The Agile Scaleup

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.

Apple’s Trillion; MDW’s Trillion; Top of Mind; SMP Detroit, KC, Sydney, London

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

If you can get the right people to think of you at the right times, you can accomplish great things.
	John Hall, author Top of Mind

Apple Tops $1 Trillion -- OK, it's old news (a week), but still a significant milestone for a company whose iconic founder passed away almost 7 years ago It's worth 1 minute to read Reuter's reporting on the memo CEO Tim Cook sent out to Apple's 120,000 employees. It's simple, direct, and reinforces Apple's core ideals. I great example for us to all model if we have something significant to communicate to our teams. More below on why I think Apple has been so successful, but first...

Top of Mind -- four questions frame the ideas in John Hall's insightful and well-written book Top of Mind:

1. Am I delivering real value to my customers every day outside the products and services that I offer?
    
2. Do I understand the real needs and pain points of my customers and prospects?
    
3. If my customers are having a significant problem, would they think of and contact me first?
    
4. Do my customers like and trust me?"

It's question 3 that is the most important in my mind. Are you top-of-mind in your marketspace? Notes Hall, "In this book, you'll learn how to engage and position yourself (and firm) on top of the minds of the people who matter most - so that whenever opportunity arises, they'll already be thinking of you."

Would They Pay for the Sales Call? -- Hall's ideas remind me of the father of sales Dr. Neil Rackham's simple, but powerful idea - would a customer be willing to pay for the sales call i.e. how are you delivering real value outside the products and services you're offering (Q1 above) through educating the customer vs. selling them. Anyway, I love great questions and Hall's book poses the right four...and then answers them. SPro and book club members will receive a copy next week - then come hear Hall keynote our ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17 (and Scaling Up User Conference Oct 18) in Denver. Spend two days immersed in deep learning (and fun) with your team.

Best Buy Gets It - Relationship Selling -- a company that was expected to be vanquished by Amazon, like all the other retailers, instead has seen its stock quadruple since Hubert Joly was named Best Buys CEO, a guy with no retail experience (see, it's not an industry knowledge issue, it's a leadership issue). Notes this Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, describing the five-week training process new Geek Squad recruits go through (do your new recruits get five weeks of training?):

Now they're in this conference room practicing how to sell by seeming not to. "Be a consultant, not a salesperson," Bucknell says. "Use phrases like: 'How would you like it if,' 'Do you think it would help if you could,' 'Have you ever thought about.' " They're supposed to establish long-term relationships with their customers rather than chase one-time transactions. They won't need to anxiously track weekly metrics and, unlike the Geek Squad and blue shirts working in stores, they'll be paid an annual salary instead of an hourly wage. Their house calls are free and can last as long as 90 minutes.

Please take 4 minutes (worth every second!) and read this story of how Joly turned around Best Buy - lots of lessons for all of us!! Thank you to Scaling Up certified coach Bill Gallagher for pointing me to this insightful article that aligns so well with John Hall's book and teachings.

MDW's $1 Trillion (please help her) -- serial entrepreneur Julia Pimsleur's Million Dollar Women initiative aims to help 1 million women scale companies to over $1 million - that's a trillion in annual revenue, the equivalent of two Wal-Marts And the fastest growing segment are businesses led by women of color. Pimsleur offers these women scholarships to her online university and as a board member I'm helping her raise funds for her nonprofit arm called Women Who Dare. $3k funds one woman to attend (which I just donated) and Pimsleur's track record of helping these women scale is excellent. These women don't have startups - they have ongoing firms that are ready to scale. You can donate here. Any amount will make a difference. Consider donating a fraction of the value I hope you're received from these weekly insights. Thank you.

Apple University -- I credit Jobs' final "product" for helping his baby both survive and thrive - Apple University. You can't scale (285% in 6+ years) with just a few of the right top execs, though Tim Cook has proved worthy of the task. You need to be educating all the talent in your firm. This is why we launched the ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP) last year - a powerful shared corporate university experience that creates a learning culture within your firm -- for a fraction of the cost of launching your own. Five companies form a "class" for a year; participate in 7 structured days of training and sharing (initial two days; one day next three quarters; then final two days - with online education for the entire firm in between sessions).

ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP) -- we're excited about the top biz people we're involving in this initiative. For instance, Aussie Shark Tank judge Glen Richards, who scaled his last company to $800 million using Scaling Up, is the board chair of the program in Sydney and will help teach during the initial two days. Similarly impressive biz leaders are engaged in the other cities.

