The Agile Scaleup

#1 Candy; #1 Growth Prospect; #1 Key to Joy; #1 One-Page Plan

"...insights for scaleups" 

HEADLINES:
 

Without reading, there can be no learning; without learning, there can be no sense of a larger world; without the sense of a larger world, there can be no ardor to find it; without ardor, where is joy?
	Helen Vendler, posted at MOM's Organic Market

The Most Popular Halloween Candy by State -- this is very US centric, but still fun. This interactive map shows the top 3 Halloween candies in each state, compiled by CandyStore.com. And the #1 candy across the US? Skittles. Take 1-minute to see the rest of the top 10 and specifics for your state.

Tutorial - One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) -- This is our best-known and most widely used tool that has helped tens of thousands of companies scale up quickly. It's designed to drive alignment, accountability, execution, and focus. I've written a new step-by-step tutorial on using the OPSP tool to craft your industry-dominating strategy to keep everyone in your company aligned and productive. Click here to read more:

MOM's Organic Market Quote -- founder Scott Nash has streamed the ScaleUp Summit (more summary highlights below) to his team every year for the past decade as he's scaled from a few stores to over 1300 employees. Noted Scott in an email shortly after the Summit, "People who don't read books are missing so much. We have this (quote above) posted up in our offices." He went on to share, based on hearing the authors at the Summit "I've ordered Blitzscaling, Growth IQ, Great at Work, and Outrageous Empowerment for my entire team and we're getting busy reading them. All very timely for us." Our next ScaleUp Summit is May 21 - 22, Atlanta - don't miss out on the next dozen important books and their authors as you outlearn the competition.

25 Ways Artificial Intelligence is Changing Business -- the latest Fortune magazine features this significant article and 12-minute video - please take 15 minutes this weekend to review. I'm committed to hosting one significant AI/Machine Learning speaker at each ScaleUp Summit, including Doug Rose at this most recent Summit and Mariya Yao at the next.

Future 50 -- and Fortune also published their latest list of the 50 firms with the best growth prospects. It's important to note that their list last year outperformed the stock market by a factor of 3X - providing a 35% return vs. 13% for the broader 1500 stocks. It's worth 1-minute to scan down through the list. #1 this year is Workday and surprisingly, Apple didn't make the list this year. Interestingly, 21 companies that made the list are Chinese - the same number as in the US.

Embarrass Yourself -- continuing with Summit highlights, Chris Ye, co-author of the hugely successful book Blitzscaling with LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman, noted that a key tenet to scaling rapidly is launching a product that embarrasses you. My conclusion, after Chris's counterintuitive presentation is that EVERY firm should form a team of two or three people, working a day/week, and see what idea within your company/industry you could blitzscale.

Setting Objectives Will Constrain AI Implementation -- Doug Rose, author of Artificial Intelligence for Business, made a strong counterintuitive case that the main barrier to AI implementation is cultural, specifically one focused on setting goals and objectives. Noting that most of our lives have been driven more by serendipitous occurrences than meeting objectives (for me, I thought I was going into the nuclear engineering industry!), the same for AI initiatives. You have to be willing to put a three-person team, which Doug outlined, freed from specific objectives, to see what powerful insights your data can surface to scale the business. My take? The same two- to three-person team I mentioned above should head this up as well. See what serendipitous discovery you can make then blitzscale it before the competition (or some 22-year-old in Toronto) beats you to the market.

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; April 23 - 26 , 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.

Complexifying; Obsession vs. Passion; China’s March Backward; Feb 5 – 10 Panama

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

There are no bad industries; just bad leadership.
	Verne Harnish

Geoversity Feb 5 - 10 Panama -- applications are being accepted for 30 CEOs to participate in the 3rd annual "Nature of Business" program in the Republic of Panama. This 2-minute video and website will explain why some of the top YPOers, EOers, and other leaders have raved about this experience of how Mother Nature informs us about organizational structure to product/service design to physical facility enhancements. One YPOer running a $400 million construction firm not only picked up some important innovations he's incorporating in his business; he's also applying what he learned to the design of a new park in his city (he's chairing the development).

Equine Industry $300 Billion -- I opened the ScaleUp Summit this week in Denver showing a photo of the Ford Model T and a horse. The car was supposed to put the horse out of business, yet last year the equine industry generated over $300 billion globally. There are no bad industries; just bad leadership. The equine industry simply pivoted from transportation to entertainment, one of the fastest growing segments in the global economy. Does your business need to pivot to something more lucrative in your industry?

