Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

Keith Upkes has a financial CFO background and is a business growth coach for The Upkes Group as well as for Gazelles International Coaches. In this episode, Keith and I talk about creating an effective dashboard, as this is something many clients and companies struggle with. Keith believes dashboards are important for three specific reasons. Number one, it helps get raw data into the right hands. Clients often do not know their numbers and this is because they do not have the right data in front of them. Number two, it quickly summaries data that clients need. When clients have data in front of them, many of them don't know how to make sense of it, but dashboards help simplify this process significantly. Number three, it helps get the most relevant metrics into the clients' hands quickly after each accounting period. The client is able to quickly see what is relevant in their industry based on data collected by dashboards and give the relevant data to their leadership team. How can teams make dashboards effective? You are able to track metrics that are not only specific to your industry, but your company in real-time. For instance, when your company has goals and objectives they're looking to achieve, dashboards help make sure your company is on the right track with those goals. Also, when you may have different priories to target based on your industry, dashboards are able to effectively separate those goals for you and your team. With this in mind, it's important to note that your dashboards have to change over time. A mistake clients often make is that they set their dashboards to their goals, rely on it, but forget to update their goals after each quarter. This means that the dashboards and the data they produce could get thrown off course and that's how data and information discrepancies happen in your company. What are Keith's thoughts on keeping score on a handwritten white board vs. using technology such as a dashboard, to do the same thing? Keith doesn't particularly care how you measure your results, as long as you're making an active effort to measure them and you are using it to make a difference in your company. Some companies prefer using the old-fashioned whiteboard because it fits in with their company culture and business. Tech companies, for example, would prefer using dashboards’ services because the culture is much more tech inclined.   Interview Links: The Upkes Group's Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

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. Today, Brian and I discuss the process of how he comes up with big vision ideas and how he's able to get his team to execute them. After growing his company to a million dollars in 1997, Brian found himself depressed and comparing himself to other extremely successful people around him. He was a high school and university dropout and didn’t have a lot of money at the time. So he decided to stop the negative thinking and thought about what his company would’ve achieved without him.  What could the future feel and act like? Right then and there, Brian took out a piece of paper and started to write down his visions and his dreams for the company he had built. Brian calls this process the 'painted picture', because a picture says a thousand words and he put a thousand words on paper to create the vision for his company. The painted picture process is incredibly simple. It starts with the person being in an inspirational place. Then they just have to take out a piece of paper and write very specific and intentional language. Brian didn't write, 'I hope to be' or 'I want to be', he wrote, 'I will be'. He gave himself incredibly specific goals, in this particular case, a five year goal to achieve his big vision. 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?   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. As the staff read his vision for the future, some became excited and 100% on board, but others decided it was best to leave as that did not match their ideal environment. When companies are often facing big shifts like this, they can experience huge turnovers by the team. While this is good in the long-run, it can be be difficult keeping up with demand on short staff and sometimes painful in the short-run. 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 tries to do, is say how to get there. The reason for this is that the CEO doesn't always know best. His team will sometimes have a better execution plan than he will. It also prevents the CEO or founder from getting cold feet when he realizes the 'real' work involved. It can be scary to plan accordingly, especially if you don't even have the current team in place for it.   Interview Links:Painted Picture Visualizationwww.o2ebrands.com 1-800 Got Junk WebsiteGood to Great by Jim Collins Brian on LinkedIn Twitter - @brianscudamore Facebook - facebook.com/bscudamore Instagram - brianscudamore   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Daniel Marcos is the CEO and co-founder of Gazelles Growth Institute as well as a certified coach of Gazelles International Coaches. Daniel has coached individuals all over the world and works with a wide range of businesses from the million-billion dollar range. Today, Daniel and I focus on the 4 key stages of growth in a business. Let's dive in. After being an entrepreneur for the last 16 years, Daniel has realized that the decisions you have to take in each growth stage are completely different and this is where CEOs seem to face the most trouble. CEOs often want to execute the same decision for each stage and they often encounter a substantial amount of pain points with this method along the way. If you want to grow your company, the first bottleneck is you, the leader. Companies need to evolve the leader from an entrepreneur to a CEO and turn their startup into a well-run organization. Daniel defines each stage by the quantity of employees on payroll instead of the amount of sales that are generated. His reasoning for this, he says, is that as the company gets larger, people find it more and more difficult to communicate throughout