How To Think With Dan Henry How I Built a Team That Helped Me to Scale to 8-Figures by Using Personality Tests
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A few years ago, I used to have some pretty big issues with my team…
The communication was not great, I didn’t feel like they were performing up to par, and sometimes I even wondered if they were just stupid.
But with the help of Mandy Keen, the head mindset coach at Clickfunnels, I realized that they were definitely not stupid and that even I was contributing to the lack of communication and efficiency within my team and business.
I brought Mandy in, and through personality assessments and a team meeting to go over exactly how to interpret our results, our workflows, understanding, and communication improved a thousand percent!
Now we have a well-oiled machine and a team that understands each other better than ever!
In this episode, I am going to cover:
- Why business owners get frustrated at their team and can’t get them to do what they want when they want, and how they want it done
- The real reason why if you’ve ever felt frustrated with your team, or even felt they were stupid, why that’s not true and how you can fix it
- The unsexiest investment I made that had the most impact scaling to 8-figures
- How to communicate better with your team so they help grow your business faster without pulling your hair out
If you got value from what you heard here, please be sure to subscribe and rate this podcast! Bonus points for you if you write a review! ;)
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— TRANSCRIPT —
Dan Henry (00:00):
Have you ever felt frustrated with your employees, your staff, or your team where they just weren't getting done what you wanted when you wanted, how you want it as efficiently as you want it. And you wanted to pull your hair out as a result. If so, stick around for today's episode because we have a very, very special guest Mandy Keene, the head mindset coach over at ClickFunnels. And we're going to talk about it in today's episode,
Dan Henry (00:45):
All right, everybody in today's episode, we're going to talk about something that a lot of entrepreneurs do not put any effort into improving or fixing or optimizing. And that is how they communicate and manage their team. This is the classic mindset of a six or even seven-figure entrepreneur. They're always worried about sales and marketing, and they're always worried about software and spending money on advertising, and they don't really worry about the thing that matters, and that is their team. And when you get to more, that eight-figure mentality, you start to realize that the most profitable things that you can invest in are the things that don't necessarily have the sexiest appeal. I like to use the analogy of a plane, you know, a lot of six and seven-figure entrepreneurs. They will put a brand new they'll spend their money on a brand new shiny coat of paint on their plane, but they won't spend the money on a maintenance guy to come out and constantly check the quality of the engine and make sure everything's running properly. And so that plane ends up looking great all the way down until it crashes. And again, that paint job is sexier than checking the engine, but at the end of the day, that's what makes the plane go. Just like what makes your business go is your staff, it's your team. And so I'd like to introduce you to Mandy Keene had a mindset coach over at ClickFunnels. Mandy, thank you so much for joining me today.
Mandy Keene (02:23):
I'm so excited to be here with you, Dan. Thank you for having me.
Dan Henry (02:27):
Awesome. Awesome. So what we're going to get into today is how to get more out of your team by understanding or, or more why, why you really need to put the effort into understanding your team so that you can communicate with them better and let them shine. I'd love, and I'll let you tell the story. But, but let me just set the stage here a few years ago, I was stuck at I mean, not it wasn't a terrible revenue, but I think we were having, you know, anywhere from 70 to like $150,000 a month in terms of sales. And I was stuck there and I got on a call with Mandy and, you know, we, we, you know, I said, I almost want to say, like, I hate my team. You know, I can't, they won't do what I say.
Dan Henry (03:17):
Like they're not getting stuff done. I'm so frustrated. I pulled my hair out. And so Mandy had everybody including myself take a personality assessment. The D the particular assessment was the disc profile, and she evaluated every single employee on my team and then explained to me how to communicate with them. And Manny, I'd love you to take it from there and, you know, talk about that experience. Because we already know the end result. We already know that I ended up growing an eight-figure company, and instead of making, you know, a hundred grand a month we now have million-dollar months, including a million-dollar day. And that million-dollar day, by the way, was, you know, I just got up and spoke. Everything else was taken care of by my team, which is now a well-oiled machine. And that would not have happened without humanity. That would have not happened without me understanding how to properly allow my team to shine. So can we, can we talk about that experience a little bit?
