2026-01-09

 2026-01-09 Transcript

All right, good afternoon. This is January 9th, and we're going to talk about teams. We're gonna talk about the brutal truth about building a team, most teams fail, and I'm gonna give you exactly my step-by-step process on how to build a team, how to create an organization of people who want to deliver, who want to succeed, and to do that. Along the way, I'm also gonna tell you about how you, as a leader, need what you need to do at each step. So, The short version, the short version is this. There are 4 levels of a team. The 1st level is just a group of people who are assembled to assign to do something. Level 2 is when that group of people can repeat back to you, who's the client and what problem are we solving? Level 3 is when you have all the right people in all the right seats of the team who believes they're serving one client, solving one problem. And then level 4 is that the group of people who's become a team who now becomes a functional team actually starts to become an effective, efficient team. Where they start to deliver on the things they're supposed to deliver, nothing more and they start to anticipate the needs. of the future. And those are the 4 levels. Now, each time you, as a leader, help a team move from level one, a group of people to a team. You have to incorporate the whole in order to make it work. Every time you add somebody new, the team goes back to zero. And they have to re-establish because The team is only as good as The weakest link or the newest member. And one of the challenges is that we have a tendency as leaders to believe the team, we can just interchange parts. And that's just not true. You can interchange parts, but you need to do it at level two, where you have a group of people. Here's here's the thinking behind each level. When you start with level one, you just have an assembled group of people. It could be a group of people that are volunteering to help with a classroom for a school. Or, uh, A group of people that were pulled out of an organization and assigned to a project. those are the 2 easy ones to recognize and see. And in the 1st case, they're all volunteers, so they're choosing to participate. And the 2nd one, they're being asked to participate, whether they volunteered or not. Either way, it's the same answer. And the answer, the next phase to go from a group of people to having a team, is simply to get that team, the group of people to answer the question, who do we serve and what problem are we solving? It's different for every team. But you as a leader need to pick. One solution for one problem that the team is serving one group of people. If you're volunteering at a kid's school, obviously the group of people are the kids in the classroom, including the teacher, the school, and the kids there. That's who you're serving. You're serving that group. And the problem they have is the teacher doesn't have enough time or effort or knowledge to complete all of the tasks necessary, and so you're volunteering to help. With that particular test. So you're solving the resource need of the school and the teacher to serve the classroom. One solution, one problem, one group of people. If you're assigned in your work to a project, you're volunteered, you may not have a choice, but in the same way, you have to say, this project is going to spend money and you consume time and resources. and effort to produce some kind of result. Could be a software product, could be a physical product. Could be a new building, could be a policy, could be all kinds of things. But there is a result of that teamwork. As a leader, you need to make it extremely clear. What is the problem we're solving for what group of people? When you do that, what happens? Is that the team will start to do the work. But they are, they, they can't complete the work until they become a team. The team is when they start to interrupt you and say, Andy, I got it. Okay, yes, I know we're trying to finish the project. We're trying to do this thing to benefit people who are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, when they start to interrupt you and tell you they're sick of you saying it, now they're at level two. Now they're a team. Especially if they all are united in the the groaning, Andy, shut up, we got it. Cool. The next step of the leader, to go from level 2 to level 3, level 2 is just a group of people that's bought in were serving this one group. We're solving this one problem. The leader's job then is to take that group of people and assemble them in the structure of the team. If you're playing football, obviously everybody cannot be a lineman. You need some people to be wide receivers. You need some people to be tailbags. Some people to be the quarterback. You need some people to play defensive. Some people that play off and use somebody to kick. And so you have to, As a leader, build what I call the org chart, the seating chart of what the team looks like. And then you make sure that you have somebody on the team sitting in every one of those chairs. And when you do that, and you have the right people sitting in the right chairs, and the team, the people sitting in the chairs, all believe they're starving one group of people and solving one problem. Now that team can actually deliver things. And then step four, when you, by the way, most teams only get to step three. Very few. One out of 100, maybe one out of 10, maybe, maybe less, depending on your industry. That group of people, in order to become the highest level, the efficient, effective team, they start to deliver for the client. solving the problems of the client, but also, they start to anticipate what the client's next needs are going to be. They say, This is the problem. This is the solution we built. This is the group of people we're serving. This is how we're solving their problem. Here's what their next problem is probably gonna be. And that takes a an amount of time to get the group of people to understand what the mission is. who we're serving, what the problems are and what we can anticipate the next steps are. So that's it in a nutshell that is the brutal truth of building teams and the brutal truth is, most leaders fail. The reason the teams don't progress, like I've mentioned, is because the leadership doesn't know what phase they're in and they don't know what action to focus on next. That's the biggest failure. The 2nd biggest failure is, we believe everybody who's volunteered or signed up for the team is good and should be on the team. That's also not true. Most of the teams, when you get a group of people together, and they all buy in the vision, and they all, but you may end up with 25 linemen and no wide receivers, or more likely 25 wide receivers and running backs, and nobody wants to be a lineman. Using football as an analogy, could be you could have 25 pitchers and nobody wants to play 3rd base. You could have, you know, a whole bunch of people in cricket and everyone wants to be a batsman, but 2 at a time, right? Uh, on and on and on. The point is, the team has to have a mix of skills and talents in order for the team to be successful. In the software business. Everybody can't write code. Some people have to test it. Everybody can't test code. somebody's got to write it. Somebody has to look at the interface. Somebody