Hey there.
I'm Dan Martell,
serial entrepreneur, investor and creator of SaaS Academy.
And in this episode, I'm
going to share with you how to create a killer community
regardless of where you live your city right now.
There are amazing people all around you.
I'm going to share with you
the strategies, tactics and philosophies.
Most importantly, the mindset to help you
get yourself out of your way,
reach out to them, not be scared to do it,
and really transform the quality of your life
by increasing the quality of your relationships.
And be sure to stay,
Where we tell you how to get access
to my dream 100 frameworks that talks about the 100 people
in any business
you start that you want to identify
the peers of mentors and advisors and how to do that.
And we tell you how to get that at the end. Let's get into it
and so recently I was hosting my SaaS boardroom clients.
These are my high end clients doing about 5 million
to 10 million a year
in revenue in my hometown, my new hometown of Kelowna, BC.
And it was awesome to show them around.
We did some private winery tours.
We went and visited friends companies, did some site tours,
went mountain biking, really showed them
why I made the decision
to move here and the comments
that many of my clients made to me was,
Holy cow,
man, like,
you've been here a little over a year
and you've built this incredible network.
How did you do it? Like, I don't have this.
One of my clients is in New York City
and doesn't feel like he has the
quality of relationships that he saw among my peer group
because he he literally we when we visit, you know,
my friend, he's
built a billion dollar company and we went visited them
and talked to their executive team.
And then they were the same people
that brought us mountain biking.
And then we had a house party and the people at the house
party are people that are online that they knew of
and they're like, they live here too.
And I'm like, Yeah, there's
literally in this town, there's bestselling authors, there's
billionaires, multiple
billionaires playing legacy with their money, building
these incredible wineries like Mission Hill.
We went to visit Martin's Lane Private Winery
just so many incredible things.
And I share that because it doesn't matter
of when I went to San Francisco as a 28 year old
moving back home and having kids
and not knowing any other entrepreneurs
as my brother in my own hometown
to making a decision moving to Florida,
one of the
things that I love to do is I love to invest in community
and build a peer group of people that inspire me and push me
to think bigger and make my life more fun.
I mean, it's the integrated life.
So that's what I want to share with you is five specific
philosophy is mindsets and beliefs.
They're going to help you
create a world class community regardless of where you live.
Step number one, it's going to be hard.
Like literally I'm just starting this off
by telling you that if you think you can just
bump into people and create a world
class community, it's not going to be easy.
You know, the effort of, you know, realizing
you'll get out of it, what you put into it.
That's number one.
I want you to start with the belief that it's worth it,
because when you start getting invited on a Saturday morning
to go run with three other
peer groups
that are two or three years ahead of you
in the same industry you're in, I know for a fact,
regardless of where you live,
there are other software entrepreneurs.
Maybe if that's you or other age back owners or whatever
it is, small business owners that are doing things
that you like to do, but you're not there.
And and if they are doing this, be the person to create it.
But I'm telling you, it's going to be hard.
It's going to take work, but it's absolutely worth it.
And that is the first thing I want to get out of the way
that your your proximity to people is powerful.
Ok? Proximity is powerful.
And if you want to know what the future looks like,
show me your five friends.
I will literally show you your future
by looking at the five people you spend the most time with.
And I want to teach you how to upgrade that.
And that's why I created this episode.
Number two is make the list.
So one of the challenges
everybody asked me is like, how do you find these people?
Like, what was
what was your process of identifying,
you know, not only people that are successful,
but also share your same values because a lot of people
they struggle with, like, well,
I met this guy,
but he's a douche, or I met this person,
but they don't feel like doing a whole lot.
My whole thing is, is use the information out there
and then try to qualify through back channeling
and or their association to other things.
For example,
making the list could be starting by identifying
the top
nonprofits in your city and looking at what
entrepreneurs sit on the boards of those nonprofits.
Make that list Google,
you know,
top business awards in your city and find out what they are.
And then look at the past winners
for the past seven years, seven years,
probably a good timeframe means are still actively in business.
Add that to the list.
Ask people, Hey, who are the top entrepreneurs
that you know that are kind, you know, active
part of the community?
These are all questions that like when I moved back
east from San Francisco, I went back to my hometown
to have our kids.
I asked this question to all my friends, like, who do you know
that is a good person that's building a really
cool business that you think would be open
to connecting with other people just like them and they.
Oh, you need to talk to Mark.
Oh, you need to talk to Deni.
Oh, you need to talk to Nick like they knew immediately.
Okay. So you ask people,
then you get all the lists and then you got to reach out.
But number one is he got to make the list.
Number three is be curious.
So be curious is this is if you have the chance,
you talk to them, you reach out to them, email
them, ask them to jump on a call.
7 minutes.
Just want to connect new to the city.
Most people that live in a city that are doing cool
stuff are not always typically from the city.
So when you get on the phone, though,
the key is, is to ask them questions.
Always start with their story. How did you start the business?
Now, don't be lazy though.
If you could Google business story, name of business
and try to find it
online, research it and then ask yourself,
get ready for questions like Hey, when you
I read this article about your business
and you mentioned this
love to learn more about how that came to be like
be curious but be specific and don't be lazy.
But having that approach like when I organize founder dinners,
founder hikes, mountain bikes, wakes her Fridays,
like there's all these different things
that I do that I just invite people to
when I'm spending time with people, I'm incredibly curious.
I want to know, how did you start a business?
How long you been doing it? Who's your co-founders?
What's been a challenge? How do you overcome that?
What do you see yourself for the future?
Write down those questions.
Those are all incredible questions
to build real rapport in connection with other people.
But you got to be curious and ask lots of questions.
Number four is offer to help.
