Keep The Right Culture As You Expand | Ep 237
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- Hey, Lily. - Hi. - My name's Nathan. I'm a mortgage lender/own my mortgage company. And I sell, obviously, loans to home buyers. - Awesome. - My revenue is at 1.2, profit's at 900. Now that I've started my own mortgage company, I used to work under somebody who learned everything, et cetera. - Yeah. - I realized I could do it better and train the team better, et cetera. So right now, we have a team of three. - Yeah. - But culture-wise, super easy to manage, and I feel like it's,

I've built it the way that I wanted to. My concern is obviously as it scales, you're gonna have less one-on-one. Time, I guess, is there anything that I should continue that's very high value to make sure we keep the right culture as we expand? - Yeah, so a few things, which is one,

you're always gonna be the most potent source of culture, but what you don't wanna be is you don't wanna be the sole source of it for the people on your team. And so what I really try to do is like, there's like me to the team, but what the goal is is to get the team reinforcing the team. So basically like culture is what happens when you are not there.

So if the reason that people act a certain way and there is a good culture is because you're present, then it actually just means that they just act that way because you're present, right? And so the goal is that you can continue to create more space between you and the teammates and they continue to uphold those behaviors that you want to be normal in your company, right?

And so as you continue to grow, you will be forced by the growth to be more distant from people anyways. That happens naturally. The thing that you want to continue to do is you want to go from essentially like one-on-one communication to one-to-many communication. And you don't want to stop saying the things to people. You just want to say it to more people at the same time.

So, in the beginning, I might have had one-on-ones with seven people or ten people, or I still have lots of one-on-ones. But as I grow, I say, "Okay, what are the things that I'm continuing to say in these one-on-ones that are creating a culture that I need to say to the whole team?" And it's like, "Okay, what ways can I say these? Is it a memo? Is it a team meeting? Is it a Slack message? What is it?"

And I do think that as you grow, having more of those things in written communication is also really important so that people can reference those things and they can share it with other people. And so like, you know, I would say at this size you don't need it, but like once you get to, you know, between five to ten people, like there's a weekly meeting that you are reinforcing the culture, you're rewarding people for upholding the values, you're talking about the culture and the mission and the vision. That stuff

as you scale, you continue doing those meetings, the nature of the meetings just changes. You reinforcing the culture would still continue to happen. It just is, your audience gets bigger and the amount of people that are going to hear it continues to grow and the amount of people that you can interact one-on-one with

your amount of time you can dedicate per person goes down and the amount of people that you can talk to on a weekly or monthly basis goes down. And so it's like, okay, well, if I can't talk to every single individual, then I have to talk to all of them at once. That's really the biggest change that happens. And going with that, I think that it's just...

even one of my initiatives, I'll be transparent, I shared with my team, I said like, hey, I really need to work on more formal communication from me to the whole team because I'm the kind of person that's like, naturally what I do is I think it's something my team needs to know, I'm like, I make a podcast or I write something in a few different Slack groups or I do something like that versus like, okay, I'm gonna have a newsletter every week I send out. So that's one thing I start doing because we're at 75-ish people right now and end of year it's gonna be like 150. So I'm like, okay,

I need to start writing a newsletter again because when I had 150 employees before, even doing just a call was enough. It's like some people don't fucking listen to the call or they're doing something else. They're on calls because like not everyone else can make the team meeting every time every week because they're in different time zones. And so I think thinking about continuing to say those things, just saying them in a group setting if I had to do a TLDR because that was long. Really good. Oh, good. Thank you. Okay, great.

Nicholas Marco here, portfolio of different franchise brands in health and wellness. We did 28 million last year, about 15% to the bottom line.

