Operational Scalability: Allison Maslan of Pinnacle Global Network On How To Set Up Systems, Procedures, And People To Prepare A Business To Scale
You need to step out of the “hero” role. Many business owners burn out because they think they need to save the day constantly. Instead, you need to shift into being a visionary CEO. This is about empowering your team to take ownership so you can step back and lead from a higher level. This is where the real freedom and growth happen, and it’s what makes a business scalable and, ultimately, sellable.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, scalability is not just a buzzword; it’s a necessity. Entrepreneurs often get trapped in the daily grind of running their businesses, neglecting to put in place the systems, procedures, and people needed for sustainable growth. Without this foundation, companies hit bottlenecks, suffer inefficiencies, and face the risk of stalling or failing. This series aims to delve deep into the intricacies of operational scalability. How do you set up a framework that can adapt to growing customer demands? What are the crucial procedures that can streamline business operations? How do you build a team that can take on increasing responsibilities while maintaining a high standard of performance?
In this interview series, we are talking to CEOs, Founders, Operations Managers Consultants, Academics, Tech leaders & HR professionals, who share lessons from their experience about “How To Set Up Systems, Procedures, And People To Prepare A Business To Scale”. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Allison Maslan.
Allison Maslan, CEO of Pinnacle Global Network, was recently named one of the “Top 10 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch” by Forbes Magazine. She is the Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author of Scale or Fail, which is endorsed by Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank. Allison has built ten successful companies over the last 40 years.
For the past 15 years, she and her team of business mentors have helped over 150,000.
Founders scale their businesses, fast-track their success, and create a more meaningful life through her company, Pinnacle Global Network, one of the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies.
Allison has shared the stage with noted business leaders such as Richard Branson and Magic
Johnson; and has been featured in Inc., Success, Fortune, Fast Company, and Forbes Magazines, and Entrepreneur Magazine and a featured expert on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox across the US. She is also the host and producer of The SCALEit Method Podcast.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, so I was surrounded by the business mindset from a young age. My father built the largest chain of privately owned women’s clothing stores in the 70’s, and my grandfather had started it all back in 1955. My dad was a huge inspiration to me — he was innovative and fearless. I would go with him from store to store, just watching and learning how he operated. That exposure really shaped my path.
I started my first business when I was 19. It was a personalized poetry service for birthdays and anniversaries. But soon, people started asking me if I could do other things, like brochures or even radio and television commercials. I had no idea how to do any of that, but my father always encouraged me to take on challenges, even if I didn’t know the answers right away. He’d say, “Just say yes and figure it out.”
That business did well, but I eventually hit a wall because I didn’t know how to scale. I was great at marketing and helping others grow, but I didn’t understand how to empower a team. I was trying to control everything myself, and it led to burnout. I ended up walking away from that business and decided that I needed to learn how to build something bigger — a company that could thrive without me micromanaging everything. That became my mission.
I began to study much larger businesses with thousands of employees and paid close attention to how their leadership, systems, and processes allowed the CEOs to step back and let the company run smoothly. That’s how I developed the SCALEit Method, which I’ve used to build and grow nine more companies. My current business, Pinnacle Global Network, is my 10th, and I’ve been running it for 15 years now. We mentor CEOs worldwide, helping them grow and scale their companies.
The best part of what I do is being able to take everything I’ve learned over the years and pass it on to other business leaders. We now have a team of 40 successful CEOs who mentor our clients, and we’ve helped over 150 thousand CEOs and their companies make their dreams a reality. That’s what drives me every day, and it’s my absolute passion.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I think about mistakes, it’s never funny in the moment, but when you look back, you can usually laugh. One that comes to mind is when I had my ad agency and was printing invitations for a big association’s Christmas cards. We were already behind schedule, and after a few problems, we had to reprint them. I was feeling the pressure. The printer finally delivered them to our office, and everything looked great. I asked the printer to put them in the trunk of my car so I could get them to the client, who had a team on site literally waiting to write and send them.
After wrapping up, I went out to my car, opened the trunk, and… no invitations. I couldn’t believe it. As it turned out, my car key somehow fit another car — a Ford Taurus — and the printer had accidentally loaded the cards into someone else’s car. So, here I was, missing the invitations, and I had to tell this team of people, “Sorry, your invitations have gone missing!” They looked at me like I was nuts.