the organization. The first stage is a startup and everyone is wearing different hats in the company. The most important part during this stage is product development and understanding what it is you are selling and to whom you're selling the product to. Stage two is the small business. The company size ranges between 6-15 employees. The entrepreneur now has to be a leader. Once a leader, he/she has to do two very important things to keep this status – learn how to give directions to your team and delegate tasks. Daniel believes stage two is the hardest stage for the entrepreneur, because both your clients and employees expect more of you. Stage three means you're a leader of leaders. You have between 16-250 employees and now the most critical role is you building up team leaders. You have to develop talent and teach people how to lead others. The problem during stage three is communication, because communication gets broken as the chain of command goes further down. It's almost like you're playing the Telephone Game. At the end of the day, you have to respect the position of your leaders. As an entrepreneur, you get so used to fixing everything, but at this stage you need to give up some control and trust in the people you've trained. You have to begin to shine the spotlight on them instead of you. This is why most CEOs are stuck at stage three and are not able to move on to stage four. To get to stage four, you have to be humble and really let go. Your role is to have a great first layer of executives. If you have a great sales manager, for example, you will never have a sales problem. Though, as Daniel points out, we secretly don't want a great sales manager, because then we know we won't be needed anymore. What does stage four look like? The operation runs flawlessly without you. You leave for vacation and everything is absolutely fine when you come back. The entrepreneur, turned leader, turned leader of leaders - is now an innovator, change catalyst, and chief of culture in the organization. Your duty is to design a culture that's respected all through the organization and to change what's currently not working within the company.   Interview Links: Growth Institute Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

David Rendall is a professional speaker, stand-up comedian, author of The Freak Factor, and he spends his free time competing in Ironman triathlons and ultramarathons. The Freak Factor discusses the concept of unleashing your inner freak and discovering your unique potential. It dives into the fact that your strangeness and weird quirks are the key to your success. Today, Dave shares his story on how he got into 'The Freak Factor' line of work. When he was growing up, he was constantly in trouble and was told by teachers to sit still and stay put. Dave believed for a good number of years that he was a problem, a loser, and that if he didn't 'control himself' he would remain so. It wasn't until age 30 that he realized he was actually getting rewarded for what seemed to be these 'awful' qualities both his teachers and parents frowned upon. He was getting rewarded for speaking out, taking control of the situation, and going against the grain. One day while he was listening to an audio book and reflecting back on his life, he realized his biggest weakness growing up was also a strength. Every single one of his weaknesses seemed to be strengths and this did not just apply to Dave personally, but to others as well. So, how do you leverage your freak factor? Dave says once yourecognize that your weaknesses are strengths, you can begin to see some of the positives that come with it. The first step is to be aware of your 'flaws' and the second step is to accept them. Be aware that this is who you are and to recognize the positives and negatives that come with that. The third step is to improve and strengthen your flaws. How do you capitalize on the positive sides of your weaknesses? Dave believes that, in the process of trying to fix our weaknesses, we also end up damaging our strengths. Instead of holding it in, we should find ways to let it out and maximize the benefits of our flaws.   Interview Links: David Rendall's Website The Freak Factor by David Rendall More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Rich Manders, co-founder of iAutomation and FreeScale Coaching, is a serial entrepreneur who has sold two businesses and has overseen seven acquisitions. Rich has a deep understanding on how to optimize and grow combining enterprises and has worked with many thought leaders on business management, personal development, and negotiation. In 1998, Rich was having problems finding and keeping talented employees for the business he was starting. Someone recommended that Rich look into a Topgrading workshop and, after a brief course on the subject, found that this system was undoubtedly the best way to hire new employees. Rich attributes Topgrading to making his business millions of dollars because it took the chaos out of hiring talent. Due to the technical nature of the company, it took roughly two years of employee training to be brought up to full speed. This had huge costs for Rich. Not only did it take two years to test out talent, but it also cost Rich $250,000 in salary, training, and benefits before the company even knew if that one employee was a right fit for them. High stakes to say the least. Rich says during the first two years of the company, he had made five bad misfires. Rich found that by using the Topgrading system, the people he ended up hiring were 2-3 times more productive than previous hires. The next step for Rich was to send his managers through the topgrading workshop to also improve employee productivity. The hiring process is not fast or easy. It takes time to vet the right hires and find the right talent. Rich says it takes one full day to two full days to get through the Topgrading process. The biggest push back Rich received was that hiring managers didn't have time to take a full day just to hire one person. Rich's counterpoint was clear, if it's costing the company $250,000 alone to fully train an employee, then taking the necessary day or two to vet the person fully is in the best interest of the company. Do it right the first time. When Rich started the Topgrading process, he already had 20 people on staff and 5-10 million in revenue. By properly vetting new hires who were brought on board, they were able to increase their staff to 160 and generate 80 million in sales revenue by the time Rich left the business in 2013. The Topgrading system really skyrocketed their business.   