201: 150,000 Founders Have Used This Method to Scale with Allison Maslan

Tons of entrepreneurs claim to be “scaling” their business, but when you look under the hood, they’re actually just growing fast.

And there’s a big difference. Growth can be exciting, but without structure, systems, and the right leadership in place, it’s not sustainable. Even founders who’ve hit 7- or 8-figures eventually realize the same thing: what got them here won’t get them there.

So how do you make that shift? How do you move from hustling for growth to building something scalable—something that runs without you?

That’s where Allison Maslan comes in. She’s built and scaled 10 companies across multiple industries, and as the CEO of Pinnacle Global Network, she’s helped more than 150,000 founders and leadership teams do the same—earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list four years running.

In this episode, we dig into why so many founders fail to scale, unpack Allison’s 5 Pillars of Scale framework, and explore how to turn big vision into an operational reality your team can rally behind.

Mic Drop Moments

• “What tends to keep business owners stuck is that you’re still feeling like you need to approve everything. If you continue to do that and you wanna be CC’d on every email, you’re gonna choke the growth of the company.” – Allison Maslan

• “ I think people just equate scaling with fast growth. It can create fast growth, but without the right infrastructure it can completely combust. It’s about reaching a lot more people, making a bigger impact. And of course, that’s gonna increase your profits, with the same amount of time and energy it would take to reach one or a few people.” – Allison Maslan

• “ If you knew that you would succeed. And if money was no issue and you had no fear, how big could you dream?” – Allison Maslan

• 00:54 Why Scaling is an Overused Word
• 02:25 Early-Stage vs. Late-Stage Scalability
• 04:09 Why So Many Founders Fail to Scale
• 06:59 The SCALEit Framework Explained
• 10:35 The 5 Pillars of Scale (S.C.A.L.E.)
• 11:22 Can SCALEit & EOS Work Together? 
• 14:15 Creating a Strategic Vision That Drives Growth
• 20:59 Balancing Big Vision with Tactical Reality
• 25:02 Case Study: Vision Turned Into $100M+ Growth
• 26:50 Balancing Long-Term Vision with Rapid Change
• 33:45 Delegation vs. Abdication
• 43:30 Defining Hiring Metrics for Scalable Success
• 48:28 Mental Shifts That Enable Massive Growth
• 57:02 Advice for New Entrepreneurs Getting Started

Allison Maslan: What tends to keep business owners stuck is that you’re still feeling like you need to approve everything. If you continue to do that and you wanna be CC’d on every email, you’re gonna choke the growth of the company. So many business owners  out of the gate, they created great traction,  and there’s a point where they hit a ceiling and they can’t get beyond it.  I began to study my clients that had thousands of employees.  What were the systems and processes that they had in place? How did they replace themselves? What were the scalable models that they had?  The SCALEit Method is our proprietary method specifically focused on scaling.  I used it to build 9 more companies that have not depended on me. We’ve literally helped over 150,000 CEOs  by using this method.

Brad Weimert: So what exactly is the scale up method and how do founders use it to grow faster?

Brad Weimert: One of the things that I’ve heard you say is scaling is an overused word. How do you define scaling?

Allison Maslan: What scaling really means is replication and multiplication. It’s taking your product or your service and expanding or shifting it to a replicatable model so that it can now multiply well beyond you. And I think people just equate scaling with fast growth, which definitely, it can create fast growth, but without the right infrastructure, it can completely combust as well. And so, it’s creative strategy and it’s about reaching a lot more people, making a bigger impact. And of course, that’s going to increase your profits. With the same amount of time and energy, it would take to reach one or a few people.

Brad Weimert: Yeah. I asked the question because I find it irritating to hear lots of entrepreneurs use the term scaling. Like, we are scaling or this is how we scale. And they’re really referencing accelerated growth. And very often, it’s confined. So, they had a growth burst, but it was from some number to another number. And it doesn’t continue. And it’s usually inside of a smaller window where it’s like they grew to 5 million or 10 million or 20 million, but it’s not scalable long term. How do you think about scalability early on versus later? Is it possible to put a scalable system in place in the very beginning of your business and have it actually allow you to scale to nine figures and up?

Allison Maslan: Yeah, I mean, I wish I knew these things early on in my journey. It would’ve saved me a ton of grief. However, so yes, I think that you can put these models in your business early on. I think it’s important for you to know it and plan for it, but in the beginning, there’s so much of proof of concept and figuring out who is your ideal avatar. And do they even want your products or services? Do they work? Can you create a demand for them? And so, I think those things have to be ironed out first before you start creating subscription and franchise or certification, so many of the multipliers. Let’s just figure out, is this something that people want? And once you can do that and you can sell, let’s say, even into the six figures, I think now you can start to think more strategically sooner to figure out what is that multiplier.

