Dan Lok

What The Top 1% Of Highest-Paid Coaches Are Doing That You Aren’t

July 24, 2020 by Dan Lok

A lot of people think most highest-paid coaches are so-called fake “gurus.”

Why is that?

It could be because some of them seem to have success almost overnight. Or it could be because there isn’t enough proof online for the audience to believe.

Either way, there must be something they’re doing right that most people aren’t to become the top 1%.

And the only way for people to believe in that type of success is if coaches can generate trust.

You see, trust is the ultimate asset, but it takes a long time to develop.

If unheard-of coaches disrupt the online world, most people are going to think they’re a scam. That’s because there hasn’t been enough trust for people to believe in them.

People want to know who you are and how you got your success. The best way to do that is to add value over time. You can share your wisdom, and if that changes at least one person’s life, people will start to develop more trust.

So if you’re a rising coach who’d like to become one of the highest-paid coaches, you’ll need to follow what they’re doing now.

When you start to act more like the 1%, you’ll become them. All it takes is for you to keep adding value to attract more clients. And the more trust you build with clients, the more revenue you’ll have.

The Old You Must Die

Before you can start becoming the person you hope to be, the old you must die first.

If you can’t accept that, then it’ll be harder for you to move forward. This might not be something that’s easy to do, but it’s necessary.

Successful people are willing to do what makes them uncomfortable in the interest of growth. - Bob Proctor Share on X

It’s possible for anyone to achieve the top 1%. If you ask any of the highest-paid coaches, most of them will tell you they did not come from a fortunate background.

If you ask the young Dan Lok, he’s going to tell you that he’s far from being rich. But because he left his old identity, he was able to create a new one.

So for you to bridge that gap and become the next addition to the top 1%, you’ll need to see how those before you succeeded.

The fastest way to wealth is to learn from the wealth. Wouldn’t you agree? They can show you what they’ve done, so you can follow their footsteps.

And until you can master in skills, then you’ll start to see results. So if you still don’t have clarity in what those skills are yet, you’ll need to find a mentor to help you.

Getting Started With Coaching

If you want to earn like the highest-paid coaches, you’ll have to cut out all the distractions in your life.

That means if you still plan to work for someone else, it’s going to slow down your path to being the top 1%. So your goal should be to branch out on your own and to start a business if you haven’t already.

But don’t ditch your steady paycheck if you can’t survive to pay the bills. You’ll need to work on your business on the side first, and when that picks up, you can then fire your boss.

When you have your own business, you’ll have full ownership and more earning potential. That’ll be a great source of wealth to have when you own the assets.

And if you don’t know what business to start, it all comes down to your skills. What is that one thing you’re good at?

Once you become a master of your craft, a lot of people will look up to you as an industry leader. But first, you need to be able to show it in your skills.

Being a coach isn’t going to be easy. You can expect to take a lot of risks, go against the norm, and make tons of mistakes. But once you get past through these challenges, your success will reward you.

Become A Bookworm

If you weren’t a reader before, now is the best time to get into the habit of reading.

Author James Altucher once said, “Only read books you enjoy, that makes you happy to be human.”

And believe it or not, reading books is life-changing. It can teach you a lot more than what you get out of school.

That’s how Dan Lok was able to go from being a broke kid to finding his first mentor. He started reading thousands of self-help books, and it opened his mind to a whole new world of marketing.

And even reading ads too. He kept all the ads he received in the mail to study copywriting. That led him to his first high-income skill and 6-figure income.

You can think of it like this – each book contains someone’s lifetime of secrets. The more you read, the more money you’ll make.

It’s true. According to Inc.com, reading taught Elon Musk how to build a rocket ship. It also showed Tony Robbins how to build a better life. And now he’s teaching others how to do it as well.

So if you’d like to know what the highest-paid coaches are doing to earn more, they read every single day.

Imagine for every page you read, you get a raise. How many pages would you read every day?

When you read a lot, you’ll start to find it easier to come up with ideas and innovate. You’ll begin to feel more knowledgeable and see things from a different perspective. It’s a powerful feeling when you know something that few people won’t understand.

You will also attract more success when you learn a lot. That’s because it’ll be easy for you to share things people have never noticed before. They will start to see how valuable you are.

Make Money Work In Your Favor

The top 1% knows how money works.

That’s why it’s easy for the rich to become richer. And to crack the code on how to be like the highest-paid coaches, you’ll need to learn how money works too.

Money may seem complicated to understand. In fact, 33% of American adults have $0 saved for retirement. Most people will spend their whole lives working hard and never knowing how money works.

So if you take the time to learn about money-making strategies now, the payoff in the future will thank you.

This all goes back to reading. When you read more about money, you’ll attract more of it.

And what most people are doing wrong right now is being scared of learning how money works. They either spend it all or save it all – both of these are neither the solutions to a good way of living.

What the top 1% is doing is they’re careful with how they manage money. They have to balance cash flow early on to avoid being broke.

Self-made millionaire Grant Cardone said, “I didn’t buy my first luxury watch or car until my businesses and investments were producing multiple secure flows of income.”

Even when they start to see success, they won’t blow up all that money. That wouldn’t be a smart choice for anyone to make.

When you gain a dollar, you have to think to yourself: “How can I use this to make more?”

Only that mindset will take you closer to your goals.

Smart People Don’t Work Hard – They Leverage Instead

Leveraging could be the smartest decision you’ll ever make for your business.

Think about it.

There’s only one of you. Everyone has the same 24 hours each day. It would be impossible for you to run everything in your business. And it wouldn’t be the best idea either.

You see, your time is valuable. Since you’re the business owner, you should focus on innovation and moving the needle.

If there are tasks that someone else can help you do – hire them to do it. And if there’s something you don’t know how to do, find someone else to do it instead of learning it from scratch.

For example, Dan Lok hires people to help him create his YouTube videos. That is because Dan, himself, doesn’t have the time to edit his own videos. Also, he’s not a video editor, so hiring professionals would be a better choice if he wants to create results.

You can also leverage money.

Don’t be afraid to use other people’s money when you need it. If your great ideas need funding to help turn them into reality, leverage other people’s money to make it happen.

It’s better to take action now than to wait until you’re ready. Because when you wait, the opportunity might not be the same anymore.

But to get someone else to fund your ideas, you’ll have to be confident that your ideas will work in the marketplace. It has to sound promising.

Creating More Wealth With Wealth

Once you’ve made some success, you can then move on to creating many income streams.

But keep in mind, you can only do this after you’ve mastered your skill first. Otherwise, you could get into financial risks.

You do not want to create a new income stream if you’re still broke, in debt, or have too many bills to keep up with.

The majority of highest-paid coaches have many income streams to create more wealth.

Tom Corley, the author of Rich Habits, says 65% of self-made millionaires had 3 streams of income.

If you’re like any of these millionaires, you would know to keep learning. Once you focus on building that knowledge, your wealth will follow.

This includes not spending your money on whatever you want. You have to develop financial intelligence.

For example, every dollar you own has the potential to develop more. You can multiply your money by investing, not by saving nor spending. That’s how you can make money work for you.

Work Hard Now So You Won’t Later

Here’s the sad reality – most people are waiting until they’re 65 to retire and rely on government funds.

They work hard all their lives, and by the time they get older, they’re too old to travel. They can’t do the things they could’ve done at a younger age.

But what if you can start working harder now to enjoy life sooner?

These people might not have been aware of other paths to take other than the traditional route. You graduate school, get a good job, pay bills, and then retire.

This route is fine, but it doesn’t always end up well. You could still be years in debt because of student loans. And when you’re in debt, it makes it a lot harder for you to enjoy your hard-earned money.

So, what do you do?

Highest-paid coaches had to sacrifice something to get to where they’re at today. Instead of partying on the weekends, they build their network. And instead of watching TV, they read books.

This is what Dan Lok did in his early life. He did not focus on hanging out with friends, but he focused on sharpening his skills instead. And with that, he was able to retire at an early age of 27.

