Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

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).