The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell

Exclusive Resource: Fundraising Like a Pro - The 3 phases of fundraising - 7 week process for starting & closing your round - http://bit.ly/2FcilV8

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I’ll never forget one of the first times I pitched an investor.

I was literally pacing in the back alley of a SF coffee shop with one of those ugly pre-2007 cabled headsets plugged into my iPhone.

I had a warm intro to the investor.

Things were going smooth.

But with just ONE single misstep, I got those gut-wrenching words no founder ever wants to hear:

“Sorry, Dan… I don’t think this is gonna work.”

In this week’s video, I share the MAJOR mistake I made on that pitch, as well as the 8 biggest lessons I’ve learnt from raising millions in capital for my own companies, as well as 200M+ for those I have the privilege of advising.

At a high level, here’s a crash course on how to successfully pitch investors:

1. Get an intro
2. Research them
3. Present problem
4. Demo solution
5. Market size
6. Business model
7. Proprietary tech
8. Open Q&A

In case you didn’t notice, the process only begins once you’ve got a warm intro to the investor. Cause here’s the hard truth:

Investors don’t want to meet you (or get cold pitched by you)… they want to be introduced to you.

Now while the average founder can get really discouraged by this, I’m gonna call you to a higher game.

That’s why I break down in full tactical detail my favorite strategy for getting warm introductions to investors… even if you don’t have any existing in-roads to the people you want to pitch.

It’s a ninja tactic that up to now I’ve only shared with private clients inside SaaS Academy.

Catch it at 2:57 of this week’s episode, and then drop me a comment letting me know any lessons you’ve learned from the investor trenches.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: Fundraising Like a Pro - The 3 phases of fundraising - 7 week process for starting & closing your round - http://bit.ly/2FcilV8

Exclusive Download: The Business Playbook Templates – Easily create a business playbook to free up time, deliver consistent work and train your team - http://bit.ly/2XNyqZT

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300K/year.

That’s the magic revenue number that a super high-performing expert or entrepreneur can expect to reach on their own before they smash their head against the glass ceiling.

Doesn’t matter if you have your alarm set at 4:30am.

Doesn’t matter if you grind it out through nights and weekends.

Doesn’t matter if you throw down a bunch of brain drugs with bad names while looping binaural beats through your headphones.

Unless you start making it a PRIORITY to buy back your time through systems, automation, and delegation… you’re just gonna knock yourself out as you keep banging your head against that upper limit.

Prefer to smash through and unlock higher levels of growth?

In this week’s episode, I break down the 5 steps for creating business systems that automate your processes and set you up for scale.

At a high level, the 5 steps are:

1. Audit your time
2. Group process tasks
3. Record the work
4. Outsource draft system
5. Delegate the activities
6. Monitor for quality

Where most entrepreneurs get this wrong is that they start wayyy too far down the list and try to just randomly outsource anything they can (to anyone they can).

And then they actually act shocked when that $3/hour via from the Philippines doesn’t perform the tasks at the same level it used to.

Delegating can only come once you’ve identified the most important tasks to take off your plate… and created thorough documentation on how to perform it up to your standards.

Anything less and you’re setting yourself up for even MORE frustration and overwhelm.

Give the full episode a watch here, and then let me know of ONE task or activity that you feel you’re ready to automate or delegate.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: The Business Playbook Templates – Easily create a business playbook to free up time, deliver consistent work and train your team - http://bit.ly/2XNyqZT

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ – Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2TdcpoU

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Ready for a shocker?

Stalled growth is rarely a product, marketing or sales problem…

It’s a founder problem.

And more specifically, it’s a failure to think strategically instead of tactically.

Yes, tactics matter. But only if they’re guided by the RIGHT strategy at the RIGHT time.

If you just keep repeating the same tactics over and over again (or adding random ones to the mix just because it “feels right” and “other people are doing it”)…

… then you’re just gonna drive your team and your company to the ground.

Accelerated growth is always preceded by strategy.

Most founders know that they need to be thinking strategically… yet so few actually have a simple framework that shows them how to do it.

That’s why in this week’s episode, I share a simple 5-step process for achieving more strategically-driven growth this year.

