The Agile Scaleup

Buffett’s Success Metric; Newest Centibillionaire; Works Every Time; Emplify March 26

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights/opportunities to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

Scaling Up User Conference May 23 Atlanta –
Practical experience sharing from top mid-market firms using our Scaling Up tools to grow (why struggle to implement). More below, but first... 

New Partnership in Employee Engagement – Webinar 26 March 1pm ET
Knowing the people side of the business is critical, Scaling Up has partnered with the employee engagement measurement platform Emplify to provide insights, best practices, and tangible tools for scaleups. Emplify CEO, Santiago Jaramillo, and I are hosting a webinar to discuss how business leaders worldwide are scaling their organizations while creating a culture of high employee engagement and how those two transformations go hand-in-hand. Join us March 26th at 1pm ET by registering HERE. 

Best Sales Hint –
One idea Avaneesh Marwaha picked up at our CEO Boot Camp last week added 10% value to a new SaaS contract and extended it from 3 years to 5 years, returning 100x the cost of the camp. Notes Avaneesh, CEO of Litera Microsystems, “the deal I closed last Friday, the CIO emailed today (Tuesday) with a bunch of issues. Instead of emailing back, I picked up the phone (as Verne suggested) and talked to him directly and actually got him to agree to a bit more on the subscription value by listening to his needs and concerns. We structured the deal differently to match those needs and concerns which ended up giving us more up front as well.” Avaneesh, congrats on your “bias for action.”

Phone vs. Email in Critical Sales/Negotiation Situations –
The idea I shared with Avaneesh and the other CEOs came from Northwestern Univ. Professor Dr. Victoria Medvec’s “High Stakes Negotiation” course. When you’re in the middle of closing a big deal and receive emailed questions from the customer, never, ever respond back with an email. Instead, ALWAYS “pick up the phone” and address their questions. There is often more behind their questions than is obvious; you get a lot more interaction time; and you’re going to structure a better response/deal. This both improves the outcomes and strengthens the relationship.

Warren Buffett’s Measurement of Success –
Would people hide you (yes, hide – it’s not a typo)? Watch this 3-minute excerpt from a Warren Buffett presentation to get the context for his measurement of success – they go purchase a new mattress (just watch the video – and find out what you can’t buy!). Thank you, Rabbi Stephen Baars, for posting this important reminder.

Vitamin C Might Reverse Stress-induced Driver of Breast Cancer –
Nature’s natural antibiotic and chemo, Vitamin C, continues to garner attention as the latest clinical research shows it’s ability to reduce the size of tumors. As a precaution, and to boost energy, I still get a high-dose 50-gram IV C, with a 2-gram glutathione push, every few weeks (now going on 20 years). It’s the equivalent of an oil and filter change every 30,000 minutes!

Now There are Two (Fun Fact for the Weekend) –
Besides Vladimir Putin, there are now two official centibillionaires – Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.  Even after giving away $35 billion, Gates wealth hit exactly $100 billion this week, driven by Microsoft’s continued stellar performance as the #1 most valuable firm in the world. This Fortune article highlights the achievement.

Scaling Up User Conference May 23 Atlanta –
A separate and popular third day to our ScaleUp Summit, the Scaling Up User Conference provides an opportunity for you and your team to learn best practices directly from top firms and their coaching partners using our one-page Growth Tools to successfully scale. I open with an hour update and Q&A followed by a series of breakout sessions organized around the 4 Decisions: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash.

Wear Black and/or White with a Splash of Red –
Aligning with our “Scaling Up in Action” Summit theme, we’re hosting Atlanta’s top’s 80s MTV band Electric Avenue for a fun evening of music and networking with 1000+ leaders of mid-market scaleups. Register you and your team for the ScaleUp Summit now.

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com  

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? The Scaling Up team is prepared to support you. We have helped 40,000 other organizations over the past 30+ years, in scaling up their organizations through coaching, workshops, online training and more. 

We would like to offer you a complimentary, personal follow-up from our Scaling Up team to share how we can support you in scaling your organization.

YES! I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT COACHING & RECEIVE A COMPLIMENTARY FOLLOW-UP (CLICK HERE)

For questions or more information contact us at coaching@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.

New Power Jacket; Tragic Loss; Million Dollar Women; March 26 ExO Webinar

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights/opportunities to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

Your net worth will depend mostly on your net thoughts.
	Mike Dooley, A Beginner’s Guide to the Universe

Two EO San Diego Members Perish in Helicopter Crash –
Many of you may have read about the tragic crash in Kenya last week, killing four entrepreneurs. Two of them, Brandon Stapper and David Baker, were EO San Diego members. Their memorial services are this weekend. What a tragic loss. Our prayers go out to all their families and friends – hug them tight tonight (and every day and night).

