Daniel Marcos, Co-founder and CEO of Gazelles Growth Institute
Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Gazelles Growth Institute, the leading online executive education company for C level executives at fast growing firms. He also co-founded Inflection (Gazelles Mexico) a management coaching company that helps business executives and entrepreneurs grow their companies faster and with less “drama”.
He is an international speaker and has shared stage with thought leaders like Peter Diamandis, Guy Kawasaki and Jack Canfield, just to name a few. Daniel is the blogger of Capitalemprendedor.com. He is a graduate of EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants”, and its continuation, “Gathering of The Titans”.
He holds a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from ITESM (Monterrey Tech) and an MBA (cum laude) from Babson College at Wellesley, MA.
daniel@growthinstitute.com
http://www.growthinstitute.com/
Join an Interactive Implementation Program For CEOs, Executives & Entrepreneurs: https://info.growthinstitute.com/master-of-business-dynamics/scaling-coach
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AUTOMATED EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Scaling Up Services where we speak with entrepreneurs authors business experts and thought leaders to give you the knowledge and insights you need to scale your service based business faster and easier. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:23] Welcome everyone this is Scaling Up Services, I’m Bruce Eckfeldt, I'm your host and our guest today is Daniel Marcos and Daniel is co-founder and CEO of Gazelles Growth Institute. And I'm excited for this for those of you who know the gazelles community well the scaling up community well the Growth Institute is a key part of that community. So this is where we're going to learn a little bit about the offerings and the services we're going to learn how it was founded and we're gonna learn about Daniel and his role. So with that Daniel welcome to the program. Bruce thank you so much. Yeah. So let's start with you. Let's. Because you're an entrepreneur. Not only are you helping entrepreneurs be better entrepreneurs but you're an entrepreneur yourself. What was your background and then how did you get into the Growth Institute and why. Well I found the grass too.
[00:00:59] So I've always been entrepreneurial when I was a kid. I sold T-shirts and skateboards and everything. Indeed I of the quorum when I was like nine or 10. I divided with the wall my parents garage and half of it. They may buy it for you.
[00:01:15] So you're a contractor an entrepreneur. That's right.
[00:01:19] So I did a lot of things but I really built my first company two years out of college. I graduated from industry engineering in Mexico and Monterrey and my first job out of college was working in Hong Kong for the Mexican government in Hong Kong in the embassy. And I was in charge of it. How did you remember 1987 was a handover from China. Not fireworks. That's correct. I was there and that was the Mexican responsible for the Mexican delegation going that year to Hong Kong. It was it was a very cool thing. And after two years doing that I resigned. And back then was 1988 1989 all the kids were making millions in the Internet and I say I want to do my first media company. So I resigned came back to Mexico and I started the first financial Web site for the Mexico stock market. And I had no idea I was 24 when I did that. No idea what he was really to be an entrepreneur. Yeah but I got really lucky. It was Internet time where race had a bunch of money like 70 million dollars nice. And we grew crazy. Twelve hundred employees operation nine countries. It was. It was a Rover a race a short story rocket ship. Yeah. And I lost life. I lost. I was working 18 hours a day. I was sleeping in the office. I remember I slept on the office probably once a week for two or three years. It was crazy. And I realized that entrepreneurs we'd make companies because want to be free or we were asking for freedom financial freedom and decision to take or what are what to do. And the more we grow our companies the more we become slaves of our companies.
[00:03:00] It is ironic how that happens. You do that's to kind of have all this control or we end up like losing everything.
[00:03:07] I remember with my wife. She's like You can not even go on vacation. I was like No I'm sorry Kenneth but we're growing so fast and I had so many projects on their hands that it was hard to after that they had to take some time off. I took a year off to travel the world. I had some money in the bank after we sold it. It was just married no kids. So I took a year almost a year and a half away trouble with my wife and then went to do an MBA. And by the way this is a key thing I hired in this company a lot of Harvard and stuff for the MBA.
