Pod Insights Growth Think Tank How to Address the Biggest Mistake When Scaling Your Company with Gene Hammett About this episode In this episode, I dive into the biggest Mistake When Scaling that I see leaders make—and how you can avoid it. If you're growing fast, it’s easy to focus only on sales or systems, but ignoring the human side is often the critical Mistake When Scaling. I’ll walk you through the leadership shifts that are essential as your team expands and your company evolves. I’ve coached hundreds of founders and CEOs through this journey, and today I’ll share specific strategies to help you stay ahead of the most common Mistake When Scaling. I'm Gene Hammett, an executive coach with over ten years of experience working with CEOs and their executive teams. After studying the leadership of fast-growth companies, I have developed frameworks and insights to help you and your company grow.
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0:32 Speaker 01 So the number one mistake that you're making when you're scaling past 5 million is your leadership model is frankly broken. Because when you think about what got you to this place, it's your smarts. It's your hard work. It's your drive, your hunger. And sometimes that gets in the way of you scaling to that next level, to really honest with yourself. Because you can't be involved with every strategic decision. You can't be involved with every strategy. You can't be involved with every project. You can't tune in and add value to all these things, but yet you want to. Welcome to Growth Think Tank.
1:11 Speaker 01 This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today, we're going to talk about the number one reason why companies stall after 5 million in revenue. When your company has gotten to this level, you've done something right. You should be really proud of yourself as a leader. You should be really excited about what's next, though. When I think about what's holding back any company from growth, it doesn't ever come up that it's a strategy thing. I mean, is there things that need to be improved? Yes, but that's not the real reason.
1:54 Speaker 01 It's also not a people issue. Well, not really, the way you think it is. When you think about growing your business, you know that you have to add more people to the team to be able to get leverage out of them. Common logic, because when you get to 5 million, you can't do- Do it all yourself. But what I see over and over and over, after sitting in this chair, working with hundreds of CEOs of fast growth companies, going from two million, three million, four million, all the way to 10, then to 20 and beyond. I get to look at the patterns and I get to see what what is holding back these companies. And the number one mistake that companies make when they're scaling, once they hit about five million, is their leadership
2:34 Speaker 01 model. It's not the strategy, it's not their hiring, it's not, you know, anything else. It's how they lead. Before I go much further, let me just introduce myself. My name is Gene Hammond. I am the CEO coach. I work with a lot of fast growth companies. In fact, I've worked with more Inc. 5000 level companies than anyone else out there in leadership development. And I say that because I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of these leaders. Sometimes in small events, sometimes I've been working with people for five plus years, and I have seen all the different inflection points of this. Now, I'm sure there's more things to come, and there's more challenges to to, but I've been able to create hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands
3:17 Speaker 01 of these conversations to understand and share back insight with you as a leader. And so the number one mistake that keeps you from continuous to grow is you. And I say that with a smile, because if you know it's you, then you can realize, understand it, and then you can address it. And so today, I want to unpack a little bit of that for you in this short episode here on the podcast. I really love what I'm doing. I've been doing this for about 12 plus years. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I mean, I do have some other businesses, so I will tell you that, but I've got operators in place, so I don't have to be in the day to day. But I also want to help you, because this is my life's purpose, plain and simple. So the number one mistake that
4:00 Speaker 01 you're making when you're scaling past five million is your leadership model is frankly broken. Because when you think about what got you to this place, it's your smarts, it's your hard work, it's your drive, your hunger. And sometimes that gets in the way of you scaling to that next level. If you're really honest with yourself, because you can't be involved with every strategic decision. You can't be involved with every strategy. You can't be involved with every project. You can't tune in and add value to all these things, but yet you want to. So what do you do? You start working harder. You get up earlier. You have a second shift after dinner and you put in the extra work because you know how much you want it.
4:45 Speaker 01 But working harder doesn't get you there. When I see this happening all across the country and I get up early sometimes. Yesterday I was up at six thirty working on a project because that was something I needed to finish for a client by nine. And I put in the extra hours, but I don't do that every day. I don't, you know, I do work for myself every day, but I don't get up earlier and earlier to be able to address the work and the demands. I created a team behind me so that I don't have to do all the work. I don't do the editing on this podcast. I don't do the, the, the posting and the SEO and the thumbnails and whatnot. I have a team, I have delegated and I have empowered and I hold them accountable to this. I have created leadership within my company so that we can scale.
