The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast

The $100M Mindset: How to Think, Lead, and Scale Like a Real Entrepreneur

11 min
Oct 22, 20256 months ago
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Summary

Brad Sugars, founder of Action Coach, breaks down the three distinct mindsets required to scale from $1M to $10M to $100M in revenue. He emphasizes that business growth requires fundamental shifts in thinking—from hustle and survival, to systems and leadership, to vision and leverage—and that the owner must evolve or become the bottleneck.

Insights
  • The traits that drive initial success (control, hustle, doing everything yourself) become liabilities at scale and must be actively unlearned
  • Most businesses plateau at $3M because the founder becomes the bottleneck; progression requires delegating and building systems that work without the owner
  • Goal-setting should start with dreams you don't know how to achieve; the formula Dream→Goal→Learn→Plan→Act bridges the gap between aspiration and execution
  • Scaling to $100M requires a shift from scarcity to abundance mindset and from short-term cash flow thinking to building a sellable, owner-independent asset
  • The two most critical dates in business are: when you stop doing the work yourself, and when the business runs without you entirely
Trends
Owner-operator dependency as a growth ceiling in SMBs—businesses structured around founder skills fail to scaleSystems-first thinking becoming prerequisite for mid-market growth—operational infrastructure now viewed as core business assetShift from profit maximization to capital value building—entrepreneurs increasingly viewing exits and business independence as success metricsContinuous learning as competitive advantage—obsessive consumption of content and knowledge becoming table stakes for scaling leadersStrategic partnerships and leverage over headcount—$100M businesses built through affiliates and partners rather than pure team expansionLong-term strategic planning (3-5 year horizons) replacing quarterly/annual thinking in scaling organizationsCEO replacement as growth strategy—founders hiring overqualified leaders to teach them rather than lead directly
Topics
Business scaling stages ($1M, $10M, $100M mindsets)Founder-as-bottleneck problem and delegationSystems and operational infrastructure for growthTeam building and leadership developmentGoal-setting frameworks and executionAbundance vs. scarcity mindsetBusiness valuation and exit strategyOwner independence and business automationStrategic planning and market researchRisk tolerance and organizational reinventionCEO role evolution and self-awarenessCapital value vs. cash flow thinkingContinuous learning and personal developmentCompetitive analysis and market sizingOrganizational structure and scalability
Companies
Action Coach
Brad Sugars' company; built over $2.5B in sales through business coaching and has generated $100M annually
People
Brad Sugars
Chairman and Founder of Action Coach; shares personal journey scaling from $1M to $100M+ and teaches $100M mindset fr...
Brad Sugars' father
Taught Brad at age 20-21 that 'you get the people you deserve' and that building people is prerequisite to building b...
Quotes
"The business can never outgrow the owner."
Brad SugarsEarly in episode
"What has to happen to get to that 10 million is you need to get out of the way of your team and you need to allow them to do the work."
Brad SugarsMid-episode
"If you set a goal and you know how to do it, it's not a goal, it's a to-do list item."
Brad SugarsMid-episode
"If you have to be there, it's not a business, it's a job and you work for a crazy person."
Brad SugarsLate-episode
"80% done by someone else is better than 100% done by me and no one else can do any other things with it."