Most of that is hand and stone massage and facial spa, but my question is specifically with Drybar. I'm a franchisee of Drybar. And so, you know, amazing brand. They basically kind of defined the category for blowouts. And with my background with hand and stone, that was what attracted me to the brand was they had really good average unit volume per location, but like barely any membership and barely any gift cards. And so...

actually like when I evaluated the brand didn't want to see a lot of good good good because I wanted to see maybe the potential of like how we can raise the revenue and so you know the conversion for membership is like 5% in that brand and I think luckily a new CMO just came on board and I just feel like it's you

There's a lot of seasonality in the business, which I'm not used to. I have a very solid membership in all my other businesses, so I think what membership does is there's really not a lot of seasonality. People are getting their massages and facials every single month, and it really doesn't ebb and flow too much in my business.

But in Drybar, it's like you got an amazing month of December and then January if you don't cut your schedule now all of a sudden you're not profitable and I really don't have a huge membership base. So like as the brand hopefully I think shifts in the way they promote the service, which I think should be less like one-off events more just lifestyle. Yeah. I'm curious like if you think that's because like to me like that's

I'm the type of franchisee that gets very vocal and is very collaborative with the franchisor. And if they're not very willing to collaborate on that level, I'm not really engaged because I like to be very... I want to be the top performing franchisee and very collaborative and whatnot. So I'm curious, do you feel like... How do you make...

a business less seasonal, I would think membership is a huge answer to that. Just curious of your perspective and then you may even be, like the demographic I would think as well.

You didn't ask Alex? No. Yeah. Yeah, so one question which is, do you have an operator above the locations of Drybar or like what's the infrastructure look like? Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, I think it's really inspiring being here because you guys obviously operate this portfolio and, you know, so I only have really one person over top my portfolio now. Yeah.

So who's running the locations? I have a manager in each, yeah. Okay. How would you say those managers compare to the managers of like Hand and Stone Massage?

Good, you know honestly really good on it like the beauty of like my background was I went from more complex to less so like running a dry bar is like a cakewalk compared to my you know I have 70 employees in just one of my spas got you know and that does 4.3 million in sales so like a dry bar is one basically service let alone like the whole menu we have so Yeah, I think they're honestly like

they're lacking leads in certain markets because like New York City or Vegas obviously is different where dry bar thrives versus like a suburb. And I think the suburb of any service business struggles without the recurring revenue, the repeat client, right? 'Cause you're not going to an event all the time, right?

Yeah. I think the membership is obviously a fantastic answer, but it's really getting them, it's nailing the sales process for the membership. So like we, one of our companies is a chain of teeth whitening studios and it's like,

people would just come in one time, right? And it's obviously in more astute areas, like people come more often, but like a lot of them, they come once, like, "My teeth are white forever." I'm like, "What the fuck? That's not how it works." Like, you know what I mean? Do you drink coffee? Like, of course they're gonna get yellow again. So, but the biggest area that we saw with that one and with another chain that we have is that we just, it was getting people to stick to the script.

So it was getting the front desk and it was getting the people that were doing the service to stick to the scripts, to even remember to offer them the membership. And so we had to make sure that we built incentives in there to incentivize them equally on the membership offer as much as any of the upsells, any of the products, any of that. Because a lot of times what I notice is like,

with some of those, it's so easy to get any of those one-time sales because it makes more sense. The customers think it's a one-time and it's like, no. What we realize is like, okay, when they come in, for example, for the teeth whitening, it's like, okay, what shade are you at today? Great, you're at this shade. Okay, what shade do you want to get to in this visit? I want to get to this shade. Okay, but what's your goal shade?

And that is actually like, okay, well to get to that goal shade, you're gonna need a membership because you're probably gonna have to come like five or six times in order to get there. And you can only come every eight or 12 weeks. And so we have to space those out. And so it makes most sense to get our membership program. The question is, we have the 30 shades of teeth.

Right. What is your 30 shades of hair? And that's what I would be thinking of, which is like, I would be thinking of it more from a lens of like taking care of hair, upkeep of hair, quality of hair. Cause like think about the things that, you know, if people are, it's the harsh water, the chemicals, they're not properly washing their hair. Like that's what I would be thinking about and seeing how I could weave that into when they walk in, the person that's going to do their hair says, okay, what do you want today? But also like, what's your goals with your hair right now?