Now everything he does is easier to achieve. Since he’s a master of his skills, he can always rely on them to make money.

Let’s say he loses everything he has today. He can make it all back in a short amount of time. But if he hadn’t mastered his skill set yet, he’d still struggle to make success.

The main point is, the 1% do what’s different from most people. And when you’re a business owner, you’re going to get a lot of people discouraging you from your dreams. This is a normal part of the process.

Do The Complete Opposite

You don’t have to follow what your circle of friends is doing.

In fact, you’ll find more success if you do the complete opposite. So don’t let peer pressure or anything else stop you from your tracks to success.

Only you know what’s right for you. Not even your parents or the people closest to you know. And it would be a sad life to listen to what everyone else does instead of what you want.

With that said, you’ll need to train yourself to keep making sacrifices. This could mean giving up all the things you want right now to have a better tomorrow.

It’s going to take a lot of discipline. If you give in to everything you want today, you’ll have to end up working harder for the things you want in the future.

For example, if you spend all your savings on your dream car now, you’ll continue to work hard longer. Why not work hard now and enjoy the reward later?

It will get easier along the way. Because once you start making sacrifices, you’ll start to see results. Then you’ll want to keep doing whatever it takes to move forward to bigger goals.

So the more you can resist now, the sooner your life will be easier. Wouldn’t you want to retire earlier too? Until then, you’ll have the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you like. But first, you have to earn it.

Your Shortcut To Becoming One Of The Highest-Paid Coaches

Becoming the top 1% isn’t as hard as you might think.

Once you find out what the highest-paid coaches are doing, you’ll want to follow in their footsteps. And when you do, you’ll see how easy it can be to get closer to your goals and build the coaching business of your dreams.

Over the last 2 decades, Dan Lok has worked with thousands of Coaches and Consultants. Some of them had lead generation problems, some had sales issues, and some had offer problems. We don’t know exactly what issues you’re facing in your business.

To help you on this journey, Dan Lok has compressed decades of tips and strategies to address the problems that Coaches and Consultants faced into a free resource. It’s called “The $100 Million High Ticket Coaching and Consulting CheatSheet”.

This valuable cheatsheet is filled with proven strategies and techniques that have helped Dan Lok and his clients generate massive revenue from coaching and consulting. You’ll gain access to practical insights on how to attract high-paying clients, increase your revenue, and grow your coaching business. You’ll discover how to position yourself as an expert in your field, how to communicate your value to potential clients, and how to create high-ticket offers that your clients will love.

Download “The $100 Million High Ticket Coaching and Consulting CheatSheet” for free today and take the first step towards becoming one of the highest-paid coaches in the industry.

How To Manage Professionals In Ways That Unlock Their Full Potential

July 7, 2020 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

We hate to break it to you, but if your business is falling apart, it’s probably not your team’s fault. It’s probably yours. That’s why you need to be sure of one thing – how to manage professionals better.

As a leader, you’re responsible for the talent you bring in. They might have the skills, but they could still lack training when it comes to scaling the business.

Most professionals know how to do their job. They do what they’re supposed to and then call it a day.

Yet few of them are thinking about going the extra mile. When a team works hard together to help each other grow, everyone will get to reach their full potential.

You could scale your business faster, and your professionals will get recognized easier. That’s what a dream team is all about.

A lot of business owners are missing this big picture. They find ways to become less involved in team projects instead.

If you don’t put enough work into your team, your team isn’t going to do the same with your business.

Without further ado, here are some ways you can learn how to manage professionals:

It All Starts With You

Your business is a reflection of you. Share on X

Before you think about hiring more people, you have to be transparent with yourself first.

Can you be a role model for them? Is there something you still need to develop so that you can share what you know?

The chances are you don’t know everything yet. Nothing can be more powerful than a leader who is always learning. With that, others are likely to look up to you for guidance.

What makes a good leader is someone who can give support to their team. For that to be possible, you’ll need confidence and skills. Once you’re able to motivate others to do the same, their performance will speak for itself.

A good question to always ask yourself is, “How can I make this better?”

It’s rare for businesses to have a perfect anything in place. To optimize your operations and systems, you have to keep in mind there is room for improvement. Don’t settle for anything less.

When you’re learning how to manage professionals, they need to think the same way. It will challenge them to become better versions of themselves. This will get them to invest time in maximizing efforts.

Understanding Their “Why”

You have a “why” and other people have their own “why.” Do you know everyone’s “why” though?

Why do they do what they do? Why do they want to work with you? Or, why do they make certain decisions?

When you understand everyone’s “why,” you will learn how to manage professionals better. You will know their goals and what they’re trying to achieve when working with you.

If they want to work with you because they look up to you, then you should lead them to the path of success. If they want to grow within their skills, then you should challenge them. Give them new opportunities to level up faster. Everybody will win.

All it takes is for you to listen to their personal goals. Then you guide them in the right direction while they help you. That’s the bridge you need to build for them to close the gap.

Some business owners don’t challenge their team enough. They leave them with repetitive tasks and don’t end up feeling fulfilled in their position. This is why it could take years for employees to receive a promotion.

People have asked Dan Lok many times how he was able to become successful at a young age. His answer? His “why” was big enough. What that means is that he had no choice to give up and was that hungry for his success.

When your “why” is big enough, you’ll go out of your way and do whatever you can to get what you want. That’s what Dan did, and it works for him.

It’s no different for anyone else. Most people have a strong “why” but haven’t discovered how to achieve it. That’s why it’s your role to understand them and lead the right way.

Mind & Body Over Everything Else

This is what the Global Wellness Institute found in a survey:

When workers feel mentally unwell, it affects their work performance.

62% of workers say it affects their ability to get work done
63% of workers say it affects their engagement in work
62% of workers say it affects their motivation to do the job well

This includes your team’s emotional well-being. When your mind and body aren’t in the right place, everything else won’t be either.

The main cause of this can be because of stress, pressure, or the work environment itself. It’s important to keep the energy high within your team.

You can relate this situation to batteries. Every new battery is packed with a lot of power until you start using it. Sometimes it can be overused for a short period of time. This will make the battery weak and not work anymore.

In your case, your team is your power source for your business. Their performance will determine the short and long-term impacts.

Once you get how to manage professionals at a high-level all the time, you’ll have a powerhouse team. The result of this will transform into a lot of accomplishments.

To get your team to operate with good mental wellbeing all the time, they need to have the right mindset first.

What differentiates entrepreneurs from each other is their mindset. A typical mindset is different from a millionaire mindset. If you or your team want to get to the next level faster, they need to be thinking at that level first.

One way to adapt the right mindset is by visualizing what you want to happen. Your team needs to do this too. You can remind everyone of their goals and what’s going to happen once they achieve it.

Be authentic, genuine, and interesting. It doesn’t have to always be about seriousness in the workplace. Also, encouragement is not a hard thing to do, and it will work in ways you can’t imagine.

Mindset can give anyone the motivation to succeed. Once you have it, not even a rainy day will bring you down.

The Training Never Stops

Once you learn something once, it doesn’t mean you’re done learning forever.

The world keeps changing and people keep innovating. There’s no real stop to learning because you will fall behind in the market if you’re not up to date.

You have to expect the same from your team. If they are open to keep learning and honing in on their skill set, it’ll give them more motivation.

In fact, the training part of every new job is likely the most motivating. That’s because you’ll be eager to learn something new and get good at it. Once you gain a new skill, you’ll feel the job is worth it because you see improvement in yourself.

American Author Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

When you figure how to manage professionals and their attitudes, achievements are endless.

Training doesn’t have to come from you all the time. It can come from your top performers in your team. You can offer them a promotion when you feel they deserve it. Also, provide them with the necessary leadership skills to train someone else.

The goal is to always keep everyone learning. Then, celebrate the outcomes together.

Avoid The Lone Wolf Mentality

The way you build your team environment is going to determine how you will build your success.

With that said, it’s not always better when individuals are too independent. When they’re used to working alone, they can fall into a lone-wolf mentality.

