Daniel Marcos Interview

[00:00:00] Andreas Deptolla: Welcome to The PEO Podcast, where we interview industry leaders to discuss all things PEOs from compliance to technology, to client relations, everything in between. I'm your host, Andreas Deptolla.

[00:00:18] Daniel Marcos: And that's where the kind of understand the difference of eight. If you were an employee work for a company and your boss calls you, no matter what I have to go, right. If you have to do what and if you're entrepreneurial, you put your own rules and you could build your agenda.  

[00:00:37] Andreas Deptolla: Welcome to another episode of the PEO podcast.

[00:00:40] Today, I will be talking to Daniel Marcos CEO of The Growth Institute. We'll be learning about his journey as an entrepreneur, different stages of scaling up a company, and the CEO system that he developed.[00:01:00]  

[00:01:00] Daniel, what book are you calling?  

[00:01:03] Daniel Marcos: So I'm, I'm reading two books, uh, to the eighth one. I'm doing an audio book and I'll get it here in my phone. It's called the heart of business. Dover Jolie is a French, uh, That turned around best buy best buy, right? Yes. So not only have you been to best buy recently, but the experience it's crazy good.

[00:01:23] And I really liked the beginning when they said, Hey, best buy is going on there. We need someone to turn around, but probably it's going to go on there. So you should not take the job. And the guy did an analysis to decide, and he said, you know what? It's not a problem of Amazon. It's not a problem. It's a problem of the strategy of best buy and the execution of our strategy.

[00:01:46] So if we improve the strategy and improve the execution, we should do great. And the turnaround is been an amazing, amazing story. So it's, it's just been a good read. And really what I love about the book is who went back to basics, [00:02:00] treating their employees with respect, caring about them, caring about the clients, and then the revenue came back.

[00:02:05] So I thought it was brilliant. And then the second book that I'm reading here, this it's called the truck. It's um, it's a must read, uh, for entrepreneurs today. I live in . So the world moving cycles, the can a year, we have a spring summer, a fall and winter, and there's certain seasonality where as human beings, we have babies on the winter and lower creating.

[00:02:31] We have a certain process and personality in the way we live. The world has a lot of much bigger cycles. And in the case of this book, they took all these 88, 90 years. And it's interesting. There's a debt cycle, like a 200 year, that cycle that it's expired. Uh, uh, the guys from, pantaloon talk about this 88 year cycle, precisely that is changing today.

[00:02:55] Uh, the guys from, uh, Neil Strauss talking about the four turning they're all combined [00:03:00] in the cycles ending in this decade, uh, 20, 23, 20 25. So all the systems, political, social educational systems that have been growing and, and, uh, running the world today, they're expiring. They're, they're getting into what they call the fraternity.

[00:03:18] That they're coming into a winter and we are not allowing winter to be winter. We want the economy to continue to go up just can't. It's just, we need to accept the cycles of life and do what we're supposed to do here. And really come back to introspection, relaxation, kind of redesign our systems, our procedures.

[00:03:39] We have to redesign educational. We need to redesign the political system. Like it's, it's, it's very, very interesting to see that. And interestingly, like in pantaloon they said 20, 23 is going to be one of the corners of the pendulum and they started describing it and they said the biggest witch hunts in life happen in this [00:04:00] corner of the pendulum.

[00:04:01] And what was the, or that Trump used the most, right. We have two Mexican pressing talking about. Um, so, so interestingly this week, they, we don't have medicine for cancer kids in Mexico. We have a shortage of medicine for kids that have cancer. So you have all these hospitals with kids with cancer and they cannot be treated because of this.

[00:04:23] A treatment for them. So we were having a really big political racial in Mexico because of this and the head of the central health system in Mexico said this, which right. So, but it's interesting. The books are written 20 years, 10 years ago, 50 years ago, and they tell you exactly the words we're going to use.

