Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

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.