The Agile Scaleup

AI for Business; How Hired Google Exec; 7 CEO Boot Camp Tips; Give to Grow

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Growth Tools - More Languages -- we've recently added Ukrainian, Italian, Polish, and now Chinese (simplified) versions of the Growth Tools (One-Page Strategic Plan, FACe, PACe, Rockefeller Habits Checklist, etc.). We also have Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, French, Dutch, and Social Sector (language adapted to non-profits). Here's a link to the various language versions of the Growth Tools

AI for Business People -- Doug Rose's book Artificial Intelligence for Business: What You Need to Know about Machine Learning and Neural Networks is written for non-technical executives to help them understand in a practical sense how all this new technology can be applied to scaling the business. I suggest reading the Foreword to the book as an excellent overview to guide you to which of the three sections of the book you wish to start. SPro and book club members will receive a copy next week. Then come hear Doug keynote, along with 9 others top biz thought leaders, at our ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver. It's a way for your team to "read" the equivalent of a dozen books while getting some important talk time away from the office for two days of learning and growing.

7 Scaling Up Tips from CEO Boot Camp -- Michael Loban, co-founder of InfoTrust, did an excellent job in this Inc. article summarizing seven tips he picked up at our CEO Boot Camp. Since I don't do any one-on-one coaching anymore, these intimate 3.5 day boot camps give me and serial entrepreneur John Ratliff time to interact directly with 7 CEOs in a beautiful setting in the Florida Keys. The goal is to add millions to the bottom line of the business while easing the pressure on the CEO. Please take 2 minutes to scan down through the 7 excellent tips and save the $14,500 fee to attend the boot camp.

Already Exceeded 2017 Sales - Give to Grow (Gazelles case study) -- and InfoTrust's other co-founder, Alex Yastrebenetsky, also attended the CEO Boot Camp and emailed me an update - including what he did to attract a top exec from Google to his firm. It was so beautifully written I'm sharing the complete email below.

Hi Verne,

I just got home and had a crazy need to email you and share this.

It is absolutely incredible what your lesson of giving to grow is doing for me and the company. Just a few weeks ago we got our Foundation approved by the IRS, so we now have an official 501(c)3 run by my wife that gets 5% of our operating net income as a company. We've been doing many community support things for a while, but with the Foundation it kinda went to the next level and a lot of incredible opportunities to help started to come our way. We also kicked off DreamOn after the CEO Boot Camp and we are already doing some crazy things. But the interesting thing is it's driving a major uptick in productivity and giving us a pure hunger to grow profitably so we can run a healthy business and support all these opportunities. We have already exceeded our 2017 sales. My wife is doing the actual Foundation work, so I do not get distracted from doing what I do best - make money for the foundation to do good things. And this gives me an opportunity to work with my wife which is awesome.

This is exactly what you were talking about when you taught us to contribute far and beyond our comfort zone and that the "universe" and our inner drive will find the way to make it happen and then some.

For instance, just 3 days ago we found out that because of some political stuff we are losing an account worth 5% of our revenue. I was upset, but I did something crazy. I told Michael and my wife that I feel the need that I cannot explain to make a big donation. I am on the board of Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I emailed them that my family is going to donate (what is a lot of money for us). I did not want to live in scarcity mode and make it impact my decision-making. And within 24h we closed $1.5M worth of business, which will more then cover our loss. Can't explain it.

But this is not everything. Not only has the impact of "give to grow" on the organization been incredible and has attracted a number of very strong female leaders, but we just hired a VP of Sales from Google. A guy left Google and joined us because of one thing - he wanted to be able to show his children that his work made a major impact on the community and he knew that he can get this with us. It's only been 3-weeks but he is a total rock star. In our world getting an executive to leave Google and join us (without giving up equity) takes a small miracle. You, sir, helped me make this miracle happen and I very much appreciate it.

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend. Thank you again for everything you are teaching us. The results of your teaching, just in our case, are now helping hundreds of people. I can only imagine combined contribution impact from all your students. You are changing hundreds of thousands of lives through the work of us, entrepreneurs, and your children should be very proud of what you do.

