Building and maintaining teams in an operational setting is a critical pillar for many entrepreneurs, but if you make a mistake in this arena, it can cause harm. Today’s guest shares how you avoid these mistakes and execute with precision. Robert “Bo” Brabo is a retired U.S. Army Chief of HR Operations with the White House Communications Agency and was the Presidential Communications Officer for both Presidents Bush and Obama. Bo has served in several executive positions including most recently Vice President of Human Resources at the National Spine & Pain Centers and Founder of Hail Media Group. When it comes to the power of execution and those who do it well and don’t do it well, it comes down to the empowerment of your team. Before you get to the “execution” phase, there is a ton of training and testing that goes behind the day of the event. This process can’t be skipped. When you have the complicated task of making sure the President is safe, there are too many variables for one person to handle. This is where trusting the training process and empowering your team come into play. If you tried to micromanage everything, things would not be ready by the time the President came into town. These critical tasks also mean that you don’t get a “do-over” when something isn’t working. How do you get things to just run seamlessly? You check in with your team frequently and make sure they know they can call upon you when there’s an unexpected problem at hand that needs to get resolved quickly. It’s about trusting and verifying the process.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com Robertbrabo.com Bo on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

254: Bo Brabo — Execute with Precision

Scaling Up Business is all about how a few companies make it...and why the rest don’t. Our podcast shows are drawn from the lessons of our coaching clients, coaching partners, and the leading authors that contribute to our Conferences and the Scaling Up best selling book by Verne Harnish, and the Team at Gazelles.  

We’ll share practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business. These approaches have been honed over three decades of advising tens of thousands of CEOs and executives and helping them navigate the increasing complexities that come with scaling up a venture. 

We want to turn what can feel like an anchor, into the wind at your back — helping you create a business where the team is engaged; the customers are doing your marketing; and everyone is making money. 

Each episode of the Scaling Up Business show focuses on one of the four major decision areas every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. We'll share the tools and methods that have been used by more than 40,000 firms around the globe to scale their companies successfully -- many to $1 billion and beyond.

Running a business is ultimately about freedom. The Scaling Up Business show tells leaders how to get their organizations moving in sync, to create something significant, and still enjoy the ride.

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Our focus is on transforming the hiring process to make it more manageable and predictable for businesses looking to grow and scale. Bill shares innovative strategies and practical tips for improving hiring practices, emphasizing the importance of creating a large candidate pool and moving candidates through the process efficiently. He advocates for treating the job posting like a product launch, complete with marketing efforts to attract a wide array of candidates simultaneously, rather than waiting for them to trickle in. This approach allows for a more dynamic selection process and ensures that companies don't miss out on potential hires by waiting too long for more applicants. Bill also discusses the need to sell the company first by highlighting its unique qualities, values, and vision, making the job opportunity stand out to prospective candidates. He suggests using screening techniques like phone interviews or meet-and-greets to quickly assess a large number of applicants. Furthermore, Bill touches on the importance of deep-diving into candidates' backgrounds through methods like top grading and the threat of reference check techniques to weed out dishonest applicants. Additionally, he recommends asking candidates to translate job requirements or company values in their own words to ensure understanding and alignment. Lastly, Bill advises on discussing salary expectations early in the process to ensure candidates' expectations align with the company's budget, thereby streamlining the hiring process and saving time for both parties.

Hiring Process Redesigned

How can you, as an entrepreneur, take your first steps toward buying and selling businesses?  Do you agree, like my guest, that most businesses should never be owned longer than six years?  In this episode, Bill Gallagher talks with Josh Tolley, an expert in flipping businesses. Josh is the chairman of a business brokerage company that buys, builds, operates, and sells companies in finance, spirits, birthing centers, professional sports, and other industries.  Key topics that Bill and Josh explore in this episode:  
 - Josh shares insights from his recent book, Acquisition of Wealth, on creating life-changing prosperity. 
 - The importance of perseverance and learning from failures in acquiring business success. 
 - Saving vs. investing for wealth, with a focus on business ownership.  
 - Why saving your way to wealth can become like chasing a moving target. 
 - The power of buying businesses for profit over real estate. 
 - Buying vs starting a business.  
 - The distinction between small business owners and entrepreneurs.  
 - Why buying an existing business is often more efficient than starting one from scratch. 
 - Flipping businesses, using  Warren Buffett as an example.  
 - Warren Buffett invests in companies, keeps profits for himself. 
 - Acquiring a 20-year-old business with a skilled employee as CEO can yield higher returns than starting a new venture. 
 - Flipping businesses every 5-7 years is more profitable than holding onto one. 
 - Equity gained from flipping a business can be used to buy a more valuable business. 
 - Josh advises against listening to “Instagram experts” who recommend buying, say, a laundromat or car wash.  
 - Common mistakes business owners make when selling their companies.  
 - Business owners often lack a clear exit strategy, leading to problems when it's time to sell. 
 - Entrepreneurs must set up their businesses to run without them.  
 - Entrepreneurs struggle with identity issues when their businesses fail or they sell them. 
 Thanks to Josh Tolley for being on the show!  
 Learn more about Josh: https://www.joshtolley.com  
 Get Josh’s book: Acquisitional Wealth: The Fastest, Most Proven Way to Create Life-Changing Prosperity: https://amzn.to/3UbD560  
 Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.  
 Join Bill in the Growth Navigator Coaching Program: https://ScalingCoach.com/workshop  
 Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/BillGall/ 
 Bill on YouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/@BillGallagherScalingCoach  
 Visit https://ScalingUp.com to learn more about Verne Harnish, our team of Scaling Up Coaches, and the Scaling Up Performance Platform, which includes coaching, learning, software, and summit. We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions...

