The Agile Scaleup

#1 Advantage; The Wei Way; 8 Pillars; Super Bowl Exiting Event

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Trust, not money, is the currency of business and life.
	David Horsager, author The Trust Edge

The Wei Way -- entrepreneur Wei Chen's remembrance last Saturday was both moving and inspirational, more below, but first...

"Preparing to Exit" Super Bowl Bootcamp -- more info below, but second...

Is Trust the Most Powerful Advantage? -- trust is a serious business differentiator, and worth spending focused time nurturing in the marketplace (something a Brand Promise guarantee helps create). Go right to Chapt. 2 of David Horsager's excellent and practical book The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line. He opens that chapter with two poignant examples of trust - both smaller businesses, not Fortune 500 - and then goes on to share more. The balance of the book details The Eight Pillars of Trust (8 C's) and how to reinforce each. Join 1000+ leaders of mid-market firms and hear David keynote our two-day ScaleUp Summit May 21 - 22, Atlanta, where we'll feature a dozen top biz authors and leaders to help you outlearn the competition.

The Eight Pillars of Trust -- a key advantage of trust is speed, both inside and outside the firm - this is what several of the company case studies highlight. And the 8 C's of trust are: Clarity, Compassion, Character, Competency, Commitment, Connection, Contribution, and Consistency. Of course, I love the 4th one - Competency - which he summarizes as "People have confidence in those who stay fresh, relevant, and capable." The other is Connection - "People want to follow, buy from, and be around friends." 80% of life is showing up and every learning event I've ever attended, both competence and connection are reinforced - besides giving more clarity and reinforcing commitment.

Foundational Principles -- underlying a company's core values, which are unique to each firm, is what I've always believed is a foundation of universal principles. As I read David's book, it seems the 8 C's codify beautifully what must underpin all personal and business relationships. Go to the book's Table of Contents where David anchors each pillar with a short explanation. Then skip to the chapter that appeals to you most. This is a great book to focus on one chapter per month and audit the company for lapses that break trust.

The Power of Trust -- my favorite summary paragraph in the book:

Trust can accelerate, and mistrust can destroy any business, organization, or relationship. The lower the trust, the more time everything takes, the more everything costs, and the lower the loyalty of everyone involved. By contrast, greater trust brings superior innovation, creativity, freedom, morale, and productivity.

Trust the Economy? -- fear of a looming recession is dominating headlines. My take? Even if the global economy dropped by 5%, which would be considered another "Great Recession", the global economy would still generate $76 trillion, which is last year's GDP! If you can't grab a million or a billion of this economic activity, it's your fault. The key is to stay flush with cash (or access to cash) so you can weather any sudden losses and take advantage of the opportunities that surface. And these headlines give us permission to prune expenses, processes, etc. Do it now to start the New Year!!

The Wei Way -- last week I shared a sliver of what YPOer Wei Chen, founder of Sunshine Enterprises, achieved in his short 47 years. So how did he do it? It's what several of us are now calling the Wei Way, in honor of our dear fallen colleague. And not by accident, his way mirrors the 8 C's of trust:

1. He was eternally grateful for everything he had and it showed (his 17 year old mother sent him to live with his grandparents until age 6 because she couldn't feed him in China)
2. He always had a big smile on his face and assumed that whatever life dealt him, it was a blessing.
3. He stayed "present" with people and activities
4. And he could stay present and have the time because he really understood how to surround himself with great people to whom he could fully delegate his business and activities

A typical Wei moment - he would agree to chair something, assemble a team, walk in the room with the biggest of smile exuding love and energy and connection, listen in for about 10 minutes, then exit saying "I know you'll figure this out." Then he was the consummate cheerleader, never criticizing (just remaining silent if he didn't agree) and emphasizing, instead, what he did like. Thank you, Wei, for leading by example.

