Our ceiling is your floor.
Dr. Kevin Fleming, parents for children
It blows my mind that we routinely screen for several health issues (mammograms, etc.) yet a proactive diagnostic for the leading cause of death in the US is rarely performed.
Lisa Ridley, Scaling Up Coach
An invitation to invest 2 to 22 minutes in your executive education this week.
All Proceeds to Ruhlin’s Family – Jack Daly’s 4-Hour Sales Course
Sales coach extraordinaire, Jack Daly’s, highly rated 4-hour Virtual Sales Workshop is scheduled for Thursday, September 5, 2024, and all proceeds will be gifted to Giftology guru John Ruhlin’s wife Lindsay and her four daughters after his sudden passing last week. The fee for the workshop is discounted to $300 per participant. If you have salespeople in your organization, get them "Jack'dUp!" Register here - John Ruhlin Memorial Sales Workshop - Jack Daly – thank you Jack.
Jack’s Hyper Sales Growth Self-Paced Course – Also Donating
Jack is also donating all his proceeds from his self-paced course featuring over 8 hours of video content. Jack shares the strategies and methodologies behind his book Hyper Sales Growth, empowering you to achieve consistent, predictable sales success. Get immediate access here: https://hubs.li/Q02LnHr40 -- now is the time to boost revenue.
The Zoom Stretch
This Seth Godin quick post suggests teams take regular “Zoom stretches” – a few seconds every dozen minutes to give people a mental break – and test if worth continuing the meeting.
AI + A-Player – The Future
My latest Chief Executive magazine column suggests the future belongs to firms that match the right A-Players with AI – otherwise you’re just automating a mess. It’s a warning for team members to step up their game and continue to reinvent themselves…and for companies to settle only for A-Players matched with AI. Please take 2-minutes to scan the article for details and resources – and then share with your team.
Leaving the Better Candidate Behind -- Compounding
You are probably hiring good people. However, without using Topgrading (book Foolproof Hiring), you’re likely leaving a better candidate behind – see my column for a real-world example. If each hire is 10% better, 1.1x1.1x1.1, etc. quickly means you have a team twice as effective as the competition. The Olympics remind us that the difference between gold and making the podium is hundredths of a second/mm.
Starbucks’ New A-Player CEO?
I have some egg on my face since highlighting Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan’s “Triple Shot Reinvention” strategy, emphasizing the importance of naming your strategy and having three priorities. Though I didn’t say they were right, clearly Howard Schultz wasn’t happy with revenues down 3%, letting Laxman go immediately (after a year on the job) and hiring Chipotle’s CEO Brian Niccol. Let’s see if a fifth successor to Schultz is the charm.
CEO Niccol’s Greatest Lesson
This Fortune article highlights Starbucks new CEO’s greatest lesson – staying curious. Notes Brian Niccol, emphasizing the importance of asking questions if you don’t really know the answer:
If you know the answer to the question, that’s probably not the question to ask. If you’re asking for clarity, you’re asking to learn, you’re asking because you’re curious, that’s fine. But if the questions aren’t thoughtful, then you’ve gone too far.
He also notes the worst piece of advice he’s ever received – to find someone to fire so you can demonstrate your leadership skills. Notes Niccol:
I think everybody comes to work wanting to succeed, and that’s just the wrong frame of reference.
Brutal Thought Experiment – Turnaround of Robinhood
Tripling the share price, Vlad Tenev turned around investing site Robinhood. This Fortune article details his strategy, noting:
In a move few other leaders would emulate, Tenev engaged in a brutal thought exercise: holding quarterly meetings that envisioned him being replaced by a veteran executive like former Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman, who excels at taking over companies in trouble.
Please take 2 minutes to pick up more hints from Tenev.
Leading Cause of Death – Pls Get Screened
Lisa Ridley (quote above) wants to alert all of us to the AI-driven Cleerly CCTA assessment. Given her family’s history of heart disease, she had her first baseline assessment last year and her cardiologist just ordered the follow-up.
Clarify – Earlobe Crease
Just because you DON’T have a crease, you should still get your heart checked with a Coronary Calcium Score (ten-minute, non-invasive scan) and/or the Cleerly CCTA assessment. Several of you emailed that you didn’t suspect any heart issues yet had a calcium scan done and it came back dangerously high. And there are natural ways to clean out your arteries without taking pharma drugs. Do your research.
