← Build with Leila Hormozi
Build with Leila Hormozi
How to Be a Better Leader For Your Business | Spotify Video Exclusive
00:38:12
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- [00:01]
Leila
In every decision that I'm making for the company, I do think through a lens, which is like, hi. Hi.
- [00:10]
Theodora
How are you?
- [00:12]
Leila
Theodora? Yes, very pretty.
- [00:16]
Theodora
Thank you. Yeah, a little context. I just started a creative public relations agency. So I'm just in the process now of. Because I've been a freelancer for a few years, so I'm taking on way too many clients that I can take on, like, by myself. So I need to hire someone part time. One of my questions is, are there any particular practices you implement to maintain a strong ethical and morally driven team?
- [00:42]
Leila
From a conceptual standpoint, people can say, we have values, and these are ethics, these are morals, whatever you want to call them, right, that we run by. But if those are not. If we're not reinforcing them or rewarding people for acting in accordance with them, then they're basically meaningless. And where a lot of companies go wrong is that they have values. They have codes of ethics or moral compasses that they talk about. You can talk about it all you want, but if. When somebody acts in accordance with that value, what do you do? What does their boss do? What do their peers do? Do people recognize them for abiding by those values? And then on the other side of that is what happens when somebody doesn't abide by those values? Are they made aware that they're not abiding by the values? Are there consequences to not abiding by the values? And I. There's a difference between consequences and threats, right? Like saying, hey, if we do not abide by these values, and here is what it looks like, and I have trained you all on it, just understand, like, that's one of the things that you do in order to maintain a job here. A threat would be if you don't abide by these values, you are not allowed to work here, and I will take all your money and you're going to get a pay cut. And right. It's intentionally trying to make somebody feel bad to get them to act a different way versus a punishment or a consequence. I would say a consequence is just letting somebody know the facts. This is what happens if these things are not done right, which everyone knows. Like, obviously, if you don't do your job, then say somebody doesn't do their job, right? Well, it's like people know pretty much that if they don't do their job that they're going to end up not having a job. But I think a lot of people have a lack of clarity with companies in terms of where does the company stand in terms of what happens if you don't abide by the values. And that's something that I talk a lot about. Like in onboarding, in hiring, I have an entire interview that's about values, Right? When somebody comes on and they're onboarding, we talk about values on a weekly basis. We recognize people for values. On our quarterly reviews, we go over if somebody's adhering to values. You know, I'm constantly reinforcing what I like seeing. And then if I see something that isn't in accordance with our values, I point it out to somebody. It's not like I'm going to threaten them. I'm not trying to, like, you know, come down on them, But I'm going to say, like, this happened and this is what you did. Do you think that's in accordance with our values? Right. And I'm going to ask them, and 99.9% of times they're going to say no. So the biggest piece of advice or best practice I would give you is that words mean nothing. Behavior is a king. And so how we treat people or how we respond to people when they behave a certain way is how you develop a culture. So it's like, if you're doing something and you're on a call and then somebody says something to you that clearly violates your values, how do you respond? Because it's like, you know, say one of your values is, let's think, unimpeachable character. That's one of ours. Say somebody says something to me on a call that's disrespectful. Do I come back at them and violate the value as well and say something disrespectful back to them? Well, no, I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to pull them off the call and I'm going to have a private conversation and ask, gosh, what happened? You know, like, I said this, you said this. That's not like you. What. What's going on? You know what I mean? But I think that most companies, what they do is they put a lot of work into deciding what the values are, and they put zero work into actually upholding them and reinforcing them.
- [04:14]
Theodora
So good. Thank you.
- [04:16]
Leila
Okay. Is that helpful?
- [04:17]
Theodora
Yeah. Yeah. I can ask a million more questions, but I want to respect everyone's time, too. But thank you so much. Nice meeting you.
- [04:28]
Leila
Hey. Hi, Taylor.
- [04:30]
Taylor
So diving into my question, when it comes to building a strong company culture and getting your employees to buy into a common mission, specifically more on the hybrid and Remote setups. What are some unconventional strategies or lesser known practices that you have found to be effective in your experience?