Like, how healthy is your hair? Is your hair brittle? Is it falling out? All these things. That would need to be catered to that process, and then I would have the people before they check out doing the same thing. They're following up. Okay, did you have a great time today? Amazing. Right, but what are your goals? Did you get on a membership? Did they let you know about the options we have? We want to make sure that we can get you to your hair goals. I would be, it's the frame shift you have to give to the customer, which is like, for me, for example, before I started getting my hair done, I had no idea that there was anything about their hair health and all this stuff. I'm like, what the fuck?

I don't know, it could be made up for all I fucking know, 'cause I don't research that shit. But I keep buying it, because I'm like, well what if it's not, and I go bald, you know what I mean? I don't want that, where I'd be up here, and be like, oh, I need a wig. So, that's the frame that I would go for, is it's basically changing the frame for the customer, that this is not about getting it done on time, it's about doing it in a way that promotes hair health. That's the angle I would go for. Now the question is, do your products

and the way that they do things support that, that is training that you would have to put in place. But I think that, like, you could nail that. That's exactly what I think, too, and I hope that they agree. But, yeah, it's... And I think, like...

you know educating or planting the seed of the lifestyle before they even walk in right is important hair transformation yeah right and then like what level of shine what level of thickness like that's the things that women want and they're thinking about and so it's like how can you show them on a visual scale like the thickness of the hair the shine of the hair like that is what people want sure yeah thank you absolutely hi leila my name is john mark um i sell

Info to fitness coaches, help them scale their business on Instagram and YouTube. We're doing 130K a month in revenue. I know we can be at 400K. My question's kind of about upkeeping the quality of fulfillment as I scale. So we have a bunch of testimonials, really, really good education, but I find a lot of my time that I should be making content because that's my highest leverage is spent servicing the guys and not even necessarily giving them more education because it's all there, but pushing them to post.

Because success comes from posting a lot of stories, posting a lot of YouTube videos. And I'm kind of wondering, is that a who I'm selling problem? Or is that like, am I obliged to hold their hand and be like, hey, I gave you this information and constantly be getting on hour-long calls just motivating them to do the thing that they bought? Where am I going wrong? Or where's my blind spot with that? Because I don't want...

the results to go down just so I can make more money. I want to make sure that we're continuing to give quality education as I make more money. Okay, I'll ask you a few questions. Okay. So of all the customers that you sell, how many of them need those phone calls, the extra hand holding? Is it most of them or is it some of them? Because sometimes it's most of them and other times it's a small few of them and they're just a huge pain in the ass and so it makes you feel like you're drowning in them.

It really, really depends because sometimes people do really, really good and everything's great and then they're making some money and then they hit some bottleneck, but because I've gotten on three one-on-one calls with them, instead of solving it themselves, and even though I've provided the education, they just want to get on a call and hear me say it again. I find myself repeating information over and over and I'll be like, hey, just did this with a guy, go watch this call. But unless it's specific to them, it's almost like they just won't implement it.

won't implement it. That's how persuasion works. So persuasion in general, like if it's written versus it's a Zoom versus it's in person, like the more in proximity you get, the better. Like if I wrote something on a post in social media answering this question, the likelihood you do it is a lot lower than I'm telling you right now and you're in the same room as me. For sure. So that's how it works. So it makes sense that they want to hear that from somebody. The question is this, which is like, do you have people that come in that don't need that kind of help and don't need that kind of

that are also buying your product and good customers? Yes, we have a lot. So what do they have in common? Because what this comes down, like with where you're at right now in your business, this is the main issue you have, is you have to understand who your best customers are and how to get more of those people rather than how do I just get more customers? It's how do I get more of the best customers, the ones that take the least amount of work, they say the best things about us, and they have the most success. So I'll give you an example. So in gym launch,

There was a period of time where I was like, "What the fuck's going on? Some of these people..." And they just needed so much help. And I was like, "Yeah, this is great, but why do they need so much help?" So I looked at it and I was like, "Well, let's look at our best customers." Our best customers fit into this box where it was like they had more than 30 clients, they had more than three employees, and they had been in business more than a year.

