We recently connected with Brian Wood and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

The importance of scaling up cannot be understated and is critical for sustained impact and business success. From day one, I initiated the ideal strategy, executed a flawless game plan and followed the ultimate blue print to expand my business – MARS Coaching – overnight.

Okay – not exactly!

In retrospect, the initial “strategy” was more of a belief that I could outwork everyone – resulting in good things. In my defense, it’s not a terrible thing to believe in yourself! But believing in yourself without the right strategy can complicate matters. So I showed up with authenticity and excitement as an officially certified professional coach, anxious to share my “hot off the presses” knowledge and the many tools and assessments I had at my disposal. It was actually pretty effective and opened up several doors. I gained experience as an NBA/WNBA player agent, worked with professional sports teams and several current and former professional athletes. There is something magical about telling the universe (and every one in the universe) about the things that excite you. And I also began to understand that despite the hard work and passion, becoming scalable required a different approach – one which focused on aligning myself with the right people, connecting with the right partners and always breaking into those rooms surrounded with greatness.

One of the best parties I ever crashed was one known as Looking Forward Consulting. A local and growing training and leadership development organization with a team of exceptional people who are each incredible leaders. Joining this team while growing my organization provided me with an additional tool box of resources, assessments, technology, instructional design, elements gamification secret weapons, role play simulation platforms and a Learning Management System.

Based on this dumb luck strategy, I’m now able to provide coaching and/or organizational development and training (in person and virtual) needs for teams north of 20k employees.

My “scaling up” lessons learned include:

Tell the world about the things that fuel your passion. you’re passionate – your product, your service your ‘why.’

Don’t be afraid to give things away and bet on yourself with a “Famous Amos” approach. Give away some cookies, get people interested in what you represent – create energy and ambassadors.

Identify and pursue strategic partnerships.

Identify and leverage systems that can be used to get you out of the weeds, Beware of distractions which pull you away from the best use of your time and energy.

Always fight like crazy to get in the room with inspiring people and replicate the habits, behaviors and thoughts that they’ve used to scale up their businesses, while leading and living boldly and courageously.

Always bet on yourself and become obsessed with self development and improvement, while giving yourself grace when you stumble.

Serve others without keeping score.

Brian , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I spent about 30 years in the corporate world between American Airlines and Waste Management, relocating around the country frequently. An amazing ride and the opportunity to experience inspiring transformational leadership in addition to experiencing a small percentage of leadership that help me understand that “I don’t want to be like that when I grow up!”

We always have the opportunity to positively impact people regardless of our role or title. And it took a long and winding road for me to realize that operating transactionally, was not what I was designed to do. Experiencing that Sunday night depression was not the mindset enabling me to change lives and organizations.

“The people who are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do.” My crazy is better than most! And that mindset comes from a place of urgency:

We’ve got to change as many lives and organizations as possible during our short amount of time on earth.

That mindset comes from a place of selflessness:

If it’s important to you as an athlete, former athlete, non profit leader, high potential executive, it’s important to me and we are going to win this together!

So I think it would have been easy to ride it out after so many years in corporate – limping to the finish line!

I’m proud of betting on myself and not limping to the finish line.
I’m proud that I’ve aligned my actions with my words to my family. It’s easy to say one thing and then do something different.

“You kids can do anything – aim high – live without regrets!” and then walk back to the sidelines, play it safe and live conservatively.

Those meddling kids don’t miss a thing and are always watching us!

I’m proud of the adventures, experiences, failures, lessons, laughter, blood, sweat and tears.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

So much of what leads to success in business, athletically and in life connects to our ability to slow down the game. This also holds true for often overwhelming world of social media!

Full disclosure and just so we’re clear, I am not Social Media savant!

But I have learned a few things along the way based on plenty of mistakes:

Stay in your lane – Social Media feels like a chore, seek out professionals that can help take this burden off your plate, freeing up more time for you to best use your time and energy.

Pick and choose – Where are you most comfortable? Take advantage of the platforms that bring you most joy. I’m more of a LinkedIn guy with IG coming in second place for me.

Be consistent – Put in the work, just like an athlete practices (deliberately) when he or she doesn’t feel like practicing or when no one is watching. Hold yourself accountable to completing “X” number of posts each week and review your performance at the end of said week. What does the scoreboard say? Was your week a win or a loss?

Be human – Don’t worry about being perfect. Deliver content that reflects the one and only you, not who you think others want you to be. Authenticity is cool!

Serve – Support others through inspiration and avoid negative talk. Stand up for what you believe in and show up courageously, but avoid being the doom and gloom person (for some reason people gravitate toward negativity on Social Media), Avoid the temptation of taking the path of negativity. Values over “likes.”

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like many entrepreneurs, the Covid pivot was a real thing! And it seems as though those who were “hoping: for things to normalize as opposed to adjusting missed an exceptional opportunity. As a rule of thumb, it’s not what happens – but what we do about it!

The pivot was about leaning into creativity, innovation and imagination. This involved creating a platform for virtual training, which is a micro learning experience and not a 12 hour death by power point torture chamber session. Creating a virtual approach to 80 leadership development opportunities facilitated live was something that grew from the shadows of Covid. We were able to produce miniature and engaging “television shows” (which include the occasional dad joke) during a significant business pivot.

“Within Chaos lies Opportunity”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://manfrommarscoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodmarscoach/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarsCoaching
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianwoodmba/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/woodmarscoach

Image Credits
Hassan Kareem