- [04:50]
Leila
The disadvantage of remote is that there's less communication because we're not in the same workspace. That's. That's all it is. Right. And so in order to get people to really understand the mission, I think that there's a lot more intentional conversation that has to happen. You know, I think that for normal companies there's so much water cooler chat and like there's so many times that, you know, I'd be walking by somebody on my team and then I'm like, yeah, because here's the conversation I just had and here's what we're gonna do and blah, blah, and like, they get to hear my passion and what I'm excited about and all those things. And they also get to see what the CEO or the founder is working on. Right. They have more visibility into that. In a remote setting, you don't have that. And so one of the things that I've always tried to be the most intentional about is just continuing to repeat the mission over and over again. So two things that I do on a consistent basis and then one thing that I did when we were much bigger in my last company, one on a quarterly basis, I basically take or what I have is our like vision presentation. I repackage it, I update it with maybe new findings and things and I present it to the team. It's about two hours long. I allow them to ask questions. I give bathroom breaks, but I try to go as much in detail as I can in between quarters on a weekly basis. On our weekly meeting I have a slide that's like top of mind CEO updates and I'm sharing with them. Where are we at with our progress towards those goals? You know, what am I thinking? What am I focused on? Is there anything that's really exciting? Is there anything that's like maybe a new idea, a strategy, something that I'm thinking about? I try to be as transparent as possible and just like give them everything that's on my mind. Obviously I wouldn't give like personnel issues, but like give them insight into are we on track to the mission? You know, what am I doing in accordance with the mission and how, how's the rest of the company progressing? Right. Those are the two things that I do consistently that I think are just like very bread and butter right now. If your company starts to grow and it gets bigger. Something that I did as a best practice is I would actually send out a CEO update on a weekly basis as well. And I would go over, here's what I've seen that we did this last week, that's aligned with our core values. And here's where we're at in accordance with our mission. Our mission is. And I would repeat it every week, and then I would say, and here's what we're doing right now to reach that mission. Here's what we're focused on this week that's related. And so what I think a lot of it is, Taylor, is being intentional when you're communicating with people, of how what you're doing does tie back to that mission. It's the because. It's the why, which is like we're doing X, Y and Z because of this. And a lot of people in the company. What I've. What I have realized is that a lot of founders and CEOs try to hold a lot of information. And what you do is you actually create a less powerful company. Because imagine if everybody else in the company had as much context as you. Do you think they could make better decisions for the company?
- [07:52]
Taylor
Heck, yeah.
- [07:53]
Leila
Right? And so what it really is is how can we transfer your context and just your thoughts in general to the rest of the company? And I think that the more that you're able to do that, the more that people are bought into the mission and why the company exists. Now, doing that in the remote setting, I think it just takes more intentionality with how you structure the communication. So it's like, you know, you being able to communicate to the whole team, minimum once a week, I think is crucial, you being able to communicate to every new hire that comes in. So something that I still do in acquisition.com's like, I'm still going to meet with every new person on the team. You know, no matter what their role is, there's no reason I shouldn't meet with them. And you know what I'm gonna do? You know what I do on every interview and every time I meet a teammate is I tell them the exact same thing. Why does acquisition.com exist? Why is your role important? And the thing is, is that it's boring the amount of times I repeat myself and say it again and again and again on another interview, another interview, and another new person, another person who doesn't know anything. Right? But it's the key to getting it out there, because then people get like, you're not just talking about it, you're. This is for real. And so, you know, I remember I read this one time but like the average employee has to hear something seven times before they believe it, before they believe it's important to the company, etc. And I just always remember that. And so it's like repetition is key with these things. It's harder in a remote environment because you have less opportunities to repeat. You have to create intentional opportunities. I do not think that it is a roadblock to creating a great culture because I believe that I've done it in multiple companies. It's just you have to be a lot more intentional. And I think, you know, sometimes, especially if you're like a non meeting type culture, it's hard of like you have to think of different, more creative ways of like how can you get your message out there on a consistent basis to keep to keep it top of mind for everybody. Because also when you keep that top of mind for everybody, you keep spirits high. Because you know what? People hate taking an action. A lot of people's work, for example, in a company, they do something, they don't see the result of it for a while. Especially people on like a leadership level, right? Or I mean you could say that we don't see results for a while, right? Like it's going to take me years to grow this company to where I need to grow it, right. So a lot of people have positions that are that way. You know, I would say positions that aren't that way are sales. They close a sale, they get money, so they have immediate reinforcement for that activity. A lot of people have no reinforcement for the activities that are going to lead to accomplishing the mission. And so what you have to do as a leader is figure out how do I create intermittent reinforcement to get them there. So basically how can I reinforce them in the short term to get us to that long term goal. And it's reminding them, showing them the impact that they have on the organization. Like for every single role, figuring out like how do you impact the organization? Let me show you the importance of it. Let me show you what you affect numbers wise on the P and L. Let me show you what you did and how a customer responded because you fixed this piece of our it on the back end. And I think that a lot of reinforcing a mission for people is understanding how does that mission impact them. Why should they give a about your mission for your company? How does it tie to them? And if you can show how the mission for the company benefits the individual person, that creates someone who's really bought into the culture.