Being a lone wolf will keep you from building strong connections. You can gain so much more valuable insights from other people. It makes a huge difference when everyone in the work environment is helping each other grow.

When you make time for the people you work with, they can inspire you to do better. You would be able to count on your team’s support when it comes to feedback.

Feedback is crucial for everyone’s performance. Without it, you wouldn’t know how to manage professionals and their weaknesses. It helps you understand where you and everyone else are at as well as what still needs improvement.

For example, there might be a skill you could improve on and learn from someone else on your team. If you’re a lone wolf, you might never have asked for feedback. You wouldn’t know whether you need to improve or not.

If you’re open about sharing your progress and ideas, you could receive value back. People on your team could provide you with better resources or teach you how to do things in a better way.

Even making simple conversations would still move the needle. So if you notice that someone hasn’t reached their full potential, first ask them if they tried to work in a team yet. Have they put the effort in collaborating to get the help they need from others?

Working together is always better than working alone. A team is when everyone combines all their unique talents together to make a strong outcome.

John J. Murphy, CEO of Venture Management Consultants, said: “When we bring them to the table and share them for a common purpose, it can give companies a real competitive advantage.”

If you want the best for your business, you can do so by making sure the environment is suitable for everyone. Make it as easy as possible for them to collaborate and connect with each other. When everyone is helping each other, there will be fewer mistakes in the long-run.

Every Person is Part of The Bigger Picture

Does every member of your team know what success looks and feels like?

If so, they should be able to act the part in their role. If not, you’ll have to create expectations for them to do what they need.

As a leader, it’s important for you to be clear on your expectations in everyone’s role. You might even need to show or to explain how they can become more successful. Once they know what it looks like, they’ll know how to deliver excellence.

When people can predict what the outcome is going to be, they’ll develop the will to achieve it. That’s also when they’ll unlock their self-motivation and build on the confidence to succeed.

For instance, Dan Lok has always envisioned his success when he was a teenager. Even though he hadn’t felt success at that point, he knew what it should look like because of the people he looked up to.

It was possible for Dan to follow the right path to success because he had mentors leading him the way. This isn’t an easy thing to do, but it sure is a faster way to get there when you can avoid mistakes.

What does success mean to you? What motivates you to keep doing what you’re doing every day? Or what are you doing to work towards it?

When you create a vision for your company, your team can follow it. It’s a powerful thing when you all share a vision together.

Your vision will give everyone a sense of purpose and meaning in the role they’re in. As everyone’s role is as important, it’s fulfilling to know you’re responsible for the bigger picture.

No one should have to feel they’re less than someone else. Even if they’re in a lower position, they can still bring value to the table in other ways.

You can encourage your team to work smarter and challenge them to do better than the previous time. That’s how everyone will stay invested in a greater impact.

It’ll be your part to provide them with the right tools they need to execute. If they’re working with incompetent resources, then you can’t expect spectacular results.

You can think of it like this: the quality you put into your team will be the quality of work they put out. It’s worth any price you pay to have quality. The results could bring in the highest ROI for you.

Failure Equals Success

8 out of 10 businesses fail, and most of them don’t even know why they fail.

What some businesses don’t understand is that failure is all part of the learning process. The same goes for people too. No matter how smart or skillful someone is, failures will still happen.

That’s because we humans make mistakes and have higher expectations. Not every experience will be perfect.

It doesn’t mean you or your business are a complete failure. It means you’ll have to learn from the failures to find greater success. Those who accept more failures will succeed faster.

When you’re the leader, it’s crucial to not criticize your team for any of their mistakes. Great leaders will help build them back up as soon as possible.

Instead, you can leverage failures as more opportunities. To do this, you must see all failures as part of growth to strengthen innovation.

Without feeling like mistakes will set you back, you can think from a better mindset. In reality, mistakes will only hold you back if you allow it to. But if you decide to take it as a lesson, you’ll be less likely to ever make the same mistake again. You might even find greater opportunities along the way.

Like Dan Lok, he failed 13 businesses before he got to his first success. If he gave up the 13th time, do you think he’d get to where he’s at today? No.

You see, failure is necessary. If you don’t have enough of it, then you might not have reached your fullest potential yet. That’s why you have to stick with your vision.

When you keep your end goals in mind, you’ll find ways to get there. It might not work the first way, but you’ll perfect it more as you go. Even if you get things right the first time, there’s always room for optimization.

Discover How To Manage Professionals The Smarter Way

If you want your team to help you scale your business with fewer mistakes along the way, you’ll need to get this right.

Learning how to manage professionals is easy when you can show your support to them. Only then will they feel you care for their continuous success.

The best way to do this is to think of your team as your backbone. Each role in your business is critical for your success. You have to treat everyone as if they bring in the same value as others.

That way, nobody feels their role is too small. With your leadership skills, you can help your team achieve more for themselves.

When you invest your effort in giving them feedback, your team will start to see potential and growth. After all, every person wants to feel fulfilled in what they do and become part of a bigger mission.

At Dragon 100™, that’s what Dan Lok can teach you. In this exclusive advisory board, you’ll surround yourself with the world’s best leaders.

There’s no better place to be than a room full of successful A-level players. These industry leaders are on their way to scaling to an extra 6-7 figures in their business.

You too can be a part of this private group and connect with some business insiders. You will be able to manage your professionals the smarter way to reach high-level success. But don’t wait until you’re ready because Dragon 100™ only accepts 100 members.

Click here to apply to become a member of Dragon 100™ today.

How Organizational Performance Can Drive Employees To Make Smarter Decisions

June 29, 2020 by Dan Lok

Do you know what the biggest needle mover is for your organizational performance?

It’s the ability to make as many decisions as possible and to make them fast. This strategy doesn’t only apply to you but to all of your employees as well. In fact, employee involvement in decision making should be your company’s backbone and is key to improve work performance. Let’s face it – you can’t keep track of everything that goes on within your company.

It’s better to trust and have confidence in the people you work with. That way, you can focus on what matters most to you – without the extra stress.

As soon as you have the instinct to act on a goal, you need to take action immediately. If you don’t, your brain will kill that desire within seconds.

Sounds crazy, right?

TEDx speaker Mel Robbins wrote a book about this called The 5 Second Rule. She talks about how you can transform your work and life by being confident in the decisions you make every single day and as a result improve work performance.

All it takes is 5 seconds for you to make every decision. After 5 seconds, that’s when you’ll start to hesitate with your ideas. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

It might take time for you to practice making these decisions so quickly. But as soon as you get used to it, your business’s 1-year plan could come a lot sooner.

So if you’ve been asking yourself, “What will help us make smarter decisions?” Count 5-4-3-2-1-GO, and you’ll be happy you did.

How to improve organizational performance

1. Know Your Priorities

Before your company makes any decisions, you have to set your priorities straight.

Priorities can change all the time. What you have planned before might not work in the following months.

As a business owner, it’s your role to make sure everyone in your company understands your priorities. That also means being familiar with your vision and values too.

When everyone is on the same page, it makes optimal organizational performance possible. They will have a clear picture of what their responsibilities are to achieving goals.

One way that will help your employees make smarter decisions is by listening to them more. It’s never been more true when you hear that the art of communication is the language of leadership. If your focus is on employee involvement in decision making, you’ll get more done and this is an important way to improve work performance.

“How much time would you save if you didn’t have to make every decision? What would you do with all that extra time?”

As long as you set priorities for your company, then there would be a strategic plan to execute. Your employees will look for the right decisions to support your goals.

But if you’re unclear about what those goals are, it’s harder for them to decide what to do next. They’ll have to rely on you to make decisions for them since they want to avoid making mistakes.

If you want to see how your employees are making decisions, you can compare what they do with what you would do. If that doesn’t match, then that’s something you all still need to work on.

Even the managers in your team need to have the same thought process as yours when it comes to decision making. That way, they can reinforce their decisions to the rest of your employees.