Brad Weimert: So, I know lots of companies that get to a few million dollars in sales, and I would argue for sure, do not have scalable systems in place. In fact, things tend to break at different phases of business. What is a common adjustment that needs to be made when somebody is in the, call it $3 to $8 million range as a CEO? What’s a lever that they can pull on within this quarter to change the trajectory of their business?

Allison Maslan: Well, that’s where so many business owners come to us, Brad. Out of the gate, they created great traction. Maybe they tapped into an industry where there was already a built-in demand, which is awesome. But like you said, that can only take you so far. And there’s a point where they hit a ceiling and they can’t get beyond it. And so, what we have to figure out is, first of all, a lot of the time, the issue is the CEO, the founder. So, besides the multiplier, which we need to figure out what that can be, a lot of it is that they have to get out of their own way and really build out that team.

Now, they may have a team in place. At that level, they probably have at least 10 employees up to, let’s say, 30. But we often find that even with 30 employees, you’ll see the business owner with their hands in every single area of the business because they’re afraid to let go and they’re actually choking the growth of the company. They think they’re helping, but they’re actually really hurting it and they’re not allowing the team to step up and really contribute. Then what happens is the business owner gets burned out and it really hits a wall. So, it actually is a disease, I think, of business owners that millions of these founders struggle with all over the world.

Brad Weimert: Yeah. Well, I think, I’ve heard you say also that business can be simple, and I think that’s a frustrating thing for a founder in that position to hear because there are seemingly a never-ending amount of decisions and everybody feels like their business is unique. And then you’ve got this set of people that are trying to push things into a structure or framework. And I think that there’s a gap there for founders. So, some of this comes down to sort of the tactical elements of how do you make that transition, and some of that might just be believing that it’s possible, right, is that, hey, I can just let other people make decisions and move forward. I want to get into the sort of strategic and tactical framework of that stuff, but well, actually, let’s just start with that. So, let’s start with your framework which is the SCALEit framework. Tell me about that framework and how it came to be and how you put it into place with existing businesses.

Allison Maslan: Yes, the SCALEit Method is our proprietary method specifically focused on scaling, and it pertains to the entire company, so not just marketing or sales or operations, and just like parts of a car or the human body, everything in your business affects everything you do, affects every other aspect of business. You really have to look at it from a holistic perspective. This came about in my own journey. In my first business, I was the control freak. I was the one that felt like I had to do everything to the point that I imploded from the stress completely. This was in my advertising and PR company. And even though we were working with big companies like Ben & Jerry’s and Supercuts and Allstate and doing great work, I did hit that proverbial wall. And it was so painful and it was such a big wakeup call for me to say, okay, if you are going to continue down this business journey, then you need to figure out a smarter way to approach this because this is not sustainable. And I was in my 20s at the time.

And so, I began to study my clients that had thousands of employees to understand how is it that the business owner, the founder, was not standing over everybody like an orchestra leader telling them what to do. They were out as the visionary leader focused on the future, building strategic partnerships, acquiring other companies, or just spending time with their family. And so, I began to study what were the systems and processes that they had in place. How did they replace themselves? What were the scalable models that they had? And that was the beginning of my SCALEit Method. And that was really for my own growth.

I wasn’t mentoring business owners. I didn’t have a team of mentors like I have now. And I used it to build nine more companies that have not depended on me. So, all different industries, all different business models, and so, that’s how I knew that the Scaleit Method would be industry agnostic. And so, when I started Pinnacle Global Network, which is almost 17 years ago, I can’t believe it, and we’ve literally helped over 150,000 CEOs by using this method to help them with two things. One, build a team managed company that is founder independent. And that’s so critical. If you’re truly going to scale and you want a high valuation and you want a great exit, you need to have that team managed company, and then the scalable model, like what we were talking about, to have that multiplier. And those two components together are really what the founder needs to build.

Brad Weimert: And I love a good acronym. SCALE, in this case, stands for what?

Allison Maslan: Strategic vision, cash flow, alliance of the team, leadership, and execution. Those are the five pillars of scaling, and it’s just apropos that the S is strategic vision because it’s the most important part of scaling and it’s right at the top.

Brad Weimert: So, I think each of those, I want to talk about the methodology of this a little bit and then the elements of it, because each of those have uniquely different challenges for an entrepreneur as they go through their journey. How does the SCALEit Method fit in conjunction with something like EOS or a framework to run your company by?

Allison Maslan: Yeah. So, with our clients, and we work with thousands of CEOs all over the world to help them scale, now, some of them come in and they’re working with EOS, and so, it works complimentary with what we do. And the SCALEit Method actually, does– we have the strategies and the tools for the areas of the business that EOS addresses. So, EOS is more focused on operations which is important. And the SCALEit Method does that as well, but also for the other pillars. But if it’s something that their company is really connected to, it still will work well with what we do.

Brad Weimert: Got it. Yeah, I mean, I think that that just structurally helps you to understand where it fits in. EOS is literally the entrepreneur operating system, and there are a couple other operating systems that people can run their company by. So, the SCALEit Method is about branching outside of just the operational construct of the business into the other areas for growth as well.