Don't Complexify the Business -- VC and entrepreneur Brad Feld was the opening keynote. He's coined the term "complexify" - when you have something that is working and then you mess it up with something complex. Leaders often don't realize when complexifying is happening. That is the value of a board or a coach. And don't make complicated mistakes - when you make a mistake on top of a mistake. How have you added needless complexity to your job/business?

Obsession vs. Passion -- Feld feels passion is overrated - and people can fake that they're passionate about a business, idea, etc. Instead, he looks to invest in leaders who of obsessive about their business. Are you just passionate about what you do, or are you truly obsessive?

Do Less, Then Obsess -- this aligned with Morten T. Hansen's research into the 7 keys to being Great@Work, the title of his breakthrough book and the theme for our ScaleUp Summit. The key is understanding what it means to really focus. Saying no to obvious things you shouldn't do isn't focus. Instead, focus is saying no to something you think is phenomenal because you have something even better to do i.e. Steve Jobs shelved the iPad because he felt the iPhone was even better. What great thing do you need to set aside for now?

35 Years Ago Today -- Oct 19, 1983 was the launch date of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE), the official start of the young entrepreneur movement. Fittingly, Lovepop co-founder Wombi Rose opened our ScaleUp Summit this week, sharing how he and his friend John Wise launched their fast growth biz while at Harvard Business School in 2013 and today have over 1000 employees, before they've turned 30, producing amazing 3D greeting cards. This article details how they've scaled

I'll Share Additional Ideas from the Summit over the Next Few Insights...but next...

China's Backward March -- Vernon Menard sent me a link to this Foreign Policy magazine article about the likely negative impact of China's current trajectory toward Mao-style dictatorship. Noted Menard, "(the article) reminded me of your prediction that India will win The Hare and The Tortoise race. Democracies, as imperfect and messy as they are, always trump dictatorships in the long run. And fewer people die." Please take 5 minutes to read this article this weekend.

IV Vitamin C Continuing to Save Lives from Deadly Sepsis -- half of all deaths in a hospital are due to sepsis (what killed Nelson Mandela), contributing to almost 20 million deaths each year globally. Dr. Marik's protocol based on high dose IV C is already saving many lives. This Whole Foods article details the results.

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; April 23 - 26 , 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.

Meeting Rhythm Examples; Best DNA Test; Biggest Sales Mistake; Blitzscaling’s 5 Lessons

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (ScaleUp Summit next week, so keeping this short)

Salespeople know that differentiation is a best-practice, but have been left to their own devices to figure out how to do it -- until now. Sales Differentiation presents strategies that salespeople can quickly put into practice.
	Verne Harnish endorsement of Sales Differentiation

Conference Technologies' Meeting Rhythm -- John Laughlin, leading one of the faster growing firms in the US through an aggressive acquisition strategy, has driven execution through his daily and weekly meeting rhythm, including the all-important "council" meeting. This six-minute interview, with me, provides details including the time of his daily (8:02am), how it's structured, how it's freed up the rest of his week to do "market-facing" activities, and the broader impact of the weekly council meeting. If you're not doing the daily and hosting a weekly "council" meeting you're leaving a lot of time and money on the table.

Blitzscaling "CBS This Morning" Interview -- this 4-minute CBS interview with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman provides an excellent overview of his new book titled Blitzscaling which was released earlier this week. At 2:45 in the interview Reid outlines four counterintuitive aspects of scaling rapidly:

1. Embrace chaos
2. Tolerate "bad" management
3. Let fires burn
4. Ignore customers
5. Evolve your culture

He goes on to explain each and how they must exist if you want to dominate a global market quickly. It isn't for everyone, but there are aspects you can embrace however fast you're scaling. We're looking forward to learning more at next week's ScaleUp Summit.

Sales Differentiation -- subtitled "19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want," this book was released a few weeks ago by Lee Salz. I endorsed it (quote above) because it provides several practical tips and tools your sales team can use immediately to positively impact performance. One immediate technique? Eliminate the use of the term "best" i.e. we have the best executive training. Right from page 1 Lee gets to the point and provides alternatives for your sales people to use to improve close ratios.

Best DNA Testing for Health -- and our doctors at the Riordan Clinic have identified this as the most insightful and health specific DNA test (I first wrote "best" then remembered Lee's sales lesson) for giving insights into ways to improve your health. We just ordered a kit for our son Quinn - we'll let you know what we find out.

