Scaling with Purpose: The Power of Business Structure

0:01If you're already scaling, but you need deeper support, that is where our one-to-one business mentoring comes in. So we are talking about today how to structure your business for growth. Now, this is a topic that I absolutely love. And the reason why I love it is because actually it's often the basic stuff that really makes the difference when we're looking at businesses. So most businesses, they don't fail because of bad ideas. They fail because there's no structure behind the growth. So if your business feels a bit messy, a bit reactive, or maybe overly dependent on you as well. Well, I am going to show you how to structure your business properly so you can actually scale up.

1:00Now, for those that don't know me, I'm Jeanette Linfoot, CEO, investor and founder of Brave Bob Brilliant. And I've been in business for 30 plus years. And, you know, one of the things I can certainly tell you is that structure is what separates businesses that grow from businesses that stall. And it's quite ironic, actually, because it's often the structure and the discipline that you might feel is going to hold you back and constrain you. It's going to be the thing that will set you free, both as a business leader, but also for your teams, for the business overall, and for the customers and clients that you actually serve.

1:41So if you're serious about growth, this is absolutely the right place for you to be right now. Now, you may be listening to this live, in which case, fantastic. Please leave us a comment if you've got a question. We always love to answer those. If you're listening to this on the podcast, or you might be watching it on YouTube, and you've not yet subscribed, hit the subscribe button. And the reason I'm saying that is because then you will be notified every time we have a new episode out, every time we have a new short video on YouTube. So you're never going to miss out. Because the reason why I set up Brave Bold Brilliant is because I am passionate about business and about people.

2:26And I know how tough it can be to grow a business, to scale a business, whether you're in the corporate world like I was for many years, 25 years, or whether you're a business owner, an entrepreneur. You You know, today I have a portfolio of businesses, so I know what it's like to start with nothing, to build a career, to start a business, scale a business. I am not the oracle. I have made lots of mistakes over the years, but I'm all about keeping it real because what we want to do is support each other with our growth. And business can be tough. It can be lonely. But actually, we're not trying to split the atom.

3:04So let's keep it simple. So what I'm going to do now is actually take you through four different sections. What we've wanted to do is break this down into manageable chunks so that actually you can really get the most out of this conversation. So, you know, grab a pen and paper, grab a cup of tea, sit down, have a listen and come and join me on this really important topic about structure and growth. And of course, if we're not connected on social media, let's get connected. You'll find Brave Bowl brilliant, but you'll also find my sort of personal profile as well. You know, Jeanette Linfoot, two N's and two T's in Jeanette.

3:43So this is a great way for us to support, to really build our network of business, you know, leaders in the right way. So let's get into this. So section one, let's talk about the real problem. Right. What is it? What's really the real problem here? Well, most founders or most business leaders, they build businesses like this. You know, they hire reactively, maybe no clear roles. Everyone doing a bit of everything. Does that sound familiar? I have definitely been there with businesses that I founded and also with, you know, some of the businesses that I advise today. But you're honestly, it might surprise you.

4:20This is often the case even in larger organizations as well. So, you know, yes, we see a lot of this messiness in smaller businesses, but we also see elements of it in large corporates that have actually sort of grown arms and legs over the years. So, you know, it's very, very real. And, you know, in those scenarios, you can find that decisions get bottlenecked at the top, you know, and it works until it doesn't. Right. Because growth without structure can actually be chaotic. Right. So that's really what we're talking about. So section two is what's the shift that you need to make? So if you acknowledge that that might be the case in your business or in the department you're running, etc., whether you're in a smaller or a larger business, once you accept that, you're able to then confront your reality.

5:12Right. And that then allows us to get into really how do we how do we solve some of this stuff? So, you know, you have to stop asking what needs doing today and actually start asking better questions because you'll get better answers. So better questions like what structure does my business need to grow? That's a question because businesses that don't businesses don't scale through effort. They actually scale through design. And you have the ability to design not only the organization structure, not only the roles within it, but also the systems, the processes, the way you communicate. So all of these elements are so, so important.

5:58And in actual fact, last week, I was with a very, very large organization, a really huge international conglomerate of a business. and you know we actually interrogated the reality of where we are as a business where are we when it comes to a high performing team and it allowed us to really take stock and then of course identify all right interesting what's the shift we need to make in order to go further faster and to have even more impact and better financial results so asking yourself those questions the right questions is going to allow you to get to the bottom of what's really going on. But you've got to be honest.

