Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

Ronen Gafni is a serial entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of FreshBiz, a training company that infuses fun and smart thinking into organizations. Ronen is also the author of The New Entrepreneurz. On today’s show, Ronen discusses how to make business more playful and exciting for everyone. Ronen started his career as a software programmer in the army. He understood you couldn’t take life too seriously. You win some and you lose some. So, with that mindset in mind, he began trading on the stock market during his free time. He was able to convert his $100-a-month salary into $100,000 just from the stock market. There’s a bit of a game at play when it comes to business, but two things tend to get in our way from enjoying it; our competitive spirit and own feelings about what success looks like. No one wants to be seen as a loser, or just some goofball, this is when the game of business stops becoming so fun. Business is not a win-lose situation. If Ronen makes more money, that doesn’t mean you make less of it. The reason Ronen made money is because he added value, and someone gained positively from it. Business should always be win-win. There is no reason why business should be so competitive.   Interview Links: Freshbizgame.com Ronen on LinkedIn Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube

Melinda Wittstock is the CEO & Founder of Verifeed, a company that helps you grow your audience in an authentic way. We all understand the power of authenticity, but what is it exactly? Melinda sheds some light on how business owners can build an authentic and meaningful company on this week’s episode. Melinda and her team have actually created a program that can measure your authenticity. After looking at millions of social conversations, it becomes easy to detect who’s real, and who’s not. There’s a lot of interest in authenticity, but it often gets confused with sincerity. There’s no secret that authenticity is a bit of a buzzword these days, and that it can mean different things to different people. For example, for Melinda, authenticity is about being true to yourself. It applies that you know yourself. This is often a scary thought because people don’t always want to be seen in such a vulnerable light. We don’t want to be rejected by our community. At the end of the day, authenticity is about being true to yourself, and being brave enough to show it to the world. Brands who hide behind a corporate image tend not to come across as human, and this disconnects them from their customers. Nobody wants to be seen as just a number, and people today see through that facade very quickly.   Interview Links: Verifeed.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Helen Chang is a journalist, editor, writer, ghostwriter, and video journalist, specializing in business, motivational and lifestyle topics. As the former business editor of San Diego News Network, SDNN.com, she covered topics in tech, venture capital, personal finance, and more. Today’s episode is all about writing your first book and using it to market yourself as an expert. As a business journalist, Helen was able to interview amazing entrepreneurs, and often saw that the most successful entrepreneurs were those who had some kind of a failure, or some kind of despair, before they learned lessons that eventually propelled them to success later on. The first book she ghostwrote was a complete flop at first. The marketing manager told her she had to completely rewrite it because the book was not marketable. This news crushed her, but she saw this as a learning opportunity and took the challenge. However, this early lesson was an important one because to put a good book together, particularly a business or expertise book, it needs to have a personal story that creates an emotional connection with the reader, and it also needs to have useful information that the reader can use and apply in their everyday life. After rewriting that book, the author brought Helen along to some of the bootcamps he was hosting, and readers would come up to her, thanking her for writing something so beautiful. The book had changed their lives! Ever since the author released his book, it led to a new division of his business that is now worth $100 million dollars. A book is a fantastic way to establish yourself as an expert, and grow your business to new heights.   Interview Links: Helenchangwriter.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Andy Bailey is a serial entrepreneur and author of No Try Only Do. He is also the Founder and Lead Coach of Petra Coach, an entrepreneurial coaching firm. Today’s show is all about the illusion of work-life balance and how we can bridge the gap between those two more seamlessly. Andy and Bill also discuss how language plays an important role on how you show up to others, which is why you should get rid of the word ‘try’ in your vocabulary. How does the concept of ‘no try, only do,’ which was originally said by Yoda, show up in Andy’s life? Andy has always tried to solve problems head on, and ‘There is No Try. Only Do’ has become a core value in his coaching business. When he and his team come into organizations with this mindset, it rapidly sets the standard that you can’t have a victim mentality, or put up excuses, if you truly want to succeed. When you completely remove the word ‘try’ from your vocabulary, it brings a whole new, and real, meaning to what you will say you’ll do. Either you will do something or you won’t. By saying ‘try,’ you’re shifting the responsibility away from yourself and you are possibly wasting everyone’s time. Whether we like it or not, words have power on us. The way we speak and the words we choose do shape the way we act, on both a conscious and subconscious level. This is why it’s so important to speak with conviction and to eliminate excuse words like ‘try.’   