Scaling Up Business Podcast

You’re always working to elevate your company, but how can you get your team to come along for the ride? Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of people, leadership, and execution, especially in remote companies.   Robert Glazer is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, the premier global partner marketing agency that has won over 30 awards for its world-class company culture. He leads a fully-remote team of over 270 people. Robert is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of books on topics such as peak performance, personal growth, partner marketing, and excelling in the world of remote work. A lot of companies are playing defense in their team strategy right now. After the exhaustion of the pandemic, companies are struggling to focus on healthy, sustainable growth. How can you build your team up holistically in ways that benefit the individual as well as the company? Pandemic hangover is still very much present, so how can leaders get their teams back to

Stop trying to create a perfect plan. Bill doesn’t believe clients who tell them that they’ve thought of everything. There is no way to create a perfect plan, so just stop trying.   Things are going to happen tomorrow that you can’t even comprehend today. The act of planning is the most valuable tool, not the plan itself. A simple plan created today and acted on consistently in the future will make a real difference. Bill has seen it over and over again — a perfect plan is nothing more than a fantasy. Let go of the fantasy and get to work on creating a planning rhythm that creates a good plan that works today and in the future. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. Bill Gallagher,

The hiring process continues to be more complicated than ever before, but finding the right fit for your position doesn’t have to be a long and cumbersome process. You just have to be willing to put the work in to find the top performers.   Dr. Brad Smart is widely regarded as a world expert on hiring and is a renowned consultant to many leading companies and SMBs. He is the creator of Topgrading and the author of Foolproof Hiring: Powerful, Fully Proven Keys to Hiring Mostly High Performers. Dr. Brad was shocked to learn in the early years of his career that only one out of three employees at his company were considered top performers. He knew there had to be a better way to identify and hire more top performers, and Topgrading was born. Employers save time and money by using the Topgrading approach. The robust and thorough process provides a prescreening snapshot that sifts out the best applicants and gets A players hired. The job scorecard is another critical piece of the effective hiring process. Break

Do you wish you could get people more engaged? Bill has heard it time and time again. Effective leaders are always looking for ways to get their team more engaged.   Engagement is commitment. Someone has said yes to something and they are acting to make it happen. You know when people are engaged because they are putting their hearts and minds and all of their effort into their work. Engaged people don’t only say things, they are doing things. Easy engagement starts with leaders who see what matters to their team. When a leader knows what their team is great at, who they are, and what they want in life, engaging them in work they want to do is natural. But when a leader doesn’t know their team or have a connection with them, all of the work they put into getting that yes is nothing more than manipulation. Natural leaders pay special attention for ways that they can connect with their team, and as a result, their invitations are natural and they get an easy YES. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits

Whether you are leading only a handful of people or a team of thousands, challenges are an inevitable part of leadership. Today’s guest offers leadership advice from his time serving with the best of the best.   Admiral Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat and served as an instructor at TopGun and as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS Cleveland, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, a carrier strike group, two NATO commands, the United States Sixth Fleet, the United States Northern Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. He retired after serving as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   Admiral Winnefeld is a frequently-published author and a director or advisor to companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors.   One of the greatest influences on Admiral Winnefeld’s time as an in

Inspiration is all about breathing life into something. When people are excited about things, you don’t have to persuade them. Inspiring leaders are great at getting others to be excited about something, especially when it pertains to the future. They get people to a positive emotional state again and again by being intentional with their own emotional state, by sharing their vision for the company, and by engaging people by being bolder.   If you want people to be more inspired and work less hard, then you’ll get good at getting other people to feel good about the future. Be bold, share your vision, and use emotion to inspire others. When you have people in an inspired state, everything else comes easier. From pitches and proposals to action with teams, everything is easier when you start with inspiration. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the bes

If you’ve gone through any number of rounds of funding you probably have a board of directors that you have to and get to interact with. How can you make those interactions more effective?   Katy Trost is a coach and advisor to CEOs and founders at Series B and beyond. She aids CEOs in becoming more effective leaders and navigating the challenges of scaling people and operations. Her clients include some of the fastest-growing companies in both the U.S. and UK tech ecosystem backed by leading investors including SoftBank, First Round, Felix, Octopus, Inflexion, and more.   A board can be a blessing or a curse. Different objectives, political or otherwise, and different expectations can create boards that are offering poor advice to CEOs, who often feel they have no choice but to follow that advice blindly.   A board is meant to be a strategic tool for the CEO. Creating a board that is an invaluable asset starts with setting the expectation for the potential of the board to help the business. Katy highlights s

