Scaling Up Magazine Scaling Up Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 9

SUMMER '18
EDUCATE YOURSELF
TO SCALE UP
SUCCESSFULLY,
EDUCATE
YOURSELF
By: Daniel Marcos
IF YOU are an entrepreneur running a
fast-growing company, perhaps you can
relate to this sentiment: “My business is
humming along, but every day it just seems
more and more out of control. I feel like
I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
Those words were spoken by entrepreneur
Dwight Cooper before growing his
business, PPR Talent, into a $100 million
healthcare recruiter and then selling
it in 2016. Cooper’s current company,
Hueman People Solutions, a spin on
PPR Talent, has already grown from
$10 million in revenues two years
ago to $14 million today. Hueman’s
mission is to recruit talent for small
companies, allowing them to completely
outsource this aspect of their business.
Cooper first began learning how to
scale up his business when he went to a
“Birthing of Giants” program presented
by Verne Harnish, co-founder of The
Growth Institute, about twenty years ago.
“On the first day, Verne said a couple of
things that were critical to my growth and
learning,” says Cooper. “He taught us that,
one, we had an entirely different set of
skills from what it takes to be a successful
entrepreneur, and two, we had to figure out
what we could be the best in the world at.”
Not one to shrink from a challenge,
Cooper set out on what he terms “an
incredible learning journey,” diving into
any available resource, including coaches,
business books, videos, and seminars.
His goal was not only to grow PPR Talent
rapidly but also to become a “Great
Place to Work”—an honor the company
received repeatedly over the years.
Cooper chose to develop a values-based
organization that would preserve the
business’s core ideology. By adhering
to those core values, the company
had the freedom to innovate, try new
ideas, and take risks. For example,
all decisions regarding hiring, firing,
employee evaluations, and organizational
development had to reinforce the company’s
culture and values first and foremost.
“Before we made an offer to someone,”
says Cooper, “we tried to understand not
only who they were but their strengths
and passions too. By aligning our business
strengths with our employees’ passions,
we could create real economic value.”
Cooper has big growth plans for
Hueman—also built on a values-driven
culture—with the goal of doubling the
business over the next three years. “We
have a culture where we can always make
mistakes, but they are mistakes of the
mind, not of the heart,” says Cooper.
His advice for other entrepreneurs
hoping to successfully scale up? “Learn
to be vulnerable along your journey
and don’t let the urgent get in the way
of the important. You may feel that you
don’t have the time to educate yourself
or be coached; however, you just have
to be disciplined and stay focused.”
MEET DANIEL MARCOS
Daniel Marcos is the co-founder and
CEO of ONLY
Gazelles Growth
Institute, the
IT'S
A DRY
leading online executive education
company for C level executives
PIECE
OF BREAD
at fast growing firms. He also co-
founded Inflection (Gazelles Mexico)
YET
TO SOME
IT company
a management
coaching
that helps business executives and
MEANS
entrepreneurs SO
grow MUCH.
their companies
faster and with less “drama”. He
is an international speaker and
has shared stages with thought
leaders like Peter Diamandis, Guy
Kawasaki, and Jack Canfield, just
to name a few. Daniel is the blogger
of Capitalemprendedor.com. He is
a graduate of EO’s premiere CEO
program, the “Birthing of Giants”,
and its continuation, “Gathering
of The Titans”. He holds a BS in
Industrial and Systems Engineering
from ITESM (Monterrey Tech) and
an MBA (cum laude) from Babson
College at Wellesley, MA.
www.growthinstitute.com