Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher

Are you working at a job, or are you working at building a business that will be worth enough to sell someday?   Michael E. Gerber is the author of the NY Times mega-bestseller for two consecutive decades, The E-Myth Revisited, and nine other worldwide best-selling E-Myth books. For over 40 years, Michael has been impacting the lives of small business owners as one of the world's most renowned sma...

Does dignity in the workplace really matter? Plenty of companies seem to get by without upholding dignity, but with over 40 years of experience and $60 million in annual sales, today’s return podcast guest knows there is a better way.   Ari Weinzweig is the co-founder of Zingermans Delicatessen. Ari, alongside his co-founder, Paul Saginaw, started Zingerman’s in 1982 as a restaurant and specialty...

Whether you are leading only a handful of people or a team of thousands, challenges are an inevitable part of leadership. Today’s guest offers leadership advice from his time serving with the best of the best.   Admiral Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat and served as an instructor...

There is power in meaning, especially in your marketing, and it may be the ticket to achieving the growth that you are seeking.   Pete Steege is the CEO of B2B Clarity. With over 30 years of marketing experience with a wide range of B2B technology and manufacturing businesses, Pete helps companies manage and scale their businesses by using meaning in their marketing to scale their businesses. In t...

A great tool for reinforcing your strategy over time and embedding it in your company’s culture is the manifesto. An effective manifesto can be read daily, or at least weekly, shared with your team like a manifestation, and provides the opportunity to reflect on its relevance today. When reflected on often, a manifesto encourages people to apply its truths to their day-to-day actions and goals.  ...

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by unsuccessful attempts to grow your business, you may be too focused on the systems. Growth happens when the focus shifts to addressing the systems, not the symptoms, of your company.   Today’s guest is Dave Newell, CEO of Evolve Leadership Consulting. Dave works with small business leaders to implement the Five Facets of Business — a small business operating system...

Sometimes the littlest things are the hardest things. Many people really struggle with their one-phrase strategy. The one-phrase strategy distills everything your business offers down to your competitive, profitable advantage over everyone else.   The way you do business, your customer advantage, or the way you deliver goods or services all could become your one-phrase strategy. It’s generally ope...

Profit per X is a strategic KPI that indicates the potential of the unit of measure that is most constrained in your business.   As an independent coach, Bill’s most constrained thing is the number of days that he can work or profit per day. A laundry delivery service may deal with profit per truck or profit per stop. When you identify and optimize the number of profit per your X, it may be per cu...

Your X-factor is the thing that gives you an advantage in your marketplace. It is your secret sauce to being better and standing out from your competition. It’s the key to growing faster than anyone else.   It’s not easy to figure out your X-factor, and when you do, you have to keep it a secret that you can use for as long as you can because it doesn’t last forever. A truly great X-factor will exp...

Every company wants to grow faster, but what is the point of scaling up if you can’t retain the employees and customers you’ve already got? You have to deliver exceptional customer experience so that the growth you’re working on actually matters.   Ali Cudby is the Founder and CEO of Alignmint Growth Strategies, which delivers consulting and training so you and your team know what to do to prevent...

There are plenty of ways to grow your business, but until you’ve worked out your strategy, it can be really hard to scale. One strategy makes funding growth much easier — franchising.   Joining the show today is Lance Graulich. Known as the “King of Franchising,” Lance is the CEO of ION Franchising, an industry-leading franchise consulting and development group that represents over 800 franchise b...

If you asked people to pick three or four words to describe you and your business, what would they say? Would your customers and partners recognize your clear identity, or would they stumble?   The words that you want to own in the future are the words that you invest in over time, starting now. Bill wants to be known as The Scaling Coach, and he has focused years and hours of effort on making tha...

What is your guarantee? When you put your money where your mouth is, you lock in your brand promise. A guarantee can also serve as a catalytic mechanism that keeps your team focused on the right things and rewards the right behavior.   Whether it’s a money-back guarantee or rewards for improvement, your strong guarantee serves as a bounty for the promise you have made. Make it big and make it stro...

