Herb Cogliano leads his own advisory practice leveraging the Scaling of Performance Platform, described in Verne Harnish’s award-winning book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits-Scaling Up. As a Business Coach, experience CEO Scaling Up Practitioner, and Professor of the Scaling Up Masters Business Course, he has learned first-hand what it takes to overcome many business challenges.
Herb is pursuing his passion of working with leaders of growth companies to achieve more freedom by helping them create industry leading strategies, a culture of accountability, flawless execution, along with a healthy cash flow within their organizations.
Herb was formerly CEO of Sullivan and Cogliano Designers, a 53 year privately held family owned Technology Staffing and Workforce Solutions firm who joined a select group of companies that have appeared on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company list multiple times. His firm was a Multiyear recipient of the Boston and South Florida Business Journal Best Places to Work Award. This honour recognizes Sullivan and Cogliano achievements for changing the business landscape in creating a positive work environment that attracts and retains employees through a combination of employee satisfaction, working conditions and company culture.
Questions
• We read quite a bit about your journey in your short bio that I just read. But we always like to give the guests an opportunity to share in their own words a little bit about your journey, in your words, how you got to where you are today.
• Now Scaling Up, can you tell our listeners, what Scaling Up is, maybe three or four critical things that if as a business you want to scale up you need to have in place.
• What has been your experience in scaling a business, let’s say you were an organisation with let’s say, 10 employees, and you’ve finished in the course of 12 months, you’ve now grown to an organisation with 100 employees.
• In terms of customer experience, you as a customer, what are three things that you look for to ensure that you’re being satisfied as a customer, that your needs are being met?
• Now, Herb, could you also share with us what’s the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
• Could you also share with our listeners if you read any books recently, actually, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, but a book that has had or books that have had a great impact on you? Do you have any of those?
• And so, could you share with us in terms of the recruitment process from a HR perspective, what are some key, would it be a question that you need to ask them that would align you in that phase?
• Could you also share with us what’s the one thing that’s going on in your life right now that you’re really excited about? Either something you’re working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Where can listeners find you online?
• Now, before we wrap our episodes up herb, we always like to ask our guests do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you felt derailed or rundown, this quote kind of helps to get you back on track.
Highlights
Herb’s Journey
Herb shared that he was very fortunate to be raised in a family business where his mother and father incorporated not only raising a family on good values but incorporated what were the challenges in running and growing a business. And as he grew up, and then ultimately went into the business, their business had years of success. And then the industry became more competitive, more commoditized and their growth started to stagnate. As a result of that, they wanted to grow further. They worked hard, they were smart people, but they got stuck.
And they came across the book called Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t (Rockefeller Habits 2.0 Revised Edition) by Verne Harnish. And it’s really a playbook for small mid-market companies that don’t have a team of MBAs working on their staff, but still need to navigate a very fast changing marketplace. And that book really changed his life about knowing how to grow a company by asking the right questions and working with the right tools to do it.
As a result of that, they scaled, got the accomplishments that you so nicely commented on. And then as a result of that, they exited their companies in 2018. He had an incredible business coach that was so helpful. Him and his father were incredible mentors. And then he knew that he was meant to be a coach and help others using the scaling up methodology to achieve their company’s vision and potential.
What is Scaling Up?
Me: Now Scaling Up, can you tell our listeners, what Scaling Up is, maybe three or four critical things that if as a business you want to scale up you need to have in place.
Herb shared that one of the challenges in growing your business is that you don’t know what you don’t know. So, if you’re a $2 Million Dollar company, you don’t know what it’s like to be a $10 Million Dollar company.
And things change because you’re hiring more people, you’re onboarding more customers, you’re offering more in different products, you may have different or multiple locations and the complexity compounds, and then makes it very hard for the original owner to command and make decisions as your workforce grows from 2 to 20, to 2000 people.
And for many of us, we plateau, because we don’t know how to handle the next level complexity, Scaling Up was a framework that helped them navigate it. And it’s based upon four primary decisions that you need to get right around people, strategy, execution, and cash. And when you understand how to use those techniques in the four areas, it will then help you navigate the next stage of your growth and that’s ultimately what they did.