[00:04:45] So if you understand history, you're going to be able to understand what's going on. And today everything that is happening today, we think we're in a very unique. Place in life. These guys wrote about it when you 30, 50 years ago. And if you understand history and [00:05:00] you understand what happened, you will know what's happening today.

[00:05:03] And then you're going to be able to pass this with much less drama and stress and be able to come out stronger. Uh, just as an example for me, the peak of capitalism, sorry, the peak of globalism was 29. For the next decade, like in 2019, you can get into a plane and fly anywhere in the world for $500 games.

[00:05:23] It was so easy to move around. Right now, we're seeing, we have a lot of problems with logistics. Like now we want to get a passport for vaccines. So next decade we have to turn inward re figure who we are and our society and political system. And then start doing Alliance system coming up. So this is a decade to come back in.

[00:05:46] So the peak of globalization, as we know, it was 2019 and we'll reinvent a different way of operating and running the countries, uh, and altogether a new world order that it's been called and it's going to be [00:06:00] reinvented this decade.  

[00:06:02] Andreas Deptolla: So I certainly have to add both of these books to my, to my personal reading list here.

[00:06:07] Daniel Marcos: You’re going to get a huge sense of why we're going.  

[00:06:11] Andreas Deptolla: And, and one thing that, that resonates, it's kind of like this, you mentioned we've gone to different titles, right? And oftentimes in crisis also opportunity lifts. Right?  

[00:06:20] Daniel Marcos: And if you, if you understand this, instead of trying to go against it, you go in favor of it.

[00:06:26] Oh my God. You're going to come out much stronger, but people are trying to go against it or having the hardest time. And they're going to come out really weak after  

[00:06:37] Andreas Deptolla: Daniel. You are well and entrepreneur at heart. Right. Uh, tell us, tell us about, uh, your personal story, uh, how you got into to Pinochet, the companies that, that you built and  

[00:06:48] Daniel Marcos: where you are today.

[00:06:49] So everything started when I was like six or seven years, by the way, I had no idea. Then today I'm connecting the dots like Steve jobs said, but I was in Christmas day, 25th. [00:07:00] You know, Rancho an uncle in a small town in Texas called San Benito, Texas. It's a very, very small town and an uncle had a ranch there and invited all the costings and nephews and kids and everyone were there for Christmas.

[00:07:12] And I remember on the 25th, I was opening my presence and having fun with my cousins. And I see my father coming out of the room, dressed in a suit. And I was like that. And he said, well, I got called by my boss. I need to go back to Mexico city. Now at that moment, my father was a very high govern, the government executive, and there was an issue in Mexico, politically, and my father had to go back.

[00:07:37] So I remember I was crying and being mad and play with my mom. And then I look around and my uncles were there playing with the kids and I was like, mom, why my father had to go and why my uncle stayed here. What's the difference? On my mom's a ball. Your uncles are entrepreneurs. They own their own business, and that's why they could stay here.

[00:07:55] And I was like, well, for me, it was that used to go work [00:08:00] all day. And mom stayed with you in home. And for me, they used to go to work and it was the same. And that's where the kind of understand the difference of, Hey, if you're an employee work for a company and your boss calls you, no matter what you have to go, right.

[00:08:15] Or if you have to do what management or leadership is asking. And if you're entrepreneurial, you put your own rules and you could build your agenda. Of course, you could have a lot of drama in your company and you can not take vacations, but you could choose and you have the right of doing that. And that's how everything started.

[00:08:31] Andreas Deptolla: It was a catalyst. Yeah. What I'm hearing that event, but you know, the, the, the seamless is maybe freedom. Right? Is that a fair assumption?

[00:08:39] Daniel Marcos: Freedom. If you go to our level growth Institute below, we have two phrases, scale impact and reducing. Reduced that gives you freedom as an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur today, tomorrow 50 years from now, every entrepreneur, every CEO of a company wants to do two [00:09:00] things.

[00:09:00] You want schedule impact. You want to do what you do bigger, right? Hey, I help companies scale. I want to help more companies. I want to offer deal services to companies. I want to have 10 times more companies. Right? So whatever you do, you want to do it in a bigger scale, but you also want to reduce. People said, Hey Daniel, I love my company.