has to talk to the humans. Um, and all of those things are required for one cohesive team. And so the failure, the failure points are the 1st. You have a group of people who haven't bought in that they're serving the right client. Then, when you get everybody bought in, you still may have some empty chairs you have to fill. Or you have to move people who only said they bought into the client, but didn't actually. And so when you get those 2 things coordinated now, that is like the base level of productivity. You can deliver something. You can start to deliver documents, you can start deliver meetings, you can start deliver notes. You can start to deliver product code, functional things. The volunteers will show up on time at the school and do the work and help with the teacher and understand what's next and know where to go and what to do, all of that. That is the basics of team building. If you're in a team, recognize those, that's your part, your job is to buy into who you're serving and what problem you're solving. And then to make sure that you're able and capable and willing to sit in the seat that maybe you're assigned. Maybe it's not the one you chose or you wanted, but you're willing to do that for the team because you believe in the mission. And then eventually, if you can understand, get to the point of comfortable knowledge of the solution you're providing, you can anticipate the future. That's that's it. So with that's my my opening statement, I would love to hear what you guys have to say about it. Have you been in that situation? Have you seen those things to have, what I say, resonate? Did it, did it make a difference? Do you have an example you want to share with the class and the rest of the team? If you do. Go ahead, hit that mic button, grab the speaker, and we'll, we'll talk about it. Otherwise, I will just continue to, uh, I will take this apart by bolt, uh, net by net, bolt by bolt, and we'll go through that for the next 15 or so minutes. This is not a big keynote speech. This is a simple speech. It's like the instructions on playing checkers. You can figure it out in a few minutes. Maybe in one minute. Chess, it may take five minutes to explain the rules. And then a lifetime to master it. Same thing here. Rules are easy. The guideline is simple. Execution. Yeah, you get paid on execution. That's why I don't believe in these new, big, great ideas, that these new unicorns, that's built the software. I've got an idea to build this cool thing. I'm like, is there somebody else out there that has one? No, no, no, this is brand new. I don't care. I don't want anything brand new. I want something that people have used, practiced, and trained, and and refined for decades, maybe centuries. The way I've described team building is the way that they, they, it's my interpretation and view of how people do, how militaries get raw recruits to become effective soldiers. Right? If you read Sun Su, that's essentially what he says. Do this, listen to what I say, do exactly what I say, and then you'll be fine. And when they don't, corporal punishment, and then all of a sudden, everyone does exactly what they're told. And the team functions. At least it goes from, they all believe in the mission. Do what he says, or you're gonna die. Simple. Brutal, terrible, inhumane? Yes, all the above, but effective. And beyond question. Anyway, let's go to James. Hi, James. Thanks for grabbing the mic. Red teamer, I love, by the way, I love red team. Yes, I can. Love red teaming. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, okay. I actually have a question to ask because I'm currently if I'm a founder of a type business. So, I've been struggling with the marketing sector. Yeah, so I really am facing a lot, like, I really don't know how to deliver and I'm the only one managing a whole lot of things. Okay, I don't have teams. So I wanted to ask, in situations like this, how do I go about it? What do I do? Okay, so the first question I have, if you're gonna start a business, is who... Okay, you're breathing into the mic, so I can't really hear you, so I'm gonna mute you for a second. Okay, there we go. Um, The 1st question you always ask is, Who's your client? What is the problem you're solving? Now, I have some of my sales friends and clients who tell me the word solve is not a good thing. But for me, it is. And for me, the reason we solve things is because if I just fix it for you, it may break again. If I solve it for you and you break it, I have to solve another problem. So I use the word solve. The 1st question we solve is, who is your client and what is the problem you're solving? James, who's your client? Um, actually, for now, I just started all the business. It's a tech business. Um, uh, it's more of a psych- psycho security um, and um, uh, agriculture, uh, I'm more of incorporating, pretty, um, ideas together. So I built a huge solo at 1st. I messed up with a couple of French board, they seem to like lead off, you understand? So, I took it upon myself to do 90% of all the task, both the funding and everything. And just like, um, um, business mentors like yourself, see, if income is not coming in any business, it's a collapse, you understand? Right. That's a long time. Right. So who's your who's your intended target? Who is your ICP? Who's your ideal customer? Okay, my target audience are for cybersecurity enthusiasm. And for people in the agriculture sector, at least for now. Um, okay. Let... Let's back up for a second. If you're going, if you, you, people who are interested in cybersecurity, are either people who want to protect someone or, or protect systems, or people who want to get access to systems they're not supposed to have access to. Those the only people who are enthusiasts of cybersecurity. Everybody else treats cybersecurity like a lock on the front door. So, is that really your customer? Do you want to, who do you want to, who do you want to give you money? Where's the money going to come from when you, they say, okay, help me, James. Who's going to help you, or who are you going to help, and how much money are they going to give you? What are who's going to give you money? Um, for now, I've, I've got, because I've been doing a, um, a side also, because, um, I'm a phone repair guy. I have performs, and I've also been doing like a little piece of side also, like on the side. That's fine. Wait, hold on, hold on, but you okay. I've asked you 3 times, and what you've done is each time you've given me an explanation of something else. Hold on, hold on, hold on. It's it's okay. However, it would be better if you said, I'm going to sell cybersecurity to phone users to this farmer, to this company, to a bank, to an insurance company, to a government agency. It doesn't matter what you pick. The point is, you have to pick. Okay, so sorry, so sorry, Andy, I'm struggling with internet connection. Can you, can you just, like, maybe proceed? Uh, can you, can you pursue so sorry? I'm struggling with the instant connection of it. So sorry. Okay, so, 1st thing is, you do not need to apologize. So the way you would say that is, my internet connection was bad. Could you repeat yourself? Okay. Who is your client who gives you money? Uh, um, money hasn't been committed at all. I haven't been making any incomers or... Okay, then who, wait, hold on. Okay. I