- Because of our social media presence,
we've been getting a lot of resumes
and people approaching us
and great talent wanting to join Team Dan Lok
and wanting to join our global organization.
So I thought it would be very useful
to make a video just for you,
from me, the CEO, the Founder to you,
what it's like to join Team Dan Lok
and what we're looking for.
Now as a Founder, as a CEO, I think this video
would also help you tremendously
and give you some powerful insights on how do you hire
and how do you build your high-performance team.
Number one, culture first, strategy second.
What are you talking about like culture?
It sounds so intangible, it sounds so far away from me,
but now as my company grows
I absolutely realize how important culture is.
Now what exactly is culture and why is this so important?
You have to understand that when you go to a certain point,
the company is no longer just about you,
that you're not the main driver of the business anymore,
now you are relying on your team,
the talents that you've hired.
And when it comes to people, culture, it's the glue,
it's what how people work, how they operate,
how they think, how they view your corporation,
how they view your team, it's your leadership.
Culture, when you have a small team,
they can easily governed by rules and regulations.
When you have a big organization,
then your people, they're governed by culture.
You see with the right people,
with the right culture, everything works.
Without the right people,
without the right culture, nothing works,
and you'll always get drama within your business.
Comment below if you know what I'm talking about.
And drama costs bandwidth, drama costs money.
So when it comes to culture, culture is how your team,
your people will operate without you being there.
When you're not there how do they think,
do they understand what your values are?
Do they understand your vision as a CEO, as a leader?
That's the glue, that's the magic.
You see your products might change,
the marketplace might change,
your service might change, technology might change,
but if your people are resourceful,
they can pivot, they can adapt.
With the right culture everything works,
but without the right culture, nothing works.
Remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Number two, we attract talents worldwide.
Although we are based in Vancouver, Canada,
but we have team members from all over the world.
Our core team is based in Vancouver,
but we have an outer team
that could be from anywhere in the world.
Now with technology, with videoconferencing,
with so many of these project management software,
don't recruit, don't hire
just limited by your geographic area.
After awhile we do have members working from other countries
and live in other parts of the world
that they want to relocate to Vancouver
and work closer with the team,
not because I ask them to, not because it's a requirement,
because they want to.
I see myself as kind of like
Tony Stark as the Avengers, right.
We're (mumbles) a pool of great talents
working together focusing on one mission.
When I'm hiring, I don't care about your background,
I don't care where you're from,
I don't care about your accent,
I don't care about your resume at all,
I care about your with attitude,
I care about if you're coachable,
I care if you believe in what we do,
and I care about if you are willing to do what it takes.
Skills I could train, I could give that to you,
that is no problem, but attitude,
you got to come in with the right attitude,
that's the most important thing that we look for.
Number three, we only hire people
who believe in what we do.
The things that we tell any new applicants
who want to work for our organization is
if they're just looking for a paycheck, a job,
this is not a place for them,
that our company is not a place for them
because the way that we do things,
the way that we move and how fast we move,
this is not a traditional typical organization
where you clock-in and clock-out nine to five.
Very often my team members, they work late till at night.
There is like the weekend, Saturday, Sunday,
we could be filming, we could be last-minute, we could be,
they get a message from me 2 a.m. in the morning
and expect something by like 6 a.m.
Like the pace that we work,
most people simply cannot do that,
they're not able to do that.
It's not a pace that they're used to,
so I tell them upfront.
One of the things that's very unique about our culture is
that all my team members, they don't call me Mr. Lok,
they don't call me Dan, they don't call me boss
or anything like that, they call me Sifu.
Now if you follow my work,
Sifu is a martial art term because I'm a martial artist.
It is in Chinese term means a mentor.
I see my role not so much as a boss and dictate what to do,
my role as a leader is much more
like a mentor, more like a coach.
My job is to help them become successful
and that's your job as well to figure out exactly
what are their goals, what do they want,
and how do I, me as a leader help them become successful,
how do I build that yellow brick road?
And that's the big difference between what I do
and what everybody else does.
Number four, we hire for culture and training for skills.
Now you may have heard of the saying,
oh, hire for attitude and train for skills.
I don't quite believe in that because what I've found is,
someone might have a great attitude,
but they might not have a good culture fit.
So you have to be very clear as a leader
what is the culture of your organization
and you need to be very upfront with any potential hire,
tell them this is our culture, this is how it works,
this is how we do things, right, this is how we operate.
It's much better to let them know upfront.
We don't even have an HR department,
I never like the word, human resource.
