233: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Judy Guido, Daniel Marcos, and Liat Lazar

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing? But you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have. Talk to docs of talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Hello again and welcome everyone to another panel conversation with our esteemed group of coaches. We have some regulars and some new faces on today, so I thought it's cool that we have a scaling up coach in Tel Aviv now where I actually I didn't live in Tel Aviv, I lived in Israel, but in Jerusalem. So welcome to show Leah Lazar.

Thank you very much. I'm so happy to be here. And hi everyone from Tel Aviv.

Hi everyone. Yeah, well you know, we've had, we had Omar who's just across a little bit in, in Cairo. I've done a lot of work in the golf with others so it's nice to connect with someone. And Judy's down in LA and also dear friend. Welcome Judy to the show. It's nice down there.

Bill.

We're all gonna have to do our hold hands and kind of do our hands across the world. Right? One of these days we can all hold hands together.

I don't know how it is for everyone else but in the United States between the COVID and the election, we are just on edge. Whatever side of the political spectrum you're on, it's a weird, weird time. I'm not sleeping well right now. And Daniel, originally from Mexico City, right?

Yep. Born Monterey, raised in Mexico City, Correct?

Yeah. And raised in Mexico City, so. But now in Toronto. So welcome, eh?

Hey, he's a Mexican now. He's Canadian. Mexican. Mexican, that's correct. Right, Right. Dan.

I'm a NAFTA entrepreneur.

New demographic buck you gotta check all.

So some reminders for everyone. My name is Bill Gallagher. I'm host of the show. I'm one of the 200 plus approximate scaling coaches around the world that do the whole scaling up shindig with our clients. Help companies grow and scale the entrepreneurs scale with them. We've done hundreds of shows like this. So we have not only conversations like this, but also with clients, with our gurus and experts and authors and that kind of thing on every subject to do with people. Strategy, execution, cash, and even the leadership required. What I like to call the fifth decision that helps a company grow in scaling. You'll find all of those shows and more@scalingcoach.com, downloads of them, special offers, the tools referenced in them, as well as a free copy of the book Scaling Up. If you don't have one already, get it there. I'll send it to you for free. Just pay the shipping and handling for that. So, scalingcoach.com for that. What's the number one phrase of 2020? You're on mute.

I thought that pivot is the number one phrase for 2021.

Kobe.

Go away. So welcome. Glad to have it. Would you guys each say a little bit about kind of your. Say a little bit more about your background?

Judy I have been a coach, I guess formal coach for about 12 years, but I grew up really. My strength is strategy. I understand how to read markets, how to find that unique white space that nobody else knows how to find and rally the team around building kind of unique processes and activities together. I have a lot of experience in the green industry. About 60% of my clients are in the green industry. I've taken companies public on New York Stock Exchange. I've created serious consortiums. I've done a lot of rebranding. But my emphasis is really on understanding how to read markets, create strategy, sometimes blow up business models, find the new and help companies scale up.

Oh, that's really awesome. Key subject, I think for a lot of us right now is enjoying our outdoor spaces, yards, our public spaces, everywhere, outdoors.

Talk about essential services. Because that whole green area is, I mean, that we, we can't find enough people to keep up with the workflow. It's just, again, doesn't matter. Young, old, rich, poor. Right. Black, white, everybody loves the outdoors. It's. It's the one thing, so one common thing I think that the whole world can unite around is really that just the essence of what nature brings. So, um, it's a great, it's always been a great time to be in that industry, but it's, it is, it is on fire, that industry. It's growing by leaps and bounds.

Yeah, I was really stressing about how little exercise and whatnot I got. So I started really looking as my birthday approached last month and I, I found this new sport that I hadn't even seen, but I saw like one video and I was hooked before I even did it. Wing surfing or wing foiling is like surfing, but you get a wing instead of a, a sail or a kite. You just hold this like delta wink. So I'm so into this thing now.

It was one of the most unusual things I'd ever seen. I saw your, your, your, you know, your pictures and your video and, you know, it looked almost like something from a fantasy land. So I just wanted to know, while you were doing that, at any one time, did you see Narwhal for Travel?

Funny aside, connecting the dots, when my family moved to Israel years ago when I was a boy and just before my 13th birthday and we lived there for a few years, and when we moved from Honolulu, from Oahu, the North Shore to Israel, people in Jerusalem were like, are you crazy? You moved from Hawaii here? That's insane. That's like a paradise. Here we have attacks and there's problems.

You know, one of my dreams since I was small is to, is to be in Honolulu one day. So you did the opposite part. Yeah.

Come in between you and Daniel coming from Mexico, the one thing Mother Nature paints her beauty all over the world, right? Every single one of our country cities sound. Mother Nature has taken her brush, right, and created this beautiful, right, these beautiful paintings and pictures. So that's, that's the wonderful thing about nature, right?

So this was in the 1970s and I brought with me my skateboard, which people looked at like it was insane. I'm trying to skate on things like architectural features and, and then I found like one other guy with a surfboard in Tel Aviv and, and some of the mediocre surf in Tel Aviv and we would go surfing there, but that was not very common.

Nice beaches, not like in California, but nice beaches, you know, not, not the same quality of, of surfing, but they, they struggle and they do it very well.

They had everybody playing that ping pong game on the beach, not up. I'm like, get in the water. What's the matter with you? Oh, all right, Daniel, you're up.

So Daniel Marcos, originally from Mexico, been entrepreneur for 20 years. I did the first fintech in Latin America back in 1998, grew it and sold it to Santander with around 1200 employees. So very early in my career I saw a really big scale up and understood a lot of what do I take to scale a company? And then my second business was a mortgage bank in the US that we shut down in 2007, even before we got here. A year before we're the subprime or subprime. And then my third one is the Growth Institute, the one that I'm scaling today. And I've been a entrepreneur, as I said for 20 years and then a CEO coach for the last 12. And helping companies do two things, scale their impact. That's what give people freedom, that you put a goal and you achieve your goal. So we help them achieve their goals but also reduce the drama. We really believe that scaling a company is hard, but scaling a company and enjoying the right is way harder. So we focus on helping entrepreneurs do that.

That's awesome. We'll talk more about the Growth Institute as we go through today's topics and that kind of thing. I want to welcome Liotte more formally. Welcome and talk to us about your background.

So I'm coming from the HR areas. I was an HR executive for above 20 years. I worked in two of the 500 Fortune 500 companies. It's Ableton, Texas Instruments and was part of two companies, the startup companies that did major scale. I'm very excited since I'm the first scaling up coach in Israel and. Yeah, and a woman. And a woman.

Yeah.

In a very masculine world. Yeah. And so high tech is mainly my focus. Israel is also now, I don't know if you know, but Israel is what is known as the startup nation. We have for each, for one person we have 2,000. For 2,000 people we have one startup and we have a lot of inventions like. Exactly.

Amazing.

So a lot of very, very substantial innovations were coming from Israel like Waze, Sherry Tomato, Disconki and more. So I'm very happy to be here.

That's nice. Welcome, welcome to the show.

We're lucky to have you on our team.

Thank you.

Of course we need more scale ups in Israel, Israel starting companies and they're coming to California and, and other places to scale. We got to get more scaling going on in Israel, make a difference for the country and for the region.

I was going to say, Leah, you, you may not know this but the Israel, they're really known for incredible things they've done with irrigation. So I work with some companies that do that. So Israel has got some phenomenal technology and business models and products in the, the world of irrigation which of course everything from feeding the world and keeping the world cool. So they play a significant role in part of the world that I live in. So great companies out there.

That's one of the things that they mentioned on the south of Nation book as one of the advantages you Guys have so little space in the world and it's so complicated around. They have to be self sufficient and you have to be extremely efficient with what you have. And that's why the irrigation, they become such great with irrigation. They just have to have all their capacities of food in their region and that's one of the things that becomes a great place to have entrepreneurship or build a tech company. I love the book. I think it was brilliant how they explain everything that happens and why we having so many great technology products and companies coming out from Israel.