Not everyone will make the right decisions for themselves at the beginning. It’ll take time for others to understand how to make your goals happen. So, you can always provide knowledge and resources for them to achieve faster.

2. Have a Game Plan to Improve Work Performance

Did you know that your employees can and should go beyond doing their job?

You’re not only hiring them to work for you, you’re hiring them to build on their strengths. You pay them to become the best version of themselves. That way, you can leverage their skills and talents for optimal growth.

When employees get to do what they’re skilled at, they’ll be comfortable with decisions.

Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. Share on X

Since all roles in your company are different, you’ll need to come up with a game plan for every role. A plan that works for the designer might not work for the writer for example.

Your team will make smarter decisions when you avoid the one-size-fits-all approach. That means you can’t assume that every business training will help each employee.

What you need to do is match your employees’ abilities with the correct skillful work. This will help sustain organizational performance when no one is under-performing.

Even if you’ve had an employee work for you since the start of your company, there’s still a lot they might not know.

For example, if their role is to work in the warehouse, then they won’t know how to function the storefront – and vice versa. Or someone in charge of writing ads might not be skillful enough to take on sales calls too.

It’s better for each employee to stick with that one thing they’re specialized in. This will help them grow in their role and become an expert that others will look up to.

After deciding who’s good at what, you can then pair employees in teams where you see them thriving the most. It could be for content creation, project management, etc.

You can carry out employee involvement in decision making by asking these questions:

What’s the decision?
What information do you need?
Are there any alternatives?
Can you weigh the evidence?
What actions will you need to take?

These questions will become secondhand nature to you every time you make decisions. It creates a process and less confusion when driving out actions fast. Your team will be able to track progress and make fewer mistakes and will lead to improvement in work performance.

3. Coach Employee Involvement In Decision Making

According to the International Coaching Federation, 86% of companies recouped their investment into coaching.

Employees who receive coaching could increase self-confidence, improve relationships, and develop communication skills. These are all necessary for personal development and organizational performance. It will enable your team to bring more results to the table.

Good coaches have these 5 characteristics:

Actively listen: You listen to and understand workplace concerns.
Answer questions: You ask and answer questions that will help your team understand and make better decisions.
Be non-authoritative: You take on a non-authoritative approach, recognizing the success of a team effort where you work on goals together.
Be transparent: You are transparent in all aspects with no hidden agenda or emotional attachment to situations between employees.
Provide direction: You give direction with the proper training and tasks to move employees towards success.

With the right coaching, your company will make fewer wrong decisions. Poor decision making can cost money and time. No business owner would want that to happen.

Instead, it’s a smart choice to invest efforts into successful coaching. After all, it’s the coach who helps a great team make smart decisions. When a leader is inexperienced, it can slow down the workflow.

The only decisions you should make are the ones that impact each department of your business. The managers can decide which tasks to delegate to your employees. As for your employees, it’s up to them and their skills to complete those tasks.

If your employees need help with bigger decisions, they should reach out to the managers. That’s why it’s important for teams to collaborate and communicate solutions. It’s also easier for everyone to give and receive feedback when you’re working closer together which will lead to improved performance at work.

To become more efficient, employees should always provide the best information possible. They should consider some supportive decisions that may work first. So both managers and yourself will have fewer problems deciding what’s best for the company.

4. Ensure Your Judgement Is Good

Judging isn’t always a negative.

In any business, judgment will help make complicated structures more simple. You will gain more wisdom and experience too.

Without good judgment, you won’t be able to make the best decisions. While making a judgment, you can ask yourself these questions:

Am I the decision-maker?
How much time do I have to make this decision?
Do I have all the facts?
Who’s opinion would I want to hear from?
How can I get better at making good judgments?

The more opportunities you provide for employees to practice, the smarter the decisions. There will be enough feedback to know how to navigate through any difficult decision.

A perfect example of this would be employees receiving feedback, guidance, and practice.

If leaders fail to guide employees, they won’t be able to improve their behaviors. They would never reflect on the mistakes they’ve made or been capable of refining solutions.

Your employees need to see what decisions will and will not align with your company’s goals and promises. This will become a big driver in the workplace.

Former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said, “One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing is to supply light and not heat.”

When you can adjust to better choices quickly, you’ll improve future judgment by a lot. Imagine how your team’s progress would look without any second guesses? Organizational behavior is essential for improving performance and commitment at work.

5. Track Ways To Make Smarter Decisions

The easiest way to make a decision is to see what’s tracked.

That means you’ll need to record what happens before and after the results. This tracking progress will increase the effectiveness of employee involvement in decision making.

If you want to improve organizational performance, you’ll need repetitive winning outcomes.

Making decisions can cause employees to procrastinate, lose self-control, and lack quality. That’s why when you take advantage of your business data, it can help you decide what to do next.

Even if some data can’t make decisions for you, it will still narrow down your choices to find the right one. You’ll feel more confident when you’re not guessing what you should do.

To measure your efforts, you can track your company’s KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

You’ll need to find out which metrics are important to you to help you measure the improvement in work performance.

For example, you could measure:

Average conversion time
Blog subscribers
Click-through rate
Cost per production
Engagement rate
Sales revenue
Social media traffic
Training costs
Website visitors
And so much more

What KPIs are important for your business?

These metrics are a huge resource for you and your team. Once you have the data laid out, it’ll be easier to make reasonable decisions for the company.

This is something Dan Lok does when he wants to run ads on his programs.

Since there are so many platforms to choose from when advertising, it’s best to focus on only a few or even one. For Dan, he tested out ads on Google, YouTube, Facebook, and more.

It seems like most of his students are finding him through Facebook. So, it would make sense to focus more on your ad spend on the platform that helps you create the most results.

Makes sense, right? Keep in mind, the fastest way to improve is to test and see what works.

6. Optimize Your Progress

After you track your progress, you need to optimize them for better organizational performance.

Every great decision-maker wants to make smarter decisions all the time. To achieve that, you’ll need to keep finding ways to do things better.

It could be as simple as redesigning your logo or as complex as developing a new website. Either way, these changes can generate more revenue for your business and improve work performance.

How?

Well, technologies and the internet world are always changing. More people are online now and new apps are available. This means you’ll have to keep up to date on what’s trending.

If you’re behind in the game, your competition might have the advantage. That’s why it’s crucial for you to keep updating your company’s processes.

There’s an innovation for almost anything. If you feel that your workflow could speed up, there’s most likely a tool that can help you.

When you can leverage the right resources, you’ll come across fewer problems in your business. And who wouldn’t want to be hands-off as much as possible?

Your team’s productivity and growth will speed up while performing at a high level. That’s what optimization can do for you when you put your focus towards it.

The ultimate goal should be for you to optimize everything – including your employees.

85% of search marketing professionals will focus more on conversion rate optimization. That means their marketing focus increases by 85%. Can you imagine what the results would be like?

It’s true that companies will have a higher chance of success by testing and optimizing more. You could add a few more zeros in your bank account.

Before you even think about running a new business, you need to optimize what you have first. Otherwise, you’re going to get side-tracked and never fix existing issues. Then, you’ll be able to carry out good habits in all aspects of the business.

7. Take Your Organizational Performance To The Next Level

Having employee involvement in decision making will take your hands off from a lot of things.

You don’t have time to hold your employees by the hand and make decisions for them.

When there are hundreds of decisions to make every day, you’ll have no choice but to trust your team. You’ll need to rely on them to help make smarter decisions for you.

Sometimes it doesn’t go the way you want and can cause long-term mistakes. This also includes the loss of time, money, and resources.

So, how can you ensure that mistakes like this won’t happen?

It’s important for you to build confidence in every employee that works with you. You’ll need to track and optimize everything in your business for better results.

The best way to go about this is to give your team the attention they need.

Once they receive the proper training and feedback, they’ll be able to help you run your business. They can make bigger decisions on the spot. Or, they’ll know to reach out to other team members for guidance. Organizational behavior is essential for improving performance and commitment in the workplace.