Changing Your Future With Acquisitional Wealth with Josh Tolley

In this episode, Bill contrasts the job scorecard's effectiveness with traditional job descriptions, which he finds overly bureaucratic and filled with generic language. The job scorecard, with its clarity and simplicity, provides a structured framework for outlining the responsibilities, expected outcomes, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for a role, making it an invaluable asset in evaluating candidates and managing employee performance over time. Bill outlines the key components of a job scorecard, including the job title, reporting lines, a succinct headline describing the role's main function, specific outcomes the role is accountable for, and a set of KPIs to measure these outcomes. He emphasizes the importance of setting clear performance standards (green, yellow, red levels) for each KPI, facilitating objective performance evaluations and discussions. By employing the job scorecard in regular one-on-one coaching sessions, managers can effectively guide employees towards improved performance, ensuring regular feedback and action plans are in place. This approach promotes continuous performance enhancement and avoids the pitfalls of traditional, less frequent performance reviews.

Job Scorecards for Hiring and Performance Coaching

How can business leaders let go of control at the same time as they empower team members to take ownership of their work? In this episode, Bill Gallagher and Hortense Le Gentil discuss trust, empathy, and the importance of leaders recognizing and challenging their limiting beliefs.  An executive leadership coach and an author, Hortense Le Gentil is on a mission to empower leaders to embody authenticity, inspire meaningful change, and make a profound difference in the lives of people around them and the organizations they lead. 
 Key topics Bill and Hortense explore in this episode:  
 - Hortense’s journey from France to business coaching and book writing. 
 - Why empathy and trust are key to effective leadership.  
 - Hortense recounts a personal experience of feeling unfulfilled in her professional life and seeking a change, despite having a seemingly perfect life on the outside. 
 - Hortense’s journey as an entrepreneur, from learning to be herself to helping others. 
 - Self-discovery through neuroscience and psychology. 
 - Unlocking potential in CEOs and executives. 
 - Why the traditional heroic leadership model is no longer effective in today's workplace. 
 - The importance of teamwork and collaboration in overcoming challenges. 
 - Leaders can’t be like Superman and have all the answers. 
 - The importance of leaders being remembered for empathy, support, and human connection. 
 - How each person has a unique talent that they are meant to share with the world. 
 Thanks to Hortense Le Gentil for being on the show!  
 Visit her website: https://www.hortenselegentil.com/  Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hortenselegentil/  
 Get her book: The Unlocked Leader: Dare to Free Your Own Voice, Lead with Empathy, and Shine Your Light in the World: https://amzn.to/49NgSkA  
 Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.  
 Join Bill in the Growth Navigator Coaching Program: https://ScalingCoach.com/workshop  Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/BillGall/ Bill on YouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/@BillGallagherScalingCoach  
 Visit https://ScalingUp.com/ to learn more about Verne Harnish, our team of Scaling Up Coaches, and the Scaling Up Performance Platform, which includes coaching, learning, software, and summit. We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around people, strategy, execution, and cash so that they can scale up successfully and beat the odds of business growth.    Did you enjoy today’s episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts. 
 Subscribe via Spotify: <a href="https://spoti.fi/3PGhWPJ" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

Becoming An Effective Human Leader with Hortense Le Gentil

In this episode, Bill emphasizes the significant impact of crafting a company manifesto as a foundational tool for embedding cultural elements deeply and swiftly into the organizational fabric. This manifesto should articulate the company's purpose, its emotional core, the vision for the future, the values guiding its operations, promises made to customers, and a long-term transformational goal, commonly referred to as a "big, hairy, audacious goal" (BHAG). By doing so, a manifesto provides a comprehensive overview of why the company exists, its direction, how it plans to get there, the intended experience for its beneficiaries, and a specific target to achieve. Bill outlines a practical approach to creating such a manifesto, starting with defining the company's purpose and detailing its aspirations, operational values, customer commitments, and a visionary BHAG. He suggests integrating this manifesto into daily business operations through various means such as printing, office displays, recitation in meetings, and ongoing dialogue about its relevance and challenges. This integration process transforms the manifesto from a static document into a living, breathing aspect of the company's culture. By fostering regular conversations around the manifesto, businesses can ensure it remains a central, dynamic element of their identity, significantly easing the challenges associated with scaling and growth.

254: Bo Brabo — Execute with Precision

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