- [Dan] You know, I don't ever introduce myself.
(upbeat music)
Six skills that millionaires need to master.
Now, if you're frustrated with the amount of things
you currently need to learn and you're not sure
which order you should put them in, or maybe you've read
a ton of books and you feel confused as to what is
actually the most important, I'm gonna share with you guys
my six that are gonna cut through the noise, get you clear
on your action items and make sure that you build
a plan to develop these skills.
I was fortunate enough that I had people come into my life,
mentors, extremely wealthy and successful and kind mentors,
that showed me the way to actually build wealth
and create an impact.
I mean, I started when I was 17, and it wasn't 'til
I was 27, so 10 years of grinding and focus.
Three businesses, two failed ones, finally, on my third,
I remember the day I was driving up this highway
in my hometown called Vaughn Harvey and my accountant
called me up and he said,
"Hey, Dan, you wanna hear something cool?"
I was like, "Yeah, what's up?"
He goes, "Dude, you've got a million dollars."
And I was like, "What do you mean I got a million dollars?"
He's like, "Your business has generated a million dollars
"in retained earnings."
And I was like...
"Cool!"
And then, he's like, "Yeah, congrats!"
And I was like, "Awesome, I mean, do other people do this?"
And that's when he started to share with me that it's
actually a very small percent, and, you know, this is not
an opportunity to brag, it's just, many people
never break 50,000 in their business in revenue in a year,
let alone a quarter million, let alone a million
or a couple million or 10 million, and I just think
not understanding the skills that they've mastered,
that I was lucky enough to be taught and spent a lot of
time on, I'm not here because anything was given to me.
It was repetition, focus, habit, structure,
and mentors that held me accountable
and really inspired me to behave
and act in a bigger way than I even thought
possible for myself.
That's what I'm gonna share with you in this video.
So the first thing is, you need to learn how to learn.
First thing you need to learn is actually how to learn.
How to learn, unlearn and relearn.
How to become what's called an autodidact.
Yes, I said it right, autodidact.
Essentially, it's a word that means self-learner.
And, really, it's about learning how you learn.
I think everybody has a different way of learning.
I'm a big fan of being around people and modeling
their behavior, some people like to read books,
other people are very, they learn by doing.
But whatever it is for you, first thing you need to learn,
and this is what millionaires do, is they learn how to learn,
they learn how to self-educate themselves, so no matter
what problem gets presented to them, they have an answer,
or they can find the answer. So that's one.
Two, is they learn how to hire, manage and lead people.
I see so many entrepreneurs talking about, like,
"I don't want any employees and I just want a simple business,"
and all these things, and I'm like, "Why?
"Why don't you want employees?
"'Cause it's a headache?"
It's probably a headache because you never learned
the right way to hire people.
Maybe you got people on your team that shouldn't be there,
or you're not managing them properly,
and maybe you're not a good example as a leader.
But that's the second skill that really needs to develop
and understood and figured out for you, so that people
feel a sense of belonging and excitement and purpose
in working with you in your business.
So, that's two.
Three, is all about communication.
I think that a lot of entrepreneurs,
they can bring their cousins or
whoever into their team, but they don't know
how to develop a plan or strategy or outcomes,
and they don't know how to communicate those things
to the team, so they get frustrated,
because they're like,
you asked me for this, it's like, yeah, but I didn't mean
for you to do it now, and you didn't do it right.
Those are all challenges with clear communication,
so the more you can dial in your skill, refine your ability
to send emails, refine your ability to communicate verbally,
refine your storytelling, your presentation style,
those are all incredible micro-skills to develop
to help, at a grander scale, communicate better
within and outwards of your business.
So that's three.
Four is all about thinking big,
but here's the key.
It's not about thinking big, 'cause there's a great book
called "The Power of Thinking Big."
It's about thinking big and holding it, 'kay?
The best entrepreneurs that I've worked with not only
can communicate a big vision, but they're able
to hold that long-term.
Not, I'm excited Monday, and on Tuesday, I feel like
I'm doing the wrong things.
It's that constant ongoing focus on big, okay?
And being able to hold that space and keeping
that connection with the passion and the vision
for your business, so that as you interact with people,
they feel it, you can't help it.
If you meet somebody that just has a big vision for their
business and their life, you can't help but feel it.