[00:03:37] Yeah. And I was a kid with barely college and they really finished college by by pure luck not because they studied. That was I was really bad. And and then I was having all these Harvard kids and they were talking all these jargon that I felt very uncomfortable. And so I said I had to do an MBA myself to know what these kids are talking about.
[00:03:57] Yeah speak to speak Yeah yeah.
[00:03:59] And they did it. And I had a lot of fun. I went to Babson supposedly the best entrepreneur report for for this MBA for him. Where. Well was. But I it was great for critical thinking and friendships and like kind of see up with the world. But there are very little tools or things to help me grow my business. So even though I had a great time I was very disappointed on the tools on how the MBA did not prepare me to be an entrepreneur again.
[00:04:27] Yeah yeah it's fascinating. I think that one of the key things I find in the MBA programs can be a lot of kind of theory and practice you know but the actual practical skills of running a business managing people stuff like that tends to be kind of glossed over. I mean it's not a real it's not a you get your MBA and you're ready to start your first business. It's not set up to do it.
[00:04:47] You go to school for two years get all these data knowledge without knowing what you're going to do after it. Yeah and then you get out then and you're trying to go back to remember and you don't remember anything. Yes. So for me coming out of a university and wanted to do business national I think it was very important to have the stamp of a U.S. college like Babson. Yeah but really looking backwards it did give me a lot of tools that I needed. So. So that's a big key of why we're doing growth. And then after they did a mortgage back and here's another key lesson back then the two trends that were really big in the US was Hispanics and housing. OK. Or I went into the mortgage bank for Hispanics for undocumented Hispanics and it was a disaster.
[00:05:32] What did you learn what was the takeaway why was that a disaster.
[00:05:35] So we close in 2008 because of all the financial crisis. But when we close I called all my investors we did this meeting to kind of dig beside each and the company and one of them asked me Hey why you want shut down. And I explained the game all the business in response right. Yeah. And they said but why you would cross it you Danielle Michaels and I said because I hate my job. I said What do you mean you hate your job like you invite those who would put money because of you.
[00:06:04] That's a big that's a big statement. Yeah.
[00:06:06] Some excitement statement and I said you know what. I realized that I came from working from the Internet that I was working with the brightest kids in the city. And then I went to real estate.
[00:06:17] They usually have the other opposite people with the lowest standards. And I hated my job because of the people I was wrong. I was not challenge and my amount of time that I spent chasing people because they were lying on applications and it was crazy. Yeah. So that was a huge wake up call for me because I went to a went to do I did a company that the trends told me was the right thing but I hated it. Yeah. Wasn't in your heart made sense to your brain what's on your heart now. So that was big. And the thing of the stand there the people in the industry was a huge wake up call for me. Yeah. And that's why I came back to the Internet on the innovation and that's my group that's the people I want spend my days with.
[00:07:00] Yeah. I think it's important not just on getting that culture right you know for individuals. I mean just you know whether you're the founder you're coming in a key actor in middle management. You know making sure that you have a good cultural fit to poverty money into the industry.
[00:07:13] Hundred percent and you cannot imagine how happy I am with my team to the. Yeah it's like I'm so proud of everyone the way members. And back then I was not equals. It was sad but OK. So I did that. And then he was finishing a close company lost all my money. I was almost a million dollars in debt. It was a really really low point in my life. And Verne called me and said hey I met Vern 10 years ago when I heard he was my coach and he called me he said hey I've never been able to build a practice in America. Why don't you help me do this and become a guest house Coach. And I said I don't even trust myself to you do you want me to go to the gym because that's never going to happen. And you said that's precisely why because you went through such a hard moment in your life that you want to make sure that never happens to anyone else. And they became a coach back then and in three years I was coaching I did my last year when I was a good sales Coach Jones being excels coach.
