Systems That Support Rapid Scaling — Katelynn Minott and Herb Cogliano

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. Hey everybody. We're sharing a growth story today about a company that's more than doubled in, you know, just about a year and a half. So a great story about a unique company in the world of scaling up. We've got a CEO and a coach on with us today to share that story. Foreign My name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of our Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes to you at least once a week with something new in the world of scaling up. We go live with the video and then we drop the audio later after production. But We've got over 450 episodes now on everything, all kinds of stories, lessons and everything to do with people, strategy, cash, execution and leadership. What it takes to draw your company through that whole process and survive the journey, even enjoy it sometimes. All that and more@scalingcoach.com youm can of course also get the episodes wherever you're hearing watching this right now just like and subscribe wherever you are right now. Super useful for, you know, getting the updates every week and then, you know, if it's a show for you, listen, watch. If it's not, wait for next week. We've got something every week. All right. All right. I'm joined now by Caitlin and Herb. Caitlin Manot and Herb Cogliano. Herb's the coach, Caitlin's the client. They're gonna share with you their story about how they've grown this company and using a lot of our tools from the world of scaling up. So welcome to the show, guys.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Bill. Excited to be here.

All right, everybody. So Caitlin's company is Bright Tax. They do tax work for US Citizens living abroad. So you live abroad, overseas, outside the US you have unique tax filing requirements and lots of people don't know how to do that and they do and they make it easy, and that's the work that they do. And so that's bright tax. And where are you, Caitlin? Are you in Boston area?

I am. I'm in Boston. I spent about 10 years living abroad, South America. I was in Chile for about nine years, and then Brazil during 2020, but back full circle to Massachusetts, which is home for me.

That's nice. Do you live in Santiago or somewhere else when you were in Chile?

We lived about two hours to the west of Santiago in a little beach town called Vinha del Mar.

Really? A beach town. I feel bad for you, like, having to do that. And were you also on the be in Brazil?

We were close to the beach in Brazil, yep. I think right in Rio de Janeiro.

Oh, yeah. There some. Some of you may have heard of that.

Exactly.

Maybe the most popular elevator song of all time, the Girl from Ipanema. Famous for real. And did you speak follow Portuguese?

I learned Portuguese kind of by trial by fire. And so Spanish speaker, I will say I am fluent after nine years. It was one of the. The hardest subjects that I had in school growing up. But I kind of got forced into to learning Spanish, and now I'm fluent. So.

All right, so. And then Herb, you're also in the Boston area. So, guys, Herb is. His company is Aspire Gross Advisors. He's a coach, former CEO, and he's been coaching in the world of scaling up. And he's just a well of enthusiasm and kindness around helping his companies grow. So, Herb, glad to have you join us again. He's been on the show before, been on our panel and that kind of thing. So happy to feature one of your clients.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Bill.

So, Caitlyn, let's talk about. So you lived overseas, you came back. Were you always in tax or accounting or something like that? What had you get into this and start this business?

Yeah, so I graduated school, got my CPA license during university. I had actually studied abroad in Chile in South America, and that is where I caught the travel bug. And for many who have traveled abroad, you know, it's hard to come back to kind of normal life in the States, if you will. It really sticks with you. And I actually met my husband when we studied abroad and graduated school, got my CPA license and kind of went into the normal traditional accounting track with a big four firm until I decided, you know, I think it's time for me to take a leap of faith. And I ended up getting married, moved to South America, and 10 years ago, the remote workforce wasn't quite as common as it is here and now. So using my CPA license in South America was an intimidating prospect, an intimidating challenge for me. On the other side of the Andes mountains, our founder, the founder of Bright Tax, Greg dewald, was searching for the next opportunity for him. And he had just moved to Argentina, had a similar story where many years ago he had studied abroad himself and found himself looking for a business idea. And we happened across each other on the Internet. So one of those platforms, I think it was called odesk, similar to upwork, which is pretty common today. We ran into each other. He had put up a website offering us tax prep services, but didn't have a CPA to serve the client that came knocking on the door on day two of business. So we happen to pass across each other on the Internet. And I was the first CPA at Britax. And the journey that started 12 years ago is where we are today, having grown to a company of 43 team members. And it's been a wonderful adventure along the way.

