Equation of Excellence

What's up beautiful humans?

We are back with the third episode of
Equation of Excellence.

Today we're going to switch it up and do
something a little different.

We had some scheduling snafus, mostly
because I'm traveling like a madman, but

fear not.

We have a wonderful, wonderful pod today.

I'm going to do a solo cast.

So you're stuck with me for the next 20ish
minutes or so, but I have a lot of value

jam packed in this.

We're going to go through the five tips.

I have for becoming a better marketing
leader.

This is what I've experienced in my tenure
of about 15 years ish most recently CMO at

tripwale now running the ship over at
Vermont So let's jump in.

What are the five tips I got for you?

So five tips to becoming a better
marketing leader One hiring so we're gonna

go through a really cool agency talent
matrix that I love

The second thing is how I delegate
responsibility for projects.

I'm a big, big ownership person.

The third thing is the way I like to
either interact or run leadership meetings

and or higher level meetings.

Very big, no agenda, no attendee type of
person.

Not huge into meetings, but if you are in
leadership, it's very hard to get all the

meetings off of your calendar.

The next thing we'll go into is how I like
to distribute workload in terms of goals,

rocks, to-dos.

We'll go through that whole framework.

And the last thing is really, really
important.

You need to be your number one fan.

So we'll go through all of this.

So let's jump in.

Okay, so the first thing is from a guy
named Shreyas Dossi.

He used to be an XPM at Stripe.

Just a really brilliant human.

I encountered him on the Knowledge Project
podcast, which I'll link in the show

notes, which one is just a sensational
podcast, but this one in particular was

just absolutely stellar.

So he has this agency talent matrix.

If you're listening to this, I'm showing a
graphic that has a, it's a two by two

quadrant or matrix and the Y access is
agency.

Agency is just another word for autonomy,
get shit done.

Like I don't need to tell you, you'll just
do it.

and then talent is on the x-axis, and
talent is very self-explanatory.

Okay, so in the bottom left corner, so
this is low agency, low talent, he labels

these cogs in a wheel.

You don't wanna hire these people.

That's pretty easy, right?

The next thing up, so if you go to the top
left quadrant, you're gonna have high

agency, low talent.

These people are fantastic hires.

They might not look like it on paper.

They might not have the pedigree.

They might not be from an IV, whatever.

These people are gonna be

awesome to hire, they're gonna get shit
done, they're gonna be absolute

workhorses, they're not gonna complain,
and they're gonna crush.

And quite frankly, they can transition and
acquire talent to move them into the top

right matrix, which we'll move into now,
which is called game changers.

These are people, like if anybody's
involved in music, if you find a

singer-songwriter, you sell your soul for
them and you do whatever you can to keep

them.

These are what game changers are.

Game changers will...

change the physics of your company, the
economics of your company.

These people, if you find one, give them a
blank check, hire them, hire them, hire

them, keep them happy.

These are high talent, high agency people,
incredibly hard to find, but if you run

across one, definitely hire them.

Now, the last one is the most seductive.

This is low agency, high talent.

These people are incredible on paper.

They interview incredibly well.

They are brilliant.

but they never get anything done because
they want to walk into a perfect system.

And what happens is there is no perfect
system.

I've worked at a spectrum of companies
from small to massive, from whole foods

that got acquired by Amazon to running my
own agency to an agency out of New York,

where it was very large, everything.

There's always going to be holes.

There's always going to be opportunities
to grow.

And these people are incredible at
pointing those out, but they won't do

anything until the situation is perfect.

The situation will never be perfect.

Transparently this was me in the early
stages of my career where I would go in

and be like hey We should do things like
this.

We should do things like that.

Why aren't we doing things like this?

Why aren't we doing things like that?

You just have to deal with it.

There's just gonna be shit that you have
to deal with that's gonna be challenging

That's not gonna be perfect Don't be a
frustrated genius.

It's super easy to do But don't be them
and don't hire them.

