Learning Up: How the World’s Top Companies Have 10x Impact with Less Drama – In Just 7 Minutes with Daniel Marcos

Resources/Links:

• Want to know how to create a strategy that effectively works for you and your team? Click: https://www.info.growthinstitute.com/opsp/MTI

Summary

Do you want to know how you can 10x your impact without all the stress and drama?

We may have big plans for our team, but not until you have a simple yet effective strategy to execute it, you’ll have a hard time aligning it with your team. This can later on cause drama and tension. To effectively increase your impact (even by 10x) and have less drama, you need to plan everything, even the unexpected things.

Daniel Marcos is the co-founder and CEO of Growth Institute, the leading online education company for C-level executives at fast-growing firms. He is a keynote speaker and a CEO Coach with a mission to help 1 million entrepreneurs scale their impact and reduce drama.

Come and join Daniel as he talks about how you can build a better impact and avoid that unnecessary drama by thorough planning. He also shares his tips on how you can get your team aligned by building a simple yet effective strategy.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:45 – Daniel’s ideal client: We serve mid-market companies and small startups that they really want to scale. If you want to 2x or 3x your company in the next couple of years, we’re the guys that help you do that.
• 03:33 – The problem he helps solve: We help them to solve really main two things– get the right strategy, and get everyone on the same page. And then some disciplines process and everything to help implement it correctly.
• 05:08 – The symptoms of the problem: Everything that happens that is not planned creates trouble. What we do is we- that’s when they call us. When they have a lot of drama.
• 06:44 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Daniel: The first one is they don’t have the strategy in a simple and clear format that makes sense for everyone to understand. So we work a lot with strategy.
• 08:39 – Daniel’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Take the time to write a plan. So, as an example, as I said earlier, people say, “I want my team to be on the same page.” And they said, “Show me the page.” They don’t have their strategy written on one page.
• 09:28 – Daniel’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to know how to create a strategy that effectively works for you and your team? Click: https://www.info.growthinstitute.com/opsp/MTI
• 10:00 – Q: Usually, as leaders, we wake up kind of late with an alarm. And then we have a lot of drama in our personal life, going to the office. And then we get to the office, we bring a lot of drama to our teams, I always wake up two hours before I need to engage in business.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“You're going to have a great idea, but if you cannot implement it, it's not worth it.” -Daniel Marcos Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you as ever from the sunny Sunshine Coast here in Australia, joined today by Daniel Marcos. Daniel, a pleasure to have you on the show! Good day from Down Under. Where are you hanging out?

Daniel Marcos 00:24
I’m in Austin, Texas. It’s pretty hot today. I think we’re like 105 degrees.

Tom Poland 00:28
Yeah. For those who are Celsius, that’s the high 30s. Early 40s, yeah?

Daniel Marcos 00:31
Yeah, that’s correct. Early 40’s.

Tom Poland 00:32
An exceptionally hot summer, right?

Daniel Marcos 00:36
I think we have like 85 days above 100 degrees in Texas.

Tom Poland 00:40
Hardly believable. So the t-shirts at the airport are going to switch from saying, “Keep Austin Weird” to “Keep Austin Cool”.

Daniel Marcos 00:48
Yeah. We should change the name! That’s right. You’ve been here.

Tom Poland 00:53
A pleasure to have you on the show, Daniel! Folks, if you haven’t heard of Daniel, you’ve probably heard of the Growth Institute. This is not in Daniel’s bio. These are my words. It’s one of the premier leading online education organizations for C-level executives at fast-growing firms. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a solopreneur with a fast-growing medium-sized firm or a larger company. The intellectual property that Daniel and his partner have created is nothing short of exceptional. It’s robust! It’s based on decades and decades of experience and observation. So we’ve got the pleasure today of having someone on the show, who really knows his onions, so to speak. He’s a keynote speaker. He’s a CEO and a coach. He’s the guy who can get outside of your brain and have a look in and see where the gaps are. He’s got a mission to help 1 million entrepreneurs scale impact and reduce drama. And that part is from his bio, and I absolutely love it! I think it’s priceless. Because so often in trying to scale, there’s so much drama. There’s so much anxiety. There’s so much stress. There’s so much, sometimes paralysis by analysis. But the idea, I guess, Daniel wants to take is to take the guesswork out of that growth and to take the stress and the word you used, “drown out that growth”. So I can’t wait! I’m looking forward to this.