At a high level, the 5 steps are:

1. Begin with the end in mind
2. List out strategies
3. I.C.E. them
4. Prioritize
5. Add resources and timelines

Where most people get this wrong is #3.

Once you’ve listed out all the possible strategies you can pursue to achieve your end goal… you need to put those strategies on ice. Which is actually an acronym for…

Impact. Confidence. Ease.

Each strategy gets ranked on those 3 categories which gives you a clear “ICE” score to help you prioritize in the next step.

Watch the full episode to learn how to measure your ICE score, as well at the complete 5-step framework for making more strategically-driven decisions.

I’d also love it if you can drop me a comment letting me know ONE new strategy you’ll be focusing on this year… and what you’re hoping to gain out of it.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ – Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2TdcpoU

Exclusive Download: The Weekly Sync™ Format - Run Your Weekly Team Meetings Following This Structure Easy, Fast & Productive - http://bit.ly/2Xp9B6j

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I’ll never forget this one employee I had just hired at clarity.fm

His first few hours went super smooth.

But then at exactly 4:59pm… the guy BOLTED.

Laptop packed. Door shut. Making a beeline straight to the front door.

My jaw literally dropped. Here was this guy I had just hired… someone who was still getting onboarded to our team, our clients, and our company…

And he was more concerned about beating the afternoon traffic than getting up to speed and aligned with our mission. I mean… what the hell, dude!

I call this “Speed of Their Feet” syndrome. And if your company parking lot turns into a barren wasteland at 5:10pm…

Chances are you have at least ONE of the signs of a toxic work culture that I share in this week’s episode.

At a high level, the clear “signals’ that you have a toxic culture forming are:

1. Speed of their feet
2. Asking for raise/perks
3. Lack of empathy
4. Dissatisfaction and anxiety
5. High turnover
6. Failure to meet deadlines and goals
7. Lack of core values

The second item is where I get a lot of pushback.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with your team members asking for raises or demanding new perks.

In fact, I’m a HUGE believer in rewarding A-players above industry standard.

But if 20, 30, 50% of your team is banging at your door asking for more cash… not only will those rising costs eat you alive, but it’s probably indicative of a deeper problem in your reward structure.

“Asking for raises” can sometimes be a last resort that employees turn to when they’re NOT feeling appreciated or like they’re making progress in their career path… and they decide that they might as well get the most out of their crappy situation.

So always investigate more deeply. Especially if you notice a team-wide trend forming.

The sooner you catch these toxic signals, the sooner you can course correct and make your company an attractive place for A-players to do their best work.

Watch the full episode here, and then drop me a comment letting me know if any of these signals are present in your company, and what you’re actively doing to fix it.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: The Weekly Sync™ Format - Run Your Weekly Team Meetings Following This Structure Easy, Fast & Productive - http://bit.ly/2Xp9B6j

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ – Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2trwB6U

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I recently had an unfortunate Growth Session with a SaaS founder who was running his company straight into an iceberg.

… an unforgiving 25% churn rate
… about 3 months cash runway
… total mis-management of capital

Instead of fixing the leaks (churn), he insisted on keeping the sales and marketing engines on full blast.

Essentially a great way to crash into that iceberg even faster. 

While it’s usually great advice to maintain a growth mindset (I’m all about that growth)…

… sometimes you need to take the foot of the accelerator and re-assess things on a foundational level before moving forward.

Doing so can be the difference between getting KO’d and living to fight another day.

In this week’s video, I share the 6 ways to fix a broken SaaS model.

At a high level, here’s the “emergency plan” I would’ve given that founder had he been open to hearing my advice:

1. Baseline metrics
2. Cut expenses
3. Correct churn
4. Nail positioning
5. Perfect pricing
6. Ramp up partner marketing

Only once you get super clear on your actual metrics in step 1, can you begin plugging up the big holes and charting your course correction.

I personally love to see a founder who’s willing to get scrappy in bringing revenue (aka lifeblood) back into the company.

One of the easiest (and most profitable) ways of doing this is to offer a DFY service that’s related to your product. Many founders will resist this as it feels like a defeat and a step backwards (personally and professionally).

Unfortunately, it’s those same founders who’d rather hold their head up as their ships capsize.