5:30 Speaker 01 And that's what you have to do too. But the problem is what you think will, you know, got you to five million. If you just do more of it, it will get you through that hump, through to 10 million and beyond. But at some point in time, maybe it's not five million. Maybe it's seven for you. Maybe it's 10, maybe it's three. You begin to break down. You begin to burn out. You begin to, to really not be able to be the leader you want to be for many different reasons. And a lot of leaders I see, they let their health slide. They let, they stop working out, they stop eating right. And it, it has this compound effect to your leadership and therefore your company growth. Now we've talked about the problem, so what's the solution?
6:12 Speaker 01 It's going to be hard for me to unpack all of it today, but I'm going to give you just a few headlines. And then I'm going to point you to a free training that we do. And if it works for you, great. If you're interested, fantastic. But I'd love to just give you something to chew on today, if you will, or let it simmer like a When you think about growing your business and you think about what you can do, that's your first mistake. If you have to sell more, or if you have to come up with a next marketing plan, or if you have to, you know, jump in, get your hands dirty, put out the fires, that's the problem. You think you're the best person to solve it. In plain and simple terms,
6:53 Speaker 01 you think your job is to be the MVP of the company. And I say this bluntly with you, and maybe you've heard it somewhere. I don't know, I know some other, you know, kind of coach or consultant said this, or social media guru, let's just, but, but there's some valid points to it. And I want you to let this sink in, that if you were the most valuable person in your company, your company isn't that valuable. It kind of stings a little bit, right? Because you value yourself working hard, you value yourself really pushing the envelope on all these things. But if you were the most valuable person that solves the problem, that gets the sale, that does the thing, then when you go to sell it, those stories start coming out, those, you know, you're proud of them, but that's not what they're looking for. They're looking for a team that runs
7:38 Speaker 01 without you. They're looking for a well machined, you know, systems. They're looking for structure. They're looking for repeatability. They're looking for scalability. And if you are the bottleneck of the company, it's not that scalable. And so your company gets dinged a little bit, or maybe it's just a red flag, or maybe it's something they, they require you to, they'll, they'll lower the value of the company because it's not run as well as, you know, when they dig into it, they do their analysis and, or they make you have a long earn out, which is also kind of dangerous. I've seen all these earn outs not go so well. All that being said, it comes down to you. You have to lead differently. You have to empower people. You have to hold them accountable in new
8:21 Speaker 01 ways. You can't do it the way you used to it. Kind of a light empowerment and a light accountability. It just doesn't work. You've got to truly let go. And it's such a hard thing to do. I've gone through it. I know you've, you've let go of things and it was hard, but you got through it. Be honest with yourself. It, it was hard. But you got to do it and you don't go back to doing those things, hopefully. I talked to one of my clients, you know, a couple of years ago and I said, you know, what is it that you do on a day to day basis? Cause he was concerned about his time. And he said, well, I uh, I spend a lot of time in, in spreadsheets. And I was like, oh, really? It's like, what are you doing? He goes, accounts receivable and cash flow to make sure we get to the next level. Now, they happen to be about a $10 million company, but it was very obvious that he was
9:06 Speaker 01 a bottleneck of the company because the, the executive team wasn't aligned the way he wanted it. And that's one of the first things we did. And he also let go of that work and side note, this CEO of $10 million also said he did the nine 41 forms. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Most CEOs don't and they shouldn't know what it is. They shouldn't know how to do it. Um, I know what it is because of, of just, you know, being a young entrepreneur and doing this for 30 years, but a nine 41 form, seriously? It's too much of a detail for a CEO to be focused on. He should empower someone around him. In fact, the solution for him was to hire an offshore VA. I don't do this, but my friends, uh, my VA friends or had a friend that's a VA and she
9:51 Speaker 01 was looking for a job and she knew spreadsheets and I said, well, why don't we give this a try? He didn't think it'd work and he was able to let go of the, the accounts receivable, the cash flow spreadsheets and eventually the nine 41 forms too, um, to rise up to be a real leader. Fast forward a few months after working with me, he confessed, she, the VA is better at doing that work than he is. And she was like eight bucks an hour. It's embarrassing, I think. And I tell you the story to, to maybe light a fire under you because if you're doing something that an eight dollar an hour or a $20 an hour or a $50 an hour employee could be doing, it's holding back your business. You can scan your day, you can do a time audit, you can use all the tools that you
10:35 Speaker 01 probably know of that you don't use and list all the things that you're doing that keeps you the bottleneck of the company because you've refused to let go of them because you have made up in your mind, it's a mindset thing initially that you are. The most valuable person or you're trying to control it. Now I share this with you from my heart because I want to see you break through to that next level. When you realize that you're the problem, you can be the solution. This is a simple, you know, idea, but you can address it. You can decide to level up your game in leadership. You can decide to change that mindset from control or I do it best. Or let's be blunt that you want to be the MVP of the company.
