The Most Popular Halloween Candy by State -- this is very US centric, but still fun. This interactive map shows the top 3 Halloween candies in each state, compiled by CandyStore.com. And the #1 candy across the US? Skittles. Take 1-minute to see the rest of the top 10 and specifics for your state.

Tutorial - One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) -- This is our best-known and most widely used tool that has helped tens of thousands of companies scale up quickly. It's designed to drive alignment, accountability, execution, and focus. I've written a new step-by-step tutorial on using the OPSP tool to craft your industry-dominating strategy to keep everyone in your company aligned and productive. Click here to read more:

MOM's Organic Market Quote -- founder Scott Nash has streamed the ScaleUp Summit (more summary highlights below) to his team every year for the past decade as he's scaled from a few stores to over 1300 employees. Noted Scott in an email shortly after the Summit, "People who don't read books are missing so much. We have this (quote above) posted up in our offices." He went on to share, based on hearing the authors at the Summit "I've ordered Blitzscaling, Growth IQ, Great at Work, and Outrageous Empowerment for my entire team and we're getting busy reading them. All very timely for us." Our next ScaleUp Summit is May 21 - 22, Atlanta - don't miss out on the next dozen important books and their authors as you outlearn the competition.

25 Ways Artificial Intelligence is Changing Business -- the latest Fortune magazine features this significant article and 12-minute video - please take 15 minutes this weekend to review. I'm committed to hosting one significant AI/Machine Learning speaker at each ScaleUp Summit, including Doug Rose at this most recent Summit and Mariya Yao at the next.

Future 50 -- and Fortune also published their latest list of the 50 firms with the best growth prospects. It's important to note that their list last year outperformed the stock market by a factor of 3X - providing a 35% return vs. 13% for the broader 1500 stocks. It's worth 1-minute to scan down through the list. #1 this year is Workday and surprisingly, Apple didn't make the list this year. Interestingly, 21 companies that made the list are Chinese - the same number as in the US.

Embarrass Yourself -- continuing with Summit highlights, Chris Ye, co-author of the hugely successful book Blitzscaling with LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman, noted that a key tenet to scaling rapidly is launching a product that embarrasses you. My conclusion, after Chris's counterintuitive presentation is that EVERY firm should form a team of two or three people, working a day/week, and see what idea within your company/industry you could blitzscale.

Setting Objectives Will Constrain AI Implementation -- Doug Rose, author of Artificial Intelligence for Business, made a strong counterintuitive case that the main barrier to AI implementation is cultural, specifically one focused on setting goals and objectives. Noting that most of our lives have been driven more by serendipitous occurrences than meeting objectives (for me, I thought I was going into the nuclear engineering industry!), the same for AI initiatives. You have to be willing to put a three-person team, which Doug outlined, freed from specific objectives, to see what powerful insights your data can surface to scale the business. My take? The same two- to three-person team I mentioned above should head this up as well. See what serendipitous discovery you can make then blitzscale it before the competition (or some 22-year-old in Toronto) beats you to the market.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. January 15 - 18; March 12 - 15; April 23 - 26 , 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at drichmond@stscapital.com  

EDUCATION:

ScaleUp Summit Spring 2019

Atlanta, GA - May 21-22, 2019

Scaling Up User Conference Spring 2019

Atlanta, GA - May 23, 2019

Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops


San Diego, CA - Nov 6, 2018
Utrecht, The Netherlands - Nov 7, 2018 (Masterclass)
Grand Rapids, MI - Nov 7, 2018
Oklahoma City, OK - Nov 8, 2018
Los Angeles, CA - Nov 8, 2018
Denver, CO - Nov 15, 2018
Melbourne, Australia - Nov 20, 2018
Mumbai, India - Nov 20, 2018
Sydney, Australia - Dec 4, 2018
Hamden, CT - Dec 5, 2018
Orange County, CA - Dec 18, 2018
Philadelphia, PA - Jan 16, 2019
Scottsdale, AZ -  Jan 17, 2019
San Francisco, CA - Jan 24, 2019
Los Angeles, CA - Feb 28, 2019

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at coaching@scalingup.com for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Gazelle's Growth Institute® Online Executive Education

Baseline Selling - Dave Kurlan
Creativity and Personal Mastery - Srikumar Rao
Daring Caution Approach to Pricing - Robert Sherlock
Fearless Leaders - Cathy Greenberg
How to Create Leadership at Every Level - David Marquet
Mastering the Complex Sale - Jeff Thull
Nail It Then Scale It - Paul Ahlstrom
Sumo Advantage - Bernie Brenner
The Seven Imperatives of Great CEO's - John Wilson
Why Growth Companies Stop Growing - Dave Power

Online Master Practitioner Certification courses

Topgrading
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

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