[00:08:09] I slept outside of my house 250 nights. Wow. It was crazy. So I was doing in revenue was he was an amazing year. But but I had no life costs causing any harm. The cause was very high. So I went to work and said I'm out. I already got confidence against me. I have some money in the bank. I'm going again out to be in trouble right now. And he said Why do you want to do. And I say I want to do this growth. I said I love it. Let's partner let's do it together. And I was originally going to do. Growth is good for Latin America just in Spanish. Oh yeah. Interesting. And Vern said not an audience would was white and I would like work in my own. I don't have it when you do your big hug. You have to have these three circles I like and have them very well aligned for Latin America. I have a on the line for the U.S. or international market. Umberto Domino if we partner I will definitely a lineup if I'm part of the team. And I said perfect. And that's how we create growth.
[00:09:04] Great. And so now talk us through the growth Institute because I guess what was the original vision or what was the original intention and how have things kind of developed over time to all of these started in a trip that Virgin did to Poland.
[00:09:17] He went to train a Polish company owned by an American and he went and gave skilling up workshop of two or three days. And after that they said Hey so what's next. And he said you have to learn to be ready. You found that there was a weakness they had or in the current system and they tried to bring Brad smart and they couldn't do it because of costs or something for him. So Byrne went on record. BRAD SMART and did a video series of Tom Brady and all the thousand or so employees of that company saw the videos. So that's how it all started. How can you bring thought leaders to me like market companies and prints a format that makes sense. And then that's what the Internet was was starting to grow. And I told Ron Hey you have to do this online. And he always said yes I'm going to do it then I won't do it. He never did it. So he said Okay finally I have someone that could execute it. Yeah that's part of it and we'll be together. Delegate but here's here's a big thing that Vern did and have you been following Burns growth. He's always been vital as well as a thought leader always. He's an amazing thought leader an amazing thing person. But when his business start to grow is when he started partnering with entrepreneurs. Yeah and you see bones businesses today. He has four or five really key partnerships. Another of them are which of course people are when your wife peels off went to boarding of giants and got you of Titan and all that. And he combs the companies with us and we run the company.
[00:10:44] We have all lumpy and yellow or this Isham model and he really works. He works really well.
[00:10:49] Yeah. Now it makes sense and I like that kind of leverage of group almost grooming your own entrepreneurs through the programs that you have and stuff makes sense. That's right. That's correct.
[00:10:59] So let's talk about growth Institute and kind of this online education because there's there's lots of different kind of resources out there for folks and formats and structure and how I guess how have you positioned or what's the positioning for the growth Institute who's the core I guess who's the core customer from your point of view and how how are you really differentiating yourself.
[00:11:22] So the first thing that we saw in the market is if you go online there's a lot of great training for startups or interviewer wannabes. There's a lot of great training for corporations big companies. There's no one to focus on the big markets. So that was the first key. Let's say we need to do on location that is really structure design and everything for mid-market companies. Yeah.
[00:11:48] That's a first and then the second one was usually mid-market companies are following all these thought leaders. You need a village of gurus to grow your company. But every guru has their own format their own structure. Everyone's doing their own Web sites and courses in their own format.
[00:12:05] Like herding cats.
[00:12:07] So it's really challenging for a thought leader. Sorry for the trip with earth that he's trying to sell a company to of a structure learning process in the company. Call their team members and then they was speak big one the other one that we saw is not in the mid-market companies. The entrepreneur spent a lot of money on them learning and growing. This idea on their team. And so example I went to learn from birth for the first time and I was so excited when I learned the meeting's Sunday. That was no that came back and it was very hard for me to take that same knowledge to my team. For them to be able to run with it. So we said hey after you go and see all these great leaders we want to give you a tool that you could take to everyone your team. For them to help you implement the mythology and that's kind of how we started the growth is good.
[00:12:52] Got it. So really. Yes. No I know. I like that idea that it was really really helping the entrepreneur. Because I think you're right. You know entrepreneurs are generally pretty generous about their own learning. They go out to conferences they go they read books they do workshops but they get all this information and then they take it home and it's and it's poorly poor poorly recited back at the office. And oftentimes there's a thousand questions that they can't answer because they hadn't thought about it at the time so. So this really helps that CEO that that founder take the content they've learned and and give their team a resource a credible firsthand access to that resource.