The next "class" of five companies will launch in each of these respective cities:

Detroit - Sept 26 - 28 (first evening is for CEOs-only) Kansas City - Oct 23 - 25 Sydney - Oct 24 - 26 London -- Dec 5 - 7

Here is a link to a PDF that describes the program. Please email me if interested and I'll connect you with the leader in each city.

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://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

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.

Broadway Record; Most Profitable Company; 4 Day Workweek Results; Unmasking What Matters

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Wherever you go, there you are.
	Jon Kabat-Zinn quoted in Unmasking What Matters

Unmasking What Matters -- Sandra Joseph holds the record as Broadway's longest-running female star when she became Andrew Lloyd Webber's leading lady in The Phantom of the Opera. Her 2018 book Unmasking What Matters: 10 Life Lessons From 10 Years on Broadway, is a powerful and beautiful story of pursuing her "role of a lifetime" -- and how the journey of going inward is the key to going upward. SPro and book club members will receive a copy of her book next week. Then join us at the ScaleUp Summit in Denver Oct 16 - 17 as Sandra shares her story and gifts as the closing keynote.

Fortune's Global 500 Numbers -- the latest list is out. I encourage you to find a couple global firms on the list that are in your (related) industry and check out their numbers/ratios. Overall, the Global 500 averaged a profit of 6.3% ($28,065 profit/employee), up from 5.4% last year. And since we like to see Scaling Up clients achieve 3X industry average profitability, something north of 19% is on par with what John Ratliff, the new head of our global coaching organization, achieved in his call center business when he drove profit from an industry average 4% to over 21% -- equal to Apple's profitability last year.

Revenue/Employee -- an equally important ratio, the Global 500 averaged $443,131 revenue/employee, up from $413k the previous year. In turn, mid-market firms ($5 million to a billion) average just $126,000/employee. Why? The Global 500 have brand which gives them pricing power. This is why it's important for you to dominate a narrow niche in order to create similar brand/pricing power. And second, the Global 500 have superior processes and technology. Instead, mid-market firms tend to throw people at the problem rather than streamline what they are already doing as they scale.

$390,244 profit/employee -- and though Apple dropped two spots to #11 on the Global 500 list, they were once again the most profitable company at over $48 billion. This gives them an average of $390,244 profit per their 123,000 employees - almost equal to the average revenue/employee of the rest of the list (some fun facts for your weekend gatherings)!!

What Are Your Key Ratios? -- How do you compare to the industry average? Are they up or down from last year? What moves do you need to make in the second half of the year to improve them?

Maybe a Four Day Work Week? -- one way to boost productivity, and thus your revenue and profits per employee, might be to try a four-day work week? This CNN/Money story reports how one New Zealand-based firm, Perpetual Guardian, tried this with their 240 employees. Since it was such a "resounding success" CEO Andrew Barnes is recommending to his board that a four-day workweek be made permanent. Notes Barnes, "Why am I not paying based on output? Why am I paying for days in the office?" Please take 1 minute to read through the results Perpetual achieved with this two-month experiment.

Final Fun Facts -- quoting directly from Fortune, here are some additional data points from the Global 500:

• Together, the 500 companies accounted for $30 trillion in revenue in 2018 - an amount equal to 38% of global GDP. Don't let anyone tell you big companies don't matter.
   
• Amazingly, only 12 of those companies - or 2.4% - are headed by women, which suggests the world is making bad use of half the global talent pool. The number is down from 14 last year.
   
• Profits were up 23% last year from a year earlier, totaling $1.88 trillion.
   
• China now accounts for 111 companies on the list, up from just 29 a decade ago. The U.S. was down six to 126
   
• There were 13 fast-growing Fortune Global 500 companies that jumped more than 100 places in rank from a year ago, including Alibaba (No. 300), Tencent (No. 331), and Facebook (No. 274).

And remember when McDonald's was the ultimate symbol of global commerce? The hamburger chain fell off the 2018 Global 500 list.

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://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

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.

7-70 Rule; Niche Finds You; 3 Brand Promises; Bradford Logistics

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

7-70 Rule -- if you want to make software-like margins in any industry (something like 70% gross, 20% net) you need to identify and dominate a narrow niche - what we call the 7-70 Rule. Find a niche no bigger than 10% within a broader industry then own 70% of that niche. For instance, IKEA, at €30 billion in revenue, only has 6.9% share of the furniture retail industry, yet they own 72% of the highly lucrative "flat packed" segment of the industry. What niche do you own within your industry? How do you describe it in a couple words (like "flat packed").