Hey, Bill.

Yeah.

I would just add, because this is a wonderful story. Greg was over in Argentina for about 10 years. He was trying to figure out to get tax prep for an expat. It was very challenging. There's about 9 million expats right now across the world. And what he learned was with Caitlin is that so many of their stories are the same either about adventure, about freedom, about a love interest. So what was really beautiful is we were doing their core purpose over the last year. What they really identified was your story as an expat is their story of all the Bright Tax employees about helping others find love, freedom and adventure abroad. So that was just a wonderful way how the founder's story really formed into an incredible purpose. We had their annual meeting yesterday and we're looking at a screen of all these amazing people all across the globe that were sharing their story about love, freedom and adventure and now helping thousands of others. And our BHAG is to help 250,000 expats with kind ease and expertise over the next 10 years. That's amazing work.

Yeah. You know, a couple of things I hear in that to reinforce from like our scaling up work in general. The first one is about a unique business. So, you know, if like a very unique business, this is tax, but tax for a particular group that's underserved and that kind of thing. So that's the idea of riches in the niches. Let's figure out something not to be competing with everyone else. And the most common kinds of Things, So. And then if you don't have that, as we have sometimes, maybe there's a unique way of doing business. Right. I had, we had a. A guy on with a pizza franchise chain last couple days in our big masterclass with Vern and, and this guy in the back channel, he's messaging me and he's thinking about how to make like it's a very mainstream national franchise. I'm not going to name it because I don't have his permission, but. And he's got a significant group of these stores and lots and lots of employees. And he's like, how do I make my common kind of company more unique, more compelling and deal with, then address one of my key issues, which is that's a high staffing turnover kind of a business. So I think that's interesting. Like, let's pick and focus on a unique business or uniqueness in the business and double down on that. Or if we can't do that, let's do business in a unique way and create some differentiation there. And then the other thing that I hear in that is the purpose, focus. Like, let's do something we actually care about. Right. Not just a random thing. Right. If you've traveled or lived in other places, probably you have a deep love for that. It's not a normal thing. There are people in this country who haven't left their home state, who haven't flown a lot. And, you know, although today with the YouTubes and social media, everybody feels like they should buy a van and travel the world. Van and a backpack. And I'm on the road, baby, untethered. So I think, like, having something you actually care about or an aspect of the business, which is one of the things that we often search for in the beginning. They're like, I don't know why. Like, I don't know. I'm just in this business. Yeah, but what about it do you love? Why did you pick this one? What is it that plays to your strengths? You know, I think that's really interesting stuff to get started with there. Right. So pretty foundational kind of work. So one more question. Really practical, I think, for the listeners, viewers who maybe haven't worked with a coach before or scaling up coach. What made you decide to find a scaling up coach? How did that process go? How did you go through that? You know, being kind. I know we can't say the bad things about her. Why you chose him. Anyway.

Thanks, Bill.

Appreciate it. So we have to rouse you a little bit to show some love. So, you know, what made you even think to start doing that? How did you come across that? Share a little bit about that. Yeah.

So we were at a point in our growth where things were cruising along pretty well, but we really felt that there was a big opportunity for more. Right. As Herb mentioned, there are 9 million Americans around the globe and a very, very large percentage of those Americans are not filing US Tax returns. So there's this huge market of people that are just unaware that they, that they need our services in the first place. Right. Again, we're cruising along businesses, you know, healthy, but, but we're looking for more. We're looking for, for the way to, to continue to grow. And our founder Greg, who we've talked about already did happen upon the Scaling up book. We attended a one day workshop, our leadership team, to kind of learn a little bit more about it. And as soon as we attended that workshop, we knew that this is the key to the future. But then there comes execution. Who's that person? To stand by your side and encourage you along, to make sure you're using the roadmap and to keep pressing towards that growth. So that's where we came into our relationship with Herb, which has been a phenomenal resource and perspective in everything that we do. Every decision that we make at the leadership level.