Allison Maslan: Yeah, it’s really a big part of why I created the SCALEit method. I am an ADD entrepreneur, like many entrepreneurs. I’m a visionary. And I could be over here and then over here and chasing this idea. And I needed to have a structure, a format. I needed to take complex business strategies and simplify them into a step one, step two, step three, step four. And I hear this all the time from high-level CEOs. Oh, my gosh, Allison, the way you break this down or our team of mentors, because we have over 40 mentors now that our clients work one-on-one with, they just really appreciate the simplicity of something that is normally so complex and it gives them something to hold onto, but also really allows them now the space to get creative. And because in the world that we live in right now, the only limit in your business is how far you’re willing to go with your creativity and imagination.

Brad Weimert: Let’s talk about the order of operations here a little bit. So, you mentioned strategic vision being the beginning of the acronym and the journey for an entrepreneur. Kind of a two-part question here, the first is defining strategic vision versus just vision, and then the other is, at what phase in an entrepreneur’s journey do you think that they have to have this crystal-clear vision of where they’re going in the future?

Allison Maslan: Well, the sooner they can get to it, the better. I think a lot of times, we think of a vision is let’s kind of figure out where we want to go this year. You spend a little time on it in January, you check in in June where we at, and then see where you landed in December. That’s how most people operate for their vision. And that’s what I did in the early days too. And I think in the early part of your business, it is cloudy. I mean, you’re not quite sure. But as you mature and get beyond that million-dollar mark, now you’re starting to really see the possibility. I think most business owners think way too small. They really settle in every area of their business of what they’re willing to take or what they feel that they’re worth or deserve. That’s a lot of the mindset work.

But once we get to that place and we can utilize this method to help them think beyond the crevices of their mind or what they’d even seen for themselves or what they thought was possible in the past, now we open whole floodgates of excitement and potential for the future. And I’ve seen this over and over and over again. I could see a business owner come in, they’ve been running their company for 10 years, 20 years. Once we help them get super clear on their vision and it is documented and we’ve created this, we’ve helped them reverse engineer that into the strategy that’s going to get them there, that’s the strategic vision, it’s game on.

Now, they go from $3 million to $20 million to $50 million to $100 million because now they get it. They see a path ahead, and now their team gets it, the team gets excited. You’re attracting more people that can get behind the vision, that are in alignment with it. You repel the people that are not interested or just are not committed, and it really is life changing.

Brad Weimert: Talk to me about how you get that strategic vision to move beyond just a mission statement for people or values on the wall. What are the tactical things that separate somebody from saying, hey, we’ve got a mission, vision, values, and somebody that truly has a strategic vision?

Allison Maslan: Yeah. So, we have some tools and a process that we take them through. First, we have them mark out their calendar for time to actually work on the vision. That’s one of the biggest things. It’s like, okay, let’s actually commit to working on the business and get you out of the weeds for even a few days and let’s get a big yellow pad, go to the beach, go to the mountains, wherever it is, and just start writing down stream of consciousness. If you knew that you would succeed and if money was no issue and you had no fear, how big could you dream? And we take them through all kinds of exercises as well. And we have video and audio and so forth. And I help them to expand their imagination and then I say, “Okay, now I want you to triple that.”

And now, their mind is like, that takes your breath away because you already thought you were thinking big. And then we have them put it into a mind map to expand it further. And what the vision needs to look like is that you’re walking into a movie of your business and your life three years from now and you’re able to help people to come there with you. And so, we want to know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like? What are your customers saying about you? What does your team say about you? What kind of awards are you receiving? What are your products and services at that point? What are you charging for your services? All these different aspects, how are you spending your time?

And then we take that and we have a whole template once we take from the mind map and then we have a whole template for them to create this living document, which we call a big picture vision. And then there’s so many things they can do with it, of course, like you said, they could put on their wall, but it’s really about sharing it, sharing it with new hires, sharing it with their vendors, sharing it with their customers. And you as the founder really need to live in this vision every single day, not a couple times a year, but your role is to share this vision of your company with the world. And from this place of passion and excitement, you will start to attract those players to get behind it.

Brad Weimert: So, do you know Cameron Herold?

Allison Maslan: Yes, I know Cameron well.

Brad Weimert: So, Cameron, likewise, a good friend of mine, wrote Vivid Vision, and is a huge proponent of everything you’re saying. One of the things that I think people have a hard time with, specifically people that have a high level of attention to detail is the idea of what you just said, which is create this vivid picture of your future, make it a movie that people can walk through, right? We want all the details, but then the question is like, well, how much f*cking time do you want me to spend on the exact marketing plan that I’m going to use to get there?

So, when we talk about the grand vision, where do you draw the line with the nuances of the actual execution path? Is it the vision for what could be omitting the details of the sales and marketing channel? Is it a limited version of the sales and marketing channel? How do you paint that full picture and how do you reconcile those two things for the entrepreneur that has this high level of attention to detail and wants the exact perfect road map, which probably doesn’t exist?