The Niche Finds You -- so how do you find this lucrative niche within a broader industry? In most cases the niche finds you, as John Ratliff, head of our global coaching organization, teaches. You start serving customers in a broader industry and then if you study your own data (quantitative and qualitative) you'll see that there is a specific segment of customers, distribution channels, and products/services where both the sale is easier and the margins higher. The key is letting go of all the other segments and choosing to hyper focus where you seem to be making the most money the easiest. BTW, John generated software-like margins in his call center business doing this. What niche is finding you?

Brand Promises -- in parallel you want to determine your three brand promises. Again, it's a process of going around and talking to your best customers. I remember when Graham Westin and his team did this in the early days of Rackspace. What they discovered is that customers wanted three things:

1. The servers to be "up" - so uptime
2. The technical help lines to be answered by people - in three rings
3. Not to be transferred to someone else

So, Graham had all the automated attendants ripped out and he staffed 24/7 the technical help lines with Level 2 techs so calls wouldn't need to be transferred. And internally their focus was making sure the servers remained up and if not, how to resolve the problem in 5 minutes. Rackspace ended up branding this "Fanatical Support" which really addressed the "job customers needed Rackspace to do" beyond just renting server time, which lots of companies do. He ultimately sold the firm for $7 billion.

Why 3 Brand Promises -- It's Robert Cialdini's research on Influence that found that if you want to convince someone to buy your product/service you give them three reasons - three outperforms two or four and especially ten. And it's supported by Frances Frei's book Uncommon Service. This is why Southwest Airlines has the 3 LFs - Low Fare, Lots of Flights, Lots of Fun. And yes, it's important to lead with the main one - Low Fare for Southwest - but they have the other two. There is something about the power of three (three branches of government) that allows teams to triangulate into a decision and provides enough creative tension to drive innovation.

Bradford Logistics' Brand Promises -- YPOer Ben Richter has two of his promises in the tagline for his firm Bradford Logistics - "When Security and Timing are Everything." This third is his culture. The same for Southwest Airlines. Herb Kelleher, the co-founder and former CEO, always said competition could copy Low Fare and Lots of Flights, but not the third Lots of Fun. What are your three brand promises - and which is the lead?

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 info@gicoach.com for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

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.

Musk Update; “Sell More Flowers”; Do Less, Then Obsess; Great at Work

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

To work smart -- select a few activities and apply intense targeted effort.
	Morten T. Hansen, author Great at Work
I pride myself on making as few decisions as possible in a quarter.
	Reed Hastings, Founder NetFlix

Great at Work -- Morten T. Hansen, Jim Collins' co-author of Great by Choice (one of my top five biz books of all time), embarked on a five-year study to uncover the 7 work-smart practices that drive individual performance. Stanford PhD; Harvard, INSEAD, and now Berkeley professor; I'm thrilled that Hansen, one of the top biz thinkers of our time, is keynoting the fall ScaleUp Summit Oct 25 - 26, Denver. SPro and book club members will receive a copy of Great at Work next week. Working with Hansen is like meeting the late Stephen Covey as he continues to rocket to fame.

Do Less, Then Obsess -- Chapter one provides an excellent overview of the seven practices, yet I would skip to Chapter 2 and read what Hansen considers the number one driver of individual performance - what he labels "Do less, then obsess." Notes Hansen:
 

...we found that employees who chose a few key priorities and channeled tremendous effort into doing exceptional work in those areas greatly outperformed those who pursued a wider range of priorities.

Just as it's important to hyper-specialize as a company; it's equally important as an employee. And it aligns with what Steve Jobs learned in his "wilderness" years - the power/fun at Pixar of having only one priority - the creation of Toy Story. The key is then pushing for perfection - to obsess over being/creating the best! A priority without the obsession/effort is what he calls "do less, no stress." Hansen goes on to provide practical examples of the "do less, then obsess" practice - and throughout the book for the other six best practices. A great read for upping the effectiveness of everyone in the organization.

"Sell More Flowers" -- as an example of "do less, then obsess" Jeff Hoffman (Priceline, uBid) shared one of my favorite Jim McCann stories yesterday, while team teaching with John Ratliff and me, a two-day Scaling Up workshop for PE firm K1 and 300 of the executives of their portfolio firms. Jim McCann founded 1-800-Flowers. To keep everyone focused, he posted signs all around his company that said "Sell More Flowers." Then as he would observe people working he would randomly ask "is this helping to sell more flowers?" If not, do something else. And if someone's "boss" asked them to do something, any employee could push back and ask "but will this help us sell more flowers?" Jeff details this story in a July 2 Inc. story. What is the one thing you need everyone to do? And is everyone obsessively doing mainly those things to accomplish that? What posters are you posting? What is your mantra this year?

