226: Steve Cochran, author of Outsizing: Strategies to Grow Your Business, Profits, and Potential

Steve Coughran, author of Outsizing: Strategies to Grow Your Business, Profits, and Potential

Steve Coughran and Bill Ringle discuss Outsizing: Strategies to Grow Your Business, Profits, and Potential for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth.

Top 3 Value Bombs from this Interview

Do not let metrics dictate the strategy – metrics are meant to measure the strategy.Building a robust, efficacious strategy isn’t easy to do:  it requires organizations to ingrain it as a habit.Talking with other people is essential to new leaders. Doing so creates buy-in because everyone likes to  feel like they have a voice and that they're going to be engaged in a strategic process.

Interview Insights

Read the Show Notes from this Episode

Q: Who's someone who influenced or inspired you?Well, there's a guy that went to church with me, and when I was a teenager, I had through a very rough period both at home, there were a lot of transitions going on, and at that time, I had a little father figure in the home. So I remember there's a guy, his name is Chad, and he took me under his arm, and he knew I had an interest in golf so one day, he took me to the driving range and he taught me how to hit a ball, and you know I was horrible, I was hitting the ground...and he sat there, he taught me, he mentored me, and the way home I remembered I had a bunch of change in my pockets, we didn't have a lot of money, but I wanted to pay for the experience. I tried to give him a fistful of coins, and he said, "no, no, no, this one's on me." And I'll always remember that experience because he didn't need to teach me that day, but it's the impression he left in my life, how he made me feel, that I'll never forget, and that stuck with me...just that experience and that other experience is that he continues to mentor me, taught me the importance of really mentoring people, and making people feel important, loved and feeling inspired. [01:00] Q: What were some of the conclusions you drew from that experience about the world or the ability to do things in it?He taught me the power of influence and the power of small and simple things. Often mean times we as individuals, as entrepreneurs and leaders, we wanna get out there, we wanna have a huge impact on the world, and we think about big global problems, but I learned from that lessons that were carried through my life is that we make an impact in small ways that leads to massive change. So right in front of our face, we encountered people struggling with different issues every day, and we can do small things daily that will lead to very big outcomes, and that was the big lesson I learned from experience in this mentorship. [3:17] Q: What led you to write that book based upon your experiences as a speaker, as a consultant, and as a CFO? What led you to say this is the book, and how'd you come up with the name as it was a great title? As I continued to develop my thoughts and these experiences came to a role in my life, I realized that there was a big disconnect between all the strategic principles required to make a business successful. There are books on strategy; there'd be books on finance which must be boring and very thick, very deep...there are books on the client experience, and books on marketing and sales, and so forth. But I realized there's no comprehensive book that I can find that tied all these principles because strategy can't be looked at in isolation. It stems from the idea that business and strategy impact individuals' lives. It's a shame that people are being let go because they lack a good strategy. So that's really the drive behind how we improve lives and business through better strategy. [4:23] Q: What are the mistakes or errors that you think are common for people who are focused on strategy and recognize the importance of it yet are fumbling some of ...