It makes me feel like you're treating employees
like numbers, like some kind of robot
like human resources, I don't like that.
Instead of having a HR department,
we have a talent acquisition division.
That's what we do.
And I never ever hire based on a resume.
Now this is very counterintuitive
and I know everyone is taught,
okay, yes, they send in resume, I never believe in that.
First of all because even my mentor who gave me a job
back then when I was working under him, learning him,
being an apprentice, he never asked me for resume,
he wasn't looking for that.
And I just don't believe that
you can read someone's character,
what they could do based on a damn piece of paper.
Just forget about it, how would you know?
So instead of doing that, a lot of the hire
that we do is either through referrals,
meaning our existing team members
because birds of a feather flock together.
If they are the right team members
and they're working with you for a long time,
chances are their friends
would have the similar characteristics,
they have the similar interests, right,
they have similar attitude.
So referrals, great, or they are one of my students,
they're learning from me, they're fans of me,
they follow me on social media,
that's also where we hire our people.
And I never listen to what they say, I watch what they do,
meaning when I hire someone
I give them all kinds of task, all kinds of test.
I wanna see how they behave,
how do they behave under pressure.
Do they crack under pressure?
How do they behave under stress?
Do they get along with other team members?
You can't read that from a resume,
you can't get that from a reference.
So I don't never call references,
all that it's, it doesn't mean anything to me,
I watch what they do, I'll give them task.
I give them what I call test, doofus test.
I give them all kinds of things,
so I wanna see how they work,
then from there it tells me everything I need to know.
Then when the time is right I sit down with them,
or my director sit down with them and say,
hey, you know what,
now we invite you to join Team Dan Lok full-time.
Number five, we believe in self-education.
Now as a global organization, not only we are impacting,
educating millions of people worldwide,
but how can we do that if we don't educate ourselves.
If we're not growing, if we're not learning all the time.
As not just as an educator, as a role model,
in the last 12 months I've invested
over half a million dollars in consulting,
in training to make myself better, to upgrade my skills.
One of the rules that we have within our organization
unlike other companies out there that my staff,
my team members they invest in themselves.
Example, if we go into some kind of training,
we attending an event,
my organization, we don't pay for the tickets
and we don't pay for the tuition, they invest in themselves
because one thing I notice, there are a lot of corporations
when they send their staff to training,
they don't want to be there.
The staff, they go to that place,
they can't wait to get out of the hotel room,
they can't wait to get out of the class,
they're doing it out of obligation and then they go drinking
and all that bullshit, we don't do that.
We believe in self education.
When there's no skin in the game, there's no game.
Whatever people pay, people pay attention.
So it is not an obligation, I never require them to learn,
my culture is everyone is learning.
We're talking about what books we're reading.
Hey, are you reading this book?
I'm reading this book, you should read this book.
We're learning all the time, we're attending events,
we're brainstorming, we're doing it altogether.
One thing I'm very, very proud of is one of our directors
that one of the issues that we have is with
Facebook advertising that we are trying to figure out
ways to how to make it better,
but this particular director
he invest $10,000 of his own money
to solve this problem, to learn better ways,
so that we can run better ads, so we can be more efficient.
Didn't ask me, told me afterwards.
And that's a very big chunk of his annual pay,
and that's what we do.
When their skills improve and they can bring more value
and do more for the organization,
I'm not paying them to learn, but their skills are improved,
then I'll reward them based on the results that they produce
because one thing I've learned is,
whatever the skills that they've learned,
whatever skills that I've learned, they keep that I keep.
I very, very much believe in that.
And that's one thing that I think
differentiates us from everybody else.
And every Thursday morning
we have what we call a Growth Time.
Anyone of the members, any on the team,
they could teach a segment, 45 minutes, an hour
what they're working on, and they could teach
and they share here's what's going on,
here's what's going on with my division,
here's what's going on within my department.
And they teach each other
and that's the culture that we have.
So if you believe you have what it takes
and if you want to join our organization
after hearing all these things,
and chances are you're either like,
hell no, I'll never want to work for Dan Lok,
or you're like, hell yes,
this is exactly what I've been looking for all these years.
(mumbles) somewhere here,
and go to that page, you can submit.
I don't want a resume, I want a video from you.
I want you to explain to me, sell me why we should hire you.
And I don't care,
forget what positions that we're looking for,
put all that aside, tell me your story,
tell me your background,
tell me your superpower, your talent.
What can you bring to the table?
What's your personal goal?
If we believe is a good fit,
one of my directors will be in touch
and who knows, maybe someday you join our organization.
So go ahead, click the link right now.