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- Awesome!
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- I definitely also wanna ask you about systems.
Because when it comes to franchise-
- Right.
- I think the difference between a franchise
versus a small business who doesn't have,
like who doesn't grow, doesn't scale,
it's because of systems.
It's a lot of mom and pop, right?
- Yeah, people don't fail, systems do.
- Yes.
- I learned that from Michael Gerber
who wrote a book called The E-Myth.
- Yes.
- And so the E-Myth Revisited is our Bible, if you will.
- Yes.
- Of how to systematize a business.
- Yes.
- You have have the right recruiting systems
to find the right people.
The right training systems--
- Once you have them.
- To teach them how to do the job properly.
And then the right operating systems
to ensure that they're kept great.
- What does a good system look like?
Are you talking about just having the procedures,
like documentations?
What does it look like?
To me, a system is anyone should be able to pick up
on one page how you do something.
- Wow.
- So, it was as simple as back in the old days,
I took out a sheet of paper for every single best practice
in the business.
How do you load the truck?
How do you price jobs?
What's the script to how you talk to the customer
on the call center?
- Like that detailed?
- Yeah.
That detailed, but had each system was one page maximum.
Here's the best way we do these things.
So, you know, a system was in our training
for any of our brands--
- Right
- You go see the customer.
You knock on the front door.
You introduce yourself by name.
And you give them a nice handshake, a nice smile.
- Yes.
- You say "Thank you" at the end of the job.
You sweep up after the job.
Every little, it's like a checklist.
The best way I can think to describe a system
is think about every time we fly.
Those pilots have flown hundreds,
hopefully thousands, of times.
- Yes.
- They still take that little laminated checklist
and they go, "Check, check, check, check, check."
- So it's like a checklist.
- It's like a checklist to ensure that the best practice
is followed and done each and every time
so you don't have to make a mistake.
- So in some way, you have a checklist.
So for example, the operations system.
But you have a lot of mini systems within that system.
- Exactly.
- Right?
- Yeah.
- Like within your company, I don't even know,
would you know how many systems you have?
- Oh, I couldn't even begin to guess.
- Hundreds?
- Sure.
- Hundreds.
- Yeah, you know a system for me, so a daily system for me,
my alarm goes off at 5:55 a.m.
The first thing I do is I look in my phone
and there's a note, an iPhone note,
which is my daily intention.
And I write down what's my daily intention for today.
And it might be, it's just one thing
but it could be to make sure I eat healthy all day.
Don't drink any alcohol.
Make sure I exercise.
Make sure I make this phone call to this person
that's incredibly important.
But it's one thing that I wanna keep in my mind all day
that is going to drive a positive outcome on my day.
- So that daily intention, a daily focus.
- A daily focus, a daily intention for me
and what makes it a system
is my alarm goes off automatically, it's always set at 5:55.
Bing, I know that's the first thing I do when I get up.
- So from there, I'm curious,
let's say when you come up with an idea,
do you just talk to Eric directly and say,
"Hey Eric, we're gonna do this."
Like, what do you do so that it doesn't disrupt the team?
- Yeah, so that--
- This is a personal question, I know.
- This is a good question 'cause entrepreneurs
disrupt people, I'm sure you never do it.
Entrepreneurs will come up with ideas and go,
"Oh, I just met with Dan Lok.
"I got this great idea and we need to do this."
So what I do is I take my phone
and I have a note with all of my meetings
and idea notes for Eric.
So I put at the top for the next meeting my ideas.
- When you meet with him, right?
- And so when I'm gonna meet with him,
once a month to go through these ideas.
- Wow!
You have that much discipline to wait for a month?
- Wait for a month.
- Oh my God!
- So what I do though is, the night before
we both say what do we wanna talk about.
And I'll go through my notes and I'll get rid of stuff
that I think, "Eh, that's not a good idea."
- Okay, okay.
- But I'll pick the priorities and I'll say,
"What do you I want to use my time
"that Eric and I have together to talk through
"in terms of new ideas?"
So the reason I wait a month,
and I've learned this from Eric,
while it's a good idea today,
it doesn't mean it should be done.
It doesn't mean it's a good idea tomorrow.
Let it marinate a little bit.
The company is a $444 million business.
We don't need to go do this tomorrow.
It's one thing if something's really, desperately broken
and needs fixing.
But with new ideas, yeah, give it a little time.
Let it marinate.
- Yeah, like you said, maybe then after 30 days,
you know what, not a priority anymore.
Things change, we don't need to do that.
Or, after 30 days, think of it some more
or you sleep on it some more,
it's still a very, very good idea.
Maybe you've already come up
with a slightly improved version
of the original idea anyway.
- Exactly.
- And then can pull it.
I gotta test this.
One month, that's not easy.
- Just get your team to hold you accountable.
- Oh, it's not easy!
- "Great idea, Dan-
- Oh, that's not easy!
- You have 28 days left.
- Oh, that drives me crazy!
'Cause, as you know, when I have an idea,
I'm a massive implementer.
- Sure.
- It drives me crazy when I don't do it.
I gotta learn, I gotta learn as well.
But it's exactly like this,
where I think sitting down with entrepreneurs,
you get different ideas.
And that's the value of being in a group,
like EO or YPO or Mastermind,
where you learn from each other.
There's no ego.
Everybody just get together,
we're very transparent and open and just share,
"Hey, here's what I'm working on."
No one is perfect.
It doesn't matter if you're running a $1 million company,
you're running a billion-dollar company,
we all have projects we're working on, or challenges, right?
No one is perfect.
And I love the idea, what you just shared,
even if you get to the point where it's over $100 million,
no company's too big to fail.
When you fail, you fail, like, fast.
- Yeah, and there's a lot of companies failing these days.
Just look at retail.
Amazon is honing the world in retail
in terms of the great job they do.
- Yes.
- But other companies aren't innovating and keeping up.