Brad SugarsLate-episode
Full Transcript
When you set a goal, you should not know how to achieve it. The killer of most goals is how? Well, how do I do that? How do I do that? Well, I don't know how to do it. Therefore, I shouldn't set it as a goal. No. The formula that works is Dream Goal Learn Plan Act. What has to happen to get to that 10 million is you need to get out of the way of your team and you need to allow them to do the work. The abundance mentality of the more, the more you build, the better it gets. The $100 million mindset, what it really takes in this episode, and I'll reveal the mindset shifts that separate a million, 10 million, 100 million. Entrepreneurs showing why belief systems and resilience are the foundation of scale. Why does mindset really matter? Well, the business can never outgrow the owner. I'm Brad Sugars, I'm the Chairman of Founder of Action Coach. I've built over 2.5 billion in sales in business coaching, $100 million a year. And I'm here to teach you exactly how to do that. There's three stages of thinking that I want us to focus in on today. The million dollar survival hustle, stipe type thinking. Then I want you to think through the next phase of that $10 million leadership and systems phase. And then finally, I want you to look at the vision and leverage that 100 million stage. What is the distinction at every level and how do you need to learn and grow so that your business and your team and your company can actually achieve those outcomes? There is a paradox in success. It got you here, won't get you there. The traits that got you started, the grit, the desire to be in control of your own destiny, they're doing it all yourself. There no one can do it as good as me stuff. All of that stuff there becomes a liability when we get to scale. Go into 100 million is different than going for a million. It's different than going for 10 million. So let's go back to that million mindset, the survival, the hustle, the working hard. Making that first million is really about working hard. Making that first million is about doing the work. It's about you being great at what you do. You being great at what you do gets you to the first million. Now to get to 10 million, it's different because now what you've got to put in place is systems and you've got to put in place a team and you've got to lead that team. You're still working hard, you're still hustling, you're still grinding. Many get stopped at the 3 million mark because well, everything goes through them. They've built a team, but they're the bottleneck to the team. So if you're stuck at the million, it's because you haven't started building team and you haven't built systems. If you're stuck at the 3 million, it's because you've become the bottleneck for your own organization. What has to happen to get to that 10 million is you need to get out of the way of your team and you need to allow them to do the work. If you build the people, they build the business. I had to learn that when I was 20 or 21. My dad said it to me real simple. He said, Brad, you get the people you deserve. If you don't build your people, if you don't build them, how can they build it? He said to build them, you've got to build you first. That's why I'm glad you're here on this podcast and all the interviews that I'm going to be doing, all the straight to camera stuff, I want you to keep listening, keep learning, keep growing. That's the way you become the entrepreneur. The $100 million entrepreneur is grown. When I set the goal to do in a 100 million first time round, it wasn't like I could do it that day because here's the thing about goals. If you set a goal and you know how to do it, it's not a goal, it's a to-do list item. When you set a goal, you should not know how to achieve it. The killer of most goals is how. Well, how do I do that? How do I do that? Well, I don't know how to do it. Therefore, I shouldn't set it as a goal. No. The formula that works is Dream Goal Learn Plan Act. Meaning you've got to have the dream, the 100 million or the billion or the 10 million, whatever the dream is. From the dream we want to go to the goals, set specific target state thing. What do I want to achieve by when? What are the dates, all those sorts of things? The two most important dates in business. Number one is when will I get off the tools? If you're a plumber, when do you stop doing the plumbing? If you're a hairdresser, when you stop cutting hair, if you're an accountant, when do you stop working with the clients? So that's the first most important date. The second most important date is when will the business run without me? When can you have a team of people that run the business? We'll get more into that lesson over the rest of these podcasts. So finally, the leadership and systems phase. Let's get through to that because understanding once you build a good team and once you build the idea that you're building something that can run without you, once it's your no longer the bottle neck and that goes back to my definition. The reason I created A-BOSS, the action coach business operating system, is because I want you to understand that you're building something you can sell. The idea of building a business to just make money is crazy. You've got to build a business that can work without you. If you have to be there, it's not a business, it's a job and you work for a crazy person, okay? Understand that. All right. Leadership and systems will get you to 10 million. From there, we've got to go to vision and leverage. Now, where does leverage kick in? First of all, you've got to get more long-term thinking when you go for 100 million, okay? You've got to get away from the day-to-day week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter to the three to five to 10 year planning type thing. Once you start