Allison Maslan: Well, the strategic vision becomes the operating manual, basically, of the company. But this is at a higher level and it’s got to be something that will emotionally move your team. So, in all of the meetings of our company and in the different departments that we have, whoever is leading the meeting, they always start with the vision. Sometimes they’ll have different people on the team read different parts of the vision. We actually have a vision committee in our company, which is 11 employees that it’s all volunteers. These are people that are galvanizers of the vision. They’re so excited about it. They meet with new employees about it. They do innovation sessions around it and so forth. So, it is the thing that is the magnet that pulls you to where you want the company to be.

Now, from that, then in each department, you’re going to build out your plan. But as you’re building out your marketing plan or your operations plan or your cashflow plan or you’re hiring your org chart, you really are looking at the vision to say, is this going to get us there? Is this in line with this? Or is this taking us in a whole other direction? And if it’s not, then we need to put it in the parking lot unless your vision changes. And that can happen over time. But it really is the vision is, in some sense, even though it’s concrete, it’s also esoteric. And we take our team through visualization exercises, journaling exercises, and we do this with our community. I developed something called vision crafting where they actually visualize their vision every single day, every morning before they even start their day. So, if you get too much into the number of leads and cost of acquisition, that kind of pulls you out of your heart and into your head. We need that and that’s in each department. But the overarching vision is really more from a visual and emotional place.

Brad Weimert: So, I think strategically and tactically, what I heard was that the plan to get there can be independent of the vision, but is guided and informed by the vision. So, the decisions that are made on an ongoing basis are made through the lens of the vision.

Allison Maslan: Yes, exactly. I’ll give you an example. One of our clients, her name is Constance. She has a law firm. She had 30 employees when she came to us. She was working 17 hours a day in the business. And when we first did this exercise with her, she said, “Okay, I’d like to get to $5 million in revenue.” And we were like, “Constance, you’re helping. What you do changes lives and you’re thinking way too small.” And so, we sent her back to the drawing board. And so, this was a continuous process with her. And as she really laid out the vision, it was about acquiring other law firms. It was about building a marketing company around, supporting other law firms. And what we helped her do was replace herself in every area of the company because she was the one that was in the way. And we really helped her to get to what we call phase five, that visionary CEO.

And in three and a half years, she went from 30 employees to 400 employees. She’s crossing $100 million in revenue and moving pretty quickly to $500 million in revenue. And her life has completely changed. And it really all stemmed, and she’ll say this, from this vision and having a team around her to inspire her to think much bigger and to help her see that this was possible.

Brad Weimert: So, I want to talk about some of the tactical elements of that in terms of making the transition through these phases. You referenced independent stages that I think are probably a part of your framework and how you look at the growth of a business. But before we move to that, I want to kind of close the chapter on the confines of vision. I have a pretty strong belief, and you alluded to this, so I think we’re probably on the same page here, but I have a pretty strong belief that entrepreneurs should just f*cking get going and they should not prevent their action because they don’t have a crystal-clear vision. And you said, you get there over time or you can get to a place and you can be foggy in the beginning.

One of the things that people struggle with, I believe, and I think it’s warranted to some extent, is how far out a vision can actually be accurate. So, today, the pace of change with AI is so radical. How do you think about leaving space for modification of the vision and having a crystal-clear vision of the future?

Allison Maslan: Oh, for sure. Like I said, it will evolve and change and we are in a disruptive marketplace, and it’s just going to continue to speed up. And I think the vision can somewhat stay intact, but the way you get there may change. So, it’s still holding the vision. Like for us, we’re expanding globally and we are bringing on mentors because our clients work with business owners that have been very successful already. They’ve exited companies and they’re working with CEOs that have taken a company public or worked with thousands of employees. And so, we bring on these mentors globally.

Now, that is our big vision, but maybe that will change over time in how we actually do it. So, that’s the how, the tools, but it doesn’t mean that the vision of this global community is necessarily going to change, just your method on how that might transpire. And so, I think you got to leave room for that to happen.

Brad Weimert: Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. What I heard was part of creating the vision in the first place needs to take into account some of those elements. If I want to, my vision probably shouldn’t be at the moment to have a people moving business that doesn’t involve self-driving cars or full automation because that would be a foolish vision to create at this point. But if my vision is having a people moving business, the actual mechanics of how we do that is almost inevitably going to change. So, defining that in this moment might also be a silly thing to do with the vision. And you might just hold that space for, hey, I’m trying to create this thing to move all these people around the world. How I do that will evolve over time.

