The Agile Scaleup

Movie of the Year; Business Person of the Year; Microsoft #1

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Microsoft #1 (for a moment this week) -- I was 18 months early in my prediction, but confident that Microsoft would surpass Apple in market cap given the renewed leadership of Bill Gates and his new CEO who has pivoted Microsoft from a know-it-all culture to a learn-it-all culture. This CNN piece details why Microsoft may be a better bet than Apple moving forward, including it's 30% net profit vs. Apple's 22.5% and continued double digit growth rates vs Apples single digits.

Bohemian Rhapsody -- already the highest grossing music biopic movie in the history of the world, with almost a half-billion in revenue, this story of Freddie Mercury and the band Queen is filled with practical lessons on how to scale, build brand, etc. I'll get to those lessons in a moment, but first some top 5 "facts":

1. Freddie Mercury deemed scientifically the greatest singer of all time
2. Queen's Live Aid performance voted the best rock band performance of all time
3. Album sales make Queen one of the world's best-selling music artists
4. Bohemian Rhapsody the greatest song of all time (several polls)
5. Holder of several Guinness Book of World Records

Google any of these facts for the backup data.

Queen, First People -- my second favorite scene is when Freddie Mercury comes back to apologize to his band members after an ill-fated run at a solo career. He notes how he went to Munich, hired a bunch of musicians, told them what he wanted "and they did it." That was his failure - surrounding imself with "yes" people. He explained how he needed his original band back because they were willing to push back hard, helping hone each song to perfection. This is precisely the definition of a "healthy" team according to Pat Lencioni of Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Is your team talented and healthy enough to engage in the kind of productive debate that drives success?

Next Strategy -- my favorite scene is when Mercury is asked what makes their rock band different from all the rest - and he had a clear and concise answer (you'll have to see the movie!). And throughout they understood the importance of continuing to innovate and be different, the essence of strategy. The scenes from their first recording session are indicative of living this idea. Ultimately, the song Bohemian Rhapsody broke all the rules while the accompanying video is credited with launching the MTV era and music videos. Here's to every entrepreneur who was told their ideas were dumb and proved the critics wrong. Are you really that different from the competition and can you articulate how?

Execution -- Their hit album "A Night at the Opera" featuring Bohemian Rhapsody was written and rehearsed over an intense three-week session at a remote rented home in Herefordshire, UK. It proves the power of intense focus (what Steve Jobs learned at Pixar) something I experienced when I rewrote Scaling Up over a similar three-week period. What would happen if you took your team to a remote offsite location and had three weeks to innovate a new product/service/company?

...and What About the Cash -- Queen was essentially broke after their first three albums because of the draconian structure of their recording contract. Mercury changed all that with the production of "A Night at the Opera." At the time the most expensive album to ever be recorded, it and the follow-on records/concert tours made Mercury and the band rich.

10 Lessons from Bohemian Rhapsody -- Marcio Kanamaru wrote this LinkedIn piece I found insightful. Translated from Spanish, the English is a little rough but the ideas are solid. Please take time to see this epic movie a couple of times.

Business Person of the Year -- fun facts for your weekend gatherings - Fortune released their annual Businessperson of the Year list and topping the list isn't your typical young tech star, though she has driven the business by leading with technology - Progressive Insurance's CEO Tricia Griffith. Impressively, her one-year and three-year sales growth topped both Apple and Microsoft as the stock jumped 50% and profit doubled. This article details all she's done to earn this prestigious honor - worth the 3 minutes to read. One weekly routine, "Every Friday she makes a point to join a lunch table to meet employees." What is your routine to communicate with frontline employees?

Enjoy your weekend and the movies!

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. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 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.

End of Bureaucracy; Manic; Doug Stacey; 45 Seconds

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

These leaders understand that bureaucracy saps initiative, inhibits risk taking, and crushes creativity. It's a tax on human achievement.
	Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini

45 Second Interview -- here's a link to Rabobank's 45 second interview of me after keynoting for 200+ of their clients in Utrecht, Netherlands. FYI, they are one of the top 30 banks in the world and the oldest in Holland.

End of Bureaucracy -- this is the title of the Nov. cover article for HRB. It highlights Haier, the Chinese white good manufacturer which eliminated all 10,000 middle managers, a story I've been sharing in my keynotes. Notes authors Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini:

Having long viewed bureaucracy as a competitive liability, Zhang Ruimin, Haier's renegade CEO, has for a decade led an effort to build a company where everyone is directly accountable to customers (a policy he describes as "zero distance"), employees are energetic entrepreneurs, and an open ecosystem of users, inventors, and partners replaces formal hierarchy.

