The $40,000 to $120,000 annual investment

The most standard approach, after someone has read Scaling Up or gone through a workshop, is to engage one of our Scaling Up certified coaching partners.

Typically, the coach will start with a 2-3 day kickoff retreat, then work with a company’s executive team for a day or two every quarter, depending on the size and complexity of the company, to facilitate its quarterly and annual strategic planning process. (The free chapter from Scaling Up titled “ Strategic Planning” outlines what running a quarterly and annual planning process entails.

Scaling Up Certified coaches charge an annual retainer that, after the initial planning session, will range from $40,000 to $120,000 a year, depending on the number of planning days you need and whether you prefer monthly or quarterly sessions (aligned with the broader monthly management meeting and training rhythm recommended in Scaling Up).

The standards for becoming a Scaling Up Certified Coach are initially high and require coaches to undergo 48 hours of continuing education a year to keep their certification, similar to a medical doctor. For more information, read “EOS versus Scaling Up.” The ultimate benefits of having a Scaling Up Certified Coach are many. The coach leads you through the process, is biased toward your company’s success and is not caught up in internal bias and politics. The coach also holds you accountable to stay on target and execute your plan.

In addition, many firms utilize the Scaling Up Scoreboard platform, a SaaS technology, to organize, communicate and measure progress continuously in a very visual, mobile-ready way. Using the Scaling Up Scoreboard costs $10 to $15 per user/month, based on the number of licenses purchased in an annual contract. By way of example, a 10-50-employee company’s costs would range from $175 to $500 per month. Coaches of companies that use this technology will actively monitor the Scaling Up Scoreboard and intervene if the company faces challenges, for no extra charge.

To document each company’s progress, our coaching engagements include an annual, 35-page reassessment of the leadership team’s alignment and progress on the 4 Decisions (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash) at no additional charge.

The $200,000 investment

Many of our clients are looking for an “all-you-can-eat” weekly, monthly and quarterly support of their implementation of the Scaling Up system. They would like a coach to sit in during various Daily Huddles and weekly meetings to coach individual executives and teams and help them fine-tune the various habits.

To address this need, several of our Scaling Up Certified coaching partners offer companies the option of acting as an outsourced executive leader for $15,000 a month. The coaches drive implementation and support the leadership team throughout the process. This is the quickest and fastest way to ramp up the use of our tools.

Dimple Care, a podiatry provider that operates in elder care facilities across Australia, retained Gazelles Certified Coach Rob Nankervis on an ongoing basis to advise the company on how to improve on its strategy in 2015. The company, which employed about 60 podiatrists, was then valued at $2.5 million.

Nankervis soon identified a key problem—Dimple Care had set a 10-year Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) when, in fact, its podiatrists only stayed for an average of seven years. With his guidance, management broke down the company‘s BHAG into three smaller targets for customer satisfaction, growth in services and productivity.

Dimple Care also began holding regular team meetings, and managers began documenting their departments’ performance in monthly reports.

Within six months, the company saw tangible results. By July 2017, Zenitas, a publicly-traded healthcare company, acquired Dimple Care for $13.4 million in July 2017—nearly $11 million more than its valuation in 2015. The company’s revenue hit $11 million for fiscal 2017. This was one of many examples of how our coaching partners have helped leaders power growth at their companies. To date, we‘ve directly coached over 12,000 companies, many of which have remained clients for more than two decades. For more case studies, see Scaleups.com.

Expected outcomes and ROI

The tools and techniques of the Scaling Up system are designed to provide a significant multiplier (10x) of your time and investment in terms of ROI. Working with a coach is an investment that should 10x Return yield a significant ROI of anywhere from 10x to 100x your investment. But it’s important to remember that like any relationship, the partnership between client and coach depends upon both parties, and the success of that partnership will have a significant impact on the ROI achieved.

Teams find, for instance, that every minute they participate in a Daily Huddle gives them back 10 minutes in their schedule. Thus, an 8-minute Daily Huddle will win everyone back about an hour-and-a-half a day of wasted emails spent tracking down issues and answers. A similar financial return is achieved for every dollar invested in coaching, with 10x or more typically returned to the bottom line or greater in terms of increased valuation, as the example above illustrates. When you work with a Scaling Up Certified Coach, one of the first things you will do is determine the desired outcomes/results that you want to achieve from the Scaling Up Program so that you are both clear on what you are mutually working towards from the get-go!

What if you don‘t see this kind of return? One thing we teach companies is to provide a Brand Promise guarantee, something that is meaningful and impactful for the customers. In keeping with one of our Scaling Up values—”to practice what we preach”—Scaling Up Certified coaches include as their Brand Promise Guarantee our “short pay” provision. Essentially, if you don‘t feel there was sufficient value delivered at any time, you are free to pay what you thought our services were worth.

The idea for the short pay guarantee came from an article we recommend all companies read—Jim Collins’ HBR piece “Turning Goals Into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms.” That’s where Collins describes companies’ various guarantee promises, including Granite Rock’s short-pay guarantee. Our adoption of short pay shows that any firm can learn from any other across industries. We’re a professional service firm that shamelessly borrowed this great idea from a rock crushing company.

That said, getting the most out of the system takes an ongoing commitment. Given that there are 10 Rockefeller Habits and most companies can focus on and implement one or two habits a quarter, it generally takes a company 18-36 months to implement the entire system. The first year is typically dedicated to learning and implementing it, getting the leadership team aligned and accountable and supporting the CEO in his or her development. With that foundation in place, companies can accelerate their growth dramatically in the second and third years, positioning themselves as a potential acquirer or looking for opportunities for joint ventures.

Of course, as circumstances change and the company scales, systems and processes will need continuous refining. Many clients have retained a coach for a decade or more, though the average is three years. The Scaling Up system is designed to help you through every stage of your company’s growth.

Free option

At this point, you may be wondering which approach is truly best for you. This is why we offer a no-pressure, no-obligation 30-minute call with one of our Scaling Up Certified Coaches. Our coaching partners will help you think through the various options to determine the best one for you. It will also let you test drive how it feels to have a coach. Warning: Not every company is a fit for our coaching program. We need to understand if you are committed, disciplined, willing to change and ready to be coached, and we will make an honest assessment. It is not good for our repu-tation if we persuade someone to use our services when they are not ready and they do not succeed. To meet companies where they are, we offer various ways to implement our tools.

Next steps

Not sure which choice is best for you and your business? We are happy to walk you through them in a one-on-one conversation. Contact us at coaching@scalingup.com.