Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

Today’s podcast is all about reaching beyond your comfort zone. You’re never really finished doing good work, but with that, come some tests to your limits. How can you go above and beyond while also being comfortable with the uncomfortable? Today’s guest has the answers!   Andy Molinsky is a Professor at Brandeis University’s International Business School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology. Andy received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and M.A. in Psychology from Harvard University. Andy’s extensive knowledge helps people develop the courage to act outside of their personal and cultural comfort zones while doing important work.   One of Bill’s company values is ‘Never Being Finished’ and it’s the idea of always working on your growth and development. In order to truly improve, you must push yourself and get a bit uncomfortable, kind of like exercise. Andy agrees. In Andy’s work and while researching for his book, Reach, he has studied a wide variety of people throughout a number of professions to better understand why is it so hard to step out of our comfort zones.   Why can’t we just be comfortable? Why do we need to force ourselves to be uncomfortable? Andy doesn’t recommend to always strive to be uncomfortable but to strategically pick a couple of high-leverage and important situations that are key to your growth and development.   The types of challenges people face while stepping out of their comfort zones vary. People can experience a crisis with their authenticity or identity, “I’m not the kind of person that fires people.” The second challenge people experience is likability, “This person will hate me if I fire them.” And there’s also confidence issues, “What if I’m bad at this?”   Combine confidence issues with authenticity issues, it’s no wonder so many people suffer from imposter syndrome. They often think, “This doesn’t feel like me, I’m bad at this, and people can tell I am bad at this.”   Our lives are often organized in such a way where we can remain comfortable. We have developed elaborate strategies to purposely avoid discomfort, and it makes sense from a survival perspective. It helps us avoid pain and loss, but it also helps us avoid growth, which can mean death for business owners.   Interview Links: Andymolinsky.com Andymolinsky.com/books   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   TWEETABLES:   “In any professional and personal phrases, stepping outside of your comfort zone is a key skill.”   “You want to pick a couple of high-leverage, important, relevant situations that are key to your growth and development.”   “Our lives are well-organized around avoiding discomfort.”   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).  

The process of scaling up really begins and ends with the leadership. If you’re a leader, then you must face yourself in the mirror and take care of yourself. There are many great ways a leader can develop themselves and today’s guest discusses how leaders can thrive under tough pressure.   Kevin Lawrence is an international strategic advisor and has coached hundreds of clients across a wide range of industries. His work as a coach for the last 20+ years inspired him to write the book, Your Oxygen Mask First. The book discusses the dark side of leadership dichotomy, and offers 17 practical steps to triumph in business, without being trampled in life.   High-performing CEOs and executives have to push themselves in such a way where they get stronger and better, without burning themselves out. This is a hard thing to do for any passionate leader as the world of business is so vast (and exciting) that it can take everything out of you if you’re not careful.   With Kevin’s extensive work with high-level achievers, he’s heard it all. The powerful CEOs you see in magazines are overwhelmed and they’re beginning to doubt their ability. Just the other day, a CEO was having a panic attack just before his flight was taking off. When a CEO begins to unravel, addictions start to kick in to escape the stress and their physical and mental health suffers.   The good news, however, is that it’s all fixable. If you want to play the bigger game, you just need better tools, and Kevin’s book has all the tools a CEO could ever need. You can learn techniques to help you gain your confidence back and you can build from a place where your new leadership position is not overwhelming you or forcing you to handle new thresholds of stress.   Interview Links: Lawrenceandco.com Kevin on LinkedIn Episode 25 with Kevin Lawrence   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

