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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Do Scale summary
Les McKeown
A Road Map to Growing a Remarkable Company
25 mins
Brief summary
'Do Scale' by Les McKeown is a business book that outlines how to successfully grow a company from startup to scale-up phase, without losing the entrepreneurial spirit that got you there. It provides practical advice for structuring, delegating, and leading teams to achieve sustainable business growth.
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Do Scale
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Key idea 1 of 8
Scaling demands you focus on increasing your market share.
You’re the founder of a business. Things are going well. Very well, in fact. You’ve got a steady cash flow and a growing market share. It’s time to take it to the next level. That means scaling, right? Well, not necessarily.
The key message is: Scaling demands you focus on increasing your market share.
Scaling is a very specific type of company growth. And it’s not right for everyone. To understand why, let’s explore the difference between growth and scaling.
When it comes to growth, a company’s primary focus is on improving product quality or increasing profitability. This results in linear growth – growing the company steadily, over time. If we plot this type of company growth on a graph, we’ll see a straight line rising at an angle.
But the purpose of scaling is to achieve dramatic growth. In most cases, this means sustainably but quickly increasing a company’s market share. Scaling is often referred to as exponential growth. If we plot this on a graph, we’ll get a line that looks like the letter “J”: The line will dip a little at first before spiking steeply at a sharp angle.
Scaling sounds great, doesn’t it? After all, who doesn’t want to increase their market share at lightning speed?
Well, scaling might be great in theory, but it’s easier said than done. To scale successfully, you have to change the primary focus of your business to increasing market share. Every other focus – from making the best product to training your staff to the highest level – must be secondary to this main goal. If they aren’t, you won’t succeed in scaling.
Since scaling requires this ruthless deprioritization of other company goals, it’s not always the right option.
Take Jim the luthier – or guitar-maker. Jim’s business was booming. His high-quality guitars were in demand, and his revenues were increasing. At this point, he considered scaling. But then he paused. Scaling would mean a complete refocus on maximizing market share. He’d have to divert his own time to attend strategy meetings, develop business plans, and manage sales staff. Crucially, this would mean spending less time on his true passion – making world-class guitars. So Jim didn’t scale. Instead, he sold his business to a bigger company for a profit and continued working as an artisan.
Being clear about his priorities helped Jim realize that scaling wasn’t for him. But, unlike Jim, you might look at your options and decide that scaling is the logical next step. In the next blink, we’ll learn more about your options.
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What is Do Scale about?
Do Scale (2019) provides succinct, practical advice for business founders and leaders wishing to scale their organizations in a sustainable way. It explains what scaling means, how to evaluate whether it’s right for your company, the challenges you’ll personally face, and the mind-set and team you’ll need to scale successfully.
Best quote from Do Scale
Scaling is built on mastering the mundane, and you need to know that going in.
—Les McKeown
Who should read Do Scale?
- CEOs looking to increase market share
- Start-up founders ready to take their companies to the next level
- Leaders wanting to learn how to structure complex businesses
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