Daniel Marcos 02:09
I’ve been an entrepreneur for 25 years. I know what drama feels like.

Tom Poland 02:12
25 years! Yes. And I guess after- Tony Robbins said that wonderful saying that people change when they get sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I guess it’s like that in business as well. Once you’ve had the pain and that drama repeating often enough, you think to yourself, “There’s a bit of a way.” And I think, folks, you’re about to hear about a bit of a way. The title today is, “Learning Up: How the World’s Top Companies Have 10x Impact with Less Drama”. Daniel, our seven minutes is going to start now. Question number one, sir, who is your ideal client?

Daniel Marcos 02:45
So we serve mid-market companies and small startups that they really want to scale. If you want to 2x or 3x your company in the next couple of years, we’re the guys that help you do that.

Tom Poland 02:55
Right! And folks, I just need to push the pause button on this for a second because there are a lot of businesses out there that use the 10x or 2x or whatever. But very often you discover that that’s not based on a foundation, a robust foundation of processes and people and protocols, or well well-thought-out structure that you can live for that growth off. So I just wanted to make sure that that 2x to 3x is the visionary intention, and objective in fact, that you understand that what you’re about to hear is actually based in real-world stuff. Question number two, sir, what’s the problem you solve for people?

Daniel Marcos 03:33
Well, we help them to solve really the main two things– get the right strategy, and get everyone on the same page. And then some disciplines process and everything to help implement it correctly. Because you’re gonna have a great idea, but if you cannot implement it, it’s not worth it.

Tom Poland 03:46
So you’re starting with the strategy. And that’s about competitive advantage? Is it about things like distribution?

Daniel Marcos 03:52
It’s understanding long-term vision, your competitive advantage on the market, your brand promise to the client, and how you deliver it– it’s much more comprehensive. But most importantly, as I go and explain later, you need to write it in a format that makes sense. And it’s clear and simple for your team to understand. And then you have to build the systems and processes for your team to execute correctly.

Tom Poland 04:13
Strategy first, tactic second. Makes perfect sense! But it’s what you’ve touched on already is the articulation of that strategy so that you can communicate it right because it’s one thing to verbalize some sort of fuzzy idea that’s a pike for everyone else.

Daniel Marcos 04:28
I’ll explain a little bit of it later. But when I go to a CEO, I say, “Tell me your strategy.” They take half an hour to explain the strategy to me that I’m a highly capable entrepreneur. And I said, “Your team doesn’t get it. For you to have everyone on the same page, you first have to write the page.”

Tom Poland 04:44
Yeah. It has happened to me once. I got handed a 300-page book that had a strategic plan on it. And I was asked to review it. I went back to the CEO a week later and said, “It’s an amazing document but tell me, can you show me the page where your strategy is?” There’s no articulation, or commit advantage. Okay, so how does someone know that they need your service? This is question three. What are the symptoms? What’s going on in someone’s life or business that they go, “Yeah, I need to get in touch with the Growth Institute?”

Daniel Marcos 05:08
They have a lot of drama. And drama is everything that happens that is not planned. “Hey, I was planning to leave at five. And then I had to stay until 10 o’clock at night because of some things that weren’t in the planning. I don’t have money to pay the payroll tomorrow.” Everything that happens that is not planned creates trouble. What we do is we- that’s when they call us. When they have a lot of drama. Or they’re growing very, very fast, but they’re taking on a lot of issues, being able to cope with the scale. So we help them do that. And the way we solve it really, is by helping you grow your team. If you could not 10x your team, it’s impossible to 10x your company.

Tom Poland 05:42
Right! Perfect. If you can’t 10x your team to 10x your company, you’re probably not gonna have a company. And I love the way you articulate it. That’s a good example of what we’re talking about there. It’s the articulation of what a thing looks like. What does drama look like? It means that things that are unplanned are happening regularly. You’ve got drama, and-

Daniel Marcos 05:59
And most of your day is unplanned. And I ask the question, and they’re like, “Wow! 60% of my day is unplanned.”