Allison Maslan: Exactly. I mean, we now have launched a whole AI division of our company. We do AI labs on a regular basis. We’re building and already have patented an AI software. So, if you would’ve asked me this three, four years ago, I would’ve been like, what? So, yeah, you have to continue to innovate and evolve. I mean, that’s what I love about being a business owner is that there is no limit to your creativity. But again, I still feel like you need to have that North Star, otherwise, you’re going to go in so many different directions and you’re going to be diluted. I think one of the reasons we’ve been so successful over the years is that we have stayed the course. We have stayed the course with who our avatar is, what our offering is. And this gives us an opportunity to serve at a high level and this is why we have such a high retention of members that stay with us year over year over year because they’re not confused by all these different offerings that we have. They’re clear on what we stand for. And I think you can chase the shiny object, and then people are confused at who are you and what do you really represent.

Brad Weimert: Yeah. Well, I think said another way, the entrepreneur is confused about who they are and what they represent. Not just their client base, but if you lack a vision of some sort, then you’re going to get confused and pulled in a bunch of different directions and it’s going to lend to this operating procedure of shifting focus every month or every quarter or even every year if you don’t have something that’s guiding you on that.

Allison Maslan: Yeah. I’m frustrated because maybe it’s not happening fast enough. And we live in this world where everything happens overnight and you hear on social media, oh, they’re making millions and millions of dollars and they just started last week. I mean, things that are just so unrealistic, and that’s not the true story of what’s really happening behind the scenes in most cases. So, yeah.

Brad Weimert: In most cases. I think we are seeing a lot of really innovative accelerated change. But of course, of the 20 examples you see of that, like you said, in most cases, that’s not really the full story. And I think you’ve probably seen at this point as I have, the litany of people that talk about growth or about exit, and when you drill into the numbers through the course of growth, they’ve diluted their ownership to 3%. And they have a $100 million exit and they leave with $3 million and then they pay half of it in taxes.

Allison Maslan: Or they’ve been working for decades in their business. And the business is so dependent on them that when they leave, the company’s going to tank. And so, it’s really not valued that much. And so, then if you were to add it all up over all these years and all the hours they put into it, they probably earned about five bucks an hour.

Brad Weimert: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a whole different story. I think the time and effort into something and how you calculate that stuff, that gets into an interesting game of what is your hourly rate, what are you worth, and how do you calculate that? Well, let’s talk, I want to go into kind of some, I want to dip my toe into the tactical side of this a little bit and pull back out. But moving from phase to phase seems to be very difficult for a lot of entrepreneurs. And I think part of that is that humans hate change, by and large, or struggle with it. When we find something that we’re good at, we want to keep doing it and do more of it, moving to the next thing to then stumble through it and not be good at it and figure it out kind of sucks. It kind of feels sh*tty sometimes.

One of the areas that I see that happen in, with myself included, is effective delegation. So, when you look at moving from a heavily involved operating founder, and I’m not even going to use the term CEO because I don’t think it really applies, but you’re a small business owner/operator and you’re growing things. Moving into the next phase of having your team own the outcomes and not getting your fingers in everything is a massive challenge for so many, so many entrepreneurs. What is the difference between effective delegation and abdication?

Allison Maslan: Yeah, I think that we call in phase two is the pioneer, and this is where you’re still in the thick of the business and you’re optimizing your products and services and your avatar, and you’re starting to build a team and you are starting to delegate. But what tends to keep business owners stuck here is that you’re still feeling like you need to approve everything, like you’re giving it to them, but you want your eyes on it if it’s going in and out of the company. And that’s okay for a bit, but if you continue to do that and you want to be CC’d on every email, you’re going to choke the growth of the company. And you also will thwart any creativity from your team. And now, you have a micromanaged organization.

And then as you start to build the team, you start adding more people, it just becomes a bigger extension of that. And that’s what we call the ringleader. That’s phase three. That’s where most business owners come to us, over a million. And I would say the biggest issue here, and I’ll talk about replacing yourself, and we actually have kind of a step by step for that, I’m happy to share. But I’d say the biggest mistake is that you’re hiring people before you clearly understand what success looks like for the role. So, for instance, before you even post an ad, if this person that you want to hire that you’re looking for were to be successful, what are the metrics around that? What targets are they actually hitting? We call these the North Star metrics. And do you know that?

And then when you hire them, do they know that? And in most cases, the answer is no. And so, you have these mismatched expectations and frustration on both parts. And then you feel like, oh, my God, things are slipping through the cracks. So, I got to be the hero. I got to jump in, I got to save the day. I’ve got the answer, I can fix it. And then you add in all the emotional ego kind of stuff there from the founder. And that’s where that hamster wheel ensues. And this is generally where businesses stay stuck for years. This is where they get health challenges, divorce. It kind of runs rampant and this is often where the business dies. Now, go ahead.

Brad Weimert: So, I want to insert something here because you answered my question without using the words for my use case. You answered the question kind of in a more macro sense. And the question I asked was the difference between effective delegation and abdication. And I want to connect those dots because how you answered that was what I heard was effective delegation. And you did this through the frame of hiring, right, where it starts, which is not having a clearly defined outcome. And I would extrapolate a clearly defined 30, 60, 90-day plan or one-year plan for this role you’re hiring for. But effective delegation versus abdication is the lack of having a clearly defined outcome for the activity that you’re delegating and you’re just telling them to go do it and hoping that it gets done, and then getting your fingers involved when it’s not done the way that you want it to be done, even though you never defined it clearly in the first place.

