Naked Truths #2: Scale Smarter with Military Precision – Lessons from a Money-Making Expert

In these ‘Naked Truths,’ I’ll be spotlighting my favourite, most impactful moments from past episodes of Stripping Off with Matt Haycox. These are the moments that hit hardest, offer the most value, and deserve to be heard again.

Hiring the right people is the single biggest factor in scaling your business successfully. Yet, most entrepreneurs get it wrong—and it costs them time, money, and momentum.

In this Naked Truth, Daniel Priestley reveals why your hiring process is broken, why big corporate hires can actually destroy your business, and how elite military strategy can help you build the perfect team.

If you’ve ever struggled with recruitment, retention, or building a high-performance team, this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why 90% of business owners hire the wrong people (and how to fix it)
✅ The ‘McDonald’s Model’ for building scalable teams
✅ Why hiring ‘experienced’ corporate people can be your biggest mistake
✅ The British Military’s 400-year-old hiring strategy that works for business
✅ The Scout Team Strategy: How to test new ideas with the right hires

Timestamps:

0:00 – Why Most Business Owners Suck at Hiring
1:08 – The Biggest Hiring Mistake You’re Making Right Now
3:15 – Why Experience Can Be a Business Killer
6:59 – The McDonald’s Model for Scalable Hiring
9:18 – How the British Military Builds High-Performing Teams
9:50 – The ‘Scout Team Strategy’ for Testing New Business Ideas
10:30 – Final Thoughts & How to Fix Your Hiring Process

📌 Stop hiring the wrong people. Watch now and learn how to build a high-performance team that drives real success.

Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer

Are you ready to unlock your full potential and take your business to the next level? I’m Matt Haycox—entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and your go-to guy for no-bollocks advice on business and personal growth.

With over 25 years of experience building and funding businesses across industries, I’ve faced it all—wins, losses, and the ultimate comeback story. Through my podcasts, No Bollocks with Matt Haycox and Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, I cut through the bullshit to bring you real, actionable strategies and raw conversations with entrepreneurs, celebrities, and industry leaders.

Whether you’re looking to scale your business, secure funding, or avoid the mistakes I’ve learned the hard way, my goal is simple: to help YOU create YOUR success story.

Want more? Subscribe to my No Bollocks Newsletter and get weekly insider tips on entrepreneurship, strategy, and business growth—because learning in 10 minutes is way better than wasting years on an MBA.

Ready to make moves? Let’s go—your success starts here.

Chapters

• 0:05 Building and Leading Successful Teams
• 7:52 Effective Team Scaling Strategies

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Let's talk about people. You've got eight businesses, you've started them, you've bought them. I mean the bane of my life, as I've talked about for 20 years, is recruitment and retention. You know, I mean, I've been through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of staff to get. You know well, probably a core of four or five, that I might shed a tear if they left. And you know well, probably a core of four or five, that I might shed a tear if they left. And you know another couple of handfuls of modest ones. And you know, as much as I like to complain that 90% of the world are morons, I do also blame myself for not being good enough at being able to recruit the 10% of the world that aren't morons. Talk to me. What am I doing wrong?

Speaker 2: 0:45

Well, the first thing is I'm passionate about this topic because I don't think business is something you can do without a team. You need a team of people. People say, oh, productivity hacks, how do you stay productive? It's like I just have 100 people working. If you've got 100 people who work seven hours a day, that's 700 hours a day, you know, going into the development of a business. So building a team is everything and, um, I've you know.

Speaker 2: 1:12

The other question I get a lot is like oh, you know, how did you get started with no one on your team? When you're just starting out, I said I've never had no one on my team started every single business I've started with a team. Um, if I'm going to play a game of football, I'm not going to run onto the pitch and then try and recruit people after the game starts. I'm going to run onto the pitch with a team of you know people. If it's five aside, I'm going to run on with five people, um, because, uh, well, I'm going to run on with four people, but you get the idea right.

Speaker 2: 1:38

I, I, I think businesses, uh, you know, it really is a team sport and it's about bringing people onto that team as soon as you possibly can. If you didn't do it from day one, do it ASAP. What people make as a big mistake is when they're a small business. They're trying to look for people who are talented and good and amazing people. You're not going to get them. They already have jobs at Microsoft and Google and you know know better more interesting places than you can offer.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Especially, I think your background was more night time yeah, so you know there's not that many people who want to work a night time job, so you're not going to get you know. You're not going to get someone quit their job at Microsoft to come and work in the evening at your job. So the thing is, you need to learn how to work with young people who don't have experience but they're passionate. You need to learn how to work with someone who needs a lot of flexibility. You need to work with the neighbor's teenage kid who wants to do a little bit of work experience. As an entrepreneur, you have to be able to rope in whoever you've got available and see if you can put them to work. And sometimes it lasts and sometimes it doesn't, and that is just par for the course. That is just. There is no white knight in shining armor who's going to ride on in and fix everything. It doesn't exist for small businesses.

Speaker 1: 3:01

But that is at the beginning of the journey, presumably. As time goes on and you're more established, you've got more money, more exciting, you can be a bit more, yes but I don't obsess over it.

