Scale Up With Nick Bradley

In this week’s ’15 Minutes To Action’ episode, Nick talks you through the process of getting your business ready for sale, and how to achieve “exit readiness”. It’s all about preparation, and in this show, Nick talks you through the best ways of maximising your company’s value along the way. Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS  If you want to achieve something amazing, then it’s always preceded by a period of preparation that can sometimes seem unexciting. But it’s absolutely necessary. Always keep your focus on maximising your business’s value. If the long term aim is to sell and exit, then write that into your DNA from the beginning. In the run up to selling your business, allow yourself a period of triage, during which you can optimise it for sale. Generally this period should last between six and eighteen months. Optimisation for sale should always leave a little breathing room for new investors to take it forward. There should always be some potential for development, that new hands can exploit.   BEST MOMENTS ‘Being focused and disciplined can sometimes be where the challenge is’ ‘Great businesses are focused on making sure each area is optimised’ ‘It’s crucial that you go through your business, looking at it through these lenses’ ‘Make your business remarkable, Make it stunning. Make it predictable. Make it look like it’s a well-run machine'   VALUABLE RESOURCES 6 Peaks of Value Creation Scorecard - https://scaleupyourbusiness.scoreapp.com/   ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

This week, Nick is joined by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg, the co-authors of ‘Game Changer: How To Be 10x In The Talent Economy’, a work designed to help you "identify, attract, vet, employ, manage, and retain—or become—the game-changing talent that will make a difference in the work world of tomorrow”. Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS If you are determined enough to succeed and play the long game in any kind of business, then eventually things will lean into your favour, and allow you to be a force for good in your sector. It is not enough for a person to simply add value in terms of revenue. To truly integrate, they must also seek to align with a company’s values. 10x’ers always work best when they are not treated as a simple cog in the machinery. Leaders must strive to treat their organisations as human beings in order to generate the best from each person. There will always be a need for bureaucracy, but it must never impede progress or competitive advantage for an organisation. If this occurs, then the organisation runs in a detrimental way. We must streamline bureaucracy in order to put forth the right message and gain agility. BEST MOMENTS ’The art is in the execution' ‘When you want something done, you go to the busiest person in the room’ ‘Luck is the cross-section of opportunity and preparedness’ ’It’s really about a people-centric management policy as opposed to a “cover your ass” management policy' ‘Rent fast – hire slow!’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Michael Solomon - https://www.10xmanagement.com/michael-solomon/Rishon Blumberg - https://www.10xmanagement.com/aboutus/rishon-blumberg/Game Changer by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg (Amazon) ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

 One of the most important factors in your success will be the voices that guide you through your journey. No matter what stage you’re at in business, you can always benefit from the wisdom of those who’ve trod the path before you. In this week’s ’15 Minutes To Action’, Nick pays tribute to the incredible people who have helped him to ascend to the top in business, and how they helped him get there. Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS  When embarking upon our journey, we must crystallise our goals. Decide on the things we hope to achieve, and visualise the place we want to be. Physical health leads to mental wellbeing. If we improve our physical energy, then we can achieve more. Personal branding, social media and marketing are essential tools in building our business and our unique stamp on the world. Asking yourself the tough, probing questions can unlock new worlds of creativity. It unlocks the issues that hold us back and presents new solutions.   BEST MOMENTS ‘One of the biggest changes in my life was realising that I needed to surround myself with people who could help me get to where I wanted to get to’ ‘I’m not a self-made man. I got a lot of help’ ‘If you have more energy you can do more. You can be more’ ‘It’s the people you meet in these environments that can change everything'   VALUABLE RESOURCES Dent Global - https://www.dent.global/Daniel Priestley LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpriestley/?originalSubdomain=ukCarl Allen LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcarlallen/Rob Moore LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979/?originalSubdomain=ukRock Thomas LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rockthomas/Rich Litvin - https://richlitvin.com/ ABOUT THE HOST  Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

This week sees Nick in conversation with the incredible Steve Sims, a man who’s worked with the likes of Elon Musk, Andrea Bocelli and Elton John in turning dreams into a reality. Known as the “real life Wizard Of Oz”, Steve is a man who can turn the impossible into the possible. Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/   KEY TAKEAWAYS Nothing is ever impossible. The greatest challenges come through being told that an aim is unachievable. The more extreme the task, the greater the sense of fulfilment.  Our ability to convince someone else to do something amazing is increased exponentially if we convince them that we believe in it. When we want something, we often ask for it using questions that can easily be shut down. Ask investigative, open questions that can influence the answer, and you’ll see far greater success. Before focusing time and resources on technological solutions, identify the solution itself, and then present yourself as the solution to the clients who need it. This is the path to a scalable model. Asking “why” can unlock a whole new pathway towards opportunities. Often the answer can throw up a different way of thinking, and whole new set of motivations and insights.   BEST MOMENTS  ‘My superpower is ignorance. I’ve never understood that anything isn’t possible’ ’People know when I walk into the room what I’m after!’ ’They always laugh at you before they applaud’ ‘I want people to have a great “I can” than an “IQ"'   VALUABLE RESOURCES The Bluefish - https://www.thebluefish.comSteve Sims - https://www.stevedsims.comBluefishing: The Art Of Making Things Happen – Steve Sims (Amazon)   ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