Interview Links: Topgrading Website Who by Geoff Smart iAutomation Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Greg Crabtree is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and financial expert. In 2011, Greg published his first book, Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! where he shares his core principles on how to turn your business into a wealth building machine. Today, Greg and I discuss the labor efficiency ratio (LER) and what it means to your business. Greg grew up on a chicken farm in Alabama and quickly realized that raising chickens was not something he was destined to do. At the age of 14, his mother took him to a CPA to have the family's taxes filed and he discovered a passion for finances. If you were to get run over by a bus today, what would it take for your family to continue your business? Who could accurately replace you? Greg says there are two types of laborer categories: direct labor and management labor. Based on the role you play in your business and what category you fall in, you will have to find a person that matches your category type in order to successfully carry on the business. By practicing this methodology, it helps you find a clearer picture of what your role is within the company. So instead of working on the business, you're working more effectively in the business. Greg shares a quick example of applying this methodology in real time. One of his clients had $600,000 in revenue and 25% of that was profit split between two owners. However, their main issue was that they were having cash flow problems. Greg understands that if you're having cash flow problems at 25% profit, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the business. It turns out that the owners were only making 4% in profit instead. Greg then worked with the owners on how they could increase their contribution margin and increase their numbers by $140,000. For this particular business, they had the right people, but they were just not getting the right kind of accountability out of them. After Greg gave them a new set of goals to strive for, which they hit flawlessly, the two owners ended up making 19% profit in their first year. Greg believes, it first starts with holding the management team accountable and to define clearly what they must strive for in order to earn their wages or bonuses. The work Greg provides is often above and beyond what you would usually receive from a typical tax accountant. Greg really strives to help optimize your business by using simple formulas and data to create effective and money-saving processes.   Interview Links: SimpleNumbers Website Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Nick Scott is a certified Gazelles executive coach and management consultant. He specializes in strategic planning, accountability, technology management, and executive team development. When Nick first began his career as consultant, he looked towards the Lean approach to help his clients succeed. He believes to improve any organization, it first has to start from the top and that's one of the reasons why his career path lead him to coach clients as well. Nick's position allows him to really dig deep in a company and help improve it by figuring out the main pain point . Is this a process problem, cash flow problem, or a people problem? When the problem has been spotted, then it's time to bring focus to the leadership team and solve it. Any process-improvement project has to have strong support from the top of the organization or it is destined to fail. The leadership and top management team has to understand why this project is important. When looking to improve a certain process within the company, a big mistake is to give orders from the top down. To achieve the best results and improvements, leaders must lead by example. Another mistake companies often make is when they try to copy a method that has worked for company A and apply it to their company. Companies are very diverse and copy/pasting a method into the current mold simply doesn't work effectively. Nick recommends the book 2 Second Lean by Paul A. Akers as a way to study more of the Lean Manufacturing methodology. He too mentions what Nick has spoken about today – if you don't have support from the top, it will be very difficult to achieve a Lean process throughout the company. Set realistic time frames and break the process-improvement project up in pieces or else you and your team are doomed to fail. Nick recommends to start with a pilot project and then take that next step. The team needs to understand that this is an ongoing investment within the organization and each step they invest in, they build the value of the organization. In so many companies and situations, the current process and way of doing things is just accepted as is. This sometimes creates additional problems and instead of trying to find the root cause, companies put a temporary band-aid over the situation. It fixes the problem, however it doesn't address the underlying issue and this delays the company's processes even further; costing them money, time, and other resources. Remember, there's always a better way to improve a process and that this requires a long-term investment plan.   Interview Links: Traverse Tech Website Nick on LinkedIn   The E-myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber 2 Second Lean by Paul A. Akers Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande   More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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: 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,  and I’m a certified Gazelles business coach. 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).

