There’s no reason why scaling your business can’t be the opportunity you’ve been looking for to get some balance back in your life.
‘Routine sets you free,’ in the words of Verne Harnish and a business that runs like clockwork saves you time and energy: valuable resources that you can choose to spend elsewhere in your life.
That’s why we were excited to talk to business leader, visionary, author and former Swiss special forces officer Sam Goodner. He reveals how the life-and-death lessons of his military training translated into scaling a visionary tech company. From rappelling down a cliff with questionable amounts of rope to becoming a successful (and award-winning) serial entrepreneur, he shares his radical self-knowledge on how to lead effectively with warmth and enthusiasm.
🎧 Check out the full conversation here or search Sparks by Ignium on your regular podcast platform. The Spark Tank is our content sefor business owners like you who want shift up a gear and get your life back – so if it’s helpful, please subscribe, like and share – it really helps us get the word out there.
7 proven strategies to scale with vision and balance
Here are our highlights from the conversation:
- Your people are your lifeblood, and their first-day experience means more than you think it does, so know what excellent looks like. Sam turned one botched incident with a new employer into a strong ethos that gets his talent off on the right foot. Taking care of the family is not just a nice-to-have; it pays off.
- You can look at the stars and sun to tell the time in the moment, or you can create a clock and tell the time forever (we have Jim Collins to thank for the original concept that Sam picks up and runs with). That’s what being a visionary is all about – taking things one step further into new, exciting areas, building on what’s gone before.
- If you’re not careful, it’s possible to scale your way out of business. How do you avoid this? Clarity. Sam talks about the 8 spheres of clarity, without which you could scale the wrong things and go in the wrong direction. From knowing your core customer and what their expectations are, to being clear on what you’re good at and how you’re different from everyone else, there’s wisdom in knowing where you’re going and what your unfair advantage is. ‘Unless you have clarity, you can’t scale because you’re only going to scale chaos,’ Sam says. ‘When I have clarity, everything is easy.’
- Unearthing and understanding your core values and allowing them to shape your culture saves you time and energy – from tightening your hiring strategy to being able to step back and let others take the reins.
- Equip your leaders to find their own solutions and they’ll come up with the ideas you may not have thought of. It gives them the freedom to come in at a problem from a different angle.
- What’s your North Star? Know what it is and put it front and centre, that way those who’ll help you get there will sense that energy and will want to be part of it. ‘If you share your BHAG [big, hairy, audacious goal] up front, you’ll attract people who will enjoy the ride.’ Sam explains.
- Personal relationships win (and win big) – even in the world of tech. So no matter which sector you’re in, nurturing human connection is one of the major proven strategies to scale.
And remember that leadership shouldn’t be lonely. In Sam’s words, ‘Go find people who have done this before and you will be surprised how willing they are to help.’
That’s exactly what we love to do. Being there for our clients, so they can show up and put their best into growing a successful and purposeful business.
🎧 Head over to the podcast now.
Sam’s book Like Clockwork took him 25 years to write and each chapter is its own stand-alone, battle-tested manual to solve some of scaling’s most complex challenges.