Scaling Up Quotes

“Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t,”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“read Margaret Heffernan’s book Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril and Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. To”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Leaders have to balance two often competing demands on the business — People and Process. This”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Scaling up is every entrepreneur’s dream — and nightmare. Hypergrowth is terrifying, and it’s most often success that kills great companies. This”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“successful companies held three to 10 times more cash assets than average for their industries, and they did so from the time they started. (We”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Then you need to evaluate all the key relationships surrounding the business. Would you keep all your existing customers? Are you happy with your investors/bank? Are your vendors supporting you properly? Are your advisors — accountants, lawyers, consultants, and coaches — the best for the size of the organization and future plans? The toughest decisions to make are when the company has outgrown some of these relationships and you need to make changes.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Do you have the “right people doing the right things right” inside the organization?”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Success belongs to those who have these two attributes: • An insatiable desire to learn • An unquenchable bias for action”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash flow is king.” You”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“• At 5% pretax profit, your business is on life support. • At 10% pretax profit, the business is doing well but has some untapped potential. • At 15% pretax profit, the business is in great shape. • Anything above 15% indicates that you should earn it while you can. The market will figure out what’s going on, competition will show up, and you will eventually get pushed back.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“any data more than a week old is history and is not useful for making the fast decisions necessitated by our highly connected global economy.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Cash is the oxygen that fuels growth. And the cash conversion cycle (CCC) is a key performance indicator (KPI) that measures how long it takes for a dollar spent on anything (rent, utilities, marketing, payroll, etc.) to make its way through your business and back into your pocket. In”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Do you have consistent sources of cash, ideally generated internally, to fuel the growth of your business?”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“All executives and middle managers should have a coach (or peer coach) holding them accountable for behavioral changes. We”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“At rapidly growing companies, the team is often so busy chasing new opportunities that the existing clients feel ignored. If companies were able to hold on to the customers they now lose from neglect, it would fuel at least half of their growth.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“1. Senior leaders need to be in the market 80% of the week, either figuratively or literally. 2. This routine must start on day one and continue through half a trillion in revenue!”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Individuals or organizations with too many priorities have no priorities and risk spinning their wheels and accomplishing nothing of significance. In turn, laser-focusing everyone on a single priority — today, this week, this quarter, this year, and the next decade — creates clarity and power throughout the organization.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“As we’ve mentioned several times, the strategic planning process comprises two distinct activities: strategic thinking and execution planning. Strategic thinking is coming up with a few big-picture ideas. Execution planning is figuring out how to make them happen.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“It’s always helpful to learn from those who have already been Where you’re about to go.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Many people have dreams. However, a vision is a dream with a plan:”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“It takes real guts to ignore or even alienate 93% of customers, focusing instead on the 7% of the market that is fanatical about you and willing to put up with the trade-offs.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“It needs to hurt to break a promise; otherwise, it’s too easy to let the moment pass.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“A Core Competency has three attributes, according to Prahalad and Hamel: 1. It is not easy for competitors to imitate. 2. It can be reused widely for many products and markets. 3. It must contribute to the benefits the end customer experiences and the value of the product or service to customers. “Don’t define Core Competencies too narrowly.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“People are not resources that you consume. So rethink the name of the department that takes care of them. Call it Talent Development, Human Relations, People Support, or whatever fits your culture — anything but Human Resources.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“The key to affording higher wages (we’re talking frontline employees, not senior leadership) is a lower total wage cost as a percent of revenue. You have to remain competitive, and the best companies know that one great person can replace three good ones. Through rigorous selection (i.e., Topgrading), they get the absolute best talent in the door, pay employees above-market rates, and then invest heavily in training and development to make them more productive.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Sydney-based software firm Atlassian sends each new employee, whatever his or her position, to a resort spa the weekend before the start date as a way to celebrate the new job.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“If your competitive advantage depends on your people creating something valuable and distinctive, then your workforce can’t be normal.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“In the meantime, if you’re experiencing some drama, maybe a simple checklist will help.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

“Remember, your company is a living organism that needs to survive in an environment that’s always changing. To thrive, it has to be able to adapt. Charles Darwin found that survival is determined by the ability to adapt to circumstances.”
― Verne Harnish, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't