Your X-factor is the thing that gives you an advantage in your marketplace. It is your secret sauce to being better and standing out from your competition. It’s the key to growing faster than anyone else.   It’s not easy to figure out your X-factor, and when you do, you have to keep it a secret that you can use for as long as you can because it doesn’t last forever. A truly great X-factor will expire as it is figured out by other people.   You can figure out your X-factor by determining if your obstacle to growth is more about supply or demand. Identify the key barriers to meeting those supply or demand needs, and then figure out which one you are going to solve in a unique, innovative, or sexy way. That is your X-factor.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Safety is at the core of the culture of every business. Sometimes it’s in direct ways, sometimes in indirect ways, but safety is always at the core of the work people do.   Apolonia Rockwell is the Founder and CEO of True Safety Services, a company that specializes in on-site safety consulting and in helping employers with Safety/CDL Training local to Colorado, as well as nationwide.   With a front-row seat to the dangers and harsh realities of hazards in the workplace in her childhood, adult Apolonia was fascinated and relieved to learn about federally mandated safety requirements. She now works to bridge the gap between a company’s safety director and the employees they work to protect.   As a strong female in a male-dominated field, Apolonia has taken an effective approach to getting employee buy-in, connecting with the unspoken leaders, and using curiosity to invoke respect.   Safety is often disregarded or minimized, but effective safety practices always start with leadership. Effective cultural change can only happen when leaders exhibit the behavior they want to see in their team.   Apolonia shares a variety of incidents, insights, and experiences she has had over the years, and the ultimate safety that leaders in every field need to focus on — the mental and emotional health of their employees.   Interview Links: Apolonia Rockwell   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

If you asked people to pick three or four words to describe you and your business, what would they say? Would your customers and partners recognize your clear identity, or would they stumble?   The words that you want to own in the future are the words that you invest in over time, starting now. Bill wants to be known as The Scaling Coach, and he has focused years and hours of effort on making that a reality.   The key to identifying the words that you want to own is by talking to other people about their perception of you. Try Googling your business and asking your peers. Invest in the marketing that will secure your identity in the way you want to be known. The more specific you are, the easier it will be for you to own those words.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How can you get out of your business so that it can actually grow and thrive? Chances are, you’ve had days when you wished you could fire yourself. In reality, when it’s time to exit, you need to be the first person out the door.   Jeff Russell is a best-selling author, renowned speaker, and accomplished entrepreneur. As the founder of many successful businesses and author of his latest book, Fire Yourself First, Jeff is an expert in helping business owners break free from the daily grind. Get ready for an insightful conversation as we delve into his proven strategies for achieving business success and living a life well-balanced.   Once Jeff decided he wanted to work just 10 days a month, he focused on finding a way to build up his businesses so that they could run without him. By hiring and training people who could run the business without him there, he essentially built an ATM for himself.   His book underscores a four-step program that transforms an overbooked life into a 10-day-a-month work program. Wise business owners use the knowledge they have to create a business they care about while avoiding enslavement for the rest of their lives. By creating a bigger picture than simply where you are today, you can begin to craft the life that will offer you greater freedom in the future.   Discovering your why, the purpose of your life, is the key to creating the life you want. Ask yourself what you are proud of, what you find deeply satisfying, and what your contributions are to the world around you.   When you build up a business that helps solve problems, and then remove yourself from that business, you’ve created a business that is worth more than it would be if you were there running it day after day. Don’t be selfish, fire yourself for the sake of your business.   Interview Links: Jeff Russell   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What is your guarantee? When you put your money where your mouth is, you lock in your brand promise. A guarantee can also serve as a catalytic mechanism that keeps your team focused on the right things and rewards the right behavior.   Whether it’s a money-back guarantee or rewards for improvement, your strong guarantee serves as a bounty for the promise you have made. Make it big and make it strong to make it effective.   Bill’s guarantee is that if you are unhappy with his team’s work at any point you can apply a credit on your next invoice and leave the program that you’re in. A guarantee is a powerful tool that lets people know that you are serious about their satisfaction.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How many of your strategy problems could be solved if only you knew what your customers have to say about your business?   Mark Allen Roberts is the CEO and Founder at OTB Solutions, a Certified Scaling Up Coach, and a data-driven sales growth expert with over 37 years of experience in helping manufacturing CEOs and business leaders strategically drive explosive growth in revenue, profits, and shareholder value.   Once Mark tasted the satisfaction of finding and solving customer problems — and turning a 10 million dollar business into a 300 million dollar sale as a result — he was hooked. As a scaling coach, he has helped myriad companies solve their problems by doing one simple thing. Too many salespeople focus on their generic sales pitch when really, they need to be asking better questions and figuring out how to solve their customers’ problems.   Talking to the customer about brand promise generalities is not enough. Effective problem solvers identify the needs that their customers have and then highlight those solutions in ways that are credible to their target audience.   It doesn’t matter how busy you are, or how hard this work may sound. If you are willing to put in the time and effort to actually talk to your customers, uncover their needs with effective questions, and find solutions to those needs, you will find the success that is waiting right in front of you.   Interview Links: OTB Solutions   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What are your differentiating activities? Differentiating activities are the operation-side things that you do differently than anyone else. They also help you achieve your brand promises over time. How are you able to deliver different results and, ultimately, a superior value to your customers?   Start by identifying your brand promises, then look at the unique ways that you are operating. What is unique about your products and services, your operations, your team, and about the way you execute your promises? Think across strategy, across marketing, and the economic engine of your business. What is different about you?   Next, consider your key competitors and what they have to offer that is different from you. Then identify up to seven key unique things about your operations that you can emphasize and invest in. For Bill, a podcast, online learning, and a focus on scale set him apart from his competitors.   The internal, operational ways that you fulfill brand promises will create a unique, valuable company that is not like everyone else.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Alex Sanfilippo is an entrepreneur, SaaS Founder, and Podcast Host. He is the CEO of PodPros, a software company specifically focused on independent podcast hosts and their guests to elevate their voices through podcasting and be heard.   In his 15 years in the aerospace industry, Alex worked his way from taking out the trash up to the C-Suite. When he was told to stop the above-and-beyond initiative, he realized it was time for a major change. After an initial struggle, Alex identified a better equation for entrepreneurship and he was on his way to real success.   Alex’s equation is simple. Find an area of passion, get into the community of that area of passion, find a problem that they are struggling with, and then offer the fastest possible solution to that problem. When you focus on that problem, and your ability to solve it, you differentiate yourself in a way that allows you to stand out.   Potential customers will tell you what their pain points are, and when they are, and your job is to solve it. When you do, and they put their money where their pain is, you’ve got a standout business that is going to make things happen.   Interview Links: PodPros   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Brand promises are what your customers can expect from you. It’s what sets you apart from the competition. You want to have three key brand promises that make your offerings clear.   Your first brand promise should be your basic, core offering. The second brand promise should be a differentiator and highlight what makes you better than the other options. And for Bill, the third brand promise is all about fun. That may not be a fit for everyone, but it is perfect for the customers that Bill wants to do business with.   Once you have figured out your core customer, ask them what they consider different or better about you. Their answers will help you hone in on and avoid holding onto your anti-brand promises. Doing so can set you apart as a differentiated, profitable business.   If you’re having a hard time identifying your brand promises, write down what you know and ask AI to help you distill your offerings down to just a few keywords that will highlight what your brand promises are.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Nothing easy is ever handed out for free, but the challenge of working for what you want most is always worth the reward.   After playing for the Dallas Cowboys, Indianapolis Colts, and Denver Broncos, Chris Gronkowski ventured out to build a product with the aim to alleviate the challenges athletes experience with the standard protein shakers. Owner and inventor of the Ice Shaker, Chris has joined the Scaling Up podcast to share the highs and lows of his business growth.   One of five brothers, Chris was raised in a business-minded family. Always racing each other and always challenging each other to see who was faster and stronger, Chris learned how to compete — and win — at an early age. From his first paper route job, through college, and all the way to the NFL football field, Chris learned the lessons of hard work that he has used to build a successful business.   Time with the NFL doesn’t last forever, but Chris was able to carry over his passion for sports and fitness from the field into his business Ice Shaker. His big break in business came after being highlighted on ABC’s Shark Tank, where millions of viewers saw the product, investors including Mark Cuban were brought in, and their success skyrocketed.   On the flip side, Chris admits that the first three years of building his business kept him awake every night. Learning how to delegate and actually allow others to take over aspects of a business was a huge aspect of his eventual success. From sponsors and investors to what it was really like to compete on Shark Tank and QVC, Chris shares his insights into what it takes to build a successful business.   Interview Links: Ice Shaker   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Do you know who your core customer is? The core customer is the buyer that you want to focus on. Your core customer loves working with you, would heartily recommend you, and willingly pays your full price. Your core customer is the top 20% of your clientele.   Consider the essential qualities of your core customer and take time to learn more about what makes them who they are. The more qualitative factors you have about them, the more you will understand what you need to do to more effectively engage with them.   For Bill, the core customer is highly motivated, open to growth, and a good personality fit. Give your core customer a distinct name to set them apart from your average client. By identifying just two or three clear characteristics of your core customer, you will be able to increase your effectiveness and engagement all around.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

In this week’s episode, Scaling Up has lined up eight fan-favorite episodes from 2023. In case you’ve missed any of these classics, we have compiled a quick recap of each of the episodes and the guests below. Thank you for listening to the Scaling Up show!   How can you get the most for your company and maximize the value of your company? The value of your business comes from how well the business can run without you. Nick Arellano is an award-winning M&A veteran who helps business owners get the most money from the sale of their companies. This conversation is filled with key moves that company owners need to consider when strategizing their sale, negotiation considerations, and what owners can realistically expect from the sale.    Empathy is a leadership skill and an essential cultural practice that matters more today than ever before. Rob Volpe is an astute observer of life and a master storyteller who brings empathy and compassion to the human experience. As CEO of Ignite 360, he leads a team of insights, strategy, and creative professionals serving the world’s leading brands across a range of industries. He is the author of the Silver Benjamin Franklin award-winning book, Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. You don’t have to look very far to see that there is an empathy crisis in our world today. Rob’s focus is on the how-to of empathy. Once you see that there is a problem what can you actually do about it?   The United States is losing over 100,000 people and experiencing over half a trillion dollars of economic impact each year due to opioids, including fentanyl. That’s more than a 737 crash per day. This public health and national security issue is a supply-and-demand problem that, unlike previous epidemics, our nation is failing to resolve. Guest Admiral Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat and served as an instructor at TopGun and as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell.   What can we learn from sports about making the right calls? Sally Jenkins has been a Washington Post columnist and feature writer for nearly 30 years. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 and the winner of the Associated Press Red Smith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Sports Journalism in 2021. For sports fans, business leaders, and anyone who wants to elevate their game — whatever that game may be — Sally joined the podcast to share what it takes for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results.   Real connections win out over canned messages every single time, but how can you amplify your brand narrative through organic content that makes those meaningful connections? Morgan Ingram is the founder behind Ascencion Media Productions (AMP). He’s a sales educator and content creator and has been named one of the Top 50 Sales Leaders to Follow by LinkedIn, a Top 25 Sales Development Thought Leader by Inside Sales, and a Four-time LinkedIn Top Sales Voice. Technology has enabled people to be lazy at scale, which can have a massive negative impact on your potential audience.   Just as professional pilots, doctors, and golfers regularly return to the fundamentals, it is just as essential in the business world to continually return to the basics of the performance platform. This episode of the Scaling Up Podcast features Verne Harnish, a world-leading expert, speaker, author, and entrepreneur in the field of business growth. Together they offer insights into Altman’s Maxims, Jobs’s doers vs. dreamers, the power of asking, daily routines, remote work, and much more.   A sales playbook is designed to help deliver the kind of results you are aiming for. Morné Smit has spent his life elevating respect for sales and marketing professionals in dozens of companies across 28-plus industries on three continents. Developing from a salesperson to leading sales teams in six different industries, including spearheading a 10X growth outcome over five years in a mid-market property company, Morné gained invaluable insight, knowledge, and experience over two decades that brought him to found Emerse in 2017.   As second in command, COOs are often in place for a reason or a season, but rarely for the lifetime of a company. Cameron Herold is the mastermind behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth and has earned his reputation as the business growth guru. He has built a dynamic consultancy with clients that include a monarchy and a Big 4 wireless company. Cameron discusses his new book The Second in Command.   How can bad language enhance the way you connect with others? There is power in language. As a leader, the way you articulate your company’s value and vision matters. There is power in using language intentionally and connecting with others with the words you use. Professor Valerie Fridland is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno. The goal of her research is to better understand how variability in speech production relates to variability in speech perception and how social identity affects speech.   Interview Links: “Maximize the Value of Your Business — Nick Arellano” “Empathy — Tell Me More About That with Robert Volpe” “Admiral Sandy Winnefeld — Losing a 737 Every Day” “Bet on You — How to Make Every Decision THE RIGHT CALL — Sally Jenkins” “Social Selling 2.0 with Morgan Ingram” “Insights with Verne Harnish” “Morné Smit — Sales Playbook for Greater Sales & Profit” “Cameron Herold — "The Second in Command — Unleash the Power of Your COO" “Dr. Valerie Fridland — The Good Side of Bad Language”   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Great leaders inspire other people. There are a number of ways to inspire, but if all of your excitement and passion about your business only lives in your head, it’s not really doing much good at all. You want to light other people up about what your business can do and where it is heading.   Inspiring conversations start with sharing your purpose, your BHAG, your vivid vision, and the solutions you have to the problems that you see in the world. Talk about the moment that you committed to getting involved in the business and how you have been transformed as a result.   When you can share your vision with others, you will be better at hiring and retaining team members. You will be a better partner, a better salesperson, a better fundraiser, and eventually better at selling your company.   Map out your vision, share emotions out loud, and improve your storytelling skills. You don’t have to be perfect at it, but you do want to develop your inspiring storytelling skills so that you become the leader that people truly want to hear from.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Everyone likes to say they come from a place of abundance, but who really means it? And what happens when people are vulnerable enough to ask for their needs?   Today Bill is joined by Curt Bear, founder of LoCo Think Tank, a small-business peer advisory group founded in 2014 in Northern Colorado to help business owners be more confident leaders and grow their businesses faster through perspective, accountability, and support.   From small business banker to mobile food trailer owner, LoCo Think Tank was born out of Curt’s desire to facilitate peer advisory at an affordable price point. His group asks tough questions, addresses blind spots, and makes a positive impact on their community.   There are givers and takers around the world, in every business, and every community. Sharing your abundance is something that some people are wired for, and volunteering can have just as much meaning as consulting or working for pay. Curt’s group includes a dozen high-achieving small business veterans who are in a place of abundance and want to share what they have been given.   Asking for your needs is an essential step to success. Surrounding yourself with a support group or think tank that can help you identify your priorities will help you get what you need, even when you don’t recognize it yourself.   Curt highlights his own experience with wanting to operate a food truck while also recognizing via his mentors that he was not going to achieve the success he wanted in life by continuing down that path. Identify the appropriate people that you can share your needs with, and you just may find the solutions that you didn’t think of yourself.   Interview Links: Curt Bear   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Once you’ve established the purpose of your work and identified your BHAG, you need to create a vivid vision of your near future. Where do you want to be in 3‒5 years? What do your company, your team, your customers, and your product look like?   Set aside some time when you can be uninterrupted, calm down, and look at the vision of your future. What does the business you are working so hard to build look like? What does your day look like when you’ve reached that 3‒5-year mark?   Write down what will be said about your future company. Write your vision and identify specifics that will help you create this vivid vision of your future. Creating a rich picture in your mind is a powerful tool that walks you through your future success and motivates you to take the necessary steps to craft the business you are dreaming of.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, Bill has gathered an elite group of military veterans, including Jason Simas, Dustin Zroka, and Betsy Feaster, for a conversation about hiring veterans and why they make excellent team members and business owners.   From Air Force investigation to Exxon executive, Betsy Feaster now works as the CEO of Dog Training Elite. Her military experience trained her in problem-solving, work ethic, and teamwork, and gave her a great understanding of what is required to get a mission accomplished.   Retired Master Sergeant U.S. Air Force Jason Simas had over 20 years of service in culinary arts, acquisitions, and negotiations, all of which led him to become an oyster bar franchise owner. His military experience trained him in effective communication with leaders, taking orders at times, and at other times pushing back for better results.   Dustin Zroka is the current CEO of TruBlue Home Service Ally. He also served for four years of active duty in the Navy, did a two-year stint in the Army National Guard, and returned to the Navy Reserves in 2015. As a franchise operator, Dustin’s military experience has underscored his resiliency, and the majority of his technicians are veterans.   In the military, you make the best of whom you’re given to work with, whether it’s senior leadership who talk down to everyone under them or those who treat others with civility regardless of rank. In civilian life, veterans have the opportunity to choose who they work with as well as the work they are willing to do.   These veterans share the lessons they have learned and advice for their younger selves, including taking risks, navigating budgeting differences, flexibility in taking on new adventures, and recognizing and fulfilling your duty in whatever task you are faced with.   Interview Links: Betsy Feaster Jason Simas Dustin Zroka   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

A BHAG — a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal — can play to your strengths. It’s not meant to be reasonable in any way; instead, it’s designed to inspire you to transform into something interesting.   A BHAG also isn’t meant to be a financial goal. No one really cares that you want to be a billion-dollar company. But you can accomplish a compelling BHAG if you can translate that financial goal into something that is aligned with purpose. Take your financial goal, figure out what your impact will be on the world, and create a goal that pumps up your ego and ignites your passion.   Once Bill set — and started talking about — his BHAG goal of reaching 5 million leaders before retirement, he found opportunities through podcasting, public speaking, and engagements beyond what he ever could have originally imagined. Ten years later he is actually on track to reach his BHAG and is proof that pushing yourself far outside of your comfort zone is the key to reaching even your most outrageous goals and turning your dreams into reality.   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Contrary to popular belief, the American dream, as well as the classic statement wristwatch, are not a thing of the past. Today’s guest shares an incredible story of bringing both to life while legally battling an industry supergiant along the way.   R.T. Custer is a Colorado-based entrepreneur, speaker, and co-founder of Vortic Watch Company. He helps founders create a life of freedom through community, connection, and mentorship and is on a continual journey toward the American dream. Today he shares his "David vs. Goliath" story as he took on Swatch.   Watches are not currently made in the United States, but after learning that millions of pocket watches were created in the U.S. between 1850 and 1950, R.T. designed a way to create a 100% American wristwatch by upcycling an antique American-made pocket watch. The idea was crowdfunded and appeared to be a viable business model until Swatch served Vortic with cease and desist papers and a threat of copyright infringement.   A six-year legal battle ultimately resulted in victory, and R.T. learned a lot along the way about what it means to take on an industry giant and stand firm in what you believe in. The law is rarely as cut and dry as most of us assume it to be, and corporate bullying combined with navigating an unprecedented refurbishing business led to a landmark case that eventually won in court. This proved that the American-made dream is still alive and that fighting for something new and different just may be the key to finding the success you’ve been dreaming of.   Interview Links: R.T. Custer   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The purpose of your company is the why or the what. There is something that you care deeply about that is motivating you to keep working toward your goal.  At that motivational center you’ll find decision and action arise in the brain.    What are you proud of?  That is where you will find the why of your work. Consider a person that matters a great deal to you – what you would tell them about the work that you do? That is the why behind your efforts.    Too many people get stuck on getting their purpose just ‘right’ but, trust me, just good enough is a perfect place to get started. Don’t let perfectionism stop you from getting started in the first place. Just start working with a draft and let it evolve naturally as you continue along your path toward success.    Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Good sales pitches aren’t about what you have to offer. An effective sales pitch is all about what you have to offer that the other guys don’t have. When you can identify that selling point, you’re headed in the right direction to close the deal.   April Dunford is an executive consultant, speaker, and author who helps technology companies make complicated products easy for customers to understand and love. She is a globally recognized expert in positioning and market strategy and has launched 16 products to market across her 25-year career as VP of marketing at a series of successful high-growth startups. April advises leadership, sales, and marketing teams through training, workshops, and keynote talks.   April offers invaluable insights from her latest book Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win. She goes deep into the art of effective pitching and selling and shares the specific framework she has used to successfully pitch products at companies like Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games.   Nobody likes buying insurance. Shopping for B-to-B software is nobody’s favorite pastime. And when it came time for April to buy a new toilet, she learned just how painful buying can be. Sorting through features is overwhelming, and the sheer number of decisions that have to be made around making one single purchase can be enough to make anyone give up and head in the opposite direction.   40 to 60% of B-to-B tech purchase processes end in no decision. When buyers are overwhelmed by their options and feel that they don’t have access to the information they need to make an informed decision, the easy answer is to prolong the decision altogether and not buy anything.   Overwhelmed buyers need a guide — not a pushy salesperson — to help them identify the most critical elements of their purchase and make a decision. Customers don’t really care about the features themselves, they care about what those features are going to do for their business.   There is always an alternative to solving a problem, and customers need to clearly see that their best option is to buy from you. The question you are trying to answer isn’t “why pick us,” it’s “why pick us over the other guys.” Identifying the key differentiators and highlighting that value to others is a critical first step to closing the sale.   Interview Links: April Dunford   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

When we become a master of something, it naturally flows through us. We feel powerful and effective. Flow state happens in peak moments of mastery, and these two are greatly interconnected.   The beginning of mastery is to give up the idea of ever finishing. Bill is still deeply at work in the areas of his life that he is mastering. When we say we are done with something, we want to put it behind us. Instead, consider what it means to never be done learning more about the things you want to master.   Leaders who are engaged and mastering leadership and applying those skills to all areas of their life will find themselves regularly in flow state, and that is a powerful place for a great leader to be.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Everything is a negotiation. From the boardroom to the lunchroom, finding common ground is critical to getting what you want.   Keld Jensen has more than 30 years of experience in international management, negotiation, and communication from his post as managing director of a listed Scandinavian company. He is the founder and former CEO of Centre for Negotiation, a consulting and training organization that has worked with private industry and governmental bodies in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa.   Keld is also the author of the book, Negotiation Essentials: The Tools You Need to Find Common Ground and Walk Away a Winner, detailing common business interactions that you didn’t know were negotiations–and, how to approach them.   You might think that only CEOs are great at negotiations, but Keld will tell you that is wrong. Every single person has to navigate 8‒10,000 negotiations a year, and it’s not only in contracts. It's just as much about where to go for lunch as it is about how to move to the next step in striking a deal.   Keld shares a variety of experiences that he has had with negotiations. Too many people think that negotiations mean confrontation or conflict or that there can only be one winner. By changing your perception of what negotiation is all about, you can consider the possibilities of what everyone can gain from negotiation.   From pausing negotiations for a client who is dealing with cancer to the success of those who uphold the Golden Rule, Keld highlights the ways that effective negotiations can be the secret weapon that leads to success.   Interview Links: Keld Jensen   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

If you insist on hanging onto your business for too long, you are keeping it weak. If you insist on hanging onto your team too tightly, you are keeping them weak.   Too many leaders hire helpers and then micromanage them, or stay at their jobs for too long each day and week. They don’t vacation often enough and they don’t retire soon enough.   Great leaders pass the baton firmly to their team. It’s a powerful function of leaders who create groups of leaders that they can trust. Give people opportunities to make mistakes before you are completely gone.   This creates powerful leaders who appreciate what you have done for them and builds not just one good thing in your business, but a lasting organization of a great team and a legacy and culture of leadership that is unstoppable.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Your slides aren’t working in your favor. The key to selling is the stories that you tell, and your pitch needs stories that engage people so that you can connect in ways that close the deals.   Nir Zavaro is an entrepreneur, author, and speaker. He regularly tours the world, on a mission to help as many people as possible become better storytellers. Using his experience, storytelling fundamentals, and methods, he brings a fresh perspective on how to implement these into businesses, working with founders and CEOs in over 30 countries.   Every person on the planet has a unique story to tell. Too many people lean on slides as a crutch to get through a presentation, but slides should be the bonus, not the basis of your pitch. YOU are the presentation and you need to connect with the audience and tell your stories — with or without slides.   How can you determine if a pitch or a session was a success if you aren’t able to recognize the emotions and feelings of those that you are interacting with? Storytelling isn’t the soft skill that so many say it is, it is an essential skill that needs to be continually practiced and honed.   Niv and Bill share a variety of situations that can create connection by tapping into the emotional aspect of storytelling, from skiing to handling crises in the emergency room and understanding the language of different cultures. The stories you tell have the power to draw people in and connect with them in a way that a slideshow never will.   Interview Links: Nir Zavaro   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Do you know how to do the kind of planning that makes a real difference? Most of us spend more time working on the less important things that happen in between planning and then push off the planning that really matters for a future day that never comes. This results in sloppy actions and random results.   Bill recommends scheduling out annual, quarterly, weekly, and even daily planning. Every scheduled planning event matters. Get consistent with your planning, and then let everything else fill in between.   The plan itself doesn’t matter as much as the act of regularly planning. When you get the rhythm right, you’ll be a great leader who is able to run things with ease.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The playbook for navigating the transition from manager to leader has only become more difficult in recent years. Today’s guest understands the challenges leaders face and what it takes to be an effective leader in today’s workplace.   Adam Bryant is the senior managing director of The ExCo Group, a leadership development and executive mentoring firm. He is a respected and noted expert on executive leadership who has interviewed more than 1,000 leaders for the “Corner Office” series he created at The New York Times and for his four current leadership series on LinkedIn — with CEOs, CHROs, board directors, and prominent Black leaders.   After years of interviewing CEOs about their business strategies, Adam pivoted toward what he found to be a much more interesting topic — how leaders get to where they are. The key distinctions between managers and leaders are highlighted in Adam’s new book, The Leap to Leader. Adam encourages anyone who is considering making the leap to write down three questions — what is the difference between management and leadership, do you really want to lead, and who are you as a leader? The answers to each of these questions will help identify your strengths and potential as an effective leader.   There are three key currencies of effective leadership. Insights, storytelling, and framework are the languages that leaders speak to connect with and inspire their teams. Leaders are the chief storytellers who provide a sense of alignment and shared narrative for the team. If your team can quote you or copy what you are always saying, you’re doing your job right.   Quiet quitting, return to office, and the great resignation have posed incredible new challenges for leaders. The human element of leadership requires leading from the front unless you are told to lead from the back. The contradictory advice that comes to leaders abounds, and Adam’s advice is to remain cautious and simplify — but not oversimplify — the challenges of leadership.   Interview Links: Adam Bryant   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How do you react when you hear “no”? People usually view no as a setback, take it personally, and get triggered or angry.   But if you can learn to be loose and playful with every no you hear, you will find that you aren’t so deeply affected by it. When you approach no with curiosity, you might find that you can turn it into a “yes” in the future.   Great leaders know how to be playful with a no. Whether they’re trying to hire someone, supply something, or pitch an idea, leaning into possibilities with curiosity and playfulness can get the answer they’re looking for. If not now or with this situation, then in the right situation and in the very near future.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How can you learn to stay calm and deal with a VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — world? Perspective is the number one tactic, and today’s guest is a special operator and leader who has the developmental skills and methodologies that can assist anyone in dealing with a VUCA world.   Mark Divine is a former Navy SEAL Commander, best-selling author, and leadership expert. After a 20-year career in the Navy SEALs, he was tasked with creating a leadership program for the SEALs, which later extended to corporate, sports, and academic settings. Mark Divine is the author of five best-selling books, hosts a top-rated podcast, Mark Divine’s Unbeatable Mind, and has founded five successful companies. He believes in unlocking 20X performance through the right training and tools.   From terrorist attacks and global wars to the COVID-19 pandemic and technological advances, the capacity for great violence to happen quickly is prevalent in today’s VUCA world. The need to remain adaptable, flexible, and controlled under such stress is critical to survival.   Mark and Bill both share experiences of trauma from their lives and the lessons they have learned as a result. Having the tools needed to navigate the trauma of life is what sets a leader apart in moments of crisis. However, teams are not always looking for a calm and composed leader. Acknowledging apparent chaos can be the best first step in building trust and respect.   Everyone on a SEAL team is a leader, so egos get checked at the door. Each team member is prepared to step up when they are called on to lead. There is no hiding in an elite culture environment, there is only the expectation that you’re going to bring your “A” game every single day. Those who learn the techniques to do so are earning the respect and trust of their team, controlling their mind and emotions, and preparing for whatever chaos the VUCA world might throw their way.   Interview Links: Mark Divine   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Too many companies struggle to scale because they are stuck reinventing things that just don’t need to be reinvented. The companies that succeed are the ones that focus on and refine systems in a disciplined way that makes them better than they have ever been before.   JC Hite is the visionary Founder and CEO of Hite Digital, the fastest-growing digital agency in the U.S. With a deep-rooted passion for empowering small businesses, JC is dedicated to driving their growth through the realm of digital marketing.   There are times when building any business is just really difficult. Within six months of launching Hite Digital in Nicaragua, the company found itself in the middle of a civil war. As they have scaled, they have had to learn how to survive physically, financially, and mentally during the harder seasons of growth.   JC highlights some of the hurdles Hite Digital has faced, including political insecurity, addressing limited education in Nicaragua, the pandemic, and the recession. They have fine-tuned hiring the right fit for their agency, the range of services they provide, and the key to a successful franchising model.   This conversation is filled with insights into the lessons learned from JC’s mistakes, his luckiest breaks, and what happens when entrepreneurs and business builders are willing to position themselves in the right places and focus on the right things at the right time.   Interview Links: The Hites   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

When people are really upset, there is a simple way to turn things around and bring them back into the game. Deeper listening is the key to understanding what is going on behind the complaint.   The complaint itself is rarely the problem. More often it’s the personal value that they care deeply about that has been attacked or triggered. When a leader can identify the value that is behind the upset, they can diffuse the situation. Call the value out and give it a name to create a reset that then allows the upset person to get back into the game.   This approach can make a powerful, immediate change that, often, people can’t even see or articulate themselves. But great leaders know how to highlight the values that mean so much and turn a complaint into an empowering conversation.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

No matter how successful you are, at some point, you may encounter a career setback. Instead of being devastated, you can turn that setback into a growth experience. Doug Lennick, co-author of DON’T WAIT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO FIX IT, is the founding CEO of think2perform, a high-performance leadership development firm serving small and large organizations in a variety of industries. He has been in leadership roles for nearly 40 years and is widely recognized as an expert in the science of human behavior.   Obstacles happen to all of us, but the person who actually makes it to where they want to go doesn’t consider obstacles “in the way” but “on the way.” The winners are the people who know how to handle whatever comes their way. The premium isn’t on knowing what will happen — because no one does — the premium is knowing how to deal with whatever happens and then not waiting for someone else to do something about it.   Doug shares his early career setback of being cut out of a publishing company, and the successes he experienced as a result. He shares the three value buckets that encompass people around the world, the top three values of people around the world, and the importance of reflecting on those values before making significant decisions. Whether the setbacks you face are political, global, personal, or professional, there is immense value in turning those challenges into growth experiences.   Interview Links: Doug Lennick Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Fix It: 8 Essentials to Enhance Your Leadership Impact at Work, Home, and Anywhere Else That Needs You, by Doug Lennick and Chuck Wachendorfer, with Kathy Jordan, PhD   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

Great leaders tend to be optimistic and positive, but that can come at a very real cost. When you don’t think about or listen to what could go wrong, you’re setting yourself up for guaranteed failure. There is value in giving a voice to the negative possibilities.   Bill once made a $2 million mistake by not considering what could go wrong. He quickly learned to balance his naturally positive approach with realistic and even negative possibilities. A great leader knows the value of empowering the voices on their team to play devil’s advocate once in a while.   No plan survives contact with the enemy, or, as Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Business has a way of punching us in the face on a regular basis. If you want your team and your business to be more successful, don’t shy away from conversations about the biggest things that could go wrong, and what you are going to do about it.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

When you can determine what your clients, donors, or sponsors want, you can persuade them to help you get what you need.   Lori Zoss Kraska, MBA, CFRE is Growth Owl, LLC’s Founder and CEO. She possesses over 22 years of expertise in revenue generation management, corporate sponsorship support, corporate cause marketing, fundraising, corporate social responsibility, nonprofit consulting, executive sales management, training, and marketing strategy roles earning her a reputation for establishing pathways quickly to exceeding revenue/fundraising goals, building high-performance teams, developing relationships quickly, and outpacing expectations.   Lori’s company, Growth Owl, works with purpose-driven organizations to help with fundraising and sponsorship dollars. That is an effort that requires a lot of persuasion, but Lori’s previous 10 years with PBS and NPR gave her the experience that has made her an expert in persuasion. Lori’s goal in starting Growth Owl was to apply the principles that are utilized in public media to a wider variety of purpose-driven companies.   The art of persuasion is not a simple one to master, and in this conversation, Lori shares a host of tactics that work. First, understand that while emotions are used in decision-making, facts-based language will earn a greater response than feelings-based language. People are more likely to be persuaded when they hear supporting facts and numbers than when they hear how you feel about it.   Lori recommends connecting with people at the lowest level of Maslov’s Hierarchy of needs possible. By doing so, you will be able to connect with more people at a more basic level. Highlighting the fears of a company is another angle that can be used, as long as it is coupled with an action-based solution.   Bill recommends connecting with people who actually care about the things that you care about. It will be difficult to persuade someone who is not interested in feeding homeless dogs to donate funds that will be used to buy dog food. And it will be easiest to work with the people who do care when you are speaking in their language.   Lori suggests using the “5 not 50” approach to persuasion. Choose five highly qualified decision-makers, learn as much as you can about them, and approach them. By keeping a greater focus on a smaller number, your chances of effectively persuading them are much greater. Don’t spam everyone in your entire email list, instead connect with those who have engaged with you in relevant ways.   Identify your objective in reaching out before your first communication. Are you trying to sell something right off the bat? More likely you are just trying to get a conversation started. Asking for a five- or six-figure donation is not going to happen over one email with one attachment. Be succinct, be respectful of others’ time, and be ready to engage in ways that get the answers that you are seeking.   Interview Links: Lori Zoss Kraska   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

For most of us, when looking to hear “yes,” what gets in the way is us. Our thoughts and feelings get in the way of our ability to effectively communicate with other people. When we’re stuck inside our heads, we worry that we may be too much of something, or don’t have enough skills in a particular area, and we dread hearing “no.”   All of these things are happening internally, and they all keep us from talking to and connecting with the other person in a way that encourages the “yes” we’re seeking. If you can get out of your head and get over what you think the other person is thinking, the more naturally you will get your “yes.”   Instead of worrying about what might be going wrong in the conversation, focus on the other person. What about your conversation is of interest to them? Imagine the conversation going well. Get curious about what they want and ask more questions. When you do, you’ll find that you can hire, sell, fundraise, partner, and engage with greater ease.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Today’s conversation is all about being awesome, and there is no better teacher than John “Gucci” Foley, the legendary former solo pilot for The Blue Angels who flew in the original movie Top Gun,
who continues to inspire organizations to High Performance through a GLAD TO BE HERE mindset, operational excellence, team improvement, and high trust!   John is one of the Top 10 most sought-after keynote speakers and trainers on leadership, high performance, teamwork, trust, and a GLAD TO BE HERE mindset!   From the night he watched the first moon landing in 1969 and the visceral energy he felt at his first air show, John knew from an early age that he was meant to be in the sky. Over time his dreams turned from astronaut to lead solo pilot, with a stop in college football along the way.    There is a huge difference between having a vision and executing it. Success happens when you are able to keep a dream alive, formulate a plan, and act on it consistently over time in a way that turns your dreams into success.   Obstacles are an inevitable part of every success story. Resilience is key, and success is much more likely to happen when you are able to get others to buy into your vision as well. Don’t just dream about your success, surround yourself with a team who also believes in your dream.   John’s life has been filled with failed attempts and pivoting plans and the lessons he has learned along the way. He shares his stories of flying for Top Gun, misfiring a missile, and the many points at which he had to advance fearlessly to reach his goals.   Too many leaders don’t perform at their full potential, they perform at their belief level. Leveling up is essential for fearless leaders, and that performance will either be enhanced or limited by the beliefs we have in ourselves. If you are willing to meet your obstacles head-on, fearless success is guaranteed to come your way.   Interview Links: John “Gucci” Foley Fearless Success: Beyond High Performance   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

Most of us have learned to control our emotions. We’re expected to look strong and be stoic. In the early years of his career, Bill was told to calm down and stop showing so many emotions when he was excited about possibilities at work.   So how is it possible that vulnerability can be powerful? Showing your vulnerabilities requires courage and strength. Whether people believe it or not, emotions are at the root of every decision we make. Even the rational, logical decisions we make also touch our feelings.   When leaders can get in touch with all of their feelings — good and bad — they have access to powerful vulnerability. Yes, it takes courage to get in touch with your feelings, but when you can share those feelings with other people in a way that results in greater connections, the results are always powerful.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What does it take to be successful? The underlying structures of your business craft the foundation that will make or break your success.   Patrick Esposito is an entrepreneur, business executive, attorney, advisor, and board member. He has helped to found, lead, and advise small- and medium-sized businesses in technology, consulting, retail, banking, real estate, and other sectors, as well as U.S. government organizations, for more than two decades. During his career, Esposito has advised start-up executive teams, family business owners, large publicly traded company executive teams, and leaders in the U.S. Department of Defense. He recently launched Initiative Labs LLC to help small- and medium-sized business leaders apply the approaches, methodologies, and tools from his book, The Structure of Success, to create the conditions for success in their business ventures.   A self-proclaimed jack of all trades, Patrick learned early on that, when it came to scaling up, employing the wisdom of an independent who knew how to scale was one of the most beneficial aspects of his journey toward success.   While reflecting on his experiences with various companies, Patrick highlights two key categories of wisdom. First, the general business wisdom that is required for growing a company. The outside perspective from a general scaling expert is essential, but the second piece of wisdom is equally as critical — the industry-specific, specialized knowledge that promotes internal growth. Successful scaling up is not just about money and it’s not just about execution, it’s also about crafting an effective ecosystem structure.   From tech to financial service companies, tires to banks and environmental services, Patrick’s experiences have made him an expert in his work. When it comes to scaling, he has learned that making the right structural and scaling investments that benefit growth and underline profitability is the key to success.   Interview Links: Patrick Esposito The Structure of Success: A Framework to Help Build Your Business Better   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

There is one simple secret to helping your team get unstuck. Powerful listening is the key to showing your team that you are interested in where they’re coming from, who they are, and what they need to do to level up.   The best way to get stuck people re-engaged is to listen to what they are saying to you. Listening leaders don’t leap into solving problems. Great leaders have engaged teams and can listen for ways to bring to light new approaches, better solutions, and ideas on how team members can get themselves unstuck.   When a leader shows curiosity and a willingness to listen, they create a team that is filled with future leaders that they can someday pass the baton to. So listen longer, listen deeper, and take the time to show your team that you genuinely hear them and see them not only for who they are now, but who they have the potential to become.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Great customer service is something that we can expect from restaurants and hotels, but rarely do we expect it from hospitals or emergency rooms. Today’s guest is on a mission to change that.   Stowe Shoemaker has served as an advisor to numerous hospitality service providers over the course of his career including IGT, British Airways, Accor, Hilton, Landry’s, and Hyatt. He has published two marketing textbooks and his newest book, Hospitable Healthcare: Just What the Patient Ordered! introduces hospitality principles to the healthcare industry.   Hospitality matters in every industry. Consider the last time you needed medical care. Did the customer service enhance your experience, or did it only make a hard situation worse? Healthcare needs to be fixed in more ways than one. Stowe and his coauthor aim to address the changes that need to be made in their new book.   Hospitality customer service standards are currently much higher than in the healthcare industry. A survey Stowe conducted indicated that healthcare ranks last in the hospitality experience when compared to restaurants and hotels. What can be learned from the hospitality industry that could be used in healthcare?   There are five principles that create an exceptional customer experience and systems that can be implemented to make these principles an effortless part of the customer experience.   Prepare, anticipate, engage, evaluate, and reward.   When each of these principles is achieved, a patient begins to feel less like an inconvenience to the company and more like a loved family member. And loyal customers will become lifelong, repeat clients who spend more money and create positive word of mouth for the business.   Interview Links: Stowe Shoemaker Hospitable Healthcare: Just What the Patient Ordered!   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

If you were heading to the moon for the first time, or launching a brand-new product, you wouldn’t plan it in the same way routine events are planned. Achieving a brand new level of performance requires a different level of planning.   Stephen Covey called this beginning with the end in mind. Where do you want to be and what do you want to have accomplished? What would come just before that? And before that?   If you don’t consider how you want the end to look, you might end up tackling the wrong problems or working on things that are better left alone or dropped altogether. Planning with the end in mind frees you up to work on what matters most. And with the right plan in place, great leaders can let their teams get their work done.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Search engine optimization can make or break your business presence online, but getting it right isn’t always easy.   Jason Hennessey is an entrepreneur, internationally recognized SEO expert, author, speaker, podcast host, and business coach. Since 2001, Jason has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm as a self-taught student and practitioner of SEO and search marketing.   Jason shares the three key steps to optimizing your SEO. First, make sure your website is technically sound so that Google can easily access it. Second, create content that people actually want to consume. Solid content satisfies the problem people are looking to solve. And third, utilize backlinking to help boost the popularity of your website.   Ultimately, SEO comes down to helping people find the thing they are searching for. There is also an ROI attached to it, but it serves as a connector for people who need specific services with the people who can service that need.   AI and ChatGPT play a role in optimizing SEO as well. While it’s not recommended to translate your website into Vietnamese if no one in your office can speak or write the language, AI can be used to summarize the main points of a call or email. Jason recommends avoiding using AI to write articles on behalf of your company that will poorly reflect on your business. Use AI to help you articulate your points, but not to replace the human element of your content.   Consider the assets that you have — whether it’s time or money — and put them to work to improve your SEO in ways that will benefit your company and your bottom line.   Interview Links: Jason Hennessey Honest SEO: Demystifying the Google Algorithm to Help Get You More Traffic and Revenue   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

You want things and you need things, but Bill knows that there is a much easier way to get what you want than employing trickery, manipulating, or coercing. When you look for ways to hear yes, simply listen for what other people want.   When you listen for and think about what other people want, your proposals will go effortlessly because you will naturally be able to offer them what they are looking for. You’ll spend less time stressing about what you want because you know it will come to you while you are helping people get what they want.   When Bill naturally connects what he wants with what other people want, everything works out. That’s the way to pass the baton and the way to be an inspiring, natural leader.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The United States is losing over 100,000 people and experiencing over half a trillion dollars of economic impact each year due to opioids, including fentanyl. That’s more than a 737 crash per day. This public health and national security issue is a supply-and-demand problem that, unlike previous epidemics, our nation is failing to resolve.   Admiral Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat and served as an instructor at TopGun and as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS Cleveland, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, a carrier strike group, two NATO commands, the United States Sixth Fleet, the United States Northern Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. He retired after serving as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   Admiral Winnefeld is a frequently-published author and a director or advisor to companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors.   Growing up in a military family, Admiral Winnefeld’s younger son Jonathan developed anxiety and depression in middle school and eventually spent 15 months in a treatment center. HIPAA privacy laws kept his parents from knowing about his opioid addiction, and despite his successful graduation from treatment, Jonathan died from an overdose just five days after starting college.   Fentanyl is so deadly because it can take a life the first time someone uses it. This deep societal problem pays no heed to the rich or poor, black or white, educated or not, male or female. It can take the life of anyone, even if it's the first time they’ve ever used drugs.   Public stigma is public enemy number one in the fight against fentanyl, but Admiral Winnefeld isn’t letting that stop his mission. Shortly after his son’s death, he and his wife recognized that they had the opportunity to prevent this tragedy from affecting more lives. In the SAFE Project, he aims to increase public awareness, improve full-spectrum prevention and responsible medical prescribing, improve law enforcement and justice, increase treatment and recovery, and improve family outreach and support.   The goal of the SAFE Project is to save a life every single day. Admiral Winnefeld shares actionable items that can help reach that goal, from supporting and educating family members to having NARCAN® available to quickly treat an overdose. Companies have an obligation to face this crisis alongside individuals, families, and society at large. The responsibility of addressing the problem and finding solutions to the epidemic is the duty of every one of us.   Interview Links: James A. Winnefeld SAFE Project   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Do you ever wish people were more inspired by you? Bill has a simple formula for leaders who want to light others up. When you share the vision of your company the right way, it is guaranteed to get other people excited about it too.   The formula is simple. First, talk about the problem area that you deal with in the world. Then, share what the predictable future will look like without change. Finally, talk about why you’re involved in solving the problem and the vision that you have for a new future.   Employ storytelling, using real names, details, and feelings. Practice this recipe and keep sharing it wherever you can. Employees, investors, partners, vendors, customers, and the media will all benefit from hearing your story, and when they do, they will catch your vision and be more inspired by you.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

People are by far the most important, the most essential aspect of any business. People are also the hardest to find a perfect fit, but successful leaders know how to attract and focus on the right people in the right way.   Tali Rapaport is the co-founder of Puck, the people-first recruiting CRM. Puck helps businesses tell their team’s story and hire better, faster. Prior to Puck, she was the VP of Product at Lyft for nearly four years. During her tenure, Lyft grew 20x to become a big part of how people get around in North America. In 2017, Tali was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People. She graduated from Harvard College with an AB in Applied Math and a Master’s in Environmental Engineering. She was on the Dean’s Cabinet for Harvard’s Engineering School from 2018-2020.   Tali worked with Lyft when they were in the middle of onboarding a million drivers. She witnessed the human side of employment and the reasons that people are motivated to take on this kind of work. Flexibility in scheduling and access to easier, reliable technology are still two of the major sticking points that are keeping people from getting hired and getting a job done. Getting inside the head of your prospective employee is essential to meeting people where they are and understanding what they need from their employer.   A recruiter’s job today is to sell a brand and experience and to highlight what it means to be part of the tribe of a company. When hiring companies can highlight the motivation of their business with the motivation of the new employee, both are much better off.   When scaling a business, it can be easy to focus on the things that are urgent and forget about the things that are important. Tali shares the experience she had with a Cambridge water study and the lessons she learned about finding new opportunities when they might be least expected.   Interview Links: Tali Rapaport   Resources: Scaling For Any Economy Scaling Coach Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

People don’t need managers, they need great coaching. No one really likes being managed — they like being led and supported by effective coaching.   Often people want to work out their own problems with the support of their leaders. Rarely do they want to hand over their problems and expect the leader to create the solution. When people come in with a problem, they should come out with a project.   A coach cheerleads, encourages, listens, and appreciates. They remind their team why they’re excited about the work they’re doing, they coach their successors, and they delegate powerfully.   As a result, you as a leader have to work less hard. When you work less hard, your team rises. Coaching people — not managing or dominating them — is the source of powerful leadership.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

You’re always working to elevate your company, but how can you get your team to come along for the ride? Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of people, leadership, and execution, especially in remote companies.   Robert Glazer is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, the premier global partner marketing agency that has won over 30 awards for its world-class company culture. He leads a fully-remote team of over 270 people.   Robert is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of books on topics such as peak performance, personal growth, partner marketing, and excelling in the world of remote work.   A lot of companies are playing defense in their team strategy right now. After the exhaustion of the pandemic, companies are struggling to focus on healthy, sustainable growth. How can you build your team up holistically in ways that benefit the individual as well as the company?   Pandemic hangover is still very much present, so how can leaders get their teams back to a place of enthusiasm for growth? Robert’s new book highlights examples of leaders who have failed by going 100 miles an hour. The message that a leader sends out makes a huge difference in the actions and attitudes of the team.   In addition to the physical aspect of leading a team by example, emotional leadership is key. Leaders who are willing to show vulnerability and authenticity create a safe space for their team to show up as their whole, emotional, and spiritual selves as well. As Robert says, the only way to be a Level 5 Leader is with exceptional self-awareness and authenticity about the ways that you lead by your values.   Interview Links: Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team To Reach Their Full Potential and Build A Business That Builds Leaders, by Robert Glazer Robert Glazer   Resources: Scaling For Any Economy Scaling Coach Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Stop trying to create a perfect plan. Bill doesn’t believe clients who tell them that they’ve thought of everything. There is no way to create a perfect plan, so just stop trying.   Things are going to happen tomorrow that you can’t even comprehend today. The act of planning is the most valuable tool, not the plan itself. A simple plan created today and acted on consistently in the future will make a real difference.   Bill has seen it over and over again — a perfect plan is nothing more than a fantasy. Let go of the fantasy and get to work on creating a planning rhythm that creates a good plan that works today and in the future.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The hiring process continues to be more complicated than ever before, but finding the right fit for your position doesn’t have to be a long and cumbersome process. You just have to be willing to put the work in to find the top performers.   Dr. Brad Smart is widely regarded as a world expert on hiring and is a renowned consultant to many leading companies and SMBs. He is the creator of Topgrading and the author of Foolproof Hiring: Powerful, Fully Proven Keys to Hiring Mostly High Performers.   Dr. Brad was shocked to learn in the early years of his career that only one out of three employees at his company were considered top performers. He knew there had to be a better way to identify and hire more top performers, and Topgrading was born.   Employers save time and money by using the Topgrading approach. The robust and thorough process provides a prescreening snapshot that sifts out the best applicants and gets A players hired.   The job scorecard is another critical piece of the effective hiring process. Break down what the job entails and make sure that you know what you need before you start hiring someone who may or may not be a good fit for the requirements.   After the basic sort, ask three open-ended questions that candidates can answer before you have an in-person conversation. Each of these steps will help you identify and hire the high performers that you want on your team.   Interview Links: Topgrading Prescreen Snapshot   Resources: Scaling For Any Economy Scaling Coach Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Do you wish you could get people more engaged? Bill has heard it time and time again. Effective leaders are always looking for ways to get their team more engaged.   Engagement is commitment. Someone has said yes to something and they are acting to make it happen. You know when people are engaged because they are putting their hearts and minds and all of their effort into their work. Engaged people don’t only say things, they are doing things.   Easy engagement starts with leaders who see what matters to their team. When a leader knows what their team is great at, who they are, and what they want in life, engaging them in work they want to do is natural. But when a leader doesn’t know their team or have a connection with them, all of the work they put into getting that yes is nothing more than manipulation.   Natural leaders pay special attention for ways that they can connect with their team, and as a result, their invitations are natural and they get an easy YES.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Whether you are leading only a handful of people or a team of thousands, challenges are an inevitable part of leadership. Today’s guest offers leadership advice from his time serving with the best of the best.   Admiral Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat and served as an instructor at TopGun and as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS Cleveland, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, a carrier strike group, two NATO commands, the United States Sixth Fleet, the United States Northern Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. He retired after serving as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   Admiral Winnefeld is a frequently-published author and a director or advisor to companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors.   One of the greatest influences on Admiral Winnefeld’s time as an instructor at TopGun was positive peer pressure. He and his fellow instructors and pilots knew they were the best in the Navy and the community, so instead of constantly competing with each other, they held each other to a higher standard and helped each other reach it. Effective leaders not only support people where they currently are, but they also motivate them to become their best.   The first of the 5 Anchors of Leadership is Leading Yourself. Leaders must have a mission in mind and a desire to accomplish something, but that alone isn’t enough. The best leaders Admiral Winnefeld ever worked for exhibited integrity, courage, and genuine humility. Effective leaders never stop learning about their profession and refining their leadership skills.   Admiral Winnefeld highlights some of the challenges that are outlined in his new book Sailing Upward: Leadership and Risk from TopGun to the Situation Room. From difficult discussions to the changing demands of leadership style at various levels, he shares the experiences and evolution of his approach to leadership. He offers tactics for enhancing a company’s culture, the behavior of a leader that will elicit change, and how he could tell within the first 10 minutes whether a ship and its crew was a good one or not.   From the hardest leadership challenge he has faced to the best leaders he worked for and the advice from Colin Powell that shaped his entire approach to effective leadership, this conversation is filled with leadership advice from the best of the best.   Interview Links: James A. Winnefeld   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

Inspiration is all about breathing life into something. When people are excited about things, you don’t have to persuade them. Inspiring leaders are great at getting others to be excited about something, especially when it pertains to the future. They get people to a positive emotional state again and again by being intentional with their own emotional state, by sharing their vision for the company, and by engaging people by being bolder.   If you want people to be more inspired and work less hard, then you’ll get good at getting other people to feel good about the future. Be bold, share your vision, and use emotion to inspire others.   When you have people in an inspired state, everything else comes easier. From pitches and proposals to action with teams, everything is easier when you start with inspiration.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

If you’ve gone through any number of rounds of funding you probably have a board of directors that you have to and get to interact with. How can you make those interactions more effective?   Katy Trost is a coach and advisor to CEOs and founders at Series B and beyond. She aids CEOs in becoming more effective leaders and navigating the challenges of scaling people and operations. Her clients include some of the fastest-growing companies in both the U.S. and UK tech ecosystem backed by leading investors including SoftBank, First Round, Felix, Octopus, Inflexion, and more.   A board can be a blessing or a curse. Different objectives, political or otherwise, and different expectations can create boards that are offering poor advice to CEOs, who often feel they have no choice but to follow that advice blindly.   A board is meant to be a strategic tool for the CEO. Creating a board that is an invaluable asset starts with setting the expectation for the potential of the board to help the business. Katy highlights several experiences she has had advising CEOs and boards. Under her coaching with a UK fintech, the entire structure of the reporting process transitioned from a grueling two-day firing off of questions to an effective strategic discussion.   Taking charge of the agenda is key to more effective interaction with the board. Key issues, focus areas, and upcoming priorities should all be addressed by the CEO before the board meeting. Katy recommends giving the board a job to do before they have the chance to make up a job for themselves.   Setting expectations, asking strategic questions, and recognizing the importance of mutual trust, along with developing personal relationships and soliciting feedback as needed, will all make a critical difference in the effectiveness and impact of any board.   Interview Links: Katy Trost   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

Do you ever wish leadership came more naturally to you? Or maybe you are a great natural leader, but you recognize that effective leadership still takes work and effort. On this Tuesday Tip Bill is sharing four secrets that create effortless leadership. These four skills, when you do them again and again, can make a profound difference in your life as a leader.   First, inspire and encourage excitement and emotion in your team. Next, engage others and commit people to take action. Then, plan and coordinate. Consider not only what could go right but what could go wrong. And finally, coach and retain to keep people in the game and keep them leveling up. Bill shares his experience with taking each of these actions and how it has changed his impact as a leader.   If you do these four actions, in that order, you will build a great team. Developing these actions will result in being a more natural, effortless leader who is leading others toward the bigger and better. Ultimately, leaders pass the baton, take time off, and practice these four actions again and again.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Sustainability may be the greatest challenge of our generation. At its heart, sustainability is designed to improve life for everyone involved. It is also a great wealth creation opportunity that implies profitability. But how much time and effort are you investing in mastering sustainability?   Using the experience he has obtained as a corporate lawyer, an investment banker, and a team leader, today’s guest, Chris Caldwell, has spent the last decade acting as CEO of United Renewables and its sister companies, leading all aspects of the businesses including providing strategic direction, fundraising and day-to-day management of operations.   In his sustainability-focused efforts, Chris is working not only to build renewables but also to increase the logical momentum necessary to make real change. He describes sustainability as the long-term strategies that will allow humans to survive and thrive well into the future.   Chris highlights the importance of stopping the showstoppers that lack any focus on sustainability. He also examines the relationships that sustainability enhances, from employees and suppliers to investors, regulators, and customers. There might have been a time that businesses didn’t know any better regarding practices surrounding sustainability, but those days are long gone. Today, there are few excuses for not focusing on enhanced sustainable practices.   Forty-two percent of the incoming generation of employees value purpose over profit. They are looking for companies that align with their values and offer more than just a place to earn a paycheck for the next 30 years. Do your company offerings address this?   Chris highlights the story of Dick’s Sporting Goods changing their approach to guns in order to increase customer loyalty with sustainability. In any competitive market, companies have to strategically pick their customers and work to serve them, because there is very little chance that they can effectively serve everyone. From BP to Tesla, electric vans and wind manufacturers, and the jewelry market to Patagonia, there are examples of increased sustainability in every sector of every market. The companies that are going to benefit from the profits of sustainability are the ones that are willing to dedicate their time and resources to increasing sustainability now.   Interview Links: United Renewables   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Do you ever feel like you’re working too hard? Working too hard makes us feel stressed and tired, impacts our personal relationships, and even results in weak teams and weak companies. And oftentimes, the harder you work, the more you are keeping your team from leveling up.   Bill once coached a large company with a Superman CEO that was setting a horrible example for his team with long working hours, midnight emails, micromanaging, and constant chaos mode. Another team he coached was led by a very intense CEO who worked out constantly, worked long hours every day, and set the example of intense focus on work at all hours of the day and night.   That might produce some results, but it comes at a cost to your personal well-being and the well-being of your team. People get micromanaged when you work too hard, but great leaders know how to build strong teams of capable leaders without pushing everyone to the brink of burnout.   If you’re working too hard, that might mean it’s time for a vacation. Step away from the office, take time away from your team, and challenge yourself to pass the baton. Make sure you know when it’s time to lean in and work harder, and when it’s time to step back so someone else can step up.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Are you a know-it-all, a learn-it-all, or a little bit of both? Whichever way you tend to lean reveals plenty about the kind of leader you are and the level of success you can achieve.   Damon Lembi is the CEO of Learnit, a global leader in corporate training solutions that has upskilled more than 1.8 million professionals in the past twenty-seven years. After dedicating the initial 22 years of his life to the pursuit of becoming a Major League Baseball player, Damon pivoted in 1995 to help his father, Walt Lembi (Founder of Learnit), by investing his heart and soul in Learnit. His aim was to help individuals gain the knowledge and confidence they needed to attain their professional goals through the value of education.   Long before his brush with fame in a hotel room party with Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Damon was drafted by the Atlanta Braves out of high school. A series of events eventually led him back to the family business, where he found himself unsure of the skills he was bringing to the table. He recognized that while business was in his blood, he had a lot to learn about every aspect of the work.   After years of incredible success, Damon’s key life takeaway is that there is immense value in being your true, authentic self. Whether you work for a billion-dollar business or a startup, the way you treat people matters. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you expected it to, but when it’s time to pivot — whether it’s from baseball or business — the more you are willing to learn from people who are smarter than you, the more successful you will be.   Damon recognizes that he is a know-it-all when it comes to sales, but he is also very open to learning more when it comes to scaling up. He shares the lessons he learned from the pandemic, where he turns when he is ready to learn something new, and the value of approaching leadership in curious and humble ways.   Interview Links: The Learn-it-all Leader: Mindset, Traits and Tools   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What would it look like if you brought your effective leader ideas into your life? Flow state is the way to make it happen.   Years ago, Bill was focused solely on work and had a premium membership at the gym that he only occasionally used. When he admitted that he was not paying attention to his health, he knew that change needed to happen. A triathlon sounded like a good BHAG, so he went for it. By implementing an effective flow state, he became a shining example of a healthy and active lifestyle.   If you can apply the flow state principles to all areas of your life, you can get inspired, create a plan, find coaching, and meet your goals. It worked for Bill, and it can have a massive impact not only on you but on the people you work with as well.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Empathy is a leadership skill and an essential cultural practice that matters more today than ever before.    Rob Volpe is an astute observer of life and a master storyteller who brings empathy and compassion to the human experience. As CEO of Ignite 360, he leads a team of insights, strategy, and creative professionals serving the world’s leading brands across a range of industries. He is the author of the Silver Benjamin Franklin award winning book, Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time, recognized by the independent publishing industry as one of the Best Self Help books of 2022.    You don’t have to look very far to see that there is an empathy crisis in our world today. There is a diminished ability to understand and communicate with other people, and it is limiting opportunities for meaningful connection.  Rob’s focus is on the how-to of empathy. Once you see that there is a problem what can you actually do about it?    Understanding other people starts with listening.  The more we can sit back, ask questions and truly learn about others, the more empathy we will feel for their experiences. Start by taking a ‘curious breath’, which gives you the opportunity to change your perspective and your approach.    Rob’s new book is filled with examples of practicing empathy.  He highlights interactions about cats, chips, sex, and travel.  Each example showcases the power of asking questions and showing empathy in the interactions that we have with people who are like us, and, more importantly, the people that are nothing like us at all.    In every aspect of life, from your personal interactions to growing your business, empathy is the key component to improved communication and ultimate success.    Interview Links: Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The Leadership Flywheel is designed to level up your leadership, and within it, one thing leads to another. First by inspiring others and engaging them and then by taking action; the key is to help them see the opportunities that are available to them.   The third piece of the flywheel is all about planning. What is the end goal and what are you doing now to get there? The final piece addresses ways to keep people in the game through coaching. By helping people deal with setbacks, you’re inspiring them to get back in the game, and the flywheel starts over again.   If you can set this flywheel in motion for leaders of leaders, you can become a leader who scales infinitely.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Too many companies struggle to scale because they are stuck reinventing things that just don’t need to be reinvented.  The companies that succeed are the ones that focus and refine systems in a disciplined way that makes them better than they have ever been before.    JC Hite is the visionary Founder and CEO of Hite Digital, the fastest growing digital agency in the US. With a deep-rooted passion for empowering small businesses, JC is dedicated to driving their growth through the realm of digital marketing.   There are times when building any business is just really difficult. Within six months of launching Hite Digital in Nicaragua, the company found itself in the middle of a civil war. As they have scaled, they have had to learn how to survive physically, financially, and mentally during the harder seasons of growth.    JC highlights some of the hurdles Hite Digital has faced, including political insecurity, addressing limited education in Nicaragua, the pandemic, and the recession. They have fine-tuned hiring the right fit for their agency, the range of services they provide, and the key to a successful franchising model.    This conversation is filled with insights into the lessons learned from JC’s mistakes, his luckiest breaks, and what happens when entrepreneurs and business builders are willing to position themselves in the right places and focus on the right things at the right time.    Interview Links: The Hites   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Are you creating followers or leaders? If you have a huge following, you’re probably still working too hard as a leader. If you’re creating leaders (who create leaders who create leaders), then your leadership skills can transform the planet.   Bill considered himself an effective leader, but he still struggled to leave the office for even a week. He wanted to create more leaders, but that wasn’t a quick or simple task. He started passing the baton to his followers by asking them, “What are you going to do when I’m not here?” Little by little, he coached his team into becoming leaders and was able to empower his team to take action on their own.   If you can become a leader who creates leaders, you will be able to transform your efforts, and possibly take a great trip to Italy as Bill did as well. You’ll be able to create better people, a better organization, and a better life for yourself.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Who doesn’t want to know the secrets of how to be happier? In business and life, everyone is faced with opportunities to find and enjoy greater happiness every single day. But where and how can you start?   Scott White is the happiest guy you will ever meet. After spending fifteen years on Wall Street, he took a chance and became an entrepreneur and business builder. Today he is Chairman and CEO of a public real estate company. Scott is on a mission to make the world happier, one smile at a time. With his endless energy, he motivates and inspires everyone he meets to focus on happiness, gratefulness, and positivity.   As a ten-year-old child, Scott was faced with the morbid facts of life and decided then that he was going to take chances, smile, and make the most of every day he was given. For Bill, the moments he gets to spend with his newborn granddaughter are among the happiest of his life.   Scott’s book is filled with ten principles that encourage readers to make deliberate choices that will lead to greater happiness. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to happiness, but there is a guaranteed way that you can make each minute matter more.   Even on the days when you’re feeling sad, you can strive to make today the best day ever. Happiness is not an absolute scale, it’s a relative scale. If you’re faced with a day that would rank as a 1 on your happiness scale, what can you do to make it a 1.5? As Scott says, life is too short to let a single day pass by without finding the happiness in it.   Minutes matter, the people around you matter, and taking chances and not putting life off matters. Because happiness someday really never comes — all you get to work with is today.   Interview Links: Life Is Too Short Guy The Life Is Too Short Guy: Strategies to Make Every Day the Best Day Ever   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Deeper listening makes a powerful difference when you are dealing with upsets. There are fundamental values and concerns behind every upset, and when you stop to listen to those concerns, you can get to the root of the problem more effectively.   Bill and his wife used to argue about whether there should be a TV in their bedroom. As soon as he put himself in her shoes, he realized what the upset must have felt like from her perspective, and effective change immediately happened.   If you want to handle and transform upsets forever, go deep. Look for what the other person isn’t saying and address it. Deeper listening is key to not only personal relationships but in your business relationships as well.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Many start-up companies scale up by leveraging venture capital, but what are venture capitalists looking for in the companies that they choose to invest in? Even if you aren’t interested in securing funding, this episode highlights the differentiators that will set your company apart at every stage of scaling up.   Kate McAndrew is a co-founder and General Partner at Baukunst. In addition, she is the founder of Women In Hardware. Kate previously was a Partner at Bolt, where she built the firm’s venture capital practice and community presence over two successful funds. She has over nine years of experience as a first-round lead investor & board member with a focus on companies that are evolving the cultural conversation.   When Kate first encountered an accelerator program, she thought it was the most insane thing she had ever heard. She also absolutely loved the idea of empowering entrepreneurs with capital and quickly found herself in the deep end of the venture capital pool.   Many entrepreneurs may think their solution or offering is what makes a startup company special, but it’s really the people that make the difference. Special people have special ideas, and exceptional people can execute them.   Kate highlights her experience with Bobbie Baby, including what she was looking for from their offerings and what it takes to succeed in the venture path. Bobbie was a multibillion-dollar idea with incumbent players and a customer base that was going out of their way to get their hands on the product. The critical components of Bobbie’s success were the passion and experience of the team, their unique solution to a major problem, and the innovative business model for their brand.   Kate also highlights the power and danger of debt-side funding, pre-seed funding, and the best money you can have in funding a venture capital — revenue. At Fyto, venture capital helped to address a broken system with major environmental and social impacts. They reimagined the way a system was architected with the passion of a founder who was ready to completely change big problems in the ideal location. That is what it takes to make venture capital work.   Interview Links: Baukunst EO Accelerator Program   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How do you keep people in the game? It’s all about coaching. This is where you can remind people about the inspiration and action that brought them to where they are today.   Powerful coaching is rooted in powerful listening. Bill once coached a man who was overly rigid in his approach to his team. As he got more curious and set aside what he thought he already knew about his team, he realized that the team was better able to change and evolve.   The best place to start being a great coach is to stop having so much to say. Listen, rather than talk. Show curiosity rather than offering endless solutions. You can be a far better coach when you close your mouth more often.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Build the fort! Ideas that seemed simple when you were a kid may seem insurmountable as an adult, but scaling up and building out your dreams really doesn’t have to be that hard.   Dubbed “The Startup Whisperer” by startup community enthusiasts, Christopher Heivly is a life-long entrepreneur and multifaceted investor who spent forty years working as, for, and with entrepreneurs. Prior to becoming a successful startup community builder and consultant, Chris co-founded MapQuest — which sold to AOL for $1.2 billion. He currently serves as a managing director of The Startup Factory and is a highly sought-after public speaker.   Building a fort is a metaphor for all of the things that are required to hack away at a vision. Get rid of the noise, stop overanalyzing, and simplify your approach. How would you have tackled a project as massive as building a fort when you were 10 years old? Whether you’re building a startup or scaling up your business, Chris takes an approach that feels as simple as building a fort.   Chris shares several stories that highlight his simplified approach to upping your game and building out your dreams. From building out the life-changing (at the time) MapQuest to the work that he has done with Written Word Media founder Ricci Wolman, he has seen the power of creating a community, fostering successful founders, and learning the ways that will make your company work.   There are a thousand ways to mess up your company, but experimenting is a critical component of success. Whether you are facing company, campaign, or hiring failures, just assume that you’re going to make a bunch of mistakes and then go back to the simplicity of building a fort. Embrace failure, learn from the mistake, and just keep trying. It’s really not that complicated.   Interview Links: Build the Fort   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Great execution has a great rhythm. It’s all about proactive talking, planning, and making things happen.   Years ago, Bill had to create annual plans and quarterly reviews on a corporate job that worked beautifully. With his own business, he would often forget his annual plans and so added in a mid-year check-in. Even then, they still forgot about the plans. A quarterly review combined with weekly meetings and daily huddles, and Bill now knows the power of executing plans proactively with a regular rhythm that works.   The key to success here is to consider when each plan is going to take place. Keep it consistent, keep it regular, and watch the progress happen.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What is stakeholder capitalism and why should you care about it? If the work that you’re doing doesn’t help you sleep better at night, there just might be some room for improvement in your efforts in stakeholder capitalism.   Kent Gregoire is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Stakeholder Business. He is on a mission to help entrepreneurs transform their companies for maximum impact. In his consultancy work, he is known as the “CEO to CEOs” who focuses on a win-win approach that delivers exponential value to all stakeholders.   Kent’s efforts over the years have evolved from conscious capitalism into stakeholder capitalism, which focuses on building a socially and environmentally sustainable world. When companies begin to create value and optimize that value for their stakeholders — not just their shareholders — they become stronger, more resilient, and more profitable.   Stakeholders are a 360-degree group, including the customers, investors, employees, community, environment, suppliers, business partners, and more. Every one of these has an impact on a business. And companies that consider the role of each of these players are shown to be more resilient and more profitable. Kent highlights the realities of stakeholder capitalism in the coffee industry, and how strategic moves can benefit not only the company but its stakeholders as well.   Kent details the success of Interface, a carpet company that has successfully maximized stakeholder capitalism and changed the carpet industry worldwide. Bill shares ways that he has intentionally increased customer connections and Kent highlights the efforts that have solved major challenges with suppliers and securing even more business, all with a greater focus on becoming a stakeholder business.   Interview Links: Stakeholder Business   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

We all view ourselves and the world around us in either optimistic or pessimistic ways, but really, we need both views to get a clear picture of reality.   Planning for what is most likely to go wrong has great benefits because things are going to go wrong. Focusing on what might go wrong doesn’t guarantee that thing will happen, it just gives you the opportunity to prepare for that possibility.   Bill once made a mistake by not preparing for what could go wrong and ended up wasting several million dollars on materials and production that he wouldn’t need for years. Don’t make the same mistake he did, just consider what could go wrong and what you can do to prepare for it.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What can we learn from sports about making the right calls? Sally Jenkins has been a Washington Post columnist and feature writer for nearly 30 years. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 and the winner of the Associated Press Red Smith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Sports Journalism in 2021.   For sports fans, business leaders, and anyone who wants to elevate their game — whatever that game may be — Sally has joined the podcast today to share what it takes for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results.   Sally’s new book The Right Call highlights how people make the right decisions under pressure. Sally grew up with a front-row seat to some of the greatest sporting events of all time and watched how leaders make decisions in real time. Her book examines the commonalities of decisions made under stress and the methodologies that lead to making the right call.   Making the right call starts with approaching each day with an organized method. Too often we drift through our days without any real intention, but successful athletes don’t waste a single minute of their day. They make micro-decisions down to the minute that make all the difference in their success.   Sally shares the example of Peyton Manning’s practice with wet footballs that led to the Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl win against the Chicago Bears. Preparation diffuses pressure. Pressure is what happens when you don’t know what to do, but taking the time to prepare can immensely reduce that pressure.   When preparing for a meeting, take time to consider what you will say when you don’t have much time, when you’re in adverse conditions, or when you’re dealing with a hostile audience. If you can handle less-than-ideal conditions when practicing, you will be more prepared when it’s time to perform.   There is plenty that the average person can’t replicate about professional athlete performance, but there is more than you may think that can be replicated. As Laird Reynolds once said, “We spend a lot of time seeking comfort, and comfort is not the only thing we are seeking.” There is a time for relaxation and self-care, but there is so much more to success than that. Pushing yourself to adapt to the stress that comes before success will give you the personal power that you need to succeed.   Interview Links: Sally Jenkins   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Where is the best place to look to do great planning? Too often businesses look only at the here and now of the problems and issues they’re facing.   Bill worked with a contractor a few years ago who had a well-developed cadence of weekly “issue discussion” meetings. While they were solving a lot of short-term issues, they made little progress on their bigger, strategic goals. If you only focus on present issues, you’ll never have a chance to make progress in the future.   Start with the end in mind. What is your BHAG? Break it down and figure out what you can do this year to reach it. When you put your intentions further out, you are far more likely to reach your biggest goals.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Whether or not you consider yourself a risk taker, life requires taking risks every single day. From relationships and parenting to the financial and careers we pursue, we all take risks, bet big, and hopefully win often. We are surrounded by risk, and how we look at it, relate to it, and leverage it makes all the difference.   Angie Witkowski is the NY Times best-selling author of the business books SPARK, Bet on You, and Leading From the Front. She’s been a coach inside the world’s best businesses and has shared a keynote stage with some of the most influential leaders of our time. Angie served as an officer in the Marine Corps and holds a BA and MBA from the University of Michigan.   Too often we celebrate overnight successes while overlooking the years of hard work and risk that went into making the success happen. Taking your time, fully understanding your financial situation, and relying on your ability to make good decisions will all have a major impact on the outcome of the risks you take.   Consider first how much time you are willing to invest in your risks. You can take the short-term route if that is where you feel most comfortable, or you can dive in head first and see what happens. The truth is, you can always make more money if this risk fails.   Angie and Bill share their process for approaching and evaluating risk. Bill aims to first look for the opportunity, then consider the worst-case scenario and create a coping mechanism from there. Angie tends to see opportunities everywhere but asks herself two questions when considering risk: Do I have the bandwidth to make this happen, and do I actually want to do this? The answers to these questions will make the next steps clear.   Interview Links: Angie Witkowski   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What happens when you hear “no’”? How do you handle that rejection?   Bill once coached a woman named Debbie who was in conflict with her business partner. She wasn’t handling the rejection very well, and it was clear that she hadn’t considered what her business partner possibly thought about her. When she was able to think more openly about the other side of the conflict, she realized that she was also contributing to the tension.   At Bill’s recommendation, when she showed more interest in her partner’s project, she got the results she wanted. With just one shift in her actions, the partner magically changed. Simply put, if you can shift the way you handle rejection, change can happen.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Real connections win out over canned messages every single time, but wow can you amplify your brand narrative through organic content that makes those meaningful connections?   Morgan Ingram is the founder behind Ascencion Media Productions (AMP). He’s a sales educator and content creator and has been named one of the Top 50 Sales Leaders to Follow by LinkedIn, a Top 25 Sales Development Thought Leader by Inside Sales, and a Four-time LinkedIn Top Sales Voices.   Technology has enabled people to be lazy at scale, which can have a massive negative impact on your potential audience. Consider the thousands of emails you have sent out without doing your homework first, and how many of those recipients marked your unwanted email as spam. Or the impersonal connections you’ve tried to make on LinkedIn without even reviewing a person’s profile first. These impersonal efforts are not only a waste of your time, they have the potential to damage any future opportunities you might have otherwise had.   Personalization is key to connection. Read their profile, listen to their podcast, and review their website. Take proactive steps to connect in meaningful and sincere ways. Consider what you can document and share in your efforts that can help you make better connections with others. Don’t be afraid to occasionally show the less polished, perfect version of yourself along the way.   Morgan shares when and why he made the switch from black-and-white tactics to a more real evolution of his content, and how he was able to make more connections as a result. He has learned that the only way to effectively scale up is to continually expand the universe that you have created in your business.   Interview Links: AMPCreative.io   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Something always seems to get in the way of a perfect pitch. What you are worried about is tripping you up more than what’s going on with the other party. What gets in the way of a perfect pitch is YOU.   Bill coached Nick through setting his worries aside so that he could more effectively focus on his pitch. He was able to pause his worries, the board loved his pitch, and the company was improved by his input.   Stop worrying, set yourself aside, and think more about your client than you are about yourself. That is the key.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What makes great marketing? Marketing that is efficient, cost-effective, and memorable isn’t easy to come by, but it can make all the difference in growing your business.   Brandon is CEO of Win BIG Media, and formerly, as the COO, Brandon is a leader in the marketing world. He is SPHR Certified and is an experienced operations professional who has worked with various teams to improve processes, advance team engagement, and create winning cultures with great success.   The data about a company reveals the story that the marketing needs to tell. Off-cycle marketing might be the ticket to changing the message altogether, and the creative components of company branding can help pinpoint the information the customer needs to see.   Many companies today are tightening their budgets in preparation for an impending recession, but whether another recession arrives or not, the lessons learned from the recession of 2009 can benefit businesses today. Studies have revealed that many companies that cut or eliminated marketing in 2009 are no longer around today, while those who increased their marketing efforts and dollars during the recession captured market share in the years since.   Although Win Big Media is a digital marketing agency, they don’t always push clients toward digital marketing. In a furniture store case example, with a few strategic tweaks, Brandon’s team was able to create a $1.8 million return on a direct mail ad spend with a 23.17 ROI.   Brandon highlights the key components of successful marketing. First, test your ideas. Don’t put your entire marketing budget into one avenue if it hasn’t been proven yet. Second, tailor and customize the creative. Identify what your customer needs and then market directly to those needs.   Ultimately, when you understand your customer, utilize the data, and shift your creative approach, you may not even have to spend more advertising dollars to reach more of your target audience and level up your marketing efforts.   Interview Links: Win BIG Media   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How can you hear more “yes”? Be more engaging. When someone is engaged with you, they will then commit to action.   Hearing “yes” in action has less to do with how effective your pitch is and much more to do with how effectively you are listening for what matters to the other person. If you really pay attention to what they are saying, it will be much easier to find a way in your proposal to meet their needs.   So listen carefully. Because when you do, you’re much more likely to hear “yes.”   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Just as professional pilots, doctors, and golfers regularly return to the fundamentals, it is just as essential in the business world to continually return to the basics of the performance platform. Going back to the basics is far more effective than constantly seeking new techniques.   This week, Bill talks with Verne Harnish, a world-leading expert, speaker, author, and entrepreneur in the field of business growth. Together they offer insights into Altman’s Maxims, Jobs’s doers vs. dreamers, the power of asking, daily routines, remote work, and much more.   Everyone will tell you it’s important to focus, but Sam Altman, founder of ChatGPT, advises in his 13 Maxims that we would do well to step back and determine what it is that we should focus on. You don’t really have a strategy if you’re not doing everything differently anyway. The key is that the ambitious goals are not simply linear, they are exponential.   Have overconfidence in yourself. Be bold in your goals. Surround yourself with people who challenge your thinking and push you higher. When you get too comfortable with your success, you are limiting yourself. Instead, employ Matthew McConaughey’s definition of humility and recognize that there is always more to learn.   Verne highlights his four-step process for innovation, which includes preparation, incubation, inspiration, and finally, verification. Each step is a critical point in making real progress in the work that you are aiming to do.   The most important words in any language are “Can you help me?” That is what separates the dreamers from the doers. Whether you are Steve Jobs or an early-stage entrepreneur, finding ways to ask for the help you need is the ticket to making your aspirational dreams come true.   Interview Links: “How to Be Successful,” by Sam Altman   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. As a child, Bill lived on the north shore of Oahu and was invited to surf Waimea Bay. He was brave enough to paddle out but then talked himself out of every wave as it came along. He was lit up by the bold audacity of being able to say he had surfed these famous waves, even though he never actually caught a wave.   Being bold can also mean being frightened. There is power in going for what you really want. A BHAG (big hairy, audacious goal) is not a small thing, it’s a thing that is meant to frighten you into action!   Of course, there is a balance between ridiculous and extraordinary, but when you strike that balance, you will find success. Being scared (in a good way) is key to powerful boldness that inspires.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

The future of health matters to every one of us. From biotech to the latest innovations, we are all impacted by the rapid transformations that are happening in healthcare.   Neil is the Founder & CEO of Bioverge Ventures, an investment platform democratizing access to enable individuals to diversify their portfolio with private biotech and healthcare investments for the purposes of long-term wealth creation.   Between surviving a plane crash and watching helplessly as his grandmother battled cancer, Neil realized that biotechnology was the perfect way to create more tools for more doctors to help more patients. He highlights his experience with an almost sci-fi-like cure for a genetic disease with the use of novel biotechnologies and recognizes that the future of biotech is happening today.    But what does this mean for investors? The pandemic proved that when biotech needs to move fast it is entirely capable of doing so. Neil points out that the loss ratios in biotech aren’t as high as it is for software companies, making it an appealing choice for investors.   Bioverge aims to understand the science behind technologies to highlight key risks and milestones for potential investors. By investing at the seed stage, they bear the greatest risk as well as the potential for the greatest reward.   From growing human organs to creating 3D models of working lungs and growing stem cells, the future of biotech in the healthcare industry — and the benefit of investing in it — is happening today.   Interview Links: Bioverge Ventures   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Do you have a range of emotional expressions? We’re often taught to keep our emotions in check and not be expressive, but there is power in sharing your emotions. Even if you’re having a bad day, you can express yourself as a leader and leave people with an inspiring thought about your stand on an issue.   Bill had an experience with a man named Alex who was ready to quit his job as a CEO. He decided it was time to move on after a setback on a project, but after an effective coaching session, he found the strength to share his experience and emotions with his team. When he did, he found even better solutions and engaged his team in a way that he wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t had the courage to express his emotions.   All leaders experience a full range of emotions; the best ones are those who are willing to express themselves in ways that engage and inspire others.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How can bad language enhance the way you connect with others? There is power in language. As a leader, the way you articulate your company’s value and vision matters. There is power in using language intentionally and connecting with others with the words you use.   Professor Valerie Fridland is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics, with a specialization in Sociolinguistics, from Michigan State University. As a sociolinguist, Professor Fridland’s main focus is on varieties of American English. The goal of her research is to better understand how variability in speech production relates to variability in speech perception and how social identity affects speech.   The pattern of our speech has a huge impact on our behavior toward others, how persuasive we are, and how we are perceived by others. Often we use language not simply to fit in, but more impactfully, to stand out. Novel speech draws others in, in ways that basic words simply don’t have the power to do.   The words you use have the power to either make others sit up and take notice of you, or dismiss you without a second thought. Yet it is self-consciousness about language that paralyzes too many leaders. Valerie highlights the value of novelty in language and how it can be used as a power to stand out in a crowd.   Many of us cringe at the “umms” and “uhs” that slip out in our business conversations, but there is no scientific evidence that using those phrases has a negative impact on our message, especially when using unfamiliar or larger vocabulary. Valerie shares how to increase perceived authority with your voice pitch and how your language can increase the impact of your message.   Interview Links: Valerie Fridland   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Inspiring leaders are the best kind of leaders to be around, and all of us have room to be more inspiring. What inspires you? And what will inspire other people? Ask yourself what you care about, and the answers will come easily.   Bill heard a captivating story from an inspiring leader who did a beautiful job of articulating his future vision. The formula here is simple — share what your story is, how you got started, and why you care about the work you’re doing. Paint a picture of scalability and what the world would look like if your vision was carried out.   Sharing your vision is a simple powerful way to captivate your audience and, more importantly, inspire them as a leader.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