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; April 23 - 26 , 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.

Blitzscaling; Billionaire Reid Hoffman; Million Dollar Women; London Jan 16 - 18

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Conscious Capitalism CEO Conference -- I'm keynoting the conference next week in Austin - hope to see many of you there.

London Jan 16 - 18 -- organized by our Scaling Up Coaching Partner Neale Lewis, these are the dates for our next launch of the ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP) in London. Here's a link to the overview including a 2-minute video. Limited to five companies at a time, it's an 8-day local program spread over a year that installs the Scaling Up tools and a learning culture within a company. It's the most effective program we've designed combining over 30 years of experience in helping companies scale. To apply go to this link

Blitzscaling -- the most anticipated book for scaleups since Exponential Organizations and Scaling Up, is set to release Oct 9. With a foreword by Bill Gates, this book is titled Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies. Co-author billionaire Reid Hoffman is co-founder of LinkedIn, a venture capitalist, and consummate teacher. The book was birthed out of the 20 lectures Hoffman gave at Stanford in his 2015 Blitzscaling course. Here's a link to his free online Stanford course which includes a 1-hour overview of the 5 stages of Blitzscaling.

Chris Yeh Keynote -- Hoffman's co-author Chris Yeh is an entrepreneur, writer, and mentor. He holds two degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Alliance with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. Chris is keynoting our ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver. He's such an accomplished writer and speaker that I'm looking forward to his succinct summary of the book. Can't travel? Click here to register for live streaming where you can watch Chris and all of the other Summit speakers from your location on any device.

HBR Summary of Blitzscaling -- Blitzscaling details the "hacks" you need to grow really, really fast (because it's so managerially inefficient) to capture a market quickly with a paradigm shifting idea. And because of this need for speed you need a really strong culture. This HBR article/interview does a good job summarizing the key points of the book. In many respects, Hoffman's framework of moving from a family to tribe to a city style of organization is no different than the famous 1972 Larry Greiner article in HBR titled the "Evolutions and Revolutions as Organizations Grow" - you just move through the stages faster i.e. Facebook's famous shift from a mantra of "Move fast and break things" to "Move fast with stable infrastructure."

Helping 1 Million Women Get to $1 Million -- and this Forbes article details how Julia Pimsleur's online course (Verne is on the board) is helping women scale their businesses. It starts with the right mindset. Julia has already graduated 150 women from the program who are doubling their revenues, getting to $1M and coming back to mentor other women making the climb. If you know of a woman entrepreneur running a biz doing a few hundred thousand in revenue and wants to scale to a million or more, please send them a link to the article - thank you.

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 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.

Think Like Steve Jobs; How Microsoft Did It; 3 MSP Mistakes; Oct 4 Kaihan Krippendorff Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

I need to change the mindset of this company...from a 'know it all' culture to a 'learn it all' culture.'
	Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

Outlearn the Competition -- a dozen top biz thought leaders in addition to eight ScaleUpX speakers (successful leaders of mid-market firms) will keynote our upcoming ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver. Learning is not a "nice to have" it's a "must have" in today's information-driven economy as the top market cap companies in the world have learned (below). See you in Denver.

Learn It All Culture -- at almost $900 billion in market cap, Microsoft is the third largest market cap firm in the world behind Apple and Amazon and just ahead of Alphabet (hint, pick a name that starts with the letter "A"). This 4+ minute Fortune interview of Microsoft's EVP of Biz Dev Peggy Johnson gives insights into the unbelievable turnaround of this tech giant and how it has become nimble again. One key was CEO Nadella's focus on creating a "learn it all" culture. The second is highlighted at the 3:52 mark where Peggy describes how every Microsoft employee knows and is focused on Microsoft's mission, which she shares. The key is that CEO Nadella repeats this statement and a handful of ambitions at EVERY weekly executive all-hands meeting It's worth a few seconds to hear her talk about this - then watch the entire 4 minutes.

What is Your Weekly Mantra? -- what are the messages you're going to share meeting after meeting after meeting - from the quarterly theme to the company's purpose/BHAG. As Peggy Johnson mentions in the interview, you can't just check off a box that you have these strategy decisions. You need to stay on message by repeating them a lot - this is what leaders of major companies like Microsoft do - simple and effective. So just do it!!