Right? Yeah. So this is one of my challenges to help, as Bill mentioned before, to help companies to scale because most of the companies know how to do their first three, five to $10 million and then to reach to the 50 and to the hundreds. This is the big problem.

Well, figuring out who you are, what's unique about you and what you've got to offer the world is probably our first topic of the day. Vern talks in his latest insights about sub branding and the value of sub branding. Your difference. So lots of people create sub brands, some do it well, some don't. But that pointing to the key differentiator is key to so many of us. And to be honest, sometimes I don't know when I'm working with clients I find if they struggle to find a point of differentiation then it, it really gets in the way of our continued work. How have you guys had, what experiences have you had with clients in their sub branding and differentiation?

I'll jump in and you know Bill, you brought up a great point. One of the slides I had one of my graphics people create that I use most often and it's a very simple slide that all it says is just because you say you're different doesn't mean you are. Right. Because how often do you go to a client and you say, tell me about your business, you know, tell me about your business, tell me about your top competitors. How are you different from everybody? And they repeat everything that everybody says and you know, you kind of have to tactfully say, well let's, let's talk about it. Doesn't company A do this? Yeah. Right. Doesn't company B price like this? Yeah. Isn't company C output this same as yours? Yeah. Well, what's. So what's different? They're like, well, we're just better. Right. I go, I go, I hear that. I go, but I go, you've got. I go, people are really smart today. They've never been more connected to information. Right. You got, I go it's your job to prove it. I'm like, you haven't proven anything to me today, right? And so that's where you really have to peel back the onion. And quite often, I probably say about 80, 85% of my clients when I first start working with them, they all kind of give that, you know, look to each other and they go, you know what? Maybe we're really not that different.

Right.

And so then we have to start, right? We start peeling stuff away from the process to their marketing messages. Like, let's talk about your activities, right? And we kind of list like, what are the most important attributes that. The most important things to your customers? And let's put all the things that you're kind of doing here. And now let's look like, you know, you know, almost like those car, you know, those great sales tools that cars do, right? They list 500 thing that's in the car, right. And then they're competitive car, competing cars, right? You see things that aren't checked off, and that's where we kind of start finding that. Or if not, we have to start creating that. But I mean, I. You hit the nail right on the head. Just because you say you're different doesn't. Doesn't mean you are. So.

And the mistake I see they make is they just don't know how they're different. Is how that matters to the client.

Yes.

And that's, for me, the most painful thing. So. Because, yeah, we're great, we're better. We have a great product. Like, do your client really matter? Does it really matter for them?

They care.

It doesn't matter to them. And how does it benefit? I'm like, what's the impact? They go, it's not what's important to you, it's what kind of impact it has on those guys in a positive, negative, or mediocre way. Yeah, yeah.

I found a lot of companies, even small ones, that are gathering in the room, you know, in the. They are about 20 people and they want to. To differentiate themselves. But they usually, like you mentioned here, they start with the regular things. We are innovative. We are. We have a great start spirit. We are caring. We care for people. And then you need to go and deep dive into in what aspects why people will come to you in opposed to others. What makes you so different? One of the companies that I work with, they came up with a differentiator that they're called that is that we are legendary. You know, it sounds very good. You know, it's a big one. But Actually, what does it mean? You know, you ask the CEO or I asked the CEO and the HR person. What does it mean? Let's break it out to be legendary. You know, so it was a very hard work to break it down. We didn't complete it yet, but it's a process. I think this is what matters, that it's not a one time to identify yourself. It's not a one time shot.

The issue you're all kind of pointing to is there's an aspect of self delusion. Right. I like the way I look right here with the lights and the camera angle and all that. I feel pretty good about myself. Right. And I think we do have a way of looking at ourselves in the mirror and at our companies and the way, oh, we're better. Right? And then there's this angle where you can kind of see my double chin and some of the things I'm like, I don't like that angle so much. Right. That angle all the time. I like this one where I think I look younger. And the same thing with our company comes out and calls itself legendary. Maybe. Did a client ever call you legendary or have you just called yourself? You know, we have political leaders who call themselves legendary, and some people are buying that brand and others are like, yeah, not so fast, buddy.

And I was gonna say, to Talia's point, like, she asked the great question, what does that mean? And also, like, I always go back to give me examples of legendary outcomes. Right? Like, right, like who. Which one of your customers can I talk to? And they're gonna tell me these legendary things that happen. Right. And if the answer is like, right, that's again, just because you say you're legendary doesn't mean you're legendary.

Yeah.

And maybe you are legendary, but please be aware of what are the parameters that makes you legendary. Let's define them and make them clear. Not only to you, to others.

So Vernsight's a couple examples. In his thing, one of our big multibillion dollar successes, Rackspace, focused on fanatical support. Now, they took something that they were known for and that they built and invested in and. And then they added branding to it, fanatical support to talk about the lengths that they were willing to go to in. In the US in particular, we also have Southwest Airlines whose sub branded transparency, the idea of having no hidden fees and no hidden charges. The difference that. And we've had that kind of thing. And then we've had small companies as well. He cites one that talks about all things basementy and so they're focused on dealing with people's basements. We don't have basements much where I live, but in some parts of the country, right, they have basements.

That's one of the things we always talk about, Right, right. Create. Create that word, right? Own a word and create a word. So one of the words that I created for my business, right, what do we do is we help companies scale, scale up. And I thought about this for a while and you know, one of the ways I vet my clients are out are, you know, we always think about that. Are you, are you playing to win or are you playing just to get by? Right? And so I'm a really competitive individual. That's just something that's fun to me, right? I like to win. I like to work with people who like to win. And so first of all, I could pretty quickly determine if somebody's playing just to get by and playing to win. So that's one thing, you know, are you playing to win? And so, and I say what takes people to win is, right, it's all about that focus and discipline, right? Think about anybody who wins in anything, whether it's sports or business or their family life or anything, right? They're focused and they're serious and they're disciplined about it. And so what I always say is the people who want to work with me, right, if you want to work with me, you've got to be serious about scaling. So I came up with this word and I just call it scalerius. Are you scalarious? Are you serious about scaling up? And I'm like, I love that. I go, so that's it. I go. When people say, how do you qualify? I go, are you scariers? Are you? And I go, that doesn't mean that you want to, want to take an ipo. That doesn't mean you want to be a billion dollar company. Sometimes it's taking somebody who's making $250,000 and they want to become a $3 million company or a 2 million dollar company or that 5 or 10 that want to go to the 50 or the 50 that want to break into the 100 or the hunt, you know, the 100 that wants to be the half. But again, as long as they are serious, right? They want that focus and discipline about scaling. They want to be scariest about it. That's kind of what, you know, my sub brand has now become.

And one of the companies which I work with added had a double agenda, a double strategy. One, they wanted to be Buy, but they don't, they didn't want that the employee will know about it. That the employees will know about it. So they had two parallel strategies. So it was really, you know, crazy. And by the way, this is a company that I don't want to work with because transparency and being honest with two employees is one of my values.

Yeah. What a difference it makes if you actually create a win for the employees and then you can be honest about being acquired. Like, let's create a retirement for everyone. I worked with two partners some years ago. I won't say where, but to keep them confidential. But the two partners had very different ideas about the future and they were really struggling to come together. One wanted growth and the other was like, let's just like, it's a good business, let's leave it alone and let's not bring risk into it. And one cared about the exit and the other cared about the team and the legacy. And together we found a way that the growth and the eventual sale could create a win for the team that enhanced the legacy and then the two could agree on things. But that took quite a bit of conversation and work before they aligned on that mutual win. And then the BHAG became easy and the pathway was totally altered by that where before they were going to blow up.

It's important, it's always important to find that common ground. Right. And in any business.

Yeah. And usually, you know, when you have two founders, one, the other is the strength of the weakness of the others are the strengths of his, of his partner.

So how to work together.