And so what I realized is that if anyone didn't fit that box, they needed an incredible amount of help because they're like, oh my gosh, I have this new gym. I don't even have all the equipment yet. Oh my gosh, I don't have enough customers to sustain my rent. Oh my gosh, I don't have enough people to help me. So I don't even have time to implement the stuff you're teaching me. And so I need you to help me more because I feel stressed. And so we said, you know what? We can't accept people who don't fit these qualifications. So what you have, in my opinion, is a qualification issue, which is,

The way that you figure out what the qualifications are is you look at the people that are your best customers and then what you want to do is figure out what they have in common and then you can change your marketing to cater to those people. So for example, we start doing is if you're a gym, you have more than 30 clients and you've got at least three employees, we're here to help you. And then you're just calling out the people that you do want that you know do succeed with the program.

And so it's not that you're saying, oh, fuck off, I don't want to help you because, you know, whatever, you don't have these people, you're poor, blah, blah. It's that you're focusing on the people that you do want and you're talking to them so potently that you just kind of repel the other people. And so I think it's also things that you could weave into the messaging is like, for example,

When I noticed, another thing I noticed is just like the amount of like one-on-one support people needed, which they don't need, they don't, it wasn't that, it was therapy, right? Let's call it what it is. It's like, you want me to listen to your life's problems? I don't want to do it anymore. And so, yeah,

You know we also put in a mini VSL and in that mini VSL it talked about hey if you're the kind of person who needs one-on-one support you want to call somebody at 9:00 p.m. And tell them about all this shit happening with your dog and your mom and that's not us We're here to grow your business and we'll come fuck about your dog. No, I'm kidding But I did want to say that some days I'm like I understand my cat died too and so it's the qualification

And if you need to do some more pre-framing prior to bringing them in, you could do a mini VSL that just like, hey, this is what I'm about. If you're somebody who needs me to hold your hand and kiss your ass, this is not the program for you. And that's gonna get you more of the people you want and this, it's gonna train the people as they come in how to treat you. We train our customers how to treat us. So right now, the fact that you even hop on calls with them,

that just already there like people in messaging playing be like can you talk about this can you grab coffee can you no that's not how i treat my time and so like you need to realize that how you treat your time is how they're going to treat your time so how can i frame it in a way because i feel like it's just and this is probably my fault obviously but i think i've set it up in a way to where i'm like oh they have this problem i will get on a call with them how do i make it seem where it's like i'm still delivering but it's just like hey like

You just need to keep posting what we talked about last week. There's no need to get on another call for now. Because there's a lot of inconsistencies between guys who are doing really, really good, who have the same traits as guys who have a big following, but they're just not posting. So let me ask you this. How many hours a week do you spend on calls right now?

I just changed my schedule last week and it gave us a big bottleneck because people were complaining. But I was like seven hours a day, like five days a week. And that takes so much. Like I can't even create content because my brain's just. I know. I did that one point so much to the degree that I took calls when I was in the bathtub because I didn't have time to shower. And when I do that, it's like the happiness is amazing. The success is great and everything. That's not sustainable though.

- Yeah. - You're just giving yourself a really shitty job. - Yeah, it's awful. - Like I don't want that job. I'm like, oh fuck it, keep your money. Like, okay, so here's what you wanna do. Here's a transition you can make with the current customers you have. Go to once a day, you have a daily call. If somebody has a problem, there is a group call that they can hop on that day and you have an hour where you can answer those calls.