Learn to Think Like Steve Jobs -- so what was Steve Jobs' final "project." It wasn't a product, it was Apple University - his succession plan. One of the best kept secrets still today, my partner Daniel Marcos found this Deloitte posted blog. Notes the blog:

According to Apple, the company founded Apple University in 2008 "to teach Apple employees how to think like Steve Jobs and make decisions he would make." In many ways it was built to solve the problem of "running Apple after Steve Jobs" - and setting in place the tools and information which helps Apple learn from his collective 30 years of wisdom.

It goes on to note:

...the University is designed around capturing Job's collective learning and translating this into content, programs, and materials which Apple employees and leaders can use long into the future.

Please take 2 minutes to read the entire piece. Hopefully the tools within Scaling Up serve as a foundation for best practices in scaling your firm - and our educational and coaching services help you keep everyone educated.

MSP's Growing 5x GDP -- I keynoted IT Glue's customer conference last week. Chris Day, founder and CEO, is riding a fast growth firm in a fast growth industry - the Managed Service Provider (MSP) space. It's fun to see mid-market firms growing so fast given the kind of "wind at their back" market forces swirling around them. Yet, they also face some challenges. In this interview for Channel Partners Online I share 3 things MSPs (and most mid-market firms) do poorly - Pricing, Targeting, and Marketing. Please take 2 minutes to skim through the three ideas.

Strategy Webinar 12pm ET Oct. 4 -- Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff, author of OUTThink the Competition, has captured the essence of strategy and given us a truly fresh language to guide and enhance the process. He will be sharing that on October 4th. Register here:

Kaihan is a dear friend of mine and a great business strategist who has consulted an impressive list of outstanding companies, including Sotheby's, TedX, Kraft, NASA, and Google. I'm so excited to announce that Kaihan has agreed to share his insights on the secrets to outthinking the competition and creating disruptive innovation. You don't want to miss this free webinar on October 4th. Click here to register:

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 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.

Billionaire’s Advice; Raising Resilient Children; Open Office Results; Amsterdam Events Nov 6-7

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (Adam Grant fest!)

Nov 6 - 7 Amsterdam -- Join us in The Netherlands for two full days of executive education. More info below, but first...

Sept 21 Hotel Room Cutoff -- our discounted hotel rate for the ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17 and Scaling Up User Conference Oct 18 ends tomorrow, Friday Sept 21. Please click here to reserve your hotel room.

Open Offices Decrease Face Time; Increase Email -- this reputable Harvard study published in The British Psychological Society Research Digest showed that moving from cubicles to a fully open office setting reduced face-to-face time by 73% while email and instant messaging increased 67% and 75% respectively. Working in an open office plan, people find ways to close-down (headphones, for instance) and rely more on electronic communication. On the surface this sounds negative, but it could be a good thing in that people interrupt each other less and can focus more. For me, the key to making open offices work is the daily huddle which gives teams structured time to get face-to-face while eliminating the need for a lot of these emails/texts. Please take 1 minute to read - and thanks to Adam Grant for sharing.

Key to Complex Problem Solving -- Intermittent Collaboration - another Adam Grant recommended piece of research - this time around effective complex problem solving. This Harvard Gazette article summarizes that the individuals on teams need both alone time and group time to work on complex problems. This seems obvious, yet all the new technologies seem to keep everyone "on" and connected all the time. Notes the article:

Groups whose members interacted only intermittently preserved the best of both worlds, rather than succumbing to the worst. These groups had an average quality of solution that was nearly identical to those groups that interacted constantly, yet they preserved enough variation to find some of the best solutions, too.

There are similar implications for the open office setting where both "agile" daily huddles balanced with quiet phone booth like spaces are important in team work. This article is worth another minute.

Key Question to Raise Resilient Children (or Associates)? -- Adam Grant, in this 3-minute interview on the Today Show, shares quick hints on raising happy and resilient children. Besides having the guts to say "no" more often, try asking your children for their advice when you're facing a tough situation/decision. Adam did this with his daughter as he prepared for his TED talk. Her advice later helped her perform on stage. Adam is always worth the time to read/listen to.

Questions to Ask after School -- do you struggle as a parent wondering what to ask your children (young and old) when they come home from school? I had lunch Sunday with the famous Kathy Kolbe, the 74-year-young creator of the Kolbe Index. It assesses the natural way each person takes action (I'm a 5-3-8-4). Anyway, we were talking about our children (her son is CEO of Kolbe) and it drifted to great questions. Here are the two questions she suggested work (have fun with variations) - and she's right. I tried it with my 11-year-old son Quinn and it was a fun conversation:

1) If you could do something over today, what would it be? 2) What was the dumbest thing you saw?

