Living in a Pineapple Under the Sea? 🧽

Remember the last time you achieved something extraordinary?

Maybe you became debt-free two years after deciding enough was enough… Or maybe your company FINALLY reached $1 million in sales after all those sleepless nights...

How did you feel after reaching that first major milestone?

If you’re anything like me, you like to work hard, but you’ve had to learn how to celebrate wins even harder.

I say learn because so many of us are wired to push and drive, yet once we hit our goal, we move on to the next without taking a minute to celebrate…

But celebrating is not just for us, it’s also for our team members that helped us get there… So we have to learn to let loose every once in a while!

One way to make this shift is to remember we’ve only got one shot at this thing called life, so why not make the most of it, right?

But once the cake has been cut and the fireworks have been set off, it’s important to focus on what comes next.

Why?

Progress.

As Entrepreneurs, we know how important it is to continue moving forward. It’s important to be comfortable with being uncomfortable…

Elon Musk is a solid representation of this belief.

Musk founded PayPal in 2000 and sold it just two years later for a whopping $1.5 billion, netting him a total of $180 million from the deal.

And the craziest part of it all?

He was just 31 years old at the time!

Imagine how you would react if all of a sudden $180 million magically fell into your lap…

Most people would laugh all the way to the bank and book a one-way ticket to a tropical island to retire without a care in the world.

On the other hand, visionaries like Musk know not to fall into that trap. He doubled down and continued to change the world with Tesla and SpaceX, and is now worth an excess of over $200 BILLION.

(Yes, that's a billion with a B!)

Picture how different things would look today if he simply threw in the towel and retired off a cool $180 million twenty years ago…

Fortunately, Musk understands that the #1 rule of being an Entrepreneur is to NEVER get too comfortable with how things are going.

Let me give you another example…

Anyone who’s ever seen the cartoon show SpongeBob will surely appreciate this one…

If you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about, here are a couple of things you need to know to understand the cartoon:

In the cartoon…

• Mr. Krabs owns the most successful restaurant in Bikini Bottom called The Krusty Krab

• Plankton owns the least successful restaurant in Bikini Bottom called The Chum Bucket

Plankton has ALWAYS been envious of Mr. Krabs’ success, and Mr. Krabs always believed nobody could ever take down his monopoly.

But throughout the show, it’s not hard to find scenes where Mr. Krabs is overly celebrating his wins and forgetting about his core responsibilities as an Entrepreneur:

…I think you get the point.

Anyone who can relate would whole-heartedly agree Mr. Krabs has gotten a bit too comfortable at times, and that’s precisely what led to his downfall during this one episode:

In season 6, Plankton hired SpongeBob’s best friend Patrick as his new Advertising Director. Patrick completely rebranded The Chum Bucket and created a new, silly marketing campaign to help drive customers… AND IT WORKED!

The Chum Bucket went from having ZERO customers since its inception to completely overtaking The Krusty Krab overnight.

(Great job, Patrick!)

So, why did this happen?

While Mr. Krabs was swimming in pools of money celebrating prior success (and his ego), Plankton was hard at work trying to overtake his competition.

Look—I know this is just a cartoon, but you can’t say there isn’t a valuable real-world lesson to be learned from that episode.

I think this quote sums it up beautifully:

“Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it away from you.” — Mark Cuban

Anyway, while we’re on the topic of success, I think now is the perfect time to announce a MAJOR milestone my team and I achieved last year.

…

🥁 Drumroll, please…! 🥁

…

The National Association for Business Resources OFFICIALLY awarded Business Nitrogen as one of the Best and Brightest Companies To Work For In The Nation!

(Thank you… thank you… hold your applause!)

If you aren’t familiar with it, companies nominated for this distinguished award undergo a comprehensive assessment by an independent research firm.

Business Nitrogen was graded on extensive criteria, including:

• Work-life balance
• Shared Vision
• Recruitment
• Recognition
• Retention
• Diversity
• And much more!

So, what did I do to celebrate this AMAZING achievement?

• I DIDN’T go out to the club and blow $10K on bottle service
• I DIDN’T treat myself to a brand-new Lamborghini Aventador
• And I sure as heck DIDN’T start to feel like I’ve “made it” and use that as an excuse to get comfortable!