Yeah, I think it's really useful. So at some point you have this notion like we should grow. And some people have, like, they start right away like we want to be number one in the world or whatever, and they go looking for something and other people, it's a more general kind of thing. Like I think we should grow, I think we need to grow. And then you go looking for some kind of set of growth tools or framework or some book or something like that. And then maybe you try and do it on your own for a little while, then you think this might go easier with a coach or that kind of thing. There's a process to that. Yeah.

I was just going to add. So a lot of clients, especially during COVID were coming to Scaling up because quite frankly, they were stalled or their business model was getting blown up, they were losing revenue. What was really unique about Greg and Caitlin is that their model was really like gas was being put on the fire. And what I really respected about their leadership is that they didn't want to grow haphazardly. They wanted a framework so that the next level of complexity they could navigate with less drama, more profitability, better employee engagement. And I really respected that because not, not all the leaders that are going through Hyper growth are always thinking that way, and yet they wanted a framework and a system that they could do it the right way the first time. And they were smart enough to know what they didn't know, and they wanted a guide to help them navigate that. And I so respect both of them, their work ethic, their culture, and the way they want their people to be treated in their company. But they did have a unique moment, and they really took advantage of it in a great way.

Yeah, I think, like, seizing those moments, leaning into those moments, realizing it's time for something, is a powerful thing. I know that in general, I've had coaches and trainers and mentors in every area of my life all the time. I feel like I always have a bunch. It's funny, as a coach, it's the area that I've had the least amount of specific, direct coaching, which is kind of interesting to me. I have had a couple coaches during the last nine years as a coaching me as a coach, but a lot of my coaching in the past was that. But, you know, I've had a running coach, a swimming coach, a financial coach, speaking coach, you know, like lots of different coaches in different realms, and I'm always kind of looking for who's going to be that coach, who's going to help me with the next thing, and I'm very glad to pay them, whether it's just to improve my running form so my knees don't hurt as bad or, you know, whatever it is like that, like getting that specific kind of coaching, I think makes a difference in any. In any domain. Right?

Yeah. It wasn't. It wasn't long after we started working with Herb that I decided it was time for a personal coach and a leadership coach and all the tools. It's really the best way to set yourself up for success.

The one thing, though, that I would say. Well, two things to say about it. One is. And the reason that I asked, it's so that. Because I think it's a service to listeners and the viewers. I really don't. I know some of the coaches do in our world, but for the most part, I really don't sell. I rely on the referral and the finding of the thing for, like, 99%. There's very few that I suggest anything to. To work with a few clients that we do. We do sell our workshops and we market, you know, the events and things like that, but for the most part, we don't sell the other things. And I think it's a unique thing. Like, I. You can't necessarily sell. And this might apply to some of your businesses as well. For the our listener viewers, sometimes you can't, like, you know, hey, CEO, get a coach. You know, I don't know if that's always effective for the kind of work that we do. Some people do it and they build a dialogue, but I notice some people just show up and they're ready to go and it's clear, and then we're really looking for is there a fit. Right. How many different coaches did you talk to, Caitlin? More than one.

Or Herb was number two.

Number two.

One coach before Herbert worked with one other coach before Herb, and we clicked right away in that conversation. It's just one of those things. You kind of know when you have that conversation whether it is the right fit or not.

That's a good thing to season as well. That I try to emphasize for people is figure out the. Like the. If there's a click. Right. Like if there's a love connection there, to use another language. Right. Can I listen to this person? Are they going to drive me crazy? You could find value in somebody who really makes you uncomfortable and challenges you, but it's kind of hard work if you find somebody who you kind of like, kind of connect and they push you a little bit. That I feel like is show you should have as a coach. And it's funny because I actually had a company I talked to not far from your area some time ago about coaching. Coaching, and they were viewers or listeners of the show, and they're like, oh, we love the show. We listen every week and I listen to you on my run. And the other guy was like, oh, yeah, I listen to the car all the time. We talk about the show. But hey, you're definitely not our coach. I like it. I totally respect that you think about how much time that saved me. So they knew that they were looking for a particular style or tone. And while they might like our show and what I have to say for something else, it wasn't the coach thing for them. I think it's awesome, right? Like a great.