At the time, I was humiliated. But looking back, I can laugh at it now. The lesson? Well, aside from not giving your car key to the printer, the real takeaway was about facing uncomfortable situations head-on. It wasn’t easy, but sometimes you just have to confront those moments. When you do, you realize that they’re not as big as they seem at the moment. It’s all part of building resilience.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
What makes our company, Pinnacle Global Network, stand out is several things. First, we’ve been mentoring CEOs and offering peer-to-peer advisory with our global community for over 15 years now, and we’re very well-known in our industry. We’re also unique because many masterminds don’t offer private mentoring, but that’s something we prioritize. Having one person who works closely with you, like an advisor who is there to support your growth, is a smart and strategic move. They’re there to help you navigate the ups and downs and guide you in making the right decisions.
At Pinnacle Global Network, all of our clients receive one-on-one mentoring from high-level CEOs who have built incredibly successful companies — some of them have even taken their companies public or have managed thousands of employees, or scaled businesses internationally. So, our clients get to work with these accomplished CEOs who are committed to helping them succeed. We take a lot of pride in that.
We also have a proven process called the SCALEit Method, which includes proprietary tools and strategies to support business owners to make their vision a reality. Another thing that sets us apart is that we take a holistic approach. We don’t just focus on one area of the business, like marketing or operations. We focus on the whole business and the whole person because everything is connected — your business, your lifestyle, and all the parts of your life work together to create success.
Here we are, 15 years later, and I’m just so excited about what we’ve built and where we’re going. We’re very integrated with AI, and helping our clients do the same…always staying on the pulse of what’s necessary to build a successful company in today’s world.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I would say that three character traits that have been with me since day one are persistence, determination, and passion. My mom always said I was stubborn, but I like to think of persistence as stubbornness all dressed up. Persistence has been crucial for me — knowing that no matter what challenges come my way, I’ll keep moving forward. For example, when I started my first business, I had no idea how to create brochures or commercials, but I didn’t let that stop me. I said yes to opportunities and figured things out along the way.
Determination is another trait that has been instrumental to my success. It’s about knowing deep down that something is going to happen no matter what. When I built my ad agency, I had moments where it felt overwhelming, but I was determined to make it work. Even when I faced burnout and had to step away, that determination is what drove me to come back stronger, with a mission to learn how to truly scale a business.
When I talk to people about what we do at Pinnacle Global Network, they can feel my excitement and commitment. Passion is contagious, and it’s what keeps me going every day, no matter the challenges.
I’m also a trapeze artist and have been training with a five-generation circus family for 20 years. I have a full-size flying trapeze in my backyard, and I train three times a week. It’s a little scary being 40 feet in the air, flying through the air to a catcher, letting go of the bar, and doing tricks. But facing those fears makes me more courageous on the ground and in business. You have to turn off doubts, hold onto your vision, and give it everything you’ve got. Just like in trapeze, it may take hundreds of tries to get a trick down, but if you don’t give up, it will happen. It’s the same in business — you have to stay focused, stay persistent, and ultimately, success will come.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
I think leadership is definitely something you have to work on your entire life, and it’s something you evolve into. For me, the most important quality in leadership is integrity. Everything is about your word — if you say you’re going to do something, you do it. That makes decisions easier because if something doesn’t feel in alignment, even if it sounds enticing, I know the right decision is the one that aligns with integrity.
As a business leader, you also have to make difficult decisions, and one of the hardest is letting people go, even when you care about them. There’s a saying: “What got you here won’t get you there.” Sometimes, you have good people, but they’re not capable of taking your business where it needs to go. Letting those people go is incredibly tough, but it’s like relationships — you can’t stay in one because you’re afraid of letting someone go. If it’s not the right fit, it’s not serving either of you.
These decisions often aren’t popular in the moment, but generally, people will understand later why you made them. As long as you have peace in your heart and feel good about it, that’s the most important thing. People will respect you for it, and you can sleep at night knowing you’ve made decisions out of integrity and followed your heart.
Ultimately, leadership is about empowering others to stand up in their leadership. It’s not about babysitting; it’s about setting an example. When you do that and hold those values, you’ll attract incredible leaders who want to be around you and help take your vision forward.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Operational Scalability. In order to make sure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with a simple definition. What does Operational Scalability mean to you?
What we do at Pinnacle Global Network is help companies scale. Oftentimes, business owners think scaling just means growing revenue, but if you scale the revenue side without scaling the operations at the same time, you’re going to have business coming in that you won’t be able to serve.
So, operational scalability means ensuring that as you scale the front end of your business, you’re also scaling the back end. It’s about building the infrastructure and processes to support that growth. That’s operational scalability — making sure you have the capacity to handle the increased demand as your business grows.
