A summary of things you should know about Scaling Up according to Verne Harnish:

Introduction

In this episode Verne Harnish takes a deep dive into his book, Scaling Up where he shares practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business.

In his book, Harnish focuses on 4 major decision areas that every company must get right and provides you with a series of one-page tools such as the One-Page Strategic Plan and Rockefeller Habits Checklist. The goal of the book is to help you create a company where the team is engaged, the customers are doing your marketing, and everyone is making money.

This book is perfect for entrepreneurs and other business leaders who are looking for a strategic reference guide to help navigate the difficulties that come with scaling a business.

The Book’s Unique Quality (3:36)

This book is really practical and we get right to the point.

The Best Way To Engage (4:17)

It’s divided into four different sections so you can jump into whatever section fits you best. In the very beginning we wrote a summary that can be read in 20 minutes so that the reader can get an idea of what section they want to go to first.

The Reader’s Takeaway (13:44)

No one has ever achieved peak performance without a coach.

A Deep Dive Into The Book (4:57)

We start with a chapter called The Barriers and there are three barriers that we have discovered that are common after working with 40 thousand plus companies over 32 years. Very simply it’s the development of the next levels of leadership, if you don’t get some people helping you than you will be stuck as that home base business. We have a hard enough time as entrepreneurs getting our functions running well but the reality is most of our real work cuts across those functions. There are a handful of processes that drive a company and most entrepreneurs don’t focus on it. They don’t focus on how to scale up their processes and infrastructure to handle more customers, more employees, and more people. The third barrier is of all the functions the one that tends to be the bottleneck is the marketing function and it needs to be separate from sales. A lot of our companies are stuck because they just can’t hire enough of the right people to take care of business.

Given those three barriers we then add these four decisions that you absolutely have to get right. The four decisions are people, strategy, execution, and cash. And we created a set of one page tools to help you with that. We have a 40 question assessment that entrepreneurs can take to figure out where to start. And then we end the whole thing with next steps and the five very concrete things a CEO and their leadership team must do next if they are going to get the organization unstuck.

Notable Quotes From The Book (15:16)

When you’re faced with any opportunity or challenge “your first question should always be a who question.” – Jim Collins

The Credibility/Inspiration Of The Author (1:07)

I founded a group called The Entrepreneurs Organization which is worldwide today, about 11,000 members. I started an executive program that we hosted at MIT and I ran it for 15 years and am still teaching it. From there I launched a company called Gazelles in 97. I am enjoying life with my wife and four children in Barcelona, Spain.

It was after 12 years of having my book, Mastering The Rockefeller Habits, out there. With about 40,000 companies using our one page strategic plan, we learned a few tricks so this was a chance to bring it all together in a book.

Other Books Recommended By The Author (16:34)

Magic Of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

Great by Choice by Jim Collins

How to Win at the Sport of Business by Mark Cuban

More Information About This Book and The Author

Buy Scaling Up by Verne Harnish on Amazon today

Visit ScalingUp.com to learn more about the book and the free resources that Verne mentioned

Follow Verne Harnish on Twitter and Facebook

More Information About This Episode

Download the full transcript here (coming soon)

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud

Related books:
Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail
Aligning Sales and Strategy by Frank Cespedes
How To Ruin A Business Without Really Trying by MJ Gottlieb

Relevant advice and tips:
5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Peter Thiel

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What do you think about Verne Harnish’s book, Scaling Up? Share your review in the comments below:

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Wade Danielson

Wade is a 4-time serial entrepreneur and is the Founder/Host of The Entrepreneurs Library. With a long time passion for reading books, Wade created an online resource and podcast for entrepreneurs who love to read personal and business development books. His long-term goal in life is to start an entrepreneurial home schooling program for children of business-minded families.