Billionaire Sara Blakely's Fatherly Advice -- Kolbe's questions reminded me of the CNN 4-minute interview with billionaire Sara Blakely of Spanx fame who shared how her dad encouraged her and her brother to fail i.e. he would ask them at the dinner table how they failed that week - and if they didn't have anything he was disappointed. Sara describes this in the first 15 seconds of the interview - and the entire 4 minutes is worth watching.

Nov 6 - 7 Amsterdam -- on Nov 6 our Dutch partners are hosting a one-day "Master Coach" class led by Gregg Thompson, author of Master Coach. This course gives leaders the coaching skills they need, now that managing has pivoted to coaching. The course includes an excellent segmented list of questions you can use in any coaching situation. On Nov 7, I'll be leading a master class on Scaling Up along with special guest Joss Milner who will go deep in the cash flow aspects of business and our new cash tool called The Power of One. Both courses are in English.

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 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.

Friendship Advantage; Big Decision; Pricing Strategy; Sept 26 Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Webinar Sept 26 with Verne -- I'll be joining Daniel Marcos for a Sept 26 webinar to discuss the most important "big decision" Steve Jobs made to guarantee his baby would survive and thrive long after his passing - the true measure of a leader. More below, but first...

How to Make a Big Decision -- this is your more extensive reading assignment for the weekend. This NY Times article by best-selling author Steven Johnson (we hosted him at an earlier Summit) details the research behind making better BIG decisions. Quotes Johnson:

The ultimate limitation of the pros and cons list is that we are merely transcribing our existing understanding of the decision at hand and not seeing it with fresh eyes. "One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination," the economist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling once observed, "is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him."

So what do you do instead? This article details the approach and is worth the 5 minutes to read (and another 15 to study!). I like his opening story about Charles Darwin's big decision! Thank you, equally brilliant Adam Grant, for recommending this insightful article. It's a few big decisions that you have to get right, setting the course of your company and your life - make them wisely.

The Friendship Advantage -- Forum guru, trainer of over 20,00 leaders, and dear friend Mo Fathelbab just published a book titled The Friendship Advantage: 7 Keys to Building Relationships That Transform Corporate Culture and Drive Productivity. Notes Mo in the opening of Chapter 1:

...Just 30 percent of employees have a best friend at work. Those who do are seven times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, are better at engaging customers, produce higher quality work, have higher well-being, and are less likely to get injured on the job. In sharp contrast, those without a best friend in the workplace have just a 1 in 12 chance of being engaged.

SPro and book club members will receive a copy next week. Then come be inspired by Mo as he beautifully shares his ideas on our ScaleUp Summit stage in Denver Oct 16 - 17 along with eleven other top biz thought leaders - the equivalent of "reading" a dozen books, the fun way!

7 Keys to Friendship -- here are Mo's 7 Keys:

Judgement Free Mischievous Fun Vulnerability Kind Truth Reliability Generosity Shared Purpose

It's the perfect checklist for testing if you can be a true friend. I'm going through the list right now - seeing where I'm falling short in my friendships and having some insightful dialogues along the way And as he shares, "...at least one of these keys will prove to be very difficult for you or those with whom you want to develop real relationships." I recommend you choose which one it is for you and go right to that chapter of the book first, after reading Chapter 1. Mo has written a very heartful, insightful, and practical book everyone should absorb. Congratulations Mo!!!

Good, Better, Best Pricing -- are you giving your customers pricing options? Just like 3 brand promises (3 reasons to buy your product/service) are much better than 2 or 4 or 10; it's the same for pricing. This HBR article details several excellent examples. And remember, pricing is tricky because we're selling to people, not companies - and people are NOT rational, so you can't use logic to set price (re-read this last sentence again). It's also why we muck up our compensation plans. More thought and human understanding needs to go into pricing. Please take 2 minutes to read this article. Thank you, Sebastian Ross, for sharing.