How do you build something cool enough that it becomes a disruptor? It starts with a vision for the future and is carried out by leaders who are both strong and vulnerable.   Charlene Li is an expert on disruptive transformation, leadership, customer experience, and the future of work. Her perspectives from advising hundreds of companies ranging from Adobe to Southwest Airlines and 14 of the Dow Jones Industrial 30 companies provide insights to support a winning strategy for disruptive growth, and a plan to identify and seize an opportunity no one else has the audacity or confidence to reach for.   Charlene rode the wave of the disruption back in the 90s  as journalism was majorly disrupted by the revolution of the Internet.  Traditional media as we knew it would never be the same.    Charlene knows that disruption has to be viewed as a positive force, no matter how hard it might be. Leaders who can see disruption as growth are the ones who will benefit from all that stands to be gained by the change.    The key is to see the future and what can be before anyone else. Charlene highlights the disruption that happened at Adobe, and the importance of taking the customer where they need to go.    At T-Mobile, the vision of leadership was the driver behind the disruption.  Followers are the key to building a culture like the one at Southwest to the disruption moving forward, because a movement only becomes a movement when it can go on without you.    Interview Links: Charlene Li   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

You’re already strong, but what’s missing from your life and your leadership? Bill highlights the four critical skills that can make all the difference for leaders.   The first skill is knowing your purpose. What is the why for you and the why for your business?   Second is engaging people with effective proposals and offers, but more importantly, being able to listen to people so that you can help them commit and act.   The third skill is planning and the fourth and final skill is coaching. Coaching keeps people in the game, even when they get discouraged or want to quit.   Figure out where your strengths are and where you have room to develop and go deeper. When you do, you have the potential to level up and combine those strengths with what fulfills both your personal and life’s purposes.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

What is the best way to grow and scale professional service firms? Today’s guest sold one company for $162 million. He has the experience and the answers.   Greg Alexander is the founder of Collective 54, the first mastermind community dedicated exclusively to thriving professional services firms with big aspirations. He authored the best-selling book “The Boutique: How to Start, Scale, and Sell a Professional Services Firm,” and founded the company Collective 54, an EO that is focused on a single industry.   If you’re thinking about pricing from a cost basis, you’re thinking about yourself like a commodity. With a shift in mindset, you can consider the value that you’re creating and the problem that you’re solving. Thinking about it from that standpoint can change everything.   Greg calls pricing an underleveraged lever, especially in professional services. Rather than throwing out a number and hoping that your client is willing to pay it, talk with them about the total value they will gain from your services and work out what percentage they are willing to share with you. If you can start top-down rather than bottom-up you will end up making a lot more money.   Sell painkillers and cures, not vitamins. When “nice to have” services become “must haves,” sales go up. And if you can solve someone’s pain point, they will be more inclined to pay for your maintenance plan later on. But it is essential to tackle the most pressing issues first, with the goal of developing long-term support over time.   Greg shares several examples of ways that he has found a focus area for a client and subsequently been able to fine-tune his services. Then the collective efforts of the entire company can support and scale up in ways that wouldn’t be possible without finding that niche.   Interview Links: Collective 54 Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Mastery begins with giving up that you’ll ever be finished. When Bill gave up thinking that he would one day become a superhuman who could stop working on himself, he committed himself to a lifetime of learning and development.   As a result, he recognized that he would never be finished.   Never finished means working on improving yourself until you take your last breath. There will always be someplace or way that you can improve yourself, and you will only begin to master yourself when you recognize that your efforts can never fully be done.   Embrace the discomfort that comes with growth, because when you feel it, it only means that you are about to learn something new.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

You’re always working to elevate your company, but how can you get your team to come along for the ride? Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of people, leadership, and execution, especially in remote companies.   Robert Glazer is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, the premier global partner marketing agency that has won over 30 awards for its world-class company culture. He leads a fully-remote team of over 270 people.   Robert is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of books on topics such as peak performance, personal growth, partner marketing, and excelling in the world of remote work.   A lot of companies are playing defense in their team strategy right now. After the exhaustion of the pandemic, companies are struggling to focus on healthy, sustainable growth. How can you build your team up holistically in ways that benefit the individual as well as the company?   Pandemic hangover is still very much present, so how can leaders get their teams back to a place of enthusiasm for growth? Robert’s new book highlights examples of leaders who have failed by going 100 miles an hour. The message that a leader sends out makes a huge difference in the actions and attitudes of the team.   In addition to the physical aspect of leading a team by example, emotional leadership is key. Leaders who are willing to show vulnerability and authenticity create a safe space for their team to show up as their whole, emotional, and spiritual selves as well. As Robert says, the only way to be a Level 5 Leader is with exceptional self-awareness and authenticity about the ways that you lead by your values.   Interview Links: Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team To Reach Their Full Potential and Build A Business That Builds Leaders, by Robert Glazer Robert Glazer   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

There isn’t only a flywheel in business, there is a flywheel for you as a leader as well. There are four key skills that leaders can employ at every stage of growth.   First, start with your why. What is the deep meaning that helps you grow the company? Purpose and vision are inspiring and can help people get excited about what the future could be.   Second, consider what’s in it for you. Engagement is a decision in action. People who are engaged not only know their role in what can be done, they are ready to make it happen.   Next, bring effective planning practices into the game. Start with the end in mind, consider what could go wrong, and deal with setbacks.   And finally, offer great coaching. A great coach listens more, providing a space for insights, and reminds their team of the reasons they were inspired in the first place.   If you’re feeling stuck, consider where you are in the leadership flywheel, where you can jump back in, and how you can create leaders who create leaders.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What is a sales playbook, and how can it change the way you develop a powerful company culture? A sales playbook is designed to help deliver the kind of results you are aiming for.   Morné Smit has spent his life elevating respect for sales and marketing professionals in dozens of companies across 28-plus industries on three continents.   Developing from a salesperson to leading sales teams in six different industries, including spearheading a 10X growth outcome over five years in a mid-market property company, Morné gained invaluable insight, knowledge, and experience over two decades that brought him to found Emerse in 2017.   Too many fledgling companies have figured out how to grow fast but without a decent profit or a predictable growth trajectory. With an effective sales book, you can not only grow sales fast but profitably and predictably too. Systematic, repeatable sales — not rockstar salespeople — are the key to top-level performance.   Morné highlights the successes he has seen from companies that are willing to utilize a playbook that includes skipping over the “let me go talk to my manager” bureaucracy. The power of the playbook comes from empowering your team to change the narrative of their interactions and setting aside the salesperson ego to recognize and celebrate the successes of the entire team.   Interview Links: Emerse Sales Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Leading from purpose is the one thing that makes the greatest difference. What you care about and why you do the work you do matters more than just about anything else.   Your company has its purpose, but that is most likely not the same as your life purpose. In late 2001, Bill had accomplished every one of the goals he had set for his life, but he was still feeling miserable and stuck. With the help of a coach, he began considering what he really wanted to be known for at the end of his life. How do you want to be remembered?   When you know your why, it becomes much easier to evolve into a leader who makes a difference. By using your strengths and also highlighting the things that bring the greatest fulfillment, you will be able to focus on what really matters to you in the long run.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Consider your potential, the potential of your people, and the potential of your company. If you’re not looking for ways to develop potential all around, chances are you are missing out on major opportunities.   Joanna Bloor is a career futurist, multi-time TED speaker, and author of Tales of Potential: The Cinderella Story You Haven’t Heard. She has joined the podcast to discuss tactics for unlocking potential to become the best version of yourself as a leader or draw out the best in your team.   The nature of the workforce is continually changing, but one badge of honor always seems to stick — being busy. Too many people consider being busy the greatest measure of their productivity, but what if we can transform perceived busy-ness into harnessing greater potential?   In Cinderella’s story, the key to her success wasn’t the appearance of her fairy godmother. Her preparation, consistency, and leadership skills laid the foundation for her success long before she was faced with a pumpkin that turned into a coach or had to make the split-second decision to leave her glass slipper behind.   It becomes infinitely easier to be an effective leader when you begin to view others not as a charity case that needs to be fixed, but as a “princess” with potential that an effective leader can help unlock. Listen in as Joanna highlights different potential leadership styles that harness the strengths that are already there and just need to be brought to light.   Interview Links: Tales of Potential Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Are you willing to pass the baton on to the next leaders of your company? Or are you hanging on too long? Empowering leaders develop leaders who can develop leaders. If you’re hanging on too much or micromanaging your team, you are not developing yourself or others into effective leaders. If you want a strong, thriving company, you need to work to develop leaders that you can pass the baton on to.   Years ago Bill was doing a lot of things right in his business, but he still couldn’t manage to break away for any extended period. Still, he was committed to a family vacation, so he asked himself regularly to become more hands-off. For a year, he worked to ask his team how they would solve their problems if he was not there.   By empowering his team to come up with their own solutions, he was effectively passing the baton. Without micromanaging leaders to do all of the work, teams are empowered to thrive.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Wake up your emotional intelligence so you can be a better leader. If you want to develop your business, you have to be willing to develop yourself. Emotional intelligence goes hand-in-hand with successful leadership.   Dr. Robert Hernandez is a Jungian-trained, licensed psychologist who helps HR departments identify, assess, and develop strong, emotionally intelligent leaders. His work focuses on ego-Self axis leadership through the lens of emotional intelligence.   Authentic, not overpowering, authority is the leadership style that will connect you with your team in meaningful ways. Projecting higher, louder energy isn’t nearly as effective as simply projecting a passion for the work and change you are working for.   To tune into your passion, consider the following questions: What do you like about the message you are trying to share? What excites you about the possibilities associated with your message? What do you care about? If you don’t have clear answers, you need to listen to the suggestions in this conversation that will increase your connections and rev your passion back up.   The way that you manage and harness your emotions and your passions can make all the difference in your effectiveness as a leader. When you are connected with your emotions you can become an excellent and charismatic leader.   Interview Links: influens.com   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Leaders in action occasionally get upset and want to quit. How can you handle angry people with big complaints? Deeper listening is the key.   Bill had a client who got into a fight with another manager. After listening deeply to his grievances, Bill was able to explore curiosity around the other manager in the fight, which then gave space for the angry manager to do so as well. When he did, he was able to go deeper and consider why the other manager might have gotten so upset. With greater compassion, he was able to address the real issue at hand.   Behind every complaint is something virtuous. When you can point to the virtue amidst the complaint, understanding and effective change can take place. If you can stop fighting for your own position and consider what the other person is asking for, the underlying virtue can be addressed.   Dealing with upset people can rapidly be shifted when you listen for and name the unspoken value that they are fighting for.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Effective coaches have to be able to help people level up without having them reject that coaching. But how can you do that?   Bill had the opportunity to coach a CEO who was completely burnt out on his work. By showing genuine curiosity about the cause behind the leader’s change of heart, Bill was able to help him find new passion and purpose in the work he was doing. Rather than just pumping a leader up, curiosity can create a space for a leader to receive coaching without feeling like it’s being forced upon them.   A great coach is looking for growth. Take it from Anthony Nelson at Premier Restoration Hawaii — leaders have a great vision that they are excited to share with their team. They’re looking for ways to help level their people up beyond what they can see for themselves at any given moment.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Business, like life, has a great way of handing you a smack upside the head. It can throw you off, but improv is all about embracing what is instead of resisting it.   Erin Diehl is the founder of improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn, and grow. They bring improv and more to companies to help them level up.   How can improv help you improve your day-to-day business? The opportunities for improv and humor in general can be found throughout your workday. Whether someone is heckling you during a presentation or throws you off with an unexpected question during a pitch, staying sharp will get you through whatever comes your way. Improv is simply a way to postpone the judgment of yourself first. You do have the answers, and you can use humor to create an energy and bond with your audience.   When you free up more room for play in your mind, you have less room for self-doubt. Even if you are in a room full of executives, if you can listen and respond in a humorous but truthful way, you will find more success and have more fun along the way. According to Erin, you will find your truest self when you can let go of self-judgment and just be you.   Interview Links: Improve It!   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” We may agree with Winston Churchhill, but how is this possible? How can plans themselves be of such little value but planning is indispensable?   Plans have a purpose — they bring the team together and begin the execution process, but then things inevitably change. Ideally, we are constantly creating new plans because it is in the act of planning that plans are made.   Finding the balance between planning and executing is essential to getting the job done and growing your business. Don’t worry about figuring it out yourself, just follow the footsteps of so many who have come before you. Annual strategy planning, quarterly updates, weekly adjustments, daily huddles, and one-on-one coaching are all part of an effective planning process.   The secret to planning success? Getting the rhythm right. If there isn’t a predictable cadence to your meetings, you aren’t going to experience the success that planning can offer. Create a predictable rhythm that your entire organization moves to.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Cameron Herold is the mastermind behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth and has earned his reputation as the business growth guru. He has built a dynamic consultancy with clients that include a monarchy and a Big 4 wireless company. Cameron discusses his new book The Second in Command.   As second in command, COOs are often in place for a reason or a season, but rarely for the lifetime of a company. The COO takes care of everything that the CEO doesn’t love (or isn’t good at) and they serve as their main confidant. Like the yin and yang, the COO works not to duplicate, but to counterbalance the efforts of the CEO.   From his early days at 1-800-GOT-JUNK to his work with scaling up million dollar companies, Cameron has defined the second in command as a partner who has a shared vision but not the same strengths.   Cameron highlights the steps CEOs need to take to build out and identify their second in command based on the current needs of the company and the long-term vision of the company. Bottom line, if you are struggling with any aspect of leading your company, the answer may not be to learn how to do it better yourself. The answer may be to hire someone else to get the job done.   Interview Links: The Second in Command — Unleash the Power of Your COO   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

“Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face.” Wise words from Mike Tyson, but too many entrepreneurs are afraid to talk about all of the things that can go wrong when scaling up. This is a mistake.   Consider the Apollo 13 mission. Earlier probing and considerations about failure are what made it possible for the astronauts to return safely back to Earth. Without those conversations and preparations for possible failure, Apollo 13 would not have turned into the success story it was.   Don’t avoid the possibility that something is going to go wrong, because something IS going to go wrong. Probe deeply about it and create a contingency plan to prepare for it. If there are people on your team who are constantly questioning what could go wrong, thank them! Empower them to help expand the vision of success by giving a voice to their concerns, and then enjoy the results of that planning when things go off script.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Hiring today seems more complicated than ever before, but finding the right fit for your position doesn’t have to be a long and cumbersome process. You just have to be willing to put the work in to find the top performers.    Dr. Brad Smart is widely regarded as a world expert on hiring and is a renowned consultant to many leading companies and SMBs. He is the creator of Topgrading and author of Foolproof Hiring: Powerful, Fully Proven Keys to Hiring Mostly High Performers.   Dr. Brad was shocked to learn in the early years of his career that only 1 out of 3 employees at his company were considered top performers. He knew there had to be a better way to identify and hire more top performers, and Topgrading was born.   Employers save time and money by using the Topgrading approach. The robust and thorough process provides a prescreening snapshot that sifts out the best applicants and gets A players hired.   The job scorecard is another critical piece of the effective hiring process. Break down what the job entails and make sure that you know what you need before you start hiring someone who may or may not be a good fit for the requirements.   After the basic sort, ask three open-ended questions that candidates can answer before you have an in-person conversation. Each of these steps will help you identify and hire the high performers that you want on your team.   Interview Links: Topgrading Prescreen Snapshot   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

When you’re planning to scale your business in a way that’s never been done before, you have to follow Stephen Covey’s advice — begin with the end in mind. Start your planning from a future state where you can look back at how you got there.   Planning for the first moon landing began in the 1950s, long before those first steps were taken in 1969. No matter how extraordinary your vision of success is, it has to start with envisioning that mountaintop and how exactly you are going to get there.   Bill had an experience with a company that was only working toward the goal of selling their company. Once they looked beyond that to consider the long-term vision and success of those who bought the company, they were able to create a much more compelling story for investors and buyers. Not surprisingly, the company’s valuation increased as a result.   Even if you have an endgame that you’re attached to, try to look beyond that. Play through to create an even better long-term vision of where you want your company to go.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Leaders love to hear yes, but they have to be comfortable hearing no. Even the expectation of hearing no can throw you off and result in more nos, so how can you get more yeses? Bill has a few ideas. Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, Vincent Van Gogh, and countless other success stories are littered with multiple rejections, and yet they still succeeded, in part because they didn’t give up the first time they heard a no. Do you really need to get offended when you are rejected? Or take it personally? Or can you use it as an opportunity? If you’re expecting to hear no, create different scenarios in which you can expect to hear a yes, or even a maybe. Get to a place where you can play with the doors that open up from hearing no. When you’re in a place where you can be playful and engaging in the face of no, you will be more prepared when you finally hear yes.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

One of the single biggest frustrations and financial losses many companies face is selecting sales candidates who interviewed well, only to flame out when placed on the line. Today’s guest uses his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology to figure out who is most likely to win in sales.   Dr. Chris Croner is an entrepreneur, sales psychologist, and author. He has developed a system for identifying salespeople with the drive to succeed, helping businesses build better sales teams while avoiding underperformers.   Too many managers hire salespeople who are motivated by money when they should be looking for someone who is motivated by excellence. Much like an athlete looks at the score on the scoreboard as a reflection of how well they’ve done, the best salespeople consider the money they make nothing more than a byproduct of their achievements, not the achievement itself.   One of the most important human needs is fulfilling a purpose. That personal drive is a much more compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning than just meeting required sales numbers and then calling it good.   Optimism, resilience, passion, and purpose all add up to the kind of salesperson that you want on your team. Ask for stories in interviews that highlight these characteristics, and when you hear the stories, you’ll know you’ve found the right person for the job.   Interview Links: The Drive Test — Free Assessment   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What is the number one thing that gets in the way of successful leaders? Surprise — the answer is you. Too often leaders are the reason that commitment and action just aren’t happening. If you want more action out of your people, partners, and customers, set your fears and doubts about yourself aside. Bill had a conversation with a CEO who was struggling to raise his rates but was also struggling with his perception of himself based on his childhood experiences. Bill’s suggestions for this man gave him the opportunity to see himself in a new light, which resulted in success all around. Too often our personal doubts and concerns get in the way of our success. When you’re focusing on yourself and not on the people you’re trying to do business with, you just can’t be nearly as effective. But when you are comfortable with yourself and focused on the other person, success is almost guaranteed. Increase your self-awareness. Deal with your insecurities, but set them aside whenever you are supposed to be focusing on the other person.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Leaders need to hear YES. Yes to the proposals, the offers, the pitches, the suggestions, the hiring offers. But how can you get more of those yeses?   Bill has the answer. Whether you’re raising money or partnering with someone, the secret to hearing yes is knowing what the other person needs. Knowing what people needed (even before they did) was the key contributor to the success of Steve Jobs and Apple.   If you want to hear yes, show more interest in other people. Offer commitment and action. Set your pitch aside and consider what is really going on with the other person. What is their world like? How can you improve it? What advanced research can you do to get the information you need? And how can you give them what they want?   The key is rarely what we say but how well we listen to what the other person is saying. Become a good listener. Be curious about other people, and you are going to hear yes far more often.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

How can you get the most for your company and maximize the value of your company? The value of your business comes from how well the business can run without you. Nick Arellano is an award-winning M&A veteran who helps business owners get the most money from the sale of their companies.   Many business owners are surprised to learn that selling their company is much more complex than selling property. Unlike selling a house or a car, selling a business takes significant time and preparation to optimize value. Nick has experienced both the buying and selling side, as well as the risks associated with the deal.   By integrating your exit strategy with your overall business strategy, you can limit your risk and increase your company’s value. If you are working with a team to plan your exit now, you’re adding millions of dollars to the eventual sale of your business.   This conversation is filled with key moves that company owners need to consider when strategizing their sale, negotiation considerations, and what owners can realistically expect from the sale. Nick shares what has worked (and what hasn’t worked) for his clients, and highlights his top moves for getting ready to maximize and sell a company.   Interview Links: Your Legacy Partners   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

There are two ways to double your business. One is really hard, and one is significantly easier, and the difference is boldness.   It can take a long time to double your revenue, but 10X thinking can change everything. When you think on a 10X level, it becomes easier to reimagine everything. Boldness brings with it an excited kind of terror, but are you ready to play a big, bold game? If so, you need a BHAG.   Your BHAG needs to challenge you to think bigger than ever before. Consider Kennedy committing the U.S. to winning the race to the moon or Daniel Burnham’s invitation to do something truly awesome that has the magic to stir men’s (or women’s) blood. That is the kind of inspiration that people can get behind.   There is power in declaring your vision boldly, but there is also a balance that has to be met. It has to be something that has never been done before, it has to be something worth doing, and it has to be aligned with your purposes. But it has to be declared within reason. Bill Galagher might not be the next man in space; Elon Musk is a more likely candidate. Be awesome, but don’t be absurd.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

In this week’s episode, Scaling Up has lined up eight fan-favorite episodes from 2022. In case you’ve missed any of these classics, we have compiled a quick recap of each of the episodes and the guests below. Thank you for listening to the Scaling Up show!   Michael Solomon has three businesses today, artist management, freelance software talent management, and compensation negotiation services. He is also the author of the book, Game Changer, which dives into how to get the most out of the talent economy. After an industry change, this business owner saw some interesting parallels that made him realize that people are really the cornerstone of your company’s success.   Chris Ronzio is the founder & CEO of Trainual, an online training resource manual for your company to help train employees, contractors, and more. He was also named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021 and is the author of the new book, The Business Playbook. Chris takes his Business Playbook to a different level and shares how to streamline onboarding in an easy way where it doesn’t overwhelm you!   Dr. Alison Horstmeyer is a talent development consultant, executive coach, and humanistic thought leader. Her research focuses on curiosity and associated mental, emotional, and motivational attributes. Dr. Alison is considered to be one of the pioneering practitioners in workplace curiosity. This episode focuses on how curiosity impacts the world around us today, how to cultivate it, and how more of it within your team helps your business scale and grow.   Jason Forrest became established as a top 1% sales professional in his career and has gone on to train others in the field. Throughout his career, he’s found that the common sales techniques being taught out there put limitations on others. As a result of Jason’s hands-on sales experience, his coaching and consulting work has led sales teams to increase their effectiveness and drive more profit.   Marissa Levin has been an entrepreneur for over 25 years and is a globally-recognized growth strategist. In 1995, she launched her first business and grew it to $13 million in revenue. Her current venture, Successful Culture, is a leadership consulting organization that helps CEOs master the three most critical aspects of business growth: leadership development, strategy formulation and execution, and organizational culture assessment and improvement. In this episode, she answers the questions about fear or anxiety over the unknown future ahead, how you can navigate through something when you don’t know what you don’t know, and how you can scale if you’re not sure where you are in your growth stage.   Jack Daly is a leading Sales Speaker and Trainer and has spent over 30 years of his career helping salespeople and executives succeed. In 2022, Jack released his 10th book, Jack Daly’s Life By Design, which shares with the world his special recipe for life well lived. If you believe you have to burn yourself out or overextend yourself to “have it all,” then this episode is for you. Jack believes yes, you can have it all, but it has to start with an intentional and thoughtful plan, or else it will not be sustainable.   In a panel discussion of Scaling Up Insights, Bill is joined by panelists Neale Lewis, Stacy Eads, and Judy Guido to discuss the latest advancements in the world of Scaling Up. This discussion details the biggest takeaway from the pandemic is that being vulnerable is okay, how to stop “problem-solving” their team’s stress and instead take a step back and get real and vulnerable, and how you can get a job working for Warren Buffet.   Ron Price is the President and Founder of Price Associates, a global leadership performance firm. He is an internationally-recognized business advisor, executive coach, speaker, and author. He is also the author of the new book, Optimizing Strategy For Results, and this conversation is all about strategy! For some leaders, planning ahead can come seamlessly, for others, not so much. You might have run into a problem where you’ve planned a cohesive strategy, but when it comes to the execution, it doesn’t quite turn out the way you’ve envisioned. Ron shares how you can optimize your strategy for maximum impact.   Interview Links: “Getting Real with Michael Solomon — 10X Management” “Chris Ronzio — The Business Playbook” “Alison Horstmeyer — Why Your Curiosity Matters” “Jason Forrest — The Mindset of a Sales Warrior” “Marissa Levin — Build a Great Advisory Board” “Jack Daly — Have It All with Intentionality” “Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Neale Lewis, Stacy Eads, and Judy Guido” “Ron Price — Strategic Execution”   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Are you willing to show a side of yourself that is anything but strong and in charge? How can you present yourself in a vulnerable way without appearing like a weak or unfit leader?   Over 20 years ago, Bill was faced with threats of bankruptcy in his business and losing his house. Once he realized he was facing his worst fears, he recognized that he was also faced with the opportunity to fight to the end.   When he opened up to his team in an honest and vulnerable way, Bill found himself surrounded by a team who was ready to fight with him. No one quit because he didn’t have a plan and no one accused him of being weak. Instead, within one year they had a major breakthrough and turned the company around.   How is it possible that vulnerability and uncertainty turned out to be powerful leadership? By committing to fight to the end and never quit, Bill inspired his team to stick with him. Vulnerability can be powerful, especially when it’s coupled with the conviction to find a solution that you can reach together.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

This episode highlights a company whose growth has more than doubled in just over a year. Bill is joined by Herb Cogliano, Scaling Up Coach, and Katelynn Minott, CEO of Bright!Tax for a conversation about the systems that will help support rapid scaling in your business. They share their scaling-up story and how they’ve grown using a lot of the tools found in the world of Scaling Up.   Bright!Tax is an accounting company that focuses on U.S. Expat tax services. The uniqueness of Katelynn’s business has made it possible for her to both compete and scale in an effective way. Additionally, having a purpose-focused business has created opportunities for the company that wouldn’t be available any other way.   Even with a unique business niche, Katelynn recognized that her company could go significantly farther with the help of Scaling Up coach Herb Cogliano. Together they leveled up her team at a time when they were struggling to find talent. They used a variety of Scaling Up tools to enhance both the client and the employee experience, including the favorite Daily Huddle, hiring A Players, monitoring work-life balance, and bringing curiosity into successes.   Building a culture that is infused with strategy, especially in a distributed workforce, is key to scaling up. Katelynn, Herb, and Bill have packed this conversation full of the tools and tips that can make scaling up a reality for any company that is ready to make it happen.   Interview Links: Bright!Tax   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Again and again, Bill works with leaders who hold back from sharing what is really exciting and inspiring to them. Too many leaders think they need to be responsible and business-like instead of being unleashed and passionate.   In March 1963, in Washington DC, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a famous speech that was fueled by the passionate words of legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson — “tell them about the dream.” Her words changed a good speech into the fuel that launched the civil rights movement forward.   Bill knows a simple formula that will get you fired up about your work. First, talk about the way things are today, then consider where they are headed, and finally talk about your vision and what the future could look like if everyone was working toward that common goal. This formula will not only get you fired up but inspire those around you as well. And no matter what, don’t be afraid to let others see what you are really passionate about.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Welcome back to another episode of Scaling Up Insights! For this round, we have guests Daniel Marcos, head of our e-learning platform, The Growth Institute, and Herb Cogliano, a recent podcast guest who shared one of his many client success stories.   In this episode, our panel of coaches discusses leadership change, unreasonable hospitality, managing versus leading, where innovation comes from, how pricing evolves, all that is happening with the economy, and taking care of managing your time.   Bill, Daniel, and Herb each share several stories of unreasonable hospitality — times when leaders have gone above and beyond to connect with and delight the people they are serving.   How have leaders learned to balance the virtual and in-person teams? Daniel and Herb share ideas that they have seen work, including “leg week” and weekly leader update videos. Bill points out that any leader who is forcing their team to get back to work full-time in person is missing the lessons we have all learned from the pandemic. Flexibility is the key to strong leadership in today’s changing work environment.   Growing your business 2X is so much harder than growing 10X. Daniel wants leaders to focus on changing their thinking to be more efficient all around. When leaders don’t get distracted by the little things, exponential growth becomes a perfectly reasonable goal. Creating a 10X and better BHAG is where breakthroughs happen because that’s where leaders start reimagining what is possible.   Despite constant change in the economy, leaders stay focused on the ways that they can help make the world a better place. Leaders focus on quality over quantity, and Herb reminds us of the importance of balancing time because the best ideas rarely appear in the middle of a long meeting in the office.   Interview Links: Herb: Aspiregrowthadvisors.com Daniel: Danielmarcos.co   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What kind of leader are you today? The leader that you’ve evolved into may not be the kind of leader you want to be in the long run. What brought you to this point may not get you to the next level you’re aiming to achieve.   Bill has the secret to becoming the kind of leader that you want to become. 20 years ago he found himself exactly where he thought he wanted to be in his professional and personal life, but found himself feeling miserable and stuck. His coach prompted him to consider the end game — what would the success story at the end of his life sound like?   The kind of leader that you currently are is probably great, but stop and consider where you want to go from here. Then you can start building on those strengths that you want to achieve and start to make real traction with your end-of-life goals.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

The number one leader that you need to work with is you. There is a direct correlation between company goals an the habits of CEOs. The leader and the organization are one and the same, so what the leader does affects the organization, and what the organization does affects the leader, for better or for worse.   Leaders deserve the company they have and have the company they deserve. If there is a problem or something that needs to change, the good news (and the bad news) is that it’s your fault and you have the ability to do something about it.   Bill once worked with a successful but undisciplined leader who was late to every meeting, event and deadline. It was no surprise with that leadership style that the company had plateaued and just couldn’t hit their next level goals. Despite meeting with Bill, this leader wasn’t willing to make the needed changes to improve both his company and himself. And if a leader isn’t willing to change, even with effective coaching, it’s almost guaranteed that the organization isn’t going to change either.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.    

“All work and no play make for a dull workplace… and a costly one.”   Organizations that provide opportunities for employees to playfully connect, bond, and build friendships see improvements in retention, engagement, and innovation. Intentional play at work creates a culture that benefits all employees’ physical and mental health and a company’s bottom line.   Kristi Herold helps connect people through play and helps companies unlock profit through play. Kristi’s vision is to get one million people playing annually. Her book It Pays to PLAY was born from the idea that play is a critical component of work.   Kristi spent 25 years connecting millions of people through play, and when the pandemic hit, was faced with the major challenge of pivoting to keep her business alive. What felt like a shot in the dark turned into a major business opportunity that helps connect people as well as helps companies unlock profit through play.   Kristi argues that a strong company culture does not come from having an organized event once a month (or year). There are ways to integrate playfulness throughout everyday work interactions.   No matter how serious your business is, make time to make those connections. When there is permission for bonds to be strengthened, everyone wins.   Interview Links: It Pays to PLAY 25% off JAM virtual events and a free PLAYbook   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

You might be able to build a $50 million business without the help of an executive assistant, but the work and relief they can offer you just might be the best thing to ever happen to your business. Especially for an entrepreneur who has never had an EA, bringing on an assistant who knows what they can take from your plate is invaluable.   Trivinia Barber is a speaker, author, and leadership consultant who helps entrepreneurs in businesses of all sizes scale growth, sharpen leadership skills, and build teams they can trust.   She founded Priority VA and developed The Momentum Method™ so clients may achieve better synergy between their products, people, and processes for greater growth & efficiency.   At every stage of growth, leaders wonder how to maximize their team, get the best help, and work well with the people that they have recruited. If there are problems, there are only two possible reasons for it — either the people or the process.   Too often leaders hire an executive assistant that wants to become a leader or entrepreneur themselves. Leaders shouldn’t be looking for a way to clone themselves, they should be looking for someone who has an entirely different value-add from their own.   Consistency, trust, commitment, and communication are the keys to finding the right person for the job. The right EA has to be a fit for the leader, and the reverse is true as well. If you like name-dropping or cursing, the sooner you get that quirk out there, the better.   Finding the right fit takes time, but as the success stories that Trivinia highlights show, having the right EA in your corner can make all the difference as you are scaling up.   Interview Links: Momentum Headquarters Priority VA   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Getting your processes dialed and optimizing the processes you have to do again and again is key to scale.   Owen McGab Enaohwo is the CEO and Co-founder of SweetProcess, an easy-to-use software that enables company executives and their employees to collaborate to quickly document and/or improve their standard operating procedures, processes, and policies.   “There has to be a better way” is the thought that propelled Owen forward in his mission to improve employee onboarding. He took the time to interview potential customers about what they needed, and how he could provide a solution in the best way possible.   Identifying and documenting recurring processes is a critical first step to scaling up. Determine if they are income-generating tasks or production, behind-the-scenes tasks. Both have to be attended to, but Owen’s advice is to focus on the production side first. If you don’t, you’re not going to be prepared to meet the needs of your customers as they come in.   SweetProcess makes documenting standard operating procedures easy, and can effectively optimize the efforts of employees so that they don’t have to be reinvented time and again. Owen shares several examples of companies that have benefited from using the software consistently over time and highlights the ways that scale happens faster when processes are streamlined.   Interview Links: SweetProcess Try SweetProcess free for 28 days   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

The companies that last are the ones that are willing to pivot and adapt, and that have leaders who know how to lead the way.   Lori Michele Leavitt has coached, consulted, and trained hundreds of leaders around the world to achieve their objectives and generate momentum. She speaks globally on catalyzing momentum, leading, pivoting, and workplace culture change.   Lori is the founder and president of Abrige Corp., which offers the Aligned Momentum (A.M.)® leadership operating system to help managers lead better. She also leads the global 10x!® business & leadership peer groups.   “Pivoting” conjures up the idea of quick change, but the actual change from where you are to where you want to be is never a quick move. Pivoting requires orchestration, which only begins when a moment of pause provides clarity. Lori’s books, The Pivot and Pivot to Clarity, focus on that moment and the clarity that comes before the pivot can happen.   Lori shares several examples of companies that have successfully — and unsuccessfully — pivoted. The difference between the two is the ability to take input, be aware of innovation, and exhibit a willingness to change.   The strategies for pivoting are tried and true, but will only happen effectively when the leader is willing to put those steps into action. Stop telling yourself that you’re special or don’t have to put in the work; just put your head down and make the change happen.   Interview Links: Lori Michele Leavitt   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What does it take to get prospects to come to you? The transition to becoming a sought-after expert who draws in the ideal audience starts with the story you tell.   Nancy Erickson, The Book® Professor, coaches people who aren’t writers to become authors of high-impact nonfiction books that can change lives, save lives, or transform society. She offers a step-by-step methodology that takes you from your initial idea, all the way to a published nonfiction book. All you need is an idea to get started.   Simply put, a book is not a book is not a book. In other words, when you are writing, you have to put forth your very best effort, your best thoughts, and your best self. Your book should establish you as an expert in your field, it should increase your credibility, and it should help you attract a following. But the surefire way to kill your credibility on page one is to have a poorly-written book.   Nancy has helped an array of business professionals to use their books to drive their speaking engagements and increase their following including author Stephen Denny and Vistage speaker Jim Canfield.   She advises each leader to start by reworking the books they may have written in the past to be relevant in today’s market. Second, know who your audience is so that you know how to best reach them.   Third, identify ways to repurpose each chapter of your book to increase your exposure and use revenue in other avenues, whether it be seminars, workshops, podcasts, blogs, online courses, or your own keynote address.   The truth is, not everyone is going to read a book. The more ways you can connect with your audience, the more ways your effort and the concepts in your book will pay off.   Interview Links: The Book® Professor   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

How do you build a billion-dollar brand? It rarely starts with a billion dollars, that much is certain.   Brian Smith has charted his own course to become one of the great entrepreneurial success stories of our time. In 1978, he imported six pairs of sheepskin boots from Australia, with a dream to build a business where every American would eventually be wearing the product.   That is how one of the world’s most recognizable brands began, and sales of UGG products have exceeded a billion dollars in each of the past six years.   It was a chilly day in California when inspiration struck, but it wasn’t long before Brian learned that his entrepreneurial idea wasn’t going to amount to anything without a profound amount of work.   Brian’s book Birth of a Brand highlights the most fundamental truth of any entrepreneurial idea — just as you don’t give birth to an adult, your fledgling idea won’t immediately appear as a successful, profitable, fully-functioning business either. Breakthrough-breakdown is the cycle that every growing business has to navigate, and Brian has serious wisdom about the growth and branding that took Uggs from tadpole to billion-dollar success.   Despite the moments when Brian thought he had failed, he never gave up. You’re never really defeated until you give up on yourself. Brian shares the experiences he had that taught him what it takes to stay in the game until you’ve changed the world.   Interview Links: Brian Smith Spend a Day With Brian   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

When mindfulness, creativity, and innovation come together, the result is powerful leadership and impactful inventions that can change the world.   Faisal Hoque is the founder of SHADOKA, NextChapter, and other companies that focus on enabling sustainable and transformational changes. Throughout his career, he has developed over 20 commercial business and technology platforms and worked with public and private sector giants.   His bestselling book, Everything Connects: Cultivating Mindfulness, Creativity, & Innovation for Long-Term Value (Fast Company), is currently #2 on Wall Street Journal and USA Today.   Faisal grew up in Bangladesh and his world travel has inspired him to write several books with a focus on individual and organizational leadership, creating long-term value, and resilience.   Deep, daily mindfulness about our intentions and actions is essential. Faisal highlights the example of Leonardo DaVinci — he was constantly striving to determine who he was as an artist, sculptor, engineer, and entrepreneur, and then apply it to his real life. Mindfulness about your value-add is absolutely essential as you work to make meaningful contributions in the world.   Generically, mindfulness applies to awareness of where our mind lands, but more specifically it applies to our self-awareness and acting intentionally rather than merely in reaction to external forces. Mindfulness impacts not only you but every relationship you are in.   Faisal calls empathy the foundation of transformational leadership. Leaders are self-aware, they are influential, and they are looking for ways to recognize and utilize the talents of others. Without effective mindfulness of the self, leaders can’t expect to be effective in leading or inspiring others.   Interview Links: Faisal Hoque   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

US-based entrepreneurs often underestimate the potential of expanding to other countries, but scaling globally requires an understanding of both company knowledge and local culture. Klaus Wehage and Aaron McDaniel are the co-authors of Global Class: How the World’s Fastest Growing Companies Scale Globally. They have seen first-hand the challenges that entrepreneurs face in translating their local success into international markets. Global companies are expected to localize their products and services to each country they are present in, as well as compete with both local and global competition. Language is the first level of how you operate and manage within a company, followed by pricing and marketing. But like an iceberg, there is so much under the surface that is required to operate legally and successfully in each different country. Global-class companies consider how their values resonate with the culture of each country, the importance or offense of offering feedback, and how technologies can be either a help or hindrance to scaling. The examples of Walmart and DocuSign illustrate that what works in one country might be the reason a company doesn’t succeed in another. The most difficult and most important effective part of expansion is the team. An overlap of local knowledge and company knowledge is ideal and requires hiring the right people to get the job done. There are spoken and unspoken rules in every country, and understanding these rules is key to successful global scaling.   Interview Links: Klaus Wehage Aaron McDaniel   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth. We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Companies that are scaling well can be faced with hiring large numbers of people at once, but often don’t have the systems in place that train, teach, and keep that new talent in place for long. Allan Boyle is the founder of Saltwater Consulting, where he helps companies scale well. He gained his “special ops” training at Amazon, and has since focused on leading organizations through transformation, particularly leveraging cloud-based disruptive technologies. Allan focuses on working with technology companies, which isn’t everyone’s strength. But his product market fit angle can be applied to anyone. There is a good chance that you have a vision for the way you can change the world, but any real effort must include the ability to lead people. To really scale, you have to get good at developing leaders and leaders of leaders. Too often, scaling companies hire a lot of people quickly, but then fail to fully train their new hires. Typically on Day 1, the new hire is given their laptop and a general overview of the responsibilities, and on Day 2 the hiring manager goes out of town for two weeks, leaving the new hire alone and wondering what they are supposed to do next. With an effective launch plan, the hiring manager has a clear training schedule that can be reported back to HR after a few months. By doing this, a company can accurately determine how well a new hire has been onboarded. When scaling fast, Allan warns, don’t just focus on acquiring soft talent. Find the right people to help with hiring, and then focus on the new hires for their first three to four months for a more effective hiring process that will help to minimize turnovers. Allan offers his recommendations for developing a more effective onboarding process, creating an environment where new hires are properly trained, envisioning what the company will look like in the future, and then working toward making that a reality.   Interview Links: Allan Boyle Saltwater Consulting   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth. We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

We all have the same 24 hours in the day, but leaders know how to use their time more effectively and generally find more happiness along the way.   Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where she is an award-winning teacher and researcher. Holmes’s work on the intersection of time and happiness has been widely published in lead academic journals and featured in such outlets as NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and more. Happier Hour is her first book.   A few years ago Cassie found herself so exhausted and overwhelmed that she wondered if she would ever catch up with the pressures of life. She found herself wishing for more hours in her day, but quickly realized that increased discretionary time in her day does not always result in increased happiness.   It’s not about becoming time rich, it’s about making your time spent more rich. We can feel fulfilled and satisfied at the end of each day by investing our time more carefully. The perfect balance is found somewhere between having too much and too little to do. Being time-poor can have just as detrimental an effect on our happiness as not having enough to fill our days up. There was a time when Cassie thought that finding two hours of discretionary time in her day was a dream she would never be able to achieve. While scrolling on TikTok for two hours will never bring satisfaction, that same amount of time spent with children or on a passion project can be the most important hours that we spend in the day.   Cassie shares the research, examples, and cautionary tales that will push you to think about how you are living, and how you want to be remembered. Her message will inspire you to spend your hours well, because they add up to your days, your years, and ultimately, your life.   Interview Links: Cassie Holmes Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

When your team and your clients feel engaged and connected, great things happen. In this new episode of The Scaling Up Podcast, we have panelists Oklahoma Consultant and Woman of the Year Stacey Eads and Growth Institute Co-founder and CEO Daniel Marcos for a conversation about company culture.   One additional sentence in every email can free up a significant portion of the time that you spend sorting through your inbox. By simply stating whether an email request is a high priority or low priority, or offering a few options for people to reply with, you are clearly stating your request and making it easy for others to respond.   The newest trend in the workplace is “quiet quitting,” and it means different things for different people. Some people are looking for greater work/life balance, while others are quietly disengaging with their jobs as a preliminary move before quitting altogether. This is not a great move considering CEOs have just gotten comfortable with the idea of more remote work, but it’s not good for you or the company to exit in this way. Bill questions the leaders who are either intentionally or unintentionally driving employees away, and offers his advice for a more effective way to engage and retain top talent.   When you are doing good work and making a profit from it, everyone involved feels better about the company. Stacey highlights companies that have demonstrated an alignment of passion, purpose, and products, and Daniel addresses what it means to be engaged in the work that you are passionate about. No matter your position or your focus, the impact that your work has on your team, your clients, and the world at large matters.   Interview Links: Stacey Eads Daniel Marcos   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Great experiences enhance your creativity, help you rest and recover, and restore your soul. Similarly, creating great experiences for the people that you work with, whether it be customers or employees, can be a powerful way to scale up.   Shane Mahoney has propelled luxury travel planning from a service to an art form. As the CEO and creative brain behind Lugos Travel, Shane puts together custom, luxury adventures, and meaningful experiences that are out-of-the-ordinary, thrilling, and a guaranteed delight to his clients.   So much travel now is planned by way of apps and websites, but when Shane learned about the opportunities available to him as a tour operator, he knew he had found the work he always wanted to do (even before he knew it existed).   Shane highlights what luxury travel looks like, how Lugos has pinpointed their travel destinations, and what their customers can expect from their experience. Their goal is to solve problems before their clients even know there is a problem at all.   Now operating in 17 countries, Lugo’s Travel is heavily focused on scaling up. They have identified ways to create a next-level, luxury experience for their customers. From professional photography to local, customized room gifts in upgraded hotel suites, they aim to delight and truly care for their customers.   The world is full of incredible offerings — what could you do for yourself or your team to enhance your efforts, your creativity, and your commitment to creating unbelievable experiences?   Interview Links: Shane Mahoney 360 Lugos Travel   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What’s changed with hiring and recruiting? The short answer is everything. Today’s guest is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Recruiter.com, an on-demand recruiting platform providing flexible talent acquisition solutions that scale from startups to the Fortune 100, and he has great insights into the future of hiring.   Evan Sohn is a frequent contributor to CNBC and Yahoo! Finance and demonstrates expertise in a diverse set of industries, including Wi-Fi, Instant Messaging, data security, customer relationship management (CRM), and much more.   The state of hiring can be broken down into three parts: what was happening pre-pandemic, what is happening currently, and what the future of hiring looks like. Wage inflation means across the board, people are worth more than they were two years ago. Zoom interviews make it easy to connect with your potential new boss, and employees aren’t expected to stay at a job nearly as long as they once were. Every micro-change that has affected the job market over the last few years will never again return to the “normal” way it once was.   It’s predicted that in 2022, the U.S. will spend $50 billion more on hiring and retaining than was spent in 2019. More people are quitting as a result of the Great Resignation, but more people are getting hired as well. In many cases, the firing and hiring are simply a reflection of right-sizing teams.   So what metrics should HR and employees be held to? There needs to be more to the hiring process than just understanding compensation. Employees need to understand what they will be able to do at the end of the job, as well as what the career benefits are within the position.   If employees are willing to walk for a few more dollars, then something needs to change. Companies that have a unique culture, a clear advancement path, and a flexible environment are the companies that are going to be able to hire — and retain — the kind of employees that are going to stick around.   Interview Links: Evan Sohn   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Shailee Basnet scaled Mt. Everest in 2008. She then led a historic “Seven Summits Women Team,” which became the world’s first group to scale the highest peak in each continent. She currently leads, “Female Leadership Academy” in Nepal to help train young female survivors of human trafficking.   Growing up with Mt. Everest in her backyard, Shailee saw climbing the mountain as her ticket to adventure. She took on climbing as a way to figure out what her body was capable of doing, and has since worked to lead teams across the 7 Summits.   It takes incredible self-awareness to recognize when something is missing from your life and then take the action to do something about it. As a nearly five-foot-tall woman who started her journey having never trekked before in her life, Shailee had to work extra hard and she earned every single ability that she needed to climb Everest.   Even when Shailee woke up paralyzed, she kept working toward her goals. She recognized that failure is just another emotion that has to be processed and worked through. She reflects on the presence of hospitality in the climbing industry and the differences between men and women in teamwork. As she says, “the clarity to stick together” as a team has been key to overcoming any challenge.   Just as each summit she conquered presented its own unique set of challenges, each challenge you face in your life has to be addressed and handled in its own way. For Shailee, it was a simple pair of mittens; for you, it could be something as simple as a sales call that can go completely awry if you don’t give it the full attention that it deserves. Every challenge you face requires your full attention and just may become your next great conquest.   Interview Links: Shailee Basnet   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

What are the core things you are forgetting in your scaling-up journey? Too often entrepreneurs get distracted by their passion projects and forget the essential principles of success.   Sean Castrina is the founder of The Weekend MBA, a serial entrepreneur, having started more than 20 companies over the last 20 years, and still seeks to launch a new venture annually.   He is the author of four bestselling business books including 8 Unbreakable Rules for Business Startup Success, The Greatest Entrepreneur in the World, Developing The Entrepreneur Within and World’s Greatest Business Plan.   Sean’s entrepreneurial journey began when his first dream job told him they were “going in a different direction.” As a result, he looked around for a need and founded a very unsexy car wash business that made $30,000 in the first year. He has since repeated his simple startup formula again and again for over 30 years and has no problem building companies that he doesn’t feel passionate about.   Entrepreneurs don’t have to be passionate about the business they start, they just have to be willing to be objective about the business opportunities that are presented to them.   A desire to be passionate about your business is the first mistake entrepreneurs make in what Sean calls the Bermuda Triangle of business-building. The second mistake is hiring friends and family, which often leads to mediocrity from the start, and the third problem is with the personality of the founder themselves. Unlike Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, most founders need to have a winning personality in order to win in their business objective.   Finding a problem and figuring out how to solve it — in a way that’s better than anyone else — is the key to startup success. Sean shares several examples of his startups that did something different that worked, from an onsite car wash service to handyman work and digital marketing.   If you know what to look for, you can always find an opportunity for a successful startup business. The right business proposition combined with the willingness to take risks and bet on the right people to work with just might be all it takes to achieve next-level success.   Interview Links: Sean Castrina 8 Unbreakable Rules for Business Startup Success   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Today’s conversation is all about designing the future you! Who are you? Who are you going to be? What stories are you telling yourself today that are shaping your future success?   Founder and president of Transitions Institute, Inc., David Zelman has served as a corporate and business coach to millionaires, billionaires, royalty, and other top professionals who want to bridge the gap between professional accomplishment and personal satisfaction. His unique approach to fully expressing one’s humanity has empowered people to step beyond what is predictable and create truly extraordinary lives.   From near-illiterate high school dropout to college graduate to corporate consultant and business coach, David knows a thing or two about making successful transitions. When he realized he was headed down one dead end, he found the courage to pivot toward something better. Dying with your potential intact is not a good idea! The game isn’t to fulfill your potential, it’s leaning into it. That’s what the trajectory of designing a second life is all about.   We all have unlimited potential, the challenge is to figure out how to access it. What we dedicate our time and efforts to is what we are committed to. If you want to tap into your future potential, you have to be committed to it!   Too many people don’t understand the full nature of commitment. The internal conversations we have that excuse us from commitment become our reality, so we have to be very careful about what we tell ourselves. No matter what happens, commit now to being one of the finishers who doesn’t give up!   Interview Links: Transitions Institute David Zelman If I Can, You Can: Transformation Made Easy, by David Zelman, Ph.D.   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Are you so certain of what you (think you) know that you’re missing out on the possibilities that only come with embracing the unknown? Taking risks and presenting yourself in powerful ways are both key concerns of effective leaders.   Victoria Labalme harnesses principles from Broadway, Hollywood & Television to help entrepreneurs, artists and leaders Risk Forward® and Rock The Room®. She’s a WSJ bestselling author, Performance Strategist & Hall of Fame Speaker.   Victoria found her most impactful stage as a coach to CEOs and leaders around the world. From her own experiences with 9/11, terminal cancer and the pandemic, she has learned as well as anyone the value of embracing the unknown and utilizing the performing arts to present your best self.   When you present yourself from within, you harness a current that is followed by your authentic self and the natural energy that you have. Victoria’s programs Risk Forward® and Rock The Room® are both about the authentic expression of one’s self, in leadership, in business, and in life.   Many leaders feel the pressure to always have a clear goal or vision that they are working toward, but don’t actually know what’s coming next. But Victoria argues that it’s in not knowing that our best work and creative innovations appear. When we are willing to lean into an authentic place, we’re opening ourselves up to the possibilities that can only come with the unknown.   Few experiences have created uncertainty like the pandemic and today’s economy. When leaders are willing to lean into the unknown, rather than hold tight to what they think they know, they come alive. Victoria shares four ways to risk forward and reminds us - “don’t let your goals get in the way of your vision.”   Interview Links: Victoria Lebalme Risk Forward   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

How and when are you going to sell your company? It’s the biggest sale you’ll ever make, and the one that too many business owners aren’t spending enough time preparing for. But the sale of your business needs your time and attention now in order to really pay off down the road.   Larry Snyder has successfully led businesses for over 40 years. He has been through all four stages of a business — starting one, building the foundation, growing the business, and exiting. He knows the value of being prepared for an exit from Day 1 and how to achieve that for optimal value.   Looking back to his own exits, Larry made several key proactive steps. First, he recognized that a successful exit doesn’t happen overnight. He also identified how to align all invested partners to optimize well before the exit date. Larry has seen firsthand what happens when companies don’t have a clearly-thought-out exit strategy in place. And without one, business owners are setting themselves up to receive a fraction of the sale price that their business is actually worth.   But how can a business owner know if they are on the right track for making a smooth exit? Start by taking a vacation! If you can’t take a two-week vacation without your company falling apart or you constantly having to check in on everyone, you’ve still got some work to do.   Create a clear picture of your exit. What does it look like when you leave the business, regardless if it’s five, ten or twenty years from now? What is your role in the company once you have made your sale? Larry shares several anecdotal experiences where it pays to begin with the end in mind. Most importantly, no matter how far you are from your exit, dedicate some time to structuring it each week, and ask the questions that lead to the insight that you need to be prepared for the optimal exit, whenever it may come.   Interview Links: Larry Snyder   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

A great storyteller knows how to craft a story and use it to their advantage. With your team, your investors, your customers, and your partners, the right stories can be incredibly powerful.   Stephanie Paul’s talents take many forms — as an actress who has worked in 10 international TV and Film markets, as an improv, stand up and sketch comedian, a director, producer, writer, public speaker, and most recently the author of Unlock the MAGIC of Story. She began acting at the age of 10 and has spent her life engaging others in powerful stories.   She has learned that the most powerful story you will ever tell is the one you tell yourself. Some stories empower us, and some make us feel limited, but all of the stories can either motivate or paralyze us. Actors use these stories to harness the brain chemicals that make for good entertainment, and we can hack our own biology — for better or worse — with storytelling.   Your brain will complete an unfinished story, even without the facts to support it. Stephanie explains how our brain jumps to conclusions and that affects our narrative and our behavior in ways that aren’t actually consistent with our values or beliefs. The way you show up and how you tell your stories to others can be incredibly effective on others.   Bottom line, if you’re not having fun, then neither is your audience. Passion shines through more than any other measure of preparation. At the end of the day, the buy-in is biological and the story influences the decision-making. The stories you tell have the power to make or break your business, your customers, your investments, and your life.   Interview Links: Stephanie Paul Unlock the MAGIC of Story   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

People who are willing to take more risks are more likely to experience greater success, and the only difference is that they are willing to try, and occasionally fail.   Jim McCormick is the president of the Research Institute for Risk Intelligence, a world-class, Hall of Fame skydiver, and author of The Power of Risk. With over 5,200 skydives to his name, Jim knows plenty about the value and thrill of intelligent risk-taking. He took his first jump when he was 32, and immediately found that satisfaction that comes with conquering his fears.   But how important is risk-taking in reaching your goals? Jim shares the fears of deep-sea exploration and the value that leaders have by sharing their expertise with non-experts. Humans do not like to feel vulnerable, and risk makes us vulnerable, but that doesn’t mean it should be avoided altogether.   Everybody is happy when innovation works out, but what happens when companies take a risk and it doesn’t work out? Jim explains the 350 Rule, which celebrates failure while still focusing on and aiming for success. No enterprise can expect every risk to result in reward, but those risks are generally still worth taking.   After every single jump, Jim reviews footage and reflects on what went well and what can be improved for next time. With a culture of permission, companies and leaders can embrace failure and encourage intelligent risk-taking.   It’s incredible to consider how much effort some people put into taking risks out of their lives, but that is rarely the path that leads to the greatest success. Playing it safe, or reflexive risk aversion, often limits the success you can experience. With 3.67 million skydives made in the U.S. last year and only 10 fatalities, it’s clear that our perception of risk and the actual risk we face often vary widely.   Interview Links: Research Institute for Risk Intelligence Jim on LinkedIn   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

At the intersection of work and home, we find life — who we are and where we find purpose amidst all the things we deal with. There are frameworks to deal with in every aspect of life, and this week’s guest understands the challenge of trying to manage it all while finding and fulfilling our life’s purpose.   Jonathan Domsky is the founder of Kidorable and is now a full-time coach. He calls himself an accidental entrepreneur who started with the simple goal of gaining more control over his time. When he realized he couldn’t dedicate any more of his life to work that didn’t light him up, he transitioned to coaching — what he calls the best journey of his life.   Even though Jonathan didn’t know anything about coaching, he did have the desire to take action. With that dedication and a clear vision of the kind of coach he wanted to be, Jonathan started on his new path and has experienced great joy along the way.   When we don’t know who we are or what our core values are, it’s impossible to know if we’re achieving meaningful progress in our careers or lives. But work that is aligned with your purpose is naturally joyful, and Jonathan outlines the steps required to become more fully aligned with your life’s purpose.   Your why and your how point the direction toward the purpose of your life, but your life is really about the what. It can take some experimentation to find out the what of your life, and Jonathan shares some of the exercises and experiences that have helped his clients discover and define their life’s purpose.   Interview Links: Untangled Coaching Jonathan on LinkedIn   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

As the CEO, do you ever feel like you get a little sidetracked? Do you feel you’re too in your business instead of focusing on what you’re actually good at? This week’s guest knows how to offboard those troublesome tasks so that you can get more productive CEO work done.   Richard Shaull is the Founder of Unleashed, a company that helps visionary CEOs free up 30 hours per week by training their COO counterpart, which then allows CEOs to focus on tasks that propel their company forward. After almost killing himself through two business ventures, Richard made it his mission to help other entrepreneurs never go through the same struggles again.   As a newly-married man and running two businesses at the same time, Richard couldn’t take it anymore. He was suffering on a level he did not know he could. He ended up losing investor money, got defrauded by the U.S. government, sued, you name it, Richard experienced it.   As Richard reflects on what he could have done better, he realizes that his fatal flaw was his leadership ability. Everyone external thought his company was doing great, but internally, nothing was working right. Everything was falling apart.   Richard had to take ownership. Everything rises and falls with leadership and he was the root source of the problem. He realized a little too late that what got him here was not what would get him there, and that was how the cookie crumbled.   Interview Links: Unleashed.ceo Richard on LinkedIn   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

When you’re scaling your business, fires are likely to pop up and get your mission detailed. Business owners often face the problem that they’re unable to utilize their people effectively in times of crisis. Today’s guest has wisdom on how to keep culture aligned and have everyone’s mental stamina primed and ready for action.   John Robertson is the Founder & President of Fortlog Services. He built his services with an encouragement-based approach, resolving root causes at the source as opposed to treating crisis in the workplace symptomatically. He is a Workforce Wellness Expert and a Cultural Alignment Specialist and helps organizations develop and engage their people.   Why do we make people feel bad whenever something stressful happens in the workplace? The old school “walk it off” model when you’re in pain just doesn’t work. John has seen clients excel greatly in their position, but each and every task they did became a painful stone in their shoe that built up to the point where they no longer could take it. It’s John’s job is to prevent it from ever getting to that point.   “Why do you want to work here?” This is a poorly structured question. Many new hires don’t know how well they’ll be able to fit into your team. The question and all the actions supporting that should be rephrased to, “How can we help you work here?” Telling your team the crisis problem doesn’t exist only makes the bleeding become heavier.   Interview Links: Fortlog.co Runtowardtheroar.online John on LinkedIn   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

How do we attract and retain A-players? And how do we build an A-player culture in a me-over-we environment? Today’s guest knows that the number one asset of any successful company is the people, and he has joined the podcast to share his secrets of company culture success.   Marc Reifenrath is the co-founder and CEO of Spinutech. Spinutech has grown from a university dorm start-up over 20 years ago to a multinational digital agency with 150-plus team members across the U.S.   What does it mean to have the kind of company culture that attracts and retains top talent? From the beginning, Marc and the team at Spinutech aimed to shape their workplace as one that they wanted to work at. Since they aren’t in the business of saving lives, they aim to have fun with the work they are doing.   Leaders give their team permission to act, whether it’s through yelling at employees or playing and having fun while working. As CEO, Marc has had to give up some of his favorite fun parts of his work, but that hasn’t stopped him from striving to exemplify the company vision and motivate his team along the way.   Even a merger hasn’t slowed down the power of this team’s culture. Marc reveals the secret of a successful merger — to treat everyone like it’s their first day again — and the values that keep his company culture running strong. From attracting to retaining superior talent, Marc understands and shares how to find and keep the best person for any job.   Interview Links: Mark Reifenrath in Twitter   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Today’s guest has an array of life experiences that uniquely shaped her leadership skills. From parochial school to West Point, Special Ops to stockbroker, Becky Margiotta has powerful insights into the leadership skills that lead to success.   Becky Margiotta is the cofounder and owner of The Billions Institute, LLC, the author of Impact with Integrity: Repairing the World Without Breaking Yourself, and the host of the Unleashing Social Change Podcast. Becky also directed the 100,000 Homes campaign for Community Solutions, working across 186 cities to permanently house more than 100,000 people.   With her diverse background, Becky was prepared to tackle the biggest challenge of her career — housing the homeless. Over the course of four years, she succeeded in reducing homelessness in Times Square by 87%. She highlights some of the situations she faced during this opportunity and how her leadership skills turned challenges into incredible success.   Over her 11 years working with the homeless, her curiosity and desire for interpersonal connections led her to found The Billions Institute. The aim of the institute is to support large-scale change as a matter of justice and to get solutions to everyone who can benefit from them as fast as possible. They work with social entrepreneurs, change leaders, and C-suite leaders in healthcare, public schools, and more to scale up in a major way.   For Becky, effective scaling as a leader starts with falling in love with the problem. When you love the problem you’re working with, it becomes easier to do whatever it takes to solve it. Dig deep into your personal motivation, be prepared to serve whenever the opportunities arise, and build your business around generosity.   Interview Links: Billions Institute   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

Are the most successful companies just the luckiest ones? Why is it that some companies scale quickly while others never really seem to take off? Today’s guest highlights the real secret to success, and the secret is leaders who are willing to ACT!   Matt Hulett has driven more than $2 billion in value creation as a four-time public company CEO and president and a two-time private company CEO. He is a seasoned technology executive with more than thirty years of experience building and leading world-class SaaS and consumer companies. He has had multiple turnaround successes in the public and private sectors, including Rosetta Stone, RealNetworks, and Expedia. Matt is also the author of Unlock: 5 Questions to Unleash Your Company’s Hidden Power.   Matt is a man with a particular set of skills, and those skills have taken him far. Rosetta Stone was his most satisfying turnaround, with a clear opportunity for market leadership and increased relevance within a premium market. By looking at technology trends and focusing on a core customer, Rosetta Stone was able to successfully dominate a segment of — but not the entire — market share.   By following the same model, Expedia grew from zero to a billion dollars in just three years. Matt may have suffered a bit of imposter syndrome along the way, but he took advantage of the opportunity to learn from the best in the industry and quickly scale Expedia to the powerhouse that it is today.   He highlights some of the leadership tactics that he has developed over the last two years through the pandemic, and underscores the importance of maintaining a strategic mindset while also managing “team capital.” No matter your position, if you want to do something big, you have to be able to work with other people.   Serendipity, perseverance, network, and capital all play a role in the kind of success that Matt and so many other market leaders have experienced. Zoom’s success did not happen by total chance; neither did Slack’s nor will any other business. The entrepreneur who understands the edge of the business and is willing to pivot makes all the difference. If you’re ready, Matt’s new book is the place to start changing your company’s destiny.   Interview Links: Matt on Twitter   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.  

This week’s episode is all about swagger! It’s about you, your attitude, and the impact it can make on you and everyone around you. It’s a leadership conversation with a guest who has a passion for life.   Randy Cohen is an entrepreneur, restaurateur, author, speaker, investor, philanthropist, and successful business owner. Randy founded the online ticket reseller, TicketCity, in 1990. He serves as TicketCity’s Chief Energizing Officer and is one of the most well-known and successful entrepreneurs in the secondary ticket markets. He is the owner of Z Tejas Southwestern Grill, a thriving chain of restaurants in Arizona and Texas.   From his very first sales with TicketCity to a memorable experience at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Randy has been a leader who sets the example of going above and beyond. He is living proof that a leader who is authentic, sincere, humble, and kind is a leader who is going to win.   Randy’s goal is to be the energetic, rising tide that lifts everyone around him, but how he does that may not be the way that you should do it. Everyone brings their own brand of swagger, and when it’s done right, everyone wins.   Adversity is an inevitable part of leadership, but his goal is always to do the right thing long after the feeling of doing it leaves. Even when his company couldn’t deliver the Super Bowl tickets they promised, or when COVID-19 took them to zero ticket sales, Randy has met angry customers head-on with an open heart and a willingness to confront the good, the bad, and the ugly.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Randy on Twitter Email Randy Secrets of Swagger: How to Own Your Cool in Life and Business, by Randy Cohen   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

When trying to scale, too many companies think that their only option is to hire more salespeople. But today’s guest argues that adding more salespeople to your team is not the answer at all.   Andy Buyting is a serial entrepreneur, learning junkie, and Scaling Up coach who brings over 20 years of sales, marketing, operations, business development, entrepreneurship, management, and executive experience to his clients. He is the founder of Tulip Media Group as well as various real estate developments and is the author of Double Sales/Zero Salespeople.   Andy has joined the podcast to share his experiences with doubling sales without hiring additional salespeople. Salespeople certainly have a place in growing businesses, especially as the conduit that connects customers to the needs and wants of a company. But in many cases, there are other employees within a company, like digital marketers or production people, that can fill the sales role, maybe even more effectively than a salesperson.   Andy shares an inspiring success story of helping a company increase its sales without hiring more salespeople. Waypoint Insurance used storybranding to pivot from ineffective marketing and branding and tell a better story about their company. They came to understand that when customers don’t like what they see on your website, they’re most likely going to leave and never come back again.   How can you unlock the full potential of your company? By understanding your core customer. If you know what your customer needs and wants, your biggest challenge will become managing growth. Scaling comes much more easily when companies effectively communicate their brand promises and service attributes.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Andybuyting.com Andy on LinkedIn tm.media/doublesales to download a free chapter of Double Sales/Zero Salespeople   Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).    

So often, we are pitching our companies to new prospects and potential investors, but the slightest wrong move, especially in the beginning, can throw the whole impression off. This week’s guest talks about how to create a memorable impression that gets people calling you back.   Ronny Leber is an expert on Public Speaking and loves to motivate his listeners and create magical moments that enhance team-building skills. Not only is Ronny a renowned keynote speaker, but he is also a TV host and legacy coach that has entertained millions of people worldwide.   The biggest mistake Ronny sees with new speakers is that they’re way too focused on themselves. The reality is, that people don’t particularly care about your product, company, or who you are until they know you can solve a very critical problem they’re having. The world is not waiting for you!   It begins with a bit of empathy and understanding your clients’ needs and wants first. Part of Ronny’s job is to take the audience through an emotion and create build-up, mystery, and intensity, before giving them the big show. However, in order to do that, you need to be in their heads, hearts, and souls.   How do you create a magical moment for your investor or even your employees? It starts with being able to be in the moment and not in your head. If you’re too in your head, the presentation does not come off natural, and you won’t be able to move with the audience and their needs. It’s important not only to have an outline in your presentation but also to be open to the flow of how people are interacting with you.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Ronnyleber.com Ronny on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s entrepreneur shares some of his growth challenges when entering into a booming market that still has some pending legal clarity around it. Everything from not being able to advertise, losing merchant accounts, and not being able to get bank accounts is part of today’s guest story!   Eric Robichaud is a Serial Entrepreneur with over 30+ years of experience in tech, marketing, and business management. He is the CEO of Green Goddess Supply, a cannabis tech accessory brand. Eric has made his transition from traditional “computer geek” to “the weed guy,” and shares some of the challenges that possesses.   Eric is trying to democratize the plant. Medicine should not be for those who can only afford it. He wants to empower people to be able to grow the herb at home and by themselves.   Eric got his start off of Amazon. In the beginning, he had a criterion of what a good product looked like, most of the time it matched five out of the seven checkboxes until one day one of his team members came to him with a “unicorn” product. It ended up being a weed smoke accessory. Fast forward three months later, and nearly all of their best-selling products were from the cannabis industry.   As a marketing guy, Eric could not ignore the facts. He took a deeper look into this growing market and realized that there was real potential here. He identified some missing pieces in the market and decided to fully invest in the brand; he sold his agency and fully committed to the Green Goddess Supply company in 2017.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Greengoddesssupply.com Eric on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Nathan Beckord — Capital Raising Mistakes: Third Time’s the Charm   Today, Bill and his guest take an in-depth look at some of the common mistakes startup founders make when trying to raise capital. Having gone through the experience himself a number of times, our guest shares key highlights he’s learned from his extensive career as an interim CFO, Business Developer, and Advisor.   Nathan Beckord is the CEO and Founder of Foundersuite.com, a venture-backed company that provides critical resources for startups looking to raise capital. Foundersuite’s users have raised over $3 billion in seed and venture capital and Nathan himself is also the podcast host of “How I Raised It.”   Nathan got his start in investment banking and was helping companies raise capital. He found that everyone was basing their data and analysis on old-school spreadsheets and proposal docs, but what if he could create a software platform that could provide an all-in-one solution to raising capital? That’s how his company was born.   Today, Foundersuite.com has a database of investors, a CRM built in, pitch deck hosting services, investor update tools, a virtual data room, and so much more. Everything a startup founder might need to attract their ideal investor.   Bill has seen first-hand with his clients how intimidating the “raising capital” process can be. There’s just so much work that goes into it that it can be very daunting for the new Founder to pursue. Not only that, if you don’t know what you don’t know, new Founders are prone to bigger mistakes that they simply cannot afford.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Foundersuite.com Nathan on Twitter Nathan on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In this week’s episode, Scaling Up has 12 fan-favorite episodes from 2021. In case you’ve missed some of these classics, we have a quick recap of each of the episodes and the guests below. Thank you for listening to the Scaling Up show!   Neil Gordon works with entrepreneurs, executives, influencers, and thought leaders to overcome their messaging struggles. He helps them streamline their message to convey their value in unexpected ways. Prior to his work as a communications expert, Neil worked on the editorial staff of Penguin Random House. He is also the VIP contributor for Entrepreneur with three of his articles making it to the #1 spot on the website’s most popular posts.   Sarah Dawn is a Business Growth Expert and host of The Blissed Biz Podcast. She helps entrepreneurs and professionals create the business of their dreams that supports a lifestyle they love. A seven-figure entrepreneur herself, Sarah was burned out and overwhelmed in the beginning. Despite checking all the boxes, she sacrificed her health to achieve it. Sarah knew she had to forge a more sustainable and fulfilling path for herself if she wanted to successfully scale.   Hanneke Antonelli is an Author and award-winning certified Life Coach with 16 years of experience growing businesses in various industries. Hanneke draws on her business degree, Wall Street sales experience, and her decade as an entrepreneur to help business owners upgrade their leadership skills and focus on sustainable growth.   Andrew Bartlow leads Series B Consulting, a firm that helps companies build their people strategy and accelerate their growth. He is also the Founder of People Leader Accelerator, which is a development program for startup HR leaders, and the co-author of Scaling for Success.   Eric Partaker is a Peak Performance Expert who helps CEOs and Entrepreneurs scale themselves and their companies, while also improving their well-being. Eric is a big believer in the power of threes, and shares why it doesn’t have to be a huge and complex routine to create new habits!   Robert “Bo” Brabo is a retired U.S. Army Chief of HR Operations with the White House Communications Agency and was the Presidential Communications Officer for both Presidents Bush and Obama. Bo has served in several executive positions including most recently Vice President of Human Resources at the National Spine & Pain Centers and Founder of Hail Media Group.   Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.Io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy firm. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege to advise the government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems.   Warren Rustand is a visionary that has led many successful private, public, and not-for-profit entities. He has a passion for family, entrepreneurship, and community. Warren is the author of The Leader Within Us. He is also the Global Chair of WPO and the CoFounder and CEO of several companies.   Nigel Bennett is also the Co-Founder of Aqua-GuardSpill Response Inc., where he and his company recently received the RuleBreaker Award for game-changing innovation in oil spill response technology. Nigel received the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award and he is also the author of Take That Leap: Risking It All for What Really Matters.   David Horsager, MA, CSP, CPAE, is the CEO of TrustEdge Leadership Institute, national bestselling author of The Trust Edge, inventor of the Enterprise Trust Index, and director of one of the nation’s foremost trust studies: The Trust Outlook. David has developed an eight-pillar framework to help build trust quickly.   Erik Qualman is a five-time #1 Bestselling Author and Keynote Speaker and has been voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling. Erik is out with a new book, The Focus Project: The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less Book, which dives into how to keep your mind on one track.   John Warrillow kicked off a revolution in 2011 when he released his bestselling book, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You. A process that helps business owners reframe how they think about the business. John is out with a new book, The Art of Selling Your Business, where he discusses why it’s not luck that certain businesses sell high, and breaks down the “how,” in this week’s episode!   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech “Neil Gordon — How to Tell a Story that Sticks” “Sarah Dawn — Happiness Over Burnout” “Hanneke Antonelli — Rewire Your Brain” “Andrew Bartlow — How to Prioritize Your People During Times of High Growth” “Eric Partaker — 3 Simple Productivity Hacks” “Bo Brabo — Execute with Precision” “Dan McGaw — Leverage Your Marketing Data” “Warren Rustand — Tried and True Leadership” “Nigel Bennett — Make a Difference” “David Horsager — What Makes a Trusted Leader” “Erik Qualman — How to Focus in an Unfocused World” “John Warrillow — The Art of Selling Your Business”   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Charlie Bailes is this week’s Getting Real entrepreneur where he chats with Bill about his entrepreneurial life. He is a fourth-generation wine business owner and the Founder of CB Supplements. Get to know his journey, some of the challenges he faced with filling the past generations’ shoes, and so much more!   Because of the pandemic, Charlie has seen a lot of supply chain issues in his wine business. He buys products from all over the world, so it affects him on a larger scale than one might think. If France is shut down, well, it means he’s going to have a hard time acquiring French wine. He found himself having to ration his liquor supply to help keep things stable.   Also, because of what’s happening between Russia and Ukraine, Charlie has taken all the Russian-made brands off of his shelf to support Ukraine's fight. Though, it’s interesting to note that because we live in such a global world, what really classifies as a “Russian” brand anymore? So many products get sourced all over to create a particular product. If you were to ban a Russian product, chances are you are also banning the non-Russian suppliers, too.   What was it like for Charlie to get grandfathered into a fourth-generation business? Charlie has been actively working in it for 13 years. There are a lot of family members who decided this business wasn’t for them, but Charlie is incredibly happy with the decision to be part of the family business. Charlie oversees a lot of the back-end operations to make sure the business is running smoothly. This includes IT, finance and accounting, HR, and so much more.   Charlie believes the luckiest break the business has had is it’s still a privately-held company. You are given the opportunity to look way beyond the next quarter, which means you can plan for longevity and the next-generation takeover. Charlie’s family has probably rebuilt the business five to six times because of this. This strategy is how they were able to rise above the uncertainties of COVID-19.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Abcfws.com Charlie on LinkedIn Charliebailes.com Cbsupplements.com   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

This week’s episode is all about strategy! For some leaders, planning ahead can come seamlessly, for others, not so much. You might have run into a problem where you’ve planned a cohesive strategy, but when it comes to the execution, it doesn’t quite turn out the way you’ve envisioned. Our guest shares how you can optimize your strategy for maximum impact.   Ron Price is the President and Founder of Price Associates, a global leadership performance firm. He is an internationally recognized Business Advisor, Executive Coach, Speaker, and Author. He is also the author of the new book, Optimizing Strategy For Results.   Ron comes from an entrepreneurial family. His father became an entrepreneur because he wanted to live out his values. There were a lot of valuable lessons his father had instilled into Ron and it paved a way for him within his business and executive career.   Despite Ron’s diverse career over the last 40 years, he can boil it down to two critical pieces for his success: talent and strategy. Talent plays a big role in the successful execution of a strategy.   However, Ron has always had a love/hate relationship with strategy, and he knows he’s not the only one. He has seen it time and time again that companies typically do parts of strategy really well, but other pieces (like execution) can fall through the cracks. His latest book aims to solve this problem.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Thecompleteleader.org Ron on LinkedIn Optimizing Strategy for Results: A Structured Approach to Make Your Business Come Alive, by Ron Price   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In this episode of Scaling Up Insights, Bill is joined by panelists Neale Lewis, Stacy Eads, and Judy Guido to discuss the latest advancements in the world of Scaling Up.   The first on the agenda is Keith Ferrazzi’s latest book, Competing in the New World of Work. As we’re coming up towards the third year of “a different way of working in life,” Keith details that the biggest takeaway out of all of this is that being vulnerable is okay. People are breaking down. They’re exhausted and leaders need to be tuned in to accurately address that.   When CEOs notice that their teams are stressed out, Bill offers advice that instead of trying to “problem-solve” their stress, take a step back and get real and vulnerable. Tell the team you’re also stressed in an authentic way! By revealing this insight, people were able to open up and a real dialogue was able to start. If you want people to be open and honest, you have to be open and honest first.   Scaling Up is launching the 20,000 Scale Up Program. It’s a 12-month intensive framework where you work alongside your leadership team. The goal is to help 20,000 startups exponentially grow. Neale is passionate about this because startups are the backbone for many cities, and what better way than to help cities get back on their feet by equipping their people with more job opportunities!   How do you get a job working for Warren Buffet? It starts with getting a bit creative. Did you know he likes corn and tomatoes? That’s how one woman was able to score herself a job at Berkshire Hathaway. She decided to make it personal and show some of her homely farm roots at the job interview. However, once she got in, she had to prove her worth and her expertise.   Interview Links: Judy: Guidoassoc.com Stacy: Stacyeads.com Neale: Nealelewis.com Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest, by Keith Ferrazzi 20,000 12-month Scaling Up Program Bushel of Corn and a Batch of Tomatoes Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention, by John Ruhlin “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart” Scaling Up CEO Boot Camp Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, by Keith Ferrazzi   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you ever feel fear or anxiety over the unknown future ahead? How can you navigate through something when you don’t know what you don’t know? And more importantly, how can you scale if you’re not sure where you are in your growth stage? Today’s guest has some answers.   Marissa Levin has been an entrepreneur for over 25 years and is a globally-recognized growth strategist. In 1995, she launched her first business and grew it to $13 million in revenue. Her current venture, Successful Culture, is a leadership consulting organization that helps CEOs master the three most critical aspects of business growth: leadership development, strategy formulation and execution, and organizational culture assessment and improvement.   Building your first company can often feel like building a plane while you’re flying it. Every day, you’re just hoping you’re making the right decision to move forward. However, an advisory board can be the most compelling and effective strategic tool that leadership can use to get to their next level of growth. Why reinvent the wheel when you can leverage the knowledge of those before you?   When Marissa built her first company, one of the first things she began to do was ask for help and to find people who could teach her what she needed to learn. She knew she was flying blind. So many times, entrepreneurs are in the “I don’t know what I don't know” quadrant and are unable to prepare for pivots and upcoming disasters that a more seasoned entrepreneur can see miles away.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Successfulculture.com Marissa on LinkedIn Built to Scale: How Top Companies Create Breakthrough Growth through Exceptional Advisory Boards, by Marissa Levin   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In this Getting Real Episode, Bill sits down with Shawn Hill, a software entrepreneur that makes it easy for companies to track customer growth and their own reputation. You’ll learn about his journey, some of his struggles, and how he got his big break in this week’s show!   Shawn is the Community Marketing Director for NiceJob. He’s passionate about engaging with small businesses through social media, videos, and podcasts to help them develop their reputation marketing and ensure their success with the NiceJob platform. He often writes about marketing channels for small businesses and how to create fan cultures.   Reputation marketing is all about taking the parts of your reputation that you can control, making it better, and amplifying it to your audience. It’s about owning your uniqueness and using it as a strength, even if certain customers are put off by it.   One of Shawn’s biggest struggles right now is the push and pull between manual processes and automation. There has to be a balance between the two, but it’s sometimes unclear how much their customers want to be involved vs. having a set-it-and-forget-it approach.   Videos have taken over when it comes to product information and how-tos, but in the review space, it hasn’t. Shawn has noticed that not many people watch reviews. They’d rather read 10 text reviews on Amazon instead. Shawn believes the product reviews aren’t always that engaging. People are tuning in more for the personalities themselves these days than for the product.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Get.nicejob.com Shawn on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

If you believe you have to burn yourself out or overextend yourself to ‘have it all’, then this episode is for you. Today’s guest believes yes, you can have it all, but it has to start with an intentional and thoughtful plan or else it will not be sustainable.    Jack Daly is a leading Sales Speaker and Trainer and has spent over 30 years of his career helping sales and executives succeed. In 2022, Jack released his 10th book, Jack Daly’s Life By Design, that shares with the world his special recipe for life well lived.   Jack is just a few weeks away from turning 73, but he learned a long time ago how to live, and design, an intentional life. Jack not only has built six companies from scratch and sold a few of them, but he’s also flown a jet fighter plane with zero training, shark dived in Africa, completed 15 ironmans (even when he didn’t know how to swim), and ran a marathon in all 50 states and 7 continents. None of these high achievements came by accident.    It’s not about building a successful business OR having a successful life. It’s about building a successful AND having an exceptional life. You can do both! For many entrepreneurs, we started our businesses to have an exceptional life, but we get lost in the weeds of the business along the way.    As strange as it might sound, Jack’s epiphany to an intentional life started at the age of 13. After taking a job at a country club, Jack realized there was a vastly different life people were living than what he and his working-class peers were living. How was someone able to have a luxury car, have a big house, and play golf whenever they wanted? Didn’t they have to work? Jack had to dig deeper.     Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Jackdalysales.com Jack on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