Most people, when I think about, like, millionaires,
and it's not really about the number, it's more about
the person you gotta become to achieve that number.
See, that's the crazy part.
People think, well, you're all about money.
It's like I'm not about money, I'm about you doing the work
to become the person who achieves that result.
And I know that the person that goes from small, medium,
large to big company, they're different people
along the way, there are different skillsets they need
to develop, and it pushes you, entrepreneurship
is the ultimate personal development program.
If you want to increase your revenue in your business,
go look in the mirror and ask yourself these questions.
How am I doing on these six skills to really progress
and learn as an entrepreneur?
So, the fourth thing is, you need to think and hold
big thoughts, okay?
Keep those in your mind, ongoing.
The fifth thing is, understand numbers.
Many entrepreneurs, when I talk to them,
they would rather just not learn about how to read
the financial statements, they don't want to understand it.
They don't feel like they have to do it, and I'm telling you
if you want to become a great entrepreneur, you need to
be able to pull a P and L, you need to be able to understand
how to read your financials, and you've got to be able
to ask your accountant.
Your accountant's job is not to run your business.
If you don't spend the time with your accountant,
with another entrepreneur that knows how to read financials.
If you haven't read the book Simple Numbers
by Greg Crabtree, go get it.
Read it, understand it.
It's just something that, it comes either through
a bad situation or through progressive learning.
You either decide to learn or you're gonna be forced
to learn it, but I guarantee, there's no entrepreneur
that's ever build a company at scale that didn't learn
how to read the numbers, because, at the end of the day,
nobody else is accountable for that.
They might be accountable for reporting, making sure
everything's put in the right box, but they're not
accountable for how those numbers
are performing over time,
that's your job as the entrepreneur.
The sixth skill that I want to share with you is,
and one of my favorite things, and look, as an introverted
type developer, technical person when I started off,
I taught myself how to code at 17,
I didn't want to talk to people.
The sixth skill is learning how to sell.
How do you communicate
through verbal words, through written word,
through presentations, through storytelling?
How do you learn how to sell?
Sell your ideas, sell your vision,
sell your product,
sell somebody on joining your team,
sell an investor on investing in your company.
At the end of the day, the way I think about sales
is it is the transfer of enthusiasm.
If you don't learn how to communicate, it doesn't mean
you have to be over the top and loud and crazy, like me.
You just have to learn how to communicate a vision
that's clear, concise and there's structure to selling
that gets people comfortable.
And how do you ask questions that gives you the answers
of maybe some of the objections that they might be having,
and then gives you the opportunity to potentially
overcome them, just because you forgot to say something?
A lot of people think selling is about trying to con
somebody else or get somebody to buy something
they don't need, and it couldn't be further from the truth.
The way I think about it is, I want to serve, and my
responsibility to my clients is to figure out, how do
I communicate what I'm doing so that they understand it?
Many times, founders just don't know how to communicate it
and they're confusing their market, they're confusing
their clients, and they don't buy and they wonder why.
It's because you haven't spent the time learning the art
and craft of selling, and to grow a big business,
to become a millionaire, it's part of the game.
Real quick, those six skills are, one, you need to learn
how to learn, how to unlearn, become an autodidact,
read books, get around people, learn how you learn.
Second, it's all about the people.
How do you hire, manage and lead those people?
Third is to communicate clearly a plan, a strategy,
the actions, and hold people accountable to that.
Four is to think big and hold the space and keep your mind
focused on that big vision and don't lose it.
Five is to know how to read your numbers,
so that you can see if somebody's
taking advantage of you.
You can understand if you're actually making profit,
not just revenue.
And then six, I want you to really spend the time
to develop your sales chops.
That is my ask of you is to spend your time on those
six skills and then report back below in the comments.
Let me know, which one of those do you feel you gotta
spend the most time on to really become a bigger
and better entrepreneur?
Again, look in the mirror if you're not where you're at,
'cause that investment in yourself is how you're gonna
grow your business.
With that, I hope this video finds you incredibly well,
and I'll see you next Monday.
If you liked this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel
for other videos on developing
your skills as an entrepreneur.
I'd also invite you to join my newsletter,
where I send out free training,
exclusive contests and other private events.
And also, if you wanna get going, I've got two videos
ready for you right now, and I'll see you next Monday.
Cheers.