They are they are incredibly seductive and
very hard to change.

So in summation I

love to hire go-getters.

They're usually below market.

They're usually undervalued and they're
going to have incredible impact on the

organization or business.

Game changers, no brainer, hire them, give
them as much money as you can.

These people are game changers.

You want them.

You want them.

And the last thing I'll add on hiring, and
this is just my specific type of hiring

style because I like to run more of a SEAL
Team 6 type of team where I have five to

seven killers and we can move

I'm not into kind of the general style
running.

When I left Tripple, I was running maybe
30 or 40 people or managing 30 or 40

people, not the path, not for me, not into
it.

And so because I like to have that smaller
head count, I hire a lot on vibes where I

wanna make sure that I can interact with
this person, I like this person, they're

gonna keep the culture that I'm trying to
build on my team.

The other team members like them, vibe
with them, respect with them.

A little kind of thought experiment that I
like to use is if you're at the airport

with this person that you're a prospect
that you're thinking about hiring, if the

flight gets canceled, are you mad?

Cause you have to sit at the airport with
this person.

So hiring very, very hard to do, but this
matrix really solidified a lot of ideas

and thoughts I had in my head, um, into a
really eloquent and easy to use framework.

So go check out the podcast.

It's really awesome.

Hire go-getters, hire game changers, be on
the lookout and stay away from frustrated

geniuses and obviously cogs in the wheel
or you don't need to hire them.

Okay, moving on.

I'm a huge, huge believer in
responsibility.

I think ownership and responsibility drive
standards.

If you care about something and you own
something, standards don't matter because

you care about it.

So this is a little MBA-ish, so forgive
me, but it's actually pretty awesome.

So...

The framework is called RACI.

And so it's an acronym for Responsible,
Accountable, Consulted, Informed.

So whenever we start up any, we call them
packages here at Fermat where this is all

in Notion.

Obviously you guys know I'm a big Notion
maxi.

And so when these projects get spun up,
there has to be Responsible, Accountable,

Consulted, Informed.

So let me go through what that means.

So responsible is people that are actually
doing the work.

they're actually building.

This can be multiple people.

So when we run events, for example, I'm
usually responsible for the event.

Ankita, one of our incredible saleswomen,
is a crusher.

She does all the follow-ups, so she's part
of the project.

And then sometimes our, essentially, CFO,
COO, Evelyn, will jump in as well, whether

it's payment or things of that nature.

And so sometimes she'll have some
responsibility within the project.

But responsible are the people that are
actually doing the work.

Accountable is the person that is going to
get yelled at or high-fived.

This is the person that owns the project.

There can only be one person accountable.

This is how you drive ownership.

This is how you drive responsibility.

This is how you drive results.

One person is accountable.

Multiple people can be responsible.

And then the last two are consulted and
informed.

Consulted is some...

thing that you might bounce off of,
whether it's your boss, your head of

sales, what have you, and you say, hey,
we're doing this event, what do you think,

what do you think of the structure, et
cetera, they don't have any deliverables

or action items.

You're just bouncing ideas, you're
consulting with them.

These are the people that are consulted.

And then lastly, informed.

Sometimes you might not have informed
filled out because everybody that is

already involved in the project is either
responsible, accountable, or consulted.

But informed is just people that you want
to keep apprised of the situation.

So our co-founder, Shreyas, he comes to
the dinner sometimes, doesn't come to

dinner sometimes.

So we just want to keep him informed on
what's going on, here's the dinners that

we're running, et cetera.

So responsible, accountable, consultant
informed.

I actually also have another framework
that maybe we'll go over in another solo

cast called 13 Regions of Responsibility.

And I use the RACI to actually

divvy up the responsible and accountable
to make sure that people own these reasons

of responsibility and absolutely crush it.

But Racy, I really, really recommend
running projects like this.

It's easy because you have accountable,
like I said, that person is who you yell

at or who you high five.

Very easy to go to get answers.

