How to Be the Visionary of Your Company

So in Pinnacle, we help our clients with two things. Number one, how to get out of the weeds of your business and build a team managed company. And so that you literally replace yourself in your business. And I'm going to share some examples today on how that's done and also how to shift into a scalable model and create your multiplier. Have you ever wondered how companies multiply their growth? Take the big leaps and you're working just as hard, you are focusing, you're trying everything you know to make those big leaps and you're just not getting that traction. Well, it's not about working harder, it's not about more focus. It's all about finding your multiplier. And that's what we're going to talk about today on the Scale or Fail show. Welcome to the Scale or Fail show. I am your host, Alison Maslin and I am the founder and CEO of Pinnacle Global Network where we mentor business owners around the world to grow and scale their business. And today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite, favorite topics and that is scaling. You see, what happens is that most in most businesses, the business owner, the CEO, starts out doing the tasks to get the business going because there's nobody around that you can delegate to. It's all you. But then you create this habit, this way of doing and being in your business, to deliver the products, to take care of the customers, to get the work done. And as the business grows, because we are creatures of habit, you kind of stay doing those things even though the business really has grown beyond that. And you need to get out of the day to day and be the visionary of the company, working on company strategy, building those powerful relationships that you're going to, that are going to really move the needle. But if you're the one that is in, in the day to day, checking off the to do list and running errands and calling on your phone bill or booking airline tickets, whatever it is, you're actually losing money in your business. You think you're saving money by doing these tasks, but you're actually losing money because the opportunity, all of the opportunities, the 10,000, 100,000, even million dollar opportunities are not going to be working within your business as a worker. Be. And so how do you shift that? I mean, you might be going, alison, that's great. I don't have a big team, I have to do it. If I have to hire someone, I've got to pay them. And so it's better that it's me. I get that but, you know, it's actually, I know it feels like the chicken and the egg kind of thing. Like, do I spend the money to. To hire the people? Isn't it better that I save? But the reason that the other companies are growing faster is one of the reasons is that the business owner is not continuing to be the one that is delivering the products and services. So hear me on this. If you are still delivering the products and services in your business, you cannot scale. If you are the accountant delivering the accounting services, if you are the attorney delivering the legal services, if you have a widget and you're still creating the widget or delivering the widget, you cannot scale. There are not enough hours in the day for you to really make an impact. Right? And so even if you are working 60, 80 hours a week, number one, you can't maintain that. It's going to impact your health. It impacts relationships. I see it all of the time. But not only that, even if you were superhuman, even if you absolutely love working 24 7, this is not how you build a scalable model. That is what I want to talk about and help you with today. So in Pinnacle Global Network, which is my mentoring company, and we are in our 12th year year, I'm excited to say, you know, I made a decision early on that, you know, when I started mentoring business owners, I had run several companies prior and I realized, you know, I kind of have a knack at this business thing and I really want to help business owners out. And that began to evolve. And I knew that me mentoring other business owners one on one, even though it was rewarding and, and I was really helping them make great traction, I knew I couldn't help that many people. Right. You know, I could maybe even really pushing it. Let's say I were to see five or eight business owners in a day. I want to see, you know, have 500 or 800 or 8,000 or 800,000 business owners change their lives, because that's the way I'm going to be able to create a legacy and really make a difference. So I made a decision early on that I wanted to build a team managed company that didn't depend on me. And I don't want to be the guru. I know that there are a lot of other people that have so much wisdom that they could bring to the table. And so with Pinnacle Global network, we have 20 CEO mentors, meaning that our mentors that work with our business owner clients, helping them to grow and scale, and they've all run really successful companies. They've scaled companies, they've done mergers and acquisitions, they have run global companies, they've sold businesses, they're super, super experienced. And so now with 20 on the team, our growth can be exponential because we can help so many people at the same time, which gives me the freedom to be here and sharing this message with you today and really being the visionary of the business. So in Pinnacle, we help our clients with two things. Number one, how to get out