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Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Why hire people and get out of their way is BS Business Advice

Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Eric Siu and Neil Patel

Careers, Business, Marketing

4.6 β€’ 1.3K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Eric and Neil unpack skip-level leadership and when founders should step in versus step back. They explore β€œfocused involvement” as a leadership edge, compare international expansion with acquisitions, and dive into how chaos tolerance and incentives shape culture. The duo also discuss Amazon’s hit-rate mindset, micro-ops wins, and how to balance control with growth across teams. Key takeaways ● Focused involvement beats hands-off leadership ● Use skip-levels for truth and speed ● Reward competence with aligned incentives TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Founder skip-level question (02:50) Hands-on where it matters (04:37) International expansion vs M&A (11:00) Amazon hit-rate mindset (16:46) Incentives and culture fit 𝗔𝗕𝗒𝗨𝗧 π—§π—›π—˜ π—–π—›π—”π—‘π—‘π—˜π—Ÿ Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOSTS Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel FREE RESOURCES Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Ubersuggest: https://www.ubersuggest.com/ Answer The Public: https://www.answerthepublic.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel

Transcript

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0:00.0

All right. So Neil and I were just talking. And the question is, should you be as a founder of a company or leader of a company, should you be talking to anybody you want into organization?

0:11.5

Even if they're not a direct report. Correct. Or as you scale up, should you just deal with your direct reports and should you just deal with your direct reports and let them deal

0:24.4

with everyone else underneath you yeah and i don't know if there's a right or wrong answer

0:30.0

but you know my personality at this point because we've known each other for more than 10 years

0:35.7

easily has to be way more than 10.

0:37.7

15?

0:38.3

Yeah.

0:38.6

You know, I was just telling no yesterday before you go.

0:40.9

Like, I was at a, we did an EO forum dinner yesterday.

0:43.7

This is the group.

0:44.1

I'm not an EO anymore, but Entrepreneurs Organization.

0:46.5

And one guy in the group, I met him when he was 37.

0:48.8

He's now 51.

0:49.9

Yeah.

0:50.1

I was like, damn, I was like 26. Like, time goes quickly. Time goes by quickly. And it's hard for me

0:57.3

not to be involved in the areas. And I'm going to, you know, give that little disclaimer,

1:03.3

in the areas I want to be involved in. You know me where if there's certain things like HR,

1:09.8

I don't really deal with HR,

1:28.6

never get involved in HR. And when you have a company at scale, there's always some HR show. I'm not saying anything bad, but like, you know, if you have 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 people, someone's going to complain about something. So this question one, I'm not saying I don't want people to be happy. It's just more so there's certain departments that I'll spend my energy on and certain departments that I won't.

1:30.2

Not saying HR is question one. I'm not saying I don't want people to be happy. It's just more so. There's certain departments that I'll spend my energy on and certain departments that I won't.

1:30.2

Not saying HR is not important. You're just not good at it too. I'm not good at it. It's not me.

1:34.5

But things like finance, I get heavily involved in. Not everyone likes that. Things like dealing with leaders and different regions.

...

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