Yeah.

All right, so let's talk about the business. Before you did a variety of things, one of the first things that you did was focus on the a player of the team. Talk to us about what the team was like, what you saw, how you leveled that up. Share a little bit of your a player journey with us, if you would.

Yeah. So. Well, when we were initially introduced to the process of top grading, it was kind of a point at which we were struggling to find talent. Much of our hiring is accountants. And accountants are kind of traditional A type people who like the traditional track and a traditional firm. And we are very much not that. So we were at a point in our, in our cycle, if you will, from a hiring perspective where we were kind of just begging for people to come in the door. And as a result of that, we were not hiring A players. Right. We were just kind of getting any talent we could, we could, can take. And as a result of top grading, which we started to implement through the coaching of Herb and the scaling up infrastructure, we realized that by making a really solid hire, we were replacing in many cases, 2 or 3 non A players within the organization. And so we talk about the fact that our firm has really doubled if you talk about headcount since we started working with Herb. But in terms of operational volume, we're growing much faster than that. So the team that we have with us today, a group of A players, we're always working to increase that metric. Right? The percentage of A players that are with us and on the team are producing much more than our previous non A player team was. But beyond that, I would say our team is so much happier and so much more collaborative. The culture has really, really gotten clear even as we grow as a result of making those hiring decisions as with a focus on our core values. And of course the A player has those core values and embodies those core values.

Caitlin, if I could just add to that Bill, because I think this is such a beautiful moment for them. They were growing very, very well in client focus, client experience, just leaning into that. But what I found with the leadership, when they were uncovering their core values and then they started to interview and hire towards it, they actually took a pivot and they started to go from just purely client centric to employee centric first. And that mindset to really focus on the employee experience, get the right people in the door, onboard them correctly, use the values to really clarify reinforcements and really lean on that has been a better employee experience and ultimately a better client experience with it. And it was just so beautiful how they picked up on that as part of their top grading scaling up journey. So, Caitlin, for you and Greg, kudos, it's been wonderful.

You know, let me underscore a couple things for our audience. First of all, a player, an A player in our world is not like the best resume. Somebody who went to the top school and worked in a very big company and that kind of thing is not necessarily your A player in our world. An A player really fits your values and your company culture, first and foremost. And secondly is a fit for the particular job that you have at your budget level. Right. So the A player and I remember once having a team that I was like, wow, this is a fantastic team of A players. But if you looked at their resumes, you know, you might also call them a bunch of oddballs. And, but they were like, you know, well, think about the A team, the old TV show right from the 70s, 80s, they were all oddballs, but together they were like fantastic, you know, at least in TV reality. So the first thing is that, that I heard. The other thing I think is really cool, that I'd love to reinforce is that highly paid people produce a lower overall labor cost. So really well paid people do far more productive work. I mean, assuming you're not overpaying crappy people, just paying people more doesn't get them to do more. But the kind of people that command a higher pay rate, these top performers, these A players that we have to pay more to attract and retain, are often produce way more. And we can look at many examples of, from Goldman Sachs to Costco to the Container Store and on of companies that, that employ this principle and get lower labor cost, higher margin per employee dollar and employee headcount than do their competitors.

Yeah. And I think one of another, another point to highlight is, is the value in hiring outside of the industry. As I mentioned before, people with kind of the traditional background in your industry come to the firm, in many cases with experience that really motivates the way that they work. And as a firm that's trying to do something different and do something different than the traditional track, it's often easier to train the technical skills than it is to train the core values.

Yeah. So now you've started to add these people, you've started to upgrade the team. I also know that you have done some work around staying in touch with employees, taking the pulse, regularly making employee feedback. You heard, you were just talking about employee centric. Talk to us about what you did there, what you tried, what you've developed, what you're doing now.