And then this is also a really cool way if
you're doing it in Notion and Asana,

whatever your project management tool of
choice is, to understand people's

workload.

If you see that people are...

responsible for a bunch of things.

You need to just kind of reach out and
touch and say, like, hey, are you guys

okay on your bandwidth?

Or vice versa, if you see people aren't
responsible for a lot of stuff and your

ICs aren't in this responsibility
category, you have to ask why.

Like, what is going on here?

What's your bandwidth like?

How are you moving projects forward?

What projects are you involved in?

So this gives a really clear cut.

All right, so now here's how the L10
meeting is structured.

So one of the biggest things,

Make sure everybody's on time.

If this is a leadership meeting it needs
to be important It needs to be one of the

only meetings.

I only have three meetings I put two
fingers up three only have three meetings

a week that I can't miss.

I can't miss my leadership meeting I can't
miss the pipeline review and I can't miss

the lead gen review Obviously have
one-on-ones with my boss with my other

core workers things of that nature
Sometimes I punt those sometimes I do them

async but those three meetings I never
ever punt

Leadership meetings if they are a
leadership meeting truly they need to be

important This is the rule number one for
L10 meetings.

Make sure everybody is on time there
something really interesting So we had a

little bit of an issue with tardiness at
the firm at L10 when we started

implementing this and Evelyn who is just
brilliant.

I love her to death.

She had a great idea.

And so what we did was we implemented
Normally, I would MC the meetings but we

now shifted that to

The last person that joins the L10 meeting
is the person that basically runs the

meeting next week.

And that has done wonders for punctuality.

So that's a little hack there.

So the number one rule for L10 is the
meeting must start on time.

And it must end on time.

Very, very, very important.

Okay, from that, this is, I think I
mentioned in the early one, but this is

derived from the entrepreneur operating
system.

Very, very cool stuff.

I'll talk about the next thing as well.

But, okay, so quickly going through the
structure of an L10 meeting.

What you're gonna do is you're gonna, the
first five minutes you're gonna have good

news.

This is personal, professional, or both.

Awesome, throw it in the Notion document
and I'll drop a link to a template or you

guys can just message me.

We have a whole L10 template that just
updates every week and pumps into the

Slack channel.

The next thing is company scorecard.

So what are the metrics you care about?

The company scorecard is not about
discussion, it's about information.

I'm informing you, here's how marketing is
doing on traffic, MQLs, SQLs.

Here's how sales is trending.

Here's how finance is doing from budget to
actuals.

Here's product roadmap stuff.

Whatever your company scorecards are, or
the metrics that you really care about in

your company, have your department has
review these, five minutes, boom, move on.

Customer headlines.

Customer headlines, awesome.

They can be positive, they can be
negative, they can be neutral.

Just whatever you want to surface to your
leadership team, this is where you do it.

Not a ton of discussion around customer
headlines.

Again, more about information than it is
about discussion.

Boom, move on to the next thing.

Last week's action items.

So there should be action items from every
single L10 meeting.

Usually, sometimes not, but more than
likely, there's gonna be some semblance of

action items.

Action items are due within the week, so
if you get an action item, it needs to

commit to being able to get it done within
seven days.

And then the next part.

This is the really cool one.

So this is where a lot of the magic
happens.

So this is IDS.

This is identify, discuss, and solve.

And so what's really cool about IDS is you
get all these people together, and people

will put in, so you have basically a three
prong approach.

You identify the issue, and then you
discuss the issue, and then you have

solves for that.

Within that, you have to make sure if
people are putting in IDS items, it has to

be in that framework.

If not, it gets super messy.

And if people won't commit to doing that,
then they don't get to put the topic into

IDS.

And again, in Notion, you can do it really
easily where you can click a button and

it'll make the structure for you.

IDS, very, very awesome.

This is the magic, in my opinion, of the
L10 meeting.

This is very, very cool stuff.

IDS, go check it out.

And the last thing is conclusion.

