Ep. 612 | Fan Favorite | Martell Media CEO Tod Melnyk - You Had Me at the First Slide

0:01Tod Melnyk: Before we continue, today's episode is supported by our trusted gold partner, Redirect Health. If you've ever felt like you're overspending on health care and your employees can't even afford to use it, then listen up. Redirect Health offers health care benefits that finally make health insurance optional. It's a 24-hour online primary care and Rx membership that protects your business by guiding employees before problems happen. That means you're not overpaying for coverage that you don't need. It's like your mom is your doctor. You'll always know the health care you need, where to get it, and when it makes sense to use insurance so that you can pay the least.

0:39Tod Melnyk: Redirect Health, Protection for Business, and Guidance for People. Go check out redirectcoo.com. That's redirectcoo.com. And if you're talking to them, let them know that Cameron at the COO Alliance recommended you go there as well.

0:58Cameron Herold: We had a couple of people, we had one person, they were here for about a month and they quit. And so we're finding out why they quit. So one of the reasons that they quit is they didn't appreciate the swearing. I swear, Dan swears. It's not like I swear at people, but it's just, you know, it's just the way we kind of roll. Right. So we're like, well, that's, that's kind of interesting. And we're not going to change, you know, who we are, but what we decided to do is we created a video and it's Dan and says, before you apply, I've got a few things I got to tell you though.

1:28Tod Melnyk: This is an amazing opportunity. It's probably not for you. Not because you aren't amazing. You probably are, but because it's only for a very specific kind of person. If taking care of your health turns you off, don't apply. If direct communication turns you off, definitely don't apply, including swearing. If you don't know how to manage yourself, don't apply. And so that's like right up front. Right. Yeah. Unpolarizing. Yeah. Very polarizing. I did that in the job posting one time. I said, you know, you'll be working for it. I used the actual full word, but I said an effing ADD manic bipolar CEO, like you'd be working for an effing blah, blah, blah.

2:03Tod Melnyk: I'm like, oops, there's my first F bomb. And I had people replying going like, I would never work for you. You swore. I'm like, delete. And then other people are like, I have to love that you swore. I'm like, oh, you're interesting. Who are you? I don't like that I do, but culturally, you may as well throw that in their face for me.

2:22Tod Melnyk: Welcome to the Second in Command podcast, produced by the COO Alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the Second in Command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights,

2:35Cameron Herold: strategies, and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now, here's your host, Cameron Herold.

3:11Tod Melnyk: that Dan Martell is putting into the world. Todd is the one who's responsible for monetizing that business and the back end of things. He's got an incredible industry. He's an armor entrepreneur. He's an athlete. He works in the beer industry. He ran microbreweries, worked in the exotic car and European car space, and then somehow connected over an unbelievable interview process. And Dan Martell brought Todd in to run the business. I had the privilege of meeting and hiking with Todd at a couple of the early Tuesday morning founder sites in Kelowna, BC. You're going to love this episode. We actually filmed it inside of Martell Media in the actual studio.

3:46Tod Melnyk: We'll love to have you watch this, both our Second in Command podcast YouTube channel, listen to it on the Apple podcast, and then also share this one with your friends, your family online. Hope you love it. See you on the inside. So we're sitting here with Todd Malnick, who is the Second in Command to Dan Martell with Martell Media. And I'm actually sitting in the Martell Media offices with you, which is the first time I've actually done over 400 episodes. first of all we're done in a guest's office so wow amazing to be here cool to actually get to sit and talk to you and learn from you i have been very inspired by watching dan over the last couple of years i've known dan for 12 years and you are running his company for him you're the the president the ceo coo second in command general manager to the martel media brand business how did you get involved with it and kind of walk us through what that part of dan's business world is today we'll start there.

4:40Yeah.

4:41Cameron Herold: I mean, how I got involved with it, it was about seven, eight months ago, I guess. And Dan decided to go pro in terms of a studio and building that out and the brand. And he was looking for somebody to run the business. And I went through the interview process that we do for everybody. And we have quite an extensive interview process and went through all that. And it was fortunate enough to sort of land the role. did you know him before i followed dan's content for quite some time loved what he did i didn't know him but i loved you know from afar what i saw what he what he stood about so that was that was really intriguing and then when he was looking for somebody to run the business you know i've i have run i have been number two before so it's always like okay well what is that going to look like because there's always a dynamic for that but in terms of what he was looking for for you know operationally and systems and you know some eos stuff and all that that that's sort of my uh that's

5:39Tod Melnyk: how i geek out so sorry talk a little bit about marshall media in a second let's go backwards a little bit then into your careers you've been in number two before you've been in the eos world which is geolickman's entrepreneurial operating system what were you doing before this that dan would have selected you because he's not uh he wouldn't have just picked the first person coming off the street so he saw some stuff what were you doing before so majority of my life i was in the

6:02Cameron Herold: beer business. So I started off with Labatt Breweries and I was there for 18 years. So I started off as a sales rep and I worked my way up to regional director managing a business unit. So I was basically the general manager, sales, marketing, operations, all that kind of stuff. And I had moved all the way through different parts of Canada. I was moving every two years as I was rising through the organization. So I did that for 18 years. And then they wanted me to move again which at the time i didn't want to move again and when you're at that level your career is basically where you go that's kind of it and so i've always been uh very entrepreneurial so i started investing in craft breweries and uh so i did that for 10 years and built some businesses and then sold them and then um after that i went into a small partnership helping we serviced specialized in servicing european cars and i did that and i was the operations person for that um so yeah so i think my my background is large companies but also very entrepreneurial and built you know teams and systems in in both of those types of worlds

