going to hire you to coach them. It's the same way with hiring. If I put out a post that we need appointment setters, they're gonna be like, holy shit. Default kings needs appointment setters. I'm in. Yeah, we booked 12 interviews in 24 hours. When we put out a post for appointment setters. That's ridiculous. And it was free. If I did that on a posting platform, I'd be getting charged for that. So there's a lot of value, not even comparable. Yeah, there's a ton of value in that personal brand. Not only in getting customers, but getting in team, getting teammates as well.

So this is actually a great pivot to the question I had written down next, which is like buy in right in the beginning, when you source from the right place, like a personal brand or a referral from either a client or an existing team member, the buy in and the level of excitement in the beginning is very high. The problem is or, or where a lot of people start to struggle is like, how do you maintain that long term? You already mentioned one of the ways which is to give them, you know, opportunities to ascend in the business. One way for us was is events. Like we just had our event in London this past weekend which was like absolutely like legendary. And like, yeah, sure, like the students that were there in our program got value. But for me, where I see the biggest value, which will actually trickle down to the students anyways, which is the beauty of it is just having 18 of our team members there in the same room, meeting each other, getting to learn more about each other and what they're all a part of, feeding off of their, each other's excitement and then also seeing their students and the students coming up to them like Andy and Chris and being like, dude, you changed my life. So like the events are now like a sticking point for the, for the team members to be like, I want to be at the next one. But for you, like, what's the buy in in the beginning? Super high. How do you keep that at the same level or even increase it over time?

That's a great question. I think events are the easy answer for me to, like, cop out if I wanted to. Just cut it at that. Because it is true. Especially when you're in a remote job position or you have a remote coaching program like we do.

All of.

All of our team is remote. So when we go and do an off site, like we went and did a Spartan race together with our client, success coach. So fun. We're fitness coaching and we're doing a Spartan race together with all of our coaches. It was a blast. We had an Airbnb, spent the whole.

Weekend after that, bro.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. So, like, if you take this online stuff where there's already a great culture, and then you bring it in person, which a lot of guys that are working remote, they've never been with a company that does something like that and takes it to the real world. So that's a huge sticking point, which is awesome, and I'm glad you brought that up. But I think another point too is if you hire through the proper values, the ability to ascend that you give them is really motivational for a lot of guys. So I'll tell you a story about Mr. Matt DeLonge. I know you know Matt DeLonge. I don't know if the viewers do, but this man has started like 14 company companies exited four, I believe. And he was telling a story about one company he was running. He's running a software company. They got hacked. Over $2 billion worth of credit card information was stolen out of their payment processor. So it's on fire, right? The whole thing is burning down. And one of his sales reps came into his office and he goes, matt, are we going to get our Christmas bonuses this year? And Matt's like.