Right. It, it makes a difference.

And I, I get called a lot of entrepreneurs or two or three owners and said, hey, we want to hire you to fix the guys below. And I was like, no, everything that's happening below, it's an extension of what's happening on top. So disagreement or this alignment in the top, and it all starts with why we're here and the branding and all that, it trickles down and it becomes way bigger. So that's why it's so important to fix it at the top and make sure everyone's aligned and know exactly why we're here and how do we do things. And for me, the branding and the core values and everything, it's so important when we ask them all the questions to write the one page plan and the seven strata, that's where they get all the pain because they just don't have that clear and that's creating a lot of issues.

I think that what is very professional in Scaling up that we are doing it with customers, but we are also doing it for ourselves to be very, very precise size on our strategy, which gives you a lot of value. Then when you're going out to the customers and you know exactly what you want to achieve and who you are in a very profound way, I have.

Trouble with a client. It's often because the CEO doesn't want to do any work on themselves. They want to put some tools to fix the company and they don't realize that they have the company they deserve right now. Or you could say they deserve the company they have. And if we're going to scale up the company, we also have to scale your leadership and your approach as well.

That's a great point. I mean, again, I'm going to go back to my right, being scarious. It's. It's that whole silver bullet mentality, right? How many people those. And, and they'll even say they're like, Judy, don't you. You just must have like one simple little tool where I can't. You know what I mean? It's like I can just take the switch and flip it, right? And I always say, I go, I've got a lot of tools. I'm like, if you're. Again, let's really talk about this. If you're looking for that silver bullet, right? If that's the amount of effort that you want to do, it's like you're willing to pay a little bit to flip a switch, right? That's not, that's part of your problem, right? You gotta, you gotta kind of really look at your, your company, right? Your people, your strategy, how your execution, your cash flow, all that, the market around you, right? In a really serious kind of objective way. But there's this lot of subjectivity that there's this kind of this silver bullet or a trigger that they can, you know, they can flip or switch and everything's going to be okay. And that's just if it was that, you know, it was that easy, right? Every single business would be right, would be a great success. And that's just not the case. You do have to be, you know, you have to be focused and discipline.

Next up is, is understanding what's going on in your world, right? Thinking about your local community. And I love that we have people from. I was down in Southern California a couple weeks ago working with some clients. We've got the up and down the west coast. We've got Daniel on the east coast of the, of the US of the, of the Continent of North America.

North America, yeah.

And. And we've got Leah in. In the Mediterranean and Middle East. What's happening in your communities? Vern talks about this new book from Martin Babinek. Martin Babinek is former San Francisco EO guy and TriNet was a company that we had in our backyard or started here, I guess he's originally from New York but he was here when I met him years ago in our. What was then called yeo. And he's got a new book out, More Good Jobs. He talks about getting related to and securing the base, understanding what's going on in your community, being able to do that. And it just occurs to me like it's really different. What's the job market like, where you are and where your clients are? What's the business operating environment like? What are the rules? What are the ways that people are going right now? And I know it's been changing and so it seems almost more stable in Toronto maybe. I know Israel's open then closed enough all over the place.

Mainly closed. Yes, mainly.

Right. And yet there's ways to work within. Right. So businesses are still operating in different ways. What's the vibe like where you are and. And with the companies that you're working with, what are you noticing?

Yeah, every week it changes, you know, from we are, we are. We are scheduling something for to do online and then we can move it to offline. So it really changes. I know I'm part of, I'm leading community of startups, Microsoft startups, HR leaders. So we see that in the beginning, you know, we are, we were every week on the phone, on the zoom because the. In the beginning of the epidemic, because everyone wanted to know what's going on, how to operate, how to do things. And now when time goes, you see that the questions become more on more high level than on operational level. You know, how to work from remote and things like this where the common question and how to lead my people was something. But by the way, that was in the beginning and it become more difficult now because you don't know how to operate in this situation. So leadership become key, still become key to how to do it efficiently and also to engage people when you are not clear every week what you are doing. So we have a lot of work here in this aspect to connect, to engage.

I noticed that around different places here, as I move from very far south in Southern California, they're like, hey, there's nothing going on. We're just going to act normal. And then progressively it gets A little more sheltered. But even in the Bay Area where I am, there's a great deal of retail restaurants, all kinds of things open and operating and people out in the streets. Not as many people in offices, but outdoor restaurants with separation, with mass walking in the streets. So they've taken over parking spaces and parking lots and converted them to outdoor seating. I don't know what's going to happen when the rain starts. And then you can go into shops, but you have to wash your hands and wear a mask and things like that. We just bought three patio heaters, right, so that we can still be outside and have some friends outside and, and two pergolas so that we could do things. And I think that, like figuring out how to navigate the time, that's innovation. That's entrepreneurial, right? To not to say it's open or it's closed, it's no business. It's. It's. It's unhealthy. It's like whatever. That, that black and white seems kind of silly now.

I was going to say you kind of just hit it on the nail. I mean, in California, and again, since I spent about 60% of my time in that space, the amount of pools that are being built right now, I mean, pool, pool contractors, I mean, they just, you know, and we're not talking like inexpensive pools. I mean, we're talking, right. You know, kind of starting points at $200,000, projects are just on fire. You talk about, you know, allows you to talk about all things outdoor living. I mean, people especially. And again, California has a tendency to set the trends in that what we call odl, outdoor living. But everything from where traditionally it was just kind of, you know, building an outdoor fire pit where you can sit, you know, and then it became the outdoor kitchen, right? That is still very, very popular. Now it's the outdoor. Right now it's the outdoor office, right? It's the outdoor edible area where there's so much of this major trend of sustainability about, right? Growing, you know, growing your own food or having your landscaper do what we call agriscaping, which is just really growing fruits, vegetables, herbs to create. And again, the outdoor kitchens have become much more expansive, outdoor reading areas and meditative spots out towards sports areas. So all things outdoor. I mean, people are just saying, hey, we're going to take this and this is going to increase our property valuable values and we can stay out here longer. The other thing is, you probably want to invest in all things canopy, right? Because to your point, I mean, wherever you can Kind of, you know, be outdoors, you know, 365 days a year, whether it's right, you go to that, bring the gym outdoors and you just put a canopy over it. Take the restaurant, right? Put a canopy over it. If you're right, you know, if you're a haircutter or something, get outside, put that canopy. I mean, I've seen more canopies and I started, right, you know, I started taking a look at that. The other thing is, look at, look at the pet world, right? How many people now are like, right, dogs, cats, I mean, you know, petscaping. And, you know, the pet world has been a really, you know, multibillion dollar business. Now people are saying, hey, you know what? Now we really want to kind of, you know, bring, bring, you know, have that pet that we never could, right. And build a space for them outside, you know, outside our yard. So anything that you can do in outdoor living at your house, whether you want to create your home into a, you know, an office, a caregiver's room or a workshop, you know, a kitchen, a meditative area, an outdoor living room, a Zen place, you know, all those things are growing by leaps and bounds out here.

Yeah, it's such a. Daniel.

So here in Toronto, we begin to have. We haven't had snow yet, but we're very close to. And the restaurants, the only thing that was open, as you said, they got one lane of the street and they were having all the tables on the outside. And the only place you could go and have lunch outside was if they had a patio or they were using outside. Now they can't because of the cold. So now they're shutting all the restaurants.

Don't you get the patio heaters? My friends in Toronto said we're going to barbecue until March.

Let's see if we're able to do that with the snow. But yes, a lot of them are getting this, as you said, the heaters outside, and they're going to try to stay open as much I can.

The other day, patio heaters, would that I bought one like a year ago was like about 130, $150. Today they're being sold for 300 to 600 and they're out of stock. We looked and looked and we found three more to buy from someone that had bought too many. And.

So they're completely sold out. Yeah, bicycles sold out. I tried to buy a bicycle, a 24 wheel, whatever, my kid, no bicycles. Like, it took me like a month to find the bike. Like in Toronto, you could have there's 50 stores or 100 stores.

