Jasmine Star (00:00:14) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, a place that you can expect all things business, life, marketing and today a deep dive on hiring, training and retaining high performing team members. Y'all, I've already started. Prior to us starting the record, I told this queen, Natalie Dawson, that this podcast is for me, and if other people happen to be listening, I'm here for it. So please prepare your hearts for a phenomenal conversation with the one, the brilliant and powerhouse Natalie Dawson. Natalie, thank you for being on The Jasmine Star Show and welcome!

Natalie Dawson (00:00:43) - I am so excited. The moment just right before this show, I just have to say, I'm geeking out on the fact that I get to talk to you, spend time with you, because I've been a long time fan of yours. After seeing you speak at an event, gosh, almost four years ago, 3 or 4 years ago. I think you are so spectacular and I'm very much looking forward to this conversation.

Jasmine Star (00:01:04) - Oh well, this is great. Now you are. I would consider everything I've I've done some research, I've done some deep diving. Like I'm the friend when people say, oh, like, oh, I can't find him on the internet. I literally like, blow my fingers off, like, let me find him. So when it comes to doing research for the podcast, I've just done a deep dive in you and I'm really excited to bring a lot of that to the surface. But before we go there, I want to make sure that we lay the groundwork. You are co-founder of Cordon Ventures, best selling author of your book Teamwork How to Build a High-Performance team. And you're also the host of a podcast, Building Billions with Natalie Dawson. And so, Natalie, are we to spill the tea? Are we going to tell people what happened like two minutes before we press record?

Natalie Dawson (00:01:37) - Yes. You want me to tell me you want, you want. Go ahead, go.

Jasmine Star (00:01:40) - Ahead, go ahead.

Jasmine Star (00:01:41) - Because like like set the scene, tell the story. Like what actually happened.

Natalie Dawson (00:01:44) - Well, I did not read the invite on this calendar podcast show, and I thought that I was interviewing you for my podcast because I've been a fan of yours. I've had you on a list for people that I want to have on my podcast for at least two years. So I just assumed that you were coming on my show until 15 seconds before this thing started, where the team is like, no, we're on her show. I was like, what do you. She knows my name. What do you mean?

Jasmine Star (00:02:13) - She had this whole thing.

Natalie Dawson (00:02:15) - Prepped of like, how I was going to introduce myself because sometimes it's awkward, you know, you're like, oh, I've never met you before, but now we're going to have this deep conversation. So I was prepped.

Jasmine Star (00:02:23) - Oh my God, Natalie mean. But like, what does that say about my podcasting? Like, chops. Like, I'm like, hey, Natalie, what's up? Let's go.

Jasmine Star (00:02:29) - Let's get this party started. So maybe I was awkward or I avoided the awkwardness by, like, my overt awkwardness. I'm just. What I said then is what I'm going to repeat now. We're just manifesting that I'm going to be on your show. So like, that's what we're doing with. That's right. But for all intents and purposes, like I've said to you before, the people who listen are action takers. We are business owners, and what we want to do is ultimately build a business that we're proud of, but also find a way to get really brilliant people around us who can help support the vision and do big, great things. And I know that you started leading teams. I mean, you don't look a day over 21, but what I read was you started leading pretty significant teams around the age of 20. So what were some lessons, milestones? How did you get to that point? What made you look and say, I have the capacity? What am I learning? What am I doing? At what point do you say I need to lead a team? And this is how I'm going to teach myself how to do it?

Natalie Dawson (00:03:17) - Well, the opportunity just fell in my lap because I was responsible for this leadership content at the company that I was working for and the woman that I was working for two months into me being there, and I was actually an intern at the time.

Natalie Dawson (00:03:28) - Two months into me being there, she got a call from her husband who got diagnosed with terminal cancer. She had been at this company for over a decade, and she had to leave like that day. And I then absorbed this leadership program, all of this content building out the launch of this program. And so that kind of got my feet wet in leadership and understanding the importance of leadership and why that's tied to building teams. But because I was responsible for this leadership content, one of the things I realized, it's great to have all of this content about developing yourself and belief in yourself. But what I lacked once I had my first team a little less than two years later, it was like, okay, it's morning. One of these people reporting to you, Natalie, you're ten years, if not 20 years younger than some of these people. They do have more experience than you. How do you hold them accountable? How do you structure a one on one? How do you create goals and align those goals with their incentives that hit department targets? I had no clue how to do those things, and yet I had created and studied this quote unquote leadership content.

Natalie Dawson (00:04:34) - And so that experience of really doing it poorly today, I would say I'm a pretty great leader. I really develop my teams. Our teams have grown substantially. I figured out how to do what I need to do, leading and developing teams. But back then I had no clue what I was doing and I failed so miserably with high turnover, with lack of results. And I was uncomfortable in the role because I knew I didn't know what I was doing. So I've spent the last 5 or 6 years figuring out how do I give business owners the tools that I didn't have when I was early on, because a lot of business owners have teams that are reporting to them and they still don't have these things in their business, just works because. They work. Their business works because they figured out a marketing funnel or a marketing strategy. They figured out how to be the best salesperson, and then they have these people reporting to them where they're accidentally leaders and not sure of how to grow the team so that the business can also grow.