What are your differentiating activities? Differentiating activities are the operation-side things that you do differently than anyone else. They also help you achieve your brand promises over time. How are you able to deliver different results and, ultimately, a superior value to your customers?   Start by identifying your brand promises, then look at the unique ways that you are operating. What...

Brand promises are what your customers can expect from you. It’s what sets you apart from the competition. You want to have three key brand promises that make your offerings clear.   Your first brand promise should be your basic, core offering. The second brand promise should be a differentiator and highlight what makes you better than the other options. And for Bill, the third brand promise is al...

How can you get out of your business so that it can actually grow and thrive? Chances are, you’ve had days when you wished you could fire yourself. In reality, when it’s time to exit, you need to be the first person out the door.   Jeff Russell is a best-selling author, renowned speaker, and accomplished entrepreneur. As the founder of many successful businesses and author of his latest book, Fire...

Empathy is a leadership skill and an essential cultural practice that matters more today than ever before.    Rob Volpe is an astute observer of life and a master storyteller who brings empathy and compassion to the human experience. As CEO of Ignite 360, he leads a team of insights, strategy, and creative professionals serving the world’s leading brands across a range of industries. He is the aut...

Do you know who your core customer is? The core customer is the buyer that you want to focus on. Your core customer loves working with you, would heartily recommend you, and willingly pays your full price. Your core customer is the top 20% of your clientele.   Consider the essential qualities of your core customer and take time to learn more about what makes them who they are. The more qualitative...

In this week’s episode, Scaling Up has lined up eight fan-favorite episodes from 2023. In case you’ve missed any of these classics, we have compiled a quick recap of each of the episodes and the guests below. Thank you for listening to the Scaling Up show!   How can you get the most for your company and maximize the value of your company? The value of your business comes from how well the business...

Great leaders inspire other people. There are a number of ways to inspire, but if all of your excitement and passion about your business only lives in your head, it’s not really doing much good at all. You want to light other people up about what your business can do and where it is heading.   Inspiring conversations start with sharing your purpose, your BHAG, your vivid vision, and the solutions...

Everyone likes to say they come from a place of abundance, but who really means it? And what happens when people are vulnerable enough to ask for their needs?   Today Bill is joined by Curt Bear, founder of LoCo Think Tank, a small-business peer advisory group founded in 2014 in Northern Colorado to help business owners be more confident leaders and grow their businesses faster through perspective...

How many of your strategy problems could be solved if only you knew what your customers have to say about your business?   Mark Allen Roberts is the CEO and Founder at OTB Solutions, a Certified Scaling Up Coach, and a data-driven sales growth expert with over 37 years of experience in helping manufacturing CEOs and business leaders strategically drive explosive growth in revenue, profits, and sha...

Alex Sanfilippo is an entrepreneur, SaaS Founder, and Podcast Host. He is the CEO of PodPros, a software company specifically focused on independent podcast hosts and their guests to elevate their voices through podcasting and be heard.   In his 15 years in the aerospace industry, Alex worked his way from taking out the trash up to the C-Suite. When he was told to stop the above-and-beyond initiat...

Once you’ve established the purpose of your work and identified your BHAG, you need to create a vivid vision of your near future. Where do you want to be in 3‒5 years? What do your company, your team, your customers, and your product look like?   Set aside some time when you can be uninterrupted, calm down, and look at the vision of your future. What does the business you are working so hard to bu...

In honor of Veteran’s Day, Bill has gathered an elite group of military veterans, including Jason Simas, Dustin Zroka, and Betsy Feaster, for a conversation about hiring veterans and why they make excellent team members and business owners.   From Air Force investigation to Exxon executive, Betsy Feaster now works as the CEO of Dog Training Elite. Her military experience trained her in problem-sol...