The same thing happened in gym launch with Alex when he used to hop on calls with people and I was like, no, no, no. We're going to go to a daily call. Everyone can hop on and then you can use that to be like, hey, you two should connect. You can help this person with this. Hey, Joe, tell us about that thing you did last week. It's going to create a sense of community and if you can create that community, they're going to stop going to you. Got it. So one time a day, calls with you,

and just tell them, Hey, in order for me to really stay on the cutting edge and help you guys grow your business, I have to have time to do that. And I don't know if I'm hopping on calls all day. And also it's not good for you guys because you need to know how to do this without talking to me. I'm just chopping them off at the legs. Like I'm solving all their problems. Right. So just tell them that. Okay. Tell them on the daily call when they hop on, not one-on-one. Yeah.

Okay. And then should I also like, you know, cause I feel like some people, Oh, I'm not going to hop on the group call. Cause I'll just get on a one-on-one call with me. And they think it's more valuable. It's like, if you haven't done this, you can't like make it, they have to achieve things before they get on the call. You have to tell people that you're not doing the one-on-one calls.

Got it. You're transitioning to group calls. Got it. You have to be confident in this and you cannot waver. You have to be convicted in telling them that this is best for them and best for the company. And this is the change. Okay. So if you want your questions, come to that call. Thank you. My name is John Jackson. First and foremost, I just want to thank you so much. The reason I'm here today is because of some of your content. So just like thank you for all you're doing. Thank you.

I have a tax-centric short-term rental property management company. - Tax-centric? - Tax-centric. - Okay, I thought you said tax. - Oh, no. No, that would suck. But basically, we need to nail the model right now before we scale. So we're in three different locations still working on nailing the model. My main question is at some point it's gonna be how do we scale nationwide? And basically, do you have a framework for when that tipping point is gonna be of bringing someone on that has those capabilities of scaling

a company nationally or just more locations. Because I'm fearful that there's going to be a lot of ignorance tax with that whole process where I'm like, I don't know what I don't know. Yeah. So here's the key. When you're scaling locations and you're scaling regionally, it's not going to be one person that's going to get you there. You're going to need somebody that knows the next three to five steps. And then their tour of duty is going to be done. And then you're going to need somebody else that knows the next three to five. So for example, like...

I placed an operator for one of our physical, their owner operated, but we had 35 locations when I brought this person in. They had taken a similar type of business from 50 locations to 250 locations. And I said, that's fantastic. I don't need them to take us to 1,000. I will have to find somebody else that can take us to 1,000. And so I would just say, like with where you're at right now, three locations.

somebody that's gone from, let's say anywhere from three to seven locations and taken it to 30 to 40, that's gonna take you some time. And finding somebody that's done that, even though they don't know all the way to maybe complete nationwide, it's gonna give you, it's more relevant experience. Because the person that's gone like,

I see this a lot with people, and I made this mistake early on for sure, is I over-hired. Meaning I hired somebody that had experience that's like, I'm gonna need in three to five years, but they were useless as fuck today. And so I had this guy, I'm gonna call him Joe, and

he was so smart and he knew what to do, but I was like, we're just not there. I just need you to help me take some fucking direct reports off my hand, Joe. But he didn't know how to do that. And so it was just a waste of his talent. It was a waste of my time and a waste of everybody else as well because it was distracting. So find somebody that's with your sweet spot, I would say probably gone to 30. And then what you have to anticipate is that

you have to be paying attention to see when that person's gonna hit their level of incompetence and be able to either trade up or bring in somebody above them to mentor. So do not over-title this person. It's really important. It's like you don't need to bring in like a C level. Bring in somebody,

be conservative with their title so that you can leave room above them. I say any one that's a fast-growing small company, like leave room above them, under title people because I have lost really great talent because I've brought in somebody I've been like, "You're gonna be my COO." And then I'm like, "Fuck, you're like an ops manager." And then I'm like, "Shit, I can't bring someone above you so I've gotta fire you." Like it's awful.

So that would be my advice on what type of person to look for and just know that you're gonna have to bring more people than just one in to help with that. - Cool. Do you think it has to be industry specific? Like should I go head hunt like one of the big dogs or can it be just like a brick and mortar other business?