7:10Tod Melnyk: that's starting to make sense now because when you were singing labats for 18 years canada's like biggest brewery or kick labats and molson certainly in the one top two that didn't make any sense to me why you would pull somebody out of like a big corporate brewery kind of business stuff that make any connection but yeah managing people managing teams probably good leadership development general manager skills probably pno responsibility exactly all that makes sense but then you made the entrepreneurial leap it sounds like right was that intriguing to him then too like with the um the crop brewery side of things and yeah yeah exactly i mean i think in our in in

7:43Cameron Herold: our world here we're we're obviously dan's very entrepreneurial and so am i so i think that would that played a key part and when you can build i think both you can build uh business and teams in both of those cultures and environments, I think that's pretty attractive. So I think that was definitely part of it. Why did you say yes to him or to this opportunity?

8:03Tod Melnyk: This was eight months ago? Yes. So it was starting to become what we know today. That was starting to have a trajectory. His book, Buy Back Your Time, was out.

8:11Cameron Herold: Yeah. For me, it was the, what's the purpose of our company? So our purpose of the company here is to inspire people to be their best versions of themselves and share their transformation to the world. so that that excites me when you actually can um watch people grow whether that's personally business-wise fitness mindset that that excites me so that that was probably the biggest thing and then uh yeah i mean uh just watching dan and what he stands for and sort of the full spectrum i thought it was just a great opportunity to to learn and bring what i think i can do really well

8:46Tod Melnyk: and and build a company together what was the interview process like to hire a second command Do you recall what it was like that you went through?

8:54Cameron Herold: So we do the same interview process for every single role that we do here. So it starts with you send in a resume and then you send in a one-minute video. And the one-minute video is describe your favorite nonfiction book and why. And then why you would be a good fit for the role. And so it's one minute. So you don't want to go over one minute, but it's kind of intended to see if people can follow sort of instructions, right? So that starts with that. And then after that, it's a 15-minute chat with somebody just on culture fit, get a sense of sort of who you are, you know, fill it out. And then from there, we do assessments.

9:28Cameron Herold: We do a behavioral assessment and a cognitive assessment. And depending on what role there is, there's certain scores that you want to hit, particularly on the cognitive assessment. So that's another step. And then from there, it's a 45-minute interview with, say, the interviewing manager. In my case, that was with Dan and another person named Jason who was helping him recruit. And then you do, after that, it's a test project. So those are going to move forward. You typically take two or three people and you can give them a test project. And depending on what the role is, it's specific to that role.

10:03Cameron Herold: In my case was, what would I do in the first 90 days?

10:05Tod Melnyk: Okay. So you need to submit your 90-day plan.

10:08Cameron Herold: So I submitted the 90-day plan and then I come back and I present it to Dan and Jason. Okay. So I had 45 minutes to present and then they would ask me questions. and then a couple of days later, in my case, I got the job offer and then waited.

10:21Tod Melnyk: How long did the law process take from the first resume coming through to the video and the screening? Not that long. In my case, it was probably about 12 weeks. That's long, three months. I'd say two months. It was probably two months. That's normal. Yeah, normal. You can lose good people in that time. You can't. Because they can get poached pretty quickly, but it's not too long. I'm curious, I was going to ask you in a second about the behavioral and the second assessment, the cognitive assessment, but I'll ask about the 90 days. What was your 90-day plan? And how did it change from when you actually showed up?

10:51Cameron Herold: What I did is I laid it out sort of, I'm a very visual person and Dan's a visual person as well too. So some of the, you know, I'm always about, well, I always do my homework. So it always amazes me when I'm interviewing people and they haven't done their homework. It just, I don't really understand that. But in my case, I did all the homework I possibly could to understand.

11:10Tod Melnyk: You spoke to him in his language?

11:11Cameron Herold: Well, what was interesting about the test project is that I got access to anybody here at the studio, whoever was working here. So I could talk to them. I could ask for information. So I spent about four hours just doing one-on-one 50-minute chats with people. And for me, it was more about finding out about the culture, how decisions are being made, what's any obstacles, all that kind of stuff. So if you have that information, and then I kind of knew a little bit what my 90-day plan was going to look like and where I had to focus. Was it exactly right? You know, probably not, but it was close enough.

11:46Tod Melnyk: Was there anything specific in that 90-day plan that you think Dan saw or like?

11:51Cameron Herold: Well, he'll tell you this story, so it's quite interesting. So I was up. There was two of us, I think, presenting at the same day. So one person went first. I was the last person to go in. And so I'm up. And again, my first visual is basically of here's what I'm going to do the 90 days. And then I broke it down into detail, 30 days specifically, like by function areas, all that kind of stuff. And I'm going through it. I'm not reading off the slide I'm just talking and then they're you know Dan and Jason are asking me questions and uh so you know that was it that was the end of the presentation and then uh after I got hired we're talking and and Dan and I and he's like you know you had me at the first slide I'm like oh he goes yeah he goes it was visual it laid out exactly what you were going to do and I know you had the detail there but that's what I wanted to see you had me at the first slide he goes and the rest i was we're just playing good cop

12:45Tod Melnyk: bad cop you know dan was at the uh the founder site here in colada last tuesday he does these founder sites every week and you were on that as well but i heard him saying something about when he does these test projects for all hires it can be up to 10 hours of work that they did they tell you spend about 10 hours on it or do they expect that it'll probably take you 10 hours worth of work on it. So we, not just like a 15 minute project. It's a, yeah.

