Culture: How an Entrepreneur can Build Their Dream Team with Jason Haugen: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how an entrepreneur can build their dream team. We're talking culture. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought to Jason Haugen and the EO Fire Studios. Jason is a husband, father, serial entrepreneur, and business owner. He is the CEO of Haugen RV Group, a$100 million plus dealership group across multiple states. And today we talk about how entrepreneurship is about taking risks, be willing to take them, set clear, customized and achievable goals, and love your people.

0:36John Lee Dumas:See them as assets, not just a way to make money and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jason and our sponsors. Cape is a privacy first mobile carrier built from the ground up with security as the priority. If you care about protecting your digital life without giving up your smartphone, Cape makes that possible. Visit cape.co forward slash fire and use code fire for 33 % off Cape for six months today. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:11John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Jason, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:33Jason Haugen:Hey, how's it going? Thank you so much for having me. I think one thing that people disagree with is taking risks. I mean, with anything in entrepreneurship, you have to definitely take risks. And I know a lot of people just are not willing to do that and step out of the box.

1:47John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, it's no fun inside the box. Let's get out of that box. And as I mentioned in the introduction, we're talking about culture today, specifically how an entrepreneur can build their dream team because Fire Nation, you can't do it alone. You shouldn't want to do it alone. So we're talking about all this jazz today. And you believe in the maxi showing up, Jason. What does this mean to you?

2:13Jason Haugen:So definitely, I think one big thing with entrepreneurs, with business owners, CEOs, is they kind of expect a lot of people to do things that they wouldn't do themselves. And so when I tell people to show up, it's definitely something where you need to show

2:29John Lee Dumas:up for your team. You need to lead from the front.

2:31Jason Haugen:And I think we're going to get to that in a little bit, but you definitely need to show up and show you that you're a united front, especially if you have an executive team. You all need to be on the same page. You all have to be speak in the same language, if you will, and just be together and show up for your team. If there's something important going on, if there's a big event, definitely show that you care because a lot of employees, in my experience, they just work and they do their thing and they always think their bosses don't care about them. Whether it's a manager, it's a general manager, It's a regional manager, a CEO, a business owner, whatever it is.

3:11Jason Haugen:They just believe in their heart that they just don't care that they're just there to make them money.

3:15John Lee Dumas:I love that phrase, show up. Because one thing that I really resonate that Gary Vaynerchuk talks a lot about is a lot of people come to him and say, why? Why, Gary? Why doesn't my team work as hard as I do? Why doesn't everybody just get to the office early, stay late, give everything, screw work-life balance? like, why don't they have the same passion and fire as me? And he's like, well, number one, like you're probably not showing that passion and fire to them enough. But number two, like you're the leader. You are the person that has ownership and equity in the company. And they're, you know, they're for a paycheck.

3:49John Lee Dumas:They're there getting a salary. Maybe they have a little bit of equity, but nothing to the magnitude that you do as well. So how can you expect them to do that, especially when you're not doing the things we'll be talking about here today? One of those things, which you did kind of allude to a little bit, Jason, leading from the front. Let's talk about this and give some examples.

4:07Jason Haugen:Leading from the front is so important because like I said

4:09John Lee Dumas:before, it's really hard for me, at least in my personal self, is to do something, to ask someone

4:15Jason Haugen:to do something that I would never do myself. And it's not that if you can't do it, people get that confused. If you are unable or you do not have the skill, obviously, like you are going to ask, In my line of work, with dealerships, I'm not going to be out there turning wrenches. I probably could, but I don't know how to do that. But they know that I would be out there talking with them, doing anything I can to help them. I've washed vehicles before. I've done wash trailers. I've done all these things, and they know that. And so showing that you will come in, and you will help them, and you are leading from the front, and you are expecting the same thing of yourself as you are from the team, the the thing I you know I always call it the seagull mentality and I don't know if you ever heard of the seagull mentality but basically it's you know a lot of bosses managers come in you know they might come into the line of work or come into the business and they kind of they fly in they you know excuse me for my language they on everything and they fly back out and it really frustrates people that they they come in they change the world and they they they leave and especially if you have businesses across the country or multiple stores or anything like that of you just walk in, you know, and you walk out.

5:28Jason Haugen:And so when you're leading from the front, you're, you're doing the things that you ask your team, you know, the, of what you want them to do for you. And you're showing them and you're walking alongside of them. You're not just barking orders. Hey, do this and do that. You are, you are, it's literally a, you know, a team effort. And I a hundred percent believe that.

5:46John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, that philosophy is so common in the workplace today. And it's so sad because it just is demoralizing. It makes people feel like, well, I'm being micromanaged. Like, does my opinion not count? You need to be thinking about things like this when you're running your company, when you're leading from the front for your employees. And Jason, you do know a little bit about this, but Fire Nation, the people that are listening here today, they're entrepreneurs. They are small business owners. They are side hustlers. They're people that are getting into this world of entrepreneurship or have been here for a while looking to grow, expand.