Yeah, I would say the first major change that we implemented when we started scaling up was the daily huddle. And let me tell you, as a firm that has been operating in the cloud for the last eight years, ultra flexible. Right. Everybody comes to work when they want to come to work and they get the job done. But when you tell people, a group of people that have been working that way for the last eight years, that we're now going to have a daily meeting. They just freak out. Nobody is excited about that. Nobody is like, what do you mean?

You're.

You're making me come to work for this face to face meeting every morning as a team that's been flexible and online for the last 10 years.

Wait, your huddle is in person now? Mostly, or your huddle is zoom?

It's in face to face. In zoom? Yeah. It's never in person, but it's always face to face. Camera on.

In zoom. Yeah, camera on.

And everybody was like, well, I've been working in my pajamas and now you want me to change into normal clothes for our huddle. But gosh, the daily huddle has been the most impactful.

What do I wear? My ugg slippers. That's how you know I'm working at home. The ugg slippers.

So it was resistance at first. It was a challenge. People quit. People didn't want to hear about it. They didn't want to show up every day. And that was a quick bit of information for us to realize that the people that are showing up, that are participating, that are interested in the face to face collaboration and getting to know who their team was, those are the people we want with our firm. And everything in terms of culture, relationships has just been extremely positive since implementing that. It's actually one of the things that people love most about our firm now. So despite all of that, because you're connected. So our teams are.

Are you all in a similar time zone or what kind of time zones do you span?

We span all the way from Seattle to Singapore. So we are across the globe. Our daily huddle is not a firm, wide daily huddle because we are not asking people to get online at 2am but they're team based. So we, we have teams in Europe, we have teams in North America and people are aligned.

So the regional team is huddling in their time zone. Okay, good. And how long does it last? And it's on Zoom.

15 minutes or less. Usually less. Hopefully less. It's on zoom. You know, talk about your KPIs, what's up for today? These are some things that I'm stuck with. And that's it. With some storytelling and, you know, how is your weekend weaved in between. But they're a nice way to connect, to get aligned and to keep the business moving in an efficient way.

Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, please just.

Caitlin had an amazing hands on annual meeting with everybody from across the globe yesterday. And we kicked off with you guys had another amazing year. And you know that pivotal Vern question, how did you do it? And you wouldn't believe.

Tell the story.

Our values are aligned. The huddles communicate, collaborate. We're in alignment. We now know account. It's very clear. We're all connected to this one central thing about love, freedom and adventure, supporting our clients story. It was beautiful. But they knew how they did it, which was the most incredible part of that conversation.

You know, it's funny, I think that's a really interesting question, and I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. So, I don't know, a year and a half or two years ago or something, Vern was here at our house just before we were leading one of the boot camps. So we have these CEO COO boot camps that we do a couple times a year. So Vern's staying with us for a day or two before the thing, and our family's coming and going. We're talking about family things and his kids and our kids, and. And he shares this thing with me about, like, don't tell them, good job. Ask them, how'd you do it? So that they can tell the story and bring it to life. And I thought, yeah, whatever, that's clever. I didn't fully appreciate it, but I. But because. Because he's been a valuable mentor to me, I am like, well, I'm going to try it even, you know, and so I think that's useful for our clients as well. Sometimes you hear us say things and you're like, that's crazy. Not for me, or whatever, you should maybe try it. Because we didn't just make it up. Like, it's common tested and that kind of thing. So I did, and I think it was a nephew. It was either nephew or daughter that shared something with me. And I said, oh, that's interesting. How'd you do that? And instead of saying, hey, good job, I knew you could do it. Way to go. I'm proud of you. I just brought the curiosity to it. And then I saw them light up and tell the whole story, and I was like, oh, oh, that actually works. God, why was I thinking that that wasn't going to work? This is brilliant. And that's a great thing. When you're walking around, when you're visiting offices, clients, like, whatever, bring curiosity to it instead of what you think you're supposed to say is, I think, pretty valuable. So are you also doing some kind of regular pulse survey of the employees?

