Dr. Shellie: Allison Maslan, you wrote the Wall Street Journal bestseller Scale or Fail, How to Build Your Dream Team, Explode your Growth and Let your Business Soar. What was it like to be endorsed by Barbara Corcoran with Shark Tank?
Maslan: I’ve always been a huge fan of Barbara Corcoran because she leads with her heart. And she is the consummate entrepreneur. She lives and breathes business, and she’s super creative and resourceful. I also know that she understands the pain that business owners go through. How they hit this wall, get stuck, and don’t know how to get over it. And she saw that Scale or Fail was going to be kind of a bridge for business owners to get over that wall, to get over that pain, and not have to continually struggle or pull their hair out, trying to figure out the solutions. I was honored and thrilled for her to endorse this book.
Dr. Shellie: That’s fantastic. I know that you’ve built ten successful companies, starting at age 19. How does a teenager even start a successful company? Talk to us about that.
Maslan: I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My grandfather started with one clothing store, and then my father grew it to a clothing chain with over 50 locations. My childhood was spent going from store to store with him, watching him get an idea and put it into action. That’s how my brain was wired. I didn’t know any other way. The messaging I got from a young age was, “If you want something, go create it yourself.”
Dr. Shellie: That’s wonderful. Not everyone has that type of messaging when they’re growing up. How do you work with other business leaders?
Maslan: My tenth company that I run now is called Pinnacle Global Network, and we’re in our ninth year. And it is a private mentoring and mastermind for business owners who want to scale their company. We have worked with thousands of business owners around the world and all different business models, all different industries, and continue to do that.
I have a team of mentors who’ve all scaled and sold companies, who are all very successful themselves, as well. We’re able to do some great work in the world by helping people grow their business and get their gifts out in a big way.
Dr. Shellie: Awesome. What is one of your favorite success stories from Pinnacle Global?
Maslan: It’s important to note that when you help someone grow their business, not only do you change their lives, but you also change their employees’ lives, their families and their customers. We’re working with one gentleman now whose company helps people with addiction and emotional behavioral challenges. He uses a process that he developed for people to overcome these addictions. He’s been in the field a long time, has a team, and travels all over, but he was stuck at the same level of his business for about seven years. When he called me, he said, “I am drowning in my business.” He wasn’t making the money he should have been making so they could expand and help more people. Since working with him, and now we’re in the second year, they’ve grown by $12 million. They’ve got a contract in our building and a huge addiction recovery center in upstate New York.
When we get stuck, it’s because we keep looking at our challenges with the same thoughts, the same tools, the same habits, and that’s the definition of insanity. If it doesn’t work, you don’t keep doing it. There are all these solutions at your feet, but you don’t see them if you don’t have the right eyes looking at them. By just having someone open that door or remove that veil, all of a sudden, the solutions are right there or the opportunities are right there. You can look at your business in a whole new way.
Dr. Shellie: Do you believe that companies should have an executive board to help guide them, or do you believe more in the coaching type of model?
Maslan: It depends on the size of the company. Now, in this gentleman’s case, he did have a board, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s going to move the company forward. He talked to his board about working with us, and you better believe the board is behind us now. We are like a team of advisors for our clients to help them make crucial decisions.
Dr. Shellie: When you talk with CEOs, what tip do you give them that would help them to not fail, but rather to scale, as your book implies?
Maslan: First, you need to understand what “scaling” means. A lot of people don’t, so I’ll just define it. “Scaling” is being able to replicate what you do to a point that you can multiply it at a much larger scale without multiplying your expense, time, and energy.
This is where people get stuck, because you’re doing great. You’re getting your business out there. You’ve got customers, and then you hit a wall, where you’re out of time, energy, money. Then, you have to implement a strategy, a creative strategy, which I talk about in my book Scale or Fail, that will help your business multiply.
In our case, I have a team of mentors. If it was just me, I would only be able to help so many people. That’s one way to scale, but I list 17 ways in the book. You can scale on the revenue side, and you can scale on the team side.
Dr. Shellie: You work with both small businesses and larger businesses, correct?
Maslan: Yes. We have two levels of business owners. We have business owners in the six figures, and then we have business owners in our scale track, which is above a million. And we have clients in that track from a million to 70 million.
Dr. Shellie: That’s amazing. I know that you’ve been featured in Success Magazine, Fortune, Best Company, and Forbes. Since we are Inspiring Lives Magazine, do you have any words of inspiration for business owners?
Maslan: I love inspiring business owners because they are the dream makers! Put your head toward that dream, and walk toward it every single day. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done!