Jasmine Star (00:05:27) - Yeah. So good. So if you see me looking down and writing, I literally have to take notes. But key takeaways. So you had said the business works because they work. Last night I was at dinner with a group of entrepreneurs, and there was a gentleman next to me and I would probably say, without exaggeration, half of our time together. He was on his phone and he kept on apologizing. But like you and I know when you're around entrepreneurs, I never take it personally that if you're on your phone, I get it. There are things that happen in business that you're beholden to. But he had just said, everything falls back on me, everything falls back on me. And he has like a multi seven, almost eight year business and thought to myself, wow, what are the differences? I'm sitting at this table and there are some entrepreneurs who are even larger businesses and are less entrenched in the business. So part of the reason wanted to have you on the show was what are like three main lessons or indicators that you have developed to say, listen, I've done a lot of work, but if you're starting now and either you don't know how to build your team with efficacy or you're the start of building your team, what are three main things that people can focus on today? To say, these are my biggest lessons.

Jasmine Star (00:06:21) - These were like big dominoes that helped the rest of things fall into place.

Natalie Dawson (00:06:24) - Great question. And that is the story that I hear of almost every business owner that I work with or that I'm around. It's like they feel like they are shackled to their business. They feel like if they were to take a vacation, they can't take actual time off and disconnect vacation. And so you build this job for yourself as a business owner. And you didn't. You thought you were chasing freedom. And it's turned into this thing that's like, it's not just a 9 to 5 where you might have hated your previous 9 to 5 because this is 24 over seven, 365 like it's you. This business is you. I view our business like our baby. So I like to break down the employee life cycle to better understand where the problems exist. So when you think about the employee life cycle, the first of three things that I would say is you have to be communicating with your perspective. Team members about what the real state of the business is.

Natalie Dawson (00:07:15) - And most business owners, when they're interviewing people, they're using some made up criteria. They're using if they like the person, if they connect with the person in the interview process, what they don't tend to do is really clearly lay out, especially that early on team like your first 10 to 20 team members. That team should know if you are a growing business and you want to continue to grow, and you're expecting that the person that you're bringing on is going to help you grow, you have to tell the person that, and it sounds crazy that you would have to do that because as a business owner, you're like, well, of course I want to grow my business. Maybe a handful don't, right? But for the most part, business owners want to grow their business. If you could add $10 million of revenue to your business, I have a hard time believing that every business owner would be like, nope, I'm not really interested. They're not interested because they think it's going to be really hard.

Natalie Dawson (00:08:05) - But if you told your team, hey, we are going to grow and what is your expectation of growth? All of a sudden you're at least starting the relationship on the right path. You're being transparent about. It's not just you coming in and managing existing workflows, existing customers, it's managing that. But then also, this is what we're expecting and targeting for the growth that we're looking to have. And you clarify those expectations. And at least you're starting the relationship off on the right foot. Now, once you've had that interview where you've clarified that you are a goal oriented organization, that you have these plans for expansion when they're onboarding with you of every single thing that somebody should know about being successful in their role should be included in their onboarding plan. Most entrepreneurs spend more time interviewing somebody and the interview process. They might interview ten candidates. They might look through 50 resumes. They're going to spend upwards of 30 hours to find one person, and yet they don't even spend 30 minutes putting together the correct materials to get that person up to speed.

Natalie Dawson (00:09:10) - The person who's for certain going to join your team, they don't spend that even 30 minutes getting that person up to speed on what would allow them to be successful in their role. And so dialing in that onboarding plan, I'm not saying you spend 30 hours doing it, but you should probably spend two hours. Okay, I'm going to spend two hours writing down every single thing that person would need to know in order to be successful. And then the third thing that really has been the magic in our business. It's fixed businesses that didn't start this way, and it can fix any business or any team that's having turnover challenges, that's having performance issues. It's sitting down individually with your team members once they've been with you for at least two months. That's my criteria. Once they've been with you for two months, it's sitting down and asking them in a casual setting. Could be a coffee shop, could be a lunch spot down the street from your office. What are your personal, professional, and financial goals? Because when you ask somebody what their personal, professional and financial goals are and you can instill in them that they're in the right place.

Natalie Dawson (00:10:11) - To achieve those goals, and maybe even potentially you have bigger goals and bigger visions because you see the opportunity in your own business to expand what their belief is about what's possible for them. You change the entire team dynamic. You change the entire way that that person shows up because you're having a conversation about what they want. And then as a business owner or as a leader of a team, you then get to say, okay, this is what delivering that would look like. I'm going to need you to learn this thing that you probably don't know in order for you to make that additional money that you want to make, and you just confront the conversation that is so obvious and so clearly challenging for most people, which is employees want to get paid more, business owners want to grow. Okay. How do we align these two things? And it's awkward when you don't really know how to have a goal conversation in a workforce or in a workplace. But that's the thing that's like the one pivotal thing that if a business owner can learn how to do that and then is clear about their goals and say, okay, you're wanting to do this, I'm wanting to do this as a business owner entrepreneur, you're already creative.

Natalie Dawson (00:11:13) - Okay. What do you need to learn? You probably need to learn how to be a better photographer, to be able to take better pictures of our products because our products online are terrible, or invest in what Jasmine teaches. Jasmine I bought your products by the way, and like the captions for the Instagram posts, this is the product that I bought. This was like four years ago. I'm telling you, I've stocked you for a very long time. The captions for the Instagram posts like you have to learn how to create content and you share with the team member what they need to know and the skills that would be required for them to get paid more money. You wait for those results to happen because they have to put in that energy. Just because they buy jasmine sauce doesn't mean that they're going to actually implement it. They have to implement it and then they grow. And it's the most amazing thing because it teaches them how to do that at every phase inside their career, ideally with your company.

