Building To Scale

Michelle Seiler Tucker is the Founder and CEO of Seiler Tucker Incorporated. She holds the MandAMI (Mergers and Acquisitions Master Intermediary) title, as well as Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Professional (CMandAP) and Certified Senior Business Analyst (CSBA).

As a 20-year veteran in the MandA industry, she is regarded as the leading authority on buying, selling, fixing, and growing businesses. She and her firm have sold over a thousand businesses in almost every vertical and have a remarkable track record of success.

As Michelle describes it, most business owners do not think about selling their business until it is too late to truly maximize their business value. Too often, they are running their business as a job, not as a sellable asset that extends beyond themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFTGvq-sQQE

Key Takeaway: Build your Business with the End in Mind – the idea of selling your business should not come to you a few months before you want to exit. It should be part of your plan from day one, and you should be building your business with that in mind.

For More Information:

Seiler Tucker: http://www.seilertucker.com/ (http://www.seilertucker.com/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seiler-tucker/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/seiler-tucker/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michele.seilertucker/ (https://www.facebook.com/michele.seilertucker/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleseiler/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleseiler/)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSeilerTucker/ (https://twitter.com/MSeilerTucker/)

Ann Brennan is the owner of ASMM Digital Marketing and host of the Small Business Connections podcast, demonstrating her passion for marketing.

Ann was the “accidental entrepreneur” who took her talents in social media and marketing and started a side hustle while searching for a “real job.”

Before long, however, the side hustle turned into a full digital marketing agency that Ann has now led for the past 5+ years.

In today’s episode, Ann shares more about her background in launching and building her company and delving into topics like the importance of building partnerships, understanding personalities and how people fit together to build teams, and the importance of processes and systems.

https://youtu.be/AnEml3_OMcQ

Key Takeaway: Process is key for growth – and coming from a creative background, process and creativity can still go hand in hand. As Ann describes, building processes allows you the flexibility to switch hats, cover roles when people are out, and ultimately delegate to new resources when you can afford to hire – all while maintaining flexibility and creativity.

Lessons Learned:

Marketing isn’t one thing. It’s everything. It’s finding the right combination of digital, traditional, and guerilla marketing. It’s about how you make them feel. In real life and online.

Make your content work for you. Creating marketing content and posting it once is not the answer to growth.

For More Information:

ASMM Digital Media @ https://asmmdigital.com/ (https://asmmdigital.com/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asmmdigital/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/asmmdigital/)

Facebook: https://facebook.com/ASMMDigital/ (https://facebook.com/ASMMDigital/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennanannie/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennanannie/)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrennanAnnie/ (https://twitter.com/BrennanAnnie/)

In this episode, Aimy Steadman of Future Proof shares the journey she and her business partners went through in building Future Proof and BeatBox Beverages. From college incubator to Shark Tank, and now on to a growing beverage brand founded on the belief that future generations will continue to demand products that authentically connect with their lifestyle, Aimy has been through quite a journey.

Outside of her day-to-day responsibilities as COO of Future Proof, Aimy is also a board member with Naturally Network, Naturally Austin, EO, Beam Founders, and several other organizations. In other words, she is a big believer in community and giving back!

In our conversation, Aimy shared many insights that will resonate with entrepreneurs today, including the value of outside mentors, building and running your business in a systematic manner, and staying true to the future you are building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4m2HqGRiZs

Key Takeaway: As Aimy states, "Be the Change" you want to see in your industry and culture. Culture can either be something you build intentionally in your business or something that develops on its own. One path allows you to control and direct that culture.

Lessons Learned:

Community is your superpower as an entrepreneur. Network and join groups to surround yourself with best-in-class thinkers in your industry. My close entrepreneur community in Austin helps me navigate through the tough times, and they are also who I celebrate my wins with.

I owe a lot of my success to learning early on that I love my business, and it's a huge part of me, but it's not my entire identity. That perspective helps me handle the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur in a healthier way.

Taking on the "woman founder" title means not only standing for your company but the vision for inclusive leadership worldwide. Women founders have the unique opportunity to change their industries to be more inclusive of women or non-binary leaders and founders from diverse backgrounds – race and physical abilities included. As a female founder, I love being able to change the game, and I’ve realized my "gentle" leadership style is actually incredibly effective. I don't have to take on a different masculine persona to get things done.

For More Information:

Future Proof: https://futureprf.com/ (https://futureprf.com/)

BeatBox Beverages: https://beatboxbeverages.com/ (https://beatboxbeverages.com/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-proof-atx/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-proof-atx/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeatboxBeverages/ (https://www.facebook.com/BeatboxBeverages/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimysteadman/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimysteadman/)

Guest Jim Traister has a passion for helping small businesses drive sales. He is CEO of The Digital Navigator, a full-service digital agency that drives sales for independent businesses in three verticals: course providers, hospitality, and small business.

In this episode, Traister shares his background as a college instructor turned entrepreneur and how starting his own business came with making mistakes but also fed his love of learning and his passion for helping others.