So you're just gonna conclude, go over any
of the action items that were divvied up,

make sure everybody's clear on them.

If they're sharing info like I'm gonna
take off next week or I hired somebody or

just anything that you wanna share with
the leadership team, this is the time to

do it.

And then at the very end, whoever's
running the meeting will go around and ask

people to rate the meeting from one to 10.

10 is perfect meeting, started on time,
super valuable.

Everybody liked the discussion, et cetera.

One was why did I even show up?

I'm never coming again.

You wanna keep obviously going for 10s.

And so we take all those scores that
everybody inputs and then we average them.

And that way we can see if the meeting is
more or less productive, are people

getting more value out of it.

L10 meeting, super awesome.

I hate meetings, but an L10 meeting is
actually worthwhile.

And if you're running a leadership meeting
or some semblance of a very high burn kind

of meeting where you're bringing in a lot
of heavy hitters, they're clearing time on

their schedule to make this synchronicity
happen, highly, highly recommend.

the L10 meeting structure, super, super
strong.

Okay, moving on, moving on.

So the next thing is kind of ancillary
related.

It's another inspo from the EOS.

So this is how I think of workload.

So you can kind of see it there, but it's
a little unclear.

So goals, so this is same, but different
to OKRs.

I'm not super into OKRs.

Not that they're a bad system or a good
system.

I just found that.

OKRs could get so complex that people
started to index on making a better system

rather than better results.

And I am much more in the frame of Phil
Knight where he says perfect results

count, not perfect processes.

And so it doesn't matter about if the
system's perfect.

I want impact on the business.

Okay.

With that being said, the way EOS and the
way I like to think about things are goals

or what are we going to happen?

What are we going to accomplish in a year?

Those can be three to seven per year.

Are we gonna get X, Y, and Z?

Those are the big hairy goals that you're
going after that year.

Now, those goals are then broken down, and
now from those goals, you'll have rocks.

And so those rocks are what are you gonna
commit to within this quarter?

So everything is done in quarters, usually
in B2B SaaS land.

And so what are you gonna accomplish and
commit to this quarter?

Again, those can be around three to seven.

If you get over seven, you're gonna get
overwhelmed.

kind of meaty number that you can take on.

So that three to seven quantity is
perfect.

And then the next layer is to-dos.

Is this something that is gonna get done
in seven days?

Okay, cool, if it's under seven days and I
can accomplish it, that turns into a

to-do.

If not, it either moves into my next week
or it becomes a rock if it's big enough

and that becomes a quarterly goal.

So you have goals over a year.

What do I wanna accomplish this year?

You have rocks.

What am I trying to accomplish this
quarter?

You have to-dos.

What do I need to ship within the next
seven days?

And then a nice little way to think about
if something does pop up, is this gonna

impact the business this quarter?

If it is, then you slip it into the next
IDS.

So at the next L10 meeting that you have,
IDS that issue.

If the issue's not gonna impact your
business within the quarter,

then you just move it to the quarterly
business review.

So if you're not already doing this, I'm
actually heading out later today to San

Francisco for our leadership offsite where
every quarter the leaders all get together

for the quarterly business review.

How's the business doing?

Setting the new rocks, making sure the
goals are aligned, things of that nature.

And so that's how you do it.

IDS it if it's under 90 days, if it's
gonna impact the business under 90 days,

then you put it in the next L10 meeting
and you IDS it.

If not,

punt it to the QBR and you can talk about
it when you have your leadership offsite.

Really, really cool way to structure
things.

I've liked it and it's, for me, a lot more
efficient and you can't hide in the system

where I feel like an OKRs and other ones
are overly complex and they, again, reward

people that are really great at the
system, not necessarily rewarding the

people that are actually cranking out the
results.

Okay, amazing.

And I don't know if I already said this,
but I also stole this from EOS.

They have a whole, I'll pop the video in
there, but in terms of goals, rocks,

to-dos, super, super strong, super strong.

All right, we're almost done, we're almost
done.