Mandy Keene (04:15):
I'd love to talk about it first off, congratulations on that million-dollar day. That is unbelievable. I know that has inspired so many people and it's a testament to your leadership skills. And the thing I wanna acknowledge about you Dan is that you're coachable and you have been coachable, and I know you were in a lot of pain when we first got connected. But the thing that I'd Meyer and respect about you, and I believe is one of the reasons why you're, where you're at is you were willing to look at things differently. You're willing to look at yourself differently, and you were willing to look at your team differently. And that's part of, you know, the magic of what makes this work and what makes people be able to transform and like you did. And so all I really did was help you first off, understand yourself and understand like, why you communicate the way you do and how you're wired.
Mandy Keene (05:11):
Because what most of us believe is we think that everybody should just communicate like we do. We're not taught this. This is the stuff that we're not taught in school, right? We're not taught that we need to adjust our communication. So the first thing was having you become aware of you, and then it was for you to become aware of your team. The, some the thing I do remember about you and your team that I found interesting was you actually did something that was the opposite of what most people do. Most people hire themselves. So I was kind of expecting that I'd be on a call with a bunch of like Dan Henry's,
Dan Henry (05:46):
That would be bad. I, I, I think I would probably get into fistfights with myself. So I don't, I don't like to hire me,
Mandy Keene (05:51):
Honestly, not, not today, not today because you understand, but back then, you're right. You probably would. And that's what happens with a lot of people who have like, your personality is they tend to, they tend to clash if they're not aware of it, but with you, what I found that was fascinating about you is that your team was like, the opposite of you was like, you were the unique one and they were the opposite. And that was one of the reasons why there were so much conflict and so much frustration, but it's also the reason why you were able to be where you were at, because you needed to have that balance. And what I appreciated about you is that once you understood, Oh, okay, this is why they communicate this way. Like, I don't, I don't know if you said these exact words, but it was something like, Oh, okay, they're not stupid. Right? Because I was starting to feel that way, honestly. And that wasn't me trying to be mean, I was
Dan Henry (06:50):
Really sitting there going, are they stupid? And I know every entrepreneur has felt like that. And that sounds so bad, but you'd be lying if you, if you're an entrepreneur and you have a team and you never, ever went to bed at night thinking, gosh, is my staff dumb? Like, if you've never felt like that you're lying. And, and you, you know, you have, okay. Or at least it's, you felt frustrated that they couldn't get it. But the truth is, is that, you know, it's not, they're not dumb. They're not stupid. It's not that they don't get it. It's just the communication. I mean, look over time in human history, what has been the major catalyst to almost every world war, it's been a fundamental miscommunication. Okay. That little lack of ability to communicate. And that's the thing is, is, you know, we, when you understand somebody else and you truly understand what makes them, what motivates them and what makes them shine, you can communicate in a way that allows them to shine.
Dan Henry (07:54):
And so just, just for anybody listening to, to kind of understand the process you know, I took personality assessments and there are specific ones you can take depending on what your goals are, but I took them and, you know, in the past, I've even had my team take them, but I didn't understand two things. Number one, how to interpret the results and number two, how to act on that interpretation, you know, like, okay, what do I do now? Like, like, I understand what the assessment is telling me, but how do I use that to grow my company? And when we got together, you had me have everybody take them all over again so that they were all fresh and up to date. And you had a meeting with everybody on the team and you then explain to me, Dan, here's how you communicate with your team.
Dan Henry (08:41):
Here's how you get more. And as soon as I implemented everything started going smoother. We started making more money. Things got done faster, we grew faster. And so, you know, personality tests and understanding how to communicate with your team may not be the sexiest thing, but it is the thing, one of the things that will grow your business the most. So I want to touch base real quick. And we'll just try to get as much, many questions answered in here as we can, but can you quickly in like two minutes or less, tell me the story of the hotel owner that you saved from making a $300,000 mistake, simply because you improved his communication with his managers.
Mandy Keene (09:23):
So picture Dan Henry as a hotel owner got him and he was livid with his manager. They had just gotten to a screaming match on the phone. He wanted to fire him. I asked him why he hadn't fired him. And he said because it's going to cost me $300,000 to fire him, hire someone, train someone like $300,000. Okay.