Million Dollar Women’s (MDW) Summit April 5 NYC --
Calling #femalefounders who want to Go Big! The Million Dollar Women’s Summit is almost here. Scale up your business faster and in great company with female founders who are ready to #GoBigNow. On 4/5 in NYC. Register today: #MDWSummit. I’ll be speaking (and I’m on MDW founder Julia Pimsleur’s board – great mission) – please pass along to any female founders you know – thank you. 

The New Power Jacket – Leather! –
And for women leaders the leather jacket has become the new power outfit. This Fortune article highlights this latest fashion trend among women CEOs – from General Motor’s CEO Mary Berra to IBM’s CEO Ginny Rometty. Check out the various styles.

One Page Personal Plan (OPPP) Video –
It’s not so much about balance as it is blend, when it comes to your personal and professional lives. And a happy personal life supports a healthy professional life. In that spirit, we created the One-Page Personal Plan (OPPP) to complement our One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP), both highlighted in Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0). To further support implementation I recently created a 14-minute video to walk you through how to fill it out. You can download the form at www.scalingup.com (click Growth Tools link next to picture of book). Hope it proves helpful.

Upcoming Live Webinar with ExO author Salim Ismail to Transform Your Organization –
A 10x mentality, whether revenues, profits, or creating an internal advantage over the competition (the X Factor in Scaling Up), frees you from the bonds of how you’ve always done things. Thinking exponentially is key. That’s why we’re hosting Exponential Organizations (ExO) author Salim Ismail (founding executive director of Singularity U) on March 26^th who will share eleven specific approaches to discovering your own 10x strategies, shifting the way you think about company growth.

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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? The Scaling Up team is prepared to support you. We have helped 40,000 other organizations over the past 30+ years, in scaling up their organizations through coaching, workshops, online training and more. 

We would like to offer you a complimentary, personal follow-up from our Scaling Up team to share how we can support you in scaling your organization.

YES! I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT COACHING & RECEIVE A COMPLIMENTARY FOLLOW-UP (CLICK HERE)

For questions or more information contact us at coaching@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.

#1 Constraint; Walks and Talks; Allure’s MBD; Congrats Prime Data

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights/opportunities to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

#1 Constraint to Scaling --
Here’s my latest 4-minute video detailing the key constraint to scaling a business.

Bluewire Media’s “Walk and Talk” (Scaling Up Case Study) --
About a year ago Toby Jenkins and Adam Franklin, co-founders of Brisbane, Australia-based Bluewire Media, tweaked their weekly council (strategic thinking) meeting. It’s now a Steve Jobs-like “walk and talk.” Notes Toby: “Adam and I walk up to 10kms, sometimes in the bush, other times by the river.” And the benefits, continues Toby:

• It "stacks" exercise, nature, work and friendship (35 years this year including 14 years in business together).
• Nurtures body, mind and energy at the same time.
• Much higher energy level and focus for the whole 2-3 hours
• A sense of moving in the same direction. 
• Often feels like a much higher quality conversation

FYI, over the past five years Bluewire Media has scaled from 99% working only in Australia to now active in 44 countries.

Same Walk and Talk Format with Clients --
Bluewire Media uses the same approach with clients. “High quality 1-on-1 time with the key decision maker,” continues Toby. “I've found it useful in the negotiation phase, when we're both trying to get crystal clear on the higher-level context and then zoom in on the nitty gritty of an engagement. And it's been highly useful as a regular check-in process too.”

And Same with Family (Plus “Advances” vs. “Retreats”) --
“Luce (my wife) and I even do it sometimes when we need to talk something through. It's not yet calendarised like the work ones, but I consider it a great tool. Across all of these three (council, clients, spouse), I find there's something about architecting the circumstances that gives both people the best chance of being at your best for whatever needs to be figured out at the time.” Love this idea Toby. And appreciate that you noted in your email to me “we’ve basically followed your whole Scaling Up playbook, with 90 day ‘advances’ for a decade.” I love that you call them quarterly “advances” vs. “retreats.” We’ve begun calling our planning sessions “advances” as well.