The sales process can be frustrating for any startup founder trying to find their mark. Even more seasoned companies struggle with closing more deals. This week’s guest understands that if you truly want to scale, you have to adopt a sales mindset, a process, and your language.   Jason Forrest became established as a top 1% sales professional in his career and has gone on to train others in the field. Throughout his career, he’s found that the common sales techniques being taught out there puts limitations on others. As a result of Jason’s hands-on sales experience, his coaching and consulting work has led sales teams to increase their effectiveness and drive more profit.   To create a powerful sales team, you must work on changing bad habits or bad behaviors. Most of us have “default” programming where, for whatever reason, we believe what we believe. This is our truth and how we show up and interact in the world. What we think to be true will inevitably drive our emotions, and our emotions drive our motivations, which then drive our results. It’s a cascading effect.   If you boil it down, Jason is not just a sales coach, he’s a behavioral change expert. If you’re having a hard time changing the behavior, you have to dive deep into what’s the feeling that’s connected to that behavior. Do you have resistance to wanting to change that behavior? When you connect feelings, emotions, with the task, you can motivate yourself out of a place of “stuckness.”   As a top 1% sales professional, Jason was not satisfied with the resources out there to help bring his sales teams up to speed. Did you know $164 billion is spent on sales training resources? And only 30% of it is effective? Jason created his company to help change bad sales behavior into something that effectively closes deals while still being authentic.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Fpg.com Maryandjasonforrest.com Jason on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In this Getting Real episode, we hear from a custom home builder on the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey.   Tim Winter got his start as a builder at a young age while working with his father on home renovation projects. By the time he was 28 years old, he started his own venture and formed the company he has today, Paradigm Homes. He builds custom homes and redesigns older homes to fit the homeowner’s specific needs.   Tim started his business in 2007 and the crash happened shortly after. The biggest lesson he learned was not only to be consistent but to be flexible when you gather new information. This advice still rings true today with the uncertainties the pandemic has given to the housing market.   Tim has been working a lot on the culture of the business. They hired a scaling-up executive coach and that’s really elevated the business and helped them focus on hiring for core values instead of personality. Tim is proud to have a good team around him, and even though he is the CEO, he feels very fortunate he’s part of a good team of people that he can work with.   Tim believes he got his big break around 2016 when he got a back injury. He was forced to slow down for six weeks and he had to take a hard look at how the business could keep going while he was out of commission. He learned a lot of valuable lessons during that really tough time.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Paradigmhomes.com Tim on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We go deep into an entrepreneur’s unconventional path in this week’s episode of Getting Real. After an industry change, this business owner saw some interesting parallels that made him realize that people are really the cornerstone to your company’s success.   Michael Solomon has three businesses today, one in artist management, freelance software talent management, and compensation negotiation services. He is also the author of the book, Game Changer, which dives into how to get the most out of the talent economy.   Right out of school, Michael found himself touring with Bruce Springsteen. That was the first insight into seeing what 10xers can do with their networking ability and star power. After that experience, Michael would later go on to found his own artist management company, which is still going strong 26 years later.   In the early 2000s, the music industry got crushed by file-sharing websites. Seeing the writing on the wall, Michael knew he had to pivot. He noticed the next new rockstars were really going to be in technology and software.   After going from the entertainment industry to the software industry, Michael noticed some similarities. Although he wasn’t dealing with as many divas within the software space, his developers still wanted the same things his rockstars did; to not be treated like a cog in the machine.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech 10xmanagement.com Michael on Twitter Michael’s Game Changer book Weareallmusic.org Kristenanncarrfund.org Musiciansoncall.org/what-we-do   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In this Getting Real episode, we learn from an entrepreneur who purchases and scales wellness companies. We find out how he got into this line of work and some painful lessons he’s had to learn along the way. Mike Giannulis is the Founder of Sanetris, an international health and wellness company that is on track to eight figures in annual revenue. Originally a high school dropout, Mike has worked his way into living the American Dream. One of Mike’s superpowers is looking for people who possess skill sets he doesn’t have, cultivating them into thinking bigger, and setting them to work in an important aspect of the business. Mike always knew he was entrepreneurial. He got his start as a poem writer when he was a kid and, when he turned 18, he purchased a “get rich quick” real estate course because he knew he wanted to work for himself. And although he failed in that venture, it was just the building blocks to what he does now. His self-drive and hustle have found him in some weird business ventures, like purchasing 500 pregnant goats and having them repoed by the government. Mike really got his lucky break when he started writing ad copy for a friend of his. She ended up making him a partner later on, but his desire to “make it” was so great that it cost him his health. At his heaviest, Mike was over 500 lbs. He ended up losing over 250 lbs. on the reality show, Extreme Makeover and has since kept the pounds off! That is one of the reasons why Mike is so passionate about the wellness industry he’s currently in and serves because he’s found a new purpose.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Michaelgiannulis.com Mike on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Don’t you wish you had an easier time with your workflow and bringing new team members up to speed? Have you ever taken a look at your systems and processes and known that they could be optimized more effectively? Today’s guest shares how to streamline this in an easy way where it doesn’t overwhelm you! Chris Ronzio is the founder & CEO of Trainual, an online training resource manual for your company to help train employees, contractors, and more. He was also named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021 and is the author of the new book, The Business Playbook. Chris takes his Business Playbook to a different level. Everyone wants to jump right into SOPs and their special business processes, but employees need more context than just a recipe book. People need to know why this business operates the way it does. If you want people to grow with you, you can’t just be teaching them the nuts and bolts of the business. You have to teach them the heart and soul of the business. If you were just a random person off of the street, a business playbook needs to show them why they should care about what you do and whom you serve. Chris wrote his book with the DIY perspective that a bootstrapped entrepreneur might have. He wanted new Founders to be able to take this book and incorporate it right away within their business ecosystem so that they can scale and grow quickly without all the startup pains entrepreneurs commonly have.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Chrisronzio.com Chris on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s topic focuses on curiosity! How it impacts the world around us today, how to cultivate it, and how more of it within your team helps your business scale and grow! Dr. Alison Horstmeyer is a Talent Development Consultant, Executive Coach, and Humanistic Thought Leader. Her research focuses on curiosity and associated mental, emotional, and motivational attributes. Dr. Alison is considered to be one of the pioneering practitioners in workplace curiosity. Dr. Alison has been called in to launch new things or disrupt them. Through her work, she became fascinated with why people had so much anxiety, complacency, and stress around the work that they do. She noticed this pattern across so many diverse international teams that she decided to go back to school for it. She wanted to answer, can we be curious and anxious at the same time? As Dr. Alison studied different disciplines, she realized curiosity and anxiety are closely related. However, depending on the person, they can use the fear of the unknown as a powerful weapon to solve new challenges, or completely spiral out of control. There’s been a growing need for organizations to fully understand what curiosity is and how they can use it to help their employees create more innovative solutions, but curiosity is so much more than that. Curiosity is the bridge that helps teams collaborate, communicate, and create.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Uscthirdspace.com Dr. Alison on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Welcome to another Getting Real episode, where Bill digs into the ups and downs of an entrepreneur’s journey. Today’s guest dives into the world of online business and what he had to do differently to stand out. Jaryd Krause used to work 60-plus hours a week as a plumber. He would often make enough money to leave to go travel, and when he ran out, he’d be right back in that cycle. He wanted to create something more sustainable, and so he tried his hand at buying his first online business. Jaryd is grateful he got into the plumbing business. He uses the analogy all the time that if you don’t fix the leaks in your financial life, acquiring a business is only going to worsen your situation. Respectively, with determining where to invest within your business, faulty business plumping only heightens your financial problem. Starting a business is so hard and there are so many online courses out there trying to sell you on that dream. Jaryd understands this. He tried to start an online business on the side as a plumber and kept failing. He realized he was approaching the problem wrong. Instead of trying to start a business, why not buy an already profitable business. Jaryd ended up buying three businesses before he was able to replace his full-time income. Today, Jaryd helps people find the right business for them and helps them through the due diligence process so that they end up acquiring the right online business.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Buyingonlinebusinesses.com Jaryd on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you low on chutzpah? Today’s guest is all about getting your hutzpah levels up to peak levels! If you’re ready to go bigger, bolder, and take on smarter risks, then this is the episode for you! Mason Harris is the Founder of Robin Technologies Inc., which earned local and national growth awards. He is also an author and a speaker and is out with a new book called The Chutzpah Advantage, where he dives into how to be more strategic about the unknown. What is chutzpah, really? Originally a Yiddish word, it can mean being a little bold and being a little cheeky. However, anyone who has entrepreneurial blood in them has a little bit of chutzpah. If you’re interested in striving and making your company more efficient, you’ve got chutzpah! Is chutzpah good or bad? In researching the book, Mason discovered that it’s, realistically, a skillset you can finetune over time with practice. In Mason’s research, he found eight key characteristics of chutzpah! Mason’s acronym and eight characteristics in chutzpah are: C = Carpe Diem, H = Handling Objections, U = Uncovering Need, Pain, and Opportunity, T = Trailblazing, Z = Zigzag, P = Purpose, A = Ambiguity Elimination, H = Humility. Find out more as he breaks down each value in this week’s episode!   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Thechutzpahguy.com Mason on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today Bill is sitting down and getting the inside scoop on an entrepreneur’s backstory and how he began his career as a business owner, and now a regular podcaster. Find about some of his toughest challenges throughout over two decades of experience, in this week’s episode!   David Mammano has started seven businesses from scratch in the last 25 years and now uses these experiences to help accelerate other business owners’ growth. He is a board member for the Western NY Make-A-Wish Foundation and a graduate of the MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program, an executive education program offered through Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).   David started his first company when he was 25 years old. Prior to that, he’d been working in radio sales for three years, but knew he needed something more. His company was a magazine company that helped high school kids with college and career planning. The magazine exploded and he decided to franchise it.   However, the digital revolution caught up with David, and especially with his target audience; teenagers. His company plummeted by 60% in three years. David tried to save it, but it only led him into debt. He eventually ended up selling it to a digital marketing company and had to rebrand/refocus himself.   Fast-forward to today, David was running a successful speaker series, where he brought in talented minds to talk and share on a wide variety of topics to his premium members. However, COVID-19 hit, and all in-person events were canceled. David had to find another creative way to save the business.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Davidmammano.com David on LinkedIn The Gonzo Experience Podcast   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Miscommunication happens all the time in the workplace. Are you just saying things in a complex way? Are people just interpreting your “clear language” in a strange way? There’s a lot of factors to unpack on why miscommunication happens, and this week’s guest has some insight on how to reduce it. Debra Roberts, LCSW, is a Conversation Expert and the Creator of the Relationship Protocol. She helps business people navigate the important conversations in their lives by teaching the “how-to” on communicating effectively. Debra is also an award-winning author and has been featured on multiple media platforms, including The New York Times. Communication shapes our relationships and it influences the quality of our life. Unfortunately, we don’t learn how to communicate effectively at home or school. This is something we have to take conscious part in developing, and it’s not always clear cut on how to do so, especially when it comes to having the tough conversations. One of the ways you can build a deeper connection with others is through your commitment. You have to have both feet in and be willing to serve beyond your needs or interests. When you make that commitment, people respond well to that and will feel more secure with you. Take a step back and think about how you can communicate your commitment to your team. If you can give people clear language on how you are committed to helping them, it changes the entire trajectory of your organization. Don’t assume people know what you’re thinking. Show up, use your words, and tell people they matter.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Therelationshipprotocol.com Debra on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

This week’s topic covers how to have a more resilient mindset when you’re focused on building your own company. Headspace is almost everything when you’re dealing with a lot of moving pieces, unforeseen stressors, and disruption. Today’s guest has some answers on how you can handle the unknown and certainty with ease. John Swanson is the CEO of Wendell, a coaching company that focuses on the areas of Mindset and Health. He was the former CEO of Granite Games, Fast Factory Fitness, and Factory Forge. He is also an avid professional athlete who is passionate about shortening business leaders’ to-do lists and turning them into clear action steps that move the needle. When you fail, that’s when you really learn. As a professional athlete, John has had his fair share of failures and when he retired, he found a new path that led him to help other athletes with their nutrition, sports performance, and mindset. A lot of times, life will not meet your expectations. How do you manage the disappointment in your life? Do you sit and wallow, do you start to dig yourself out of it, or do you give up completely? Sports are even more ruthless when it comes to winners and losers. Technically, there can only be one. Everyone else is seen as a failure otherwise. When you’re on a “losing team,” you have to be extremely proactive in finding the small victories that help you keep going. If you can’t find these small wins in the bigger picture of life, it becomes incredibly hard to push through.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Wendellco.com John on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s topic is something the business world doesn’t always talk about or lean into as much, and that’s trusting your intuition. How do we know when we’re on the right path vs. not? This week’s guest offers her insights on the topic. Kim Woods is an Intuitive Strategist and Spiritual Consultant to high-performing entrepreneurs and global leaders. She was also a former business consultant at Oracle. Her True KLT Process™ has helped entrepreneurs trust themselves more effectively to create personal, professional, and financial success. Kim got into this line of work because she was very dissatisfied in her corporate life. She was unable to know, like, and trust herself because of her toxic environment. It felt like every day she was just going down the wrong path, and she was trying everything she could to ignore her intuition and her needs. When you’re able to tap into your intuition and actually trust the decisions you’re making, you show up as a better leader. You have more clarity. When you trust yourself, your mistakes don’t feel as big and you’re able to overcome them in a better way. Because of Kim’s intuitive nature, she can sense when someone’s soul is yearning for something that we, ourselves, can’t always detect. Not to get too “woo,” but it’s Kim’s strength to help her clients see things through a different lens and lead them to a path that’s much more natural to them.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Kimwoods.com Kim on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Let’s talk about growth; more specifically, growth with a focus on strategy and how it relates to technology. Today’s guest has seen some of the same mistakes over and over and shares his entrepreneurial story of how he grew. Mark Patchett is the Founder of Growth Shop and helps businesses scale with efficiency. He has spent over 10 years in the space and has helped over 250 companies with their growth; everything from startups to big brands like The BBC, The Economist, and more. Before going his own way, Mark had a lot of experience working with global brands when he got started in his career. However, he noticed something interesting; there was a gap in the marketplace for a service that could help small-scale entrepreneurs grow really quickly, and who often didn’t have access to big VC capital. From Mark’s experience, you didn’t need access to an expensive team, you just needed to know the fundamentals of what growth looked like. Mark saw so many complicated growth strategy plans that smaller businesses had a hard time implementing because it was out of their “team scope.” Mark’s Growth Shop is based in London and he has a personalized team helping small startups break the growth glass ceiling with the help of their expertise. Entrepreneurs know they need management structures, but when they invest in this ecosystem, they see intense cash dips and, if they’re not careful, it can affect the entire business. Mark helps curve the risk so that business owners can scale without digging too deep into their pockets.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Growth.shop Mark on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

A lot of entrepreneurs do not understand their finances very well. You can be good at math, but bad at money! Today’s guest breaks down how you can be intentional with this piece so you can scale up more effectively. Michael Hsu has spent the last 10 years working with entrepreneurs and educating them on financial literacy. He has turned his years of knowledge into a methodology called MEASURE x HACK, which aims to not only give someone financial freedom but help them intentionally create a successful business (and lifestyle). The world of cash management and cash forecasting is incredibly murky. How do you realistically predict what you’re going to make before you make it? As CEOs of a company, you simply cannot be emotionally affected by the day-to-day operations of the business. Money, and lack of it, severely impacts your ability to think big-picture and long-term. Michael isn’t sure if we willfully choose not to see the cash flow warning signs or if we simply are unable to see them. So many times an entrepreneur will celebrate the big wins, but then be completely broke the next month after sales drop slightly. There’s no reason to put your business through that kind of roller coaster. Bill remembers an example of when his business was profitable. He was doing really well, and then one day his CFO said he had to personally loan the company money so that they could cover and pay all their taxes. Bill was stunned. How was the company doing so well on paper but they still couldn’t afford to pay the company taxes?   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Deepsky.co Michael on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Do you have a bad habit? Something you just wished you could stop doing? However, no matter how conscious you are of it, it just keeps coming up? Bill had a client that couldn’t help but interrupt people. She knows it’s a weakness, but she simply couldn’t bite her tongue for long enough! How do you get over something like this? We often think faster than we talk. If you’re verbal, if you like to say what’s on your mind, chances are you’re going to blurt out what’s on your mind! This idea that you can stop doing this is a fallacy. You’re never going to fully eliminate this trait, but you can reduce it. The solution to working on any bad habit? Self-awareness and responsibility. Know your weaknesses, write them down if you have to, and own them. We try to cover up our weaknesses, but that just makes us appear even more inauthentic. If you own it, even call it out, apologize for it, people will come to know what to expect with you.   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Are you taking care of yourself? How are you managing yourself as a business? Do you feel healthy? If you feel overwhelmed, drained, or like you’re just not in an optimal place, this episode is for you! James Williams is a Certified High Performance Coach through the High Performance Institute and helps his clients break through their own inner ceilings. His mission and passion in life are to master the physical, mental, and emotional performance in his own life goals, as well as to help his clients achieve the same. James started in TV and production before switching careers, largely due to his wife, who was already working within the coaching industry. However, he was seeing her burn out. He thought there had to be a better way and he wanted to help. There are so many people who passionately want to achieve something, but they almost always get stuck in their own way. James helps people achieve what they want, not what they think they can have. There’s a lot of unconscious incompetence in people who spend a lot of time outside of the present moment. They’re unaware of where their real opportunities lie because they’re so “in the clouds.” James likes to analyze the person as a business. And he looks at everything from where you’re spending your energy, to what brings you joy, and gathers as much information as he can to help build a roadmap that leads to a more fulfilled (and stress-free) life. It’s not selfish to put yourself first!   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Thegrowthedge.com James on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you currently working with some hard-to-read characters? No matter what you do, you just can’t seem to pinpoint where they’re at emotionally? When you work with a wide range of personalities, this is bound to happen! Bill was hosting a workshop and couldn’t help but notice a woman who looked visibly upset at Bill. Her body language was throwing him slightly off and he was concerned about it. He approached her and it turned out she was deeply invested in the workshop! She was inspired by the talk! She was just tired. It was a powerful insight for Bill. We get invested in our ability to “read” people, but sometimes we just get that part plain wrong. The biggest takeaway Bill learned was to not assume! Instead, check in and validate. Ask questions and come in with an open mind about it. You never know what you might find.   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Rolly Keenan — Going from Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Revenue Officer   Is it time for you to switch your chief executives around? Today’s guest breaks down why it might be more beneficial for your organization to have an all-driving C-suite executive (that’s not the CEO) to help manage revenue and growth.    Rolly Keenan is a serial entrepreneur and the Chief Revenue Officer at Tegrita. A trained hostage negotiator, Rolly brings 20 years of experience and has worked and led teams at LinkedIn, Oracle, Gallup, and more. Rolly is also the author of the book, CMO to CRO.    Sales and marketing technology is starting to merge. As Rolly and his team thought more about this, he realized that things are much more complex and don’t always fall within the sales and/or marketing branch. In fact, sales and marketing should not be separate, they should report to a revenue leader to help keep track of respective growth.    Why is the CMO the best person for the CRO position and not the sales leader? Whenever people are looking at revenue, they first turn to sales to get a better overview, and the marketing leader is almost an afterthought. It’s a bit counterintuitive to appoint the marketing guy for revenue.    Rolly explains that users today no longer physically talk to salesmen. The human interaction is much less. Salesmen are still critical in the workplace, however there’s a lot of things that happen after an interaction with a salesman or after ‘the deal gets closed’. In today’s world, we are tracking customer success, customer retention, and more, and these duties often go beyond the scope of the salesmen; but marketing is very familiar with this sort of follow through.    Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Tegrita.com Revenuetakeover.com Rolly on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you trying to build something brand new or start a new initiative in your organization? Not sure where to start? Bill’s got some tips! If you’re currently working on launching a new “thing,” be careful! Bill has seen way too many companies do this, and it ends up costing them greatly because they weren’t able to manage the “common” mistakes.   Before launching or diving into unknown territory, you have to start with the end in mind. During this process, you scope out all the possible paths this product or service could go wrong, then it’s up to you to start a series of experiments to foolproof your idea more effectively.   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Do you ever notice how certain things trigger you? People? Conversations? And then you realize that you don’t quite know why you’re upset? The entire transaction just throws you off? Today’s guest has some solutions for you! Jen Underwood is an Emotional Mastery Coach who helps leaders find emotional stability and remove trauma from their business practices, resulting in more authenticity, integrity, and ease in business while also increasing the income and impact their leadership has in the world. In Jen’s past life, she was a social worker who worked with traumatized, mentally ill, and chronically addicted adults. It was emotionally draining and she found herself burning out. She transitioned out of that position to start her own business in a completely unrelated field. Now, as an emotional mastery coach, Jen helps people learn how to say what they’re feeling, feel what they’re feeling, and adjust the way certain things trigger them in leadership. This is a much-needed space in business. People are aware, more than ever, why it’s important to address the “emotional” side of our humanness, and yet, many people still struggle with the authenticity of it all. When it comes to emotions, there just seems to be such a fine balance to it all, and how we communicate that to others. Jen explains that it doesn’t have to be so. You can set healthy boundaries in your work life just as you can in your personal life.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Emotionaldominatrix.com   Resources: Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you feel like there’s a disconnect between how people are relating to you and how you see your brand? Or do you believe your team is slightly ‘out of touch’?    Bill can relate! He was recently working with a company where one of the leaders saw themselves a certain way, but the rest of the executive team saw themselves leading in a completely different way. How do you get on the same page?    Bill loves to conduct leadership assessment interviews. This really gains insight into who you are as a leader and how other people within your organization see you. You can start off easy, like what your strengths are, before diving full force into the real meaty stuff.    You will hear things that might sting. During this time, it’s important to be graceful, and to try to take as much as you can in stride. Remember, you’re trying to be a better leader! What’s really powerful about this exercise is that you can hear where you’re missing some expectations, and work quickly to resolve it.    Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

You’ve grown your business to new heights and now you’re ready to exit. When your business is on the line, how do you know if you’ve gotten every penny that it’s worth? Today’s episode is all about not leaving any money on the table. Michelle Seiler Tucker is the Founder and CEO of Seiler Tucker Incorporated. Michelle is the leading authority on buying, selling, and improving businesses, as well as increasing a business’s revenue streams. Over the past decade, Michelle has sold several hundred businesses and franchises, and she outlines how she did it in her latest book, Exit Rich. 80% of businesses will never sell. The reason? Business owners often just want out. They’re burned out and they don’t want to think about it anymore. In fact, the worst time to sell your company is during a catastrophe. For many owners, they never even had a plan to sell, so when it’s time to retire or move on to the next thing, they decide it’s just simply easier to close their doors instead. Michelle specializes in buying, selling, fixing, and growing businesses. Throughout Michelle’s career, she has found that so many businesses aren’t actually sellable. They’re often a glorified job for someone instead. Her focus is to help businesses owners have a sellable asset by the end of her client engagement. Circling back to the fact that 80% of businesses will not sell, that should be a huge wake-up call for any business owner currently. You have less than a 20% chance of success! So many business owners keep trucking along like everything is fine, but then hit a breaking point. Well, by the time you hit that breaking point, it’s too late to sell your business strategically.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Exitrichbook.com Seilertucker.com Michelle on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you trying to figure out what your brand promise is? Do you feel like your statement is too generic? It just doesn’t click with the team? Bill’s got a tip for you! If you feel like your brand promise looks and feels like everyone else’s, your biggest step is to go out there and talk with your customers. Don’t just talk to anybody, talk to those core customers that light your day up and that amplify who you want to work with. Ask these customers who they think you are. What can they rely on you for? What’s different about you? Really tap into their head to get the full landscape of what makes you stand out. From there, you can see some similarities peeking out that your other competitors do not have. Use their insights and distill it down to three brand promises, and from there, pick the one that’s the most important to you and your mission.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

We’re diving in on being overly product or service-focused in this week’s episode, and some of the challenges that brings. What should you focus on? The overall machine of the business so that it’s adaptable, and not dependent on -one- thing. Shawn Khorrami is a Serial Entrepreneur and has run more than a dozen businesses over the years, some of which have reached up to $100 million in revenue. When Shawn was still in highschool, he helped local business owners automate parts of their operations through software, and that was what kick started his entrepreneurial path. Unfortunately, too many young business owners think that their product will make their business. Their product, or service, is the missing piece to success. That is rarely the case. Just because you have a great product doesn’t mean you have a great business. The important lesson here and the pitfall you want to avoid is: You can not neglect the business side of things, on top of your product. If you think you are superman or superwoman in your business, chances are you’re hurting your team’s success and their ability to grow. Early on, you have to let people run, mistakes will be made, but you can’t be the point-man on everything as it deeply bottlenecks growth. What do you do when you have supply chain issues, or something outside of your control happens, and it causes your customers to review you negatively? It’s time to get to work and think outside of the box. One of Shawn’s customer’s experienced this, and by partnering with a CX team and taking the time to respond to every, single, unhappy customer, they were able to get his client back on track. Sometimes you have to lose short term money (giving unhappy customers free subscriptions to your products), in order to retain your reputation and long-lasting customers.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Khorramiconsulting.com Shawn on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you an early-stage company? Are you in the process of creating a new division or product? Now is an excellent time to create some company values for your business. It’s actually quite simple! You know the importance of creating company values, but you’ve got an early-stage company, so how do you create values when everything is almost duct-taped together, and you’re still trying to find your wings? Since you’re so new, you don’t have anybody to really bounce your values off of and see what resonates with the team. What do you do? Take a step back and think about the company you’re building. Think about the types of people you worked for, and with, in the past. What values did you like from them? What did you enjoy the most? Make a list of your dream team and then build it out from there. Your next step is to then make a list of people you would never want to have in your company. Think bad bosses, bad people, really map out all the “bad apples” you’ve worked alongside. They could even be friends, who you adore, but know it would make the company go belly up. Once you have your list of both the good and the bad, you then want to distill their characteristics down to four to six core company values.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Most of us are aware that when we have an elephant in the room, as leaders, we have to address it as quickly as possible, but we rarely address the small mice in the room; which can lead to bigger problems down the line. Are you running your business as efficiently as possible? How many hidden mice do you have? This week’s guest has some insights. David Wood is a High-Performance Coach and the Founder of Focus.Ceo, the Number #1 spot on Google for Life Coaching. He has business owners double their revenue by focusing on less. Prior to building his coaching business, he was a consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies. It says something about our society that something needs to be as big as an elephant for you to address it. David has noticed that there are so many subtle things happening in a room that never get addressed at all, things that just get swept under the rug, and those are the little mice that we have to pay attention to. We’re so quick to brush things off, perhaps it’s a society thing, or perhaps it’s due to being a man where it’s not okay to have sensitive emotions or to nitpick at the “small stuff.” It’s easier to talk about the weather than our feelings. David is intentionally focused on building good connections with himself and others. However, that means you have to take very emotional and vulnerable risks. What do mice look like in “real life”? Have you ever attended a low-energy meeting and you’re not sure why everyone is operating at this pace? Have you spoken up and said anything? Do things just feel awkward? When you name what’s happening in a room, it’s actually a great leadership move because it now opens up a dialogue and it can help you clear the air, or at least get clarification on a story you may just be making up.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Focus.ceo David on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you struggle to find out the why of your business? What is your purpose? What about your company’s purpose? Do they match or is it all a bit murky? Let’s dive into it. Bill was working with a company in the HR staffing industry. The CEO/Owner didn’t really see a point to having a purpose for his company. Do you really actually need one? The owner bought the company to make money and pay the mortgage. It’s a business after all. Bill asked him to indulge him. There’s a bigger meaning to the company. Bill asked him a series of questions like, what difference does his company make in the lives of others, and he kept probing why it matters to him. It might sound redundant but after peeling off enough layers and asking this same question in different ways, you get a profound ah-ha moment on why you care so much about the industry and the people you serve. You can use this to build your purpose.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Ever wondered what makes a story stick? Do you have trouble getting your messaging to sound just right? Are your pitches just plain boring? Today’s guest is all about electrifying your story so that it’s on everybody’s minds.  Neil Gordon works with entrepreneurs, executives, influencers, and thought leaders to overcome their messaging struggles. He helps them streamline their message to convey their value in unexpected ways. Prior to his work as a communications expert, Neil worked on the editorial staff of Penguin Random House. He is also the VIP contributor for Entrepreneur with three of his articles making it to #1 spot on the website’s most popular posts.  Still finding his path in life, Neil read a book by John Irving that ended up shattering his worldview. This and through his love for reading, he landed himself at Penguin Random House and that was just the beginning of his storytelling journey.  In business, we get really immersed in strategies and tactics, but ultimately, when we return to our most basic sense of humanity, that’s really where we make some of our most profound decisions. At the heart of that, that's where the meat of the story lies.  Neil believes some of our greatest catastrophes in life are some of the greatest opportunities for success. So, what makes a story worth telling? It boils down to a specific time, place, and scene so that the human brain can easily picture and remember it. However, you have to add twists, a lesson of sorts, so that it catches the passive listening ear off guard; there has to be something in it that makes you stop and go, ‘Wait, what?’ When you incorporate something unexpected, it makes heads turn.     Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Neilcanhelp.com Neil on Twitter Neil on LinkedIn A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Back in 2008, we found ourselves dealing with some pretty serious financial events. Sometimes these experiences are collective; the whole economy felt the impacts of the 2008 crash. The same was true in 2020. Because of the 2008 crash, Bill had tools and strategies already prepared that when 2020 hit, he was able to pull out his toolbox and adjust accordingly. The first step is to triage the situation. Where can you buy some breathing room to really assess the situation? You want to begin to preserve cash, and hold on to the core of your business as best as you can. The next step is to use the SWT tool (say "SWEAT"). It’s a little bit of a more strategic version of the SWOT analysis tool. SWT focuses more on upcoming trends and gaps in the company. And then finally, we want to connect the dots. Now that you have this information, what’s the most logical move forward?   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

How do you grow your business without losing your mind? How do you find balance when being an entrepreneur is so chaotic? This week’s guest has some insight. Sarah Dawn is a Business Growth Expert and host of The Blissed Biz Podcast. She helps entrepreneurs and professionals create the business of their dreams that supports a lifestyle they love. A seven-figure entrepreneur herself, Sarah was burned out and overwhelmed in the beginning. Despite checking all the boxes, she sacrificed her health to achieve it. Sarah knew she had to forge a more sustainable and fulfilling path for herself if she wanted to successfully scale. Sarah was hell-bent on making “this” work. Whether that be putting herself through law school or building up a successful firm, nothing was going to get in her way. It was an unhealthy obsession to be successful. Sarah had walking pneumonia five times within a year. She wore it like a badge of honor! “Look at me, I’m sick but still working.” Sarah wanted to transition from being a lawyer to being a coach. At first, she wanted to hide it from her existing clients. However, she found out that they were just as excited as her for going in this new direction. People want purpose in their life. Are you miserable and overworking in your business? If you have “control freak” tendencies, then there’s a chance you’re not empowering your employees to succeed. If anything, you’re giving them an insecurity complex. To help you ease control and let other people get stuff done, you want to delegate the results, not necessarily the tasks.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Sarahdawnconsulting.com Sarah on Twitter   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

There are certain types of people in life that you just can not click with. You just don’t like them and you actively avoid them. However, is this the best way to deal with it? Bill has some thoughts. One of Bill’s clients found himself really triggered by an employee. He had no real idea where this was coming from. Everything about this person just rubbed him the wrong way, and it felt weird and wrong to just let the guy go when there was no clear reason as to “why.” Bill wanted his client to go deeper. Who else has triggered him like this in his past? Bill also asked his client to examine himself, too, when he felt a trigger happening. What was going on? What was he doing in particular? Let’s get to the bottom of this. At first, he was overwhelmed. As he developed more self-awareness of himself and his surroundings, he noticed these traits in people he loved the most. Instead of tackling it straight on and letting people know that he didn’t like something, he would instead write it off like it wasn’t a big deal. This caused a mini-cascading effect to happen within himself that he didn’t realize he had. Once he realized this trait, he was able to correct for it and make changes where it would not affect him as much, and use communication to set better expectations with people around him.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

We’re diving into mindset today. Get your head in the right frame of mind to grow and succeed. Today’s guest has some actionable tips to help you get started if you’re feeling a bit sluggish and down in the dumps. Hanneke Antonelli is an author and award-winning Certified Life Coach with 16 years of experience growing businesses in various industries. Hanneke draws on her business degree, Wall Street sales experience, and her decade as an entrepreneur to help business owners upgrade their leadership skills and focus on sustainable growth. Hanneke followed what was destined for her and she joined corporate. Although it was glamorous, she found herself absolutely miserable. She had struggled with depression in the past and ended up in a psych ward in South Africa. This experience really shaped her dramatically and planted a seed for the work that she does today. Hanneke has experienced a lot of painful and traumatic adversity in her life, but the blaring light through all of it was her support system and her coaches supporting her, and believing in her. After a successful entrepreneurial career, she wanted to pay it forward by becoming a coach. You might not have had an experience like Hanneke had to go through, but we’ve all had our challenges and adversity. How do you work with your mindset when everything seems to be crumbling around you? The first step is to just ask for help. If you’re struggling, there is no reason why you should be going through this alone. Mental health is a huge problem and it’s so overlooked in entrepreneurship. We have lost so many people to the dark side of pushing yourself beyond your limits and not taking pause to breathe and put on your own oxygen mask. You don’t need to suffer in silence.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Hannekeantonelli.com Hanneke on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s conversation is about keeping things clear. It focuses on how to keep that vision clear while you’re busy scaling so that it doesn’t get murky along the way. Your special guest also talks about motivation and how to keep on your vision path when you’re feeling uninspired. Chris Burns is a men’s life coach and helps them activate their purpose, power, and prosperity. He has been coaching men, entrepreneurs, leaders, and professionals for almost a decade and has helped them level up to their fullest potential. Chris’s core message is community. Although he specializes with men, for our female listeners out there, don’t tune out as there is still a lot of value in this show! Chris actually used to work with women up until a year ago. The reason for the shift is that Chris looked around and noticed that there weren’t a lot of men-only support groups out there. It’s gotten harder for men to find their tribe and seek a space where they can be vulnerable. Bill notices with his guy friends, there’s a very specific purpose for when he hangs out with his friends. They’ve got a problem or particular issue that they want to talk about. He and his buddies never just ‘hang out’ the way his wife and her female friends do. Males tend to bond more when they’re doing challenges or activities together vs. sitting and chatting. It feels to Bill that men need more of an excuse to hang out. Come over because there’s a game happening, but inviting a guy friend over just to hang out and talk, seems a bit… weird? There always needs to be an activity in between in order for him to tap into the vulnerability.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Menmastermind.com Chris on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you have a bad relationship with your business? Is it time to get out? Today’s guest has some insight and some answers on when it’s really time to call it quits before you get burned out. Jess Chan is the Founder & CEO of Longplay, a full-service email marketing agency for DTC e-commerce brands. At Longplay, Jess has helped brands increase email revenue by 639% within 90 days and increase average order value by over 67%. Jess has been featured in Entrepreneur, Influencer Hustle & Thought Catalog. Jess has a background in actuarial science and economics but was going through panic attacks and an identity crisis on where, and who, she truly wanted to be in life. She knew insurance wasn’t the answer. On a whim, an ecommerce brand that Jess liked had a job opening for a marketing assistant, so she applied and ended up getting the job with zero qualifications! After college, she got offered a promotion to run a multimillion-dollar ecommerce company. Jess sees it all the time with her clients when they're starting a new company. We lose ourselves in the business. We come from a mission-centric place, but as we begin to grow, we start to lose ourselves and we go further and further away from our core mission. As founders, our business is an identity for us. We take a piece of ourselves and try to create something great out of it, but as the business scales and grows, it’s important to take care of your mental health, take breaks, and consciously redefine our relationship with it. You are not your business!   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Longplaybrands.com Jess on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you have a difficult conversation coming up? Perhaps there's a conversation that's long overdue? How do you approach it? Bill has some thoughts and tip on how to gracefully navigate those rough talks in this week's episode!   One of Bill's clients, Alex, had to have a conversation with his board about budget issues. He just knew that his board would not be happy by this news and was dreading the conversation. Bill decided to take some pressure off of his plate by doing a series of role plays to help Alex accurately prepare for a wide range of emotions. The result? Alex felt comfortable when the conversation was going badly with Bill and could still keep his mind and his points on track. Bill was a tough fictional board member! In one instance, Bill just flat out said 'no' to whatever proposal Alex threw at him. This led Alex to get creative with his requests. By the end of the session, Alex felt more confident about the upcoming conversation.   The fundamental lesson here is to roleplay! Play with the fear! Go through different scenarios and see what fits you best. You'll be surprised by the end-result after it's all over.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Need more eyes on your business? We all understand the power of having something go viral, but where business owners fall short is that they are willing to do anything, no matter the costs, to get that attention. Here’s how you can be strategic in your quest for more attention and get the right kind of attention. Why is it that Elon Musk comes out with a cyber truck and the world stops and goes absolutely crazy? Why is it that, when SingularityU came out, it became a sold-out event almost instantly? How do these things happen so “easily”? Moral value and positive value are of no interest to the media. So what gets their intention? Novelty. Shock also adds value. If you can grab attention for your product in a new way, then the media will be ready to pounce. What are some of the ways you can grab the attention of the media? What’s your novelty angle for your product? In this Tuesday Tip, Bill breaks down how some of the greats were able to make their events/products go viral.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

It can be difficult to hang on to your loyal customers as you begin to scale and grow, especially if you plan to increase your prices. Today’s guest knows a thing or two about keeping customers for life, no matter the circumstances. Paul Brown is the creator and writer of the What’s Offline column, which is featured every Saturday in the business section of The New York Times. He and his wife also wrote the Dream Home Diaries blog, also featured on nytimes.com. When he is not writing for the Times, Paul, a former contributing editor to M.I.T.’s Sloan Management Review, serves as an editorial consultant. He has worked with everyone from individuals to Fortune 500 companies and leading academic institutions such as NYU, in developing products that have ranged from software programs and videos to op-ed pieces, TED talks, books, and more. He also had his own twice-weekly blog in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and The Harvard Business Review. Paul accidentally stumbled into writing for Forbes. His trick was to just ask as many questions as you can, and eventually, you’ll learn something. Fast forward to today, Paul has written several books, including Customer for Life, which was first published in 1990. At the time, there weren’t many books out that thought about the customer in this particular way. Paul co-wrote the book with a car dealership owner, Carl Sewell. They both realized that they had a very short attention span, which is why the book is structured in a quick and easy way for readers to process. People tend to gloss over customer service as a business strategy. Everyone sees the value of turning a one-time customer into a lifelong customer, but a tangible and tactic strategy that makes it easy to execute on is much less talked about in business. If a customer asks for something unusual, it’s your job as a service provider to deliver on it. Good customer service often looks like this. Paul shares an example of a customer asking for something somewhat ridiculous and out of the box, but by delivering on her ask, the company ended up gaining a lifetime customer.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Paul on LinkedIn Paul’s work in The New York Times Paul’s Book: Customers for Life: How to Turn That One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer, by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Is there someone on your team trying to sell you on why they haven’t been hitting their numbers? Or are you trying to sell yourself on why you can’t achieve certain KPIs? If that’s the case, then this episode is for you! How do people accomplish extraordinary things when it doesn’t look or sound very reasonable? Bill was working with a cancer survivor who was passionate about creating healthy meals for restaurants. While she was in the middle of growing her business, she found out her cancer came back. Ouch. How do you keep going when you have a health crisis? Bill knew her mission in life, and he knew as her coach, he couldn’t let her quit. She couldn’t quit. Yet, how do you prevail when you have odds, especially health odds, stacked against you? In circumstances like this, you have to use your team and your leaders more than you ever did before. You have to do that scary thing and delegate. Bill’s client knew that her project was important, and she went on to finish what she had set out to do; not by herself, but by leveraging the power of her team. She created a legacy for herself and didn’t let obstacles stop her from moving forward. Anchor yourself to possibility and your legacy, and when obstacles get in your way, get creative and solve for one problem at a time.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

There’s a lot to cover on this week’s Scaling Up Insights show! We have two returning guest panelists, Liat Lazar and Daniel Marcos, and a new panel guest, Kristin McLane, a 25-year veteran in the computer manufacturing software space. Kristin notes that people are 60X more likely to remember something if it’s in the form of a picture. Bill agrees and this visualization exercise has helped him and his clients. Daniel would find certain staff members doodling in his meeting, which would often offend him until later he realized they were the people who remembered the most about that meeting. They were getting much better results! Does the American dream still exist? Daniel still believes so. Yes, some communities have it harder than others, but with a good mindset, anything is possible and you can overcome it. Just look at the power of social media. We are no longer confined by borders and it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, you can add value no matter your geographical location through the power of the internet. Liat agrees. As coaches, it’s our job to change CEO’s and executive management’s stories. Coaches help people change the “old” narrative, and to help them see what’s possible. Kristin is fascinated by the Olympics right now. You see what 10,000 hours can do, and these athletes prepared all their life for this one event. For the entrepreneur, that one event is not always so cut and dry, or clear, but they’re always working on it for a brighter future.   Interview Links:   Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech   Liat: Liatlazar.co.il Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Kristin: Cimx.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you sometimes feel defeated and like you’re never going to be good enough? Are you worried that you’ll never truly measure up and enjoy the success you do have? Bill can relate. He was the same way! He felt that maybe “one day” he’ll be done. Until something clicked in place for him. He noticed a highly skilled expert completely and royally screw up. Wasn’t he supposed to be the guy who knew all the answers? That’s when Bill realized, maybe, he’d never truly be finished in the work he was set out to do. Maybe it’s a journey, not a destination. At first, Bill was depressed, but he was able to find enlightenment and really believe and enjoy the process a lot more than just trying to be “done” all the time! We’re all working on skills. We are all working on ourselves. Our work never really is done.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

In this week’s episode of Getting Real, we learn about an entrepreneur and her journey towards working with some of the world’s leading companies and how she provides intentional and measurable creativity. Anastasia Leng is the Founder & CEO of CreativeX, an automated creative excellence platform that aims to showcase creative expression through the clarity of data. CreativeX is used globally by Fortune 500 brands like Heineken, Nestle, Unilever, and Facebook to measure creativity efficiency, consistency, and impact across their content. We are producing more content than we ever have before. What used to be easily managed by a team of people can no longer be done at scale. This is where the power of AI and data comes in. Anastasia leverages AI to help build a consistent tone of voice and image throughout a brand. There are a lot of “little” things you must think about and it’s impossible to do this at scale, especially when there are cross-departmental teams to consider. Things like brand consistency, creative quality, and accurate representation are all important factors at play. AI brings these important data points together to ensure a brand is producing the right creative message at all times. Anastasia learned from her previous startup that imagery and video were important to brands, but she couldn’t figure out what made certain videos click, and why others would fall short. She realized her company was running out of time and money, so she had to get smart. This is where the seed got planted and how CreativeX was eventually born.   Interview Links: Creativex.com Anastasia on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

What is a human-centric business? For business owners that want to scale and grow, they have to move away from a purely systems and process structure and focus on the human element. The biggest resource drain in any organization is its people. They are hard to predict, and sometimes difficult to manage. Today’s guest has some insights on how to position yourself for an uncertain future. Deborah Westphal’s career spans more than 30 years and she has worked closely with government agencies and Fortune 100 companies on virtually every continent. In 1999, Alvin Toffler tapped her as one of the founding members of his eponymous consulting firm. A passionate humanist and life-long learner, she has guided leaders to challenge biases, ignite ideas, and build resilience for a secure future for organizations including Lockheed Martin, Marriott, the U.S. Air Force, Bayer, Microsoft, NASA, and more.   Deborah grew up working with her hands and fixing things, whether that be houses or cars. This sparked a love for building things and she knew she wanted to be an engineer of some kind when she grew up. Her path led her to the Air Force, an organization that she dedicated 13 years to, and then she became passionate about the business of making things. Through Deborah’s findings, she decided to write a book with the premise of exploring how organizations have been built over the last few decades. There has always been a priority on efficiency and effectiveness, but the human element seemed to have slipped by the wayside.   Although that might have worked a few decades ago, with the rapid pace of our technology, leaders are faced with unique challenges and it requires more than streamlined efficiency to solve those challenges. If anything, our current working model is broken and we need to embrace a new era of business: the human side.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Deborahwestphal.com Deborah on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you feeling a little out of whack right now? Are you not quite sure what’s going on but you just feel “off”? Leaders go through these phases all the time. Here’s how you can get back on track. Bill was working with a franchise client and it was apparent that this entrepreneur had her plate full. Not only did she have children and an ex-husband, but she had hobbies and activities and outside passions. All good things! But, they were draining her. This is where a life purpose comes in handy. When you have a clearer vision for your overall life, you can be really particular about what types of quality things you want to pursue and do in your life. If you have a task that you aren’t passionate about doing, it’s important to find a new “why” so that you can change the narrative on the thing you hate and turn it into something you end up loving and can’t wait to do. This positive psychology trick is so powerful in helping you find joy in your life again!   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

In this Getting Real episode, Bill and his guest dive into the intersection of people and process, and how you can leverage this power so that you can scale and grow! This week’s guest is Ankur Agarwal! He is an active Angel Investor and the CEO of Clarion Technologies, a company he co-founded in the early 2000s. Today, Clarion has over 400 employees and over 1,000 clients across the world. Ankur is passionate about supporting entrepreneurs, and through his Angel Fund and Incubator, has invested in multiple companies including food startups, e-commerce companies, social ventures, and more. Ankur provides a bridge to highly skilled talent in India for companies that might not need a full-time in-house employee just yet. The great part about Ankur’s company and process is that you have a dedicated team member that you can work with regularly, and you are able to put a name to a face. The biggest challenge Ankur faced at the beginning of his entrepreneurial career was in 2002. He and his wife were looking for jobs, they were completely broke and on the verge of being homeless, and despite their best efforts, no one was hiring. Pushed into a corner, Ankur had to get creative. Ankur’s struggles paid off; after five years of scrapping for small gig after small gig, Ankur was able to turn his business into a $5 million company. During this time, Ankur never really had that “big break”; it was an accumulation of small habits and clients that lead to bigger opportunities over time.   Interview Links: Clariontech.com Annkur.com Ankur on Twitter Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

There’s a lot of pressure to innovate and break through ceilings. It’s not always easy, and it can be a double-edged sword. You put too much stress on it and you won’t be able to create. Put too little emphasis on it and there’s no direction. Where’s the fine balance? Today’s guest has ways to make this process easier! Josh Linkner started his career as a jazz guitarist, which has been a foundational piece to his extensive experience in creativity, entrepreneurship, and disruptive innovation. He is the Founder and CEO of five tech companies, which have sold for a combined value of over $200 million. What does Josh mean by achieving “big little” breakthroughs? Is that even possible? The concept of this is to flip innovation on its head. We often think innovation means big breakthroughs that change the world. Uber, Google, Airbnb, all come to mind. However, what we often don’t see are the tiny micro-steps that lead us there. Instead of cultivating wildly risky “moonshots,” why not just start small? You can work on little innovations every day, which then lead to big breakthroughs over time. Baby ideas are also way less risky and more accessible for your team to do. There isn’t a pressure to “perform” or to “think creatively” when you just start small. Like those big tech giants, most of us cannot make a billion-dollar bet. A Harvard study showed that 77% of the U.S. gross domestic product comes from big little breakthroughs. Don’t let the news headlines fool you into thinking everyone is achieving big “aha” moments! It’s only a small percentage.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Joshlinkner.com Josh on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you find it hard to make a decision or to stick with the same course of action over time? If you’re on the fence, Bill has some quick tips to help you commit and move forward.    Bill was working with a client that constantly had other things on his mind and these thoughts kept spinning off into other thoughts and action steps. Bill noticed that he’d come in sudo-commiting to a plan and then the next shiny object had his eye.    A lot of leaders have some form of ADHD. We’re always getting our attention pulled in different directions, but if you don’t commit yourself, you’ll constantly be the dog chasing its tail.    Bill helped his client lock things in and focus. One of the best ways he was able to do that was through making an outloud statement and commitment to his team so that everyone could be held accountable and moving forward.    Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

Why does responsibility matter? Why should there be balance? Why is all of this even important? Today’s guest has some answers and suggestions on how you can become a more responsible business. Carol Sanford is an award-winning Business Educator, Summit Producer, Podcaster, and Author. She is a regularly recognized thought leader and has worked alongside Fortune 500 companies like Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and more over the last four decades. When Carol went to Berkeley, a man named Thomas Kuhn opened her up to a whole new world of different perspectives. Combining this with the memorable moments Carol spent with her grandparents, who were half Mohawk and lived off the land, Carol saw how one tiny change could create drastic impacts.   Carol decided to take what she learned from Thomas and create a framework that would help you see what kind of paradigm you were living under, understand the impacts of that paradigm, and work on ways you can change it for the better.   Although Carol wrote her book, The Responsible Business, nearly 15 years ago, the book is going through a re-release right now, the core of that book dives into helping corporations (and nonprofits) understand that the way they run the business is changing and affecting the lives of everyone who buys and interacts with them. It’s not just about profit or growth or teams, it’s so much more than that.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Carolsanford.com Carol on Twitter Carol’s book: The Responsible Business The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s Getting Real episode is all podcast guest booking, when it makes sense to start a podcast, and of course, it highlights this entrepreneur’s journey, how he got into this space, and some of his challenges. Mark Colgan is an Entrepreneur and Revenue Leader responsible for increasing revenue across a small portfolio of companies where he leverages his 13 years’ experience in B2B Sales, Marketing, and Recruitment. Mark started his career in a sales role and grew his career path into interviewing candidates and pitching them to open roles as a recruitment consultant. Mark grew up in a very traditional household and was determined to follow the same path. After a few years in corporate, Mark decided to take a leap year, but by luck or fate, people were still knocking on his door asking him for work. He discovered that he could do exactly what he was doing before, just remotely, with fewer hours, and for more money. It’s been a dream ever since. Mark shares a little bit about his business model and why he’s different. When it comes to podcast guest booking agencies, Mark sees his clients as an extension of their brand, so it’s important that they get the pitch right. Bill agrees, he gets cold pitches all the time and rarely accepts because it’s not on brand with his podcast. The value in the service he provides is in the human touch and providing a relative service for both the podcast host and the guest speaker. There are a million podcasts out there. Bill believes it’s important to be a guest on a hundred podcasts first before creating your own show.   Interview Links: Markcolgan.co.uk Mark on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org & Bit.ly/clariontech   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

If you are a Founder of a SaaS company then this is an episode you do not want to miss. Today’s guest works directly with SaaS companies and knows the inner workings of how to raise the capital you need in your business. Michael Cardamone was one of the first 30 employees at Box in a BD role and then later led partnerships at AcademixDirect. After six years of being in operating roles, Michael launched Forum Ventures, a BSB SaaS-Focused Accelerator and Fund based in NYC and Toronto. Michael is seven years into his company and he’s already on his fourth fund for the accelerator and has worked with over 200 companies. Some of Michael’s entrepreneurs have never even stepped into Silicon Valley and have raised several millions of dollars. The VC landscape is rapidly changing to find companies outside of California and New York. Michael sees the benefits, too. You want more diversity? Take advantage of the global landscape and hire team members from all over the world to get a different cultural perspective. Countless studies have shown that when a company has more diversity, they are adaptable and more empathic to all different types of users. One thing that founders don’t think about enough is how will investors value your business? What is their process and how do you fare in that process? A great way to make yourself stand out is to bring data points and market research to the fold to showcase how you’re thinking about your target market differently and the types of risks you foresee in your industry. Investors love to see a bit of legwork being done, even if the memo isn’t all roses and positive.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Forumvc.com Michael on Twitter   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Have you plateaued professionally and not sure how you can get to the next level? Bill has a quick tip for you today!    Bill was working with a client some years ago and he was frustrated. He felt like he hit a ceiling and he couldn’t figure out how to increase his rates, his growth, and bring more opportunities to his company. It just felt like everything became stagnant and there was nothing that he could do to kick start it again.   Well, Bill has some good news and some bad news. Your success and demise begins and ends with you. It’s easy to blame others, but really, as the leader of the business, you have all the power and the cards to shift direction and focus.    The reality is, you have the company you deserve right now. If we level you up, naturally, your business levels up with you, too!    Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

Today’s Getting Real episode is all about the importance of visualizing the future and how it can help your business and your business trajectory. Nora Herting is the Founder of Image Think. She is passionate about expanding peoples’ definition of creativity and believes the best way to meet the demands of business today is to take a visual approach that blends strategic thinking with creative expression. Nora is also the author of Draw Your Big Idea, which has inspired thousands to think visually and access their own creativity. Nora helps leaders and companies move from insight, the theoretical, into action! She helps leaders visualize in real-time all their big ideas and to help craft a smart, and realistic path forward. This future projection has done wonders and it brings clarity and reduces complexity in the business. Nora is the first in her generation to go to college, however, she found herself unhappy and not really living the path she had truly wanted. In the spur of the moment, she decided to quit her job and move to New York City with no plan. Fast forward to 12 years later and she and her team deliver 350 engagements a year and have worked in 27 countries. Nora’s company is founded on the concept of bringing visuals to a particular industry skill set and fusing the art of business together.   Interview Links: Imagethink.net Nora on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org & Bit.ly/clariontech   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

If you don’t ask, you don’t receive, but there’s an eloquent way of asking in order for you to have it all. It first starts with being an advocate for yourself and your needs. You are your own best advocate and today’s guest will show you how to get exactly what you ask for. Heather Hansen is a Lawyer, Self-Advocacy Expert, Coach, Author, and sought-after international speaker. She’s also the Founder and CEO of Advocate to Win, a consulting business where she’s given thousands of clients the knowledge and tools they need to become better advocates and gain support and engagement for their big ideas. Still an active lawyer, Heather was named one of the top female attorneys in Pennsylvania and she represented doctors, nurses, and hospitals throughout her career. The reason why she was so good at what she does was that she helped teach her clients how to be advocates for themselves. However, throughout Heather’s career, although she was good at advocating for others, she wasn’t the best at advocating for herself. Little did she know at the time, everyone is an advocate. If you’re selling, marketing, and/or leading, you’re an advocate. When it comes to building credibility, it’s a three-part process. It starts with trusting yourself, believing in yourself, and collecting the data needed to build your case to rally those around you. Heather cautions people about faking it till you make it because people can often see right through that.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Heatherhansenpresents.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you suffering through some circumstances right now that you can’t seem to get out of? Are you feeling really frustrated? It sucks to be going through this in the moment, but the good news is, there is a solution. You can find a way out of this. When Bill turned 40, he found himself in a unique place. He had everything he wanted, he had accomplished a lot in his life at that time, yet, why was he so unhappy? Why was he suffering? He felt trapped by his circumstances. The first thing Bill did was to take stock and recognize he wasn’t happy. Then, he re-examined his life. He started at the root. He looked at his relationship with his family, with his parents, with his siblings, and what his life had brought him at key points in his life. He uncovered something interesting. Bill knew he was a natural leader, he was smart, he knew he had qualities that not many could beat. However, he could always find someone else who was slightly better than him. This comparison completely stole his joy. It felt like everything he achieved up until that point, was failing. When the reality was, it wasn’t.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

There’s a lot to cover in this week’s Scaling Up Insights show! We have two returning guests, Dominic Monkhouse and Daniel Marcos. Both of these growth coaches talk about what’s on their summer reading list, understanding customer and employee data, and inflation making a comeback! All this and more, in today’s episode. Bust Buy’s Turnaround time really is a gift of wonders. Daniel shares an example of why he chose them over Amazon for a particular retail purchase. He was amazed! In and out in less than five minutes and he didn’t even have to leave his car. The future truly is wonderful. People are so quick to blame Amazon for disrupting and ruining other industries. Best Buy said no, it’s not Amazon’s fault. It’s ours. It’s our lack of execution that’s put us in this position. When they took ownership of their own shortcomings, they were able to innovate greatly, and you also kind of have COVID-19 to thank for that, too. Dominic is surprised we still have poor customer service issues in 2021. Some people just hate human beings. Dominic sat down with his wife at a cafe. They overheard the wait staff complaining about them for ordering only two things. Why are you here? When it comes to employee motivations, you can’t hire a motivational speaker to excite and entice your staff. Daniel believes you either create a company that gets them motivated, or you face the consequences of selling a product no one cares about.   Interview Links:   Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech   Dominic: Monkhouseandcompany.com Daniel: Danielmarcos.co The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, by Hubert Joly Big Night (1996) Miracle (2004)   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you feeling a bit off right now? Or maybe you’ve felt a little “blah” in the past and you’ve slowly gotten yourself out of it, but you’ve always wondered how did you get into that place in the first place? Bill’s got a tip for you. Bill had a client come to him during a team coaching session and he admitted he was feeling kind of off. It was like, overnight, he lost his passion and he wanted out. Bill spent some time listening to him and he could tell this was just a feeling he was going through at the moment. It wasn’t a core belief he had rooted into. When this happens to Bill’s coaching clients, it’s really helpful to take a minute to work backward and reflect when you started feeling this way. You can do this by yourself or have a partner help you through this reflection period. Ask yourself the question, “When was I feeling okay? And when did this feeling shift?” The answers might not come to you right away but trust the process. There was a moment that made you switch from feeling great about your business to feeling meh about it. Did you have some intentions or expectations that didn’t go according to plan? Did you just not get what you wanted? Are you a little irritated? When did you start just “going through the motions”?   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

This week’s exciting entrepreneur is René Serbon! She is an International Skin Expert and Aesthetician. She helps people grow their skin business in a unique way and René consults fellow Aestheticians, Physicians, and Dermatologists to become confident and profitable entrepreneurs. René not only helps her clients grow, but she also provides additional education on the latest skin treatments, products, and procedures. Her business serves two-fold, both as an education and consulting business as well as a distribution business. René has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. She begged her parents to homeschool her, and when they did, she set up a small clothing shop on the side. She grew up in a very medical-centric family, and decided to follow in her family’s footsteps (somewhat). When René stepped into the skin and beauty world, she got bit by the bug. She loved helping people feel confident. She could see in real-time the difference she was making in people’s lives and she didn’t want to stop! You might think bad skin is such a superficial thing and what’s on the inside matters. That’s true. However, bad skin, bad teeth, or some sort of unique “human issue” really can wreak havoc on an individual’s confidence. It might seem small, but René has personally witnessed people’s personalities blossom just by healing their skin.   Interview Links: Renéserbon.com Dermalsystems.com René on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

A vision is critical to your success, but how do you go about creating one? What pieces should you include and not include? This week’s guest has some answers for you today! Jennifer Judye is the Founder and CEO of Conscious Copy & Co. where they help entrepreneurs communicate their vision and message in a way that inspires people to action. Jennifer and her team have supported hundreds of entrepreneurs through the Vivid Vision process (created by Cameron Herold), which helps entrepreneurs attract top talent, align their team, create key partners and vendors, and stay focused and motivated. Jennifer was at a business dinner and randomly sat at Cameron Herold’s table. After speaking with him, she decided to read his book and craft a vivid vision for her new copywriting company. She wrote down big names in the industry that she would love to work with, and it actually came true! The way Jennifer views a “Vivid Vision.” It’s like a sales page for your future. Cameron noticed that some of his clients were getting stuck in writing this vision down, and asked her to help his clients work on this critical piece. She agreed, and the rest is history! One of the questions Jennifer likes to ask her clients is, “Do you really want this?” and “If this all comes true, would you love it?” She wants her clients to be aware of the golden jail cell and avoid it at all costs.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Jenniferhudye.com Consciouscopy.co   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Is your work going well, but the rest of your life is in disarray? Are you missing some play or some fun in your life? Do you feel like you have no balance happening right now? Bill has found himself in a very similar position. He was making some progress in the business, but he wasn’t enjoying himself. He wasn’t having fun; things were just off for him. His life could easily be categorized into two buckets: Things he was supposed to do and the things he actually enjoyed doing. Neither of these activities overlapped with each other.   Here’s the thing, if you are able to get your passions, your play, your purpose, and fulfillment all into alignment, not only is it possible, it’s magical once you do. Can you find a way to integrate all these things into one? The answer is a yes, it just might take a bit of creative tweaking to get it all there.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

In this week’s Getting Real episode, we have Neel Parekh, who is the founder of MaidThis Franchise, which helps homeowners and short-term rental hosts with their cleanings. We’ll learn why he quit his corporate job to start his own business and some of the biggest challenges he’s faced thus far. Neel had the idea of his business slightly over seven years ago. He wanted his business to be fully remote so that he could travel and see more of the world. Fast-forward to today, he has generated millions in revenue while having a fully remote team and wants to help other people achieve the same. Prior to starting his business, Neel worked in venture capital and private investing. However, he always had a travel bug in him and he wanted to create something that could fit more into his lifestyle. He also wanted to find a way to support his parents, or have them work with him on this business, remotely. These were his big two “whys” for starting the business. MaidThis now covers all of Greater Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and at the end of 2020, they launched their first branch location in Denver, Colorado. Neel is now focused on growing the franchise model out and getting branch owners to provide the same high-level quality he has been doing in California.   Interview Links: Maidthis.com Neel on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.)

With over 25 years of human resources and talent management experience at organizations, this week’s guest shares some of the people-centric activities you need to focus on to achieve high growth. Andrew Bartlow leads Series B Consulting, a firm that helps companies build their people strategy and accelerate their growth. He is also the Founder of People Leader Accelerator, which is a development program for startup HR leaders, and the co-author of Scaling for Success. Andrew used to be a bit self-conscious when it came to telling people he worked in HR. He found out that not a lot of people knew exactly what that meant and that it had a negative connotation around it. HR goes beyond employee relations and payroll. Andrew would often tell people he was in management consulting because that’s how the best companies approach it. What inspired Andrew to write his book? Well, everyone has a book inside of them, but Andrew saw a huge gap in the market in the startup ecospace. There are a lot of companies that are seeing a lot of success in spite of themselves. Andrew wanted to help them optimize their HR work so that it would not become a case of just dumb luck. CEOs and Founders are often hesitant to share their top-level plans down to the organization. In an environment where startups are often resource-starved in the beginning, it can be hard for leadership to make the commitment and stick to it in an uncertain future, but everyone needs a vision before they begin to do deep work.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Seriesbconsulting.com Andrew on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Have you been struggling to grow your business? You’d love to double your revenue, but you can’t seem to figure out what’s moving, or not moving the needle? Bill and his wife ran a business together a few years back and he found himself in the same situation. They’d go up some months, and then down some other months. All they wanted to do was double their business, yet they were stuck! Back to the drawing board, Bill and his wife came up with a couple of things that ended up making a huge difference. The first one was the BHAG and the second was the vivid vision. Through their BHAG, they were able to see a 10X future for themselves. By going through this mental exercise, they could see some bigger picture strategies they could be doing today, instead of being “in the weeds” trying to 2X. These perspective shifts were game-changing and allowed them to grow quicker than they had anticipated!   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Your personal brand is everything and you can use your personality, your voice, to enhance your business brand and get more out of life. Today’s guest showcases why and how PR is the way to go to hit the next step in your business! Victoria Kennedy is the CEO of Victorious PR, a media agency that helps Entrepreneurs, Real Estate Brokerages, Mortgage Companies, and Solar Businesses get featured in industry-specific publications, local press, podcasts, and top publications to be seen as Industry Leaders in their fields. Growing up, Victoria wanted to be an opera singer and she even had a number one hit single in Europe! Victoria was heavily pitching editors and TV producers to get her music out there, and that’s where she discovered she had a PR talent. Unfortunately, Victoria’s European visa did not renew and she had to find another way to make a living back home in the U.S. Victoria had dedicated her whole life to singing; she didn’t have any other skills. She was dirt poor and realized that she could go all-in in her business. She took a course, and within the first month, she made her money back. When the pandemic happened. Victoria’s real estate marketing business took a big hit, so she had to pivot. She knew that her clients needed her more than ever, so she went to the largest real estate magazine in the world, and in 60 days she became their brand ambassador, a contributor, and was asked to speak at their event. PR opens so many doors for you if you know how to do it correctly!   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Victoriouspr.com Victoriakennedyofficial.com Victoria on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today in Scaling Up Insights, we have returning panelist Daniel Marcos, and a new panelist, Max Kozlovsky, a business consultant with more than 20 years of experience working with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 Companies. In a recent article by Marc Benioff, he recommends using an off-site ranch to conduct culture-building activities for his Salesforce office. Daniel loves the idea and actually conducts a lot of his quarterly planning sessions in Mexico. Getting “out” really gets the creative juices flowing. Daniel doesn’t have an office space anymore, but it’ll be great to have a little meeting room space where he and his team could meet once a week or so if needed. Max himself bought a house to specifically use for team training. It’s incredibly convenient to have. Both Max and Daniel have noticed that real estate is becoming such a booming commodity, with Daniel unable to see any houses for sale in San Antonio, Texas, and some of Max’s friends in Austin, Texas were bidding 10% over asking price and still not getting their dream home. Elon Musk on SNL! Bill thought it was quite awkward to watch, but he thought it was endearing that Elon owned his awkwardness. Daniel agrees it was awkward, but you know, by the way that man thinks, it makes sense that he’s a little more “out of the normal” than the rest of us. Max poses the question, who is normal, really? There’s a lot of power in admitting that you’re not normal. By leaning into your weirdness, you are able to dive deeper into your own superpower. Daniel loves that. Take your biggest weakness and turn it into a trait. That’s the best way to succeed.   Interview Links: Max: LinkedIn Daniel: Danielmarcos.co   Resources: What Salesforce’s Work Culture Needs The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni Adam Grant’s TED Talk Scaling Up CEO Boot Camp “The Most Persuasive Word in the Dictionary” Atlassian’s “Team Anywhere” Policy Speech of the Year? Tyler Perry’s Oscar Speech “Why We Suffer”   Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you have a hard time controlling your anger? Do you just let your thoughts stew in your head and then blow up at people? Ouch! There’s a solution for this. Bill was working with an accomplished CEO, but gosh, did he have a temper! He was easily triggered, too. The problem was that he was seeing a level of incompetence among his people and it was frustrating him, and forcing him to refocus on the immediate fire. However, Bill had him walk around on the floor and really get to know his people. Approach the problem from a more side-to-side approach than a top-down approach. When he began doing that, he developed a lot of compassion and understanding for what his team was REALLY going through, and he was able to show up and support them much better because of it.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Welcome to another Getting Real episode where we deep dive into entrepreneurs’ journeys and discover all the good, the bad, and lucky breaks they’ve received throughout their uncommon career! Today’s guest is Leigh-Anne Acquisto, the founder of Liquorish Ink, a brand behavior business that creates innovative ideas and brand stories. Leigh-Anne started her career in corporate as a brand strategist and after seven years, she decided it was time to start her own business that specializes specifically in strategy. Strategy is one of the fundamental aspects of growing a brand, and Leigh-Anne is passionate about thinking big-picture and long-term to see that vision come to life. Leigh-Anne believes her luckiest break so far in the industry has been getting word-of-mouth clients to fill her pipeline. It’s been a challenge for Leigh-Anne because she doesn’t have business partners, so everything that she does to move the needle can really break or make the business. In fact, some of the challenges Leigh-Anne faced this year did not necessarily happen in the business, but externally. Her clients were faced with big uncertainties as COVID-19 and the pandemic hit, and Leigh-Anne had to carefully navigate those waters and not overextend herself and the company.   Interview Links: Liquorishink.co.za Leigh-Anne on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Interested in buying a business and you’d like to know what goes on behind the scenes? Any good investor or buyer will first conduct their due diligence and verify the business does what it says it does. This week’s guest talks all about it!    Elliott Holland is the Founder of Guardian Due Diligence and he helps entrepreneurs select businesses, underwrites them, and then performs due diligence checks to make sure entrepreneurs aren't getting taken advantage of by sellers or brokers.     Elliott usually sees deals anywhere from $1-5 million dollars in purchase price and they usually take about 3-6 months to close. However, if you’re doing the due diligence process correctly, it can take over a year to find the right business and deal for you.    You’d be surprised by how many people are willing to lie about their business and fudge the numbers. Buyers, if you’re paying for 6-8x cash flow, a lot of sellers will lie. Elliott shares some of his first-hand experiences as to why certain deals just don’t go through.    Little clues about the sellers can give you all sorts of information about their character, and the type of business they’re operating. If the person doesn’t quite ‘fit the bill’ when it comes to the industry they’re operating in, it should be looked at a little more closely. There’s always an opportunity to commit fraud.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Guardianduediligence.com Elliott on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you missing key company targets? Do you find your performance declining in some way? Are you not sure what might be the cause of it? Bill has the perfect resource for you! Bill was working with a manufacturing company and after moving to a new facility, they were having some pretty mysterious productivity problems. Production was falling off, they were behind on their targets and unable to catch up, and more. Not being able to see the problem right away, Bill asked the team to order eight (8!) whiteboards. They then sat down and spent 45 minutes on what each of the metrics might be for each department. This gave the entire team a clear vision and it set the expectation of what everyone needed to be striving for, each and every day. If you’re unclear what some of your departmental goals are, try this method! Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Bill gets to dive deep with another entrepreneur who is in the marketing world. She shares her challenges, biggest mistakes, and some of the amazing things she’s grateful for since starting her business four years ago! How did Angela come up with her company name? Well after working in a very fast-paced agency, she realized that everyone on the team was overwhelmed and stressed out. Whenever there was a new client in the pipeline, the team that had the least amount of work would get them, but everyone was relatively busy and maxed out. When Angela decided to start her company, she wanted to do something slightly different. She wanted to provide a high-quality experience for her clients with people who were overwhelmed. This is why she named her company 11outof11 — because they are better than a standard 10-out-of-10 score. Angela wanted to set her business up differently compared to what she experienced in the agency world. She has about 55 subcontractors and works with them on an on-need basis, and has about nine core team members that work with her clients directly.   Interview Links: 11outof11.com Angela-pointon.com Angela on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Today’s topic expert shares how she scaled her business, created multiple companies, and even pivoted during the pandemic when her primary customers, tourists, ran dry. Lisa Song Sutton is an Entrepreneur, Real Estate Investor, and former Miss Nevada. She started her business career working in a top Las Vegas law firm and has since gone on to create multiple companies of her own. Her first business, Sin City Cupcakes, is an iconic Las Vegas treat that delights tens of thousands of locals and visitors each year. Lisa is also the co-founder of Ship Las Vegas, Elite Homes – Christie’s International Real Estate, and Liquid & Lace swimwear. How does one go from law school to then becoming an entrepreneur? Lisa loved law school and thought it was a great foundation for her because she learned right away how to NOT get sued. She ended up starting her cupcake company in 2012 while she was still working as an Associate at a law firm. It was a fun side hustle until it grew into a full-fledged business about a year later. Las Vegas has 44 million visitors a year. It’s insane, and having a company that catered directly to the party scene, was almost a no-brainer. Lisa’s “boozy” cupcakes ended up striking big with both the local and tourist crowd. You name it, bachelorette parties, weddings, and more, they were catering at these events. However, 2020 was a very scary year for Lisa. 80% of her business ended up canceling for the rest of the year. It was a huge shock. Lisa was fortunate that her thriving business was nine years old by this point, and they had some cash reserves to pivot and test out a new product offering. When it comes to an emergency, you have to think on your feet, and creatively, to get the job done.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Lisasongsutton.com Lisa on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you feeling nervous or unsure what to work on? Every CEO knows what it’s like to have emergencies, breakdowns, and little fires to put out, but when you’re doing this all day, everyday, it can almost feel daunting trying to figure out which fire or task to focus on. Bill had a client that faced exactly this problem. A great exercise to do is the ‘Net Promoter System’ (NPS) scoring. This exercise gives you a bird’s eye view on everything that’s happening and any disconnects that’s appearing in the business. It gives CEOs a clear vision on what needs immediate attention, and where customers feel like the business is falling short. Try it out and you’ll quickly see some of the gaps that need filling. Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

This week’s entrepreneur is a Technical Producer, Creative Producer, and Filmmaker. He is the Founder of SFG Productions, and they focus on live events, broadcasts, virtual conferences, and so much more. Let’s dive into Sean’s entrepreneurial story! Sean was forced to become an entrepreneur. This was definitely not on his radar when he was a kid. Sean was slowly freelancing here and there, and eventually, his clients said that they needed him to be a company. As a freelancer, he had a hard time saying no, and the number of clients coming through his door made him realize he had to hire and scale or else he’d be losing some great opportunities. Sean’s lucky break happened when he got a production gig for TED Talks. At the time, it was not nearly as big as it was before, but he took on the challenge and it led to fantastic press for his company. The video production on the TED Talk stages was much better quality than any “standard” conference at the time. When Sean joined EO, it was like a curtain being pulled back and he saw how much knowledge he was missing out on to successfully grow his business. It took him roughly two years to be in the program before he hit his first million in sales, and it’s just been a blessing of a resource.   Interview Links: Sfgproductions.com Sean on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We sometimes pick up some bad patterns and habits, and no matter how hard we try, we still fall back to old routines. This week’s guest shows you what you can do to break out of this vicious cycle and instead 3X your ability to achieve your goals! Eric Partaker is a Peak Performance Expert that helps CEOs and Entrepreneurs scale themselves and their companies, while also improving their well-being. Eric is a big believer in the power of threes, and shares why it doesn’t have to be a huge and complex routine to create new habits! Eric has a competitive spirit, but he had a massive wake-up call. One day he realized that all of this drive and ambition was really fueled by his insecurity, and it was impacting his health. He found himself having a heart attack on an airplane. He didn’t want to die, he had a five-year-old son to take care of, yet he would often spend 100 hours at work. Something just didn’t add up right. Eric shares how his three alarms are such a simple shift in mindset that anyone can incorporate it. One of his clients would set an alarm that said “70-year old me” on it whenever it went off. This gave him the motivation needed to lose 25 pounds within a three-month period. He tapped into identity-driven change by constantly imagining his future self. What makes this trick so effective is that you’re envisioning the best version of yourself at a specific time of day. This way, you can create small implemental changes without trying to push the whole boulder up a mountain. It gives your mind a psychological boost to act in a simple way and create a positive change.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Ericpartaker.com Eric on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Oh no! Do you hate your job or feel like you’re trapped in your business? Don’t worry. It happens to all of us from time to time but there is a way to proactively tackle this dilemma Bill walks his clients through an eye-opening exercise called: FACE: Functional Accountability Chart Exercise. It forces the CEO to look at all the jobs an organization has and it’s critical importance. It turned out that the CEO actually didn’t ant most of the jobs that were listed in FACE despite his name being responsible for most of those roles. Are you someone who loves your business, but not all the ‘moving’ parts of the business? By going through FACE, you can quickly see what makes sense to outsource right away to get some of your energy back, and bring you to a more enjoyable work space. You can give all these roles away and make other people, who would be excellent for the role, more accountable in these different seats. This free up so much time and you’ll find a new love for your business once again.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

This week’s entrepreneur talks about breaking out of the status quo and creating a company that goes against the grain from the other companies like it within the industry. Tatiana Soldatova has a passion for bringing great minds together on complex projects to push boundaries and innovate. She is the co-founder of Syllable Inc., an award-winning retail, corporate, and multi-unit residential design firm based in Toronto, Canada. When Tatiana was in design school, she knew she wanted to have her own practice, and she knew she wanted to do things slightly differently than the way it’s always been done. “Stay in your lane,” was often advice she’d receive from older designers in the industry and Tatiana wanted to create a more collaborative environment in her company. One of her biggest challenges is cash flow and putting a premium price on the type of work her company provides. Despite Tatiana’s extensive experience, she struggled at the beginning with undervaluing some of her offers and consulting bids. However, she realized really quickly that you can’t grow as a company if you’re not pricing yourself according to your value.   Interview Links: Syllable.design Tatiana on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Marketing can be a big monster to tackle all at once. Everyone knows its importance, yet it seems no one really has enough time for it. Today’s guest shares how to get ahead of marketing so that you can lead it, direct it, and be intentional with it. Karen Tiber Leland is the Founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding and marketing strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and Entrepreneurs develop strong personal, business, and thought leadership brands. One of the biggest breakdowns people have is, how do they make time for marketing when they have “real” business things to focus on? Believe it or not, even marketing firms struggle with this! They’re so busy helping other people’s marketing that they end up neglecting their own. Truth is, it’s hard to make time for your own thing. Everything going on in the background, the news, the pandemic, the economy; all these external things that you can’t control, it slows things down in your brain and they steal your focus. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re feeling not “as productive” lately. Your brain is absorbing all the wrong things. Do you have magical thinking when it comes to your to-do list? Meaning, the moment you write it down, you know it’s “magically” just going to happen? For the most part, the things that we write on our to-do list for that day, do not get done. How do you win at this? Pick only one to four things that are critical for today’s success, and be okay with that result.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Sterlingmarketinggroup.com Karen on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

How many entrepreneurs, CEOs, and leaders feel stressed out that they can’t seem to work on the business? If you’re one of them, don’t worry, you’re not alone. With everything a leader has to manage, it can be hard to even find time to think! It doesn’t matter what size you are. Bill hears this same problem across all industries, company sizes, and revenues. If you just can’t find the time to work on the business, Bill knows how to help! One of Bill’s clients always seemed to be putting out fires within the business and had absolutely zero time to work with Bill after setting their quarterly goals and expectations. They couldn’t move the needle within the company. This is a big warning sign that the business is not sustainable. You have to be proactive with your meeting rhythms. It’s critical team members meet regularly to talk about their next steps. Set a recurring meeting time for the entire team and make sure no one double books or prioritizes something else over it. There will always be fires you’ll want to put out, but by setting these consistent rhythms, you’ll actually be able to work on having fewer fires, not more!   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Today’s entrepreneur shares her love for movement, the outdoors, yoga, and the importance of living and leading a joyous life through connection with your body and mind. Brittany Phelps is the Founder of Prana Preneurs, a mentorship program for entrepreneurs passionate about creating conscious businesses. She works with her clients to help them feel good about the business they’re building and the wealth they’re receiving from it. Brittany fell in love with yoga and when the owner of her local yoga studio expressed interest in moving on or selling the business, Brittany jumped on the opportunity and decided to dive headfirst into the yoga business. With her yoga studio being so in-person, how has COVID-19 affected her business? Brittany had to close in the beginning, and they later opened with 30% capacity. She had to get smart and pivot. She now hosts classes online as well as outside. Brittany was lucky, she had no business debt, so she was able to do things a little smarter and pivot in a way that did not overstrength her financials.   Interview Links: Prana-preneurs.com Brittany on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

New technologies are coming up everyday and it’s difficult to keep up. However, this actually has been true in our society for thousands of years. Our guest shares a couple of interesting history lessons about how our technology has developed over the years and why it makes sense that we’ve finally arrived -here-.    Guy Perelmuter is the Founder of GRIDS Capital, a deep tech venture capital firm focusing on artificial intelligence, robotics, life sciences, and technological infrastructure. His new book, Present Future, was recognized as the Best Science Book of 2020. Guy is a first-generation Brazilian, having had both of his parents migrate to Brazil to escape world war 2.    Things are changing really fast and we’re entering a new era of deep technology. Our society can now leverage 3d printing, robotics, machine learning, and self-driving vehicles are within our reality. In Guy’s book, Present Future, he provides context as to how our technology is both helping us, but also damaging the planet if we’re not careful.    If you think things have evolved quickly over the past 4-5 decades, wait till we’re 3-4 decades into the future. It will be a brand new world that you will not recognize. Things will be getting even wilder and faster. Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Grab Guy’s book, Present Future Guy on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners! Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Do you have a lot of back-channel conversations? They’re basically watercooler chats that don’t seem to make sense for the bigger vision of the company. They are usually people within the company who are pulling vital team members aside to converse about an upcoming project, etc. because they don’t feel comfortable talking to the boss or leadership team about it. One of Bill’s CEOs has their team whispering in the shadows trying to figure out what was “the next thing” to get done. They were off to the side and not showing strong direction within the company. The problem? The CEO hated conflict and would do anything to avoid it. The fix? Bill took time to discuss cultural values, childhood upbringing, and why it was such a pain point for this CEO to bring up the tough conversations. With a little bit of self-awareness and reflection, the CEO recognized some of their blindspots and was able to make the necessary changes to the company. Conflict style discovery is a helpful exercise for any leader to help better manage the expectations their team might have of them. The tough and honest conversations are hard to do, but it will drastically reduce the side whispers within your company and you can finally get the whole team focused on pulling in the same direction.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