Jasmine Star (00:12:00) - Okay. So I'm going to repeat this. I'm going to repeat it back three main lessons that will transform any business owner as they build a team. Whatever stage of inception you are in. And number one, communicate with prospective employees that you have a goal oriented plan. It leads to transparency and it clearly lays out how they contribute to growth expectations. Two is onboarding. You are clearly explaining how they can be successful in their role, even if it is just a brain dump of what you need this person to do. And three individual meetings in a casual setting that asks, what are your personal and financial goals? And it expands a belief for them on how they can step into bigger things. Did I hear that right?

Natalie Dawson (00:12:35) - You just nailed that. Did you just chat? GPT what I said and.

Jasmine Star (00:12:38) - Hey girl, no girl, no I am I am a forever student and I'm sitting here and I'm listening and I'm like, we have to make sure that this is what's being distilled. And so on the back of all of your experience, you're sharing this so generously and want to make sure I'm like, do you all understand? Like she is dropping some wisdom.

Jasmine Star (00:12:53) - So let's like distill what is actually happening here. Okay. So as you go through this, I'm in the process of hiring and you feel like hiring is always a thing that we move through. And I know that you've been doing it a lot longer. You have processes. What are like a few like really powerful interview questions that when you ask this question because what I've heard and what have I experienced, but probably not in the capacity you have. If the way that somebody answers a question is a clear indication to me if they're suited for the role. And so I started asking myself, are there certain questions that I can go down and start asking? Have you come across any questions that you're like, this is a really good question. That's going to get me to an answer faster. Anything along those lines any like not like cheat codes, but you're experience leveraged.

Natalie Dawson (00:13:31) - I got a lot on this. Yeah I'm a distill it. So I believe in a three part interview process. In the first part I want to understand if this person is culturally aligned with our organization, don't even care if they can do what the role is required of them if they've never sold anything before, but they are culturally aligned with they have big goals.

Natalie Dawson (00:13:51) - They are willing to work their tails off. They are ambitious. Like I will hire that person because they are culturally aligned. So that's the first set of criteria. And I ask that the specific question that I use is I tell them what our mission statement is. So I say at Cardinal Ventures, we're here to help business owners achieve their personal, professional and financial goals. So if you're a business out there, you would insert your mission statement to that first part of the question. So I'm telling them what we're here to do, but then I'm connecting it because they don't care what we do if it's not connected to what they do. So this is what we do. We help business owners achieve their personal professional financial goals. But it's important that our team members don't just see Cardone Ventures as the vehicle for clients to win. I want to make sure that you're winning. So what are your five year professional goals when you frame it like that to understand what their goals are? If they say something like, oh, you know, I've never really thought about it, I'm not really sure.

Natalie Dawson (00:14:45) - I don't have goals. They're not the right person for us, and they're probably not the right person for you if you want to grow your business. If they don't have goals, why do you think that they're just going to magically come into your organization and be able to help you achieve your goals? Like, it's so obvious when you think about it like that? But we just get complacent with thinking that people shouldn't have goals, or maybe they shouldn't tell you about their goals. You should tell somebody you have a goal. That's the only way you achieve your goals. So in that cultural interview. I'm just assessing. Are they the right fit for us? One of the best things that we've done, that I've learned over the last three years, especially in a virtual work environment where you're interviewing people in a setting like this, it's hard to be able to tell if somebody can do the job. So the second interview is created to get the person as close to the work that they will be doing as possible.

Natalie Dawson (00:15:33) - If you are hiring a graphic designer, I want you to have them in this interview. Open up Canva and you show them two ads that you've created, or two graphics that your company has used in the past, and I want them to create those two or recreate a third ad that would fit with these other two in a matter of ten minutes. What's that going to show you? Can they follow instructions? Do they actually know how to use Canva or Adobe or whatever platform they're using?

Jasmine Star (00:16:01) - And you're Natalie am dying right now. I'm dying on the inside. Okay, so there are times if somebody advances through the interview process enough that we will invite them to do an assignment and say it's mandated, but we invite them to do this so we can see the way they think. But what you're saying is to do it live on the call with you because they fake shit. Oh my God. I'm like, this is so real. Like it almost makes me so uncomfortable that I'm living for it. Okay, let me make this really selfish.

Jasmine Star (00:16:27) - I'm hiring for an E8 chief of staff. Great. Well, actually hiring for an executive project manager. But their growth plan, if they tell me that they want to be a chief of staff, I'm, like, already in alignment. What would I do? Like, I'm, like, literally dying asking the question because I'm like, I'm going to be on the call. And I'm asking them like, how much is too much? Because you had said ten minutes to create a third ad. That seems possible. But what if I'm like, hey, look at this asana task flow. Duplicate it for what it might look like in this, and I'm literally just going to sit and watch them do it. Yep.

Jasmine Star (00:16:57) - Oh my god.

Natalie Dawson (00:16:59) - How am share screen open their screen up if they say that they have experience with asana? Because some people say that, oh, I've experience with asana. I have it with Monday. They say like all of these things, great. You're telling me you have experience? I'm paying you for said experience.

Natalie Dawson (00:17:12) - That's the exchange that's happening when you pay a team member who is saying that they've done these things. So show me that you can do it.

Jasmine Star (00:17:19) - This sounds like a reality television show. And I'm like, oh my God. And so I'm assuming that you're telling them in advance that they're going to share their screen and they're going to be asked to be doing this. So it's not like surprise. No.

Natalie Dawson (00:17:29) - Because what if they had stuff open on there like that?

Jasmine Star (00:17:32) - Right?

Natalie Dawson (00:17:33) - Right.

Jasmine Star (00:17:34) - Right, right.

