Pod Insights Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips You Should DEFINITELY Get a Chief of Staff About this episode In episode #2867, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss the importance of having a Chief of Staff for efficient operations, the dynamics of building effective teams, and the challenges entrepreneurs face in maintaining that focus while managing personal lives. Don’t forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Check out more of Eric’s content (Leveling UP YT) and Neil’s videos (Neil Patel YT) TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) The Role of a Chief of Staff (02:59) Building Effective Teams and Leadership Dynamics (05:50) Focus and Efficiency in Business (08:46) Personal Life vs. Business Life: Finding Balance (12:31) That’s it for today! Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more! Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric’s ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel X @ericosiu
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Finding customer information shouldn't mean digging through emails, call notes, and spreadsheets. HubSpot's Starter Plan brings all of those details together, so it's easier to track what's happening with every deal, and what to do next. It pulls information from calls and emails. Then it gets to work, logging and summarizing them. Right after your call ends, HubSpot pulls next steps from your call notes and drafts suggested follow-ups. And it stays up to date for you, so you can build demand, win more deals, and spend less time on repetitive work. Your records, insights, and next steps are ready for you to act on. And you don't have to miss a beat searching for any of it. Try the Starter Plan for $10 a month. Learn more at hubspot.com.
0:34 Speaker 01 If you want to be an efficient operator, especially as a founder, you need a Chief of Staff, I believe. You called it right?
0:38 Speaker 00 Yep.
0:39 Speaker 01 You still have a Chief of Staff, or no?
0:40 Speaker 00 Amazing.
0:41 Speaker 01 How does it work out? What do they do?
0:45 Speaker 00 Chief of Staff is some... Matt Moshiari came up with this. So he wrote the book, The Great CEO Within. So he coached Naval Ravikant. I think he coached Sam Altman as well. I could be wrong on that one, but he coached a lot of great people, right? So his rule is you can't work with me unless you have a Chief of Staff. And it's like, okay, so what's a Chief of Staff? So a Chief of Staff is someone that's not a glorified executive assistant. A lot of people treat a Chief of Staff like that. A Chief of Staff is someone that you can train up to be your shadow.
1:14 Speaker 02 Have them sit next to you, literally, physically sit next to you for 10, 12 hours a day, like your entire workday, and they see everything that you see, they hear everything that you hear.
1:24 Speaker 00 Like whatever you're doing, right? They're shadowing you, and then they're helping you with the M&A stuff. They're helping you with bringing traffic. They're basically another you, right? And Mr. Beast is a good example of this. He actually has, like, I think, 20-ish people on his team that are all like Chief of Staff-type roles. And three people lived in with him for... I think they still live in with him, right? And they basically are just eating up, they're shadowing him, seeing all his behaviors, all his patterns, and they're becoming a shadow of him. And that's how I see my Chief of Staff, and that's why I'm like, oh, we need to build like an organization of Chiefs of Staff, because they know how I behave, everything I do, and they know how I make decisions. And it's such a high-leverage role, I think, that everyone should have one. And so I got that idea from The Great CEO Within, and it's been great.
2:06 Speaker 01 Dude, speaking of living with someone, I lived with my co-founder ages ago when we were much younger. He was my roommate.
2:13 Speaker 00 Who?
2:13 Speaker 01 Mike.
2:14 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
2:15 Speaker 01 He lived in Vegas, and we also lived in San Diego a little bit together. But he learned a lot from me over the years.
2:22 Speaker 00 That's how he became who... Like, Mike was great already, but being with you and shadowing you and seeing your mannerisms... Like it rubs off.
2:29 Speaker 01 Yes, and he was already good at sales and operations because he they had a family business and he was helping running it. But it did help. I I would say, you know, looking back on it, if we look at our business now, a lot of the stuff we just do is aligned and it's because we lived together for a good amount of time. And when I say a good amount of time, probably like six months.
2:50 Speaker 00 That's a lot.
2:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, and you know, we he picked up off on how I like things, how I don't like things, what I feel works, my risk tolerance. And then I've also learned what works for him, what doesn't, where he's strong at, what he's weak at, and vice versa.
3:02 Speaker 00 He was in effect your chief of staff to start off with, right? And like in the beginning, so this is a little story on NP Digital, but in the beginning, so Mike didn't necessarily want to become CEO and then they tried to work through a couple CEOs and then Mike eventually realized he has to become the CEO, right?
3:17 Speaker 01 Correct.
3:18 Speaker 00 And then that's how he figured everything out. But you can either hire a chief of staff that's I I've met chiefs of staff that are making like four or 500 grand a year. And these are really experienced ones, right? And then, you know, they also have like, you know, big stock compensation. Or you can find someone that's like a diamond in the rough that's younger. And that I I think that's way harder. I think it's probably you don't need to pay four or 500 grand a year, but you can hire someone that's been experienced chief of staff. And I think it'll take you a long way because I I spoke to a guy. I'm like, so what do you do? He's like, oh, I do the same thing the CEO does. And then he's like, yeah, I'm focused on acquisitions right now. I'm doing this and that. And I think if you can, one angle is maybe if you can't afford that, you can hire someone that's younger and then maybe hire someone that's a super experienced chief of staff as a coach. And then pay them for like, you know, pay them for an hour of their time for like once a month or twice a month.
4:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, if if you had to pick the three biggest things that's helped you in your business from having a chief of staff, what would be the top three things?
4:12 Speaker 00 Okay, so starting a new service line, that would be one.
4:16 Speaker 00 You know, we fixed a lot of issues on our brand team.
4:19 Speaker 01 Well, let's go back. What was the new service line that you guys created?
4:22 Speaker 00 At Creative.
4:23 Speaker 01 Oh, cool.
4:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:24 Speaker 01 And it's up and running, it's working well? And they did all of that or you had to do it?
4:29 Speaker 00 They did the vast I I didn't really have to get involved.
4:32 Speaker 01 Cool. What was the second one?
4:33 Speaker 00 The second one is, um, God, what was I saying? So. Oh, so there are a lot of issues with our social side, like the the posting and all that stuff, right? So we hired an an outsourced team. But there's a lot of blocking and tackling that needs to happen with making sure that, hey, how many shorts are we hitting out there? Like, how's the reach? How's the engagement? How's the packaging for YouTube? All that stuff, right? We call that the brand team. Um, we fixed a lot of issues there. And that was largely due to the Chief of Staff.
4:59 Speaker 01 Cool, and you saw more traffic from it?
5:01 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
5:02 Speaker 01 Alright.
5:02 Speaker 00 That's the second one. And then the third one, I would say is just say overall,
5:08 Speaker 00 serving as my eyes and ears and disseminating how I think and how how like my general demeanor is throughout the organization. Because they're they're way more approachable than I am, right? Because I'm the boss, right? Like, I understand that there's like, there's a power dynamic, right? Um, but they don't, there's, that dynamic doesn't exist with others. And so it's kind of like that, you know, they're the conduit for me.
5:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I'm not asking how much you pay your Chief of Staff, but in general, because you've seen a lot of this data, uh, and you know a lot of people have them. What does it typically cost for someone?
5:39 Speaker 00 I think for, I think if you want someone that's good, you're probably going to be paying like an experienced, probably someone that's like 150, 200 plus at least.
5:48 Speaker 01 Oh, wow. So they're not cheap?
5:49 Speaker 00 No. Um, but yeah, no, it's it's it's been good. And, uh, why, are you looking for one?
5:53 Speaker 01 No.
5:54 Speaker 00 Why not?
5:55 Speaker 01 I don't wanna.
5:56 Speaker 00 You kind of have, I mean, you do have a situation where you have multiple assistants and, um...
6:02 Speaker 01 Oh, they have two.