"Preparing to Exit" Super Bowl Bootcamp -- the 3rd Annual Super Bowl Weekend retreat is focused on "Preparing to Exit." Join the align5 team of John Ratliff, Chad Williams and Caley Sullivan as they facilitate 3 days of in-depth content and networking with other CEOs in the beautiful Florida Keys. Whether you are considering a possible sale of your company in 2019, or you are several years away, this retreat will provide you with the tools and strategies necessary to maximize value when the time comes to exit your business. In addition, align5 will provide a formal valuation analysis of your business, and one-on-one strategy sessions to help you build your unique Exit Plan. Space is limited to 5 CEOs/companies. Please visit the attached link for more details.

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.

Wei Chen’s Passing; 7 New Year’s Resolutions; UK ERF Electrical; $2.99 Scaling Up Kindle

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

If your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough.
	One of Wei Chen's favorite quotes

Remembering Wei Chen -- it's with a heavy heart that I share the sad news of my dear friend and YPOer Wei Chen's passing. He, along with three of his leadership team, perished in a plane crash two weeks ago in Atlanta. An avid aviator and only Chinese citizen to fly solo around the globe, Wei and I met when he attended my workshop several years ago. He went on to champion and host that YPO International workshop with me throughout Asia and the US the past five years, positively impacting thousands of leaders and their employees. He always had such a giving heart and love for learning.

Successful Entrepreneur and Servant Leader -- With a perpetual bright smile on his face, Wei scaled Sunshine Enterprises in just 10 years from a one-man operation to over 400 employees, becoming one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of scaffolding products in North America and also the exclusive US distributor for the largest forklift manufacturer, Anhui Heli Forklift, in China. He was named Top Executive of the Year in 2006 and Top 40 under 40 in 2008. The company was also ranked one of the fastest growing companies in the US by Inc. Magazine. Continually seeking his next BHAG, Wei worked tirelessly to bridge the East and West - bringing Chinese and US business leaders together via cooperative ventures through his latest venture, Sun Capital. His memorial service is 10am Saturday in Memphis. For the many of you who have met him over the years, please send me your thoughts and stories which I'll share with his family this weekend.

7 New Year's Resolutions -- another dear friend and President of Vistage Spain, Conor Neill, wrote this insightful piece for Forbes detailing 7 resolutions for helping you be happier and more productive in 2019. #4 is my favorite - Network by Serving Others. This was precisely Wei Chen's key to both his happiness and success. Please take 1 minute to scan down through Conor's list for some powerful reminders of the habits that drive success.

UK's ERF Electrical Launches Core Values Video (Scaling Up Case Study) -- Robin Combellack, Managing Director of UK-based ERF Electrical Wholesalers, recently attended our CEO Boot Camp. One of the outcomes, besides streamlining KPIs to align with outcomes and launching their meeting rhythms, was the creation of two glowworm characters, Erf and Essen. They will bring alive the core values, quarterly themes, and other initiatives within the firm. To launch, this 1-minute video was created followed with cards and incentives for staff displaying the values represented by these characters. Later this quarter Rob will launch their version of "Dream On," collecting and granting the dreams of his employees. Noted Rob in his email "here is to a Bloody Fantastic 2019." I couldn't have said it better!! Thank you, Rob.

Top 5 Biz Books 2018 -- in case you missed my post prior to the holidays, here's a link to my LinkedIn article sharing the Top 5 business books of 2018

$2.99 Scaling Up Kindle Deal -- for one day only, Saturday 05 January, the Kindle version of my book is available for $2.99. Grab or gift a copy. And thank you for all your support - just before the holidays the book passed the 300,000-copy milestone.

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

Top 5 Biz Books 2018; Fortune’s Top Books; Personal Development Book

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Fortune's Top Biz Books for 2018 -- here's a link to Fortune President Alan Murray's list of best books for 2018. I hear John Doerr's Measure What Matters is a good book but haven't read it (up next for me). BTW, Murray's "CEO Daily" blog is a must read for me - gives me a quick update on what is happening globally in the world of biz. I highly recommend you sign up for it - it's free - and it takes me just one minute each day to scan. There is a link to sign up in the link above.

My Top 5 (and #1 of 5) Biz Books for 2018 -- With artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies transforming the business world, it's never been more important to get in front of change. These top 5 books from 2018, aligned with our 4 Decisions Scaling Up framework (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash), will help you master the forces that are shaking up the landscape for middle market companies, so you can take advantage of the best new opportunities to scale. BTW, authors for 4 of the top 5 keynoted our Summits this year, which is why we invited them.