ScaleUp Summit in Denver -- Limited seats are still available for the Fall ScaleUp Summit (October 16-17, 2018). Includes 12 best-selling authors and business thought leaders (see full list). This year is slated to be the largest Summit yet, with more than 800+ CEO and business leaders attending! Bring three or more of your leadership team and save $300 per person. Don't miss out. Register today

Sept 26 Webinar with Verne and Daniel -- Are you interested in scaling your company with the help of Salim Ismail, Jack Daly, David Meerman Scott, Dr. Brad Smart, Kaihan Krippendorff, and other great thought leaders? I'm joining Growth Institute's CEO, Daniel Marcos, on September 26th for a live information session about how - based on a key decision Steve Jobs made. We're going to be talking about why it's more important than ever to find your village of gurus and invest in a high caliber implementation environment to complement your Scaling Up strategy. Click here to register.

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 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 coaches@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.

Asleep in 2 Minutes; Ken Sim Mayor; Shark Tank Judge Australia; Top 5 Biz Book

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future!
	Yogi Berra

Scaling Up Fan Running for Mayor -- Ken Sim, co-founder of two highly successful businesses, is running for the Mayor of Vancouver. More below, but first...

Shark Tank Judge Dr. Glen Richards Sept 18 Sydney -- Dr. Richards scaled his first biz to over $800 million using the Scaling Up tools; and is doing it again with a new firm. Well known throughout Australia as one of the judges on their popular Shark Tank show, Dr. Richards is our partner in launching the ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP). He's hosting an introductory event Sept 18, 5pm - 7pm in Sydney. More below, but second...

Prediction from 2007 -- Alex Rusch, a dear Swiss friend in the publishing biz, came across a prediction I shared in my insights over a decade ago. Quote:

Conclusion: iPhone is poorly named, it will do well initially and morph quickly into a handheld Mac, and the Headsets.com and Plantronics of the world will be the "phone" distributor and manufacturers of choice. And like high end stereo equipment, we'll own and use a separate camera, PDA, and phone -- three devices from three separate companies to do three distinct jobs.

It's making crazy dumb predictions like this that had me conclude that only the market can be the final judge. Over the years I've seen what I thought were home runs fail miserably; and ideas I thought were duds, like the iPhone, take companies to billions (or trillions).

Shoot Bullets, Not Cannonballs -- The market makes you look smart or dumb, so as Jim Collins suggests in Great by Choice (by far Jim's greatest book for scalesups - and one of the top 5 of all time) - shoot bullets, not cannonballs. Test your ideas, first, in a real marketplace and then invest crazily in the few things that work.

Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes -- this Bustle article highlights a military technique for falling asleep quickly. Sleep is so critical to everything we do as biz leaders - improving decision making and giving us stamina. Please take 1 minute to read then practice for six weeks as suggested (yep, takes practice!). Thank you to Scaling Up Certified Coach John Anderson for sharing.

Gazelles Member Ken Sim running for Mayor of Vancouver in Upcoming Election

On October 20, the citizens of Vancouver head to the polls to elect a new Mayor and a long-time GazellesPro Member is beginning to muster quite the notoriety as he throws his hat in the ring. Ken Sim, co-founder of two highly successful companies - Nurse Next Door (5000+ employees and over 180 franchise locations across North America) and Rosemary Rocksalt (six restaurants and growing) - is running for Mayor of Vancouver. Soon after Sim was elected with a clear majority by his NPA party to run for mayor, the Globe and Mail reported "Ken Sim is a catch for the Non-Partisan Association." If you live in Vancouver or have ties to the Pacific Northwest city, be sure to check out Sim's web site to learn more www.buildabettervancouver.ca and reach out if you can. Ken needs your support to win the race. Good luck on your campaign, Ken!

Mini-Milestone -- thank you to all who have posted positive reviews of my book. This week Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) passed a mini-milestone - 500 reviews (thank you Chip - please let me know who you are if you read these insights)!

Scaling Up Master's Program | Sydney, Australia | October 24th, 2018

Where the rubber hits the road...The Scaling Up Master's Program (SMP) is being launched by Shark Tank's Dr. Glen Richards in Sydney on October 24th, 2018.

This 12-month fast-track leadership team program equips you and your team with the skills, discipline and focus to optimize, calibrate and grow as fast as possible. This program is designed for companies with an unquenchable bias for action and is being facilitated by successful Scaling Up entrepreneurs.

Glen is hosting a free information evening on Sept 18th, 2018, 5-7 pm in Sydney's CBD. For more information, please contact Anna Samios (+61) 0408 660 855 or email at asamios@scalingup.com

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 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 coaches@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.

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 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 coaches@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.

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 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 coaches@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.