At the end of the day… righting the ship can be scary (and takes a lot of unpopular moves)… but there are few things more satisfying than surviving that storm en route to massive success.

(plus makes a cool chapter in your future best selling biography)

If you suspect that your SaaS model may be broken, I encourage you to watch this full episode…

…  and then leave me a comment telling me a bit more about your situation and how you plan on navigating your way through it.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ – Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2trwB6U

Exclusive Download: Fundraising Like a Pro – The 3 phases of fundraising – 7 week process for starting & closing your round - http://bit.ly/2SLbmeA

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Growing a tech company is hard.

Growing a tech company with lawsuits being thrown at you left and right is nearly impossible.

The good news is, most legal issues that startups face are HIGHLY preventable, and can be sidestepped with just a few simple measures.

In this week’s video, I share the 5 biggest legal issues that startups face… and more importantly,  how to avoid them so that you can grow your company with peace of mind.

(Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on the internet. Consult with an attorney before making any legal decisions)

At a high level, the 5 biggest startup legal issues are:

1. Wrong entity
2. IP Ownership
3. Not setting up vesting
4. Not complying with security laws
5. Not doing due diligence

Remember those twins from The Social Network?

The ones who walked away with over 100M of Zucks’ cash over IP infringement?

Well, Zucks probably could’ve avoided that one had he juuuuuust taken a few of the simple measures I mention in #2.

Even if you’re not building a billion dollar social network, chances are that IP assignments play a huge role in your tech company.

Making sure that ownership is properly assigned can save you from major headaches and lawsuits down the line… especially if you hope to raise capital or exit your company.

Take a few mins to watch the full episode, and then let me know of any hard-earned legal lessons you’ve learned in your own journey.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: Fundraising Like a Pro – The 3 phases of fundraising – 7 week process for starting & closing your round - http://bit.ly/2SLbmeA

Exclusive Download: The Weekly Sync™ Format - Run Your Weekly Team Meetings Following This Structure Easy, Fast & Productive - http://bit.ly/2HQxfVQ

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In over 20 years in business, I’ve never met a single founder who hasn’t had to fire at least one employee.

While the thought may create knots in your stomach, letting an employee go is actually a super valuable skill with further reaching implications than you might think.

Because done wrong, It could crush team morale, compromise data, and even cost you valuable customer accounts.

Breaking up isn’t fun… but it’s a skill that as a founder you need to get skilled at.

In this week’s video, I’ll share 5 steps for firmly (but respectfully) letting an employee go… while setting up all stakeholders for a smooth transition.

At a high level, here’s how to let an employee go the right way:

1. Prep accounts
2. Schedule the sit down
3. Not a discussion
4. Remove access
5. Communicate the reason

Of the five, the last one gets the most neglected.

Once they’ve been “let go”, it’s tempting to just move forward and drop it from your mental/emotional bandwidth.

But unless you take a quick 15 mins to inform the rest of your team about the decision, and more importantly, the reasons behind it… you may inadvertently be fueling the rumor mill while planting the seeds for a toxic culture.

At the end of the day, if it’s not working out with an employee you owe it to both THEM and the company to move on gracefully.

You might think that you’re doing them a favor with countless “extra chances’, but it’s likely just your own fear and resistance speaking.

If the writing’s already on the wall, you owe it to everyone involved to move on and let them find a career that they can be a total rockstar at.

Give the episode a full watch here, and then drop me a comment letting me know of any lessons you’ve learnt from letting an employee go.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: The Weekly Sync™ Format - Run Your Weekly Team Meetings Following This Structure Easy, Fast & Productive - http://bit.ly/2HQxfVQ

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ - Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2DDsVoP

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Back in 2008, Warren Buffett was approached by a struggling insurance company.

He asked them to fax over their financial data to the hotel he was staying in (in Edmonton, Alberta)…

Within just a few hours he was able to put together a proposal to acquire them.

How did he do it?

He knew what to look for in the numbers — and more importantly, knew the implications of those numbers.

His nickname may be the “Oracle of Omaha”… but it’s not witchcraft or wizardry that has made him one of the world’s wealthiest men.

It’s his advanced knowledge of the metrics, and how to stack them in his favor.

In this week’s video, I breakdown (and give you the exact calculations) of the 4 advanced SaaS metrics that can provide game changing insights and decision-making capabilities for you and your company.