of the weeds of your business and build a team managed company. And so that you literally replace yourself in your business. And I'm going to share some examples today on how that's done and also how to shift into a scalable model and create your multiplier. Right. So if you think of a trunk of a tree that has branches and then those branches have branches and those branch, those branches have leaves, right? It just is not, you know, you're able to have one trunk then impact so many more people. And so if you can think of your business as what would be the best model for you to create that multiplier effect. So I'm going to give you some direction on that today. Today we're going to focus a little bit more on figuring out what could be a possible great scalable model for you. And then on the next episode of the Scale or Fail show, I'm going to talk a little bit more on building that team managed company. But they go hand in hand. You can't have a scalable model and still be in the weeds of your business. So as I was saying, you really have to shift into a scalable model or the business is going to consume you. And so there are. So let me give you some examples. First of all, some of our clients. So Andrea Jensen is the founder of Cash Flow cfo. And when I met Andrea, she's an accountant and she's also trained as a cfo. And she was seeing clients one on one doing great work, making a difference in, in her client's bottom line and how much they were saving on their taxes and so forth. But in working with Andrea, I said, what is your ultimate goal? And she said she really wanted to help a lot more people, but also she wanted to be able to grow her own bottom line. And I said, well, so you need to really create a signature process around the work that you do so that it can be systemized and you can train other CFOs on the Magic that you offer with your clients and make that into a repeatable model. So what Andrea has done is to Create what I was sharing what we've done with our mentoring company, Pinnacle Global Network is to create a team managed company. So now she has several CFOs on her team that are using her system, her magic and, and you know, they are out working with the clients. So she was able. Now she's been a member of Pinnacle Global Network like five years now. But you know, she two years ago had a baby, was, you know, obviously that took a lot of her time and attention. But because she had built this team managed company with these other CFOs then you know, the business was able to continue and run and grow while she took time off to be with her new baby and her family. Let's see Kita, I'm just gonna give you some good examples here and then we'll break down some of these models. So that's building a team managed company, replacing yourself and teaching others to use your systems and processes, your signature process, and so that others will be having the same experience whether they're working with one CFO or another. Now Kita Centella, she owns a company in Phoenix, Arizona called the Loose Leaf Tea Market. And I actually just placed an order with her last night to get some more tea and she has an e commerce business and she also, you know, has this retail location in Phoenix, Arizona with all kinds of different teas. Now working with Keda, she had a good business already, she had a good following, but she didn't have a way for customers to get on a subscription program that she was going to, that they could place their order, sort of a one and done thing. And then they were able to get these different selections every single month. It makes it easier on the customer. It's a win win for the business owner because you know that you have money coming in, you have this customer that is continuing to order, but you don't have to go out and get the order every single time. Now having a membership like this, a subscription is such a smart thing for a business. And we have helped so many different types of businesses create this type of scalable model. Whether it's with a staffing company or, or the engineering company or the tea company, it doesn't matter. You can create a subscription just about around anything. It doesn't have to be direct to consumer. It could even be a subscription that is B2B or it's in the corporate market, even in the government space. So that's the subscription model. Let's see with Gila, Gila and John Kurtz, they run a company called Dog Is Good. Now they have the traditional brand of, well, they, they have a lifestyle brand for people that love dogs. And I am such a dog lover. I've got two, two dogs. I have a English Bulldog, Gidget, she's our 10 month old baby. And then I have Winston, our golden retriever. But Dog is Good is a beloved brand. And when Gila and John came to me, came to Pinnacle, they already were doing multiple seven figures in their business. They had a big following, very, very loyal. But selling a consumer product and if this is you to retail, you have a thin margin. So you have to sell a lot, a ton of products. You have to be in many, many retail locations to start creating a dent in your profits, right? And you have to keep nurturing those accounts so that they continue to reorder. And when I met Gila especially, she was so burnt out. She created this business out of a passion, her passion for dogs. And that passion was still there, but the passion for the business had really waned and she was on the verge