Jeff Redmon is a senior Gazelle coach and the founder of Redmon Law Chartered. He has over 25 years of experience and has served as a trusted advisor to fellow business owners. Jeff also runs the Inner Circle of the St. Croix Valley in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In today's show, Jeff and I discuss the power of Jeff's 1+1+1=19 formula and what a difference it can make in a company. Jeff has created what he calls the 1+1+1=19 workshop. Obviously, Jeff's workshop does not follow the traditional math rules we've all learned in school, so how does the 1+1+1=19 formula work? To break it down simply when you're looking at a straightforward profit/loss statement, you're often looking at four lines – sales, cost of the goods sold, overhead, and then the bottom line. Based on the concept Jeff is using in his workshop, if you increase your top line by 1%, then you cut your cost of goods/services by 1% and cut your overhead by 1%; you can then increase your net income by 19%. That's how the 1+1+1=19 formula works. What many people can see is that pursuing 1% changes in the company are actually worthwhile and can lead to huge profit gains. Jeff has taught this formula to over 100 business owners and they have all seen great benefits when they make just 1% adjustments to their company. He has seen between 7% to 80% improvement just by business owners working on his formula, so it's not always a flat 19%. Keep in mind that by increasing the net income by 19%, you also increase the value of your company long-term. So the 1+1+1=19 formula is not just for short-term cash, but it can also be applied to a long-term company selling strategy. In Jeff's workshop, he and other business owner attendees brain storm on how they can increase the top line revenue by 1%. Once they've finished the exercise, they then think for various solutions on how they can save money for their company. Jeff had one client who brought in 10 million dollars in annual revenue and through this exercise was able to save $400,000 from their bottom line. Although these strategies may sound simple, they can often be overlooked as we plan big marketing and growth initiative strategies to increase business sales. We often forget to apply these simple methods like looking within the company to save money when we're constantly trying to think big and grow bigger. Jeff believes that working on this formula with your leadership team is important, if not crucial. You will see better results in a group setting than if you were to sit down and try to find creative solutions by yourself. Once you've completed these exercises and notice where you can make additional changes to save money, increase the top line and cut costs, do not suffer from analysis paralysis. Just pick 1-3 things that will make an impact and take action.   Interview Links: Redmon Law Website Jeff on LinkedIn More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Jabez LeBret is a NBC Chicago Business Columnist, author, speaker, and Chief Marketing Officer of GNGF. Jabez is considered a leading authority on monetizing social media and often speaks at industry conferences on this subject. In today's episode, I discuss with Jabez on how to work with millennials. I know many clients who are having challenges with keeping the millennial generation engaged, so hopefully we can demystify and solve some of those issues for you today.  There are four core fundamentals that really help millennials succeed at work. Not only do you get them to work more effectively, but it changes the whole work environment for them too. These four tactics are actually good for any employee, no matter what their age. With that being said, these fundamentals are specifically targeted to get that everyday millennial employee to the next level. As a millennial himself, Jabez really stumbled into this space by accident. He was doing leadership presentations at companies that needed to know how to lead the younger generation. He kept getting asked, "How do I manage you?" He also runs a company where his entire team is made of millennials. So for him, it was a no-brainer to create a program around how to manage and engage millennials in the work force. The millennial generation is different compared to other generations because they saw the creation of search on the internet. They grew up with Google and they were the reason social media was created. Cellphones were very prevalent for them too. The technological advances play a huge role in the millennial workplace. Another unique aspect about millennials is that they had helicopter parents. Unlike older generations where both parents were working and the children took care of themselves, millennials had parents that were hyper involved with their lives. Parents made sure they were participating in all the necessary activities. Through that process, millennials grew up thinking their opinions matter. Millennials are also referred to as 'The Trophy Generation' - They got a trophy for just showing up. Millennials were rewarded for participating and if participation was the only thing that mattered, if it was never about 'winning', then they will take criticism or feedback badly.  