At a high level, here are the four advanced SaaS metrics:

1. Net negative churn
2. SaaS magic number
3. Quick ratio
4. The rule of 40

If there’s ONE number I’d love for you to actually measure while watching this episode, it’s your Saas Magic Number.

In just a few mins you can have newfound clarity on your sales efficiency, and be able to make a data-backed decision on whether or not you should increase, maintain, or decrease your marketing spend throughout 2019.

Powerful stuff with massive implications.

Give the full episode a watch here, and then drop me a comment letting me know what you measured for your SaaS Magic Number… and how that number might affect your decision making this year.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ - Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2DDsVoP

Exclusive Download: The Business Playbook Templates™ – Easily create a business playbook to free up time, deliver consistent work and train your team so you can break free from your business – http://bit.ly/2CyscU1

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Freakin’ typography.

Add that to the list of things I never thought I’d learn. Yet I’m proud to say I could now rock the basics like a champ.

Did I take a course? Nope.

Read a book? Not this time.

Instead, I tapped into one of the most underleveraged sources of knowledge capital that EVERY software founder should be capitalizing on:

My team.

Ever since I founded Spheric in 2004, I’ve been hosting regular skill-sharing meetings that allow anyand all members to share their unique talents, and in turn, help the team get smarter.

In this week’s video, I cover the 5 components of a monthly meeting that allows your team to rapidly increase its knowledge capital by a factor of 5x.

At a high level, here’s how to implement this meeting:

1. Democratize the teaching
2. Showcase the bright spots
3. Prioritize the queue
4. Set a timer
5. Record it

The first two steps are all about making sure you’re inclusive in the process.

When you break down the hierarchy and allow ANYONE with a cool or valuable skill to step up and teach the rest of the team — you not only create a smarter team, but a more empowered one.

But where this practice can really have a dramatic payoff is with new employees.

Imagine onboarding a recent hire and being able to refer him to a library of 10, 15 or even 50+ recorded training sessions.

Not only does that new hire get a potent dose of best practices and relevant job-related skills, but they get to know the personalities and interests of their colleagues MUCH faster.

Meaning, you get to dramatically ramp up your team’s knowledge capital… AND cultivate an awesome culture at the same time. Pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me :)

Give this week’s episode a full watch to learn how to implement it, and then let me know when you plan on hosting your first skill-sharing meeting.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: The Business Playbook Templates™ – Easily create a business playbook to free up time, deliver consistent work and train your team so you can break free from your business – http://bit.ly/2CyscU1

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ - Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2CiZqqq

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Can we talk about your MRR for a sec?

If you’re like most founders I coach inside SaaS Academy, chances are you:

1. Obsess about growing it
2. Overcomplicate how to do it

Truth is, if you’re experiencing a plateau in your MRR, it probably has much less to do with your company’s growth potential, and everything to do with how you’re over-complicating the process of tapping into it.

In this week’s episode, I cover the 6 things you can do TODAY to increase your MRR and set yourself up to toast to a record-breaking ARR in 2019.

At a high level, here are the 6 things I absolutely want you to start considering:

1. Raise your prices
2. Ditch the free plan
3. Unbundle features
4. Remove unlimited features
5. Move up market
6. Maximize upselling

Now before you start eye-rolling at me through the screen, I really want you to consider the potential impact of raising your prices.

I recently had a client who was charging a cringe-worthy $6/mo for a software that his clients were literally running their business off of.

Meaning, the price to value match was severely skewed against him.

If he bumped that up to a VERY reasonable $25/mo, sure there’s a chance that he’d lose about 10-15% of his clients…

But the net effect would literally be game-changing for him and his company.

If you do nothing else, I’d love for you to take a look at your lowest price tier and just imagine what it would look like if you 2x, or even 5x’d it?

What % of customers could you afford to lose while STILL doubling your MRR?

The quick table-napkin math could literally be the tipping point for your software company this year.

Once you’re done, watch the full episode here, and then drop me a comment letting me know ONE thing you plan to implement this year to increase your MRR.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Download: Precision Scorecard™ - Keep Your Leadership Team Focused & Accountable To Growth - http://bit.ly/2CiZqqq