of thinking, do I even want to do this and anymore. And so what we helped Gila and John do was to extend their scalable models and so, you know, going direct to consumer licensing, licensing their brand. So Skechers has actually a tennis shoe with the dog is good brand. They have a subscription program now to the retailers. They have a direct sale model, they've got pop up shops. So now they have several other scalable models with a much wider margin. They're still in the retail stores, they've still got that, but now their profits have gone way up because they have a much bigger profit margin and they have money coming in from all different ways. And of course Gila got her mojo back and she's super, super passionate about the business. So I love talking about this and I hope that this is getting your juices turning to think of how could you create your own multiplier. Now the thing is don't look at what other people are doing in your industry. That's the worst thing you could do because then you're just going to be a copycat or you're doing what everyone else is doing, doing and you're not going to stand out. We're in such a competitive marketplace, we are in a disruptive marketplace. And so the best thing to do is do things that your competition is not doing. So I would say look at your competition and then say, what are they not doing? Who are they not serving? Is there a method that you could reach your customer in a way that nobody else is. Is doing. I love the story of Kara golden and she's the founder of Hint who makes Hint Water. And I have had. Kara has spoken at my our events a few times. And she's just brilliant. She had never had a business before, and she was pregnant with her fourth child. She was addicted to sodas. She had put on some weight. She wasn't feeling really healthy. And so she started just putting fruit in water and she was sharing it with her neighbors. They were loving it. She went to Whole Foods, realized there was nothing on the market at the time with just fruit and water. So she decides while she is pregnant that she is going to start this business having never had a business before, and it takes off. You know, people are loving this, but she was trying to compete getting on the shelves against Coke, Pepsi, all of these big players, millions of dollars to be able to get this space. So she went to Amazon. She did well with Amazon, but then she realized, you know what? I don't have the data. Amazon owns the data, okay? And she really wanted to understand the customer so she could better serve the customer. So she said, you know what we're going to do? We are going to go direct to consumer, but we're going to create a subscription program for Hendt. We're going to create a subscription program in the beverage industry. And nobody else had done this before. It had not been done. And so what happens when you do things that nobody else has done? You are going to get a lot of naysayers. She got a lot of naysayers. They were like, kara, sweetie, you know, that's not really going to fly. And, well, she showed them because they are, you know, she's created multi, hundreds of millions of dollars company revenue every single year. She had a. She's had a Super bowl commercial. The subscription model in her business accounts for 40% of their revenue. It's been super, super successful. It's a multiplier she sends to corporations, she sends to individuals, and they subscribe and they get their hint delivered every single month. Brilliant. Brilliant. And so let's talk about the multiplier. And I'm going to make sure that this is, that you all can see this. To see our scalable strategies that we share with our clients at Pinnacle Global network. There are 15 different scalable models now. There are more than 15, but just, you know, the main ones that, that businesses use. And so I'm going to just go through these with you and we'll share a couple more examples. And, you know, also before I dive in Here I want to share with you that we have an event coming up where we're actually going to help you figure out what your scalable model is and then the step by step to actually do this. Okay. And so as we are entering a new year, 2022, so if you're listening to a recording of this podcast in 2025, we probably are going to do this event in 2025. But every year at the beginning of the year, we do an amazing event called Level Up Live. And this is actually our 11th year hosting this event. And this is the number one business growth event of the year. I can confidently say we have had thousands of people attend Level Up Live. And what is so unique is that we literally put your step by step plan to scale your company for the entire year. So you literally leave this event and we're doing it virtual this year so you can attend from anywhere. You don't need to fly in, you don't need to book a hotel. But we are going, it's a working event February 10th to the 12th and you're going to leave the event with a step by step plan literally in hand for your team in your revenue streams, your marketing, your sales, your team, your leadership, your time management, everything, your systems and your processes so you can hit the ground running and have the best year that your business has ever experienced. And we have business owners literally that have attended this, this event six years, seven years. They come back every single year because it's the planning event for their