Tom Poland 06:06
Wow! Whoa. And a very simple articulation. You got 60% of your day’s happening is unplanned. You’ve got drama. You need this. So, because there’s no point in getting the growth if you’re killing yourself and your lifestyle in the process. It kind of defeats the purpose. You’re dealing with people that are growth-orientated, obviously. They’re assertive, even aggressive, in the marketplace. So what I’m alluding to here is they gotta be trying stuff. And some of the things they’re going to be trying are just not going to work. So what would you say are some of the other, just two or three of the most common mistakes that your clients before they work with you tell you that they’ve made in trying to get that growth?

Daniel Marcos 06:44
So the first one is they don’t have the strategy in a simple and clear format that makes sense for everyone to understand. So we work a lot with strategy. Two, gain the right people. You have great people! A company said, “My most important asset is my people.” No, it’s the right people doing the right things! So you have to get really, really clear on a functional org chart and get the right people for that org chart. We help them get clarity. Exactly on the team, get the right org chart, get the right people, get them to do the right things, and do them right. If you get that alignment, it’s very, very powerful. And then get a series of systems and processes of prioritizing KPIs and rhythm of meetings to make sure you’re able to follow the strategy and implement them correctly.

Tom Poland 07:29
Right. So the term, “right”, the right people relative to the context is the execution of the strategy, presumably?

Daniel Marcos 07:36
That’s right. But if there is no great strategy, you cannot align them. But then we’ve seen companies have a great strategy, and they have a mess with their team. They tried to pay very low salaries and get whoever was in front of their door. No! You have to choose the best team members for the right. I could have an amazing chemistry or mathematician. If I don’t need that, it’s gonna be terrible for my business. You get the right people for the right business in the right stage in the right position. And that’s super easy to do.

Tom Poland 08:06
Charles had his philosophy, “Hire half as many people and pay them three times as much.”

Daniel Marcos 08:13
If you think a professional is an expensive way to hire an amateur. They’re going to be way more expensive.

Tom Poland 08:23
Yeah, that’s a really good point. So let’s go to the top tip. This is a big long-term plan, the execution of the setting up and execution. It’s going to take a little while. What can people do to get started? Just one valuable top tip that someone could do, maybe this week even, take a step in the right direction?

Daniel Marcos 08:39
Take the time to write a plan. So, as an example, as I said earlier, people say, “I want my team to be on the same page.” And they said, “Show me the page.” They don’t have their strategy written on one page. We have a one-page strategic plan written by my partner, Verne Harnish, from scaling up. And whenever you get that page in front of you, it asks you certain questions that you have to fill out. And it helps you clarify your strategy, and write in a very simple formula, or a format everyone can read and implement. So after you write the plan, I tell to my team, “Here’s the strategy. Here’s the plan. If what you’re doing is going to help implement this plan, go and do it. Don’t even ask. If not, don’t do it. I’m going to be happy if you execute this plan.”

Tom Poland 09:24
We just got a minute left. Question six, where can people go to find out more about this?

Daniel Marcos 09:28
So we have a one-page plan. We give it for free. If someone wants to download it, go to growthinstitute.com/opsp, one-page strategic plan, /MTI. I’d appreciate it if you put the link below the podcast.

Tom Poland 09:43
So folks, if you’re looking at the video, it’s below the video. IfI you’re listening to this on iTunes or podcast, GrowthInstitute.com/opsp/MTI, which stands for Marketing the Invisible, the name of this podcast. 30 seconds left, sir. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t and the answer, please?

Daniel Marcos 10:00
Usually, as leaders, we wake up kind of late with an alarm. And then we have a lot of drama in our personal life, going to the office. And then we get to the office, we bring a lot of drama to our teams, I always wake up two hours before I need to engage in business. So I wake up at 5 a.m. And I have a very, very structured morning meeting or morning ritual, between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. In those hours, I get a really good cup of coffee. I read. I need to learn every day to feed my brain. I do a lot of meditation. So I’m exercising. I take a shower. By 7 a.m., when my wife and my kids wake up, and I start getting phone calls, I’m in such a strong center position that I could just give a lot of value to the world. If I wake up with an alarm and running and all that, it’s impossible that I give the right value. So have your morning ritual. You will change your life.

Tom Poland 10:52
Daniel Marcos, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, and your insights.

Tom Poland 10:56
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.