One Seat Open CEO Boot Camp Oct 2 - 5 -- we just had a CEO need to postpone his attendance at our upcoming CEO Boot Camp, so we have one open seat. Here's a link for more information.

Growth Institute -- John Mullins, entrepreneur, author and an associate professor at the London Business School - will host a complimentary, live webinar tailored specifically to CEOs and top executives this Wednesday, 5 September. On this webinar, John will help you understand how to fund your future plans by leveraging your established customer relationships. Space is limited so sign up now! Click here

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Rock Star Tiffani; Musk Breakdown; Huffington Response; Growth IQ

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
	Bill Gates as quoted in Growth IQ

Elon Musk's Breakdown - and Arianna Huffington's Response -- in case you missed it, here's the NY Times' interview where Tesla founder Elon Musk details the excruciating stress he's under and how he's dealing with it. In response, here is a link to Arianna Huffington's open letter to Musk noting "You're demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy." Huffington's letter is worth every second of the 1 minute to read - please read!!

Ten Growth Paths -- Tiffani Bova is the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce (they know how to grow!). In her newly released book Growth IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business, Tiffani details 10 practical strategies for driving revenue. Over the past two decades, she has led large revenue-producing divisions at businesses ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 500. Her cutting-edge insights have helped Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, SAP, AT&T, Dell, Amazon-AWS, and other prominent companies expand their market share and grow their revenues. SPro and book club members should receive her book this week. Along with nine other top biz thought leaders, Tiffani will share her revenue generating strategies at our upcoming ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver.

Tiffani is a Rock Star -- marketing guru Seth Godin summed up Tiffani's book beautifully:

A worthy successor to Michael Porter (famous Harvard strategy prof), Bova's book is that rare gift: it opens doors for new ideas and new actions No glib answers here, simply hard-won wisdom that will provoke big changes for organizations large and small.

Grab a copy of Tiffani's book and scan through the 10 revenue driving strategies - then pick one and implement. And she shares the nuances that implementation require - context, combination, and sequencing. Tiffani is a rock star when it comes to growing the top line. See you in Denver for her presentation.

Fastest Growing Companies -- the Fortune list is out and they are almost all tech firms, even though they aren't! Take #1 Health Insurance Innovations. Though listed as a "financials" firm, it's pure technology in the cloud, pioneering the "Quote, Buy, and Print" model of Internet insurance sales. They are also a great example of figuring out how to dramatically make a process for consumers considerably easier. Equally impressive, both Facebook (6) and Amazon (9) still made it into the top 10 given the massive magnitude of their revenues. Using technology to make lives easier is THE product/service strategy of the 21st Century.

Making Websites Win (just $1.99 right now!) -- and a key to driving top line revenue growth is an effective website. Dr. Karl Blanks and Ben Jesson, co-founders of Conversion Rate Experts (CRE), are considered the best in the world at making websites that customers love and drive profits. They've applied their techniques in over 80 industries across 9 languages. Their new book Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites is available right now for $1.99 (Kindle). I just sent it to our website designer!

Growth Institute #1593 -- congratulations to our sister company providing mid-market firms with online education, Growth Institute, which made the Inc 5000 list. And it's the Master of Business Dynamics (MBD) program that is leading the growth. This hybrid education-based approach to online education is competing with the eMBA at a fraction of the cost while being much more practical. The foundational courses are Scaling Up, Exponential Organizations, Topgrading, Mastering New Marketing, Outthink the Competition, Hyper Sales Growth, and the Customer Funded Business.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Apple’s Trillion; MDW’s Trillion; Top of Mind; SMP Detroit, KC, Sydney, London

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

If you can get the right people to think of you at the right times, you can accomplish great things.
	John Hall, author Top of Mind

Apple Tops $1 Trillion -- OK, it's old news (a week), but still a significant milestone for a company whose iconic founder passed away almost 7 years ago It's worth 1 minute to read Reuter's reporting on the memo CEO Tim Cook sent out to Apple's 120,000 employees. It's simple, direct, and reinforces Apple's core ideals. I great example for us to all model if we have something significant to communicate to our teams. More below on why I think Apple has been so successful, but first...