6:03 Speaker 00 But but but I I do think Mike is a very high level. Because the Chief of Staff eventually can grow into a C-level role, and that's what Mike became. And then Mike still works with you pretty closely, I think, right?
6:13 Speaker 01 And when I work...
6:14 Speaker 00 How do you guys talk?
6:14 Speaker 01 Daily.
6:15 Speaker 00 There you go.
6:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. It it it's just like, for me, I don't like hiring tons of people that I have to work with. It's not that, you know, I love people. I don't want to manage anyone or have anyone that...
6:30 Speaker 00 You love people, but you don't like managing people.
6:31 Speaker 01 Correct. And I don't want to have anyone that reports underneath me or that I'm responsible for. I know that's a lazy route, and people are like, oh, you're not going to make as much money if you do it this way. I don't really care.
6:40 Speaker 00 It's not that, you're just playing to your strengths.
6:41 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:42 Speaker 00 Right? Uh, like, I don't like doing it, but like, you know?
6:47 Speaker 01 I also like the freedom and flexibility.
6:49 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:49 Speaker 01 Of not having any direct reports.
6:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, because... In a vein, you are, look, when you hire people, you are working for them.
6:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:57 Speaker 00 I don't care what you like, you are working for them, right? And the more people that report to you, the more, the, the, the problem with people that report to you sometimes, and I'm, I'm grateful for it. I'm, I love helping people, but oftentimes they'll drop the monkey off on their shoulders. They'll drop it in your office, so we're in an office right now. And then somebody else will come, they'll drop off their monkey for you too. And all of a sudden, your room is full of monkeys running around and then you have to solve all the problems, right? Um, so that's what happens sometimes.
7:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I love not having to do the stuff I don't wanna do. Like, for example, we do annual planning meetings. I have.
7:29 Speaker 00 Oh, you don't go to.
7:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I've never been to annual planning meeting. And, uh, they get budget reviews and they're like, yeah, we got the budget for the year. I don't know if they even send me the budgets. I know them, don't get me wrong, but like, even every month, I get a financial review of the business and how it operates. And it's really thorough and detailed, but the first sentence is either a good month and we're on track for the year, or a bad month and we're off and why? I literally just read the first sentence and two, and if it says, we're on track, I ignore the rest and I just move on.
8:01 Speaker 00 Well, I don't want anybody to think that, listening to this, that Neil doesn't pay attention to business, cuz he does. Like, he's looking at everything every day and he's constantly like talking to people, a lot of people every day. And so just cuz he reads, it's cuz he knows the numbers already.
8:13 Speaker 01 Correct, I know the numbers before the reported, I think, you know, on the monthly, I'm like, this is hard to see. You can log in and you can see the bank accounts and you can roughly figure out, um, from a cash flow, if money's there or it's not. For me, I focus on the things that are gonna move the needle, right? You'll have so much time in the day and we talked a little about this on stage, an event we were at today, in which people look at, oh, this is cool, let me do organic social, which is funny enough where most people spend their marketing time. But you look at where they're getting the ROI and it's a totally different place. It's coming from paid ads and SEO and other channels that aren't as sexy. It's just like, focus your energy on what's gonna help you move your bottom line. And if you can't as marketers, you're really just wasting time. And I think that's what Eric and I.
8:59 Speaker 01 Not have, you know, we've known this for a long time, but we've been really practicing this for many, many years and just focusing on, is this actually going to have an impact? If it's not, cool, move on to the next thing.