As long as you’re transparent and supportive, your team looks forward to honing their skills. When you help them win, they will help you win too.

If you would like to find out how to lead a team to make smarter decisions and improve work performance, Dragon 100™ might be for you.

Dragon 100™ is an advisory board designed for only 100 qualified entrepreneurs. This isn’t for everyone. It’s especially not for every business.

But, if you have what it takes to scale your business to the next level then this is the right place. Inside of Dragon 100™ you’ll surround yourself with the world’s great decision-makers.

You’ll even get to discover how to add an extra 6 or 7 figures to your business in a short period of time. With Dan Lok’s guidance, you’ll save years from figuring it all out on your own.

Click here to apply and become a Dragon 100™ member today.

How To Strengthen Your Brand Reputation By Using Disruptive Technologies

June 24, 2020 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

If you ask business owners what they’re doing to strengthen their brand, you might get a variety of answers. Some might think that only the big guns think about branding. Some might have no idea how to even get a brand at all. But the truth is, every company, no matter how big, has a brand.

Now, more than ever, building a good brand is easy. Surprisingly easy. You don’t need to pay expensive graphic designers for logos- you can use an app. You don’t need to put your employees through a daylong session with a photographer – great photos can be taken with phones too.

Template website builders can create websites in hours. Their quality can match what professional web designers do for most users. Unfortunately, this comes with a downside. Now that everyone can be a brand, it’s harder to be number one.

But do you need to be number one to be on top? Do you even need to be the first? The answer you’ll get in this article might surprise you. But here is a quick peek: Perception is reality. You only need to be perceived as superior and consumers will treat you so.

Now, as you will learn, this is not as easy as it sounds. But by the end of this article, you’ll know how to shift perceptions and gain this superiority status. You’ll understand what you need to strengthen your brand and become a disruptor at the same time.

How To Strengthen Your Brand By Becoming A Disruptor

You’ve probably heard the term disruptor before. But what does it actually mean? Can only startups become disruptors? How do you go about it? Do you need to be innovative?

In this article, we’ll discuss what you need to disrupt an industry. You’ll discover what steps you can take to do so. But let’s begin by defining disruption first. According to its official definition by Clayton M. Christensen, disruption has five criteria:

1. It’s a process, not a product or service, that occurs from the fringe to mainstream

Are you hoping that your product will be the new Netflix? You’ll be disappointed. Powerful disruptors didn’t change the game the day they came out. Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix many times before. Few people took Wikipedia seriously as a source of information at first.

Go in with the mindset that you have to work hard and that it won’t be easy. But with the right framework, you have a chance to succeed.

2. Originate in low-end (less demanding customers) or new market (where none existed) footholds

This means that disruptive technologies originally don’t appeal to mainstream demand. They satisfy a need that first occurs in emerging markets or is unimportant to the current market. What does this mean?

A new product or technology doesn’t always have to be the very best. It can be a cheaper solution with fewer features than the current incumbents offer. Not every customer needs a space station’s worth of technology in their pockets. Especially if it costs a monthly salary to buy.

Some people are happy with a $200-$300 smartphone. They don’t need the latest features.

Your solution could also meet demand current incumbents don’t address. Going back to our Netflix and Wikipedia example: You remember, before them, consumers needed to go to public libraries and video rental stores. It seems ages ago, doesn’t it?

3. New firms don’t catch on with mainstream customers until quality catches up with their standards

This is important. Most disruptive offers are seen as inferior. Consumers won’t buy only because your product is cheaper. Looking back at Netflix and Wikipedia:

Libraries cost a rental fee for books, the same as video rental stores. Wikipedia was free and Netflix charged significantly lower fees. This didn’t give their customers a reason to use them yet, did it?

Netflix needed to step up their game. In the beginning, they offered to send DVD’s to you via mail. They offered a longer return time, so you can conveniently watch them. But only after Netflix became a video streaming service, the market cherished their offer.

In the case of Wikipedia, people didn’t trust the information at first, as everyone could edit it. Wikipedia became a credible source of information after they started monitoring their sources.

4. Success is not a requirement and some business can be disruptive but fail

You might ask: Isn’t the whole point of disruptors to be more successful than their contemporaries?

But remember, it’s a process, not a product or service. Yes, you might have a solution that would be highly disruptive but the market won’t go crazy over you at first.

To master this phase, excellent marketing and presence in the marketplace are crucial. We’ll tell you about this later on.

5. The new firm’s business model differs significantly from the current industry leaders

This is usually what disruption is known for. The big players were not able or willing to go with the times. As a consequence, they were disrupted by a company that thought outside the box.

We’ll give you an easy process to find a spot to disrupt the market later on as well. But for now, let us remind you that you don’t have to tick off all the boxes to become disruptive or succeed as a new company. Yet it helps to know those aforementioned influencing factors ahead of time.

Let’s take a deeper look into those criteria of successful disruption and how you can use them to become successful disruptors.

Once you have a clearer understanding of it, you’ll see why the disruption strategy further down might work well for you.

Before You Strengthen Your Brand, Focus on People

Focus on the people in your company specifically. Disruption needs innovators, out-of-the-box thinkers, and leaders.

How can you build a disruptive company without the people to support the process? Not getting traction in the market can be tedious, mentally taxing, and frustrating. It’s easy to lose faith and give up. But with the right team on your side, executing a disruptive idea is easier.

Dan Lok says: An average idea with an excellent team is worth way more than an excellent idea with an average team. But how do you get such an excellent team?

Train for innovators

Innovation is a learnable skill. So make sure to give your staff the relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities. Look for a strong desire to be the first and prepare them for heavy competition trying to keep you down. This will happen sooner or later and if you’re prepared, that’s one more step towards success.

Change the culture

Allow employees to explore, experiment, and bring in new ideas. Let them be on the offensive and take initiative on their ideas. Most companies try to play it safe when they start but disruption needs another approach.

Hire for disruptors

Being unconventional requires unconventional methods to hire people. Put a hiring process in place to see their creativity, thinking skills, and problem-solving skills.

With the right team by your side, you can now focus on earning your place in the mainstream. To be truly disruptive, make sure to start from scratch. Don’t just try to work within the boundaries as everyone else. Step completely outside the box and approach from an angle no one else comes form. As Albert Einstein put it: We cannot solve problems with the same mental state in which we created them.

Strengthen Your Brand By Superior Presence

This a powerful strategy that Dan Lok used to build his global empire. Remember, a successful disruptor makes customers feel that the quality of the product meets their standards. Yet, value is very subjective, right? But if you control how people perceive you, there is a good chance you also control how they perceive your offer.

People don’t buy because they understand that you’re better. They buy because they feel understood by you. So get in their daily lives, and be in front of them as much as possible.

Ask yourself – how can I be constantly in front of my target audience?

You see, it usually takes 5-20 touchpoints until a client considers to buy from you. Why is that? Today’s market is very crowded and consumers get bombarded by different ads constantly.

So what then if you don’t have a huge advertising budget? Well, this could be a challenge. It’s hard to overcome loud competition and cut through the noise.

This is tough for disruptors especially. At first, customers don’t know, like, or trust you. Yet, with increasing touchpoints, you gain increasing attention and trust.

What can you use to get exposure? Technology and tools that is accessible to the masses, relatively cheap and free: Content. Use blogs, YouTube videos, webinars, social media posts, podcasts, emails…to just name a few.

You might wonder – Which of those platforms and tools should I use? The short answer is – all of them. If this is not possible yet, focus on the medium that your ideal prospect is most comfortable with.

Strengthen Your Brand With Content Variety

It pays great dividends to use funnels as well to educate and warmup your clients. A rule of thumb is, for every $1000 you want to charge give them one hour of valuable and relevant content.

What kind of content can you create? Anything you like, but there are two types of it: Paid and Organic.

Paid content entails anything that you pay for like Facebook and Google Ads. Organic content is anything you put out for free, like blogs, emails or social media posts.