Dan Henry (09:47):
That sounds about right. When you, when you change management, it does end up costing
Mandy Keene (09:52):
[Inaudible] hotels. It's really, really, really tricky. Cause it, it, yeah, it has a strong ripple of fret effect. So all I did was I got him to take the assessment. I got his manager to take the assessment. I went over them with them. And the three of us laughed because it was so obvious. Like once I pointed it out, that it wasn't personal. Here's the reason why we have so much conflict and we're conflict is we have judgment. And we take things personally, once we understand ourselves and we understand our teammates, we don't take things. So personally, the reason why he was so mad is because he thought that he was just trying to irritate him. Like, no, one's going to try it. And he's not trying to irritate you. He's going to be more detail-oriented. That's where he's coming from. And then once he understood that it's like, okay, that trust and that rapport was able to be rebuilt because it was understood.
Dan Henry (10:50):
And that's a 300 that I talked to you about this before. I said, I hope you charged at least 30,000 for that, because you, that would've been a 10 X return on investment, you saved them $300,000. It had been a tech 10 X. And I know you didn't, but you should have. And if you charge 15 grand for that service, you'd have had a 20 X return on investment. But you know how I think? Right. So, so that is, you know, that that's, that's amazing. Can you tell me when it comes to a lack of communication, can you give me one scenario that is common, right? One common scenario that happens in almost every business, maybe something that people can relate to. Like, you know, you're, you're a business owner and this situation happens a lot and it happens over and over again in your business. And it's because you don't understand your employee's personality type and how to leverage that personality type. Can you give me like one common sort of thing that happens over and over again,
Mandy Keene (11:55):
Super common. So you have the personality type of being a driver and being a very big picture and a lot of entrepreneurs, not all, but a lot of them are like, you were there, they're a driver and they have that direct personality and they want to bottom-line it cut to the chase. What's the result. And then they work with people who are very detail-oriented. So I'll give you an example. Like Russell Brunson is like you, he's a, he's a big picture, man. He's a driver. He's a bottom-line like bada Bing, bada, boom, let's make this happen. He's got Melanie, his, his right arm. She's the opposite of Russell, very detail-oriented, right? Likes to have systems, likes to have things organized. One of the things I appreciate about Russell cause he's coachable like you is he learned that Melanie needs to ask questions, to understand the details so that he can get the result. Once that light bulb went off for Russell. Cause it used to drive him nuts. Like every time he's like, I want to book a call here. I want to do this. And Melanie would be like constantly saying, no, we can't. No, we can't. No, we can't. And then there was conflict. Right? Cause it's like no
Dan Henry (13:03):
Discussion with my assistant Alice, but you know, I, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's a thing.
Mandy Keene (13:08):
Very common. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Henry (13:11):
So let me ask you this. How can not understanding your employee costs you money? Like, like let's say there's a situation whereby not spending the time to understand the communication and understand how they think and ultimately look, I think the main thing we have to understand here is that nobody wants the business to fail, right? No, right. No. It's not like, you know, they're not doing what you say because they're like, I secretly want to do business to veil. Like that's not what it is. It's just a communication issue. So what would you say is one of the biggest money-sucking or money leaking scenarios would happen as a result of this?
Mandy Keene (13:54):
I'd say the biggest one is turnover. I mean, you could even just Google the statistics of how much an employee costs. It's 1.5 to two times their annual salary. So what are their annual salary is, you know, times that by two and that's what it costs. And so a lot of people the number one reason why people quit their job is because they don't feel appreciated. And so they don't feel appreciated is because you don't understand how to communicate with them. And that's why the more you understand them, the more you're going to understand what they need to feel appreciated. The more you're going to create, not just a loyal employee, but also a dedicated, like everyone wants to have dedicated, productive, efficient employees. Like everyone wants to just wave a magic wand and be able to have that. Well, you actually can, if all you do is understand that.