usually ask one simple question. You can respond with one simple answer, and we can have a conversation. If you give me lots of details and background, it won't, it doesn't necessarily help. So let's go to this. Who do you want to give you money? Oh, shit. If I could wave a magic wand and you could have any client you wanted, who was the client that you would pick? that would buy your service. Okay, well, you're gonna have to start there. That is the most important place to start. And we lost James as a speaker. Okay, for those listening, the most important thing to start with is, Who is your target audience? And what problem is it? In fact, it's probably more important to ask, What is the problem? And then who has it? And can I fix it, or can I find somebody else to fix it? That's really the key. It's not as much. of what I want to do. What I want to do, if I could, is I would love to speak to a group of people every day, and then do research and write books and write things and hang out with my friends and watch football. That's what I would like to do. Nobody cares what I want to do. It doesn't matter what I want to do. You know what matters? What problems my customers have, and am I helping them solve their problems? Okay, let's go to Torso. Hello, Torson. What's going on? Hey, Andy, it's been a while. Sorry, it's early in the morning. I'm a bit tired, but I'm trying to, my waist hope it's nice and clear. You're good. Wonderful work. You do, Andy, and I love your spirit. You check people in the approach they take and um, it might be overwhelming for that gentleman, but I'm sure he took something back with him. Um, I just, uh, I just love the fact that you're addressing the most key issue, like, Like I've worked in a lot of different spaces. Uh, in different organizations and yep, building teams. Is possibly the recipe to success or the recipe to failure, right? Like you can have the best idea in the world. But if you can't get it off the ground, if you don't know your end customer, like he pointed out, who are you getting paid for? Critical. How are you gonna achieve that process? What are you gonna do in your sales run? Um, how you gonna approach that campaign? How are you going to get those numbers? Because funding is one thing. Setting up operations is another thing. The biggest stress is actually making it happen, right? And to make it happen, you need a good team. And I guess when people are coming from different backgrounds, and they work in different organization structures, it really varies. You could work in a corporate environment and have totally different way of working to, you know, make class organization. I work for learn different corporations. And the systems from SAP to Arco to the CRM, everything is so different, right? Like, Very variable. The organization approach is different. You know, a British company works different to an American company, to a European company, to a Japanese company. to the hybrid systems which they govern overseas. You know, you look at companies which are global. So, uh, since building a team, um, yeah, what do you, what are your biggest, um, like, um, What would you recommend us? Because like, I got worked with a lot of people from different cultural backgrounds. And, and, And it's like, It's hard to really pinpoint people. It doesn't matter how many interviews you may have with them. for certain, you know, credentials of individuals who don't have as much experience in depth. You've got to spend time with them on the ground, Andy, right? And that could be, sort of. Some sometimes. So let me, let me, um, what you're describing is as if there was a fleet of sailboats, with no direction. And they're all just floating around, and your job is to be the, uh, Commodore of the Fleet. Well, When you're interviewing, when you are building a team, right? You must have the end in mind. And the end is always some objective. We're going to build this software. We're going to make this money. We're going to create an ongoing set of leads. We are going to create sales. We're gonna do support. I don't, Does it matter what? It matters that you have an objective in mind. And when you have an objective in mind, let's assume we're going to build a software product. Or we're going to take us. We're gonna take us off our product, and we're going to enhance it. Okay? That is the objective. When we're done, we have a new version of the software. Okay? So when we're done, new version of the software. Who uses the software? That's the group of people. What does the software do? The software is the solution to whatever problem that group of people has. Let's assume it's human resources. We need to track all the employees' information, their hours, their days, their packages, their plans, where they work, what they're doing, their current reviews, their their training cycles, et cetera. The group of people is HR and management. And the problem they have is making sure that they have a good vision of all the employees, that vision can include compliance, certifications, with, you know, policy procedure, add adherence to those policies. It is a basic idea, right? Piece of software. When you start hiring a team, you start, you start with the, we're building an HR, an updated version of the HR system. Here's the version we're using. Do you have any experience with that? Have you worked on HR systems in the past? Do you blah, blah, you know, you just, you ask them those mission questions. If they say, I think HR is the waste of time, I would never, ever want to work on an HR system. Guess what? Not on the team. Dumb example, but I use dumb examples on purpose, and I say them out loud as dumb examples. I hope that when you listen, you will understand. Every time I go, this is a dumb example. It means it's the lowest common denominator of the problem I can figure out, how to say. That's it. The dumbest example is, if they don't like HR, they don't get on the team. Okay, so then you step one, you interview people, you bring them in because they are part of the mission. And you have a rough idea of the number of chairs and the type of roles you need. And so you target, I'm going to hire this person, and they're most likely going to sit in the number one chair, then I'm going to hire this number 2 person. They're most likely going to sit in the number 2 chair and do the roles that you've defined. That's how you hire a team. That's how you hire an organization. Every time you deviate from that basic dumb structure, you will fail. You will either have too much cost, too much resource, not enough delivery. So it's always a balance. This is why business is hard. It's not easy. Because you have to think, two, three, four steps, maybe 5 steps ahead. In order to ask the right questions on step one to get the team to go from level one to level two. Does it make sense, Torson? Oh, yeah, Tony, if you're looking at a disaster recovery plan, you're totally spot on. Like, yeah, that's pretty much keep it simple, stupid, but you gotta have... Yeah, but doesn't, but doesn't it, doesn't it work also if you're just creating a, uh, uh, a bank of phone operators, customer service, support operators? You have this many users, you have this many calls, you have this much time, you have this many activities, you have this many calls, and you have this many seats, you