Comes the bikes will not sell as much. Right.

I was going to say take a look at, take a look at office equipment. Right. I mean I just, Right. I just, you know we had to get a new printer. Right. So. Right. I've always had a nice home office but again it's a home office, it's a home school right now. So you know I wanted to get a really you know, nice upgraded a special type of laser printer. Well, I'm getting it but you know normally I could have gotten one in 48 hours. Right. It's kind of a two week ordeal now and it's, everyone's like oh my God, you know, why don't you try to get this because if you, you know, if you want that printer in two days, it's going to take you two weeks. So anything, right. Anything with technology from certain type of laptops, printers, all that stuff is you know, our houses, you know you take your house and you, you know what used to be a home, you take a pie chart and again it's a hospital, it's an office, it's a school.

It'S a restaurant.

You name it. So it's a little bit of everything today.

Well we're on the subject of transforming the way we do things. Daniel, talk to us about Growth Institute and, and the MBD course and the master business course and the things that you're doing there.

So 8 years ago ver and I designed program for mid market companies. And what we found is that online there's a lot of great trading for startups, there's a lot of great trading for big corporations. There's nothing in the middle. If you Already pass the 3, $5 million mark, no one looks at you and you have to go the kind of chasing for thought leaders but operate in different platforms, different formats, different pricing, everything is different. So let's put all together in the same format, same structure and we created the Growth Institute eight years ago that up to today we've trained over 50,000 executives from 10,000 different countries. Sorry companies in 68 countries around the world, all mid market companies. Companies doing a million, 5 million, 10, 50 million, 100 million. And we had a couple of billion dollar companies have trained with us and what we do is we said hey, we help them do two things. I started scale your impact and reduce your drama. That's what an entrepreneur and a C level team would like to do all the time. Our best selling program, it's of course scaling up and by the Way in the pandemic, scaling up revenue doubled at the Growth Institute precisely because scaling up allows you to be way more nimble company and refocus, restrategize and everything. So some of the classes are not that used anymore. On the case of scaling up more than double its demand precisely because of that. And one thing that we do very different from the rest of the E learning companies is we don't just give you a course, it's a program. We help you, guide you to implement an improvement in your company. In the case of scaling up, it's a three month program, it's a 13 week program that we take around 60 or 70 companies together and they get videos with Vern, they get coaches helping you go through the process, coaching, all that. And then the masterminds, we put you together with all these other companies, learning together and implementing together in the companies. And what I hear all the time said, hey, the videos we've earned work great. Instead of reading a book, getting everyone the same day watching a video was amazing. Then the coaching calls and the group coaching calls really gave me a path and a process to implement. But what really gave me the juice was the masterminds because we put them in these smaller groups with other CEOs or other C level executives all over the world. And as an example we had the other day I was teaching a mastermind, we had a CEO of an E learning company in Israel, we had this lady in Iran, she was an operations manager in Iran, people in the us I was in Toronto, this guy in Argentina. And we were all learning together, implementing together. And we kind of like what? Wait, wait, wait, around Israel, Mexico, the U.S. we're kind of freaking out. And we all said, hey, we're all C level executives, we all are trying to implement scaling up, let's help each other. And it was awesome. I just loved it. And that's what we really built. These communities of leaders implementing together and having improvements together in their company. So scaling up is the main class that we teach, are the one that has the most demand. But then we have a hundred other programs. And the MBD that Bill Gallagher mentioned is I did my MBA at Babson, really good school, number one business school for entrepreneurs around the world. But it gave me a lot of tools for critical thinking and analysis, but no tools to operate my business. So we said here we're going to give you a master's degree to really give you the tools to become an expert on scaling companies. So we teach scaling up. Top grading, great game of business Sales with Jack Daly, marketing with everyone. Scott, we're recording now a class with Coach Capitalism and a couple of other really, really cool classes to help you become an expert on how to scale companies.

So, Daniel, you just gave me an idea for a new sub brand, right? You talked about all these different companies, kind of global. So now this is global ration. It's global collaboration. So it's right. There you go. There's your next one. It's global and collaboration. That's pretty much what we're doing.

And we say we have to do edutainment, we have to do education through entertainment. People don't want to just learn. They want to learn and have fun.

Take life too seriously, and what is it worth, right?

In our online workshops, in our remote planning sessions, and all these kinds of things like bringing some playfulness, some levity to it, whether it's my cowbell that I rang earlier or playing some music in the thing or bringing Elmo into the conversation, like just being silly, being light hearted, being playful, being human, bringing that an aspect of play and entertainment to all of it makes a huge difference, right? In engaging everything that's just cut and dry all the time is hard for maybe not everyone, but for many of.

Us, people are burned out of having so many zoom calls to just make them different. That's uniqueness.

People that don't like to laugh and have fun are the people that you really need to stay away from in both your personal and your professional life, because they're not. They're not quite right. So.

Well, and everybody has a different idea of what's fun, right? Like, you know, the places that. But being light hearted, being playful is a quality that's universal.

Yes, it is. Right?

So next up is better decision making. Vern talks about a new book, seven Strategies for Better Decision Group Decision Making, by Torben Emerling and Duncan Reuters. And they cite in it some of the issues that get in the way of good decision making and what makes for bad. And this one just, like, hit me head on. Keeping the group as small as possible, having contrasting viewpoints, maybe even having a designated devil's advocate and watching out for just blindly following an expert. My wife likes to say that my son and I both use the voice like an authoritative tone that sounds like we know what we're talking about and that we have information behind us, but really we're just making shit up, which I think is somewhat true.

And then.

Bringing collective responsibility to that. But I think the biggest one that I notice when our teams struggle with this is that group size, they'll be like, I coached one company, actually Fintech company that achieved a billion dollar valuation and they just, they could not stop. There were too many founders and too many voices. And I'm like, you guys are taking more than four times as long as any company I work with to reach a decision. And they wanted to have like 27 people in the room. I'm like, we need seven, not 27. Get 20 out of this room. Have them give the others and trust a few. How does it go with your teams in terms of having productive conversation, getting the team size? What are you finding over time and even right now in one of the.

Companies that I was invited to a company to do a brainstorm with the management, they wanted to think they had a huge problem on turnover in a specific department, in their production department. So we came out with a process and with a problem identified and come with ideas. But in the end, the of, of the, of the session, I asked, you know, I'm missing someone from the, the real people from the production to hear how they feel about it. You know, we are talking in this high level, but we need to also get down to a lower level. So we did another session with the people that are really working there, the managers, and then we go, we went down to the level below. But sometimes, you know, I think this is, is part of the problem. There is no connection. Someone is doing the decisions and doesn't do the work afterwards to make the people that needs to be part of the decision connected and to buy them and to brainstorm with them the problem. So I understand what you say. I think that sometimes we are missing the next level of the implementation. It's not that we only need to think about it from the executive level, but to go a level down and another level down in order to engage and to hear more ideas, the real ideas, the people with the problem, that facing the problem.

It's great what you're saying because we see the need to share information down, but then also to make sure that we're getting the information coming up. If we're thinking about a traditional pyramid, but that or, or out to, in or, or however you want to think about it. But there's, there's a lot of information sometimes on the front line and you see it like when you make an important change or you fire somebody who's a problem and everybody goes, oh my God, you know, like, how long did that take you? And you're like, oh, I didn't know that was a Problem for you, that person was a problem.

Exactly.

