Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

John Ruhlin is the author of GIFTOLOGY: The Art & Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through The Noise & Drive Referrals and founder of the Ruhlin Group.  There’s an art and science to using gifts to cut through the noise, and drive real referrals to your business. In this episode, John discusses how to use gifts to scale your business and increase referrals. John was a young, broke college kid who took a job at Cutco to hopefully pay his way through college. Fortunately at the time, John knew a lawyer outside of work who had the ‘secrets of business’ figured out, and, with his help and philosophy, John invented the first corporate gifting program for Cutco. The lawyer taught him this: If you can take care of your client’s family, everything else in business seems to work itself out. However, just gifting out a basket of fruit during Christmas is not going to help you cut through the noise. There’s a method to how and when you should gift. Want to know what’s considered a bad gift? Anything involving food. It doesn’t stand out! Gifting alcohol is not far up there, either. If you want to quickly offend somebody, give them food and alcohol. When people gift, they’re not looking at it as an ROI. They really should. When you spend money, you should get money back. In old biblical times, gifting represented the value of the relationship. It’s more than just a ‘thank you’, it’s a communication tool.   Interview Links: Giftologybook.comRuhlingroup.com 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 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).  

Heather Patterson is the Founder and Chief Happiness Officer at Happier Talent Development. Heather uses her expertise to develop happier, and more fulfilling, workplaces. So, what’s the secret sauce to employee happiness? Find out on this week’s show! Although Heather currently lives in Hawaii, which may bum some of our listeners out, the truth is, you can be happy in an office during a blizzard storm too. No matter where you are, there will always be moments of happiness and frustration in the workplace. Despite the fact that Heather sees palm trees everyday, she still faces the same work-related problems anybody in the rest of the U.S. might experience. It’s important to keep in mind that the palm trees don’t make the problems go away. So, how can you optimize your workforce through a positive environment? Heather shares an important example of how she turned a skeptical, arms crossed, eyes rolled, CEO into an avid supporter. This CEO now has a much, much happier team because of Heather’s work. It comes down to not telling what the CEO should do to create a happier team, but opening up a strong dialog between the team and the leader; that way the leader can deliver and meet the needs of his or her staff. Interview Links: HappiertdHeather on LinkedIn 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 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).

Roland Siebelink has 24 years of tech experience in product management, product marketing, customer success, and strategy. Originally from the Netherlands, Roland came to Silicon Valley in 2016. Today, Roland and Bill share some thoughts and lessons about keeping the balance on both innovation and scale. Roland has seen three small startup companies grow into large-scale organizations from both sides of the world (Europe and the U.S.). Roland believes the effects of good leadership, or bad leadership, usually take between 7-10 years to show up in traditional companies. However, in tech, the growth is so accelerated that it can become quite obvious when there’s good or bad management leading the team. The founder’s personality, habits, and values automatically show up in the people he/she hires. It’s difficult to have structure when developing a fast-growing company. However, in startups, there are often no plans written down, or goals set, and this can add further chaos to a company’s growth. This often means that in the very beginning, the team has to continuously try to figure out what the founder wants today, and not develop anything meaningful for tomorrow. There’s nothing wrong with hiring on a good operational partner to help build structure in the company. Roland knows there are many different ways to approach how to run a startup, and he’s not advocating one, and only one way, but it’s important to make clear management decisions early on, to really help set the tone of the company.   Interview Links: Roland on LinkedIn     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 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).      

Lynne Twist is the author of The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. Money, and the lack of it, is a very important subject for entrepreneurs, but Lynne is here to tell you that your limited beliefs on money are actually hurting you, not helping you. Today, Lynne discusses how you can become liberated from money, instead of being chained by it. From Bucky Fully to Mother Teresa, these are just some of the inspirational people and mentors Lynne was able to work shoulder to shoulder with. When Lynne was younger, she used to call people who were financially lacking, ‘poor,’ but now that she’s seen the world, she would never use that title to describe them. What’s poor is just their circumstances, not the people themselves. The most underprivileged and underserved have show Lynne pillars of strength, courage, and resilience. On the flip side, while working on The Hunger Project and raising money from the rich, Lynne noticed that the rich, too, have their problems. Everything from addiction, to abandonment issues. The ‘rich,’ something Lynne no longer calls them, are human too. Too much money can cause us to lose our identity. So, by working with these two very different contrasts, Lynne discovered something important: On top of needing to feed ourselves, we also have a hunger for meaning. Both groups have distorted images of money, and its worth.   Interview Links: Soulofmoney.org THP.org 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 est 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).  

