(inspirational music)
Sometimes
people tell me, well Dan, you know
that's because you're rich
that's why you can delegate.
That's not it.
It's the opposite.
It's because I delegate, that's why I'm rich.
It's chicken and egg.
If you don't have the habit of delegating now
why would you think
well first of all you won't make the money
because your hours, you're not maximizing your time
the value of your time.
You're not gonna get there.
But if you don't delegate now, if you don't have the habit
of delegating now, what makes you think
you will have the habit of delegating
when you make more money?
It's like, doesn't make sense.
People have the problem with savings.
"Oh when I make more money, I'll save money."
That's bullshit.
If every dollar comes in, you're not saving your ten cents
you can have hundred times more money
you're not gonna save the money
because you don't have to have it to start with.
Everybody understand what I'm saying, yes?
So it starts with the habit.
Start delegating small stuff.
Develop a habit.
Letting go, letting go, letting go.
I'm not saying from here to here
but just a little bit here, let loose
little bit more, little bit more, little bit more
then you get some good experiences and go from there.
Now, I want to take a minute to talk about
why most people don't delegate.
Why most people don't delegate, what's holding them back?
What's holding them back?
Now, I want you to do this with me.
Open your left hand, left hand like that.
Left hand like that, everybody do that, okay.
Now if you've ever said this, as I'm saying
as I'm reading different statements
I want you to put that in your palm, okay?
These excuses, hold it so.
"I can do it better myself."
"I don't know if I can trust her or him to do it."
"He isn't qualified to do it."
"She doesn't want any responsibilities."
"I don't have the time to show anyone how to do it."
"There's no-one else to delegate to."
"She already has enough to do."
"I don't want to give up this task because I like doing it."
"I'm the only person on this
"planet earth who knows how to do this."
"Well she messed up kind of last time
"so I'm not giving her anything else to do."
How many of us have said any of these statements before?
Okay, now look at this.
A bunch of, what is it?
What is it?
- [Audience Member] Excuses.
No, no.
What is this?
- [Audience Member] Bullshit
Bullshit.
What is this?
Bullshit, mental bullshit.
So crumple it into a ball for me please, do that like that.
Throw it on the ground.
Stamp on it.
No more bullshit.
No more what?
- [Audience] Bullshit.
Yeah I don't buy that shit.
Don't buy into it, nothing more than limiting belief.
Nothing more than what?
- [Audience] Limiting belief.
Limiting belief, that's all that is.
It is not true.
What do you mean, it's not true?
It's not true.
How do you think that helps your business
when you have this limited belief?
- [Audience Member] You get nothing done.
You get nothing done.
Of course you're on the hamster wheel.
You have this limited belief.
I can give you all the strategies
seven how-to, five strategies, whatever
it doesn't matter, you're not gonna do it
because you have this and this thing.
If you don't get rid of it, it's always there
and you don't delegate, this is why people don't delegate.
So what can you delegate?
Just to give you a small taste of what can you delegate.
Receiving and responding to emails
receiving, rerouting and responding to phone calls
responding to customer service
scheduling business and personal appointments
confirming appointments
calling interviews
calling and writing to new prospects
entering business cards into database
bookkeeping, graphic design and programming
website developments
invoicing clients, customers
tracking expenses and tax records
handling paperwork
shopping around online for software
hardware, travel and gifts, Ken.
(laughing)
I'm teasing my mentee.
Maintaining websites, tracking website statistics
fulfillment of products and services
creating sales reports, search engine optimization
designing PowerPoint, event planning
product search, internet search, fact checking
ordering office supplies, stamps, shipping material
planning in business, personal or travel.
What can you delegate?
- [Audience Member] All of it.
A better question is what can't you delegate?
- [Audience Member] Thinking.
How many can see a lot of things you can delegate.
There are a lot and this is a small list
just to give you an idea.
There are a lot of things you can delegate
a lot of things you can delegate.
So what's holding you back?