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.   Why should you be ‘obnoxious’? To give you a little bit of a background, Carl became very, very good at listening to customer complaints about the industry he was in. He also leveraged himself in such a way where he was constantly adding value (by doing the exact opposite of what his customers hated), and his pricing reflected that.   In fact, his pricing was obnoxious. It was so obnoxious that a potential client vented to him about how ridiculous his pricing was… and then he handed him a check. Carl was confused at first, but after thinking about it, the client wasn’t actually mad at Carl.   The client was mad at all of the other contractors who had failed to meet his expectations and he was hoping Carl was different. The client was willing to pay what he paid (although he wasn’t happy about it) because of Carl’s high-quality services. Carl listened to his client and was able to address his most painful concerns right away. He added obnoxious value, and with that came an obnoxious price.   In your obnoxious offers/services, you also want to establish a nonlinear benefit for your clients. Ask yourself, “What can I bring to my clientele that has nothing to do with my service?” Create a path for your company so that your best clients can actually be treated like your best clients.   Interview Links: 7stageadvisors.com Carl 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “My fundamental premise is to get as obnoxious as possible, not just in price, but also in value.”   “The reason why I was hired was I addressed the top-of-mind concerns of the client.”   “Have you, as a company, created a path for your best clients to really be your best clients?”   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).

Roland Siebelink is a serial entrepreneur, a certified Scaling Up coach, and the author of Scaling Silicon Valley Style. Roland grew up in the Netherlands, but he has started businesses in Belgium, Switzerland, and now in California. Currently, he helps founders and startups in Silicon Valley scale their businesses and avoid tricky pitfalls with their investors.   Running a startup is very, very different compared to running a traditional business. This is one of the reasons why Roland decided to write his book. He wanted to offer a roadmap specifically to startup founders who needed to understand what stage they’re at, what that means for their funding, and how to effectively scale up without destroying it all.   As a startup, your style is forced to evolve as your company gets bigger. Leading a team of 10 is much different than leading a team of 100, and not every startup founder can properly make that shift. The stuff that made you successful in the startup phase is actually completely detrimental to you in the scale-up phase.   Learning how to pivot is a key skill towards making your startup business successful and finding your right target clients. However, once you’ve reached the limits of the startup phrase, pivoting can no longer be the solution to your problems. In fact, pivoting further can damage the company’s integrity and cause internal confusion.   People in Silicon Valley aren’t focusing on change of leadership tactics when they get to a certain phase of their company. Instead, their solution is to just change CEOs and find a more ‘charismatic’ leader for the company.   Unfortunately, this means that the 2nd CEO might not be the best culture fit and it forces an unnecessary disruption in the company when it could have been prevented. Sometimes, providing the first CEO with more awareness/leadership training could have been the solution the founders were looking for all along.   Interview Links: Scalingsiliconvalleystyle.com Roland 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   TWEETABLES:   “It’s not just [that] your style has to evolve, your style almost has to diametrically change.”   “The stuff you learned that made you successful is completely detrimental to you in the scale-up phase.”   “In the startup phase, founders learn to pivot and pivot and pivot until they become successful.”   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).  

We often hear the term ‘pivot’ in business. When things aren’t working out, we figure out how to make it work in a different way, whether that be changing business models or switching businesses. However, what about the mini-pivot? This is where you add a small change that helps the business scale up. Stayed tuned to find out more.   Brandon Bruce is the co-founder and COO of Cirrus Insight, an all-in-one sales productivity platform. Since launching in 2011, Cirrus has been listed as #41 on the Inc. 500 list. Brandon has grown Cirrus as a lightly-funded distributed company via scrappy tactics in the same industry as billion-dollar software companies and competitors. Find out more about his story and how those small pivots were key to his success.   Brandon grew up in a very small town and went to a class of two. It was very self-directed learning and he was able to explore his education without being too restricted.   Brandon started his company at a perfect time. When he and his partner created a product that integrated Gmail with Salesforce, both of these platforms were growing exponentially and now he and his team work with over 5,000 different organizations.   He credits a big difference for their growth compared to others in the same space is that they got creative with the use of their bootstrapping methods to succeed. They were able to achieve a lot with a lot less and, through that, they were able to scale up more effectively.   A lot of people think pivots have to be a big shift or change but do not discount the mini-pivots at all. Brandon’s business model was simple, do you use Salesforce? Yes. Do you use Gmail? Yes. Well, then you’re our target market.   As their company grew, Brandon kept hearing from others who wanted their service but weren’t using Salesforce just yet or weren’t using Gmail. This caused Brandon and his team to do a mini-pivot to service those customers.   With 7 years of feedback, Brandon has a good idea of what his customers want and how much they’re willing to pay for it. You don’t have to do a big pivot to improve your business and to scale up. There are lots of opportunities for mini-pivots and growth within your company.   Interview Links: Cirrusinsight.com Brandon 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