No Decisions in a Quarter -- Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, in this 21-minute 2018 TED talk details how Netflix changed entertainment and where he's headed next. It's an excellent treatise on leadership and letting go. Go to 5:20 as he describes the culture of freedom he created which frees him from having to make decisions. In fact, he notes he's gone a quarter without making a signal decision!

No Process but No Chaos -- jump to 6:59 and hear how Hastings focused on developing a bunch of "mechanisms" - super high talented people, alignment, talking openly, sharing information (including all core strategies) - which allows big decisions to be made without Hastings' involvement. And it extends to letting people set their own vacations (like Ron Lovett did as he scaled his 1500-person private security firm - author of Outrageous Empowerment: The Incredible Story of Giving Employees Their Brains Back). The entire 21 minutes is worth listening to this weekend. Thank you Julia Pimsleur, author of Million Dollar Women, for sharing this link.

Humans Better Than Robots -- as Elon Musk continues to test the limits of innovation, while he attempts to catch up to the aggressive production goals he's set at Tesla, this NY Times article details the new tent factory he assembled and how Tesla has found that humans are much better than robots at many things!! It's Musk's obsession with accomplishing single-minded goals that has driven the kinds of innovations (and reverse innovations) we love seeing from Musk and his team. Please take 3 minutes to scan the article and look at the pictures of his new tent factory.

Bloomberg Breakaway Network -- Interested in joining our 2018/19 delegation of Scaling Up CEOs for the Bloomberg Breakaway Network? Please join me and your fellow CEOs in this invitation-only membership comprised of both established industry leaders and emerging disruptors who are looking to increase the competitive distance between themselves and their peers. Click to view member benefits or to apply for membership.

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 info@gicoach.com for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities - alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.

Brad Feld; Bandwidth; 50s better than 30s; Workday Millennials

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Look for the one thing that you couldn't take away from your customers without them screaming at you...(then) make that one thing better
	Brad Feld and David Cohen, authors of Do More Faster

Business Icon Brad Feld -- serial entrepreneur, VC, co-founder of TechStars, author of a dozen books (containing such practical wisdom as evident by the above quote), and one of the most popular bloggers is one of our "celebrity CEOs" keynoting the fall ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver. His classic book Do More Faster: Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup is applicable to all firms scaling up. It's being sent to the SPro and book club members. At least read the "Theme 2: People" section. Brad will be touching on a wide range of topics including his investment in Fitbit - he owned almost 40% of the stock when it went public. He'll also address the topic of depression - he's been one of the most open leaders to touch on this important aspect of living and leading.

#GiveFirst -- Brad will also share ideas from his forthcoming book (June 2019) titled #GiveFirst: A New Philosophy for Business in The Era of Entrepreneurship. Notes the description:

...if business is built on the strength of relationships, one must base those relationships on a culture of help and reciprocity. By giving first and expecting nothing in return, you'll build the type of relationships that matter. The more you invest in relationships, the more you will get help when you need it...

Brad will share the four actionable principles of a give first mentality that will drive whatever success you wish to achieve.

Bandwidth -- and if you're looking for a fun summer read (Northern Hemisphere) Brad, in his June 25 blog post, recommends Eliot Pepers' near-future science fiction technothriller titled Bandwidth . Brad highlights the NY Times review of the book (rare for any book to get this) in his blog post. Enjoy reading Bandwidth, which I'll be doing this weekend - a real glimpse into the future.

50-Year-Old's Twice as Likely...to have a runaway tech success as a 30-year-old. This CNBC post notes:

A new study found the average founder of the fastest growing tech startups was about 45-years-old - and 50-year-old entrepreneurs were about twice as likely to have a runaway business success as their 30-year-old counterparts.

And I've found this is the general case in all ventures. Please take 1-minute to read through the reasons why this is the case - including the David Duffield example. He launched Workday when he was 65 in 2005 and today the company has a market cap of $25.6 billion. Thank you to Steve Watkins (Entrex) and Dan Hoffman (Circl.es) for sharing this piece with me.

...And Workday is a Great Place for Millennials -- seems the 77-year-old co-CEO of Workday knows how to attract and keep Millennials. This Fortune article details what makes the company attractive to this younger generation that represents 53% of its 8600 employees. And how? Notes the article:

"What I've been able to get at Workday is continuous learning and new opportunities," Yang says. "I've never felt that I wasn't learning something new."