whole year. In fact, they even sometimes bring members of their team and they make this their three day team meeting to plan what the year ahead is going to look, look like. And so it's like condensing three years into three days. And we've had so many people like, you know, Katherine Sullivan of marketing solved. She shares her experience and that she created 120,000 in revenue from the event. Just from what we helped her put together the different revenue streams in her marketing company and she retired her husband from his six figure job and now they work together in marketing. Solved so many stories like that. The other thing I'm really excited about with Level Up Live and then we're going to get right into these scale strategies is that Magic Johnson is going to be also with me and speaking at this event. So I'm super excited about that. He was has been able to take his MBA career and create many, many companies. He's very, very savvy businessman and also a pretty cool, human, kind human as well. So levelup live event.com and you'll see the link below. Hurry and grab your virtual seat. But you're going to be able to network with literally hundreds and hundreds of business owners from all over the world. And you're going to be able to kick off your year. And so 2022 is your best year ever. All right, scalable strategies, let's break these down for you. Number one, replicate your talent with a team. Okay, like what we talked about building that team managed company. So whatever it is that you're doing, you've got to stop being the one that's delivering. And I know that is probably the hardest thing for a business owner is to let go. One of our clients has a therapy company. She's a therapist and she has a couple hundred therapists underneath her. So they're able to serve so many clients all over with their mental health needs. And the founder of the company, Barbara, she still had 20 of her own clients that she was servicing on a weekly basis. And we were like, barbara, you cannot scale if you're still sitting in that chair doing therapy day in and day out, hour after hour. And it was really hard for her to let go because she cares about these clients. Clients, we care about the clients, of course, but we had to really help her see that, hey, the relationship that your clients are going to build, a relationship just like they have with you with the other people that are able to support them in her company. And so she was able to let go finally. And it has created so much freedom. And now she's actually able to take care of the team and, and be the brain of strategy and bring more creativity to the business and the brand and so forth. So you may think that you can't let go, but it really is our ego that's in the way. Your clients just want to be taken care of. So as long as you can make sure that that happens, it doesn't have to be you. And again, this is what we help our clients with in Pinnacle Global Network and also what we're going to be doing with you at our event level. Up live, coming up. So let's just. I'm going to just go through quickly the other scalable models. Let's see, upsells and cross sells. What else can you go back and sell to your customer? They love you already. And a current client is going to spend five times as much as a new client. So they are probably buying whatever it else that is that product or service, that complementary product or service, they are buying it somewhere else. So they'd rather get it from you and have that one stop shop. So building a community that builds your community. This is what Gila is doing in Dog is Good. She's got all these Dog is Good fans. They love the product and they wanted. She gave them the opportunity to open their own Dog is Good business with these pop up shops all over. So her community really becomes her salesforce. Certification programs, you may have a signature process that you use that you've really been successful at in your industry. You could create a certification program around that and teach other people the success that you've created. So let's say you own a PR firm. You could create a certification program for other PR firms to learn your method. Licensing, great way to create passive income. You could buy licenses, you can sell licenses, you can create your own technology which really sets your business apart. And so that is you can really scale a SaaS product because the investment comes in building the technology, but the cost to deliver that technology is really low. You can have a national distribution team, meaning that if you're the one that's still selling your product, you can't scale that either. So you want to train others out there to go out and sell your product. Whether you have sales team in house or you can tap into a national distributorship that is already selling this to this industry and they already have those connections. You can create other locations. So if you have a retail location, you can obviously scale by corporate owned locations or franchises like Orange Theory. Ellen Latham, who is the the co founder of Orange Theory, she spoke at one of my events a few years ago. Really amazing woman. She had never had a business before. She lost her job at a spa. She opened a little gym in Fort Lauderdale and she had her signature process right. And one of her clients said, ellen, you have to franchise this. And she thought the woman was crazy, but luckily she