Instead, me and my team celebrated this amazing accomplishment on our Monday team meeting, and we developed an action plan around how we would celebrate it, and we went into the work week with our heads held high.

Oh! And we put a nifty little announcement on our homepage surrounded by some fireworks  because why not, you know?

And to be quite honest with you, this award came as a total shock for me.

Why was it a shock?

Because although winning a National Award as a Top Place To Work was one of our 10-year goals, we achieved it in less than three.

Another reason why it was a shock was because on the final page of the application there were a whole bunch of questions regarding company diversity, equality and inclusion.

I was completely honest with my responses, and I thought my honesty would get me disqualified.

Essentially, I answered that we have always hired the best candidate regardless of gender, race, or religion, etc. and that over 60% of our company would be considered a “minority”.

And while it has been popular in recent times to put a focus on this, we do not feel this is right for us, as we already are so diverse.

Bottom Line: We just hire the best of the best… Our team is comprised of super heroes– Each team member possessing a special talent or “super power” to contribute to our mission.

Where the real magic happens for our clients, is when we are all brought together to collaborate.

Many clients ask me…Do you have a process for hiring such great talent?

The answer is…YES!

If you know me, then you know almost everyone is trying to get their hands on our “Secret Formula” to learn how we hire the most incredible talent.

(Not another Spongebob reference; I swear!)

I started Business Nitrogen in 2011, and a majority of the same initial team members I hired back then are still with us today.

This is not by accident.

Not only is it vital to find the right talent that also aligns with your company culture, it’s imperative to retain those high-performing team members so you can avoid a revolving door of talent.

With great power comes great responsibility, so we’ve made it our mission to help as many Entrepreneurs as possible by entirely streamlining their hiring process with Nitrogen Hiring Network—a “done-for-you” recruitment system that removes all of the stress and uncertainty with hiring high-performing talent for Entrepreneurial teams.

Listen...I’m gonna be real blunt here.

NOBODY has cracked the code and figured out a way to find and retain talent like us (at least from what I’ve seen…), ESPECIALLY for unique businesses like yours and mine.

And you know what? I don’t blame them.

Attracting is HARD.

Qualifying is HARD.

Screening is HARD.

Hiring is HARD.

Heck, if it were easy then everybody would be winning awards left and right!

At the end of the day, Nitrogen Hiring Network provides you with 2-3 HIGHLY qualified, professionally screened AND vetted candidates that we know would make a perfect fit for you, your business, and your team.

And you know what else?

Because we’re so confident that you’ll fall in LOVE with your new hire, we back our claim with our 90-day replacement guarantee.

So if you’re ready to find your next superstar, simply comment: hiring and we’ll set up a time to chat.

To your success,

David

P.S. Imagine reaching your BEST Buyers using ONE proven strategy that has been averaging an over 30% open rate… WE’VE GOT IT. Comment with “Best Buyer” and we’ll get you details.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR… of Revolving Talent

Proper onboarding is just one of the processes you can put in place to help retain high-performing team members.

Over decades of experience, I’ve found there is one tried and true element overlooked by most business owners when it comes to keeping your super star players engaged, motivated, and excited to do what they do every day…

The secret lies within the culture of your organization.

In a previous newsletter I mentioned the company culture of Southwest Airlines. I also mentioned their remarkable attrition rate of 2.5%...

Southwest’s attrition rate is not an accident or blind luck.

To calculate your employee attrition rate, pick a time frame(6 months or 12 months). In that time frame what was your average number of employees?

Now take the number of employees who left within that same time frame and divide it by your average number of employees, then multiply that figure by 100.

Attrition rate = (# Left / Avg. # of employees) x 100.

Here’s a quick calculator to determine attrition rate.

Here’s the interesting story behind my team….

I started Business Nitrogen over 11 years ago.  The same team members I hired 11 years ago are still with me today.

In fact, there has been only ONE team member in the last 6 years that has left us that we didn’t want to leave (this team member was actually changing career paths and it was more of a lifestyle change for him).

Our attrition rate at Business Nitrogen is 3.57%.

Again, this is not by accident. It’s completely intentional.

I attribute our outstanding retention to our authenticity in leading with culture and living by our core values EVERYDAY (in life and in business).

I also treat my team as my company’s most important investment. Without them, Business Nitrogen would not be what it is.