You can mix and match them together, to create automated value ladders for your clients. This way, you’ll be able to engage them when they are ready, on their time and on their terms.

This way you will be different and more valuable. Remember, any company can just put out one ad hoping to get their business. But putting out content is beneficial to you in more than one way:

It enhances brand awareness
It allows you to prepare your clients. You can pre-handle objections, filter out unqualified prospects, and more
It gives you an authority status. By creating content on every platform, you’ll gain a stronger status in your industry.

Imagine you’re looking for a product and there are multiple providers.

One of them has thousands of posts, hundreds of articles, and you see their ads everywhere. The others only have a great website and a newsletter. hat would you think if you were the customer?

How To Strengthen Your Brand And Penetrate The Market

How else can you make your audience appreciate you? Make it easier for them to explore your product or service. Show them you truly understand them.

Become your own client. Walk a few miles in their shoes, look for their most pressing problems. A problem is a product, as Dan Lok says. See what they are using to solve those problems.

What current solutions can they access? Are they sufficient? If not, what’s missing? That’s where you can come in and give them what they are looking for.

You can use this checklist to do your research:

Scan the market for strong demands. Are there certain hot products available currently? Do any of those get criticism for certain missing or unwelcome features?
Find that one pressing demand you want to satisfy and map out your ideal audience
Become your ideal audience and recreate their lifestyle. What is their life like, why are they using the product or service you want to disrupt? What are possible alternatives and what does your future customer like and doesn’t like about it?
If you found the missing piece of the puzzle, now strategize how you can solve it easier. How can you do it cheaper, and more conveniently for your customer? Ask yourself: Why didn’t the competition address this pain point yet?
Once you have your solution, it’s time to become visible. Find a proven formula and strategy to market within your niche. Execute the blueprint with your team

Once you have traction and people are picking up on your offer, it’s time to scale. Use a combination of social media, paid and organic traffic and remote teams. Remote teams increase your agility and allow you to use employees more efficiently. They don#t spend long times in commute and could even work in different time zone. This way, you can quickly react to what happens in the market. Especially if your competition tries to make a move against you.

Don’t underestimate the power of social media. When you want to strengthen your brand take a look at which social media platforms can help you. If you’re more in the B2B space, LinkedIn might be a good choice to start.

Facebook can give you great insights into your metrics and has a lot of data on your audience. TikTok and Instagram are also very powerful, especially with teenage audiences. Now, some of those platforms still count as low value or low status. This is why the established businesses rarely use them, if at all.

This might be one of the pathways into the mainstream. Appear where your competition doesn’t go. From there, you can build up a powerful following under the radar of the incumbents. As with many disruptors, they might only notice you when they can’t ignore you anymore.

It’s Not Easy To Strengthen Your Brand As A Disruptor – Unless You Know This

If you want to shortcut this path, you might find value in Dan Lok’s program created it for his high-level clients. You see, many companies want to hire Dan for consulting to grow faster, manage their teams better and become crisis-proof.

Yet, he has to reject most of those requests as he has only a very limited amount of time available. This is why he created the High Ticket Influencer Program. It’s a blueprint on how to dominate your industry by becoming the most influential company in the niche.

You’ll learn how to build an elaborate content system to attract clients. What’s so special about it? It warms them up and sells for you while being fully automated and consistent.

In this program, Dan explains how to leverage webinars and social media to become nearly omnipresent. This enables you to sell with powerful messages 24/7. Furthermore, you’ll learn how to make your disruptive offers into high ticket offers and l increase your margins.

As a bonus, you’ll also gain access to Dan’s directors of Copy, Revenue, and Advertising. This way, you get insights on possible weak spots before they become a serious problem.

But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you ever wished to have Dan’s influence, reach, and status, then this is the program for you. It contains the exact, step-by-step blueprint to replicate what Dan did in record time.

If you want to become a disruptor and strengthen your brand, check the High Ticket Influencer Program here.

Creating A Positive Work Environment: How Your Corporate Culture Can Be Supportive, Harmonious and Flexible

June 21, 2020 by Dan Lok

As a business owner, how do you create a positive work environment? Do you load up the kitchen with snacks? Give your employees a raise? Or give them more vacation than the competitors? These are all good methods to increase team morale. But when it comes to creating a positive work environment, they are not the best long-term solutions.

Successful business leaders know that creating this company culture at its core is important. In fact, having a positive work environment is the most important factor when it comes to building a good company. Business strategy, systems, and management all come secondary.

Reasons To Create a Positive Work Environment

When your employees are happy, they are more likely to perform at their best. Instead of cutting corners when the boss isn’t around, they take ownership of their work. This builds trust, which benefits all parties involved.
Trust gives you peace of mind. You can do other things knowing your team will produce results.
A poor work environment benefits no one. It means that your team members are conflicted with one another. As Abraham Lincoln said: “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.” If your team members are not on the same page, nothing will get done. And if nothing gets done, your business will fail.

How to Create A Positive Work Environment

1. Make company culture at your core

Company culture boils down to how employees perform, react, and respond to things when you are not there. Do they have the skills to handle things by themselves? Or do they panic and call you up when something goes wrong? These are indicators that show you what kind of culture you have.

If you want to grow a successful company, you need a good culture. When you have a large organization, you can’t always be there for your team. You have to let them do their job, and they have to let you do the same. You need to trust that they will do their best when you are not there. And trust is about knowing their values.

Values are the beliefs someone has. Someone with strong values will not take shortcuts even though they can. They will be honest in everything they do. Other terms for values are integrity, ethics, or morals.

Creating a positive work environment requires people with the right values. Oftentimes, the people you hire will not have the same values you are looking for. As a result, you need to let them know what values are important to you.

A good culture will help people develop the right values. When they see everyone else acting in a certain way, it will influence them to do the same.

2. Reinforce the values of the company daily

Successful CEO’s know the importance of a positive work environment. In fact, the most successful companies today make work culture a priority. These are the companies that are at and beyond the billion dollar mark.

When you have the right culture, things will take care of itself. Your people will automatically perform and produce results. They will come up with the right strategies.

Here’s an example: if you’ve ever attended a networking event, you may have participated in an icebreaker. This is where people get divided into teams to solve a complex problem.

Oftentimes, the team with the best culture produces the best results. They are able to come up with the answer before anyone else. Or produce a solution that trumps all the other teams. This is because they have good culture. Everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goal. They work together instead of figuring things out by themselves. That allows them to produce results much faster than if they were alone.

This example shows why company culture is number one. Even though these people do not know each other, they can produce results. They don’t need systems, management, or team leaders. They can figure things out by themselves.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Share on X

3. Educate and Be Transparent

Creating a positive work environment is not easy. It requires a lot of patience and time. This is because people cannot instantly adapt to new changes. They need time to get used to how things are done.

New people that join your team do not understand your culture or values. Oftentimes, they come from a different background with different values and beliefs. As a result, it will take time for them to shift their mindset.

How can you create a positive work environment? Educate the team and be transparent, show them the values of the company and how it affects them. Once the team understands the culture, you don’t have to check up on them anymore. In fact, it becomes a benefit. Now, these people can breed the next generation of new team members. You can put them in charge of drilling the company’s values into the new hires.

So what about people that refuse to conform? What if your employees are aware of your company values but don’t do what you want them to? The only advice we have is to remove them from the team. One bad apple will ruin the whole lot. If even one member of your organization goes Rambo, it affects the entire company.

Understand that there is a difference between someone struggling to conform and someone who refuses to. If it has only been a few weeks, chances are they are still learning. But if it has been going on for months, you are better off finding people who understand your values.

4. Apply The 3 Values To Create A Positive Work Environment

There are 3 values you need to create good culture: loyalty, harmony, and results.

1. Loyalty

Loyalty is important for creating a positive work environment. Let’s say you have an A-player in your company. If they are not loyal to you, they are not useful. They may use their skills to mess up your organization or to stab you in the back.

A loyal team member is a trustworthy one. These are people who are happy to grow alongside you instead of leaving you behind. These are people you want in your company. They understand that everyone prospers when they add value.