I would say the four biggest fears.
Number one, the fear of losing control.
What is it, fear of what?
Losing control.
Fear of losing control.
Oh my god, if I let go, what's gonna happen?
If they make a mistake, what's gonna happen?
Fear of asking somebody usually means fear of rejection.
Where does that come from?
Why are we afraid to ask someone for help?
Why, why, why?
- [Audience Member] Scared of rejection.
Scared of rejection, yes, but why?
Why are we afraid of rejection?
What is it?
- [Audience Member] Judgment.
Judgment yes, what would they think of me?
Would they think that I'm incompetent?
Would they think I'm not good enough?
Would they think less of me?
Right?
Nobody cares.
Fear of being thought of as inadequate.
Especially men, by the way.
I think women are better.
Seriously, women, they have a more
willingness to ask for help.
But men we're taught you've got to be a macho man, right?
You've got to do your men thing and don't ask for help
and all this shit.
That's what we're taught, you've got to be strong
you've got to be all this stuff.
If you ask for help then you're not competent.
You don't mow your own lawn, you're a loser.
(laughing)
I can't even lift a fucking machine
I don't want to mow my own lawn.
You know what I mean?
It's the honorable thing, you've got to do this.
No honor in that, there's no honor in that.
The cost too high.
Sometimes entrepreneurs may think it costs too high
I can't afford it.
Now you know how much your time is worth
whatever your goal is.
You want to make a million bucks a year?
Your work has to be work $1700 an hour.
If you think of those numbers
can you afford not to delegate?
Yes or no?
- [Audience] No.
So your time is worth so much more.
But then I don't understand, I don't have enough cash
I can't delegate.
I'll show ways how to delegate for free
but for now, just make yourself a promise
that you're gonna do this and give it a shot.
Give it a what?
- [Audience] A shot.
Give it a shot.
What if you might say but then
Now, how many of you have tried to delegate in the past
and it turns into a delegation hell.
How many have done that before?
You trusted somebody, you delegate them and you pay them
and they didn't deliver on what they promised.
So how do we solve this problem?
So on one hand, so I'm saying delegate
on one hand you've had some bad experiences
and cost you money, cost you time like Andre said.
So how do we solve this problem?
- [Audience Member] Set expectations.
Set expectations, yes, maybe.
- [Audience Member] I find if you create a document
A document.
- [Audience Member] Exactly how you want it
kind of a step-by-step and all the information
that they need, they're less likely to mess up.
Okay so like a document, expectation, communicate
all of that.
Less likely to-
now, how many have done that and
even communicate expectation
and they still fuck it up?
So what do we do?
Honest?
- [Audience Member] Hire somebody else.
Hire someone else, yes, next?
- [Audience Member] Have them repeat back to you.
Have them repeat back to you okay
here's what I want you to do
communicate back to me the expectation
are you clear?
Okay.
(audience member mumbling)
Might not be a good idea, round of applause actually.
That's a good strategy yes.
Delegate to three people and see which one is good
and you keep that one.
Not bad, right?
How many of you have ever had a bad meal in the past?
How many of you still eat?
(audience laughing)
that's the answer.
- [Audience Member] Get better at filtering.
Get better at filtering, yes, but what I'm saying is
it's a numbers game.
You're not gonna get it right every time.
I'm not gonna get it right every time.
I just fired one of my mentees.
Hello, I fuck it up, I made a mistake
I chose a wrong person, I trusted the wrong person.
Does it matter?
On the big scheme of things, who cares?
Six months from now, a year from now
you're not gonna remember it.
You're not gonna remember.
In fact, Ken, can you take a moment and
share how we fire the staff?
I think it would be interesting.
Give him an applause, to Ken.
(applause)
Ken also my business partner, we own a company together
called Top Agent Internal Marketing
which we provide SEO services for agents.
So everybody say, "Hi Ken."
- [Audience] Hi ken.
Now Ken, when we fire all the staff
tell the story, you can tell it better than I do.