- [11:10]
Taylor
I love that I could so see that I was side note. I played a collegiate softball and we were a championship team. And that is the one factor that I see consistently throughout high performing businesses and high performing sports teams and just high performers in general is just over communication and radical transparency. And that's how you get stuff done.
- [11:28]
Leila
Do people say it's the soft stuff, but it's the stuff that works 100%.
- [11:34]
Theodora
Thank you.
- [11:34]
Taylor
Have a beautiful day.
- [11:35]
Leila
You too. Bye. Taylor.
- [11:39]
Matt Lucas
Hi, Leila. Thanks so much for having me.
- [11:41]
Leila
What's up, Matt? How's it going?
- [11:43]
Matt Lucas
So, currently we're building a platform to help individuals and families kickstart their immigration journey. It's called True Visa and we've got the goal to help 10,000 people to obtain US citizenship by the end of 2024. So my question is around company culture. When building a company, you always have to balance the needs of employees and the company and leadership. And so how do you think about balancing the needs of employees around the needs of companies, Especially when thinking about profitability and productivity. I recently saw Riot Games. They gave their employees like the entire company took two weeks off, which is awesome. But it's not really doable for many companies. And so just think about like salaries, office perks, pto, all kinds of things like that. Wanted to hear your approach.
- [12:38]
Leila
There's two frames, I guess, that I used to think through this, which is one, in every decision that I'm making for the company, I do think through a lens, which is like, how can I make this a win for the company? How can I make this a win for the employees? And how can we make this a win for our partners? Right? So I do try, and often I find that I can't come up with that on my own. I come up with the first bad idea, I bring it to my leadership team, and then I'm like, help me figure out how we could make this a win for everyone. There are situations where in the short term it might not be a win for everybody. However, think about like this, right? So gym launch. I'll give you the example. During COVID I said to everybody on the team, I said, listen, things are really, really tight right now. You know, gyms are going out of business. We just lost 30% of our customer base because they literally cannot do business. And we are doing our best we can, but in the short term, to look out for the long term of the business, I need to say, hey, we are not doing any excess anything. We're not, we're not paying for a lot of like we used to do, like Big extravagant gifts and celebrations. I said, we're not going to do any of these things. We're also not going to do raise any raises at all and any promotions. Right now we're freezing everything. It was a very hard decision for me at the time because I felt like, are they being punished because the business isn't doing well? But what I did know is that if I didn't make those hard decisions in the short term, there wouldn't even be a business for them in the long term. Right. And so that's what I had to communicate to them is like, I'm doing this conserving cash where I can because I want you to have a job a year or two from now. You know, I don't want the company to go under. I don't want something bad to happen. I don't know how long this Covid thing is going to last. I don't know how long our customers are going to be out of business. And I communicated that to them and I was transparent about it. I said, like, it sucks in the short term, it's what's best for us in the long term for you guys as well. Because that's what I really think about is that if you're creating a scenario where it's a win, win, win, what it might be is that it is a win, win, win in the long term. But sometimes in the short term it doesn't feel that way. For example, for a startup in the very beginning of lots of companies, it doesn't make sense to have benefits because you're so small. To administer the benefits alone is such a operational undertaking and a cost on the business that for the business at that point in time it doesn't make sense. And so what I've done in the interim is I'm like, how can I make this a win? Win win is like, you know, for certain people that came in, in different positions, like say full time leadership, I'm like, okay, well I'm going to give you a