2. Harmony

Another value that’s important for creating a positive work environment is harmony.
Let’s say you had a superstar in your company but this person cannot work with others. They are a lone wolf who no one can get along with.
This is an example of someone who is arrogant. They believe their way of doing things is the right way. They are straying from the pack. To them, results are all that matters. They don’t have to buy into culture.
You will need people who can harmonize with others if you want to create a good team environment.

3. Results

A team that cannot get along cannot produce great results. Imagine your team members as an army. An army must work together to win. If they cannot work together, they will fight with one another and end up straying from the group.
Now, you have different groups trying to conquer different things. This is inefficient because most likely they do not have enough strength on their own. But if they focused their efforts as one to conquer a similar goal, their chance of success increases.
Creating a positive work environment allows team members to work in harmony. The efforts of many people get multiplied many times when focused.

5. Enforce Your Standards For Creating A Positive Work Environment

How can you create a great company culture? What if you have conflict? You must be very strict about enforcing company harmony. This means not allowing conflicts or politics in the team. If anyone tries to create drama, they must be removed. Their negativity may create problems that affect other members. This results in a disruption of operations in the business.

Not enforcing company harmony is the same as watching your business burn. This will result in workers getting lazy. Or finding ways to exploit the business. When morale is low, so are the results produced. Internal problems will negatively affect your business.

To avoid this, find people who associate with your company values. People who are loyal, can get along with others, and produce results are the people you want to look for. They will create a great team environment where everyone is happy. And the happier they are, the more efficiently they’ll perform.

6. Everyone Needs To Be On The Same Page

During 480 BC, the Greek city-state known as Sparta went to war against Persia. The Greek army had 7,000 men at it’s disposal; the Persian army had over a million. To delay the Persian army’s advance, the Greeks blocked off a small road known as Thermopylae.

The plan was to have the Persian’s fight in this narrow passageway. From the results of their first day’s battle, the plan seemed to be successful. The Greeks were able to hold off the Persian army with little casualties.

On the second day of battle, disaster struck. The Greeks were betrayed, and the Persians learned of another road they could take. As a result, the Greeks found themselves fighting a battle on two fronts – from the front and from behind. Their focus divided, they could not hold the enemy off, and after three days, they lost the fight.

This example shows how important teamwork is. On the first day of battle, the Greeks had no trouble fighting off the Persians. This is because everyone had the same goal in mind: to hold off the front.

When their focus was divided, suddenly they found themselves struggling. Half their force was occupied with the front. And half of the force was occupied with the rear. They no longer had the same goal in mind. Instead of being united as one, they were now split up.

Some soldiers followed orders and stuck together. Others broke rank and charged ahead by themselves. They were outnumbered and killed. Over the course of three days, these small mistakes added up costing the lives of 7,000 soldiers.

When their focus was one, they were successful. When it was divided, their defenses crumbled. The Greeks represent your business. You want everyone focused if you want to be successful.

Your Company Culture Determines Your Success

Team members who do not know company values need to learn them fast. If even one member strays from the goal, the entire formation becomes broken. This results in the whole team failing.

Like the Greeks, your team members are an army. If they move together as one, they will succeed. Their efforts become multiplied when they work together. They can look out for one another and cover each other’s weaknesses.

But what happens if one of them doesn’t work with the others? What if they go Rambo and do their own thing?

Here’s what happens: your team members start doing the wrong things. Let’s say your company culture values three things: open communication, following the group, and taking ownership for your actions.

Now let’s take these values and implement them into a battle scenario. 6,999 of your soldiers understand these values. 1 of them does not. If this army clashes with the enemy, guess what will happen? The one soldier will not communicate, follow the group, or take ownership for his or her actions.

They may abandon the fight and run off. Charge ahead by themselves. Or in the worst case scenario, do all of the above and influence others to do the same.

If one team member strays from the pack, it influences others to do the same, which then influences more people. And so on and so on. Now, instead of one cohesive unit, you have everyone doing their own thing. Chaos breaks out, and no one knows what to do. As a result, they all get slaughtered.

Business is war. One soldier who does not understand orders will jeopardize the entire group. Make sure your team members understand what they should do, or your company will fail.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all. - George Washington Share on X

A Checklist Successful Organizations Use To Build A Thriving Company Culture

Creating a positive work environment is necessary for business success, how you create this positivity within the company is down to you as the CEO or Managing Director.

To achieve great things, you need a team of people. These people need to understand company culture if they want to succeed. When everyone is on the same page, they are able to work faster. They’ll be able to use their creativity to solve problems. And create results in your company.

This is why things like business strategy or management come second. When you have good company culture, you don’t need to spend time on those things. Your team members will be able to come up with their own solutions. They will create the strategies, take ownership, and manage themselves.

You want to create an organization that is independent. They should be able to work without your supervision. If you always need to supervise them, you are not a business owner. You are a babysitter. And a babysitter does not get paid as well.

The most successful organizations in the world all have two things in common. They have a great culture, and they are super successful. If you are looking to achieve the same results, you need to create a positive work environment.

The Dragon 100™checklist is a summation of these things and more. If you want one you can use in your business, get your copy now.

How to Sustain Organizational Culture During a Global Expansion

June 18, 2020 by Dan Lok

Perhaps you plan on scaling your business: more clients, more sales, more profit? If you’re trying to figure out how to sustain organizational culture during global expansion, there are a few things you should know.

Organizational culture isn’t easy to maintain. When the work environment is changing, you can’t expect everything to stay the same. But the truth is – some employees will resist change.

That’s why it’s crucial for you to build a strong organizational culture from the start. When you have this, changes in your company won’t affect you as much.

You can think of this as getting gas for your car. If you put in premium gas, your car will be longer-lasting since it’s higher-quality fuel. If you don’t, your car problems can cost you a lot more in the future.

Here are 7 tips on how you can build and sustain organizational culture during global expansion:

1. Set Your Core Values Straight to Build and Sustain Organizational Culture

It is important to have a clear set of core values from the start. You should mention your values during every hiring process. This actually should take priority over talking about skills throughout the interview.

Employees need to be clear about core values because it’ll help them make better decisions. If someone doesn’t agree with them, then they most likely aren’t a good fit for your company. They may have the right skill set, but if they don’t follow your core values they won’t align with the rest of your team.

You would be surprised how many companies don’t do this. In fact, 19% of employees either don’t understand their core values or simply don’t know them. How can these businesses achieve global expansion then? But if they are clear on values – the scenario in crisis is quite different. When something goes wrong, employees will take immediate action to protect core values.

There are many innovative and creative ways to remind your team of your core values to build and sustain strong organizational culture.

The way Dan Lok chose core values for his company is by modeling off his top team members. He listed out the traits he liked the most in his superstars and sorted them by importance:

Loyalty
Harmony
Extreme Ownership
High-Performance
Client Success
Constant Improvement

Anyone who has worked with him or been his student understands this and knows these values. You can read more about Dan’s core values here and see why he’s able to create a high-performing global team.

When every team member is on the same page, that team is unbeatable. Their workflow will be that much stronger too. There are fewer mistakes made, and more results produced.

Isn’t that what every successful company hopes for?

2. Open Up Communication Often

Are you confident in your company’s communication enough to grow globally? If you want to know how to sustain organizational culture during global expansion, then you must keep your team in mind.

If you’re expanding globally, keep in mind that some employees will be in different timezones. Since they work as a team, deadlines will suffer if one doesn’t respond in time. This might cause some bottlenecks and workflow disruptions.

The best way to handle this is to have everyone practice communicating in a transparent way. That means you should encourage daily updates and feedback. If one employee predicts a project delay, then they need to mention this early on. This will get the whole team up to speed and allow them to troubleshoot ahead of time.

If you want to figure out how to sustain organizational culture while growing globally, then you must use good communication and project management tools. These will allow everyone to stay in touch. When the team is informed, every project will keep a positive consistency.