Order a box of 20 books
Save 50% over the price on Amazon for Scaling Up, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, and 12 Habits of Valuable Employees books here for less!
Additional Books
Scaling Up Compensation, a quick read helping you get much greater impact and outcomes from one of your largest expenses; and The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time, which provides you with some great ideas to borrow/steal for your own business are available on Amazon.
TECHNOLOGY:
Scaling Up Scoreboard is AI-enabled and integrated with Salesforce, Slack, and Zapier (allowing it to connect with 1000s of systems). Use Scoreboard to provide your team (working remotely even more important!) with a real-time visual dashboard of cascading priorities and metrics. Get a personalized tour of the Scaling Up Scoreboard to see how you can use it to better implement Scaling Up in your business.
EDUCATION:
Scaling Up Master Business Course
Scaling Up Free Mini Course
COACHING: Unlock Explosive Growth with a Scaling Up Coach
Is your business hitting a growth ceiling? Break through with a Scaling Up Certified Coach™. Our elite coaches master the Scaling Up methodology to reignite growth, align your team, and chart a clear scalability path. From day one, we provide a custom-tailored approach - conducting a comprehensive diagnostic, hand-picking your perfect coach match, and providing dedicated support. Whether a $5M or $250M firm, invest in coaching to propel your business to extraordinary new heights.
Schedule a complimentary follow-up or check out our FAQs. Additional questions can be sent to [email protected].
Have you considered becoming a Certified Scaling Up Coach?
Learn more about what it takes to certify and what being a coach is like. Pop into our Coach Office Hours to talk with our coach certification coordinator and a certified Scaling Up Coach. Learn More & Register for Office Hours here >
SCALING UP WORKSHOPS:
Engage your team with interactive Scaling Up workshops. Here's our list of workshops
San Francisco, CA – Aug 28, 2024 (Virtual)
Brussels, Belgium – Aug 29, 2024 (In-Person)
Sydney, Australia – Sep 5, 2024 (In-Person)
Chile – Sep 10, 2024 (Virtual)
Melbourne, Australia – Sep 10, 2024 (In-Person)
Ontario, Canada – Sep 12, 2024 (Virtual)
Denver, CO – Sep 17, 2024 (In-Person)
Adelaide, Australia – Sep 23 & 24, 2024 (2 Day, In-Person)
San Francisco, CA – Sep 24, 2024 (Virtual)
Nottingham, UK – Oct 1, 2024 (In-Person)
London, UK – Oct 2, 2024 (In-Person)
Brisbane, Australia – Oct 2, 2024 (In-Person)
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Oct 7, 2024 (In-Person)
Phoenix, AZ – Oct 10, 2024 (Virtual)
Ontario, Canada - Oct 10, 2024 (Virtual)
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Oct 14, 2024 (In-Person)
Chile – Oct 15, 2024 (Virtual)
Fort Lauderdale, FL – Oct 15, 2024 (In-Person)
San Francisco, CA – Oct 16, 2024 (Virtual)
Columbus, OH – Oct 25, 2024 (In-Person)
Chile – Nov 12, 2024 (Virtual)
Melbourne, Australia – Nov 12, 2024 (In-Person)
Sydney, Australia – Nov 14, 2024 (In-Person)
Ontario, Canada - Nov 14, 2024 (Virtual)
San Francisco, CA – Nov 19, 2024 (Virtual)
Franklin, TN – Dec 5, 2024 (Virtual)
Chile – Dec 10, 2024 (Virtual)
San Antonio, TX – Dec 10, 2024 (In-Person)
Ontario, Canada - Dec 12, 2024 (Virtual)
San Francisco, CA – Dec 18, 2024 (Virtual)
Washington, DC – Jan 28, 2025 (In-Person)
Planning to Exit – Critical Whitepaper
Selling your firm, for its maximum value, is the most important negotiation in which a business owner will participate. You are typically negotiating with sophisticated buyers who have done hundreds of acquisitions whereas this is often your first rodeo. And these buyers have a formula for ripping you off – and it works, stealing tens of millions from you. Seeking help, owners discover the big M&A firms, especially those specializing in your industry, are more beholden to the buyers than the sellers (they will tell you otherwise). Email me to get a whitepaper on how to maximize your valuation and avoid the psychological games buyers play [email protected].
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