Scale Up With Nick Bradley

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/

Philip Thomas is one of only a handful of people to have truly made a lasting impact upon the business journey of Nick himself, and in this very special episode, you’ll find out exactly why. 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 There is no more powerful marketing tool than focusing in upon your ideal customer, and making them seem as attractive as possible to all other customers. This was the belief behind FHM, which marketed to 25 year-old men, and made all other men desirous of their status. Attraction comes through focus. By pinpointing your specific archetype, you increase not only awareness, but interest. So much of business is about relationships. If you have time to spend on any pursuit, it should always be in building the bridges and foundations that can take you higher. Zeroing in on our core values is crucial, as are the behaviours we adopt. But when we define our business strategy, we should not ignore it. It should be the lens through which we see each decision.   BEST MOMENTS  ‘If you’re in a market that’s floating up, it’s always a good place to be’ ’25 looks like a hell of a lot of fun!’ ’The more focused you are, the more you please everyone’ ‘We need to encapsulate in a sentence, our purpose. What is it that we as a company do?'   VALUABLE RESOURCES Philip Thomas LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-thomas-127a541/?originalSubdomain=ukPhilip Thomas Twitter - https://twitter.com/philthomas?lang=enCannes Lion - https://www.canneslions.com/about/news/the-campaign-for-creativity   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/

After start-up and then scale-up, what comes next? The level above these places is an empire; a concern that thrives and grows naturally, and which allows us to make a more meaningful impact on the world. In this week’s show, Nick talks you through the six peaks of value creation, one of the best ways of reaching this destination in your business life. 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 An empire allows us to make a more significant and quantifiable impact upon the world. It usually stokes feelings of negativity, but this is misplaced. Vision and initial strategy are the fundamental elements of beginning an empire. Every great empire understands this implicitly. A crucial component in every empire is the consistent flow of recurring customers providing revenue. Empires are not built upon constant states of “market-to-sell” It’s vital to have a business that is metric-driven and insight-driven all the way through. This allows us to look for constant, achievable improvement and efficiency.   BEST MOMENTS ’The reason people scale their business is that they want to create freedom’ ‘You’ve got to have a clear vision of where you want to get to’ ’The eco-system is what can drive recurring revenue’ ‘If you break it down into small parts, you can actually see the cogs in the machine'   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/

Sebastian Bates, the founder of The Warrior Academy among others, talks to Nick about the ways in which you can face down the challenges being presented to us these days, and pivot rapidly towards a more online business model.  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  Sports and martial arts force us to focus our thinking and live in the moment. They allow us to channel our thoughts into a more macro approach and experience time and events more differently. The key to attracting an audience is not to apply guesswork, but to pinpoint the exact thing that people want, and then advertise that message clearly and effectively. The recent events in the world have shown all of us that multiple streams of income are essential in order to avoid pressure, and that cash really is king. Look closely at the problem you are trying to solve. Why are you doing what you’re doing? If we step back and take an outside perspective, it allows us to see where that solution fits in the world. Vital tasks are the ones that only the key person of influence in each business can perform. Functional tasks are the opposite; tasks that can be outsourced, and which keep the wheels turning.   BEST MOMENTS ‘You’ve got to really have a very strong, confident outlook with no hesitation, and make decisions very quickly’ ‘Ultimately, I committed to taking the business global’ ‘A goal is not something you work towards. It’s something you come from’ ‘We’ve got to help them think long term. They have to think “visionary”' ‘It’s fundamental that you find a way to push your personal brand'   VALUABLE RESOURCES Sebastian Bates LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-seb-bates-4b70412b?originalSubdomain=aePersonal website:http://www.sebastianbates.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.global  Support the show: https://highvalueexit.com/

Most of us never get to do the things we truly want to do in life because fear holds us back. This is especially damaging in business, where the results of this fear can be seen in many ways. But how can we turn powerful fear into power itself? 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 Fear is our brain’s way of trying to keep us safe. It’s a perfectly natural physiological response, and in many ways can be helpful in terms of survival. But we must always recognise the places in which we must seek mastery of it. We can only ever influence the present and the future. Do not be influenced by events of the past, and concentrate on the things we can control. Seek to surround yourself with positive influence. Fear and negativity are everywhere in our society, and by osmosis, our association with it can grow our fears. We can use meta-conditioning to help us through hesitation. Count backwards from 5, and then just do whatever it is that has caused you to hesitate.   BEST MOMENTS ‘Repetition is the route to mastery’ ‘Gratitude is the antidote to fear’ ’The moment that you feel you are hesitating, it’s because fear has popped its head up’ ‘Fear does actually serve you, It’s when it becomes overwhelming that it doesn’t'   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/

It’s a duo of growth experts this week, as Nick talks to entrepreneur, speaker and business growth expert, Jay Allen, in a show dedicated to growing and scaling your business successfully! 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   All businesses can be categorised in five ways: The 1% - Those who disrupt and cause others to ride on their coattails The 4% - Those who are doing very well, but who haven’t quite systemised their way to the 1% The 15% - Those on a more standard, incremental growth trajectory The 60% - Those who plateau, stall and struggle The 20% - Those who fail, go bust and expire If you do not have the systems and processes first, as the foundations on which your business is built, then we are building on “wet sand”. We must have robust support beneath our feet from the outset. Too many businesses employ a “survive to fight” mindset, instead of a “fight to survive”. We must give full consideration to the impact on the bigger battle ahead, and focus on thriving, not just surviving. Focusing on our “why” is crucial, as our businesses should be seen as a resource. We must constantly reflect upon the effectiveness of what we do in business, compared to what we want from A good business plan is one that can be picked up by anyone, inside or outside of the business, and when read, cause that person to understand it and be inspired by it.   BEST MOMENTS   ‘Eighty percent of business owners clearly get it all wrong’ ‘It’s so much more important to step out of the business and reflect on “Am I still on course?”' ‘Fight to survive is “what do I need to do right here in order to guarantee my survival?”' ’Simplicity has to be the key to any good business plan’   VALUABLE RESOURCES Jay Allen - https://jayallen.uk Jay Allen LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayallen-mytruenorth/?originalSubdomain=uk Jay's AddAZero Audit- https://www.mytruenorth.biz/addazero_audit/   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/