Listen to find out what mistakes most businesses make when it comes to metrics and how it should not cost more than $500 to get enough data to optimize an ad campaign and make predictions about returns on investment.

Traister also details how sales and lead generation are like dating and why no matter what changes technology may bring, relationships and creating goodwill are the real key to success in any business. Time adding value for others is never wasted; just be sure to systemize anything that is not value-added.

https://youtu.be/SM5puXToKWM (https://youtu.be/SM5puXToKWM)

Key Takeaway: Business starts with the heart! Regardless of how technology changes in business, building relationships is the most crucial step to success in any company. Serving your clients well also includes finding the right metrics to look at for the desired results. Measuring matters.

Lessons Learned:

Take care of your current client base.

Always remember that it is people who make the difference.

Never stop selling.

For More Information:

The Digital Navigator: https://www.thedigitalnavigator.com/ (https://www.thedigitalnavigator.com/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thedigitalnavigator/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/thedigitalnavigator/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedigitalnavigator/ (https://www.facebook.com/thedigitalnavigator/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimtraister/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimtraister/)

Recently, our own Jeff Chastain met an individual whom, together with a business partner, had what appeared from the outside to be a very successful marketing agency.

They had a good, solid client base and a good, albeit somewhat uneven, revenue flow coming in.

In other words, most of us would look at this business and say this is one that we would want.

Why was it that this individual was thinking about quitting the business?

In today's episode of the Building to Scale Podcast, Jeff Chastain breaks down the differences between having an entrepreneurial business and simply building yourself a job where you are boss, employee, and janitor all in one!

He also talks about the new book "Buyable" from fellow Pinnacle Business Guide Steve Preda and how the same concepts that go into building a growth-oriented, scalable business also apply to creating a "buyable" business.

If your business feels more like a job where you are working too many hours fighting fires, feeling somewhat out of control with your business, lacking direction, or simply just worn out, don't miss our upcoming workshop entitled:

The 4 Keys to Successfully Growing a Small Entrepreneurial Business

Learn more and register @ https://BuildingToScale.com/mastermind/workshop

Tim Szczygiel is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry.

In this episode of the Building to Scale podcast, Szczygiel talks about the dichotomy of the pandemic in his business, SalesChain, LLC. While the company enjoyed a very profitable 2020 due to the trend toward remote work, Szczygiel also believes working in person is highly beneficial for employees to learn the culture of the company and share ideas, as well as leaders to keep a pulse on the business.

Learn why there is no substitution for being in the same room with someone when it comes to business, and how using data to make decisions can make all the difference when it comes to company culture, not just in decision-making.

SalesChain is the leading sales and business management software for office equipment dealers. As Szczygiel discusses in the podcast, “There’s no more valuable a tool than a magnifying glass for your business.” Seeing problems as an outsider allows Szczygiel to help businesses achieve greater organization through actionable data and powerful automation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJThZYBAM_oandfeature=youtu.be

Key Takeaway: While remote work is here to stay, there is no substitute for the spontaneous creativity and culture that comes from working with others in person. Working in person also allows leaders to keep a pulse on the business and for employees to grow and evolve by learning from their coworkers.

Lessons Learned:

Managing data is absolutely critical to business in 2021. Every business in every industry is going virtual to some degree, and virtual-only works when information is complete, accurate, and correct.

Going 10 times bigger with an idea may take 10 times the effort, but going 100 times bigger rarely takes 100 times the effort.

Your customers are your greatest advocates. As a software provider, you might think our largest department, in terms of the sheer number of staff, would be in marketing or development, but it is actually our help desk. That front-line interface to our users determines how well our product is used and how well it is perceived. That impression sets us apart from big-box software and has helped us succeed.

For More Information:

Website: http://www.saleschain.com/ (http://www.saleschain.com/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/saleschain-llc/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/saleschain-llc/)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-szczygiel-06865828/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-szczygiel-06865828/)

If you were to walk around your office today (virtually or in-person), would you find your team working on the most important things efficiently?

In continuing our discussion about the 4 Ps - the four critical components necessary to successfully scale an entrepreneurial business ... it does not matter if you have the right people in the right seats (people), that you have a shared mission that everybody is bought into (purpose), or that you have a proven playbook that everybody is working from ... if your team cannot execute in a highly efficient and performant manner, it is all a dream.

As owners and managers of a small business, we must have transparency and clarity into what is going on within the business to know if everything is on track or not.

Then, everybody needs to understand what the most important projects are and their responsibilities within those projects to execute in a consistent, efficient, and performance manner.

In today's episode of the Building to Scale podcast, our own Jeff Chastain walks through some of the tools for building a highly performant team that is always executing consistently on the most important tasks each and every day.

For questions or more information, reach out to Jeff at https://www.admentus.com/gain-clarity/. He is happy to chat with business owners who are simply trying to take that next leap forward.