People -- Outrageous Empowerment: The Incredible Story of Giving Employees Their Brains Back by Ron Lovett.

This is my top pick for 2018. Lovett went from private security guard, to the rich and famous, to founder of his own security company with 1,500 employees (which he recently sold for 24x earnings). His secret: Getting rid of all middle managers and letting frontline employees think through decisions for themselves. Employees don't quit companies. They quit bad bosses. And the best way to fix this problem is to eliminate all the bosses! Lovett will help you find the courage to pare away that non-essential layer of bureaucracy, which is costing you 30% of your payroll, and free your team to excel. Lovett's firm embodies what I consider the organizational structure for the 21st Century. For more details, and a glimpse into one of his many frontline employee stories, watch this excerpt from his presentation at our ScaleUp Summit

Strategy -- Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence by Ajay Agarwal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb.

Artificial Intelligence was the #1 biz topic of 2018. Yet how do "mere mortal" mid-market firms think through how to put it to work in a practical way? The key is in the title of this powerfully practical book: prediction. Where in your company would knowing something more quickly make or save you significant money/time - like when you're about to lose a big customer or your best employees are ready to jump ship? Once you read it, head to the authors' 2-day workshops in Toronto. They're the best insurance policy you can find against being disrupted out of existence by a 22-year-old in Silicon Valley (or Toronto!).

Execution -- Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More by Morten Hansen

It's no accident that Hansen, a leading management thinker and professor at UC Berkeley, was also the co-author of what I consider Jim Collins' best book, Great by Choice. Now Hansen has written a book of his own, delivering a significant update to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in. Every company needs not just a few top performers producing but everyone knocking it out of the park. This book will show leaders how to educate everyone on their team to execute better.

Cash -- Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh

Blitzscaling details the "hacks" you need to grow really, really fast to capture a market quickly with a paradigm shifting idea. And because of this need for speed you need a really strong culture. There are blitzscaling opportunities in every company. Put together a team of two or three people, spending a few days a week, to identify and exploit a blitzscaling opportunity within your own firm. You'll have a shot at unleashing massive growth this year with a side project that could generate more cash value than your core business.

The One I Missed -- Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned:  The Myth of the Objective by Kenneth O.O. Stanley and Joel Lehman

Published in 2015, I just discovered this jewel of a book, which is challenging my own business thinking more than any recent book. If you really want to scale your business, you have to let go of some of your business objectives and allow serendipity to take hold. Stanley and Lehman have made a compelling case that too much adherence to objective-setting can blind you to the real opportunities to scale-and that medium-term goals can be dangerous to your business. Nonetheless, they haven't thrown out short-term goals. You need to know your next step. If you're looking for a book that challenges the conventional wisdom and will shake up your thinking, you won't want to miss this insightful read.

Personal Development Book -- and I would be remiss if I didn't encourage everyone to read Rabbi Stephen Baars outstanding 2018 book WIN.: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Destiny. His 2-minute YouTube video on "how to deal with the village idiot" is a classic view of what it takes to succeed.
CLICK HERE

Happy Holidays - I'll be back after the first of the year with these insights.

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.

Dell Public; 3 Keys to Intuition; Park Square Doubles; Instead of Bonuses; Jan 23 Scaling Up

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Scaling Up Master Class -- our latest coached online class just sold out, so we're launching another Jan 23. More details below, but first...

Dell Public Dec. 28 -- a year later than his ten-year plan, Michael Dell and his firm Dell Technologies will be back public the end of this year, via a stock swap with VMWare shareholders (so not an IPO). This CRN article details "5 Things You Need to Know" about Dell going back public. With revenues of $87.5 billion, it's been a substantial pivot from products to services - and Dell expects to be over $100 billion by 2022. Congratulations Michael - job well done!!