We are doing an annual engagement survey.

Okay.

And I would say we aim for a weekly Pulse survey, as long as we're feeling creative enough to get a new question out there. A highlight from those poll surveys, though.

What kinds of things do you ask?

Yeah, one of our core values is exercise balance. It's extremely important to us, and it's the reason a lot of people come to our firm is they're looking for that balance. They're coming from, you know, the 80 hour a week accounting job or whatever their situation might be previous to joining us. They come to us to kind of seek something a little bit more meaningful in their personal lives. And one of our Pulse surveys was just a very straightforward measurement of that. Do you feel that you are able to exercise balance in your life as a result of your work with Britax? And scale of 1 to 5, 100% of our team agreed or strongly agreed that they are able to exercise balance in their work with us. And that just, that's one of those things that gives me chills because it really, really means that what you've created is allowing people to live the best versions of themselves. And in talking about our purpose, that's giving them the freedom to be a whole person, to have their fulfillment in their professional lives and also that space to be present in their personal lives as well.

You know, at the very nature of your business. Right. Living abroad, traveling and then having remote staff is kind of implied, that whole thing of that work life balance. As we were opening the show, I talked about how I was about to move to Portugal until I found out I was about to become a grandfather. And. And then I'm like, well, I should stay closer to home in the same time zone, at least for a few years. But we'd been really thinking about that. And frequently when I talk to people, they're envious of the kind of career, the kind of work and company that we have today, because it affords a lot. I mean, I work really hard, I work a lot of hours, I work really hard. But there's so much like agency and flexibility in it that it's very envious for people. You know, so sometimes I'm here and during the peak of the pandemic, right, I'm here, I'm not only coaching here, I'm leading our workshops here. I'm, you know, doing everything remotely in this little home studio that we built. But this is the, this is one of the real opportunities, not just for companies and people like us, but for all of us. Now, one of the things that we learned in being able to work remotely is that and to lose that now, to say, everybody get back in the office, I think is a profound mistake. To find the hybrid blend, for sure, there's value. Like, I really love seeing people and I love our face to face quarterly planning and annual strategy sessions, that kind of thing. Really love that. But there's also value in these kinds of connections as well, right? And companies that find their unique mix of it. I think there's a real opportunity there in satisfaction, in engagement, in quality of life, attracting and retaining people. I know that the reason that we get a lot of applicants to work with us for our handful of jobs has been because of that blend of things. I see Wanda smiling in the background, right? Like being able to work from home and work a unique schedule and then travel to an interesting place. That's a thing that I think we should all be thinking about. How do we build in more of that kind of thing while maintaining productivity? Right. My son just moved from Boston to Seattle. His company is based in San Francisco, but they work all over the place, all very distributed. Sometimes you've got to be in person, right? You've got a retailer, a restaurant, or a traveler tourism. Like, there's reasons to be in person and to connect, but there's something there to figure out, to hang on to. Still doing some things. Last couple days, Vernon and I been leading this masterclass in scaling up for people, right. We did it on Zoom before. We did one in Dallas, we did one in Denver. So it's a blend of those kinds of things. I think that is really good. Can we use it? But then the flip side of it, right, to also underscore and you may be. Might have something, is people overusing Zoom. I have people who are like, well, let's get on a Zoom. Yeah, we don't need that right now. Let's just get on the phone. I could just talk to you. We could hear. I don't need. Like, there's a certain amount of performance anxiety and self consciousness and it adds something to right out. Like I can see your face and if your little corners of mouth turn up, I can see, oh, I'm connecting and communicating. But that also adds some pressure to something that is different. Right. And unlike a regular meeting where I can kind of look out the window, it's pretty weird if I do much looking away in this environment.

Yeah, it can be exhausting to be on Zoom all day. But I think there's again another balance there between what can be an email versus a phone call and how can we maybe stack all of our meetings into one day so that you get it all done with and. And get down to work for the rest of the week.

Be smart about it. So let's talk about. Before we run out of time here, let's talk about strategy. What's the strategy and how are you building a culture infused with strategy? What does that look like? Especially what does culture look like in a distributed workforce? How do you bring this to life? How do you make this real?

Yeah. So, I mean, using the scaling up tools, strategy has really looked like getting very clear about what's the main thing each quarter, what is the one thing we're doing each quarter that is going to really move the mark and lead us towards those goals. I remember when we worked with Herb to set our bhag of serving 250,000 clients around the globe. I think we started with a number like 20,000 clients. And Herb looked at us and he was like, that's it. What do you mean 20,000 clients? And encouraged us to jack that number up.

You guys, job coach.

And you know, when, when that happened, we, it really opened our eyes to what strategy can create. If, if you're intentional about. About executing.

Just to give context, how many clients roughly were you serving at at the time that you declared this goal of $250,000?

Let's put it at around 2,500.

Okay. So this is even less. Less than 2,500 clients. And we're like, we're going for 250. Yeah, yeah. People who, who create goals that are 10 and 100x of where they are now, who say we want to be number one in the world, who say we want to be billion, think about everything differently. And it's really different than I want to be a little bit bigger. I'd like to double the company. Right. Doubling is really hard work, unless you're playing a 10x game. And then it just comes along pretty quickly.

Yeah. The question is no longer can we, it's how will we?

How will we? Yeah, yeah. It's transformational, not incremental. It's Exponential carb. Something to say.

Yeah, I was just going to add just in terms of strategy too, because her team has been so thoughtful every year we thought about this transactional. We're going to ask them to renew again and renew again. And it took a lot of work and a lot of effort. And we sat down with the team and we said, well, why isn't this a recurring annual membership like a lifetime partnership? You don't need your taxes, just done one Year. So why don't we create this long tail relationship and just do it in a way that minimizes execution effort, makes it easy for them to stay opted in versus the occasional person who could opt out. And then we looked at the good, better, best pricing, standardizing packages. There was a bunch of different things. And Caitlin and Greg and Ali got really clear about their strategy and really building that flywheel on how we could get from a couple of thousand to 250,000 in 10 years. So, Caitlin, anything further you want to add on that? Because you did a great job.

No, I think that that pretty well sums it up. Making it fun, making it a game. Getting our team involved in a way that is fun to them also has really made an impact. I heard in our annual engagement survey, someone say it feels like this is my firm too. And that just really highlights how feel involved with the mission.

Okay, so in your huddles, in your other meetings, in your interactions with teams, what does that look like? Like, where do we see fun happening? How are we making that engaging? What does that look like in reality? What are, what do you do?

Wow. I mean, to start, we hire people who, who are, you know, looking for a fun environment, who have that personality to engage and to be open with their teams. We just laugh a lot. I don't know.

So you're light hearted in your tone?

Yeah, we're lighthearted in our tone. We're very even. So, you know, I'm the CEO, but who cares, right? I'm having a conversation with one of our frontline team members, just like I'm having a conversation with our founder. There's, you know, there's, there's no lines in that sense of, of power, if you will.

Are there any specific traditions or activities or agenda or things that you methods that you do?

In terms of one fun thing that we are starting to do every year, which is an opportunity for us to get together in person is what we're calling Leg week. And Leg Week was kind of a joke that started from the fact that on Zoom, you only see people from the shoulder up.

I like that. Leg Week.

And we transformed it into the acronym for Leadership Gathering Week. And it's the opportunity for us to get together for a week, you know, have some drinks by the beach in the pool and talk strategy. Really get to know each other on a meaningful level. When you don't see people face to face every day, it makes it that much more powerful when you do meet in person. So that's kind of a fun way to.

How Often are you doing in person?

We're doing that once a year. Well, formally once a year. But actually, our team members, and this just is amazing to me, have taken, you know, personal initiative to get together and have firm get togethers without any sort of arrangement. Coordination by Bright Tax. Our team members say, hey, let's coordinate a weekend in Spain. And all of our European team members take a weekend out of their time and go to Spain for the weekend. So it's fun to see how the team. Just awful. Everyone's having fun. It's just who we are.