13:12Cameron Herold: Yeah. So we say you can take up to 10 hours and we pay people to do that. Oh, you do. Yeah. So the test projects are, I mean, twofold. One is we get to see, you know, what they're like, their thinking process and stuff, and they get to see what we're like.

13:24Tod Melnyk: What are you paying them? Like 50 bucks an hour? 30 bucks an hour. Okay. So you're paying 30 bucks an hour, do some work and you're paying them for it. Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah.

13:32Cameron Herold: And it's, uh, yeah, it's really good. I I mean, again, depending on what role it is, but we're not necessarily looking for the right answers because you're not going to have all the right answers. You wouldn't probably approach a problem. Approach a problem. How do you think it? Exactly. All right.

13:44Tod Melnyk: Go back to the behavioral testing and the cardinal testing. Is that what it was? Behavioral.

13:47Cameron Herold: Yeah. So the behavioral assessment is really a, you know, I can't remember how many questions, but let's call it 50 questions. It's random questions. And then. Is there a group that is tied to? Is it like this? So it's predictive index. Predictive index. All right. Yeah. And so people will fill that one out first. and then once they've done that, they'll do the cognitive assessment. And so the behavioral one is really good because if you're hiring somebody, and I think it's like 12 different categories that your personality will come back with. So if I'm a analyzer or something, it'll spit out what I like to do, how I like to run things, and then how you could work with me.

14:22Cameron Herold: So Todd likes this. So if you're going to approach Todd with something, maybe come at this angle, right? Or you like it this way. This is how I can start working with you. So it's a really good indicator on how you could coach somebody and how you can communicate.

14:35Tod Melnyk: How do you use those before at all in your kind of roles in leading you?

14:39Cameron Herold: Well, I'm in the interview process. We've always done assessments, particularly when I was in the Labatt Breweries and then became Interbrew and Ambev. There was always some sort of assessments around that.

14:49Tod Melnyk: In the interview or do they use it after? After, more around coaching. More around coaching, right? Yeah, that's where I've used it as well. Do you like it in the interview process and do you see any risk or threats to using it in the interview process? Does it bias people or is it just a really good tool?

15:01Cameron Herold: I think it's a really good tool because you're just, you know, it's a benchmark. Like for us is one of our values here is be the example. And so that's always about growing and pushing yourself to be the best you possibly can. That's, you know, personally in business. So you want to start with a benchmark. If you're building a high performance team, you don't want anybody to come in that's not that. And so it's a really good benchmark for say, you know what? yeah this person i'm not really concerned about you know what they are in terms of behavioral it's good for me to understand that from a coaching standpoint sure but it gives me a benchmark to know that hey you're gonna you're gonna you're smart enough yeah to fit in to fit

15:42Tod Melnyk: in when when i was walking the front door and you were starting a little bit of the tour of martell media you showed me on the wall uh kind of assign martell media with the core values around and said we'll probably talk about that later i want to talk about core values because you just mentioned one of them. Can you tell us what the core values are for Martell Media? I'm sorry for putting it on the spot, but I'm pretty sure you actually know them. And then how do you bring the core values into the organization from like the front part of the interview to, you know, day to day?

16:09Cameron Herold: Yeah, sure. So we have three core values here, Martell Media. So the one is, the first one is to be the example. And again, is if you think about our purpose, which is to inspire people to be their best versions of themselves, then we better make sure that we're doing that. So that's about a growth mindset, always pushing yourself to the next level. That's about being the example. And it doesn't mean being perfect. You can't get to the next level without making mistakes. So you need to try stuff, but always push yourself. Always be growing. So that's number one. The second one is build the people because the people will build the business.

16:44Cameron Herold: So let's build people and my job where i spend most of my time not only you know here but also learning how to get better is about building leaders so if i build leaders they're going to build leaders and they're going to build the company so that's really really important and that's building a

17:00Tod Melnyk: skill set but also the confidence of the leaders too right i see you're really working well with

17:04Cameron Herold: that yeah like you you know we have if you saw we have lots of young people in you know unlike like the adult in the room is sort of there. They called me like Todd father is one of my nicknames. But yeah, you know, it's, it's, I always share the story about being confident in, in your own skin and took me a very long time to really, you know, to, to understand that and be comfortable with that. And I still work on that every single day, but confidence is key for sure. And then the third one is simple scales. So anybody can, you know, complex the shit out of the business. we're always trying to find ways that how do we solve problems in an elegant way that's not going to complicate that yes and that's sometimes really hard to do so we're we'll try and break something we'll throw something out to see if it breaks yes it's easy to throw people at it but is there a way that we can automate it what does that look like so the more that we can be you know scale and make it simple that's what we work on every single day i love that you've kept your core values to three

18:06Tod Melnyk: i've said to all companies maximum of four or five so you're even better i love that they're short easy to understand phrases which i force people to do the only time i've ever let a client have a single word as a core value their fifth core value was simplified i'm like ah it's so

18:21Cameron Herold: perfect well there's a funny story simply simple scales simple scales is similar so a funny story So we're doing our mission, our purpose, and we're trying to come up with our values. So we get the three. And it was simple scales. And we're like, well, let's just stop right there because that's simple scales. We don't need 10. And those three are really easy to communicate and people understand them.

