Scaling Up Magazine Scaling Up Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 25

SUMMER '18
PLAYING MINOR league baseball
in the Cincinnati Reds system,
Josh Lamberg never envisioned
himself as an entrepreneur leading
a fast-growing company.
But after retiring from his athletic career
in 2003, Lamberg began working in
the insurance industry, and by 2008, he
had started Lamb Insurance Services,
an insurance brokerage in New York
City dedicated to nonprofits and social
service businesses. Lamberg spotted
a gap in the marketplace when he saw
generalists in the field selling the wrong
kinds of policies to these clients. For
instance, brokers would sell a nonprofit
involved in after-school sports a policy
that excluded athletic participation,
often because the brokers did not
understand what coverage was needed.
Lamberg was onto something, and today,
his profitable company generates $16
million in annual revenue at six offices
around the country. As he built the
company to ninety employees, he created
a great culture that earned his firm a spot
on the Crain’s New York Business “100
Best Places to Work in New York City.”
What helped him pull it all off was
applying the Scaling Up system for
growing a company. Lamberg began
using the Scaling Up system in
2012 on the recommendation of Ben
Kirshner, CEO of Elite SEM, whom
he knew through Entrepreneurs’
Organization. “It’s really been fantastic
to help me learn and grow—and we
totally buy in,” says Lamberg.
ACCELERATING RESULTS
WITH A COACH
Lamberg wanted to get a running
start with the system, so one
critical step was enlisting Gazelles
Certified Coach Richard Manders of
FreeScale Coaching of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to guide his team.
He clicked with Manders immediately
and saw how much more efficient the
CASE STUDY: JOSH LAMBERG
learning process would be with the
right guide. “I was someone who was
coached my whole life,” says Lamberg.
ENLISTING THE
LEADERSHIP TEAM
25
premier choice for nonprofits and social
services organizations,” says Lamberg.
“While we are the largest broker that
works just with nonprofits and social
services organizations, our brand is not
recognized across the country yet.”
To keep the team focused on the
company’s goals, Lamberg began
a new strategic planning process,
guided by FreeScale, two years ago. To support the BHAG, Lamberg and
his team set a goal of opening a specific
number of offices in cities important to
its growth within the next three years.
Lamberg had previously been creating
annual plans on his own and then sharing
them with the team, but as Manders
explained, that model was not going to
serve the company well as it scaled. Lamberg and his leadership team broke
down the steps needed to get there,
quarter by quarter and year by year. For
instance, he would need to hire a chief
people officer in 2018 and expand his
current sales team from twenty people
to thirty this year—and ultimately
double the sales team’s size within
three years. Daily and weekly huddles
and quarterly meetings helped keep
the team aligned around these goals.
“When you get to more than twenty
people or so, the CEO can’t manage
them directly anymore,” says Manders.
“You need other leaders to manage the
teams that make the business grow.
You now need to bring these leaders
‘under the tent’ of the strategic planning
process so that all necessary voices
and feedback can be heard. These
leaders want to come up wi th their own
departments’ plans and have input into
the master plan for the business.”
With Manders’ guidance, Lambert
began working more closely with
his leadership team to come up with
a vision for the company. “That is
the right way to lead my business
as opposed to sitting in a room for a
month and coming out and dictating to
everyone what to do,” Lamberg says.
CREATING A GROWTH
STRATEGY
Lamb Insurance Services (www.lambis.
com) also worked with Manders on the
company’s One-Page Strategic Plan and
a three-year version of the Big Hairy
Audacious Goal (BHAG) Jim Collins
describes. Lamberg and his leadership
team set a BHAG to become the Ritz-
Carlton of insurance for nonprofit
and social services organizations
with a presence in every city.
“We want to be a national brand and the
GETTING SET UP TO SCALE
Lamberg’s strategy also includes putting
the systems in place that will allow him to
add employees seamlessly. For instance,
he is creating an employee training
manual and has put a process in place
to ask employees every Friday where
their biggest “stuck”—or obstacle to
progress—is so the company can clear it.
TAPPING THE POWER
OF TECHNOLOGY
The firm has also created proprietary
software to track associates’ sales efforts
and servicing of its accounts. “If we
focus on that process, the company will
continue to improve,” says Lamberg.
Lamberg’s efforts have been paying
off quickly. The company recently
opened its seventh regional office
in Massachusetts and has begun
marketing the software to other firms.
“We’re just getting warmed up,”
says Lamberg. “We’re really at
the beginning of this thing. We’ve
got a lot of opportunity.”