have this much activity. You need to have this much time for each individual call. You can add all that up, divide it by the number you need, and say, I need 27 of them. And I need 27 of them during this time frame. I need 12 of them during this time frame, and I had 2 of them during this other time frame. Done. Add them up, put them together. Build your chart and start interviewing people, asking them the question, are you interested in helping people solve this problem when they call? Whatever it is. And then, okay, you're going to go in seat number one until you get 27 of them, and then you get the next 12 and then you get the next 2 and now you have a full team. When you do that and they are all on mission, Then the next question the leader has to ask is, do I have the right people sitting in the right seats? Oh, this guy over here in the number 2 seat, he is reading the number 7 seat, number seven, seat, I don't know where to put him. Let's put them over somewhere else. And you just do that. Because humans... That's it? If you were, like, I'm sure it's going to be different for every structure, right? like a hypothetically. This was a medium size HR company, we're reading small to medium size. You don't have all the budgets in the world. Of course, your approaches would be different, right? You might edit HR specialist from an ex software company or you might get an HR executive from a company to help you govern the best system, correct? So you would have somebody in your hand. No, it's, this is the way I do it. It doesn't matter. Okay, if if I acquired, let's say, a financial services company. And the financial services company has a general manager, And they have 3 or 4 people on the investment side, 3 or 2 or 3 people on the estate planning side, and 2 or 3 people on contracts, fulfillment, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so yeah, 7 people in the company. Right? If one of those peoples leave, I look at it and say, is 7 the right number for the seats for the company? Does it produce the right number of revenue and income? Does it produce all the right thing? Do we have more investments and less people in the in state planning? Do we need, you know, do they have the right certifications? Do we need lawyers? Do we need, you know, people who are legal? Do, is it, do they have the right certifications? Do they need more training? Do they need more? It's exact same system. You start with the end in mind, you look at your total addressable market of that particular company. You back in what the resourcing constraints are, they're different by every industry. And then you determine what the actual function of each group is. You build a list of people and you assign people a chair. It literally, it's the same every single time. It doesn't matter if I'm building a little baseball team, or I'm acquiring a new company. If you get a little league baseball team, you sit there and you look at all the kids and you think, I need at least 3 of them to be able to pitch. I need 2 of them that can bat. I need a bunch of guys that can run, and all the other kids need to be able to catch the ball and at least throw it across the infield. There you go. Then you need 9 to start with and you need a bunch of backups. so that you can play everybody and so that if somebody, little Johnny's sick or he's on vacation, you know, your team works. It's the exact same process. It never changes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, 30, no, I was actually looking at more of the review of the solution you would use. Okay, that's that's in step step two. Okay. What you're talking about is let's say you have 7 people in the organization and your general manager wants to retire. Okay, well, what do you do? Do you find another one? Do you promote somebody? Okay, well, those are those are legit questions. They happen all the time. And the way I look at it is, what's the criteria for this particular role? What do they actually do? What are they responsible for? Is there somebody we've trained that can go up in the organization? Because they're already familiar with the organization? They already bought into the mission. They're already functioning with the client. They're already solving the client's problem. Now they can teach everybody else how to do the same thing. That's the reason why you promote from within. For no other reason, tribal knowledge. They are the tribe. They believe in the mission. They're helping people do the function. That's it. When you bring in somebody new, what happens? I told you, you bring in somebody new, the entire team goes back to it. It's just a group of people, and now we have to determine what the mission is. And everybody has to buy into who's the client, what problem do we solve? Including when you replace the number one. Right? The big boss, whoever's in charge, Right? Right? exactly what you look, right? That's it. And again, the only way to make a team effective is to have them go through each step. And so every time when you, when you read about a company like, okay, if you like, if you're in the United States, and I know not everybody is, I apologize, but in the United States, the biggest sport in the United States is the National Football League. The regular season just ended. They're now in the playoffs. Whenever the regular season ends, they fire a bunch of the coaches that didn't make the playoffs, just the way it is. Well, here's the question. When they bring in the new coach, What does ownership do? Ownership is looking for, can you bring in the culture that we want? Culture. That's really what we're talking about, right? Culture. Do you buy into the vision and the mission? What's the mission? Serving, solving one problem for one group of people. Ownership has to give you that. Coaches can come in and tell you what it is. General managers can come in and tell you what they think it is. And if you, as the owner, believe, Now you have a mission. If you, as an owner, don't have a mission and let the general manager establish it, and you don't buy into it, your team is still level one because you're just a group of people that haven't bought into the vision. And mission. Including the owner. Everyone from top to bottom, that is the criteria for going to level two. Everyone has to buy into the vision. This is the salt solution. We're building, because our group of people has this one problem, that's why we're doing this solution. It is always a leadership failure. Always. Always Always. When you get to the, who's who's on the team who's off the team? Alright, so 1st you get a bunch of people who say they want to be on the team. Then you figure out, do we have the right people in the right chairs? Usually you don't. You're missing someone and you have too many of something else. Too many point guards, not enough centers. Okay, what do you do? Trade them. But as soon as you trade them and you bring in somebody new, what happens, the whole team goes back to level one, and then you bring the whole team up. What's the mission? Who's the client? What problem are we solving for them? Level two. That's why it's so hard to get a team to level 4 because level one, you go from level wherever you are back to level one, every single change. Oh, Mary's going to be out for 3 months on maternity leave. Cool. Guess what