Allure Medical Doubles Revenue in 24 Months (case study) --
This Growth Institute post details how Theresa LaBranche, COO of Allure Medical, is using the skills garnered from our online coached Master of Business Dynamics (MBD) program to double revenues from $20 million to $40 million – and how it’s helping to double again this year. Comparable to an online MBA, but at a fraction of the cost, this accredited program of six courses completed at your own pace (Scaling Up, Topgrading, ExO, Hyper Sales Growth, Mastering New Marketing, and Outthinking the Competition) continues to help leaders make a massive impact in their companies and communities. Theresa’s story reaffirms the importance of investing in executive education. You’ll also see Theresa and her team at the upcoming ScaleUp Summit – they normally bring one of the largest teams, earning them the table right at the very front.

Congratulations Steve Falk, Prime Data --
Kudos to President Steve Falk for creating a culture where his staff took it upon themselves to apply and be chosen for the Globe and Mail (Canada’s largest national newspaper)/Morneau Shepell Employee Recommended Workplace award. It was their responses to the questionnaires that shaped the outcome. Noted Falk, “I just wanted to say thank you for helping us develop a well-regarded workplace culture. We’ve taken many of the Rockefeller Habits to heart over the past 3 years.” 

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com  

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? The Scaling Up team is prepared to support you. We have helped 40,000 other organizations over the past 30+ years, in scaling up their organizations through coaching, workshops, online training and more. 

We would like to offer you a complimentary, personal follow-up from our Scaling Up team to share how we can support you in scaling your organization.

For questions or more information contact us at coaching@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.

Jim Collins’ Latest; 7 Uses of AI; Mariya Yao; 3-Timer CEOs; ScaleUp Summit May 21 – 22 Atlanta

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights/opportunities to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

The greatest danger in business and life lies not in outright failure but in achieving success without understanding why you were successful in the first place.
	Jim Collins paraphrasing Prof. Robert Burgelman

3-Timer CEOs (Scaling Up Case Studies) –
From $100 million to over $1 billion in 24 months; from 3 to 30 locations; dozens of acquisitions; and a significant business pivot – this 87-second video highlights the outcomes four scaleup CEOs have achieved from attending our CEO Boot Camp three times since we launched two years ago. Why attend so many times? Because the experience is powerful. March is full, but 4 spots are open for June 4 – 7 in Marathon, FL. 

Jim Collins’ Flywheel –
How does YOUR flywheel turn? Jim Collins articulated the flywheel concept in Good to Great, one of the most powerful ideas to come out of his collective work. And it’s18 years later that he’s come to understand more fully the intricacies enough to help us discern our own flywheel – what are the components; what is the sequence; is the logic of your flywheel as equally sound as Amazon’s? Please watch this two-minute Jim Collins video for more details on his flywheel concept -- as applicable to business as it is non-profits and your own personal career.

Turning the Flywheel Monograph –
Released yesterday, Jim Collins’ latest 46-page Turning the Flywheel monograph provides a way for you to think about your own flywheel. It’s such a brilliant and quick read that I couldn’t put it down – and has my head spinning on precisely how to describe our own flywheel (if we have one!). To get it right means, to quote Jim Collins:

…if you conceive of your flywheel in the right way – and if you continually renew and extend the flywheel – it can be remarkably durable, perhaps even capable of carrying your organization through a major strategic inflection point or turbulent disruption.

But he goes on to warn:

…to do so requires understanding the underlying architecture of the flywheel as distinct from a single line of business or arena of activity (emphasis Jim Collins’).

Please grab a Kindle copy and take 62 minutes to read it this weekend, then bring Jim’s key questions to your weekly “council” meeting the next few weeks. Figuring out your flywheel is one of the most important strategic decision you’ll make – personally and professionally.

7 Practical Applications of Artificial Intelligence –
Chapter 2 of Applied Artificial Intelligence provides the best summary/progression of how AI is applied to business I’ve seen to date. You can read the chapter in 5 minutes. Co-authored by Mariya Yao, it’s subtitled A Handbook for Business Leaders – and it is!  SPro and Book Club members will receive a copy of the book next week. Mariya, along with 11 other top biz authors, will keynote our upcoming ScaleUp Summit in Atlanta May 21 – 22. Our two-day Summit is the equivalent of your team reading a dozen books (which research says is the differentiator between A-player execs and everyone else).

Machine Intelligence Continuum (MIC) –
Mariya labels these applications of AI, in Chapter 2, MIC. The seven are machine learning systems that: Act, Predict, Learn, Create, Relate, Master, and Evolve. And she shares examples where each is being used in business, which should spur some creative ideas for your own organization. I then suggest you go right to Chapter 6 where she details how to build an AI-ready culture. No surprise – it’s best if the CEO is onboard and at least one C-Suite executive has an advanced math degree (often top CMO’s have this, since it’s such an analytical function – or should be!!!). Again, Mariya has written a very practical and straight-forward book on how AI can be applied to our businesses. Join us in Atlanta to learn from her and a dozen others. 