Over 50 Employees -- Bureaucracy tends to sneak in when firms get over 50 employees, so there are important lessons for most of us in this detailed article. At Haier, most employees are in a "microenterprise" of 10 to 15 employees - so think of a large company made up of 4000+ small businesses. Please take 6 minutes to study this article -- it's an important but lengthy and detailed treatise on how to scale agile! Thank you for UK Scaling Up coach Neale Lewis for pointing me to this article.

Daily Manic of Scaling (Scaling Up Case Study) -- this last week I received a note from Philipp Liver, CEO of Genbook, an online scheduling software company based in Sydney, Australia with over 6,500 customers in North America Notes Philipp:

Genbook is over 10 years old but I only took over the role as CEO 6 months ago. I've worked at numerous high growth companies before so I feel like I know the tools and processes in those companies; but scaling this company is a new challenge for me. Reading the first quarter of your book Scaling Up I'm so excited for what lies ahead. It's confirmed and reminded me of many things I knew or was trying to figure out. But in the daily manic that is a scale up these things get lost and I'm grateful for the framework and sequencing.

He goes on to note:

It's funny to refer to a ScaleUp as manic. People typically think Start Ups are manic but I find with a lot of people trying to make an idea work, and a world where something done is better than nothing, it's actually not that hard to keep things going and produce output. But a Scale Up, where you actually have a product and customers and employees and internal politics and and and... the challenge is very different!

Philipp, I couldn't agree more!! Thank you for the note.

Congratulations Doug Stacey, LSI -- Doug won the free retreat for his team with Forum Resources founder Mo Fathelbab, who keynoted our ScaleUp Summit in Denver. Noted Doug:

I would like to share that the Summit was a great experience and very beneficial for me and my team.

John Ratliff, serial entrepreneur and head of our global coaching organization, also donated his beautiful retreat center in the Keys - www.marathonretreat.com. Thank you Mo and John. And here's a link for our next ScaleUp Summit May 21 - 22, Atlanta.

Are Your Online Customers Walking Away? -- Your website is like a shop. If there are no sales people to help your online customers, they will walk away to a competitor. LiveAdmins helps businesses proactively greet online customers and engage them in conversation. The multilingual chat services offered by LiveAdmins are provided round the clock, ensuring needs of all visitors are taken care of. LiveAdmins has helped companies across all industries, including Gazelles, significantly increase sales and enhance visitor experience for over a decade.

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. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 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.

WTF!?; Two Month Qtr; Bob Glazer; Nov 13 Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Nov 13 Scaling Up Webinar -- next Tuesday noon ET please join the over 1500 leaders who have already signed up to hear my latest thinking from scaleups around the globe. Secure your spot >>

Founder 1-800-GOT-JUNK's New Book -- dear friend and founder of this iconic brand, Brian Scudamore has scaled three additional home service brands - this guy knows how to scale businesses. And this week he released his first book titled WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success. Grab the Kindle version while it's just $4.95 - and share with anyone aspiring to be a successful entrepreneur.

$320 Million IPO Using Rock Habits -- this Financial Review article highlights how Tim Power of Mathletics fame used the Rockefeller Habits to scale his firm to 350 employees and a successful IPO. The key for Tim was scaling back the number of goals each team in his company focused on. In the article, it outlines three key ideas Tim is using to remain agile as he scales his latest company Inquisitive. One is setting strategy (a handful of goals) every two months instead of quarterly.

Set strategy every two months. Quoting Tim in the article:

"It's important to reset goals at regular intervals that are short enough so you can course-correct and long enough so you can actually get things done. The world is moving too fast for quarterly goals and a month is too short so two months is perfect. At Inquisitive, we're a small team and it works best if we only set three business goals. Our bimonthly strategy sessions take an hour because we're discussing just three objectives. Then everyone sets individual goals that contribute towards getting these most important things done."

Please take 1 minute to read the other two keys Tim says helps him scale more rapidly.

Having Issues Attracting Talent? -- Do what Bob Glazer did and scale your reach (impact). When Bob, founder of Acceleration Partners started his weekly inspiration email to his 40 employees three years ago, he wanted to promote personal and professional growth. His company is 100% virtual and as the company rapidly grew, he also wanted to stay in touch with his employees. An unintended outcome was that many of the employees started forwarding his messages to friends, family and clients. This gave Bob the idea to create a distribution and now his newsletter "Friday Forward" is received by more than 50,000 people around the world. His company has grown to almost 130 employees since then and is now getting more than 100 inbound job applications per week. Many prospects mention his Friday Forward as a reason for applying. Check it out. Thanks to Bob's Scaling Up coach Rich Manders for sharing this insight.

