GE 285: How the CEO Whisperer Founded & Grew the COO Alliance to $2.5M in Revenue & 7 Employees (podcast)

• [00:44] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
• [01:45] The COO Alliance is expanding over the next four years.
• [02:00] He has authored four books thus far, the most recent of which just came out this past summer.
• [02:33] Cameron won’t fly economy class again, because he’s made such great connections in business class.
• [04:45] The criteria for the COO Alliance is as follows: Minimum of $5 million in revenue and 50 employees. For the forums, the minimum is $3 million in revenue and 30 employees.
• [05:05] Only the second in command (the COO) is allowed to join, no exceptions.
• [05:33] The national program costs $20,000 per year, while the forums are $10,000 annually.
• [06:56] The focus of the alliance is always about making the entrepreneur’s dreams come true.
• [08:40] The international version of the COO Alliance and city forums meet fewer times and have fewer events.
• [09:54] The COO Alliance bring in around $2.5 million in revenue and has 7 employees.
• [11:05] When working at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Cameron hired a strong team, but didn’t always listen to them.
• [11:40] They ignored warnings from the VP of Finance and, after nearly tanking the company, learned that they need to trust their team.
• [12:30] More often than not, leadership teams are not A-level players.
• [12:42] Every six months, Cameron likes to rate his team on results and cultural fit.
• [12:55] This helps to determine each person’s value.
• [13:45] Cameron mostly does one-on-one coaching, but sometimes will open it up to other team members.
• [15:00] He rarely does onsite work and works remotely most of the time.
• [15:25] He prefers to teach the company to fish, rather than bringing them fish.
• [16:48] The Vivid Vision is a technique; it is a four or five page description of your company three years in the future.
• [17:07] When creating this document, you want four or five bullet points per area of your organization.
• [18:32] The Vivid Vision is something Cameron is known for globally.
• [18:38] His audacious goal is to replace mission statements with Vivid Visions.
• [19:32] The concept of “meetings suck” was based on a phone call he had.
• [19:55] The idea is that it’s normal for people to hate meetings, but how many people are actually trained to run meetings in order to improve them?
• [20:12] His theory is that meetings suck because people neither know how to run them nor attend them.
• [22:35] Cameron makes sure to work only two Fridays a month. He also won’t do calls before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m.
• [23:05] He has both annual and quarterly goals. He meets with his team on a quarterly basis to check in about those same goals.
• [23:20] He also has an accountability partner and they use the app “Commit to 3”
• [24:28] Cameron recommends the book The One Minute Manager. It’s a thirty-year-old book but he still believes it to be very relevant.

Resources from the interview:

• COO Alliance
• Cameron’s Blog Post about his Favorite Books
• Cameron’s Books
• Commit to 3

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