Nick talks to Chester Elton, author, speaker, founder of The Culture Works, and leading global expert on leadership, culture, and engaging your people. Chester joins Scale Up With Nick Bradley to talk about his book, ‘Leading With Gratitude’, and why gratitude in business is so important in effective leadership. If you’re struggling to build great teams and instil your culture, then this week’s show is a must-listen! Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS Travel, spending time in different cultures, and getting out of your comfort zone, grants you a series of life lessons and teaching that you simply can’t get from academia. When taking on a new responsibility or pursuit, the more you do it the better you get. You can’t expect to walk into a new skill. It’ll be hard at first, but stick with it. We are never too advanced in our field to stop receiving guidance from coaches or mentors. Even the top athletes in the world still retain the services of coaches in order to keep growing. You can’t be fearful and grateful at the same time. Focussing on the positives in our life not only eliminates fear but promotes a positive state and mindset, and encourages productivity. 99% of the world turning up in the hopes that they’ll do a good job, but mistakes will inevitably happen, and that’s okay.    BEST MOMENTS ‘You treat everybody well. You be good to everybody. Everybody’s having a tough day’ ‘Who are you grateful for that’s not at the table. Who are you grateful for who’s at the table, who hasn’t been thanked yet?’ ‘Your job is to wake up every day and make someone’s day a little better’ ‘Anything that you start, that you’ve never done, is difficult’ ‘We call it “little wins along the way"'   VALUABLE RESOURCES Chester Elton - https://www.chesterelton.com/welcomeChester Elton LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesterelton/Leading With Gratitude (Amazon)www.leadingwithgratitudebook.com ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

This week, Nick is taking a deep dive into the world of venture capital with special guest, Brad Feld, one of the most prolific investors in the world, having marked himself out as an early stage investor since 1987 in such diverse businesses as Fitbit and Guitar Hero! Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/   KEY TAKEAWAYS Brad’s investment strategy has always focused around two things: the people and the product. The product must be innovative and provide an affinity for investors, and the people behind it have to be put on this planet to work on this product. Creating an entrepreneurial company is about creating a constant series of experiments, many of which fail. When they fail you learn from them. When they succeed, you experiment further. Investors don’t need to strike the jackpot with their entire investment fund. Sometimes all it takes is a few companies that return meaningful economic returns, in order for the investment fund to be covered. The parts are not the important thing in any start-up community. The interaction between the parts are the crucial element. The dynamics between the parts cause new things to happen.   BEST MOMENTS  ‘I learned the difference between zero times your money and a hundred times your money’ ‘If you don’t care about the product, as an investor you can’t stay in there and do the work’ ’The way you learn how to fly is to throw yourself at the ground and miss’ ‘What happens at every step along the way feeds into what happens next'   VALUABLE RESOURCES The Foundry Group - https://foundrygroup.com/team/brad-feld/Brad Feld LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bfeld/Feld Thoughts - https://feld.comBrad Feld Twitter - https://twitter.com/bfeldbrad@feld.comBooks by Brad Feld - https://feld.com/books-on-startups-entrepreneurship-and-venture-capital   ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

Beginning an entrepreneurial journey requires passion, hard work, and time, but too much can lead to rapid burnout. In this week’s ’15 Minutes To Action’, Nick shares some tips that’ll keep that crash at bay. Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS  It’s far better to concentrate on five, deep hours of flow, on the key areas that you wish to build on, than it is to spend an entire day on minor tasks. Focus on your “eulogy virtues”, Do you wish to be remembered as a workaholic, or do you want to be the person that made a difference. How will people think of you in the future, based on the you that you are now? Creating structure in your day is essential to beat overwhelm and overwork. Set time for work, and time for family and leisure in order to create balance. Don’t fall in love with every idea you have. Remember that depending on what your goal is, one idea or insight can change everything. Focus on the best ideas and execute with precision.   BEST MOMENTS ‘When you are scaling your business it’s about longevity’ ‘Five good deep hours of intense flow is the maximum you need to do in a day’ ‘Getting stuff out of your head first thing in the morning starts to give you clarity and focus’ ‘It’s better to go one mile deep and an inch wide'   VALUABLE RESOURCES Scale Up Your Business – scaleup.vip/podcast Join the free Scale Up Your Business community: scaleup.vip/community Generate 20 New Leads in 20 Days - download your free 5-step guide to put in place my top-performing customer creation strategies:  scaleup.vip/20leads     ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