happened? Boom, team back to zero. Have to start over. Every time. Which is why you will hear coaches. General managers, executives, CEOs, talk about the vision, talk about who do we serve, talk about the they will talk about these things. This is the reason why. If you learn this very simple thing, it doesn't matter if your team is, An accountant you talk to twice a year, a lawyer you talk to once a year, and, uh, your suppliers you talk to every 12 months and your clients. If every one of those people believes in the vision that you have, which is this is the solution for the one problem we solve, for one group of people, and everybody knows it, and everybody buys into it, you have a team. They don't have to be there every day 24 hours a day. They don't have to be there 8 hours every 5 days a week. They don't have to know. There are extremely effective teams that only meet once every couple months. Because everybody believes in the vision, everybody knows the mission. Everybody's bought into it, and you've got the right people in the right chairs. That's when you can start to become productive. Think of the board of directors' perspective. What is a board of directors? A board of directors is there to make sure that they can look out of the organization in all 360 degrees. And C, all of the other things happening in the world. And when something happens to advise the team focused on solving the problem, what to do. There's been a slight change. There's a, the problem that we have has been interrupted by AI. We have a slightly different problem now. Let's redefine what the problem is so that we can update our solution to solve the problem for our customers. Almost every single problem you throw at me. The answer would be, Does the group of people you're talking about believe in the mission? Are they solving the one problem for the one group of people? And tourism, I'm sure you have other examples of where you've seen that fail, and while I'm talking, I'm sure every one of you listening, either now or in the recording or in the future, or if you're listening to this, weigh some other time, and this happened in the past. What I'm saying is triggering in your mind. Oh. That's why when he said that, that's what made a difference. But also, oh, I didn't understand that. And I was the problem in the team that didn't that made the team that held the team back from becoming those next levels because I didn't understand what they were saying. Even if it's the, the, the leader's fault. No leader's perfect, every one of us fails. So there's no issue with that. But the And you're totally spot on about the team rebuilding itself. I worked in business development. I also worked in technology. I work in big pharma. I don't know how, but I just got I got a senior role there. It's all on stage. And They all were different environments in the way the business processes worked. But yeah, the moment you lost, say, you know, the, the, the, one of my business owners, you know, he was, he would not go with it and number. And so he would always reset his team every couple of years and he would take those projects away from them and give it to to the number one, right? And so they would basically say on the commission they would pay out to these guys. And there was a smaller company I was working for at that stage. And the way they worked in their business processes and sales processes were totally different. to how the corporate environments work, right? And so, it just made me reflect on the mistakes. which I observed in a lot of, you know, organizations, and all the points you laid out, pretty much, yeah, endorsed that, and I could see the different reflection and even like the basic choices, like earlier you spoke about the basics. I think those are golden rules, isn't that? You never break those rules. Is that something you really emphasized on? Am I right? mate? Say it one more time. So, you know, you spoke about those golden rules, right? If the guy doesn't like an HR company, there's no reason coming on board. So if you don't find the right person with the right faith, you're just not going to take that chance, correct? Well, that's why we interview more than one person. They keep interviewing till you find it, right? Right. And then the 2nd here's here's an even more challenging problem. And that is, if you if you hire people and they all say they use their mouth, they tell you they believe in the vision. But then when you go and they become part of the team and you build the team into a and you're trying to make sure everybody's in the right seats. You got good, the right people in the right seats and the wrong people out of the seats, right? Um, When you do that, you'll find, People just gave you mouth service, but not, they don't really believe. And and if they give you mouth service, and they, they don't really believe. Well, if they don't believe, then they fail the 1st test. They need to be off the team. pretty hard to gauge in a couple of couple of 1st couple of months, right? Yeah, well, right. don't know. That's that's why it's, it's, every single person knows, I've been in a group of people, We tried to become a team. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. Why? Because they didn't. First of all, the leader didn't explain the vision clear enough so that you could self-select, oh, I do not want to be part of that. No, that's not me. Im out. Okay? Um, Some people stay just because they need the money. Which is normal. And they go, well, I don't really care one way or the other, but since this is how I get paid, I care. They're my favorite people now. And then the 3rd step is when they go, yeah, I'm just not feeling it, but I'm going to keep the money. I'll just keep my head down and do that. That's government. That's what happens in the government. We end up with people who are very excited about retiring and having a safe space to live, and then they come into it, to a government agency, and then it's not that safe, and they freak out. Oh my god, now what do I do? Oh my god, I ought to keep my head down. I've already here for 17 years. I've got, you know, 6 more left or whatever it is. Just normal. We're all human. And I'm not faulting anybody for any of those thoughts. We all have them. Every one of us have them. But the leader's job, which is why being a leader is so hard. The leader's job is to say, everybody, we're on, we're a group. We need to become a team. And you don't tell people you just do it. But the leader's job is to make make the team answer them. Who do we serve? What's our problem? What's the problem we're solving? Who is it that has it? Are we serving them? Oh, you want to do this new thing? Cool. does great. Does it serve the team? Does it serve the client? Is it solving the client's problem? If it is, well, let's consider it. If it's not, no. Heart no. End of story. Well, I think it's a good idea. Cool. I'm the leader. I don't care. Our mission is to do this. other thing. We're doing that first, until they give me direction or if I'm running the company until I choose a different direction, that's where we're going. If you're on board with that, cool, come with me. If not, cool. Thank you very much. We'll give you a great recommendation and help you find another job. And move on. See, if you treat business like it's a professional