And I think the, I think the other thing that's really important too, about the size of any, you know, type of group, you know, it's always like, what problem are you trying to solve, right? You know, how are you trying to solve? What opportunity are you trying to seize? And then to ask yourself a question, like, what skill sets or experience are required to help us get those outcomes, Right? And sometimes, like when you just like, throw it out to everybody, right? It's like all of a sudden you kind of look around and you say, like, half the people in this group don't have any experience in that at all, right? And so therefore, like, you know, why are they here? I mean, I'll give you an example. One of the things that makes me cringe is when I'm working on projects that, that involve websites, right? And like, an owner will say, let's throw it out to our employees. Let's get, let's get everybody's opinion on the website. I'm like, like, oh my God, like, you know, here we go. You're just letting the fire hose out. And all of a sudden, you know, some people just don't like something because I don't like the color red. You know, I don't like this. I don't like this picture that reminds me of something that it's like, okay, so sometimes you'll say to people, I'll tell you what, take all those ideas and we just kind of put them together and see what it looks like with all their input, right? And you'll put together a website, right? Or, or, or a video, certain, some kind of learning tool. Say, okay, do that. Put all those things together. Now take a look at it. And it looks like, you know, people say that looks like junk. Exactly, right? Because so and so, like yellow doesn't mean we should put yellow, because yellow really is awful here, right? Because it. Right, it's. Right, it's diluting. It's diluting your product, right? So I always say to people, I'm all about teamwork. I'm all about collaboration. But ask yourself, right, what kind or exactly what kind of skill sets, what kind of experience that those people can help and add to it. And it doesn't matter what their title is. I always say to people, I don't care what this guy or gal's title is. I want to take a look at what kind of experience do they have and what kind of skill set those are the people that are really, really going to be helpful Right. In solving this specific problem or seizing this opportunity because they've done it before or they've got familiarity with it and that really, you know, again, and it's true, right? The smaller, the smaller the amount of voices, kind of the quicker you can make the decisions, the more even just from a time perspective, right. You've got to evaluate all that input. And that's another thing, right? How much time do we have to get before we've got to solve this problem? Or how much time do we have before we've got to see this seize this opportunity, you know, and if you have 100 people, it's going to take you that much longer to process all that information as well.

So whenever you're explaining that Bill came up, I don't know if you guys read this book. And that's precisely what they are alluding to. General Christo, when he became the commander of Special Forces, they said we had capacity to do one attack every 15 days in the U.S. when he left, they were doing 15 attacks a day. And precisely it was because the way they change their teams and they need smaller teams. Indeed, Google came up with a study that the Perfect size is 4.6 team members. Above that you start having diminishing returns. So everything below adds more than 1. After 4.6 you get diminishing returns, but most importantly have team members with unique abilities. As an example, in the army in the US they had a group of people that came into houses, let's say, and then have one group of people that were long range shooters and they had another people expert in bombs. And I said, no, we're going to make an attack team that has one bomb expert, one long distance, one short distance, one runner, what, whatever. And that team went and did an attack and that made the team way better. When you're making decision, it's the same thing. What you said, Judy, let's get the small team that really have knowledge of what they have to do and get them to move fast and take a decision fast. And I usually see they have better vision. But I always tell people every democracy has a precedent. So there's one that's going to take the last decision. We're all going to collaborate, give a lot of ideas and all that, but there has to be one at the end that said, I heard everything. This is what we're going to do. Usually is the one with the most experience or the highest rank in the group or the discussion. And usually that that helps you to get better decisions.

Adam Grant, if you remember, Adam Grant was referring in our last leading the recovery summit about the brainstorming method that we are all falling into a pitfall that we are bringing everyone together to the room. Everyone needs to bring their great idea to discuss it. And the people that are usually with a high self esteem and yeah they are talking first and then the others that you know less feel comfortable are the one that are usually don't, don't raise their their ideas. So he came with a recommendation to do a brainstorm separately. You know, you need to come with the topic, discuss it. Everyone will need to think about it in a advance and then join together into the meeting room and the conference and raise your raise your ideas to avoid the misleading of the one that are taking the stage very easily with their ideas.

Let me give a plug now a really self serving plug for our coaching.

Go for it Bill. Go for it.

Around the world, not just me, I'm one of the coaches but maybe even like any decent coach can substantially elevate the leadership of your team and the quality of your decision making precisely because of this. And I only have to look in the mirror to understand this and know this. And I think many of our listeners will do the same. I started my companies because I was easy to speak. Because I was a little more dominant. Being easy to speak and dominating the room. Starting the conversation then soon inhibits the growth of the company. And I'm totally guilty of this. I love being at the front of the room, I love having the big mic because I do like to talk and I'm ready to speak first. But it doesn't make the best decisions and it doesn't mean we get all the perspectives in the room and the coach helps, helps you to shut up and speak less. So if you're the CEO or the founder, you started the company with your voice probably. And now to get everyone else's speaking and to get all the perspectives in the room, we have to get you speaking last. And the coach can help you to do that not just by being in the room and facilitating, but even some of our methods, like most of our coaches will have people either fill out a survey or bring up sticky notes with their ideas or use one of the online sticky note tools to throw ideas out written first so that everybody in the room, introvert, extrovert, quiet, vocal like everybody gets their ideas out at once. We see the natural alignment, we see the breadth of the ideas. People are heard and appreciated instead of just one bossy noisy person like me or you.

So whenever we start the conversation Planning session, I tell the CEO, I'm going to go to you last. And they try to jump all the time. Last. They feel bad at the end. They love it.

Yes.

The process is uncomfortable, but they know when the result comes. They said this is the best thing we could do.

Yes.

And I also believe that for engagement of the team members, it's really powerful. If they came up with a plan, they're so committed to execute it on the plan B, a success. Because they said, hey, I was part of the decision, I was part of the planning. If I was part of it, I have to make sure it's a success. If not, I'm going to do quick. So the commitment to getting the result is ownership, right?

Correct.

Yeah.

And I think the role of a great coach too. It's almost like you're a combination of a scientist or an archaeologist. I mean, recently we had my dear friend and actually I, I coach him, Rob Sorcher, right. Who just gave a great talk to us a couple of weeks ago. Right. And Rob, Rob, you know, Rob is the guy who brought Breaking Bad to TV and Mad Men and he's won four Emmys. I think he's been nominated for 22 or 23. And he's just a brilliant, hard working, wonderful human being. And he and I talk about this all the time, right. That people think in order to be creative, right. And come up with great ideas, like you have to be kind of in an art centric world. Right. Which he is. Right. I mean, Right. Whether it's Cartoon Network or the studios that he's helped lead and head up. But it's not about that. Right. Everybody has, everybody is creative. And so we always talk about, where does that, where is that cross between the science and the art of, you know, a business, Right. Business is both an art and a science. And so it's our job to really kind of be that archaeologist that really digs, you know, finds that individual to be able to dig out that creative side, whether, whether it's somebody in a field or, or in technology or in design or in the math side of it or on the engineering side of it, right. Where is that creativity and, and, and really tap into that. Right. And allow them to say, you know, you are creative. Right. Let's, let's get, let's, let's hit those creative nerve centers and bring that out. But if we start, you know, if we're the doers and we're the talkers, it's going to be very difficult to do that. So I always say you know, you kind of put on your scientists, your archaeology, you know, as you know, when you're looking the business, we've really got to kind of dig into that and find out where is that creativity and every single person. And therein lies, like, when you find those creative nerve centers, say, hey, this gal is brilliant. In the engineering side, this guy over here is fantastic. In the design side of our business model, this person is wonderful. In the sales side or the communication side, we really kind of tapped into their creative nerve centers and then bring those teams together and make things happen.

Yeah, that's kind of like the special forces teams. Right. Who are the specialists? Right. If we want our companies to be differentiated, we want the individuals on the teams to be differentiated, we want that difference all over the place to focus in on specialists who, who could do unique things better than anyone else can do.

Yeah, the Seals, the Rangers. Right. Whoever. Right. Like, who are those specialty groups? Right, Absolutely.

Talking about bringing teams together before we move on. Daniel, are you helping to produce this master class in Dallas?