Natalie Dawson (00:17:36) - We really am living.

Jasmine Star (00:17:38) - For this right now okay. So part one you want to be culture aligned and you're sharing your mission statement and then asking them what their five year professional goals are to make sure that your mission statement is aligned to their mission statement, and you want somebody who's goal oriented. And then part two is to get the candidate as close to the work as possible. Yep.

Natalie Dawson (00:17:54) - Oh yeah. There's a part three. Part three is if you have core values in your business, I think every business should have core values.

Natalie Dawson (00:18:02) - It's one of the biggest selling points to a high performer. A high performer in today's economy wants to know that the company that they're working for has similar values to them. They want to know that if they're a money motivated person, money matters at this organization. If they're a socially conscious person, they want to know that that matters. A high performer cares about that. Average team members don't care. You're not looking for average team members to help you grow your business. You need high performers. So if a business owner doesn't have core values, highly recommend. Strongly encourage creating core values and then use those core values in the interview. So for us, the third step of the interview process is every team member presents to the hiring manager, to our head of HR now. But this used to be me for first 50 employees. They present to me, to my husband and to the rest of our leadership team how they align with Cardinal Ventures core values. And this does a couple of things. The first thing out of two, first thing it does, you're able to understand if they can speak in public and get over that fear.

Natalie Dawson (00:19:00) - Nobody likes speaking in public. Like I've still have not met somebody who's like, it's the greatest thing ever. I don't get nervous. There's some like, do I really want to do this? I'm going to make this presentation. If they're willing to do this, they are going to be bought into the company before they start with the company. It's a mutual like, okay, I put time into this and I'm interested enough in this and I put effort into it. I don't want to be bad at it. Nobody likes blowing a public presentation. And then the second piece is they know who you are prior to them walking in the door. If they don't know. For us, one of our big core values is disciplined. If they don't know that we are disciplined and that we do the things that we say that we're going to do. And I just on day five of their onboarding. And when I asked them, where was your end of day report from yesterday? And they're like, oh, you know, just like didn't send it.

Natalie Dawson (00:19:45) - I'm like, well, we're disciplined around here. So you said you were going to send it. You didn't send it. I want to make sure that you send it tomorrow because it's important, because I use that information to help onboard you. If they're like, whoa, this is micromanaging, they're not going to be at the right fit for us. And it's I could defend this all day. Why? It's not micromanaging, but it's we do the things we say that we're going to do. If you you said that you're going to submit it at five, I didn't say you were going to submit it at five. You said you were going to do it. Okay. I'm going to hold you accountable because that's important. So when you. How somebody who you are and you make them ensure that they know who you are as a business, you're increasing the likelihood that that person is going to be a long term fit for where you want your business to go.

Jasmine Star (00:20:21) - Dang, I'm like dying. Okay, so let's go back because I'm making it all about me again.

Jasmine Star (00:20:25) - Part three. We do have core values. Are you saying that the person who I interview, I'm going to be asking them to create a presentation on how their core values are aligned with ours?

Natalie Dawson (00:20:37) - Yes. No. How they align with your core values.

Jasmine Star (00:20:39) - They. Okay.

Natalie Dawson (00:20:41) - Yes. So what's one of your core values?

Jasmine Star (00:20:43) - Dependability.

Natalie Dawson (00:20:45) - Dependability.

Jasmine Star (00:20:45) - You do what you say you're going to do basically discipline. But I kind of like discipline. It's a little bit sharper. We just say dependability. Like I just need to know if you say it's here by five it's here by 459. Yeah.

Natalie Dawson (00:20:55) - Love that. So then the person in the interview, this is like a little hack for this because as you try to do this you're going to run into some potential problems. Sometimes people in a presentation, they redefine what dependability is. They're like, oh, the definition of dependability is. And then Albert Einstein said this thing don't you don't need to give me a dissertation on what these things are. I want to know how you have been dependable in your life.

Natalie Dawson (00:21:18) - Tell me about the time where you took your kid to the soccer practice and went awry, but you still showed up because you said that you were going to, and you made the whatever it is. How are you demonstrating to me that you're dependable? Because that's what we are. And I need to make sure that you are what we are because you're about to be us. Wow.

Jasmine Star (00:21:38) - Okay, so what percentage of people start off in part one and make it through part three? Like you put out a role, let's just say head of marketing. Yeah. How many people are making it to part one? How many people make it to part three okay. When there's only one role?

Natalie Dawson (00:21:53) - Yes. Well, today I would say if we have 100 applicants for director of marketing, we're going to get 15 interviews scheduled out of the 100 resumes for part one. Part two is probably going to have five case studies. And by that, core values presentation, you're probably not having that with more than two people.

Jasmine Star (00:22:15) - Interesting. Okay. So people so this is what I like to do not only on the podcast. I really like to come in with the hook, like why should I care? What are you about, what's in it for me? And oftentimes what I've seen or experience is we start with the origin story, and origin stories are really powerful. But before somebody is like bought in, like they want to know, like, what are you about? What's in it for me? Okay, so now you just dropped some heat. Like it kind of just overdelivered. We could basically just drop the mic now and be like, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go back. How did you get here? How did you become a co-founder?

Natalie Dawson (00:22:43) - So I love that you do that because I think the exact same way. And it's actually one of the things I wanted to pick your brain about, because I thought that this was going to be about.

Jasmine Star (00:22:52) - You and your podcast. On your podcast. Let's get back into it.