I've had this company for
well 15 years before I got together with Dan
and it didn't take me too long after Dan and I
were together before I realized that I had been doing
a lot of the big things wrong for 15 years.
I had the vision that I needed to build a team
a big, great team so that when we got big piece of business
we could handle it, we could do a great job.
So I finally realized that that's the opposite
that's the exact wrong way to do business.
You go get the business first then you build the team
so anyway Dan, it just came to the point
where I realized I was not good at hiring people.
How many of you are not good at hiring people?
No more hands should go up, you guys suck.
How many are not good at hiring people?
Seriously, yeah, good.
And even worse I wasn't good at managing people.
How many people are not good at managing people?
Now more hands should go up, including me.
One of these employees was a personal friend of mine
For how many years?
I guess, jeez, 12, 13 years.
12, 13 years.
So when I went to the company, partnered with Ken
in a few months we looked at everything
and what did we do?
What did I ask you to do?
First he asked, it was good, gentle at that time.
He asked me to just get rid of this one guy
so finally I did that and a few weeks later or something
he suggested that, just get rid of everybody.
(audience laughing)
and it was the best thing I've ever done.
Round of applause for that, first of all.
(applause)
Not yet, not yet.
So at first when I took-
because Ken is a very caring guy
and a lot of his employees have been with him a long time
so when I told him, "We've got to fire everybody."
not like, three months, like we fire everybody
within a week, if I remember, right?
Well I think I did-
Days.
The same day, yeah.
So at first he was like, I don't know
these people they work with me
maybe they can switch to part time
independent contractor, no.
All of them have to be gone.
I was like, boom.
At first, I don't know.
What happened is thinking these people are his friends
not employees, what happens afterwards?
That was a great lesson for me
I mean here I am, I'm friendly, I hire really nice people
good human beings.
Good human beings, very good, keep going.
And I liked these people and they have good values
and all this kind of stuff.
There's a young guy and I'm sort of mentoring him
on how to live his life and all this kind of stuff
so I feel like we're kind of close.
But it was just a kick in the head
when I laid these guys off.
All I am to these people is a paycheck, that's it.
And I mean they're still nice people
I don't hate them or anything
but it was just a lesson in business.
One thing Dan said is that friends work for free.
That's the difference between friends and employees.
Yeah whatever employees you have.
Oh they're so loyal, they've been with me
they're so good and this and that.
My challenge for you is, well try to skip the next paycheck
and see how friendly they still are.
I should say it, when I laid these guys off
every one of them, every one of them
was trying as hard as they could to get every last dime.
Yes.
For anything, you know, an iPad that I had lent them
that the company bought.
Oh no I should keep that iPad.
All your good friends
all the nice people with good values.
Fuck them, right?
Seriously.
Employees are employees, right?
Round of applause for ken.
(applause)
and I don't want you get the impression
I love my team.
I'm saying with people that...
Hiring people is a skill.
Filtering, training them, coaching them
helping develop is a whole other skill
which I'm gonna talk a little bit about today
maybe in the future meetings I'll go
into a little bit more depth
because that's more leadership falls into
leadership and management.
That's more advanced, today
I just want to focus on delegation.
What do I want to focus on?
- [Audience] Delegation.
Delegation.
And the way I run my company is a little bit unusual
because I basically run everything virtually.
I run this kind of virtual empire
that although all these companies work from home
because I choose to work from home.
I hate to commute to work, I don't have an office
I don't like an office, I don't want to go to an office.
Most of the time when my mentees are calling me
I'm in my underwear, not like this, right?
I like to be at home.
When I get up in the morning, do my thing
brush and I can get to work.
Saves me a whole lot of time, think about it.
The commute, it just saves me a whole lot of time.
But again, it is a personal preference.
Whatever turns you on, right?
However you want to live your life.
- [Narrator] Ten times your finances
ten times your business
ten times your marketing
ten times your life.
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