I would ask this, which is, I don't think, I think smart people can learn the industry quickly. So if you find somebody who's like intelligent, like they're sharp, which is important for somebody as an operator, um, I think they can learn the industry quickly, but I think they need to have still relevant enough experience. So I would say something in the realm, it doesn't need to be exact, but something adjacent would be ideal. Like for example, if I was looking at a med spa, you know, if somebody did, uh,

a dry bar or a nail salon, like something in beauty. That's adjacent enough that I would be okay with it. I have always tried to headhunt from competitors, but when I haven't been able to, I look at something adjacent. And I would say what's more important than even the industry is the clientele served.

So if I'm looking for somebody, like why is it the reason that I want to find somebody for Drybar or same person from MedSpa? Because they serve females between 25 and 55. That's why, because they know the customer. And so even if they don't know the exact

business, if they know the customer, that's really, really helpful. So for example, like we have had a few different brick and mortars that have different types of demographics they serve, whether younger like children or older like elderly. And so I wasn't looking for something that done the same model of this elderly one. But I did look for somebody that had served elderly people in like something that you scale locations. It wasn't the exact same business, but it was adjacent enough and they knew so much about the customer that it made the learning curve so much easier to get over.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. Hey, Layla. I've been watching your content in the gym while I've been working out. And I've listened to a lot of the stuff. It's like how you build your culture and the relationships and building rapport with people. And I've actually found that that content has been really applicable in my personal life less than in my professional life where it's really easy to deal with employees or clients

and take those skills and apply them, but when you come into personal relationships, it's a lot harder. And one of the things that I've been thinking about for probably five or six weeks is where you say that the skill level of the teacher has to be higher when the skill level of the student is lower. So I was just kind of hoping that you could expand on that and maybe share techniques or ways that you found to address that gap and to kind of narrow that gap in all kinds of different situations.

Do you want to start, do you mean like within the business specifically? Whatever, like however it is that you would address that. You know, like if the teacher is at this certain level and the student isn't there, how would you address that gap? It's a little tough because I'll just, I'll be frank with you, which is like when I first started, when I was first running our first business gym launch, I didn't know how bad of a teacher I was.

And so I would apply things that I had learned and then I would think, oh, this person is stupid and that's why this isn't working.

And it's because I wasn't even aware of what my own deficits were because I didn't know what good looked like to the degree that I thought I did. And so, it depends on, I think first, the level of awareness of the person. Like a lot of times when I ask somebody, I said, "How good of a teacher are you?" A lot of people have no idea how to answer that question. They're like, "Teacher?" They don't even consider themselves a teacher as somebody running a company. Whereas like, I look at myself as like, in every interaction I'm having, I'm thinking, "How do I teach this person something?" Right?

And that was a big frame shift for me. So the first is like a lot of people don't even think that. The second is that, you know, a lot of the times I'm looking at people within my company, right? I'm like, who's a good teacher and who doesn't have the skill? And so the different ways I would address that are,

if that person is receptive to feedback and coaching, then I will find somebody who is a good teacher to work with them, to teach them how to think through things, to teach them how to command respect and authority, to teach them how to influence people, all the skills that go into teaching. So it's basically like getting a teacher for the teacher, right? And then I would say the other way that I handle it is knowing the level of skill or competency a person has to have coming into any team in my company.

A team that works under me is going to have to have different skills than a team that works under somebody else that's two management levels below because we have different skill levels. It's like you have to hit it from both sides, which is like I have to be really cognizant of what skill do I need of the person coming in because I know that this teacher can't teach them certain things that maybe I could. Then also, how much can I invest in each person to, I would say, ascend them as teachers?