6:18John Lee Dumas:Let's talk specifics. about what our job as a business owner is. Take that away.

6:24Jason Haugen:Definitely surprising because I've had multiple meetings. I've been in multiple meetings with different businesses. And when I go meet with them as a vendor, and I always ask them what they think my job is. And they always come up with different things as, your job's to obviously make the money or to make the decisions or do this and do that. And ultimately, it comes down to my belief is I'm here to serve the people. and whatever that means, whatever I can do to help my executive team and any manager in my company, it's always to set their people up for success. And if you're constantly thinking about how can I set my people up for success?

7:01Jason Haugen:How can I better my people? How can I make them more money? How can I help? And even if you're just by yourself, kind of think about how can I get better today? And what can I do to help? Most businesses are helping a need out there, covering a need, or they're supplying a service. And so how can I help my customers? How can I help my people? And my thoughts used to be, how can I make more money today? What can I do to make more money? And it just got such a negative feeling in me that I just felt bad. I couldn't even go to my stores and look at people in the face and say, I care about you because I didn't.

7:39Jason Haugen:And when I changed my thinking and changed how can I serve them and how can I help them and how can I make them more money and what can I do to better them and look at their systems and look at everything to do with what they're doing. And if I hear complaints or hear this or hear that, okay, let's check out how it's rolling out. Let's do everything we possibly can to set you up for success, get the tools that you need for success. That's what I believe a business owner, a CEO really needs to focus on.

8:04John Lee Dumas:Can you answer that question yourself, Fire Nation? what is my job here? Have you ever asked yourself that question? That's a question you need to know forefront. Are you there to set your people up for success? Are you doing that day in and day out? And ask yourself that question, how can I get better today? And Jason, this is something I typed out when you were talking and I like your feedback on it. I wrote, money should be the result of your actions, not the sole focus.

8:33Jason Haugen:Exactly. I 100 % believe that. And when you get It's so focused on money. It's like you become a different person. And there are some people out there that I do know that are very successful as far as dollar-wise, but I wouldn't associate my name with them. And some of them have a lot of money, but just how they deal with their people and they deal with me and they deal with people in the public, I just don't believe that they're doing the right things. and eventually I think that things will come around and it might burn and hurt them. But I 100 % believe that you take the focus off the money and you focus on the people, things will turn around and things will change.

9:13John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we're gonna be talking about a winning culture. We're gonna be talking about incentives and events for your team members when we get back from thanking our sponsors. When's the last time you thought about your phone carrier? Probably never, unless something went wrong. The biggest carriers, AT &T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have made headlines again and again for data breaches, tracking, and even selling customer data. And what most people don't realize is that VPNs and encrypted apps only protect part of the equation. At the cellular level, risk like SIM swaps, call interception, and silent tracking can still happen behind the scenes.

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10:17John Lee Dumas:Visit cape.co4 slash fire and use code fire for 33 % off Cape for six months today. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most.

10:53John Lee Dumas:When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Jason, we're back. And as we mentioned right before the break, winning culture. You believe a winning culture is both creating goals and objectives for your team and measuring them, keyword measuring them. Talk to us about this. Give us some specifics.

11:36Jason Haugen:I totally believe that creating goals, creating objectives for your teammates to do and then creating incentive programs is a huge thing because people, what I've found is, you know, you can, money doesn't solve all problems. And so if you just keep throwing money at people and you keep throwing, here's, you know, here's this and here's that, it doesn't accomplish the goal. And so if you create objectives or goals around what you are trying to accomplish and what you're trying to accomplish, maybe in that specific store or that specific month, customize it to, If you have one employee, two employees, three employees, or a team, we customize our incentive programs to departments or teams.

12:21Jason Haugen:And it's very different for every store we have because every store is very different. And so maybe they're trying to hit a certain efficiency. Maybe they're trying to hit a certain sales goal or something like that. We totally customize it around them and make it achievable. but we also put like a kind of a crazy goal out there that everything would have to happen perfect and it's a crazy goal but you know it's out there and here's the incentive that you get and a lot of people and we found a lot a lot of times they hit it because if you put it out there and you know it's kind of the new it's it's it's what everybody's moving for and it's really important that every single person on the team is moving towards the same goal and they know what that goal is and then it's not a competition between each other it's helping each other it's helping lift the entire department.

13:08Jason Haugen:It's helping lift the entire company to whatever incentive or whatever thing they're going to get. I think it's super key. It can't, it cannot be, it can be a healthy competition between maybe, you know, the same department in different stores or maybe the different departments within the store, but at the same team, at the same time, you're all on the same team. Like, you know, it, they have to know that and it's, and it's there, it's there to help them. And the crazy thing you found is to say, you know, they're trying to hit a sales goal of, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a month or something like that.