[00:13:30] That's correct. That's perfect. And that's been our reality. I'll give you an example we have a company in New Zealand. They first started enrolling two or three people who know what's killing our master class and then the next one this he wants and more and they said five and seven I think today with tray that was 40 or 50 employees in the same company in scaling up know every quarter they bring people and I spoke with with the owner a couple of times that he why you could do it is that every new team member that we come that come to the company we're running such a culture and we have same learning level that after the training they have to go through scaling up with us. So so it's it's been a great tool to grow all the team members you know mythology. Yes indeed we have to we we're negotiating with the company. They're they're getting fifteen hundred employees in scaling up. Wow. You said it's impossible for us to take 50 hundred people we've learned. Yeah and they're there in four or five different countries and offices and it's hard and now they're going to put everyone through scaling up with her and they're going to be able to all be in the same level of knowledge.
[00:14:30] Yeah. So that's huge alignment.
[00:14:32] Yeah like that that sort of base lining. It really gets everyone in the company kind of speaking the same language the same kind of frameworks the same models. I mean the others you know there's lots of different you know good models out there. But if half your company is talking one language and the other half the company it's like another one that's got to be a problem.
[00:14:48] That's correct. And then then there is one surprise that we we did not envision when we build it. And this has been that weird burst learning. So we teach classes and the classes were let's say professor at the school it you know with all the masterminds we do know that and we realize and this is because we were learning from our students they said hey yeah we learned a lot from her. And yes we learned a lot from the coaches. But I learned more from other entrepreneurs implementing their mythology than us. And when we go through our coaching or a program that it's just for us we miss that. So the one thing that that I was Twittering during the most are the community we're building we're building this amazing community of mid-market companies around the world that they're using the same language implementing same mythologies in their business and they love to interact with each other.
[00:15:35] So now we have these masterminds as part of the classes and I'll give you a number that you will that you will be interested in. Yes. So the average course completed online if you buy a course online you pay for it. The average course that gets completed online is 15 percent.
[00:15:52] Yes I know it's gonna be low. That's pretty bad.
[00:15:55] That's really low. You got to see a mook these massive online sites. The completion rate is 3 percent.
[00:16:03] Yeah I think he took our master classes are 75 percent of the hurry and so why like why why why so much of the masterminds classmates are that that peer review peer learning process.
[00:16:15] That's what drives a lot of interaction of our executives or leaders of companies helping each other. And once they join the class they become this cohort these community companies all over the world doing the same improvements and they love it and they just come together and help each other and they be friends with. Indeed we finish a lot of masterminds of the implementation of the free ones. And isn't he what's next. But let's finish and there's like no no no. You have it's great make something for us. Yeah. Think something like this together. Yeah. And we don't have before you have anything that we're putting all these programs together. Yeah but people were saying hey you build this amazing community that I'm talking with someone in Spain and someone in Germany and so on Australia and he became my friend. You know you're not cynical. No way.
[00:17:02] Yeah you know it's funny. I think it's you know I noticed with my clients you know I kind of go from from company to company and work with these different teams and then once a quarter I do I do a dinner and I'll invite you know various members from various companies together for a dinner. And those end up being the most fascinating conversations and I often get the comments that you know that's one of the most valuable part of the whole experience is to actually interact with some people from other companies who are going implementing the same kind of framework or you know often different challenges but they're facing similar kind of underlying issues. And even if it's completely different companies you know you can have a fashion company and a medical practice and they start talking about some challenges and they realize they're having they're having similar challenges and they actually get insight from each other.
[00:17:42] That's correct. So we're doing that online. And I have when my when we talk about this we have some pictures of some of the classes and below each ones picture we put the country that they're at and it's crazy. So so today we've trained over 40000 executives from 10000 different companies over 64 countries. Impressive. It's crazy what's been happening with the committee now. Sorry. I really really enjoyed. Yeah. I'm very proud of what we're doing and the team but the community that's been our biggest surprise and the thing that we're happiest that is that has been happening around girlies.