stipend and I'm also going to refer you to a company that can do individual benefits that I know you can fit within the budget of the stipend I give you. Because then you're winning because you get your benefits. I'm winning because the business doesn't have to take on this operational or administrative nightmare, right? And then when we hit X amount of employees, we can get benefits for the entire company. And so I think it's trying to figure out the nuances around there. I also think that part of this, Matt, is setting expectations up front. You can't come into a startup and want all the benefits of a startup, which is more autonomy, usually more flexibility, more responsibility and experience that you would never get in a large corporation because they keep you in a box in your lane. But what's the downside of that? And that's what I like making people aware of. The downside of that is, like, harder to take time off. It just is, let's be really honest. Like, it's harder for people in a startup to take time off. Usually you're not going to get paid as much as you would in a corporation or like a giant, huge funded company because there's not, you know, say it's bootstrapped and we have to reserve cash and be very diligent. Those are two of the downsides. You know, it's like, I think that usually it takes more time and sometimes you like, make less money, but you gain all this experience, you gain all this knowledge you would have not otherwise. And you usually have a better working environment. You usually like your co workers more. Right. There's less, I would say, like bureaucracy. And so I think that big piece is how can you set those expectations up front for people? I try very much in all of our companies to be able to set those expectations so that when someone comes in and they say, hey, why don't we have benefits? But saying when I was in my last company, like, hey, why don't we have benefits? I'm like, wait, no, no, no, we talked about this when you came in is like, we were not going to get benefits until we have 30 people. And it's for these reasons. And here's what we're doing in the interim. And I know that it's not the best, but you came on knowing that. And so I think it feels a lot less like a negotiation or like something you're not giving them when they knew it from day one.
- [17:16]
Lucas
Yeah. Yeah.
- [17:17]
Matt Lucas
That's really great. Well, thank you so much and it was so nice to meet you.
- [17:21]
Leila
It was great meeting you too. I'm glad that was useful.
- [17:24]
Matt Lucas
Yeah. Thanks for having me on.
- [17:25]
Leila
Yeah, have a good one. Matt Lucas. What's up?
- [17:31]
Lucas
Hey, how are you? Thanks for the time.
- [17:33]
Leila
Yeah, absolutely.
- [17:34]
Lucas
Yeah. I mean, context is I'm 21, I just dropped out of college to run my business. We crossed 17 employees, which is big for me. And my problem is I just don't really know what I'm doing. There's no structure. Like I used to run everything. Everybody reported to me And I had my hands in every aspect of the business. And I'm reaching out to you because I need maybe coaching on how I can continue to lead people that are no longer direct reporting.
- [18:07]
Leila
Yes. Understood.
- [18:08]
Lucas
One.
- [18:08]
Leila
What's your business? That's so. Dude, 17 people. You're 21.
- [18:12]
Jason
That's awesome.
- [18:12]
Lucas
Yeah, well, thank you. It's very strange. It's sort of like gym launcher. It will be soon. We coach people in video games. So how to, like, make money playing video games.
- [18:24]
Taylor
Weird.
- [18:25]
Leila
Yeah, yeah. Hey, whatever works. I mean, you know, if it's a demand, it's a demand. I know nothing about video games, to be transparent with you. And I haven't played them since Zelda. N64. So that tells you how old I am. You're like, what's an N64?
- [18:39]
Jason
Yeah.
- [18:39]
Leila
Anyways, interesting. So how many people have you brought in that now have people reporting to them instead of you? So, like, who do people report to now instead of you?
- [18:50]
Lucas
Yeah, so I have four sort of. Sort of leaders, department leaders, a leader for sales, a leader for coaching, like customer success, ops, and then marketing. So, yeah, four.
- [19:02]
Leila
And what's the problem? Like, why did. What provoked you asking me this question? What's occurring that you maybe what's happening that you don't want to happen or what's not happening that you would like to happen?