At the end of the day, millennials want purpose. They are a purpose-driven generation and that's how you keep them engaged. Companies are having a hard time delivering this to them because they don't know their own values or even their mission. The goal of a manager working with millennials is to bake the purpose of everything into the process, why these tasks are important in the grand scheme of things and how it helps the end-mission of the company. Millennials also grew up in team environments. Despite this, people say millennials aren't loyal. This is not true at all. In fact, management has not given them reasons to be loyal. What's important to understand as a leader is that you need to have mechanisms in place that allow millennials to share their opinions and let them know they're contributing to a greater good. If they don't feel like they're contributing to the overall process, they're not going to be motivated.   Interview Links: Jabez's Website Jabez on LinkedIn Chelsea Krost's Website Good to Great by James C. Collins More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).

Andy Bailey is the head of Petra Coach and Align software. His specialties include implementation of Rockefeller Habits and other business processes that drive results in any business setting. Andy’s passion is to assist business owners and entrepreneurs in building the foundation allowing them and their teams the ability to achieve their goals. In today’s episode, I discuss with Andy how to utilize Align for the purpose of alignment between the employees and business. Tune in to hear how Align can help organizations achieve their priorities. The number one question most people have is “how do I know if my employees’ priorities align with the organization?” Align is a business project planning tool that allows working on your business instead of in your business. It is important for leaders to know what is going on throughout the entire company. The person in the front line needs to understand what they are doing everyday aligns with their enterprise's priorities, and when these two things match up, people will understand their role and make better decisions that align with their organization. To ensure focus and alignment remain throughout the company, the business needs to have two crucial meetings, one which is called the daily huddle; no longer than 15 minutes max. These are based on small groups of staff members throughout the company and broken apart by function and departmental needs. This ensures all the team members are on the same page, and issues are identified and dealt with immediately. These huddles need to be in conjunction with the Core Weekly Priority meeting. There needs to be an owner and a metric to priorities; you can’t cheat when you are using Align. You have to pick a due date; the system won’t let you choose a priority without a KPI and a definition. Some of the key stumbling blocks; number one it’s easier for companies that are just starting out to use Align from the beginning, but it is harder for already established organizations to understand the importance needed because some see it as just another tool that they will have to implement. The Pure Task Management Tool is under-appreciated mainly because businesses don’t have the knowledge necessary to utilize it. Most companies use emails as a task management tool, which is a horrible idea. This tool creates a project with due dates and instructions, assigns it to someone or a team, manages the re-distribution, and completions through trigger notification as well as dashboards. It is incredibly powerful and underutilized. The KPI becomes the task and as you check them off it shows progress on your priority. The EMPS and Feed Box feature complement each other; one way to measure Employee Morale is by using a scoring methodology. It’s a single survey sent out monthly or quarterly where the staff members answer one question; score it a 0-10, and comment. This is assigned to a person that gathers the suggestions and information and will display it on the dashboard. The person in charge will monitor the score; whether it went up or down and give feedback on a report. There are some exciting new features in the pipeline. Align is going through a code re-write which will allow iterating faster in the future. There is also a big reveal around the multi-language design. Align can be used with a company of one to thousands. You can leverage the software to get focused and work on the necessary items and track goals.   Interview Links: Petra Coaching Align’s Website More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com:  Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up. 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 and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.  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).