Dean Jones is the Talent Development Architect at Gallup. Dean’s primary expertise lies in developing strategic solutions to address key business issues, including organizational development, performance management, learning and development, productivity, and workforce effectiveness. He has acted as a mentor for Bill over the years. Today he talks to Bill about how to lead with your strengths. Dean has been at Gallup now for 11 years. Prior to Gallup, Dean believed he was going to be in sales all of his life, until he stumbled upon self-development and adult learning. When he first joined Gallup, it was a life-changing experience. For the first time in his adult life, he understood why people did what they did. He’s been passionate about it, ever since. The ‘why’ you do what you do is a very important factor to both your work and personal life. When people first begin to really understand their own talents, something magical happens. They begin to ask, “What am I built for?” The more you can unlock your own talent, the more you can unlock your own greatness. As you understand what you’re built for and, what you aren’t built for, that’s when you begin to understand who you are.   Interview Links: Gallup Strengths Center Dean on LinkedIn   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. Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles 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).

Ari Weinzweig is the co-founder of Zingerman’s Community, a chain of delis with purpose. Ari and his business partner, Paul Saginaw, opened their first deli in 1982 with a $20,000 bank loan. Today, Ari and Paul have over 700 employees and their business grosses around $60 million in annual sales. Named one of the world’s top ten CEOs by Inc. Magazine, Ari has a world of knowledge on how to lead a purposeful business no matter what industry you’re in. Ari had no dreams or desires of owning a business. In fact, he had pretty negative beliefs about business, growing up. After he graduated college, he got a job as a dishwasher to try and ‘figure things out.’ This is where Ari met his now business partner,  Paul Saginaw, who was the general manager at the restaurant. After 40 years later, Ari says that they — still — like each other and are good friends. An important lesson Ari learned from Paul was that business is merely a tool. It’s not the tool itself that’s the issue, it’s how it’s used. This concept completely changed Ari’s belief about business. It sounds odd, but Ari never really thought about the impact of beliefs in business on a fundamental level until about 5 years ago, despite already incorporating (almost subconsciously) strong beliefs into his businesses. Everything people ever do is based on beliefs. Every action they take is based on their set of beliefs. So, it makes sense why also bringing beliefs into a business, and making them clear, helps the business thrive on new levels.   Interview Links: Zingermanscommunity.com Zingermanstraining.com The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, by Lynne Twist Transformed!: The Science of Spectacular Living, by Bob Wright and Judith Wright Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube  

Gleb Budman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Backblaze B2, which offers the low-cost cloud storage and backup. Gleb and Bill share similar circles and because it’s a small world, Bill helped Gleb meet his wife. Today’s conversation focuses on Gleb’s business, and how he got a leg up from his competition by trying to solve a major problem with big constraints. How many of our friends, family, and co-workers are not backing up their data? Over the last ten years, everything work-wise has been converted digitally. Despite there being backup solutions out there, for whatever reason, people just aren’t doing them. This discussion of ‘why’ people are not backing up their data propelled Gleb, Brian Wilson, the other Co-Founder of Backblaze, and three other people to quit their jobs and look for a solution. With a minimal budget, Gleb and Brian were able to come up with a solution that was comparable to some of the biggest cloud companies out there. After asking customers how much they’d pay for their data to be backed up in a no-brainer way, they said they’d pay around $5 a month. So, another problem occurred, how do you back up so much data for so little money? The short answer is to build it from the ground up.  With little financial backing, and a drive to solve this problem, Gleb and his team used their financial constraints to come up with a creative solution to their problem. Interview Links:Backblaze.comGleb Budman   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.Humanisteq 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).

