Should Multiple Entrepreneurs Work Together?

I answer this great question from our community: Is it possible for multiple entrepreneurs to work together effectively, or is it better to hire a talented team of people to execute your vision instead?

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---Transcript---

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today, we are taking some questions from some of our listeners, which I'm excited for.

So the question we're going to talk about today is, is it possible for multiple entrepreneurs to work effectively on a project or within a business, or is it better to have one entrepreneur or leader and build a team of talented people to execute on their vision? So, I got some examples with this and I'll share it when we get back from the theme song.

All right, everybody. So the longer you do podcasts, the harder it is to come up with new ideas. So we started asking our audience and you guys, what kind of things would you like to hear about? What questions do you have? And we got a ton of them back. So I'll start sprinkling these in more often and the stories behind them, and hopefully it'll help you guys on your journey. I also feel like I'm getting close to really upgrading the Marketing Secrets experience. I have some ideas and things I want to do and create that I'm pumped for. And so, anyway, those things will be coming soon. So as a faithful listener, you will be on the front lines of some amazing, amazing, cool things.

All right, so the question, let me restate it. And this is in context to, a lot of you guys saw the project we did at Mastermind.com. And so Mastermind.com, obviously it was me, Dean, and Tony, initially. And obviously, Tony used his face and his content and everything, but it was really me and Dean Graziosi who were running that business initially. And then if you notice now, the new launch is coming up, you'll probably notice that my face isn't on it. And a lot of people have been asking, "Wait. What happened? Did you get in a fight with those guys? Are you still working on it? Are you not part of it? What's the whole process? How's it all working?"

And then the question that came tied to that is, is it possible for multiple entrepreneurs to work effectively on a project or within a business, or is it better to have one entrepreneur leader and build a team of talented people execute their vision? And there's a couple of follow-up questions on that as well, but I'll address that first. And it's funny, because I see that a lot of times when I was running my Inner Circle meetings, which I'm thinking about bringing back. Would you guys be interested if I brought back my inner circle? Anyway, I'll post that there and just leave it for a few minutes.

But anyway, I noticed a lot of times these entrepreneurs would come to group, and everyone who is an entrepreneur, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, they all have a million ideas and their ideas are all amazing. And so, they all come in there and everybody has got these ideas and everyone is doing things. And also, two people have an idea during a meeting and they're like, "We should start a business together" and they get together. And unfortunately, it rarely ever goes well. Sometimes it does. Every once in a while it does go really, really well. But so many times it starts where you have two idea people, they get in a room, they have an idea together, they birthed this thing, and they're like, "We should do it together." But then they start working on it, executing on it, depending on where their skillset lie, either it goes really, really well, or really, really bad, or somewhere in between there.

And that honestly is what happened with Mastermind.com. If you look at Dean Graziosi and me, I love Dean, he's one of my favorite people I've met since I've been on this planet. I have so much love and respect for him and his family and what he does and his mission and his vision, and it's amazing. In fact, I think one of the reasons why I have so much respect for Dean is I think of all the people in this industry, I think me and him have the most similar skillsets, which is interesting. Dean writes books. I write books. Dean builds funnels. I build funnels. Dean creates content. I create content and courses. Dean runs a Mastermind group. I run a Mastermind group. Dean speaks at stages and closes deals on stages. I speak on stages. Dean ran a big call center. I ran a big call center.

If you look at... I don't know, I know people who write books. I know people who build funnels. I know people who build courses. I know people who run companies. I know people who... all these different skillsets. But there's only one other person I know besides me who does it all. And so I think that's why Dean and I have such a good connection is, we both see each other, like "Man, nobody else out here is running the size business you are, and creating the ads, and writing the copy, and writing the book and all kind of things."

And so, I have so much respect for him. And so that's why I think a lot of times we love working together. We have ideas and we bounce ideas off each other, and we brainstorm. And it's fun to have someone that I can pitch and catch with back and forth. And I just love it. And so that's why when the whole Mastermind thing came up, Dean had this idea for Mastermind.com. Well, he had a different name for it, and I was like, "You should buy Mastermind.com." And he didn't want to pay for it, so I bought it and gave to him as a gift. And then in exchange, he basically gave me some equity in the company. He said, "You come be part of this thing. It would be really, really cool." So over the last two years, I've been at different stages involved with Mastermind.com. With the first launch of the KBB course, I was a partner in that. And then, later we built software together at that's actually at Mastermind.com and did a whole launch together. And it's fun.