sports team, why use those examples? It's so much easier. I mean, it is so much easier. Excuse me. And here's why. Everybody knows, if your team is really bad, what's gonna happen? They're gonna fire the coach and change some of the players. If you're one of the players on a bad team, if you're the coach of a bad team, you're gonna get fired. I don't care if you are the coach of any sports team, anywhere in the world, anytime from now till the cataclysic event that wipes out the world in the future. Uh, This is true. And the 1st step of the leader is to help the team, the group of people become a team. Not easy. Very difficult. Because it's boring. It's annoying. It's grinding on your soul. But it's necessary. And more importantly, it works. When you become part of a team, And I hope every one of you gets to be part of one of these special exceptional teams. I really do, because once you've been part of one of those magical events, where everybody's bought into the vision, everyone has got, we've got the right people doing the right parts because then you feel like you have value. I'm doing my part. I'm the best doing my part. I do my part, the team wins if they, if I'm not doing my part, they have to replace me, and the other people aren't as good as me. I'm valuable in the team. And then everyone feels that way, and everyone is serving the same customer doing the same solution to solve the customer's one problem, whether that could be, we're trying to win a championship for the school. to, you know, win, uh, to get a playoff for the organization, uh, whatever. As soon as you know somebody, you're not doing your best as somebody else can do it better, you already know you're going to be replaced. You already know it, you know it. Nobody has to explain it to you. You know someone else is going to take your job. You may be pissed about it. You may be upset, but you know it's gonna happen. Why do we think that when we get a job that we act differently? When you get a job or you build a team or you build an organization, the purpose of the organization is for the organization to succeed. The only way to do that is if everybody in the organization buys into the mission. Who's our client? What's their problem that we're solving? You want to fix James' question earlier? James, who's your who's your client? What's the problem you're solving? You may have all these cool ideas. You may have cybersecurity, may have amazing skills. Fantastic. Who needs them? Who has the hair on fire, pain problem that they're willing to exchange money to fix now? Right now. Not 6 months from now. No, no, no, right now. Who has the pain? Somebody just break into your house and they broke a window? Guess what? You need the window fixed. Not tomorrow, now. If you're on your way to work and your car stops running, you need your car fixed. Now. That's the kind of problems that we want to target solving. You want to build a business. You want to build a team? Find a problem that needs fixed now. Tell people this is what we face. This is who we're helping now. You do that? Step back. right? Watch the world show up in front of you. But, you know, in reality, we don't do that as humans. What we do is we say, oh, I can do this, I can do this, I can do that. It's like saying, I can cook anything, just bring it to me. Well, that's not true. I may be able to cook a lot of things. I can't cook everything. I don't know how to cook everything. Let's go to Victor. Hey, Victor, thanks for raising your hand.'s going on? We got 10 minutes left. Well, I... I didn't know. Um, thanks for having me. Um, I'm having some challenges here. I'm trying to build a startup. With the name is Movix, or um, because I'm the only one building it. Um, um, somehow overwhelmed with a lot of duties like marketing, building of product and all that. So, I'm somehow very, very, very confused. I'm being, being that I'm new to being a startup fender. So, um, I just named the advices on how to scale smaller, because I'm having the big thoughts and all that. So, I want to, like, know how to start smaller than from smaller to crew dive. This year, from now to the end of this year, that is my goal, like, bring my brand, more well known, and maybe gain, uh, potential partnership with others. So that's what I'm looking at. So I don't know if there is any advice for me. The first thing I would recommend is that you figure out who's your client. Who wants to buy your service? And then go talk to them and say, If you have this problem, I will help you solve this problem. Give me money, give me 10%. Give me $5, give me $one. Give me some money in exchange for solving your problem. It doesn't matter what it is. It just matters that they give you money. Because that's that's the bottom line. Business is, I provide value and you give me money. That's best business. Everything else is not. So, the root of the new idea is to partner with whoever, maybe you want to build and help, but you don't really have the money. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Let me, let me, let me jump in and help you. Okay, sir, go find people who have a problem. Go find them, go find more than one that have the same problem. Okay? The same problem. And then, after you have a group of people that have the same problem and are willing to give you money to fix it, figure out how to fix it. By the way, most of the time it's not something you already know. You have to go find somebody else who has it. Okay, thank you very much. Where are you located in the world? I'm located in Nigeria. Yeah. Because in in Legos. Okay. So there's 1000000s of people in Lagos. I know it's not comfortable. I know there's lots of challenges, but here's what you should do somehow. Knock on the door of everyone who has a shop or has something and ask them, I'm doing this thing. Do you have a problem? Can I help you? Or do you have a problem? I can do this thing. Do you need help with that? Go ask 100 people. Either they're going to say yes or no. If all 100 people say no and you still believe it, ask another 100. If after 2 or 300 people, nobody says yes, you are not solving a problem they have. A better way to say it is, do you have any problem with computers, AI, whatever? websites, internet, newsletters, email lists, whatever you want to tell them. And just ask them, do you have a problem with that? Yep, do you want it fixed? Can I help you with that? Go find the customers first. Okay, let me say it about a 100 times. Go find the customers first. I have... Oh, as if, can I, can I add one moment? Sure. Yeah, so, um, one of my lecturer, my past lecturer, he reached out to me because while I was still in the university, he was a new me to be working on some, some platforms, so he reached out to partner with him on buildings, some school verification system. I certificate verification system. And, um, I have seen, Do you have the money to start the topic? He said, he would like the both of us to just partner, and let me build it, then, we, actually, split the money into two, and that is where, um, somehow confused, and I want to know how to steal, um, partnership news and all that, so. Okay, but that's a partnership to help you build something. Who are you going to sell it to? Are you selling into institutions, not just one is more of his house project. Go, then go talk to the