18:43Tod Melnyk: Yeah, they don't need any explanation. And you'll fire people if they're not living them. Absolutely. Which is core. It's not like an aspirational value. The other time I've seen simple really brought into the organization in a kind of clear way, I was being mentored by the CEO at Starbucks for 18 months. I was at their head office in Seattle for one of our meetings. And I walked around the corner and this massive, like two foot high lettered saying on one of the walls said, grow big, act small. And I was like, wow, like a company like Starbucks with 13 ,000 locations is thinking like entrepreneurial, small and not overcomplicating or reading the giant hairball.

19:20Tod Melnyk: So like I got that, right. Yeah. Tell me again, And how are you living the core values, bringing them into the organization, enforcing them? Can you give me some systems around that?

19:30Cameron Herold: Yeah. I mean, I communicate the core values all the time. And I use it as a feedback mechanism to myself is if I went out of this room and I asked somebody, do you know what our core values are? And they kind of stumble. Well, that's a feedback mechanism to me going, I haven't communicated enough.

19:46Tod Melnyk: Right. I'm not talking about it enough. I'm not talking about it. I'm not reinforcing enough.

19:49Cameron Herold: So what we do is we typically will talk about them. So every two weeks we do a studio sync. And so we get the entire team together and I lead that and we have an hour session and we, I always start with, okay, this is our purpose. This is our three values over and over again. And then how we support that is at the end of the sync, we'll recognize people and we'll say, okay, you know, Cameron, you, I want to recognize you for this is this and this supports be the example. Right. And we give somebody a little bit, you know, we do these hot sauces or cards or something like that. So we always reinforce people's behaviors to those values.

20:30Tod Melnyk: I like it. Yeah. It's culty. It is very culty. Culture and culty. I like it. I'm obsessed about culty.

20:36Cameron Herold: And I spend, I mean, back to interviewing process, I spend so much time trying to basically push people away.

20:43Tod Melnyk: Okay. Speak to me about in the interview process and even in the job posting process of pushing people away, right? And then how do you interview for core values? What do you do at Martell Media to interview and know whether people already live the core values that you're going to live when they come here?

20:58Cameron Herold: We had a couple of people. We had one person. They were here for about a month. And they quit. And so we're finding out why they quit. And so one of the reasons that they quit is they didn't appreciate the swearing. So I swear. Dan swears it's not like I swear at people but it's just you know it's just the way we kind of roll right so we're like well that's that's kind of interesting and we're not going to change you know who we are but what we decided to do is we created a video that actually um described and it's Dan and says you know if you want to apply for a job here this is what you know if you don't like this if you don't like this if you don't like this then don't apply but if you want to be pushed if you want to grow if you want to be that then we're probably a great fit for you and so that's like right up front right yeah unpolarizing yeah very polarizing i did that

22:00Tod Melnyk: in the job posting one time i said you know you'll be working for it i used the actual full word but i said an effing you know um add manic bipolar ceo like you'd be working for an effing blah blah I'm like, oops, there's my first F bomb. And I hear people replying going like, I would never work for you. You swore. I'm like, delete. And then other people are like, I have to love that you swore. I'm like, oh, you're interesting. Who are you? I don't like that I do. But culturally, you may as well throw that in their face for me.

22:25Cameron Herold: Yeah, yeah.

22:26Tod Melnyk: I want to talk about the young people for a second. It's very omnipresence. I mean, it's, you walk into, like, I see I'm older, but I'm not dead yet. I'm only, you know, still JANX. And I'm at the first year of JANX. I'm really not that old but I walked into the office here and you can obviously see it's young and it's not gen y young it's gen z yes you've got a lot of under 25 year olds working here they don't have the experience yet or do they are you hiring them based on mindset and capacity and and do they just have like tech stack experience or are they used to using social

23:02Cameron Herold: media like what is it you're seeing you know again it depends on the role but we we do have a very young crew here and for for me and for us it starts with the culture fit first like if i can find somebody who fits the culture and they're you know they're not arrogant they're not cocky maybe they don't have a lot of experience but they're willing to learn like they really want

23:24Tod Melnyk: it yeah growth mindset i will pour into that so you're you're really living the hire for attitude trained for skill yes do you look for skill as well or do you look for skill in some role yeah

23:35Cameron Herold: Yeah. In some roles, definitely you need skill. I mean, if you're a video editor, let's say in a particular, yeah, we want some skill. We want some skill. Now we want skill and do we need all the skill? No, but we definitely want skill and culture.

23:46Tod Melnyk: And growth mindset and grow, learn all this, the online, all that long learn and more tools.

23:51Cameron Herold: Right. Cause for us, it's like, if we want to grow and be the example and showcase what we're doing, and yes, we're all smart people and we push one another, but we also, every one of us, including myself has to go outside of this place and bring in new knowledge too, because that's the only way that we're going to continue to grow.