Natalie Dawson (00:22:55) - Because I have always had this bend in my entire life of like, I want to deliver value. Nobody cares about my story. Like they just want to know, like the thing about them. But I've been told recently that people connect to the information because of the story. So I love that you. I like how you just did that. That was really nice. So just wanted to comment on that. Thank you. You know, I decided when I was 12 years old that I loved business. I picked up a book at a Barnes and Noble called The Starbucks Experience. And it fascinated me that Starbucks has green straws, and that's part of their branding and just this book. Walk through so many cool marketing and business tactics that forget school for a second. It just interested me outside of sports and television and, you know, at the time, being able to text on my Nokia phone like it really was the first thing that really captivated my attention as a child. And both of my parents are entrepreneurs.

Natalie Dawson (00:23:46) - They're both medical doctors. They just retired this last year, so I think I had some of that growing up, but I was planning on being a lawyer, and I wanted to get my MBA until I decided to start dating my now husband almost a decade ago. And my now husband is 25 years older than me. He was running a very successful company, and I had all of these fears about. I was like, smart. I got a full ride academic scholarship to college. I was like, I'm not the girl that sells out to marry some older man like, this is ridiculous, but really fell in love with him. And so the.

Jasmine Star (00:24:22) - Last time out, time out, time out. A side note, how did you guys meet? Like, where does this happen?

Natalie Dawson (00:24:26) - He's been my neighbor. I've known him since I was 12. He took my phone away when I was 12. This story is ridiculous. It's like totally.

Jasmine Star (00:24:32) - 12 was also when you read the Starbucks book. So is like.

Natalie Dawson (00:24:36) - My life changed when was 12 dog?

Jasmine Star (00:24:39) - Wait a minute. Okay, so he takes your Nokia phone away, the one that you really like to text on. But obviously it started like your love affair with Howard Schultz in Starbucks. And okay, but how do you what happens?

Natalie Dawson (00:24:49) - Yeah. So I started working for his company when I was 20, and I was in college still at the time decided.

Jasmine Star (00:24:56) - Hold on, how did you get there? Like, so you're like, okay. You're like, oh, you should just.

Natalie Dawson (00:25:01) - So my mom's been his doctor for 20 years and I was in college. It was summer vacation. Previous summers I had spent. Volunteering under bridges in downtown Portland with homeless people. And my mom's like, you're getting a job this summer. This is not what you're doing. So she calls Brandon her patient, also her neighbor, and is like, Brandon, do you have any internships available at your company? Because my daughter needs to not put herself in danger in downtown Portland.

Jasmine Star (00:25:28) - Okay, so when's the last time that Brandon saw you? Is this one of those, like, you went from, like, that awkward 12, 13 year old girl, and then all of a sudden you show up in your 20 and he's just like, whoa, Natalie's not really.

Natalie Dawson (00:25:39) - Pretty much.

Jasmine Star (00:25:40) - So then what did you do for his mean? We're totally off topic and I'm living for it. What did you do in his company?

Natalie Dawson (00:25:45) - This is the leadership development role. So I was working for his vice president of administration just to help over summer while I was in college. And then her husband gets diagnosed with cancer. Everything that she was working on was dropped. She was one of six VP's, so they had to split out the work, and I was the only person who was helping her with this program. So did you go.

Jasmine Star (00:26:04) - Back to school?

Natalie Dawson (00:26:05) - No. I dropped out of college to fall in love with a man 25 years older than me, who was my neighbor, and I was supposed to become a lawyer.

Natalie Dawson (00:26:12) - It was like she's lost her mind. Okay, wait a minute.

Jasmine Star (00:26:15) - So how long before you're working to. Oh, there's it's something's different here between us.

Natalie Dawson (00:26:21) - Like a year.

Jasmine Star (00:26:22) - Okay? Okay. Like a.

Natalie Dawson (00:26:24) - Year. Year and.

Jasmine Star (00:26:24) - A half. Like, is he the pursuer or are you the pursuer?

Natalie Dawson (00:26:27) - It was more so him for sure I was. I tell him this too. I was like a little creeped out. It's like, what is weird? What?

Jasmine Star (00:26:35) - I'm living for this conversation. And then one last question. What does your mom say?

Natalie Dawson (00:26:38) - She cried when I told her. She bawled. Okay, now my mother. We went to dinner with my parents last night. My parents love my husband more than they love me. I'm certain of it. But my dad wanted to shoot him with a shotgun, and my mom was just sad because this is not what she wanted for her daughter. And luckily it turned out a lot different than what it looked like it was going to turn out like when I was in my early 20s.

Natalie Dawson (00:27:00) - But that was really the first time that I made a decision in my life to take control of my life. I dropped out of college. I didn't want to go to college any longer. I told my parents, no, I'm not going to do these additional years of school because I see this opportunity. And then that gave me the confidence to also have the relationship I have with him, which has been the greatest thing in my entire life. And if I wouldn't have done those two things, dropped out of school, dated a guy that I was I was certain of, but I was so fearful of everybody else being uncertain of and judging me for it. Yes, like if I can handle these two things, everything else is going to be a cakewalk. And that's really it's not been a cakewalk, but it's been. That was my foundation.

Jasmine Star (00:27:36) - Good for you. I mean, I hear that and am just like that after school special slow clap. I'm like, I'm about this trash, like right here.

Jasmine Star (00:27:44) - Those are skill sets that you develop early on. That play out for you is like the minute that you could face your greatest fear, which as in a healthy relationship, letting your parents down or choosing something that they don't agree with and then owning it will serve you very well in boardrooms and in press rooms. And like white House to the warehouse, you say, I've made a decision and I'm like, cure for it. Think super powerful. Okay, so how then are you in Brandon's company and you're growing and you guys are start to build at some point really to do it together. And then where do you start entering a new chapter or phase in your life back then. Yeah. So it's like, how do you guys go from building that company to becoming co-founders for current ventures?