So it's like you kind of have to hit it from both angles. And then at any given point in time, you just have to be calibrating to understand...

when you're hiring, when you're expanding a team, like which level you need, which lever you need to pull essentially. Whether it be the student or the teacher. Right. Because, you know, and for some of it is like for certain businesses, for example, because of the opportunity that your business has, you're not going to be able to get Harvard teachers. Right. I say that like hypothetically, but like, and so you're like, okay, well, I know I can't actually get them for this business because the opportunity isn't big enough because Harvard teachers want to teach

Harvard right they don't want to teach at community college and if you've got a community college business then you're gonna get community college teachers which means you've also got to factor that in for the talent you're getting that's not something I understood until I sold gym launch and start acquisition.com and I thought all this time that I I was like gosh I'm doing all this stuff to attract talent that I read in all these books I've learned from these mentors and all these things it's like why am I not getting the best talent and then the moment that it was like acquisition.com here's what we do it was like and I was like what the fuck

Like all this time, but it was just the opportunity wasn't big enough in that company. And so I couldn't attract the talent that I wanted or that I even had the skill to change because it wasn't about me. It was about the opportunity. I just didn't have enough, like their vision for their career could not, it was bigger than it would be able to become within that business. So that's the third factor, which is like understanding, does your opportunity allow for that? I had somebody come up to me two weeks ago at a workshop and he said,

Like I don't know why I can't attract talent. I was like, what's your business? And it was like, well, we resell these Amazon stores to this debt. And then I was like, oh my God. And I was like, well, that's why I wouldn't work for you. He was like, well, why? And I'm like, well, because it's like, this is just to make money. Like it's not to build a business. It's not to have an impact. Like, why'd you start it? You want to make money? He was like, yeah, I just want to make money. I'm like, okay, well then like, we're not going to get Harvard teachers because they want to make a difference. They want to make an impact. They want to have a cause. So I think that's the other piece that a lot of people don't talk about. And I wish I had known earlier, which was like,

the best talent and the best teachers, right? They want to work somewhere where it's not

the mission is not let's just make a fuck ton of money. The mission is something that they can get behind and they feel like gets them excited every day. So those are really the three pieces that I think about when it comes to teaching. Is that helpful at all? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so like when you think about those levels of skill in an organization, do you go about like aligning the different levels? Like say manager of a C tier versus a manager of a B tier versus your tier? Like are you aligning...

when you look at the hire are you aligning that teaching skill for that level? Is that something like you consciously go about? So we have essentially like competencies for a role in terms of like leadership in the company right so it's like if you're a director versus a manager versus a C level like these are the competencies that we would expect loosely outlined yes but it also is a little bit of like a

It's an art and a science. It's not ever 100% formulaic because some people are so good at one piece of the job that you're willing to make up for the deficit in the other piece. So it's like, nobody ever really fits in the box perfectly, which is why I end up destroying them and not using them a lot of times. But I think that they're good guides, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I'm Dimitri. I run LGFG Fashion House. We're a direct selling company for custom clothing. Oh, that's cool. We do about a million a month in revenue.

And you make custom clothes for people. Yeah, yeah. Oh, so interesting. We just sell suits and stuff in people's offices. Okay, gotcha. And my question is, so obviously when we sort of reached the 10 million...

revenue standpoint, I can't do a lot of things myself. And then you have to hire people that are better than you. Yeah. Now, the thing is that when you hire people that are better than you, they're better than you in areas that you're not competent in. And so the question I would have is, what are your cadences or indicators or just feelings when you have somebody on your team that you don't know what they really do because they're better? You know the question, but they're not really performing or you're not sure if they are because you don't really know what to judge it against because you're not good at that thing. Yeah. So I think you have to know yourself a little bit.

Which is, I tend to, yeah, I was like looking for Sarah because she knows this about me. I tend to see the best in people. And I tend to always be optimistic. And I think that's what, that's a superpower. It's also a curse. So what that means is that when I feel like, gosh, I don't know what this person's doing, all these, I'm sure they're just this. I start bargaining with myself. I know about me that I give people a lot of wiggle room and I sometimes can be too, you

I can see the good too much. Like I let the good overpower these little things. So for me, a lot of times, if I'm to the point where I'm like, I don't know what the fuck they're doing. It's not because I don't understand. It's because they probably don't know what the fuck they're doing or they're not working. Right? Where on the other side, you have people who they're very...