This week’s entrepreneur shares her story from corporate America to going her own way in the personal branding space. She shares some of her biggest mistakes, challenges, and more! Kait LeDonne is the Founder of Brandwise Media, a personal branding agency based in New York, which builds executive and author personal brands using content marketing strategies through social media. Kait is also the author of The Attraction Magnet and is regularly featured in national and international publications as a commentator on celebrity and corporate brands.   Kait’s superpower is the ability to authentically share her thoughts and herself online. She believes this was a key to discovering her natural strengths in personal branding and having her network reach out countless times to get their personal brand off the ground.   Kait started her business when she was 26 and she had to really overcome her feelings of imposter syndrome. After that hurdle, she was then faced with how to scale her business in a way that would be sustainable. It’s a fine dance she has to do every day in making sure each department has the resources they need.   Interview Links: Brandwisemedia.com Kait on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

In this new episode of Scaling Up Insights, we have panelists, Ami Kassar, CEO of MultiFunding, and the author of The Growth Dilemma; Cheryl Biron, a Business Growth Coach in both Scaling Up and 3HAG methodologies; and Dominic Monkhouse, a Business Growth Architect. In December of 2020 alone, women accounted for 100% of the jobs lost. Women in the workforce are suffering and it doesn’t look like they’ll be returning to the job market anytime soon. Schools are too unpredictable and the people who can’t afford it are single moms. With so many women leaving the workforce, Bill is worried about the quality of perspectives and the impact it will have on innovation within companies. In addition to the male/female disparities, the pandemic has deeply impacted the lowest economic class a lot harder and those jobs haven’t come back yet. When it comes to coming back into work, people are getting emotional that they can finally shake hands with “strangers” and be in the same room with people. In Dominic’s experience, you get more of an impact when you’re in the same room with people, and he believes that’s probably true with most teams and most companies. Bill believes we’re headed for a hybrid model. Dominic is not so sure. Whenever he worked remotely for international teams, it was apparent he was a second-class citizen. If someone chose not to go to work and work from him, he believes they’d be missing these same benefits too.   Interview Links: Ami: Amikassar.com Cheryl: Lexagen.net Dominic: Monkhouseandcompany.com   Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you feel stuck in your business? You’re doing everything and doing nothing at the same time? And the little progress you do seem to make, ends up with more arguments and confusion in the end? Bill took over a company several years ago and the old leadership team was still there. No matter what Bill did, there would always be conflict within the leadership team. They couldn’t seem to get on the same page. Because Bill was a partner in this business, there was no way he could simply “just leave.” He had to make it work somehow. If your leadership is not aligned, you have to make some tough changes there. How do you get someone on the same page as you? Bill used a series of tools like defining a clear vision for the company, the brand’s promise, communication, building trust, and more to turn the ship around.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Today’s entrepreneur got his start in the entertainment industry and has experienced more than one lucky break in his career. He shares some of the best advice, and biggest mistakes, he’s made in his career in this week’s episode! Ryan Kugler is an entrepreneur and strategist with over 25 years of experience in building profitable businesses from conception within both Fortune-500 organizations as well as newly launched startups. He operates on a few key principles: “Be nice to everyone, always return phone calls, and stay in communication with everyone.” COVID-19 has been a big challenge to Ryan’s businesses. Ryan runs three companies simultaneously and his staff all work on each of them. Every day it’s something new for them. However, they were able to shift and pivot the businesses into new areas to help with the changing times. The second biggest challenge for Ryan is technology. It’s ever-changing and it’s so fast-paced that it’s difficult to keep up with. Ryan has a policy that if they’re trying to purchase something or sell something and it takes a long time for the third-party or client to approve, it’s a warning sign and they just walk away from the deal. If it’s hard during the courtship, you know it’ll get worse a lot later on.   Interview Links: Ryankugler.com Aplanb.com Ryan on Twitter Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We all understand the importance of working on ourselves and continuing our education, but how do we instill some of these principles into our children, too? Today’s guest has some answers. Jennifer Turliuk is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and career coach. She is the founder and CEO of Maker Kids, the first and largest makerspace for kids in the world. Jennifer offers career coaching services on topics including career exploration, the job search process, resumes, cover letters, interviewing, and negotiations. She has helped clients get into exclusive schools and incubator programs, and land jobs at places like Google, P&G, and Kelson. Jennifer found herself dissatisfied with the corporate job that she was working at early in her career. She decided to quit her job, fly down to Silicon Valley, and cold call investors, entrepreneurs, and more to help figure out what their “secret to life” was and how they found their true calling. Through her own life experiences, she found her call, and it was better education for children. Jennifer shares a story of one of the children in her class being motivated to push himself further. He decided to start a small audio repair business to save up enough money to purchase his own laptop computer. This child hated math, but when he saw the benefits of understanding it in his own business, he was motivated to keep on learning and teaching himself how to use it to his own benefit.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Jenniferturliuk.com Makerkids.com Jennifer on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Does it ever feel like your business doesn’t look like you think it should? It just doesn’t feel right? Do you think your team is mismatched? Does your gut just keep telling you something is off? If things don’t “feel” good in your business, that could be because there is a mismatch in your company values. You might have created an accidental culture within your company and it’s going off the rails. One of Bill’s clients had a profound mismatch on what the CEO’s version of the company looked like vs. what the reality of the company was. How does that happen? The CEO wanted to see his vision come true, but the culture he created was one of expediency and convenience, and there was no intention behind it. If you want your business to accurately reflect your vision and your values, and your purpose, you’ve got to build traditions and habits. Like trying to train a little child, you need to keep them accountable and guide them on what’s acceptable behavior vs. not.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Today’s entrepreneur talks about the career shift she had to undergo to take on her family business, something she never thought she’d take over. She always saw the charismatic side of her father, but never realized the in-depth, and rewarding, “behind the scenes” work that he did for the audio-visual industry. Taryn joined AV Images as CEO in 2018, the audio-visual production company her father founded in1985. Taryn spent most of her career in local government administration with the City of Dublin City Manager’s Office in California prior to joining the company. Prior to the pandemic, Taryn’s bread and butter was the tradeshow and conference space, helping her clients set up audiovisuals for their booths, events, and more. Now, they’ve had to make a pivot and are helping their clients navigate this online world much more effectively and to help them bring a high-quality virtual experience to their shows. Taryn has had a lot of lucky breaks since she came into the business. It came down to connecting with the right people at the right time and being able to rely on them to help the business push to new heights.   Interview Links: Gundersondirect.com Mike on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Building and maintaining teams in an operational setting is a critical pillar for many entrepreneurs, but if you make a mistake in this arena, it can cause harm. Today’s guest shares how you avoid these mistakes and execute with precision. Robert “Bo” Brabo is a retired U.S. Army Chief of HR Operations with the White House Communications Agency and was the Presidential Communications Officer for both Presidents Bush and Obama. Bo has served in several executive positions including most recently Vice President of Human Resources at the National Spine & Pain Centers and Founder of Hail Media Group. When it comes to the power of execution and those who do it well and don’t do it well, it comes down to the empowerment of your team. Before you get to the “execution” phase, there is a ton of training and testing that goes behind the day of the event. This process can’t be skipped. When you have the complicated task of making sure the President is safe, there are too many variables for one person to handle. This is where trusting the training process and empowering your team come into play. If you tried to micromanage everything, things would not be ready by the time the President came into town. These critical tasks also mean that you don’t get a “do-over” when something isn’t working. How do you get things to just run seamlessly? You check in with your team frequently and make sure they know they can call upon you when there’s an unexpected problem at hand that needs to get resolved quickly. It’s about trusting and verifying the process.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Robertbrabo.com Bo on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you prone to getting distracted by the latest and greatest? Do you feel like you’ve just got too many projects on your plate, and you’re not sure which one has the priority? Two of Bill’s clients would always come to him with the latest book or idea that they learned and wanted to implement. They had a substantial business but they were continually being sidetracked, even within the business meetings they’d have with Bill. It was difficult to get them to focus! If you struggle with too many ideas and too much input, stop for a second and just ask this question: Which one of your quarterly priorities does this apply to? Use your quarterly goals and metrics as a hallmark to keep you focused on the tasks that truly matter. Keep asking this question as you go through the journey and it’ll help you bring yourself back in focus.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Have you played small in your business? Are you still playing small and hesitating on some core moves that you know will move the needle in your business a lot further? Today’s entrepreneur has some solutions for you! Mike Gunderson is the Founder of Gunderson Direct, Inc., a direct marketing agency that helps businesses drive new leads and close more sales through traditional offline channels, especially direct mail. He is also the Founder and CEO of Respond Fast, a voice technology company that helps offline marketers connect with customers through smart speakers. Mike was looking back in some of his old files back when he was a kid and he saw that he did have some entrepreneurial tendencies. He was the founder and president of his neighborhood clubhouse. It was in him at an early age to start something from scratch. Throughout Mike’s corporate career, he always maintained a bit of a freelancer career on the side. He thinks it’s important to have a side hustle of some kind or hobbies of some kind. He even encourages his staff to take on additional freelance projects to keep the creative juices flowing.   Interview Links: Gundersondirect.com Mike on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Feel like you’ve thrown money at marketing and have no idea what the ROI was on it? How many times have you felt like you were spinning your wheels and like your marketing dollars weren’t going as far as they could? Today’s guest knows how to spend your marketing dollars wisely to get the results you’re looking for. Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.Io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy firm. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege to advise the government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. Dan has been an entrepreneur since he was 13 years old. He makes a good employee too, but not a lot of CEOs like him too much because he’s always trying to take their jobs or make the process better. Entrepreneurship is all Dan knows and he has worked with companies like Kissmetrics and CodeSchool in the marketing department. It’s incredibly important to try and reduce the barrier to entry in whatever product you’re working on. However, in today’s day in age, you can find a wide array of tools that can help simplify this process down and get your customers going from point A to point B in a seamless way. It might sound complicated, but it really isn’t! You can actually hire a web developer online, either through Upwork or Fiverr, and they can go in on the backend and connect the tools you need to keep tracking all within one dashboard. The most important thing is as long as your marketing automation tool knows who has visited a page, you can take that URL and show it to that same visitor within an email campaign. This means that whenever someone goes to your site, you can send them more customized emails based on their unique preferences.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com McGaw.io Dan on LinkedIn Utm.io Autopilothq.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you have a decent size team, but you still seem to be overworked and taking on a bigger load than necessary? Are you having trouble just letting go of the responsibilities? Don’t worry, this is a common problem entrepreneurs and CEOs have. We want to make sure things look right, and are running smoothly, and the truth is no one can truly do the work ‘just like you’. For example, Bill worked with a CEO who had a team of 75 people and she was exhausted. People got used to asking her for help and advice on every little problem and detail, and she would willingly give in and provide them the answers. This made her team dependent on her instead of finding autonomy within themselves. If you’re looking to scale, you need to make your people accountable! Bill uses a couple of tools to help people get clear on what their roles and responsibilities are in their position, and then it’s off to the races!   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Shelby Scarbrough has led an interesting career throughout her life and shares some of her lucky breaks, biggest regrets, her struggle with perfectionism, and more in this week’s episode! Shelby began her career in the White House as a member of President Ronald Reagan’s advance team, where she helped coordinate such landmark events as the Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow summit and economic summits in Germany, Italy, and Japan. In 1990, Shelby founded Practical Protocol, LLC, a company that plans bespoke events for foreign dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, and more. Shelby had an unusual start working in her family’s Burger King Franchise and worked in every single role at Burger King that you could possibly imagine. Growing up in an entrepreneurial job daily taught her a lot about life at an early age, and it seemed quite natural to create her own path when she left college. What were some of the foundational lessons Shelby learned when she was working at the White House? Treat everyone you work with with kindness and respect. You never know where those people will go and grudges carry a lot of burden because it can be quite a small world. Interview Links: Shelbyscarbrough.com Shelby on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We have a returning guest for you today! Today’s guest talks about entrepreneurial forums and how beneficial they can be for your growth as a business owner, but only if you get plugged into the right community. Mike Maddock is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, executive coach, and writer. He calls himself an Idea Monkey because he loves to solve problems with disruptive ideas. His company, Maddock Douglas, INC, has become an internationally recognized innovation consultancy firm and has helped more than 25% of the Fortune 100 create and launch new products. The second best decision Mike made (aside from marrying his wife, Ruth) was joining YPO/EO because he was able to get plugged into a high-level mastermind and get connected with a world-tier of entrepreneurs who understood exactly what he was going through. One of the mistakes Mike made early on when joining an entrepreneurial forum was that he would only network with people who were “relevant” to him or who could help him. This was a mistake because what you really need is diversity of thought. You want to surround yourself with people who ask you tough questions that might get you bent out of shape and/or irritated. They’re forcing you to grow, and think differently. A measure of a good forum is also the ability to get vulnerable. Entrepreneurs put everything in a blender, mix it up, and pray. We need people in our corner who can help us through the professional crisis as well as the personal crisis because it all blends together.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Maddockdouglas.com Flourishforums.com Mike-maddock.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you have some of the wrong people still lingering around in your business that you can’t seem to let go of? You know in your gut that they’re not the right fit, but you still have a hard time pulling the trigger? There’s nothing wrong with believing in your people, but the truth is that they’re not going to change magically. Bill worked with a CEO who kept believing in one of his employees. He kept believing that he’d ‘work out’, but years went by and it was still the same result. Values are important within a company. If your employees are having a mismatch or aren’t aligned with your company’s core mission, then there’s going to be trouble down the road. You might keep an underperforming employee because at least it’s ‘better than nothing’, but that’s the wrong perspective to have. The changes we make on our team are important for the business and if you want to scale!   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Noam Bimbaum is part of the EO San Francisco East Bay Group. The EO organization was critical in his success when it came to getting over the $1M in revenue mark, but it wasn’t easy and he shares his open entrepreneurial struggles on this week’s episode! Noam is the Founder & CEO of Ignition, inc, an IT Managed Serviced and Security Provider. He started in the IT industry almost three decades ago at the age of 19 and began consulting when he was 23. His company specializes in deploying and supporting cloud-based infrastructure to support the new challenges of the distributed, work-from-home workforce, and they are one of Apple’s most preferred IT partners in Northern California. Noam got into entrepreneurship because his father made corporate life sound so boring, and like it was hell. He accidentally stumbled upon IT when he was trying to become a novelist and needed some extra cash to get by. It turned out to be a blessing because he fell in love with the career. Noam likes to collect data. Growing up, he thought he was indecisive, but really, he’s just slow to make a decision because he likes to gather all the facts first. Noam’s gut check, and what helps him decide now is the right time to take action, will usually wake him up at 3 a.m., and then everything will fall into place.   Interview Links: Ignitionit.com Noam on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s guest is a legendary person in his own right and he’s out with a special new book about leadership. He lays down an actionable blueprint in this week’s episode on how to become the person you always wanted to be. Warren Rustand is a visionary that has led many successful private, public, and not-for-profit entities. He has a passion for family, entrepreneurship, and community. Warren is the author of The Leader Within Us. He is also the Global Chair of WPO and the CoFounder and CEO of several companies. Throughout Warren’s career, he has seen common principles and themes that great leaders exhibit. He has taken examples from his own life, like his father, all the way up to the present time on what some of these leaders have showcased. The first principle in the book is clarity of vision. Leaders need to know how to communicate a clear vision to the team they’re leading if they hope to be followed. It’s a difficult thing to do, but Warren’s father would often paint a vivid picture of what the work would look like once it’s done. Another lesson Warren learned from his father early on was the ability to start conversations with anyone. There are thousands of great stories out there and we need to be good listeners of these stories. There is a lot to learn from others, and as leaders, we need to be involved in things that expand our minds. There are a lot of talkers out there, but leaders are people of action. Their philosophy is “do.” It comes naturally to them, but with that, there comes a lot of failure. And, that’s okay, because it’s part of the “doing” process. You went out there and tried when most people didn’t even get that far. Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Theleaderwithinus.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you feel like your business has become stagnant, or worse, your sales have dropped? What about other areas of the business? Are you just not happy with the growth (or lack of) that you’re seeing?  Bill was working with a company where everything was cruising along nicely, until all of a sudden, their orders had slowed down, and they weren’t sure why.  Bill likes to use the “Four Q Conversations” methold to really dive deep and detect what could possibly be going wrong. It’s set up specifically to ask your core customers what’s lacking in the business, and how you can help them!  These conversations were developed by Fred Reicheld, who is also the man responsible for the Net Promoter System. These questions, although it might sound basic at first, are strategically designed to help go deeper with your customer beyond the typical weather and sports conversations. Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Jack chats with Bill to talk about his entrepreneurial journey and how he had a business in ’92 that was not recession-proof. Jack shares some of the challenges he’s learned along the way, especially when it came to finding his replacement so he could get out of the business, and so much more on this week’s episode! Jack Rhiel is a Sales and Marketing Mentor who works with his retail store management and other automotive business owners and professionals to maximize sales and create more opportunities to drive up volume. He has been in the automotive business for 34 years and is a resident expert in helping his customers make good decisions about their car maintenance. Jack had an internal drive to make it, especially after growing up poor and seeing those around him struggle financially. It was purely by accident that Jack got into the automotive industry. As a way to make ends meet while he was studying and going to work full-time in college, he would help his friends with their car troubles. Those were the building blocks to what he is doing now. What has Jack’s luckiest break been in his career so far? Jack stumbled upon an opportunity where there was a car repair shop that was missing a goldmine’s worth of work because they didn’t have the right people. Jack was the person for the job and the owner, who was 65 at the time, told him that he waited way too long to find his replacement. Jack saw an opportunity to get part ownership at this shop and wanted to prove his worth.   Interview Links: Carcare-2u.com Jack on LinkedIn Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Let’s talk about sales! If you don’t have sales in your business, you’re pretty much a dead fish in the water. Today’s guest expert has all the insider tips on how to make your business soar!    Dan Morris is an Investor, Advisor, and B2B Growth Expert. He is hyper focused on helping businesses grow via strategy, mentorship, and leveraging the tools and connections in their market. Dan ran a successful marketing agency and grew it to a 60+ people organization with multi-million dollars in top-line revenue.    The key to any successful strategy is to review, refine, and roll out those new changes. By doing that, you can see some big percentage increases. Dan worked with a team that saw a 225% increase in conversion rate and average order size by 40%.    When you look at the sales process in an organization, it usually doesn’t exist or it hasn’t been updated in a long time. The key is to always look back and update it, and to roll out continuous training to the team so that they can keep it in the back of their mind.    You can find fantastic sales people, but why leave it up to talent alone to get your sales pipeline full? By having a strong system in place, you don’t leave things up to ‘chance’ or ‘talent’, and you have a faster way of accessing what’s working for your organization. Interview Links: Mindracerconsulting.com Dan on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you frustrated with your team’s performance? Do you feel like they just keep letting you down? Are you having days where you just feel like you just have the wrong team and you just want to start all over? Bill was coaching a CEO and the biggest complaint was that his team was passive, late, and just not ‘in the game’. After witnessing how the CEO interacted with his team, Bill could recognize the core problem right away. The problem was the CEO! He was showing up late, and setting the tone for the company. As leaders, we often have the company that we deserve. Your team, your people, will model exactly what you put to the table, and if being late is okay in your book, it’s going to be okay in theirs. The good news is that you can change as a leader and you can model new behavior for your team to follow. It just takes a little bit of self-awareness, and a change in pace to help get you there.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Bill chats with Elliot Kallen to uncover some of the early challenges he’s had in his life and how he used one of his core principles of making a positive impact on people’s finances to start his company and charity. Elliot Kallen is a leader who brings over 30 years of robust entrepreneurial business ownership experience to his elite Financial Planning & Advising firm, Prosperity Financial Group. Throughout his career, he has built internal organizations, been a CEO for two other companies, and is a frequent keynote speaker to charities and radio shows on motivation, marketing, and various financial subjects. Elliot is the son of an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor and feels as though he has lived a very blessed life. His parents taught him the value of family and a good work ethic and at a very young age, he was “put to work” to help out with his family. It was rewarding and Elliot learned a lot. However, Elliot has had some challenges along the way. He lost his son when he was just 19 years old in 2015 to suicide. Elliot received a 6-page suicide letter and it made him say, “Wonder how many parents feel this way? Wonder how many teens feel this way and are not sharing this with their parents?” The parents are always the last ones to know what’s going on. These thoughts and the events that occurred sparked an internal drive in Elliot to start a charity to help teens with stress and depression. This loss has made Elliot show up for his team in a completely different way. He has created a level of integrity in his company and shows up every day for his team, letting them know he cares deeply about them and their mental wellbeing.   Interview Links: Prosperityfinancialgroup.com Abrighterday.info Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

In this new episode of Scaling Up Insights, we have returning panelists, Judy Guido and Daniel Marcos, and a new panelist, Doug Walner, the CEO of Align Today and he has over 25 years of technology business management. Client case study: Alltite ends up pivoting and they were able to double the size of their firm almost overnight. People think when you pivot, it has to be a big idea, but Alltite is the perfect example of just stepping one step to the left and reaping the benefits of a slight shift in focus. The biggest hurdle entrepreneurs need to get over is having accessibility to cash. If you really want to grow, you need to have cash in the bank to execute on it. Alltite is another example of how they focused on the right cash cycles so that there wasn’t a “halt” in production as things really started to ramp up to double their usual output. The businesses that are unfortunately going under are those that just don’t want to change with the times. With a new environment, with a new crisis, or even when a new technology comes out, it’s always important to look at how you can take these newfound tools (or circumstances) and figure out how you can run with them. The reality is, a lot of leadership is just struggling to stay afloat and they’re in it to just “not lose.” This is detrimental to the business on a lot of levels. You need to be in the game to win it and that means being open to new ideas. Interview Links: Judy: Guidoassoc.com Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Doug: Aligntoday.com Resources: “Alltite Slashes Cash Conversion Cycle by 60%” “The 15 Most Profitable Minutes Of The Workday” “Making the Hybrid Workplace Fair” “10 Big Things: Social Media's Next Generation” Love Is Free. Guac Is Extra: How Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Curiosity Built an Unstoppable Team 12 Lessons in Business Leadership: Insights From the Championship Career of Tom Brady Scale Through Acquisition — 5X in 36 months From 112 Hours to 18 Hours Time-to-Ship   Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you have trouble with making clear decisions? How about trying to commit to something for the long haul? It’s a hard thing to do when there’s so many options to pick from. Bill worked with a CEO who just loved to pile more and more things onto his plate; without finishing the critical pieces first. He also had fears when it came to committing to something, like job score cards and the strategy. However, when he turned inward and noticed how his behavior was killing his team’s productivity, he knew he had to make a change. When we decide something, it’s no secret we kill off all the other options and all the other ‘potentials’. It can be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a necessary one because when we fully commit, knowing full well we might make mistakes and stumble up, that’s when we can truly grow, and pivot! Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Bill interviews Corey Veverka to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey and how he started his company, Total Validation Services. Corey grew up without a lot of money, but through sports and his competitive edge, he worked himself into an elite-level competitive rower and used his mechanical engineering degree to create a patent on a rowing shell accessory. He worked in consulting as an engineer and 20 years later, he decided to dip his toes into entrepreneurial life. Corey’s biggest challenge so far with transitioning from an operations role into an ownership role is understanding the difference between leadership and ownership. Your highs are higher and your lows are lower as an owner. Corey’s biggest lesson he’s learned is the importance of keeping good records and keeping track of the expenses. The little things added up into big things and the company ended up spending way more than it should. It took a couple of years to get into a good financial rhythm. Another mistake Corey learned, unfortunately, came from losing a long-term business relationship due to Corey being a bit too cocky in his new ownership shoes. He took the relationship for granted and assumed the client would just “do what he said” based on their long-standing relationship. It was a big, and costly, lesson that you have to earn/cultivate your relationships, even long after trust has been built. Interview Links: Total Validation Services Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube    

Today’s guest has devoted his life to environmental and social responsibility projects and boldly advocates for “risking it all for what really matters,” Here’s how you can think about your business and how it interacts with a purpose-driven mission a little bit differently on this week’s show! Nigel Bennett is also the Co-Founder of Aqua-Guard Spill Response Inc., where he and his company recently received the RuleBreaker Award for game-changing innovation in oil spill response technology. Nigel received the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award and he is also the author of Take That Leap: Risking It All for What Really Matters. Nigel has set up his business to run without him back in 2012 and he has been able to exit his position as CEO without selling his business. The older Nigel gets, he realizes it’s all about living with purpose and leveraging his business to have purpose. Nigel was on a trip to take photographs of an oil spill for his father’s oil spill contingency planning company, and the helicopter pilot, a Vietnam vet, told Nigel that he didn’t think he could make a difference. This struck him at a young age and suddenly Nigel had something to prove. He quit his father’s company and set himself on a different path. For 20 years, Nigel was just putting out fires in his business. It was complete hell. He would only think about whether he would make payroll. He had young kids, he didn’t have room to “screw around” when he was in this business. However, when he joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, he found himself with a support group of like-minded individuals, and things began to change in a profound way.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Davidhorsager.com Trustedleaderbook.com/scalingup   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you having trouble getting your team’s performance up? Do you feel like you’re working -on- things, but you can’t see the real tangible results? Bill worked with a client a few years ago, but something that really stood out was the way they utilized whiteboards across executive leadership as well with their own middle management teams. Every area had a whiteboard and everyday each team would huddle up around the whiteboard and a staff member would take ownership for what was on the board for that day. It became a team activity to grab different colored markers and to update the board on what was going well, and what wasn’t. This allowed for everyone to tap into their competitive drive and hold the whole team accountable.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

In this Getting Real series, Bill sits down with Mike Birdsall to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey. Mike is the co-founder of DateBox Club, a monthly date night subscription box. Prior to DateBox Club, Mike launched Birdsall Interactive, a web design firm, and FanConneX, an in-venue sports fan experience. Mike has been an entrepreneur all of his life, but how did he get from his start to here? Let’s find out. Mike and his wife started his most recent business in business 2015 when they had become empty nesters. In the beginning, the journey was tough. They were putting their heart and soul into it and weren’t sure if the payoff was there yet. They were struggling in this business for four years. The bank accounts were just slowly being drained. One of the challenges within the business was that they’d come up with a new date night idea, get the samples, and realize that they were awful. This meant they were forced to pivot into a new idea almost immediately as they had to get something out to their clients within a week. Mike calculated that they walked 9 miles around their table during “launch week.” What was it like working with a spouse? Bill did it and there were a lot of challenges that they had to overcome as a team. Mike had to learn how to stick to his lane and let his wife run in hers. Both of them are pretty alpha and driven people, so it was important to set clear boundaries in the very beginning of the relationship.   Interview Links: Dateboxclub.com Sponsored by: Eonetwork.org Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Are you working on the right things as a leader? When leaders struggle with influence, direction, and having everyone work together as a team, the key component that might be missing is trust. Today’s guest has more on how you can build this vital skill. David Horsager, MA, CSP, CPAE, is the CEO of TrustEdge Leadership Institute, national bestselling author of The Trust Edge, inventor of the Enterprise Trust Index, and director of one of the nation’s foremost trust studies: The Trust Outlook. David has developed an eight-pillar framework to help build trust quickly. David started his entrepreneurial journey from humble beginnings and rented out a $350 windowless apartment with no bathroom or kitchen, and black mold growing alongside the walls. When you have a dream, nothing will stop you. People say that you need someone to like you in order for them to trust you. That’s not true. There’s a ton of people you might not like, but you still trust them to get the job done. Have a leadership problem? No, you don’t. You have a trust problem. People might think you have a communication issue or a sales pipeline issue… nope! It goes back to trust. David conducted a study asking if people lead with trust first and withdraw when it’s been broken or lead with skepticism first and then build trust over time. Americans answered this question 50/50. That’s what leaders are working with. What’s true overall is it’s hard to gain trust and accountability if people feel like you don’t care about them at all.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Davidhorsager.com Trustedleaderbook.com/scalingup   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Where do we find the time for all the meetings we have to do within the company? Daily meetings, quarterly meetings, off-site meetings, annual meetings, etc. It just feels like our agendas get filled up quickly with meetings and meetings, and we have very little time for real work. Bill was working with a company that had over 1,000 people working there and there was a common complaint leadership had: We don’t have time for all of these meetings. This is actually true for smaller companies too. Everyone struggles to find time for meetings. If you don’t get proactive in designing the ideal cadence and rhythm of the meeting, then you’ll never find the right time for it. Find out what’s the ideal time for your daily meetings, book it in, and honor it no matter what. At first this will be hard and you might have to move things around, but you’ll quickly see the habit building as everyone comes to expect it.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

We have three coach panelists on the show to discuss how to create value for customers, stand out from the crowd and be unique, and some of their favorite books this year. Our guest panelists also share some really clever pivoting examples. A bit about our expert coaches: Karie Kaufmann has successfully coached over 1,000 businesses and high-performance executives to achieve greater levels of growth. Judy Guido is a returning panel guest and has overseen at least 100 successful mergers and acquisitions throughout her career, and finally, Wade Wyant is a 20-plus-year entrepreneur, YPO member, and scaling up coach. Verne Harnish recently released a list of the top five business books in 2020. The coaches discuss what they liked about these five books: Humanocracy by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, Fanocracy by David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott, Leadership Is Language by L. David Marquet, No Rules Rules by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings, and Breath by James Nestor. Judy really liked “Good people don’t leave because of the company, they leave because of the people.” Don’t de-skill jobs, instead upskill people. Karie says one of the best questions you can ask is, “How can we get better at this?” As a leader, you don’t have to have all the answers. Rely on your team! Wade agrees. When you change your thinking around people and what they’re capable of, the bureaucracy layer doesn’t need to be as necessary. Bill’s biggest takeaway from the Humanocracy book is, if you’re going to empower people, you need to lead more with questions. Stop telling people what to do, and being the last one to speak. Judy explains why she hates the term, “best practices.” You’re creating a line in the sand for your staff and it stifles innovation and creativity. Twenty percent of people in an organization didn’t feel like their opinion mattered and 40% felt like they were never encouraged to innovate.   Interview Links: Karie: Kariekaufmann.com Judy: Guidoassoc.com Wade: Redwagonadvisors.com   Books: Humanocracy, by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini Fanocracy, by David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott Leadership Is Language, by L. David Marquet No Rules Rules, by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings Breath, by James Nestor   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you struggling with getting around to your one-on-ones with your team? Do you find that they’re not particularly effective or a good use of your time? Or the simple fact that you don’t want to tag on another meeting to your already swamped day? Bill was working with a SaaS company and they were having a lot of confusion in their one-on-ones. The solution? They refined their process down to a one-page job scorecard to help things run smoothly. Another client of Bill’s got their one-on-ones down to 15 minutes! Just by the use of this simple one-page scorecard, each team member was getting a feedback session every two weeks and it immensely improved the direction and flow of the business. Interested? Bill has this one-page scorecard ready to download in the resources below!   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/job-scorecard-worksheet/   Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Do you have trouble focusing? Don’t worry, this is a common problem many people have! When we’re being thrown so many things on the news, on social media, in our businesses, it’s hard to keep present on the important things. Here are some solutions to help manage these pain points and keep you focused! Erik Qualman is a five-time #1 Bestselling Author and Keynote Speaker and has been voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling. Erik is out with a new book, The Focus Project: The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less Book, which dives into how to keep your mind on one track. Bill needs focus more than ever. With the dog barking in the background and the constant pings and dings on his phone, it’s a surprise how anyone in this digital age can get good work done with so many distractions coming at us. When you look at Warren Buffet’s calendar, it’s almost completely blank and that’s intentional. He needs space to think. Bill Gates took a page from Warren’s book, but prior to this, he was under the impression that a good CEO just crams their day with as many things as possible. The truth is, it’s a balance and this is the hardest thing for CEOs to achieve. You need “blank space” but you also need to “get things done.” It might sound insane, but you want to block out a chunk of your calendar for “emergencies and interruptions.” For Bill, it used to be an hour-and-a-half window in the afternoon. He’s aware that emergencies don’t always happen at 2 p.m. on the dot, every day, but at least you still have space to handle it when bad things do occur and you can shift your calendar around.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Equalman.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you having trouble with team performance? Do you feel like your team is just disinterested? As leaders, we always want to get the most out of our people, but how can we do this without running a dictatorship? If you want people to be passionate about their work and strive for new heights, the first question you have to ask yourself is, “What’s in it for them?” Talk to your people about their hopes, dreams, and desires. Each person would have a different answer, and as a leader, it’s important to dig deep and find out who is motivated by what. Who wants to buy their first house or go on that dream vacation? Who wants to go back to school? If you can connect what they’re working on today with what they want in life, you’ll see a shift in your team’s excitement and output.   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/oppp-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash, and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Today we’re talking about culture! How do you maintain culture when you’re working from home? Today’s guest knows how to navigate this delicate space and has some answers for you! It’s not as difficult as you think it might be! Brett Putter is an expert in company culture development who is consulted by companies and leaders worldwide to help design, develop, and build high-performing cultures. He is the CEO of CultureGene, a culture leadership software and services platform. Brett is also the author of his second book, Own Your Culture, a blueprint to building strong, functional post-pandemic company culture.  Brett was running an executive search firm and a common theme he found in his high-level executives was that they had a very deep and strong understanding on the value of culture. It was the key difference between having a high retention rate vs. losing ¾ of your leadership team.   A common problem with creating values is that it ends up just being words that people forget or don’t know how to live by. You want to teach your people what it looks like on an organizational level to live and work within your company values.  A good leader has a keen eye on seeing when their staff is acting within the company values, and if they’re not, quickly reacting to correct bad behavior. Other members of your team are watching you, so it’s important that you lead by example.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Culturegene.ai Brett on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “It’s not just lip service, it’s not just a tick box exercise. You really got to work on your culture as an asset in the business.”   “A leader is good at spotting that you’re not living the values, and taking action to solve that.”   “Great leaders make their culture more visible, tangible, and conscious. They’re talking about it and evaluating their decisions based on it.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Do you feel like your team is running in opposite directions? This might be because they just have too many priorities on their plates. This is actually a common problem! Bill was working with a company that made some recent acquisitions and they had a lot to do for the quarter. In the beginning, it was hard to focus on 3–5 top company goals for those 90 days when they had over 50 things they had to tackle. If you can’t narrow your list down to a couple of things, try having a laser focus on one main theme that you can get your whole team on. Pick something that’s important to the company and create a battle cry from that theme. For example, the rallying cry of the Apollo 13 mission was, “Failure is not an option.”   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Quarterly-Theme-Creation-Worksheet.pdf   Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

When it comes to scaling up, some Founders have dreams of selling their business but aren’t sure how to go about it. Are you confused and not sure where you should even begin? Well, today’s guest has sold four companies and knows a little bit about the art of selling your business for a high value! John Warrillow kicked off a revolution in 2011 when he released his bestselling book, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, a process that helps business owners reframe how they think about the business. John is out with a new book, The Art of Selling Your Business, where he discusses why it’s not luck that certain businesses sell high, and breaks down the “how,” in this week’s episode! John interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs to better understand their exits and what made them sell their business for multiples more than the “industry standard.” What he learned is that these entrepreneurs have a certain dance that they play that helps their buyers feel comfortable and secure. John noticed that the happiest people who sold all had pull factors vs. push factors. They were excited about the “next thing” and they were selling because they were ready to move on. The pull factor guys were selling because of external stresses, pandemic, employees, government red tape, etc. This is the key to help you not live in regret after you’ve sold. Before you start the process of even thinking about selling, what’s your “freedom point” when it comes to living out your life with enough cash? When your business hits a critical financial point, even if you’re still enjoying the business, take some time to consider whether it makes sense to hold it or to sell it. The promise for entrepreneurship is freedom, but the reality of that doesn’t always exist. Many times, owning a business can become less free than being an employee of a business. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is getting lured into a proprietary deal, which is where the potential buyer learns that they’re the only person at the table. Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Builttosell.com John on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you making things harder than they need to be? Despite our best intentions, we can sometimes overcomplicate the simplest of tasks. Bill is used to working with passionate leaders who want to make the world a better place. The problem comes with delegation. An active founder or leader is a good thing, but it can actually make everyone around them hesitant to take on a task, as they know they’ll eventually have their hand in it. The key to creating a well-functioning team is trust. In order for you to trust, you have to pull back and let your team learn, and even potentially fail. The Rockefeller habits checklist is a great starting point to get your fingers out of the cookie jar and empower your people to do good work.   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/rockefeller-habits-checklist-worksheet   Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Let’s talk about Amazon. If you’re impacted by e-commerce or thinking about getting into this space, this is one tech giant you shouldn’t ignore. Today’s guest knows how to win in the world of Amazon. William Fikhman is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Amazzia, a firm that helps brands navigate the complex world of the Amazon marketplace. With over 16 years of experience, William has helped hundreds of brands thrive, and understand, this complex ecommerce channel. From 2009 to 2016, selling things on Amazon was kind of the Wild Wild West. Everyone was buying what they could, where they could, flipping products, etc. Amazzia was trying to find their footing then when they struck gold in 2016 and pivoted into more of a brand management business. Amazzia’s typical client is usually a brand or product that has zero control over how Amazon is ranking them. Because of the way the marketplace is set up, you don’t always know if you’re getting the right product or a fake one. Amazon doesn’t suffer when this happens, the brand does because consumers think their product has gone down in quality. Amazzia’s role is to make sure the brand has 100% control over how their product is being distributed and that there are no bad actors in the space. Brands are essentially outsourcing their Amazon operations to Amazzia and use their services to become fully optimized in the Amazon space without having their products misrepresented or stolen. Amazon has its own ecosystem and you need people who understand it if you really want to thrive in this marketplace.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Amazzia.com William on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you regularly in a crisis? Do you feel like your job is just to put out small fires every day? The biggest crisis Bill sees is cash. However, there is a solution. One of Bill’s clients went through a 4–5X growth spurt in a few years and the demands the business had on their cash resources ended up growing bigger and bigger. They knew their numbers like income, profit, and loss, and their balance sheet. But the missing puzzle? They were missing the cash flow report. It first started with a 13-week cash flow report that then grew into a 26-week report. Once they had the hang of it, their report grew into a one-year cash flow model where they could look 52 weeks out on what they were expecting to bring. Finally, they had better visibility and could foresee cash flow problems ahead of time. Resources: Scalingcoach.com/ccc-cash-conversion-cycle-worksheet/ Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

As we begin a new year, we reflect back on some of Scaling Up’s 10 best podcast episodes from 2020. Here’s to an even better year and thank you for being part of the Scaling Up show! This episode is also sponsored by SweetProcess, the best place to document your standard operating procedures! Klyn Elsbury was born with Cystic Fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. Klyn was told she would not survive beyond 14 years old and spent most of her life going in and out of hospitals. Klyn knew she had to be smart with the time she had and so today, as she hits her 30s, she is a Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author, and the host of the Neuroscience for Sales Success podcast. Les Lent has over 20 years of experience as a sales professional, manager, and leader. He has helped scale his sales department from $30 million to over $300 million in annual revenue. Les has led teams of seven to 70 and is the author of The Profession of Sales. He is currently working on his second book, Two Things Holding You Back. Warren Rustand is a serial entrepreneur, educator, and public servant. He served as Appointments Secretary to President Gerald Ford and has been Chairman or CEO of 17 companies. He was the previous Chairman of the World Presidents Organization and the Dean of Leadership for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He also has served on more than 20 boards throughout his career. Robert Glazer is the Founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a global performance marketing agency. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. As a serial entrepreneur, Robert has a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to outperform. Ashley Goodall is an executive, leadership expert, and author of Nine Lies About Work, and has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside. He is currently the Senior Vice President of Methods and Intelligence at Cisco, where his organization aims to reveal the answers to some of the most challenging questions about work. Darius Mirshahzadeh is a high growth CEO, serial entrepreneur, and culture-building mad scientist at The Money Source. He was ranked #9 on Glassdoor’s list of Top CEOs of Small and Medium Companies in the U.S. Through the use of values, Darius grew his company of 30 to over 1,000! Gary Hamel is one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years. He also has written 17 articles for the Harvard Business Review and is currently out with a new book, Humanocracy, which he dives into further on this week’s episode! Patrick Galvin is a TEDx Speaker, Author, and Chief Galvanizer of The Galvanizing Group, a speaking, coaching, and consulting company in Portland, Oregon that helps high-performance companies and teams galvanize repeat and referred business through better relationships. By the time Cameron Herold was 35, he had built two $100 million companies. He was the second in command of 1-800-Got-Junk?, a company he built from $2 million in revenue to $106 million in under six years. Today, he is known as the CEO whisperer and is the catalyst behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth. Do you believe in second chances? Andre Norman does. His work has led him to start his flagship transformational program, 180X, which works to redevelop underserved communities, repair families in crisis, and reduce prison re-entry. As a prior inmate faced with a 100-year sentence and serving 14 years of it before he got out, it’s Andre’s mission in life to teach individuals and corporations how to turn any situation around. Interview Links: Sweetprocess.com/scalingup “186: Klyn Elsbury — How to Unstick Yourself” “189: Les Lent — The Profession of Sales” “194: Warren Rustand — Leading in a Time of Crisis” “204: Robert Glazer — Adapting to a New Normal” “218: Ashley Goodall — Nine Big Lies About Work” “219: Darius Mirshahzadeh — The Core Value Equation” “227: Gary Hamel — Making Organizations as Resilient as Its People” “228: Patrick Galvin — Building Conscious Connection” “231: Cameron Herold — How to Run Smart Meetings” “234: Andre Norman — Believe in Second Chances”   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Happy New Year everyone! Bill shares his year-end practices and what he does to end his year on a high note in this week’s Tuesday Tip. Bill likes to sit down and review all the structures, processes, and documents he used/put in place for that year. He has a one-page plan that’s broken down by quarter. It’s also color-coded so that Bill can see at a glance what’s been done vs. what’s pending. Bill also likes to create a vision board in Powerpoint at the beginning of each year and likes to review how he did as the year winds down. He also likes to look at his calendar/photos on a week-by-week basis to see what he did, who he met with, and more! As busy people, we often are so in the moment or in the “grind” that our memory can only handle so much before it forgets. This is a great exercise to see everything you’ve achieved thus far! A lot can happen in 52 weeks that we end up forgetting about.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

No matter what industry you’re in, there are lessons for all of us on how we can be more adaptable to new environments and circumstances. No one has a crystal ball, so how can we prepare mentally for what’s to come? Today’s guest has some answers.   Jeremy Bodenhamer is the Co-Founder & CEO of ShipHawk, a premier packing and shipping software for ERP connected companies. He is also the recent author of Adapt or Die, which underlines the profound shifts in retail and ecommerce.   Jeremy started his first business when he was 12 to help keep his family afloat. When he was in college and working multiple jobs to pay for his way, he found himself in the shipping industry and ended up helping the new owner double the business.   This experience was key because he would later acquire a failing shipping business with every remaining penny he had. Through this experience, he discovered that shipping software was where it’s at and that’s how he came to Found ShipHawk.   Amazon is eating local retailers alive. Bill has had personal experience working with Amazon. You have to jump through a lot of hoops and they offer a “take it or leave it” deal that is not always favorable for the independent small business owner. And once you’re on the other side, you get lost in the shuffle as everyone else does. Jeremy understands it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all, but what are we going to do about it? Adapt.   Interview Links: Jeremybodenhamer.com Shiphawk.com Jeremy on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you struggling with breakdowns in communication and unclear who is responsible for what? An accountability chart could be the solution you need. The next step when you’re feeling growing pains is to identify the core processes of the business. When you have functional accountability, your team can handle common things that crop up and they don’t need to be micromanaged. You actually empower your people to take action! There will always be hand-offs between departments and by having a chart that describes each department’s core functions, there will be less likely for a breakdown in communication and fewer tasks “falling through the cracks.” Resources: Scalingcoach.com/pace-process-accountability-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Working smarter within a smaller time frame is every entrepreneur and C-suite executive’s dream, but how do you get it done without playing out all the old cliches? Today’s guest discusses how you can use practical times to get your time and sanity back. Daniel Ramsey is the Founder and CEO of MyOutDesk, the highest-rated Virtual Assistant company in the marketplace with hundreds of five-star reviews and serving more than 6,000 clients over the last 12 years. Daniel is also a licensed real estate broker, mortgage broker, and general contractor, having built a real estate staffing company prior to creating MyOutDesk. Daniel was newly married celebrating his honeymoon in a beautiful tropical paradise in Guatemala, but instead of enjoying this time with his new bride, he spent it working! When the bartender ended up taking his phone away to help him enjoy more of life, Daniel realized he had a business that owned him, not the other way around. Fast forward to today, Daniel spent intentional time working on processes so he could step away from the business. In fact, this year the business is set to make 50 million dollars, making it one of the best years ever as a company! Remote employees do not want to go back to an office, so as a Founder or CEO, you have to be thinking about what the future of your company looks like if 50% or over of your staff does not want to come back when the pandemic is over. Things are changing.   Interview Links: Myoutdesk.com Daniel on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTubem

Have you been feeling a bit disconnected from your team lately? And, you’re not sure what to do about it? One of Bill’s clients went from 30 people to 180 people and it became difficult to keep track of everyone. It also created a lot of miscommunication, so much so, that the culture began to turn into a distrustful one. The tool that Bill used to get everyone on track and to gauge employee satisfaction is the Employee Net Promoter System, where it asks a series of questions to figure out if someone is a right fit for the company, why they love the company, so that you can preserve those values, and to determine who wasn’t the best fit for the organization.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

We have four coach panelists to discuss the upcoming holiday season, the recent loss of Zappos Founder Tony Hsieh, good communication protocols, and some of the top-tier things to think about as we grow for the new year. A bit about our expert coaches: Herb Cogliano runs his own advisory practice based on the Scaling Up and the Rockefeller Habits methodology. Roberto Erario is an International Business and Leadership Coach with more than 20 years of experience and was a former executive in the banking industry. Liat Lazar was an HR executive for about 20-plus years for two Fortune 500 companies and is the first Scaling Up coach in Israel. Anita Cabell is the Founder of Leading Edge and has been in the Chinese market for the last 18-plus years as a Scaling Up Coach. “Managers can waste a lot of time at the outset of a crisis denying that something went wrong. Skip that step” — Jack Welch. Roberto loves Jack Welch but doesn’t agree with the quote. It’s unrealistic to skip steps when you’re in the trenches of it. Instead, work with human nature. When reading that quote, Herb believes Jack meant that leaders need to orient quickly to a crisis and not be stuck like a deer in the headlights. So many entrepreneurs have used Tony Hsieh’s example of how to build a company like Zappos into their own companies. His passing has been a real loss. News has come out that Tony struggled with depression and addiction yet he was so focused on bringing happiness to everyone else. That was his mantra. The two things entrepreneurs and C-suite executives like to hide the most are their cash flow numbers and their feelings. Bill has seen executives go through emotional breakdowns and have their mental wellbeing completely collapse. These high-achievers are more prone to burnout than the average person, so it’s critical that leaders get their rest and put their own oxygen mask on first. Anita understands. When it comes to doing good work, 95% of it is psychological. Focus on the mindset first and then everything else will follow. When Herb was a CEO, he was so invested in the company, that everything outside of that suffered. He wasn’t balanced and that imbalance made him a lesser leader. Interview Links: Herb: Aspiregrowthadvisors.com Roberto: Robertoerario.com Liat: Liatlazar.co.il Anita: Leadingedgebusinesscoaching.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you find yourself putting off a necessary action or even being indecisive? Are you unsure why you seem to constantly put off these vital decisions? Fear is real and you’re always going to be afraid of something, but you can get over that hurdle by creating goals and priorities. You don’t have to bear it alone. Your team can help you become accountable and get good work done. By having a planning session, which means having an open and honest conversation with leadership, you’ll be able to schedule in these important action items and leverage helpful tools to fuel that success.   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/rockefeller-habits-checklist-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

When you receive coaching, do you find yourself picking and choosing what you want to do? It’s a funny human thing that we do. We take what we want and leave the rest behind, but it can lead to a mixture of incomplete results. Bill recently experienced this with one of his clients. They were able to receive massive amounts of results within the first few months, but after this stride, they slowly began to receive a mixed bag of results. This is because the team was picking and choosing the coaching that made them feel safe. However, by doing this, it led to additional problems that the team did not anticipate. The Rockefeller Habits is based on one of the world’s most successful businessmen and comprised of many leaders that succeeded after him. It’s a “best of” framework. Don’t reinvent the wheel or pick and choose your coaching, follow what others have done to truly succeed. Resources: Scalingcoach.com/rockefeller-habits-checklist-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Do you have dreams of passing the business down to your children? Do your children have an interest in the business you’ve started? If yes, then how do you keep a business so strong that it will last many generations to come? Our guest has some answers. Jonathan Goldhill is a business coach and strategist specializing in guiding next-generation leaders of family businesses to help them scale the business up and keep it within the family. He’s been a coach since 2004 and a small business consultant since 1987! Jonathan has a personal connection to this industry because his family’s business, started by his great-grandfather, was sold during its third generation of family ownership. He understands the challenges of keeping healthy family relations while holding a business that lasts generations. It’s very common for entrepreneurs to use their spouse to manage the admin side of things or the accounting side of things, but if they’re not trained on this, then the books can get really hairy quite quickly. It’s not that uncommon for Jonathan to come in and restructure the family roles within the business so that it can thrive and prosper. A coach can be incredibly valuable to a family business because the children might not want to have tough conversations with their parents. Unfortunately, you will need to have tough conversations with the original owner, especially if that’s what’s needed to free up capital to fully scale and achieve high growth.   Interview Links: Thegoldhillgroup.com Jonathan’s book: Disruptivesuccessor.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Do you feel like your business is a disorganized beehive? As in, people are running around in different directions and no one seems to be connected to, or aware of, the company vision?   You can solve this by helping your staff get connected to a company manifesto that is delivered to the team daily. It gives your staff the opportunity to spend 30 or so seconds reflecting on this manifesto and to make them think how they can serve this vision on a daily basis.   What makes a good manifesto? It begins with purpose, values, brand promise, and the BHAG. The manifesto should be short and sweet, taking roughly two minutes to read. It creates transformative work because now everyone on the team is working in alignment.   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/vision-summary-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.  

Are you stuck on trying to find your purpose? What is purpose and how do you know when you’ve really struck gold? Today’s guest has worked with thousands of people to drive down and live their true purpose. Joey Chandler started out as a photographer and video producer and this experience laid down the foundation for his approach to finding purpose. He has been a coach for 20-plus years and helps people find the greatness in themselves. Joey first got into video production when he created a tribute video for his wife and interviewed a number of their friends on why she was a special person. This led to Joey recording hundreds of these types of tribute videos and extracting that information to find the core of someone’s purpose. When people get connected to their purpose, they can start to see how it’s already showing up in their lives and it fuels them to keep going and keep doing work that’s meaningful to them. There are five main purpose words: Love, Joy, Happiness, Excitement, and Freedom. This is what most people are drawn to. When it comes to business, you can transfer these purpose feelings over. The purpose of the company is going to be a combination of purpose for the founders.   Bill can help someone find their purpose within 15 minutes, but by finding it that quickly people don’t think they’ve earned it enough and don’t take it seriously. Joey understands this. That’s why as a coach, his goal isn’t to teach anybody, but instead, help them become more of themselves.   Interview Links: Joeychandler.net   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

The BHAG, which stands for “Big Hairy Audacious Goal,” is supposed to inspire and engage your team, but are you having trouble coming up with something that truly hits to the core of what you do? A powerful BHAG doesn’t have to be something you already know how to do, or how to get to, but something that forces the team to aspire to get to, through innovation and creative problem-solving. As the Founder or CEO, you don’t need to have all the answers ready when coming up with the BHAG. A BHAG is not a linear projection, where the road comes easily paved. It’s a statement that transforms the way the organization thinks and cultivates your team to think outside the box. When it comes to finding your BHAG, pick something that connects with your company purpose but is also scary enough to make it challenging to achieve.   Resources: Scalingcoach.com/bhag-worksheet Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling business growth book by Verne Harnish and our team of coaches. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading coach.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash and the 5th Decision about what kind of leader you want to be. Our purpose is helping you Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success.

If things in your business and professional life seem dim and impossible to turn around right now, then this is an episode for you. Today’s guest has experienced it all and was able to create new opportunities for himself despite slim odds.    Do you believe in second chances? Andre Norman does. His work has led him to start his flagship transformational program, 180x, which works to redevelop underserved communities, repair families in crisis, and reduce prison re-entry. As a prior inmate faced with a 100-year sentence and serving 14 years of it before he got out, it’s Andre’s mission in life to teach individuals and corporations how to turn any situation around.    Even though people have great companies and great lives, there’s always some form of struggle behind the facade. An increased access to money doesn’t remove hardship. You’ve got problems just like anybody else has problems.    Andre uses the example of Dr. Dre and Suge Knight. When the partnership turned bad, Dr. Dre decided to walk away completely. He didn’t want royalties or to ‘get his cut’ because he knew he could go back out there and rebuild it himself. Why waste time in an unhealthy environment and waste more energy on recovering what’s yours in a bad deal?    When Andre was in solitary confinement, his mother came to see him and despite everything he was faced with, he thought he was winning. He thought because he was the king of this place, never mind the fact he was locked in a basement with no sunlight, that he had made it. It wasn’t until two years later did he have an epiphany, “If I’m the king of this place, then let yourself out.”     With the Academy of Hope, Andre teaches inmates to think differently. It’s not about ‘us vs. the prison staff’, it’s about doing what’s right. This is why members of the Academy of Hope often step in to save guards' lives because it’s what you’re supposed to do. “Is it right to watch this man die in this fashion? The answer is no.”     Interview Links: Andrenorman.com Academy of Hope Academy of Hope News Story Documentary on Andre   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “Everyday I get up, I ask the simple question, what can I do to be helpful?”   “When you’re ready, you have to let go of the old and move into the new.”   “You are the people you surround yourself with. You are them.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

What do you really want? What should you be pursuing? Where are your passions? There are dozens of movies out there where people leave everything behind to go search for their meaning in life. Funny enough, the people in search of meaning end up finding out that it’s within them all along.   Your life purpose or the purpose of your business is not something you go off and find. It’s something you consciously create. How do you create it? First, discover what lights you up.   Make your life be what you’d love it to be about. What would make you proud? What would you want to tell your parents or children that you’ve achieved and done? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? These questions apply both to you and your business! So go out there and create your meaning.   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We have an exciting Scaling Up Insights episode for you today. We have returning panelists, Judy Guido and Daniel Marcos, and a new panelist, Liat Lazar, who is based in Israel to share their insights on branding differentiation, creating alignment within a company, and so much more!   Liat was an HR executive for about 20+ years for two fortune 500 companies and is the first Scaling Up coach in Israel. Daniel is the Founder of the Growth Institute and coaches primary Latin American markets. Judy is the Chair of Guido and Associates and has overseen at least 100 several successful mergers and acquisitions.   In times of Covid, some brands are having a hard time really standing out and being seen as different. Judy says, “Just because you say you’re different, doesn’t mean you are.” Daniel has observed another problem when companies are trying to stand out, they just don’t have a clue what really matters to the client. Liat agrees, this is a problem she sees throughout companies no matter the size. Founders create such broad statements, like “We are Legendary”, but no one knows what it means.   Are you playing to win or are you playing to just get by? Judy qualifies her clients by seeing if they’re ‘Scalarious’; are you so serious that you want to scale? Bill has witnessed this too, sometimes two co-founders can disagree in the mission and it takes some deep communication to really get aligned to reach new heights and get acquired. Remember there is no silver bullet, but so many Founders are looking for it!   When it comes to the coaches’ own backyard, how are people managing the virus and this new landscape that we’re in? For Liat, everyday is a new day in Israel. It changes rapidly as things open and then goes back into lockdown.   Judy sees more investment pouring into outdoor resources, pools, heating, outdoor offices, etc. People are smart. They want to increase their property value and make it social distancing friendly. Daniel is in Toronto and sees his community suffering. Lots of restaurants are forced to close.   Interview Links: Judy: Guidoassoc.com Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Liat: Liatlazar.co.il   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

When Bill realized he was overleveraged in his business to the point the bank was going to take his house, he freaked out. He was afraid he’d lose everything, including his wife, and he’d become a weekend dad.   He decided to go to his team for help. His speech was messy. He admitted he didn’t know how to fix it or turn it around, but he was honest and transparent. He told the truth.   What happened? Well, a year later, not only did he turn things around, the bank was no longer going to take his home. He and his team redesigned the business and they doubled the company in that time. They collaborated together.   Tell the brutal truth. Don’t hide or coddle your people from the pending disaster uphead. You’ll be surprised what they come up with.   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Can you put a metric around civility or kindness in your business? And if so, what really is the business value of good customer and employee civility? Today’s guest showcases how you can create civility in your organization and why it’s important to practice it all throughout your company. Shelby Scarbrough began her career in the White House as a member of President Ronald Reagan’s advance team. Shelby’s experience both in the public service and the private sector, and as the global chairman of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, has given her a unique insight into the practices that lead to positive relationships and communication between people and countries. Through the work that Shelby did at the White House, she was able to meet very prominent figures and leaders, one of them being Nelson Mandela. Through Shelby’s experience, each one of these people showed Shelby the full capacity of what civility looks like; both on a scale of what to do and what not to do. What is civility really? It’s not about being weak to your fellow man or passive. Civility really is about being able to say what you have to say in a way where people can truly listen to you. The point of civility is to show people respect.   We have more commonalities with someone than we have differences. The key to building connection is finding those commonalities. If you start there, even when working with someone you disagree 100% on, you will be able to build connections and even friendships.   Interview Links: Shelbyscarbrough.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Meetings! How can we say no to more of them and, the ones that we do need to have, make it the most effective meeting of them all? Today’s guest has some insights! By the time Cameron Herold was 35, he had built two $100 million companies. He was the second in command of 1-800-Got-Junk?, a company he built from $2 million in revenue to $106 million in under six years. Today, he is known as the CEO whisperer and is the catalyst behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth. Whenever Cameron walks into a mastermind event or conference, he always walks in with three action items: three people he wants to meet that he doesn't know yet, three people that he knows and wants to spend more time people, and three things he’s working on in his business that he wants to ask people about. Why are meetings so bad? Chances are, you’re really bad at running meetings. You need to put a conscious effort into training people on how to best conduct a meeting and tweaking it as you go. When Cameron first put a daily huddle in place in his company, so many people complained. However, he knows the daily huddle works, it just needed to be fine-tuned based on your culture. When it comes to recurring meetings, lock them into every employees’ calendar right away. There should be no reason why you’re scrambling to find a time that suits everyone week after week. If you’re not willing to put the top priority company meetings into everybody’s calendar, then get used to staying at 7% growth. Take one big to-do and go deep with it until it starts working. Don’t try to boil the whole ocean and incorporate daily huddles, quarterly plannings, and other strategic meetings all at once. You’ll really upset a whole lot of your employees if so!   Interview Links: Cameronherold.com Cameron’s latest books   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Do you have ideas all day long and just don’t know when you’ll find the time to start all your cool “startup ideas”? Well, today’s guest actually made it a reality. After collecting 350+ ideas over the years, he decided to just take a leap and see what business idea would stick… within a 31-day period.   Mark Grimes is a Philanthropist, Angel Investor, and Startup Founder, where every one of his businesses since 1989 has been cash flow-positive within 90 days. He is the recent Founder of 31 Startups, an experiment to launch a startup every day for 31 days during the month of August 2020 and help them get cash flow positive within a 90-day period. Was he successful? Tune in to find out!   Mark is currently on his journey to turn his 31 startups cash flow-positive. The deadline for this is the 30th of November. Mark has a formula for his success that he discovered over 15 years ago. The secret (which might not be that surprising) is Mark is hypersensitive to squeezing costs as far down as he can at the start and making sure there are paying customers first, before trying to scale further.   Why did Mark decide to start this crazy challenge? Well, the pandemic changed two of his businesses drastically, one of them being a co-working space, and he also found himself to be an empty nester with a lot more time than before. So why just start one thing, when you could start 31 things? He wanted to show people how to do it strategically and smartly.   How does Mark define a launch? He sees it as an idea he’s put to life and will be interviewing potential customers for it. He hasn’t registered all 31 business ideas as corporate entities yet because that would mean he’d be $100–200K in the hole! And Mark defines cash flow-positive as a business generating more money than what he’s spending on it. There are easy ways to game this system, but Mark has every intention to make it legitimate. He details every expenditure on his blog for full transparency.   Interview Links: 31startups.ck.page 90daystocashflowpositive.com Mark on Twitter   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Our three panelists in this episode of Scaling Up Insights are Cheryl Beth Kuchler, Cheryl Biron, and Matt Kazam. Cheryl Beth is the Founder of CEO Think Tank and has over 30 years of experience in business advisory services. Cheryl is a business growth coach and the Founder of LexaGen Freedom Accelerator. And finally, Matt is a comedian and corporate entertainer based out of Las Vegas. Cheryl Beth has seen more innovation in the last six months among entrepreneurs than we have seen in the last five years. When you put constraints around something, people will figure out how to make it work. Cheryl believes this to be true as well. She was an entrepreneur in the 2005-2009 time frame and had to adapt quickly when the recession hit. Her business was stronger because of it. Matt recognizes the ones who are going to be successful are never going to go back to where we were before. Matt is currently working with a commercial real estate client and they know their clients aren’t coming back. So, they’re reinventing themselves. All three of our panelists, including Bill Gallagher, knew that clients would not be wanting to spend any money during the pandemic lockdown. So, they decided to give their work away for free and became hyper-focused on helping others and being in service to others. Although unintentional at the time, this giving mentally has paid off drastically where they’re full of paying client work now.   Interview Links: Ceothinktank.com Lexagen.net Reimagine Your Business event Theylaughyouwin.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Everything is online now — our meetings, our friends, our education, everything! It can feel like we’re getting closer to our already existing network, but it can also feel like business owners are struggling more than ever before to be seen. Today’s guest knows how to connect consciously and purposefully in the digital age.   Patrick Galvin is a TEDx Speaker, Author, and Chief Galvanizer of The Galvanizing Group, a speaking, coaching, and consulting company in Portland, Oregon that helps high-performance companies and teams galvanize repeat and referred business through better relationships.   In Patrick’s first six months in the family business, he burned through the entire marketing budget, which was $150,000. It was a painful moment for Patrick. New advertising wasn’t going to bring in new customers, it was building and cultivating relationships that were.   How does Patrick build connections? If you’re trying to reach out to someone via LinkedIn, sending them a personalized video link really goes a long way. Patrick still writes handwritten letters. Communication in today’s world is not so much what you like to do, but adapting to how the other person likes to communicate.   In order for you to be a good relationship builder, you have to have a good relationship with yourself first. That means taking the time to eat well, exercise, and pursue hobbies so that you can bring a renewed level of energy to each conversation and connection you make.   Interview Links: Thegalvanizinggroup.com The Connector’s Way: A Story About Building Business One Relationship at a Time, by Patrick Galvin   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Gary Hamel is one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years. He also has written 17 articles for the Harvard Business Review and is currently out with a new book, Humanocracy, which he dives into further on this week’s episode!   We still see people as a commodity and most organizations are not very good at turning on the capabilities of their people. We can confirm this by the fact that Gallup says only 15% of employees are engaged in their work. Management oftentimes was hastily put together by inexperienced CEOs or Founders. Bureaucracy really is just a product of its time.   In Gary’s book, the top companies he interviewed understood the value of their employees and they were highly compensated for it. In the way we treat people today, there is a lot of false economy. Young people feel undervalued because they grew up with the internet, where the world was their oyster. They could seek out information, do things, and feel valued. In a corporate environment, they always have to ask for permission in order to advance and it’s making them seek out greener pastures.   If you examine companies that have really lasted and scaled, as well as adapted to the changing times and reinvented themselves, they all prioritized their people and had a unique management style that kept them engaged, and happy.   If you believe bureaucracy is a tax on human effort, then how are these big companies able to afford it? It seems managers are a fan of everything lean, except for lean management. It’s toxic when leaders start to believe they have the crystal ball. The best leaders strive to create an environment where it’s the best place to fail.   Interview Links: Garyhamel.com Humanocracy.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

What can you learn about neuropsychology that can help you become a better leader? Today’s guest has used neuropsychology throughout his career as an entrepreneur and has accelerated his growth as well as become a better executive, coach, and leader because of it. Bill Flynn has more than 30 years of experience working for and advising hundreds of companies, including startups, where he has a long track record of success. He is the author of, Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork out of Growth, which dives into how to effectively scale quickly by leading with the emotional brain in mind. Bill had his hand in 10 startups over 25 years. He didn’t found them; he came in to help scale them. He’s been through 2 IPOs and 7 acquisitions. Throughout his career, he was a sales and marketing guy and as he was striving to be better in his career, he discovered neuroscience. When he started applying what he learned, he became the number one or number two sales guy wherever he went. What is neuroleadership? It’s all about leading with the brain in mind. At the end of the day, people are crazy. We are all a little nuts and we're highly impulsive, irrational, and emotional beings. If you don’t understand that as a leader, you’ll never be as good as you possibly could be. How many times have you heard, “We need to talk”? What response does this generate in your brain when this happens? Chances are, when you’re sitting down across from the person who “needs to talk” you’re incredibly stressed and in a flight-or-fight mode. You’re not ready to listen and you’re not ready to improve. Yet, leaders do these kinds of things to their teams all the time! By understanding how the mind responds and reacts to things and how you say those things, you can cater to those reactions ahead of time and get the most out of your people the fast-tracked way.   Interview Links: Catalystgrowthadvisors.com Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork out of Growth, by Bill Flynn Bill on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

What if you could help connect with people on a whole new level through humor? What does it really take to get people to show their funny side? Today’s guest has a ton of experience with making people laugh and shares how it can be a powerful force towards building connection. Matt Kazam is a Humor Scientist & Las Vegas Headlining Comedian with over 30 years of experience. Matt Founded They Laugh You Win to harness his depth of knowledge in the craft of humor and performing. Matt has taught thousands of people and has helped hundreds of companies leverage the power of humor to accomplish their goals. Throughout Bill’s career, he was so afraid to mess up that he played a lot of things safe. He believes this is true for a lot of corporate leaders out there who don’t want to be the sole catalyst for everything falling apart. The downsides to playing it safe, though, is that you end up being so boring as a person because you’re afraid to offend someone. To top it off, you end up unable to engage or excite people while playing it safe. The truth is, everyone has these amazing stories within them, but they just don’t know how to tell it in an art form. It’s either too long or some of the boring bits get added in. When you refine your funny bone, you can tell the simplest life story and make it engaging and funny for anyone to hear (and not get offended by). Interview Links: Theylaughyouwin.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

What does it take for a leader to be happy? It’s no secret that many leaders can feel tapped out when it comes to their emotional and personal growth while working strictly and solely on the business. This is why today’s guest shares how to achieve both happiness and growth! Shawn is the co-founded DALS Lighting, an LED lighting business. He implemented the Scaling Up Growth System and it led the company to 3X its revenues into the 8-figure mark. Shawn later went on to Found Elevation, a business growth coaching and consulting firm. He is a big believer in the ‘Happiness Roadmap,’ where he teaches his clients how to achieve both happiness and success. Shawn has been an entrepreneur for 11 years and was the Former President of EO in Montreal. In the group, he would often hear some common words, ‘stressed out,’ ‘no balance,’ ‘overwhelmed,’ etc. Why are entrepreneurs so unhappy during their business journey? The first step is to actually take a huge step back and do a bit of introspection on what’s going wrong. Get ahold of your emotions and feelings and do a check-in on your stress levels. If you’re not happy, then craft a plan to shift things up. It is possible.   Interview Links: Elevationcoach.ca Shawn on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today we invite a beloved guest back on to the show to talk about strengths-based development and how to use it effectively within an organization. Why is this approach so transformational for organizations? Listen in to find out!   Dean Jones is a senior learning expert at Gallup, responsible for leading Gallup’s global learning strategy. In addition to advising clients on learning and organizational development interventions, he has overseen Gallup’s client learning strategy, the development of the organization’s workplace consultants and learning offering, and the growth of Gallup’s learning business worldwide.   What does Dean mean by ‘strengths’ when talking about strength-based development? Dr. Donald Clifton, an American psychologist and researcher, life’s work was designed to study success. What he discovered was there was actually a connection between talent and success, and there was a way you could measure it.   Strengths is about understanding your own innate talent and then being able to develop those into legitimate use cases that you can apply in both work and in life. Talent is something you are born with and you unfortunately can not create a new talent from scratch. This is why it’s critical to identify the ones you do have and hone those skills relentlessly.   Interview Links: Gallup.com Dean on LinkedIn Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Donald O. Clifton and Marcus Buckingham   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

What do you do when your whole industry has been challenged? How do you make a pivot and think out of the box and adapt? Today’s guest shares how he’s turned his very physical business model online!   Dan Chan is an award-winning Master Magician, where his talents have taken him all over the world. Dan is regarded as one of the nation’s top corporate magicians, which has been an industry that’s been affected lately. How is he managing to keep up with the changing times? By practicing in something called ‘Zoom magic’!   Dan invested 20-plus years of his life learning magic and when the pandemic hit, he was depressed. He did what most people do and binge-watched Netflix. He thought his career was over and it was maybe time to get a day job. Some of his existing clients asked if he’d be willing to do a virtual show, but not wanting to disappoint anyone, he decided to start off small and work his way up from there.   People have adapted quickly in these virtual times. Birthday parties, holidays, and family gatherings are all on Zoom now. In some ways, families in different time zones feel more connected because they see each other more often. It’s actually become more cost-effective to hire an entertainer via Zoom.   For certain startups, they might not be able to afford entertainment, but this is actually a perfect time to get creative with your rates. Ask for stock or equity instead. When you’ve built a good standing relationship with clients, they’ll be more than willing to exchange ‘other goods’ for your services.   Interview Links: Danchanmagic.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you working on low-value things and not enough high-value action items? Do you dislike some of the tasks on your plate? What about your team? Today’s guest shares how you and your team can operate in their sweet spot and get good, and happy, work done. Andy Clayton leads Petra Coach Europe, the UK’s leading Scaling Up coaching company, and helps entrepreneurs and high-growth companies eliminate what’s getting in the way and focus on what truly adds value. Andy is also a long-time member of EO and the author of Sweetspot. Andy discovered the importance of the sweet spot within his own team member at first, who was running a lot of the mission-critical tasks at his organization. He knew she had to narrow down her skill sets and focus as the company grew bigger and if they wanted to scale. Andy decided to create four quadrants. 1. Sweetspot: High-value items and what you like doing, 2. Distractions: You like doing these tasks but they don’t add that much value, 3. Drains: Important work but you dislike it, and 4. Disasters: You’re neither good at these tasks nor do you feel like it’s a good use of time. The real question is, as we do this exercise a couple of times throughout both our professional and personal life, why don’t we spend more of our time in our sweet spot areas? Andy conducted a sweet spot workshop in a room full of entrepreneurs and just by doing this exercise for an hour, a number of his participants were able to save 100 hours each month just by putting some of their tasks in these four quadrants and seeing how to take delegation and outsourcing to another level.   Interview Links: Sweetspot.guru Andy on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube    

Our three panelists in this episode of Scaling Up Insights are Lisa Ridley, Cheryl Biron, Kristin McLane. Lisa is a Scaling Up Coach and focuses on facilitating positive change with her entrepreneurial clients. Cheryl started her career in corporate before having an ‘entrepreneurial fit’ and starting her own business. Kristin has been an entrepreneur for the last 24 years in the software industry. Let’s talk about stress management! Lisa believes a lot of it comes down to mindset and how we approach upcoming problems. Cheryl believes it’s important to ask, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Get it all out there and then reframe/reason with yourself on different ways to solve the problem. When Bill was faced with possible bankruptcy, his financial advisor told him that there is no such thing as debtor’s prison, it helped him relax and see the bigger picture. Kristin noticed that athletes use stress to help them get better at what they do. Stress isn’t seen as a negative thing, but a positive. It’s almost like you have to use stress to get to the next level. The truth is, how do you see stress? In a study of 30,000 people on stress management, if you think stress is a bad thing, then you are 43% more likely to die. If you see stress as something that is not harmful to you, your chances are drastically lowered. That’s how powerful our mindset is in deciding whether something is good for us or not. Stress can be used as a useful tool and is an important part of how we navigate conflict. Lisa shares an example. A large number of the population is afraid of public speaking. Before you go on stage to speak, you can tell yourself two things. That you hate this and that you’re nervous/scared of doing this or you can say that these emotions you’re feeling right now are your body’s way of energizing you. You can redirect this nervous energy into focus. There was a study that used these two different public speaking groups, one that was scared and the other that was energized, the audience believed the ones who used this fear in a positive way performed better, despite being just as scared.   Interview Links: Compassgroupltd.com Lisa on LinkedIn Lexagen.net Cheryl on LinkedIn CIMx.com Kristin on LinkedIn   The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It, by Kelly McGonigal Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy, by Mo Gawdat Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Does your company have values? Are you living them out each and every day or have they become another action item on the list? It’s okay to be a bit cynical about your values. Today’s guest showcases how values can really move mountains. Darius Mirshahzadeh is a high growth CEO, serial entrepreneur, and culture-building mad scientist at The Money Source. He was ranked #9 on Glassdoor’s list of Top CEOs of Small and Medium Companies in the U.S. Through the use of values, Darius grew his company of 30 to over 1,000! Darius has always been an entrepreneur, starting from the age of 10, and when he was 25, he started his first high-growth company. However, despite his success, he had no idea what he was doing. He joined the Birthing of Giants program and it opened his eyes to what core values could do to a company and its people. However, the journey was still not perfect. As Darius was sharing the core values to his team for the very first time on a call, one of his team members did not have their mic muted and he overheard what they — really — thought about the company’s values. He was upset, but looking back, that person was right. The company was still a mess. Three years into the Birthing of Giants program, they conducted an exercise to see which of the founders could remember their own core values. Half of the room didn’t (Darius being one of them), and the remaining other half didn’t believe their employees could remember them. Darius was dumbfounded, how could he not even remember his own core values? Darius went back to the drawing board. What he created was not memorable and they couldn’t be applied to real-life scenarios. He decided to rework his core values in a simpler way and have it be something that everybody could realistically live through and take action on. Interview Links: Themoneysource.com Darius on LinkedIn Birthingofgiants.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Have you ever thought you were doing it all wrong? It could well be! Today’s guest shares some big lies about work that will help you get out of your funk and focus on the bigger picture. Ashley Goodall is an executive, leadership expert, and author of Nine Lies About Work, and has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside. He is currently the Senior Vice President of Methods and Intelligence at Cisco, where his organization aims to reveal the answers to some of the most challenging questions about work. Ashley fell into business and when he worked at Deloitte, they would rate his performance on a scale of 1–5 every year. He hated this process and even more so when he had to do it to other people. Deloitte heard his disdain for it and put him in charge of making their system better. A theme that runs very powerfully throughout Ashley’s book is that we are humans, we are imperfect, we are different, and too much of the world of work finds that difference annoying. Large organizations make a conscious effort to level the playing field, but what they’re really saying is that they’re uncomfortable with human difference. The best organizations and the best teams have figured out how to help people prosper and grow within their organization using their unique talents and differences. Human individuality and uniqueness is a critical feature, not a bug! And, it’s the most important feature of them all.   Interview Links: Ashleygoodall.com Ashley on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Bill and today’s guest go way back — nearly 18 years — and he served as a mentor and someone who inspired Bill to change directions from CEO to Coach. Today’s topics dive into boosting employee engagement, what it is, and some of the signs your team is highly engaged. Dean Jones is a Senior Learning Expert at Gallup, responsible for leading Gallup’s global learning strategy. In addition to advising clients on learning and organizational development interventions, he has overseen Gallup’s client learning strategy, the development of the organization’s workplace consultants and learning offering, and the growth of Gallup’s learning business worldwide. Dean doesn’t know if he’ll be getting on a plane this year. The pandemic has made people realize that there are other ways, and possibly better ways, to work. This falls in nicely with the work Dean is doing, which studies how people develop and how organizations can address development in really meaningful ways. Gallup, Inc. were the ones that coined the term employee engagement and have been studying this topic for longer than anybody else has. The reason for this is because they wanted to distinguish between employee engagement and employee satisfaction. Fundamentally, engagement is driven by a finite number of things. It starts with people knowing what’s expected of them, having the right materials to do their job right, and having the ability to do what they do best every day. When leaders and managers focus on those things, they create a culture that’s far superior to just buying ping pong tables for the break room.   Interview Links: Gallup.com Dean on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Our two coach panelists have both been on the show before. Bruce Eckfeldt is a consultant, Certified Gazelles coach, and speaker on organizational development and performance management. Anita Cabell is the Founder of Leading Edge and has been in the Chinese market for the last 18-plus years as a Scaling Up Coach.   Today’s panel dives in on what they’ve been seeing when it comes to scaling forward during this pandemic. Bill has seen some surprising things happen this quarter, as some of his clients have been able to scale effectively to $1 million-plus in their revenue.   Anita has been working globally for a number of years and her advice is to not be afraid of the virtual world. There is so much that can get done. Anita has a lot of Asian clients and since they were hit first, she was able to see what they did to pivot and bring that knowledge and advice back to her U.S. clients.   Bruce has seen two things happening here when it comes to pivoting and scaling forward. The first is that his clients have been very quick to get a top-down approach and look to where their company can change and adapt within the market. Second, the mindset of the entrepreneur is very flexible. Those who have seen this level of crisis before are taking this as just another challenge to work through.   As Bruce is currently working with a lot of CEOs in New York, he is noticing a lot of them are comparing these new events to 9/11. It’s bringing back memories of how to figure out things when everything was uncertain and up in the air.   When this pandemic hit, Bill was concerned. He thought he might have to retire early because we were going through a recession. Not wanting to have idle hands, he provided coaching services for free or ‘pay what you can’ and because of this, his business is thriving and busier than ever, and revenues are up!   Interview Links: Eckfeldt.com Bruce on LinkedIn Leadingedgebusinesscoaching.com Anita on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We all know the benefits of having a conscious culture where innovation and reinventing are rewarded and supported, but realistically, most of us are not innovating or reinventing. Today’s guest shares how to incorporate the right structures to make innovation easy!   Josh Linkner is a five-time tech entrepreneur, hyper-growth CEO, two-time NY Times bestselling author, and venture capitalist. Josh, who organically started his career as a jazz guitarist, uses his background to cultivate and create disruptive innovation.   Josh put himself through college playing music. Whether you like jazz as an art form or not, one thing is very clear, 99% of what you play is made up as you go. Josh took the same approach when he started his tech company 30 years ago. He had no business education but knew that he could figure it out as he went along and adapt to whatever was thrown at him. He was right.   The models of the past do not work today in this new environment that we’re in. We have to take a fresh approach if we want our company to succeed for years to come. However, just sitting down and thinking about it can be very overwhelming. Where do you start?   Too often, we think good ideas come from a lightning bolt from the heavens and it arrives to us perfectly. That just doesn’t happen. The best ideas come from multiple iterations of experimentations until you get it down right. What great leaders do isn’t bet the entire company on one great idea, they run constant experiments on several ideas to see which one has legs to stand on, and then run with it.   Interview Links: Joshlinkner.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. We have seen throughout history that when a recession hits, it comes in waves. Today’s episode is all about how to navigate whatever the future holds so that you and your business come out stronger!   Jonathan Slain coaches high-growth leadership teams across the United States and helps them implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System also known as “Traction.” He is also the author of, Rock the Recession: How Successful Leaders Prepare For, Thrive During, and Create Wealth After Downturns.   Since WWII, every 7–10 years the United States has had a recession. Jonathan knows people roll their eyes when he talks about the ‘next recession’ but honestly, if you lost your biggest client tomorrow, you’re in a recession! The economy can be booming around you and you are in a recession in your business.   Jonathan talks about how to plan for a recession so you can adapt and cope! Jonathan wrote the book so that when something bad happened, you weren’t reactive and forced to pick between two ‘okay’ options. Taking from his very own painful life experiences, Jonathan didn’t have a plan when things went south and his business suffered because of it.   Employees were coming to Jonathan asking if they still had jobs coming Monday, clients were asking for refunds, and, throughout all of this, no one had good answers for them. The only reason Jonathan survived was that a family member loaned him money. Running a private check on your mother-in-law might not be the best and most savvy business move for you. The good news is, this is all avoidable!   Interview Links: Autobahnconsultants.com Recession.com Jonathan on LinkedIn Rock the Recession: How Successful Leaders Prepare For, Thrive During, and Create Wealth After Downturns, by Jonathan Slain and Paul Belair   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

People are often a challenge for business leaders and sometimes it can even be difficult to source the right types of talent. Everything in business revolves around people. They are your asset. Today’s guest shares how people are the key to helping you get through tough challenges.   Tom Peters is author of 17 books and has been at the forefront of the management industry for the last 35 years. It is Tom’s belief that people and action-taking are what get good work done, not necessarily all the talking and the theory. Additionally, Tom’s work, both written and speech material, covering the last 15-plus years, is available for free on his website.   Tom has been spreading the message of ‘people first’ for the last 43-plus years. As a 77-year-old man who understands his own mortality, his definition of what success looks like is if he can walk past the mirror without barfing. People are watching and what you’re doing now to manage this pandemic will be remembered.   When the pandemic hit, Tom knew he could use his expertise to help people in need and help them through this crisis. It’s just good to give back. Sometimes people don’t necessarily need to know the strategy plan, but just need a bit of reassurance that everything is going to be okay, that they will make it through.   Tom is not a fan of the word ‘vision’ or the way executives come up with ‘company values.’ These things don’t think about the people. He would help companies create their visions when he was working with McKinsey & Company. However, he discovered that the definition of vision is a strategy study marked up by 30%.   Interview Links: Tompeters.com Excellencenow.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.)