24:08Tod Melnyk: But either I haven't been in many physical offices recently, or you are cognizantly hiring people younger than his average.

24:15Cameron Herold: I mean, it's just working out that way, I think. But yeah, I mean, just, I think because of who Dan is and people want to probably aspire to be some of that for sure. So there's some young kids for that. But I just find when you've got, when you have kids like that and they just they want it so bad i go back to my i know that i wanted to back i've met a lot of

24:37Tod Melnyk: them and culturally they stand out over the normal human the head and shoulders like you can see it real fast culturally i walk it like unless you're training and we're teaching and you can't even train that stuff like they asked her of color from southwest airlines how to get all your employees to be so happy he said we hire happy people right like you've hired the right culture fit people for sure. Is there any downside to this? Do you notice any lags or mistakes or do you just embrace growth because you have that growth mindset?

25:05Cameron Herold: I think for me is what I tend to forget sometimes is that how young they are. So I could be talking about a calendar. Okay, like how do you prioritize your time? And they'd be like, I've never done that.

25:17Tod Melnyk: Right, right.

25:18Cameron Herold: Okay, well, yeah, you've read the book or something like that, but I may have to spend some time with them showing what time blocking is or how to start structure your day because they've never done that right yeah the

25:27Tod Melnyk: last time they had a calendar was their high school teacher gave it to them exactly right so

25:31Cameron Herold: it's like oh wow you're like 20 years old and you've never done that okay i need to spend a little bit of time with that and they'll they'll learn themselves too right it's just it's that culture that everybody is pushing one another like we're all we all embrace everybody's authentic authenticity but we all know what we want to do and why we're here to do it and so if somebody is not doing well, they're typically going to go, hey, what are you doing? Like, can you show me how to do that? Because I want to learn how to do that.

25:58Tod Melnyk: All right. So we've been talking a little bit about kind of the culture and you getting involved in the organizations and core values and some of what we're seeing behind the scenes. What does Martell Media do? Let's talk a little bit about the company and then I want to talk more operationally about that. So what does Martell Media itself do? What's the business that you're running?

26:15Cameron Herold: Yeah. So I would say we have two engines to the company. So we have the media side and the revenue side. so the media side is producing content all around dan okay so it's youtube yeah yeah and we give away all that content for free on across all our different platforms all the stuff that you just mentioned and then the other part is the revenue team there's a revenue and that is all the coaching side of the business and that so because of all the content that we produce the the book buy back your time people want to work with dan in in some way and there's different ways that we do that it It could be one-on-one coaching with Dan, which is, you know, he does maybe six to eight clients a year.

26:51Cameron Herold: There's a wait list for that. There's half-day VIPs. And then the majority of our clients is in group coaching.

26:57Tod Melnyk: And the group coaching, elite group coaching, I'm actually a client of that. He's got, by my numbers, I'm going to guess, 1 ,400 full-time paying clients and about 250 show up for every call. Am I close?

27:09Cameron Herold: You're right on the calls. Yeah, I'd say 250-ish for sure. And you're a little bit high. you know we're probably closer about a thousand on yeah so so about a thousand so he's doing like

27:18Tod Melnyk: eight to ten million dollars a year in group coaching yeah it's a pretty reasonable revenue business yeah we're we're higher than than that on on the revenue with everything all in yeah

27:28Cameron Herold: with everything all yeah you had the one-on-one coaching the ap days oh absolutely and it's that

27:32Tod Melnyk: jet set mastermind like yeah you're this is the real deal on the revenue side yeah what's the growth what's the plan what are you focusing on for martell media is it bigger bigger bigger group coaching is it the fitness side of the group coaching um well we look at it in two ways in

27:48Cameron Herold: terms of growth one is what you know in five years what is our revenue what what what's the revenue target we want and what's the number of followers that we want and so we match those two they're not sort of you know linear but um we look at those two and then we look at sort of what we want to do in terms of a brand standpoint like how where do we want dan's brand to be positioned how does he won his brand position in five years. What does that look like? And ultimately this company is, it only can get so big because it is in around Dan. However, where we are, where we want to go, there's, there's lots of runway there yet.

28:21Tod Melnyk: Yeah. There's lots of runway for sure. And you're deciding what the number is going to be in your reverse engineering head, right? You're picking a number of reverse engineering head. You're also monetizing lots of different things around his time. So like he's flying all over the world on this jet now that he bought a year ago, you're monetizing those flights right how does he decide what to monetize and what to say no to

28:42Cameron Herold: um i think it's really about how he wants to spend his time that's really what it comes down to so

28:47Tod Melnyk: he likes the online coaching he'll monetize some of that he likes the half days i'll monetize

28:51Cameron Herold: exactly right and he has he has you know goals that how he wants to spend his time and one of the goals that he has is for example is around at risk youth yeah so he like go back to like if it's important to you where is it in my calendar yeah okay if i want to spend 50 of my time on at-risk youth what are we going to do with it like okay how do we get that going okay so he it's really about how he wants to spend his time how do you say no to them or not now

29:20Tod Melnyk: because i think one of our roles as coo is we need to be the brakes to their gas but not the parking brake or we need to be the leash to their dragon but not choke them right how do you say no and when you say no or not now?