What a Quantum Computer Looks Like –
10 years from being useful, quantum computing is the next frontier. For those curious, this Fortune article and 6-minute video gives you a quick look at what a quantum computer looks like -- essentially the most expensive refrigerator on the planet!

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.

Australian Billionaires; Maddock’s Plan D; Oscar Winner?; Congrats Gunjan; Vegas April 9 - 11

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights/opportunities to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

YPO-Only Scaling Up Workshop Las Vegas April 9 – 11 –
YPO has a few more spots for YPO teams to attend the 3-time award winning Scaling Up workshop “Making the Rockefeller Habits Rock” in Las Vegas April 9 – 11. YPOer Reza Etedali is the Day Chair subbing in for my dear friend Wei Chen who passed away two months ago. For more info email Emma Fenton-Wells efentonwells@ypo.org. See you in Vegas!

“Free Solo” a Must-See Documentary –
Expected to capture the Oscar this weekend for Best Documentary, Free Solo follows Alex Honnold’s successful scaling of El Capitan without ropes. My 11-year-old son Quinn and I saw it last weekend on the big screen. We both LOVED it and were sitting on the edge of our seats the entire time. The big lessons for all of us scaling companies?

1. Power of intention (BHAG) – it was a 20-year journey/goal for Alex, involving 8 years of preparation – he kept his eye on the prize with no deadline (most think BHAG’s need a deadline – not so)
2. Only taking calculated risks – with camera’s rolling, Alex stopped the ascent a year earlier because he wasn’t fully prepared for “the Boulder Problem.” Again, keep the deadline fluid and as Jim Collins calls it “shoot bullets before cannon balls.” Test before going all in.
3. Preparation, Preparation, Preparation – every thumb and toe hold were choreographed, practiced hundreds of times with ropes, before he attempted to free solo.

Successful leaders are NOT risk takers. Instead, they do what appear to be risky things but with a plan A, B, C, or D. And in Alex’s case, he needed a gold medal performance, or he died. Enjoy the show!

Plan D by YPOer Mike Maddock –
Mike is a great speaker, writer and friend. He is also an internationally recognized innovation expert. His new book Plan D: Lessons from the World’s Most Successful Disruptors is about people that blow sh** up for the good of the whole (That’s YOU!). Three quick takeaways: 

1. Under pressure, Disruptors have trained themselves to think, see and solve challenges differently. To many, this appears to be instinctive, but it is a learned practice. 
2. Disruptors use simple, repeatable frameworks to move faster and smarter than their competitors. This book is full of them.  
3. All extremely successful people are either chasing--or being chased by--ghosts. This can lead to scary and sometimes tragic outcomes. But the healthy Disruptors have learned to use their ghosts to give them an unfair competitive advantage.

This book is practical, funny and candid. Grab a Kindle version and enjoy over the weekend!

Australia’s First Tech Billionaires –
This NY Times article details how Atlassian co-founders Scott Farquhar (kind enough to endorse my book) and Mike Cannon-Brookes, who scaled their firm to a market cap of over $20 billion ($24.74 billion today) while holding onto 75% of the ownership, have lobbied for change. Unlike other wealthy people in Australia, they have been vocal about the political changes that need to occur in their country. Please take 4-minutes to read about two of the world’s top entrepreneurs who defied Silicon Valley – and who now live next to each other (with a hole in the fence so their children can play together) in the two most expensive homes in Australia.

Congratulations Gunjan Doshi, Founder/CEO InRhythm –
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy appointed Gunjan Doshi, whose firm InRhythm is an Inc. 5000 Hall of Famer (6 years in a row!), to Chair the Commission on Science, Innovation, and Technology. The Commission is comprised of 17 members including the Secretary of Higher Education; the Commissioner of Education; and the CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. This is a serious appointment! Noted Gunjan “please share that I’m a proud long-term student of Scaling Up!” Congratulations, Gunjan, for giving back to your community and state – and scaling a very successful company.

Hilton Using Growth Institute Online Courses –
Last week I noted Hilton was named the #1 Best Place to Work by Fortune, a key reason being their focus on training and development. My team reminded me that Hilton has been using some of our Growth Institute online courses. Congrats to Daniel Marcos and his team for providing this online “corporate university” anyone can access 24/7.