Do you ever wish leadership came more naturally to you? Or maybe you are a great natural leader, but you recognize that effective leadership still takes work and effort. On this Tuesday Tip Bill is sharing four secrets that create effortless leadership. These four skills, when you do them again and again, can make a profound difference in your life as a leader.   First, inspire and encourage excitement and emotion in your team. Next, engage others and commit people to take action. Then, plan and coordinate. Consider not only what could go right but what could go wrong. And finally, coach and retain to keep people in the game and keep them leveling up. Bill shares his experience with taking each of these actions and how it has changed his impact as a leader. If you do these four actions, in that order, you will build a great team. Developing these actions will result in being a more natural, effortless leader who is leading others toward the bigger and better. Ultimately, leaders pass the baton, take time off

Sustainability may be the greatest challenge of our generation. At its heart, sustainability is designed to improve life for everyone involved. It is also a great wealth creation opportunity that implies profitability. But how much time and effort are you investing in mastering sustainability?   Using the experience he has obtained as a corporate lawyer, an investment banker, and a team leader, today’s guest, Chris Caldwell, has spent the last decade acting as CEO of United Renewables and its sister companies, leading all aspects of the businesses including providing strategic direction, fundraising and day-to-day management of operations.   In his sustainability-focused efforts, Chris is working not only to build renewables but also to increase the logical momentum necessary to make real change. He describes sustainability as the long-term strategies that will allow humans to survive and thrive well into the future.   Chris highlights the importance of stopping the showstoppers that lack any focus on sustain

Do you ever feel like you’re working too hard? Working too hard makes us feel stressed and tired, impacts our personal relationships, and even results in weak teams and weak companies. And oftentimes, the harder you work, the more you are keeping your team from leveling up.   Bill once coached a large company with a Superman CEO that was setting a horrible example for his team with long working hours, midnight emails, micromanaging, and constant chaos mode. Another team he coached was led by a very intense CEO who worked out constantly, worked long hours every day, and set the example of intense focus on work at all hours of the day and night. That might produce some results, but it comes at a cost to your personal well-being and the well-being of your team. People get micromanaged when you work too hard, but great leaders know how to build strong teams of capable leaders without pushing everyone to the brink of burnout. If you’re working too hard, that might mean it’s time for a vacation. Step away from th

Are you a know-it-all, a learn-it-all, or a little bit of both? Whichever way you tend to lean reveals plenty about the kind of leader you are and the level of success you can achieve.   Damon Lembi is the CEO of Learnit, a global leader in corporate training solutions that has upskilled more than 1.8 million professionals in the past twenty-seven years. After dedicating the initial 22 years of his life to the pursuit of becoming a Major League Baseball player, Damon pivoted in 1995 to help his father, Walt Lembi (Founder of Learnit), by investing his heart and soul in Learnit. His aim was to help individuals gain the knowledge and confidence they needed to attain their professional goals through the value of education. Long before his brush with fame in a hotel room party with Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Damon was drafted by the Atlanta Braves out of high school. A series of events eventually led him back to the family business, where he found himself unsure of the skills he was bringing to the table. He rec

What would it look like if you brought your effective leader ideas into your life? Flow state is the way to make it happen.   Years ago, Bill was focused solely on work and had a premium membership at the gym that he only occasionally used. When he admitted that he was not paying attention to his health, he knew that change needed to happen. A triathlon sounded like a good BHAG, so he went for it. By implementing an effective flow state, he became a shining example of a healthy and active lifestyle. If you can apply the flow state principles to all areas of your life, you can get inspired, create a plan, find coaching, and meet your goals. It worked for Bill, and it can have a massive impact not only on you but on the people you work with as well. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Co

Empathy is a leadership skill and an essential cultural practice that matters more today than ever before.    Rob Volpe is an astute observer of life and a master storyteller who brings empathy and compassion to the human experience. As CEO of Ignite 360, he leads a team of insights, strategy, and creative professionals serving the world’s leading brands across a range of industries. He is the author of the Silver Benjamin Franklin award winning book, Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time, recognized by the independent publishing industry as one of the Best Self Help books of 2022.  You don’t have to look very far to see that there is an empathy crisis in our world today. There is a diminished ability to understand and communicate with other people, and it is limiting opportunities for meaningful connection.  Rob’s focus is on the how-to of empathy. Once you see that there is a problem what can you actually do about it?  Understanding other people starts with listen