29:33Cameron Herold: Well, I think it starts with making sure that we're on the same page of where we're going and what our priorities are. If for some reason, an example, this is what he'll say to me, he'll say to me, I feel like I'm walking, not running. Go ahead. Which means we're not going fast enough. Yeah. All right. So then I'm like, okay, well, let's go through the priorities and this is what we agreed on. If something's changed, then here's what I think. I'm going to give my solutions and then we'll have an outcome of what that looks like.

30:04Tod Melnyk: So let me talk about the walking and not running then for a second and ask the question. You're not doing any marketing or advertising. From what I've seen, it's 100 % content being pushed out and speaking events or podcast interviews he's on. But is it close to or is it zero approximately ad budget marketing spend budget?

30:25Cameron Herold: We don't have any. Our marketing is this. Why is that? It's intentional, right? Because I think it builds. It's simple. We're building a brand that is a brand. And I think if we do it organically, it's sustainable. It's real. It's authentic. And we can push. We can try different things. Like we're not in a rush.

30:46Tod Melnyk: Well, but you're not running if he feels like it.

30:48Cameron Herold: Well, it could be example when I say that is like, you know, maybe there's a project that we have or something that it's not, you know, example would be at risk youth okay so dan looks and says this is i i'm passionate about this i want to spend my time on this okay we like what are we going to do about that so all of a sudden we start a king's club program yeah i saw that the other day going to high schools right so we have two we have king's club and we have uh outreach at at risk youth where dan goes and talks could be going to a prison or whatever it is and so we started this king's club when we had six people kids come we talked to a friend of ours she got one of her uh sons to come in bring some friends we started with six people and we and dan just went up there and we just started seeing what that would look like and now we had you know 40 kids last time and we want to double that every time we get together so there's no revenue around that there's no revenue it's just he wants it's just back yeah it's give back because that's you know obviously where he's been so he wants to have content that comes off a lot yeah so we want to inspire everybody to especially youth to be um you know around your mindset around you know a lot of them want to get into business so what does that look like so share all the business examples uh fitness service you know giving back so it's great to be wealthy and rich but how about giving back

32:07Tod Melnyk: to the community what does that look like so is that where he kind of decides on how much is on revenue like even him starting the group fitness program or group fitness coaching now it's kind of an offset of what he could be doing on the business side with entrepreneurs. So does he make a decision based on, okay, I'll give up some revenue opportunities or I'll use up some of my time here? How do you make those decisions?

32:28Cameron Herold: We have three programs right now. So we have a mindset program, we have a fitness program, and a business program. Mindset, fitness, and business? Which is elite, right? Okay. Okay. And so - What is the mindset program? So we just launched that. And so that is a program that Dan drops a video every single Monday. Okay. around mindset.

32:47Tod Melnyk: Okay.

32:47Cameron Herold: It's a program that we want to get everybody, no matter who you are, to get to understand about mindset.

32:54Tod Melnyk: Okay.

32:54Cameron Herold: You could be 12 years old and you want to learn about mindset.

32:57Tod Melnyk: Is it a free content?

32:58Cameron Herold: No, it's really approachable. It's$500 for a year or$49 for a monthly subscription.

33:06Tod Melnyk: Is CDA going to do anything global? Like India right now, if you can do a dollar a month in India, you've got 109 people lined up at your door. There's so many people that for a dollar.

33:15Cameron Herold: I mean, we haven't talked specifically around different countries, but I mean, do we look at, we don't look at ourselves. We want to be the best in Kelowna or the best in Canada. We want to be the best in the world.

33:23Tod Melnyk: So it is best in the world. Period. Anything that we do. Is it going to do anything or is there any discussion at this stage around AI? Are you looking at AI? We are looking at AI. Looking at AI like the Hayjin kind of AI avatar versions of Dan pushing content out or are you looking at AI internally? Is it in the business in terms of tools to build the business? Yeah. Right now it's tools to build a business. Do you do much in terms of automation? You talked about that with some systems that we try to automate. How do you approach automation and optimization of systems?

33:54Cameron Herold: It's, I mean, that's the first question that we, anytime we're doing something, it's like, can we automate that?

34:00Tod Melnyk: Well, the first is, can we stop doing it at all?

34:02Cameron Herold: Yeah.

34:03Tod Melnyk: Then can we automate that?

34:03Cameron Herold: Yeah, but if it's brand new, it's like, okay, yeah, I could put a person on there.

34:08Tod Melnyk: And you asked early on, can we automate? Right from the start. Is that a mindset that you hire for? Do you train people on that? Did you come from that? Because you and I are roughly the same age. Yeah. You've done it as great as I did. I'm from that older school where we didn't automate because we didn't have that. And I wasn't working inside a company, you know, 17 years. So how do you approach automation?

34:30Cameron Herold: Well, I think it goes back to our values. It's simple scale. I mean, I love building teams and all that, but it's also you can get such complexity. Sure. And so I rather I always look at, OK, if I can get, you know, six people, but they're really, really good people versus, you know, 20 people, that's you know, that would be ideal. And then I just yeah, I just because of the world is you can automate anything these days. It's like, why wouldn't you ask that question? Yeah. Right.

34:56Tod Melnyk: You think about systems the same way that Dan does with, you know, like he rolls a system out. He sort of branded and he kind of draws diagrams. Do you think the same way?