[00:09:20] We're growing 50% a year. I've been paying 5,000, three years, whatever. I just don't have a life. I worked 12 hours a day and I go on vacation and they call me 40 times a day. I want to reduce the drama of the operation so I can really enjoy the ride and scaling a company and enjoy my life is something we learned with Peter Diamandis.

[00:09:38] The founder of singularity. Peter told me one day, he said that hell you can't imagine how much money they paid me to ask me one question. And the question is what's going to change in the future, but no one has ever paid me a dime and asked me what I think is a more important question. What is not going to change in the world and the best companies in the world.

[00:09:57] They have a strategy based on what is not [00:10:00] going to change in the world. And when you get that. You're golden.  

[00:10:04] Andreas Deptolla: Let's dive into that a little bit more. Right. And many of our audience appeal leadership here, they want to scale, right. They want to scale the impact that they're having on the organization. You, you described the theme of reducing drama, so, so how do you typically help companies?

[00:10:22] What are, what are typical levers to reduce the drama?  

[00:10:26] Daniel Marcos: So tell you a quick story and then I'll tell you how we do it. So my first company, we build the first FinTech. In Mexico, we're the first one to put financial track of stocks and information online for the Mexican market. This is back in 1999. That was my first company.

[00:10:41] And we grew it. We ended up merging with Argentina and company and a Brazilian, and we were probably around a hundred employees when we merged. And then we raised $50 million from JP Morgan Goldman, and we grew the company to 1200 employees and then sold it and we will. 25, 26 years old. He was [00:11:00] crazy story where it was the.com typical bubble that will, and I was one day in my desk having a really hard day.

[00:11:07] And I remember an employee of mine came to me to my desk around 10:00 PM and I was working on, I still have many hours of work. And she came to me and said, how are you? And I was like not having a really fun day. And she said, Hey, I am married to an entrepreneur like you and my, my husband is part of this organization called entrepreneurs organization.

[00:11:27] Do you want to get invited? And I was like, yeah. So she invited me to your, this was back in 2000 and I joined you. And as soon as they join, I said, okay guys, you're the expert. How do I scale my company and this all you have to take this program in MIT called birthing of giants that you and I are graduates.

[00:11:44] Uh, I graduated 2003. You just going through the program now and Vern used to leave that program very Harnish. And that's when I met Vernon. And that's when I really begin understanding what he was scaling competence, but something that I learned from Verne, there were two main things, and this is what [00:12:00] you have to do to scale.

[00:12:02] You need a village of gurus. Like one person will not tell you everything you need. You need to be learning the best from a lot of people and put it together in the same place. And that burn helps you realize that because he brings 10 speakers. Every time you go to. And everyone teaches you through their eyes, through their expertise, in different parts of your business.

[00:12:25] And that's when you start putting the piece together and then doing grow your company. And the second thing that I realized that kind of learned through the ISO Vern was versus ice was understanding that every problem or opportunity I have in my business, someone already had that from a. Figure that out and wrote a mythology, a book, a course of how to go through it better than not that's all the books.

[00:12:49] Right. And I thought I knew all, everything in business and I thought it was, I was with kid we're in the cover of magazines and everything in Mexico back in 2000. And [00:13:00] when I see that, I was like, wow. So instead of asking the question, what do I have to do? I have to ask the question, who is the expert on this?

[00:13:09] I need to understand that methodology, hire them, take a course, read the book and just follow it. And my success rate is going to be much higher and like Brad smart, October green tells you, Hey, I'm not going to help you get a hundred percent April. But if you go between 20% of a players to 50, you're going to crush them huge leverage.

[00:13:29] Yeah, absolutely. Right. Well, they don't want the bad players just going to crush it. If the industry a players is 20% and you're operating at 50% with eight players, you're going to crush it. So you don't have to be the fastest gazelle. Does it have to be faster than the average? And that was so good. Um, so that's what entrepreneurs have to do, come with a learning mentality, uh, accepting.

