Lessons - How to Build World-Changing Organizations That Actually Last | Anne Mahlum - Social Impact Innovator & Entrepreneur

In this lessons episode, discover how non-profit discipline and corporate rigor scale mission-driven organizations. Learn why playing to your strengths unlocks fundraising success, how replicable systems, and clear decision boundaries and power teams, and why focusing on high-impact leadership tasks drives sustainable growth. And but you know, this is the thing that I've noticed about non-profits. I actually think that you're you are not the normal nonprofit or or it's nonprofit or I don't think you're the normal nonprofit founder or nonprofit executive because I obviously look at what you went on to build. But for some reason non-profits don't usually operate that efficiently and they don't usually they they try for change but they're the people that are attracted to them and work for them. They're not the best operators in the business and I think that's a huge missed opportunity and I'm curious why you were able to to build this so successfully and obviously just have a mind for it and a brain for it but like what were the things that that you did in this in this particular company that you see a lot of people lack in the nonprofit space? Um yeah and so a few things like I love the saying play a game that you can win right like every but every one of us so got you have certain skill sets and so do why and we have things that we're not good at and whatever. I was really good at figuring out what am I really good at and how does that serve the mission of this organization and then you ask the question well who's going to care about these guys? Who cares if they're homeless or not? It's a really difficult issue to get people to get behind right? There's a lot easier nonprofits and causes babies kids kids with cancer animals you know why would you want to help a bunch of 1450 year old men who a lot of people think screwed up their own life right like they're living in homeless shelters get a job get your life together and so the way we raised money was I'm like I have to find the runners I need to find people who understand what this sport has done for themselves and knowing how much they respect themselves when they're out there at six in the morning running and you define the executives who are runners because they have the money and so I found in roads we had this big article in runners where all that's selling my favorite articles ever written about that on my feet and Larry Solomon who was the CEO of Accenture read that article he lived in Philly shot me you know it's saying this is really cool rooting for you and I'm like please say we can get coffee you know and Larry was my meal ticket to all these executives and I'm like introduce me to the runners you're not running the runners and then it just snowballed from there so I got I built events I created running events and I created breakfasts and I would get you out running with our members which I'm like if I can just get you to meet these guys Darren James Joe I mean so many of them you're gonna fall in love with them it is the ultimate underdog story and there's nobody like Americans love underdog stories we love rooting for the guy that we think doesn't have a chance and so I started to realize all of these things in the story and figure out a way to capitalize on all them to raise money for an organization. It's so simple but so smart I think a lot of like nonprofits if if you want to give back and you're in that space and these are good examples to learn from because I do think that sometimes people have a hard time scaling those types of organizations and attracting the right talent and finding ways to raise money so I mean you just nailed it um what were some of the what were some of the things that you actually took and you brought into solid core from a non-profit environment. Yeah so the thing about scaling is you look at the ecosystem that works and then you have to say how do I replicate the ecosystem so give you an example with the solid core studio and the back of my feet running team so when when the chapters were forming with back on my feet when we had one we had one group running right and then it's like okay how do we go to two the logistics start to enter and it's like well let's have everybody meet together and it's like that's not gonna work for very long because how do we get more homeless shelters to be a part of the program when they're spread across the city and now we've got to pick people up at four like it's never gonna work we actually need to replicate the shelter so we had teams so we would have call it six teams and filly let's say you wanted to volunteer Scott you would get placed on a team and you would go to that homeless shelter in the morning and then there'd be five other teams that would go to other homeless shelters volunteers and we would all be running at the same time not together right so like okay cool that can continue to replicate and then you would take that model into another city and say okay we we need a local executive director and we need local staff and local funding you're building systems all the time systems systems processes so for a solid core studio same thing what do you need to make a solid core studio work you need a leader of the studio you need coaches you need consistency and so like great place to ecosystem awesome what about the next one the next one it was easy to do that when in DC when that was like everybody was there and then it was time to go to another city well how are you gonna keep the brand consistent so it was very evident that the training for the coaches had to stay corporate like we would send our people you know from corporate down there get bought into the brand understand the ethos everything and that director of training I spent a ton of time with her name was Joe Gomez and like we had to be on the same page about this culture about how we do things what's rewarded why we say people's names in class and so again it's this replicate replication of what makes this special and over just like over and over again so everything that you learn to do in the nonprofit world that was like directly applicable like building these systems processes keeping like understanding what has to be corporate versus decisions that can be made on the ground I love it well let me give you another quick example of that because it will help people it's got like for me I also if you're a founder right every six months you have to be looking at how you're spending your time and if it's the same as it was six months ago you're in trouble from a scaling perspective and so at when I first started talking I was coaching all the time right because I had one studio that made sense well when I had five right a coaching a class was costing me call it back then 60 70 bucks per coach if I'm gonna be coaching 20 classes a week I am telling my team that my value to this company is worth 60 bucks an hour that can't be the job of a CEO so I started to figure out what's the best way for me to make the most financial impact for the business based on my skill sets and that was negotiation with the landlords right how do I get the best deal on this 10 year lease that I'm gonna sign how do I get ten in improvement dollars and how do I get rent debatement because those were two things that were gonna affect my cash flow a lot so I would meet in person with every landlord I would make you like me I would get you to root for me I would explain why I need this rent debatement and ask what's important to you for this deal and if I couldn't do the deal I would say listen those economics don't work for me here's why but I would build relationships with anybody where the financial impact to the company was massive that's the best use of my time and then it would just continue to elevate so what was the what was the so yes a thousand percent in hindsight looking back as 2020 that makes perfect sense now when you when you what was the thing that happened to you in in your life that made you realize that you have to step out of like the day to day what was the story that that forced you or the thing that was breaking or the shit hitting the fan moment or the I can't scale anymore I'm working a hundred hours a week I think it was at back on my feet when I was continuing to run with all the groups and so running you know and like those run sequence at five thirty other morning and like I'm trying to be at all the social events and do everything else and at some point I'm like I just can't do this do this all so I have to figure out who what can I replicate and then go back to solid core the coaches I can replicate right if I'm the only one that can coach a solid core class that's a problem I can't scale that I didn't think that was true right I knew we could coach coaches and coach trainers right but like what is the thing that Ann Malone can do that that nobody else can do and it is I'm very convincing and I'm a great negotiator so I'm going to spend my time doing those things there really was not like a a shit a shit hits the fan moment but there was moments when I was micromanaging right when I was like trying to be involved in everything and then you get feedback from your staff on like how much of a pain in the ass you are and it comes across that you don't trust them when really you care so much and you want to be involved in everything but if you want to you can't have both you can't want to be involved in everything and want to scale something really big so you have to do your best to train people to talk about culture talk about decision making and another great tool I learned from a back on my feet board member was this thing called yellow or sorry red yellow and green and it's how they trained their staff at Accenture so they would create a things like if you were a manager at a solid core studio Scott we would say here's your red yellow and green the things in the red you you don't have authority to make decisions on right like you can't change the pricing for the studio you can't do this and this and this here are the things that are in the green that not just you have agency to do but like we need you to feel comfortable doing that oh right you need to manage the schedule you need to drive the revenue here's your budget here's your goals you need to be able to like manage this and not come to us at the end of the month and say like well we didn't meet our numbers like that's not gonna fly so I found that it actually makes the relationship between the manager and the one that they're managing a lot better when expectations are clear you understand the sandbox you're playing and you understand the agency that you have to make decisions and you understand why you can't make decisions not just because I said so but I explain them to you like why we can't have different pricing at this studio versus studio four blocks down the road thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one