This week, Bill Gallagher, Lisa Ridley, and Daniel Marcos discuss the new developments that are happening in the World of Scaling Up and cover news topics related to what’s happening in the country.   Let’s talk about diversity in light of the recent police brutality attacks. It’s a tough topic because there are two white people and a Hispanic on the call, but the main point to drive home is how can we, as leaders, remove barriers for our people so they can thrive. We are seeing a profound social cost when we see a lack of respect and ignorance.   There is forced transparency happening. Images are being shown in the media that are very difficult to see right now, and that’s the point. Lisa is getting to hear some conversation topics she’s never heard before and it’s giving people a voice to speak.   We’re living in not only a pandemic right now, but also a social crisis. Daniel has lived in the U.S. for the last 15 years and has personally seen these things happen to him or people he’s known during his time here. It’s refreshing to have a voice, not just in the U.S., but also globally. People are marching all over the world against racism and police brutality.   Bill has always been a straight white male. There’s no changing that and Bill recognizes this privilege. He remembers when he was a minority in a remote part of Pakistan and he was the only person there who looked like him. Not knowing how to speak the language, he felt vulnerable, but this was not something he had to experience every day. He has a lot of empathy for what people of a different skin color or cultural background have to go through on a daily basis.   Interview Links: Lisa: Compassgroupcc.com Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Dr. Frances Frei   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We can all get better at our marketing and today’s show is how you can implement easy marketing strategies into your business right now. You don’t need any special or creative mojo to get these strategies to work, simplicity is key!   Bruce Rowley is the Founder of RSMarketing, which offers data-driven outsourced marketing services. They have appeared on the INC. 5000 list twice. Bruce launched his company at the bottom of the recession in 2010; he shares how you can keep your marketing easy and fresh during a crisis.   Bruce, in addition to the U.S., has worked in Hong Kong and Singapore. He discovered that marketing is the same everywhere, no matter the culture. If you can understand what people want, listen to the market, and answer what the market needs, you will succeed.   An operational playbook is necessary for all types of business, but you should also have one for sales as well as marketing. You can plan in advance for fun events and relevant trade shows your brand needs to appear at through the use of a playbook.   It’s critical to understand your numbers in every step of the business. If you’re only partially aware of the numbers, you’re never going to fully and successfully scale. Growth has a tendency to eat your cash and if you don’t know your numbers inside and out, you might find yourself unnecessarily spinning your wheels.   Interview Links: Rsmconnect.com Bruce on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

As the world changes and you’re busy focusing on what new tools to use, business models, pivots you have to do in your business, there is another thing you might want to pay attention to: yourself. Today’s guest helps ask some key questions on how you can evolve and grow during these critical pivots.   Todd Palmer is a collaborative business advisor and CEO of Extraordinary Advisors. He went from being a struggling entrepreneur with $600,000 in debt to making it in the INC. 5000 (A total of six times!) as one of America’s fastest-growing companies. Todd is also the author of the popular book, The Job Search Process.   Todd learned at an early age that he could only depend on himself and that the path of entrepreneurship was the only real way for him to make it. But because of the way he was wired, his business got so paralyzed and so dependent on him and he was the main factor as to why his company had bottleneck and growth issues.   Todd was stuck. He didn’t know where to go from here and despite business doing relevant okay, he was broke. The only option at the time to get out of this and his intense imposter syndrome was to hire a coach. He knew there was no way he could fail or quit. He was backed into a corner.   When Todd came up with his list of core values for the company, everything changed. He began hiring for the DNA and not for the resume. His company began thriving because of it.   Interview Links: Extraordinaryadvisors.com Todd on LinkedIn Todd on Twitter   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

This year, it might be smart to do a little bit less than you normally would. Can you actually make your company better and more valuable by doing less, though? The answer is yes! This week’s guest is a master of tackling overwhelm and simplifying your life.   Ari Meisel is the best-selling author of The Art Of Less Doing: One Entrepreneur’s Formula for a Beautiful Life, and The Replaceable Founder. He is a self-described ‘overwhelmologist’ whose insights into personal and professional productivity have earned him the title of ‘The Guru’s Guru.’   Ari used to work really unhealthy 18-hour days and after three years of doing this, he found himself in $3 million worth of personal debt. He was also diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, which made his productivity struggle. He couldn’t even get one hour of work done a day. He had to find alternatives and he had to do it quickly.   Ari worked diligently on how to incorporate automation, business optimization, and team structures into his business so that he could maximize his time based on what he could physically do. Through these productivity discoveries, Ari created Less Doing, to help coach clients on doing the same.   Now, he helps clients replace themselves as a CEO or Founder. Entrepreneurs often think, ‘If I could only find someone who was just like me.’ But, we all know that’s nearly impossible to do. Though, not all hope is lost if you’re feeling overwhelmed and like you’re working two full-time jobs in your business. Ari stresses the importance of conscious project management, outsourcing, and automation to make your life easier.   Interview Links: Lessdoing.com Ari on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

This week, Bill features a client case study! Chin Beckman is the owner of DSP Concepts, an audio platform powering over 40 million of the world’s best devices and the leading supplier to top tier brands in automotive and consumer products like Tesla, GoPro, and Bang & Olufsen, among others. They recently closed a round of Series B funding last month, which saw investments from leaders in the industry like BMW, Porsche, MediaTek Ventures, and more.   Chin Beckman and her husband, Paul, both work on the business together. Chin credits herself with helping Paul get into MIT because Paul used to copy her math homework in high school. Paul studied signal processing under two prestigious professors in the industry, Professor Oppenheim and Dr. Bose. This early start set them up to understand the mathematics and wave formats of how audio systems work.   Chin has taken on the role of CEO and has helped with the fundraising as well as the business development side of DSP Concepts. Paul has taken on the technology development and engineering role in the company. Chin says she is a reluctant CEO, but she knew she needed help and that’s why she reached out to Bill shortly after they raised the needed funding.   Chin shares why GoPro originally approached them. Since a lot of their customer base is jumping out of planes and doing extreme sports, the audio quality is critical. No one wants to hear themselves in a wind tunnel, so DSP worked with them on developing wind noise reduction technology. They needed a sound system that could handle 100 miles per hour.   Interview Links: dspconcepts.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

How have you been sleeping? How are you feeling lately? Do you feel off? It’s critical to take care of your mental health and your mental state during times of crisis and stress. Our guest today has practical thoughts on what you can do to feel better now.   Malorie Nicole is a Mindset Expert and Subconscious Reprogramming coach for high-achieving entrepreneurs and driven professionals. She helps her clients decrease their stress, create a more fulfilling life, lead their teams more efficiently, and generate more money through helping them uncover their mental barriers for success.   Malorie was suffering from several different health problems and it caused her so much anxiety and tension in her life. That was the wake-up call she needed to take better care of herself. This is how she discovered her love for health and wellness.   Everyone is freaking out right now. One of Malorie’s clients — he mentally lost it. He was ready to buy a gun and defend his family for the next six months. What was really happening was there were old emotions getting triggered about the need to feel safe and in control.   What goes on in your subconscious is playing out into reality and you don’t even notice how these subtle things might be affecting you! What you’re after, the goals you’ve set, are completely possible, but when we don’t know how to work through that fear, it blocks our ability to get there.   When we’re in touch with our emotions, we can create better products and offers to our clients because we now have an emotional connection towards them and what they’re feeling/going through. You can enhance your business and enrich the lives of others just by understanding what you’re feeling.   Interview Links: Malorie-nicole.com Malorie on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Deb Gabor is the CEO and Founder of Sol Marketing, she helps brands scale their content and helps create brand loyalty, Ami Kassar is the CEO and Founder of MultiFunding and a nationally renowned small business advocate and leader, and Anita Cabell is the Founder of Leading Edge and has been in the Chinese market for the last 18-plus years as a Scaling Up Coach.   Since we’re living in a different world right now, Bill thought it was important to bring on the perspective of different coaches around the world to get their thoughts and insights on what is happening currently. As some of us have been hit really hard and had to lay off some people, others are dealing with a lot of overwhelm, our coaches today have some important insights on how they’re helping their clients through this pandemic.   What is working and not working in the world of online Zoom meetings right now? Deb tried to replicate the office scenario where she’d just randomly pop into meetings and see how everyone was doing, but she realized she had to stop doing this as it was creating a lot of anxiety for her team. Another piece that she’s been struggling with is eye contact. Who is she supposed to be looking at?   One of Ami’s friends had to cancel their son’s bar mitzvah, but they decided to host it on Zoom instead. It was an experience he’d never forget. They made the best out of an awful situation and 40 of their closest friends were able to attend from around the world. For Ami, it seemed a lot more intimate and meaningful than being in a synagogue.   Anita is experiencing something similar. As all of her family is from different parts of the world, it offered a rare time for their entire family to tune in and be together on Zoom. She also understands Deb’s perspective on having to be a little more ‘on’ and experiencing much more fatigue than normal while being on a Zoom meeting. People are overwhelmed with everything we’re throwing at them.   Bill, Deb, Ami, and Anita continue their discussion on what they’re currently seeing with online collaboration tools with their clients and how well they’re working as well as reflecting on how much time they’re saving on travel and being able to be home and connect with their families.   Interview Links: Debgabor.com Deb on LinkedIn Multifunding.com Ami on LinkedIn Leadingedgebusinesscoaching.com Anita on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Many businesses are hurting right now, so this is an excellent opportunity to look at ways you can pivot and adjust your business model as we embrace a new daily normal. Today’s guest had his business close overnight, but through some careful thinking has reopened his doors and has kept his staff employed.   Kevin Hundal is the CEO of Atrend, a provider of high-end mobile electronic accessories for events that need acoustical solutions. As no one is currently hosting events right now, Kevin and his team had to pivot quickly to stay in business.   At Kevin’s peak, he had 34 employees working for him and 25 contractors who all depended on Kevin’s business. His business started becoming affected in December when China was experiencing the impact of the virus because he was relying on imports from there.   When the virus hit, it impacted revenue by about 15-20%. Then when the stay-at-home order happened on March 15, Kevin saw a 60 to 80% drop in revenue. Kevin put a challenge to his leadership team on how they could pivot and get their business back on track. Unfortunately, Kevin had to lay off 25% of their workforce.   Kevin and his leadership looked around in their warehouse to see what they could make that would be useful today. Turns out, they can make face shields for grocery stores and companies who deal directly with customers and provide a safe barrier from them.   Through a SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis, Kevin and his team are actually creating new products that are relevant to the crisis right now and are helping frontline staff like medical staff, nursing homes, and UPS drivers get access to their products.   Interview Links: Atrendusa.com Kevin on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

There are many lessons from people navigating these times right now! If you’re worried about how to maintain your routine or keep connected with your personal and professional relationships, this week’s guest has some suggestions on how to start.   Robert Glazer is the Founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a global performance marketing agency. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. As a serial entrepreneur, Robert has a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to outperform.   Despite everything that’s going on, whether it’s your business shutting its doors or customers unable to pay you, you do need an anchoring purpose to get through all of this and giving back to your community can be a great equalizer.   Bill also knows the importance of giving back during this time and has been doing so in his business. His wife also joined an organization, East Bay FeedER, where they are currently feeding 250 ER personnel.   With everything that’s going on, it will soon become the new normal. Human beings have the extraordinary ability to adapt, and this virus is no exception. As soon as we begin to settle in, we will not find the day-to-day as stressful.   Interview Links: Accelerationpartners.com Brandcycle.com Robertglazer.com Eastbayfeeder.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

This crisis may have made you close your doors temporarily, or at the very least, shift the way you’re doing business. This episode is all about what you should be focusing on first to get the most out of this uncertain situation!   Mike Michalowicz is the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, and his latest book, Fix This Next. He is also the Owner of Profit First Professionals, his third million-dollar venture. Mike has been an entrepreneur his entire life and also he is a popular main stage keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics.   Mike was very successful, but he had no clue what entrepreneurship really was. He saw that sales cures everything, but in reality, a business needs so much more than just that. He ended up losing nearly everything except his family. When he was at the bottom, he thought long and hard about what his next career move would be, something that would give him meaning, and he decided that he wanted to become a business writer to really discover what the core of entrepreneurship is.   Just like us as people, businesses have a common DNA. Mike investigated and researched micro-businesses to macro/big businesses. All businesses have a hierarchy of needs and if we understand what the needs are, we can pinpoint what to work on next and resolve it.   Businesses have five levels of needs, Sales, Profit, Order, Impact, and Legacy. We often understand when we, as people, have needs. We know when we’re in danger or that we’re hungry, but with our business, we often use our gut feelings to solve the most pressing of problems. The first thing to do is make an assessment of all the challenges you might have and then, before you try to fix anything, back those up with empirical data.   Interview Links: Mikemichalowicz.com Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change that Will Level Up Your Business Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine Ask The Profit First Professional Facebook Group   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Welcome back to another episode of Scaling Up Insights! We have guests Daniel Marcos, Andy Clayton, and Judy Guido to share their thoughts on the new developments happening in the World of Scaling Up.   Andy is the Lead Coach at Petra Coach Europe and has helped Western companies operate over $50 million in sales in China. Daniel and Judy are returning panel guests. Daniel is the Founder of the Growth Institute and coaches primary Latin American markets. Judy is the Chair of Guido and Associates and has overseen at least 100 several successful mergers and acquisitions.   Daniel is seeing a lot of people worried right now. There’s a lot of misinformation being spread around and they don’t know who to believe. Judy agrees. There is a lot of misinformation coming out in the health arena alone and it’s putting people at risk. Judy believes now is a great time to talk to your competitors and get a feel of the landscape. Don’t speculate, get the facts.   Andy understands the worry. He spent 15 years in China and a lot of his friends and family are still living there. He is seeing Europe repeat the same patterns that China did. He believes whatever is happening currently, we will see lasting effects ripple throughout the economy. Things will not be 100% the same as they were before.   In this episode, our panel of coaches discusses pandemic preparations, innovation in companies during times of natural disasters and war, and the types of changes we can expect to see happen.   Interview Links: Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Judy: Guidoassoc.com Andy: Petracoach.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Companies now have everyone working remotely. If you don’t have it yet, you’re about to. Remote work is becoming the new normal and most of us are not set up for it! Today’s episode is all about ways you can optimize your working-from-home situation.   Daniel Ramsey is the Founder and CEO of MyOutDesk, a virtual assistant provider for businesses looking to take their needs offshore. Daniel has over 13 years of experience helping clients manage remote employees and has a quick checklist of all the tools, systems, and processes clients need to succeed.   Daniel started his business in 2008, during the economic downturn, and had to think quickly on how to serve his clients. He helps his clients in four key areas, sales, administrative support, operations support, and marketing assistance.   In Daniel’s checklist, the first step is to understand who your audience is and what are the different things that matter to them. This could be your employees, clients, and vendors. Once you understand who you need to be talking to, the next is to develop a remote checklist.   Find your communication hub that everyone will use. Start your day with to-do tasks and end your day with a report on how those tasks went. Over-communication is critical at this time. Use video conference calls when chatting about important topics because that face-to-face interaction is critical.   Interview Links: Myoutdesk.com Dave on LinkedIn Ringcentral.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Each day this week, Bill has been sharing a podcast about important information you need to know during a crisis. We first started with Warren Rustand, who discussed leading in a time of crisis; he was followed by Heidi Hanna and she covered the mental health aspects of dealing with a crisis.   Greg Crabtree covered business financials, Rich Manders spoke about how to create a Plan B without panic, and finally, Cameron Herold discussed how to execute during a crisis. You can look forward to Verne Harnish’s talk about the 5Cs for leading in a crisis in the next few days. There will be an upcoming podcast about remote work, as well!   Don’t try to fake it during this time. If you have concerns or fears, lean into it and face it. Don’t you try to avoid it or replace it, or numb it. Bill woke up at 2 a.m. feeling anxious and he spent some time trying to find where these feelings were coming from. By developing your emotional intelligence and awareness, this gives you an excellent opportunity to show up as a leader and be there for your team as well.   Also, don’t feel like you need to have a fully thought-through strategy. Leaders feel like they need a plan right now to guide them, but it’s hard to develop one when you don’t really know what’s happening yet. Get ready to plan on the go at a time like this. Sometimes you can even involve your team to help create the plan with you. It doesn’t have to all be on your shoulders.   Use this opportunity to create leaders within your team. It’s really essential that you lead even before you have a foolproof plan, but you can start by just engaging with your team and letting them know you’re there for them. By pooling your resources together, you will be able to discover unique solutions to current problems.   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Panic is contagious out there but so is leadership. It’s time for leaders to rise up! This is why we have a very special guest today and that’s Verne Harnish. He has spent 38 years working with the best leaders dealing with crises and has some words of wisdom for you today.   Things are changing every 24 hours and so it’s important to keep your eye on the prize and plan for where you plan to be in the next ten years. What’s happening today, we will get through it. Just like we’ve gotten through world wars.   Leaders need to be over communicating during this time. People need it. People don’t feel safe and when they have a leader constantly checking in and letting them know that all of us will persevere, your staff will think rationally and, most importantly, not panic. If you have something negative to share, make sure that’s what you talk about first. Don’t try to sugarcoat it.   During this time, focus on giving. Give, give, give. You might want to consider turning off promotions because that might be seen as insensitive. Also, take some time to learn something new and focus your attention away from the news. Take care of the little tasks that you’ve been putting off. You have a great opportunity right now to recenter yourself and optimize processes. You might actually find that you’ll have extra cash laying around!   Finally, remember to stay calm! A leader sets the tone for the entire organization. If you’re having a hard time remaining calm, try to breathe, adopt a new mantra, and/or practice mindful meditation. Just take a few deep breaths and be thankful you were able to take those breaths!   Interview Links: Scalingup.com “5 (Practical) Cs For Leading In A Crisis/Downturn”   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Basic routines still matter as you are going through change and a bit of disruption in your standard patterns. Focus and great execution will help get you through this period of stress and uncertainty. Cameron Herold is a business consultant, best-selling author, and speaker. He built two million dollar companies by the age of 35 and grew one of his companies, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? From $2 million to $106 million in revenue within six years. Today, he is the Founder of the COO Alliance. Cameron publicly announced in January that he would shift 50% of his assets into cash to prepare for a downturn. He has been telling his coaching clients for the last 12 months to prepare for a downturn. It’s important to have a discussion around the ‘what ifs’ before you need to have them. To react in the moment of uncertainty is very stressful. Cameron recommends that for future crises, it’s important to take some time out of your day every month for a strategic thinking session. Give yourself some space to think about the next 12 months and what might the world look like. By having a plan, you can become adaptable during an uncertain time. For example, two of Cameron’s speaking engagements canceled. It’s not a big deal to Cameron because he is able to focus on his core plan, which is to grow COO Alliance and to continue on. Instead of freaking out, he is focused on his three-year vision that he is driving towards.   Interview Links: Cooalliance.com Cameronherold.com COO on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

How do you move from surviving to thriving during the worst pandemic crisis we’ve seen in a very long time? You can write your own breakthrough growth story right now. Today, you’ll learn how to use the Strengths, Weaknesses, and Trends (SWT) tool to help accelerate your growth.   Rich Manders was the Co-Founder of iAutomation, which started from $0 sales in 1998 and grew to a $90 million run rate with 185 employees. He is currently the Co-Founder of FreeScale Coaching Systems, a leadership team coaching firm focused on helping scale middle-market businesses.   Rich works on a quarterly rhythm with his clients and they are stuck in uncertainty due to the Coronavirus. Clients are unsure how this pandemic will affect their business model going forward, but to help them get unstuck in this process Rich is helping them get their Quarter 2 plans done.   The first step is to do an SWT analysis and update it. Rich estimates that 3/4 of his clients are severely impacted by the virus. Key conferences and flights are getting canceled, leaving a lot of people homebound and unable to work. Rich is working with clients on a backup plan. It is always good to develop a plan for the downside.   Take your current business model and your income statement and broadcast ‘doomsday’ scenarios. Rich recommends three: 10% cut in revenue or sales, 25% cut, or a 50% cut and rework business plans around each of these cuts in advance.   Interview Links: Freescalecoaching.com Rich on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Cash is a king and you can’t survive without cash. You also cannot take advantage of opportunities without cash. If you’ve prepared well, you have a big cash reserve right now and you will be able to maximize your return on luck during this period. However, what happens if you don’t currently have enough in reserves?   Greg Crabtree is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and financial expert. He is the CEO of Crabtree, Rowe & Berger, PC, a CPA firm that focuses on helping businesses create sustainable profits, manage tax implications, and more. Greg is also the author of the book, Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits, in which he shares his core principles on how to turn your business into a wealth-building engine.   When Greg wrote his first book, it was during a time where the market had just recovered from the recession. During his research, he found that a fully capitalized business, which means businesses that had two-months of core capital targets achieved, were the ones that took advantage of their situation the most and not only survived the recession but thrived from it.   Greg realizes that not every business has two months of cash on hand, which just means that businesses currently facing a crisis need to think creatively on how to navigate through situations like this. Whatever is happening in the world today, take a look at your profit engines and ask yourself, “Am I going to be losing money or am I just not going to make as much?”   If you’re going to be losing money, look at the balance sheet right away and see how much runway you might have. Then, start cutting things that don’t make sense for your business right now. One of Greg’s travel clients realized that it made the most sense to turn off their paid search as fewer people will be willing to travel right now.   There are big ripple effects happening all across industries. Investors are hesitant to invest, restaurant and service industries are down, people are staying home more. However, that doesn’t mean all businesses are affected equally. Greg’s real estate clients are OK in this uncertain time. Take a look at your particular industry and see if this is a disaster for you.   Greg believes most industries have 90 days of runway to wait and see what this pandemic might turn into before it puts businesses in a tight situation. He is hopeful that by June things will be a little more clear and the pandemic situation will be positive. Most of Greg’s clients right now are growing between 10-30% a year. Greg’s advice is to reduce unnecessary spending, be cautious about staff adjustments, and ride it out. And remember, the stock market is not an accurate indicator of the economy.   Interview Links: Simple numbers.me Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits, by Greg Crabtree Greg on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We’ve all heard of the advice that you must put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others. But how can you do that if you’re losing it yourself? We have a mental health expert to help calm your nerves. This episode is two of a series of five episodes on the five big moves leaders need to make right now during a crisis.   Dr. Heidi Hanna is the Chief Energy Officer of Synergy Brain Fitness, a company providing brain-based health and performance programs to individuals and organizations. She is also a Founding Partner of the Academy for Brain Health and Performance and a Fellow and Advisory Board Member for the American Institution of Stress.   Emotions are running very high and there has been a range of reactions to the latest pandemic news. When faced with challenges like these, ask yourself how you can become resilient through what you’re facing currently. What are the little things you can do today to take better care of yourself physically and emotionally?   Heidi has a few different ways on how to better manage your emotional well being in times of uncertainty and a crisis. The first one is to have a bit of awareness of what’s actually happening, away from the fear and the hype the media might portray. It’s okay to validate your experiences and admit to yourself that we are in a difficult time and that you might be feeling overwhelmed, or fearful of what’s to come.   Take some time to look for ways we can adapt more effectively to our new set of circumstances. Pay attention to what you can control to the best of your ability. Also, it’s okay to focus on the positives of life while still taking precautions. You can always take time to laugh, love, and enjoy your life despite the challenges around you.   Interview Links: Heidihanna.com Ebrain.teachable.com Brainhealthandperformance.com Stress.org Heidi on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

How do you lead people when you don’t know what’s going on? Nor when you have a plan in place for an unexpected crisis? Teams are desperate for your leadership. This episode is one of a series of five episodes on the five big moves leaders need to make right now during a crisis.   Warren Rustand is a serial entrepreneur, educator, and public servant. He served as Appointments Secretary to President Gerald Ford and has been Chairman or CEO of 17 companies. He was the previous Chairman of the World Presidents Organization and the Dean of Leadership for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He also has served on more than 20 boards throughout his career.   Remember, you are a leader of your family, your business, and your community. The first thing to do is seek clarity while everyone around you might panic. Step back for a moment and make sure you have a very clear view of what’s going on. We have to be data-based in our decision-making.   As a leader, think about how you might want to communicate to those who seek your advice. Communication should be driven by the available data that you have and not through rumor or speculation. During this time, it’s okay to be completely transparent that you might not know all the answers right now. It’s okay to be vulnerable and to lead your team by what data might be trickling in day-by-day.   Write out your thoughts and create a plan of intentionality. List your planned steps of action on paper. This applies to both your family life and your work life. Review it and process it before you make choices and decisions. We have to find the right timing to make decisions correctly.   Interview Links: Warren on Wikipedia Warren on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

How do you get your marketing to work better? How do you know when your messaging is working and how do you optimize it for maximum conversions? If you’re worried about whether your message is hitting home for your customers, chances are you have a branding issue.   Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist and author. With her growth-oriented approach, she has advised companies like Starbucks, T-Mobile, IMDB, and more on how to hone their brand. Lindsay uses her Ironclad Method to run brands through a rigorous testing process to make sure they stand the tests of time.   When Lindsay worked at Clorox, she had to get really good at developing the brand so that people would buy them over any other competitor. The truth is, brand-name bleach vs. a private label is the same thing product-wise, so what makes consumers buy a well-established version? It’s all in the branding!   People often think that branding is just how your logo looks or how your social media is presented, or your personality. All those things add to the brand but are not the brand itself. Think of branding as your north star that will guide you into different mediums and product/service launches.   In Lindsay’s book, Forging an Ironclad Brand, she wrote it to demystify how to create a compelling brand, how brand can be used as a leadership tool, and she shows you the method of how leaders can build this out and not feel so ‘lost’ in branding. The best part is you don’t have to be a creative type to build out this strategy.   Interview Links: Ironcladbrandstrategy.com Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide, by Lindsay Pedersen Lindsay on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

This episode is about an early-stage entrepreneur that used the Rockefeller Habits in Scaling Up early on his in company’s growth and was able to scale it to a million in sales within a couple of years. You will learn about his story and how he was able to keep it small.   George Papazov started his trading career at Scotiabank and roughly 10 years later he launched TradePro, an academy to help provide trading education, growth, and collaboration. George trades daily with his community of professional traders and is also a licensed Master Practitioner of NLP.   George started his business a bit backward. He spent long hours creating content and when he finally launched the website, nobody came! George was wondering how he could turn this into a viable business and his wife introduced him to the Rockefeller Habits. After reading it, things started to click.   Through the book, he was able to take a complex goal and verbalize it in a simple sentence. This was incredibly helpful for George because it helped him not get side-tracked when developing their product. Also, by developing their brand promise early on, it was very clear what they stood for and what they wouldn’t tolerate.   The next step George took was getting clear on what KPIs were important to the company. This was critical when George began growing from a one-man-show to an entire team. He needed his staff to be accountable and the KPIs helped him through that.   Interview Links: Tradeproacademy.com George on LinkedIn Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm, by Verne Harnish   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you feeling stuck, stalled, and stale? This show is for you! Today’s expert dives into what you can do when your growth stalls out and how to reignite it back on track. With 30-plus years of experience, the answers might surprise you.   Steve McKee is the President of McKee Wallwork + Company, a nationally recognized marketing advisory firm that specializes in generating new momentum for stalled, stuck, and stale organizations. He is also the author of three books, When Growth Stalls, Brand vs. Wild, and Power Branding.   After five years of being in business, Steve found himself on the Inc. 500 list as the fastest-growing private company in America. This was great news, but within a few months their growth stalled and things began to decline. They couldn’t figure it out and they went on a 20-month drift where they had 94% turnover.   As they were on the verge of going bankrupt, Steve commissioned a research piece on all the fastest-growing companies in the Inc. 500 list to see what they were doing right. He found some shocking factors: three external and four internal dynamics that shook up company growth. He also found out that he wasn’t the only one suffering from this problem, as 20% of those companies were in the same position he was in.   The four internal dynamics are lack of alignment, loss of focus, loss of nerve, and inconsistency. These four things follow a vicious cycle with one after another and this slow buildup of problems leads to what seems to be a sudden mountain of problems overnight. If you get into this cycle and you don’t interrupt it, you will go down.   Interview Links: Mckeewallwork.com Steve Mckee’s books   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

As a leader, you need to learn how to speak and command a room. The ability to speak effectively opens a lot of doors and helps your team understand the overarching goal you’re trying to achieve. It’s also an incredibly useful skill to have if you are presenting a talk or being interviewed. Today’s guest is a veteran broadcaster and media trainer!   Steve Kosch began his TV career at the age of 15 as a weathercaster, which led to forecasting positions on camera at ABC, NBC Bakersfield, The Weather Channel, and a 10-year-long career at CNN. Today, he operates a video editing and production business and the Media Training Network, where he helps prep his clients on how to speak during important presentation engagements.   Back in the day, The Weather Channel and CNN were considered startups and they didn’t have the budget to send reporters onsite to natural disasters occurring throughout the country. This meant the team had to get creative and innovative with the resources they had.   With a world so easily accessible with cameras and video, Steve reminds CEOs to always think of themselves as ‘on stage’ to avoid an embarrassing hot mic situation. People are always watching. So, be the leader, be the example of what an executive presence looks like.   CEOs are used to winging it on the spot, but media interviews or recorded interviews are far less forgiving and it can end badly. People can also get their words right in interviews, but if the body language doesn’t match, the audience will know this person has something to hide as they will believe body language over words. A good media trainer teaches both the words and the tonality and body language to nail those interviews.   Interview Links: Mediatrainingnetwork.com Steve on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

People get into sales because they’re great at talking, but once they’re in it, they realize they also need to be good at listening. Once they have these two things down, the final step is to have a repeatable process so that you can close deal after deal, seamlessly. Les Lent has over 20 years of experience as a sales professional, manager, and leader. He has helped scale his sales department from $30 million to over $300 million in annual revenue. Les has led teams of seven to 70 and is the author of, The Profession of Sales. He is currently working on his second book, Two Things Holding You Back. Les failed at his first sales job. He struggled over a year to get the hang of things before finally quitting and starting a new career field. Fast forward 10-15 years later and Les realized he could become good at this and he started to teach himself the sales process. When he learned that there was a method to the madness, he succeeded. Your sales book will change and grow as your organization does, but the importance of this book is to develop consistency in the sales process. This makes it easier for you to grow when your entire sales staff is on the same page. A lot of companies will have part of their business process set up in a way where it is duplicatable, but the sales teams are often the last department that gets that kind of attention. And in the cases where they might have a sales process, salespeople are so strict in following the process, — the script — that when you get a lead that doesn’t fit the mold, they blunder it. Interview Links: Leslent.com Les on LinkedIn The Profession of Sales, by Les Lent Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners! Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

What’s happening in the world of Scaling Up? Our panel guest is Eugene Terk; he is the VP of Business Development & General Counsel for Align Technologies. He and Bill discuss everything from Horst Schulze’s biography, Excellence Wins, to the #1 investment of the decade, how to best leave a fulfilling legacy, and so much more!   Horst Schulze is the man behind designing an excellent experience at Ritz Carlton. In his book, Excellence Wins, he details how he scaled the brand while beating an incurable form of cancer along the way. Eugene admits he is a loyal Marriott fan, but it is true that staying at Ritz Carlton is a very exceptional experience. Everyone remembers your name there.   The best investment of the decade… is bitcoin? $1 invested in 2010 would be worth $90K today. Although amazing, Bill thinks it’s too volatile. $1 of gold is now worth $1.34 and crude oil performed the worst overall; $1 of oil is now worth $0.74. Eugene noticed that the U.S. stock market is currently performing the best in the world. Park it, chill out, and play the long game.   One of Scaling Up’s highest-rated speakers, Jeff Hoffman, talks about leaving a business legacy and how to truly take care of your people and connect with them. Your work family is often as important as your family at home. People want to surround themselves with good people and you want to see them grow and succeed. It might sound simple, but by keeping your employees happy, they end up staying at your company for longer!   Interview Links: Alignwithscalingup.com Aligntoday.com Eugene on LinkedIn The #1 investment of the decade Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise, by Horst Schulze Leaving a Legacy A five-year turnaround CEO who scaled to $14 billion Profit shares vs. market share Time magazine’s best inventions of 2019 How to develop leaders inside the company   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s episode is all about marketing, marketing, marketing! How do we integrate old-school marketing with new-school methods? Is it possible to do it in a cost-effective, repeatable way? Our guest has some answers!   Andy Buyting is an established thought leader in the world of content marketing and brand positioning. He is a TEDx speaker and the author of two books: The Retailer's Roadmap to Success and How to Win Clients & Influence People. Andy has successfully leveraged his integrated marketing approach to print, digital, and through interactive marketing, to help captivate an audience and build reputation.   When Andy was in Verne Harnish’s program, Birthing of Giants, he was exposed to the concept of building a reputation through print media. Andy was running the marketing for his retail family business and he decided to launch their own retail magazine. This helped the business tremendously because they were the only retailer who had a magazine!   Through his magazine, other retailers/businesses throughout the country were approaching Andy and asking if he could replicate the same thing for their business. He developed a program so that companies could quickly create their own plug-and-play magazine.   The next thing he knew, he was building a magazine company on the back of his retail business and leveraging his customers’ mailing lists. His first issue with these partners had a print and distribution size that was 4X the size of the largest home and garden magazine in Canada, which had been in print for 120 years. After that, the rest was history.   Interview Links: Tulipmediagroup.com The Retailer's Roadmap to Success: 33 Secrets for Driving Your Business to the Next Level How to Win Clients & Influence People: Create Instant Credibility and Gain an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition “Become the Yellow Flower in the Sea of Red” | Andy Buyting | TEDxUNB Birthingofgiants.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Do you feel stuck in your work or even in your life? This show is all about how to get unstuck and to unlock more of your potential even when you’re battling personal hardships. Today’s guest discusses how you can take your most complex thoughts and turn them into action.   Klyn Elsbury was born with Cystic Fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. Klyn was told she would not survive beyond 14 years old and spent most of her life going in and out of hospitals. Klyn knew she had to be smart with the time she had and so today, as she hits her 30’s, she is a Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author, and the host of the Neuroscience for Sales Success podcast.   Klyn would spend anywhere from two to six months in a hospital every year. It was her illness that drove her to find more effective systems to help her grow and scale her business. Remember, if you are feeling like you can’t step away for a week or a few days, have Klyn be your reminder that yes, you can make things much more efficient!   When Klyn first heard of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), she thought it was a bunch of woo-woo and was extremely skeptical at how well it would work. She started off trying to find flaws within the system, but as she dug deeper into it, the more she realized it really does work. This led her down the path of getting her master’s in NLP.   How do we move from thought to action? We often think it’s a motivational problem, but it’s not. It’s what happens before you become motivated that gets you excited to stop procrastinating and do that thing. Think of what happened just before you became ridiculously motivated. What were you experiencing? Curiosity? Anger? Anxiety? Those are the emotions you want to focus on so that you can kick procrastination in the butt and turn your dreams into real action steps.   Interview Links: Missklyn.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Gender equality is not just about closing the pay gap for women and making the office environment equal; there are a lot of positive effects a company can have when both sides of the population are represented fairly.   Katica Roy is a gender economist and the Founder and CEO of Pipeline, an award-winning SaaS company that uses artificial intelligence to identify and drive economic gains through gender equality. Pipeline was named one of the ‘Best Inventions of 2019’ by TIME magazine.   Katica is the daughter of an immigrant and refugee. Growing up, she saw her family overcome such big obstacles. Their family ethos is to always do your best and to never give up. This has helped Katica become fearless as an adult and to not get scared of the ‘no.’ It just means you’re getting pushed in the right direction!   The 1992 election was the first election Katica could vote in and one of the things that stuck with her was that California, a place she was living in at the time, was the first state in the union to elect two female United States Senators.   When we think about gender equity, it often is a synonym to women’s rights, but it is so much more than that. Gender equality affects men too, but we hardly ever talk about that. If we take a look at homecare with children, for example, we know that 48% of working men would like to stay at home with their children, but they can’t.   Interview Links: Pipelineequity.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We can reach anyone through technology, whether it be through social media, Slack channels, text, emails, etc., there is always a way to get through to someone, yet we are less and less connected. How can we truly connect with people in a meaningful way? Our guest is an expert in customer service through connection.   John DiJulius got his start owning and running a chain of upscale salons and spas in the mid-’90s and his business was repeatedly named one of the top 20 salons in America. John’s primary business, The DiJulius Group, is an international consulting firm. John also runs a non-profit, Believe in Dreams, which works with children in helping them achieve their dreams.   Ever gotten the, “Your call is important to us” message? You know it isn’t! The reality is, technology is not the enemy, but it does make it easy to eliminate the true human experience. Just take a look at social media, we feel much more connected to our old highschool buddies, but those relationships become much more shallow as we only see the highlights and not the nitty-gritty.   Naturally, as we rapidly grow, we cannot be as careful about who we hire into the company and that can really destroy the customer experience. Our customer-facing employee rarely understands the pain their target customer is facing. The valet parking the customer’s Maserati is not driving a Maserati himself. Consultants working with CEOs might not have ever been CEOs themselves. The first step is to help your employees understand what your customer is going through.   John uses Starbucks as an example; they were growing rapidly and everything was breaking at the seams. John worked with Starbucks to create a ‘day in the life of a Starbucks employee’ roadmap, which helped employees consistently give their presence, attention, expertise to their customers, no matter what struggles they were going through.   Interview Links: Thedijuliusgroup.com Believeindreams.org The Relationship Economy: Building Stronger Customer Connections in the Digital Age, by John DiJulius III Ruby.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We have a special episode for you today as we close out the decade. A best of 10 podcast episodes from the Scaling Up Podcast that our listeners and production crew have loved over the years! Happy New Year!   Stacy Bare is a veteran of the Iraq war and is the Founder of Bare LLC, a consulting firm working to grow healthy organizations, people, and places through health and adventure. He is also the Founder of Adventure Not War, which aims to climb, ski, and adventure in places veterans have fought in.   Brian Solis is a digital analyst and anthropologist, where he studies disruptive technology and how it impacts the market, society, and individuals. He is also a keynote speaker and the author of eight books. Brian became a digital anthropologist in the late ’90s to study how emerging technologies are changing our society and our behaviors. The goal was to understand these changes so that new technology would have a positive impact on us and not a negative one.   Nick Nanton is a four-time Emmy Award Winning Director, Producer, and Filmmaker. A master storyteller, Nick is recognized as one of the top thought-leaders in the business world and is the author of StorySelling. On today’s podcast, Nick and I dive right into the art of storytelling and how to tell your story in a compelling and engaging way.   John Ruhlin is the author of GIFTOLOGY: The Art & Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through The Noise & Drive Referrals and founder of the Ruhlin Group. There are an art and science to using gifts to cut through the noise and drive real referrals to your business. In this episode, John discusses how to use gifts to scale your business and increase referrals.   John Ratliff first applied The Scaling Up Rockefeller Habits when he was the Founder/CEO of Appletree Answers. He grew it from a relatively small company in 1995 to 700 employees, before selling it in 2012. Today, he is the Managing Director of STS Capital Partners and sits down with Bill to discuss our overall mental health and how to combat depression when you’re sitting at the top.   Verne Harnish is the author of Scaling Up, Founder and CEO of Gazelles. He is also co-founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and the Birthing of Giants.   Morra Aarons-Mele is the founder of award-winning digital agency Women Online and its database of women influencers, The Mission List. She is an internet marketer who has helped launched online campaigns for world leaders and organizations including the United Nations, Malala Fund, Hillary Clinton for President, President Obama, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Morra is also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom.   Ron Lovett is an author, entrepreneur, and leader with a passion for change. He is the Founder of Connolly Owens, where he and his team build companies with a purpose. They teach companies how to create accountability so that their entire team is focused on the same company goals.   Lara Hodgson is the co-founder, president, and CEO of NOW Corp. She also serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School. NOW Corp is the company she co-founded to free small businesses from the burden of funding trade credit and to enable small business growth. The concept for NOW Corp’s NOWaccount payment system stems from the challenges Lara faced when growing her manufacturing business, Nourish.   Carl Gould is an entrepreneur and business growth expert. Carl has built three multi-million dollar businesses by the age of 40, has mentored the launch of over 5,000 businesses and has trained and certified over 7,000 business coaches in 35 countries.   Interview Links: “Stacy Bare — Adventure Not War” “Brian Solis — Live a Happier, More Productive Life” “Nick Nanton — ‘Storyselling’ – How to Tell Your Personal Story” “John Ruhlin — The Strategic Way to Use Gifting” “John Ratliff — It’s Lonely at the Top: Your Work and Your Mental Health” “Verne Harnish — The Biggest Mistakes in Scaling Up” “Morra Aarons-Mele — How to Network and Show up While Being An Introverted Leader” “Ron Lovett — Remove Mid-Level Management Through Task Mapping” “Lara Hodgson — How Lacking Resources Generates Innovation” “Carl Gould — Get More Customers Without Compromising on Price”   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Today’s panel coaches are Andres Zylberberg and Kim Bayer-Augustavo. Andres has over 15 years of experience as a consultant and business growth coach and Kim worked as the Marketing Officer for McDonald’s for over 22 years and now impacts companies as a growth coach, as well.   Our panel will be discussing and sharing their thoughts on some of Verne’s insights and will be highlighting some of the world’s most interesting events for the month of December. They talk about gender equality in the workplace, whether culture fit hurts diversity, and why you should stop saying your company is like a family.   There’s a big shift in culture around the world, not just in the Middle East. However, Saudi Arabia is a prime example showcasing that it’s never too late to make a change and go against what is considered ‘tradition’ with their recent end to gender segregation in restaurants.   When it comes to equality in the workplace, the more equal the culture, the more likely they are to innovate and create something amazing. Cultures that have a balance of both genders were not afraid to fail in the pursuit of innovation.   There is often a disconnect between what we want the company to be versus what it actually is from a culture perspective. Andres highlights an example where if you’re not happy with the culture of the company, it starts with you first. A CEO commented to him that his culture began to change the moment he stopped wearing a suit to work. People within the organization realized very quickly that it was okay to change!   Ben Horowitz is out with a new book, What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture. In it, he discusses that strong cultures include a ‘shocking rule.’ Kim really likes this idea and will be working with clients going forward on incorporating more of this into a company’s culture. A shocking rule captures people’s attention and helps them think outside of the box.   Denise Lee Yoh makes the case to not talk about your company like they are your family. Bill once had ‘we’re like a family’ in his company values and he had to retire it because he realized that when you fire the employee, you’re not inviting them to Thanksgiving dinner.   Kim agrees. When she worked with McDonald’s, they used to call themselves a McFamily. However, the culture has changed dramatically since its inception and the prior CEO, Steve Easterbrook, said that family doesn’t apply anymore because they are a business.   Andres worked with a client where the family concept was no longer applicable in their business as well. Instead of tying a family connection into the company, they shifted focus and developed a growth mindset instead. They asked everyone, ‘What do you want to get out of this company?’ Andres feels this is a much better approach than trying to build a family connection in a company. It’s a give-and-take approach and it sets the right expectations for everyone.   Interview Links: Andreszylberberg.com Augustavointernational.com Accenture’s Latest Report on Equality Google Founders Step Aside What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture, by Ben Horowitz “Stop Saying Your Company Is Like A Family,” by Denise Lee Yohn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Today’s guest shares his experience going through the EO Accelerator program and how it has made an impact on his startup. Bill also takes this time to answer some common questions that he often gets from people who are interested in joining.   Chris Ronzio is the Founder and CEO of Trainual, a leading SaaS company that helps fast-growing businesses automate their onboarding and training process. This is Chris’s fourth business and will finish this year with 25 employees and millions of dollars in revenue.   Chris believes the Accelerator program was like his real-world business education. He went through a business undergrad program before, but it really only covered the basics. This specific program is for companies that are in between $250,000 to a million dollars in revenue and it’s to help get you over the first million in sales through the use of systems and processes.   When Chris joined the program, he was paired with an accountability group, which was a completely new experience for Chris. He was assigned six other people and they would meet once a month for about three hours. The support group was so critical because Chris finally had a place where he could vent out his problems and get real solutions to them.   For example, Chris was going through a big problem one day. He had paid one of his vendors $10,000 and the vendor hadn’t delivered what he wanted. It didn’t look like the refund was going to happen either and there was a lot of conflict going on. The coach in the accountability group helped put things into perspective. It’s a small town, do you want to have a bad reputation? Can you practice empathy in this situation? Chris learned a very valuable lesson of ‘sunk costs’ and he wouldn’t have gained that without having an outside perspective.   Interview Links: Trainual.com Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Are you currently in the startup phase where you’re launching a new business? Or are you already established, but looking to launch a new product or service? Then this episode is for you! Today’s guest dives into how you can make the startup phase a little easier on yourself so that you can scale up faster later on.   Jon Warner is a five-time CEO and currently serves as the CEO for Silver Moon shots. He is widely respected as an entrepreneurship mentor and lectures on entrepreneurship at both the undergraduate and MBA level. Jon also has 40 published books under his belt with topics ranging from leadership, innovation, and more.   Jon’s latest book, The SLAM Process, which stands for Startup Launch Assistance Map, uncovers how new founders can maximize their success during all the startup chaos. The book provides an easy set of sequential checklist-based approaches so that it can easily serve as a guide for any startup.   So many startups get it backward, at first. They develop a product to solve a problem first, instead of going out and researching if the problem is indeed a ‘big deal.’ Jon worked with a company that initially built a water/showering solution for the homeless and for festivals, but it turned out that neither niche wanted those things, so they had to pivot! Today, this company is in the disaster relief field and is working with the U.S. Navy to incorporate their showering product overseas.   In Jon’s book, he has simplified the Business Model Canvas, which is often found in lean startups. Jon has been using this model for a number of years and found it to lack sequence and to be a bit difficult for his entrepreneurs to follow. Jon’s version has a clearer sequence and really focuses on the ecosystem entrepreneurs plan on entering, which is not something the business model canvas addresses.   Interview Links: Slamprocess.com Silvermoonshots.org Jon on LinkedIn The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Anything big that you want to accomplish will require scaling up and that also means you will need a good team on your side. How do you cultivate a good team? The topic of this week’s show covers how you can build collaboration, growth, and engagement with your people so that everyone in the organization prospers.   Jeff Manchester is the Co-author of the book, The Power of Vulnerability - How to Create a Team of Leaders by shifting INward. Jeff has worked with over 1,000 Presidents and CEO as their executive coach to help their management teams excel in their current role and develop a more collaborative work environment.   Jeff worked with a consulting client recently who was in the auto parts industry. He was in the room with 16 of their top tier and 2nd tier leadership and it was very apparent to Jeff that there was some disconnect between leadership. Their mission, process, and goals were a bit scattered. He knew that if this company wanted to see bigger growth, everyone needed to be aligned.   When Jeff was able to bring focus to their biggest goals, there was a big shift in the company. They were engaged because they believed in the message and went above and beyond for their vendors and service providers. They did extra touches that aligned with the company values and in turn, this made the providers feel valued and cared for. This gave their company 18 consecutive months of record sales they had never seen before.   Jeff shares a touching story of another client. When one of the leadership teams shared a vulnerable and devastating story of loss, uncertainty, and illness, the whole company banded together with her and it even made them change their company culture to be less bureaucratic and more helpful. Through this experience, they were able to hit their 12-month targets within 6 months.   Interview Links: Shift180.com Jeff on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

You’re going to have a hard time developing your business and scaling up if you’re also not developing yourself. Today’s guest’s story shares some of his leadership hardships and challenges. When we’re looking to improve the business, the first person we need to change is ourselves!   Jeff Harris is the Interim CEO at Nomos One, a lease accounting and lease management software firm. Jeff is also a member of the Forbes Business Development Council and has experience in operations, sales, product management, customer success, and more. Through Jeff’s leadership efforts, he has decreased costs, optimized cash flow, and increased revenue growth in companies as a Scale Up Implementer.   After experiencing symptoms of not being able to swallow, Jeff collapsed Christmas morning and had to be rushed to the hospital. It was there that he realized he had pneumonia and was later diagnosed with a rare disease called esophageal achalasia, which makes it difficult for food and liquid to pass into the stomach. He was put on a liquid diet for 3 months and he lost 30lbs.   Throughout this time, he didn’t want his three kids to see dad being a victim of his illness. He wanted to set a positive example for them that you can push through adversity, but it was tough. Food is such a central point in our lives. The first time Jeff went into a grocery store and realized he couldn’t eat anything, he got overwhelmed and frustrated. The smell of good food around him during mealtime was absolute torture.   Instead of having an ‘oh poor me’ attitude, you have to change your focus to a growth mindset. Where you are today is tough, but you’re not stuck there. So what are your options? How do you lead yourself out of it? It’s so easy to focus on the end-game, but what happens if you don’t know when that’ll be? Instead of giving yourself mental torture, focus on the positives of the journey you’re on now.   Interview Links: Nomosone.com Jeff on LinkedIn Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Are you uncomfortable being the spokesperson or being the person that speaks out? Or are you somebody who loves to perform but your message is not always effective? This week’s episode is for both of these types of people. On the show, our guest will be covering how to embrace the spotlight and have the ability to speak with power and poise.   Eleanor Beaton is an internationally-recognized expert in women’s leadership and an advisor to growth-oriented women entrepreneurs. She currently sits on the board of directors of two Canadian venture capital organizations and is both a keynote speaker and podcast host of her own show, Fierce Feminine Leadership.   Eleanor started her career as a journalist interviewing very high-performing executives of fast-growing companies. In that journey, she received first-hand experience on what these executives were doing and what made them successful. At the time, there were not as many women in these C-suite seats, and this made Eleanor curious as to why that was.   For many people, being in the spotlight is terrifying. It can be so easy to just sit in the backseat and let the ‘experts’ take control but as entrepreneurs, you can’t do that. Even to show up day after day in the media spotlight can be hard, but by keeping your eye on your BHAG and what you’re trying to achieve, you can quickly see why it’s important to step into that light in order to share your mission with the world without getting burned out.   The power of story is still more relevant than ever. When you step into the spotlight with great stories, people remember you and it can build connections that transcend beyond education, experience, or the life achievements your audience has. This is how you prevent your message from falling flat once you’re in the spotlight.   Interview Links: Eleanorbeaton.com Eleanorbeatonpodcast.com The7virtues.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s panel coaches are Lisa Foulger and Judy Guido. Lisa is an Executive Leadership Coach with over 25 years of experience and the Co-Founder of Gol Global, an organization that helps leaders scale themselves, their business, and their teams.   We also have returning guest Judy, who was featured on episodes 161 and 168. Judy is the Chair of Guido and Associates and has been a part of over 100 successful mergers and acquisitions. Our panel will be discussing and sharing their thoughts on some of their favorite topics at the Scaling Up Summit in Anaheim that occurred in October.   Some of Judy’s favorite speakers were Katica Roy and her touching story about how she immigrated to the United States and Molly Bloom’s story about surviving the mob’s attempts at killing her. Bill agrees. When he first heard Katica speak about women’s equality, he began to think about his wife, his mother, and his daughter, and what it really means to be an important member of our society.   Lisa really enjoyed Chip Conley’s keynote talk. His story about how he found success in the hospitality industry and the ability to transfer his knowledge into Airbnb was very insightful. Judy agrees. It is amazing how Chip understood his limits when it came to the technology aspect and was willing to grow with these new challenges as he faced them.   Bill pulls up an old welcome letter that Apple used to provide to their staff to help inspire them and lead them to greatness. Without knowing it. Chip did a similar thing when he first joined Airbnb. He was able to use his ‘elder’ knowledge and openness to guide and mentor Airbnb staff.   Lisa and Judy discuss the importance of meditation, yoga, or some kind of mindful practice for executives. At the summit, there were two navy SEALS there and even they showed the audience how they used breathing techniques to calm down in high points of stress. What was considered a bit ‘hippy’ and ‘out there’ a few decades ago is being used regularly by people who need to quiet their minds.   Interview Links: Judy Guido Judy on Episode 161 and Episode 168 Lisa Foulger   Katica Roy Molly Bloom Tom Peters Chip Conley Apple Welcome Letter David Meerman Scott John Dijulius   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Ever have one of your great ideas shot down only for someone else to relay the same message and be dubbed a revolutionary? Why does that happen? Sometimes the messenger is more important than the message. Today’s episode dives into how you can become a better messenger so that everyone hears your great idea first.   Steve Martin is the co-author of the international bestseller, Yes! 60 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion. He also wrote a series of Tax Letters that have generated millions in extra revenue for the UK Government and his popular business columns are read by over 2.5 million people every month.   Why is it that a pop star can tell people about a vaccine and everybody pays attention, but when their doctor, an expert, says the same thing, no one bats an eye? What qualities do these pop stars have that make people take notice and pay attention, and why are the experts often ignored? Surprisingly, no one has looked at this in any detail in over 40 years.   What are some of the characteristics of an effective messenger? A lot of these skills actually fly underneath the radar and we almost take them for granted. There are two types of messengers: the hard messenger and the soft messenger. The hard messenger has some form of status over their audience, often before they’ve delivered the communication. They have dominance, competence, and attractiveness. This often applies to the rich and famous.   The soft messenger doesn’t have a form of status over their audience. Instead, they share a sense of connectedness with their audience. These messengers exude warmth, trustworthiness, vulnerability, or charisma.   Steve has spent two years studying these two messengers and has largely ignored the contents of their message. People often listen to how you say it, not what you say. This is evident by the news cycle where sometimes the math or the stories don’t add up yet it can cause panic and stress among the public.   Interview Links: Influenceatwork.co.uk   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We’ve got to work on ourselves before we can work on anybody else. As leaders, emotional intelligence is something we constantly have to work on and improve upon. Today’s guest dives into how you can become emotionally fit in work, leadership, and life.   Susan Packard is the author of two books, including her most recent book, Fully Human. Throughout her career, Susan has had her hand in developing long-lasting TV brands like Food Network and CNBC, and she built HGTV into a $15 billion business when she was COO for the organization. Today, she mentors both men and women who are curious about their promise and wanting to grow their potential.   In Susan’s book, Fully Human, she interviewed a wide range of leaders to get into their heads and really find out what makes successful people tick. Susan found out that it takes some time to build emotional intelligence. In Western culture, people don’t really stop to ask themselves what they want out of their life; instead, they are so laser-focused on producing, doing, and keeping busy, even if it’s to their detriment.   A leader with a good emotional IQ knows when to give their employees a break and doesn’t try to demand too much of their time away from home. Susan shares a story from her HGTV days. She was working late to deliver some important budget-related documents when she noticed that there was a big financial mistake in her work.   At prior careers, this mistake would have meant Susan would have been reprimanded in some way, but not at HGTV. When Susan told the CFO about the mistake at 12 a.m., he told her that they would both come into the office early that morning, look it over together, and fix it together before sending it off. The calmness in the CFO’s approach made Susan feel respected and trusted. A leader with emotional intelligence knows when it’s important to work together and not punish people for being honest.   Interview Links: Susanpackard.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

This week’s episode is a client feature! We’ll be covering how the Scaling Up principles have helped this client create success in their temp staffing business and why focusing on people will always drive results.   Steve Conine is the Founder of Talent Framework, one of Nevada’s top full-service staffing and recruiting agencies. He is a speaker, workshop facilitator, and successful business consultant as well! Leveraging his experience as an operations manager and recruiter for 25 years, Steve has assisted companies of all sizes to successfully hire and manage.   Steve was able to put his company on the Inc list just by following the Scaling Up principles and increasing his growth by 174% in three years! He was first introduced to this space when he worked for a local staffing company and learned the industry, inside and out, on the corporate side. However, he got his feet wet in entrepreneurship when the owners were looking to retire and sell their business and franchise.   However, after 12 years, Steve was ready to go out on his own and leave the franchise business behind. He had a lot of things to learn about being an independent businessman, but through his coaching with Bill, he was able to keep focus and keep his goals on track.   Bill weighs in on what it was like working with Steve. When he first started, Steve’s company was a little bit on the small side, in terms of equity count and revenue and also Steve didn’t have a BHAG, but it was still a modest goal. Also, Bill notes that Steve was very open to experimentation and was willing to collaborate with Bill, which makes a big difference in the coaching world.   What did Steve think about the various tools you can leverage in the Scaling Up Framework? It was eye-opening for him to see what kinds of metrics mattered the most to him but were meaningless for everybody else. He was able to shave down the metric dashboard quite a bit just by sitting with Bill and his team to really see what was important and what was not.   Interview Links: Talentframework.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We have two amazing guests for you this week, Roland Siebelink and Cheryl Biron, to weigh in on some of their thoughts about what’s new in the world of scaling up. Stay tuned as Bill and our guests dive into the health of an organization, developing better leaders and people, and how to brace for the upcoming market storms ahead.   Roland Siebelink is an award-winning tech startup CEO as well as one of Bill’s former clients. He is a coach that focuses on mid-stage tech startups and works one-on-one with CEOs to scale their businesses. Cheryl Biron has an MBA in Marketing from The Wharton School and serves as a CEO for One Horn Transportation. She has used the Rockefeller Habits to reduce her demanding role and obtain more freedom. Charyl is also a coach and is the author of The Hot Tub Manifesto!   This panel’s first topic of discussion is the health of an organization. Rajendra Sisodia has an upcoming book on the subject about how to align multiple stakeholders, customers, and employees into a purpose-and-values-driven company. The purpose of a company should not be solely to make money. The ability to make money is definitely in a scorecard, it’s an indicator of company health, but it is a very weak ‘core purpose.’   In order to develop a healthy organization, their leader must be self-aware, and open to being coachable. One in five executives quit the coaching process because it’s uncomfortable to shine the mirror onto themselves and look at their flaws. Roland shares that in this coaching process, it goes a long way to just be kind than to be right. Cheryl agrees. To her, it’s about finding the right battles to fight for and let go of.   The next topic is about the value of people! There are forecasts that there is going to be another recession soon, so what does that mean for leaders, today? Cheryl shares an example of how people can work together for the greater good of the company so that no one does get laid off by taking pay cuts and allowing staff to go on vacation without pay. It’s not an ideal scenario, but it benefits everyone as a whole because they still have jobs during tough times.   Roland agrees with this approach. By being conscious of the market volatility and adapting your workforce to it, you also have the ability to retain industry knowledge. If you had initially laid off your workforce and were seeking the same level of expertise two to three years from now when the market has somewhat recovered, it would be nearly impossible to find these individuals again.   The next topics cover the customer experience, going the extra mile the way Airbnb does, upcoming Scaling Up workshops, the benefits of a daily huddle, getting lost in communication platforms, and visualizing company BHAGs.   Interview Links: Rajendra Sisodia John Ratliff Randall Reeves Mr. Jenkins Told Me… Forgotten Principles That Will Grow Any Business, by Jonathan Bancroft   Connect with Roland: Rolandsiebelink.com Roland on LinkedIn Scaling Silicon Valley Style: Growing Big But Not Corporate, by Roland Siebelink & Doug Miller   Connect with Cheryl: Onehorn.com Lexagen.net Cheryl on LinkedIn Hot Tub Manifesto: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Having It All, by Cheryl Biron, and Louis Biron, with Carl Gould   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Public speaking can be a very powerful way to get your message across to a larger audience, but how can you feel more comfortable doing it? Public speaking is a big, big fear for a lot of people and today’s guest can help you connect with people from the stage.   Pete Vargas helps people grow their business with stages. He and his team have booked over 25,000 stages worldwide and in 2016, he founded Advance Your Reach, an organization looking to impact one billion people through one million stage appearances by 2027.   Pete lived with his grandmother when he was in the 6th grade due to the awful relationship he had with his father. Despite attempts at reconciliation, Pete decided to look elsewhere for role models. He looked up to inspirational heroes like Emmet Smith and David Robinson, who inspired him to become a better man.   After Pete graduated college, he ended up giving up an $80K/year career opportunity in Dallas for an $18K/year salary to become a youth pastor in his hometown instead. He decided he was going to use a wide variety of speakers, everything from athletes to CEOs, to help inspire the youth group to become a better version of themselves; the same way he was inspired by these very individuals.   Why does Pete refer to his work as ‘stages’ instead of public speaking? Pete believes there are too many war stories that come from the word ‘public speaking’ whereas stages is a much more approachable way to conquer your way into public speaking.   The reality is there are a lot of full-time speakers out there who are on the road 220 days a year, but you don’t have to be a full-time speaker living in an airplane or hotel room to get your message heard. Stages are a way to grow your business, grow your movement, or grow your non-profit.   There are 8 online stages and 8 offline stages that you can be on. When you are able to look at public speaking in a holistic way, it can completely transform your organization, your sales process, and the way you see your business… all without burning you out!   Interview Links: Advanceyourreach.com My Ethics, My Codes of Life — Rachel's Challenge   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s show is all about continuous learning and improvement. Each person has a unique learning style, so how do you know what’s right for you? What will pique your interest and keep you striving to get better and better? We feature two guest CEOs to help shed some light on the topic.   JD Ewing is the President & CEO of COE Distributing. He grew up in the family business that his grandmother started in the late 40s and he has continued his education throughout the decades to create a sustainable and healthy business.   JD’s company has seen quite a few transitions until now from back when it first started. In 2006, his company reached 22 million dollars in revenue, which was 100X over the course of 20 years. He is currently on track to be 4X times bigger than in ’06.   JD shares his educational journey. Before he had started on this path, he had not read a book in over five years, but over the last 20 months, he has read 30 books thus far. With being introduced to the Rockefeller Habits, he understands the importance of continuous education both for him and his leadership team. He dives further on the specific examples he’s learned thus far on the show.   Today’s next guest is Cameron Brandis. Cameron is the Business Director and Owner at Brandis Industries, but he’s currently overseeing two other businesses on top of his current one. These two other businesses were created after a terrifying crash that happened in Cameron’s industry that resulted in him having to lay off several of his staff members.   When it comes to the educational piece, Cameron has been studying the Gazelles Growth Institute MBD (Master of Business Dynamics) program, which is a self-study course that offers practical hands-on advice for business owners looking to apply real strategies in their business right away.   As a university graduate, Cameron saw that there was still quite a bit of practical information lacking in his coursework and he wanted something he could grasp and apply. He’s been working through the coursework for the last 12 months and it has played a critical part to the success of one of his startup businesses. Cameron shares further about the course structure and what he’s learned so far within the episode.   Interview Links: Coedistributing.com Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders, by Steven R. Shallenberger The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues, by Patrick Lencioni The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni Brandisindustries.com.au MDB Program   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

You’ve probably spent a lot more time working on your product or service than you have working on your business model. Today’s guest shares his insights on how to develop your business model no matter at what stage your company is currently.   Colin McIntosh is the Founder & CEO of Sheets & Giggles, a company that develops comfortable eucalyptus lyocell bed sheets. He comes from a family of entrepreneurs and has a B.A. in Economics and a BBA in Finance & Business Law at Emory University.   Why did Colin decide to create a bed sheets company? He didn’t start off with this product in mind at first. He actually sat down and wrote out a business model he would feel incredibly proud of, and then built it out from there.   He was looking for a massive commodities market, he wanted a physical product, he wanted a product that was largely retail but had room to be brought to life online with the right consumer model, and he also wanted a traditionally very ‘boring’ market. By laying out these guidelines, it helped him search for the right product.   Colin also knew he wanted to make his product sustainable and use crowdfunding options as opposed to venture capital right off the bat. When he was able to prove market traction, then he was able to seek more traditional sources of funding. Colin knew pitching VCs his company name would not excite them.   Colin sees so many founders spend too much energy in the product development stage. They spend millions of dollars just to develop a fantastic product only for it to completely flop in the marketplace. Colin doesn’t want people wasting years of their lives or their money on something that can never come true. This is why it’s so important to focus on the business model.   Interview Links: Sheetsgiggles.com Colin on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s show is a coach panel with Judy Guido and Daniel Marcos, where they share their thoughts on the World of Scaling Up and new developments that have happened over the course of the last month.   Daniel is the Founder of the Growth Institute and he coaches all over the world, with a primary focus in Latin American markets. Judy Guido is a returning panel guest. She is the Chair of Guido and Associates and has overseen at least 100 several successful mergers and acquisitions.   In this episode, we’ll be diving into whether customers drive disruption in the marketplace or whether it is the technology companies that do. We’ll also be comparing the differences between how technology has changed over the course of the last few years and how it has impacted our lives for the better.   Our panel of coaches brings forth the benefits of being introduced into an industry that they know nothing about. CEOs often see this as a disadvantage, but in reality, it is very valuable because it gives room for innovation and disruption. Bill, Daniel, and Judy discuss the ‘soul’ of the scale-up and the soul of a company; what does that mean? How important is it? And how can you replicate this in your business? There are actually three areas to think about: Business Intent, Customer Connection, and the Employee Experience.   Also, the coaches have a fun side discussion about Egyptian sculptures and why their noses are always broken off! Get ready for an exciting and engaging discussion about the world of scaling up!   Interview Links: Daniel: Danielmarcos.co Judy: Guidoassoc.com “The Soul of a Start-up” Aligntoday.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s episode showcases a typical example of how coaching can help elevate a company’s growth and goals. Bill and another coach, Jennifer Walzer, talk about one of their private client’s success stories and how you can replicate the same level of success in your business.   What does it actually look like to be a private coaching client in Bill and Jennifer’s world? This private client is a contractor in the West and saw an opportunity on how they could dominate their market within their state and their whole region. They knew people who have already gone through the scaling up process, but they knew it was going to be challenging to implement these strategies in their business. This is why they hired a Gazelles coach to help them.   There are a couple of ways you can scale a business. You can do it organically, you can do it through acquisition, and even through franchising. However, there is a lot of bad advice out there that doesn’t necessarily target your specific market and customer demographics. By not keeping focus on the right way to scale your business for your market, you end up losing time, resources, and most importantly, your momentum.   Another point to consider when it comes to scaling roadblocks is the important C-suite hires you make. If you don’t have a coach working with you to help guide you on the best people for your business, these bad C-suite hires can completely derail you and your business. When it comes to scaling up to dominate your region, there are a lot of moving parts to consider and having an outside perspective to help guide you is critical.   With this private coaching client, within two years of working with a coach, they were able to expand into three counties and have multiple offices within those counties. They had four times more people and five times more revenue as well and they’re on track for 12X growth. But how did Bill and Jennifer achieve this?   Bill walks you through some simple exercises they do to help get a baseline of where the client, the leadership team, and the company is. They also work on a dream manifesto where they create a clear vision of where they’d like to go in the next year, three years, and beyond.   Interview Links: https://scalingcoach.com/coaching/   Resources: Interested in attending one of our workshops? Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Scaling Up Summits(Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Scaling Upis the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcastand a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).   ScalingCoach.com

Do you ever feel like you have to be in three places at once, and then at the same time, you’re not really there at all? ‘I’m busy’ is used as a badge of honor, but should it be? Leaders are always busy, yet they’re never present. How can you get better at being there when it counts? This episode has some answers.   Brian Solis is a digital analyst and anthropologist, where he studies disruptive technology and how it impacts the market, society, and individuals. He is also a keynote speaker and the author of eight books.   Brian became a digital anthropologist in the late ’90s to study how emerging technologies are changing our society and our behaviors. The goal was to understand these changes so that new technology would have a positive impact on ourselves and not a negative one.   It feels like the whole startup/entrepreneurial community is all about dropping ‘f-bombs’ and telling people they have to hustle and grind. They live by the mantra that the reason you’re not successful is that you’re not working hard enough, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They’re so busy being busy that they never get any work done!   Brian admits that he really struggled with his latest book to achieve balance. Every part of his life was falling apart because he believed in the ‘hustle.’ No one was able to notice his life falling apart either because they were just equally as busy. Sometimes being better than yesterday just isn’t sustainable and it will cause ripples all throughout your life.   Instead of bouncing from place to place, take some time and schedule in breaks to just breathe and take in life. This little pause, no matter how small, can make waves in your productivity to really appreciate yourself, in the moment, and how far you’ve come to get here.   Interview Links: Briansolis.com Lifescaling.me   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

What does coaching look like? When Bill and his team coach, they usually help entrepreneurs through the quarterly and annual planning sessions and provide one-on-one services to the CEO or executive teams in between. Today’s episode features a live coaching session so you can hear exactly what goes on during these meetings!   Tim Vogel has a 10X goal for his pet grooming business. He is seeking to achieve this rapid growth in just under three years. Is it possible? Is it realistic? Tim has been heavily involved in his company thus far and has already taken it from 28 staff members to 53. Bill dives in with Tim to see how he can make Tim’s goal a reality.   Tim originally started his business because he had a dog and saw a missing opportunity in the market. The pet industry was growing and Tim wanted to create a mobile pet grooming business, with the end goal to franchise it. However, Tim quickly learned that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was and he was experiencing roadblock after roadblock when it came to trying to scale his business.   One of the biggest problems that Tim was running into was finding qualified technicians. The industry doesn’t have a standard licensing procedure for groomers, so finding talent was hard. Combine this with knowing how to drive a van and talk to customers, it made it even more complex. After attending the EO Accelerator, he realized his biggest barrier to scaling were the groomers, so he decided to get rid of them completely and stop doing dog haircuts.   By doing this, Tim shifted his company model to more of a dog wellness business that focuses on skin, coat, ears, nails, and teeth. Their services provide preventive care by helping a dog live longer through having healthy brushed teeth and reduce the likeliness of going to the vet for an ear infection by having clean ears.   Interview Links: Scenthound.com Eonetwork.org   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We are all fans of something, whether it be a product or a person. We also love it when our customers are fans of our companies. But how do we turn fans into customers and vice versa? Our guest has some thoughts on this very subject!   David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to companies like Hubspot, and co-author of the book, Fanocracy: How to Turn Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans, which he wrote with his 26-year-old daughter, Reiko.   David had an advantage when the internet first really took off in 1995 (which is when Netscape went public), he already had experience with digital information and data his entire career through the financial industry and with the emerging of these internet companies, it felt like familiar territory.   He wrote his first book in 2004 and he had an international bestseller in 2007 when his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR came out. It took the world by storm because it was the first to really talk about how to use real-time content to market a business.   Through speaking engagements, David heard people saying that they are getting overwhelmed with the real-time communication and it’s become more difficult to really make an impression with their customers. After an insightful conversation with his daughter being a fan of Harry Potter, it sparked the idea for his latest book, Fanocracy.   It’s a deep human trait that goes back thousands of years of how we connect with other people. We have to quickly determine whether the person in front of us is a friend or a foe and we often seek commonality between each other to make friends before they turn into foes.   Interview Links: Davidmeermanscott.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

This show is a bit different from your regular episodes. Bill recently worked with incarcerated men on the subjects of business and life improvement and it deeply affected him as well as made a profound impact on him. This show is about connecting one-on-one with fellow human beings and how we can use that to be better leaders for our team.   Catherine Hoke is the Founder of Defy Ventures and Hustle 2.0, programs that are dedicated to providing inmates with the tools they need to develop a better future. Tom Williams is the Chair of the Pelican Bay Volunteer Alliance and works with Catherine one-on-one on these incarceration volunteer projects.   One of the important aspects of doing a volunteer program like this is to realize that these men have done horrible crimes, but these men are not their crimes. When you understand their story — being raised in poverty, poor family support systems — you understand that the journey they’ve undertaken can be very devastating and bleak.   One inmate had experienced a lifetime of abuse, starting at the age of a year and a half. However, what stood out to Bill was the man’s thoughtfulness and ability to care and feel regret. He is a human being after all and his life is not over. After ten years, he still has more time to serve, but there’s room for reform and growth in that time.   It’s important to note that the R in Rehabilitation was only added ten years ago. California state and the rest of the nation believed you locked up the ‘bad guys’ and threw away the key. It was only until recently did we realize that it is not an effective method to help these individuals get better.   Interview Links: Defyventures.org Hustle20.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Should you buy or build your company? It’s a question we hear a lot in the world of entrepreneurship and scaling up. Today’s show focuses on how you can use buying and then building as an acquisition growth strategy.   Walker Deibel is the co-founder of three startups and has also acquired seven companies, and exited two of them successfully. He is the author of Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game and will be providing some insight as to how you should approach acquisitions.   Walker Deibel believes entrepreneurship is a condition rather than a job or position. Most of the time entrepreneurs simply can’t keep a job because of the way they are wired. After his first startup failed, Walker decided to make the rounds and raise capital for 18 months on another business idea. It was there where he decided it was better for him to buy a business than to build one from scratch.   After lots of research, Walker decided to make a weird decision and purchase a book publishing company in 2008, a time where books were turning digital. It was a declining industry. But Walker saw something unique happening — self-publishing was going to explode, and it did! His business decision was a success.   The industry doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to the company you’re buying. The point is you’re buying an already existing infrastructure of a company that you can then expand upon and build out from there. It could go into a completely different industry if you like if the basics and foundation are already there.   Interview Links: Buythenbuild.thinkific.com Walker on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s show is a special episode where we feature a number of guests in a panel discussion on the Insights of the Week from Verne Harnish in the World of Scaling Up.   In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at employee policies around pay and compensation, what you can do to make a difference in retention of your talent as you scale up. We will also be taking a look at the importance of scaling up vs. startups and the different messaging opportunities available to companies. The panel will then examine a global 500 list of companies and see who is growing, and who is not.   Also on the show, we will dial into some of the training and educational opportunities that are available for yourself and your team at the World of Scaling Up. We will also take a deeper dive into the importance of female CEOs and females in leadership and their impact in an organization.   We will also draw some inspiration and examples by taking a look at the top sports teams in the world and the value their methodologies can bring into the business world.   Today’s panel line features your host Bill Gallagher, Judy Guido, Anita Cabell, and Doug Wick.   Judy Guido is the Chair of Guido and Associates and a member of Verne’s Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Green Industry Hall of Fame. Judy has an impressive career, having done a successful launch on the New York Stock Exchange with one company, accomplishing 104 mergers and acquisitions, four consolidations, and eight startups.   Anita Cabell is a British three-time Entrepreneur and has been a Business Coach since 2007. Many of her clients are members of the EO or YPO who need a wide range of help. Antia has a competitive coaching edge because she has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design and more recently a Master’s in the Neuroscience of Leadership.   Dough Wick was a Certified E-myth Business Coach for ten years and has helped over 250 small-to-medium-sized businesses apply Michael Gerber’s principles. Dough is a successful business executive and has 42 years of experience in sales, marketing, leadership, finance, and more.   Interview Links: Judy: Guidoassoc.com Anita: Anita on LinkedIn Doug: Positioningsystems.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

When you’ve achieved a certain level of success, what’s the point of it all? What are your plans at 80, 90, or even 100 years old? What keeps you going? Today’s episode is all about creating a conscious and fulfilling future.   John Anderson became the first-ever Scale Up coach back in 1999 and has worked closely with Verne Harnish throughout his career. John is the Founder of the Detroit chapter of EO and he has also recently authored his very first book, Replace Retirement: Living Your Legacy in the Exponential Age.   Peter Diamandis, a fellow friend and Entrepreneur to John, has a saying that you’re either going to be disrupted or you’re going to be a disruptor. John thought about the various industries that would be disrupted like the automotive industry, but couldn't exactly see how his industry would change all that much.   After further thinking, he realized that Peter was right. John could one day be disrupted through artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The way we coach today will change, so how can he be a disruptor in it? Well, at 61 years old, retirement is fast approaching, but John doesn’t believe that it’s for him, and he knows he isn’t the only one who thinks this way.   The concept of retirement that we have today is not sustainable based on the population pace we are on. Every day, 10,000 people turn 65 years old and that pace will continue for 20 years. This means that half of the world’s population will soon be over 50 years old. John believes it’s not healthy to finish work life by 65.   Throughout John’s career, he developed a success map, where he essentially takes content from the Rockefeller Habits and creates a one-page personal plan for his clients. However, as his clients grew older, they became less and less interested in success and more interested in creating a legacy. So, he switched his success map into a legacy map, where instead of the accumulation of wealth, it had a strong focus on what would you like to leave behind.   Interview Links: Theceoadvantage.com Replace Retirement: Living Your Legacy in the Exponential Age, by John Anderson A360.digital   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners! Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

We all want better results. We want to accomplish things yet we have limitations. But, what if we could shift it all and achieve new heights without these limitations? What if the limitations you have aren’t as real as you thought they were? Today’s guest has some insight.   Nick Egan is a performance coach and the author of the new book, Shift: The Art of Transforming Limitations. He is an award-winning leader and an Executive Coach for Level52. He also has a background in positive psychology and Tibetian Buddhist culture.   When it comes to our limitations, most of the time our view on the world has been filtered through our own story about it. Funny enough, not a lot of people realize this. Once you’re aware of this story, then the door opens and you can choose which story you’d like to follow. The problem is, you first have to get there.   Nick and his friend were once in Western Tibet and a flash rain caused a baby yak to get stuck in the deep and porous mud. Their taxi driver was adamant that it was impossible to save this yak. It was completely illogical to even try. However, to test it, Nick and his friend went out to save the yak. It took about an hour between him, his friend, and nomadic yak herders to save the baby… but they were able to do it.   The lesson here is that the taxi driver is correct in that between one or two people, no, you couldn’t save the yak, but with a team, you can. In coaching it is similar. There is a point where you just can’t do this on your own. So, who are the allies you’re going to call on to help you through your struggles and break out of your limitations?   Interview Links: Level52.ca Nick on LinkedIn Nickeganphd.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

As your company gets bigger, business owners discover a tough problem — you become less and less in touch with what your employees are doing and you don’t know if you’re on track with your goals. And if you do regular quarterly meetings, another problem that arises is that your actions are not tightly aligned to your goals between the day-to-day. Today’s guest has some answers on how to become more involved and aware of where your company is going.   Doug Walner is the CEO of Align Technologies Corp, a growth management tool to help develop, track, and measure your progress. He has over 25 years of technology business management and his background includes human capital management, consumer production, aviation, and media.   When Doug was in the process of selling one of his companies, the diligence and amount of paperwork involved to show buyers and investors his company and his staff were on track with their goals were extensive and tedious. When Align came along, things really changed for so many entrepreneurs, especially when it came time to sell.   One of the amazing features about Align is that employees can now see what everyone in the business is in charge of doing, and how they’re doing. It creates transparency and accountability within the company. Due to its interface, buyers and investors can also quickly log into Align and see progress reports, priorities, and have historical data for the business in an instant.   It’s just good business to track as much as you can about the company. This opens you up for so much more when you’re ready to sell or get more financing. When businesses rely on the founder to ‘keep things going,’ it becomes very difficult for an investor to fund you when they cannot realistically see if your business is even scalable.   Interview Links: Aligntoday.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Business owners are always looking for ways to improve their company value. They might want to sell the company later down the road or even get more financing, and their company has to have the numbers to justify it. However, there are three big mistakes companies make when it comes to improving their company value, which today’s guest will dive into!   Jennifer Peek is a Value Advisor for Peek Advisory and is a CPA, CVA, venture investor, and so much more! She has worked with small businesses all the way up to billion-dollar companies on increasing their overall value and preparing them for their next business stage.   Jennifer worked for a public accounting firm for about five years; it was there where she saw her family-owned business clients really struggle with a transition. A lot of them were the 3rd or 4th generation in the business but were seeing problems when the 5th generation no longer wanted to be part of the family business.   Fast forward a few years later, Jennifer was working in Mergers and Acquisitions for a large company who was considering selling some of their smaller companies off to a competitor and buying up other smaller businesses in the region. It was here where Jennifer got hands-on and insider experience as to what companies look for before they buy and before they sell.   When it comes to common mistakes business owners make, reducing your taxes is the biggest one that comes to mind. It’s natural for business owners to want to pay less in taxes while they are starting their business. Because of this, they work diligently with their tax advisors to bring their liabilities down.   However, this can actually affect your company value if you’re looking for a successful exit. Jennifer worked with a client where his company evaluation was about half of what he was expecting, but through a little bit of work and tweaking, he was able to get his numbers where he needed to be for a successful exit within a year.   Interview Links: Peekadvisory.com Jennifer on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Culture is who you are inside the company and brand is who you are out to the world. When the two are aligned, there’s a real power in your organization, but when they’re misaligned, that’s when the disconnect happens. Today’s show is all about how to get the two things in sync.   Denise Lee Yohn is a speaker, brand expert, and the author of What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest. Today, Denise will be talking about her latest book, Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies on this week’s episode!   What’s the difference between brand image vs. brand identity? Your brand is not what you say it is, it is what you do and how you do it. A disconnect between your brand and your culture of any kind can lead you to not fulfilling your promises. If your internal message is disconnected from your external message, it’s going to create a problem down the line.   For example, Wells Fargo used to have a very wholesome brand image, but over the last few years, that image has been tarnished by bad internal practices. Employees felt pressured to fudge the numbers and open up fake accounts due to a misaligned company objective. However, when you’re aligned with how your organization thinks and acts on the inside, you’re creating a value between both your customers and your employees that is very difficult for competitors to undercut.   The truth is, customers are very skeptical and cynical. And in our modern age, it’s very easy to tell if what you’re saying on the outside is actually true for what your company believes on the inside. When you have an alignment in your company culture, you are able to recruit and retain people who believe in your cause.   Interview Links: Deniseleeyohn.com Denise on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