35:05Cameron Herold: Yeah, I'm very much a visual draw diagram person as well, too. Yeah. I mean, he, he would be more so for sure, but yeah.

35:13Tod Melnyk: Talk a little bit about what you've done in your career to get here. Cause you've done a lot. I mean, for sure, working inside of a major organization like Labatt and you mentioned the parent companies and originally with them. So you've gained a lot of leadership skills and then working in the European car business and working in the microbrewery business. What were some of the skills that you've picked up that you still use to this day? Yeah.

35:36Cameron Herold: I mean, I was thinking about it the other day. I remember being back in Labatt days and there would be different consultants that would come in. And one of the frameworks that I was taught way back then, it was really like business planning and sort of thinking. And the first thing he taught, I was really young at the time, but it was show up, show up on time, show up on time, dress to play. It was just the starting thing that he would start all those things. And there was a framework of building business plans and thinking. So it was always asking questions about why, like understand, like, yeah, here's an observation, but why is that?

36:11Tod Melnyk: It's like what we're now calling first principles.

36:12Cameron Herold: Right, right. So if you can always drill down and so I always go, okay, well, why is that? Why is that? And so I was teaching, you know, people here is like, so just tell me something I don't know, especially when you're, you're involved in a particular function or role. I don't know all the details, but you do. I can read a number, but I want you to really share something with me that I don't know. And so that's a practice that I learned way back when, and I always bring that forward to everything I do. And then I've always been fortunate enough to have some really good mentors and leadership.

36:47Cameron Herold: As I was, you know, started off young, when I was in Labatt, I was moving every two years and I was super young. and so having people that I looked up to and it was quite interesting because I'm taking I didn't even know what my leadership style was back then right I didn't right so I'm taking these pieces but I don't even know how it works for me I was pretty one-dimensional and so I think over the time as you become more confident and just having those people around you that can sort of give you some good feedback so I think just circling yourself with really good people and a

37:18Tod Melnyk: friend that worked with with labat as a gm back in ontario back in the 90s and i think his

37:23Cameron Herold: leadership style was beer and golf well yeah i mean what when i i remember when i first started i think the first all i did was hand out t-shirts and drink beer yeah i think my parents were asking me so how was your first day i'm like i don't really know this is what i did so i really wanted

37:38Tod Melnyk: to work for labat my neighbor was um was a big labat guy i was really and those were the days So I went to work for Procter & Gamble. Ross was one of those big kind of enviable brands, but they had a pretty good training program, leadership development program. Where do you think we need to help leaders and management teams today? Not technology, not kind of like automation tools, but what were the two or three things that you think every manager or leadership team member needs to be good at?

38:06Cameron Herold: I think one of the things that it took me a while to really understand is you're not doing it for yourself. like you're doing it for if i have a team here i'm pouring into them it's not about me and i remember back in the day it was all about me like what can i do to get to the next level right but i didn't really think about how am i growing them because if i do my job and and lead them and and make them better leaders i'm gonna get what i want right right so i think really understanding that i mean it's a it it doesn't these spines are for someone younger for sure important yeah yeah i think that's a huge thing um talking about time management yeah i think systems just an example no i mean i i've always said i've always been very disciplined so i've always had you know systems in place and and i would follow i've always been very consistent So I think having that discipline is really important and just being consistent.

39:08Tod Melnyk: There's two other questions that we'll ask, but one is around this saying that Dan has, if it's important to you, show me your bank account and show me your calendar. You mentioned that earlier. Can you explain what he means by that? And then how do you use that in the business?

39:25Cameron Herold: Where do you use that? The example is family is really important to me. Okay, well, show me your calendar and how much time you're spending with your family. well, it doesn't look like there's a lot of time in there. So obviously it's not important to you or, you know, I don't know, whatever else could be important in terms of money thing. How much money are you spending against it? When we're, when I'm leading people and coaching people, it's no difference. Like, okay, well you could be really good at say going to the gym or whatever on the fitness side, but show me what your work, you know, calendar looks like.

39:56Cameron Herold: I'm trying to get better at this. I'm coaching you or we're doing leadership training here weekly what are you doing for yourself where is that in your calendar oh i just kind of do it well does it happen all the time no do you look to hire people that are self-driven learners like that was tied to one of your poor yeah that's definitely be the example yeah yeah well i would say build a better human or something is that part of it uh build the people build the people yeah so you're

40:19Tod Melnyk: looking for people that are already self-driven learners growing on their own how do you spot that

40:23Cameron Herold: what do you ask what do you look for they just say stuff you can just tell like if i can ask you i don't know i can ask a question would be you know what has been your greatest challenge in your life and what have you learned from there okay like that's a great way people can you know they're really self-aware they they take an initiative to grow and stuff like that or they're externalizing blame right the other thing too is like what have you done to prepare for this interview oh i i i didn't do anything or i looked at a couple youtube videos really that's how you prepare that that's not going to go really well right so that kind of stuff it gives me indication of if you're coming i just did an interview today actually and first time he was doing he presented me a test project and it was going to be for a revenue team he brought a flip i brought one of our whiteboards out he had cue cards he had a full presentation right it was unbelievable yeah right i'm like that's that's next level he was dialed he was prepared he's starting yeah exactly and i thought it was fantastic and he's like i don't know 20 years old i love that he wants to work here

