Simple Scales, Complex Fails

Scaling your business for personal, community, and client impact

• Do you believe in and see the benefits of your business for your current customers?

• Do you see many other customers who could benefit from the same?

• Do your team members, associates, and loved-ones deserve the opportunity to help grow this business to new heights or see the fruits of your labor?

• Do you have the desire and energy to scale to the next level?

These are the questions many small and medium sized enterprises/businesses (SME/SMB) go through as they pass the checkpoints of viability, growth, sustainability, evolution, etc., through the lifetime of their business. And at some point they typically see an avenue to continue forward and scale to new heights, but there is a hesitation for many - do I have what it takes, do others want what I am offering, will my team be able to pull this off, do I have the financial wherewithal, will it be too much work, will it risk my current piece of the pie? The doubts continue forward…

I was fortunate to discover Simple Scaling, a firm that specializes in helping companies with their scaling journey. Their methodology and mindset has helped build so much clarity for me in my personal career growth journey with understanding what it is important and helping articulate what I am passionate about, my value and unique ability, helping establish clarity for my own leadership, business, and professional goals.

Brendan McGurgan and Claire Colvin have dedicated their business and profession to helping teach the ScaleX framework, which was codified in their book, Simple Scaling: 10 Proven Principles to 10x Your Business. This product, service, and concept is an organized symphony of business mastery. Delivering the fundamentals and best practices in one clean format, all included in their book. This written library of scaling business expertise and motivation is a must read for any business owner or leader looking to elevate their operation. When I enjoyed this book, it was astounding how much of my career learnings were outlined across disciplines including operations, talent, sales, and business. This book guided the creation of their business, Simple Scaling.

Recently, I attended the ScaleX Summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK), where the power of people, purpose, and innovation converged for a global networking and learning opportunity with valuable insights and actionable business and life-changing mindset and framework tools.

Below are a few key takeaways from the ScaleX Summit:

Jack Daly 
- Vision
- Sales system with a playbook
- Leverage
- Value of practice
- Always be recruiting
- Prioritize what grows sales (HPAs = High Payoff Activities)

Steven Bartlett The Diary Of A CEO 
- Everyone needs purpose within an organization
- Incremental improvements over time
- Importance of psychology with why people buy
- Fail fast, testing/experimentation is key with online presence
- “Who, not how”, to get things done
- “You must make pressure your privilege”
- Happiness is based off of your expectations

Marga Hoek 
- Learn how doing business for good, is good for business
- Business can be profitable, provide value, and be good for society
- 5 generations in the workforce, with $3T of wealth transfer over the next ~20 years

Dr. Oleg Konovalov 
- Process and systems create valuable space for thinking, working, taking on priorities
- People over process, process is there to help people
- Vision is about energy
- “Without vision, strategy is a bridge to nowhere”
- “You grow people, they will grow your business”

Nick Bradley
- Touched on how to prepare a business to sell and to understand Private Equity
- Small things can have a big impact
- Success through helping others
- Value in the business lies beyond tangible assets | Intangible assets drive financial value (People/Process and Systems/Revenue/Culture)

Kingsley Aikins The Networking Institute
- Early in your career | what you do
- Later in career | what you know/who you are
- Giving, not getting (ATM analogy)
- Life is a game of inches and marginal gains | being a little better, gets you so much more
- Being known isn’t the priority, it’s who knows you (value vs vanity)
- Be the CEO of your own career

Claire Colvin
- Fly analogy with trying to exit the room
- Trying harder isn’t always better | need to do it differently
- Talent is major opportunity for SME/SMBs
- Simple Scales, Complex Fails
- Systems thinking - Starbucks example
- Activity trap takes us away from our goals
- Build a Positive Growth Culture

Damian Hughes 
Simplicity is key —> bottom line up front communication and messaging
- Think of the best brands | simple analogies are what allowed them to sell
- Silence is feedback
- Simple | Thinking | Emotional | Practical | Story Telling
- Contain than explain

A few simple, but important, concepts come to mind when I think back to the conference and this book:

1. Do things for a reason, with intentional purpose fueling your action, supporting your vision

2. Don’t let your doubts hold you back - think big, act big, achieve your dreams - if you have your what and why, you can determine the how

3. Process and systems drive your vision, let them

4. Simple > Complex | Consistent Activity + Simple Frameworks + Intentional Meaningful Relationships + Leverage = Goal Attainment + Unlimited Trajectory, at a compounded rate. No limits other than in your own mind.

My hope for that founder, entrepreneur, business owner, senior lead, or even the “wanna-be” founder - GO AFTER IT. Start now. Yes, tomorrow is always there, but will tomorrow last a lifetime? The world needs to see you scale, benefit from not only your product or service, but your energy and goodwill. If you start or scale your operation, someone else will have a little more encouragement to scale their own, and it exponentially grows. Want to foster community and economic development, build something. Start now. It won’t be easier tomorrow, you’ll just be one day behind or late to the party.

If you lead a SMB/SME, be bold and shift your trajectory to transform, elevate, and build your business of the future. For your enterprise to live beyond you and benefit your loved ones, customers, and communities served.

Steven Barlett said it well, “How you spend your time proves your priorities. Does your calendar reflect them?”

Choose scale to drive empowered and prosperous growth, beyond your firm’s state of survival or status quo. Brendan McGurgan closed the conference with a great line from Naval Ravikant - Inspiration is perishable - act on it immediately.”

Scale > survival

Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading.

Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI

Who is Simple Scaling?

We are scaling experts with over 50 years of combined experience in helping SMEs scale with purpose. We have used our knowledge to develop ScaleX™, the most holistic and comprehensive framework for scaling globally.

CONTENT RESOURCES

COO Alliance

acquisition.com 

ScaleX Summit 2023

ScaleXInsider Podcast

Simple Scaling

Simple Scaling: 10 Proven Principles to 10x Your Business