- [19:14]
Lucas
So, for example, one problem I've been solving recently is like, we've got 17 people sort of across the company. We've got 12 or 13 on the front line, and they all DM me when they have an issue, and that's just, of course, not productive. But also, I want, like, I want the leaders in the company to be able to know what their responsibility is versus, like, what's mine. Like, I feel like we have 17 people and, like, part of my job should maybe be like, running quarterly meetings and like, building culture or things like
- [19:44]
Jason
that,
- [19:46]
Lucas
but I'm not sure. I just don't know.
- [19:48]
Leila
Yeah. So when you hire these leaders, did you give them, like, a proper job description with an explanation of how they communicate with their team?
- [19:58]
Lucas
Probably not proper by your standards. No. Like a Google Doc with very rough bullets.
- [20:03]
Leila
So the reason that I like to write proper job descriptions is not because I'm like, not even for legal reasons, even though there are legal reasons, but because I think it actually sets expectations. So I'll go over a job description line by line with someone, explain how this translates into what they do. Part of what I put on a job description is what I call a communication Cycle. So at the bottom of a job description, what I put on there is I say communication cycle, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. And what it says is, what meetings are they running daily, what communication are they having? Daily meetings and communication weekly meetings and communication monthly meetings and communication quarterly. So for a sales manager, for example, it might say on a daily basis, you're available on Slack to answer all your questions and correspond with your team from 9am to 5pm PST, you're running a sales huddle at 7am every day where you host training for the sales team. On a weekly basis, you're hosting a sales meeting where you have all of the people attend and you run through the presentation with them and go over the sales KPIs. On a monthly basis, you're sending me reports on the sales metrics and. And on a quarterly basis, you're committing to attending our quarterly leadership meeting where, you know, we're gonna be going over all the metrics. So that might be what it looks like. So the biggest reason I have that in there is because I want them to understand, even before they take a job, how often am I communicating with. How often do I expect them to communicate with the people on their team and in what manner, what meetings are they running, how often are they talking to them, and through what medium? Right. Because for a sales manager, for example, like, I do need you to respond on Slack on the weekends. So I'm going to write that in there because guess what? We sell seven days a week. So what, do you just like, take off the weekend? It's like, no, this is a startup and I don't have two sales managers. Like, I actually need you to respond on Slack on the weekends. And so I think the first thing I would do if I were you is I would write these out. I would actually expand the job descriptions, write out a communication cycle for each one of them and, and really think through what would be ideal scene for you, Lucas. What things are the team coming to you about that need to be on them, and I would make sure that they're notated in there. Then I would meet with each of those leaders. And I think what may have not happened is maybe there wasn't a meeting where you said, these are all the things I expect of you if you do this job. And maybe it's changed and maybe we need to reset expectations and say, this is now what I expect of you to do this job. Because if you don't do these things, I can't do the things I need to do to better the company.
- [22:35]
Lucas
That's exactly it. It all comes back to setting expectations. And I feel like if I reset those and put them on paper, then. Then we can negotiate. But right now, it's. We're just talking based off of emotions, and nobody knows what they're doing because it's not written down.
- [22:48]
Leila
Right. And then on the other side, people won't message somebody who doesn't respond. So Alex, for example, takes a long time to respond, and if somebody. If he doesn't think it's, like, important or it's not, it's somebody else's job to answer the question. He just wouldn't respond to it. Right. So what. What I'm saying for that is that what it's telling me is that if they keep messaging you, it's because you keep responding. Sure. What you should do instead, this is my recommendation. I don't suggest that you ghost them. I don't suggest that you. But I suggest that you tell them what to do instead. Hey, really love the question. Great question. This would be a fantastic question for Eddie. Eddie's your manager, and so questions like this should go to Eddie, you know, and you could even ask them, hey, send me a screenshot when you send him the message. Because then you know that they followed the instructions that you gave them. But it's basically like, what you have to learn, and this is one of the hardest things as a leader, is that when you bring in other people below you, people will still. Until taught otherwise. They can be told otherwise, but that doesn't mean that they're taught otherwise. Until they're taught the new way to communicate by your behavior, they will communicate in the old way. Now, ideally, you have leaders who are mature enough that they actually tell the team proactively, hey, you don't communicate with Lucas on this stuff anymore. But it sounds like maybe there's. There's work that they have to do and work that you have to do to redirect the rest of the teams and then something you can do. Lucas is just like, company wide. I'd be like, hey, guys, on the next, like, company, you know, communication meeting, slack, whatever. Just want to let you guys know. Something I'm working on as a leader right now is that I realize that I'm so busy answering all the questions of everybody, I'm realizing that I'm accidentally stepping on the toes of Eddie and Joe and Jill. You know, they are actually your managers, and they should be answering these questions, but I just keep stepping on them, and I don't want to undermine Them they're in their positions for a reason. So if you have questions about X, Y and Z, go to Eddie. If you have questions about, you know, whatever, XYZ, go to Jill, etc. So you reset expectations on a global level to the entire company and then you reset expectations one on one with each of the leaders and then you reset expectations on a consistent basis by redirecting people to go to those leaders.