41:26Tod Melnyk: if you are coming into martel media today and you had to change some things like you saw some things coming down the pipe that were either threats or risks to the organization how would you tell a leader like dan dan's very driven id high i and disc he's a quick start you know and he's a big personality how do you tell someone like that no what's your system for that i always go back to brand and reputation so if i saw something that was gonna jeopardize that

42:02Cameron Herold: that's how i would frame it and that's what we have the discussion around you sit down and show

42:06Tod Melnyk: him his brand or what he's doing that's going to impact his brand his business right and he's very

42:10Cameron Herold: and he'd be the same way because anything that we do is we we want to be mindful of that right so if i saw something on that side i'd be like hey like this is what's going on this is how i think it can impact this let's have a discussion around that and and i want i want you to expand on that

42:26Tod Melnyk: because i know where you're saying this and i don't want to well maybe i'll lead you do you do that in front of the team where you do that privately with a leader like dan probably yeah

42:34Cameron Herold: so so dan and i but he's you know he's very open to feedback right but but yeah yeah defend their space that they have no like so we you know how do we you asked me the question earlier about is you know priorities and how do i you know put the brakes on or whatever that happens to be is like We talk all the time. We have our formal one-on-ones that we do weekly, but we're talking all the time. When we go on our one-on-ones, he has a list, I have a list.

42:59Tod Melnyk: What is your one-on-one meeting with Dan? What's the kind of agenda? How long does it run for? How often do you run it?

43:06Cameron Herold: So we do it typically weekly when he's here. And then it's 45 minutes. And he has a list, I have a list, but it's basically based on three things. So vision, people, money, and results. right and he'll have a list of stuff under those buckets i'll have a list under those things questions follow-ups exactly here's you know i may have here's a project that i'm working under vision or something like that here's you know here's where i am at it or here's some questions i have i'm not going to just come with questions i'm going to have here's here's my here's my options one two three options here's what i think and then we're going to discuss it and then here's what the outcome looks like and way I go and you said that when he's here what if he's not here do you do it over phone do you skip a week we'll skip a week but but we're always texting or talking or

43:55Tod Melnyk: whatever do you try to avoid much of that like back and forth throughout the week like quick questions or do you just ask them or do you wait and say I'll add that to my list and talk to him

44:03Cameron Herold: on Monday or yeah I will never I'll never ask questions about I'll just make a list right and then I talk to him yeah it could be just something that on the fly he may have a question about something or whatever but it's not yeah yeah i was the same when we were building one at

44:18Tod Melnyk: kindergarten junk half the time i'd get into the one-on-one i'm like that's dumb shouldn't ask that that's solved itself all this one's still applicable yeah nothing but now you said you did a one-on-one with them on scooters recently we did yeah that was great how the hell do you pay attention zipping along the road and calling on your scooters you like chat with each other and

44:36Cameron Herold: yeah we do a lot of meetings on scooters you said you're building out a scooter meeting mall exactly Yeah, we got the whole framework going on. But yeah, so we jumped on scooters. I think it was, I don't know, it was a Monday or something like that. So we had a one-on-one booked. And so we jumped on the scooters. And we'll just chat back and forth about whatever it is. And then we got to one of the beaches and we pulled to a park bench. And then we sat down. And then he pulled out his list. I had my list. I love it. And we went back and forth. And the funny thing about that story was we're sitting on the bench.

45:06Cameron Herold: And a family comes by. And the guy stops. And he says, are you Dan? and he's like yeah i'm dan and he's like i was just telling my wife i just finished reading your book and i was telling my wife that you actually lived here right and so we're you know so we're introducing the stuff and we're like yeah what you read in the book we're just doing it right now

45:24Tod Melnyk: i just got stopped in the hallway two hours ago in your building by some random guy going to meet from eight years ago oh there you go this is like a small town of like now i one of my guests that i want to get on the second bank podcast soon is the coo of a lying scooters flying scooters all over the world. I'm obsessed with live studios. I have so much damn fun on these stupid things like zipping around. I want to do a meeting on those one day. Maybe I'll do a podcast interview with somebody where I actually like we both have the Bluetooth mics and we just zip around. That's really kind of what we're setting up right now.

45:52Tod Melnyk: Let me see if I can get the Lime Scooter guy and I'll interview him on a scooter for 45 minutes. That's what you should do. That would be badass. I want you to go back to Todd Melnick and give him some advice when he's 22 years old, 21 years old, he's just starting out in his career. What advice would you tell the younger you the one who's just going to come into martell media with no experience uh number one would be

46:14Cameron Herold: find people that already done what you wanted want to do and just ask never be afraid to ask questions and ask for help when you need it it's good to ask questions you know when you're doing well you want to continue but when you're struggling if if you could ask those questions and find somebody who has done it i mean you're going to be light years ahead so to have the confidence to ask for help when you need it.

46:37Tod Melnyk: I love it. Yeah. We've got Todd Nelmich, the general manager, president, CEO, Second in Command, the 2IC to Dan Martell and Martell Media. Thanks very much for sharing with us on the Second in Command podcast. Awesome. Pleasure. Appreciate it.

46:50Cameron Herold: You've been listening to Second in Command, brought to you by COO Alliance founder Cameron Harreld. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry-leading COOs, visit COOalliance.com.