Allison Maslan: I mean, you can’t abdicate until you’re even aware of where you’re at and you can’t abdicate until you figure out what you need. I mean, you said it earlier, we are creatures of habit and we’re so afraid to let go. And so, but really what has to happen is that you need a step-by-step plan to replace yourself in every area of the business. And the sooner you do this, the faster your business will grow. And one of the things that you need to do is to start to build a leadership team. And what I like to do is see the business within four clear quadrants – your revenue streams, your sales, your marketing, and your operations. And your revenue streams are whatever it is you sell. For us, it’s mentoring.

And so, what are those positions that are going to run each of those quadrants? Now, in an early-stage business, it might be a marketing manager. In a more advanced company, it’s going to be a CMO on the marketing side. In operations, it could be an operations manager, and then it could be operations COO or operations VP. And so, those positions will mature as the business grows. And so, the step by step to abdication, which is very different from delegation, you can’t really abdicate until you have leaders that come in that can make the kind of decisions that you’re making, but actually better because they are going to run that particular quadrant of your business because that’s their genius. That’s what they do all day long, and that’s what they…

Brad Weimert: So, let me define those two terms because I think that they can be used in different ways. So, abdication in the way that I was using it was the lack of responsibility for the outcome. And so, it was just, hey, go do this thing, as opposed to effective delegation saying, hey, this is a clearly defined outcome I’m after. And I think what I heard you just do was use the notion of abdication to say, hey, I want to get this thing done and I trust you so much that I know you’re going to put a good process in place.

Allison Maslan: Yes, you need to from the get-go inspire leadership within your company. You want your team to own it.

Brad Weimert: And the idea is that as somebody gets– sorry to jump in, but I want to make sure that I’ve got the point clear here, which is your frame here is that as you hire more experienced leaders, you can effectively abdicate something because when you throw the ball over to them, you know that they’re going to run with it and actually create the necessary steps and framework to get to a productive outcome because you have a shared vision for where you want to go. Is that the idea?

Allison Maslan: 100%. And I’ll take it even further that it’s not just throwing the ball over to them, it’s them creating the ball itself. So, if you’re making all the strategic decisions in your company, it’s just impossible as you grow for that to happen. And that’s only going to be limited to your creativity. If you actually bring on strategic thinkers, people that are visionaries themself, they can cast a vision, they can connect the dots. So, you’re not the only one doing that. Now, it’s going to take the pressure off of you. Now, you have all this other infused creativity in the company from people that are geniuses in their field. Now, each of these hires are actually, they’re no longer an expense. They’re fueling the growth of the company. And they should be bringing in 3 to 10 times what you pay them.

Brad Weimert: Yeah. So, well, so I hear those things, right? And I think a lot of people hear those ideas, and it’s bridging the gap between how do I– it’s great the idea that they should be bringing in 3 to 10 times their salary. How do I get there, right? And so, tactically, one of the things you mentioned was people messing up in the hiring process because they don’t have a clearly defined role, and more importantly, a clearly defined outcome along with metrics for the people that are hiring. When you think about hiring a director of marketing versus a CMO, how do you think about defining the outcomes that they’re after? Because to me, like a director of marketing, well, actually, let me pull it down a level, a marketing manager versus a director of marketing versus a CMO. A marketing manager in my world, in my head, I’m defining their role and their responsibilities and what they should be doing.

And sometimes, fairly granularly, a director of marketing, I’m expecting that they will direct the process and there’ll be some creative outlet. Then you move up to CMO and it’s going to be more strategic impact. And I would look at the outcomes that we’re after with each of those on some level to be similar and on some level to be different. But I think how you define those things is a struggle for a bunch of people. I think what I’m trying to drill into some clarity around is how you think about the metrics for a marketing manager versus a director of marketing and how you separate something.

Allison Maslan: They’re really the same, Brad. They’re really the same. It’s just that in the earlier stages, like a marketing manager probably is still going to have their hands in a lot. Like, they may be actually creating ads or creating some organics or coming up with emails. When you’re smaller, everybody’s kind of getting their– they are. Now, as you are growing, a CMO is not going to be building out your Instagram ads, but they’re going to make sure who’s on first, who’s on second, who’s on third, and that those bigger initiatives are happening and those bigger strategic decisions. And they’re really keeping the team inspired and focused on the vision, but that’s as you become more complex.