Experience in Scaling a Business – Keeping a Culture That is Customer Focused
Me: So, a big part of Scaling Up has to do with people and culture and customer experience starts from within. What has been your experience in scaling a business, let’s say you were an organization with let’s say, 10 employees, and in the course of 12 months, you’ve now grown to an organization with 100 employees. How do you keep that culture that is still customer focused, customer obsessed, even though you have so many more persons that you’re managing? What has your experience been in scaling from that perspective?
Herb stated that hat’s a wonderful question. The first part of his experience was “Were they hiring the right type of people that shared their similar values and purpose?”
And in the beginning, they were just looking at resumes, you have experience, you’ve done customer support or business development, you’re a good fit, you’re hired. But what they learned was they needed to hire people that not only had skill and experience, but shared their similar values and their purpose, because they work together in the way we behave around those values is what allows them to work well together. And that translates into the customer experience.
The second part of that, that he learned is that they cannot be all things to all customers. And they were trying to be that in the beginning and that hurt their customer experience. So, they finally profiled who was their ideal customer, they were easy to work with, they had high referred ability to others like them, they were profitable, that had to be economically good for the company and they valued them paid their bills on time.
And then they ultimately asked them….
· “What is it about our company?”
· “Why do you value us?”
· “And importantly, How are we distinctive from the competition?”
They call those their brand promises and they hire and train people to deliver exceptional brand promise results. Because if they get the clients brand promise right, and they can deliver it, they have very high client expectation scores.
Me: Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing.
In Terms of Customer Experience, Things to Look Out for to Ensure That You’re Being Satisfied as a Customer
Me: Now, you’ve worked with quite a few businesses, Herb and you have a wealth of experience. In terms of customer experience, you as a customer, because I’m sure you do business with many different organisations as a customer yourself. What are three things that you look for to ensure that you’re being satisfied as a customer, that your needs are being met?
Herb shared that he thinks the first important thing is, “Are they listening to him?” “Do they understand really what his requirements or wants and needs are?”
Secondly, “Are they responsive to him?” If he feels like he needs help, or an answer, are they responsive? And are they available as needed?
And then the third thing is, he understands all companies can make mistakes. To him the mark of a great customer experience is not what they do when things are good, it’s how well they react to a mistake or when things don’t go good. And those are three things for him that have always been top of mind his entire career.
App, Website or Tool that Herb Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Herb shared that with AI right now there are so many. So, he’d like to say Chat GPT. But there’s so many happening every day. But recently, in the last 6 months, he’s really been leaning in to Chat GPT and trying to create prompts in Chat GPT that will make their customer insights and experiences that much that much better.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Herb
When asked about books that he’s read that have had a great impact, Herb shared that Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t (Rockefeller Habits 2.0 Revised Edition) by Verne Harish, the book was given to him early 2003. He thinks he’s read it close to 30 times now. And as recently as this weekend when he was travelling home on a plane, he was making notes to the author, and sent him a note over the weekend about an insight or something that he thinks they can do even better as part of the scaling up network. He is with a group of other like-minded coaches that use the methodology to help entrepreneurs and their senior teams grow. And they are constantly improving the IP that goes into the Scaling Up book. So, he’s read a lot of books, but Scaling Up is one of the only books he ever wanted to reread and master.
In Terms of Recruitment, What are Some Key Questions to Ask That Would Align
Me: You mentioned earlier in our conversation, as it related to Scaling Up that you want to have persons that you hire, that are in alignment with your values, your value system, your vision, and your mission. And so, could you share with us in terms of the recruitment process from a HR perspective, what are some key, would it be a question that you need to ask them that would align you in that phase? Or is it something you’re looking for maybe in terms of giving them a scenario and then you’re looking for them to give you a particular response to ensure that the person you are selecting it’s not just based, as you said on their resume, their experience, their academia, but more so what values they’re bringing to the table? What are they going to do if they’re faced with a particular scenario? And is that going to be in alignment with the core value of the organization?
Herb shared that they begin in the recruitment phase. So, imagine that you need to hire an individual, his four core values for his coaching practice are wisdom, humility, integrity, and grit. So, if he was going to look for someone to join his coaching practice, his job recruitment ads would have messaging around, “Do you value wisdom, learning and sharing?” “Do you have the humility to let others shine?” “Do you have the integrity to always do the right thing?” “And do you have the grit to deal with adversity and be resilient?” If that sounds like you, they’d like to talk.
