- Right?
The great entrepreneur knows how to assemble their team.
Right?
How many of you watch Marvel?
They are like a Marvel geek like me.
Put up your hand.
Like Iron Man?
Yeah.
So Iron Man is awesome,
but Avengers is awesome-r.
It's more awesome because it's how he assembles that team.
Right?
No one talks about Nick Fury that much.
- No, no one does.
- Yeah, but Nick Fury is the one that came with idea,
you know what?
We are going to assemble a group of amazing superheroes
to fight this evil power that may or may not come,
we don't know when it's going to happen.
But it's the Avengers, not just Thor,
or just Iron Man or just whatever.
It's teamwork.
So if you are good, that's good.
But if you want to build a great business,
you got to know how to do that.
So write this down.
This is the new structure that I believe
your business needs to have.
Instead of the old traditional pyramid model,
cross that out,
this is what I believe we would have.
So within the very core part of the entire circle,
you have the mentors,
you have advisors, you have your peers.
These are the people that you could get advice from.
These are the people who would help you
and support you and hold you accountable.
That structure is so key.
The entrepreneurs who don't have this, they don't go right.
They're playing the silo game.
The lone wolves.
You do not build a business with being a lone wolf.
You can build a little small little thing,
but not lone wolf.
It's all about collaboration.
Wealth comes from relationships.
Remember that, right?
And then beyond that, the next circle that you have,
it's your executive team or what I call sometimes
your management team, right?
You may not get to a stage
where you have like a C suite and all that stuff,
but you have only the management team.
Maybe your manager, a couple of people,
maybe a marketing person,
use form to start with that.
That's your management team.
Those are the ones you talk to all the time.
Those are the people who understand your vision
and who could help it and make it true.
Right?
And then next level you have your team players,
your team members, right?
Then you have that circle.
And then you have outside of that,
those are your external contractors.
That's your kind of remote team.
What I believe is, you want to keep this,
the core team small, lean & mean,
you want to have the external contractors big.
- Cause you can change that at any time, right?
- That's correct.
Like this.
So imagine a circle.
Do this with me, do this with me.
Two hands, two hands, two hands.
Do this, do this.
Okay.
Do this.
Okay.
So this is our core team, right?
Do this, the core team, core team, right?
Yeah.
And then this is your executive team, right?
But outside of that circle, this is flexible.
This you can expand.
Okay?
So this kind of stays the same but this expands.
And that gives you stability.
That gives you flexibility.
You can grow the external team
to a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people.
You don't work with one website designer,
you work with 10 website designers.
You'd have 10, 20, 30 independent contractors.
That's okay.
But you don't hire one full time person.
You don't need to.
Unless you need that position,
but in transit you don't need to.
Come into a global talent pool,
make your project base good for you, good for them.
Right?
Which circle is the entrepreneur in himself or herself?
Yeah.
Within the right in the middle of the dot.
So as the CEO, as the entrepreneur,
if the definition of an entrepreneur
is someone with a vision orchestrating
out of people's time, talents and money,
to make his or her vision real,
this is why your most important group in your life
as entrepreneur is your peer group, as your advisory group.
Who are your mentors?
Who do you seek advice from?
Because you get paid to think.
You don't get paid to do.
You get paid to think.
Well how can you think if you don't have input?
How do you know you're thinking it right?
Like Alex, how do the membership tier is right?
How do the pricing is right?
How do you know retention strategy is right?
Unless that is very clear, mapped out,
then you put that forward
to your management executive team for them to execute.
And then you get feedback from the marketplace,
you bring it back to your peer group.
Hey guys, I implemented this, right?
I launched this new tier membership.
I tried that.
This is what worked.
This is what didn't work.
What do you think I should do?
You get some more input.
Right?
Get some more advice from mentors, from advisors,
and you go back and do that.
This is why you notice this public company.
Every single damn fucking public company has a board.
Why?
Because they get advised,
the CEO gets advice from the board.
Now you may be thinking, but Dan
I'm not a public company.
It doesn't matter.
Why do you need to have a board?
Because they have this kind of structure.
It is what works to create wealth.
It's what works to create success.
They have a board.
You think a public company CEO,
just like, I just sit in the room,
I just kind of come up with shit.
No, they have every single decision,
in fact, for public company,
they have to have a meeting.
They propose the board,
here are some of the decisions,
here are some strategies that I'm thinking of implementing,
the board would say, "Okay".
They would vote.
If most will agree, then they would carry forward.
- But it's too risky
- Because from a public company perspective,
that bad decision affects tens of thousands of thousands
of people's livelihood, right?
- Yeah.
- Their jobs.
So of course a CEO cannot be
"Oh, I'm just going to do this".
No.
So it may feel like, Oh that's not very efficient.
It's not about efficient.
That's about effective.
So be effective.
- Then Alyssa has got a question.
She says, "How do you get a remote team to gel?"
And I'll go into all that.
I'll give the tools and all that to do.
I'll recommend all that.
So for a remote team,
you don't treat them any different
than your internal team.
It's actually the same.
Although they work remotely.
Although they're contractors.
So I believe the best way to get them to gel,
even they're contractors, is, don't treat them like contractors.
Let them know.
Like because example.
I'll give you a perfect example.
Let's say you're a writer.
- Yes.
- I'm going to hire you to write some article.
- Yes.
- Here's how a contractor relationship would work.
I'd say, "Okay, Desmond, I need three articles written.
"You go write those."
- Okay.
And then here you go.
- Okay.
Right.
That doesn't gel nothing.
- This is transactional.
- It's very transactional versus,
"Okay Des, you know I need these three articles
"written on this topic.
"Let me tell you why.
"And let me tell you how it fits
"into the overall picture of what we do.
"And by the way, here are core values of the company.
"This is what we stand for".
- Right?
- So I'll let him know all of those things,
even though he's a contractor.
You see how that changes relationship?
- Yup.
- What makes people gel is not perks, it's not gimmicks.
Values.
- Do they need to join the team meetings
and things like that?
- Not necessarily.
But they need to know why you do it.
What's the motive behind this particular task and action.
The more you let them know the why,
the more they would gel.
Because people need to know why need to do something.
It's like a soldier.
- Yes.
A soldier would carry out the mission and say,
"Okay, I need you to go here,
"and I need you to, let's say, assassinate this person."
Like this evil terrorists.
And they would go do it.
But it's much better when I tell,
"This person actually done all these bad things.
"And when you knew this person is gone,
"it's going to help the country to move forward.
"This is why we need to do it."
Okay.
Now there's a different level of commitment.
You see that?
Now you why I need this person here,
versus I would do it because I'm a soldier,
because it's an order.
- Yeah.
- It's a different thing.
So tell them why.
Makes sense?
- Yes.
All right.
At least they are nodding heads.
- Electric cutting in and out.
Okay.
Lead by persuasion.
That's great.
Your why, tell them why?
So circle of contribution.
This is how you would structure your company.
Not the old way of so many layers.
Just do it,
your core, peer group,
your advisory group, or mentor very key
because that's where you do all the clear thinking.
When thinking is clear, action is easy.
So executions becomes easier.
Then you have your management team to go carry forward.
Now, if you're just starting out,
then you may be saying,
"Hey Dan, I don't have a management team".
It starts with one person.
That management team may start off
with just your executive assistant.
Right?
That first assistant that you hire,
that's part of your management team.
- Someone asked about that earlier on.
Someone asked about the executive assistant.
Do you have multiple executive assistants?
- You start with one.
- Yep.
Work with one person.
Right?
So start with that and then you add more and more,
and as you grow with revenue,
but you got to start with that one person
and that person it's executing.
Right?