Rob Moore, known to the world as The Disruptive Entrepreneur, could be said to have planted the seed that would one day become Scale Up Your Business. As well as being one of Nick’s mentors, he is known throughout the business world as one of the most successful disruptors out there, holding three world records for speaking, authoring several best-sellers, founding the UK’s largest property education business, and still finding time to own and manage over 750 properties with his business partner. It’s a mindset masterclass this week, for this very special 100th episode! Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS Life and business are a series of opportunities and decisions that can take our journey towards infinite possibilities. The ability to see the possibilities of each decision come from developing a growth mentality. Far too often we get hung up on investing in material possessions that do nothing to advance us. Investment in one’s self is the best investment we can make. When we begin, our desire for security and assets is understandable, and should be encouraged. But as we progress, we should always seek to lean towards growth and altruism. If we design our scaling ambitions to be much larger than we need, we are able to easily surpass the smaller checkpoints along the way. Disruption is a positive thing. Progress has always been made by the outside thinkers. Societies change and new orders have arisen repeatedly. It is the disruptive thinkers who lead the charge.   BEST MOMENTS  ‘If I don’t see the reason in something that’s happening, I’m not getting the lesson' ‘What you feed your mind - your thoughts become’ ’The investment in yourself is the best investment you can make’ ‘My vision and my mission needed to be much bigger than myself’ ‘When people listen to you, they should also honour your uniqueness'   VALUABLE RESOURCES The Rob Moore Foundation - https://robmoore.com/robmoorefoundation/Rob Moore LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979/?originalSubdomain=ukRob Moore - https://robmoore.com‘Money' and 'The Disruptive Entrepreneur' - https://robmoore.com/podcast/    ABOUT THE GUEST Rob Moore is a triple best-selling Property Author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and multi-million- pound Property Investor.  He co- founded the UK’s biggest property education company Progressive Property in 2006 with Mark Homer and has since helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs towards achieving the same, including consulting for many established multi-millionaires and keynoting at some of the UK’s most important business events.   ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.global  Support the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

High performance sales coach, Mike Szczesniak, joins Nick this week to talk you through the ways in which you can dynamically energise your performance and productivity in order to scale your results faster! Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS It’s the result that matters. Getting to that result in as swift and as painless a way as possible, and avoiding overwhelm along the way, should be the goal for everyone. It’s not about the amount of time we spend on a task. It’s about the task itself. We should spend our time on the tasks that matter, and stop worrying about the time we’re taking. 90% of results come from around 30% of the things we do. By identifying the key areas, we can trim down the list of tasks and greatly increase productivity. In business and in life, sometimes all we need is a brief shift in order to gain a whole new perspective. We can open this new view up by asking questions that challenge us. Clarity is the key to hitting your peak in productivity and performance. Clarity rids us of overwhelm and crystallises our goals.   BEST MOMENTS ’Doing things doesn’t matter if the things we’re doing don’t matter' ’The biggest lie everyone says is “I don’t have time”' ‘People try to get all the bells and whistles going when they don’t even have the chain on their bicycle’ ‘What am I not seeing?' VALUABLE RESOURCES Mike Szczesniak LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeszczesniak/Mike Szczesniak - https://www.mikeszczesniak.comMike Szczesniak - https://www.instagram.com/mikeszczesniak/?hl=enThe Results Engine - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-results-engine-podcast/id1490500905   ABOUT THE HOST Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.global Scale Up Your Business website: https://scaleup.vip/suybSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

You’ve built the business and you’ve got the leads. But how can you make sure that you’re nailing your sales conversions at a much higher rate? In this week’s ’15 Minutes To Action’, Nick talks you through eight actionable methods that will send your sales conversion rate skyward! Find out now if you’re building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You’ll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ KEY TAKEAWAYS Make sure your team is made up people who are passionate as you are. You need people who know how to “show up”. Calibrate your offer. Test price. Test your offers. Test your terms. Iteration is key. Striking gold immediately is tough, and if you do, you can always make your offering better. Scarcity creates demand. Creating scarcity instantly gives your product an extra level of desirability. Don’t ever lie, but clearly stating that there is a cap to everything can create a psychological need for speed. Get better through sales training for your team, even if that means that you’re the only one being trained. Invest in making you and your team better through practice!   BEST MOMENTS ‘You drive for show and you putt for dough’ ‘Influence isn’t trying to get someone else to believe. It’s about convincing people that you believe’ ‘It’s not really failure, it’s simply learning’ ‘You get paid in public for the hours you put in, in practice'   VALUABLE RESOURCESPractice Room Online - https://practiceroomonline.com   ABOUT THE HOST  Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.  CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook page: https://scaleup.vip/FB  Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI  Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG  Scale Up Your Business, coaching/consulting: https://suyb.globalSupport the show: https://highvalueexit.com/