Vibra Enterprise’s 2 Billion Views on YouTube –
And another shout out to Daniel and his team. Diego Lossada, Founder & CEO of Vibra Enterprise, just earned his Master of Business Dynamics (MBD), a series of 6 accredited online coached courses (Scaling Up, Topgrading, ExO, etc.). Noted Diego:

As a company, we just reached 2 billion views on YouTube. I have been implementing the methodologies I have learned in the MBD for two years and they have undoubtedly made it possible to multiply our results. To reach 1 billion views, it took us 7 years and we reached 2 billion just 2 years after that.

Diego goes on to explain how their growth spurred a name change (the company name matters!):

We continue to grow and expand (4x in 24 months) and for that reason, we changed the name of our company from SolesMedia to Vibra Enterprise. The old name pigeonholed us in media and now we are strong in e-commerce and other areas as well. Thanks, Daniel Marcos and your team!

Hundreds of leaders are earning their MBD. More practical than an MBA and a sixth the cost, invest in yourself and your leadership team – it works. As McKinsey noted a couple weeks ago, the KEY competitive factor has shifted from brawn to brains!

Dominate Your Industry in 4 Stages of Growth – and last week, Growth Institute’s CEO, Daniel Marcos (I guess it’s my week to highlight Daniel), hosted a webinar where he shared the 4 stages of growth and how to use this dynamic growth model to grow from one stage to the next. He also shared how a leader needs to evolve to make sure they are never trapped by their growing business. If you missed the training, you can get the most important highlights 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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.

HGTV Co-Founder; Best Place to Work; 8 Self-Leadership Traits; Bloomberg CEO Summit

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

But, if you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself.
	Carl Jung as quoted in Fully Human

Bloomberg’s CEO Summit June 17 – 18 NYC –
Join me and a star-studded A-list of speakers and 200+ mid-market CEOs at Bloomberg’s beautiful HQ in NYC for their June 17 – 18 CEO Summit. More info below, but first…

HGTV Co-Founder Susan Packard –
Under Susan Packard’s leadership, HGTV became one of the fastest-growing cable networks in television history. In her new book released this week, Fully Human: 3 Steps to Grow Your Emotional Fitness in Work, Leadership, and Life, Packard shares how to improve what she calls your EQ Fitness and apply it to real world business situations. Jump to chapter 4 for a great reminder of what it means to be a leader that smiles (what it takes to experience joy as the leader of a growing business) – then read the rest of the book. Susan is keynoting our ScaleUp Summit May 21 – 22, Atlanta. SPro and book club members will receive a copy of her book next week for their libraries. 

10 Strategies for Women in the Workplace –
Susan Packard is also the author of New Rules of the Game, written for women leaders. She’ll share many of the lessons from this book, as well, during her interactive keynote in Atlanta. With over 30 years in the cable TV world, Susan has been touted as a pioneer, an innovator and a role model. She's been on the ground floor in the creation of some of the biggest brands in the industry, from HBO to CNBC and, most notably HGTV, as mentioned above. It’s an opportunity for your team to receive some outstanding executive education (which you can also stream back to your company) along with a thousand leaders of other scaleups in attendance – not to be missed.

The 8 C’s of Self-Leadership –
Yesterday I was on the phone with my dear friend Dr. Bill Isaacs, the famous dialogue guru at MIT. He pointed me to Dr. Richard Schwartz’s “Internal Family Systems” framework of self-leadership. Towards the end of his online one-pager, he concludes that:

After twenty years of helping people…The eight Cs of self-leadership include: calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness (emphasis mine).

I can’t think of a better list to live by – personally and professionally. Print, post, live!

And the Best Place to Work is? –
Fortune magazine released their annual list this morning and the winner is not the typical hi-tech firm with table tennis facilities! Instead, it’s Hilton Hotels. Seems happy employees lead to happy customers which leads to happy shareholders – the stock is up 274% since IPO. The key is CEO Chris Nassetta. Notes Fortune: “Nassetta has worked to upgrade the staff experience and placed a special emphasis on education and training (my emphasis!).” Rounding out the top 10: Salesforce, Wegmans, Workday, and Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. This just underpins McKinsey’s research I shared last week – it’s brains, not brawn, that wins in the marketplace.

Bloomberg’s CEO Summit June 17 – 18, NYC –
Bloomberg, our partner for the ScaleUp Summits, hosts 18 events throughout the year (and around the globe) for an elite group of mid-market CEOs (above $30 million in revenue). They’ve extended to “my world” an opportunity to invite 35 members. It’s a chance to network with the leadership of both Bloomberg and the other CEO members – a very high quality and global group of roughly 200 CEOs. 