One of the most powerful ways that you can give back to
somebody that needs nothing from you
because a lot of these people are super successful
is to just offer to help.
Maybe you notice that they're working on an event
or they've got some thing they just announce or
as you're talking,
they mention a challenge and you have a person
that you know that can help them like offer the help.
I've I've offered up my my snow removal company.
I've offered up my marketing friends,
I've offered up introductions to therapists like you name it.
It's like, Hey, I've got this person.
Do you want me to make an introduction or, Hey,
one of my friends have done this before.
Do you want to talk to them?
I'm just or Hey, I've done this thing.
I've got a playbook for this.
You want me to send it to you like,
you know, to me at the end of the day
by you going first and help showing them
that you're willing to help.
That's what builds the depth in the relationship.
If you're somebody that always comes across as just taking
and you're not giving, you're not making deposits
and you're
just doing withdrawals from a relationship,
people are going to eventually just not respond, you know?
And I have friends of mine in my life that are like that.
They never offer to help.
They're always asking for stuff, Hey, can you speak
at this thing? Dan, can you do this for me?
Hey, you mentioned this thing. Can I have this thing?
Hey, could you make an introduction to your friend?
And I love them, but, I mean, at some point,
it's like, holy moly.
Like,
I have a lot of stuff I'm working on
and I can use your support, you know?
But you can't be lazy there either.
So you got to do the work, you got to listen,
you got to ask a lot of question.
But the follow up
that is to offer to help number five is stay connected.
And the way to stay connected is to follow up.
And it sounds like a lot of work,
but I told you, number one, it's going to be hard, it's
going to take work and you're only going
to get out of it what you put into it.
What this means, though, is what I do is
I like to create a rhythm.
Maybe it's once a month for you,
maybe it's once every two months
you organize a dinner and you invite people to it.
I actually been doing this hike now
with my buddy Trent for over a year and a half.
We call it the Founder's Hike.
It's every Tuesday morning we hike.
KNOX It's a 45 minute round trip around through
545 minute round trip loop
where we have an opportunity to connect with founders
on the way up and other people on the way down.
So as I meet people literally all the time, I met
the the mayor the other day and I invited him
to our founders hike
and he's like, for sure, I'd love to join.
Like, you know, you just need to have a thing.
It could be a Wednesday lunch, a Friday lunch
or whatever it is.
And you just do a little bit of effort.
It takes a little bit of effort, but then invite them to it.
And you're the connector.
You're the person that brought them together, somebody.
But why would they want to get together?
Don't they already know each other
even if they know each other? I'm a busy person.
You're busy person.
I guarantee there's folks you haven't seen in a while
that if somebody else took the effort
to bring you guys together, you would thank them.
Hey, I haven't seen my best friend in a while.
Thank you for inviting them.
Even if you think they already met them.
Like, that's. That's crazy.
Like, create the space, follow up, do the invite.
You know,
I recently watch this guy John Brink on Tik Tok search up John.
I think it's H Brink.
He's a forestry guy, 81 years old.
And I messaged him, hey, John, I love your content.
You are my spirit animal.
Thank you for putting out your message.
Super cool guy, he replied.
Hey, Dan, love to connect. Here's my cell.
Call me any time I called him.
We ended up having an incredible conversation for 25 minutes,
so much so that we've now become friends.
He sent me the copy of his new book.
I actually wrote
a little blurb form like and I'm going to follow up
because like, he's somebody that inspires me.
You know, one of the things he said to me
is at 81 years old, when he's 83, he's turning 82.
In August this year at 83,
he wants to compete in the Arnold Classic,
the oldest person to compete in a bodybuilding in Canada.
He wants to be that guy.
He wants to write a book every year until he dies.
Every year he's going to write a book.
I mean, these are the kind of people that if you find
you have the opportunity to connect with them,
ask questions and follow up, make like go visit them.
I mean, this is so crazy.
The amount of people that message me and go like,
Hey, Dad,
I would love to get, you know, 25 minutes of your time, 30
mins your time and I'm like, I'm,
I don't have time during my day, but if you want to
join on the hike, feel free flying o'clock.
Let's go hike.
That's an open invite and they bark.
They are like, oh, I don't have time.
I don't wake up that earlier.
I've got something going on or whatever. That's fine.
I didn't ask for the meeting.
You asked for it, right?
But if, if I ask the meeting
for somebody else and they tell me,
be here at this time, I'm going to move mountains to show up.
I'm not going to like that.
Like it's it's so bananas.
But some of you guys are doing this,
and this is why I share this message is
you need to follow up, be engage, be helpful,
and really invest in your relationships,
invest in your community
so that you can just create such a beautiful
and and just potent lifestyle around you.
And I literally don't care where you live.
Those people exist in every city.
And the cool part is you only need five.
You don't need 25, 50, you just need five.
You need five.
Incredible people
that inspire you, that will support you,
that will push you to dream bigger,
to dramatically change the quality of your life.
So quick recap.
Number one, it's going to take work.
Number two, make the list.
Number three, be curious. Ask questions.
Number four, offer to help.
Number five, follow up and stay connected.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
I want to share with you one of my favorite
frameworks is called the Dream 100,
and it's literally making a list of 100 people
that regardless of what business or industry you're in,
if you make this list
in three years, if you spend time
trying to connect with those people,
you will almost certainly guarantee success
because you can't be around people that have succeeded
and not have that rub off on you.
Okay, I talk about the mentors, the peers and the advisors
that you're going to need to absolutely crush it.
So click the link below
to download that training specifically for you.
The Dream 100 is my gift to you and as per usual,
I want to challenge you all to live a bigger life
and a bigger business.
I'll see you next Monday.