One way to do this is to hold meetings or video calls often. These meetings are meant to make sure everyone is clear about priorities. They also allow more people to ask you direct questions.

Not all meetings have to be serious – you could have fun too. People can share their wins of the week, or introduce a new team member. As long as everyone is in the loop, nobody will have to go through the process of reexplaining to anyone.

Your team will appreciate you for involving them more. This makes them feel important to your company and fulfilled by what they do.

3. Hiring Your Dream Team

When you take caution in hiring, you’re already setting yourself up for long-term success. This will ensure that you sustain a strong organizational culture. Wouldn’t you want a hands-off high-performing team?

Whoever you hire should also be a good fit with your other employees. If that person can interact well with the rest of the team, you can count on team members to help each other out. That way, you’ll be less involved and have more time to focus on your goals.

People are the backbone of your whole company during global expansion. Hiring isn’t just looking at someone’s resume. It’s better if you get to know them on a deeper level. This will help you envision what’s possible in that given partnership. Look beyond the paper and think about this person as a whole.

In fact, Dan Lok doesn’t look at resumes when he hires new employees. He looks at skills, performance, and if the person will fit well into the company culture. So far, the results have been working in his favor.

Skills can always be taught. Company culture cannot. Share on X

Remember to take your time when hiring people. If you need to hire someone fast, you could give them the opportunity and keep a close eye on them. Set expectations and a time frame; let them know that their team performance has to meet your needs, or it won’t work.

You wouldn’t want to keep bad apples, would you? This may negatively impact your organizational culture.

4. Feedback is Always Welcomed to Sustain Organizational Culture

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, said “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”

Feedback is a crucial element of any organizational culture. If you’re not receiving enough feedback, how can you expand globally? It’ll be hard for your company to last long if you don’t make constant improvements.

If your company is growing fast, you can expect difficulties in keeping up with feedback. That’s why it’s important to make sure feedback is a part of the workflow. Get your whole team to work with it.

One way you can do this is by setting up a feedback channel. That way, you will be aware of any issues, as well as the good news. You can communicate through company meetings. If you want to hear feedback from customers, you can send out surveys.

Here are some ways you can offer feedback to your team as a leader:

Focus on how each individual can change
Explain the specific behavior you expect
Stay factual and avoid being too directive
Point out opportunities for growth
Talk in private and praise in public
Prepare useful and honest feedback
Manage your emotions for a better outcome
Support and strengthen a person
Start by stating what is working
Get straight to the point
Don’t make broad-based claims
Encourage constructive criticism
Discuss the impact and action
Use criticism without emotion
Show respect and maintain dignity

Whether it’s good or bad, you’ll need constructive feedback for you and your team. It will guide you to better company performance. If you know how to frame and deliver it right, your team will thank you for it. They will appreciate the time you take to show them you care about their growth.

5. No One’s Success Leaves Unnoticed

40% of employed Americans would put more energy into their work if they were recognized more often. It’s a continuous effort to measure success in every organizational culture. Every global company requires commitment from all employees to make a positive impact.

Aside from hitting sales goals, your company should celebrate other types of achievements. This includes accomplishments made by each individual. If you keep your employees happy, they’ll keep your company happy.

Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, said “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

As your company expands globally, employee satisfaction is still as important. With more employees on board, having regular recognition will increase loyalty. When you recognize each individual for their accomplishments, it shows you care. You can also encourage everyone else to celebrate each other’s milestones.

One easy way you can do this is to make a team announcement. There should be never-ending recognition to keep team encouragement strong. When you do this, employees will strive to go above and beyond for their next accomplishment.

You could also recognize and celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, or pregnancies. It doesn’t matter how small or big the reward is – it feels good to show appreciation often.

Dan Lok is always finding ways to recognize his students’ success. You might’ve seen some announcements from his social media channels.

He even hosts his annual Closers In Black™ event and invites students from all over the world to meet him. Upon shaking their hands, he tells them how proud he is as he hands out awards.

Whenever a student reaches a milestone, Dan makes it public. He likes to keep rewarding people for their successes. This is the type of encouragement that gets them to stay confident and accomplish more.

Wouldn’t this be something you’d want for yourself too?

6. Create an Unstoppable Support System

Accountability can help you move the needle the most. When you have everyone on your side supporting you, you will easily achieve your goals.

Working alone may not be as exciting, and it becomes harder to get things done. When you have support, you also have constant encouragement and feedback. When you’re accountable for your actions, you will increase your chance of success by up to 95%.

So, every global organization needs to develop an unstoppable support system. If every employee has someone to turn to for support, most problems will be resolved a lot faster.

As a leader, you can set employees up to help one another. There can be both supervision and peer support. For supervisor support, you could pair up mentors and mentees together. For peer support, you can group a whole department.

Some employees might fall into the lone-wolf mentality. Having constant support will encourage members of your team to get out of their comfort zones. It’s a great opportunity to let your team build relationships within the company. Working for you would become even more enjoyable.

You should create and keep a work environment in which you’d like to be all the time. Make it as flexible as possible during global expansion.

Don’t let your employees simply clock in and clock out. They should feel proud of their position. Instead, get them to contribute by sharing their thoughts for better growth.

In a global community, such as Dan Lok’s Facebook groups, you’ll never see a post left with no views. Every voice is heard and responded to with either a like, comment, or both. There’s constant support from people around the world and in all time zones.

Because of this massive support, Dan’s students feel they have a safe place to express themselves. When you have people who understand your journey, it’s easy to share the steps that get you there.

You’ll see posts about questions, failures, and wins. All these are equally as important because people can learn from each other. If you have an issue, most likely someone else can relate. You might even look like a hero for bringing it up and helping others.

7. Traditions Must Live On

If something is working well for you, do more of it. Then, keep doing more – don’t stop.

Whether it’s the way you host your meetings or your company language – you must keep that tradition alive. These are unique characteristics of your company that you shouldn’t ignore. These traditions will distinguish you from other companies. They give employees an inclusive experience.

For example, you could rent out a yacht every year and throw a Christmas party. It’s going to be something every employee looks forward to and talks about for weeks. Other people would wish they worked for you if they heard about this.

You can even develop smaller traditions if your company isn’t a big team. The goal is to maintain these traditions and not lose them. It might be easy to lose when there are fewer people; don’t let this happen to you. Keep maintaining tradition no matter how big it gets, too.

When you establish more company traditions, you create a fun and social environment. This will help increase engagement and make a positive impact on company culture.

Even if you have many locations worldwide, you can get everyone to do something together. It can be something as simple as dressing casual on Fridays or catering for every holiday – whatever works for you.

Sustain Organizational Culture During Global Expansion The Right Way

Things might never be the same again once you’ve scaled your company globally. There is a lot to think about in order to make sure it is a success.

One thing’s for sure – you must do whatever you can to sustain organizational culture. You should be confident in your team to be willing to make changes with you. If your team’s communication isn’t strong, your organizational culture may fall apart. That’s not a great way to start expanding your business globally.

It’s better to keep everyone on the same page during changes. Otherwise, some employees will have low performance or run into more mistakes. You need to keep in mind that several elements can make your company come together – feedback, support, and strong tradition will help make a better bond.

Dan Lok always says, “Team culture is the backbone of Team Dan Lok.” Because Dan scaled his global community, it has had a great impact on all his businesses. He’s able to reach more partners, clients, and employees.

Do you want to know what the best part is? Everyone is familiar with his company culture before even joining him. This is something that doesn’t need to be taught over and over again.

Since his employees all share the same core values, it’s a more enjoyable environment to work in. Wouldn’t it be great to be around like-minded people who only want to see you succeed?

If you’d like to get Dan Lok to guide your company through global expansion, Dragon 100™ might be the place for you.

Dragon 100™ is an advisory board meant for A-players who want to scale their business from 6-figures to 7-figures. This isn’t something for everyone, though. If you think you have what it takes, you can join the rest of the 100 dragons.

Click here to apply for a membership to Dragon 100™.