6:39All right. So section three, this is the biggie. How to structure your business. Right. And so this is the framework that I'm going to share with you. So write this down. Listen back. You know, we're here to help. We genuinely are. So the first thing is you need to define your core functions, right? Every business, you know, no matter the size, needs clarity across that. These are some examples, sales, marketing, operations, finance, HR, you know, and if they're not clearly defined, you know, you don't have a business, you actually just have lots of activity in different areas. So that's the first thing that you need to do in order to get the right structure for your organization, for your business.

7:28And this often can evolve over time, because what you will find as you continue to scale up, what has got you to the place you are now will not necessarily get you to the next level of growth. All right. So you don't just do this once. You have to revisit as you continue to grow and evolve. So that's the first point within this of getting the right structure. The second part of this section three is you've got to assign ownership, right? You have to have clear roles, responsibilities, and ultimately, you know, stop giving people jobs, but start giving them ownership, accountability. Now, I love to use a RACI, and I've used it in all of the businesses that I've ran, you know, I was the CEO of the travel division at Saga, when I was the managing director of the emerging markets, with businesses that I advise today, whether that's a core hotels, whether it's Virgin Atlantic, whether it's nationwide building society, whether it's founder-led businesses that are looking to scale and grow.

8:37So a RACI stands for, the R stands for who's responsible for actually doing the work. The A, very important, the A is who's accountable. Who is the ultimate decision maker? Where does the book stop? Right. And you can only have one person accountable. You can have lots of people responsible for different parts, but one accountability. The C stands for consulted. Who should be consulted? And the I is for informed. Now, when you have a racer, you can do it at a very macro level or you can get down to a level of granularity. But what this does, it absolutely gets rid of any grey areas. It's super clear who's doing what, who's the ultimate decision maker, who's going to be consulted and who is going to be informed.

9:27And that then allows you also to then refine your processes sitting behind that. It's super simple, but it absolutely works. So who owns the revenue? Who owns delivery? Who owns the client experience? You know, who has the accountability and who has the responsibility for some of those elements? Because the reality is that that clarity that drives the accountability is actually going to result in the performance of the business, both financial results, but also results for the client and the customer and all the other stakeholders that you have to manage. Maybe you have investors, you know, you need to return, give a return to your investors.

10:11You know, so all those stakeholders, when you have absolute clarity on roles, responsibilities, the results will show and you'll get bigger impact. The third thing you need to do, you've got to build layers before you need them. so before we continue i want to speak directly to those of you who are listening and thinking i know i'm capable of more but i need structure i need some help because here's what i've actually learned after gosh more than three decades in business you know ambition without clarity creates frustration. And motivation without structure, it really does fade very, very fast.

10:56So that's exactly why we created Rise Academy. And Rise Academy, it's not theory. It isn't fluffy motivation, although you will be motivated. And it certainly isn't another online course that you never finish. It's actually a fully structured growth environment for ambitious entrepreneurs, leaders and founders who absolutely are ready to do all of these things, sharpen their strategy, elevate their leadership, increase revenue with intention and build businesses that actually support the life that they want. And inside Rise Academy, we focus on the foundations most people skip, leading yourself, leading your teams and leading the business.

11:40It's about clarity, standards, decision making, commercial intelligence and execution. Because scaling, it really isn't about doing more. It's actually about doing the right things and doing the things right consistently. So if you're serious about stepping up into your next level of your leadership, your business life, and not just consuming content, but actually implementing it, then Rise Academy was absolutely built for you. So you can find all the details on our website, go to www.brave-bold-brilliant.com. And now let's get back to the show.

12:26Now, this is where a lot of businesses break down. They wait too long, you know, and actually they wait too long to hire leadership, to create that middle management, to build reporting lines and suddenly everything depends on them and the business has exploded but they've not got that structure early on in order to scale faster so that doesn't mean to say because you may say well that sounds expensive Jeanette you know if I'm creating all these layers of leadership that that's going to cost me but the reality is actually it may only be in a very you know simple way that you do this but it's going to make the big difference so actually being super clear because you are one person you're only one person and there's only 24 hours in the day and if everything is coming up the line to you then that's not sustainable it's not a business actually that's just you being you know very sort of overly controlling and not being able to delegate effectively you've got to be able to focus on the right things and give your teams the power to do the same so then we come on to the fourth point around you know kind of operating rhythms so we don't want complexity but we do need consistency you know and that could be something as simple as weekly team meetings monthly performance reviews clear kpis you know and structure it's not just about control it's about visibility so that you can actually focus on the right things and ultimately actually make decisions make decisions with data make decisions with as much information as possible accepting that you don't always have perfect scenario but if you have those things in place, then actually it's much easier for you, along with your teams, to make the right decisions at the right times and ultimately drive the business and get that scale that we're looking to achieve.

