Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

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