Mandy Keene (14:43):
And here's the truth as human beings. Yes. We're complicated. But once you understand them, it feels so good. Like feels natural and it doesn't, you, you don't go through, even though you want the results, you want the money you want your PNL to, to, to, to grow and to shine. But you also want to wake up in the morning and not want to have like knots in your stomach and like pulling your hair out. Like there's a psychological, emotional benefit of that too. And so you enjoy the journey more with your team. Cause like you said, Dan, I just have to say this as human beings, we will do anything to belong. Like we will do the craziest stuff to belong. So I think it's so important for entrepreneurs to remember your team member wants to belong. They want to make you happy. They want you to go, wow, I'm so impressed. I couldn't have done that without you. So that is innate in like their lizard animal brain. You already have that going for you. You just don't want to mess that up. And that's what most people do is they mess that up. If they just understood, Hey, they're not stupid. They want to belong. Like you said, they don't have the intention of ruining your business. Once you get that. And then you're willing just to put like a little bit of effort towards understanding how they're different than you. It's a game-changer.
Dan Henry (15:57):
Well, I can tell you just from personal experience with my sales team, especially my ability to understand and communicate better with them has increased their close rate dramatically. And you mentioned turnover right before. I really put effort into understanding the personality type of my staff and then, you know, acting accordingly and communicating accordingly before I did that, I would turn over salespeople a lot. It would cost me a lot because not only do I have to sit there and train, it takes 90 days to train an awesome closer and also close right now. You got so that's 90 days of waiting for somebody to close. Really good. So that's lost sales because they're not yet trained. So when you turn them over and you find somebody new, now you've got to start that clock all over again. My team now has been the same team that's been with me for over a year and I haven't had to hire anybody else new because they've become so good at closing that they close two to three times as many sales as somebody who's even been at my company for 60 days.
Dan Henry (17:09):
So, you know, the amount of money I have not only saved but the amount of extra money I've made by really putting it a concentrated effort into, into this and into understanding the personality type and communicating accordingly, the ROI has been insane. And you know, that's the thing is people, Oh, I spent a dollar on Facebook ads. I made $5 back, you know? Yeah. That's something you can see in a dashboard, right. And it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.
Mandy Keene (17:39):
I love it when you do a different voice.
Dan Henry (17:42):
Well, that's the thing, that's the difference between a six figure entrepreneur mindset and even a seven figure entrepreneur and an eight figure entrepreneur mindset, an eight figure entrepreneur does not need to feel warm and fuzzy to know he did the right thing. An eight figure. Entrepreneur does not need to do the sexy thing. The thing that you can track it necessarily in a dashboard where, you know, eight figure entrepreneurs think at a much higher level. And they think about the right thing to do. I'm like you don't, you don't read books by Ray Daleo and, and you know, what a billionaire, the most highest performing hedge fund in the world. And he's like, Oh, make sure that yo, you know, you get your sales page, right? Like, no he's talking about principles is a whole bunch of books called principles and how, and you know, how to leverage and build an amazing team.
Dan Henry (18:33):
Do you think that he became a billionaire by worrying about a Facebook ad or an aura? I mean, that, wasn't a thing back then, or like a script on the phone for getting new investors? No, it was by building. I mean, those things all were there, but you got to in order to build a team that can execute, you have to be able to communicate. And so I'm very thankful that you took the time to evaluate my employee's personality, test results and then show me how to leverage them. And, and can you get real quick, 30 seconds before? Cause I want to tell my listeners how they can they can take advantage of, of working with you from for, at your company. Understand that, man, I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the podcast, but your company is called understand.me. And it's a it's you and your partner? Mike, right?
Mandy Keene (19:26):
Right. Yep.
Dan Henry (19:27):
Okay. And I want to tell them more about where they can get more information from you as well as potentially work with you. But first 30 seconds, I know it's hard to do this cause you don't know the personality type of this person or that person, but can you give me like one tip of something that a business owner might do differently if they know something about an employee that they can really get more optimization out of their team?
Mandy Keene (19:54):
Yeah. So like one tip for someone who is like you let's say is to be patient and let your team ask you questions, provide a safe place for them to be able to go, Hey Dan, I know you gave cause a lot like your team, if I may share was like scared of you, right.
Dan Henry (20:15):
Because I was a thousand miles an hour. And I didn't have time for questions or that, that was my mindset at the time.