- [25:00]
Lucas
That's brilliant. That helps a ton. Can I, can I ask one follow up on that? Do we have time? You said on the next company meeting. I will admit we don't have a company meeting cadence either. So for like you know, just got to 17 employees, four department leads. What are the non negotiables that I should be running as from like a, like a communication cadence or what do you recommend I do? Ballpark.
- [25:28]
Leila
I think that probably a quick, you know, 20 minute meeting that is full company first thing Monday. Right. And that's, you know, you and the rest of the leaders just giving updates on departments for the whole team. 20 minutes. Right. And then I would go into, you have a meeting with you and the leaders for say 45 minutes where you're discussing things that are top of mind and constraints that they're facing. You know, how's it looking in regards to like whatever your projections are as a company and what is it looking like on your route to get there? Are you close? Are you far? That's a whole beast of its own in terms of what you construct. And I would Google like how to run a weekly leadership meeting and then. But for the full team, the biggest thing for a full team meeting is that you share what's top of mind for you. You share how the company is doing and you reiterate the values that you would like to have the organization demonstrate. Those are the three things.
- [26:33]
Lucas
Amazing. Thank you so much.
- [26:35]
Leila
Absolutely appreciate you. Lucas. Oh, hey.
- [26:40]
Victoria
Hey. How are you?
- [26:41]
Leila
Good, how are you doing? We've actually met before.
- [26:44]
Victoria
Yes, we have, we have. I actually saw you the first time on ClickFunnel stage in 2018. So I started to give you a brief history. I started my Purpose Driven for profit company November 2021 and it is called Band of Hope. And we employ and empower survivors of human trafficking through Gemstone jewelry. And then we give 10% back to an orphanage that is specifically for children who have been rescued from human trafficking. Yeah. And so I'm launching the subscription model September 1st. And what that looks like is it's $49 a month and a different piece of gemstone jewelry will be shipped to your door monthly and then we will give obviously the percentage back to them. And my question is, what do you think is the best way to scale that subscription model and the best time so that way we can.
- [27:32]
Leila
So how are you currently acquiring customers?
- [27:35]
Victoria
I mean, right now it's been word of mouth, right? Because I'm just pushing back into this and you know, people who know me and my network and whatnot. But I'm not sure I haven't done any promotion for anything for the subscription model. That's why. If you're starting at ground zero, what would you say would be the best way to scale it?
- [27:53]
Leila
So I've talked with a few companies that have successful subscription models and what I have seen works best is two different things. And I think it's going to be partially based on what you think you have the most access to right now. The first one is getting influencers. That basically that's how you get your distribution is through influencers. So I think that you're good at making connections, at least that's my impression I've gotten of you. And we obviously also met. So getting people that they are based, you're basically using influencers to drive traffic to the or direct to consumers. Right. And so you don't go direct to consumer, you go through influencers and then they are the ones who are pushing it to the consumers. I've seen that work really well with physical products, specifically jewelry and like women's skincare and like just lifestyle products. Okay, that's the first one. The second was that for those subscription models I've actually seen. So if you have heard of some of the companies that they send like boxes that have, they wouldn't just have jewelry, but they'd also have like skincare and that. So I know a few brands that they got their start by first actually as a. On a discounted rate wholesaling, wholesale selling to those subscription boxes. And then they gained their own original buyers through those and then they created their own at the same time. So they basically gotten in with bigger brands that are looking for people to basically sell them discounted products so they can sell them in their boxes. And then they branched off and were able to use that to build a customer base of their own. Now that's a little harder because you have to know those companies and have an in to get your product with them. I feel like the influencer route might be the best for this product. Just like given. I feel like that's also something that you're good at, like you were saying, like, I was going out there and, like, doing content and strategy and, like, all that. I feel like that might be the better route to go. But does either one sound like it makes more sense to you?