Please take 2 minutes to dig further into the details and then borrow a couple ideas for your own firm.

Bloomberg Breakaway Summit (Verne's 22-minute keynote) -- Last week many of our Scaling Up Breakaway members joined Bloomberg Breakaway members and entrepreneurs for Bloomberg's Breakaway Summit. The theme of the event focused on the paradoxes that leaders face, and leading in an age of disruption. Keynotes included Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg, Ursula Burns (former Xerox CEO), Wells Fargo's CEO Tim Sloan, and myself. Here's a link to my 22-minute presentation that shares practical ideas addressing the three barriers to growth.

Interested in joining our 2018/19 delegation of Scaling Up CEOs for the Bloomberg Breakaway Network? Please join me and your fellow CEOs in this invitation-only membership comprised of both established industry leaders and emerging disruptors who are looking to increase the competitive distance between themselves and their peers. Click to view member benefits or to apply for membership.

Breaking Cycle of All-Male Leadership -- Bev Perdue, former Governor of North Carolina, penned a Fortune article noting:

Despite decades of initiatives to increase diversity among corporate leaders, the percentage of female leadership hires has remained relatively stagnant.

So why is this? Please take 2 minutes to read through Perdue's insightful conclusions. Hint - it has a lot to do with the fact that we like to hire people like us, which is why the standard interviewing process is flawed.

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 info@gicoach.com for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities - alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.

Leader Schedules; 72% Meeting Time; 43% Priority Time; 3% Customer Time; ExO Course Next Week

New Page 1

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

12-Year Study of CEO (Applies to all Leaders) Schedules -- Harvard strategist Michael Porter and colleague Nitin Nohria recorded and analyzed the schedules of 27 CEOs over a period of 12 years (2006 - 2018). Notes this Fortune article:

The subjects spent 43% of their time, on average, on activities that advanced the agenda they set with the study at the beginning of each quarter. That percentage varied significantly between CEOs, though, and the ones that spent the most time advancing their agendas said they felt better about the use of their time.

It reinforces the idea of a #1 priority for each quarter and the importance of a leader aligning their daily activities around this priority i.e. Steve Jobs spending three hours each day for six-months working on his new retail concept. Please take 2 minutes to read more of the details.

61% Face-to-Face Time -- the Fortune article summarized a much more in-depth HBR article. Noting that these CEOs spent 61% of their week in face-to-face meetings, Porter and Nohria note in HBR:

Face-to-face interaction is the best way for CEOs to exercise influence, learn what's really going on, and delegate to move forward the multiple agendas that must be advanced. It also allows CEOs to best support and coach the people they work closely with. How a CEO spends face-to-face time is viewed as a signal of what or who is important; people watch this more carefully than most CEOs recognize.

72% in Meetings -- one key recommendation coming out of the study, given that 72% of these CEO's workweek was spent in 37 meetings lasting an average of an hour, is to cut the time of these meetings in half or more. Most meetings can accomplish as much or more in 30 minutes or even 15 minutes than they can in an hour so look at setting up much shorter meetings.

Only 3% of Week Spent with Customers -- and the biggest reveal was that the CEOs were dismayed to find they only spent 3% of their week with customers - and agreed this was too low. Notes the HBR article:

Some CEOs systematically schedule time with customers. The CEO of a financial services firm in our study, for instance, aims to meet face-to-face with one customer a day. A manufacturing CEO allocates two days a month to customer visits. Other CEOs try to build customer visits into their travel. A habit of some type seems to be the most reliable way to ensure enough customer time.

There are many more insights about family, sleep, and alone time worth reviewing by all leaders. The HBR article will take you 7 minutes to read and digest, so maybe a good read for the weekend.

Fun Fact -- yesterday the 10 millionth patent was issued to Raytheon for a process improving lasers. This Fortune article provides the details plus a look at the first patent signed by George Washington in 1790 and issued to Samuel Hopkins for improvements in "the making of pot ash and pearl ash." Yet the patent numbering system was reset in 1836, so there is a different patent #1! Worth 1 minute to see what it was for plus the new patent cover design.