In our modern world, acquiring a knowledge base can be done in many ways, which is why Laurie Stach believes that education should be more about the entrepreneurial mindset, including skills like grit, collaboration and adaptation.

In this episode of the building to scale podcast, Stach talks about finding purpose in her work, educating the next generation of entrepreneurs, and lessons she’s learned while running her own company. As a mechanical engineer, it was natural to want a “right answer”, but after graduating from MIT, she quickly realized that in real life there is no real right answer, a lesson she works to instill in her students.

Her company, LaunchX, is an entrepreneurial summer program that taps the potential of ambitious high school students and supports them in launching an actual startup. Students of the program have gone on to generate significant revenue, do fundraising, sell their companies, launch other companies and even appear on Shark Tank.

Stach holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and has worked at MIT's entrepreneurship center building their maker space and creating their Intro to Making class. She created a top EdX course in entrepreneurship and has an entrepreneurship workbook on Amazon.

The LaunchX program was previously held at top universities such as MIT, UPenn, UMich, and Northwestern University, bringing students from around the world to start their companies each summer, while during the pandemic is being run online with continued success.

https://youtu.be/KJc1UzC9PGY

Key Takeaway: As in life, in business, there are often no clear right or wrong answers. The entrepreneurs of tomorrow need to learn to gather and measure the data to guide them while realizing that over the course of time, they will face many ups and downs. Skills like perseverance, collaboration and adaptation are imperative.

Lessons Learned:

Know when to DIY, when to use tools, and when to outsource - it comes down to a calculation of the value of your time.

Have great employee onboarding and feedback processes - ensure you understand the professional goals of your employees, and do check-ins with employees at 1 month after their start, plus quarterly thereafter (direct reports).

Know the metrics that matter and what 'enough' is - there are always a million things to get done in a company and you'll always get pulled in a million directions.

For More Information:

LaunchX Entrepreneurship Program: https://launchx.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/launchxed/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/launchx

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriestach/

If you are watching a football (American) game and the quarterback and the receiver are not in sync, what happens? The announcers often refer to it as the players not being on the same page of the playbook and at best, it results in an incomplete pass and a loss of an opportunity.

This is no different in business. Too often we hear that small entrepreneurial businesses can't find good talent. In most cases, though it is not a matter of "good talent" but simply the fact that the employee and manager are simply not on the same page of the playbook.

Creating a playbook for how you go about all of the tasks involved in delivering your product or service to the customer consistently and repeatable is absolutely key to building value in and scaling your business.

In today's episode of the Building to Scale podcast, our own Jeff Chastain walks through the idea of building an entrepreneurial playbook for your business.

Why do you need a playbook for a small entrepreneurial business?

What do strategy and a playbook have to do with each other?

How do you even go about getting started building a playbook?

Check out today's episode to find the answers to these questions and more.

For questions or more information, reach out to Jeff at https://www.admentus.com/gain-clarity/ (https://www.admentus.com/gain-clarity/). He is happy to chat with business owners who are simply trying to take that next leap forward.

In this episode of the Building to Scale podcast, Mark Ainley delves into important lessons he’s learned in his entrepreneurial journey in the real estate sector, particularly as it pertains to hiring the right people.

Getting started in his business, he and his partners tended to hire too late, and often used a “gut feeling" or personality as a barometer to find a good fit. Ainley talks about the pitfalls of this practice, and the ways he has adapted and the methods he now uses to find the “right people for the right seats”.

Mark Ainley is an investor, managing broker, and property manager with nearly two decades of experience in real estate. The co-founder of GC Realty and Development, a full-service real estate brokerage, property management, and real estate investment firm in the Chicago Market, Ainley consults with both local and out-of-state investors on the acquisition, stabilization, and management of their rental property portfolio.

Ainley loves to give feedback to beginners, out-of-state investors, or less experienced entrepreneurs on what steps to avoid in growing a business. His extensive experience allows him to share his knowledge on many topics like property management, scaling a business, rehabbing and flipping, out-of-state investing, asset stabilization, market analysis, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHNuoFsRuuAandfeature=youtu.be

Key Takeaway: Getting the right people into the right seats in business can be the difference between success and failure. It’s important to realize that there’s a person who can help with anything you don’t know. Often, it’s much cheaper, faster, and more efficient to invest in hiring a person who already has a skill rather than trying to learn it yourself.

Lessons Learned:

Hire Sooner - Instead of trying to learn everything yourself, hire people who are experts in their field and let them help you.

Hire Smarter - Find the right people to fill the right seats in your business using a predictive index rather than a gut feeling

Process, Process, Process - Record processes for everything so that you can hand over projects and empower employees with the knowledge needed to complete them.

For More Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gc-realty-and-development-inc./ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/gc-realty-and-development-inc./)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gcrealtyinvestLinkedIn (https://twitter.com/gcrealtyinvest)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ainley-216a007/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ainley-216a007/)

Facebook: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ainley-216a007/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ainley-216a007/)