14:09So that's the third section I wanted to take you through. Now, section four, let's talk real, right? Now, I've worked with countless businesses all over the world where, you know, Revenue was growing. Fantastic. Profitability was growing. But the business was really stretched and behind the scenes, it's really starting to fall apart. And, you know, the fix to this was never work harder. You know, people work exceptionally hard when they're in business and they're passionate about that. And that's great. But are you working on the right things? so you know when i see this going on and it's almost like you can see a business start to wobble as you scale up and as i say what's got you to a certain level will not necessarily be what you need going forward you might need a slightly different team you might have some gaps you might need more tech to help you grow etc so we should never ever be afraid to continually change and improve, that's actually where we can really scale a business.

15:14So the fix was never work harder. It was always fix a structure. All right. So, you know, what I would encourage you all to do is to really take a good hard look at your business, take a good hard look at the, you know, the department you're running. And if you're sitting there thinking, oh my God, this definitely feels like my business right now, then the first step, it isn't more action, it's clarity. And that's exactly what we do with our Align 360. You know, we take a full diagnostic of your business, your structure, your team, the gaps that exist. And then what that allows us to do is we're able to show you exactly what needs to change to unlock growth.

16:03It's a powerful way to actually have a neutral, a neutral view of your business because sometimes you can be too close to it yourself. And actually, the value that we bring as Brave Bold Brilliant as an organisation and the clients that we work with, what they value from us and what we bring is in-depth business experience. we've sat in the CEO seat we've sat and built our careers from the bottom up we know exactly what it takes to run a successful business and we've also learned a lot from our failures and the things that have gone wrong so that allows us to bring real debt real deep business knowledge and experience to your organization but here's the thing right we're more we've got multi-sector experience but we're also neutral all right so that means that we're not afraid to hold the mirror up to you in a very constructive way to be able to say hey listen align 360 this is what we're uncovering this these are the areas which we would recommend you to focus on and then of course we're happy to support you on that journey we're absolutely happy to support you because as I say we work alongside we work with your team we work with you as the MD as a CEO as the leader of your area of the business to help you be successful.

17:26And, you know, sometimes, actually, it's also around you as a leader, you know, and if you're already scaling, but you need deeper support, that is where our one-to-one business mentoring comes in. And we work with you intently for 12 months minimum, and we help you make the right decisions, the right structural decisions at the right time with confidence, right? But in a very, very confidential way. I am lucky, lucky enough, and I will say lucky because I feel so grateful that I work with incredible business leaders, corporate CEOs that are running multi-billion dollar businesses, entrepreneurs that are starting at the beginning of their journey, but they've got big ambitions to scale up.

18:17You know, senior leaders that are looking for the next career move. and it's such an enriching thing to be able to do. I get nothing more satisfying by actually seeing an individual, a team or a business step up to that next level of growth. So if you really want to have that close relationship, please do reach out, let's have a conversation. I'm very, very much happy to kind of support you as a leader on your journey as well. And also just the last thing I would say to you, remember that for weekly business content like this, just make sure you stay ahead of time. Head over to our YouTube channel, Brave Bob Brilliant, hit that subscribe button, because if you're already watching this on YouTube, then actually you don't want to miss out on future content.

19:07And to hear directly, not just from me, but some of the biggest names in the world of business today to incorporate what they're doing directly into your business. and of course as always let's remind ourselves that it is by being brave and bold that you'll unlock your brilliant take care and any questions any help you need you just let us know we are here to fully support you at brave bold brilliant have an amazing day and i will catch you when the weather breaks i really hope you've enjoyed this episode of brave bold brilliant remember check out our new website www.brave-bold-brilliant.com you're going to find loads of resources on there that's going to help you with your leadership journey and with the businesses that you're trying to scale up and grow so take care everyone and remember there are no limits to your growth but it is by being brave and bold that you're going to unlock your brilliance