Nope. That's an event Vern is leading. We're helping with a lot of the, the promotion and all that. But that's, that's so Vern. And let me tell you a bit of story. Vern's been doing the, the scale up summits and the growth summits for 15 years or so. So and in the summits we get all these great thought dealers and other people were asking more of Vern time. And Vern, because he was trying to be nice and give more space to the thought leaders, he rarely speak. He was just kind of a mc. And over the years we heard a lot of clients said, hey, we need, we want to hear more of Vern. So this is going to be Vern 80% of the time at the summit. And we're going to work on scaling up up instead of getting all these other methodologies that play well with scaling up. This is going to be all about scaling up, all about implementing scaling up. So Vern's going to be on stage probably 78% of the time. And the other thought leaders will complement and get deeper into scaling up for decisions to help companies implement scaling up better. But this is, it's going to be for you to go with your team if you want to implement scaling up and have everyone at the same level of knowledge and really work with your teams, because there's going to be a lot of work time, there's going to be a lot of Vern teaching on stage and then giving you some Homework, some work to do with your team and you're going to run with that. And this is of course our first event after Covid in Dallas, Texas. It's a state that is fairly open. It's not as cold as other states, so we expect there's going to be less. And the hotel is crazy how many things they're doing to keep people safe, the spaces and all that. By the way, it's going to be limited to way less attendees and companies than the summits before. So there's a lot of really, really big space between the tables and there's going to be just you in your table with your team and no one else and at least six feet from other tables. So that way we have people that are safe. We're going to take all kinds of precautions, but we got a lot of teams saying, hey, hey, I love what you do. I really need a space to go with my team and learn and have a discussion. So we're inviting companies to be there to prepare for 2021.

So this is an in person event. If you're hungry for an in person event, you're comfortable with an in person event. This will be in person Dallas, December 8to10. Going deep on the core of scaling up with Vern and you can go with. It's designed to go with a senior team. They are taking a number of measures to keep you safe. Quite a few. But you will in the end be in person indoors. So just make sure that you read up on the measures they're taking. You're comfortable with it. But if you're hungry for that, and we know a ton of people are, then this is a good opportunity for you if that's what you're looking for.

The online is scaling up master course at the Growth Institute. If you want to go live, this is the option for companies to go and want to go live.

Yeah. So a mix of the two. There'll be a link in the show notes that follow on the audio release of this and later in the video release. Not here with the live. And then of course you can get in touch with us for a link and any codes or special offers that we've got. I'll send you a link. Just send. Drop us an email about the Dallas class to info scalingcoach.com and Lucy, our show producer will hook you up with what you need if you need to do that sooner. So let's talk about women. Powerful women in business. The most powerful. The Fortunes annual list is out and I don't think you know, here's the thing. We were just talking about the diversity of perspective and getting all that kind of thing. And yet too many company leadership teams and boardrooms look a lot like me. Middle aged white guys, right. Running things. And we make a real effort to make sure that we get a broad mix of people when we have our panel conversations and we think there's value in it. And we see again and again the research shows that diverse companies outperform the other companies, that getting a broader perspective makes a difference in your market performance. Because the world that we serve out there, it doesn't all look like me. So I'm owning up for being a very mainstream looking, straight white guy. So, most powerful women in business, who are your favorites on the list? Who do you notice? Who stands up for you, by the way?

Interesting. Sheryl Samber went down to eighth place.

Yeah, yeah.

Having a top five YouTube as well. Yes.

But hey, interestingly, number one CEO of Accenture, Julie Sweet. I know very little of her, but it's crazy that a consulting company is number one with this woman. I thought that was very interesting.

I don't think we hear enough of in a company that we hear tons of the male founder, Gwynne Shotwell, President COO of SpaceX. Right. Doing amazing things. And who runs all the operation? Gwynne Shotwell. And we don't hear enough of her in this world. So Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture. the top, the internationalist Emma Walmsley. That's a tongue twister for me to say.

I was going to say one of the reasons I love, you know, number one, Accenture is because, you know, it is a consulting, but it's, you know, such a service industry. But think about it. There's not an industry that it does not touch. Touch. Right. So I mean, it's, it's one of those things. It's kind of like the melting pots of all consulting firms, right. Where you know, this individual not only has to know how to execute on service, but really have an understanding of such a broad diversification of all the industries that they touch. And that's a big, you know, that's a big job for, for anybody. And if you think about it, right, you think about right now, we always talk about dni, diversification and inclusion. I mean, that company is all about diversification in the sense of there is not a in industry that they don't touch or they have to know about. So I thought that was really a great tell all to have her selected.

Well, huge gains being made in something the new CEO of ups, Carol Tomei comes from Home Depot. CFO role. Who else do we. Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi, now number six on the list. So we've got major banks, major consulting, transportation, Walmart, CEO Judith McKenna. So quite a bit.

Now I was gonna say let's go back to what we talked about earlier in the show, right? What we basically do is like we're trying to write, identify and solve problems, fix a pain point or an opportunity look at, right? With ups, what's one of the biggest constraints in business on a global basis? Just getting your stuff to its place. Why? Because everybody is, right? Everybody is using those kind of logistical and delivery services, right. They're ordering online to get it. I mean, like you, you know, think about here, right? You know, they're talking about Christmas and Hanukkah, all the holidays. Like if you didn't order your stuff already, you know, you'll be lucky if you get it. So one of the biggest problems right now globally is getting your product to that space because that delivery channel is slammed, right. And here again we now like put a woman in the driver's seat, every pun intended. Right. Of UPS to drive and try to fix that big problem. The other one, right, you're talking about with Citibank, right. What's one of the other biggest pain point in the world and for people personally, right. Their financial health. Right. So here again we put a woman. Right. To solve one of the biggest, you know, biggest challenges in financial health and even look at in that list how many of those women in those top groups are also in, right. The health care space, right. Which is another big thing, right. Right now we said we started out the show biggest problem, right? What do we think about the word? The word is Covid, right? It's about your, your physical health, your financial health, right. Solving those problems. And women have been really designated to those roles in every single one of those situations. So I think it's a great tell all to. To women's strength and capabilities.

Yeah. You said business is very male dominated in Israel now. How do you see that changing right now? What's happening? I know many of the people kind of in the entrepreneurial space. I know more women in Israel.

Yeah.

Honestly, that's the reason that I didn't comment when you came with the discussion, with the topic for the discussion because I don't see so much change. I know that there is. We see more female in the universities in the technical lectures like the computer science, which they are really, I think around 50% from the population. If you know Dana Rielli, Professor Dana Rielli, he did some, he's doing some research and he has a company that tries to predict and tries to change the. He wanted to track the reason why. Why females. Why. Why girls are not. Are in a certain point are. Don't. Don't. In a certain point they. They change their direction from the. From what they are. From science. So if it goes around the 16, when there are 16. So in this junction he tries to understand what makes them change the direction and is doing all kind of research around this. But yeah, I think that you know, if I'm thinking, you know, more broad. Yes, we see more female in the computer science facilities, faculties definitely in the higher hierarchy. I see less honestly less a lot of. In the, in the HR positions. But in the pharma industry it's different.

More people oriented, traditional role for.

Right, right. And you can see more. It's a female dominant.

I went to a special technical high school in Israel and we, we had computer computer science and circuit design and nuclear engineering and electrical engineering and stuff in my high school and we had one young woman that I can remember one girl in the whole high school. I was very excited to go to this high, very special high school. You could go for six years and get your college degree and we were right next to the university in Jerusalem. But I would be so excited to go to my old friend's high school across town because they had lots of girls. I was like.

Yeah. So it didn't change so much in those faculty which need to mention.

Sorry, I'd love to point out some of the work that we've heard from our friend and colleague Kattika Roy. Remember she spoke last year and Cat Carl Roy, as she is doing this incredible work on the, you know, the really the significant delta in pay for women versus men. But she's really a groundbreaking woman who's really taking a look at the fine, you know, financial disparity and I would suggest you do any of those kind, you know, kind of readings. I mean I'd love to throw a plug to the green industry. I'll tell you right now. I mean I just talked about how that industry is growing by leaps and bounds and yet we only have about 10% of our industry is really represented by women. And yet if you look at it, it is so aligned to again to steam that science, technology, engineering, arts and math. So any women who have got those skill sets and passion and those elements we've got, I mean a multi, multi billion dollar Industry that's growing by leaps and bounds and reach out and will, will, will, will put you will align your passion with your profession. But that's, that's another great opportunity. But I, but again I do, I want to call out great women like Kataka Roy who's just doing a lot of work on the disparity and how we get to parity between pay for men and women.