Which types of business can most benefit from investing in Operational Scalability?
Every type of business can benefit from operational scalability as you grow. If you have a service business, you need to have enough people to serve whatever it is that you offer, and you need the right systems and processes in place. It’s crucial to have a repeatable system, the right metrics, and accountability set up throughout your business.
You’ll constantly be updating your systems and processes because things are always changing — whether that’s in your business or with technology. So, whether you’re investing in a new CRM, building a sales team, or adding AI, there has to be an operational process in place so you can replicate these processes as you expand with more people and resources. This makes your offer more solid, and you can sleep at night knowing everything is being taken care of, that nothing’s going to fall apart, and that your customers are getting what they want — and even more.
Why is it so important for a business to invest time, energy, and resources into Operational Scalability?
It’s essential for a business to invest time, energy, and resources into operational scalability because, without it, you won’t be able to deliver on what you promised to your clients. You might have strong sales, but if your operations can’t grow alongside your revenue, you’re going to struggle to meet demand. This leads to poor retention, and that’s when you start to experience the two steps forward, three steps backward effect — you gain clients but lose them just as quickly because you can’t support the growth.
When you invest in operational scalability, you’re building the infrastructure to sustain your growth. You’re creating systems and processes that allow you to consistently deliver value to your clients, ensuring they stay with you for the long term. It’s about making sure your business can not only handle more customers but also give them the experience they expect — and even more. By focusing on scalability, you’re protecting the future of your business, ensuring that you can grow without sacrificing quality.
In contrast, what happens to a business that does not invest time, energy, and resources into Operational Scalability?
You can do well on the sales side, but if you don’t have your operations intact and the ability to grow with you, then you’re not going to be able to deliver on what you promised. And if you can’t deliver, you’re not going to have much retention. So even if you’re growing through sales, you’re actually going backwards in retention.
That’s why it’s so important to invest in operational scalability. When you do, you’ll be able to keep the clients you worked so hard to attain, and you’ll feel really good knowing that you’re giving them value, and even over-delivering on that value.
Can you please share a story from your experience about how a business grew dramatically when they worked on their Operational Scalability?
We see it all the time at Pinnacle Global Network. One of the things we help companies do is build a team-managed business that can flourish even when the CEO or founder isn’t there — sometimes for a month or two or even three. The business continues to grow, and its valuation increases when it’s not founder-dependent. To achieve that, you have to have your operations intact and build leaders within the team who really own their division of the company. They treat it like their own business and track those important metrics to report back to you. These metrics are the scorecard of your company and help you to know if you are on track or need to course-correct.
One of our clients, Marshall Doyle, who built a machine calibration company. When he came to us, he had 35 employees and his hands in every area of the business. He’d been running it that way for years, working 60 to 80 hours a week, and hadn’t taken a vacation in 20 years. The business was doing well, but he was choking its growth because everything depended on him.
We helped him build a strong, team-managed company, adding new revenue streams and helping him evolve into the visionary CEO he is today. He went from working 60 to 80 hours to just 90 minutes a week. He even gave away his desk because he no longer needed to be involved. His business grew to over 100 employees and expanded by millions of dollars. In addition, Marshall has gone on to acquire 30 other companies, none of which depended on him.
When you build an operation that’s truly scalable, you create sustainability. You start attracting high-level leaders to your team; and even investors. Marshall is now one of the mentors on our team at Pinnacle Global Network. He started as a client, and now he’s paying it forward and helping our clients scale.. He’s been a mentor with us for several years, and I’m so grateful to have him on the team.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the “Five Most Important Things A Business Leader Should Do To Set Up Systems, Procedures, And People To Prepare A Business To Scale”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
The first thing that has to happen is to assess what we call the Five Pillars of Scaling and look for the underlying gaps that are holding you back. These pillars are strategic vision, cash flow, alliance of the team, leadership, and execution.
All five of those must be shored up to move to the next scaling phase. Often, business owners think they hit a ceiling because they need more cash flow or customers, but when we dig deeper, it’s usually something else, like operations or leadership. You have to get to the core of the problem, or you can be chasing the wrong things for years.
The second thing is to look at the areas of the business you, as the owner, have your hands in that you need to step away from. Businesses have four quadrants: sales, marketing, operations, and revenue streams. Each area needs a strong leader whose superpower is that specific quadrant. If the business owner tries to run all those areas, energy gets diluted, and parts of the business will suffer. By building a team-managed company with leadership in place in each area, you’ll empower leaders and create a vision-driven company where everyone is aligned.