[00:18:19] Yeah. I'm curious about the content any insight you've had about developing the content and what content's been most kind of interesting or impactful for participants wherever you found you know the feedback around that.
[00:18:30] So we've learned a lot on classes we think we have where all 100 classes online and of course we know who is a best seller and by what. And all that but so with their learning whatever program you need to go one more than one employee in the class. So we have classes that is just for the CEO or just for the CFO. And it's OK but the classes that you have to bring team members with you they're amazingly better. And why do you think that is. What's the. Because the CEO wants to take the class with the teams. Yeah but most importantly after they finish the class then the implementation is much faster because how your team members. Yeah.
[00:19:07] And I'll tell you this as a personal story and then they relate to to the students. Sure. So when I learned first about scaling up and it was it was called Rockford it's hard to imagine my team. I came back and they told my team hey this amazing. Let's do it. And everyone was like these guys from from the moon like this must know what I was trying to explain. Yeah. So one day I said I'm done. I tried to convince my three partners and they were not getting it. So you wrote a check of five thousand dollars and put it on table and so guys I'm paying for the trip. Let's go to San Antonio to take this class and leave you guys like it. Then the company pays for it. If you guys don't like it I'll pay for it like everyone said Free Will Cain said. Antonio go. Daniel we were there on the first night and they look at me as like this amazing weather you then told us like guys I've been begging you to go this race because it's so today.
[00:20:01] That's an example we have one of the programs called MBC master of BS dynamics an 18 month program and our most successful MBP is what we call NBC plus one where you bring your key employee to each of the classes. So you as a CEO you take that full muscles with every class you bring a key employee so you can't lose class of skilling up. You take it you're head of strategy or you're head of operations you're close with Jack Dahlia's example in sales you take it with a head of sales. Yeah. So every key employee you bring it to a different class the CEO and the tribe and the employee take the class together they implement or they decide what they're going to implement. And then the employee goes to implement on their own. So we've heard these from entrepreneurs they said my implementation after seeing a class has gone through the roof. Yeah because no way how will my team members helping me implement.
[00:20:48] Yeah well I would imagine there's a little bit of shared accountability on that too. If you get to take the class with somebody else it's is like well now you've got to have someone watch.
[00:20:57] That's great. I agree with you. There are several things more than that. Yeah but on the implementation each has gone through the roof precisely because of that.
[00:21:06] Yeah that makes sense in terms of programs that you've developed programs that you're you're considering. I mean where where are you. Where do you see the future of the answer.
[00:21:14] What kind of things are you looking at innovating on.
[00:21:17] So the most successful program we have today is by far the the MBA. It's a great program. But let me talk to you about something that we have found and really learned there's really four stages of how companies grow and unlike other startup the grow of this scale up and dominate during the story because people came and they were asking for all these programs. And when we got deep to understanding what they were they were trying to implement programs in a stage. The program was not built for them.
[00:21:43] So you find that the programs really end up being either tailored or useful for certain stages of companies. Got it.
[00:21:50] That's correct. That's correct. And that's me not really being big learning for us. Let me just kind of walk you through a couple of it. Yes. So for me. Stage one. Once the five employees you're most important focus. It's probably irrelevant really badly that your business model. And there you have to understand the market dynamics and who are the competitors prices. Pricing what programs you're playing is really going to pay for because when you build a business plan you have all these assumptions and here's what you validating your assumptions. And then here's the two things that we've learned in these states the most important piece. Learn marketing. I think communication channel with your potential client. Or you to tell them what you want to sell them. And for them to tell you if they want they don't want to buy it or not. Right. And then going back to scaling up the most important decision the strategy you know because that's what you have to validate your business model and really decide the strategy that makes us for growth. So stage one is just focus on strategy. Stage 2 what I call a grow up. It's seeks to 15 employees. The most important thing there is sales bring cash to the company. Not only have these fixed expenses and if you don't feed your employees sort of feel deeply feed your organization is going to die. Yeah. So no matter what you sell you want to get cash in. Yeah. So all the programs that we teach there. It's about capital and leadership because on the first one you are an entrepreneur you are doing everything with everyone.