Kataka Roy was on the show before and go back and find that episode to hear her talk more in depth. But she talks about the value of diversity, making your company more diverse, what it brings and not just promoting or accelerating women, but the whole range of diversity in the company and the lack of equity even sometimes for men in being able to take leave, family leave and that kind of thing play a role in their family life. Vern talks about something that I think, think we're seeing right now and in your sales process and I've seen quite a few of our clients companies sales process disrupted in this time and they're still grappling with how to keep selling depending on whether they, I think the consumer direct sale has been going well online if you're selling online, not maybe more impaired if you're in some kind of traditional retail and have distribution issues, but the value of synchronous communication. And he talks about not leaving the thing open so creating questions and opportunities for follow up conversation, keeping the conversation going and holding something back to answer stead to follow up the next conversation and keep it going so that we don't assume that people got something or that we're not leaving something in that way. I don't know, I feel like this is something that needs more attention. Modifying the sales process with our teams right now all over the place.

That's one of my qualifiers, Bill. Just so when people say hey, could you put together a proposal how you can help us? We talk about that because again, each one of those, you know, those documents, it's a living document, is so different because that's the whole point, right? We're trying to find that differentiation for that, that organization. And as such there should be no such thing as a kind of a temp, you know, a templated proposal. And I talk to my clients about that and what I talk about in the end is I say look it, you know, this is going to look something that it's going to look like something that you've never seen before because it's going to incorporate who you are but more importantly where you want to be. So it's going to be very, very rich with data. It is going to be a working document. And I and the reason, and I tell them we're going to go through it together. This is not something I'm going to send you guys ahead of time. And I want you to look, you know, noodle over and go to the bottom and look at a price. So I said, this is going to be a session that we're going to have. And I always say, hey, you know, and I always go in the mind, you know, again, I vet my clients so carefully that I already assume I've gotten that job. And I always say to them, hey, in the end, the worst case scenario, you're probably going to get an hour of really, you know, good free consulting because that's what it ends up being, right? It's very much a living, an educational document. And, and they're learning as they're going through the process. And in the end, you know, 98, 99% of the time they said, you know, oh my God, I feel like just going through this document was a working session. And I said, because that's exactly what it was. It was a working session. And again, and if you choose to take this to the next step, we'll work together. And if not, you know, nothing, you know, you've lost nothing. You just got, you know, you just got a great, you know, a kickoff working session together. So that's, that's how I work and that's how I vote dealt with that.

I think that the topic that you raised is something that a lot of companies doesn't talk about. It's something, you know, it's more easy to speak about leadership and how we can solve some things but sales and how to approach it in this and do some pivot and some thinking about how we are doing. It's something that I don't hear a lot and I know that a lot of companies are struggling with this because, because they change sales. People are very, very trained in, in doing what they do. But they are usually, you know, they have their one or two tricks pony that they use and suddenly it, it doesn't work anymore. So I think it's a, it's something that, that while we are doing the strategy sessions, it's a very, very good point to discuss it. And this is what we are doing to find out how we are doing the sales right now in this period during this change.

What we found is if the companies that really understand their clients pains and really understand how their pains change have been able to communicate Better and be able to keep their sales. But yes, a lot of them, they were used to having a sales process that they were taking their clients to have lunch and just build their relationships. And because of that they own the sale today. You can't do that. All the things that used to do around it, you just can't do it. You have to do in zoom or in a non asynchronous sale. And if you don't get get into the discussions the clients are having in their mind, you won't be able to win. And we've seen companies that they renew that and took it to the next level and are completely killing the market. And there's some companies that had no idea and you see their sales coming significantly, significantly down. Julie, you were mentioning this the other day. I have a client that sells office equipment. So when all of this happened, I call him, he's like, what are you going to do? Like that's like no one's going to be in their office, right? Who's going to be remodeling offices? He's 20% up this year and it was crazy.

What did he do?

So he came to his clients and said, hey, you're going to have to send your employees to work home. They don't have a space to be productive. Let me help you build a space for you to be productive at home. And we begin building space at home for their employees to be productive.

Chairs, monitor arms, monitors, printer scanners, things like that at home, working with comfortable chairs.

How many hours are you spending now sitting in your chair in your, in your home office like this chair? I spent 10, 12 hours a day now being in a very comfortable chair like you pay whatever for that. I mean, in my company we paid off chairs for all my employees because no one has a comfortable chair to be eight hours a day sitting down in their house. So if you really understand your client's pain, then you're able to say, hey, your pain was in the office. Now it's in their house. Now we have to start all over again. Sales are completely up.

So same topic. I want to talk in just a minute about how to make online events and meetings great. So hold your shares and thoughts on that for just a second. Let me give a few shout outs before we talk about making online events and meetings better. If our show helped you, you could do something for us. Give us a review. Type up your comments and thoughts about the show on either Apple podcasts or wherever you get the show or on YouTube or wherever it is of Course, you can subscribe and you'll get notices of them every week. The new shows come out in audio on Wednesday mornings. Live streams come out all different times, but you'll get them by subscribing there. If you want to share it with somebody else, that's a nice thing to do as well. If you'd like to drop us a line or if you'd like help finding a coach, send an email to infocalingcoach.com As I said, at the top of the hour or the top of the show, if you'd like to look at for past episodes with people like Katica Roy or on the subject of conscious capitalism or any of the things that we've been talking today, all of that you'll find@scaling coach.com. that's easy for me to say, right? As well as I'll give you a copy of the book Scaling up for free, I'll send to you anywhere in the world. You just pay the shipping and handling and it's yours. If you'd like to help finding Coach, that kind of thing, We've got the 200 coaches around the world and I'm happy to help you find one that fits kind of whatever vibe you're looking for, as well as being nearby to you. I want to give special thanks to Lucy Summers who produces the show and gets everybody organized and works behind the scenes to make things work with our show and promotes it after the fact and all that. The show is edited by Albert Burge at Potfly Productions. Our show notes are written, written and compiled by Ayn Kodina and then proofread by Tim McGowan. I want to give special thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the original Rockefeller Habits. Thanks to everyone. So back to this idea of virtual events. You said all of you, in different ways, I think during the show, have said that you're sick and tired of zoom and so what are you doing to make it better? Vern points us to a book by David Meerman Scott about standout virtual events, how to create an experience that your audience will love. So what are you doing to make your events better and which of his tools and approaches are using?