The main challenge for Bill and his clients is finding talented people. There is a big shortage of qualified people all over the world and on top of that, it’s difficult to retain good talent. This episode features a ‘best of’ episode from Jeff Hoffman, who is excellent at attracting and connecting with people!   Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur and the Founder of Priceline, UBid, and ColorJar. Jeff has worked alongside celebrities like Elton John, Britney Spears, and NSYNC. He knows a thing or two about what it takes to engage people and on today’s show, he shares his expertise in team-building practices that bring good people together!   One of the most important lessons Jeff learned about scaling up is the value of teams. As a founder, you are used to doing everything and anything in the beginning. The problem with this, though, is that if your company does well, you start to think you’re pretty good at all of this.   Once founders hit a later stage in their company, they find themselves overwhelmed. They are working harder than ever before and putting in more hours than they’ve ever done before, yet, despite this, they’ve stopped growing. The truth is, you’re never going to do anything massive or at scale by yourself.   Jeff was not smart enough to understand this in the beginning, but through his mistakes, he’s learned that the day you start taking some of your time to delegate your tasks and to find people that are smarter than you to run the company, is the day you can finally work less and be less stressed.   Jeff had to make an active effort to find talented people. Sending out an ad doesn’t work. The best people in your market aren’t looking for a job, so schedule the time to scout them. The second part of running a successful team is getting out of their way. Let the people who are smarter than you do their jobs!   Your real job as a founder is to build a workplace environment and culture that people love to go to, where the best people in the industry all want to work for you and never want to leave. Your job is to take care of the people who work for you. When you’ve achieved this, you never have to worry about the growth of your company.   Interview Links: Jeffhoffman.com Jeff on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Some of our best and most valuable business comes from a referral, but how do you cultivate it and, most importantly, repeat it? Today’s show is all about how to create scalable and repeatable referrals through systems.   Stacey Brown Randall is a three-time Entrepreneur, author of Generating Business Referrals Without Asking, and the host of the Roadmap to Grow Your Business podcast! Stacey has taught her ‘no-asking’ referral strategy to hundreds of clients and audiences all over the world.   When Stacey gave her notice to leave Corporate America to work with a husband & wife team, she did not realize she was four weeks pregnant at the time. After working with them for about 8-9 months, her client actually encouraged her to start her own business. And, she did it! But after five years, she was mentally exhausted and had to throw in the towel.   How can you apply a strong referral strategy in your business without being promotional and ‘gimmicky’? When Stacey goes into companies of all sizes, she actually has to undo a lot of old myths about networking and referrals. A lot of companies provide an incentivized referral program, but in a lot of cases, that just doesn’t work. When Stacey works with companies, she has them go through an exercise where they craft their own referral plan. In this, you identify who your referral sources are, you create a plan on how to build meaningful and memorable connections with your referral sources, and most importantly, you thank and acknowledge your customers for their referral!   Interview Links: Staceybrownrandall.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Who do you need to be to achieve the performance you want to see in each area of your life, business, or otherwise? Today’s show is all about how to invent yourself and to show up at a high caliber, no matter what stage you’re on.   Eric Partaker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Chilango, a chain of Mexican restaurants based in the UK. Eric has worked with and led high-performing teams at McKinsey and Skype. And he is one out of 300 people worldwide certified as a High Performance Coach, by the High Performance Institute.   When did Eric’s obsession with high performance first begin? Eric wanted to be a high-level athlete, and with that came insane discipline to wake up at 5:30 a.m. every day and play basketball. After about 15 months of this, Eric went from not knowing how to play basketball at all to make it on the varsity team.   At McKinsey, Eric remembers days where he’d work two to three days straight with very little sleep. He would frequently put in 100- to 120-hour work weeks. This hustle mindset, however, will eventually catch up to you, and kill you. So, how can you lead at high performance without sacrificing the basics like sleep and proper nutrition? Eric has been obsessed with high-level performance for about 20 years, but after several stints with the doctor and even a heart attack, Eric had to reconsider what it really meant to perform at a high level.   Interview Links: Ericpartaker.com Chilango.co.uk Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker, Ph.D.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Growing and scaling your business is tough work! You have your team to manage but then you also have your family life too. Raising a family, relationship issues; it can all start to compound itself. Today’s show is all about reconnecting with yourself so that you can show up 100% in each area of your life.   Stacy Bare is a veteran of the Iraq war and is the Founder of Bare LLC, a consulting firm working to grow healthy organizations, people, and places through health and adventure. He is also the Founder of Adventure Not War, which aims to climb, ski, and adventure in places veterans have fought in.   People in all walks of life are going through some tough challenges. Leaders are having mental breaks, relationships are falling apart, and some even choose to end their life. Sometimes, leaders feel like they can’t always share what they’re going through.   When Stacy got home from Iraq, he went to graduate school and thought he was going to get a great job and live in a trendy apartment in a hip neighborhood. However, it was 2009 and he was unable to find a job. He was depressed and now realizes he was also suffering from PTSD at the time. A friend of Stacy’s got him outdoors and into rock climbing while he was still job searching, and it changed everything for him. In 2012, Stacy began to think of how he could make Adventure Not War a reality. He wanted to go back to places he’s served to take control of his narrative and to heal.   Interview Links: Adventurenotwar.com Stacy on LinkedIn Halotrust.org   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Purpose-driven companies who are focused on doing the right thing. Words like ‘fair trade,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ and ‘triple-bottom-line’ are commonly associated with these companies, but does it all really matter to a scaling-up business? Today’s show dives into the difference a purpose-centered business can really make!   Elizabeth Crook was a Scaling Up coach for 15 years and is currently a 3HAG Certified Coach. As an executive entrepreneur, Elizabeth is the Founder of Orchard Advisors and the author of Live Large: The Achiever’s Guide to What’s Next.   It used to be true that businesses could focus on one thing and one thing only — profit, but today’s world is much different and there are a lot more options to consider. If you’re looking at just your profit margins without considering the ‘externalities,’ then your company will eventually suffer financially.   When it comes to creating purpose-driven companies, it all started for Elizabeth when she was living in Venezuela in the ’70s and ’80s. When she moved back to the U.S., she found other entrepreneurs mimicking the same thing — incorporating social justice work with their profits. Fast forward to today, driving purpose and sustainability in your company is a hot topic that piques the interest of both magazines and investors. More and more businesses are thinking about how to make their workplace or products more accessible for those who have limitations or disabilities. They’re asking questions on how they can better educate their workforce — especially those with felonies — so that they can get back to work and become productive members of society. All of this thinking boosts the economy. Companies are solving business problems as well as social problems.   Interview Links: Orchardadvisors.com Elizabethbcrook.com Live Large: The Achiever’s Guide to What’s Next   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We intellectually understand the value of failure, but so few of us actually want to experience it. How can we embrace failure with less of the sting? Is it even possible? How can we freely experiment and try new things, whether it works or not, so that we can achieve growth in our industry?   Brian Scudamore is the Founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? He is a serial entrepreneur and a high-school dropout. Brian is also the author of his newest book, WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success. As an over-achieving failure, Brian has learned a thing or two about picking himself up and dusting himself off.   As Brian and his co-author Roy H. Williams were wrapping up the book, a theme kept popping up over and over again; it was ‘failure.’ Failing repeatedly was what led to Brian’s bigger successes in life. These failings were actually big, big blessings in disguise for Brian.   For example, five years into the 1-800 business, Brian found himself hating his work and knowing he didn’t hire the right people. So, he fired them all and built everything up from scratch again. These were big and very tough lessons Brian learned early on in his career. Today, he’d rather take the time to find the right people than hiring ‘bodies’ to fill seats.   Interview Links: www.o2ebrands.com 1-800 Got Junk Website Brian on LinkedIn Scaling Up Podcast Episode 012 with Brian   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

In today’s day and age, being digital is a big buzzword. It’s true, there is an importance to being digital, but there is also a technology fallacy. The people behind the tech are really the ones that can make and break the technology. So, how can you create a happy blend of technology, people, and scaling up?   Gerald (Jerry) C. Kane, Ph.D., is a Professor of Information Systems at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He is also the author of The Technology Fallacy: How People are the Real Key to Digital Transformation, where he surveyed over 20,000 executives worldwide and interviewed over 100 executives and thought leaders to determine the key factors associated with digitally mature companies.   There is a mistaken belief that a lot of the problems companies are coming across in this modern age are due to a fast-paced technology environment. Often, companies fight this problem with more technological solutions, but the reality is, quality people are the real solution behind this.   In the five years of researching The Technology Fallacy, Jerry spoke to countless of leaders in cutting-edge companies like Facebook and Google, some at traditional companies like Walmart and John Hancock, and some at small startups, to get a good range of data.   When interviewing the Chief Human Relations Officer at Walmart, she shared that leadership realized they probably would be out of business in 10 years if they didn’t adapt to new changes. When a giant like Walmart realizes they need to adapt or sink in this environment, every company should pay attention.   In Jerry’s survey, 90% of employees came back to him saying that they felt they had to update their skill set at least yearly to keep up with the demands of their job, but yet less than half of them said their organization was able to provide these resources.   Employees were also 15X more likely to leave their organization within a year if they weren’t getting additional resources to improve their skill sets. This causes a big problem for companies looking to expand and adapt to the marketplace. Keeping and educating talented team members that could grow into new environments was the key to success for companies; not the implementation of new technology.   Interview Links: Jerry Kane at Boston College Jerry on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

The lack of concentration, focus, and expressing empathy or compassion are just some of the things leaders struggle with. How can we get better at this and use it during the tough and stressful times?   Dandapani is a Hindu priest, international speaker, and entrepreneur. For 10 years, Dandapani lived a life of personal discipline and training at his guru, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s, cloistered monastery in Hawaii.   When Dandapani graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, he decided to move to Hawaii to become a monk instead. What Dandapani has learned over the last few decades is to keep life simple. Find out what your core purpose is and use a few select tools to help you get there. Simplify, simplify, simplify!   Many people struggle with focus and have a hard time picking one set of priorities for the quarter, or even for the day. The reason people struggle with this is that we haven’t been taught how to concentrate. Have you ever had formal classes on how to do it?   In order to get focused, Dandapani believes it’s first important to understand how the mind works; then you can learn how to harness it, and then you can direct it, which is where learning how to concentrate begins.   Interview Links: Dandapani.org Sivaashram.org   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

A board of advisors or even a peer group is incredibly valuable because it gives you some perspective. This episode is all about how you can get access to seeing yourself from the outside and becoming more self-aware.   Paul Witkay is the Founder & CEO of the Alliance of Chief Executives, which he founded in 1996. Paul designed Alliance to bring CEOs together to help them learn faster, make better decisions, and move forward with more confidence.   The seed was planted in Paul’s head five years prior to starting the Alliance of CEOs. At the time, he was an executive for Air Liquide and the chairman wanted to make more money in the U.S. Paul was named Head of Strategy and was the first person to be appointed in this position. He was in charge of restructuring the company and its profit margins.   Shortly after, Paul was asked to join a group of CEOs in the healthcare industry and it was a no-brainer for him to join. Everything that he knows today was because of people and their knowledge. When he attended the meetup, he fell in love. He was in a room of people that were smarter than him and they were thinking at a higher level.   From there, he quit his job five years later to start the Alliance of CEOs. He would meet with CEOs one at a time and slowly built contacts that were outside of the healthcare industry. From the start, Paul always knew the importance of having diversity to spark new ideas from the outside.   Interview Links: Allianceofceos.com Paul on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

The act of giving a truly meaningful gift to show the significance and importance of your relationship with others can be a tricky balance. What does gifting done right look like? Today’s returning guest is back with some wisdom on how to show appreciation and love through gifting.   John Ruhlin is the Founder of the Ruhlin Group, where he helps companies develop VIP gifting programs. He is also the author of Giftology. He is an expert on the topic of meaningful gift giving.   What do you give someone who has everything? How can you give a gift that makes a real difference in someone’s life? It all started when John met a very generous man. He’d often buy half of the raffle tickets at school auctions, win, and then donate it all back because he loved making people smile.   John says that, still, the biggest gift that works well is gifting knives. Why? Because it’s difficult to gift an item that successful people can already buy. However, if you can take care of their inner circle; like their spouse, the kids, pets, and the family, that’s when you make the biggest impact.   John likes to gift custom inscribed knives to each family member that by the time dinner rolls around, everyone is fighting over knives! People are still humans at the end of the day and being able to connect one and one with them is what makes a big difference in the quality of a relationship.   Interview Links: Ruhlingroup.com Johnruhlin.com Giftologybook.com John Ruhlin — The Strategic Way to Use Gifting   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

What has your team learned lately about growing and scaling a business? What have they learned outside of your industry? A team that is continuously learning and improving is important if you’re scaling. Today’s show shares a preview of some of the topics that were discussed at the Scaling Up Summit to help you become a better leader and entrepreneur!   The whole idea behind these summits is to develop yourself. Verne notes that Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban are all voracious readers; they’re constantly trying to better themselves. As a Mckinsey report notes, the competitive weapon used to be cheap labor, but now it is smart talent.   The challenge is, there are 11,000 business books released per year and it’s become a job, almost, to curate what’s good and what’s not. This is why Verne and his team formed the Scaling Up summit where twice a year you can go and consume 12+ books worth of knowledge in 48 hours.   Who will be speaking at the summit this May 21-22 in Atlanta, Ga? Verne is excited to announce Henry McGovern, who scaled from opening the first pizza shop in Poland to 48,000 thousand employees. Steve Martin will also be there, he is Robert Cialdini’s partner and is a master at understanding influence and persuasion.   The summit will also have Denise Lee Yohn, who is a brand expert and knows how to elevate your brand and have your culture be aligned with the brand. Susan Packard will be speaking at the summit, she is the Founder of HGTV and will be there to discuss actionable ways to include EQ in the workplace.   There’s also a ton of fun incorporated into these events as well. There will be a red carpet event along with some great live bands performing plus some insightful Q&A sessions with the speakers. And on May 23rd, there will also be a user conference for those who would like to take the strategies they’ve learned days prior and apply them with a more hands-on approach.   Interview Links: Henry McGovern Steve Martin Denise Lee Yohn Susan Packard   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

How do we grow and scale, build process and systems, while also maintaining wonder, serendipity, and innovation at the same time? Is it even possible or does one have to sacrifice the other? Today’s guest shares some light on this very topic.   Edward Tenner is a writer, a speaker, as well as a Distinguished Scholar in the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. His latest book, The Efficiency Paradox, dives into the sharing economy, life hacks, our efficient culture, and how to benefit from serendipity.   One of the lessons Edward learned about efficiency was in the 1980s when he saw that there were more and more computers being installed and more and more paper being thrown in the recycle bin. The Efficiency Paradox gives a look into new technology that has emerged with mobile computing, artificial intelligence, big data, and the cloud. It takes a look at both the productive use of it as well as some of its underlying problems.   Artificial Intelligence recognizes patterns and thus helps us become more efficient. This information is perfect to determine what items are in your inventory and which customers have been the most profitable. However, with prediction, there are also weaknesses in these algorithms.   One of these weaknesses being that AI algorithms detect changing patterns and so you can’t count on your recent experience to be a complete guide on what to do next if you don’t also supplement it with imagination and serendipity, as well as making controlled mistakes.   Another problem with AI is that it’s not very good at achieving diversity, especially among different gender and ethnic groups. Edward personally sees these errors as a systematic issue of a much more fundamental problem. By keeping within our respective lanes, we are less likely to venture out and bring in diversity, bring in new ideas, and bring in thoughts that might challenge the status quo.   Interview Links: Edwardtenner.com The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do, by Edward Tenner   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Did you know that 83% of small businesses around the world are not profitable? Business owners are living month-to-month and are desperately struggling. Today’s episode dives into how to never live paycheck-to-paycheck again.   Mike Michalowicz is the author of several books including The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Surge, and Profit First. He is also the Owner of Profit First Professionals, his third million-dollar venture.   Why did Mike decide to write Profit First? Mike had grown his companies to multi-million dollar businesses but was not profitable at all. He had refinanced his house multiple times and was not making ends meet.   He thought if he could run the business long enough, they’d eventually hit their ‘big break’ and become profitable. After selling his businesses, he decided to become an angel investor with this mindset and — guess what — the 10 businesses he invested in all tanked. Within two years, he lost every penny that he had ever made.   After he told his family that he had failed them, he went through two years of ‘functional’ depression. It was not a proud moment in his life. Through this journey, he was able to ask himself some hard questions and those hard questions lend to a lightbulb moment. How can I make my businesses profitable, always?   Keep in mind, it’s also a lifestyle problem for many entrepreneurs as well. As they’re trying to live a good life and create a profitable company, in the back of their mind they’re worried about whether or not they can afford their car or their home tomorrow. The amount of stress this puts on someone makes it very hard to see the bigger picture.   Mike’s accountant was trying to help him by showing him the real numbers, by showing him the metrics, and Mike would brush him off and not listen to his advice. If Mike saw he had money in the bank, then he had money in the bank! But it isn’t always so simple.   Mike knew that he had to change somehow, but changing your behavior right off the bat is a very difficult thing to do. So, what he did was he decided to put a percentage of his money into a ‘profit’ bank account and run his business on the remaining cash. By making this simple shift, he was able to see things from a bigger perspective and he was forced to reverse engineer his business so it would survive on the remaining cash no matter what.   Interview Links: Profit First Book mikemichalowicz.com: For access to Mike’s Wallstreet journal articles, book excerpts, and entrepreneurial tips.   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

We see CEOs and leaders make a lot of the same mistakes and today’s show highlights a frequent mistake that occurs: inattention to results and cash. This is episode has two high-level coaches to chime in on the subject!   Ethan Martin is the Founder & President of PFD Group, Inc. and a Rockefeller Habits Certified Coach. Ethan has a passion for helping mission-driven CEOs build their companies. Prior to this, he has always been a serial entrepreneur and was an EO member for seven years.   Dale Meador is the Founder of Finanza Coach and has been a Rockefeller Habits Certified Coach for the last two years. Prior to this, he ran his own CPA firm and helped his clients implement systems of strategic planning and financial controls into their business.   Today’s subject is about the inattention to results and cash. As in, not having dashboards or having too many metrics, or not paying attention to the data that’s in front of you! We also dive into some of the common struggles people are faced with when trying to implement the Scaling Up framework.   Ethan shares an example of a CEO that was pursuing different business strategies for his distribution company and didn’t have a clear purpose on cash flow or profitability by customer. Ethan and his team came in and used the Scaling Up framework to help guide this CEO into understanding his strategy and what the main priority should be.   Dale believes one of the things that’s critical for when a team comes together is to really get a clear definition of what is ‘winning’ for them. Dale shares an example of how there was a disconnect between leadership and the owner on what a successful, thriving company looked like, and thus, why it was hard for them to retain a positive cash flow.   In some teams, the financial team might guard their financial numbers so close to the vest that the rest of the leadership team end up being blind or unaware of how successful or unsuccessful the numbers are. And for good reason too, sometimes when it is revealed how much money the company is making, everyone wants raises even though it is simply not feasible.   In cases like these, Ethan recommends the leadership team have a clear dashboard where anyone can look up the numbers and the health of the company within a matter of 15 minutes. For things like this, it’s important to get the core numbers right so that the entire team can take the correct steps to ensure the company has a positive cash flow.   Interview Links: Pfd-group.com Finanzacoach.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “What got you to this stage of growth won’t get you to the next stage of growth.”   “If there’s not clarity on that one thing, that one number, especially financial, it really holds the team back.”   “Make sure the leadership team has a very simple and clear dashboard on these critical things like cash that anyone can look at in a matter of 15 minutes.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

With a breakthrough strategy, you can actually out-think your competition and do something bold – but how do you get there? Today’s show dives into a repeatable process you can implement in your company and culture to naturally create those “aha” moments. Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant, and has written four books on business, strategy, growth, and transformation. Kaihan is committed to helping organizations and individuals thrive in today’s era of fast-paced disruptive technology change. Kaihan has always been fascinated by strategy. When you think about it, good strategy comes down to being a disruptor. How can a group of people come together and create a strategy that will disrupt, rather than be disrupted? How does someone create ‘The Fourth Option,’ as Kaihan likes to call it? There are always great ideas that pop up within a company, but for some reason or another, they do not get pursued. Most of these reasons were not based in fact or strategy, or even in analysis. Great ideas were getting shot down through naysaying from someone on the team or even from the founder. To be a disruptor, it means you hold a belief that is inconsistent with the way business is run in your industry. If you’ve been in your industry long enough, you start developing these rules and beliefs of what will and won’t work. And, people will always choose to hold onto their beliefs, even if it’s to the detriment of the company. This is where the fourth option comes into play. It is really a metaphor and it means that there’s a point in the process where people stop looking for options. What a disruptor does is recognize that their competition has stopped looking — stopped thinking — and looks for a fourth option that will surprise people. Kaihan lays out a simple process on the show to help you easily pinpoint and discover what that fourth option is. Interview Links: Kaihan.net Outthinker.com Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Register now for our next workshop on Scaling Up! Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits). Check out this episode!

Industries are being disrupted again and again with disruptors like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and more. You might want to be a disruptor yourself, or maybe even learn how to better manage disruptors and work alongside them. What frameworks can you apply to be more of a disruptor? Today’s guest has some answers!   Mike Maddock is the Founder of an internationally-recognized innovation consultancy firm, Maddock Douglas. The firm helps corporations invent and launch new products, services, and business models. Mike loves to solve problems with disruptive ideas and has launched more than six successful companies.   Mike is out with a new book, Plan D, which dives into what disruptors have in common. Time and time again, Mike noticed that so many entrepreneurs just seem to be lucky people. In chapter five, Mike explores this concept a bit more and it appears the secret to their success is that they have an abundant mindset.   So, how do you manufacture an abundant mindset? After interviewing dozens of people for the book, some entrepreneurs sit down every day and write a list of everything they’re grateful for, others have an achieving exercise where they email their close friends a list of tasks they’d like to achieve for the week and check in with each other at the end of the week. By seeing the progress they’ve all made together, it creates gratefulness.   Experiencing little moments of gratefulness is what these disruptions are using, often unconsciously, to propel themselves into unknown and scary territory. It’s physically impossible to be afraid and be grateful at the same time, and by working with an abundance mindset, these disruptors are always looking for opportunity in the chaos.   Interview Links: Mike-maddock.com Mike on LinkedIn Scaling Up Business Podcast Episode 81 with Mike Maddock   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “Entrepreneurs seem to be able to manufacture serendipity, which is to say, they’re lucky again and again.”   “It’s physically impossible for you to feel afraid and grateful at the same time.”   “I’ve never met an incredibly successful person who is not either chasing a ghost or being chased by one. The question is who’s got who.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

When scaling up a company, finding the right people is the hardest part. We love to work with people based on their strengths, and find ways to align this with the overall company culture. Today’s show focuses on the deep work necessary to develop a thriving values-based business. Brandon Miller is the co-founder and CEO of 34 Strong, an employee engagement firm that helps build great workplaces. Brandon and his team leverage the Gallup StrengthsFinder tool to help identify and maximize employee strengths. Brandon’s ultimate career choice as a young child was to become a teacher and a football coach. However, that changed at 22 years-old and he became a young pastor instead. He served 2,500 congregants at his church and was in an executive role, where he managed 28 staff members. He wanted to improve his workforce by building a strengths-based culture around it. When it comes to values, it’s important for leaders to be clear on what the core values for their organization are. Studies show that people have retention for no more than four values in their lives. Therefore, looking at a list of values and picking off all the ones you like might seem great in theory, but it rarely pans out in practice. People need to know what each value means and how it can be carried out in the team. Cultures are built, and they cannot be bought. Culture, at its core, starts with leadership. It has to be something where the leader can be an example. In order to create a successful culture, it has to pass the ‘Three M Test’. You’ve got to be able to Message it, it’s got to be a Model, and it has to be Mirrored back to you.   Interview Links: 34strong.com Brandon on LinkedIn Gallupstrengthscenter.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Today’s episode addresses two different areas in the world of cash as well as a novel and innovative business. We’ll be taking a dive into the employee/employer relationship and the stresses that lead to lead employee discomfort around the topic of cash.   Safwan Shah is the Founder and Ceo of PayActiv, an employer-sponsored financial wellness platform. With a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, Safwan has a unique perspective about the finance industry. His company serves millions of employees worldwide and settles over $1B in timely EWA funds annually.   Safwan is originally from Pakistan and has been in Silicon Valley since the mid-90s, where he stumbled into becoming an entrepreneur. As an engineer, Safwan has had the opportunity to work in several NASA centers throughout his career.   PayActiv started after Safwan noticed a pattern among employers and employees. People work every day, yet they get paid after every two weeks, or after a month. Is there a reason why employees are giving a time loan to their employer? Yet, if you own a store or shop, you pay your vendors and even your landlord in advance, and your customers pay you almost immediately.   For employers, cash flow is often an issue. At a large company, around 50-70% of payroll consists of hourly workers. Before an employer can get up one morning and decide to pay their workers instantly, there is definitely some logistical challenges they must first think through.   What happens when an employee wants early pay or even an early bonus? Employers often get annoyed by these requests because of how time-consuming it is to fulfill. PayActiv helps employers eliminate these painful logistical challenges by creating a seamless way employees can ask for their pay (and receive it) without bothering anyone.   Interview Links: PayActiv.com Safwan on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

This is a very special episode, because our guest is sailing around Antarctica. And, because of where our guest is, the interview was conducted via satellite phone. What has taken place is an incredible and historic journey that we can't wait for you to be a part of. Randall Reeves is about to undertake two treacherous routes. The goal is to navigate both the American and Antarctic continents in one season. The Figure 8 Voyage will go through a circuit of the Southern Ocean and a transit of the Northwest Passage (forming a figure 8). No one has ever done this before! Randall has been alone at sea for 125 days, thus far. He's passing Tasmania, Australia and plans to be near New Zealand in about a week. Average wind speeds are around 25-35 miles per hour. He averages around 145 miles a day. Today is a nice day, but it isn't always like that! On the boat, Randall does not have any luxuries like pressured or hot water. He doesn't have heat, a microwave, or even a coffee maker. His journey is bare-bones. He sleeps in a sleeping bag at night and has 6 pairs of socks that he circles through. He is unable to wash them, because it gets so cold on the boat that they would never dry. This is Randall's second attempt. The last time he tried it, he experienced a lot of hardship and unexpected problems. He lost both of his self-steering systems in the course of a week and it set him back a couple of extra weeks. When he was near Madagascar, he got caught in a huge storm. It was 20-foot sea waves coming and crashing down all around him. Water ended up getting on his equipment and everything was dead. By that time, he was approaching winter and he had to stop. Randall has been planning for this project since 2013. It took him a couple of years of trial and error to find the right boat type that could navigate the waters. To get a taste of the Arctic, he also joined a boat crew to become familiar with the environment. Even now, with his journey underway, there's a high risk that the project might fail simply because the Arctic Northwest Passage might not open this year. Last summer only one boat with a crew of 35 was able to get through. But, he remains optimistic.   Interview Links: Figure8voyage.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Register now for our next workshop on Scaling Up! And hurry to get one of the limited $100 discounts for loyal podcast listeners (while supplies last). https://scalingcoach.com/scaling-business-growth-workshop/ Enter code “SUP” for scaling up podcast during checkout.  We’ll see you there! Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits). Check out this episode!    

Ron Lovett is an author, entrepreneur, and a leader with a passion for change. He is the Founder of Connolly Owens, where he and his team build companies with a purpose. They teach companies how to create accountability so that their entire team is focused on the same company goals. Are you looking to get more engagement from your team and from your front-line staff? And, do we really need that much middle management support? Today’s show is all about developing a more agile and less ‘managed’ team that’s also engaged, happy, and empowered! Ron struggled throughout high school, but he was always finding ways to make a buck and hustle. At one point, he had three jobs and was selling marijuana on the side. He decided to go backpacking and when he came back he started his security business. Within four years of starting his business, he had 350 staff members doing security for an 85,000 person Rolling Stones concert. The security industry hasn’t changed much in terms of innovation, but after Ron hired his first Gazelle’s coach, it really turned around his company and sparked him to take some risks. Ron actually didn’t believe in the whole ‘culture’ thing. After reading the book, Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, by Kevin Freiberg, skeptical, he asked a Southwest employee one day if he liked his job. The employee said, “This is the best … company to work for on the planet.” It blew Ron away. He realized he had a lot of work to do to bring his company to the same standards. Ron decided to take some interesting HR practices to help get his front-line staff more aligned and empowered. However, Ron ran into another challenge: his corporate staff loved the company and their culture, but they hated their jobs (specifically, their tasks). So he found ways to outsource the tasks they hated to their front-line staff (who loved the extra work). It was messy at first, but eventually it ended up increasing everyone’s happiness levels.   Interview Links: Connollyowens.com Ron on LinkedIn   Resources: ScalingUpforBusinessGrowthWorkshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Register now for our next workshop on Scaling Up! And hurry to get one of the limited $100 discounts for loyal podcast listeners (while supplies last). https://scalingcoach.com/scaling-business-growth-workshop/ Enter code “SUP” for scaling up podcast during checkout.  We’ll see you there! ScalingUpSummits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. ScalingUp is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies. We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Wendy Lieber is the Founder of ContentBacon, an inbound marketing service that helps clients tell their stories through digital content. Wendy approached Bill because she’s ready to scale her business by 10X. The company was founded in 2014 and it’s ready to make the next big jump. What strategies come to mind that would allow for Wendy to scale her business 10X? Wendy and her team have been focused on building their infrastructure and are in the process of customizing it to fit their needs. They are looking into automating some of their processes so that they can better leverage their team. The biggest challenge right now in this strategy is performance — the ability to deliver the agreed-upon work without the use of additional staff. Wendy has seen a growth of, on average, 40 percent a year and has had some huge wins from the marketing point of view. Wendy currently has 10 full-time employees and a pool of 30 freelancers/contractors. Wendy realizes that the team that got them to where they are today isn’t going to get them to their next BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). So, Wendy has had to invest more in her team. Bill recommends Wendy use a Scaling Up coach to help her detect blind spots that she’s not aware of. So far, Wendy has done a really good job structuring her company for successful 10X growth, but having someone hold your hand through the process can make a world of difference.   Interview Links: Contentbacon.com Wendy on LinkedIn Aligntoday.com Metronomegrowthsystems.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Good storytelling is essential to both great leadership and great marketing. At the core of telling great stories, is the ability to be real and to go beyond the superficial level. You can accomplish this by having the courage to be vulnerable. Corey Blake is the Founder and CEO of Round Table Companies (RTC) and is also the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press. Some of RTC’s clients include Microsoft, First United Bank, and Marketo. Corey has spent over 12 years helping business leaders use storytelling to transform themselves and their organizations. When Corey’s mother was diagnosed with depression and had also exhibited traits of bipolar disorder, Corey began to learn really quickly how to read a room and develop survival tactics to reduce the number of outbursts and to make his mother laugh. It was through this experience that he discovered (although unconsciously at the time) he liked being a performer and went to school for acting. After Corey got married, he decided to make a transition from acting to something a little more consistent, so he started his own company! Before RTC, Corey created two other storytelling companies for the film industry. He learned a lot of valuable lessons and did a lot right but in the end, he made some huge mistakes he could not recover from. As Corey worked with his clients at RTC, he and his team saw the kind of impact they were able to have on their clients when the client felt safe enough to be vulnerable in their story. They would often share things they hadn’t even told their spouses or, it was the first time they even expressed these vulnerabilities out loud to themselves. Flipping the script, when Corey was able to become vulnerable with his team (and vice versa) about trying to avoid making the same mistakes he made at his prior two companies, a deep and profound trust was developed. By having the courage to express vulnerability in the workforce, the team was able to grow in a meaningful way and had each other’s backs.   Interview Links: Roundtablecompanies.com Consciouscapitalism.org Corey on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

Today’s show is about hacking happiness, fulfillment, and connection for both yourself and your team. Our special guest has generated terrific business results by digging deep into something so simple, but complex: happiness. Mike Simonsen is the Co-founder and CEO of Altos Research, a company that analyzes real estate markets in real-time. Mike is also a Board Member for the San Francisco chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. In 2001, Mike bought his own house in Silicon Valley. It was overpriced, the mortgage was ridiculous, and the NASDAQ was going crazy. Mike started building models based on the data he had about the U.S. real estate market to better help him understand what was going on. Realizing he had collected more data about this industry than even the financial institutions, he started his company in 2006 to help anyone with an interest in real estate. What exactly does it mean to ‘hack’ happiness? Mike noticed himself getting into a funk. He was feeling uninspired and just getting lazy in his business, and he wanted to get out of it… he wanted to feel inspired again. During his research, he discovered nine pillars that would help him feel connected and happy again. He tried it on himself and discovered something amazing — he had a really good year in 2018, both professionally and personally. In fact, It wasn’t just a ‘good’ year, it was actually the best year he’s ever had. What did he do? Well, first, he changed the way he tackles stress. Typically, when Mike gets stressed, he starts to avoid things. So when Mike noticed he was getting stressed, he decided to meditate, which immediately drops cortisol (stress) levels. After three months of meditation, there were positive changes in his physical tests. Second, he stopped putting goals down because he would routinely never complete them. Instead, he put measurements in place so he could track his progress and he also set a schedule for himself so he made sure he’d do that thing. This took an enormous amount of pressure off of him. Third, Mike wanted to boost up his serotonin and oxytocin (joy/happiness) levels, because it’s much more sustainable than dopamine (reward). He did this by recording his moments of joy. This gave him the opportunity to remember all the positives that have happened in his day. He would also journal his negative emotions down because it gave all this pent up energy an ‘out.’   Interview Links: http://bit.ly/hacking-happiness-mike-simonsen Altos Research Mike on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

The secret to successfully scaling up is to focus on a few things, but be different, be unique, in your industry. So, how can you stand out from the crowd and be different? Today’s show is a rerun all the way back to Episode 1 and it dives into your unique talents and how you can discover what you bring to the table.   Robert (Bob) Bloom is the authority on customer-centric growth. He is the author of The Inside Advantage and The New Experts. Bob was the U.S. Chairman and CEO of Publicis Worldwide. He got his start as an entrepreneur, took his company national, and then sold it. Bob has developed strategies for companies like BMW, L’Oreal, Nestlé, and even helped to launch Southwest Airlines, T-Mobile, Juicy Juice, and many others. In today’s episode, Bob and I talk about strategy and finding your own inside advantage.   There is a secret that so many business leaders are missing. Most people start with a strategy, but it is one that is in their minds and may not be contemporary at the moment. Secondly, the most important thing that a strategy has to have is consensus internally with all of your staff, whether you have three people or hundreds. If everybody doesn’t agree that you are going in the right direction, it doesn’t matter because you will never get there.   The other thing that is absolutely critical is differentiation. In this day and time, if you don’t differentiate your brand, your company, or your services, you will not make it. The competition out there is mushy; everybody is doing the same thing.   There are four steps in the Growth Discovery Process   Who is your core customer? You must start with the first element. Customers are human beings; you can't talk to a statistic. You must talk to this human being and understand his/her company or personal needs from that standpoint. When you do that, you understand your ‘Who.’ Get inside that person’s head and heart. Look at your customer as if that person was right in the room with you.   What does your core customer want, need and desire? You want to look inside your business. What does your core customer want, need, and desire? You have a WHO and WHAT. What do you do inside your business? What is the uncommon offering that your business will own and leverage?   ‘How’ is the persuasive strategy that will convince your core customer to buy your uncommon offering versus all competitive offerings. You need to persuade or convince your customer that you are really going to do what you say you are going to do. You need to develop an approach to convince your customer to buy from you and not your competitor.   ‘Own it!’ is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and make it well known to your core customer. You want your brand or company to stand for it! You have to own what you say you are going to own. OWN YOUR WHAT! It has to be yours and yours alone in 15 words or less. Simple — Consistent, Committed and Clear!   Check out the podcast to find out more in-depth about how Bob took these strategies into the big businesses mentioned in the introduction.   Interview Links: Bobbloom.biz Robert on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

As we transition from the end of the year to the new year, we might imagine what’s next in our future and what kind of goals we should aspire to do. Verne Harnish joins us today to guide us through the goal-setting process!   As Verne is coming up to his 60th birthday, he is faced with the ‘what next?’ question. He attended a Tony Robbin’s seminar to help unblock himself from… himself! As Bill says, you’re never truly finished, so it’s important to continually grow and develop yourself until you die.   We want to be informed of the past, learn from it, make our peace from it, and then get ready to move on. As Verne sits and imagines the future, he has some changes of thought on the goal-setting process. We have some real cultural barriers when it comes to our accomplishments.   Every day, Verne is more and more convinced that you’re a danger to yourself if you think you can have three-year objectives. The whole idea of even knowing where you’ll be in 3, 5, or 10 years is very limiting.   This doesn’t mean Verne is against making your BHAG for the next 20 years, and taking steps for you to get there, but it just means that everything in between before you get there is a big guess at best, and it’s okay to learn and grow from that.   Interview Links: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, by Kenneth O. Stanley and Joel Lehman   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “The greatest lesson of history is we fail to learn from history.”   “The biggest constraint is between our ears.”   “You’re either winning or you’re learning.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they too can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

As we head into the holiday season, we start to make New Year’s resolutions, and they often don’t get completed! How can we avoid that? Today, we’ll be sharing an older podcast episode that will help you paint a picture for your life and for your future… so that you can actually get your goals finished!   Brian Scudamore is the Founder and CEO of 1-800-Got-Junk? and has been running the company since 1989. Since then, he has started several companies like Shack Shine, You Move Me, and Wow 1 Day Painting.   Here are the steps it takes to create a painted picture for your business (and your life). First, it starts with you being in an inspirational place. Second, you want to take out a piece of paper and write in very specific and intentional language. Brian didn’t write, ‘I hope to be’ or, ‘I want to be,’ he wrote, ‘I will be.’   Third, Brain gave himself incredibly specific goals, in this particular case, a five-year goal to achieve his big vision. And step number four, after writing out the big idea, he added color to the picture. What would we feel like as a company? What would the culture be like? How would the brand be presented to the world? Here are some questions you can ask yourself: What is your top-line revenue? How many people are on your team? How would your people describe the culture of your company when talking to a family member? What is the press saying about your business? Be as specific as possible — what would your local paper say about your company? What would your favorite magazine say? What do your people love about your vision and where the company is headed? How would a customer describe their experience with you? What would they say to their best friend? What accomplishment are you most proud of? What accomplishment are your people most proud of? What do you do better than anyone else on the planet? Describe your office environment and culture in detail. Describe your service area. Who are your customers and how do they feel? When he was finished, he was surprised by the results. As he re-read what he wrote down, Brian realized what he wrote was absolutely possible, so he shared it with his team. Some members of his team were excited, and those who weren’t ended up leaving.   Brian believes it’s best to come up with a vision about where you’re going and then recruit the who – the people that will help figure out how to get there. However, the one thing a painted picture will not do or even try to do is to say how to get there. The reason for this being is that the CEO doesn’t always know best. His team will have a better execution plan than he will. It also prevents the CEO or the founder from getting cold feet when he realizes the ‘real’ work involved. Let your team support your vision and use their expertise to help guide you to your end result.   Interview Links: Painted Picture Visualization O2Ebrands.com 1-800 Got Junk Website Good to Great, by Jim Collins Brian on LinkedIn Twitter – @brianscudamore Facebook – bscudamore Instagram – brianscudamore Scaling Up Business Podcast – Bruce Eckfeldt Scaling Up Business Podcast – Brian Scudamore   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

How do we get beyond the startup phase and into the scale-up zone? And what are some of the unique challenges women face throughout this process? Today’s guest has some insight on how this transition can be made a little bit easier.   Julia Pimsleur is an entrepreneur and the author of the best-selling book Million Dollar Women. During her years as a CEO, Julia has raised angel and venture capital for various startups and discovered that only 3% of all women entrepreneurs ever reach the one-million-dollar mark. Today, she aims to change that and coaches women through their business so that they can scale and grow effectively.   When Julia built her language business into a multimillion-dollar business, she looked around and saw that there were very few women at that level. Despite women starting twice as many businesses than men over the last two decades, they still weren’t reaching that million-dollar mark.   Julia suspected that women were running into the same kinds of problems she did when she first started out, which was what inspired her to write her book. For example, bank loans. Very few women seek financial aid, and when they do, they’re often turned down by the bank.   In the Million Dollar Women® masterclass, Julia helps her students in three core areas: finances, mindset, and strategy. Finances and strategy are timeless but when it comes to mindset, women are much more cautious in their approach to scaling up, and this can hold them back significantly from growth.   Interview Links: Juliapimsleur.com Julia on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

Meetings! They can either be great or they can be terrible. The general consensus is that meetings suck, but today’s special guest wants to transform your experience with meetings so that the entire team feels productive and ready to go!   Elise Keith is the Founder of Lucid Meetings and the author of Where The Action Is, a book about more productive and happier, meetings! She helps her clients implement an effective meeting operating system so that everyone in the company prospers.   When Elise first started her career, she experienced a lot of pointless drama and needless side conversations. Different departments had different objectives and they would often clash with one another, which meant the meetings were endless and also ruthless. These mixed messages would also confuse their customers too!   Elise experienced all the ‘interventions.’ Leaders did the DISC and StrengthsFinder’s assessment. The DISC profiles became excuses and the strengths became weapons. The diversity interventions ended up creating more barriers between team members. Yet, still, everyone tried so desperately to work together. They still cared.   Things changed for Elise when she witnessed firsthand what it was like to have competing interests and a system that was able to bypass all the drama and get things done. That system was centered around a very clear and defined way on how to run Monday meetings. They weren’t always interesting, but it got the job done.   These meetings had clear goals and objectives already laid out each week so that everyone was on the same page before they even started the meeting. Just with this simple shift, Elise saw people being aligned on what they had to achieve and… they were having fun doing it! If you run your meetings better, your people will get along better!   Interview Links: Blog.lucidmeetings.com Elise on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube

What lessons can we learn from a symphony orchestra? More importantly, what can a symphony conductor teach us about teamwork and leadership? Our special guest shares how we can enhance and develop our leadership skills by learning to lead with deeper listening skills.   Roger Nierenberg is a Symphony Conductor that has enjoyed long tenures as Music Director of both The Jacksonville Symphony and the Stamford Symphony. Roger is also the author of Maestro, which contains surprising messages about business leadership.   What does a symphony conductor do? A conductor is in charge of making the whole music piece, all the little different parts, coherent. They are in charge of taking big messages and simplifying them, and they help lay out the vision of the music so that the musicians can buy into it and follow it. All of this is translated by the simple movements of the baton.   In Roger’s process, first, he sets the tone for his business students so that they understand how an orchestra works. They come into a room where they sit right where the action is, inside the symphony orchestra, and find themselves side-by-side with the musicians.   Without any words spoken, the music begins and the students watch as Roger conducts. After the show, Roger explains that the orchestra is a metaphor for a well-run, successful organization. The funny thing is, Roger had only met with the orchestra an hour prior and they, too, had no idea what Roger was going to ask them to do until the baton was moving.   So many people are not musicians, so by structuring it in this way, students are able to fully comprehend and experience what it looks like to work together unscripted, in a flow, without trying to explain or converse. You are only using the power of observation and your listening skills to understand what it means to really work in sync.   Interview Links: Musicparadigm.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

When you’re launching, scaling, or even selling a business, it comes with a lot of tough challenges… as well as some amazing breakthroughs. Today’s show is all about achieving those breakthroughs on a regular basis and getting more of those ‘aha’ moments.   Scott Duffy has been listed as a “Top 10 Keynote Speaker” by Entrepreneur and even sold one of his businesses to Richard Branson. He is also the best-selling author of Launched! and gives a deeper dive into his most recent book, Breakthrough, in today’s episode.   As a junior in college, Scott got into a horrific car accident with a garbage truck while he was going 90 miles an hour. He had two brain hemorrhages and had to drop out of school. While on bed rest, Scott was listening to motivational speakers and he made it his mission to intern/work for these very people who helped him recover. After his recovery, he went back to school and landed an internship with Tony Robbins.   The job was hard. Scott would be on the road for 50 straight weeks and his training team would speak up to seven days a week, five times a day. Unfortunately, Scott burned out from this high-paced and high-energy environment.   After some time off, Scott joined with his old roommate to create an Internet company (this was back in 1994). The first two months were a disaster. Nothing was working. So, Scott decided to go where the action was and move to San Francisco where all the smart guys, like Yahoo, were.   A ton of friends’ couches and six months later, Scott ran out of money and people stopped calling him back. So, he pawned all of his stuff! He took the money he had, bought some pizzas, smashed his resume into the cheese, and delivered them to companies. He got a call from Bill Peck, the father of Internet Advertising, and that’s when Scott got his first breakthrough.   Interview Links: Scottduffy.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount) Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “We have this energy, we have this enthusiasm, and we know if someone would just give us a shot, we’d do a great job!”   “In life, we gotta position ourselves.”   “The rule number one I’ve learned with being around people like Richard Branson or Tony Robbins — just never get in the way of possibility.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they too can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up business podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne’s original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

This week’s show is a case study featuring an entrepreneur finding the right balance between the people vs. the profits. Our entrepreneur has created a for-profit business with an emphasis on the people who work there. Find out more!   Matt Altman Co-Founded the brand Sportiqe, a lifestyle clothing company. He serves as CEO of the company with a mission to help people feel comfortable. Matt has a lifelong passion for helping people be the best version of themselves. He also serves on the board of The Prem Rawat Foundation, which serves to address fundamental human needs of food, water, and peace.   Matt had a 12-year career in retail operations before starting his own business in 2006. From day one, Matt and his co-founder were constantly thinking of their company culture and how they wanted to develop it. He believes the health of the company, the profits, the people, are all integrated.   In his career, Matt saw time and time again decisions being made that grew profit… but at the expense of the people. For him, it didn’t seem fair to operate a business that way. He knew there was a better way and sought out to find it.   Matt first heard the term ‘Conscious Capitalism’ four to five years ago and didn’t think much of it. However, he was invited to his first Conscious Capitalism summit two years ago and the event was eye-opening. He discovered so many companies that had a purpose-driven reason to exist and it transcended beyond ‘just to make money.’ He was able to see first-hand the positive-impact capitalism has had on a global scale.   Conscious Capitalism is about thinking long-term instead of short-term. It’s planning out the sustainability in a company and utilizing smart business practices to leverage the humanity of people. It’s basically asking yourself, “What are the decisions I can make today that will help the company five years from now?”   Interview Links: TPRF.org Sportiqe.com Episode 088: “Rajendra Sisodia — Conscious Capitalism”   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount) Bill on YouTube

Stressed out? Are you constantly facing tough challenges on a regular basis? Everyone goes through people problems, relationship problems, family problems, and financial problems but our reactions to these stressful events can be changed through the use of mindfulness and meditation.   Rob Dube is the Founder and President of ImageOne, which focuses on Print Management. Rob is also a Forbes Best Small Giants Company Leader and the author of the bestselling book, Do Nothing, which is what Bill and Rob will be talking about on today’s show!   Growing up, Rob had a host of health issues as well as some family issues under his belt. As a kid, he was always anxious and stressed, but he kept it bottled up inside. After college, he and his childhood friend started a business, which did not help Rob’s anxiousness and stress.   By the time Rob was 25, he was already married, had a kid on its way; he also had no money and was living with his dad… which meant even more stress! It finally took a toll on Rob and he went into therapy. It helped a lot, but it didn’t ‘cure’ him.   When Rob first heard about mediation in the early 2000s, he was skeptical. However, he reached a breaking point after he sold his business and was willing to try anything. He tried it… and he felt better. His problems were still there, but at least he felt a bit better. That’s when he dug in deep to see whether there was any scientific proof behind all of this meditation stuff.   14 years of practice later, Rob is a believer. He is a fan of doing silent retreats because it brings you to the present and he has done eight of them so far that were each around 7-10 days in length. Although there are different types of meditation, Rob likes to do MBSR (Mindfulness-based stress reduction) meditation.   How does Rob define mindfulness? There are a couple of definitions for it, but one of them is the ability to be in the moment, right here, right now. As one body, as one breath. As challenges are coming at you, you are able to bring yourself right into the moment and not let your mind go into problem-solving mode.   Interview Links: Imageoneway.com Rob on LinkedIn Donothingbook.com Smallgiants.org   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “I just kept building that foundation of stress and anxiety and I just didn’t feel like I was as good of a person as I needed to be.”   “Having been an entrepreneur basically my whole life and never having worked for anybody, I was just not adapting to this new company/environment.”   “We learn to first bring awareness to yourself. Then, over time, you bring that awareness to each moment you’re experiencing.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

What story does your cash flow tell? Is it a happy ending? Does it end in romance? Or is it a horror story? Your balance, your cash flow, tell a story. The good news is there are four levers you can pull to change it!   Alan Miltz is a numbers guy from South Africa but currently lives in Australia. He is the co-founder of Cash Flow Story, the co-author of Scaling Up, and he’s an International Speaker. Alan is on today’s show to shed some light on the numbers and help Founders and Entrepreneurs get a better understanding of what it all means.   Unless you come from a financial background, looking at the numbers in your business can be overwhelming and hard to comprehend in a ‘big picture’ perspective. As Alan likes to say, you might be speaking Spanish, but the bank is speaking Portuguese and these language barriers can be disastrous for a new startup.   Alan left South Africa in 1987 while the country was in the midst of apartheid. Through his accounting degree, Alan was able to travel all over the world, where he finally landed in Australia at 26 years old. At the time, he was an advisor and realized everyone he spoken to (accountants, business owners, etc) all spoke “numbers” very differently. They all interpreted it… differently!   So, Alan and a few other South African expats decided to create a technology platform that could be used by anyone. The belief was that banks should be able to communicate in credit in one simple language and have businesses understand it. Through that adventure, Alan and his co-founders were able to sell it about six years ago and start Cash Flow Story shortly after.   Cash Flow Story is aimed at CEOs, Coaches, and Accountants to tell a story in a way where everyone will understand the numbers. The biggest danger in a business is what you don’t know about your own business! The goal is simple, to help people eliminate their financial blind spots.   Alan believes revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king. When CEOs look at their financials and see their profit margin, they think they understand the business. Alan says you don’t! Profit numbers are just an opinion! You can manipulate your profit. Cash, however, is a fact.   Interview Links: Alanmiltz.com Alan on LinkedIn Cashflowstory.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach  

Fast-growing companies typically grow between 20-30% a year and doubling that every few years. However, some companies grow quite a bit faster than that. Today’s topic is Blitzscaling, where companies exceed their growth expectations ten- or twenty-fold!   Chris Yeh is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Wasabi Ventures. Chris has worked in high-tech startups since 1995 and attend Stanford when he was just 15 years old. Chris is also the author of Blitzscaling, which Bill and Chris will be discussing in depth today.   How do you define Blitzscaling exactly? It is the pursuit of rapid growth, where you prioritize speed over efficiency and environmental uncertainty. More and more industries and markets are winner-take-most or winner-take-all. The first to reach scale becomes the dominant player.   For example, Facebook was not the first social network. Before it, there was Friendster and MySpace. However, Facebook was the first to scale and get its name out there.   The perfect example of Blitzscaling is actually Google. When Google decided to partner with AOL, they made a commitment of $150 million dollars a year with them. This was a huge jump because the year before they had only done $19 million. Through their AOL partnerships, they became the dominant player in advertising today.   Is Blitzscaling just all about getting big fast? No, it’s not! It is a systematic way to understand and take intelligent risks. Blitzscaling has four growth factors and two growth limiters. It first starts with market size, distribution, gross margins, and network effect. The two growth limiters are lack of product market fit and operational scalability.   For example, Groupon by all measures should have been successful, but what stopped them dead in their tracks was lack of product market fit. They offered a poor customer experience for both the vendors and the buyers as they grew. They had rocket-like growth in the beginning, but it ended up crashing due to their inability to cater to their core customers.   Interview Links: Wasabiventures.com Globalscalingacademy.com Blitzscaling.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “Blitzscaling is the pursuit of rapid growth by prioritizing speed over efficiency.”   “The ability to actually scale your people, your technology, and infrastructure is absolutely essential.”   “When you’re a Blitzscaler, you need to be able to continue learning new ways to play the game, because it’s changing at every stage.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

What does it truly feel like to 10X your company? How does your mindset change and how do you navigate between the startup phase to the $10 million in revenue phase? On top of that, how can we keep sustaining that growth? Today’s episode features a case study that details this entrepreneur’s experience!   Kevin Pasco is a 26-year-old entrepreneur who built an eight-figure brand, Nested Naturals, into an eCommerce powerhouse with his partner Jeremy Sherk. Kevin has a team of 25 employees and plans to grow to more than 50 in the next 3 years. How has he been able to see such success? Find out on today’s episode!   When Kevin first started 4-5 years ago, he was trying to pursue a more nomadic “4 hour work week” schedule. However, it slowly grew into something more. The company first began because both Kevin and his business partner were fed up with taking supplements that didn’t fully disclosure what was — really — inside the bottle.   The first product they launched was to help with sleep since both of the Founders had trouble sleeping regularly. When they launched, they had to really bootstrap it and get the support of their friends and family to support their first product, initially. In the first year, their product saw a lot of success and it grew to a million dollars in revenue.   What led them to quick growth in the first year was their ability to listen to the customer and adapt to their needs. The customers were still paying the same price for a better product and they were thrilled. Also, their extensive A/B testing helped significantly to see what was really working and what was not. The keys to Kevin’s success, in the beginning, was listening to feedback, adapting, and then brand testing.   By getting social proof early on through Amazon Reviews, Kevin and his business partner were able to charge a higher price for their product as well and stand out from the competition. They’re not just selling ‘pills,’ they’re selling a good night’s sleep where you won’t be waking up groggy. People really value that and are willing to pay extra for that feeling.   Interview Links: Nestednaturals.com Kevin on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “We really learned to listen to the customer.”   “We found pretty early on that the more reviews we could get — the more people talking about the product — the more we could charge.”   “In year 3, we placed such a big emphasis on people, leadership, autonomy, hiring great people, and offering them incredibly culture and perks.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We often focus on company performance and leadership, but what about individual performance? What can we learn from just the individual and how can we improve it so that everyone on your team is a star performer? Today’s guest has the answers. Morten Hansen is a management theorist, motivational speaker, and author. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School, Morten now teaches management at The University of California. He also co-authored the New York Times bestseller Great by Choice with Jim Collins. Morten has recently released a new book titled, Great at Work, which he dives into, on this week's show. Morten was working 80+ hours to achieve good work, but his colleague was working 50 hours a week and still delivered good work, if not better. How was it that she was able to achieve such great quality of work within less time? This spawned the question, why are some people great at work and others are not? Through extensive research and five years later, Morten discovered that there were 7 factors or principles that explained two-thirds of people’s work performance. If you’re good at these seven things, it will go a long way into really performing exceptionally well in your role. This is great news because it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘do more’ or ‘work harder.’ The great performers are not the ones up in the middle of the night sending emails at 3 a.m. to their staff. In fact, they’re much more organized; they’re more focused and incredibly good at prioritizing. Morten found that if you’re working more than 65 hours per week, you’re getting diminishing returns in your performance. To find out how to increase your performance and what the seven principles are, listen in for more! Interview Links: Mortenhansen.com Morten on LinkedIn Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach

It takes a team to scale and grow but how do you do that with ease and grace? How can you become a powerful leader that both inspires and engages your team? Today’s guest has some answers!   Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur and the Founder of Priceline, UBid, and ColorJar. Jeff has worked alongside celebrities like Elton John, Britney Spears, and NSYNC. He knows a thing or two about what it takes to engage people and on today’s show, he shares his expertise in team building practices that bring good people together!   One of the most important lessons Jeff learned about scaling up is the value of teams. As a founder, you started the company yourself and are used to taking care of everything yourself. The problem with this though is that if your company does well, you start to think you’re pretty good at all of this.   But later, founders find themselves overwhelmed. They find themselves working harder than ever before and putting in more hours than they’ve ever done before, yet, despite this, they’ve stopped growing. The truth is, you’re never going to do anything massive or at scale by yourself.   Jeff was not smart enough to understand this in the beginning, but through his mistakes, he’s learned that the day you start taking some of your time to delegate your tasks and to find people that are smarter than you to run the company, is the day you can finally work less and be less stressed.   Jeff had to make an active effort to find talented people. Sending out an ad doesn’t work. The best people in your market aren’t looking for a job, so schedule the time to scout them. The second part of running a successful team is getting out of their way. Let the people who are smarter than you do their jobs!   Your real job as a founder is to build a workplace environment and culture that people love to go to, where the best people in the industry all want to work for you and never want to leave. Your job is to take care of the people who work for you. When you’ve achieved this, you never have to worry about the growth of your company.   Interview Links: Jeffhoffman.com Jeff on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach  

The bigger you get, the harder it becomes to know what’s going on within your company. You may know your financial numbers, but how are you really doing? Are your people happy? How are you doing on those ‘softer’ skills? Well, you are able to track this in real terms by using a system called Net Promoter Score (NPS).   Sturdy McKee is a Physical Therapist, Entrepreneur, and Business Coach. He has been using NPS for the last five years and shares on today’s show his case study and some of his business insights on how NPS has helped grow his business and measure those ‘intangible’ metrics.   Sturdy had been in business for over 10 years before he even considered implementing NPS. He had 6 locations and over 40 employees, and he was losing touch with the frontline experience. He didn’t know how his customers were doing across the board and it was difficult trying to find this info from all of his different locations.   In the NPS survey question, business owners can ask their customers, “How likely are you to recommend this company, this product/service, to a friend or family member from 1-10?” 1-6s are considered detractors, 7-8s are neutrals, and 9-10s are promoters.   The formula works like this: Take the number of promoters minus the detractors and divide the remainder by the total surveyed and then you end up with your ‘Net Promoter Score.’ Typically this system ignores those who voted 7-8 and looks carefully at those who rated the service 1-6 to see what you can learn from them. And from those who rated 9-10, you use this data to see how you can attract more of these people and even receive a testimonial from them.   Sturdy’s company sent an automatic follow-up email two weeks after a patient’s evaluation asking the ‘Would you recommend us?’ question and sent the same follow-up question around the six-week mark, which ended up being a really good decision. For those who weren’t happy at the two-week mark, and having Sturdy’s team quickly address and fix it, they ended up changing their score at the six-week mark to a more positive one.   During this time, Sturdy discovered two things about his company. Volunteers and students studying physical therapy were observing/treating patients, but some patients did not consent to this and felt like they were paying a high cost only to be treated by an unskilled staff member. This caused Sturdy to change his process so that students could still learn and volunteers could still observe, but it was documented more effectively and the patients still felt like they were receiving the highest quality service.   Interview Links: Sturdymckee.com Sturdy on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “For people who are brand new to this, NPS is really asking one question and then leaving an open end.”   “Even from the get-go we realized it was a process, it wasn’t just a number.”   “Fortunately, we’ve eliminated specific things that were being done across the board.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

In order to grow your business, you have to recognize that you are often times the bottleneck. Everything needed to grow your business starts with you! This is why it’s important to become a lifelong learner to better develop yourself and grow your business.   Daniel Marcos is the co-Founder and CEO of Gazelles Growth Institute. He is also a long-time coach and an international speaker who has shared the stage with thought leaders like Peter Diamandis, Guy Kawasaki, and Jack Canfield. On today’s show, Daniel dives into what it means and why it’s important to be a lifelong learner and how it accelerates your career.   Daniel was a very bad student academically but he built his first internet company in Mexico City back in 1999. As Daniel began hiring Stanford and Harvard graduates to come work for him, he felt uncomfortable that he wasn’t able to understand what they were saying to him. They were using jargon he had never heard before. This experience prompted him to study for his own MBA and to better understand the people who work for him.   When Daniel started his next company in the U.S., it went under during the 2008 crash. It was awful and he lost a lot of money. Verne Harnish reached out to him, and after complaining for 30 minutes, Verne asked, “What’s next?” Daniel, feeling like an absolute failure, said he was going to return to Mexico and get a salaried job to pay for his kid’s education. Verne thought this was nonsense and offered him a new opportunity. The rest is history!   Through that experience, Daniel has become obsessed with KPIs and looking at the numbers. He now has insight into what good numbers look like to help prevent others from suffering the same faith his company did back in 2008. Back then, he saw the warning signs but ignored them. Today, he helps entrepreneurs avoid them.   Daniel has a very extensive book collection, but the problem with books is they tell you how to do things, but they never mention at what stage or when you should do those things. As we go through different stages of growth, each company is going to experience something different. A one-size-fits-all approach just doesn’t work the way the books say it does.   Daniel saw a chart that stated the U.S. today has 28 million firms and 96% of them will never do over a million dollars in revenue a year. Only about 0.4% of companies go over $10 million a year in revenue. In the end, only 17,000 companies go above $50 million in revenue each year. And in each of these financially diverse companies, they all need a completely different level of attention and systems.   Interview Links: Growthinstitute.com Daniel on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “The reason we’re great coaches is not because we’re so ‘brilliant.’ It’s our willingness to share the things that didn’t work for us.”   “Everything was backward for me. How much money we made, we were looking into the past. Now, a lot of my metrics are for the future and I can see what’s going on.”   “Are you, yourself, coachable?”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

People are certainly the hardest part about scaling up a business. Finding the right people is crucial to helping you grow. So, how can you improve your odds from 50% to 90% or better? Through smart recruiting methods!   Geoff Smart is the Chairman & Founder of ghSMART, which was founded in 1995 to help Fortune 500 CEOs and entrepreneurs achieve their goals through hiring, developing and leading talented teams. Geoff is also the bestselling author of Who, Leadocracy, and Power Score.   As a freshman at college, Geoff was fortunate enough to get an internship at a venture capitalist firm and he noticed that large sums of money were either gained or lost due to who the investors invested in. Geoff wondered if there was a way to hack the system to help investors make better bets on people, and so his company was born.   The topic of how to get the right people on your team is one of the most popular concerns for people in business. If you get this aspect right, you are going to have the most solid improvement in your revenue and profitability and in your own enjoyment in your work.   A lot of entrepreneurs/hiring managers use their gut feelings to hire, but this could possibly be the worst mistake you can make. The reality is, you can’t judge a person based instantly on gut feel. You’re going to make a mistake and it’s going to cost you a lot of money.   Leave the emotional hiring methods behind! The average success rate for hiring is about 50%. Recruiters only get it right 50% of the time, which means people regret every 1 in 2 hires! That’s horrible! A bad hire can cost you 15 times that employee’s annual salary.   However, you can improve your 50% into 90% by focusing on these four things really well: Scorecard, Source, Select, and Sell. Geoff explains each section in depth inside the podcast episode! Listen in for more wisdom!   Interview Links: Geoffsmart.com Geoff on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Growthinstitute.com/scalingcoach   TWEETABLES:   “If you look at global surveys on what’s on the minds of entrepreneurs, talent is number one or two out of 30 different topics.”   “If you get [talent] right, you’re going to have the most solid improvement in your revenue and profitability.”   “Ever since I started my company, I realized that managing is easy… except for the people part.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

If you think about it, there’s really no such thing as B2B. People are behind these businesses and they work with other people! It all comes down to relationships and communication. Today’s guest shares how you can build more meaningful, deeper, and stronger relationships!   Mo Fathelbab is the Founder and President of Forum Resource, LLC and co-founder of Alumni Forum Services. He is also the author of the best-selling book, Forum: The Secret Advantage of Successful Leaders and his latest book, The Friendship Advantage: 7 Keys to Building Relationships that Transform Corporate Culture and Drive Productivity. Mo will be diving into why strong relationships make all the difference and how you can build deeper relationships from the ground up in this episode!   Mo is so passionate about relationships because he knows what it’s like to not be able to connect with anyone. Growing up, he purposely put himself in situations where he was forced to talk to people so he could get better at connecting.   During a ‘Forum’ training, Mo experienced something magical. He was sharing personal details with mere strangers, things he had never shared with his family or closest friends, and it was liberating. Mo thought it was so valuable that he decided to host these trainings all over and deliver it to busy entrepreneurs wherever they may be located.   These trainings provided a model for powerful, meaningful, real, relationships that people don’t usually see in their day-to-day lives. Looking back, Mo reflects that he has shared literally everything with his group; he has no secrets and it’s an amazing feeling.   The seven keys to building relationships that Mo has outlined in his book, The Friendship Advantage, are judgment-free, mischievous fun, vulnerability, kind-truth, reliability, sharing and generosity, and to share purpose and value. The combination of these seven help build connections wherever you are.   Mo provides an example of how this would typically play out in a company setting. The first thing to determine is how does a company handle or resolve conflict. After that, it’s time to set an agenda, and then have those difficult conversations to pull everybody onto the right track.   Interview Links: Forumresourcesnetwork.com Mo on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

An effective growth strategy is key to everything we do in scaling up. Growth strategy is a thinking game and today’s guest shares tools that will keep your growth consistent and help you figure out when to pivot when things just aren’t working.   Tiffani Bova is the Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce and was previously VP, Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow with Gartner. She is also the author of Growth IQ: Get Smarter about Building Your Company’s Future, which she will dive into on today’s show!   It took some time before Tiffani got into the groove of what she does today. In fact, it took her nearly eight years before she got her stride and felt comfortable giving intentional and helpful advice to struggling companies looking to grow.   Businesses were looking for that silver bullet, that ‘one thing,’ to turn their companies around and hit their numbers. The truth is, 80% of companies will experience a growth stall and fewer than that will be able to recover from it.   So, how can Tiffani help companies avoid the stall in the first place? She discovered many companies were not looking at the context of the market today. They might have looked into it briefly when the plan was made 12 months ago or 36 months ago, but few were following up with the market trends of today. Things move too rapidly in today’s environment and, by not keeping up-to-date, it can be a real growth killer.   Tiffani also noticed that it’s never been ‘one thing’ that keeps a company’s growth accelerating. It was always a combination of things that the company was doing that gave them the competitive advantage. For company A, for example, it was about entering a new market with the right partnerships and with the right sales model. That’s what led them to growth.   The third thing that’s also an important factor in growth is timing, which Tiffani calls ‘Sequence’ in the book. If you put partnerships in place after you’ve entered a new market, you may be delivering a poor service experience, which will end up breaking customer trust. Context, Combination, and Sequence are the three things that make up an intelligent growth IQ.   Interview Links: Tiffanibova.com Tiffani on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

How do we become ‘known’ for something and remain top-of-mind? How can you use content marketing to help you achieve influence and engage with those who matter to you? Today’s guest speaker has some ideas. John is the CEO and co-founder of Influence & Co., a tech-enabled content marketing agency that helps brands and individuals extract and leverage their expertise to create, publish, and distribute content to gain influence, visibility, and credibility with their key audiences. Despite having experience under John’s belt, he would constantly walk into meetings and people would get confused as to why this ‘kid’ was there. John was running into trust barriers right out the gate and he hated that feeling. He knew he couldn’t have been the only one, so he and his partners decided to create Influence & Co. to help others overcome this barrier. Bill has also run into this in the past. He struggled to get taken seriously as well and one of his bosses even suggested wearing prop glasses to look older. We all deal with things like this, especially as leaders, it’s hard to get taken seriously when you look like you have no experience. This is where trust plays an important role. How can people become top-of-mind and build trust naturally? It starts with being helpful. Everybody needs help in a professional and personal setting. Ask them what that missing piece is and then begin to connect the dots by introducing them to others. This works wonders on an in-person level, but how do you scale up trust? The best way to scale up trust and grow your influence is through creating content. Remember, people don’t want to deal with ‘the brand.’ They want to deal with the people in the brand. By humanizing yourself, you’re humanizing your company and it attracts wonderful recruitment opportunities as well. Consistency in your marketing message plays a huge factor in building trust within your audience. People’s memories are a powerful thing and if you hit people with the right type of content at the right time, they will remember you forever.   Interview Links: Influenceandco.com Topofmindbook.com John on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Have you ever wondered how you can effectively scale a service-based business without losing quality and your sanity? Today’s guest expert shares a case study on how she scaled a reception business to 500 employees and $50 million dollars.   15 years ago, Jill Nelson started from humble beginnings, but has grown her business, Ruby Receptionists, into a four-time winner of FORTUNE magazine’s top five Best Small Companies to Work for, and has helped over 8,000 small businesses across the US service and create loyal customers. Today, she shares a case study of how she was able to make it all possible.   Jill found out after graduating from university that her accounting degree just wasn’t for her. On a whim, she took a receptionist position and that’s when things clicked. She learned that there was real value in having a personal connection while growing a successful business. She was a critical touch point for the company.   Jill wanted to create an executive suite, but she had no money and she had no business experience. After obtaining a business loan, she was able to launch everything an executive suite could offer… minus the office space. Jill used her resources wisely and learned early on what her unique value proposition was and used it to her advantage.   With an extreme focus on friendly and attentive customer service, Jill’s client feedback praised the receptionist for making an excellent first impression on their customers and helping them land new client deals because he/she sounded professional and knowledgeable over the phone.   This very friendly and personalized service can be difficult to scale up, but Jill has managed to grow it to nearly 500 employees and still retain a personalized feel for each of her customers.   Jill has maintained this consistency by having a lot of systems in place and also by their trademarked ‘service pyramid’ that outlines clearly their business model and how they deliver exceptional service to their customers. The service pyramid is a bit of a regulation cheatsheet meets personalize service that incentivizes rule breaking.   Interview Links: Callruby.com Jill on LinkedIn Callruby.com/scalingupbusiness   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “The phone call is the most important touch point for your customers and your new customers.”   “We just won a new client because the receptionist was so nice or we just won a new customer because you actually answered your phone!”   “How can you make a personal connection when you have all these rules and regulations?”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

What can we learn about our businesses through sports and the way coaches coach? Today’s discussion is all about how no team is a bad team and how you can be a better coach to your team and business!   Craig Ahrens is a speaker, author, and consultant as well as the Founding Partner for Fungo, a consulting firm designed for coaches to practice fundamentals with their teams.   Craig was first introduced to this field through his children’s sports leagues. He started out as a passionate spectator and then later as an assistant coach, head coach, and board member. He noticed that the people who were coaches were also small business owners, mid-level managers, and senior-level executives. It gave him the opportunity to watch different leadership styles on the field.   During the seasons, Craig noticed a correlation between successful youth teams and successful businesses. Regardless of the sport, successful coaches had a certain mindset that would help the team win games through and through.   Bill reflects on why two of his own children never really got into sports. It boiled down to how the coaches treated them. Craig believes a good coach is able to close the gaps. They are able to recognize grumblings, apathy, and other weak links and quickly address them.   Coaches need to know their short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Coaches also need to be able to get feedback from their team to develop buy-in as well as accountability for those goals. When people understand the ‘why’ behind the goals, they are able to work efficiently towards them.   Interview Links: Teamfungo.com Craigahrens.com Craig on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

Whether you love it or hate it, diversity is an important aspect of our workplace culture. Today’s guest has some interesting insights on how diversity can actually make you money! Diversity can impact your business for the better and also improve the quality of it.   Maureen Berkner Boyt is the Founder of Moxie Exchange Movement, an organization that focuses on tackling the talent issue from both sides so that business owners can recruit and retain the best talent on the market. They also provide resources and systems for you to interrupt unconscious bias and create an inclusive workplace.   People often complain about how Millennials need to be treated extra specially, but the reality is, you should be treating all your employees that way. The only difference is that millennials demand it from their employers. People want to know your purpose, your values, and what you stand for. People want to make an impact in the world … everybody, not just the ‘millennials’.   It’s both smart to introduce diversity in your company culture and it’s also the right thing to do. When you have a diverse set of people working for you, everybody wins. Your teams are stronger, they’re smarter, and they innovate more effectively.   Maureen was serving on the board of a company that was in real trouble. If they didn’t make any changes soon, they’d go under. After a week in a room with leadership, she was more exhausted than usual. She realized she was the only woman in the room. She also realized that there should never be an ‘only’ in the room.   There are plenty of capable women and people of color, so why do businesses not promote them? Maureen dug deeper and realized that nobody is doing this on purpose. No one says they want ‘all white men’ on their board. In fact, companies are frustrated that they cannot keep or retain diverse sets of people despite mentorship and guidance.   Whether we like it or not, every single one of us is biased. It’s just the way our brain functions to ensure we are in a safe environment. Our unconscious biases are just mental shortcuts. If you want to interrupt your biases, question what you’re thinking whenever you have a thought about a person and their performance. Ask yourself why and dig deeper. Find out what could be true vs. not true and then go from there.   Interview Links: Moxieexchange.com Maureen on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

There is more than one way to work in a team setting these days. At an office, at home, remote, or a combination of the three. Today’s guest discusses the different ways you can create a team that incorporates flexibility and yet is still responsive to the daily needs of a business.   Frank Cottle is the Chairman and Founder of Alliance Virtual Offices and Alliance Business Centers Network. He is a recognized expert within the business center, executive suite, and virtual office industries and often speaks on topics related to all forms of alternative officing.   Frank and his partners built buildings with the purpose to house and host executive suite centers for professionals who needed a quiet and private space to work. These are quite different compared to the more open space, coffee-shop-esque feel of a co-working facility.   Frank explains the difference between service offices, coworking spaces, and incubators. Technically, these working spaces combine people, place, and technology into a single bundled product that’s delivered with a highly flexible service agreement. However, each of these spaces offers a different type of brand promise.   Virtual office spaces help the small businessman and startup founder create effective growth by lowering their monthly business expenses on rent, utilities, staff, and office equipment.   However, they don’t just house small business professionals. The two biggest groups who use Frank’s service offices are actually the government and the global Fortune 1000. Large companies are changing their business models radically.   If you looked at an annual report five years ago from a large company in the bay area, they would have had roughly 300,000 ‘employees’ in the report. Today, that number is listed as ‘workforce’ with about 20-25% being listed as contractors. This shift is drastic when you think about how much money companies are saving in leasehold debt.   Interview Links: Alliancevirtualoffices.com Abcn.com Frank on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

What is conversational intelligence? We know about emotional intelligence and ‘traditional’ intelligence, but there is also a third part to it. Today’s show is all about how leaders can produce greater results and be more effective by developing their conversational intelligence. Conversation can bring us closer together and allows everyone to effectively co-create.   Judith Glaser is an author, academic, business executive, and organizational anthropologist. She is the Founder & CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc., an executive consulting and coaching company with an emphasis on the importance of conversations in shaping corporate culture and achieving corporate goals.   How do you create an environment where every human being has an identity of their own, even when they share the same job title? If leaders think of every human being as being unique and different, it creates a completely different atmosphere in the workforce and it even creates innovation.   What happens in the brain when people treat us with respect and love us, vs. when we’re told we’re doing everything wrong and will never amount to anything? They create chemical, and sometimes, structural shifts in our brain.   Leaders can find ways to create an environment that opens up part of the brain that will make people smarter and the best part is you can do that with just a conversation! That’s what it means to have ‘conversational intelligence.’   Part of conversational intelligence is understanding how to listen and hear in between the lines. Many people listen to figure out how they can fit into the conversation or to correct somebody. Unfortunately, that doesn’t build connections.   If you listen without judgment, listen to just listen, you are able to see more clearly the kinds of emotions people are talking about but can’t seem to put into words. As a leader, it is important to be able to connect with everyone, but just know that some people may take more work than others to reach common ground with them.   Interview Links: Creatingwe.com Judith on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

Mark Cuban believes the world’s first trillionaire will come from the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Today’s show will focus on what you can do with the AI tools of today. Find out what types of opportunities are available and mistakes to avoid in this interview!   Doug Rose was one of the early adopters and teachers of Agile Software Development. For over 25 years, Doug has transformed organizations through technology, training, and process optimization. He is the author of several books on artificial intelligence, data science, and management and software development. He also teaches classes at the University of Chicago and online through lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning.   Doug discovered artificial intelligence through his passion for computers and programming. As more organizations started working towards machine learning to better understand their customers, Doug saw a need to help educate managers, and those with a less techy background, understand it all and help them develop products with it.   When it comes to working with predictive AI, what are some of the ethical challenges managers are faced with? A lot of these ethical decisions fall onto the engineers, which isn’t always the best path to take long-term. Doug shares a couple of examples of what these ethical challenges look like in real life.   Unfortunately, consequences of AI aren’t being addressed early enough. Doug believes there aren’t enough people in the room right now to make calculated and educated decisions about the direction and development of the company’s AI. He attributes the lack of understanding of key terms and concepts among leadership teams as the biggest factor in this.   Interview Links: Dougenterprises.com/ Doug on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko

We want companies to be more than good — in fact, we want them to be more than great — we want them to be excellent! Today’s podcast show is all about achieving business excellence and our special guest will show you how.   Tom Peters is the co-author of In Search of Excellence, the book that changed the way the world does business. 17 books and 35 years later, Tom is still at the forefront of the business management industry. The best part of all of this is that Tom’s written and speech material covering the last 15+ years is available and free, to download on his website!   Through his father’s recommendation, Bill first read Tom’s book in 1982 while he was still in college. The funny thing is, a book critic, in an attempt to shame and undermine Tom’s business book, said that ‘Fathers are just buying it to give to their teenage kids.’ This ended up being a fantastic endorsement.   How did Tom’s search for excellence begin and why did he decide to write the book? Well, it all started with the Vietnam war. Tom graduated with a civil engineering degree but suddenly found himself responsible for the lives of 15-20 sailors. He was underprepared for a leadership role to say the least.   After two deployments, Tom saw two different leadership styles. One he calls ‘Captain Day,’ who was a fantastic leader and mentor of what good leadership looked like and the other was ‘Captain Night,’ who was the direct polar opposite and made Tom and his crews’ lives hell.   Why is it that people use the word ‘excellence’ to describe ballet, theater, football, baseball, etc., but never use the same word for business? Tom thought this was nonsense! Excellence should be an aspiration all of us in business strive for. By adding personalized human touches and making customers feel valued, recognized, and appreciated, it will only increase your business — not hurt it.   Interview Links: Tompeters.com Excellencenow.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

What can your organization learn from nature? What important lessons does nature have to offer to make your organization better, stronger, faster? Find out on today’s show!   Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker is an Evolutionary Biologist, Biological Innovation and Organizational Consultant, and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University’s Biomimicry Center in the School of Life Sciences. She is also the author of Teeming, which introduces proven strategies nature’s ant and honeybee teams use to create lasting and growing value in an unpredictable world.   Dr. Woolley-Barker was working alongside wild baboons as a primatologist in Ethiopia when she came to the realization that humans are more like ants than we are like apes (actually, we really are both). Our social system has made such a big jump and has turned into a more collaborative superorganism where none of us can truly survive on our own, like ants.   When you take a close look at ants, they all have a different job and they all depend on each other to function. Human societies have the same undertones. You did not make all the clothes you’re wearing, you did not grow all your own food, or make your own phone. We are so fundamentally intertwined and depend on each other to work. That’s a radical shift from our closest relatives.   Dr. Woolley-Barker shares some examples of how companies she’s worked with have successfully increased their employee engagement, innovation, and productivity through the use of biomimetics.   Interface, the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpets, asked the question, “How would nature make a carpet?” By going through this thought process, they ended up making the best selling carpet product of all time, and it’s non-toxic! They now have a mission to eliminate any negative impact the company has on the environment by 2020. Productivity shot up by double and that’s because the employees now have a mission they can get behind.   People always ask, “How can we make an organization like an ant team?” Well, if you watch ants, a lot of them are really terrible at what they do. They wander around in circles and are often clueless, but it doesn’t matter! The errors of those individuals cancel out due to the structured process the ant team, as a whole, have put in place. Their process is fool-proof and so everyone succeeds.   Interview Links: Drtamsin.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

Are you getting better every day? Kaizen is a rough translation of ‘change for the better’ and today’s show is all about what it is, how it’s different from other models such as Lean, and how you can achieve Kaizen!   Hilary Corna is the former Senior Executive Office for Toyota in Asia, where she managed a team of people across fourteen different countries as a Change Leader for all of the dealerships in Asia. Hilary is also the author of One White Face, a memoir of her time abroad working for the company.   Hilary studied in Japan and secured a job at Toyota Motors in Singapore after college. She then transferred into a more managerial role in Indonesia where she ran a pilot program with the end-goal of rolling it out throughout all of Toyota Asia’s facilities when it became successful. This is where Hilary learned that it’s important to start small and test and test before scaling up.   Hilary sees first hand how business owners get ‘shiny object syndrome’ with technology. People are constantly looking for bigger and better tools when the simplest tool you can use is pen and paper, or a free technology system, which is what the staff at Toyota use until they can prove results.   Kaizen is about trying to find the root cause or problem within a process as early in the process as possible to prevent it from becoming a bigger problem in the future. Most problems are just problems of problems of problems and Kaizen kills that right from the beginning.   Through Kaizen, it looks directly at the process and takes a real look at why did the process fail in such a way that the team member couldn’t complete the job, not the other way around. So many times upper management puts blame on the employees, when really, they might have just been working with a broken and unrealistic system all along.   Kaizen helps shift the mindset of putting blame on others or pointing fingers at those who are responsible and puts a focus on where did the process break down and how can the team fix it so that everyone succeeds.   Interview Links: Hilarycorna.com Hilary on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko

How do you fund your business? Is it with investors? Loans from the bank? Or something else entirely? Today’s guest will share the various ways you can fund your business and what option is right for you!   Ami Kassar is the founder and CEO of MultiFunding and a bestselling author of The Growth Dilemma. Ami specializes in helping people develop creative cost-effective alternatives to navigate the (very expensive) needs of a business.   Ami shares an example of how entrepreneurs should be thinking about their businesses. If all of your dreams came true, what would your business look like three years from now? And, what’s holding you back?   In Ami’s example, what was holding the entrepreneur back from growth was because she was still managing payroll and admin when her talent was really in consulting and leading the consulting teams. In order for her to switch her focus, Ami asked her, “How much would that cost you and how long would that take to start paying for itself?” Her answer was 350K.   So, the question was, could she afford the switch? She couldn’t. She runs her business the way many small business owners do, on a hustled budget, which means they don’t feel like they can spend more than what they can bring in.   Ami opened her eyes to the different loan options she could afford based on her situation. She qualified for a Small Business Loan, which means she could borrow 350k without putting a lien on her house. She would have a monthly payment of $4,300, which was around 12-13% of her cash flow and it would allow her to successfully make the switch in the least painful way.   This is the perfect example of how you can responsibly use leverage to scale up and grow without putting too many financial risks and burdens onto you and your personal household. If everything works according to plan, the entrepreneur would have paid the loan off in 2.2 years and she would triple her bottom line.   Interview Links: Multifunding.com Ami on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube Scaling Up Podcast — Brian Scudamore Scaling Up Podcast — Shannon Susko  