Interview Links: Petracoach.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Rory Vaden is the best selling author of Take the Stairs, and Procrastinate on Purpose. His expertise on improving self-discipline, overcoming procrastination, and enhancing productivity make him the perfect guest for this week’s show. Today, Bill and Rory discuss some of the best ways you can multiply your time and get more things done the smart way! Although Rory does sales consulting for his business, the number one challenge his clients face is managing their time effectively. This propelled Rory into researching how the most successful people think about time. He found that there were two major things that stuck out with how ultra-high achievers think about time vs. everyone else. Rory and his team do extensive polling and national studies for his business, but he experienced a surprisingly big breakthrough from a lesson he learned from a 3-year-old girl. That little girl showed him unintentionally that time management isn’t just logical, it’s emotional, too. If you really look at it, there is no such thing as time management. Time carries on whether you want it to or not. When we talk about time management what we’re really talking about is self-management. Self-management includes managing our emotions, our behaviors, and that’s what this is all about. We have to first grasp that self-management is an emotional issue before we can begin to multiply our time. Interview Links: RoryVaden.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Mark Green is a Certified Gazelles Coach and Business Growth Expert. Mark is also the Founder and President of Performance Dynamics Group, where he has helped executives and salespeople dramatically increase their performance and their personal results. How did the journey of authenticity start for Mark? Well, it first began during the very early start of Mark’s childhood (although he didn’t realize it at the time); he was always that kid people could easily talk to. Mark became the go-to person for his peers during middle school and high school because he was a good listener and he was very approachable. Fast forward to 2003, Mark tried to start his own business, what is now the Performance Dynamics Group, but at the time he still didn’t quite understand what he was meant to do in this world. He discovered that he was having personal mental blocks about what success looked like for him, and it was preventing him from being authentic. To Mark, it seemed people around him just ‘understood’ what they were meant to do and were fearless, and authentic, about how to get there. So, Mark embarked on a journey to become more authentic and to discover his life’s purpose, only to find that he had the skills to help others all along — dating back to his early middle school days where he helped his peers through tough problems.   Interview Links: Performance-dynamics.net Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Cameron Herold is the Founder of the COO Alliance and the author of the global best seller Double Double. Cameron has over 10 years of experience as an entrepreneurial mentor, and has grown several companies to over $100 million dollars in revenue over the last 25 years. Why did Cameron start the COO Alliance? Cameron had been an EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) member for 6 years, and realized as he was attending some of those events that he no longer fit in. He wasn’t the CEO or the founder anymore, but he was still second in command and played a vital part in the organization. However, people at those events would often brush him to the side and ignore him, because of that title shift. Over the years, Cameron saw that there were a ton of masterminds for the CEO or founder, but there wasn’t a place for COOs to get together and mastermind/enhance their skillsets. Cameron organized a small group of his clients together, who were all COOs, and thus, the COO Alliance was slowly born last May. How is the COO Alliance set up? The COOs attend four times a year in Scottsdale, Arizona. There are currently 40 core members right now. The model is set up in such a way that 30% of the time the COOs mastermind together and help each other solve some difficult problems happening in their industry. Another 30% of the time, the members break off into small groups of 3 or 4, and brainstorm ideas on how they can make their company better, and they bring these ideas back to the bigger group, kind of like a shared brain trust. The remaining 40% of the event contains one guest speaker, Cameron talking on certain subjects related to the COO position, and a quick 5-10 minute presentation from COO members who know about something they have deep experience in.   Interview Links: COOAlliance.com CameronHerold.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube     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, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. 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).