Top of Mind -- four questions frame the ideas in John Hall's insightful and well-written book Top of Mind:

1. Am I delivering real value to my customers every day outside the products and services that I offer?
    
2. Do I understand the real needs and pain points of my customers and prospects?
    
3. If my customers are having a significant problem, would they think of and contact me first?
    
4. Do my customers like and trust me?"

It's question 3 that is the most important in my mind. Are you top-of-mind in your marketspace? Notes Hall, "In this book, you'll learn how to engage and position yourself (and firm) on top of the minds of the people who matter most - so that whenever opportunity arises, they'll already be thinking of you."

Would They Pay for the Sales Call? -- Hall's ideas remind me of the father of sales Dr. Neil Rackham's simple, but powerful idea - would a customer be willing to pay for the sales call i.e. how are you delivering real value outside the products and services you're offering (Q1 above) through educating the customer vs. selling them. Anyway, I love great questions and Hall's book poses the right four...and then answers them. SPro and book club members will receive a copy next week - then come hear Hall keynote our ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17 (and Scaling Up User Conference Oct 18) in Denver. Spend two days immersed in deep learning (and fun) with your team.

Best Buy Gets It - Relationship Selling -- a company that was expected to be vanquished by Amazon, like all the other retailers, instead has seen its stock quadruple since Hubert Joly was named Best Buys CEO, a guy with no retail experience (see, it's not an industry knowledge issue, it's a leadership issue). Notes this Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, describing the five-week training process new Geek Squad recruits go through (do your new recruits get five weeks of training?):

Now they're in this conference room practicing how to sell by seeming not to. "Be a consultant, not a salesperson," Bucknell says. "Use phrases like: 'How would you like it if,' 'Do you think it would help if you could,' 'Have you ever thought about.' " They're supposed to establish long-term relationships with their customers rather than chase one-time transactions. They won't need to anxiously track weekly metrics and, unlike the Geek Squad and blue shirts working in stores, they'll be paid an annual salary instead of an hourly wage. Their house calls are free and can last as long as 90 minutes.

Please take 4 minutes (worth every second!) and read this story of how Joly turned around Best Buy - lots of lessons for all of us!! Thank you to Scaling Up certified coach Bill Gallagher for pointing me to this insightful article that aligns so well with John Hall's book and teachings.

MDW's $1 Trillion (please help her) -- serial entrepreneur Julia Pimsleur's Million Dollar Women initiative aims to help 1 million women scale companies to over $1 million - that's a trillion in annual revenue, the equivalent of two Wal-Marts And the fastest growing segment are businesses led by women of color. Pimsleur offers these women scholarships to her online university and as a board member I'm helping her raise funds for her nonprofit arm called Women Who Dare. $3k funds one woman to attend (which I just donated) and Pimsleur's track record of helping these women scale is excellent. These women don't have startups - they have ongoing firms that are ready to scale. You can donate here. Any amount will make a difference. Consider donating a fraction of the value I hope you're received from these weekly insights. Thank you.

Apple University -- I credit Jobs' final "product" for helping his baby both survive and thrive - Apple University. You can't scale (285% in 6+ years) with just a few of the right top execs, though Tim Cook has proved worthy of the task. You need to be educating all the talent in your firm. This is why we launched the ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP) last year - a powerful shared corporate university experience that creates a learning culture within your firm -- for a fraction of the cost of launching your own. Five companies form a "class" for a year; participate in 7 structured days of training and sharing (initial two days; one day next three quarters; then final two days - with online education for the entire firm in between sessions).

ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP) -- we're excited about the top biz people we're involving in this initiative. For instance, Aussie Shark Tank judge Glen Richards, who scaled his last company to $800 million using Scaling Up, is the board chair of the program in Sydney and will help teach during the initial two days. Similarly impressive biz leaders are engaged in the other cities.

The next "class" of five companies will launch in each of these respective cities:

Detroit - Sept 26 - 28 (first evening is for CEOs-only) Kansas City - Oct 23 - 25 Sydney - Oct 24 - 26 London -- Dec 5 - 7

Here is a link to a PDF that describes the program. Please email me if interested and I'll connect you with the leader in each city.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.