Natalie Dawson (00:28:19) - Yes. So I was a team member at that company. I had $3,500 in my bank account for like a very long time. It wasn't like we just started dating. And he had like there was very clear, like financial separation.

Natalie Dawson (00:28:31) - And that was really important to me. And he sold this company in 2016 for $151 million. And that was another huge, amazing gift because I watched this smart entrepreneur achieve every financial target in every business target. He he paid out over $15 million to his team for being there if they were there for a day or if they had been there for ten years. He just like paid out. So the clients won because the clients also got paid out more money than their businesses were worth. In some cases. Some of these business owners made $1.5 million just from being a client. It was a really cool business model. So I watched all of these people win from a business owner having this amazing idea. But then as soon as this business was sold, it was like, well, what's my purpose? And what do I do now? And fear and anxiety crippled its way in, creeped itself, crippled in whatever.

Jasmine Star (00:29:21) - Girl, if it's creeping in, it's crippled too. So yeah. Both.

Natalie Dawson (00:29:24) - Exactly.

Natalie Dawson (00:29:25) - It entered. And for a year and a half, we just spent time with people who were retired, who were on golf courses, who were who had already made money and were like, I'm not going to do this again. And I realized at the 24, 25 year mark of my life that I don't want to be that person. If we failed another business, I'm okay failing at that business, but I'd rather start something new again and hit the target, but then make it bigger this time than think that we can't do it again and just do what a lot of people do, which is they achieve their dreams and they're like, okay, great, done that. Now I'm going to be retired. It's not about retiring, it's about what is your potential? I have the sticky note on my desk and I read this every single day. It says R plus or R equals P today. And then a question mark that means to me does my reality what to. Day is actually match what my potential is, and if my potential is to help people, and if my potential is to empower our team, my potential is to grow this business, or to write a book or to make an impact.

Natalie Dawson (00:30:22) - My reality can't be. I'm sitting on a beach. My reality can't be. I'm just going to go shopping or eat lunch and just like, have this leisure life. Because that's not what my potential is. My potential is to really help people. So we made that pivot in 2019, met a couple by the name of Grant and Elena Cardone, and we partnered with them and have been on a rocket ship ever since.

Jasmine Star (00:30:42) - So because I'm just a storyteller, but part of the reason why I want to do the story is because it it betrays the grit and almost the gall that it takes to do something so different. And so we say X and people look at that and it's social validity. But what I think oftentimes is overlooked is like not the glitz and glam of what we see on the outside, but like what was that inception point. So you are introduced to Grant and Elena and then what happens?

Natalie Dawson (00:31:07) - Well, my husband and I were at the most depressed point we had ever been at, and I said, we're not going to be these people who have a pointless life, who go on vacation and golf all day.

Natalie Dawson (00:31:18) - We're not going to be these people. So I looked up a list of social media influencers, and while he was looking at traditional companies like private equity groups, for us to go in and help clean up these businesses, I was like, well, what if we use these audiences that some social media people have? We partner with them to help grow the businesses that are in their communities. And so we had this long list of people, and I found Grant, and I thought he was like the most ridiculous, obscene, like unattractive person as a business partner. It's like, absolutely not cross his name off the list. And by the grace of God, by looking at Grant's account, it got me over to Elena's account. Hallelujah. There's there's some sanity in this world. And she was talking about just different stories that she's experienced, of being the woman beside the man and what it takes to be really strong in your power while being married to somebody who's really strong, which is also the thing that I was really insecure about at the time.

Natalie Dawson (00:32:13) - So I gave him a second look and became obsessed, read every single book, and we showed up to one of their events, looking to see if the thing was real and if they were real business owners and there were real business owners that we could help, and they weren't currently offering things that were helping them the way that we could help them. So we pitched them on.

Jasmine Star (00:32:29) - Girl, girl, girl. I'm like, am just like tweezing this stuff out. Where is the event? How big is it and what was the ticket price? Because what I'm trying to do is I want a listener and myself. Who am I kidding to get into? How are you thinking about this? Do we go to the large scale event to actually see like the point of entry? Are we going to the top high level possibilities of what they're actually? Net is at that point? Like where are we at?

Natalie Dawson (00:32:51) - Yes, we were at a 35,000 person event in Maryland Stadium because we didn't know that there was a smaller event.

Natalie Dawson (00:33:00) - We just saw this event that was promoted. Okay. So we went to a 35,000 person event. We paid $20,000 per ticket because we were in the front row. We wanted to be seen. We wanted to meet people we wanted to be or everybody who we knew we needed to meet. We're going to be, which was going to be paying whatever was required in order to be in that group of people.

Jasmine Star (00:33:22) - How many people about how many people were in that section, like, how were you one of five? Were you one of 50? Like, I'm trying to get like scope wise, they wanted 50, okay?

Natalie Dawson (00:33:30) - And we paid it like online. We didn't talk to a sales rep. We were just saw the tickets. And I guess that doesn't really happen. We were just like, we want proximity to these people. And how do you get proximity? You pay for proximity. That's just if the greatest mentor of your entire life is offering proximity to them, you pay for that proximity.