The second part of that goes into the interview, when they actually are asking questions all around. Do you have those core values? Can you tell me about a time where somebody challenged your integrity? And how did you deal with it? What would you do different now? What were the lessons learned?
The third part of it is in the onboarding. So, every new hire orientation should have members or members of leadership or owners coming in, talking to the new employees about the values, the purpose and the mission of the organization.
So, they’re kind of inoculated in the beginning that these things are important and top of mind as you work in the company. They then do newsletters that are also echoing this messaging, it’s part of their performance review where part of your evaluation is how well you’re living in aligning to the values.
They do recognition programmes throughout the year where you’re recognized for living certain values and purpose. And then their leadership is trained that when they’re working with you day in and day out, to reference recognition and constructive feedback in relation to the core value and purpose embodiment.
Me: Those are pretty good. Excellent, excellent, excellent. And I like how you gave the examples and the question that you asked as it relates to the recruitment process, even in the advertising and marketing to ensure that you’re attracting the right people. So, thank you so much for sharing those strategies on how to achieve that.
Herb shared one other point, this is so powerful for him, you talked about going from 10 people to like a couple of 100 people. When they first were looking at their workforce in one of their small groups, they had about 25 employees. And somebody had him doing “A” player assessment, what that simply means is out of 25 people, how many of them did they rate as “A” players, people that embodied their values, and people that were hitting the productivity requirements for their job? He has to tell you…..his first score was only a 38% out of 100.
Now, can you imagine early on in his scaling up journey, the drama a company would have with only 38% being A players? Can you imagine what the customer experience would have been dealing with that team? Here was the eye opener for him. What if he scaled to 200 employees, but didn’t change the 38% A player result? Imagine scaling drama 25 people at 38% A player. Now 200 people at only 38% A player? It would be awful.
Me: Yep, that would definitely shoot your customer experience into the garbage.
Herb stated that one of the big epiphanies that he had, and what he loves to do with his clients is they need to get your people right as a foundational part, before you just scale.
Let’s be smart, because when you scale with a higher A player rating, your drama is so much lower, your clients are so much happier, your employee retention is so much higher, and your employee tenure is so much longer. It was the most incredible epiphany they ever had, and he will never grow a company another way.
What Herb is Really Excited About Now!
When asked about something that he’s really excited about, Herb shared that he’s really leaning into AI. He’s looking at all the tools and techniques in their practice and they’re trying to really make it easier for their clients to use the tools leveraging AI elements within it.
The second part is he just came back, his son who’s 30 years old, completed his first Ironman Triathlon last weekend, a 140-mile race. And he’s (Herb) just committed to his son that he is going to train him, his first Ironman, so you asked what’s going on in his head right now, that’s what’s going on in his head.
Where Can We Find Herb Online
Website – www.aspiregrowthadvisors.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Herb Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Herb shared that he’s found many business owners that when they get frustrated and burnt out, but think about it, a lot of entrepreneurs start their company and it’s a love story. They’ve always wanted to be their own boss, they have a certain gift or skill, and they want to bring that to the world and make a difference. But next thing you know, tough employees happen, bad clients happen, payroll, money, frustration happens. And what turned into a dream becomes a nightmare for the owner and they feel like the business is running them.
His quote to you is, “You deserve a business where you’re running the business, the business is not running you.” And what he’s learned in his journey with Scaling Up is that you can have that dream, it’s not easy. But they can make it easier for you to build a business to make more money, to give you more freedom, and less drama. And that is the wish that I have for all of your listeners that they find that for them in their company.
Me: Brilliant, quote. Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing Herb. We just want to extend our deepest level of gratitude and appreciation to you for taking time out of your very busy schedule and hopping on this podcast with us today. And sharing all of these great insights and learnings that you have experienced in your journey as it relates to scaling up your business, ensuring they are the right people, doing the right thing, aligned in the right values so that you can achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction and even life satisfaction and to ensure that you’re doing something that’s fulfilling to your soul. So, thank you so much, we really, really appreciate it.
Herb shared that as a gift for all the listeners, if they go to the website, they have a Scaling Up Business Readiness Assessment. If you want to know where your company is today for their readiness to scale up, that complimentary assessment will give you some insights. And if you’re looking to know where you are as a high impact leader, they have a High Impact Leader Assessment that will give you a kind of current state of where you are, and then some insights of where you could potentially go and he just thank you very much for having him today.
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Links
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