13:39Jason Haugen:And they've never done it. And you create an incentive program where they go and they hit that goal. And it's just amazing. You celebrate them. You do something gnarly. And what I found is that kind of becomes the new baseline. And it's crazy because there are some times where we've never hit a goal and we hit it and then we keep hitting it and keep hitting it and keep hitting it. and then that's just the new norm, then you have to set, you have to raise the bar.

14:03John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, are you creating a winning culture? Are you creating goals? Are you creating objectives? Are you measuring them? And something I'd like to talk to you about, Jason, that maybe you've seen or you haven't, but what about gamifying this whole thing, like making it fun, making it exciting? I mean, this is kind of a weird example. I'm giving you a little time to maybe think about somebody you've worked with or you do this in your team right now that goes way back to my days in corporate America. And I'm not saying this is a great example because it wasn't necessarily fun, but I will say it did kind of light my little competitive spark, I will say that, is that I was in corporate America, John Hancock, and I was making outbound phone calls every single day about a variable annuity product.

14:46John Lee Dumas:That was what my quote-unquote job was as like a 27-year-old in corporate America. And they had this leaderboard that was just always flashing total talk time in most phone calls, and your name was up there. The winner for that day would get a flag on their desk that just essentially said, you know, this person was yesterday's leader, so to speak. And I will say it didn't, you know, really add a lot of fun per se, but it did add some competitive spirits and some competitive juices to the whole game. So something that's maybe a little less corporate than that, But have you seen a way that people have gamified these goals, these objectives, measuring them as well?

15:27John Lee Dumas:What have you seen?

15:28Jason Haugen:100%. I think that that is a great thing to be able to see what everybody else is doing because it definitely creates that competitive nature. That's what you just said. So what we do is we actually have a program that everybody's numbers go into every single day and it's live. And so everyone is seeing what every store does and down to the individuals in that store and no one ever wants to be last. And every week they come up with a different incentive program or every month a different incentive program. And I think it's pretty cool. We also have a texting thread that everybody texts me and my COO and my inventory manager and a few other people.

16:11Jason Haugen:Every general manager or sales manager will text us and tell us their numbers for the day. And we're just making it exciting. And sometimes we're talking a little crap here and there, but it's a fun thing. And no one ever wants to be last. But at the same time, we're always picking each other up. Hey, you didn't hit your goal today. No problem. Tomorrow, just got to do a double, whatever you got to do. And so it definitely will keep people competitive, but you cannot make your own company like a bloodbath. And I've seen that before where people, it gets so competitive that people start to sabotage.

16:43Jason Haugen:And it's like, it defeats the point. And I have conversations with different business owners and different managers of like, you are literally, you are worse off now than you were before you did whatever this incentive program is. So you really have to make sure it does not get so competitive that people are trying to sabotage the company at the same time. But you've got to make it competitive and friendly enough where people definitely want to compete and accomplish the goals that you created for them or they created for themselves. Because I think it's also healthy for me. I always ask them, hey, what do you think you can do?

17:17Jason Haugen:And they will tell me and maybe we'll push it or maybe be like, oh, hey, man, you're way off. Like you got to raise the bar or sometimes, hey, you know, maybe you got to adjust it or whatever you got to do there.

17:26John Lee Dumas:I think that last point is really spectacular and it brings me back to a time I was lucky enough to spend four days in Fiji one-on-one. Well, it was really one-on-ten because it was us and nine other affiliates with Tony Robbins. And we got to ask him one question. And one of the questions that I'm glad somebody asked him was, how do you incentivize your employees? And he says, it's a personal one-on-one basis. He sits every one of them down and says, what would make this job? What's one thing that would make this job the best job for you? is it uh for for work week week is it coming in at 10 a.m instead of 8 a.m is it blah blah blah like is it money like what is the one thing that would make this job the best job for you one that you'd be like i can't replicate this benefit at any other job and that was just this huge thing that whenever people were thinking about leaving and of course churn is such a pain point for all business owners they were saying well man like the money may be a little better or this might be a little more interesting or yada yada.

18:27John Lee Dumas:But they're like, but I'm not going to get that if I leave because Tony's giving me this, the one thing that I asked for above all and everything else. So something to think about. And let's really talk about incentives. Let's talk about events for team members. You mentioned it a little bit a couple of sections ago, but I want to get deeper into incentives, into events specifically for those team members. Are they important? And if so, how do you execute?

18:51Jason Haugen:a hundred percent you know what i believe is you create you know fun incentives and a lot of times i let them create them for their own teams and they kind of come together what would be a good what would be fun um you know really popular one out there is top golf everybody loves top golf but you know we i believe like you know one fun thing that we just did actually was for my all my gms in the stores um i just took them down to las vegas to race race cars around the racetrack for a couple of nights. And that was a blast. And I really believe in incentive programs or events because money, like if I give someone a$2 ,000 or$5 ,000 or even a$10 ,000 bonus, in my eyes, they're just going to go buy tires or go change oil in their car or go buy groceries.