Natalie Dawson (00:33:47) - You're not just to be like, can I pick your brain, grant? No, you have to pay. And you support their business. And you say, I'm going to throw down whatever product it is that you are selling so that I can get your attention and be a success case, which is what we had spent six months doing. I had listened to all of their content and we paid to get access.

Jasmine Star (00:34:05) - So I'm assuming with $20,000 you're having proximity, but then also ways to talk to Grant and Alaina in that sphere of that event, do assume correctly. Yeah. And then at what point are you have you already come up with an idea that you want to pitch? Are you there and you're refining the pitch? Do you pitch there at the event? What is the follow up like? What is that looking like?

Natalie Dawson (00:34:24) - So we bought every product that they were selling at that event, every single one of them. And at the event we walked up to them during a photo shoot like opportunity, you know, there's a whole line of people and my husband and I say, what if we can add an extra billion dollars to your net worth? And of course, that's like an intriguing pitch.

Natalie Dawson (00:34:41) - And there was so much going on, though, that it's not like you could be like, tell me more about this idea. So we knew that by buying everything that we would get the attention of the other sales people, that we weren't just playing around like, oh, $1 billion idea. It was a real worth willing to invest. But we're also interested in what this could look like in the future. So the funny thing is, nothing really happened. We gave him the business card. Two weeks later. We saw that they were in Cabo and we have a house in Cabo. So we had sent our golf cart tequila and. Floaties to the house that they were staying at in Cabo to get their attention. And then we flew down to Cabo and pitched them on the idea, because we got their attention through stalking them on social media.

Jasmine Star (00:35:21) - I'm obsessed with you. I'm seriously going to skin you and wear you like last year's Versace. This is incredible. Dang, that's the game. That's the game.

Natalie Dawson (00:35:32) - People are accessible. And I do think that that's if you're listening to this and you're thinking that, you know, you've been a fan of Jasmine forever and you're like, oh, but Jasmine, I have this opportunity that if I did this thing with Jasmine or she knows people like you are accessible. If somebody took everything that you did and got your attention in a creative way, in a thoughtful way, in a meaningful way, and if the person that's trying to get your attention is really serious, they can make that happen. And I believe that they can make that happen. But they have to believe that they can make it happen. It's not your job to figure that out. It's their job. So if you're listening to this and you see these people that you could do business with, how can you get creative about getting their attention, seeing what they're doing, not being a weird stalker, but like being thoughtful about it and being intentional about it. But anybody is accessible to people these days due to social media.

Jasmine Star (00:36:20) - So when you meet somebody on floor 37 and you're going down and somebody says, Natalie, what do you do? What is your elevator pitch? That's about less than two minutes.

Natalie Dawson (00:36:30) - Yes. So I tell people that I help business owners achieve their personal, professional and financial goals. And then normally they ask how and we'll say we invest capital in them. We have an events component like, you know, you get into the nitty gritty, but my like 15 seconds is we help business owners grow and scale their businesses and help them achieve their goals.

Jasmine Star (00:36:48) - So you make an investment in the business for equity, and then you deploy your resources to help them scale or figure out where they're stuck.

Natalie Dawson (00:36:54) - Yeah. And we don't always have to deploy capital for them. We they can come to an event we have. Actually that's what's happening outside. There's like people there's people in our office right now because we're doing an event. We have managed consulting services so they could hire us to help them, recruit for them or do their financial.

Natalie Dawson (00:37:11) - But there's different ways that they can connect with us. But our sole purpose is any businesses out there that the owners like, I want to achieve something that I haven't achieved. We want to help them understand what might be broken in their business, or what could be fixed in their business, or optimize to help them achieve the growth. And normally it comes down to people. It's what we're talking about right now. It's hiring people. It's training those people. It's aligning those people to what the business owner is trying to do, but maybe hasn't been able to fully communicate with their teams.

Jasmine Star (00:37:38) - Okay, so before we push record, I had said the conversation goes where the conversation goes. I'm like a firm believer that we're being guided to it. Feel like I just want to state how appreciative I am that asked very personal questions. And oftentimes, Natalie, they come out and after they're out in the ether, I'm like, was that a little personal? Either way, I just want to acknowledge that you sharing openly and generously about like very high level business and then very, very deep personal things.

Jasmine Star (00:38:02) - I just want to say thank you for that. And then as a side note, you do something interesting to get attention for somebody. Has anybody ever done something interesting to get your attention perhaps through the hiring process, something was there something that somebody did? They're like, this is different, and I like it.

Natalie Dawson (00:38:16) - Um.

Jasmine Star (00:38:17) - You know, I think that there should not seeing that there, there should. I just thought, has anybody ever sent you like the proverbial floatie and golf cart now that you say that.

Natalie Dawson (00:38:23) - No.

Jasmine Star (00:38:24) - Oh if they if you if Natalie is looking to hire y'all do some homework and then find out what her floaty floaties floaties are and surprise her surprise and delight, I love that.

Natalie Dawson (00:38:35) - I love that because yeah, those things are totally out there. Really. Just send me flowers. I love flowers, my flowers. If you send me flowers, you have my attention. Period.

Jasmine Star (00:38:43) - Your favorite flower, Natalie. What's your favorite flower?

Natalie Dawson (00:38:45) - I love these orchids. Somebody just sent me these yesterday.

Natalie Dawson (00:38:47) - Look at this. This is ridiculous.

Jasmine Star (00:38:49) - Oh, stunning. They're wanting.

Natalie Dawson (00:38:51) - A donation. They're going to get a donation because they're flowers. It's so easy. I love this.