listened. And now that's a company worth over a billion dollars with over a thousand locations around the world. She had no experience and did not start this until her 50s. Okay, you can buy your competitors great way and you can even buy your competitors with no money down. There's so many amazing strategies that you can do. Why is buying your competitors a good idea? Especially now with so much change in the world, There are a lot of businesses out there that even your competitors, with the right offer, they might be just, you know what, I'm done. Okay. And you could probably get some of these businesses at a real bargain. And so you're leveraging their years of growth, leveraging building this database and building a team. The key is culture. You've got to be really careful when you're buying another business that your team and their team is going to be able to blend or if it's a totally different business, that there isn't some toxic culture going on. So those are that and you know, making sure they don't have a bunch of debt and so forth. But it is a great way to scale quickly. The franchise model, as I said, creating pop up shops is another way to do this. There's. There are so many ways to scale and, but you know, you don't. The key really is that you don't have to do these things alone. And getting the support is really, really key. But these are multipliers. So it's the branches on the tree. You already do something great. You are already making a difference, you are already making a big impact. But what if you could actually multiply the growth and that it didn't mean that you had to work harder. Actually what it means is that you get to work less because you're not in the picture anymore. So like right now, while I'm recording this podcast, our team of 20 mentors, they're having, well, there are 20 sessions at least that are going on right now and that will be going on throughout the day. So like multiply that and over a week's time, a month's time, a year's time. I could never do that even if I never went to sleep. So it just feels good for me when I go to bed at night knowing that we're able to help so many people, that everybody is taken care of. And so obviously you need to know how to do this. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming where you're like, great, Allison, sounds good. I just don't even know how to do that. So I'm not going to do that. And so you stay in the lesser of, in your mind, the two evils and you just stay stuck and doing what you've all we're all always been doing, hoping for different results, right? But it's not going to get you to where you want to go. If it would, you would be there already, right? So if you want to go into this new year and you're really ready to scale and make a difference, join us at Level Up Live. It is a new world we're living in, people, and you got to get that big move in place. It is a new year coming up and I'm so excited for you. What if you could get your brilliant, brilliant business and your product or your service in the hands of hundreds of thousands, even millions, potentially billions of people. As Naveen Jain said, who has been a billionaire many times over. And he spoke at our event this year, he said, he said many, many brilliant things. But you know, you want to make a billion dollars, help a billion people. Naveen also said there is no sky. So he is working on all kinds of technology for space. He's a big thinker and you got to check him out. Naveen Jain J A I N he came to this country from India with $5 in his pocket and he said, alison, you know, it's not like we're going to go up in a rocket ship past sky and like mom, I passed sky. He said, it's infinite. There is no sky. So that, that saying sky's the limit? No, because there is no limit. So I challenge you to just think bigger than you've ever thought before. Allow yourself to, even if you just have to pretend that there are no limits, there's no limit to the right, no limit to the left, there's no limit above. So if you were going to take the biggest leap that you ever took and there were no obstacles in your way, what would you do? What would you do? I want you to ponder on that a little bit and then let's get the plan behind that. Because once you know the step by step plan, you have confidence, the overwhelm goes away, you have clarity, know what you need to do, know what you need to do Monday, know what you need to do Tuesday and Wednesday and so forth. And that's how you get there so much faster. So it is your time to scale. And you know, we work with our clients using our proprietary method which is the scale it method and it is proven and it works. So the stories I am sharing with you on Andrea Keda Gila, we work with men and women by the way. In fact, let me share one more story and we'll wrap up of Marshall Doyle who's the founder of CalCert and they are a machine calibration company, the number one in his industry. And when he came to work with us, he was already in the multiple seven figure range. He had 35 employees but he was micromanaging. He was working 60 to 80 hours a week. He hadn't taken a vacation in 20 years. He had big dreams but he just didn't know how to get there. And so we helped him get out of the weeds of his business so that he could be the visionary and we helped him to add many new revenue Streams so that he could do upsells and cross sells. And Now Marshall works 90 minutes a week in