institutions right now, and if the institutions say yes, we need that, come let me know when you built something, then you have a product. Then you have a. You have customers. Don't build something without customers. I have executive coaches, I have executive clients, who ask me questions, so I wrote a book. So next time they ask me questions, I go, you don't have to hire me. can just buy my book. But I already have customers asking me those questions. Okay. Find the customers first. Let me let me let me say it in a different way. And I'm going to close with this because I've only got a couple minutes left. When you decide to go fishing, you wanna catch a fish? Here's what most people do in if the business metaphor, right? So follow my story. They decide they want to go fishing. So they go buy a canoe or a little boat. They buy a life jacket, because they need what? Because I'm going to be on a boat and some oars and a motor, and then they buy some fishing gear, a couple of fishing rods, and some lines and a cool reel or 2 or 3 or 4 and a bunch of bait and a bunch of different types of lures and things, they get a tackle box, and they put it all together and they put the whole thing on a trailer, and then they put it in their car, and then they drive around to go fishing. But the problem is, They did it backwards. Maybe they live in a desert. There is no water there. There's no fish in a desert. Go find out where the fish are. First. Then find out what people are using to catch the fish. Second. Then go to the store and get the same stuff that they're using to catch a fish. Go catch the same fish. In the same place where they are. Go where the fish are. Right? So many people build a business like I described. They go get a boat and a life preserver, and I think, and all the fishing tackle, and all the stuff, and a beautiful little thing, they put it on a trailer, and they drive it in the middle of the desert, and they unload their boat in the middle of the desert and wonder why they're not catching any fish. Don't be like that. Be the opposite. Go find the fish. And then when you find the fish, say, I can catch fish. Who needs to buy the fish from me so I can catch the fish? Cool. And when you figure that out, the way I describe that is, like, the world is a big, cold and dark place. And when you can catch the fish that people need, it's like carrying a torch out into the darkness. Everybody sees it. Everybody wants, everybody wants to be near it. They go towards it. It's warm, it's light, they like that. We all humans, we love that. We want that. And we go, what are you doing? What have you got? Where is your fish? But most people just light the torch and carry it out in the darkness first. Each one of you has a value that you can give to the world. Each one of you has something unique and special that you do automatically without question, and you think it's so obvious everybody else does it. No, it's not. Ask people what the problems are. If people are asking you to help solve the problems, that's kind of, that's a clue, that's your superpower. Say, I'll do, can you pay me 20 bucks for it? Can you pay me $5 for it? Can you pay me $100 work? You pay me $1000? Can you pay me $100,000 for it? Whatever. People will pay to have their problem solved. You have to figure out what their problem is. Ask them. If you have a hard, painful problem and somebody says, what's the biggest problem you have right now, are you going to go, I'm just not going to tell you. No, I'm not gonna tell you, because I don't really want that solved. No, if you have a big giant nail in your foot and you're hopping around and people go, what's wrong? You like, I gotta nail on my foot, man. People will help you figure out how to pull it out. It's not embarrassing to have problems. It's embarrassing to, no, no, no, I don't have a problem and everybody can see blood dripping off your foot with your big nails sticking out of your foot. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows it. You have to just be able to say, yes, I have this problem, help me. When you do. Like a brain map or do you map your sequence of events when you stop this cycle? Would I stop what cycle? Like, when you start, uh, like, say you're hiring for a team right now, would you set up an entire schedule for the entire month, generally, and play with that or working on that schedule? So it's pretty much organized 2 or 3 weeks ahead in advance. Something of that nature. So. Very calculated working with an agency. Okay, so if you have a time block window and will end here, let's say you have to do something in 3 months. You need to get this done by April first. Okay? Okay, April 1st, what are we gonna do? We, and I asked the questions about, what does it look like when we're done? We have a software product, we have this, we have Witter. And then I go backwards from the end, that's the mission, that's who the problem, that's what we're solving. We build a team to solve the problem. I just build the, here's what I think it's going to be to build a team. This is how many people we need. If we have budget for that, cool. If we don't, we adjust the team size and tools based on the budget. And then we, once we establish who, what the team's supposed to look like, the chairs that we're going to fill, then we go say, who do we want? What the perfect person would be for that chair? Write a job description for the perfect person that fits that chair, and then we send it to the world and get people to find candidates for us and interview. That... Whether it's a 3 month window or a 3 year window, or it's a, we only have a $1000000 that we wanted as fast as possible, or you have to use these 5 people, but you can have unlimited budget. What kind of tools do you need? Okay, time, money, or tools. Those are the only constraints we have. So, whichever one is a constraint, we deal with it. And then you just, you build the team based on that. But again, even if you do all that, when you talk to them about the interview, the interview is, What's the likelihood that you're going to sit in that chair and be the right person? Okay? And then, before we hire you, you have to pass the mission test. Do you like the people we're working for and the problem that we're solving? That's it. If you can do those 3 things, You could be successful in any business. In any language, anywhere in the world. And you ended up very well said. Um, just just to give you, uh, you spoke about sales and I know you have to leave. Um, and that was one of the most important things you said is that 1st find your customer. And I think in the digital space, that's the hardest thing to do is because, you know, they're not marketing, they don't have that thorough output. don't have that social media ability or the to put. And even worse, what happens is they believe the TV and the news and the movies. They build build a stadium and people will show up to it. No, uh-uh. No, no, no. Uh-uh. No, it's not the way it works. It's the other way around. What do you want to watch? Do you want to watch cricket? You want to watch soccer? You want to watch football? you want to watch baseball? Okay, well now we'll go build a team. Not, not, I'll build it because I want it and we'll get people to come. Kind of works but not really. Right? Oh, that's also due to the social, I