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5 PROVEN PRINCIPLES I Used To Super Scale My Business

To $30m

Alvin Poh

AT THE AGE OF 33, I SOLD MY INTERNET BUSINESS FOR $30 MILLION

This was the business that I scaled up from

$0 all the way to Singapore's #1 hosting

provider with 35,000 clients and a team of

150 before the 8-figure exit.

The way I do this is through my proven

methodology that consists of 5 proven

principles - the 5E Scale Engine.

I WASN’T BORN RICH

I was from a poor family I only had pocket

money for my bus rides and lunch in school.

I had to figure out entrepreneurship all from

scratch. I made tonnes of costly mistakes,

but eventually found 5 proven principles that

will allow a business to scale up.

That was the 5E Scale Engine.

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I WENT TO TRAVEL, BUT MY PASSION IS IN SCALING BUSINESSES

After 2 decades of entrepreneurship, I still love

the joy of running businesses that provide

value to customers.

I want to teach others how to use the 5E Scale

Engine and scale their business like I did.

THE 5E SCALE ENGINE WILL BENEFIT YOU IF THESE DESCRIBE YOU

5/6/7-f igure business

Leverage on the Internet to sell/deliver

Open-minded

Obsessive and extreme

Believe in eff iciency

Committed

Willing to make sacrif ices

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I CAN HELP YOU SCALE UP

If you are a 5/6/7-figure business owner and are looking to:

• Stop feeling lost in the jungle by having a clear direction to scale up

• Get a mob of raving customers who are crazy about your product/service

• Systemise your business so that you’re working on it, not working in it

• Hire and retain A-Players so that you can have a high-performing team

• Continuously meet and crush your business goals and targets

• Have a business that gives you freedom and profits

As you read this report, you might feel that the 5E Scale Engine makes sense

for you, At the end of this playbook, I’ll let you know how to contact me if

you’d like me to show you how to make use of the 5E Scale Engine effectively.

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WHAT IS THE 5E SCALE ENGINE?

SCALING A BUSINESS IS VASTLY DIFFERENT FROM GROWING A BUSINESS.

When I first started my business, what was most important

was survival and immediate revenue.

This is the time when you have to be the scrappy

entrepreneur. Almost anything goes, as your foremost

concern is to survive tomorrow. Cash is king, and you do

whatever it takes for your business to survive.

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When you get to 6-figure revenues and want to reach 7/8-figures, you

have to completely change your way of thinking. The mental models

that got you to 6-figures will not get you to 7/8-figures.

I took years before I fully grasped what was necessary for scaling a

company. It turns out to be something that I really enjoyed, because I

loved streamlining and systemising stuff.

And that’s what scaling up a business requires: systems and efficiency.

However, it isn’t just about creating systems. I realised that the

sequence that you do it matters as well. Which is why I have specific

pillars done in a specific order.

With all this knowledge, I created the 5E Scale Engine. It consists of 5

pillars: Evolve, Envision, Empower, Execute, Engage.

It’s a proven methodology to scale a business, covering everything

from mindset to the order of systems to create.

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GROWTH VS SCALE

Do you know the difference between

growing and scaling?

It feels like it refers to the same thing -

increasing in size - but there’s a key

d i f fe re n ce b et we e n t h e m : t h e r a t i o

between revenue and expenses.

Growing has a tightly constrained ratio

between revenue and expenses. That means

as revenues rise, expenses rise in tandem.

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GROWTH COMPANIES

That’s how you get really big companies doing $10m

in revenue but having $8m in expenses too, leaving

them with just $2m in gross profits.

In growth companies, revenue is a fancy metric,

because when you look at their bottom line, there is

comparatively little profit to show.

Scaling breaks this ratio between revenue and

expenses. With scale, you see an increase in

revenues but a much reduced increase in expenses,

if any.

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SCALE COMPANIES

Another company who has also scaled up to $10m in

revenue might only have $4m in expenses. That

means the company has a gross profit of $6m.

In this example, both companies have revenues of

$10m, but their gross profits are vastly different. That’s

the difference between a business in growth mode

and a business in scale mode.

To be really free of your business so that you can be

working on it, instead of working in it, you have to be

focused on scaling up your business instead of

remaining stuck in growth mode.

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EVOLVE

The first pillar is EVOLVE. The fundamental concept

that you have to agree on is this: What got you here,

won't get you there.

We have to analyse what you've done, throw away

limiting concepts that no longer work for you, and

introduce new ones that will work for you.

As the leader of your business, you need to grow if

you want your business to grow. Everything that

affects you on a personal level must be optimised so

that you can perform at your full potential.

Think about the drivers of racing cars or the jockeys

of racing horses. To be the winners in their races, it's

not just a matter of the fastest cars or the fastest

horses, isn't it?

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THE MINDSET FOR SCALE

To get to and be running a 7/8-

figure business will require you to

update your mindset as well.

So make sure that it evolves,

otherwise you'll always be stuck

with a 5 or 6-figure business.

Besides you and your

business, you must also

control the environment that

you’re in.

Focus on your friends,

mentors, fitness, and health.