Is it possible to grow a business worth over a million dollars with just one person? Yes, it is! Today’s guest shows you why this question is relevant for companies who aspire to grow its worth into the several hundred million dollar mark.   Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist who specializes in small business, entrepreneurship, and careers. She is the author of the Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, which takes a look at how entrepreneurs are hitting seven-figure revenue in businesses where they are the only employees.   Elaine is a contributor for Forbes and writes frequently for them about solopreneurs, also known as the one-person business. While researching for her next new piece, Elaine stumbled upon a treasure trove of data about the one-person businesses who were making over a million dollars in revenue. How were they able to achieve such success, solo? This sparked the idea for the book.   Elaine shares some of the common traits these one-person businesses have in common. They automated things right away! They also hired freelancers to help them with small tasks like designs, templates, and more. These solopreneurs were also quick to outsource certain tasks to bigger companies who were experts in that particular task or field.   By being able to outsource tedious tasks to the experts, these solopreneurs could spend more time where it matters; cultivating relationships with their best customers and finding new business.   A lot of these solopreneurs make an active effort to step away from the business so that they’d not tied to the phones or the computers. Instead, they’re attending business events and they hire coaches to help them get to the next level. They’re constantly surrounding themselves with high-level ideas.   When it comes to automation and if you’re not feeling 100% secure about hiring a freelancer just yet, Elaine recommends making a detailed inventory of what types of things you’re spending your time on in your business. See if there’s anything you can outsource based on that data that would free you up to do something more beneficial and useful.   Interview Links: Elainepofeldt.com Elainepofeldt.com/new-book   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Will AI machines destroy humanity as we know it? Actually, quite the contrary. AI matters to the everyday business owner more than they might know. There’s a lot to be learned in prediction technology and today’s guest shares advice on how you can use this knowledge to grow your marketing and sales potential.   Avi Goldfarb is the Ellison Professor of Marketing at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Avi is also Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, Senior Editor at Marketing Science, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Avi is also the author of Prediction Machines, which he will be discussing on today’s show!   In 2012, there were only a couple of companies at the time that were calling themselves AI companies. However, that slowly grew and by 2015, Avi had seen a huge increase of at least 50 companies being created a year. Avi and his co-authors decided to investigate and research what this technology meant for our modern society.   The Mosaic web browser made the internet accessible to the general population, but it took us about a decade to figure out how to really commercialize it. Avi believes the same will hold true with AI. We are going to see businesses use AI tools in various ways to solve key problems.   Although AI will not improve the general intelligence of your company, prediction is still really, really valuable. Why? Because it cuts down on all the unknown variables in your decision-making process when you are faced with uncertainty. Through prediction, you can be much more confident (and you have the data to prove it) on what’s the correct direction to take your business in.   Interview Links: Avigoldfarb.com Creativedestructionlab.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Today’s podcast is all about reaching beyond your comfort zone. You’re never really finished doing good work, but with that, come some tests to your limits. How can you go above and beyond while also being comfortable with the uncomfortable? Today’s guest has the answers!   Andy Molinsky is a Professor at Brandeis University’s International Business School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology. Andy received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and M.A. in Psychology from Harvard University. Andy’s extensive knowledge helps people develop the courage to act outside of their personal and cultural comfort zones while doing important work.   One of Bill’s company values is ‘Never Being Finished’ and it’s the idea of always working on your growth and development. In order to truly improve, you must push yourself and get a bit uncomfortable, kind of like exercise. Andy agrees. In Andy’s work and while researching for his book, Reach, he has studied a wide variety of people throughout a number of professions to better understand why is it so hard to step out of our comfort zones.   Why can’t we just be comfortable? Why do we need to force ourselves to be uncomfortable? Andy doesn’t recommend to always strive to be uncomfortable but to strategically pick a couple of high-leverage and important situations that are key to your growth and development.   The types of challenges people face while stepping out of their comfort zones vary. People can experience a crisis with their authenticity or identity, “I’m not the kind of person that fires people.” The second challenge people experience is likability, “This person will hate me if I fire them.” And there’s also confidence issues, “What if I’m bad at this?”   Combine confidence issues with authenticity issues, it’s no wonder so many people suffer from imposter syndrome. They often think, “This doesn’t feel like me, I’m bad at this, and people can tell I am bad at this.”   Our lives are often organized in such a way where we can remain comfortable. We have developed elaborate strategies to purposely avoid discomfort, and it makes sense from a survival perspective. It helps us avoid pain and loss, but it also helps us avoid growth, which can mean death for business owners.   Interview Links: Andymolinsky.com Andymolinsky.com/books   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “In any professional and personal phrases, stepping outside of your comfort zone is a key skill.”   “You want to pick a couple of high-leverage, important, relevant situations that are key to your growth and development.”   “Our lives are well-organized around avoiding discomfort.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

The process of scaling up really begins and ends with the leadership. If you’re a leader, then you must face yourself in the mirror and take care of yourself. There are many great ways a leader can develop themselves and today’s guest discusses how leaders can thrive under tough pressure.   Kevin Lawrence is an international strategic advisor and has coached hundreds of clients across a wide range of industries. His work as a coach for the last 20+ years inspired him to write the book, Your Oxygen Mask First. The book discusses the dark side of leadership dichotomy, and offers 17 practical steps to triumph in business, without being trampled in life.   High-performing CEOs and executives have to push themselves in such a way where they get stronger and better, without burning themselves out. This is a hard thing to do for any passionate leader as the world of business is so vast (and exciting) that it can take everything out of you if you’re not careful.   With Kevin’s extensive work with high-level achievers, he’s heard it all. The powerful CEOs you see in magazines are overwhelmed and they’re beginning to doubt their ability. Just the other day, a CEO was having a panic attack just before his flight was taking off. When a CEO begins to unravel, addictions start to kick in to escape the stress and their physical and mental health suffers.   The good news, however, is that it’s all fixable. If you want to play the bigger game, you just need better tools, and Kevin’s book has all the tools a CEO could ever need. You can learn techniques to help you gain your confidence back and you can build from a place where your new leadership position is not overwhelming you or forcing you to handle new thresholds of stress.   Interview Links: Lawrenceandco.com Kevin on LinkedIn Episode 25 with Kevin Lawrence   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Carl Gould is an entrepreneur and business growth expert. Carl has built three multi-million dollar businesses by the age of 40, has mentored the launch of over 5,000 businesses and has trained and certified over 7,000 business coaches in 35 countries.   Why should you be ‘obnoxious’? To give you a little bit of a background, Carl became very, very good at listening to customer complaints about the industry he was in. He also leveraged himself in such a way where he was constantly adding value (by doing the exact opposite of what his customers hated), and his pricing reflected that.   In fact, his pricing was obnoxious. It was so obnoxious that a potential client vented to him about how ridiculous his pricing was… and then he handed him a check. Carl was confused at first, but after thinking about it, the client wasn’t actually mad at Carl.   The client was mad at all of the other contractors who had failed to meet his expectations and he was hoping Carl was different. The client was willing to pay what he paid (although he wasn’t happy about it) because of Carl’s high-quality services. Carl listened to his client and was able to address his most painful concerns right away. He added obnoxious value, and with that came an obnoxious price.   In your obnoxious offers/services, you also want to establish a nonlinear benefit for your clients. Ask yourself, “What can I bring to my clientele that has nothing to do with my service?” Create a path for your company so that your best clients can actually be treated like your best clients.   Interview Links: 7stageadvisors.com Carl on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “My fundamental premise is to get as obnoxious as possible, not just in price, but also in value.”   “The reason why I was hired was I addressed the top-of-mind concerns of the client.”   “Have you, as a company, created a path for your best clients to really be your best clients?”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Roland Siebelink is a serial entrepreneur, a certified Scaling Up coach, and the author of Scaling Silicon Valley Style. Roland grew up in the Netherlands, but he has started businesses in Belgium, Switzerland, and now in California. Currently, he helps founders and startups in Silicon Valley scale their businesses and avoid tricky pitfalls with their investors.   Running a startup is very, very different compared to running a traditional business. This is one of the reasons why Roland decided to write his book. He wanted to offer a roadmap specifically to startup founders who needed to understand what stage they’re at, what that means for their funding, and how to effectively scale up without destroying it all.   As a startup, your style is forced to evolve as your company gets bigger. Leading a team of 10 is much different than leading a team of 100, and not every startup founder can properly make that shift. The stuff that made you successful in the startup phase is actually completely detrimental to you in the scale-up phase.   Learning how to pivot is a key skill towards making your startup business successful and finding your right target clients. However, once you’ve reached the limits of the startup phrase, pivoting can no longer be the solution to your problems. In fact, pivoting further can damage the company’s integrity and cause internal confusion.   People in Silicon Valley aren’t focusing on change of leadership tactics when they get to a certain phase of their company. Instead, their solution is to just change CEOs and find a more ‘charismatic’ leader for the company.   Unfortunately, this means that the 2nd CEO might not be the best culture fit and it forces an unnecessary disruption in the company when it could have been prevented. Sometimes, providing the first CEO with more awareness/leadership training could have been the solution the founders were looking for all along.   Interview Links: Scalingsiliconvalleystyle.com Roland on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “It’s not just [that] your style has to evolve, your style almost has to diametrically change.”   “The stuff you learned that made you successful is completely detrimental to you in the scale-up phase.”   “In the startup phase, founders learn to pivot and pivot and pivot until they become successful.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We often hear the term ‘pivot’ in business. When things aren’t working out, we figure out how to make it work in a different way, whether that be changing business models or switching businesses. However, what about the mini-pivot? This is where you add a small change that helps the business scale up. Stayed tuned to find out more.   Brandon Bruce is the co-founder and COO of Cirrus Insight, an all-in-one sales productivity platform. Since launching in 2011, Cirrus has been listed as #41 on the Inc. 500 list. Brandon has grown Cirrus as a lightly-funded distributed company via scrappy tactics in the same industry as billion-dollar software companies and competitors. Find out more about his story and how those small pivots were key to his success.   Brandon grew up in a very small town and went to a class of two. It was very self-directed learning and he was able to explore his education without being too restricted.   Brandon started his company at a perfect time. When he and his partner created a product that integrated Gmail with Salesforce, both of these platforms were growing exponentially and now he and his team work with over 5,000 different organizations.   He credits a big difference for their growth compared to others in the same space is that they got creative with the use of their bootstrapping methods to succeed. They were able to achieve a lot with a lot less and, through that, they were able to scale up more effectively.   A lot of people think pivots have to be a big shift or change but do not discount the mini-pivots at all. Brandon’s business model was simple, do you use Salesforce? Yes. Do you use Gmail? Yes. Well, then you’re our target market.   As their company grew, Brandon kept hearing from others who wanted their service but weren’t using Salesforce just yet or weren’t using Gmail. This caused Brandon and his team to do a mini-pivot to service those customers.   With 7 years of feedback, Brandon has a good idea of what his customers want and how much they’re willing to pay for it. You don’t have to do a big pivot to improve your business and to scale up. There are lots of opportunities for mini-pivots and growth within your company.   Interview Links: Cirrusinsight.com Brandon on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

How do you create a business that scales massively but also showcases your purpose and values? How do you build a company you can truly be proud of — a business that can make a huge difference in the world? This week’s guest shares his insightful business expertise and his company’s mission!   David Katz is an inspirational speaker and the Founder and CEO of The Plastic Bank, an internationally recognized solution to stop ocean plastic. The Plastic Bank is a global network of micro recycling markets that empower the poor to transcend poverty by cleaning the environment.   David has been an entrepreneur his entire life and was in charge of executing projects since he was eight years old. He came from a family of immigrants who had to be creative and entrepreneurial to make their mark in Canada.   The Plastic Bank was inspired by David’s life experiences as a youth sailing with his father. David’s father was an early adopter of GPS in the 1980s, which wasn’t readily available at that time or up to the standards of today’s GPS technology. It helped David learn how to map out where he was in the ocean at all times.   Since David grew up on the ocean and had learned about the immense and beautiful power of the sea, he was saddened when he kept seeing waves upon waves of trash float up to the shore.   David has started companies before but he was purposeless. When he came upon this cause, he knew he could create a company that was far bigger than himself. If he could only just showcase how much value each plastic item floating in the water was worth ($20-50), then there would be no more plastic left.   The Plastic Bank is its own ecosystem that reveals value in what was once viewed as waste. Plastic Bank has a chain of stores for the ultra, ultra poor where everything in the store is available to be purchased by using plastic garbage as currency. Plastic Bank is able to offer school tuition, medical insurance, wifi, and cell phone minutes, power, fuel, and food.   Interview Links: Plasticbank.org   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Scaling up means getting consistent and reliable at your core processes. It also means there will be an acceleration in onboarding new talent, which tends to damage and create bottlenecks to your processes. How do you get your core processes tuned up efficiently as more and more people join your company? That’s the topic of today’s show!   Chris Ronzio is the founder of Trainual, an online platform for business owners that helps them document their processes step-by-step. Prior to that, Chris built a nationwide video production company that sold over $3 million in youth sporting event videos before he was 25 years old and founded an operations consulting firm that helps entrepreneurs create scalable systems and processes.   Chris has been an entrepreneur officially for 18 years, starting his first video production company at 14 years old. By the time he was finishing up college, he was able to get big corporations to sign on with him and had built up quite the reputation. Through delegation, Chris had enough time on his hands to work on the company’s systems and processes.   Through Chris’s first company, he was able to learn some very vital lessons in systems and processes that were transferable to other industries. He learned that companies who were really scaling up all had figured out this simple formula: they honed in on doing one thing consistently. Because of this, they were able to document the process effectively and delegate it out without much worry.   From Bill’s observations, it’s not that hard to get to $3-7 million in revenue without having focused your business. However, very rarely does Bill see people hitting the over $10 million threshold in sales with an unfocused business. By focusing and specializing in one key area of your business, growth begins to happen… rapidly.   Interview Links: Trainual.com Chris on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Are you afraid of public speaking? Have you tried it in the past because you understand the benefits, but you don’t feel 100% confident in your ability yet? Well, this episode is for you! Today’s special guest discusses how you can get over your fear and become masterful — not just great — at public speaking.   PJ Brady was the Vice President of Europe, Middle East/ Pakistan, and Africa for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and is currently the Founder of 42 Walls, where he helps people inform, inspire, and influence others.   Not everybody was born reaching for the mic, but PJ grew up being a theatre kid. Through his experiences volunteering for a non-profit that specializes in developing community broadways, he was able to teach his fellow volunteers how to get comfortable being in front of a group of people.   The biggest barrier to achieving greatness often happens within your own brain. If you want to get comfortable being on stage, then you have to be comfortable in your own skin first. You can learn how to bullshit everyone else, but you can not bullshit yourself and that is one of the reasons why speaking in front of an audience is so terrifying.   The biggest ‘bullshit test’ you can do on yourself is to look yourself in the mirror and rehearse your story. Bill recommends retelling your story 10 times in that mirror to see how it feels. For him, when he did it, it was the fifth or sixth time when things really began clicking for him.   People have told PJ that this mirror exercise is the most awkward thing they’ve ever done. Some people even walk out during this session. People hate it. However, there’s a silver lining; once people finish this exercise, they feel much more comfortable in their own skin and progress gets made.   Interview Links: 42walls.com PJ on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Meetings! They take up our time and nothing actionable ever gets done by the end of it. No one really likes meetings. However, good meetings can actually give you back time. How can you execute a good meeting so that everyone will feel happy and more productive by the end of it? This week’s guest shares how!   Rob Simons is a Certified Gazelles Coach, the Strategy Summit Facilitator and Accelerator Facilitator for Entrepreneurs’ Organization, and has over 25 years of experience as a brand expert, business coach, and entrepreneur!   Rob grew up during the beginning of the personal computer revolution. He started his first publishing firm at 23 and started his first branding firm at 25. A defining moment for him was going to an all-day workshop with Verne Harnish and that’s when he realized how much he didn’t know about how to run a business. Things really started to kick off from there. In 2011, Rob started coaching clients on a full-time basis.   One of the biggest mistakes Rob made was not getting an outside coach. He thought, “I’m a smart guy. I can figure it out.” Yet, even the best golfers in the world have a coach and running a business is no different.   When Rob was running his businesses, he hated meetings. He had a lot on his plate and the last thing he wanted to do was sit in a room for an hour. However, good, effective meetings on a regular basis set you free. One client told Rob that he was able to reduce his email by 60% just by having good meetings.   In our digital world, so many things get lost in translation via email. Don’t try to have important conversations via email. At best, have a video conference if you need to talk. 60-70% of language is non-verbal, so you have to be able to see your team to fully understand the meanings behind the words they say.   Believe it or not, having a daily huddle or a daily meeting can actually be very beneficial to you and the organization. However, so many clients hate doing the daily huddle. It sounds simple, but talking to each other every day and having good communication within the organization go hand-in-hand and the daily huddle helps bridge that.   After you’ve established good daily huddle habits, then what’s the point of having a weekly meeting? The weekly meeting is basically helping you close your books. It gives you a quick recap of what was done that week. Some people like to do this monthly, but truth be told, most people can’t remember what happened 3 weeks ago and things often, again, get lost in communication.   With any good meeting, you have to have an agenda, an outline, of what you’re going to talk about and you have to make sure you follow it! If you don’t have an agenda and you’re just winging it, then it’s never going to work.   Interview Links: Petracoach.com Rob on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

We all want to reach our potential yet nobody really knows what that really is. So, how can we recognize and keep hitting new levels of our potential? Well, today’s guest has all the answers.   Mark Sanborn is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea lab for leadership development and turning ordinary into extraordinary. He is also the author of The Fred Factor and his most recent book, The Potential Principle, which is what we’ll be talking about on today’s episode!   Mark got into competitive public speaking when he was ten years old and later in life, he went on and founded Sanborn & Associates. He wanted to help leaders communicate better and turn them from ordinary to extraordinary.   Mark wrote The Potential Principle after working 30+ years with leaders. Mark realized that his clients were already really, really good at what they do. However, it dawned on him that in order for them to continue being the best at what they do, they had to continue to get better and improve themselves — but how could they do that if they were already the top leaders in their industry? They have no one else to emulate. They’re on the frontlines and they’re making things up as they go.   The more you learn about any particular skill or industry, the more you realize you have to learn. There’s nothing wrong with arriving at your destination in your industry but the real problem is when you stop growing and stop challenging yourself to reach a new level of potential.   What is the Potential Principle? Well, in a nutshell, we all know how good we’ve become, but none of us know how good we can be. The potential principle highlights this problem to help you realize and plan where your ‘next’ step is. As Mark was researching the book, he found out that 58% of professionals said they had a commitment to getting better, but only 30% had a plan. Commitment without a plan is just wishful thinking and daydreaming.   Interview Links: Potentialprinciple.com MarkSanborn.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

We would all like to be an innovative company breaking out of the traditional model. When we think innovation, we think of companies like Apple, Tesla, and SpaceX. Do you have an innovative company that comes to your mind that you wish you could emulate? Are you afraid it comes with big budgets, lots of resources, and time? Well, today’s show is all about how you can become innovative without the big pockets.   Lara Hodgson is the President and CEO of NOW Corp, a company she co-founded to free small businesses from the burden of funding trade credit and to enable small business growth. She also serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School.   Lara went to Georgia Institute of Technology where she majored in Aerospace Engineering. Her professor told her she had an engineering mind and a liberal arts personality; She loved problem-solving, but she was very extroverted and loved worked with people at the same time.   Lara applied for a program to go to Japan while she was still in university and she found herself learning Japanese and not speaking a word of English during her time over there. It was difficult and she was completely out of her comfort zone. This is when she discovered that she really didn’t want to be a research engineer anymore. She wanted to be creative.   The good news is, being creative is not about learning how to sing or draw, it’s about being a good problem solver. It’s about looking at the same thing as everyone else and seeing something different.   Fast forward a couple of years, Lara’s career is booming, she’s finding herself working alongside Shaquille O’Neal, Home Depot, Nike, and Coca-Cola, but it was time for her to go off on her own and build her own company. She wanted to be a great wife, mom, and CEO but she wasn’t sure that this was possible if she was working for somebody else.   During this time as a new mom, she kept finding herself having spilled drinks all over her car and there wasn’t really anything out there that was ‘spill-proof’ for babies. So, going back to her problem-solving roots, she co-founded a company called Nourish, a patented line of spill-proof bottled water for kids and ready-to-serve bottles for babies.   Great news! She started out small and suddenly her product was being bought by wholefoods. She was high-fiving her business partner in excitement until they realized … the company is going to have to grow to the point of death, that they’re not actually going to be able to make ends meet, and that this deal would actually put them out of business.   Everything that Lara and her business partner had done right was actually going to be the very thing that would put them out of business. Lara’s greatest strength, her spill-proof product that was selling like crazy, became her greatest weakness. This is when she found herself needing to innovative on a small budget.   Interview Links: Now-Corp.com Lara on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Today’s show is all about how to transform your company in a remarkable way. Do you want to 10x your company and bring it to the next level? Well, that requires real transformation and this week’s guest has all the answers!   Chuck Kocher is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach and the Owner of The Transformation Company. He works one-on-one with business owners all over the world who are serious about taking their businesses and lives to exceptional levels.   Chuck’s first mentor asked Chuck what he wanted to learn at his first job, he replied with, “Everything.” She told him to keep that desire and ambition for the rest of his career and he will succeed.   Chuck credits another mentor for helping him give him the gift of thinking. Chuck was excellent at execution but was not connecting the dots from execution to vision and strategy. Chuck’s mentor really challenged him to be better, to not just look at the product, but to also look at the market as well. It took him a couple of years before he got it right, but this was his first introduction to how good companies get transformed and scale up.   One of Chuck’s clients was a husband-and-wife team where their company had stagnated in growth. They also wanted their son to take over the business. However, they weren’t sure if he was coachable or the right fit for it. After arranging a family business meeting, Chuck asked the family point blank, “Are you willing to change to take this company to the next level?” Everyone said yes, and with a lot of sweat and tears, amazing things began to happen.   Transformation takes a lot of work to achieve. Chuck helped the family set their BHAG. They wanted to take their $8-million company up to $33 million. This meant a change in leadership styles and company culture. With these shifts, the company was able to hit two 10-year BHAGs in five years! 11 years later, they are now close to doing $55 million, employ 1,500 people, and they rank number three in their franchise.   Why do some people fail the transformation process? Well, usually, one in five to one in four people will quit the process midway through. First, the leadership team is just unwilling to change their approach. Growth simply can not happen if the leadership style doesn’t change and evolve the higher up you go. Second, the leadership is just unwilling to make those ‘daring’ moves to get their company from point A to point B.   Interview Links: Thetransformation.company   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Rajendra Sisodia, is an international speaker, a business professor, and an award-winning author. He has published eight books, including Conscious Capitalism, and over 100 academic articles. On the show, he discusses what conscious capitalism is and the difference it can make on your business.   What are you really getting from all the money you spend on customer retention? Customer loyalty and trust have been declining steadily, despite the fact that companies are spending more money. Is there a way we can make this system better? This was the question that sparked Rajendra’s journey on how to optimize spending and become more efficient.   Rajendra’s research over the years showed that we have a productivity crisis in marketing. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about marketing. So, how do we do it right? Rajendra dived into companies who were getting fantastic results and retention all the while spending less.   Rajendra found that not only did customers love these companies, but their employees did too, and so did their suppliers. The pattern emerged that these companies were stakeholder-oriented and not shareholder-centric. They also all had purpose, and with that came better leaders and a caring company culture.   At the end, Rajendra fully expected that these companies with purpose would not have exceptional returns because it was not their main focus or driving objective to make ‘tons of money.’ He was wrong. They outperformed the market 9 to 1.   Rajendra was led to believe over the years prior to this research that if you showed any signs of being caring or compassionate, you would be walked all over — that being ‘nice’ was a sign of weakness. In fact, ‘nice’ companies were not only stronger but they were also resilient and more successful.   When Bill speaks with entrepreneurs and business owners in a good size room, maybe only about 10-20% of them understand what their life’s purpose is. Business guys just don’t get all that ‘purpose’ stuff, but so many businesses are transformed (on many levels) by being purposeful.   If you want to create win-win situations for your employees, suppliers, and customers, you have to give, give, and give. By creating this kind of environment, you receive a ton back and value systems get put in place that do not always have a byline monetary value on them, like high employee retention, satisfaction, engagement, and commitment to the bigger cause.   Interview Links: Rajsisodia.com Consciouscapitalism.org   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We all know that we need to coach people, not manage them. However, for many of us, we doubt our own ability to coach. There are actually principles of great coaching that you can follow and today’s show is going to break down those principles to help you effectively coach your people.   Dave Baney is a fellow Gazelles Growth Coach and the CEO and Founder of 55 Questions. He is also the author of The 3x5 Coach, which is what we’ll be diving into today! Find out how you can stop managing your people and start coaching them instead.   Dave went to school because he initially wanted to become a Spanish teacher, but quickly decided it was not for him. After graduating, he went to work for Burger King, where he spent 22 years working in both corporate and on the field. He then transferred to McDonald’s, where he spent 8 years with them and even relocated to Italy!   This is where Dave learned that the government’s termination policies in Italy were quite expensive for the company to do. When you cannot simply fire people, you have to find creative ways to influence and inspire them. This is when Dave discovered the difference between managing and coaching people.   After retiring from the industry, Dave started 55 Questions to help coach business owners and executive teams of mid-market businesses. He has worked with over 50 different industries and has been in business for the last nine years.   Besides the army, McDonald’s has been one of the largest training grounds for people in America for everything from how to work, taking responsibility, and the discipline of showing up and doing your job the right way. There are so many amazing life lessons you can learn from a company like McDonald’s or even in the restaurant industry.   How fast can a dog sled team run? Well, the answer is, only as fast as the slowest dog. If you had a dogsled team, you would want to work with the slowest dog to help bring him up to speed with the rest of the team. So, what are you doing to help the slowest members of your team learn and grow? This, in essence, is what the 3x5 method is about.   Truth is, we tend to over-manage our people instead of training them to the point where they can become independent and autonomous. There seems to be a disconnect when it comes to the desires of the team and the desires of management, and because of this, it’s very hard to motivate a team when you can’t align with them.   The 3x5 method is really about having the team member and manager sit down and agree on each other’s expectations and desires. It offers clear lines of communication between these two parties for, what it seems to be, the very first time.   Interview Links: 55questions.com Dave on LinkedIn The 3x5 Coach: A Practical Guide to Coaching Your Team for Greater Results and Happier People, by Dave Baney   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “Everybody should stop managing and start coaching right away.”   “Some businesses can’t just lop off the bottom 10% of their team, so motivating people changes the game.”   “Back ten years ago, one out of 11 people in America, at one point or another, worked at McDonald’s.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

You’re knowledgeable, right? So how come you’re not known for what you know? How come you’re not the thought leader in your field? Well, if you’ve ever wondered, then this is the show for you. Bill and his guest dive in on the steps it takes to become a thought leader.   Andy Buyting is a full-time CEO and a part-time Gazelles business coach. Andy is a leader in brand positioning and thought leadership. His strategy of “Owning the Ink in Your Industry” has served both himself and his countless clients exceedingly well. On top of that, he brings over 20 years of sales, marketing, operations, business development, entrepreneurship, management and executive experience to his clients.   Andy’s parents were Dutch immigrants living in Canada and came from a farming background. As a kid, Andy had to work on the family farm, which was the largest carrot farm in the country. His parents were very entrepreneurial and were always looking to expand their operations.   Andy ended up taking over the family business at the age of 25 and began implementing the Rockefeller Habits into his family retail business. The 10-year old business grew 86% in two years because of it. After the initial 86% growth, Andy further grew the business by another 600% over the next couple of years.   Andy knows that the process works. However, it can be daunting to take action because you’re working towards changing your bad habits and that can become incredibly uncomfortable. Andy worked with a Gazelles coach for six to seven years and it helped him get over those uncomfortable moments.   Andy remembers Verne saying, “Tiger Woods has two coaches! The best golfer has two coaches. As a business leader, who are you to say ‘I don’t need a coach?’” You need a coach! Even the best in the world need a coach.   Verne kept asking Andy, “Who owns your industry?” and Andy was having a hard time understanding what he meant. This was his first introduction to what a thought leader was and why it was important. When his company started publishing his own garden-news magazine, it was a game changer, and his relatively small business became a big authority in the marketplace.   Companies that want to stand out as a thought leader — as an authority — really need to build a publishing arm out. Print is not dead and you should not write it off. Digital marketing is essential, but it has a short shelf life. Print, however, is there for credibility and longevity.   Andy’s father would have said this quote, “The secret to success is that you need to know what you’re doing. You need to know you know what you’re doing (be confident), and you need to be known for what you know.”   Interview Links: Andybuyting.com Andy on LinkedIn Carlepublishing.com How to Win Clients & Influence People: Create Instant Credibility and Gain an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition, by Andy Buyting   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “Always take your future in your own hands.”   “Even the best performers in the world need a coach.”   “Print is more believable, more credible, and it will stick around longer than digital will… but you still need both.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Leaders lead people, which means we have to show up with a certain level of energy to inspire others and get things done. How does this show up differently between introverted and extroverted leaders? And, how can we manage our respective energies to keep the fire lit without burning ourselves out? Our special guest this week has the answers!   Morra Aarons-Mele is the founder of award-winning digital agency Women Online and its database of women influencers, The Mission List. She is an internet marketer who has helped launched online campaigns for world leaders and organizations including the United Nations, Malala Fund, Hillary Clinton for President, President Obama, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Morra is also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom.   As an introvert, Morra wanted to grow her business but did not want to travel nor go out at night. She hates networking and, despite being a consultant, has travel anxiety. Morra wanted to build and grow her business on her own terms and made it her goal in 2016 to achieve this.   We have endless conversations about ‘crushing it’ and always saying yes, but for a lot of people, they’re just not built that way. Introverts might want to crush it and get out there, but it really zaps their energy and some of them, like Morra, have social anxiety. There simply wasn’t a roadmap for people who are introverts as well as leaders, which is why Morra decided to write her book.   Some of the world’s most successful people are introverts. It’s a total myth that introverts are all shy and quiet. Introversion has nothing to do with how people handle ambition or their social skills. Some people even have a hard time believing Morra is an introvert because of how funny she is and that she makes eye contact with people. Introverts can be those things! However, they do need to be more diligent about how they’re managing their energy.   Our culture is obsessed with entrepreneurship, obsessed with scaling up, but what’s motivating you to do those things? Are you trying to grow bigger and bigger for the wrong reasons? Sometimes, you need to stop and tune in to what YOU really want before you experience some sort of health or professional crisis.   It’s really important, no matter what level of your career, to take a step back and see whether you’re truly happy with where you are. If you’re not, are there ways you can fix it so that you can have a more intentional business? Can you scale back? Work from home? Travel less? The reality is, you CAN do work you love and do it on your own terms.   Interview Links: Womenandwork.org Wearewomenonline.com Themissionlist.com Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home), by Morra Aarons-Mele   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “Leaders tell us to never eat lunch alone, to always say yes, but a lot of us aren’t built that way.”   “Walking into a room full of prospects and strangers fills me with panic and dread.”   “Introversion is just about energy. It’s a total myth that introverts are all shy and quiet.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

We don’t take enough time to stop and assess our progress. We are always reacting and not thinking! Do you find yourself making some of the same mistakes again and again? If so, it’s time to take a thoughtful retro perspective approach. Bill and his team do it at the end of every quarter and here are some exercises that show how you can do it, too.   Bruce Eckfeldt is a consultant, Certified Gazelles coach, author, and speaker on organizational development and performance management. Bruce is on the show today to talk all about retro perspectives and how you can use exercises to get better at it.   How did Bruce first get into retro perspectives? Bruce was first introduced to the concept when he was in software development. He’s been on projects where he spent weeks, months, and sometimes even years developing new products only to have them fall flat on their faces. How could he prevent this from happening? By taking a more lean approach to technology and by using retro perspective to strive for continuous improvement.   Before we dive into examples of how retro perspective works, what does retro perspective mean, exactly? To put it simply, it’s the process of looking at the past to improve the future. The goal is to use the things we’ve done, the results we’ve already generated, as data.   One of the best ways to cultivate a retro perspective environment is by creating a safe environment in the office to openly share mistakes without fear of pushback. From there, we need to collect the raw data, analyze it, drive down on what really happened, and then brainstorm for solutions.   There’s so much pressure not to mess up that people often try their best to cover their ass, as opposed to openly letting management know there are problems within the organization. There’s so much spin in an organization that ‘it’s okay to mess up,’ but it doesn’t help solve the true problem. What are some of the best ways to create a safe space to openly share mistakes in the office?   Bruce does two things. The first thing is called a prime directive, which sets the context of the meeting. This is said at the start of every meeting to help remind people it’s okay to share. This is the way the prime directive reads: Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.   The second thing Bruce does is to makes sure the senior team is modeling this behavior, too. It can’t just be on the staff’s side to admit mistakes. It’s important that senior leaders call each other out on mistakes they’ve made and bring them to the table as an opportunity to learn how to improve. When the team begins to see the senior team doing this, it really sets the tone and drives the point further that it’s okay to admit your mistakes.   Interview Links: Eckfeldt.com Bruce on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Do your beliefs help you or hurt you in life? Leaders with limiting beliefs prevent themselves from showing up as powerful leaders. The thing about it is, everyone has limiting beliefs, it’s how we identify them and improve upon them, that helps us get out of the trap.   Elizabeth Crook is a business strategist and advisor at Orchard Advisors. She is also a Gazelles coach and the bestselling author of Live Large.   When Elizabeth was 30 years old, she was living in Latin America and working directly with the American Embassy as well as consulting companies on how to expand and grow.   One day, Elizabeth was invited to speak at a reading and learning group. Despite her extensive experience at the time, Elizabeth kept starting every sentence with, ‘I’m probably wrong, but...’ This belief was seriously limiting her career and her potential in life. When it was pointed out to her, Elizabeth had to stop and break through this.   We can’t scale a company without scaling its leaders as well. An important part of Elizabeth’s work is helping leaders develop and increase their self-awareness so that they can show up in a powerful way. If you’re not evolving your leadership, there is a serious problem within the company.   People can turn a strength into a weakness as they take on more responsibility. For example, Elizabeth was working one-on-one with a leadership member who believed asking for help was a sign of weakness. He cited that his best strength was being self-reliant.   This might have worked when he was an employee, but as a leader, he now needs to grow and start to depend on others. By putting this man in a leadership role, his primary strength effectively got turned upside down. This is where working closely with your leadership team and to help them develop awareness about their limiting beliefs is critical.   Interview Links: Orchardadvisors.com Elizabethbcrook.com Elizabethbcrook.com/resources A Free Chapter of Live Large   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

There are five big ways you can improve your business credit. Today’s guest will discuss how it is slightly different than your personal credit, why it’s important for your business, and how to separate the two so they don’t get mixed up!   Ty Crandall is the CEO at Credit Suite, a leading finance software and business credit company in the country. Ty and his team help clients build their business credit and help them get financing.   When Ty experienced the 2008 market crash, he saw first-hand what it was like to build a successful business and then see it disappear. His revenue had dropped 90% and he couldn’t serve his clients as effectively anymore. He had no idea that business credit even existed at the time, much less know how to keep both his personal and business credit separate.   Ty signed everything to his personal credit, so when business was down and he was forced to default on payments, creditors were now able to take assets directly out of the company. It was a mess. Once the creditors couldn’t get any more money out of the company, they then went directly for Ty’s personal assets. He lost everything.   Fortunately, Ty was able to get out of it and he knew he had to help people fix their credit and repair the damage the economy had caused on them. He didn’t want anybody to go through what he went through. This is why he is in the line of work that he is in today.   At the time, there wasn’t a lot of information about corporate credit. Ty had to dig deep to find out how to obtain it, how it worked, and how you could use it to protect your personal assets. Ty was blown away by the various ways you could protect yourself and the financial opportunities you could have with business credit.   Ty walks through the five steps that will improve your business credit:   Step 1: Set up your business correctly! Step 2: Do a free check with all the reporting agencies. Step 3: Start building vendor credit. Step 4: Start building store credit. Step 5: Start building fleet/vehicle credit.   By doing these five steps, you build enough trust with the banks where you can qualify for loans and credit lines for your business. Step 1 is often the hardest part, but once you have it completed, building business credit is actually quite easy!   Interview Links: Creditsuite.com Creditsuite.com — D-U-N-S® Number Creditsuite.com — Monitoring Ty on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “I ended up being very successful at a young age and then systematically lost everything.”   “A downturn of one kind or another is inevitable.”   “Having your business and your personal credit intricately tied can make it a very personal crisis.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

As someone who is trying to grow your business, what can you learn from the biggest of companies out there? We define fast-moving companies as gazelles and we depict the big, larger, companies as elephants. However, there are important lessons you can learn from both that should not be ignored!   Mike Maddock is a serial entrepreneur, author, and keynote speaker. Currently, Mike is the Founder Partner of Maddock Douglas, an innovation consulting firm that has helped more than 25% of the Fortune 100 companies. Mike has personally launched five successful businesses, written three books, and he is also a columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek and Forbes.   Mike worked all throughout his teen years and has seen what good bosses and bad bosses looked like. A year-and-a-half after graduating high school, Mike started his own marketing communications company and grew the business up to 50 people.   Mike had a ‘Jerry Maguire’ moment and shifted his focus more on innovation. He started a new company and made $3.5 million in revenue within a couple of years. Since then, he’s learned a lot about research, consumer behavior, and fear!   Whenever you’re changing anything, people freak out and they go to what makes them feel strong, which is often the worst thing you can do when the world is changing around you. Fear makes people go ‘back to the basics.’ At the end of the day, it’s a balancing act between the creative/innovation types and the analytical types in an organization. When you can get the right balance of both, these companies survive and thrive in new environments.   Mike shares an example of a meeting gone wrong, at least it appeared to be. Mike was presenting research to dentists about an emerging marketing, teeth whitening, and they ripped into him. Mike and his team predicted teeth whitening would be a $4 billion opportunity, today it is an $11 billion market. The dentists that ripped into him were experts in their market. However, the more you’re an expert in something, the harder it is to see growth, opportunity, and possibility.   Interview Links: Maddockdouglas.com Mike on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Can you answer this question: What’s your life purpose? Most of you might not have a very good answer. When Bill asks high-achievers this question, only about 10-20% of them can answer honestly. People who know what their life purpose is have a competitive edge over everyone else. Find out the steps you need to take to discover your purpose, in this week’s episode.   Craig Filek is the Founder of Purpose Mapping, a tool to help high-achievers find meaning and purpose in their life. He holds over two decades of experience when it comes to inner work, authenticity, and agile entrepreneurship. He built what he thought would be his ideal life, only to walk away from it all and focus on what really matters — raising his family and living his purpose.   When Craig was introduced to The E Myth, by Michael Gerber, he did the Primary Aim exercises every six weeks for about a year to really hone down on ‘what’ his purpose was. A few years passed by and a couple of career changes later, Craig decided it was time to start Purpose Mapping in 2010.   Our identity is so tied up in the work we do. When we no longer work, we can sometimes start to have an identity crisis. And even then, some executives will suffer from depression after they’ve hit their personal and professional goals because they are left with a void of ‘what’s next?’. They have the vacation house and the high-status job, but those things do not sustain them emotionally or mentally. This is where purpose comes in.   How do you find your purpose? Craig found his purpose almost by accident. As an adopted child, he had an intense desire to answer the question, “Who am I?” Through taking several personality tests and introspection, the same keywords started showing up for Craig.   When you feel fear, that’s when you know you’re at the edge of your comfort zone and in order for you to get into your ‘flow’ state, you have to jump off that cliff. There are things we do that take us out of our flow state and end up sabotaging our success. Every one of us has shame, but the people who face their shame end up not letting it spill out into the rest of their lives. By owning up to our flaws, we are able to dig even deeper into who we are and find out our purpose in life.   Interview Links: Purposemapping.com Craig on LinkedIn The E Myth, by Michael Gerber   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

How can you develop yourself and your team more holistically than just job training? In the beginning of the company there’s a lot of focus on job programs to help staff learn how to do their job, but what about after, when you have those systems in place? Today’s guest will show you how!   Robert Glazer is the Founder and Managing Director of Acceleration Partners as well as the Founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. He is a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of success. On today’s show, Robert discusses different ways you can develop your team (and yourself) beyond simple job training.   Robert was always an entrepreneur and as he was getting comfortable with risk, he was also finding ways to minimize it. Through this, he started to align himself around how to make processes better and how he could also make himself and others better.   After running a high-performance company, he came to notice that you end up breaking a lot of people along the way. When you’re growing 30-40% a year, most people simply cannot keep up with that. Robert was finding issues where his team was great, at first, but he kept having to shift them out of positions as the company grew bigger and bigger. How could he keep and retain his people no matter what the company’s growth looks like? Robert was determined to break the cycle.   One of Bill’s values today is ‘Never Finished,’ which means that it’s important for him and his staff to always be growing and evolving. If companies want to scale up, they have to develop themselves and their leadership team along the way, because strategies and tactics will only get you so far and you will plateau.   People want to talk to Robert about their product, but Robert is more interested in the business of the business and the business of people. In fact, every business has two parts to it: the product and the business of the business. Many founders love working on their product, but completely ignore the business side of things and get overwhelmed by the growth.   As the founder, leading based on the company’s level of growth can be very tricky. You start off small and are visible to everybody, but as you grow, you have to begin putting new leaders in place, so that you can become a different kind of leader within your company. It’s difficult for many founders because their management/influence styles have to adapt rather quickly and that isn’t always easy.   When you focus on people not just in their job role but help them holistically develop themselves that they can apply it to their professional and personal life, you get a more engaged and dedicated workforce. However, with that being said, that can’t happen if the founder doesn’t lead the charge and work on improving him or herself first.   Interview Links: Accelerationpartners.com Brandcycle.com Fridayfwd.com The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “One of our values today is ‘Never Finished.’ Always be growing and evolving until you die.”   “Every business has 2 businesses: the product and the business. A lot of founders don’t like the ‘business’ part.”   “You’ve got to be a different kind of leader and influencing differently than you do in the beginning.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

The best brands in the world make you feel sexy, invincible, and like a hero — and you can be just like them! When you start thinking about yourself and your business as a brand, it can open up all kinds of opportunities that you may have never seen before. Find out how to develop ‘the best brand in the world’ on this week’s episode.   Deb Gabor is the Founder and CEO of Sol Marketing. She is a brand dominatrix and investor pitch whisperer. At Sol Marketing, Deb has helped develop brand strategy for household names like Dell, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs, just to name a few. Deb is also the author of the bestselling book, Branding is Sex.   After trying to become a doctor, Deb found herself being really, really bad at medical school. She decided to switch fields and study communication instead. While still in college, Procter and Gamble came to her school and she helped launch a test product called Fruitopia. This sparked a huge interest for Deb on the research involved as to why someone would buy a product. There are so many other drinks to choose from, what’s the person’s story and why would they pick this drink out of all others?   The best, most sustainable brands in the world are the ones who can create and convey a vision for the future and deliver on that promise. The biggest disruptions in business models tend to happen outside of the given industry. For example, big food innovations and disruptions that are happening right now are not coming from within the grocery market and food producer industry.   When it comes to branding, it comes down to a breaking point of “Brand or be branded.” You don’t own your brand, your customers own your brand. Your brand technically has two parts: The identity and the image.   The brand image is the part the customer owns. It’s their reflection back on you; it’s their perceptions and relationship with you. Most importantly, it’s their immediate experience with you. The brand identity is the part you own and control. It is how you show up. It is how you make promises and deliver on those promises to those you are serving. You have to manage both in order to deliver effective messaging. If you fail in these two areas, you leave your brand up to the control of your customers, and this can lead to broken brand promises.   Interview Links: Brandingissex.com Solmarketing.com 8hourbrand.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube    

Bahaa Moukadam is a former Silicon Valley CEO with an extensive track record of success. He is also a Certified Gazelles International Coach and throughout his career, Bahaa has grown companies from $0 to $40 million in 5 years and $60 million to $173 million in 3 years. Now, he helps teach executives and Entrepreneurs how to avoid critical business mistakes while also enjoying the journey of building a successful company.   Although Bahaa worked mostly in the IT sector, he has helped CEOs and companies outside of his industry of expertise. In one example, Bahaa worked with a company in the MRI machine service industry. Even though he knows nothing about MRI machines, he was able to help the founder take vacations twice a year and enjoy more freedom. Prior to that, the founder had not taken a vacation in over 10 years.   When your company is organized in such a way where the leader can take time off, that company becomes much more valuable. There’s nothing worse than having to sell a company that only really works when there’s one man (the founder) running the show. It’s in everyone’s best interest that the leader can take a vacation and the business keeps on working correctly.   A lot of CEOs are really good at one of these two things: results or relationships; very few are good at both. Some business owners are focused on developing results and keeping the eye on the prize, unfortunately, they might burn relationships in the process. On the flip side, some founders are really good at creating a country club feeling with their customers but lose sight very quickly of their results.   The perfect example of this was a husband and wife team Bahaa worked with, a year ago. They had been in business for about 14 years and had 125 employees and 3 locations. They built a company that made 12 million a year, but neither of the two founders made any profit. They were too focused on the relationship side of things, which was good because they’re employees were very happy, but they weren’t focused on the results. After working with Bahaa, they ended up consistently making $50,000 to $90,000 a month in net profit.   On the flip side of things, Bahaa worked with a defense contractor that was heavily driven by results. It was a 250-million-dollar division out of a multi-billion-dollar company. The president of that division was not relationship-focused at all. In fact, his lack of awareness on the people side of things really started creating a lot of issues and it weakened the team heavily, which affected results. With some help from Bahaa, the president became a lot better about the needs of his staff and how to treat people.   The key thing to remember here is to keep a balance on the results of your company and the relationships of your staff. The easiest part of business is the systems and the production. The hardest part is the people. It’s okay to be good at one or the other, but just make sure you have the right people in place to help you in your weaker areas.   Interview Links: Seemetricspartners.com Business Fitness Assessment   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “When the company is totally dependent on their CEO or founder, that’s a weaker and less sellable company.”   “CEOs are like ‘it’s so expensive’ when working with a high-level coach. I promise the return is there in the 1st year.”   “The easiest part of business is the systems and the production. The hardest part is the people.”   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles.   We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

This week it’s time to cut the BS out of your writing, your language, and your business. No one wants to hear lies! Most business writing and the way executives talk is just filled with BS and people are just sick of it. It’s time to stop now!   Josh Bernoff has been a professional writer since 1982 and is the author of Without Bullshit. Also, for 20 years, he was at Forrester Research, where he wrote and edited reports on the future of technology. He was also a speaker at the Gazelle’s Growth Summit this year.   While working at Forrester, Josh would often get briefs and press releases from hundreds of Tech startups, but he noticed that most of the communication he received was BS. Of all the press releases he received, only .02% of all the words in there had any real meaning to Josh. That’s a lot of waste.   So, when Josh left Forrester, he wanted to teach people how to get rid of the bullshit and get straight to the point. People use jargon because somewhere in their head they think everybody uses this terminology. However, when you use jargon, you are actually more likely to alienate the people you’re trying to connect with, your customer.   People who are used to pitching and promoting are used to using certain words like ‘widely successful,’ ‘great,’ and ‘powerful’ to drive home that big point they’re trying to make, but to the outside world, it looks like complete BS. In fact, the more of these overexaggerated words you use, the less credible you look.   Instead of being super intense and using these big empty words and jargon that no one understands, you can take lessons from famous speechwriters who would often open the speech or conversation with a proactive fact. Bill likes to lead with, “One in four of you will not complete this program, statistically speaking.” That immediately got the attention and the engagement of the entire room.   People’s attention spans are very short. Based on a survey Josh conducted for his book, people spend a total of 46 hours a week reading and writing for their work, more than a full-time job, so anything you have to say to them, it had better be eye-catching and important.   When you need to write an important memo or message to your team, then you will need to think of these four things before you craft it. The first thing is, who will be reading this? Second, what’s the objective? What change are you trying to make? Third, what action should the reader take? And fourth, what kind of impression would you like your reader to be left with about you? Josh uses the ROAM acronym to help him remember this: Readers, Objective, Action, iMpressions.   Interview Links: Withoutbullshit.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Did you know that 83% of small businesses around the world are not profitable? Business owners are living month-to-month and are desperately struggling. Today’s episode addresses this so that you never have to worry about living paycheck-to-paycheck again.   Mike Michalowicz is the author of several books including The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Surge, and Profit First. He is also the Owner of Profit First Professionals, his third million dollar venture. This is Mike’s second guest appearance on the show!   Why did Mike decide to write Profit First? Believe it or not, Mike had grown his companies to multi-million dollar businesses, but was not profitable, at all. He had refinanced his house multiple times and was living check-by-check.   He thought if he could run the business long enough, they’d eventually hit their ‘big break’ and become profitable. After selling his businesess, he decided to become an angel investor with this mindset and, guess what, the 10 businesses he invested in all tanked. Within two years, he lost every penny that he had ever made.   After he told his family that he had failed them, he went through two years of ‘functional’ depression. It was not a proud moment in his life. Through this journey, he was able to ask himself some hard questions and those hard questions lend to a lightbulb moment. How can I make my businesses profitable, always?   Keep in mind, it’s also a lifestyle problem for many entrepreneurs as well. As they’re trying to live a good life and create a profitable company, in the back of their mind they’re worried about whether or not they can afford their car or their home tomorrow. The amount of stress this puts on someone makes it very hard to see the bigger picture.   Mike’s accountant was trying to help him by showing him the real numbers, by showing him the metrics, and Mike would brush him off and not listen to his advice. If Mike saw he had money in the bank, then he had money in the bank! But it isn’t always so simple.   Mike knew that he had to change somehow, but changing your behavior right off the bat is a very difficult thing to do. So, what he did was he decided to put a percentage of his money into a ‘profit’ bank account and run his business on the remaining cash. By making this simple shift, he was able to see things from a bigger perspective and he was forced to reverse engineer his business so it would survive on the remaining cash, no matter what.   Interview Links: Mikemichalowicz.com Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine, by Mike Michalowicz   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

This week’s episode explores Maria’s personal journey and discovery over the years. An entrepreneur at a very young age, she gave up the boyfriend, the oceanview property, and her business for a deeper meaning. Through traveling the world and finding her life’s purpose, she ended up creating a billion-dollar company in return. Find out how by listening in.   Maria Sipka created her first company at the age of 19 and by 21, it was a $2 million dollar business. What seemed to be the ‘perfect life.’ Maria gave it all up to search for deeper meaning. In 2005, she co-founded XING, which is now worth over a billion dollars. Maria later moved to San Francisco and Co-Founded Linqia, a company that aims to educate and inspire marketers.   Maria’s childhood sweetheart, a high-performance athlete, encouraged Maria to attend a Tony Robbins’ seminar at the young age of 16. She is forever grateful for going to that event at such a young age because it really opened her eyes to the world. She came out of it a changed person.   At the age of 17, Maria’s parents gave her $20,000 of what was supposed to fund Maria’s future wedding party to use as an investment instead. She took that money and invested in real estate. She was then hired as a marketing and communications specialist after she finished high school. And before she knew it, she had her first business at 19 and she was completely out of her league.   After hiring staff, Maria’s business was doing well, hitting a couple of million dollars in revenue within the first few years. However, what changed for Maria was when her childhood sweetheart introduced her to his personal trainer, and that’s when she found out he owned over 100 properties.   How did a personal trainer own so much property? She found out her way of investing was all wrong. She went home that night and put a spreadsheet together using his formula. She was able to work out that by the age of 40 she could own a billion dollars worth of property using his example. While following his model over 8 years, she acquired 50 properties by the age of 27.   Despite waking up to oceanfront views, she decided it was time to close this chapter and find a bigger purpose in her life. So, she left her business and her boyfriend behind in Sydney and went on a 10-day retreat to restart herself.   After the retreat, Maria later traveled the world for two years and met inspiring and amazing entrepreneurs along the way. Since then, Maria looks at her life like a storybook and tries to completely change, update, and rework her story and entrepreneurial journey. For the last 15 years, she has picked yearly themes that help her grow and live a more meaningful life.   Interview Links: Linqia.com Xing.com/en Maria on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

This week’s episode is worth a million dollars! That’s right! Your business is a leaky bucket and there are probably more than a million dollars in it that are leaking away and you’re just not aware it. How can you spot those leaks and get them fixed ASAP? You’ll have to listen in to this week’s show!   Howard Shore is the author of Your Business is a Leaky Bucket as well as a Business and Executive Coach. Howard has worked for 3 top Fortune 500 companies and has over 12 years of experience as a coach. He is also a Certified Gazelles Coach. Throughout the years, he has seen clients leak money unnecessarily and this is what inspired him to write his book.   Howard began his career by owning his first business when he was 18 years old. Over the years of working one-on-one with high-level executives and leaders, Howard came to realize something important. We all live our life like Dilbert, the popular comic strip.   It was astonishing to Howard how everybody could be working so, so hard in their industry, yet they were not getting as much traction as they should through this extra hard work. It just seemed counter-productive.   Most people are very good at working in the business but do not know how to work on the business. This is to say, they do not know how to focus on strategy, execution, and people to help save themselves from these big financial leaks and their own personal time.   Howard was hired to help a client in the restoration business improve his profits and bottom line. Just by working with Howard and applying the principles that are in the book, their profit grew by over 80% this year and their top line grew by over 30%. This is highly unusual in an industry like theirs and this was done through all organic means (no acquisitions). Also, their net profit grew by over 50%. The good news is, the general manager and CEO can now take time off and actually enjoy their lives while running a growing and successful business!   You can put any kind of framework in place, but if you don’t have a strong culture of accountability, or even the right accountability systems in place, then fixing the leaky bucket is destined to fail. Howard likes to replace the word execution with the word accountability because, in the end, it takes accountability to create long-lasting and meaningful action.   Interview Links: Your Business is a Leaky Bucket: Learn How to Avoid Losing Millions in Revenue and Profit Annually, by Howard Shore Dilbert.com   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Going through hardship is difficult and can sometimes leave very painful memories. But what if you can take the challenges you’ve gone through and turn them into a powerful story that inspires others? This week’s episode dives into how you can find your story and tell it in a powerful way. JT McCormick is the President and CEO of Book in a Box, a company that will help you tell your story and write your book. JT has personally faced a lot of hardships growing up. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have succeeded, but he worked his way up from scrubbing toilets and is now the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. Find out his story on today’s show. For the first ten years of JT’s life, all he saw while growing up in the projects were pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, and overall despair. He did not know any better, until one day he and his father drove through a very rich neighborhood and it opened his eyes to the possibility that life has much more to offer. JT’s father was a pimp in the 70s and JT is one of 23 children fathered by him. He is the only child on his mother’s side and she grew up in an orphanage. JT grew up mixed race and faced discrimination from both ethnicities because of it. For the first nine years of his life, he grew up with his mother, who was a single mom on welfare. After that, he lived with his dad and the experience can best be described as ‘chaos.’ A billionaire once told Bill, “One of my main lessons in life was to be thankful for the problems you have.” Your problems are difficult, they’re unpleasant, but at least they’re yours. For this billionaire, he'd rather have his own problems than someone else’s problems.JT’s mother told him to never judge someone because everyone has a story and you don’t always know what their story is. This piece of advice stuck with him and became the inspiration for his business today. Bill has noticed that all of the relationships we hold as people, no matter what position you’re in or whether you’re a young adult or a senior citizen, all of the ways we relate are just extensions of things we learned as children and the way our parents interacted with each other. The thing about is, if you don’t access your story, you close yourself off from relating to other people or from other people relating to you. Everyone has hardships and struggles, whether it’s losing their house or getting a divorce from their spouse. You don’t have to be ‘perfect’ or leave the emotions/stories out of business because no one is perfect and we are all emotional. When you share your story, you also build trust with your peers.   Interview Links: Bookpeople.com What Is the What: A Novel, by Dave Eggers The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni   Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES: “I can’t change the past. I can’t change I was sexually abused or the parents I was born to. I can change the future.”   “One of my main lessons in life was to be thankful for the problems you have.”   “Never judge people because everyone has a story and you don’t always know what their story is.” Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Are you having trouble scaling your business effectively? Have you ever thought that you might be doing it ‘wrong’? This episode dives into the biggest mistakes we see leaders making in the quest scale up. Our guest for this week is the one and only Verne Harnish. As most of you already know, he is the author of Scaling Up, Founder and CEO of Gazelles. He is also co-founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). The tools that Verne and our team at Gazelles have put in place have worked for over 40,000 companies, across many industries, and around the world. This is Verne’s 35th year working helping business to scale. In fact, Verne and EO are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the organization and the 25th anniversary of the originating MIT program, the Birthing of Giants. It’s also the 20th anniversary of our Gazelles organization. There is a lot of education for startup founders, but much much less on successfully scaling up. In this show, Verne shares the story of a 76-year old who accidentally became a CEO and was recently named CEO of the year in British Columbia, Canada. With 3 decades of experience as a cancer researcher, he cites Gazelles as what helped him navigate the chaos of growing his company, now approaching a $1 billion valuation. We also look at what people are missing the Strategy area: it’s pricing!  Companies are leaving massive amounts of money on the table. There are two things you want to think about when it comes to pricing. First, adjust your pricing based on the time and/or the season (develop dynamic pricing). And second, there’s psychology behind this. Human beings are not rational decision makers and sometimes need 3 tiers of pricing in order to be convinced that a higher tier is the one for them. In People decisions, this is the best piece of advice Verne ever received: If you want to scale your company by 10x, figure out who are the top 25 influencers in your industry that need to get behind your company. The bigger the names, the faster you will scale. Verne was bold, so he put President Ronald Reagan on his list, along with Steve Jobs. Verne also knew he had to get Inc. Magazine and Venture Magazine involved. He spent an hour every week figuring out how he could get himself in front of these influencers. 3 years later, they were global. Just because Verne aimed for the President at the time doesn’t mean that’s also your only option. In this day and age, there are tons of influencers you can target. Do not ignore bloggers, YouTubers, Instagram stars, etc. Every industry has their lead customer. If you’ve got them onboard, your product will fly off the shelf. Listen to this show for big insights on getting proactive with your Execution habits and managing the Cash decisions of your business model.    Resources: Download our Growth Kit for Scaling Up with instructions, agendas, and worksheets for your leadership team.  Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Bill on YouTube

This week’s episode focuses on the 3HAG. As many of you might be familiar with a 10+ year BHAG, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, our 3HAG is not too far off from this concept. How do you effectively structure your mid-term goals? Today’s expert guest has some tips for you! Shannon Susko has more than 20 years of experience building and leading high-growth technology companies in the financial services industry. She is also a Senior Gazelles Coach and has a ton of experience helping business leaders put strategies in place to achieve their 3HAG and BHAGs! When Shannon was the CEO of her first company, she had to stand in front of her team, her shareholders, and investors to discuss the company’s BHAG. However, you have to do more than just exclaim it, you also have to prove you can do it. This is where the 3HAG comes in and it is how it helped Shannon make the long-term goal achievable and believable. The reason most companies do not even have a 3HAG is due to fear of failure. That’s a lot of pressure for a CEO and nothing good comes from having their three-year goals fall short in the eyes of his or her investors. The BHAG is the first strategic goal, but the 3HAG brings everything together. As Shannon says, it’s like the pivot point. Shannon and her team decided to map out 36 months, 12 quarters, of what the key milestones were going to be in order for them to put the strategy in place. They also studied the current climate of the market throughout these months to ensure they were still on track with their target audience. During this time, the 3HAG helped Shannon and her team stay focused and all the decisions in the company were striving to hit those goals. After about five years of incorporating that framework, the company was able to take a very successful exit. Shannon’s second company experienced similar success, except within a shorter timeframe, due to this framework. Three years and three months to the day, she was able to sell the company and reap the rewards of another huge exit. Interview Links: Shannonsusko.com More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders both have a lot to learn from each other. Even though it may seem like they’re working in completely different industries, both worlds have a lot of interesting insight on how to grow, partner, and market to a larger audience. Dr. Ken Thiessen is the Founder of Power of One Consulting, where he focuses on consulting for the social sector and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Ken is also a certified senior Gazelles coach and uses his expertise to help business owners and nonprofit leaders succeed in their industry. By working with both nonprofit and for-profit sectors, Dr. Ken has found some very interesting lessons that we can all learn from, and use, in our business. When Dr. Ken was 18 years old, he decided to buy a restaurant. He had no business plan, and yet the bank gave him a loan for it! However, surprise surprise, two years after he bought his restaurant, Dr. Ken went bankrupt. From Dr. Ken’s failed restaurant attempt, he learned a lot of important lessons at the ripe age of 20. This was a good thing! The lessons he learned, like having a plan, is something a university could never teach him. When Dr. Ken turned 29, he did a major career shift and went back to school. Truth be told, Dr. Ken is surprised he even did this as he wasn’t very good at school in the first place. Dr. Ken decided to become a minister at this time, and he continued to do this for the next 20 years. The shift from for-profit to nonprofit was a major wake-up call. Dr. Ken did consulting work for 45 churches to help them get more organized and make a structured plan for their future. He worked with so many people who meant well, but couldn’t plan beyond that. After 5 years of doing this, Dr. Ken wanted to do more and help others in a bigger way. This is how he got introduced to Gazelles and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Once he adopted Gazelles framework, things changed for him. He began helping a variety of nonprofit organizations. So, between entrepreneurship and nonprofits, what kinds of differences and lessons has Dr. Ken learned so far? In the nonprofit sector, you had people rise up in the ranks (executive director positions, etc), despite not knowing how to read a financial statement or run a team. How did this happen? They got there because they were passionate about the cause and were willing to roll with the punches and learn on the job. A lot of nonprofit leaders will say that they’re not a business, but Dr. Ken tells them that they owe it to the people who fund them to show them that they’re using their resources effectively. This is why it’s so important that you treat a nonprofit like a business. The reality is, you can run a nonprofit like a business and you can do it without compromising the core values and the core reason why you’re helping others. In fact, by treating a nonprofit like a business, you are able to effectively structure your organization in a way that helps more people. Who doesn’t want to do that? Once nonprofit leaders realize this, they actually end up scaling and growing their nonprofit to new heights.   Interview Links: Powerofoneconsulting.ca Ken on Linkedin Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Have you ever been on the brink of losing hope and losing your business? Today’s episode dives into the nitty-gritty and shares some of the not-so-pleasant hardships many entrepreneurs face. Today’s guest shares some of the key lessons he’s learned while he was trying to start and grow his own business. Tom King is the Founder and CEO of Steviva Foods, one of the largest importers, manufacturers, and distributors of clean-label sweetening systems and natural sweeteners. Thom’s success did not come easy. In fact, Thom had experienced several growth-related hardships in his business before he truly ‘made it.’ On this week’s show, find out why he never gave up on his business even when all the arrows were pointing for him to do so. Thom first discovered Steviva through his friend. Tom’s friend came back from Paraguay looking for a natural supplement for his daughter, who was suffering from a rare disease. When Thom first tried these leaves from Paraguay, he found them to be very sweet and they had no calories. The light bulb went off in Thom’s head and thus began his journey of creating a sugar/sweetener substitute. Thom officially launched his company in 1999. At the time, most of his sales were coming from health food stores due to FDA restrictions on his products. However, in 2008, the FDA allowed Steviva to be sold as a sweetener and his sales began to skyrocket. Thom admits that from 1999 to 2008, it was a real struggle getting his business off the ground.  Thom’s business started from his garage and it was his side hustle. He was working a full-time job on top of trying to convince stores to sell his product. When he decided to move the business from California to Oregon, that’s when he began to run out of capital. When Thom was running out of money in 2007, he made a tough call to his father asking him for a small loan. He couldn’t make his mortgage payments anymore. He had maxed out his credit cards, and banks weren’t loaning money to him. Thankfully, his father said yes and lent him $175,000. Once he received the funds, he put his business plan in place and started to bring on employees. His first 10 hires all focused on the production side of the business and Thom was able to focus strictly on selling. During this financially trying time, what made Thom carry on? Why didn’t he just hang up the jacket and call it quits? Truth be told, Thom really believed in the idea and — here’s the important part — he had the data to back up the product idea. Diabetes and obesity rates were rising and Thom knew he had a product that could do good and help those people. Interview Links: Steviva.com More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Is your company expanding and growing quickly? Usually, when a company grows but does not have the right systems in place, the organization rapidly feels the extra pressure and it often causes serious blocks in the chain. How do you avoid it? Well, this week’s guest is a fellow coach and has seen time and time again the top biggest three pitfalls that occur in a rapidly growing company. Ron Carucci is a consultant with more than 25 years of experience working directly with CEOs and senior executives. He has consulted for a wide range of organizations — everything from Fortune 50s to startups. His consulting has taken him to more than 20 different countries on four continents. On today’s show, Ron discusses the three top biggest constraints a growing company faces. Ron is a recent empty nester, and Bill is just months away from having an empty home as well. As these two parents see their children grow up, there is a common theme that can be directly linked to business — growth and change produce unsettling moments. The old ways of doing things just don’t apply anymore. The reality is, no matter where you are in life, you still have to reinvent and adjust to the new changes that are coming your way. Ron repeatedly sees three very common pitfalls into which organizations have dug themselves. One of them is that they have grown, but they have not scaled. For example, an 80-million-dollar company trapped in the body of a 20-million-dollar organization. No one has ever told these organizations that scaling up requires growing up. As Ron begins his work, he sees companies putting pieces and systems together on a whim and they usually do not have a long-term game plan. All they’re doing is just trying to fix the leaks, and, of course, this method is not sustainable. The company ends up losing identity as well as vision. The first question Ron asks his clients is, “What is your strategy?” Often times, he’ll get handed a mission statement, a value statement, a financial plan, a sales forecast — everything but a strategy. For many of his clients, they are unable to answer why they’re better than their competitors and why customers should choose them over the next guy. If you cannot answer this, then it means you do not know who you are or what your company represents. And, if you do not know who you are and what your company represents, this means that you do not know who is leading the charge. For many clients, they find out that they do not have an identity, do not have a long-term game plan, and do not have strong leadership. However, the good news is that all three of these pitfalls are completely avoidable! You avoid this by setting your identity, your intentions, your strategies, and what clients you will say “no” to, at the very beginning of the organization. This helps you build a strong foundation and you will find yourself not having to struggle to fix those leaks.   Interview Links: Navalent.com Ron on LinkedIn   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Many business owners have found themselves working on important presentations throughout their careers. However, have you ever worked on one that has fallen flat, or even failed to wow investors or clients? Well, today’s episode breaks down what goes into a successful presentation! Dustin Mathews is the co-founder of Speaking Empire, a company that helps train aspiring speakers into pros. He is also the author of the No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations, which is why he makes for an excellent guest on how to develop inspiring presentations that produce results. Dustin never wanted to be front-and-center with an audience. He was always a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, and would constantly run from the idea of standing in front of a crowd. One day, he couldn’t run from it any longer and he had to cover for his boss. When he stood up there and spoke, something interesting happened — it was not as bad as it seemed. He’s been hooked ever since. Dustin ended up doing 3,000 events in a short time frame with his team. Through lots of trial and error, he learned there are five components to an effective presentation: An intro, powerful stories, an offer, the meat of the presentation (the content), and the close. To expand on each of these five components, the intro is what sets the stage. If you look at the most influential people out there, there are always introduced by somebody else. So, when you’re personally about to do a presentation, have someone, or something, introduce you. One of Dustin’s tips is that he has a video to give him the introduction. This gives his audience an idea of what he’s done in the past. The 2nd component is the story. Stories need to be in a presentation. You have to be able to tell a before/after story. A story of why your client’s life was awful, what happened when they found/used the product, and how they’re life is now 10X better now. Now that you’ve told your transformative story, the next step is the offer. This is where you do not make assumptions about the audience. Do not use jargon or expect you’re talking to experts/peers. In your offer, you have to describe why this is a challenge/a real pain for your target audience. When you effectively describe the pain, that’s when you come in with the solution. This naturally leads you into the fourth component, the meat of the content. Here’s where you offer a three-to-five-step process as to why this product will solve their pain point. Do not give them more than five, as this will overwhelm the audience! Be sure to bring out your client case studies as well, to help convince those who are skeptical about your solution.   The last piece of the presentation is the close. In reality, when you’re trying to close, you don’t wait till the very end. In a room, make sure you get clarification that you’re making sense to your audience. You ask your audience questions throughout the entire presentation to get ‘mini closes’ along the way before you go into your big ask. This is key!   Interview Links: Speakingempire.com Nobspresentations.com Dustin on Linkedin   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Randy Cohen is the Founder & Chief Energizing Officer for TicketCity Management. Randy is also the author of  Secrets of Swagger, a book to help guide business owners and entrepreneurs through the process of understanding, and obtaining, confidence. Do you struggle with getting your swagger on? This week’s guest knows a thing or two about being cool, calm, and confident. Find out how you can obtain these seemingly unattainable traits with guest Randy Cohen on this week’s episode! Randy first started TicketCity 27 years ago. He took his life savings of $1,200 and bought 200 $6 sports tickets, which he later resold for $15 a piece. From there, he slowly built his business up and now he has a $150 million operation. How does Randy cultivate swagger in his life and in his business? It all started when he had an epiphany of what TicketCity was all about. What is your company about and how are you making a difference? When you know these answers, and are passionate about them, you can effectively rally your troops and lead them in the right direction for your company. One of the secrets to swagger is finding your passion in life. That’s just one part of it though. You still have to walk the walk and talk the talk. People respect a leader who gets his hands dirty. Keep in mind, there are different levels of swagger too. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to swagger. You might be brilliant at what you do and have an intelligence swagger about you. You might be highly competitive and have a competitive swagger about you. Richard Branson, Lady Gaga, and George Clooney all have different types of swagger. People with swagger typically have a couple of these  things: Passion, Collaboration, Charisma, Commitment, Courage, Coolness, Competitiveness, Character, and Creativity. How can you obtain some of these things? Well, you certainly should not fake it till you make it. That’s not how you obtain swagger. Walk the talk of something that’s really important to you, something you really care about. You get swagger by working on something truly meaningful to you and showing up, being committed, to that every single day.   Interview Links: Ticketcity.com Secrets of Swagger: How to Own Your Cool in Life and Business, by Randy Cohen   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Steve Little is the CEO and Managing Partner of Zero Limits Ventures. Steve first started his entrepreneurial career at the young age of 13, and sold his business a few years later for a 6-figure sum. Steve has over 40+ years of experience in entrepreneurship in a wide range of industries, which is why he is the perfect guest for this week’s topic. On the show, Steve discusses some of the important factors you need to consider, to drive value in your business! Steve started just like any other kid on the block, cutting his dad’s lawn. After two years of taking care of his neighbors and clients’ lawns, and having 35 employees under his belt, he sold the contracts he acquired for a little over $200,000. He didn’t realize it at the time, but when he looks back, this was one of the earliest lessons he learned about how to drive value into the business. There are all kinds of value hidden inside the walls of businesses. There’s valuation that’s tied up into constraints, like things that exist in your business that’s keeping it from being valuable; and there are things outside the business, like opportunities in the marketplace that owners are not fully leveraging. Today, when Steve sits down with prospective clients, he asks two questions, “What’s your exit strategy?” and “Do you know what drives the value of your business?” Many people are unable to answer these questions. Steve often cites Amazon buying Zappos as one of the prime examples of high value. Why did Amazon pay a billion dollars to acquire Zappos? It wasn’t for their products. It was for their company culture. And if you talk to the Founder of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, he will tell you he built the Zappos culture for that exact reason; he knew someone would want to buy the culture, not the products. You may not want to sell your business today, and that’s okay, but you really can’t know what your business is worth unless you understand who would buy it, why they’d buy it, and what they’d be willing to pay for it. Interview Links: Zerolimitsventures.com More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

John Ratliff first applied The Scaling Up Rockefeller Habits when he was the Founder/CEO of Appletree Answers. He grew it from relatively small company in 1995 to 700 employees, before selling it in 2012. Today, he is the Managing Director of STS Capital Partners, and sits down with Bill to discuss our overall mental health and how to combat depression when you’re sitting at the top. When it comes to mental health, John looks back and reflects that he had been struggling with it since he was a little kid. So, instead of facing it, he did what most people did, he dived into his work, and did not confront what was going on with himself internally. When it comes to mental health, sleep is very important, yet John picked a business where he didn’t get much of it at all. He was working 100 hours a week, and was up at all hours of the night when he first started his answering service. He was so sleep deprived that he doesn’t remember the entire year of 1997. To be completely honest, John kept his life-long battle with depression a complete secret from everyone in his life until now, when he’s finally able to talk about it. It was something he didn’t want anybody to know about. From the outside, he was often the life of the party and a fun guy to be around. Bill reflects on his own personal experience and how many entrepreneurs pretend that it’s all ‘cool,’ when it really is not. Through some reflection, Bill was able to notice, just like John, the various ways we try to hide from the outside world, and to make it look like we’re more than just okay. It seems entrepreneurs have the tendency to overcompensate to try and avoid what’s going on in the inside, which has its pros and its cons.   Interview Links: STSCapital.com John on LinkedIn   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Jack Daly is a sales coach with over 25 years of experience. Throughout his career, Jack has helped six companies grow to hundreds and hundreds of employees nationwide. Jack is also the Amazon bestselling author of Hyper Sales Growth. On today’s show, Jack discusses what makes a great sales playbook. Jack’s sales playbook has evolved over time. Why did Jack create this sales playbook, in the first place? Well, it goes back to the company that went from four people (Jack and three colleagues) to 750. Jack’s BHAG was to be the #1 mortgage company in Orange County, California. This was back in 1985, and Jack was suddenly faced with Bank of America, Countrywide Funding, Shearson American Express, and Wells Fargo as competitors. Knowing the competitors he faced, he knew he needed a system and processes in place to help roll out his business model to other store locations as quickly as possible. This is how Jack’s sales playbook was first created. Over time, Jack noticed that, for most companies, systems and processes are pretty much non-existent in the sales department, and he slowly began improving his sales playbook to help others. Jack’s largest sales force was 2600 sales people, and he would visit over 100 offices with the same mentality, “Sports teams are run better than most businesses.” There isn’t a coach out there who would put their players on the field without a playbook, yet most companies do not have a sales playbook. No sales playbook? This means each salesperson is making it up as they go and that is dangerous when you begin to scale up.   Interview Links: Jackdaly.net “Good to Great,” by James C. Collins   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Tristan White is the Founder & CEO of The Physio Co, a physical therapy clinic based in Australia. Tristan’s company has been ranked #1 of Australia’s best places to work. How did he do it? By creating a winning culture everyone within the company can get behind and support. Tristan explains how he was able to achieve this, on today’s show.   Tristan is an accidental entrepreneur. He began his career as a physical therapist, and although he loved the work he did while he held a traditional job, he knew he could make a bigger impact on his own. Slowly, his business grew and he had to hire employees. Five years later, Tristan found himself with a team of 20 people and didn’t know anything about what company culture was, or how it should look, so naturally, he ran into some serious problems. He was just a physical therapist, after all! So, at the five-year mark, Tristan realized he wasn’t happy, his company did not have structures in place, and it was starting to become utter chaos. He knew something had to change. At the time, Tristan believed he was just meant to be a physical therapist, he didn’t think he was cut out for entrepreneurship, at all. However, Tristan was determined to find a better way, and to make his and his employees’ lives easier within the company. So, he did something that scared the hell out of him. He took a break from the company. He left for 2-3 weeks and left the country to research other companies who had ‘nailed it.’ Through that experience, as well as reading the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, he came home inspired, and ready to tackle his company culture problem.   Interview Links: Tristanwhite.com.au Thephysioco.com.au Culture Is Everything by, Tristan White Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, by Verne Harnish   More Resources: Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Ronen Gafni is a serial entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of FreshBiz, a training company that infuses fun and smart thinking into organizations. Ronen is also the author of The New Entrepreneurz. On today’s show, Ronen discusses how to make business more playful and exciting for everyone. Ronen started his career as a software programmer in the army. He understood you couldn’t take life too seriously. You win some and you lose some. So, with that mindset in mind, he began trading on the stock market during his free time. He was able to convert his $100-a-month salary into $100,000 just from the stock market. There’s a bit of a game at play when it comes to business, but two things tend to get in our way from enjoying it; our competitive spirit and own feelings about what success looks like. No one wants to be seen as a loser, or just some goofball, this is when the game of business stops becoming so fun. Business is not a win-lose situation. If Ronen makes more money, that doesn’t mean you make less of it. The reason Ronen made money is because he added value, and someone gained positively from it. Business should always be win-win. There is no reason why business should be so competitive.   Interview Links: Freshbizgame.com Ronen on LinkedIn Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Melinda Wittstock is the CEO & Founder of Verifeed, a company that helps you grow your audience in an authentic way. We all understand the power of authenticity, but what is it exactly? Melinda sheds some light on how business owners can build an authentic and meaningful company on this week’s episode. Melinda and her team have actually created a program that can measure your authenticity. After looking at millions of social conversations, it becomes easy to detect who’s real, and who’s not. There’s a lot of interest in authenticity, but it often gets confused with sincerity. There’s no secret that authenticity is a bit of a buzzword these days, and that it can mean different things to different people. For example, for Melinda, authenticity is about being true to yourself. It applies that you know yourself. This is often a scary thought because people don’t always want to be seen in such a vulnerable light. We don’t want to be rejected by our community. At the end of the day, authenticity is about being true to yourself, and being brave enough to show it to the world. Brands who hide behind a corporate image tend not to come across as human, and this disconnects them from their customers. Nobody wants to be seen as just a number, and people today see through that facade very quickly.   Interview Links: Verifeed.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Ari Weinzweig is the co-founder of Zingerman’s Community, a chain of delis with purpose. Ari and his business partner, Paul Saginaw, opened their first deli in 1982 with a $20,000 bank loan. Today, Ari and Paul have over 700 employees and their business grosses around $60 million in annual sales. Named one of the world’s top ten CEOs by Inc. Magazine, Ari has a world of knowledge on how to lead a purposeful business no matter what industry you’re in. Ari had no dreams or desires of owning a business. In fact, he had pretty negative beliefs about business, growing up. After he graduated college, he got a job as a dishwasher to try and ‘figure things out.’ This is where Ari met his now business partner,  Paul Saginaw, who was the general manager at the restaurant. After 40 years later, Ari says that they — still — like each other and are good friends. An important lesson Ari learned from Paul was that business is merely a tool. It’s not the tool itself that’s the issue, it’s how it’s used. This concept completely changed Ari’s belief about business. It sounds odd, but Ari never really thought about the impact of beliefs in business on a fundamental level until about 5 years ago, despite already incorporating (almost subconsciously) strong beliefs into his businesses. Everything people ever do is based on beliefs. Every action they take is based on their set of beliefs. So, it makes sense why also bringing beliefs into a business, and making them clear, helps the business thrive on new levels.   Interview Links: Zingermanscommunity.com Zingermanstraining.com The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, by Lynne Twist Transformed!: The Science of Spectacular Living, by Bob Wright and Judith Wright Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Helen Chang is a journalist, editor, writer, ghostwriter, and video journalist, specializing in business, motivational and lifestyle topics. As the former business editor of San Diego News Network, SDNN.com, she covered topics in tech, venture capital, personal finance, and more. Today’s episode is all about writing your first book and using it to market yourself as an expert. As a business journalist, Helen was able to interview amazing entrepreneurs, and often saw that the most successful entrepreneurs were those who had some kind of a failure, or some kind of despair, before they learned lessons that eventually propelled them to success later on. The first book she ghostwrote was a complete flop at first. The marketing manager told her she had to completely rewrite it because the book was not marketable. This news crushed her, but she saw this as a learning opportunity and took the challenge. However, this early lesson was an important one because to put a good book together, particularly a business or expertise book, it needs to have a personal story that creates an emotional connection with the reader, and it also needs to have useful information that the reader can use and apply in their everyday life. After rewriting that book, the author brought Helen along to some of the bootcamps he was hosting, and readers would come up to her, thanking her for writing something so beautiful. The book had changed their lives! Ever since the author released his book, it led to a new division of his business that is now worth $100 million dollars. A book is a fantastic way to establish yourself as an expert, and grow your business to new heights.   Interview Links: Helenchangwriter.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Andy Bailey is a serial entrepreneur and author of No Try Only Do. He is also the Founder and Lead Coach of Petra Coach, an entrepreneurial coaching firm. Today’s show is all about the illusion of work-life balance and how we can bridge the gap between those two more seamlessly. Andy and Bill also discuss how language plays an important role on how you show up to others, which is why you should get rid of the word ‘try’ in your vocabulary. How does the concept of ‘no try, only do,’ which was originally said by Yoda, show up in Andy’s life? Andy has always tried to solve problems head on, and ‘There is No Try. Only Do’ has become a core value in his coaching business. When he and his team come into organizations with this mindset, it rapidly sets the standard that you can’t have a victim mentality, or put up excuses, if you truly want to succeed. When you completely remove the word ‘try’ from your vocabulary, it brings a whole new, and real, meaning to what you will say you’ll do. Either you will do something or you won’t. By saying ‘try,’ you’re shifting the responsibility away from yourself and you are possibly wasting everyone’s time. Whether we like it or not, words have power on us. The way we speak and the words we choose do shape the way we act, on both a conscious and subconscious level. This is why it’s so important to speak with conviction and to eliminate excuse words like ‘try.’   Interview Links: Petracoach.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Rory Vaden is the best selling author of Take the Stairs, and Procrastinate on Purpose. His expertise on improving self-discipline, overcoming procrastination, and enhancing productivity make him the perfect guest for this week’s show. Today, Bill and Rory discuss some of the best ways you can multiply your time and get more things done the smart way! Although Rory does sales consulting for his business, the number one challenge his clients face is managing their time effectively. This propelled Rory into researching how the most successful people think about time. He found that there were two major things that stuck out with how ultra-high achievers think about time vs. everyone else. Rory and his team do extensive polling and national studies for his business, but he experienced a surprisingly big breakthrough from a lesson he learned from a 3-year-old girl. That little girl showed him unintentionally that time management isn’t just logical, it’s emotional, too. If you really look at it, there is no such thing as time management. Time carries on whether you want it to or not. When we talk about time management what we’re really talking about is self-management. Self-management includes managing our emotions, our behaviors, and that’s what this is all about. We have to first grasp that self-management is an emotional issue before we can begin to multiply our time. Interview Links: RoryVaden.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Mark Green is a Certified Gazelles Coach and Business Growth Expert. Mark is also the Founder and President of Performance Dynamics Group, where he has helped executives and salespeople dramatically increase their performance and their personal results. How did the journey of authenticity start for Mark? Well, it first began during the very early start of Mark’s childhood (although he didn’t realize it at the time); he was always that kid people could easily talk to. Mark became the go-to person for his peers during middle school and high school because he was a good listener and he was very approachable. Fast forward to 2003, Mark tried to start his own business, what is now the Performance Dynamics Group, but at the time he still didn’t quite understand what he was meant to do in this world. He discovered that he was having personal mental blocks about what success looked like for him, and it was preventing him from being authentic. To Mark, it seemed people around him just ‘understood’ what they were meant to do and were fearless, and authentic, about how to get there. So, Mark embarked on a journey to become more authentic and to discover his life’s purpose, only to find that he had the skills to help others all along — dating back to his early middle school days where he helped his peers through tough problems.   Interview Links: Performance-dynamics.net Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Cameron Herold is the Founder of the COO Alliance and the author of the global best seller Double Double. Cameron has over 10 years of experience as an entrepreneurial mentor, and has grown several companies to over $100 million dollars in revenue over the last 25 years. Why did Cameron start the COO Alliance? Cameron had been an EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) member for 6 years, and realized as he was attending some of those events that he no longer fit in. He wasn’t the CEO or the founder anymore, but he was still second in command and played a vital part in the organization. However, people at those events would often brush him to the side and ignore him, because of that title shift. Over the years, Cameron saw that there were a ton of masterminds for the CEO or founder, but there wasn’t a place for COOs to get together and mastermind/enhance their skillsets. Cameron organized a small group of his clients together, who were all COOs, and thus, the COO Alliance was slowly born last May. How is the COO Alliance set up? The COOs attend four times a year in Scottsdale, Arizona. There are currently 40 core members right now. The model is set up in such a way that 30% of the time the COOs mastermind together and help each other solve some difficult problems happening in their industry. Another 30% of the time, the members break off into small groups of 3 or 4, and brainstorm ideas on how they can make their company better, and they bring these ideas back to the bigger group, kind of like a shared brain trust. The remaining 40% of the event contains one guest speaker, Cameron talking on certain subjects related to the COO position, and a quick 5-10 minute presentation from COO members who know about something they have deep experience in.   Interview Links: COOAlliance.com CameronHerold.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube     Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Evan Rudowski is the Founder and Managing Partner at Atlantic Leap, a company that helps digital startups achieve growth through international expansion. On today’s show, Evan shares some tips and tricks on how companies can successfully make the leap, expand beyond their borders, and enter into the European market. So, how did this all begin? Evan traveled to London from Silicon Valley for what was supposed to be a couple of months’ worth of work. 19 years later, he’s still in London, and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. When he first started, Evan did not have any international experience. He knew American English and that was about it. Evan discusses some of the clients he’s worked with, and how he was able to help them make their transition and break into the European market. It’s difficult to break into a different continent, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Junior members of your team lack the experience to successfully execute such a move and senior members often tend to be too busy to dedicate their full resources to the transition. This is where Evan comes in. When looking directly at the UK market, there is also a vast cultural difference that many Americans might not think about. Yes, both the British and Americans speak English, but from a cultural perspective, you’re dealing with two different worlds. So, how do you begin to make the leap and expand beyond your borders? You’ll have to tune in to this week’s episode to hear what Evan and Bill have to say on this very subject!   Interview Links: Atlanticleap.net Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don’t, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Jay Harman is a naturalist, author and award-winning entrepreneur and biomimetic inventor.  Born and raised in Australia, Jay started his career as a naturalist with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in Australia and went on to found several multi-million dollar research and manufacturing companies. Today, Jay talks to us about his book The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation. How did Jay discover that nature has the solution to all of our problems? Well, it first started when he was in school. He had no interest in the teaching materials and would often daydream about going down to the beach to surf, fish, and scuba dive. You could always find him near the water when he wasn’t in school. However, the one subject Jay did pay attention to was physics. The strange thing was, physics worked in a slightly different way in nature than it did in the classroom. Jay first realized this when he saw seaweed, often fragile, keep its shape during the worst of storms. It would always form in a certain pattern and this pattern would help it keep it intact and survive the rough weather. In school, Jay was taught that the path of least resistance was in a straight line. Well, in nature, nothing moves in a straight line! It became very apparent to Jay, but not to Jay’s physics teacher, that the path of least resistance in nature was a spiral. So, Jay began applying these spiral shapes in a practical way and slowly ended up discovering that nature, really, had all the answers. However, how does all of this apply to the business world? Well, you’ll have to listen in for more great insights from Jay and how he slowly discovered that answer. Interview Links: Thesharkspaintbrush.com More Resources: Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Rob “Waldo” Waldman is a decorated former fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He is also a professional leadership speaker, and the author of Never Fly Solo, a book on how to reach new heights in business through building trusting relationships. A lot of lessons can be learned through flying a plane. It requires focus, preparation, and even teamwork! When Bill and his team are training his clients’ teams on execution, they will normally show a picture of planes flying in formation. It’s a powerful image because there’s so much work that goes into it making look flawless. The same metaphor can be transferred over into business. Whatever you do in life, one thing remains certain, there will be uncertainty, there will be fear, and there will be doubt! There will be things out there that are outside of your control, and this is where true leadership will come into place. A good leader can navigate through the unknown and bring his people out onto the other side. Fear strikes us all at very different times. For example, Rob had to get over his fear of heights. One of the requirements to graduating in the academy was he had to jump off a 30ft diving board and it was the scariest thing ever! Bill can agree. He’s jumped out of planes as well as flew them and yet, the diving board is what got him. There’s no predicting where your fear is going to hit you at any moment. Fear strikes when you least expect it! The good news is, the opposite of fear is growth. If you’re able to break out of your comfort zone, you’re already on your way to creating new heights for you and your business.   Interview Links: yourwingman.cominfo@yourwingman.com Never Fly Solo Book       More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website     Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

John Ruhlin is the author of GIFTOLOGY: The Art & Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through The Noise & Drive Referrals and founder of the Ruhlin Group.  There’s an art and science to using gifts to cut through the noise, and drive real referrals to your business. In this episode, John discusses how to use gifts to scale your business and increase referrals. John was a young, broke college kid who took a job at Cutco to hopefully pay his way through college. Fortunately at the time, John knew a lawyer outside of work who had the ‘secrets of business’ figured out, and, with his help and philosophy, John invented the first corporate gifting program for Cutco. The lawyer taught him this: If you can take care of your client’s family, everything else in business seems to work itself out. However, just gifting out a basket of fruit during Christmas is not going to help you cut through the noise. There’s a method to how and when you should gift. Want to know what’s considered a bad gift? Anything involving food. It doesn’t stand out! Gifting alcohol is not far up there, either. If you want to quickly offend somebody, give them food and alcohol. When people gift, they’re not looking at it as an ROI. They really should. When you spend money, you should get money back. In old biblical times, gifting represented the value of the relationship. It’s more than just a ‘thank you’, it’s a communication tool.   Interview Links: Giftologybook.comRuhlingroup.com More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website   Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).    