Global membership is just $5k for all 18 events including their “The High Road Driving Experience” where you get to test drive all the brand-new luxury cars before they are available to the public – and the Bloomberg Gala 50 event Dec 9 in NYC. We’ve also included one seat to our Summit ($2k value), so it makes this membership the best if you plan to attend just one Summit in 2019. 

Regional membership is $2500 and includes 14 of the 18 events, the most important being their CEO Summit in NYC June 17 – 18 (Global invited as well). Here’s a link to a list of all 18 events and locations. Attending just one or two is worth the price of membership for Global or Regional. 

Please email me vharnish@gazelles.com if you’re over $30 million in revenue and interested.

Create Yourself!

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.

Beautiful Name; Costco's Resilience; Belgium Gazelles; Services Replace Products

Hello ScaleUps, 

Hope it’s been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

Great Company Name –
Do you need to rename your company? Congratulations to Dina Dwyer-Owens (Chair), Mike Bidwell (CEO) and her team for taking a huge leap and renaming the almost 40-year-old family business. At $1.8 billion now, the Dwyer Group recently rebranded their collection of 21 home service franchises to Neighborly. Brilliant, memorable, and emotionally connective!  Here’s a link to the latest press release on the details. Again, do you need to rename your company? Something simpler along the lines of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, FedEx, and Neighborly? Or Costco?

The Resilience of Costco (thank you to Tim Ferriss) --
Tim Ferriss highlighted this “article” on Costco. Notes Ferriss, in his 5-Bullet Friday post (one of my favorite blogs each week): “For 40 years, Costco has succeeded with a simple formula: reinvest merchandising profits into lower prices and better products; be a disciplined operator; and treat customers and employees well.” This is a great study in simplicity (drastically reducing SKUs, per slide 44, and keeping the stores barebone, per slide 70), contrarian decision-making (no expensive advertising, per slide 54, and only offering bulk sizes, per slide 58), and much, much more.” Please take 2 minutes to click through the 146 slides (it really is quick to absorb!). Thank you, Tim, for highlighting this great biz example – and love the clever way the story is told via slides. 

Services Replacing Products in Global Trade –
A new study out from the McKinsey Global Institute finds the share of goods produced around the world that is traded across borders has fallen sharply, from 28.1% in 2007 to 22.5% in 2017. In turn, the trade in services is skyrocketing. To quote Fortune magazine’s take on important implications of this research: 

• Foreign trade is no longer being driven by the search for low wages. Less than 20% of trade is based on labor-cost arbitrage, the report says. 

• Knowledge-based trade is soaring. Investment in intangible assets - R&D, strong brands, intellectual property - has doubled as a share of trade, from 5.5% to 13.1%. 

Fortune continues: “The implications for public policy are clear. Restricting trade in physical goods is fighting the last war. And attempting to restrict trade in intellectual property and intangibles is a fool’s errand. In the next round of globalization, it will be countries with the best talent, not those with the lowest wages, that will have the upper hand.” Brains, not brawn, are the key to success in the 21^stCentury. 

Gazelles as Job Generators –
Research continues to show that the small slivers of “gazelles” in the economy drive a majority of the jobs. The latest is from Belgium where 3.5% of firms where found to generate 67% of jobs between 2014 and 2017. Thank you to Scaling Up Certified coach Rob Nankeris for pointing me to this study.

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com  

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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. 

Free PR; Peers vs. Managers; NetGain Multiple; Costco

Hello ScaleUps,

Hope it's been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

NetGain Technologies Receives Top Multiple When Sold --
The Rockefeller Habits were instrumental in Jason Jacobson receiving one of the highest multiples in his industry. More below, but first...

Free PR, $.99 Kindle --
Grab a copy of Cameron Herold's practical book on how to get TONS of free PR while it's less than a dollar. More below, but second...

Employees Learn More from Peers than their Manager --
According to new research 80% of people learn as much or more from their peers as they do from their managers. This article details the 7 reasons, including relevancy, safety, and reciprocity. This reinforces the importance of moving to more of a team of teams organizational structure and away from traditional hierarchies. Thank you to YPOer Paul Berman for pointing me to this article.

Implement Peer Coaching --
If people learn more from their peers than managers, the key is to implement peer coaching, something we've been emphasizing for years since Marshal Goldsmith noted the importance. Choose a colleague (inside or outside the firm) and then decide four or five behaviors/actions/activities you're going to do more of, less of, or better to be more successful personally and professionally - and then support and hold each other accountable on a daily basis. And the cost? Nothing! The article above points to a white paper on peer coaching.