How do you create a business that scales massively but also showcases your purpose and values? How do you build a company you can truly be proud of — a business that can make a huge difference in the world? This week’s guest shares his insightful business expertise and his company’s mission!   David Katz is an inspirational speaker and the Founder and CEO of The Plastic Bank, an internationally recognized solution to stop ocean plastic. The Plastic Bank is a global network of micro recycling markets that empower the poor to transcend poverty by cleaning the environment.   David has been an entrepreneur his entire life and was in charge of executing projects since he was eight years old. He came from a family of immigrants who had to be creative and entrepreneurial to make their mark in Canada.   The Plastic Bank was inspired by David’s life experiences as a youth sailing with his father. David’s father was an early adopter of GPS in the 1980s, which wasn’t readily available at that time or up to the standards of today’s GPS technology. It helped David learn how to map out where he was in the ocean at all times.   Since David grew up on the ocean and had learned about the immense and beautiful power of the sea, he was saddened when he kept seeing waves upon waves of trash float up to the shore.   David has started companies before but he was purposeless. When he came upon this cause, he knew he could create a company that was far bigger than himself. If he could only just showcase how much value each plastic item floating in the water was worth ($20-50), then there would be no more plastic left.   The Plastic Bank is its own ecosystem that reveals value in what was once viewed as waste. Plastic Bank has a chain of stores for the ultra, ultra poor where everything in the store is available to be purchased by using plastic garbage as currency. Plastic Bank is able to offer school tuition, medical insurance, wifi, and cell phone minutes, power, fuel, and food.   Interview Links: Plasticbank.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