[00:13:53] They don't know. And whenever something happens, opportunity, whatever, just ask who is the best figure out who's the best. [00:14:00] And that's what you, and an old way as well. It is. We ask our forum, Hey, I'm having this issue. What should I do? Or hire Jack Daley or get the book of her and those scaling up or whatever.

[00:14:11] Right. Just follow. Follow the process and you're going to get better results. That's how you sculpt them. Daniel totally  

[00:14:17] Andreas Deptolla: resonates with me. Uh, you know, I'm also a member of the, uh, your organization to punish the organization. Right? Get tremendous value out of it. Or over there,  

[00:14:26] Daniel Marcos: you went to the EMP program gap.

[00:14:28] Andreas Deptolla: And to your point, you're not alone. Right? It's this peer groups it's surrounding yourself with, you know, other people and in getting the right mentors. Thanks for your perspective on that. You know, you, you, you described in the books that you publish kind of like the different stages of company, right.

[00:14:49] Growth stage, or upscale up, dominate your industry. Right. Um, and I think a lot of our audience is in one of those stages. Right? Could you describe what [00:15:00] these different stages are typically and, and, and, and, and how you define it.  

[00:15:04] Daniel Marcos: So let me do an analogy and then we'll go to stages. So I've been in this field, I've been in trouble 23 years, and I've been coaching Theos and teachings, yours and teams on how to scale for 10 or so years, 13 years.

[00:15:18] And they always come in and said, Hey, what's the most important book? And now we're like, that's going to a doctor and said, doctor, I'm sick. Give me the strongest medicine. What, what are you thinking? Do you have cancer? They have a diarrhea, like what's going on. Right. And the doctor needs to understand what your weight to see, how much, how strength the medicine, how old are you?

[00:15:40] What do you hate? What's hurting you. Do you have an area? You have, uh, uh, whatever. And then they prescribe the right medicine. So this is what I'm trying to do with the stages. Trying to tell people, Hey, depending on your stage is depending on what's right. Tool, right. Methodology, the right book. It's, it's very, very different.[00:16:00]  

[00:16:00] So I'm trying to give what I call a CEO system for someone to really understand what they have. And, and let me kind of explain this. When I go to companies, I said, Hey, the most successful companies have, are very good building systems and procedures and following them to the T and that's okay. Show me resistance.

[00:16:18] And they show me their accounting system, production system, customer support system. And that's the case. Show me your seal system. That's what they mean now. Like, yeah. The most important position is being the leader, the CEO, how do you run your company? You can mistake, but, but I I'm the CEO. And I was like, yeah, but what's, he.

[00:16:36] And I tell them, Hey, the best yours, they have routines and systems, how they take decisions, how they communicate, how do they prioritize, how to get their KPIs, all of that. So what I'm building in, and what I delve in, in texts is a CEO system based on stages. Whenever you're a startup, a grow up a scale up, or whenever you're dominating your industry and [00:17:00] leading your entry, and what do you have to do in each stage?

[00:17:03] And what are the right mythologies and books. And I give you 12 mythologies and books that I recommend that you have to do in each stage. So say I'm stage scallop, what are 12 things they have to do? And you get a view of the 12 things you have to do. And what is the right methodology or book, what I've used, or I believe is the best in the field.

[00:17:23] So I'm trying to say, Hey, if you are. 20 years old and you have cancer. These are all the medicines. These are the one that I've used, or I know I'm kind of give that pathway, uh, for them to understand. And every stage has very unique challenges. Typical conversation with entrepreneur said, no, but you don't understand.

[00:17:43] My business is different. And I was like, nah, you don't understand. Like we're all having the same issues in the face of our company. Right. They, everyone believes they're going through a very, very unique experience. I've talked with thousands of CEOs. We've helped over 10,000 companies in growth issues, [00:18:00] and we know more or less your size, your country, your what challenges are you having?

[00:18:05] So I'm trying to, it's not going to be perfect. I'm going to be 80%, but I'm going to be able to through the model, you're going to be able to read it and understand where you are, the pains that you're having, the challenge your team is having and what they have to do today to go to the next.  

[00:18:20] Andreas Deptolla: So what loves to understand that the framework and more depth, but before we go there, I mean, maybe just like outline to audience kind of like these different stages that you're seeing and, and also, uh, read about that, your concept of the deaths valley between the stages, right?

[00:18:34] How do you get in there? Like what, what are the threats there?  

[00:18:37] Daniel Marcos: And if you want to follow what I'm saying, uh, and address that, I'll give you a link, uh, out Alex. I'll describe it now, but I'll ask if you could put it on the scripts on the book. Um, it's Daniel marcos.com forward slash impact dash X dash work.

[00:18:54] And you could download slides. These work group has lights and charts. So you could kind of understand what I'm saying. [00:19:00] I believe there's four stages when you're scaling a company, a stage one, one to five employees, and your job is really to understand your product market fit. People have a business plan before they start, and they expect that they're going to be able to follow the plan.

[00:19:14] And whenever you start working your way real. Your plan doesn't work. Why? Because you don't understand the market dynamics. You don't understand how your competitors compete when they give discounts, like how are your clients going to react? Those are things that you have assumptions, but a lot of your assumptions are going to be wrong.

[00:19:31] So whenever you start a business, you have to. Throw your idea and really adapt your idea to whatever the market wants. And that's a product market fit, understanding what do you do? What price, what channels, what market marketing, everything. Right. One to five voice. Don't go above five employees because I see a lot of people.

[00:19:51] They raise money, they put a lot of people on the ground and they lose the visibility and they cannot learn fast. So don't raise money, do it with [00:20:00] this money. Mostly if you can, with your money strap and figure out bootstrap it, then you get staged to six to 15 employees. And there you have two main issues.

[00:20:09] Your expenses are fixed, but your revenue is very unstable and that's when the CEO or the founder or founders age the most. And by the way, you see entrepreneurs going into stage. And they have white hair and they will gain weight. It's just a tough stage because you're just struggling to pay payroll, um, everyday.

[00:20:31] So that stage out to do two main things. First donor cash, you need to figure out a revenue, stable revenue. How can you get revenue stable? That's the most important thing. And the second one is really choosing the right team and people said, well, I have a team from stage one, the team of stage one. It's not a team.

[00:20:52] That team that you chose is a team that chose you. You don't choose your employees from stage one. Whoever is willing [00:21:00] to work for you. You're so thankful that you hired them and you don't, you can not get the best. You don't get the best salaries. You don't have the best perks or brand. So whoever is willing to work for you.

[00:21:10] You're so thankful that you said, Hey, come and work. And you hire a lot of generalists. They have to start thinking about special. I know you started getting hate. These are my departments in my business, and I need a specialist here and you have to kind of redo your attorney. And then after stage three, you have to take a very, very important decision.

[00:21:29] You have to stay as a lifestyle business on stage two, or grow to stage three and do a scale-up. And I want to stop here and say, I believe the best balance. For quality of life and cashflow for the founder is stage two.  

[00:21:45] Andreas Deptolla: And how do you find like a lifestyle, uh, business? Well, what is that for you?  

[00:21:50] Daniel Marcos: So I like a lifestyle business.

[00:21:52] It's a business that you could run with five, 10 people maximum and you run it like friends, you have lunch together every week, [00:22:00] and then you could have people and like you have a personal relationship with everyone. And usually have a lot of freedom. You could take a lot of vacations, you could dictate how you want to work with your clients.

[00:22:12] And usually you're so few of you, you don't have managers, you don't have a first level of managers. There's a lot of margin, so you could really get a lot of cashflow. I'll give you a quick example. Before I built I had a consulting business. Um, it was myself. I had two coaches, junior, uh, that helped me with my clients and they have a, an executive assistant working remote.