ExO 10x Course Starts Next Week -- a mindset of 10x growth is much more expansive (easier?) than the incremental thinking that goes with contemplating 2x. Salim Ismail is one of my favorite business minds and has studied a hundred of the most influential organizations, learning how they reached the top of the mountain. He and his team are now bringing all that information to Growth Institute with their ExO Master Business Course. The online program was built to help leaders achieve the 10x success they are looking for. If you feel like you are one of those leaders and want to create that very plausible scenario for your organization, apply for your spot here: Don't wait, as the class starts next week!

Need More Copies of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)? -- Amazon continues to premium price the hardcover book. If you need a box of 20, the books (paperback) are less than $10/each

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 info@gicoach.com for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities - alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.

Kate Spade; Success and Suicide; WIN.ning; ExO Applications Open

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (serious warning - discussing success and suicide)

Winners don't have more stamina or built-in genius, they have just learned how to think in ways that get them the results they want.
	Rabbi Stephen Baars, author of WIN.

Kate Spade -- according to her husband, entrepreneur Kate Spade suffered from depression and anxiety and was taking medication when she died from an apparent suicide. I recently learned that it's not appropriate to say someone "committed suicide" any more than it is to say someone "committed cancer." It's a disease -- and new research is uncovering signs someone will be more likely to succumb to this affliction than others i.e. successful at vs. just attempt suicide. Hint, it has to do with how they think about it. More below, but first...

Winners are not born. They learned how. You can learn how, too! -- Rabbi Stephen Baars has been sharing his wisdom with the executives attending our ScaleUp Summits for more than a decade. In his latest book, WIN. he notes that "Most of us believe that motivation creates success, but it's the other way around: It's knowing that you are going to succeed that creates motivation." Go back and read that again. "It's knowing that you are going to succeed that creates motivation" not the other way around.

Winners Make Hard, Easy -- Winners have learned how to make challenging goals easy, but easy doesn't mean lower. The trick is to take the goals you really want, and make THEM easy. Winners don't have more stamina. They just have better ideas. They don't have higher IQs. They just have great strategy. This book will change your thinking, just by reading it. SPro and book club members will receive this book next week. I encourage everyone to read this "quick read" three times - until the ideas come easily. These are simply powerful and powerfully simple ideas.

Entrepreneurs Have Higher Rates of Depression -- VC and serial entrepreneur Brad Feld has helped the entrepreneurial community open up and discuss depression. Notes this Fortune article, quoting Feld:

"As a founder, you are going to go through some rough spots. If those rough spots include a depression, that’s okay." He wants to end the perception that depression bars someone from being a successful founder or executive. "I reject that," he says. "More and more people are rejecting that." Instead, it's more analogous to a broken leg or diabetes-an undeniable impediment, but a manageable one if addressed.

Obvious is the link between depression and suicide. Keep reading.

Success and Suicide -- so how does one reconcile sharing a book about winning/success with depression and suicide. New research is shedding a light on signs someone is likely to die from suicide. Notes this Psychology Today article reporting on research looking at suicide notes:

The biggest difference was that the notes of suicide completers included much more detail about how they were a burden on other people and society at large compared to the attempters.

The article goes on to report:

In general, people do not commit suicide because they are in pain, they commit suicide because they don't believe there is a reason to live and the world will be better off without them.

That's the link between success and suicide. What is the envisioned future - better or worse?

The article goes on to detail a second sign someone is likely to commit suicide If you suspect someone you know might succumb to suicide, please read this article and then seek immediate help to change their thinking.

Howard Schultz Steps Down - Running for President? - and in other news, Starbucks' executive chairman stepped down from the company this week. Notes Howard Schultz in this Fortune blog post:

"For some time now, I have been deeply concerned about our country-the growing division at home and our standing in the world," he said. "One of the things I want to do in my next chapter is to figure out if there is a role I can play in giving back. I'm not exactly sure what that means yet."

Success or...for Starbucks and Schultz. Time will tell. Be careful what you wish for!

Exponential Growth -- a mindset of 10x growth is much more expansive (easier?) than the incremental thinking that goes with contemplating 2x. We hosted a great Exponential Organization webinar this week with Salim Ismail and the Growth Institute. He is one of my favorite business minds and has studied a hundred of the most influential organizations, learning how they reached the top of the mountain. In Tuesday's live webinar he and the Growth Institute team opened applications to their online program to help leaders achieve the 10x success they are looking for. If you feel like you are one of those leaders, and want to create that very plausible scenario for your organization, apply for your spot here:

Need More Copies of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)? -- Amazon continues to premium price the hardcover book. If you need a box of 20, the books (paperback) are less than $10/each

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 info@gicoach.com for more information or visit https://scalingup.com/coaches.html.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities - alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.