Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

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