So I'll say for me, it's less about, you know, it's less about the channel that we're using because again, we need something where we can. All right, we like. There's so much technology we can use where we can, we can come together, right, Bill? Look at, right. Look at, look at the system you're using. To me, it's just like anything, it's when you have a virtual event, what goes into it, right? What goes into any event. So the things that I always think about, first of all, it starts with the subject at hand and again, and the people, their skill set and their expertise. So make sure you've got great personalities who know their stuff like that to me is no matter what you're doing, no matter what you're talking, have thought leaders, have subject matter experts who are experienced, who can point to a lot of different things. Right? So again, sometimes it's, you know, it's like, oh my God, it was a cool setting, but like the people didn't know what the heck that they were talking about. So. Right. So whatever your subject is, make sure you get people who understand and are subject matter experts. The other thing is you talked about it too, right? Like, have fun, right? And so like David, right? David Scott Merman, he talks about almost like kind of give it like that, like that show look, Right, right. That you can have fun with, where you're inviting guests. Remember the old show talk, you know, talk shows, the Merv Griffin and the Mike Douglas and like, you know, look at like, you know, how many talk shows we have today. Kind of give it that sense. We've done spoofs, like without kind of giving, giving some of my clients stuff away. We've done some of like the really fun shows, like the big HGTV shows, right? Like Love it or Leave it. Right. Like the House. And we've done. But we've taken our tool like Love it or Loathe it, right? So like, like, and we talked about things in the company that people or ideas that we, you know, some people love and other think it's a terrible idea. So we've done sessions of, okay, we've taken two personalities, like fun personalities, a guy and a gal, right? And okay, we're going to talk about are they going to love it? Are they going to loathe it? Right? And so we've done those kind of spin offs. We've done the same thing too with, we've taken part of the, part of when we get together is right, we're all about what I call clos, right, Being continuous learning organizations. So what aspect of education are we bringing to that? So we've done it again, kind of like that spin off on are you going to love it or leave it? We talked about are we going to learn it and earn it? And so somebody always has to come in a Creative way, bring some education, something that they just learned, and do a presentation to the company. And there's been all sorts of fun things that they've done done in that. Right. We've invited customers, right. Customers to talk. So we just don't have our own internal other people. We've said, let's lay out our entire value chain, right? From our manufacturers to our distribution to our competitors to our customers, to our partnerships, to our defectors, and let's bring the best guests to represent those. And we brought those stakeholders into it. So, I mean, we've really kind of looked at it from that full value chain and brought the greatest people in. And again, and we've had fun things and we've just done like spooky things that were successful, whether we're in TV or animation or the movies. And we brought those ideas in and that seems to be a lot of fun people. It's like, you know, what are they going to do next type of idea?

Well, I hear. I hear really like thinking about it like a production and experience. Right.

I would say we're. Right. We're producing an event. So what. What goes into producing? And you can imagine what, you know, my buddy Robin, Rob Searcher and I, the kind of fun we have with that when you kind of get really crazy, crazy creativity together. So anyways, that's. Those are my thoughts. Yeah, you can.

You don't. You are not allowed to. To speak more than five minutes without an interaction from the audience. You know, is it to do every five minutes to do some interaction, something to engage them in order to get that they want sleep, go asleep or start to look at their phones. So it's using the surveys and using the breaking rooms and using dialogue every five, you know, three to five minutes. And people that don't interact to go. And since we have their names, we can ask them for opinions. So this is my. Every three to five minutes, I'm. It's not a monologue. I need people to interact. This is my method.

Breakout rooms. Big shout out breakout rooms, right? You get four more people in a room and nobody talks. Everybody waits. Unless you've got like assertive coaches like us. But you've gotta create openings for people. We also use Elmo that I learned from one of the other coaches. Elmo stands for enough, let's move on. Like an acro. Enough, let's move on. So if Elmo and people will be talking and I'll like just put Elmo up and they'll be like, oh, I see Elmo Maybe we should move on. And they get the conversation. They don't realize they're covering the same ground again and again. Oh yes, we bring in music as well with some of ours. Right. Throwing in, you know. Right. Huh.

Live music. Yeah, great live music.

We had Paul Ryan stuff. I'll get bounced now for putting real music into the mix. Daniel, you were about to say, and.

In the team, it's a lot of what you do on the session, but it's also what you do between sessions. Some examples example, in a daily huddle on Monday, sorry, Friday, we all came dressed up as Halloween. So we made a huge fun event in our daily car. Had a lot of fun. Last week we did a virtual escape room for the company. So we hired these people, they got us in Zoom groups of four or five and they give you all these clues and puts videos and everything. And you have to get out of these like virtual scapegoats room. A lot of fun. We had to get out of an island. We've done cooking classes with the whole company and one of our team member, we send a list of things they have to the list of ingredients. Everyone goes and buys them. And then on Thursday at 6pm we all get to assume with our families and we have a cooking class and then everyone puts the computer on the table and we all have dinner together with our families. We believe having the session, Zoom or whatever, having is fun is important, but also what you're doing in the middle or in the process that has that meeting being fun. We really believe that today everyone's working from home, everyone's remote. Having these kind of things that are not work related are important. After Covid, just after March, we were having an employee that was having some issues and one day he came to a meeting, kind of know with some drinks and we said, let's all get a drink. So we all went and got a drink and all had fun for a couple of hours together and people just let the stress go. And that was it. Instead of attacking him, we said, let's do it well. And we did well. And now he's okay. It was just, he was having a hard week.

I got one more surprising one. Get off Zoom, have a phone call, call. I find a few of our teams. Even if you're using Zoom or something else to schedule, maybe try audio only. You know, it's nice to have the video when you need it, but sometimes you just want to hear someone. And I have like over on the side here a really, really comfy chair and sitting here on camera all day with the lights on and exhausting. Sometimes it's nice to go sit down and have a different kind of conversation. So. So maybe try something like that sometimes to keep it interesting and mix it up. I think the other thing that I had a CEO call me a few months ago and say, oh, my meetings suck and I'm really struggling. Why don't you just say that to the whole team? Because I bet everybody feels exactly like you do, but they're not nearly as empowered as you are to actually change it. So if you call it out, you give them room to have their experience. And sometimes just talking about it can make it difference.

And what can we do to make it better? And Bill, to your point too, you know, you talked about, talk about the phone. That's what I tell my clients too. You don't have to always be right on the visual. And I go, and if you're within a geographic area where you can literally get together for a coffee and be socially distanced outdoors to have a cup of coffee, or there could be four or five of you and right where. And again, you could be outdoors. Like there are still opportunities where you can safely do that face to face. So, you know, just be a little bit creative.

We are definitely starting to do a few more of our meetings outdoors. We'll pick an outdoor space with some comfy chairs. We'll put some flip charts around and maybe get some shade or some heaters or that kind of thing and do it just like we're around a campground. It's really cool. It creates a cool environment to meet together in that kind of a setting where almost everyone is going to feel comfortable outdoors a little distance. Right.

My next session will be in the CEO's room. House, sorry. She will host us there. Yes. So we will have a session on strategy in her home. So it will be really nice. I believe in when someone hosts. When the CEO hosts his executive. It's such a good environment. It creates a great environment and openness.

So let's give a shout out to each of you. Where we've gone. We've had a long conversation before I do that. A final shout out to one of the online tools in our world, the Scaling Up Scoreboard. So we've got a whole online tool to keep your team on track to see how you're going on your quarterly plans and tracking against your long term, your one year initiatives and your bhag and all that. That. It's the Scaling Up Scoreboard. You'll find a link in the show notes or you can go to scaling up and find that or go to scalingcoach.com let's go around again. Let's start with Judy. Judy, how do people find you and where do they get more information about your work?

They can find me go to my email at judyido Associates that's G U I D O A S S o C or guidoassoc.com but probably the best is judy@gaidoassoc.com.

Judy Associates Associates.com right G.

U I D O A-S-S O C.com.

Short for Associates.com Daniel the Growth Institute danielthinstitute.com or come to the growth we have a lot of programs to help teams execute better and reduce the drama.

So mini lessons to very long courses.

We have we have courses from starting in half hour to get you help you do something like smaller learn something small or let's say short or a 13 week scaling program with all these companies together up to our MBD, our 18 month program.

And by the way you could do this in combination and get a coach so you can use the online learning with a coach as well. If you want a little assistance getting it through can be done remotely. Daniel can recommend them to you or you can come to us and we can put you into those courses as well. So combinations of coaching/online learning Liotte where.

Do we Very simple Liat Lazarus Search for the atlas are in the website and you will find my website with my podcast and blog and the services that I'm offering.

Yes. Thanks so much everyone for joining us this week. It's been a great show. We'll talk to everyone again. We'll see you again next week and so on. Thanks again everybody. Have a great week. Great month. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling and with scoreboard you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app you can rest easy knowing the Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software. It's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with scoreboard by aligned. To try it now go to aligntoday.com Bill G one more time. Aligntoday. Com Bill G. That's aligntoday. Com. Billg. Check it out and try it now.