9:10 Speaker 00 All right. So I wanted to take a second to tell you about the Agency Owners Association. So this is a agency peer group ran by my podcast co-host Neil Patel and myself, Eric Su, and these were nine and eight-figure agency owners respectively. And what I will say is, at the end of the day, you want to learn from people that have been there, done that. If you want to grow your agency to seven figures, eight figures, and beyond, this is the group for you. And we bring in other agency owners to speak as well. And it's a great peer group where you can help each other out. And you're going to learn how to acquire more clients, you're going to learn how to take yourself out of the day-to-day, and to build the business of your dreams. And the cool thing, till November 30th, we are holding a special price, and you can apply at marketingschool.io/agency. And the great thing about it as well, if you try to get into a group, there's a seven-day free trial, right? So, once November 30th hits, we're going to increase the price by
9:55 Speaker 00 $200 per month. So right now, you're getting it at the lowest price possible. So go to marketingschool.io/agency to learn more, and we'll see you inside. Focus is really hard, guys. Like, I'll just say, I think, myself included, Neil included as well, it's been a very difficult struggle. But I think the number one reason, and again, going back to the dinner conversation yesterday, I think the number one reason we see most entrepreneurs not reach their potential is because, largely due to a lack of focus.
10:20 Speaker 01 And what's interesting is Eric and I have both had the lack of focus issue. I think we're amazing at focus now, but our personal lives have went from being very stable and focused to the chaos part that we were having within our business, we shifted it to our personal life.
10:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:41 Speaker 01 And our business is more
10:43 Speaker 00 Focused, yeah.
10:43 Speaker 01 Sporkus.
10:44 Speaker 00 Yeah. So I don't know. Like, by the way, some people just gravitate towards chaos. And maybe that's an entrepreneur thing. Like, you're okay with chaos, right? So I don't know.
10:52 Speaker 01 Like, I used to switch ideas all the time. Now I switch cars every few months.
10:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:56 Speaker 01 This is really terrible.
10:57 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah. So Neil has this thing where he changes his mind, like, very rapidly, probably more so than anybody I know. And now it's changed over into real life.
11:05 Speaker 01 Yes. And in business, I'm really steady.
11:07 Speaker 00 Dude, when he first moved To LA, there's like this house over here, which I get this house over here, this house over here. And now it's like this house and it's like, let's add this upgrade over here.
11:14 Speaker 01 And then I ended up buying tons of houses and then selling all the ones that we didn't want at losses. And I was like, ah.
11:20 Speaker 00 That seems more like a headache to me than any, see, what's interesting to me is the personal headaches are way tougher for me versus business headaches. Business headaches I can take all day. The personal headaches are way tougher. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance,
12:00 Speaker 00 and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts. Like, when you do, when you switch all these houses or whatever, I'm like, how the hell do you deal with all that?
12:11 Speaker 01 One, I don't deal with it. So I have, I have a decent amount of staff on the personal side who helps or contractors, whatever you want to call it. Like, you know, we have a, we call it owner's rep. It's called real consulting. They deal with everything related to the house, maintaining, checking, seeing if it's right, or doing construction, or buying a new property, yes, no, all that kind of stuff. But what I found is my business life, I used to change my mind a lot, didn't have focus. I have, you know, laser focus now in business, don't change mind as much. I've seen growth in that. Personal mind flip-flopped on houses one too many times and cars. It is a pain to deal with the personal stuff, but the growth in the business makes up for the pain in the personal.
12:56 Speaker 00 I would say this too, you also need to surround yourself with people that focus and people that are more grounded and people that are stabilizers, because we earlier mentioned that founders introduce risk. And so when Neil mentions he wants to expand into China, you need someone that kind of talk him off the ledge a little bit. I need the same thing too, right? And so in that case, like, that, that focus thing, by the way, that's an exercise that you need to practice every, it's like working out. You got to do it every day. That scenario like that expansion thing that is like sometimes you can expand too rapidly, right? But when you have a conversation like that, you'll dial it back. And so you do need to surround yourself with people that will help you focus. It's not just like, oh, we became laser focused all of a sudden. Like there's a 60 day moving average there and you need to make sure that you're constantly like, you know, doing your curls and like, you know, doing your shoulder exercises or whatever.
13:38 Speaker 01 That's right.
13:39 Speaker 00 Yep. That is it for today. Again, from Frankfurt, Germany, this is Marketing School and don't forget to rate, view, subscribe and go to marketingschool.io/agency if you want to join the Agency Owners Association and we'll see you tomorrow.
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