[00:22:34] We're doing a million dollars in revenue. The four of us, I could take three months vacation. I was having a blast. My wife said, Hey, the, the time that I've enjoyed the most was when you, you were a consultant with this business because you had a lifestyle business. We took vacation. We have good margins.

[00:22:51] It was great. Right? But then I said, oh, I want to do bro. I want to do a scale-up and all the money that I was having on other capital that I was getting from [00:23:00] gestalt, I started to investigate in building the growth Institute and that's when the valley of death happens. Right. Your margins get destroyed.

[00:23:08] Sometimes you lose money. You have to hire first line of defense. Your managers have to invest in infrastructure. Off he says, and your expenses go through the roof. And the beginning of that, it's really, really tough. That's the valley of death. So what got you to one stage will not take you to the next one.

[00:23:25] And you have to go through a valley of death where you have to reinvent your. Reinvigorate or chart your leadership, all of that. And that's when companies usually go under, because they cannot pass that body of death. They run out of money or they have too much trauma and they leave. So I'll give you an example.

[00:23:41] I was giving this lecture to three months ago, very, very successful entrepreneurs. And one entrepreneurs is the central Dorian in England. And he texted me after and said, in 15 minutes, you explain what happened from the last 10 years in my life. He said I had a business. I was doing great. Uh, I had [00:24:00] 225 employees.

[00:24:01] I was doing 25 million a year, but I was miserable. I hated my life today. I have 16 employees. I had to implode my business, took it from 2 25 to 16. I do 7 million revenue. I need 3 million for me a year and I love my life. And so when you end stage two, that's a decision. Hey, should I continue? And have a great quality of life with good cash flow and just enjoy my life and have a simpler business.

[00:24:31] But that business is not sellable. That business depends on you or going to stage three and making an intrinsic asset or a company that runs without you. That has the really high valuation. Right. And that's what we're doing with trustees. I'd probably go 10 years or 15 years. So 10, I don't know when Berlin cell growth, this is what I'm building a company that serves thousands of clients all over the world without me needing to be in the center that has an [00:25:00] intrinsic value that someone's going to say, Hey, that business is worth X amount of money for me.

[00:25:06] They want to sell it. And I will decide if I want sell it or not, but this has value beyond me working there. So it's really important that you understand. What kind of business do you want? And you play that game. Because I see entrepreneurs trying to do a scale-up and keep their quality of life or under Castro doesn't happen.

[00:25:27] They come mad with me, they just got divorced. And I was like, what are you expecting? You're doing a scale-up. Right. But it's, it's hard to do the difference because once you've been onstage to running out select. You get used to a certain quality of life and they have to change that by too. So  

[00:25:43] Andreas Deptolla: it's really about being intentional, right?

[00:25:45] As the leader of the organization. What, what, what is important for you? Right. And what is he the  

[00:25:50] Daniel Marcos: right person? The killing is choosing. And my clients tell me, I remember 10 years ago when I was with you in the meeting, when we decided to scale [00:26:00] is exactly the same. You have to be intentional of what you want.

[00:26:04] And a lot of entrepreneurs, I see they make the right. They go, they they've been great in stage two, they're loving stage two and said, oh, if stage two is like this, imagine stage three and they jump on stage three or they hate it. It's a completely different.  

[00:26:18] Andreas Deptolla: So I want to go back to the CEO framework that you're talking about.

[00:26:22] It sounds like that the framework would help the leader of the organization for each of the different stages. Right? So essentially, whatever your decision day is, right. If you decide, Hey, I want to run this as a lifestyle business, I want, I want to scale it. Right. Uh, so the CEO framework will help through the stages.

[00:26:42] Tell us a little bit more about the framework and what it all contains.  

[00:26:45] Daniel Marcos: And, and this is another big mistake that I see entrepreneurs making. They say, well, I'm going to build a great company. You're missing a step in the middle for you to build a great company. You cannot build a great company in your own.

