Ep 91 Continuous Improvement and Scalability with Brad Eisenberg

Brad Eisenberg of BE Lean is a scalability consultant with over 15 years of experience as a Founder, COO, and consultant. He works with growing businesses that are at the point where everything that used to be fun and easy has become messy and complex. Brad is here at the Edges of Lean to help us understand what scalability is and the relationship between scalability, lean, and seeing things as they really are.

Brad Eisenberg

Brad led greeNEWit as its COO and is also the founder of BE Lean. Brad was also the founder of weBIKE, a bike share company that gave him his first taste of entrepreneurship. At BE Lean, he focuses on helping clients see what is happening in their businesses, focusing on the critical components of traction, profit, throughput, and innovation; components required for scaling up (or down). Brad’s insights ensure businesses have the tools and resources to scale up or down as demand requires. If you are running a growing business, you know how frustrating it can be when the things that used to be fun and straightforward become messy and complex. That is where Brad comes in - he is an expert in helping businesses scale effectively and efficiently.

KEY TOPICS IN THIS PODCAST:

0:00:00 - Understanding scalability, lean, and visibility in growing businesses

0:06:19 - Understanding the four components of scalability

0:16:24 - Maximizing return on investment for business growth

0:18:10 - Optimizing business growth strategies

0:24:44 - Understanding the benefits of experimentation in business decisions

0:26:57 - A framework for making good decisions on risky ideas

0:32:46 - Risk vs. Return in pharmaceutical product development

0:34:34 - Identifying critical questions and making cold-hearted decisions for business success

0:38:25 - Challenges faced by businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic

0:40:42 - Improving efficiency through infrastructure building and hiring strategies

0:42:30 - Scaling a business and knowledge management

0:44:35 - Taking risks and starting in business

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Scalability is not just about growing or shrinking a business but about having the capacity to adjust to meet demand.
• The four critical scalability components are traction, profit, throughput, and innovation.
• Traction is the ability to move forward, throughput is the ability to generate revenue, and innovation is the ability to adapt and stay ahead. (You know what profit is!)
• Scalability should be considered an ongoing change process, not a one-time goal.
• Measuring and validating ideas is crucial for success, as a business model is just a hypothesis until proven.
• Having an external perspective can help identify and address any blind spots.
• Control, replicability, and consistency are essential elements to achieve scalability.
• Scalability consultants come from various backgrounds, including engineering, math, and science, and help businesses run more smoothly and efficiently.

Memorable Quotes From Brad Eisenberg

“You need a person that will be championing the idea to really kind of push the business forward, and you need that champion to push the envelope.”

CONNECT WITH BRAD EISENBERG

Website: https://www.beleanbusiness.com/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-eisenberg/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brad.eisenberg.5/