But the metrics will be the same. It’s still number of leads. It’s still cost of acquisition. It’s still lifetime value of the company. And those, I think so many business owners have no idea what their metrics are. And so, how do you even measure success? Those will stay the same, but obviously, grow over time.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I think one of the great things about this era, we’re still in the infancy of AI, but we’re in Q4 of 2025 at the moment in this era, and this will only get better. We are in the worst stage of AI that we will ever see, right? It’s only going to get better from here. you can upload all of your stuff to a whole litany of different platforms and heed everybody’s warning on privacy, be careful, make your own decisions, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. But you can put all your stuff into so many different LLMs, different platforms and get amazing feedback on what you should be doing, what metrics you should pay attention to, how to calculate your metrics. And again, they hallucinate and make bad decisions sometimes, so cross-reference with three or four of them, right? But I think we’re in a great place to solve the problem that you just mentioned, which is how many people don’t know their metrics at least right now.

Allison Maslan: Exactly. And then just keeping people focused on that because the team, they want to do well and they can get pulled in different directions also. And that’s why starting to build this leadership team as soon as you possibly can to get the founder out of the way because the founder is often the creative one. They can be very impulsive and they can actually create a lot of chaos within the company. I can speak for myself too because I definitely have been that founder, you know? And so, it’s working on your own leadership because your leadership has to evolve from when you start. As you start leading teams and teams of teams, the sooner you can get out of the way, the better.

Brad Weimert: Well, that’s a great segue because the mindset shift that happens for lots of entrepreneurs through their journey is worth talking about. And I think that it’s frustrating when you are a new entrepreneur to hear it’s all about mindset, you have to focus and think about the right things, and you’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just tell me what the f*ck to do, so I can grow this thing and make money, right? But the reality is, how you approach anything in life dictates what results you’re going to get, what questions you ask yourself dictate what answers you’re going to get. Just like having a clear vision for the company is the only way you’re going to make sure that all the decisions you make through the process go through the lens of that and go towards that same place. So, how do you look at the mindset changes necessary for, call it a $2 to $5 million entrepreneur versus a $50 million entrepreneur? And how do you get from one place to the next?

Allison Maslan: Yeah, there’s so much personal growth work that needs to happen continuously because things are going to break down in the company. People will maybe not perform the way you thought they were going to. And I think that you have to develop a level of resilience that you just get to a point where you’re really just flowing with it. And whereas in my earlier days, I used to get very stressed out when things didn’t work out because I had a certain way that it had to be. And what I learned is that when you hit those walls, when things break down, it actually forces you to get creative. And oftentimes, your best work, your best ideas will come from those painful moments. And so, I’ve learned to really embrace them and value them.

And we work a lot with our CEOs on mindset. And like you said, they come in and it’s like, no, I just want the strategy. I just want that thing. But if you don’t do the work, then how are you going to actually lead that thing? How are you going to be able to tap into, make this the best opportunity possible, putting those right people in place and let them do their work if you don’t work on that inner voice?

Brad Weimert: Yeah. So, what are some of the mechanisms that you use to work on mindset? Like, what’s the– well, I want to get granular with this and we don’t have to go down the woo-woo rabbit hole here, but one of the things that you said that I think is great tactically earlier was the first thing you do when you work with entrepreneurs on fleshing out their vision is to block their calendar for when they’re going to flesh out their vision. So, when you think about mindset, where does it fit into the day-to-day life of an entrepreneur? How do you allocate time or space for it to make sure that you are pursuing personal development and getting better and improvement without it getting brushed aside and it’s actually integrated into your entrepreneurial life and not this annoying extra thing that you’re trying to do or not…

Allison Maslan: Yeah, I mean, I think that once you get to a certain level, you realize I’ve got to invest in myself and my business because if you don’t grow at the level of growth that your business is, you will sabotage it. If you get to $50 million and there’s a part of you that feels like money is bad or you don’t feel worth it, you will find a way to sabotage it. That’s why when people win the lottery, they often lose and end up worse off than before they have it. So, your own mindset has to keep up. If you want to grow by 40%, you personally have to grow by 60% to carry that 40%. If I’m not doing my inner work and something breaks down and I send an angry text to my employees, this is not going to get me what I want. It’s going to get me the exact opposite.

And so, it doesn’t mean that those thoughts don’t come up, but if you’re really working on your leadership, then you’re able to take a breath. Get into a place of gratitude that everybody’s trying to do their best and make a clear decision on how you actually want to respond instead of react. And that’s a big part of leadership. And I would say, like for the CEOs we work with, we bring in leadership training into everything we do. We have a program called Scale Leader and it’s a lot of mindset work. It’s a lot of communication. Communication is a big part of leadership. It’s how you show up to your team.

And we do the woo-woo stuff, Brad, I’ll just tell you because it works. And we work with our clients on a weekly basis. And like I said, we do journaling, we do visualization, and they share with one another the wild things that are happening for them that they never thought possible because they start to see themselves as the leader that will attract all of the people, circumstances, opportunities that they want in their life. And not only does the business grow faster, but they are happier people in general because of the work.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, listen, I want to be clear from my perspective mostly because I don’t want to be judged by people. That’s probably actually why. No, but I also just want to clarify that I’ve been down the path and I do not have any ill will about the woo-woo path. For me, the question is what’s the highest return on my time? And so, if I know that I can get to an outcome quicker through another mechanism, I’m going to, but I think what you just said is incredibly relevant for so many people to hear because most people that make the comment of, I don’t like that woo-woo stuff or that’s not me, that sentiment is getting in the way of finding another mechanism to create change in your life. So, f*cking let go of your thoughts and feelings and emotions around an idea. Try it to see if it helps you get to the outcome that you want. And I mean, I’ve had tremendous growth from tons of different, we’ll call them modalities, exploring these things to try to create change in my life.