[00:26:56] You have to build a great team. And the great team is going [00:27:00] to build a real company. So your job is to focus on building a great team, but then it's also step. We need to be able to build a great team. You have to be a great leader because, and I see this with a lot of entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur gives everything to the company.

[00:27:14] They have mortgage, their houses, their cars, they have no savings. They work 12 hours a day. They overweight, they got divorced. So have from their family and all that problems in their life, they think they're doing it for the company, but no, they're bringing all that stress and drama of their life to their company and that's killing the company.

[00:27:35] So what they have to do, and this is kind of a framework, first of all. And like in any plane, when the masks go down, you have to put the oxygen mask first. So you have to be in great shape. You have to protect your freedoms. You have to have your rituals. Um, uh, and you have to be well financially, your relationships, your body, your kids, like you have to be a good [00:28:00] human being.

[00:28:01] So there's people that want to be led by you. Like you mentioned someone. Really overweight and drinks every day and smokes and said, Hey, I'm going to teach you how to be healthy. That's never going to happen. Right. So you need to be that leader first. And there's a lot of tools on how to do that for you.

[00:28:20] Um, there's some books on mindset. Uh Rachel's. As an example, every day I wake up two hours before my family. Everyday 5:00 AM I'm up. Even if I slept late or whatever, I wake up two hours and dedicate them for me. What gives me energy? What I like. So I have a really good cup of coffee in the morning. I read a little bit, I have to feed my brain every day.

[00:28:45] I have to meditate a little bit. They do some exercise. I try to just dedicate two hours for whatever I want. And then at seven, when my kids or my wife wake up, my energy level is really high. I already feel accomplished. I've done all these things in the morning. [00:29:00] Now I could give them value and I could give them love.

[00:29:02] And from there I go to your office, imagine that that you have really high level of energy exercise, all lot compared to someone, but woke up seven, 15, run to the shower, shelter. The kids take a shower, breakfast, whatever, by the time he's in the car and gets the office, his energy is very down and his stress level is very.

[00:29:24] What's going to happen. First person he crossed in the office. Can I shout? It's going to be a disaster? So those are the kinds of practices that we recommend for you to work on you. So you could really lead a great team then. Okay, great. Now let's build a great team and for you to build a great team, you first have to attract the best players.

[00:29:43] And here I tell people the best leaders play checkers, not chess. Sorry, they play chess, not checkers. So let me explain in checkers, you look at your board and all the pieces are exactly same blue, black, or white, same [00:30:00] characteristics, and they have the same strengths that weakness and you, when you play checkers, you move them around.

[00:30:06] You have full control of what happens on the board. Whenever you play chess, you look at the board and said, they're all different. They all have strengths and weaknesses. How can I position them? In the best position for them to use their strengths the most. And how can I cover the weaknesses with other team members in a lot of pieces.

[00:30:24] And once you have positioned them strategically, then just step aside and let them play. It's a huge difference from playing checkers. I'm playing chess. I see a lot of leaders in stage three and four, trying to play checkers and the team. So it's really important that you first get them right. And then align them work in company culture.

[00:30:46] Uh, all these things grow, their, their capabilities really, uh, work on growing them and then continue to build a team and grow the team. So that's the second part. And then the third part is now really building a company. [00:31:00] And you have to have a very simple and powerful strategy, and that's what Vernon's killing off.

[00:31:05] Those really, really good with your Beehag and your priorities and the rest. You have to align them correctly. So first you have to build a strategy, then align them correctly to the right goals and priorities and the rest. Then you need to have a repeatable selling system or revenue system, uh, the best companies in the world.

[00:31:26] Full control in the revenue. If you want to see drama, get a company that helped us have control on the revenue and they are pulling their hair and they have a lot of stress. They don't sleep well. They don't pay payroll. It's a mess. Get a company has controlling the revenue, revenue, source, everything. It gives you time to solve whatever you want.

