This was inspired by Customer Strategy Podcast Episode 6 with Gray Skinner
Everyone talks about scale...
The technology industry thrives on scale...
When you think about some of your work, there's a good chance that you've asked yourself or someone has asked you the question "will this scale"?
So, what's really required to scale?
In my opinion - in a word - it's DISCIPLINE.
I've said many times before that scale is not sexy.
The story of scaling can be very sexy but scaling itself is not sexy.
Scaling is not sexy because it's all about discipline and discipline is not sexy (unless it's what you love more than anything else).
When I was talking to Gray on this episode, we discussed how he was going to go from a company of 15 people to a company of 100.
We got really specific in one area of his work with clients and came up with a "Client Brief".
The Client Brief is a place for Gray to capture the most important information about a client that he could share with the client to gain agreement.
We also discussed an internal version that will be really important for getting his team members up to speed.
Up to this point, Gray has been keeping most of the details about a client in his head.
In order for Gray to start down the path of scaling himself, he has to commit to the discipline of creating client briefs.
You might be thinking - my situation is nothing like Gray's, how can I use a client brief.
The goal is not for you to use the exact same solution as Gray. The goal is for you to identify an area where you are keeping track of details that are important in your head.
You'll know this is an area you need to focus on when you find yourself explaining the same thing about a client/process to more than two people.
A simple rule to follow is if you have to tell more than two people the exact same thing about how to do something or some piece of context, create an asset that can be shared.
If two people had the issue/question, I guarantee they won't be the last 2.
Save yourself time by putting in the discipline to create assets that will support the scaling of you.
This concept applies at all levels - individuals, managers, directors, VPs, C-levels, etc.
Here's a suggestion - take 10 minutes sometime this week and identify one area/thing that you've had to repeatedly share/email/slack/teach in the same way over and over.
After you have identified this area, spend no more than 25 minutes creating a first version - it doesn't matter if it's messy.
Then the next time the same situation arises, use what you created and give yourself the gift of time.
The messy version is for internal use only. If you're going to focus on something customer-facing, then it needs to be fleshed out before you share the first version.
To learn more, listen in on the conversation Gray and I had on Episode 6 of the Customer Strategy Podcast.
Cheers,
Nils
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