The third is to establish strong metrics in each area of the business. We call them the North Star metrics. Without clear goals, the team will go in circles. Whether it’s employee retention in operations, conversion percentage in sales, or number of leads in marketing, you need to know what you’re reaching for to stay on track.
Fourth, you need the right systems and processes in place. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time. Document everything so anyone new can pick up where others left off. But it’s also important to continuously upgrade those systems as technology and strategies evolve.
Finally, you need to step out of the “hero” role. Many business owners burn out because they think they need to save the day constantly. Instead, you need to shift into being a visionary CEO. This is about empowering your team to take ownership so you can step back and lead from a higher level. This is where the real freedom and growth happen, and it’s what makes a business scalable and, ultimately, sellable.
What are some common misconceptions businesses have about scaling? Can you please explain?
People often think that scaling is just fast growth, and it’s not. Scaling is about replication and multiplication. You need a model that allows you to replicate your product or service so you can multiply it well beyond yourself. If you’re still involved in the delivery of your product or service, it’s not scalable. It’s not mathematically possible. You have to shift into a scalable model.
There are 15 scalable models that the most successful brands use and these are models we work with at Pinnacle Global Network. For example, one common scalable model is a subscription program, where you generate monthly recurring revenue. This is a win-win for both the business and the customer because the customer doesn’t have to think about reordering, and the company benefits from consistent revenue. Another example is franchising, where you take a concept, get the systems and processes down, and replicate it in different regions.
You also need to replace yourself with a team that can replicate those systems. That’s what we do at Pinnacle Global Network with our high-level team of mentors. They use our Scale-It Method, a proven system with the right strategies, tools, and processes to help companies scale. For instance, if you’re an accountant and want to build an accounting team, it’s not just about having good accountants doing their own thing — you need a process that ensures consistent delivery across the board.
Once you get the right scalable model in place, along with the right systems, processes, and a great team, that’s when you see businesses grow by tens of millions of dollars. It’s not about hustle; it’s about creative strategy and working smarter, not harder, in your business.
How do you keep your team motivated during periods of rapid growth or change?
For me, its not about motivating the team. It’s really about attracting team members who are passionate about the work they’re doing. If they are truly passionate, they’ll stay motivated, and they’ll motivate each other. If you constantly have to motivate the team, then they’re not aligned with your vision, and they’re not passionate about it.
Our team is very passionate about helping companies scale and making their dreams come true. They get excited for our clients and are right there with them to help them navigate through all of their businesses’ ups and downs. They truly care. I don’t need to motivate them on that because if they’re not passionate, they’re not the right fit for the team.
The culture we’ve built is also a huge part of that motivation. The team supports and cares about one another, and that’s really what culture is all about. It’s the energy of the team that keeps everyone going, especially during periods of rapid growth or change.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
The best life lesson quote is, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer. That’s a powerful truth, because most people are operating from their old story. It’s their childhood experiences — something their parents said or did, a teacher, a friend, or something they personally experienced. They carry that old story with them unconsciously, and it drives most of their actions, conversations, and the things they focus on during the day. Since our unconscious drives 96% of our actions, we’re often led by and make decisions through that old story.
What needs to happen is using that 4% of your conscious mind to create and live by a new story for your life. It takes intention, trust, faith, and a willingness to step beyond your comfort zone and create a new script. You need to catch yourself when taking actions or having conversations that aren’t serving your growth.
By changing the way you look at things, new doors will start to open, leading to a more promising and exhilarating future. Staying stuck is a choice driven by your old story. If you shift the way you look at something — even a challenge — and see it as serving you to learn and grow, rather than hurting you, you take responsibility for everything in your life. That’s the most powerful and freeing choice you can make. When you take responsibility for the results in your life, it means you also have the power of choice to create new actions that bring new results.
So, every day, focus on creating a new story. Every day is an opportunity to step into the world of magical surprises. You are a person of great influence.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
We are creating a movement at Pinnacle Global Network, and it’s helping millions of business owners worldwide step into the highest version of themselves and fully embrace their dreams. By doing that, each of those people impacts their employees, their families, their communities, and their customers. When they elevate into their leadership and share their gifts, they make a massive and positive impact on the world.
That’s really what we’re all about. We help business owners around the world grow and scale companies that change the world. It’s a movement I’m incredibly passionate about, proud of, and committed to for many years to come.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow my work online at my website: https://pinnacleglobalnetwork.com/
Social media: Instagram — Facebook — Linkedin
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Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Operational Scalability: Allison Maslan of Pinnacle Global Network On How To Set Up Systems… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.