Scaling up means getting consistent and reliable at your core processes. It also means there will be an acceleration in onboarding new talent, which tends to damage and create bottlenecks to your processes. How do you get your core processes tuned up efficiently as more and more people join your company? That’s the topic of today’s show!   Chris Ronzio is the founder of Trainual, an online platform for business owners that helps them document their processes step-by-step. Prior to that, Chris built a nationwide video production company that sold over $3 million in youth sporting event videos before he was 25 years old and founded an operations consulting firm that helps entrepreneurs create scalable systems and processes.   Chris has been an entrepreneur officially for 18 years, starting his first video production company at 14 years old. By the time he was finishing up college, he was able to get big corporations to sign on with him and had built up quite the reputation. Through delegation, Chris had enough time on his hands to work on the company’s systems and processes.   Through Chris’s first company, he was able to learn some very vital lessons in systems and processes that were transferable to other industries. He learned that companies who were really scaling up all had figured out this simple formula: they honed in on doing one thing consistently. Because of this, they were able to document the process effectively and delegate it out without much worry.   From Bill’s observations, it’s not that hard to get to $3-7 million in revenue without having focused your business. However, very rarely does Bill see people hitting the over $10 million threshold in sales with an unfocused business. By focusing and specializing in one key area of your business, growth begins to happen… rapidly.   Interview Links: Trainual.com Chris 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Are you afraid of public speaking? Have you tried it in the past because you understand the benefits, but you don’t feel 100% confident in your ability yet? Well, this episode is for you! Today’s special guest discusses how you can get over your fear and become masterful — not just great — at public speaking.   PJ Brady was the Vice President of Europe, Middle East/ Pakistan, and Africa for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and is currently the Founder of 42 Walls, where he helps people inform, inspire, and influence others.   Not everybody was born reaching for the mic, but PJ grew up being a theatre kid. Through his experiences volunteering for a non-profit that specializes in developing community broadways, he was able to teach his fellow volunteers how to get comfortable being in front of a group of people.   The biggest barrier to achieving greatness often happens within your own brain. If you want to get comfortable being on stage, then you have to be comfortable in your own skin first. You can learn how to bullshit everyone else, but you can not bullshit yourself and that is one of the reasons why speaking in front of an audience is so terrifying.   The biggest ‘bullshit test’ you can do on yourself is to look yourself in the mirror and rehearse your story. Bill recommends retelling your story 10 times in that mirror to see how it feels. For him, when he did it, it was the fifth or sixth time when things really began clicking for him.   People have told PJ that this mirror exercise is the most awkward thing they’ve ever done. Some people even walk out during this session. People hate it. However, there’s a silver lining; once people finish this exercise, they feel much more comfortable in their own skin and progress gets made.   Interview Links: 42walls.com PJ 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Meetings! They take up our time and nothing actionable ever gets done by the end of it. No one really likes meetings. However, good meetings can actually give you back time. How can you execute a good meeting so that everyone will feel happy and more productive by the end of it? This week’s guest shares how!   Rob Simons is a Certified Gazelles Coach, the Strategy Summit Facilitator and Accelerator Facilitator for Entrepreneurs’ Organization, and has over 25 years of experience as a brand expert, business coach, and entrepreneur!   Rob grew up during the beginning of the personal computer revolution. He started his first publishing firm at 23 and started his first branding firm at 25. A defining moment for him was going to an all-day workshop with Verne Harnish and that’s when he realized how much he didn’t know about how to run a business. Things really started to kick off from there. In 2011, Rob started coaching clients on a full-time basis.   One of the biggest mistakes Rob made was not getting an outside coach. He thought, “I’m a smart guy. I can figure it out.” Yet, even the best golfers in the world have a coach and running a business is no different.   When Rob was running his businesses, he hated meetings. He had a lot on his plate and the last thing he wanted to do was sit in a room for an hour. However, good, effective meetings on a regular basis set you free. One client told Rob that he was able to reduce his email by 60% just by having good meetings.   In our digital world, so many things get lost in translation via email. Don’t try to have important conversations via email. At best, have a video conference if you need to talk. 60-70% of language is non-verbal, so you have to be able to see your team to fully understand the meanings behind the words they say.   Believe it or not, having a daily huddle or a daily meeting can actually be very beneficial to you and the organization. However, so many clients hate doing the daily huddle. It sounds simple, but talking to each other every day and having good communication within the organization go hand-in-hand and the daily huddle helps bridge that.   After you’ve established good daily huddle habits, then what’s the point of having a weekly meeting? The weekly meeting is basically helping you close your books. It gives you a quick recap of what was done that week. Some people like to do this monthly, but truth be told, most people can’t remember what happened 3 weeks ago and things often, again, get lost in communication.   With any good meeting, you have to have an agenda, an outline, of what you’re going to talk about and you have to make sure you follow it! If you don’t have an agenda and you’re just winging it, then it’s never going to work.   Interview Links: Petracoach.com Rob 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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

We all want to reach our potential yet nobody really knows what that really is. So, how can we recognize and keep hitting new levels of our potential? Well, today’s guest has all the answers.   Mark Sanborn is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea lab for leadership development and turning ordinary into extraordinary. He is also the author of The Fred Factor and his most recent book, The Potential Principle, which is what we’ll be talking about on today’s episode!   Mark got into competitive public speaking when he was ten years old and later in life, he went on and founded Sanborn & Associates. He wanted to help leaders communicate better and turn them from ordinary to extraordinary.   Mark wrote The Potential Principle after working 30+ years with leaders. Mark realized that his clients were already really, really good at what they do. However, it dawned on him that in order for them to continue being the best at what they do, they had to continue to get better and improve themselves — but how could they do that if they were already the top leaders in their industry? They have no one else to emulate. They’re on the frontlines and they’re making things up as they go.   The more you learn about any particular skill or industry, the more you realize you have to learn. There’s nothing wrong with arriving at your destination in your industry but the real problem is when you stop growing and stop challenging yourself to reach a new level of potential.   What is the Potential Principle? Well, in a nutshell, we all know how good we’ve become, but none of us know how good we can be. The potential principle highlights this problem to help you realize and plan where your ‘next’ step is. As Mark was researching the book, he found out that 58% of professionals said they had a commitment to getting better, but only 30% had a plan. Commitment without a plan is just wishful thinking and daydreaming.   Interview Links: Potentialprinciple.com MarkSanborn.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 Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube