How One Medical Spa Chain Saved $300K Per Month
October 4, 2018
Complexifying; Obsession vs. Passion; China’s March Backward; Feb 5 – 10 Panama
October 19, 2018

Meeting Rhythm Examples; Best DNA Test; Biggest Sales Mistake; Blitzscaling’s 5 Lessons

"…insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (ScaleUp Summit next week, so keeping this short)

Salespeople know that differentiation is a best-practice, but have been left to their own devices to figure out how to do it — until now. Sales Differentiation presents strategies that salespeople can quickly put into practice.
  Verne Harnish endorsement of Sales Differentiation

Conference Technologies' Meeting Rhythm John Laughlin, leading one of the faster growing firms in the US through an aggressive acquisition strategy, has driven execution through his daily and weekly meeting rhythm, including the all-important "council" meeting. This six-minute interview, with me, provides details including the time of his daily (8:02am), how it's structured, how it's freed up the rest of his week to do "market-facing" activities, and the broader impact of the weekly council meeting. If you're not doing the daily and hosting a weekly "council" meeting you're leaving a lot of time and money on the table.

Blitzscaling "CBS This Morning" Interview this 4-minute CBS interview with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman provides an excellent overview of his new book titled Blitzscaling which was released earlier this week. At 2:45 in the interview Reid outlines four counterintuitive aspects of scaling rapidly:

  1. Embrace chaos
  2. Tolerate "bad" management
  3. Let fires burn
  4. Ignore customers
  5. Evolve your culture

He goes on to explain each and how they must exist if you want to dominate a global market quickly. It isn't for everyone, but there are aspects you can embrace however fast you're scaling. We're looking forward to learning more at next week's ScaleUp Summit.

Sales Differentiation subtitled "19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want," this book was released a few weeks ago by Lee Salz. I endorsed it (quote above) because it provides several practical tips and tools your sales team can use immediately to positively impact performance. One immediate technique? Eliminate the use of the term "best" i.e. we have the best executive training. Right from page 1 Lee gets to the point and provides alternatives for your sales people to use to improve close ratios.

Best DNA Testing for Health and our doctors at the Riordan Clinic have identified this as the most insightful and health specific DNA test (I first wrote "best" then remembered Lee's sales lesson) for giving insights into ways to improve your health. We just ordered a kit for our son Quinn – we'll let you know what we find out.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 – 18; March 12 – 15; April 23 – 26 , 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.aligntoday.com – on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club — What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants” and WEO’s “Advanced Business” executive program both held at MIT. Founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company with over 150 coaching partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scale-up. The “Growth Guy” syndicated columnist, he’s also the Venture columnist for FORTUNE magazine. He’s the author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0); Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; and along with the editors of Fortune, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times," for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword. Verne also chairs FORTUNE Magazine’s annual Leadership and Growth Summits and serves on several boards including chairman of The Riordan Clinic and the newly launched Geoversity. He is an investor in many scale-ups. A father of four, he enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.