Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast, has built one of the most successful production companies in the world. Recently, his 36-page HR playbook was leaked to the public. I read the whole thing so you do not have to. Here are five takeaways that every B2B CEO needs to understand, how I reacted to each one, and how I am implementing them in my own service business.

Lesson One: Do Not Build a Rule Book

The very first thing Jimmy says in this document is that the purpose is not to give people a bunch of rules to follow. He does not want anything taken literally. What they do is complex and changes based on the situation.

This is important. If your playbooks are perceived by your team as a list of rules, you are going to get very different outcomes than if they are treated as principles. Leila Hormozi, the CEO of Acquisition.com, has said she does not like SOPs for this exact reason. People treat them as rigid instructions rather than guidelines. She would rather have organizational values and then continually train her team on how to live those values out in daily operations.

At another point in the handbook, Jimmy tells his team to use their own intelligence based on the project. If you give people room to use their intelligence, you attract and retain intelligent people. If you dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, you attract and retain the lowest common denominator.

Think about Chick-fil-A. They tend to attract people with great attitudes because they have codified having a great attitude into everything they do. Even something as simple as saying “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome.” From a dictionary standpoint, those mean the same thing. But the connotation is entirely different.

If you create an environment where low performers can make it, your A-players are not going to stick around. They know it is dragging down their individual performance. But if low performers self-select out because they cannot make it, your best people will love you for it.

Lesson Two: How to Cultivate Problem Solvers

Jimmy explains everything that is on his plate to show why he is not always the best person to answer every question. Then he gives an example of how to properly communicate with him.

Instead of asking a vague question like “we are giving away a car, what do you think of this Lexus,” his team should present him with full context. The budget. The options they found. Pre-approval from creative. Backup options. All the information he needs to make a quick, informed decision.

This is one of the most important things you can train your team on: how to communicate with you. As CEOs, we need clear mental space to drive the business forward. If your team is asking you low-level questions every five minutes, you are never going to get that time.

Dan Martell has a great story about this from his book Buy Back Your Time. His HR director comes to him and says they need to hire 15 people in the next 90 days and does not know how. Dan’s response: “I have never done it before either. That is kind of what I hired you for. But put together a couple of options and come back tomorrow.” The next morning, Dan wakes up to a text saying the HR director figured it out.

Problem solvers are greater than doers. It comes with the risk of them doing things wrong, but the alternative is worse: a guaranteed outcome where nobody in the company except you can solve problems.

Lesson Three: Money Does Not Solve Problems

Jimmy gives a great example. Which sounds cooler as a prize: $20,000 or a year supply of Doritos? To his audience, the Doritos are way funnier. And a year supply of Doritos at five packs a day for 365 days at a dollar per pack is only $1,825. They saved $18,175 by using creativity instead of throwing money at the problem.

This is the founder mode versus manager mode debate that has been going around. Founder mode is when the founder is intimately involved in every function of the business. Fast, nimble, innovative. Manager mode is when you have 17 layers of management between the founder and the people doing the work. Super slow, inefficient, and never produces anything revolutionary.

Apple with Steve Jobs at the helm versus Apple today. The last five iterations of the iPhone have barely changed. The US government has been in manager mode for years, thinking throwing money at problems makes them go away.

Lesson Four: Blind Trust Is a Signal of Low IQ

The handbook drives home accountability. Do not take anything at face value. If something is too good to be true, find out why. If it is fishy, investigate.

The number of companies I have talked to in the last six months who have a marketing agency that is underperforming, and the CEO just keeps trusting them and giving them more time, is staggering. Six months go by, $50,000 has been paid out, and results are still at zero. And during that time, the CEO has not done any research or asked around at all.

I say this as a guy who owns a marketing agency. There has to be zero tolerance for this. The agency world has such a bad reputation right now because there are too many agencies who do not perform and whose entire business model is to BS clients long enough that the lifetime value maths out so the agency can keep existing.

If you retain a vendor who is not doing what they said they would, and you have not pushed on them, asked around, or fired them because it would be difficult and time-consuming, that is on you.

Lesson Five: Consultants Are a Cheat Code

Jimmy says: need to make the world’s largest slice of cake? Start by calling the person who made the previous world’s largest slice of cake. He has already done countless tests and can save you weeks worth of work.

This was kind of unexpected because the talk around hiring consultants has been pretty negative for a while. But there is a huge difference between the old-school big-name consulting model and the find-people-who-have-done-the-thing-you-are-trying-to-do model.

This is how the scientific field has always worked. Scientists spend their entire life on their specific passion project, publish their findings, and the next generation uses that knowledge as their foundation. But for some reason, a lot of business owners are against doing this, mostly because the big box consulting firms have gotten stale.

Find someone who has already walked the path you are on. Pay them for their time. Skip the painful mistakes. That is not weakness. That is leverage.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can B2B business owners learn from MrBeasts employee handbook?

Five core lessons apply directly to any service business. Build principles instead of rule books so intelligent people can operate with judgment. Cultivate problem solvers by not answering every question yourself. Use creativity before throwing money at problems. Verify everything and hold vendors accountable. And treat consultants as cheat codes who have already made the mistakes you are about to make.

How do I build a team of problem solvers instead of task followers?

Stop answering every question your team brings you. When someone comes with a problem, resist the urge to solve it for them. Instead, ask them to come back with two or three options and a recommendation. Yes, they might do things wrong occasionally. But the alternative is a company where nobody except you can solve problems, and that is a guaranteed path to burnout.

Why do A-players leave companies with low performance standards?

A-players care deeply about their individual contribution and the quality of the team around them. When low performers can survive in an organization, it signals to top talent that the bar is low. They leave because they know that environment drags down their own performance. Create an environment where low performers self-select out, and your best people will stay much longer.

Should I hire consultants or figure things out myself?

Hire consultants who have already done the specific thing you are trying to do. This is not about bringing in McKinsey to tell you what you already know. It is about finding the person who built the thing, made all the mistakes, and can shortcut your learning curve by weeks or months. Pay them for their time and use their experience as your foundation.