Verne Harnish - Scaling Forward
We’ve got a fun conversation today as we’re chatting with another legend, Verne Harnish who has written some iconic books in our space, such as Scaling Up and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. We saw Verne speak at Traffic & Conversions about four years ago and knew we had to get him on the show, and here we are! Listen in as we talk about many of the core concepts from Scaling Up and how they relate to today’s environment.
If you want to scale up in these times right now or even if you want to scale down to become more profitable, Verne gives up the four steps to do that. He also gives us some very actionable, tactical advice on how to connect with influencers and big brands and how to actually get past the gatekeepers to the people that are higher up. He also has a similar concept to our Dream 100 concept which is basically how we got him to be on our show, so it came full circle. If the thought of becoming more efficient so you can get more time back is appealing, check out our shows where we chatted with David Jenyns and Russ Perry for more insight on systemizing your business.
“At the end of the day, scaling anything is about making better decisions. And so it's the sum total of the decisions you make good and bad every hour, every day, every year that determine whether you've got the edge.” - Verne Harnish
Some Topics We Discussed Include:
- The sweet spot that you want to get to for the number of employees in your business
- The Four Core Elements of scaling up
- The sweatshops of the information age
- What you never, ever, ever want to do when a potential client emails you a question
- “Near learning” and the spin of a new venture
- How Verne got invited to the White House after putting the president’s name on a list
- Why everyone is pricing wrong and how to fix that
- The nuances of a good business name
- Examples of pivoting towards a new group in the same industry during the crisis
- From mailing books to breaking bread with the most influential people on your list
- And much, much more!
Resources From Verne Harnish:
References and Links Mentioned:
- Influence and Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini
- Beat The Crisis by Hermann Simon
- Harvard Business Review - Good, Better, Best Pricing article
- 4 E’s of marketing by Ogilvy
- Are you ready to be EPIC with us?! Then grab our EGP Letter here!
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- Our Dream 100 list
- Business Systems That Create Time, Reduce Errors And Scale Profits - David Jenyns
- How Design Pickle Built And Scaled A DFY Design Agency - Russ Perry