The Leadership Flywheel is designed to level up your leadership, and within it, one thing leads to another. First by inspiring others and engaging them and then by taking action; the key is to help them see the opportunities that are available to them.   The third piece of the flywheel is all about planning. What is the end goal and what are you doing now to get there? The final piece addresses ways to keep people in the game through coaching. By helping people deal with setbacks, you’re inspiring them to get back in the game, and the flywheel starts over again. If you can set this flywheel in motion for leaders of leaders, you can become a leader who scales infinitely. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed w

Too many companies struggle to scale because they are stuck reinventing things that just don’t need to be reinvented.  The companies that succeed are the ones that focus and refine systems in a disciplined way that makes them better than they have ever been before.    JC Hite is the visionary Founder and CEO of Hite Digital, the fastest growing digital agency in the US. With a deep-rooted passion for empowering small businesses, JC is dedicated to driving their growth through the realm of digital marketing. There are times when building any business is just really difficult. Within six months of launching Hite Digital in Nicaragua, the company found itself in the middle of a civil war. As they have scaled, they have had to learn how to survive physically, financially, and mentally during the harder seasons of growth.  JC highlights some of the hurdles Hite Digital has faced, including political insecurity, addressing limited education in Nicaragua, the pandemic, and the recession. They have fine-tuned hirin

Are you creating followers or leaders? If you have a huge following, you’re probably still working too hard as a leader. If you’re creating leaders (who create leaders who create leaders), then your leadership skills can transform the planet.   Bill considered himself an effective leader, but he still struggled to leave the office for even a week. He wanted to create more leaders, but that wasn’t a quick or simple task. He started passing the baton to his followers by asking them, “What are you going to do when I’m not here?” Little by little, he coached his team into becoming leaders and was able to empower his team to take action on their own. If you can become a leader who creates leaders, you will be able to transform your efforts, and possibly take a great trip to Italy as Bill did as well. You’ll be able to create better people, a better organization, and a better life for yourself. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.)

Who doesn’t want to know the secrets of how to be happier? In business and life, everyone is faced with opportunities to find and enjoy greater happiness every single day. But where and how can you start?   Scott White is the happiest guy you will ever meet. After spending fifteen years on Wall Street, he took a chance and became an entrepreneur and business builder. Today he is Chairman and CEO of a public real estate company. Scott is on a mission to make the world happier, one smile at a time. With his endless energy, he motivates and inspires everyone he meets to focus on happiness, gratefulness, and positivity. As a ten-year-old child, Scott was faced with the morbid facts of life and decided then that he was going to take chances, smile, and make the most of every day he was given. For Bill, the moments he gets to spend with his newborn granddaughter are among the happiest of his life. Scott’s book is filled with ten principles that encourage readers to make deliberate choices that will lead to greate

Deeper listening makes a powerful difference when you are dealing with upsets. There are fundamental values and concerns behind every upset, and when you stop to listen to those concerns, you can get to the root of the problem more effectively.   Bill and his wife used to argue about whether there should be a TV in their bedroom. As soon as he put himself in her shoes, he realized what the upset must have felt like from her perspective, and effective change immediately happened. If you want to handle and transform upsets forever, go deep. Look for what the other person isn’t saying and address it. Deeper listening is key to not only personal relationships but in your business relationships as well. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastes

Many start-up companies scale up by leveraging venture capital, but what are venture capitalists looking for in the companies that they choose to invest in? Even if you aren’t interested in securing funding, this episode highlights the differentiators that will set your company apart at every stage of scaling up.   Kate McAndrew is a co-founder and General Partner at Baukunst. In addition, she is the founder of Women In Hardware. Kate previously was a Partner at Bolt, where she built the firm’s venture capital practice and community presence over two successful funds. She has over nine years of experience as a first-round lead investor & board member with a focus on companies that are evolving the cultural conversation. When Kate first encountered an accelerator program, she thought it was the most insane thing she had ever heard. She also absolutely loved the idea of empowering entrepreneurs with capital and quickly found herself in the deep end of the venture capital pool. Many entrepreneurs may think

How do you keep people in the game? It’s all about coaching. This is where you can remind people about the inspiration and action that brought them to where they are today.   Powerful coaching is rooted in powerful listening. Bill once coached a man who was overly rigid in his approach to his team. As he got more curious and set aside what he thought he already knew about his team, he realized that the team was better able to change and evolve. The best place to start being a great coach is to stop having so much to say. Listen, rather than talk. Show curiosity rather than offering endless solutions. You can be a far better coach when you close your mouth more often. Resources: 20,000 Scaleups Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Shortlist (use code scaleup) Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed wher