[00:23:07] Yeah I helped start leading. You have to be able to delegate and be able to define direction you know manage manage the team manage the people. Yeah but really understanding that the company is not about you it's about them. So we give a lot of programs about leadership and about cash. So this has to be the best learning for me. When we are able to talk to entrepreneur we really get deep in understanding who they are and where they are stuck and give her the problem that makes sense. Based on the stage and their stomachs but we have found that based on the amount of employees they usually have the same kind of complications or problems. Yeah that's what we've been able to do in this. And then the last thing around this is we have found that there are of course are some stages but within the stage there are some competencies that you and your team have to develop and then designing the competencies and the run the companies is building products makes sense. So as an example there's a four levels of the stages and then there's what we call the six competence that you need strategy execution culture leadership sales and marketing. And we're putting together all the courses based on the stage best or the competency to really be able to tailor a program that makes sense for you so you can really dial in the content and the topics and the learning goals for each stage of the company and each of these boxes.
[00:24:23] You're learning kind of this map of competencies on a level at which you use a lot of sense troubadours.
[00:24:28] We talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs and we said hey I read this book this is great read it right. And people read it and they're not ready or not they need that. And they made a mess in their businesses. So it's very important to continue learning what is very important to learn what you need at the moment. As a troubadours you will get a new idea. We want to implement that by yes really. Yeah I'm just not not this only what you need at the moment. Yeah. So yes that's has been their biggest learning in these last five or six years doing trading.
[00:24:56] Yeah I think that makes sense.
[00:24:57] I've certainly found you know as a coach that you know I've actually sort of bifurcating my my the way I engage and if there are less than 25 people or so for me it's really much more about kind of coaching the CEO around strategy and team development and getting to the point where they need a leadership team and then honestly coaching them through their process of putting together a leadership team because once once you do that really what the skills your tactics your approach has to become quite different once you once you have a team around you that's gonna be executing on these things you're no longer directly managing you're no longer you know tinkering with products you're not you're not sitting there writing code you're not necessarily meeting with customers you're not trying to sell customers anyway and that's a big job and you know not all CEOs are not all founders really become CEOs that way. And I can imagine that that's that's a lot of what these stages kind of help clarify as lucky.
[00:25:45] That's why I called Stage Three the scale up because that's when you scale on stage 1 and Stage 2 you're preparing your company to scale. You tried to scale on stage once say to your prematurely scaling and you can spend a lot of money wrong because you your company is not ready yet.
[00:26:01] You're going to break through a bunch of cash.
[00:26:02] Yeah that's great. So for me stage 3 you have 16 to 250 employees and that's when you start building leaders of other departments. And that's what's killing off makes massive massive value for you. Yeah so I usually don't don't pitch scaling up the company some less than 16 employees. Yeah. So what do you said that you coach for as a CEO on how to build a team. I think you nailed it. That's exactly what they have to be focused on.
[00:26:28] And it's tough. It's not. And it's not an easy process. And the other thing I find is that every team is the same. I mean really kind of depends on the depends on the CEO.
[00:26:35] It turns out what they're exceptional at what role they want to play what kind of CEO they want to be what kind of market they're in. And I think that's I think that's part of the whole kind of discovery process for for a founder is going through that journey and then sometimes getting wrong you know. Or learning a little bit during the process but recovering quickly.
[00:26:51] That's something that that the father will like. Usually what we have found is that wherever the founder of the company is strong that becomes the most important weakness of the company.
[00:27:04] Yeah. Let's talk a lot about that total a little bit. Why. So why is that. I would agree. But why is that.