Marketing for Talent via Education -- The marketing function is critical to scaling because marketing is needed not just to attract customers, but to also attract talent, attention, funding, support, etc. And no one wants to be sold, they want to be educated. That's why Bob's weekly blog is such a powerful recruiting tool. And the key to effective marketing is consistency - a consistent message delivered consistently.

Communicate Weekly with Your Employees -- Bob's weekly email to his employees, in addition to his operational meetings, is another key ritual of successful leaders. Mark Zuckerberg hosts his weekly "Q&A with Mark"; Google has it's TGIF meeting with employees (held on Thursdays, instead of Fridays now that they are global); Greg Brenneman recorded a weekly message to all Continental Airlines employees during his famous turnaround of the airline; and Michael Dell sends out a weekly email updating the entire global team. And more and more of our clients are using video as does serial entrepreneur John Ratliff who heads up our global coaching organization. Every Friday John sends out an email along with a short instructional video to our global coaching partners, keeping them informed of the week's activities. How are you sharing your thoughts, updates, ideas, and humanity with your team each week - in addition to your meeting rhythm?

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. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 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.

Ross Schott; 15 Calls; Buy Then Build; Nov 13 Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

He who works all day, has no time to make money.
	John D. Rockefeller

LIVE Webinar Scaling Up -- Rockefeller Habits 2.0 - join me 13 Nov. 12pm ET -- you can sign up here. More below, but first...

Buy Then Build eBook $0.99 Until Friday 02 Nov. -- Walker Deibel's book is subtitled How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game. Acquisitions are a great way to start and/or scale. More below, but second...

10x People to 10x Company -- it's an important mindset, to think about how to 10x the firm (drives exponential thinking) vs. just 2x (which drives incremental thinking). And it doesn't necessarily mean 10x revenue -- but finding your 10x factor over the competition. A critical component is 10x'ing the knowledge of your team - and why Steve Jobs' last initiative was Apple U to guarantee his baby would continue to scale after he was gone. But how do us "mere mortal" companies provide this corporate university benefit to our team...?

...Please Meet Ross Shott, Formerly Singularity U -- having helped Singularity University scale from start-up to nearly $50 million, we're excited that Ross Shott has joined our Growth Institute team as COO and Integrator. Post military, he has been involved in turnarounds and start-ups for over 25 years, working with companies from $5 million to $3 billion, across numerous industries. Ross knows how to scale companies and 10x people!

Ross is Scheduling 15 One-Hour Calls -- serious C-Level Execs wanting to scale, if you're working to transform culture, innovate processes, and develop high performers to take your operations to the next level Ross is taking 15 leaders through a 1-hour call to help them organize, operate, and build a team that can scale by leveraging our educational resources. To schedule your call, please email him at [email protected].

Finally Getting Your Corporate University in Place -- Since talent is THE constraint for most scaleups, on the call Ross will also cover the particulars of our signature program Master of Business Dynamics (One Pager / Full Description) comprising six master business courses utilizing our 4-step hybrid learning model. You can share this experience with senior team members through our MBD+1 and even provide learning to your entire organization through the scaling up club. Executive education is no longer a "nice to have;" it's an imperative if you're going to drive productivity and effectiveness throughout the organization.

Buy Then Build eBook -- Despite the popularity of entrepreneurship, we really haven't engineered success into the startup model. Buying an existing business to grow, manage, and innovate creates a margin of safety, accessible capital, and full ownership for starting out on your own. Buy Then Build explores why acquisition entrepreneurship is a better model for most entrepreneurs, and how to successfully outsmart the startup game. Grab the eBook version for $.99 by Friday 02 Nov.

Nov 13 Webinar -- As you know, for over 20 years it's been our mission to help middle market organizations to scale up quickly, yet sustainably and without drama. You probably already know the basic tools and frameworks from the insights and my books, but the more advanced stuff has been only accessible through our paid training and workshops. That's why I'm so excited to invite you to my live webinar with the Growth Institute to learn how to counter the growth paradox. I'll be sharing our frameworks, along with the most recent (and impressive) case studies of their implementation.

We'll also host a LIVE Q&A at the end of it - so you'll have the opportunity to ask those burning questions. It's happening on Nov 13th at 12pm EST and you can sign up 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. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 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.BetterBookClubcom.