Playing to Win - Herb Cogliano - Leadership in Action- Episode #007

There are millions of companies in the United States but less than 1% of them ever grow past 10 million in revenue per year. This week’s guest Herb Cogliano, an International Business Growth Advisor and Certified Scaling Up Coach, shares his expertise on how business owners can prepare to scale up, hire the right people, and better prepare for their future!

Myth Smash: 

• “A lot of people think it's hard to start a company, but I think what's even harder is to scale up your existing company”

Takeaways:

• Only ½  of 1% of our companies (28 million in the United States) ever scale to 10 million or more in revenue in a single year. Only 4% of companies ever make it over 1 million or more in top line revenue.
• The three barriers that most leaders have to encounter are having enough leadership, scalable infrastructure, and market dynamics.
• Most people think scaling up is about growing your company, but what it really is about growing leaders that grow your company.
• Are you playing to win or are you playing not to lose? A lot of companies get comfortable and they don’t play to win anymore. They play to keep what they have and that's when companies get in trouble.
• There are two major decisions that owners need to make before their final year. One is the timeline for exits and the other is your succession plan.
• If you can teach your team how to make better decisions regarding people, strategy, execution, and cash, you have a greater chance of navigating that next level
• Prioritize and organize areas of your business that need work in order to keep track of issues.
• As you scale in size and revenue, you will also need to scale up in employees. This can make maintaining a company culture more difficult as you may not know everyone’s names or family members. 
• COVID has affected the workforce by creating more virtual jobs. This creates a need to focus on the strategy side of culture, values and purpose.
• By accepting to have a coach, you’re accepting that you are open to learning more and that you’re open to learning differently.
• Be open and be curious!

Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hcogliano/
• Website: www.aspiregrowthadvisors.com
• 4 Decisions to Scale Your Organization: https://hubs.ly/H0YFmm50
• Scaling Up: The Barriers :https://hubs.ly/H0YFmFf0
• Email: herb@aspiregrowthadvisors.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hcogliano

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-in-action/id1585042233
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2t4Ksk4TwmZ6MSfAHXGkJI
• Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/leadership-in-action
• Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc2hpcGluYWN0aW9uLmxpdmUvZmVlZC54bWw
• Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4263fd02-8c9b-495e-bd31-2e5aef21ff6b/leadership-in-action
• YouTube - https://youtu.be/-2pffa-exTI