- [29:57]
Victoria
So I think I like the. I call it, like, affiliate advocate type way. Right. The influencer. And I like that. And that would probably make the most sense. Right. And then building out that affiliate model for percentages and whatnot.
- [30:10]
Leila
Yeah, I would be interested. When I think of, like, what platform would be best for this product, I feel like actually, and I never like using this platform, but, like, I feel like Tick Tock. Yeah, Yeah. I feel like influencers on Tick Tock is probably where you're gonna get the most bang for your buck. Especially because you don't. It's not like you're just shilling out a product like you have a reason behind it. You're donating the proceeds. Like, it's something that's very thoughtful versus, like, just another commodity. And even, I mean, to be honest, a lot of commodities do really well on TikTok, but something that has meaning behind it, I feel like, would actually do really, really well. So I think that where you're at right now, the best thing that you could do is look for an influencer agency. A lot of them get by by just being like, this is how many, you know, followers the influencers are going to have that are going to promote you all stuff. I'm like, I don't give a about any of that. Okay, how much ROI do these influencers drive? That's what you really want to know. So what you want to look for is like, what's the cost of acquisition through each of these influencers and what's the ROI on the spend that we're going to pay? Those are two stats that only the best agencies for influencers are going to actually be able to provide you. Because a lot of them just promise you the world. And sure, they get it out there and you get impressions, but there's this huge discrepancy. This is for everyone here. There's a huge discrepancy between providing people with impressions and providing them with purchases. And so what I don't want is that you find one of those agencies that they're. All they care about is like, well, we got you all these impressions. Is up to you to convert it. It's like, no, they should have the best practices for how to convert on that platform with these influencers, and they should be giving that to the influencers. And also giving it to you. That's what I've seen the agencies that do best and actually, you know, are a part of a company's strategy are able to do that.
- [31:58]
Victoria
I really appreciate you, dude.
- [32:00]
Leila
I hope you crush it, and I look forward to seeing what happens. Yeah, you too.
- [32:05]
Victoria
Have a good day, Leila.
- [32:06]
Leila
Bye, Victoria.
- [32:10]
Jason
Hello.
- [32:11]
Leila
Hey, Jason.
- [32:12]
Jason
What's going on? How's everything going?
- [32:14]
Leila
Good, how are you?
- [32:16]
Jason
I'm two coffees deep and I have a lot of energy. And it's exciting week for us over at Owl. It's Owl week. So a bunch of people are in the feed right now, and it's absolutely awesome.
- [32:25]
Leila
So what is the company? What does it do?
- [32:27]
Jason
Yeah, Owl connects people instantly through private one on one audio calls. So whether it's for personal use or for business, you could connect to professionals instantly.
- [32:36]
Leila
Oh, so interesting. Very cool.
- [32:38]
Jason
Top of Mind is really just, you know, you know, when you have a certain amount of capital and you're deploying it towards app development, we know app development is crazy expensive. And we have all these brand ambassadors that come and partner with us and eventually, you know, they want to be rewarded. Right. I do everything in my power to reward them with thank yous. Reward them by giving them introductions through, through networking through the guests that I've had on my podcast. And then of course, you know, sometimes bonuses and sometimes T shirts, hoodies. But, you know, over time, of course, you know, I want to get back to them. It's so hard because when you don't have that extra capital, right. It's completely bootstrapped. Owl, it's like, how do. How did you get in those early days, kind of all these influencers and creators to want to partner with you in clever ways, I guess would be the best way to ask it.
- [33:29]
Leila
Explain to me, for the brand ambassadors, are they driving people who want to pay for a phone call, or are they driving people who are the experts taking a phone call?
- [33:39]
Jason
So the brand ambassadors pretty much are inviting their audience in and telling them to use their referral code. And when they come in, that referral code is getting them extra revenue through that, through that code and all their followers.