[00:27:11] So imagine you said hey I'm really great in sales right. But because you feel you're so great. You will never hire a great sales agent because you said you could do sales better than anyone but when do you really have time to do sales. Never. So you never dated key the right time and then sales become a really big problem your company. Well we just don't see it in sales. We have people that say hey I was working there they were the insurance company and the owner was really really good designing insurance plans. The signing trips plans for companies you know but because he loved to do that he took all this time on making them and he was never selling and the company was dying because of lack of cash. But he hated the sale. He said No no no. I hate this I always want to do the plans. Yeah but no one was selling. Good for him. And whenever he's OK I'll do the plans. Great. Then he was so busy selling he was never building the plans and he was building the plants in 10 minutes and making wrong decisions on the planet.
[00:28:05] Exactly.
[00:28:06] So I guess the big issue I see this I see this and talk a lot where we've got a technical founder technical CEO who you know is brilliant you know and they're probably the smartest one in the company. The problem is is that that's not their job right as CEO. They should not be you know head of technology head of head of product development.
[00:28:25] And here's what I believe Michael Gerber got it right. You said the technical founder had issues. So. So Michael Gerber says in their image. He said In every company there's three mindsets you need to dominate the technical mindset. He's doing the guy that does worried the programming and not then the person that does that menstruation and that mutation is boring. But it's extremely important to be able to build an organization and then the third one he's entrepreneur. Once it goes on sale and makes rain. If you don't have the three mindsets then it's a disaster. So usually you're very very good on one of them and you're lousy on those two or you're boring. You get bored of the other two and that's a problem for the company.
[00:29:07] The other one I find is that you know oftentimes it's kind of caught up in ego and I often kind of give a copy of the ego as the enemy to these folks you know where where it's basically like if you identify if you're self worth if you're you know if you're self value is focused on your ability or your process as a technologist or as a designer as you know being able to do that one thing you know it's really hard to let that go and if you haven't kind of become a self aware enough of that and allowed yourself to say hey you know what. I don't need to be defined that way. And I I can let someone else be the best person in the company in this thing. You know until you get to that point that often can be kind of a stock that's much more about a mindset sort of situational stock. And I think that's another one that comes up a lot.
[00:29:49] Oh and we're so weak as entrepreneurs we believe we're the center of the world.
[00:29:54] Well we have to. I mean and that's the irony is like we have to at the beginning of the company like we have to have this almost delusional view of the world and view of our value to get the company up and running because otherwise nothing will happen. But that exact thing that made us so great in the beginning actually starts working against us at that stage.
[00:30:10] So and then here's not talking about stages again. After we defined the fourth stage of the company. We define how the entrepreneur has to evolve from entrepreneur to seal and then they start to. He has to be entrepreneur and do everything and do the three hats and everything. And then on the growth you have to be a leader but you need one on one. And then when you're a scale up you have to be a leader of leaders. You have to be growing other leaders making the company about them and just creating these great first line of defense and then the next one. What we call the dominate your industry that is stage four. Then you have to become a CEO and the CEO have to do three things. Be strategic innovator in the company changed capitalism chief of culture. It's nothing about running the operation. You become like a satellite around your organization and then the station to day to day runs without you. And here's been a great thing that we've been learning and helping our companies go through in growth is really helping the CEO understand that the only way to grow the company 10x if they grow their team 10x in quantity but in quality and mindset when they see how they have to evolve from entrepreneur to leader to Negro leaders to CEO. That's when they get it. And that's why they get the importance of training their team members. And we see the companies that really get it the entrepreneur goes to us like a second stage and they put their team members their first level as the main drivers of the company and they become we support that coach of the company and that's when the magic of the company starts. It's all about mindset and ego.
[00:31:42] Yeah.
[00:31:43] So far I'm a founder of you know one of these you know Stage 1 Stage 2 and I'm kind of working on the business and I think I realize that investing in the continuous development continuous education continuous learning of my people is a key part of my future success. I see tools like the growth institute or resources like the Growth Institute for kind of content and structure and materials is one piece. What else do you know forward thinking company founders leaders need to do inside the organization to create this kind of continuous learning continuous evolution kind of culture in their what. What are some other good practices that you've seen successful companies put in place so you have to pass your DNA.
