The “Who, Not How” Strategy of Growth

About this video

Martell explains the ‘Who, Not How’ strategy: instead of asking how you will do something, ask who you need to bring into your life to do it sooner, better, or faster. He illustrates it with moving to San Francisco in 2008 after an exit, not wanting to be CEO himself, and partnering 50/50 with Ethan — Martell brought capital and experience while Ethan, as CEO, brought tenacity, focus, and operations — building a company that raised venture capital and exited about two and a half years later. He also cites Pela Case, where founders Matt and Brad pursued many initiatives because each had a named driver, and Dan Sullivan’s book Who Not How, noting Sullivan did not even write the book himself. His four steps are: (1) start with big projects interesting enough to attract a strong who, including projects you would start today if the person existed; (2) build bench strength by continually sourcing talented people, including freelancers on Upwork, and keeping a list of people you want to work with; (3) partner with experience — find people already doing the thing successfully, as he did with coaching client Kevin from SureSwift Capital to evaluate software acquisitions in a reciprocal finder’s-fee arrangement; and (4) make it win-win with ownership-like incentives, illustrated by freeing his salesperson Chris from 80% of his workload so Chris could build new offers for a revenue share.

Key takeaways

• Ask ‘who can help me do this sooner, better, or faster?’ instead of defaulting to learning and doing everything yourself
• Only use the who strategy on big, exciting projects — small tasks will not attract or energize a strong partner
• Build bench strength continuously: as CEO, focus on vision, money, and finding the right people, and keep a list of talent you want to work with
• Partner with people already succeeding at the thing, not idle people you hope will figure it out
• Structure deals so both sides feel like owners — for example revenue shares or reciprocal finder’s fees — rather than owners versus renters

Episode details: published March 8, 2021 · 11:44 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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