Intuition Can Only be Trusted If... -- Daniel Kahneman, best-selling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, emphasizes in this Think Advisor article that people need to be very careful when they trust their intuition. Three things must exist:

1. There has to be regularity in the world - so this greatly limits intuition
2. There has to be lots of practice
3. And immediate feedback must be present

I realize listing these aren't helpful, so please take 3 minutes to scan this article - the examples really flush out his important points. Where are you saying you "trust your intuition" when you have no reason?

Park Square Builders Doubles in One-Year (Scaling Up case study) -- this Professional Builder article highlights how an Orlando-based family owned business is using the Rockefeller Habits to drive revenues up and employee turnover down. Notes co-CEO Vishaal Gupta:

Our company doubled in size in the past year alone - we hired nearly 50 employees and expanded into a new market. Plus, we reduced employee turnover from 25 percent to 15 percent because we made our employees' well-being a priority. Keeping people is key in the construction industry.

After attending our CEO Boot Camp, Vishaal hired Scaling Up Certified partner Petra Coaching to support implementation. In the article, Vishaal details 3 ways the Rock Habits helped by:

1. Involving the whole team in the efforts
2. Improving communications at all levels
3. Making trade partners part of the team, too

Please take 2 minutes to read the details of each to glean lessons, especially around the importance of a regular meeting rhythm, for your own company and culture.

Grant Wishes Instead of Bonuses -- this Moneyish article details how Acceleration Partners and the Schweiger Dermatology Group are using the "Dream On" program created by partner John Ratliff (John co-teaches the CEO Boot Camp with me) to significantly drive up employee engagement and dramatically drive down employee turnover. And what are some of these wishes? Notes the article:

(Bob) Glazer (Acceleration Partner CEO) has spent the past two years asking his 130 remote workers about their life goals, or the most important relationships that they want to grow or rekindle in their lives. He then reads through their submissions with his advisory board and chooses 10 wishes to grant each year. Last year, he called in a favor at MIT to give one woman the opportunity to speak about performance marketing there, as she's always wanted to lecture at a university. His company also paid for lessons in race car driving, flying, skydiving and guitar-playing for workers, and even sent employee John Crooks and his wife to Copenhagen for a week.

At Schweiger Dermatology Group, which also retitled HR to "director of employee experience," the article shares:

...Dream On has helped turn things around with gifts great and small, including: new tires for an employee's car; a new mattress for a worker who had back surgery; sending someone to the Philippines to see their dying grandmother; helping pay off student loans or put a down payment on a car or a house; etc. Schweiger Derm has spent about $45,000 granting 25 dreams to date, and there are 149 more dreams on file - and turnover has dropped to just 19%.

Please take 2 minutes to read details on how to structure this program and some of the heart-warming stories that result. Tis the season. Others are helping

$9.7 million, 5-Year Grant IV C for Cancer Treatment -- The University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer center received a significant grant to pursue three of the deadliest cancers -- pancreatic cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive type of brain cancer. This article provides the details.

Scaling Up Master Business Course -- The first cohort has sold out! I'm so glad there has been so much interest in my course and there are still a lot of great executives that did not make it into the first cohort. So, we've decided to open a second class that will start January 23, 2019.

If you want to know how this course can help you and your team, I invite you to find out directly from one of my former students and now partner, John Ratliff, the former CEO of Appletree Answers (Dream On fame). Learn how he used the methodology to scale his company to an exit valuation five times the industry average. Watch my interview here.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 2019.

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

2 Best Chapters; EX Priority 1; Brands to Watch; $250 Deposit Deadline

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (anyone going to "Date with Destiny" this week?)

Anything that sets employees up for success or improves our culture should be a part of EX.
	Mark Levy, global head of employee experience (EX) Airbnb

$250 Deposit Only -- tomorrow (Friday, 07 Dec) is the last day you can book seats for our Spring ScaleUp Summit with just a $250 deposit per seat. This lets you grab better seats (earlier with bigger teams gets best seats) and preserve cash. More info below, but first...

Successfully Competing Against Amazon? -- Fortune writer is looking for companies to include in a new book. Are you competing successfully against Amazon? More below, but second...