And this is what I wanted to share with you guys. The difficulties is that Dean and I have literally the exact same skillset. But just because we have the same skillset, the direction or the vision of where we want things, isn't always a 100% in alignment. And it's tough because both of us have had tons of success, saying, "This is my vision, my plan, let's go." And it's tough when you have someone who you come in and you both have different visions a little bit, but same drive and same motivation and same skillsets.

There were times where it was hard for both of us, where I was like, "I want to go this way." He's like, "Well, I want to go this way." I'm like, "Well, I think I'm right." He's like, "Well, I think I'm right." But I'm not used to somebody trumping me, and he's the same way. And it's like, "What do we do?" And it got to the point where, it was never negative, but it was just hard. Someone needed to carry on the vision. Someone needed to be able to run. Someone needed to be able to do it without the checks and balances of the other person.

And so, eventually, because it's his baby and his thing, and we're working on something really big at ClickFunnels, I was like, "You know what? The initial launch was done. It was fun. We had a great experience. We made a lot of money. We helped a lot of people. It was great. Everything was great." But I was just like, "This is your vision. This is your baby." And so I passed it back. I said, "Look, I'm going to give it back to you." And in exchange, he sent us some really cool gifts. He sent Todd an amazing gift for Todd's wife, actually, him and his wife. And then he sent me a really cool gift as well. Which, if you ever see me on stage at Funnel Hacking wearing a blue amazing watch, that was the gift he sent me. And anyway, it ended in great. And we're still super close friends and still doing deals together and everything. But I think what we learned from that experience was just, "Look, if two people have the same skillset, it's hard to be business partners in a thing, because you both have the same skillset.

Now, I want to contrast that with Todd. When I start working with Todd, Todd is amazing. Todd's an entrepreneur, Todd's got vision, Todd's got all sorts of things. But Todd's skillset, and if you don't know, Todd, Todd Dickerson is my co-founder at ClickFunnels. He's the one who runs the software side of things. We both are entrepreneurs in our own ways. But our skillsets, they aren't the same. They compliment, they're not the same thing. It's like in basketball, you don't need two Michael Jordan's on a basketball team. If you have two Michael Jordans on a basketball team, it's going to struggle. You need a Michael Jordan and a Scotty Pippen. And as someone who is not a big basketball guy, I think I nailed that analogy, I hope. But you know what I mean?

So, you look at me and Todd, Todd and I are like a Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen. In fact, I don't know if you guys have seen the Michael Jordan documentary, it's called The Last Dance. It's, I think nine or 10 episodes. It's insanely good. If you haven't watched it, you need to go watch it. But one of the first things that Jordan said, he said, "Without Scotty Pippen, there's no Michael Jordan." And I would say the same thing, without Todd Dickerson, there's no Russell Brunson. I couldn't do what I need to do without his skillset. And Todd would probably say the same thing. Todd can build amazing software, but it wouldn't have become ClickFunnels without me. Our skillsets compliment each other. And without Todd, I couldn't be me. Without me, he probably couldn't do what he's trying to do. And so it's a complimentary skill set.

And so, because of that, we were able to come together and we were able to build this thing called ClickFunnels. And Todd and I have such love and respect for each other. It's nice because Todd can say, "Look, I default to you, Russell, on these things." And I default to Todd on these things.

In fact, one of the fascinating things, we have a new personality assessment company coming out that we're launching here in the next couple of months, so I've been geeking out on that. But it's interesting, if you look at Todd and I's 16 personalities or Myers-Briggs test, we basically have the exact same personality, except for Todd is a thinker and I'm a feeler. So it's cool now that we've learned that as I'm interacting with Todd, I understand that we're the same in so many ways, but he's going to analyze things logically and I'm going to feel things out. And so I'll tell him in a message, I'll say, "Hey, Todd, this is the thing that I want to do. This is why I feel like that. But I'm curious, what do you think about that?" I literally will say it that way. And Todd will come back, "Well, I think this." And he'll come back and say, "How do you feel?"

