$13.4 million; Take that Leap; Got His Life Back; Jan 15 – 18 CEO Boot Camp
February 15, 2018
Why Norway?; Tom Peters is Keynoting!; Billionaire McMahon; GetSmarter
March 1, 2018

Trash-talking CEO; Best Places to Work; New Rules of Marketing; Lamb Financial

"…insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

No one knows more about new ways to reach buyers. The groundbreaking strategies in this book reinvent the way entrepreneurs engage the marketplace and grow business.
  Tony Robbins on David Meerman Scott

The New Rules of Marketing & PR David Meerman Scott, author of 10 of the top sales and marketing books, is one of only two outside speakers to present at Tony Robbins' Business Mastery course – and he's coming to New Orleans to keynote our ScaleUp Summit May 22 – 23. He recently updated his classic book The New Rules of Marketing & PR (6th edition). Go right to page 1 and read the Grain Surfboard story – then read the rest – this is how you market/sell in today's world. SPro and book club members will receive a copy of his book next week.

Newsjacking and David received quite an honor this past year when his term "newsjacking" was added to the English Oxford dictionary. It's one of the more powerful marketing ideas ever conceived in garnering attention for you and your business – as are his other ideas which is why Tony Robbins has him on stage. The subtitle of David's book — How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly — describes the extent of what you'll learn in New Orleans from him – worth the price of the entire Summit.

100 Best Companies to Work For Fortune's annual list was released last week. This year's top ten (fun facts for the weekend):

  1. Salesforce
  2. Wegmans
  3. Ultimate Software
  4. The Boston Consulting Group
  5. Edward Jones
  6. Kimpton Hotels
  7. Workday
  8. Genentech
  9. Hyatt Hotels
  10. Kimley-Horn

Notes Fortune president Alan Murray:

Getting on the list is not just a matter of good pay and benefits-although that clearly helps. Kimley-Horn, for instance, provides an unheard of 2-1 match in its 401-k program; Wegmans gives generous scholarships to many of its young people. It's also about giving employees a sense of being truly valued, and a sense of purpose. Many of the employees of these companies talk about a "family" environment. Salesforce, which took the top spot for the first time this year, is known for its 1-1-1 pledge-it gives 1% of its equity, 1% of employees' time, and 1% of its products to charity.

Amazing Turnaround of T-Mobile (lessons for all of us) Fortune has an insightful article on how T-Mobile's trash talking CEO John Legere has overseen revenues double and profits soar since he took over in 2012. The key, quoting Legere:

Listen to employees, listen to customers, shut the f*@k up, and do what they tell you.

He has put customer service employees front and center in his strategy, making sure they feel cared for. Further notes the article:

"He's like an amazing person, different from everyone I've ever seen as a CEO," Donald Smith, who works in a T-Mobile store in the Bronx, says after snapping a selfie with Legere. "He seems like he actually cares."

All of this listening and caring has resulted in him forcing change on a customer-unfriendly industry. Notes Fortune:

The strategy: Get rid of typical plans and prices. Embrace customer desires and eliminate their pain points. That meant no more two-year contracts, no more roaming fees, no more incomprehensible charges at the bottom of every bill. Most significantly, T-Mobile was far ahead of AT&T and Verizon in 2016 in scrapping monthly data limits and the annoying overage charges they generated-forcing its bigger rivals to follow suit.

There is a bunch of practical leadership ideas in this article. Please take 3 minutes to read it then get on the road and spend time talking to your customers and employees!

Best Place to Work (Gazelles case study) Lamb Financial Group had a banner year in 2017! The firm announced that for the fourth year in a row they have achieved a greater than 20 percent growth, (400% faster than overall industry growth). With this growth, Lamb Financial Group unofficially has entered the Top 100 out of 1,100,000 privately-held Insurance Brokerages in the United States (top 01%)

Josh Lamberg, (CEO and founder of Lamb), said "While I am proud of our growth, I am even more proud of Lamb being named 38th place in the "Top 100 Best Places to Work in New York City" by Crain's in 2017 and a "2016 Best Place to work" in Philadelphia. In 2017, we also continued our goal to spread our mission nationwide by opening our 7th regional office in Massachusetts and hired 15 new employees during the calendar year, totaling the employee count to 85.

Lamb began the scaling process in 2012 when they began implementing the Rockefeller Habits throughout the company. This was further accelerated through their partnership with Gazelles Certified Coaches Richard Manders and Wayne Ferrari of FreeScale Coaching of Cambridge, MA. Josh selected FreeScale after interviewing several coaching firms because of their direct experience building a high growth business at the 100M scale and their rigorous and encompassing process. Lamb continues to grow and expects similar growth through 2020.

Are Your Online Customers Walking Away? (endorsement) speaking of customer service, your website is like a shop. If there are no sales people to help your online customers, they will walk away to a competitor. We've been using LiveAdmins to proactively greet our online customers and engage them in conversation for over a decade. The multilingual chat services offered by LiveAdmins are provided round the clock, ensuring needs of all visitors are taken care of. LiveAdmins has helped companies across all industries significantly increase sales and enhance visitor experience.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 9 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding you back, your business, and your industry. April 3 – 6; May 29 – June 1 (YPO-only); October 2 – 5; and January 15 – 18, 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? Click here to watch Gazelles International President Keith Cupp describes the four most important attributes of successful clients. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.

And if you're interested in becoming a world-class certified Gazelles International coach, please go to gicoaches.com/becomeacoach for more information. If you determine that we're a fit and w
ish to join our premier organization, we invite you to contact our Dir. of Coach Engagement at
[email protected] or 877.217.2253 ext.700.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities – alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.aligntoday.com – on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.