And now, I’ve got some resistance to some because I’m like, no, no, no, no, I’ve been down that path and that’s not the fastest path for me, personally. But those things don’t, by the way, include visualization or journaling, et cetera. I think that those are just like pragmatic mechanisms to make sure that you are reinforcing a belief or a value or a path that you want to go down on a consistent basis that is incredibly self-serving. So, I love that as a mechanism.

Allison Maslan: Absolutely. And you know, I can bring in all the quantum physics pieces of it, too, because I’m a big believer in that as well. And that can just create this flywheel of momentum to things just happening faster and in ways that you never thought possible. But the thing is, is that if you grow and evolve, I mean, why are we here on this earth? To grow and evolve. And if you’re not growing and evolving, you’re dying. But if you are, not only are you going to become a better leader, you’re going to become a better human being, a better parent, a better spouse and you will create a legacy and you’ll leave this earth and impact it, and so, that it’s better off that you were actually here.

Brad Weimert: There are a lot of new entrepreneurs in the world, more and more mechanisms to dive into entrepreneurship, more and more industries that are opening up, less restrictions, more democratization and all these different areas. What advice do you have for a brand-new entrepreneur starting out?

Allison Maslan: Well, I would say, first of all, surround yourself with other successful entrepreneurs. The sooner that you can get into other groups and just be around that energy, it will help you to start thinking that things are possible, and read as many entrepreneurial books as you can to just kind of stay within that framework. And then I would say if you want to start a business, don’t worry that this is the end all, end all. Like, I’ve had 10 different companies and every single one of them were at a different phase in my life of something that I was passionate about. Like I was very passionate about scuba diving. So, I started a scuba diving certification company. I’ve had a jewelry and accessory manufacturing company. I was able to travel around the world and meet with these amazing crafts people to develop beautiful jewelry, which I love.

And so, just what is it that would excite you right now in this time? Don’t do it because you’re trying to get to a million dollars or a billion dollars because you won’t keep the motivation or the inspiration going just with money. You’ve got to figure out what’s going to actually be meaningful for you because it is that meaning that will help you to endure, and use that just as a practice ground to learn how to get a product to market and communicate with your audience. I mean, like you said, we live in a time, you literally could create something and get on TikTok shop or all these new platforms, shopping networks, and baseball cards. I mean, I don’t know, you can sell pretty much anything these days, and then use that as a practice to make it better, make a better experience, and just start tweaking it and optimizing it until it grows. And then, of course, there’s more from there.

Brad Weimert: I love it.

Allison Maslan: Just get started. Just get started.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that. Yep, I think those are both– I heard two distinct different points there. The first one being curate your feed is how I’m going to say that to new entrepreneurs. And you said, create a network of entrepreneurial people around you and make sure that you spend time around people that are going to expand your mind and help you grow, read the right books. And I think the extension of that now is curate your social networks, right? Make sure that what’s showing up in your feed all the time is actually helping you get bigger, better, et cetera, and not pulling you down.

The other is, don’t put so much weight on your first venture. Don’t think you need to hit it out of the park. Focus on– and it’s great advice because it is parallel to the annoying cliche advice that people hear all the time, which is, it’s more about the journey than the destination. It’s more about learning and becoming a better person than about where you actually get to with this thing, but it’s a beautiful way to say it because you’re repositioning it and saying you’re going to have a lot of swings. And when you’re young, the most important thing is how you tee yourself up for the next swings and enjoy the process because it’ll keep you moving than it is to create the perfect thing right now, at least that’s what I heard.

Allison Maslan: Yeah. And one swing will lead you to the next, the next that you can’t really tap into at that point. I think that we put so much pressure on ourselves that everything has to be a win, where it could just be a great experience, a great learning experience.

Brad Weimert: I love that. Allison Maslan, it has been awesome to talk. I’m looking forward to getting some face time at some point in the future here. Where can people find out more about you? Where do you want to point people?

Allison Maslan: Well, you can go to my website, PinnacleGlobalNetwork.com, learn all about how we mentor CEOs to grow and scale, of course, any of my social media. And also, if people want to learn more and get an assessment on what phase that their business is in and what the gaps are that are holding them back, I would go to PinnacleGlobalNetwork.com/BAM, B-A-M.

Brad Weimert: Love it. That’s awesome.

Allison Maslan: Thanks, Brad.

Brad Weimert: Allison, thanks again.

Allison Maslan: I loved the conversation.