11:19 Speaker 01 Two, my job, my primary job is to create more MVPs. That phrase comes from a client of mine, not from a CEO, actually from a marketing manager, young kid I was working with. And he was empowered to develop the marketing team. And I worked with him probably three or four months and we had amazing conversations. About halfway through, he said, Gene, I get it. So what do you get? He goes, I used to think my job was to be the MVP. Now I believe that my job is to create more MVPs. Let that sink in, creating more MVPs. What if that's your primary job is to create more MVPs around you?
11:58 Speaker 01 Let go of your desire to make the decision, to drive the sale, to come up with the strategy, to do the next big thing, the next innovation, drive that. Yes, maybe you are the most qualified. Yes, you are the most experienced. That's what it means to be the entrepreneur with the idea and the vision of a future. But at some point in time, you've got to empower your people to truly do the work and you need to lead them. In other words, you need to create more MVPs around you. And if you do that, you'll be able to scale your business. You'll be able to have more freedom. You don't have to work more when you're creating more MVPs, but you do have to sharpen your skills. First it's your mindset, then you have to get your, your systems right. And then you have to empower your people over and over and over.
12:43 Speaker 01 And then you've got to nurture that alignment. And then you've got to practice these leadership skills as you improve them. Get your, get, break it down into details and get better at it. All that being said, if you need a little bit of extra support, here's two paths for you. Game to do a quick transformation in your business, then you can go to call. Core elevation.com. That's my legal name of the company. I know the podcast is gross think tank. I know that my name is Gene Hammett, but the legal name of the company is Core Elevation. And if you want to, to have a quick conversation with me, go to call. Call C A L L dot core elevation at com. I will tell you, there's an investment to do that.
13:24 Speaker 01 It's a small investment, but you will come in ready to play. I will give you an assessment. We will prioritize the conversation and in 90 minutes, we will really get you clear about what's next. There is a small investment to that. I'll go ahead and tell you what it is. It's 497. It's $497 to have that call with me, but it's powerful. I've done a lot of them and I just want to tell you it's so much worth it. I think it's worth a hundred times that because when you realize the one thing that's holding you back and you are able to understand it, you're able to, to get past it and start to let go. Your business starts to scale and you work on higher value projects. That's what happens first and then you love it.
14:07 Speaker 01 You can enjoy what you're doing. You can start building people. You spend more time developing people and you get more joy out of developing people, creating those MVPs than you do in actually doing the work because that's your new job is to create more MVPs. Now, if you've not known me, you're not ready for that. I get it. You know, it's, there is a small investment to that. I told you what it was. It's 497. It's, it's, to me, it's ridiculously inexpensive, but if you want to just see, put your toe in the water. Try something for free. Here's the next step. Go to training.co elevation.com. Training.co elevation.com will get you signed up for the next workshop we have on stopping the bottleneck of your business.
14:52 Speaker 01 And I will go through the detail of you getting what you want. All you have to do is go to training.co elevation.com. That's completely free. You sign up. We're doing them about once a week. It may not be once a week through the summer, so just be patient with that, but you can sign up. You'll get notified of every time we run this and we're here to serve you to stop being the bottleneck of your business to really grow. So those two URLs are if you want to work with me, just want to skip the free thing and just dive right in call.corelevations.com. It's a world-class experience in 90 minutes for $4.97 with me. We identify what's holding you back exactly, not some cookie cutter thing. What's going on in your business? Because every business
15:36 Speaker 01 is unique. They're in different places. They have different issues and you are a different person. And so that's a unique one-on-one experience with me for 90 minutes. And if you're not sure about that yet, you want to test the waters, go to training.corelevations.com. All that being said, I love to serve you. I'd love to help you. I'd love to get to know you. And so if you are curious about that, choose your path. You can put your toe in, see what's going on for free, or you can just go ahead and put down your credit card, put down a little bit of money, put down a little bit of commitment. I know that it's not the money. $4.97, it's nothing for you to get the clarity you need to move forward. By the way, I call that the clarity
16:17 Speaker 01 and courage call. It takes clarity to be able to make these kind of moves in leadership, real clarity, and it takes courage because you got to let go of this old identity and you got to move forward. I've got some tools I'll share with you that assessment is world-class. I cannot wait to see you lean in to this offer. My name is Gene Hammett. I love supporting fast growth companies. I love supporting CEOs to grow their business. I'm addicted to it. And I'm obsessed with helping people grow. And that's what I want my legacy to be is to make so many companies successful, but to really make people better leaders so that they can create more MVPs
16:59 Speaker 01 across their company. When you think of leadership, when you think of growth, think of growth in you. As always, with courage, we'll see you.
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