[00:32:26] You have to as the founder kind of train your team on on the way you think and the way you see the business and meet evolving in growth is what we have a program called scaling up club that we have over 100 courses for a very small membership. I think you can get up to 100 100 employees for seven thousand dollars and you could. There's a problem like for twenty five hundred for ten employees something or some like that and you get it like 100 courses and you have to like read or learn with your team members. What we've seen the most successful entrepreneurs do are surpassing their DNA. They see one of the courses that they like and then they say OK the course of the month is this one everyone goes here and they will have a meeting to discuss the cause what we are and that's how we're going to implement it. And that way they could have a much faster implementation of learning into their business and they're really passing their DNA. So as an example we have a class of pricing with Hermann Simon. Yeah. You use about something amazing one hour on how to do pricing your company.
[00:33:27] I've seen team members going through that one and then having a discussion of how they're going to price their products. Then another one for these functions of a team with Patrick Lynch. That's a most view class. Together with team members you know when they're having a lot of drama in the operation they go together they see these functions and then they go through the program and say Hey what are the questions have to do right. What are the sessions that we have to go. And that's an example you start with the CEO being wearable. So in the course he recommends what kind of answers or questions you have to discuss with your team starting with you are the founder and you begin being humble and open and vulnerable to a team. Then the team will be with you. But once everyone has seen the class together now we have set the stage of how we have to do it and how we're going to do it. Yeah so you have to pass your DNA to the team. Yeah. That's the only way you're going to grow your company.
[00:34:18] Yeah. And I it's that through through that learning process and through that discussion process is where that happens it's not you know it's not just it's not just spending time together sitting next to each other or working on business stuff like you have to take a step back and actually go through the learning process. I think that's really important.
[00:34:33] You have to be this time in passing your DNA. Yeah. And Steve you don't through the time the team will never gonna build as a team as an example. I have every week now I have what I call a leadership meet I need to one hour with my leaders the leaders that I'm developing in the company. And I never bring the subject I was coming. That's OK. Tell me subjects what are you worried what are you not liking. Top of mind that's great. And they bring subjects and said hey I have all these things that we have to discuss with you. Perfect. Yeah. And they just get me called Blank with questions and ideas and we discuss them as a team. Another learning how we think now they're learning how I see things and now they begin to do things and sometimes they ask a question or we put a problem and I said hey you know what. That's a subject we need to get deep. Let's all read this book or let's all go and see this video or this class with gratitude and then let's come back the next cold to this cause.
[00:35:25] Yeah I like it because it's it's a very I mean I'm a big lead agile guy. So it's a nice pull kind of model right. You let the people pull from you what they want to learn what they what they what knowledge they need what insight they they want to develop.
[00:35:36] So I think that I think that makes a lot of sense and they like that I come open and they could ask me nice vulnerable maybe you're willing to put yourself out there and they really enjoy that.
[00:35:48] And I've heard really good things from my team on that because hey Daniel Dufresne when we get you completely unscripted completely unprepared and we're really get what you're thinking. And sometimes I've said Guys I have no idea. Yeah let me do some research I'll come back next week. Yeah it's good. We're good.
[00:36:03] Good. All right we're gonna hit time here. Daniel if people want to get more information about the growth institute or about the four stages of company growth what's the best way to get that information.
[00:36:12] So Bruce are we prepared a PDF to give for free to anyone that just heard the podcast. We're going to do it. growthinstitute.com/scalingupservices and you can be able to download a PDF but we're going to feature stages in three different views.
[00:36:28] One is how the company grow in stages and then how U.S. entrepreneur has to evolve or evolution from from attribute it to CEO. And then we call what we call the four levels of management and how you your team members see themselves on not the stages because on stage for employees on the four levels. But how they see themselves as employees in the company and how do you hope to train each one on the right things for them to be able to grow. Perfect.
[00:36:56] All right I'll make sure that those are in the show notes and on the web page so that people can click through and get that. Daniel that's great. Thank you so much for taking the time.
[00:37:04] Thank you also. Thank you very much for the invite really enjoy it.
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