The Resilience of Costco (thanks to Tim Ferriss) --
Tim Ferriss highlighted this "article" on Costco. Notes Ferriss, in his latest 5-Bullet Friday post (one of my favorite blogs each week): "For 40 years, Costco has succeeded with a simple formula: reinvest merchandising profits into lower prices and better products; be a disciplined operator; and treat customers and employees well." This is a great study in simplicity (drastically reducing SKUs, per slide 44, and keeping the stores barebone, per slide 70), contrarian decision-making (no expensive advertising, per slide 54, and only offering bulk sizes, per slide 58), and much, much more It also makes one wonder where Amazon Prime memberships will take Amazon, retail, and the world at large..." Please take 2 minutes to click through the 146 slides (it really is quick to absorb!). Thank you, Tim, for highlighting this great biz example - and love the clever way the story is told via slides.

NetGain Technologies Top Multiple (Scaling Up Case Study) --
Notes Jason Jacobson, NetGain's CEO: "I know you like to hear success stories so I wanted to let you know we recently sold our business to private equity. It was unexpected, but we realized selling your business is often not on your timeline, but on the market's timeline. I know you probably hear this a lot, but I specifically wanted to let you know I think one of the reasons they felt very good about our organization was the fact that we have implemented your habits. From the daily huddles to the one-page plan, I truly feel the disciplined culture we formed around the Rockefeller Habits helped us achieve the top 10% of multiples in our industry on the sale. Here is our press release:

Free PR just $.99 Kindle --
This is the book I've been waiting for Cameron Herold to write - and it's available on Kindle this week for less than a dollar. To quote from Amazon, In Free PR, you'll learn how the media world operates while you gain invaluable insider knowledge and actionable advice on how to:

• Build your own in-house PR team
• Provide effective interviews
• Score great media coverage for free with just a few easy steps

PR Better Than Marketing --
Amazon continues: Landing public relations coverage for yourself and your company is a powerful tool to help elevate your personal brand. PR is easier to generate than marketing, PR is easier to leverage than marketing and PR is more cost effective than marketing. In other words, Public Relations is more critical than ever in growing your brand and your business. You've got more passion, commitment, a larger stake, and a deeper understanding of your business than any outside PR firm could ever have. So, stop wasting money and take the reins yourself. Learn the secrets to landing TONS of Free PR for your company. Cameron, thank you for writing this important and well written book.

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.

Alzheimer Cure?; Being Played?; Looks 19; Topgrading Online Course Launching

Hello ScaleUps,

Hope it's been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

Topgrading (hiring) Master Business Course --
The next online hybrid class is launching. Join other leaders in co-learning this critical interviewing and hiring skill. More below, but first...

This Is How You Should Treat Customers --
There are values, unique to a company, and principles, which are universal. HubSpot, the popular Inbound marketing CRM system (and new Scaling Up partner), has a beautifully outlined 10 point "customer code" that all of us can use (universal principles) to measure if we're taking care of customers properly. This link takes you to the list - worth sharing with your customer service department to audit your own progress on making things easier for your customers. Please take one-minute to scan down through the list and descriptions of each.

"I Don't Mind Paying, but I Do Mind Being Played" --
This is my favorite of HubSpot's 10 customer code principles. HubSpot goes on to explain "Customers shouldn't need a math degree to figure out their bill. Keep your pricing open, clear, and fair." This reminds me of Fred Reichheld's (Ultimate Question 2.0 fame) idea of "bad profits." Are you earning profits at the expense of customers well-being? Are you being deceptive? John Ratliff, founder of Appletree Answers (call centers), reduced the bills for his 10,000+ customers down to a single page, eliminating a bunch of the nickel and diming that went on in his industry which complicated the billing. Thank you to Andy Clayton, Scaling Up Certified coach, for bringing this HubSpot example to my attention.

Client Command Quarterly Theme Update (Scaling Up Case Study) --
Last week I highlighted Client Command's quarterly theme. Following the mention, Executive Assistant to CEO Jonathan Lucenay, Sharlene Yeager, noted:

We've had incredible success implementing the Quarterly Theme! Even if we come up short in a given quarter which does happen sometimes (we set the bar high), we accomplish a lot and have so much fun along the way. We've had some great celebrations, like the 70's disco skating party, Casino Royale night, Top Gun beach volleyball party, and great prizes like an Apple watch/iPad! Managers often say the best meeting of the quarter is when we break up into teams and brainstorm ideas for the next theme. We come back to present the ideas to the team and cast votes for the winning theme. We do all of that in one hour and it's amazing how creative we can be under pressure. Jonathan has done an amazing job incorporating many of your ideas into our culture. Thank you for sharing the Scaling Up framework.

