Episode 122 - Bryan Clayton | Start Up, Grow Up, Scale Up: Secrets for Entrepreneurship and Business Growth

Are you an entrepreneur looking to grow and scale your business? Are you thinking about starting a business? Are you committed to growing your leadership and your business?

Our special guest Bryan Clayton answers these and other questions about entrepreneurship, small business growth and scaling businesses for exit.

Bryan Clayton is CEO and cofounder of GreenPal an online marketplace that connects homeowners with Local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the “Uber for lawn care” by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 200,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day.

Before starting GreenPal Bryan Clayton founded Peachtree Inc., one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee growing it to over $10 million a year in annual revenue before it was acquired by Lusa holdings in 2013.

Bryan‘s interest and expertise are related to entrepreneurialism, small business growth, marketing and bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit.

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Show Notes

Episode highlights…

Challenges of starting and growing a start-up business
Unique challenges for starting and growing a technology business
The three phases of business: 1. Start up; 2. Grow up; 3. Scale up
Leadership and business lessons from Mario Kart
Business growth requires leadership growth
Transitioning from being a do-it-yourself business owner to building a business
All elements of your business must be integrated and aligned
The importance of having a clear sales process to grow your business (and you must do the process yourself first)
Hiring the right people versus people with experience and industry experience
Keys to measuring leading indicators in sales (activities); not just trailing indicators (outputs)
Retention is a key indicator of your value and its alignment with your customer’s needs
Business success requires failures (and learning) and time
The critical role of listening to your customers
Strategically using fractional experts to build your business (engage the top talent instead of settling for lesser / cheaper talent)
The shift from full time, on-site employees to fractional, remote team members
Debunking the myth of overnight successes in business
Entrepreneurship as a full contact sport
Understanding the difference between self-employment, business ownership and entrepreneurship
Leveling up your leadership in order to grow and scale your business
Understanding what comes first in your business (the chicken or the egg)
The challenge of entrepreneurial leadership in being ahead of your team in vision and effort
The need to slow yourself down in order to manage and bring your people along with you
Business ownership is lonely (the importance of surrounding yourself with coaches, mentors and advisors)