They have no tolerance for any of that and they see the worst in people. And so they don't know much about what's going on. They don't take the time to look. And then the moment they don't see anything happening, they're just like, fuck them, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those people often will cut people too soon. I'm more, as a founder, obviously I see, I have the disability of not seeing the negative, right? Because I see everything as being really, really good. Great. So I'm on your side. Yeah. So then I think what you need to do is you need to inquire. Okay. So if...

For example, just tell me who it is you're thinking about. They're not here, don't worry. So for me, it's actually my social media video guy. We have a lot of what I believe to be very valuable content. I'm not going to say it because I'm going to sound like a dick, but we have a lot of very valuable content that I think should be getting us

hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers. Just based on the brand equity that we have. And it's completely not happening. We're getting the views of like a girl in a bikini who's not even like, you know, super fit. So... And I... Unless you're into that. But I don't know like... But I don't know how to create that value myself, right? So...

I guess, I don't know if, you know, so I don't know if, am I paying somebody that's just kind of leading into a dead end and it's time to, you know, really have that serious conversation? And there are some indicators, right? But I don't know, I'd actually, this is a very tough one because I actually don't know. Okay, well...

What are when you hire this person? Did you say I need this amount of posts? I need this amount of content. No, so that's a great question We've discussed that the reality is when I hired this person we didn't have the sort of Equity in the brand that we've built in last couple years got it and it might be a situation where like the role is just outgrown his Competency for which he was initially hired. It may be the situation I feel like talking to you that that probably is the situation a lot of times people come up here and then I talk to them and then I'm like no

You just don't know. But I actually really feel like you probably do know, given what you're saying right now. And you sound really sharp. So it feels like you might just need to trade up because here's the thing is like,

He might have the desire and the will, but it sounds like he doesn't have the skill. My concern is that he might not have the desire and the will because he doesn't really get how good he's got it. When things grow and things are really good, but you've been part of that growth and you're in a growth environment, you might not be the kind of person that can really... The water is rising and you're not. I feel like the effort is not matching the opportunity. That's actually my feeling.

I feel the skill actually is there. That's, that's, but yeah, you nailed it. Cause I've, I've battled with that sort of. Understood. Well then maybe it just might be easier to find somebody who does have the match. I mean, it's like either you don't have the skill, you don't have the will. Right. And either case it's going to take work from you. And if it sounds like the company's growing really quickly, you're adding a lot of brand value. I see it like this, which is like, even if you could do better in the way that you manage and communicate with him,

That's a very important piece of your business given what you do and so you want to have somebody that is so competent that they can show you What they do why they do it they can tell you what needs to happen and it makes it clear to you So can I ask you on that because you said something on the bullseye there? Yeah from a previous thing because the role potentially has outgrown his competency Is there also a possibility to hire somebody above him? Yes, but why would you want to hire somebody above somebody who isn't motivated?

That's a really good question. The worst thing you can do is say, hey, I'm going to bring an A player to me and just C player. Because then you just piss the A player off. You know what I mean? That's a good point, yeah. That makes sense. And it's just, the only thing that it's like so...

It's like, there's never been a time that I've like really questioned somebody like so much to the degree that you're at this workshop and this is the question you asked, which is like, that's an indicator. Right. Right. What the fuck? Yeah. Right. Like of all the things, like it's about him, Harry, you know, it's never quite so clear though. Right. It's like, well, it's, it's good enough, but it isn't good enough. Right. It's like, you were smart enough to start this business, get it to the point where you're going to be doing 10 million a year. Like you probably have a good hunch as to if this person is competent or not.

That was my next question is how much of my hunch do I trust? Because it's an energy thing too. Like if it's eating my energy, do I really want to be trying to coach it right now? Okay, that's that. Cool. And here's the thing. If you mess up and you will at some point, you're going to learn and just learn from what happens. But you have to do something.