Mandy Keene (20:19):
And they didn't want to piss you off and they didn't want to appear stupid. So they, they kept their questions to themselves. So once we went over, that was like, okay, Dan, you need to not be annoyed or irritated if they have lots of questions to ask as far as following up you know, and to be patient and to allow the space for them to ask some of the detailed questions that your brain just doesn't go there. Like if you're planning an event, your brain doesn't care about the electrical tape that holds down the cord, your, your brain is not going to go there. So one tip is to practice that patience and for you to link and understand that for you to get the result, right, for you to sell so many tickets for you to make this much money, you need to be listening and, and allowing this person to ask these detailed questions. And that's, that's going to make you more money if you do that. Right.
Dan Henry (21:12):
It did. And it did. And I've also, I noticed that certain employees based on their personality results, that was even more important with them. And I was conscious of who that was. And you know, what the funny thing was when I started doing that and being conscious of it, I learned a lot of things and, and, and a lot of, you know, it didn't all fall on me to have good ideas, either my team had great ideas. I just wasn't. I just didn't have the patience to let them bring those ideas to me, or allow them to clarify and have ultimate clarity to execute the goal. And when I understood which team members needed, what type of nurturing, Oh man, like it just soared. So I'm very thankful for you for doing that for me.
Dan Henry (21:57):
Now, let me, let me just say that I know personally that your company understand.me which is going, which, which helps business owners, you know, get more out of their staff and out of their team by understanding their personality types and how they work and there's spillover as well. I mean, the understanding personality types can help with relationships. It can help with all kinds of stuff, but, you know, since this is a business podcast, we're gonna talk about business. But I know personally that at some point in the very near future, your company is going to blow up and you're going to be offering an, a very amazing coaching program. But right now, are you still doing the assessment service where you take a look at the staff, you have them take certain personality assessments, and then you review and work with the business owner personally, to understand and communicate with their team. Are you still offering that sort of personalized one-on-one service?
Mandy Keene (22:57):
Yes. Yes I am. And we are working on a training program to help train other coaches to do what I do.
Dan Henry (23:06):
Because at some point. You're not going to be able to do that. Cause you're going to have too many customers. You're going to need to teach it and, and, and share my, do it for themselves. Make sense. So here's the thing I'm going to give you guys a link where you can speak to somebody at Mandy's team. And, and you'll be able to fill out just a couple of quick questions more about your team. You'll have a chance to then book a call, select a time to book a call, speak to a member of man Mandy's team. They'll get on a call with you. They'll take a look at what's going on with your team, your staff, your employees, and what struggles you're having. And if they feel like the team at understand.Me can help you better understand and communicate with your employees so that you can grow your business, they'll show you what they have to offer, what that looks like. And you can decide if you want to become a part of it or not.
Dan Henry (23:59):
I will just say two things about this. Number one, if you're going to invest in your business and you have a staff, this is one of the first things you should invest in. You should invest in working with Mandy and Mike over at understand.me, because that is one of the biggest things. It took my business from seven figures to eight figures. It really is. And the second thing is, I know that if you wait on this, if you wait to book a call and speak to them, you're probably not going to get the, the personalized service that they're offering right now. So I would act quickly. And as soon as I get done with Mandy, she's going to raise her prices. So you better get it. Time is of the essence.
Dan Henry (24:40):
Um so that link is get clients.com/mandy. Getclients.Com/Mandy go. And I'll also leave a link in the show notes, but you want to go there, answer a couple questions on the form about your team, a book, a time to speak to them, have the call. And, you know, if it seems like they can help, then they'll show you what it looks like to work with them. And you can decide to become a part of it or not. But I highly recommend if you want to be a serious business owner and you really want to grow, stop investing only in the sexy things, you know, like software and ads and stuff. I'm not saying don't invest in advertising, but I'm saying take some money and invest it in growing the number one thing that billionaires say will grow your company and thus your success. And that is your people, your team invest in people. I cannot tell you how many people, Steve jobs, Ray Dalia, Warren buffet have said, invest in your people. And this is the number one way to do that is to understand their personality types and adjust your communication to get the most out of them so that they shine.
Dan Henry (25:45):
Thank you, Mandy, for coming on. I really, really do appreciate it. All right, guys. See y'all in the next episode.