Heather Patterson is the Founder and Chief Happiness Officer at Happier Talent Development. Heather uses her expertise to develop happier, and more fulfilling, workplaces. So, what’s the secret sauce to employee happiness? Find out on this week’s show! Although Heather currently lives in Hawaii, which may bum some of our listeners out, the truth is, you can be happy in an office during a blizzard storm too. No matter where you are, there will always be moments of happiness and frustration in the workplace. Despite the fact that Heather sees palm trees everyday, she still faces the same work-related problems anybody in the rest of the U.S. might experience. It’s important to keep in mind that the palm trees don’t make the problems go away. So, how can you optimize your workforce through a positive environment? Heather shares an important example of how she turned a skeptical, arms crossed, eyes rolled, CEO into an avid supporter. This CEO now has a much, much happier team because of Heather’s work. It comes down to not telling what the CEO should do to create a happier team, but opening up a strong dialog between the team and the leader; that way the leader can deliver and meet the needs of his or her staff. Interview Links: HappiertdHeather on LinkedIn More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing.Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Roland Siebelink has 24 years of tech experience in product management, product marketing, customer success, and strategy. Originally from the Netherlands, Roland came to Silicon Valley in 2016. Today, Roland and Bill share some thoughts and lessons about keeping the balance on both innovation and scale. Roland has seen three small startup companies grow into large-scale organizations from both sides of the world (Europe and the U.S.). Roland believes the effects of good leadership, or bad leadership, usually take between 7-10 years to show up in traditional companies. However, in tech, the growth is so accelerated that it can become quite obvious when there’s good or bad management leading the team. The founder’s personality, habits, and values automatically show up in the people he/she hires. It’s difficult to have structure when developing a fast-growing company. However, in startups, there are often no plans written down, or goals set, and this can add further chaos to a company’s growth. This often means that in the very beginning, the team has to continuously try to figure out what the founder wants today, and not develop anything meaningful for tomorrow. There’s nothing wrong with hiring on a good operational partner to help build structure in the company. Roland knows there are many different ways to approach how to run a startup, and he’s not advocating one, and only one way, but it’s important to make clear management decisions early on, to really help set the tone of the company.   Interview Links: Roland on LinkedIn     More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing.Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).        

Lynne Twist is the author of The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. Money, and the lack of it, is a very important subject for entrepreneurs, but Lynne is here to tell you that your limited beliefs on money are actually hurting you, not helping you. Today, Lynne discusses how you can become liberated from money, instead of being chained by it. From Bucky Fully to Mother Teresa, these are just some of the inspirational people and mentors Lynne was able to work shoulder to shoulder with. When Lynne was younger, she used to call people who were financially lacking, ‘poor,’ but now that she’s seen the world, she would never use that title to describe them. What’s poor is just their circumstances, not the people themselves. The most underprivileged and underserved have show Lynne pillars of strength, courage, and resilience. On the flip side, while working on The Hunger Project and raising money from the rich, Lynne noticed that the rich, too, have their problems. Everything from addiction, to abandonment issues. The ‘rich,’ something Lynne no longer calls them, are human too. Too much money can cause us to lose our identity. So, by working with these two very different contrasts, Lynne discovered something important: On top of needing to feed ourselves, we also have a hunger for meaning. Both groups have distorted images of money, and its worth.   Interview Links: Soulofmoney.org THP.org Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube     Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the est Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Dean Jones is the Talent Development Architect at Gallup. Dean’s primary expertise lies in developing strategic solutions to address key business issues, including organizational development, performance management, learning and development, productivity, and workforce effectiveness. He has acted as a mentor for Bill over the years. Today he talks to Bill about how to lead with your strengths. Dean has been at Gallup now for 11 years. Prior to Gallup, Dean believed he was going to be in sales all of his life, until he stumbled upon self-development and adult learning. When he first joined Gallup, it was a life-changing experience. For the first time in his adult life, he understood why people did what they did. He’s been passionate about it, ever since. The ‘why’ you do what you do is a very important factor to both your work and personal life. When people first begin to really understand their own talents, something magical happens. They begin to ask, “What am I built for?” The more you can unlock your own talent, the more you can unlock your own greatness. As you understand what you’re built for and, what you aren’t built for, that’s when you begin to understand who you are.   Interview Links: Gallup Strengths Center Dean on LinkedIn   More Resources: Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Gleb Budman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Backblaze B2, which offers the low-cost cloud storage and backup. Gleb and Bill share similar circles and because it’s a small world, Bill helped Gleb meet his wife. Today’s conversation focuses on Gleb’s business, and how he got a leg up from his competition by trying to solve a major problem with big constraints. How many of our friends, family, and co-workers are not backing up their data? Over the last ten years, everything work-wise has been converted digitally. Despite there being backup solutions out there, for whatever reason, people just aren’t doing them. This discussion of ‘why’ people are not backing up their data propelled Gleb, Brian Wilson, the other Co-Founder of Backblaze, and three other people to quit their jobs and look for a solution. With a minimal budget, Gleb and Brian were able to come up with a solution that was comparable to some of the biggest cloud companies out there. After asking customers how much they’d pay for their data to be backed up in a no-brainer way, they said they’d pay around $5 a month. So, another problem occurred, how do you back up so much data for so little money? The short answer is to build it from the ground up.  With little financial backing, and a drive to solve this problem, Gleb and his team used their financial constraints to come up with a creative solution to their problem. Interview Links:Backblaze.comGleb Budman   More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing.Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.Humanisteq Website   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It....And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Geoff Gwynn helps ambitious leaders of mid-market organizations change their unhappy performance and their current patterns into more fulfilling, and happy, growth. Geoff is a Certified Gazelles International Coach and served in the Royal Air Force. In today’s conversation, Bill and Geoff discuss how to achieve 4x growth in less time than you think. Geoff is located in the UK, and, as many of you may know, Bill is located in the U.S. It’s comforting to know that the work both of these coaches do is universal, and it applies to very vast and unique industries.  One of Geoff's clients focuses on industrial-sized rubber belts and he has been working with this particular company for a little over a year now. When Geoff first began working with the founder, Dan, he realized really quickly that despite having a team of people supporting him in his company, at the end of the day, the key decisions always fell back on him. This put enormous pressure and constraint on Dan and his company. Geoff had to first sit down and figure out what should the company structure look like. Geoff looked at the people Dan had in place and where their strengths and weaknesses were. In fact, he used a number of Gazelle’s tools to help him discover what the employees excelled at. For year one, Geoff made it a point to only focus on three sections of the company. These were: Sales & marketing, operations, and finance. These three sectors are critical for growth. Through taking a finer look at these three sections, Geoff discovered that the company needed to employ some key players to help with stock & inventory, among other duties. Geoff also discovered on the operations side that parts were being shipped incomplete, and, as you can imagine, their customers weren’t very happy about this. However, by going through this very important process, Geoff was able to smooth out the process and get more sales. It took a little bit of time to see the growth happen, but by fixing some of these blockages, Dan and his company increased their margins and efficiency. Interview Links:Go-2-market.co.ukGeoff on LinkedIn   More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing.Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.Humanisteq WebsiteScaling Up WebsiteGazelles Website     Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It....And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Pamela Kan is the President of Bishop-Wisecarver, a manufacturer in rotary motion products. Pamela is the second generation to lead the family business, which was founded 67 years ago. Today, Pamela speaks about her personal experience with developing strategic partners — what works, and what doesn’t work! Let’s first focus on the things that didn’t work. We often learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. Pamela tries to develop a culture of fail fast, but unfortunately with this particular example, it took a little longer to fail, and her company ended up burning some money because of it. Pamela partnered with a competitor in her industry to do a joint development on a product. Both companies were very well aligned on management and everything seemed to be going fine. Pamela already had a design for the product and even ordered the necessary parts to get this product on its way. But by the end of it all, the entire project ended up failing, and the reason why came down to a number of things. First and foremost, the parent company was outside the United States and even though the C-suite executives and management were all on the same page, it turns out that the parent company did not approve of the joint venture. Biggest lesson there was that you have to be sure that the people you’re talking to have decision-making power. Another reason why the joint venture failed is that both companies had different cultural values, both on a company and country culture perspective. This was one of the main reasons why the parent company did not wish to continue their venture further.   Interview Links: Bwc.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube     Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It....And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Tom Schwab is a digital marketer who helps entrepreneurs harness the power of the Internet, through the use of podcasting and more! Today, Tom discusses how you can get front and center with your ideal customers, for free. Tom’s business is digital, which allows him to explore different cities one week out of the month. The great thing about today’s technology is that no matter where you are in the world right now, as long as you have the internet, you can achieve remarkable things. So, what does it take to be a great podcast guest? You don’t need a fancy mic to speak to a podcast host. Your phone or even an earbud mic can work perfectly well when you’re conducting your interview. Tom himself has done over 400 podcast interviews from a variety of different places like hotel rooms and even at the beach! Most of us have a great product or service, but the only problem we have seems to be we’re just too obscure in a noisy world. More and more, customers are starting to filter what they want to hear and what they don’t. So, it’s better to get in on the conversations that are already happening, right from the start. Tom has six steps to help his clients get placed right in front of their ideal customers, through podcasting. Podcasts are just the perfect resource for any person to leverage, because there’s no better way than talking directly into the ears of your target customer. Want to know what those six steps are? Then you’ll have to tune into this week’s show for more information!   Interview Links: Tmschwab.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Mike Faith is a serial entrepreneur and Founder/CEO of Headsets.com. Mike’s company is best known for their world-beating customer service. In fact, his company has been awarded the INC 500 Fastest Growing Business three times, and awarded the Best Place to Work in the Bay Area twice. Today, Bill focuses on Mike’s success story and how he used Scaling Up to grow his business. Mike and Bill have been friends for a long time. They both met at the Entrepreneurs Organization. Mike originally grew up in England, but felt as though the United States had a stronger business environment than the UK. When he moved here in the early 90’s, Mike had about $1,000 in his pocket. He took on a job at first, but started his own business in 1996. After making about $2-3 million a year, Mike noticed how poor the phone headset and mic quality was, and created a business opportunity selling headsets at a discount. Mike was about 3 years in the business when he decided to make a very important pivot. Instead of struggling to sell discounted headsets, Mike was going to focus on giving premium customer service. Overnight, he switched to a new business model and was disrupting his company in every sector, but it paid off! Headsets.com has been in business for 20 years.   Interview Links: Mikefaith.com Headsets.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube     Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes, and leave a review. It helps other entrepreneurs discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast, so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It....And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Cheryl Beth Kuchler is President of Ballantree Consulting Corp., and the Founder of CEO Think Tank®. She has over 25 years of experience with leading strategic change initiatives, coaching executives, and more. Today, Bill and Cheryl do a growth analysis between two companies; one that went through a typical growth trajectory, and another that was able to grow to $10 million in profits within a year. Cheryl discusses the difference between the two companies. One was a design company in the Manhattan area; they came on as her clients in the summer of 2014. The other company was an aerospace company that focused on helicopter maintenance and repair as well as leasing/flight services. They came on board October of 2014. Both companies were similar in size in terms of profit. Neither company had worked with a business coach before, but both were eager to grow and expand their businesses. Despite both companies being in a different industry, they each took similar paths that lead them to grow so successfully. Each company faced dynamic industry shifts; the design company facing a competitor like Amazon, and the aerospace company facing challenges from oil going through a significant recession. When companies are faced with such significant market dynamics, it’s imperative that leadership becomes a main focus. In this case Cheryl helped ensure the right people were in the right seats to level up the leadership team. Leadership plays such an important role within a company, but many people hire fast and fire slow. It can be difficult firing members of your leadership team, but you have to think about the health of the overall company. Cheryl had one company who stayed with their current, but unaligned, leadership team, and another who made the tough decision to fire and replace their leadership members. So, who grew quicker? You can probably guess, the one that was willing to make those tough firing decisions was able to see their profits increase by $10 million within the first year.   Interview Links: Ballantree.com   More Resources: Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Dave Fuller is a professional business coach who works with small companies. Located in Prince George, Canada, he has been a small business owner for 30 years and understands what it's like to be wildly profitable and wildly stressed. Today, Dave and Bill dive right into the surprising connection between profit and health. Dave witnessed a bear come into his camp and attack one of his friends. The aftereffects of stress and fatigue he experienced from the event reminded him of the time he tried to open a second location in his own business. During the first year he spent a couple hundred thousand dollars trying to get this location running, but nothing seemed to be working. When you’re under a severe amount of stress, your adrenals get overworked. Ever wake up at 2am with your mind racing? When you eventually fall back asleep and wake up in the morning, your body already feels fatigued from the lack of sleep from the night before. This starts a vicious cycle. Our bodies crave more energy under stress, so we end up eating around 30% more carbohydrates. What does this do? It drives our blood sugar up, so now our brains aren’t thinking straight! If you keep this up overtime, you’ll develop belly fat, which then brings your self-confidence down. Stress affects our health, and it doesn’t help us handle the stressful event that we’re going through, either. However, when we’re healthy, we can handle stressful events much better and with a clearer head. So, how can we get healthy so we can run our business better? The business and our work environment is just one part of our lives. If we don’t have clarity with where we’re going, then it becomes difficult to run a long-term business. It starts with setting clear goals on what you want out of life, and out of your business.   Interview Links: Profityourselfhealthy.com   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Tim Danley is the Founder of Resource Converting LLC. How do you get to $200 million dollars in projects, with only 3 people? Well, that’s the $200 million dollar question on this week’s episode. Tim touches on the radical change he made in business models, and how he leveraged outsourcing, on the interview. Let’s get started. Tim had been in the printing business for a little over 20 years, and during that time he made every mistake he could under the sun. He’s been an entrepreneur his whole life, but when he went through the Birthing of Giants program (now called Entrepreneurial Masters Program), things really, really began to click for him. Through the experience of going through the Birthing of Giants program, traveling the world, and getting more educated on the subject of entrepreneurship, Tim was ready to get out of the printing business. When he sold the printing business, he went to work looking for the next opportunity. In the BOG program, he learned about licensing and learned why this was a fantastic business model to adopt. An opportunity came his way and he and his business partner made a deal to buy the patent from the inventor and then redistribute commercially to interested buyers. Tim knew that once they acquired the patent, the next big step was to outsource the work to those who were already in the trenches, as it were, and that’s when business really excelled. Tim only had to hire on 3 employees; the rest was outsourced.   Interview Links: Resourceconverting.com Eonetwork.org   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Krystal Hulsey is the Marketing Coordinator at BALI Construction in Walnut Creek, CA. Today, Bill and Krystal discuss listening skills and how it can impact business performance when these skills are used correctly. Bill and Krystal will be going back and forth showcasing key examples of how to do these listening exercises. Krystal is a visual person, which means her ability to listen and retain information doesn’t always stick. She remembers best when she can physically see what’s in front of her. She often worries about verbal communications and not being able to remember the conversation for later. Now, visual learners shouldn’t beat themselves up. Many of us learn through visual stimulation. In fact, visuals are another form of language. There is also such a thing as physical forms of language too, like communicating through body language. In business, we deal a lot more with verbal language. According to the book, Three Laws of Performance, the actions people take in the world are directly matched to how the world seems to them. However, the way the world seems to people can be altered through the use of language. So, the language that leaders use can shape our view of the future. People often worry about what they have to say next. Bill believes that if you’re actively listening to the other person, then the conversation will naturally come. For example, Krystal worries that she’s too forgetful towards what her fiance says to her, and this causes a disconnect between each other. Bill showcases an exercise that she (and you!) can do to help improve, and retain, the words other people say to you.   Interview Links: Bali-construction.com Threelawsofperformance.com   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union, a Digital Marketing Agency located in Brooklyn, New York. Ajax Union provides companies with expert Lead Generation, Ecommerce,  and Digital Awareness Campaigns. He’s the perfect guest for this week’s topic about keeping the passion and fire alive in your business. How does Joe set his goals and intentions? What keeps him inspired? Joe started Ajax Union about seven years ago, but he’s been on a personal development journey for the last three years. When Ajax Union was created, all Joe wanted was to be financially free, but once he started generating a sufficient income, he knew there was something more to life than just money. When he finally discovered that there was a better and more meaningful way to live his life, that’s when things began to change for him. Yes, everything happens for a reason, but Joe (and you), are personally able to choose the reason! Joe is  creates his own purpose in this world and when that creation is aligned with his own values something magical begins to happen. Joe is very conscious about how he ends and begins the day. But what happens when he wakes up uninspired? He goes through his routine to help him keep himself in check, to help him remind himself why he does what he does. That’s the importance of knowing your strengths, your values, your why, and how that ties into your BHAG.   Interview Links: Joeapfelbaum.com Ajaxunion.com   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Don Smith is the owner and founder of Elite Electronics, a company that takes traditional car mechanics to an entirely new level.  Don is the perfect guest for today’s show, because what he is doing in his own industry is completely unique! Don’s business did not happen overnight. He created his company ten years ago, and has been slowly building the company you see today. In this podcast we'll unpack this to a deeper level. What is Don great at? Despite being so wildly different, how does Don fit in into his industry? And how has this uniqueness gotten him into trouble? You definitely don’t want to miss out on this conversation with Don. We look at these questions both from a personal and professional level. Find out more by listening to the podcast!   Interview Links: Elite-dfw.com   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Elliot Luchansky is the CEO and Board Member of InsynQ, LLC., the industry’s leading cloud hosting provider that offers an extensive range of over 600 software solutions running on multiple data centers. On this week’s episode, Bill and Elliot discuss how to engage and help your team on a personal level, how leaders can have a balanced life, and the one-page personal planner. This conversation is being recorded live on video, which you can see on YouTube! So, let’s dive right into the one page personal planner. This is a really useful thing to do during Christmas and New Years, as things begin to wind down. Bill recommends you first use it personally and then share it with your spouse and then bring it to those who you work with. How does Bill like to use this? To begin this exercise, it’s useful to reflect on the last year. Usually, our thoughts revolve around a very narrow range, but by performing this exercise, we are able to look at things from a wider perspective. What has this past year been like for you? Flip through the calendar and consider those big, and small, events. Bill likes to pick a time range between 10-25 years of where he sees himself in the future. Younger team members might be better off picking a 10 year plan, and exploring 25 year plans as they get more comfortable with where they’d like to go in the future. For example, what will Elliot’s family look like in the next 10 years? How old will he and his spouse be? You want to really create a rich picture of your future.   Interview Links: Insynq.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Mike Birdsall is the Co-founder of Birdsall Interactive, FanConneX, and DateBox Club. Mike and his wife, Maureen, are a husband/wife team who have been working together in business for the last 23 years, and married for the last 30 years. On this week’s episode Bill talks to Mike his business purpose, his life purpose, and how those two come together. When Mike’s sons were growing older and getting ready for college, Mike and his wife knew they were soon going to be empty-nesters. This notion of being completely alone in the house, scared both Mike and Maureen, so they started finding creative ways to re-date each other and to work on their relationship, since their children were no longer going to be the main focus. These creative dates allowed Mike and Maureen to reconnect with each other like they used to, back before they had kids. That’s how DateBox Club came to be, which is a subscription service where every month a super creative date night is delivered in the mail to their customers. The three goals of the service is for couples to interact, engage, and communicate. Mike’s service allows for him to find new and novel ways to engage his customers on a regular basis, and this keeps the business interesting. It isn’t always easy to find new ways to engage your customer, but Mike takes these challenges in stride. Mike is excited to get up in the morning because he realizes that DateBox Club is a wanted/needed service for couples who want to have creative ways to connect. An added plus to that, is that he can try out new things with his wife too!   Interview Links: Dateboxclub.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Brad Giles is the Founder of Evolution Partners, and a certified Gazelles coach. Originally from Australia, Brad is a strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams across Australia and Asia. On this week’s show, we explore how to develop a powerful brand promise through the use of the Attribute Map. How has Brad applied the Attribute Map tool while working one-on-one with clients? Brad first used the tool while working on strategy development with a contracting company in Australia. As he used it he saw how closely this tool aligned with brand promise. Brad found out that his client and his client’s competitors, were all having the same problem: they were failing to deliver the finished work on time. In order to solve this and reduce their customer’s frustrations, Brad helped them map out their key service attributes in order to find ways to improve their reputation in the market. There’s nothing more frustrating than hiring a company who doesn’t deliver on time. With that in mind, they created the brand promise to be 'on time, the first time, every time.' By making this promise, it substantially changed the way this business operated and they were able to achieve their promise! The reason why Brad was able to get this company to do something none of their competitors were able to achieve was not only due to the use of the Attribute Map, but also setting clear, concise, and measurable goals. There’s nothing worse than having a one-page ‘bubble wrap’ business plan, which contains no depth and is filled with fluff. Interview Links: Evolutionpartners.com.au Brad's Vlog More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Darius Mirshahzadeh is the CEO of The Money Source Inc. and the Founder of Endeavor America Loan Services. Darius has worked directly with Scaling Up principles and has seen quick growth within a short period of time at his two companies. On this interview, Darius shares the things he’s learned from when he first started out in 2013. What was it like learning these Scaling Up principles for the first time? When Darius was going through the “Birthing of Giants” program, he did feel a little overwhelmed by how much material there was to cover, but he was excited because at the time he was looking for a model that helped with high growth. At the time, there weren’t a lot of resources out there that were teaching these growth methods. What does Darius’s business look like now since he first learned about these principles in 2013? When Darius became the CEO of The Money Source Inc., it was the first time Darius had the chance to effectively apply what he learned, as he knew this company could scale aggressively. Since it was a brand new company, Darius was able to implement the core values, the BHAG, etc., on day one. This set the foundation for the company’s aggressive growth soon after.   Interview Links: Themoneysource.com Eeawholesale.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Paul Akers is the Founder and CEO of FastCap and is an expert in the field of lean manufacturing and lean thinking. He has written several books on the subject, including 2 Second Lean, Lean Health, and Lean Travel.  So, how can we optimize ‘lean,’ in a simple and easy way? This week’s episode dives right into the inner workings of how to leverage ‘lean’ without headaches. Paul has seen ‘lean’ work in the U.S., Japan, and now Kazakhstan. So, what is ‘lean,’ exactly? Simple! ‘Lean’ is one thing — the elimination of waste. Every basic task in our life is a process. What ‘lean’ does is analyze how long it takes you to complete a process, and see if it can optimize it more effectively. You don’t have to make massive improvements from between the time you start and end a process. The improvements with the use of ‘lean,’ are often very tiny, but end up becoming incredibly effective over time. The main goal is to do higher quality work with less time. ‘Lean’ does not just apply to manufacturing. It applies to all aspects of our life. The moment you are able to apply it beyond your professional life, everything changes.  Bill has applied some lean principles into his personal life, and now looks forward to his daily tasks. There will always be pitfalls, so turn yourself into a world-class problem solver!   Interview Links: PaulAkers.net More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Tanya Chernova is an accomplished and passionate professional speaker, coach, and author. Tanya, originally from Russia, has traveled all over the world to help her clients get to the next level in their business. Today, she currently resides in Toronto, Canada, where she was awarded Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, in 2013. Today Tanya and I discuss how to overcome limiting beliefs and become a better leader. The brain processes the goals that you set from two different places -- the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind, the logical mind, only operates between 1-5% of the day. The unconscious mind, which holds our habits, patterns, and emotions, dictates about 95-99% of our day. Our conscious mind is the one that logically sets our goals, and our subconscious mind helps us go after those goals; it is the goal-getter. However, if you have a limiting belief, your subconscious mind could work against you, and sabotage you, to the point where you feel like you’re procrastinating on your goal. The way we even say our goals can be a trigger for self-sabotage. We used to think self-sabotage, self-doubt, and procrastination were an act, but they’re actually based on your childhood experiences. These young experiences can drastically change how you and your subconscious views the world. So, how can we change our tendencies to sabotage ourselves? By consciously using language to help us reframe our mindset in a way that builds strength. When you’ve set a goal, focus on the journey and the growth it gives you, more than the actual completion of the goal.   Interview Links: Courageous Living Website Free gift from Tanya UnderMind by Tanya Chernova and Joana Andros Tanya on LinkedIn More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Gil Bonwitt is the CEO of Gazelles Social Initiatives. It is projected that Gazelles Social Initiative will impact over 500 social sector organizations by the year 2020, through the use of best practices from the Scaling Up book. Gil and I will be discussing the various ways you can scale up in the social sector, on this week’s episode. Let’s begin this topic by talking about cash flow in the social sectors. As many of these social companies are not for-profit companies, money is often not their main focus. Since social companies are so mission-based, they often forget the importance of cash flow. The way social sectors increase their cash flow is very different compared to a for-profit organization. When social companies begin to scale up, that’s when they begin to see the constraints of their insufficient cash flow. By this point, it is often too late to make enough capital for their mission and their operations start to break. Gil and his team try to remind social entrepreneurs that it’s really about cash flow and sustainability. You can’t call up a donor and ask them for $10,000 on the spot or else you will not meet payroll. It simply doesn’t work that way! So, how does Gil help social sectors with their cash flow? Gazelles has multiple tools that Gil and his team use to determine gross margins, cash balance, receivables, and more. Gil shares an example of when he really used these tools to their full potential at his children’s school, who were having serious cash flow problems during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. How did the school take to the use of these new tools? Despite a financial crisis happening, the school board was resistant at first. When you first begin to use these new tools, it’s not only a learning process, but it becomes a change in culture, too. You’re bound to get some resistance, even when everyone is calling for a change in the system.   Interview Links: Gil on LinkedIn More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Shelby Scarbrough began her career in The White House Office of Presidential Advance, and as a Protocol Officer at the U.S. Department of State. Today, Shelby is an entrepreneur, angel investor, speaker and more. For this week’s topic, Shelby and I discussed how we can improve relationships and build rapport. Let’s get right into the heart of the matter. It all boils down to dignity and respect, when it comes to building rapport. And no matter what you’re doing, those two things are the only things people want. If you’re the giver, or the receiver, keep those two things in mind, and things will begin, and end, smoothly. Shelby’s boss, who was President Ronald Reagan, treated everybody with dignity and respect. Based on his actions, this taught Shelby, at an early point in her career, why these two principles were so important. President Reagan’s team even treated others the same way the President did, because they were all representatives of his administration. When Shelby left the White House, she took her skills and applied them to the business sector. On the outside, Shelby’s work makes people’s lives easier, but when you take a closer look, her work is really to take away all the ‘noise’ of the business, and to help facilitate distraction-free communication. There are certain protocols that need to be addressed for each company. The more outspoken a CEO is about these protocols, the less intimidating it will be for a new person to join a company and figure out the company culture as they go. For example, Shelby lives in California, which means she’s able to dress much more casually at business meetings. She’s about to host a speech in Washington next week, so what does that mean for her wardrobe? In order to fit in, and be seen as an expert, she will need to dress up to Washington’s standards. People often assume that when they’re entering into a new environment, that those people need to adapt to them. This is false. When you enter into a new culture, office, etc, you should be the one adapting to their ways. Though, there is balance between being yourself, and being respectful of other people’s customs.   Interview Links: ShelbyScabrough.com Practical Protocol Shelby Scarbrough on Tedx More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Kevin Lawrence is a strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams all over the globe. Today, Kevin and I talk about keeping it together as a leader and ways not to meltdown as you try to grow your company. How do leaders keep themselves together while under the enormous pressure of running a company? In his 20 years of experience, Kevin is always fascinated by how some people can do it and have fantastic personal lives, while others are just miserable throughout their entire leadership journey.  When Kevin dug further into this, there are some very famous people like Kurt Cobain and Elvis, who at the peak of their careers, had it all and then somewhere along the line, they imploded in their success. This same sort of timeline applies to successful executives, too.  After working with a number of very high-performing individuals, Kevin dubbed this imploding timeline as the ‘The Dark Secret of The Boardroom.’ We all have our own Elvises and Kurt Cobains inside of us. So, Kevin’s job is to help executives find their high-performing sweet spot without all the darkness associated with it.  Kevin hosted a private 2-day event with Jim Collins, the guru of business leadership and 'keeping it together.' Jim says that when we are under massive amounts of stress, we pay a 30% tax with our health. Although Jim hasn’t written about this yet, he calls this the ‘Stress and Drudgery Tax’. Steve Jobs even admitted to Jim that when he went back to Apple and still continued his work with Pixar, he paid more than that 30% tax on his health. Steve Jobs believed that those were the days where the seeds of his cancer were planted. High-performing individuals deeply care about their work, but often that’s exactly what leads to their downfall. In the mental health world, experts say that we’re only one or two life events away from a notable mental health issue. This is why when executives are going through major life-changing events, they should seek help either from a coach or therapist. Interview Links: Coach Kevin The Working Mind Summary More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

John Mullins is an award-winning teacher, author and scholar. John is an Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School and is recognized as a thought leader in entrepreneurship. On this episode, John and I discuss customer-funded businesses and some of the novel ways business owners can fund their businesses. To begin the interview John and I discussed his most recent book, The Customer-Funded Business. the idea for this book began while writing a chapter in his first book, Getting to Plan B, about Costco's innovative business model. John knew there were a lot of interesting funding models like Costco's out there that worked, but for most entrepreneurs it seemed as though their go-to method to acquire funding was to simply find a VC. There are other ways! John discusses 5 different models so you can fund a business without using venture capital, family money, a bank, or an angel investor. The first way is to be a matchmaker, where you just bring buyers and sellers together, but you never have your hands on the product itself. The second is the pay-in-advance model, which is what Costco currently does.  The third way is a subscription model, like Netflix and the Wall Street journal, which many consumers are already familiar with. The fourth is a scarcity model, which is what the clothing company Zara uses with its customers by only having a limited amount of each style. When it's gone, it's gone. The fifth and final model is the service-to-product model like Bill Gates and Paul Allen did with Microsoft. When they first started out, they were designing custom programs for specific tasks. A lot of the code was the same, so they made it into a standard product that was scalable and affordable. Of these five, which one is the best for you? It varies based on the product you're selling. In order to successfully execute any one of these business models, you have to be really customer-focused. Before you even attempt to pitch your product to a VC, you have to pitch your product to the actual customer first. What most people don't think about is that the customer can also be your VC as well.     Interview Links: John Mullins The Customer-Funded Business by John Mullins Getting to Plan B – John Mullins and Randy Komisar John on London Business School More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Robert Sher is the Founding Principal of CEO to CEO, a regular columnist for Forbes and CFO Magazine, and the author of two books, The Feel of the Deal and Mighty Midsized Companies. On this week's episode, Rob and I discuss growth and leadership. To start off, Rob shares a story about his client who recently had been promoted to CEO and had a big problem to solve that he just couldn't get his head wrapped around. Rob’s client had a management team, but he had to push them on every little thing, and then later chase them down because they would only compete the task halfway. It was exhausting and frustrating and he knew that playing babysitter was not the most effective way to spend his time. This company just seemed really, really, really hard to run. The company had pretty strict firing policies. In fact, the three top leaders had been there since 1985. The one thing Rob saw right off the bat was that the CEO's team needed help in leadership training and communication, as did the CEO. Since the CEO was more introverted, he preferred to hide away and work on his own things, but this created an imbalance in leadership. So, what did Rob do? He came in and introduced an operating plan. It's a one page plan that lists the goals of the company. Rob gave this plan, slightly customized depending on the department, to the six managers reporting to the CEO. When they incorporated the plan, it was completely new to the team. Every month the team would use this plan to gauge how they were doing in terms of achieving their goal. So, how did Rob help the CEO and his managers with leadership? Well, the introduction of this plan made managers feel like they were finally driving in the same car, giving them a clear vision of where they needed to direct their team. Within a year, profits jumped from break even to 3.5% profit despite having the same volume in sales. The manager leading the sales team had been there for a long time, but as this was his first job leading a sales team, he had no real sales experience and had no mentor to help him grow further as a leader. So, Rob and the CEO brought in a more experienced VP of sales (without firing anybody) and it skyrocketed the business. Sometimes if you really want to grow, you need to bring in extra and more experienced leadership.   Interview Links: Ceotoceo.biz The Feel of the Deal by Robert Sher Mighty Midsized Companies by Robert Sher More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Ted Sarvata is a fellow Gazelles coach who is focused on reigniting your purpose to restore your sanity! He and I will be diving into purpose, how you find it, how you use it in a company setting, and so much more on this week's episode. How do you discover your own personal purpose? Business owners tend to downplay their purpose in terms of why they started their business, but the reality is they shouldn't. The team buys into the owner's vision and the company's purpose, so the 'why' needs to be prominent in the company culture. Why does purpose even matter? Isn't that a bit 'woo-woo'? For those who might think so, I share a story with the audience on why taking your team through the journey of discovering their purpose is so powerful. Purpose becomes the core motivator for your team and this is one of the reasons why it's so crucial for the team to discover it. As you begin the conversation, it is best to first ask people what they do and why they do what they do? You keep peeling back that layer until it starts to 'click' for them as to what their purpose might be in life and within the company. So, once you've discovered purpose, what's next? Well, now that you have this knowledge, what does it mean to you? Ted shares an example of how one of his clients used this new-found discovery of purpose and how they incorporated their purpose within their long-term company goals. People often get scared about choosing the wrong type of purpose, but the beauty of purpose is that it can and will change! You do not need to climb a mountain to discover yourself and your meaning. Purpose comes from you, which means there's no such thing as having a wrong purpose.   Interview Links: Ted Sarvata Start With Why – Simon Sinek TED Talk More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Joanna Bloor is a veteran in the media space and has worked in leadership roles with companies like CBS Interactive, Pandora, and OpenTable. Joanna is the CEO and Founder of Amplify Lab and has over 20 years of experience in digital media, broadcast television, and radio. In this episode, Joanna and I dive into what you actually want to be known for in your professional career and how to properly articulate that to your peers and clients. Joanna has spent a year talking with other women on how they can represent themselves as the experts and get C-suite leadership positions, which are usually very male-dominated. A big question that comes up is how do you figure out what you really want to be known for? As Joanna was trying to figure out how to answer this particular question, she found that it was actually quite difficult to really articulate that message for yourself. Another point that she discovered was that once you've figured out what you want to be known for, the actual process of explaining that to others is also incredibly difficult. If you look at examples of successful executives, the story of who they are and why they do what they do is deeply connected and tied into the company's brand as well. This means that companies need to focus on their executive’s story just as much as they focus on their brand's story. There is a lot of anxiety around getting your message wrong and there's quite a bit of challenge towards defining yourself down to just one particular thing. However, when you define the type of audience you want to connect with and the types of conversations you want to have with them, the process of 'what you're known for' becomes a lot easier. Another point you should consider is that it's really okay for your message to change and grow over time. Perhaps it's best to phrase the question as: What do you want to be known for in this phase of life? This will help you narrow down your options based on what you want to achieve -right now-. When you've found your message, Joanna encourages her clients to talk to 5 people who 'already love you', and talk to them about that message. Call them back 48 hours later and ask those same 5 people what they remembered about the conversation and see if they remembered any 'sticky' words that resonated with them. Just remember, words change and your definitions change, but the only thing that remains consistent is you. You have to be genuine about the message you put out there and you have to be genuine about the journey you're taking right now. When you have that in place, then defining what you're doing right now becomes a whole lot easier.   Interview Links: Joanna Bloor’s Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Dave Kashen is on a mission to help people love their work life by eliminating ineffective meetings. Did you know there are over 3 billion meetings a year in the United States, and over half of them suck? This is why Dave co-founded Worklife Inc., a tech startup that helps maximize team productivity without the meeting! Meetings are a fabric of our working lives and they help with collaboration. That being said, when groups of people get together, it seems meetings become an ineffective experience and nothing substantial is achieved. So, why is that? Well, Dave set out to find the elements that make up an effective meeting, and then simplify the process further by implementing software to optimize it. Dave found several contributing factors to how a successful meeting occurs, breaking down the process in three stages: before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting. One of the factors to a successful meeting was to create an agenda before the meeting takes place. This makes a huge difference because it serves as a clear road map for those who are attending the meeting. An agenda allows your staff to prepare for the meeting. It also opens up a collaborative conversation before the meeting occurs, as staff brain-storm for an ideal solution. Further, it clarifies to the team who needs to and doesn’t need to attend the meeting. On your agenda, it's important to have a list of topics as well as what you want the ideal outcome to be. This will help direct your staff towards a goal as oppose to just spit-balling it. During the meeting, one of the biggest problems is that each staff member ends up leaving the meeting with differing opinions on what the solution is to their problem or what the company's next big action step is. So, to solve this, it is key to come to a shared agreement between everyone present on what the solution or next action step will be for the company before the meeting is over. This means everyone will be leaving with a clear goal in mind. After the meeting, communication goes out to the relevant staff members who can help execute the plan and then it's just a matter of accountability. The good news is, Dave's software makes this entire process incredibly efficient and effective. This software allows staff to collaborate and to come up with creative solutions in real-time before the scheduled meeting begins. When they attend the meeting, they already have several solutions to draw from and all they have to do is optimize the solution and create action steps before leaving the meeting.   Interview Links: www.worklife.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Nick Nanton is a four-time Emmy Award Winning Director, Producer, and Filmmaker. A master storyteller, Nick is recognized as one of the top thought-leaders in the business world, and is the author of StorySelling. Nick and I dive right into the art of storytelling and how to tell your story in a compelling and engaging way. A friend once told Nick that he has a unique skillset, as he is able to create media on a budget that looks like it came out of Hollywood; and that he should get out of the music industry and join the business world instead. Nick took his friend's advice and now ten years later, here he is today. So, how do you create your own personal story? First of all, most people take their own journey for granted. Why talk about that? It's boring. That couldn't be farther from the truth. If you tell your story well, it will position you as the only person in the world who can possibly solve your ideal clients' problems. Your story has to make sense or at least connect well with what you're currently doing. When it does, it builds trust. When it doesn't, it just seems weird and awkward. However, when you've told your story a thousand times, you might feel like everyone has heard it. Often, this is not the case. You need to keep re-telling your story as if it's the first time you've ever told it and it needs to keep making sense. When you tell a compelling story, the listener's brain acts differently and it begins to build a bond of trust with the storyteller. A good story means you have body chemistry on your side. It also means you're able to transport your listener into another atmosphere and make them feel like they were a part of your journey. How does all of this tie into running an effective business? It all comes down to trust. In order for somebody to give you their hard earned money, they need to be able to trust you. The more personal hooks you add into a conversation, the more likely the listener will feel like they have a lot of things in common with you. By telling a story, you're relating a piece of your life to others and this makes them feel more comfortable around you.   Interview Links: www.nicknanton.com www.celebritybrandingagency.com StorySelling by Nick Nanton More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

A Certified Gazelles Coach with quite a rich background, Jim Jubelirer helps leaders improve their business performance and personal satisfaction. He also speaks to a wide variety of audiences about leadership and business excellence. On this episode, Jim and I expand upon a topic the show has covered in the past and that's people! People seem to be the biggest challenge and resource for entrepreneurs and other business professionals. So, how can we get the right people on the bus? Through the use of Topgrading methods. Jim expands on how you can apply Topgrading with software tools and how you can effectively use the  assessments Topgrading provides to gain a different perspective. Jim also provides key tips on how to hire effectively. Topgrading tells us that only one in four people turn out to be a top performer, which means around 75% of people you hire don't move the needle in terms of culture and performance. Poor performance is one of the top complaints among growth companies. Companies are quite poor at hiring talent. In fact, after growing the company for nearly three years, one bad hire nearly destroyed an entrepreneur's entire business. One person! The cost of a bad hire is enormous. If it's a frontline worker, it can be as much as 4x their salary if you get it wrong. But what if it's a C-suite or an executive? It can be as much as 15x their salary. So, what if Jim told you that you could hire A-players and go through the hiring process much more effectively without even reading their resume? Well, it's true. You can stop reading resumes! You can now cast a wide net to attract a variety of different and high-quality talent. The biggest concern for entrepreneurs is that they don't want to sort through all the resumes after that net has been cast, but through the use of software like Hireology, you can now find the right candidate in much less time. There is a lot of testing and measuring to get it right in the beginning. But once you have it dialed in, it can give you a lot of power to assessing talent and saving you from those costly hiring mistakes. You can apply this method to any industry as well. What kind of assessment tools can a hiring manager or entrepreneur use that goes beyond their own personal opinion about that prospect? Jim wants you to be aware that this is a multi-step process, there isn't just 'one thing' you need to focus on. Jim personally likes to use the Caliper Profile assessment test, but there are others like DiSC and Predictive Index. The reality is we're just not good interviewers and the mistakes can be costly, so we need to put extra measures in place to ensure we get it right the very first time.   Interview Links: www.jubelirerresultsgroup.com www.topgrading.com www.hiremojo.com www.hireology.com www.calipercorp.com www.predictiveindex.com www.discprofile.com www.strengthsfinder.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).    

Michael Synk is the owner and execution coach for In-Synk. He is also a Senior Certified Gazelles Coach with over 14 years of coaching experience. Michael and I talk today about brand promises, how to improve on them, and offer two client case studies to boot. Let's dive right in. Michael has been coaching Uniform Masters for the last year and a half. Unfortunately, it was only until two months ago that he and his client began to see brand promise. It has taken them quite some time to figure out the market and their core strengths. The company itself has been around for seven years and their operations have been great, but they've just been a little too shy in telling their company story. Although some time has passed, quite a bit of things have improved in the last year and a half. When Michael kept highlighting the company's key strengths, that's when he was able to see brand promise shine through. This is often a very different approach compared to the norm. Normally to achieve brand promise, you first look into the customer data and the first-hand customer experience. However, Michael began by digging into the customer experience from an operations point of view. He found some interesting points and discovered that competitors were having a difficult time keeping up with the quality of service Uniform Masters offered. Once equipped with this data, he took it to a marketing firm to help spin it in a customer friendly way. The second company Michael is working with is a food co-op startup. They are currently in their second year and are working with 16 farmers. The farmers focus on raising grass-fed meat and the co-op handles the processing and the sale of that meat. The client was a bit self-absorbed in their message, which was that their customers bought from them because they wanted to support local farmers. Michael wanted to put this to the test and so he asked 10 of their best customers about why they chose to buy from this co-op. The results? They were completely different than what the client originally thought, but you'll have to listen to the interview to discover what that is! Don't miss this portion of the interview as it is filled with great insights on how to leverage a company's strengths and advertise them to the market.   Interview Links: www.uniform-masters.com/ www.in-synk.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Caryn Kopp is an award-winning CEO, best-selling author, and self-proclaimed Chief Door Opener at her company, Kopp Consulting. Did you hear that 40-second audio recording at the beginning of the show? What is wrong with that message? Well, for today's podcast episode, Caryn will shed some light as to how to never be that kind of sales opener. People are missing several components when they're trying to get into the right door. Most of the time, people are lacking one or more of these five key pillars. To give a quick overview, the five pillars are: The right target/sales message, the right answers for objections, the right door opener doing the work, which also includes the right door opening mindset, then the right execution followed by the right workflow by that right person. It boils down to hiring talent and using their strengths effectively for the position that needs to be filled. Although it may sound easy, this is a big blind spot for companies. If you hire a closer to be a door opener, this will often lead to disaster and you will find yourself having trouble scaling. Very few people are able to be both an opener and a closer at the same time. So, after you have the right people in place, how can you get into these doors? It takes a bit of digging. The biggest mistake companies often make is looking at their current A-list clients and asking them what they did right, but what you should focus on instead is why did your very best clients originally want to speak to you in the first place? Dig at this why and then see if there are parallels based off what your different clients are saying. When you get this feedback, you can take it to the market and attract new customers that otherwise wouldn't have known or even realized you offer x service. It's not always obvious to your customer what you offer, so being able to highlight specific things that your A-list clients loved about you is a great door opener.   Interview Links: www.koppconsultingusa.com/ Biz Dev Done Right by Caryn Kopp More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and founder of 15Five, a SaaS company focused on helping managers and CEOs get effective insights from their people. Having managers and high-level executives become more aware of certain aspects of their company, allows them to proactively address issues before they become problems, acknowledge successes, discover great ideas, and support their team's growth and development. When David was a young entrepreneur, he raised some capital to build his business, but shortly after, the dotcom crash happened and his capital quickly dried up. This forced him to reinvent his company during a market crisis. He could no longer offer competitive salary to his talent, so he got creative with the hiring process. Instead of finding emerging talent from amazing universities, he looked for the diamonds in the rough that perhaps had gaps in their resume or were only high-school graduates. As his company grew, his talent was given much more responsibility and autonomy than they ever had before. This allowed them to excel and grow, exponentially, within the company. Resumes don't always reflect how your talent will react in a real work scenario. What might look like a B or C team on paper, would actually become an A team in reality, just by the way the team engaged and communicated with one another. Fantastic A teams on paper don't always work well, or become difficult, when engaging with other talent, as they're used to being the lone wolf that hogs all the attention. What did companies do differently where they were able to accomplish their goals and objectives years down the line vs. the ones that couldn't? The thing David kept coming back to was that it all boiled down to the team. You obviously need clarity and clear objectives, but does the team have a good culture? Is there high engagement? What are the dynamics that create these things? These questions are how David got to where he is today, and it is what led him to create his company, 15Five.   Interview Links: www.15five.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Kevin Daum is an award-winning and bestselling author of 5 books. He is a marketer, speaker, and columnist for Inc.com and Smart Business Magazine. On this episode, Kevin and I dive into one of his books, ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. What does ROAR mean and how is it useful? Kevin says the idea behind ROAR came from seeing so much noise in the marketing space and how advertisements and other marketing pieces would all just fall so flat. Everybody has a story to tell and most people simply do not care. However, with ROAR, Kevin addresses two of the above issues. The first one speaks to how you can tell your story in a compelling way. You may have fantastic ideas for the world, but the reality is the world is not about you. Boasting about how great you are will rarely generate good results. However, telling a great story has to start with empathy. What is the pain that you're solving? There are three core emotional motivators people will buy on: logic, greed, and fear. The most powerful of those three is fear. The weakest is logic. A perfect example of this is our current presidential election. How are the candidates selling? They are selling fear. To achieve massive growth, it's not about the customers you currently have; it's about the ideal customers that you want. When you've found the optimal customer that you're looking for, what is their pain that you have yet to address? If you're able to communicate that pain to them on the level of empathy, that becomes a magnet to them. Once you've gotten your ideal customer to realize they have a pain point and they have connected to it emotionally, the next step is to address that pain point objectively. What is the solution? When you present it objectively, it starts a conversation. Do not try to sell the solution at this point in the process, all the customer needs to realize is that there is a solution for their problem and that you have the answers to it. What does this mean for the end-goal sale? When the customer becomes aware that there is a solution, the sell becomes an easier conversation to handle. By trying to convince them off the bat that they need your service, and only your service, their guard is up and they are unlikely to pursue you further.   Interview Links: www.kevindaum.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Keith Upkes has a financial CFO background and is a business growth coach for The Upkes Group as well as for Gazelles International Coaches. In this episode, Keith and I talk about creating an effective dashboard, as this is something many clients and companies struggle with. Keith believes dashboards are important for three specific reasons. Number one, it helps get raw data into the right hands. Clients often do not know their numbers and this is because they do not have the right data in front of them. Number two, it quickly summaries data that clients need. When clients have data in front of them, many of them don't know how to make sense of it, but dashboards help simplify this process significantly. Number three, it helps get the most relevant metrics into the clients' hands quickly after each accounting period. The client is able to quickly see what is relevant in their industry based on data collected by dashboards and give the relevant data to their leadership team. How can teams make dashboards effective? You are able to track metrics that are not only specific to your industry, but your company in real-time. For instance, when your company has goals and objectives they're looking to achieve, dashboards help make sure your company is on the right track with those goals. Also, when you may have different priories to target based on your industry, dashboards are able to effectively separate those goals for you and your team. With this in mind, it's important to note that your dashboards have to change over time. A mistake clients often make is that they set their dashboards to their goals, rely on it, but forget to update their goals after each quarter. This means that the dashboards and the data they produce could get thrown off course and that's how data and information discrepancies happen in your company. What are Keith's thoughts on keeping score on a handwritten white board vs. using technology such as a dashboard, to do the same thing? Keith doesn't particularly care how you measure your results, as long as you're making an active effort to measure them and you are using it to make a difference in your company. Some companies prefer using the old-fashioned whiteboard because it fits in with their company culture and business. Tech companies, for example, would prefer using dashboards’ services because the culture is much more tech inclined.   Interview Links: The Upkes Group's Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Brian Scudamore is the Founder and CEO of 1-800-Got-Junk? and has been running the company since 1989. Since then, he has started several companies like Shack Shine, You Move Me, and Wow 1 Day Painting. Today, Brian and I discuss the process of how he comes up with big vision ideas and how he's able to get his team to execute them. After growing his company to a million dollars in 1997, Brian found himself depressed and comparing himself to other extremely successful people around him. He was a high school and university dropout and didn’t have a lot of money at the time. So he decided to stop the negative thinking and thought about what his company would’ve achieved without him.  What could the future feel and act like? Right then and there, Brian took out a piece of paper and started to write down his visions and his dreams for the company he had built. Brian calls this process the 'painted picture', because a picture says a thousand words and he put a thousand words on paper to create the vision for his company. The painted picture process is incredibly simple. It starts with the person being in an inspirational place. Then they just have to take out a piece of paper and write very specific and intentional language. Brian didn't write, 'I hope to be' or 'I want to be', he wrote, 'I will be'. He gave himself incredibly specific goals, in this particular case, a five year goal to achieve his big vision. After writing out the big idea, he added color to the picture. What would we feel like as a company, what would the culture be like? How would the brand be presented to the world?   What is your top-line revenue? How many people are on your team? How would your people describe the culture of your company when talking to a family member? What is the press saying about your business? Be as specific as possible: what would your local paper say about your company? What would your favorite magazine say? What do your people love about your vision and where the company is headed? How would a customer describe their experience with you? What would they say to their best friend? What accomplishment are you most proud of? What accomplishment are your people most proud of? What do you do better than anyone else on the planet? Describe your office environment and culture in detail. Describe your service area. Who are your customers and how do they feel? When he was finished, he was surprised by the results. As he re-read what he wrote down, Brian realized what he wrote was absolutely possible, so he shared it with his team. As the staff read his vision for the future, some became excited and 100% on board, but others decided it was best to leave as that did not match their ideal environment. When companies are often facing big shifts like this, they can experience huge turnovers by the team. While this is good in the long-run, it can be be difficult keeping up with demand on short staff and sometimes painful in the short-run. Brian believes it's best to come up with a vision about where you're going and then recruit the who - the people that will help figure out how to get there. However, the one thing a painted picture will not do or even tries to do, is say how to get there. The reason for this is that the CEO doesn't always know best. His team will sometimes have a better execution plan than he will. It also prevents the CEO or founder from getting cold feet when he realizes the 'real' work involved. It can be scary to plan accordingly, especially if you don't even have the current team in place for it.   Interview Links:Painted Picture Visualizationwww.o2ebrands.com 1-800 Got Junk WebsiteGood to Great by Jim Collins Brian on LinkedIn Twitter - @brianscudamore Facebook - facebook.com/bscudamore Instagram - brianscudamore   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Daniel Marcos is the CEO and co-founder of Gazelles Growth Institute as well as a certified coach of Gazelles International Coaches. Daniel has coached individuals all over the world and works with a wide range of businesses from the million-billion dollar range. Today, Daniel and I focus on the 4 key stages of growth in a business. Let's dive in. After being an entrepreneur for the last 16 years, Daniel has realized that the decisions you have to take in each growth stage are completely different and this is where CEOs seem to face the most trouble. CEOs often want to execute the same decision for each stage and they often encounter a substantial amount of pain points with this method along the way. If you want to grow your company, the first bottleneck is you, the leader. Companies need to evolve the leader from an entrepreneur to a CEO and turn their startup into a well-run organization. Daniel defines each stage by the quantity of employees on payroll instead of the amount of sales that are generated. His reasoning for this, he says, is that as the company gets larger, people find it more and more difficult to communicate throughout the organization. The first stage is a startup and everyone is wearing different hats in the company. The most important part during this stage is product development and understanding what it is you are selling and to whom you're selling the product to. Stage two is the small business. The company size ranges between 6-15 employees. The entrepreneur now has to be a leader. Once a leader, he/she has to do two very important things to keep this status – learn how to give directions to your team and delegate tasks. Daniel believes stage two is the hardest stage for the entrepreneur, because both your clients and employees expect more of you. Stage three means you're a leader of leaders. You have between 16-250 employees and now the most critical role is you building up team leaders. You have to develop talent and teach people how to lead others. The problem during stage three is communication, because communication gets broken as the chain of command goes further down. It's almost like you're playing the Telephone Game. At the end of the day, you have to respect the position of your leaders. As an entrepreneur, you get so used to fixing everything, but at this stage you need to give up some control and trust in the people you've trained. You have to begin to shine the spotlight on them instead of you. This is why most CEOs are stuck at stage three and are not able to move on to stage four. To get to stage four, you have to be humble and really let go. Your role is to have a great first layer of executives. If you have a great sales manager, for example, you will never have a sales problem. Though, as Daniel points out, we secretly don't want a great sales manager, because then we know we won't be needed anymore. What does stage four look like? The operation runs flawlessly without you. You leave for vacation and everything is absolutely fine when you come back. The entrepreneur, turned leader, turned leader of leaders - is now an innovator, change catalyst, and chief of culture in the organization. Your duty is to design a culture that's respected all through the organization and to change what's currently not working within the company.   Interview Links: Growth Institute Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

David Rendall is a professional speaker, stand-up comedian, author of The Freak Factor, and he spends his free time competing in Ironman triathlons and ultramarathons. The Freak Factor discusses the concept of unleashing your inner freak and discovering your unique potential. It dives into the fact that your strangeness and weird quirks are the key to your success. Today, Dave shares his story on how he got into 'The Freak Factor' line of work. When he was growing up, he was constantly in trouble and was told by teachers to sit still and stay put. Dave believed for a good number of years that he was a problem, a loser, and that if he didn't 'control himself' he would remain so. It wasn't until age 30 that he realized he was actually getting rewarded for what seemed to be these 'awful' qualities both his teachers and parents frowned upon. He was getting rewarded for speaking out, taking control of the situation, and going against the grain. One day while he was listening to an audio book and reflecting back on his life, he realized his biggest weakness growing up was also a strength. Every single one of his weaknesses seemed to be strengths and this did not just apply to Dave personally, but to others as well. So, how do you leverage your freak factor? Dave says once yourecognize that your weaknesses are strengths, you can begin to see some of the positives that come with it. The first step is to be aware of your 'flaws' and the second step is to accept them. Be aware that this is who you are and to recognize the positives and negatives that come with that. The third step is to improve and strengthen your flaws. How do you capitalize on the positive sides of your weaknesses? Dave believes that, in the process of trying to fix our weaknesses, we also end up damaging our strengths. Instead of holding it in, we should find ways to let it out and maximize the benefits of our flaws.   Interview Links: David Rendall's Website The Freak Factor by David Rendall More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Rich Manders, co-founder of iAutomation and FreeScale Coaching, is a serial entrepreneur who has sold two businesses and has overseen seven acquisitions. Rich has a deep understanding on how to optimize and grow combining enterprises and has worked with many thought leaders on business management, personal development, and negotiation. In 1998, Rich was having problems finding and keeping talented employees for the business he was starting. Someone recommended that Rich look into a Topgrading workshop and, after a brief course on the subject, found that this system was undoubtedly the best way to hire new employees. Rich attributes Topgrading to making his business millions of dollars because it took the chaos out of hiring talent. Due to the technical nature of the company, it took roughly two years of employee training to be brought up to full speed. This had huge costs for Rich. Not only did it take two years to test out talent, but it also cost Rich $250,000 in salary, training, and benefits before the company even knew if that one employee was a right fit for them. High stakes to say the least. Rich says during the first two years of the company, he had made five bad misfires. Rich found that by using the Topgrading system, the people he ended up hiring were 2-3 times more productive than previous hires. The next step for Rich was to send his managers through the topgrading workshop to also improve employee productivity. The hiring process is not fast or easy. It takes time to vet the right hires and find the right talent. Rich says it takes one full day to two full days to get through the Topgrading process. The biggest push back Rich received was that hiring managers didn't have time to take a full day just to hire one person. Rich's counterpoint was clear, if it's costing the company $250,000 alone to fully train an employee, then taking the necessary day or two to vet the person fully is in the best interest of the company. Do it right the first time. When Rich started the Topgrading process, he already had 20 people on staff and 5-10 million in revenue. By properly vetting new hires who were brought on board, they were able to increase their staff to 160 and generate 80 million in sales revenue by the time Rich left the business in 2013. The Topgrading system really skyrocketed their business.   Interview Links: Topgrading Website Who by Geoff Smart iAutomation Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Greg Crabtree is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and financial expert. In 2011, Greg published his first book, Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! where he shares his core principles on how to turn your business into a wealth building machine. Today, Greg and I discuss the labor efficiency ratio (LER) and what it means to your business. Greg grew up on a chicken farm in Alabama and quickly realized that raising chickens was not something he was destined to do. At the age of 14, his mother took him to a CPA to have the family's taxes filed and he discovered a passion for finances. If you were to get run over by a bus today, what would it take for your family to continue your business? Who could accurately replace you? Greg says there are two types of laborer categories: direct labor and management labor. Based on the role you play in your business and what category you fall in, you will have to find a person that matches your category type in order to successfully carry on the business. By practicing this methodology, it helps you find a clearer picture of what your role is within the company. So instead of working on the business, you're working more effectively in the business. Greg shares a quick example of applying this methodology in real time. One of his clients had $600,000 in revenue and 25% of that was profit split between two owners. However, their main issue was that they were having cash flow problems. Greg understands that if you're having cash flow problems at 25% profit, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the business. It turns out that the owners were only making 4% in profit instead. Greg then worked with the owners on how they could increase their contribution margin and increase their numbers by $140,000. For this particular business, they had the right people, but they were just not getting the right kind of accountability out of them. After Greg gave them a new set of goals to strive for, which they hit flawlessly, the two owners ended up making 19% profit in their first year. Greg believes, it first starts with holding the management team accountable and to define clearly what they must strive for in order to earn their wages or bonuses. The work Greg provides is often above and beyond what you would usually receive from a typical tax accountant. Greg really strives to help optimize your business by using simple formulas and data to create effective and money-saving processes.   Interview Links: SimpleNumbers Website Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Nick Scott is a certified Gazelles executive coach and management consultant. He specializes in strategic planning, accountability, technology management, and executive team development. When Nick first began his career as consultant, he looked towards the Lean approach to help his clients succeed. He believes to improve any organization, it first has to start from the top and that's one of the reasons why his career path lead him to coach clients as well. Nick's position allows him to really dig deep in a company and help improve it by figuring out the main pain point . Is this a process problem, cash flow problem, or a people problem? When the problem has been spotted, then it's time to bring focus to the leadership team and solve it. Any process-improvement project has to have strong support from the top of the organization or it is destined to fail. The leadership and top management team has to understand why this project is important. When looking to improve a certain process within the company, a big mistake is to give orders from the top down. To achieve the best results and improvements, leaders must lead by example. Another mistake companies often make is when they try to copy a method that has worked for company A and apply it to their company. Companies are very diverse and copy/pasting a method into the current mold simply doesn't work effectively. Nick recommends the book 2 Second Lean by Paul A. Akers as a way to study more of the Lean Manufacturing methodology. He too mentions what Nick has spoken about today – if you don't have support from the top, it will be very difficult to achieve a Lean process throughout the company. Set realistic time frames and break the process-improvement project up in pieces or else you and your team are doomed to fail. Nick recommends to start with a pilot project and then take that next step. The team needs to understand that this is an ongoing investment within the organization and each step they invest in, they build the value of the organization. In so many companies and situations, the current process and way of doing things is just accepted as is. This sometimes creates additional problems and instead of trying to find the root cause, companies put a temporary band-aid over the situation. It fixes the problem, however it doesn't address the underlying issue and this delays the company's processes even further; costing them money, time, and other resources. Remember, there's always a better way to improve a process and that this requires a long-term investment plan.   Interview Links: Traverse Tech Website Nick on LinkedIn   The E-myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber 2 Second Lean by Paul A. Akers Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It....And Why the Rest Don't, is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed, where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher,  and I’m a certified Gazelles business coach. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right, so that they can Scale Up successfully, and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Jeff Redmon is a senior Gazelle coach and the founder of Redmon Law Chartered. He has over 25 years of experience and has served as a trusted advisor to fellow business owners. Jeff also runs the Inner Circle of the St. Croix Valley in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In today's show, Jeff and I discuss the power of Jeff's 1+1+1=19 formula and what a difference it can make in a company. Jeff has created what he calls the 1+1+1=19 workshop. Obviously, Jeff's workshop does not follow the traditional math rules we've all learned in school, so how does the 1+1+1=19 formula work? To break it down simply when you're looking at a straightforward profit/loss statement, you're often looking at four lines – sales, cost of the goods sold, overhead, and then the bottom line. Based on the concept Jeff is using in his workshop, if you increase your top line by 1%, then you cut your cost of goods/services by 1% and cut your overhead by 1%; you can then increase your net income by 19%. That's how the 1+1+1=19 formula works. What many people can see is that pursuing 1% changes in the company are actually worthwhile and can lead to huge profit gains. Jeff has taught this formula to over 100 business owners and they have all seen great benefits when they make just 1% adjustments to their company. He has seen between 7% to 80% improvement just by business owners working on his formula, so it's not always a flat 19%. Keep in mind that by increasing the net income by 19%, you also increase the value of your company long-term. So the 1+1+1=19 formula is not just for short-term cash, but it can also be applied to a long-term company selling strategy. In Jeff's workshop, he and other business owner attendees brain storm on how they can increase the top line revenue by 1%. Once they've finished the exercise, they then think for various solutions on how they can save money for their company. Jeff had one client who brought in 10 million dollars in annual revenue and through this exercise was able to save $400,000 from their bottom line. Although these strategies may sound simple, they can often be overlooked as we plan big marketing and growth initiative strategies to increase business sales. We often forget to apply these simple methods like looking within the company to save money when we're constantly trying to think big and grow bigger. Jeff believes that working on this formula with your leadership team is important, if not crucial. You will see better results in a group setting than if you were to sit down and try to find creative solutions by yourself. Once you've completed these exercises and notice where you can make additional changes to save money, increase the top line and cut costs, do not suffer from analysis paralysis. Just pick 1-3 things that will make an impact and take action.   Interview Links: Redmon Law Website Jeff on LinkedIn More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Jabez LeBret is a NBC Chicago Business Columnist, author, speaker, and Chief Marketing Officer of GNGF. Jabez is considered a leading authority on monetizing social media and often speaks at industry conferences on this subject. In today's episode, I discuss with Jabez on how to work with millennials. I know many clients who are having challenges with keeping the millennial generation engaged, so hopefully we can demystify and solve some of those issues for you today.  There are four core fundamentals that really help millennials succeed at work. Not only do you get them to work more effectively, but it changes the whole work environment for them too. These four tactics are actually good for any employee, no matter what their age. With that being said, these fundamentals are specifically targeted to get that everyday millennial employee to the next level. As a millennial himself, Jabez really stumbled into this space by accident. He was doing leadership presentations at companies that needed to know how to lead the younger generation. He kept getting asked, "How do I manage you?" He also runs a company where his entire team is made of millennials. So for him, it was a no-brainer to create a program around how to manage and engage millennials in the work force. The millennial generation is different compared to other generations because they saw the creation of search on the internet. They grew up with Google and they were the reason social media was created. Cellphones were very prevalent for them too. The technological advances play a huge role in the millennial workplace. Another unique aspect about millennials is that they had helicopter parents. Unlike older generations where both parents were working and the children took care of themselves, millennials had parents that were hyper involved with their lives. Parents made sure they were participating in all the necessary activities. Through that process, millennials grew up thinking their opinions matter. Millennials are also referred to as 'The Trophy Generation' - They got a trophy for just showing up. Millennials were rewarded for participating and if participation was the only thing that mattered, if it was never about 'winning', then they will take criticism or feedback badly.  At the end of the day, millennials want purpose. They are a purpose-driven generation and that's how you keep them engaged. Companies are having a hard time delivering this to them because they don't know their own values or even their mission. The goal of a manager working with millennials is to bake the purpose of everything into the process, why these tasks are important in the grand scheme of things and how it helps the end-mission of the company. Millennials also grew up in team environments. Despite this, people say millennials aren't loyal. This is not true at all. In fact, management has not given them reasons to be loyal. What's important to understand as a leader is that you need to have mechanisms in place that allow millennials to share their opinions and let them know they're contributing to a greater good. If they don't feel like they're contributing to the overall process, they're not going to be motivated.   Interview Links: Jabez's Website Jabez on LinkedIn Chelsea Krost's Website Good to Great by James C. Collins More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Andy Bailey is the head of Petra Coach and Align software. His specialties include implementation of Rockefeller Habits and other business processes that drive results in any business setting. Andy’s passion is to assist business owners and entrepreneurs in building the foundation allowing them and their teams the ability to achieve their goals. In today’s episode, I discuss with Andy how to utilize Align for the purpose of alignment between the employees and business. Tune in to hear how Align can help organizations achieve their priorities. The number one question most people have is “how do I know if my employees’ priorities align with the organization?” Align is a business project planning tool that allows working on your business instead of in your business. It is important for leaders to know what is going on throughout the entire company. The person in the front line needs to understand what they are doing everyday aligns with their enterprise's priorities, and when these two things match up, people will understand their role and make better decisions that align with their organization. To ensure focus and alignment remain throughout the company, the business needs to have two crucial meetings, one which is called the daily huddle; no longer than 15 minutes max. These are based on small groups of staff members throughout the company and broken apart by function and departmental needs. This ensures all the team members are on the same page, and issues are identified and dealt with immediately. These huddles need to be in conjunction with the Core Weekly Priority meeting. There needs to be an owner and a metric to priorities; you can’t cheat when you are using Align. You have to pick a due date; the system won’t let you choose a priority without a KPI and a definition. Some of the key stumbling blocks; number one it’s easier for companies that are just starting out to use Align from the beginning, but it is harder for already established organizations to understand the importance needed because some see it as just another tool that they will have to implement. The Pure Task Management Tool is under-appreciated mainly because businesses don’t have the knowledge necessary to utilize it. Most companies use emails as a task management tool, which is a horrible idea. This tool creates a project with due dates and instructions, assigns it to someone or a team, manages the re-distribution, and completions through trigger notification as well as dashboards. It is incredibly powerful and underutilized. The KPI becomes the task and as you check them off it shows progress on your priority. The EMPS and Feed Box feature complement each other; one way to measure Employee Morale is by using a scoring methodology. It’s a single survey sent out monthly or quarterly where the staff members answer one question; score it a 0-10, and comment. This is assigned to a person that gathers the suggestions and information and will display it on the dashboard. The person in charge will monitor the score; whether it went up or down and give feedback on a report. There are some exciting new features in the pipeline. Align is going through a code re-write which will allow iterating faster in the future. There is also a big reveal around the multi-language design. Align can be used with a company of one to thousands. You can leverage the software to get focused and work on the necessary items and track goals.   Interview Links: Petra Coaching Align’s Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Mike Michalowicz is the author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, The Pumpkin Plan, Profit First and Surge, and the founder of Profit First Professionals, an organization designed to support accountants and other financial professionals differentiating themselves in the market. Mike is an entrepreneur at heart and loves sharing his knowledge and experience with the masses. In today’s episode, Mike and I chat about his new book Surge and how to leverage the market for consumer demand. “How do you time the market?” - The question that prompted two-year of research for his new book Surge. Mike discovered that there is no magic bullet, but there is a way to improve the odds of success dramatically. Mike wrote Surge from his own business experience achieving atypically fast growth from applying and refining the methods outlined in his book. His newest company is still in the learning phase, and Mike plans to write addendums to Surge throughout the process. Tune in to hear more about how Mike used Surge to drive his own businesses to success.   What is Surge? Surge is a five-step process for identifying trends in the marketplace.  While most entrepreneurs look at market trends and try to hit while the market is hot, this process positions a business in front of the momentum of the market to capture it.  With a different set of metrics, a proactive entrepreneur can use gain new perspective on the market and “catch the surge” to a profitable growing business.   What does the acronym SURGE mean? Surge is not about prediction, it is about early measurement. • Separate: Separate a small test community; Choose a core group and within that group, choose a very particular niche. • Unify: In this core group, identify the movement they are making and unify around it. • Rally: Ask “What is that one service or product offering that rallies the group to you as a solution?” • Gather: Gather intelligence! As you move along with the market, constantly evaluate what’s working and amplify and expand that, then ditch what isn’t working. • Expand: Take the model that is working for your core group and start delivering that offering consistently and to an expanded group. When a business “catches the Surge” marketing starts taking care of itself.  Instead of promoting, there is a movement in the market with people asking for referrals or seeking the company out aggressively. Instead of arguing about trends, try them and measure them. Maybe you’ll be the next person to “catch the Surge!     Interview Links: www.mikemichalowicz.com More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

Sean Evans is the founder of STEP Consulting in Toronto. He is a Certified Gazelles International Coach, a Certified Topgrading Coach, and holds an MBA from London Business School in the United Kingdom. Sean helps companies get out of the weeds and assists them to focus more on building their businesses.   What is Topgrading? Topgrading is a methodology created by Bradford Smart. It is the standard of hiring, coaching, and retaining top talent. You want to fill every position within your company with ‘A’ players. Companies need to know what a candidate is about, so they need to dive deep into their history.   What's the process in recruiting talent? The number one thing a company wants to do is create a specific job description; this is a typical hiring problem in most companies. There are four areas of a job scorecard: describing the company with excitement, creating a job mission, accurate accountability that can be measured, and a list of key competencies. The best way to find the best people is to recruit from your networks.   What can managers do on their own to find the best candidates for the job? You need to read Topgrading: How to Hire, Coach and Keep A Players by Brad & Geoff Smart and Who: The A Method of Hiring by Geoff and Randy Street.   What is a higher level step in the hiring practices? Companies shouldn’t rely on behavioral-based interviews, which is a hypothetical situational analysis. Businesses should rely on evidence-based interviewing. Topgrading is hiring based on the fact that someone's past behavior is going to be highly indicative of their future conduct.   What is TORC? TORC stands for Threat of a Reference Check. Companies should not rely on the references the candidate provides. You need to pick out a manager on their resume, ask them if it would be ok to speak to that manager and if they say yes, great. If they say no, then that is a red flag. The candidate will know that you are going to be fact checking everything they are saying about that position. They have to tell the truth because you are going to check on it.     Interview Links:  Topgrading: How to Hire, Coach and Keep A Players by Brad & Geoff Smart Who: The A Method of Hiring by Geoff and Randy Street http://www.topgrading.com http://stepconsulting.ca   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).

 Robert (Bob) Bloom is the authority on customer centric growth. He is the author of The Inside Advantage and The New Experts. Bob was the US Chairman and CEO of Publicis Worldwide. He got his start as an entrepreneur, took his company national and then sold it. Bob has developed strategies for companies like BMW, L’Oreal, Nestlé, and even helped to launch Southwest Airlines, T-Mobile, Juicy Juice, and many others. In today’s episode, Bob and I talk about strategy and finding your own inside advantage. There is a secret that so many business leaders are missing. Most people start with a strategy, but it is one that is in their minds and may not be contemporary at the moment. Secondly, the most important thing that a strategy has to have is consensus internally; with all of your staff, whether you have three people or hundreds. If everybody doesn’t agree that you are going in the right direction, it doesn’t matter because you will never get there. The other thing that is absolutely critical is differentiation. In this day and time, if you don’t differentiate your brand, your company, or your services, you will not make it. The competition out there is mushy; everybody is doing the same thing.   There are 4 steps in the Growth Discovery Process Who is your core customer? You must start with the first element. Customers are human beings; you can't talk to a statistic. You must talk to this human being and understand his/her company or personal needs from that standpoint. When you do that, you understand your ‘Who’. Get inside that person’s head and heart. Look at your customer as if that person was right in the room with you.    What does your core customer want, need and desire?  You want to look inside your business. What does your core customer want, need, and desire? You have a WHO and WHAT. What do you do inside your business? What is the uncommon offering that your business will own and leverage?   How is the persuasive strategy that will convince your core customer to buy your uncommon offering versus all competitive offerings? You need to persuade or convince your customer that you are really going to do what you say you are going to do. You need to develop an approach to convince your customer to buy from you and not your competitor.   Own it! Is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and make it well known to your core customer. You want your brand or company to stand for it! You have to own what you say you are going to own. OWN YOUR WHAT!!! It has to be yours and yours alone in 15 words or less. Simple! Consistent, Committed and Clear.  Check out the podcast to find out more in-depth about how Bob took these strategies into the big businesses mentioned in the introduction.   Interview Links: http://www.bobbloom.biz https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-bloom-578b9822 More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).