- [33:53]
Leila
So, yeah, okay, they're coming on as like, it's like I go on there and I tell people that follow me, like, hey, you can come on, you can pay only $10 to get on the phone with me or whatever.
- [34:04]
Jason
Correct. And that. And then all your followers, you're getting a percentage on top of the call cost because you're a brand ambassador. As an Example, so it's. It's paying you in perpetuity a percentage of all referrals that come in through your code.
- [34:16]
Leila
How can you incentivize them to price higher? Because it sounds like they're pricing very low.
- [34:21]
Jason
They are based on, of course, you know, you know, the audience they serve at the end of the day. Right. Because a lot of times they'll just go live on our platform and they're just really, you know, look, whoever's on the platform at any minute of that day have to go in and happen to call them. So it's a little different because a lot of the brand ambassadors don't have these large audiences. They might have 5,000 followers on LinkedIn.
- [34:44]
Leila
Do the people that are on the platform say, like myself, also have to be a brand ambassador, or could they be two different things? Because I almost feel like they're two different subsets.
- [34:53]
Jason
In a week, the normal person comes in, you're an expert, and you get 80% of the amount that is paid to you. So if you charge a hundred bucks, you get 80 bucks, and the platform takes 20 bucks. And then only the brand ambassadors get a percentage in addition to that revenue.
- [35:08]
Leila
Got it?
- [35:09]
Jason
Yeah.
- [35:09]
Leila
So the way that I. So I actually know someone who created a platform that. It's not like this, but it's similar in that they have actually three different people that are users. They have one the ambassadors who go and try and get big influencers on the platform. Right. And then they have the big influencers that are using the platform, and then they have the people that are paying the big influencers.
- [35:31]
Jason
Correct, Exactly.
- [35:33]
Leila
I don't see a world in which a big influencer is also going to be the best brand ambassador. I do think that the best use of that is, like, I just being real, like, I wouldn't push, like, a platform, especially unless I had, like, invested in it or something. Right. So, like, I would use the platform and. And I think if somebody referred me to get on it, were, like, pushing me and whatever. I see it like that. You have three people that you're really accommodating, which is like the person who you say, go out and find me the biggest influencers, and you're going to get an override on all of the people that they talk to. So basically you create a system where they get an override on that that can work, because then those big influencers are charging enough money that you have enough to not just pay them, but also pay this brand ambassador, and then there's the people paying them on the other end.
- [36:15]
Jason
Gotcha. I see what you're saying.
- [36:16]
Leila
Yeah. So I would incentivize people, go after
- [36:19]
Jason
the current brand ambassadors. I already have the 50 plus and pretty much tell them, hey, our goal is to get folks that have over a million followers onto this platform. You, you know, and incentivize them like crazy. Yeah.
- [36:32]
Leila
And I might create a minimum. So it's like based on how many followers they have, it's like maybe that you create a tiered system. Hey, this is the pricing that we see works best. And so I would be. I don't know if you can actually throttle that and say, like, if you have X amount of followers, you. This is your pricing, basically. So you pre price for them. They don't price it themselves. But you know, I've never done any sort of. Whenever I've had ambassadors and affiliates, I have never allowed them to pick the price. So I've always set the price so that I know how much I can pay each party involved. And I think if they have flexibility to pay at such a low end that you don't have enough to even incentivize the. I just, I don't think I would fix it. Like create a fixed pricing tier and then create a floor for the influencers. This is the lowest that you can charge for a call. I. I've never. Not. So if you do allow flexibility in pricing, set a floor so that, you know, minimum. I'm going to make, you know, whatever 30 or 40% margin on all of these things. I would definitely do the floor because when I had our software, we had a floor. We said, you can charge anything above this amount. And people would be like, are you. I need the. And I'm. I don't care. I can't go below the floor.
- [37:45]
Jason
Absolutely. Cool. Thank you for the advice. I really appreciate it.
- [37:48]
Leila
Yeah, it sounds awesome. So good luck.
- [37:51]
Jason
Thank you very much. Take care, everybody.
- [37:54]
Leila
All right, guys, I appreciate you all tuning in. I hope that that was useful, especially for those of you who are, you know, trying to build a company. Trying to build a company culture. Let me know what you think would be a cool theme for next time. I had some ideas, but I am open to it.