Best Two Chapters I've Read in 2018 -- go right to Chapters 5 & 6 in Denise Lee Yohn's new book Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World's Greatest Companies. Finally, a book that details how to pivot the HR dept. into a true Employee Experience (EX) function and includes practical approaches, rituals, and artifacts. Denise is keynoting our Spring ScaleUp Summit in Atlanta May 21 - 22 and she's going to go narrow and deep into this critical topic.

Airbnb's Fusion -- fusing brand and culture, Airbnb's EX initiatives are highlighted. To quote Denise's book:

In 2016, the company (Airbnb) adopted the slogan "Belong Anywhere" to express it's brand identity and launched the "#belonganywhere" brand campaign. But it's leaders believed...the concept of belonging needed to apply inside the company as well.

Mark Levy, who was Airbnb's global head of employee experience, went on to explain to Denise:

We need to create a place where our employees feel they belong...belonging starts here. We have to figure out internal belonging first, then we can break down the walls with customers.

And Airbnb did, with simple ideas any of our scaleups can adopt. How aligned are your brand and culture?

EX is Priority #1 -- I couldn't agree more that EX is priority #1. To help, Denise created an Employee Experience Architecture Template which she details in Chapt 5. She will guide executive teams through it at our ScaleUp Summit. She also has a broader assessment to see how closely your culture and brand align - take 10 minutes to complete which will give you a feel for the content in her book.

Brands to Watch in 2019 -- and to wrap up my enthusiasm for Denise's insights, this week she released her annual "Brands to Watch" list, one for each letter of the alphabet (spoiler alert, A is for Amazon). It's a quick scan and you'll pick up some biz insights.

G-Squared's Habits (Scaling Up case study) -- Gene Godick, founder of G-Squared, a firm providing CFO services to private equity and VC-backed firms, is using the Scaling Up tools with the support of Scaling Up Certified coach Eileen Wainwright (consultants need coaches too!), to drive 20% annual growth the past four years. This blog post details how Gene and his team have particularly focused on the recruiting, hiring, and onboarding process for professional talent. And I appreciate Gene's comment that his focus is on "winning the next game" i.e. be clear on the end goal (BHAG) and next step - the rest is a WAG -- wild-ankle guess! Does your team have a clear priority for the month of December?

Request for Stories from Companies Competing with Amazon -- Hi, I'm a Fortune magazine contributor and I'm writing a book that in part is examining how to compete with Amazon. I would like to interview CEOs and entrepreneurs about their experiences dealing with the online giant and strategies that have helped them survive the Amazon jungle. I'm particularly interested in how both brands and retailers handle Amazon's pricing algorithm that can undercut your product at a moment's notice, what to do when Amazon decides to make a private label version of your product, and how to survive selling online without using Amazon. I'm looking for both success stories that can help us understand this new world and case studies about mistakes made that can serve as cautionary tales. I'm happy to talk on the record or on background. My email is briandumaine@gmail.com. Thanks, Brian

$250 Deposit to Hold Better Seats -- notes Dustin Brown, Partner and Head of Strategy at Elemental:

The ScaleUp Summit blew my expectations out of the water. It was two days of inspiration, amazing diverse speakers and a lot of interesting insights that could apply to my (or any) business. I will see you at the next one.

Join me, your peers, and bring your team to 2 days of inspiring content at our ScaleUp Summit in Atlanta, GA 21-22 May, 2019. And register by tomorrow with only a $250 refundable deposit per team member. Click here to register with only a $250 refundable deposit. Deadline is tomorrow, December 7th.

Heading to Tony Robbins -- one of our core values is "practice what we preach." I'm looking forward to investing in my own executive development over the next six days attending Tony Robbins "Date with Destiny." Let me know if any of you are going to be there vharnish@gazelles.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. 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.

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

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

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

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

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

Google any of these facts for the backup data.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your weekend and the movies!

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 2019.

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

End of Bureaucracy; Manic; Doug Stacey; 45 Seconds

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He goes on to note:

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

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

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

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

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

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

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 2019.

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

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

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 2019.

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

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

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll also host a LIVE Q&A at the end of it - so you'll have the opportunity to ask those burning questions. It's happening on Nov 13th at 12pm EST and you can sign up here

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; Jun 4 - 7, 2019.

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

#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.