[00:31:45] So whatever you want, and then culture, you really have to build a company that is growing. So one thing is culture of the team. And one is the cultural mindset of the company that they're all the time [00:32:00] evolving, learning new things or whatever, because once you get to say three and four and you are successful, people get into this comfort zone and we start buying houses over the weekend and taking all this modification, but that same mentality goes to the company and we stopped.

[00:32:16] We stop evolving. We stop getting better and that's what your companies, and  

[00:32:21] Andreas Deptolla: oftentimes that's what you're seeing. Right? That's companies that even the opposite, right. They keep learning and keep developing.  

[00:32:26] Daniel Marcos: And the best example is blockbuster. They were amazing a certain stage in life, a certain stage or trend in the world.

[00:32:35] And then they disappeared like that bad off trend. Yeah, that's correct. They were very innovative at one point and very only knowledge of the next. Transition in life. They're all  

[00:32:48] Andreas Deptolla: gone. If somebody is looking, let me ask a couple of questions. Number one, if somebody wants to connect to you, what what's the best way to reach out, but then also like, uh, you know, we, we talked about [00:33:00] the seam now, but constantly learning and developing, right?

[00:33:03] Like what, what resources do you recommend in terms of podcasts? You obviously mentioned a couple of books at the beginning. Uh, something to, to give our audience.  

[00:33:13] Daniel Marcos: I really believe it's very important, what you read, but most importantly is you have to read, um, uh, there's, there's a company called better book club and they do these book clubs in companies, uh, and that's owned by a client of ours and he figure out through his experience with these planes that, yes, it's very important of what they read, but it's way more important as way more impact.

[00:33:37] That the team reads that they get into the habit of reading and learning, but I still have space for re um, there are certain things that I needed. I don't care if it's paper, but in Kindle, but the reading gives you a space to pause on their things, understand things. So most of the books that I read today, I read them in audible, [00:34:00] but then I go back to the physical book and read the four or five parts.

[00:34:06] That I got hooked on the audio, reread them and take them. Uh, so I think it's, it's really important. Um, and of course, ingrowth is digital. We have over a hundred courses in every issue that you have in your business. Uh, if you want to scale your impact or reduce drama, we have almost everything covered there.

[00:34:24] And if not, we'll guide you to the right person or right company to do it. Um, best place to look for me, LinkedIn, my only issue is that I got to my cap of 30,000 and I can accept more. I didn't  

[00:34:37] Andreas Deptolla: even know that LinkedIn  

[00:34:37] Daniel Marcos: had a cap. You mean either, but I go to a couple like six months ago and it's horrible.

[00:34:43] I spoke with them and they said, sorry. And we all hear about the copy and Facebook is 5,000 in LinkedIn. It's like 30, no one even thinks about it. So, but LinkedIn, I put a lot of really good content in LinkedIn and I put a lot of really good content in Facebook. Those [00:35:00] are the two platforms that I post the most.

[00:35:02] Look through my name, Daniel Marcos. And you could see a lot of the words. If you want to get notice of everything we do. And the book launch go to my page, Danielle, Microsoft CEO. I have some videos on podcasts and stuff, but there's going to where we are going to be doing all the book launch and all the announcements of the other producers.

[00:35:20] Of course, if you want to schedule. Do you already  

[00:35:24] Andreas Deptolla: have a launch date for the book that will outline the CEO framework we talked about?

[00:35:29] Daniel Marcos: Yes. launch day is October 15. Uh, but I am delayed like two weeks during the last edit. So I think we're going to end up launching on November  

[00:35:41] Andreas Deptolla: 15th. Thanks again for being here on the show. It was a privilege to have you.  

This podcast is sponsored by ThrivePass, a trusted PEO partner for employee benefits from pre-tax accounts to COBRA administration, ThrivePass empowers employees to thrive through exceptional service in innovative technology. More at thrivepass.com. Thanks for listening to today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and visit us peo-podcast.com to learn more.

I’m Andreas Deptolla and this is The PEO Podcast. We'll see you next time.

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