Resources

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It all starts with the mind. The success or failure of your scaling journey starts with the thoughts you think. What you believe you can achieve sets the limit on what you will achieve. To become a successful scaler, you will need to work on your mindset. Don't underestimate the inner work. And don't underestimate the magnitude of the challenge you face. Successful scaling is incredibly challenging. 

But the rewards are immense.

Download your copy of the first chapter of the book to understand how you can achieve scale by developing the right mindset for growth.

A strong purpose is present and critical to every scaling story and successfully scaling businesses have moved their purpose from the periphery of their strategy to its core. Here, with committed leadership and financial investment, they use it to generate sustained profitable growth, stay relevant in their rapidly changing world and deepen ties with their stakeholders. Answer the questions within this guide to define your compelling purpose, enabling your team, your customers, partners, suppliers and all stakeholders to engage in meaningful work and operate on a whole new level.

We are all programmed to think in a certain way, to dissect our outside circumstances and try to make sense of why we are and why we do what we do.  It’s a constant struggle and one that can block us from achieving our goals and dreams.  What we tell ourselves unconsciously often becomes our reality.  This is called our paradigm – our conditioned way of thinking, feeling and acting and it has control over a staggering 97% of our habitual behaviour.  Use this tool to help you to spot some of those thoughts, feelings and habits that might limit your performance.  Identifying ways that you can stop them and swap them for positive behaviours that will improve your performance and serve you well on your scaling journey.       

Processes and systems are often the missing piece to scale a business to the next level.  But despite many knowing how important they are most business leaders don’t see them as urgent and so, as a consequence, they never get around to doing anything about it.  As a result, they hit a ceiling.  They become trapped in the day-to-day operation and the growth of the business stalls.  Use this tool to help you to identify which area of your business causes you the most pain and start to hone in to understand what might be the cause.  Building well defined processes and systems is the difference between survival and scaling up your business.  

When ambitious leaders begin to dream about accomplishing exponential growth, the first thing that derails their thinking is when they start to consider ‘how’ they are going to achieve it.  They consider what is involved; the investment it requires, the endless list of challenges to overcome, the impact on their already packed schedules and very quickly there are many, many reasons why not to proceed.  We are naturally programmed to try to find our own way through this complex maze.  Stop.  This is a trap.  Don’t limit yours based on what you can achieve on your own.  Use this tool to help you to identify ‘who’ those strategic partners are and set about connecting with them.  The most successful scaling businesses focus on finding the right partners who can help them to go beyond what they can accomplish alone.  

If you asked your team today what your company’s focus for the current year, could they tell you?  Would you get a handful of different answers?  Uniting your team behind a clear vision and keeping their priorities aligned as you scale requires you to continuously strip out unnecessary distraction and complexity, often embedded within lengthy, arduous plans.  Distilling it all down to one page that highlights what is truly important in your business will enable you to create the clarity that your team craves.  Use this tool to get everyone in your company on the same page by literally getting everything on ONE page.  

Allowing yourself to dream big about your future is the first step towards accelerating your scaling goals.  Visualizing 10X growth as opposed to a 10% increase is sure to light a fire in your heart and in those around you, more so than focusing solely on the delivery of incremental targets.  Creating a future vision gives you the opportunity to define where you are going and to excite and energise others to join you and be part of what you are building.  This includes potential talent, customers, suppliers and investors.  This tool will help you to define where you are going and will enable you to start thinking about what you want to achieve in the next three years.           

The key to keeping momentum growing on your scaling journey is to break your long-term vision down into mini projects with accountable owners.  Afterall, it’s how you eat an elephant … one bite at a time.  This applies to the growth of the various sectors and regions in which you operate.  By chunking these out into bite-sized parts, you will start to realise how achievable it really is.  Use this template to break down your vision and plot your targeted growth.  Each row represents a target sector.  Each column represents a region where you will operate.  By identifying the total number of boxes in which you will operate, working out the potential, assigning targets and accountability within each, your ambition will start to feel within reach.     

Building a strong pipeline of leaders is a priority within every scaling business and implementing a system that periodically identifies the team’s development needs and takes action to address them is essential.  Overtime, this will enable the top team to step away from the day to day running of the company and allow them to seize opportunities that will further grow it.  Using this tool, begin by identifying the critical roles that you will require to achieve your vision over the next 3 years.  Then, think about who within your business has the potential to fulfil these roles.  Once you have identified the gaps, you can be sure you are investing in the right capability to scale up.           

Significantly expanding your customer base requires you to develop a clear articulation of your company’s competitive strength in the eyes of your customers.  This in-depth understanding will help you to make the right decisions and to identify the right growth path in a way that enables scaling without leading you into a complexity trap. It is more than simply making the customer the focus of your attention. It is the ability to recognise and promote your true value, using their feedback, to accelerate growth whilst continuously evolving your proposition to sustain it.  Use this tool to help you to define your value proposition and clearly articulate it to accelerate your growth.              

For many people mornings are often chaotic; we hit the snooze button too often, we get out of bed too late and then the real rush begins to get everyone up and out of the house on time.  Like it or not, our morning routine forms the foundation that our whole day is built on and creating some time before everyone around us wakens can bring us a heightened sense of calm, focus and clarity to our whole day.  Trade 90 minutes at the end of your day for 90 minutes at the beginning and follow our ‘Win the Morning’ routine, guaranteed to give you the right energy and vivacity to carry out your day with purpose and accomplishment.        

Scaling businesses grow very, very quickly.  Not only do they present multiple opportunities for people to join your company but it also presents wonderful opportunities for your team to take on new roles and grow their careers as they execute the plan.  Use these opportunities wisely.  Failing to ascertain if people have the right competencies to be successful in a new role frequently causes a plethora of issues.  Plan ahead.  This tool ensures that you are asking the right questions before placing people into roles and environments that will allow them to thrive, giving you the confidence that they will skilfully navigate the course and clear the jumps with ease.