Finish lines and fun - this is what people want - in games and at work. Pick a measurable goal for the next couple of months and have some fun working together to achieve it.

Alzheimer Cure and Key to Longevity? --
This article in the Feb issue of Fortune details how Paul Cox might be close to having a treatment that might prevent Alzheimer's disease, ALS, and a host of other neurodegenerative diseases. The cure is a naturally occurring amino acid L-serine. One of many indications this protein building block is critical to longevity and health comes from the diet of the Ogimi people. This population has the highest per capita of centenarians on the planet. Notes Cox:

(Their) women, they move like ballerinas. A 98-year-old who can bend over and touch the mat with her palms. I met a 54-year-old who came to the village from mainland Japan when she married a matriarch's son. She looks like she's 19...(and) wouldn't you know it! The Ogimi people are getting three to four times the level of L-serine that Americans get in their average daily diet...they have the highest L-serine content of any population that I've ever measured. They look unbelievable. And they live forever!

It's a lengthy, but fascinating article in a mainstream publication - worth a read this weekend.

Food Sources for L-serine --
This NCBI article (part of the National Institute of Health) details sources of L-serine in the Ogimi diet. FYI, I mention all this because poor health (or death) is the ultimate constraint to scaling a business. And having family members in poor health can drain what energy you have to give to your organization.

Online Topgrading Master Course --
This is a no-nonsense, highly effective, proven business methodology for hiring (and retaining) high performers -- the Topgrading Master Business Course. You and your team will learn the 12-step methodology directly from Dr. Brad Smart - trusted advisor to CEOs of leading companies (like Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric) and frequently regarded as the world's #1 expert on hiring. Here's what you and your team would get:

• 7 live, online workshops with a Topgrading coach;
• Two 45-minute One-on-One Coaching calls to discuss your progress and challenges;
• 60-day free access to Topgrading premium software TOLS 3.0;
• Downloadable toolkit & frameworks;
• And more... 

For more details, click here >>
There’s no application fee, so we encourage you to give it a try.

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. 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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.

Burrito Bond!; Steve Martin; Client Command; Jan 22 Closing

Hello ScaleUps,

Hope it's been a productive and purposeful week. Here are some insights to help you outlearn/outthink the competition.

This is How You Customer Fund a Business --
The Burrito Bond has raised almost over £2.6 million so far for co-founder Eric Partaker's UK-based Mexican restaurant chain Chilango. And it was this very entertaining and clever video that drove the campaign. Note's Partaker, "Layered into the video are several important points from Steve Martin (influence guru) to maximize influence... and it certainly seems to be working as the campaign is already a HUGE success!"

Influence Guru to Keynote ScaleUp Summit --
Steve Martin, author of the upcoming book Messengers: Who We Listen to and Who We Don't, will join Eric Partaker on stage at the May 21 - 22 Scaling Up Summit in Atlanta. Steve is Robert Cialdini's (father of influence) partner and Honorary Professor at Columbia University.

Client Command's Quarterly Theme (Gazelles case study) --
With a focus on getting processes right (part of the Scalable Infrastructure barrier to scaling), CEO Jonathan Lucenay and his team at Client Command (automotive marketing technology) have a quarterly theme called "Unite and Conquer" where the focus is operationalizing 21 processes in Salesforce - 21 being their Critical Number. Notes Jonathan:

We've used Scaling Up like an instruction manual for several years. With a few tweaks and adjustments, it's helped us create a vibrant culture and a scalable company Below are a few pics from the launch of our current theme. What is not pictured is the audience plants complete with face-paint and signs or the vuvuzelas that were distributed to everyone in attendance. The atmosphere was electric!

Their reward is taking the entire company to an Atlanta United soccer match. Below is a photo of the scoreboard and from their launch event, complete with t-shirts. What is your focus for the next 90 days?

Ron Lovett's Ashwani Story --
I named YPOer Ron Lovett’s book Outrageous Empowerment the #1 biz book in 2018. He describes how he scaled to 1500 security guards with no middle management and ultimately sold for 24x earnings. This 3-minute video highlights one of his favorite stories from the book, describing how he challenged a new frontline employee to make a major purchase for the firm - and how it turned out.

5 Seats Left Scaling Up Master Class --
The final round of applications for the Scaling Up Master Business Course 2.0 is closing January 22. There are 5 seats left so apply now and start optimizing your company for continuous scale!

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 drichmond@stscapital.com

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 coaching@scalingup.com 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.