guess, we can speak about that. It's also because of the way people are aceiving their reality, which is affecting the way they are looking at what they want to build in the future. Most people, I've got to run, but most people, I'm cutting you off, sorry. Most people scroll social media or watch TV in the news or read magazines or watch movies. And almost every way, the things they say are fine, but the reasons and why they do it, they're not fine. They're almost always wrong. They're almost always the opposite. Right? Nobody buys something because they want to be part of a team. They buy, they they become part of the team because they have selfish interests. I need to take care of my family. I need to eat. I need to pay for my bills. I want to buy a new car. I want to get my wife flowers. I want to go on vacation. whatever it is, it's a selfish thing. And then you decide, I'm, well, I'm gonna, okay. I'm aligned with those things you're doing. So that's natural for me, and I'm going to just, I'm going to buy into it. I'll buy into it because in exchange for me buying into it and doing the things you want as a team, you'll give me money. That's what I really want. Brutal truth. People are selfish, including me and you, all of us, were selfish. And if you could win the lottery and get a ton of money, and have money coming in every month for the rest of your life, how many of you would keep doing the job you're doing, how many would keep showing up on spaces? How many would you keep doing that? Would you? I was asked this earlier this morning. I'm like, you guys have no idea how much money I make. I could make a dollar, I could make a 1000000 dollars. You have no idea. You may guess, you may guess right or wrong. Who cares? But you don't know why I'm here. If you think money is the only answer, then you're incorrect. Money is one of the answers. It's not the only answer. It's not my mission in life. is just to be wealthy and make money. Thank you, Andy. so genuine and you're such a well-spoken gentleman and you have such experience. It's awesome to, you know, run things off you for me, uh, just to get some clarity on a few thoughts of yours. Gave me some really good leadership. Well, cool. Here's here's the thing. The last question I have for you, before you, before you. is gonna finish them, I'll ask you that last question. No, no, no. you, you, okay. Either you can ask your question, we'll come back on Monday, but ask real quick. I'll get an ex- take an extra minute. Yeah, so, uh, is this the last thing? So, you know, digital people try to make something digital in the digital space. Now, they're trying to get evolution. So what, how would they evolution or evaluate their product, their marketing if they were looking at launch within a month? I mean, that's a hard place to put you in. No, it's not. easy. Are people reaching out to you in the backchannels? Are they asking you privately, how can you get this? Are they signed up on a newsletter? Are they sending you an email? Hey, yeah, when you get that thing, let me know. I need it right now. If not, you have no marketing. You have no attention. Nobody knows who you are. You may have had the greatest product in the world, and nobody knows you. It's, it's about, you must, uh, uh, marketing is getting attention. Sales is turning that attention into a customer. evolution of business evolution stage wasn't done properly, and you need to go back to that stage before you move forward, correct, sir? The basics, you always have to have the basics 1st, always, always, always. There is no exception. If you have a group of people who don't believe in the vision, you have a group of people, not a team, do not expect them to deliver. If you have a beautiful product and no customers, you have a hobby. You've spent a lot of time on. You don't have a business. You listen, you want to know the best business? Here is your proof of a business, and I'm going to end with this today. Here's your proof of a business. Are you a drug dealer? Are you like a drug dealer? They don't have a marketing, they don't have a plan. They don't have a LLC. They have customers who buy stuff and give them money. Bingo, business. Everything else is regulation and, frankly, a whole lot of BS. But drug dealers have the best businesses. They have customers, and they have product, and they deliver the product to the customers for money, business, that's it. Be like a drug dealer, metaphorically, don't sell drugs. That's terrible. But my point is, Give people a product that they want, desperately that they're willing to give you money for, and come back and give you more money for it next time. And as much time on product evolution, guys, make sure you do that does. Before you move ahead in your little experiences and make sure you run out. In fact, no, do it the other way around for some. Find customers who are willing to give you money for a product and then go find a product to give them. Find customers first. Go find customers. If you're going to spend, if you're going to choose to spend your time, should you develop a cool product or should you find customers, find customers first. Every day, twice on Sunday, until you have 100 customers going, where is it? What is it? What going on? Why don't I get it now? They're pissed at you. Then go build a product, go find one. Customers always win. The customers will give you insight on what your product needs to be tomorrow as well in the world. So, yeah. Right. Every product that's developed is developed with some errors. Because it's got the wrong assumption, it's got the wrong thing. It doesn't actually solve the problem. It only solves a problem that people could see at that moment, but as soon as they get that product, they go, oh, I forgot to tell you about this other thing I need. It's human nature. And in the text base, that is huge. I mean, you know, you can change the entire project technically or on the software grounds just by adding a variable, right? So, yeah. Well, what assumption can be wrong and the whole product can fall apart? We built an entire marketing system based on audio. Uh, people want video. Okay. Well, I spent $100000000 on it, so what? nobody cares. The market is right. You're almost always wrong. Your job is to not figure out what you're doing, the problem, what you need to do is find out what people want. Find out what they want. Find out how they want it, and then go give it to them. Either make it or find it. But that's the answer. There's nothing that I'm said that is groundbreaking or new, not one thing. Everything I've done, hold on. Okay, I'm done. I'm gonna have to drop you here. You can come back Monday, we can talk again. Um, If you want leadership answers, you can just go read my book. If you want to sign up for my newsletter, please sign up for my newsletter. Find out all the stories about leadership in team building you've never ever heard before. The things that are so simple that make sense to you, but everybody complicates it. I am not Harvard educated. I am simply a guy with a bunch of scars, been kicked in the teeth, and did it over 30 years. 4 different continents, including people who didn't even speak my language. So I know it works. It's great Friday. It's the 9th of January. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll be back on Monday. Bye.