Geoff Gwynn helps ambitious leaders of mid-market organizations change their unhappy performance and their current patterns into more fulfilling, and happy, growth. Geoff is a Certified Gazelles International Coach and served in the Royal Air Force. In today’s conversation, Bill and Geoff discuss how to achieve 4x growth in less time than you think. Geoff is located in the UK, and, as many of you may know, Bill is located in the U.S. It’s comforting to know that the work both of these coaches do is universal, and it applies to very vast and unique industries.  One of Geoff's clients focuses on industrial-sized rubber belts and he has been working with this particular company for a little over a year now. When Geoff first began working with the founder, Dan, he realized really quickly that despite having a team of people supporting him in his company, at the end of the day, the key decisions always fell back on him. This put enormous pressure and constraint on Dan and his company. Geoff had to first sit down and figure out what should the company structure look like. Geoff looked at the people Dan had in place and where their strengths and weaknesses were. In fact, he used a number of Gazelle’s tools to help him discover what the employees excelled at. For year one, Geoff made it a point to only focus on three sections of the company. These were: Sales & marketing, operations, and finance. These three sectors are critical for growth. Through taking a finer look at these three sections, Geoff discovered that the company needed to employ some key players to help with stock & inventory, among other duties. Geoff also discovered on the operations side that parts were being shipped incomplete, and, as you can imagine, their customers weren’t very happy about this. However, by going through this very important process, Geoff was able to smooth out the process and get more sales. It took a little bit of time to see the growth happen, but by fixing some of these blockages, Dan and his company increased their margins and efficiency. Interview Links:Go-2-market.co.ukGeoff on LinkedIn   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.Humanisteq WebsiteScaling Up WebsiteGazelles 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).  

Pamela Kan is the President of Bishop-Wisecarver, a manufacturer in rotary motion products. Pamela is the second generation to lead the family business, which was founded 67 years ago. Today, Pamela speaks about her personal experience with developing strategic partners — what works, and what doesn’t work! Let’s first focus on the things that didn’t work. We often learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. Pamela tries to develop a culture of fail fast, but unfortunately with this particular example, it took a little longer to fail, and her company ended up burning some money because of it. Pamela partnered with a competitor in her industry to do a joint development on a product. Both companies were very well aligned on management and everything seemed to be going fine. Pamela already had a design for the product and even ordered the necessary parts to get this product on its way. But by the end of it all, the entire project ended up failing, and the reason why came down to a number of things. First and foremost, the parent company was outside the United States and even though the C-suite executives and management were all on the same page, it turns out that the parent company did not approve of the joint venture. Biggest lesson there was that you have to be sure that the people you’re talking to have decision-making power. Another reason why the joint venture failed is that both companies had different cultural values, both on a company and country culture perspective. This was one of the main reasons why the parent company did not wish to continue their venture further.   Interview Links: Bwc.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).

Tom Schwab is a digital marketer who helps entrepreneurs harness the power of the Internet, through the use of podcasting and more! Today, Tom discusses how you can get front and center with your ideal customers, for free. Tom’s business is digital, which allows him to explore different cities one week out of the month. The great thing about today’s technology is that no matter where you are in the world right now, as long as you have the internet, you can achieve remarkable things. So, what does it take to be a great podcast guest? You don’t need a fancy mic to speak to a podcast host. Your phone or even an earbud mic can work perfectly well when you’re conducting your interview. Tom himself has done over 400 podcast interviews from a variety of different places like hotel rooms and even at the beach! Most of us have a great product or service, but the only problem we have seems to be we’re just too obscure in a noisy world. More and more, customers are starting to filter what they want to hear and what they don’t. So, it’s better to get in on the conversations that are already happening, right from the start. Tom has six steps to help his clients get placed right in front of their ideal customers, through podcasting. Podcasts are just the perfect resource for any person to leverage, because there’s no better way than talking directly into the ears of your target customer. Want to know what those six steps are? Then you’ll have to tune into this week’s show for more information!   Interview Links: Tmschwab.com Humanisteq Website Scaling Up Website Gazelles Website Bill on YouTube