Okay, the last thing, and this is
something that I've done some consulting

in the past that nobody does, even when I
do my one-on-ones with my direct reports,

this is something that I always, always
encourage.

Be your number one fan.

So as a marketing leader,

You're the cool kids.

Everybody loves and looks up to marketing.

We are the cool kids.

We're the fun stuff.

We get to do dinners.

We get to do fun things.

We get to buy merch, blah, blah.

Not everybody has the same context as you.

And so every week, or I actually do it
every month, but when I was at Triple

Whale, I was doing it every week to two
weeks.

I just write a whole synopsis of
everything that we were accomplishing.

So where we were, where we are, where
we're going.

Dump it into a Slack channel.

So we have marketing Slack channel.

Depending on the size of your company and
your Slack etiquette, you might be able to

just smash it into the general channel or
whatever your big kind of whole team

channel is.

But brag on yourself.

Tell people what you're doing.

Tell people where you've been.

Tell people where you're going.

Not everybody has the context that you do,
especially engineers, sales, et cetera.

This is something that is super, super
valuable.

Not many people do it.

And I'm telling you, your boss has no idea
what you're doing.

Your engineers have no idea what you're
doing.

They don't have the context that you do.

So this is your opportunity to brag on
yourself.

And not only will it help aggregate some
political kind of goodwill, it's just a

great exercise to understand what you're
actually doing.

And it gives you a really good launch pad
to be able to kind of take that beginner's

mind, if you will, where you can get back
to the basics and say, hey, this is what

we're doing.

This is why we're doing it.

this is how we're gonna crush.

So be your number one fan, do a weekly,
bi-weekly, or at worst, monthly update of

all your marketing activities post it in
the Slack channel and then go full send.

People will love it and it feels really
good.

I usually do it on a Friday because not
many people are working.

You do it kind of mid to tail end of the
Friday.

And then so I'll probably end up posting
my next one this Friday actually because

the first is coming up.

So yeah, brag on yourself, do it, super
important.

People love you and people will love you
when they see all the amazing stuff you

are running and doing for the marketing
department.

All right, folks, that was a lot, I know.

But five tips, hire well.

L10 meetings, racy, make sure you have
clear responsibility, clear ownership.

I've found most conflict happens because
there's ambiguity in the ownership of said

project.

Racy, L10 meetings, rocks.

What was the last one?

Bragg On Yourself, and there was another
one in there I forgot.

Oh, and then hiring.

Duh.

So you got hiring, you got RACI, you got
L10 meetings, how to structure your

workload in terms of rocks, goals, to-dos,
and then Bragg On Yourself.

If you do at least one of these five, I
guarantee you'll be better off.

If you do all five of these things, you'll
probably be taking my job in a few months.

All right, I hope you enjoyed this solo
cast coming from you live from Austin,

Texas.

Thanks for dropping in.

We also have this on YouTube.

There were some visuals that I didn't do
an exquisite job talking through.

So if you do want to see some of the
visuals, head over to our YouTubes, just

youtube.com slash firmatcommerce.

And also, don't forget, go to
firmatcommerce.com, book a demo, subscribe

to Geometry of Growth, absolute heater of
a newsletter.

We also have a new sister show called D2C
Hunter that is also on our YouTube where I

go and review, actually that's my, where
is it?

I'm pointing, if you guys are listening,
to the last Chrome box that has now made

it.

into my backdrop because I just love the
company.

So go check out that video.

New, actually, D2C Hunter will drop
tomorrow.

So yeah, thanks for tuning in.

Thank you for all the love that you are
showing me.

I am happy that all of you people exist
and listen to all my ramblings.

Yeah, thank you for everything.

And what else I got for you?

That's it.

I will be in California next week.

So holler at me if you are out in the
Venice area.

We are working on a super secret stealth
project, which is very, very exciting.

We should have some more details to
disclose in the coming weeks.

But until then, we'll see you on the flip.

Bye-bye.