And so it's really cool now that we understand that. And so, a lot of times what will happen is that my emotions will feel something I want to be really, really strong, but because it's so strong, and I want to do it, my brain turns off logic and, screw logic, we're just going to do this, where then Todd comes in and says, "Well, that's awesome, but here's the logic." And he's able to explain the logic. And I'm like, "Oh, I didn't see it from that point." Or vice versa, sometimes he's like, "Logic. This doesn't make sense." I'm like, "No, Todd, I feel it. I don't know why, but I can feel this is going to be the thing." And he'll default to me a lot of times. But it's made for a really good working relationship.

And so, in that situation, yes, we can have multiple entrepreneurs work effectively on a project in the business, but you have to have complimentary skillsets, not the same. I think the same makes it very, very difficult. And so, anyway, that's the thought process. And then one of the followup questions, someone said, he said, "This makes me think of Steven Larsen and how he worked with Russell, but since he was too entrepreneurial, he had to leave and pursue his own path."

So those who don't know Steven Larsen, he worked as my chief funnel builder for two years sitting next to me. And Steve and I have very similar skillsets as well, not the same, but very similar. Funnel building and speaking, and things like that. And so, it was tough because inside of the ClickFunnels organization, it was hard for Steven to be like, "Hey, I want this role" because that was my role. And so he was able to do a lot of cool things and work with us and have success. But there's a point where he was just like, "Inside of this environment, there's already a Michael Jordan. I can't be the Michael Jordan." If there wasn't, he could have been in this environment and said, "I'm going to take that role" and stepped up and dominated it. But because there's already someone playing that role, it was hard for him. So he wanted that role. He desired that role. He had developed himself so he'd be worthy of that role.

And so he had to go out on his own to go and create it. And he did. And he's been super successful ever since then. And so, anyway, that's what I wanted to share with you guys. I think knowing that it's looking at any kind of partnership and looking at, first off, are you going to get along with that person? Which you never know, short term it's easy to get along with people, long-term, you never know till you get in business with them. But making sure you have enough love and respect for somebody that if it works or doesn't work, you're able to work it out. Dean and I, I love him as much now as I did before, and we never got any big fights or arguments, but it was just like, we both knew, I think. It was just like, "Hey, you're Michael Jordan. We don't need two of us. We're going to lose the game if we do that. We need someone who is in charge."

And I was able to hand the reins to him and he's running with it, and you'll see what they're doing during the next launch, and it's amazing. It's definitely probably different than I would have done it, but doesn't matter. There's no right or wrong, it's just whose vision are you executing on. And Dean's vision is amazing. And so, that's how it worked.

With Todd and I, it's a little different. And he's able to execute on the vision on his side, I can execute on the vision on my side, and we have love and respect for each other that we can make it so it all works.

And so, think about that as you're going into business with people, if you are doing partnerships. Unfortunately, that was one of the negative things I saw in the Inner Circle. One of the reasons why I eventually paused it was just there started being drama. People starting businesses together and not working out. And then there being hard feelings. Those are the things that always want to be cautious of.

So I'm always very nervous getting into any kind of partnership or relationship. It's good to work with each other I think as either employee, employer for a while, or as project based stuff until you've had a chance to see how they're reacting to the situations and how you get along with them and stuff like that. Because, a lot of times, if you get into business together and it doesn't work out, it can end a friendship, which is the worst thing. And for me, this business is just a game we're playing to keep ourselves occupied, and it doesn't actually really matter that much. So, it's just part of it. It's a big game we're playing to hopefully learn some skillsets, meet new people along the way.

So, there you go. There's my answer for, is it possible for multiple entrepreneurs to work effectively together on a project or within a business, or is it better to have one entrepreneur leader and build a team of talented people to execute their vision?

So, hope that helps. That said, thank you guys all for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please go to iTunes and rate and review it. I've been doing this for six, seven, eight years now. And if you haven't had a chance to review it, please, I'm trying to bring you things that I feel like will help you invest in your business. Hopefully they are. Go rate and review. Leave some stars, even if you don't love it. Let us know. We read those, and it would let me know how I can better serve you guys in the future. So, that said, thanks again, and I'll talk to you guys all again soon. Bye, everybody.