Jasmine Star (00:38:57) - I love not even that hard. Oh, speaking of getting these amazing gifts and a donation, you had said on an Instagram post that collaboration is a new currency. So I would like to elaborate on this topic. You know, just to kind of put like a nice closure around this because sometimes people listen and they're not in the space to be hiring, but they really want to expand. And I really like this idea of your perspective on collaboration. Yeah.

Natalie Dawson (00:39:18) - What you and I are doing right now is collaboration. How can you find people who are interested in the same cool things that you're interested in, in your business or your team, or as your role as an employee, and communicate with them and create value for them so that you can exchange ideas and build your network, build your ability to raise money if that's what your business is looking for, your ability to have great new team members because people are talking about the fact that you are growing.

Natalie Dawson (00:39:42) - So collaborating is introducing yourself and figuring out, man, what is the thing that I could offer to Jasmine? Or what is the thing that I could offer to Joe down the street that would make him interested enough to have this conversation with me? And it is never been easier than it is right now. You could stalk somebody on social media, which is what I did with Great and Alana for months, but you could do it a couple days. You could stalk somebody and understand the little tiny things that they are interested in to increase your chances of a real communication that ends. Up in a collaboration that could take your business to the next level. We would not be where we're at without the collaboration with Grant and Elena. You don't have to do things on your own. You shouldn't do things on your own. There is too many great people that are able and willing and want to have other great people to do things with. So go connect with those people and figure out creatively what that could look like.

Jasmine Star (00:40:31) - When talk to others on behalf of team building and leadership. A question that comes up because people do see that work with my husband, but feel like and heard that you, you know, you work with Brandon and those are kind of siloed. They're not for everybody. They're for some people don't really have a framework on it. But question do get a lot of is do you hire friends and family. And I know that you do. So what's your belief around it and what have you learned from that. Like how can people get better if they do decide to work with friends and family?

Natalie Dawson (00:40:53) - Yes. So I work with my brother, I work with my husband's brother and then obviously work with my husband. And fun fact, 84% of businesses in the small and mid-sized business space in the United States, 84% of them are family businesses. So this is a real thing. And my perspective on this is being super crystal clear. And when I say clear, it's like a document. It's not a conversation.

Natalie Dawson (00:41:18) - Clarity does not come through conversation. Clarity comes through documentation being clear on what the expectations are. Hey, I'm hiring you in this role or I want to work with you in this capacity. This is what I would expect of this role. And if you fill this role, then this is what I would expect of you. Let's have the conversation of if you're willing to do this because you're prioritizing your business first, not the relationship first, the business, the role that everybody is in, they have to fulfill that. And more times than not, people just get into trouble because they don't want to have that hard conversation and document the hard conversation on the front end. So feelings get hurt when it would have been totally solved if you would be able to sit down and look at somebody and say, I make these decisions. You make these decisions when we do not agree, I'm the person that is going to call the tiebreaker. Like that's in my purview, and I need you to support those decisions, even if in the moment you might not feel like supporting it.

Natalie Dawson (00:42:09) - If you tell somebody that on the front end when it's happening, it takes the sting out of the situation, and it removes that difficulty in really talking about hard things.

Jasmine Star (00:42:19) - So for somebody who's listening, they work with a family member and they didn't document it, and they're in that kind of like crux, that moment. What kind of advice would you give them if they don't have any documented, how do they then approach the situation? And then how do they learn from that?

Natalie Dawson (00:42:33) - Yeah, I would take a piece of paper and I would put three columns in the paper. The first column would be my responsibilities, the last column would be the other person's responsibilities, and the middle column would be what are the challenge points? Because you're likely not valuing what they're good at when things are difficult, and they might not be valuing what you're good at when things are difficult. So it's valuing what the two people bring to the table, what their strengths are that they should totally be responsible for, and separating those great things that are working from the handful of things that are not working.

Natalie Dawson (00:43:10) - And then you go through and confront the five things that aren't working and figure out who's column those things going. And if you can do that and just keep doing that when issues come up, you're going to handle it. There's very few things that I believe aren't workable through communication and clarity like that. It just gets hard when people dodge it and talk to other people about it and create confusion. I couldn't think.

Jasmine Star (00:43:35) - Of a better way to end it. It's like all things are solvable, and as you work and build a team, family or not, you're building to buttress a culture, a belief and a vision. And I think you shared so generously on so many accounts. I know you have a powerful book, you have a podcast, and for people who would like to creep on you and social media, where do we send people to? And for those of you who are watching or listening, would you please be able to tag us specifically in like when we share so much and we create? It feels good that other people are doing it alongside of us.

Jasmine Star (00:44:05) - So where do people go? How do they best connect with you?

Natalie Dawson (00:44:07) - Well, I would love to offer a free copy of my book teamwork, which actually details the entire interview process.

Jasmine Star (00:44:15) - Let's go.

Natalie Dawson (00:44:16) - So if they go to Carbon Ventures forward slash teamwork, give them full copy. It's interview questions, onboarding, checklists really everything we talked about in the first half, it's the resources for and the steps and the process for all of those things. And then I'm at Natalie Dawson pretty much everywhere socially. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. All the above.

Jasmine Star (00:44:37) - Are.

Jasmine Star (00:44:38) - You are a gift. Just when think that you couldn't serve anymore, you go and offer a free book. Harden ventures forward slash teamwork. Thank you so so so much. It is an honor and a privilege to talk with brilliant, brilliant entrepreneurs and fellow sojourner of the female species in the business world. Natalie, it is a pleasure. It is an honor and a privilege. And thank you again.

Natalie Dawson (00:45:00) - Thank you for having me. It's.