Speaker 2: 3:12

And the reason I don't obsess over it is when I was a teenager I worked at McDonald's and a group of 16, 17-year-old kids ran a 2 million dollar a year restaurant back in the 90s. So it was probably 4 million 5 million now and today's money. We used to run a multi-million dollar restaurant. The oldest person was the store manager, who was 23 or 24. Most of the stuff was on the shoulders of 15 16 year olds. Right, we couldn't even tidy our bedroom, but we could run. You know, we could run a mcdonald's um. When I got out of that, I did nightclub party um, nightclub party promotions, and I worked. When I got out of that, I did nightclub party promotions and I worked around bars and all of that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2: 3:51

The manager of any nightclub is about 32, 33. That's the general manager of a nightclub. All the bar staff are in their 20s, everyone's in their 20s, and we're running a multi, multi-million dollar business. That business needs marketing, it needs service, it needs cleaning, it needs security. You've got all sorts of dramas happening, you've got all sorts of things going wrong and somehow we solve all of those problems. So I, because of my background, I just don't really believe that you need some phenomenal. You know Albert Einstein, iqq, cindy crawford good looks. I don't think you need any of that stuff to run a successful business. There are people within a mile of here. There are people running coffee shops and restaurants profitably and they're not those types of people but I guess that's using the mcdonald's example.

Speaker 1: 4:42

I mean that's testament to the, to the skill of someone in the mcdonald's food chain they built yeah who builds the systems. So so the 15 year olds can run it.

Speaker 2: 4:53

Yes, and that's your job as the entrepreneur isn't it.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And also, you don't have 75 000 restaurants you've got, you know, you've got a business that you're starting with, so you're still pretty hands on with them. I'll also say this I've hired some corporate people. I have actually had phenomenally talented quote-unquote people join my team. They can wreck your business. If you want to talk about someone who has the power to absolutely do damage. It's someone whose previous job, you know, was a big, big corporate. They come in and they go. Oh, you know, I dialed two and no one showed up from it to set my laptop up. You know, you know they come in and they go. Oh, you know, I dialed two and no one showed up from IT to set my laptop up. You know, they come in and they go. Oh, I've got three suggestions we need to hire this person for 150 grand a year and we need to bring in this consulting firm for 150 grand a year and we need to put in this health and safety policy that I noticed is missing, that no one ever needs. You know the stuff they come up with.

Speaker 1: 5:47

I mean, I been been there too many times but I I have uh and had, um, an econ business, luxury fashion econ business, which had always been run as a, as a, as a very kind of hands-on entrepreneurial business for for many years. I bought it with the with the view to skate, you know, to scale it up, went and took on a couple of key hires who you know that they were going to be. I guess the tipping back points on these ex-Harrods, ex-selfridges, very senior, knowledgeable people, I mean all the day one job was was how much cost can we pile on this and how little? Making any turnover difference, making a profit was not even on the radar.

Speaker 1: 6:27

It was just how can we add all these people and jack up the overheads as much as possible?

Speaker 2: 6:31

Because they think about supply side, they don't think about demand side. They're set in their ways. They've always been protected by the shield of the big brand, all of that sort of stuff. So I'm very wary of people who are skilled and talented and experienced. You know, there's this interesting thing that the you know the founding fathers of the USA Hamilton, and you know all of the Thomas Jefferson and all of these guys. At the time they founded the USA, the Declaration of Independence and all of that. The founding fathers were, I think, 21 to 34. They were all in their 20s and early 30s and they founded the USA.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Like, there's a lot to be said for not knowing how things work and there's a lot to be said for rolling up your sleeves work. There's a lot to be said for rolling up your sleeves and kicking the door off the hinges. And that's the type of people, the people I love to bring onto my team. They're just go-getters. They don't know what they don't know, but they're willing to figure it out. Those sorts of people I've always done well with. I've always done well with young, hungry, excited, fun people on my teams and I've always had to work really hard to make the experience people not blow the thing up.

Speaker 2: 7:52

I have a way of scaling teams similar to the British military. So I actually learned my team scaling strategy from the British military. Not that I was in the military, so you're out there fighting for yourself. No, I just looked at how they did it, because the british military has had 400 years of unbroken service. Um, so they figured everything out. So they start everything with a two-person scout team. So two people, so the smallest team is a two-person scout team. Two people go looking at things. Then they have a four-person fire team, which is an immediate, short-term concern, and then they have an eight person section which is the building block. Uh, you unit within the military. So eight people on a section corporal, lance, corporal and six grunts, as they say. Uh, then they have a 30 person platoon and then 150 people in the company. So so they actually have a way of scaling up teams.

Speaker 2: 8:45

I've found this absolutely works with business. So when we have an idea, two person scout team gets assigned to it. One person is figuring out can we sell it? One person's asking can we build it Right? It's two simple questions Can we sell it? Can we deliver it? Four person fire team is running a launch campaign, eight person section is running a seven figure uh revenue with a six figure profit and a platoon runs a uh eight figure revenue with a seven figure profit. Um, and basically we just go boom, boom, boom boom. So all of my businesses are in a state of being either a two, four, eight or thirty uh, and we're just, we just move them along and how do you find those people?

Speaker 1: 9:25

or do you move them around as well, so that the two people you know that start off looking at the supply and demand side once that business is going? I mean, do they stay there forever or do you flip them into another project?

Speaker 2: 9:36

Nine times out of ten, a two-person scout team is actually already on another team anyway. So they're already part of a section or a platoon somewhere else in the business and this is their side project. So we assign this as a side project to free up some time for them to go and look into something and they can either then join the team that starts that opportunity or scaling that opportunity, or go back to where they were. But yeah, I, how how do I find people is? I'm just always on the lookout for great people. Um, you know, everyone I meet is a potential person to come and join the team.