his calcert business. One meeting he attends a week and as I said, he had not taken a vacation in 20 years. So now he started taking a lot more vacations, spending time with his family, which they were pretty darn happy about. And of course he's starting other businesses because that's what we entrepreneurs do. He's purchased like 12 companies but this is, has changed his life. And so, you know, if you are sitting there saying, oh my God, that's, that's it, you know, Alison, I've been hitting this wall. I've been working so hard. It's not about working harder, it's actually about working less, but it's about working smarter. And what's going to get you further fastest, what's going to make the boat go faster. All right, I'll leave you with that and definitely check out Level up live@levelupliveevent.com and so we can kick off your year the right way and help you scale. All right, thanks for joining me on the scale or fail show. See you next time. My name is Alison Maslin and I've built 10 companies and scaled them well into the eight figures and I'm pretty proud about that because I was a single mom. I did this all on my own. And it all changed for me when I understood how to create the multiplier, how to build a team managed company beyond me. So now I'm able to help thousands of people transform their lives and that's what gets me excited every single day. So if this is you, if you're there going, oh my God, that is me, that's my life. And you know that there's more. I want you to register right now. It's called Level Up Live. This is our 11th year leading this event. It has literally impacted thousands of business owners just like you. And this year we're taking it virtual like you've never experienced it before. We are in a full on studio with a stage and surround sound and cameras and we have hundreds of business owners tuning in, being present for the three days to transform your life. And you're going to leave with a step by step plan customized for your company. I was scattered all over the place and just trying to just survive running the business.

My biggest challenge was lack of systems, lack of structure, usually waking up at.

2, 3 in the morning just to get the day's work going and I was exhausted. I was really struggling with wearing Too many hats. You know, I was the operations manager, I was the sales manager. You know, I was trying to generate new revenue streams. The best part about this event is that you walk away with an entire plan for the year. You discover what products you're going to create, how you're going to increase your revenue, how you're going to scale your business. Hire a team.

I was able to learn how to effectively delegate, how to effectively hire, how to set up scalable systems and processes and how to ensure that the cash flow is healthy. While my business is growing, I've been able to increase our profit margin to be above industry standard and I have been able to dilute a lot of my payments. Patients, we've hired more providers and I have a lot more time and I have more work life balance than ever before. And my team is really helping to manage and grow the company, which is amazing.

At the ScaleIt event I learned so many strategies that I could have implemented right away and which changed the trajectory of the business. It's like having a tribe of, of people that are just rooting for you and actually giving you so much more than you're even giving them. And so for me, what has actually changed is that I really am now again excited about my business and where it can go.

Favorite part about this event is just being around so many high level CEOs, entrepreneurs, people who are really ready to take the next level and maximize everything they're doing their business and scale it and build teams and really kind of building their dream in their business.

We've added 12 new positions to the company. We've increased revenue about 43%, we've increased profit by 111% this year because it.

Really, in just such a short amount of time, I've got so much more free time to enjoy my kids and my family and I've got a thriving business that's growing.

Started with one program that was an eight week course where we were charging about $4,000. Since then we've created seven new courses, seven new training modules, plus an annual membership model with pricing up to $30,000 which I never thought people, I didn't know how to get there, I didn't know how to charge for that and how to structure it. And we just got a formal valuation of our business a few weeks ago for $10 million. And that just blew my mind because I can leverage the business and grow it faster now that we have that valuation. So it's helping me get credit lines, building a team and really showing the vision of what we're trying to do.

Can you tell? I am so excited about this. The seats are going fast. We're almost full. The event is approaching. Grab your seat right now. You don't need to kick. Keep hitting that wall. This is your time. Let's scale your business together. Speaking of your multiplier, go check out another episode I did on finding your multiplier and I'll meet you over there. You can't just jump in and say, I'm going to work harder, I'm going to put more hours in, I'm going to focus more, more, and that's how I'm going to scale. Smart way to go about it is figuring out a strategy that is going to take your product or service and multiply it well beyond you.