When you deposit care, direction, respect, and exercise a great company culture, it pays dividends in the end.

When you make MORE withdrawals than deposits with your team, you usually end up empty handed.

Also remember, the longer we hold on to our team members, the more productive they get. They become proficient in their responsibilities, in systems, in processes, in your business as a whole.

Plus the bond shared between team members makes collaboration and innovation an ongoing and natural occurrence, resulting in further growth of the company.

That’s why I pour into my team…Ongoing skill set training,  leadership training, advancement opportunities, tools, constant recognition, and performance driven incentives.

As Entrepreneurs, our businesses are unique and require a higher level of commitment, drive, and skillset from each of the team members you bring on to support it.

It takes a certain caliber of people to keep up with us!

One of the quickest ways to burn out your team is to overload them with initiatives, new projects, and tasks that are not in their wheelhouse, or because you don’t want to hire new team members to offset the load.

Something we love to do as Entrepreneurs, is to start or bring in new projects and initiatives before others have been completed. We are visionaries! Of course that’s what we do!

When anyone (not just your team) feels they’ve been set up to fail time and time again, it creates a feeling of defeat.

Trust and commitment become fragile. In some cases, team members will leave, and others will follow.

Losing a team member isn’t just a loss of that person and their knowledge. It’s the loss of investment in that team member.

All the time, effort, and energy that was put into acquiring and training that team member to get them to the level they were at.

Consider these other costly losses associated with losing a key player and the detrimental effects on your business…

• Loss of productivity and efficiency
• Increased errors, abandoned tasks/projects
• Cost (time, effort, energy, money) to replace that individual
• Freezing (if this individual did not SOP their tasks and responsibilities and you don’t know how they did what they did)
• Loss of moral and team engagement
• Loss of other team members who may follow
• Negative cultural impact (internal and external)
• Client relationships

The list goes on…

For so many Entrepreneurs, finding, attracting, qualifying, hiring and ultimately retaining the right fit talent for their team has been their biggest BLIND SPOT. Yet, it’s one of the fastest ways to successfully SCALE a business.

A solution for many of our clients is Nitrogen Hiring Network…Where all the heavy lifting is done for you (attracting, qualifying, screening and hiring all marketing, operations and sales talent, including: media buyers, marketing directors, copywriters, graphic design specialists, automation specialists, project managers, sales directors, sales associates, etc).

Right now, no one that we’ve seen has developed a proven process for hiring RIGHT FIT talent specifically for Entrepreneurial businesses like we have.

Here’s what our clients get in our “DONE FOR YOU” recruitment and hiring process:

• Together, we strategize exactly what role(s) you need to fill within your existing team structure (if you don’t already know). We’ll also discuss your company culture.
• From there we identify any gaps you may or may not be aware of in your existing team structure and give our expert recommendations.
• We spec out all the responsibilities for each individual position you want to fill–tailored specifically to your needs.
• We build a custom sales funnel specifically for each position to attract the right candidates.
• We market the funnel (ad expenses, outreach, and overhead is included).
• We perform a rigorous screening and qualification process with all candidates that show interest in the position, including giving each candidate a behavioral AND cognitive assessment* and score it against the job profile we create.

*By the way, cognitive assessments are imperative as they measure how quickly a person can pick up new concepts. You can’t grow fast unless your team members are adept at learning new things quickly.

• Culture is a HUGE element we include in our qualification and screening process. We find that most Entrepreneurs skip over CULTURE in the hiring process… we do not.
• Each candidate is evaluated for skill set and experience for the position through a test exercise.
• Candidates are put through multiple interviews with different members of my team.

What you’ll get from us after all this is two or three HIGHLY qualified, screened and vetted candidates that we feel 100% confident will be a perfect fit for you, your business, and your team.

In fact, we’re so confident, we back our claim with our 90 day replacement guarantee.

The first step is to set a call with my team to see if we are a right fit to work together.

Simply reply to this newsletter and we’ll find a time to chat.

Your dream team is just one call away…

To your success,

David

P.S. Not sure how to find and attract more of your ideal clients? If you have a proven high ticket offer, we know EXACTLY how to fill your pipeline with a constant stream of qualified and highly-motivated leads through our exclusive Leads on Demand™ program.