getting to annual and strategic planning, it's a different level of thinking because now you're not thinking of let's do 10% better than last year or let's make this much money, you're now going to go and do research, okay? The research is going to tell you what strategy you need to put in place. The research is going to tell you, hey, there's five competitors, there's a trillion dollar industry, then you should be going for this or there's seven competitors and there's 20 million. Hang on, seven competitors, 20 million total market. We can't do 100 million with that. We've either got to change business, change geography, change strategy. Those are some of the questions that have to get asked when you're really going for the 100 million, okay? I know you're probably going to want to re-listen to this podcast a couple of times, so make sure you've downloaded and make sure you keep listening to it and share it with your executive team, okay? Don't just keep this to yourself. Second mindset you've got to shift to go for the 100 million is abundance versus scarcity, okay? We got to go from that whole, oh, I'm not sure I can afford it, I'm not this, you've got to become an investor to build to that level. You've got to invest to build capital value, to build value in the business, in the organization, the abundance mentality of the more, the more you build, the better it gets, the more strategic partners you have, the better it gets, the more team members you have the better it gets type thing. Now you don't always need more team, but you're going to need more strategic partners, maybe more affiliates, more of things because that's how you're going to build an amazing business. Next thing, an obsession with learning. It's not just got to be a thing that you do sometimes, it's got to be an everyday thing. I devour a book of the months, I devour podcasts, and if you're like me, you're probably listening to this on one and a half or two times speed, although I do speak pretty quick, but you got to get an obsession with it. Fourth mindset shift is you got to get comfortable with risk and failure and reinvention, okay? You got to be willing to break things, you got to be willing to break it down to build it back up. The systems that work at a million and not going to work at 100 million, even the people often times that are great for a million a year are not great when you get to do 20, 50, 100 million a year. I remember a CMO of mine and phenomenal when we were doing maybe, I don't know, we probably had about a million bucks a year in marketing budget, but now with 20 and no, there was no possible way we had to go and recruit better. My CFO, all the different positions that we have to look at for that sort of thing. Let me break down a little bit of my story and help you understand what it really takes to have the mindset. So, I remember in the beginning thinking, I had to be the hardest worker in the organization, me, the owner, I had to do the majority of the work. And while, I mean, ultimately me doing the hustle and grind thing, cover up the mistakes in the company, it meant it covered up that we didn't have a system for sales. We had this guy doing all the sales. If he didn't have a system for, we didn't, I would do it sort of thing and cover up the problems in the company. And I want to make sure that you understand that that's not your role. Your role is to build a team and build systems and build a business that works so you don't have to. Well, the second phase of my learning was going through the whole idea of well, if I keep control of everything and I keep my finger in every pie and no, that didn't work either. Third phase is where I had to fire myself as the CEO and admit, you know what Brad, you're not a great, you're a very good CEO, maybe even great, but you want to hire someone who is overqualified. Someone that can do this for you. I wanted to hire someone that's already run a hundred million or a billion dollar a year organization because they already, they could take me there. They could teach me what to do. I wasn't the one teaching them what to do. They were teaching me what to do if that makes sense. So it's important that we get that mindset shift. If you want to go for the hundred million, you've got to have that hundred million mindset. One mindset shift I had to make was it's not just about cash flow and profitability. It's also about I'm building a capital value asset. Okay. I'm building a business that works. So I don't have to. I'm building a business that I can sell to someone else and building a business that will operate whether I'm there or not. And egotistically, I had to learn to let go. Egotistically, I had to learn how to step aside and allow the team to do it and be okay with them doing the job better than me in many cases. Now sometimes people couldn't do it better than me, but 80% done by someone else is better than 100% done by me and no one else can like I can't do any other things with it. I got to keep getting better and bigger and that sort of stuff. Eventually, I had to learn that my role is to do what I'm doing now with you and that is to teach to educate, to make sure that the public, the marketplace, everybody out there knew just how powerful they could be and how great they could build amazing businesses. You're going to grow into a hundred million dollar business. Why? Because you're going to become a hundred million dollar entrepreneur. Thanks for joining me on the hundred million dollar podcast. If you've got value from today's episode, make sure you've subscribed and share this with all of your friends. Never miss a strategy that could change your business and your life. And remember, the fastest way to scale is to learn from those who've done it. That's what this show is all about. See you on the next episode.