Evan Rudowski is the Founder and Managing Partner at Atlantic Leap, a company that helps digital startups achieve growth through international expansion. On today’s show, Evan shares some tips and tricks on how companies can successfully make the leap, expand beyond their borders, and enter into the European market. So, how did this all begin? Evan traveled to London from Silicon Valley for what was supposed to be a couple of months’ worth of work. 19 years later, he’s still in London, and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. When he first started, Evan did not have any international experience. He knew American English and that was about it. Evan discusses some of the clients he’s worked with, and how he was able to help them make their transition and break into the European market. It’s difficult to break into a different continent, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Junior members of your team lack the experience to successfully execute such a move and senior members often tend to be too busy to dedicate their full resources to the transition. This is where Evan comes in. When looking directly at the UK market, there is also a vast cultural difference that many Americans might not think about. Yes, both the British and Americans speak English, but from a cultural perspective, you’re dealing with two different worlds. So, how do you begin to make the leap and expand beyond your borders? You’ll have to tune in to this week’s episode to hear what Evan and Bill have to say on this very subject!   Interview Links: Atlanticleap.net Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube   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, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. 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).

Jay Harman is a naturalist, author and award-winning entrepreneur and biomimetic inventor.  Born and raised in Australia, Jay started his career as a naturalist with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in Australia and went on to found several multi-million dollar research and manufacturing companies. Today, Jay talks to us about his book The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation. How did Jay discover that nature has the solution to all of our problems? Well, it first started when he was in school. He had no interest in the teaching materials and would often daydream about going down to the beach to surf, fish, and scuba dive. You could always find him near the water when he wasn’t in school. However, the one subject Jay did pay attention to was physics. The strange thing was, physics worked in a slightly different way in nature than it did in the classroom. Jay first realized this when he saw seaweed, often fragile, keep its shape during the worst of storms. It would always form in a certain pattern and this pattern would help it keep it intact and survive the rough weather. In school, Jay was taught that the path of least resistance was in a straight line. Well, in nature, nothing moves in a straight line! It became very apparent to Jay, but not to Jay’s physics teacher, that the path of least resistance in nature was a spiral. So, Jay began applying these spiral shapes in a practical way and slowly ended up discovering that nature, really, had all the answers. However, how does all of this apply to the business world? Well, you’ll have to listen in for more great insights from Jay and how he slowly discovered that answer. Interview Links: Thesharkspaintbrush.com More Resources: Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so then head over to iTunes and leave a review. It helps other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they can also benefit from the knowledge shared in these podcasts. __ Scaling Up 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 with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. 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).

Rob “Waldo” Waldman is a decorated former fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He is also a professional leadership speaker, and the author of Never Fly Solo, a book on how to reach new heights in business through building trusting relationships. A lot of lessons can be learned through flying a plane. It requires focus, preparation, and even teamwork! When Bill and his team are training his clients’ teams on execution, they will normally show a picture of planes flying in formation. It’s a powerful image because there’s so much work that goes into it making look flawless. The same metaphor can be transferred over into business. Whatever you do in life, one thing remains certain, there will be uncertainty, there will be fear, and there will be doubt! There will be things out there that are outside of your control, and this is where true leadership will come into place. A good leader can navigate through the unknown and bring his people out onto the other side. Fear strikes us all at very different times. For example, Rob had to get over his fear of heights. One of the requirements to graduating in the academy was he had to jump off a 30ft diving board and it was the scariest thing ever! Bill can agree. He’s jumped out of planes as well as flew them and yet, the diving board is what got him. There’s no predicting where your fear is going to hit you at any moment. Fear strikes when you least expect it! The good news is, the opposite of fear is growth. If you’re able to break out of your comfort zone, you’re already on your way to creating new heights for you and your business.   Interview Links: yourwingman.cominfo@yourwingman.com Never Fly Solo Book       More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing. Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website   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, with Humanisteq Coaching, and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. 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).