One of the places I lived as a kid was Barcelona. So I. I like Spain a lot.

I'm gonna have to get my passport updated.

Yes, sir. Actually, I'm up to. I'm up to 68 countries visited now. I've worked in dozens of them over the years. And so I'm always interested. Right. If somebody calls me and. And has a new country, I'm like, you know, oh, there might be a discount for you. Come work with us in Mauritius. Yes. I have not been there. It's not on my list yet. Right. To get to and add more. I just saw some pictures from somebody I know in Mallorca and I'm like, oh, yeah, I've done never been to Mallorca. I really would like to go there.

You know, Bill, that's one other thing about the Scaling Up Community. When I began, like, you can feel very isolated, very alone in the leadership role and you're figuring out like, how do I navigate this? But when I came into Scaling Up, I learned there was like 80,000 other companies, leadership teams around the world that were going through the same stuff. The community and the network has been so valuable to find out and get this shared support. That's one of the things I love. Everybody's so gracious, so giving. They share information, insights. And that's one thing we talked to Caitlin about in her team is how are we tapping the Scaling Up Network for different contacts and different support. And I don't think it's shared enough that it's that big and you can get that much more from it.

Well, right. We are a pretty collaborative group. You know, things will come up, I won't know about it. So I'll post a message out to the other coaches. Hey, does anybody have any thoughts about this and other people? And then we'll chime in on, oh, yeah, I've done that with this or that or I had that in one of my past companies as CEO. So we'll get into some of that. Well, I think it's really good. Let me say a couple more things to wrap up. Before I do that, let me give a couple shout outs, tell people, remind people again if you want to get in touch with us to find out anything more about get our tools, whatever@scalingcoach.com a good email to suggest a guest or if we can help you or answer a question or refer something as infocalingcoach.com info scalingcoach.com it's there on the crawl as well. Well, here's how we have fun. Every now and then Elmo makes an appearance and in our case Elmo is enough. Let's move on. We use him for his acronym and bring some light hearted stuff. It's time for us to move on. Give shout out to Wanda Mitchell, our show producer working in the background and the folks at Podfly Productions who get our show out every week and to Vern Harnish, my friend and mentor, a creator of the Rockefeller Habits and the Scaling Up Framework for for connecting us. So please let us know if we can connect you and then we'll give a shout out to them. We'll put your link up in just a second. But let me just say a couple things that we talked about a lot in this show. So hiring a player, so leveling up your team, being unique, unique business, unique way of doing business is kind of core to the strategy. Taking it up a whole bunch right 10x100x makes everything easier. Playing that game not tomorrow but you know, like long term. How do we get there then leveling up the team a players who are a fit for your culture, you might have to pay them a little bit more but they're going to reduce your overall labor cost and then connecting them through things like huddles, through questions, through the way that you interact, bringing your values to life in the nature of your interactions and keeping that alive all over time. I love hearing all these stories and you adding the richness and reality to it. Let's put up a couple things there. So Caitlin's company is BrittTax.com maybe you're listening overseas. I know we have a lot of people around the world who listen and watch the show. And if you're from the US and you need your tax done, you should go check out Britax.com as you pointed out, there are probably a few people who aren't actually filing your taxes and creating some messes for themselves. Especially lately where the US Tax is looking a little bit more at people who might be avoiding that kind of thing. So get it filed so they don't come looking for you and make your life miserable and do the right thing. And then if you want to get in touch with Herb, Herb is herb@growthadvisors.com so if you want to find her because he's your guy or you're in the Boston area or that kind of thing, you're looking for that. Herb Cogliano, Caitlin Minot, Bright Tax and Aspire Growth Advisors thank you guys so much for keep coming on the show with us and goodbye to everyone and for now we'll talk to you. We'll see you again next time. Keep scaling up in the meantime. Bye bye. 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 up. 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 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 Align. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.