Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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