You are the average of your 5

closest friends. You need to

also start taking care of your

health and fitness.

It's like a driver of a race car,

or a jockey of a race horse. If

the driver or jockey is

overweight or unfit, they're

not going to win any races -

even if they have the fastest

car or horse.

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When a flower doesn't bloom, you f ix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

“- Alexander Den Heijer

15E N V I S I O N

The second component that forms the

foundation of the 5E Scale Engine is

ENVISION.

Entrepreneurs and business owners have

always been told that marketing is a cold

and ruthless game of numbers. The more

numbers you have, the better.

False! That’s not efficient.

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THE POWER OF A VISION

Think about it: I can send you 100,000 visitors to your ice

cream business, but if they are all people who are lactose-

intolerant, you’re going to find that you’re not going to get

much, or any, sales

The power of ENVISION can connect you with people that love

your message and product/service, and how this will translate

into an insane level of results for your business.

You might even be surprised at how common business advice

doesn't necessarily work for you. Which is why I believe people

need the 4WH Business Model to structure their vision.

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4-STAGE FUTURE

The next thing is the future YOU want.

As an entrepreneur, we have to visualise a future

that others cannot or will not. And this is crucial,

because if we do not have a strong idea of the

future, then any road will lead us there.

1. Short-term goal (3 months)

2. Mid-term goal (1 year)

3. Long-term goal (3 years)

4. Overall vision (7 years)

Each of these stages require you to strategise for

your desired outcome.

As such, you need a concrete vision for each

stage.

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EMPOWER

The difference between a group and a team

might not seem big, but it can literally mean

the success or failure of your business.

This is what EMPOWER covers, because a

high-performing team can really empower

your business to achieve great heights.

A group is a collection of individuals with

their own agenda, whereas a team is a

collection of individuals with a shared

common purpose.

The goal is to build up a highly-effective

team, because then you can amplify your

personal efforts.

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3 THINGS YOUR TEAM WANTS FROM YOU

Besides a fair and equitable salary commensurate to the value

that they bring to your business, there are only three things

that high-performers are looking for in their job: Meaning,

Autonomy, and Mastery.

Fulfilling all these three components will result in high job

satisfactions and subsequently, work performance.

However, to do this requires a lot of thought and planning.

You need to create a hiring system, which allows you to find,

retain, and grow A-players in your organisation. At Vodien, we

called it The Cycle of Good Work.

This not only allows for people to do good work, it also sets up

the organisation for success because it allows you to have a

culture of documentation and seeing work as processes.

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C O M P A N Y C U L T U R E

Company culture is important because it’s an

extension of the CEO (who might be the founder).

Company culture is important because if it is

communicated well, it gives people an idea of

how to act and think.

A great company culture isn’t about free beer

and ping-pong tables.

A great company culture incorporates the core

values and vision that the founder has, and has a

supportive environment for people to do their

best work.

Conversely, if the company culture is toxic, or if

the CEO doesn’t know how to communicate well,

then the business will operate in chaos.

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ENGAGE

ENGAGE is the next pillar of the 5E Scale Engine. We're talking about

engagement with your customers and clients here. With any successful

business, engagement is highly important.

Have you ever seen companies with great products that closed down?

A lot of entrepreneurs suffer from the "build it, and they will come"

syndrome. Unfortunately, it takes more than a great product to become a

successful business.

You'll need to plan out your customer journeys and ensure that you do

things in the right sequence in order to engage your customers properly.

Proper engagement is the difference between your customers raving about

your product, or nobody caring about you.

When you do engagement well, your product sells by itself because your

customers can't wait to tell their friends all about your product.

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CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Any Customer Journey for any organisation is made up of 5 key stages:

Discovery, Consideration, Conversion, Fulfilment, Renewal.

Most entrepreneurs spend their time at the Discover stage. The typical thought

process is: “The more sales I get, the bigger I can grow my business”.

That may be true for businesses in growth mode, but absolutely false for

businesses in scale mode.

When scaling a business, the focus has to shift to a holistic view of the business,

instead of just increasing sales.

Otherwise, it’ll be akin to pouring more water into a leaky bucket. You can try to

pour as much water in as you can, but because you are leaking water out, you’ll

never be able to ever retain as much water as someone with a non-leaky bucket

of the same size.

To improve as a whole, you will need to ensure that all stages are performing

optimally. You will need to focus on all activities and processes that can increase

the key metrics of each stage.

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EXECUTE

Only after you've worked on all 4 pillars can you move on to the final pillar,

which is EXECUTE.

One of the worst things that I hate is excess and inefficiency. That's why I've

been absolutely ruthless in my businesses to optimise, delegate, eliminate,

and automate processes whenever I can.

Focusing on increasing efficiency increases your business’s throughput and

productivity, allowing you to scale up because you now no longer have the

constraints that you used to have.

It's like a sprinter who weighs 30kg extra. I can give you the tools and

know-how so that your business can shed all this extra fat.

Immediately, you'll be unencumbered, and be able to train and perform at

your optimal levels.

This transforms your business from something you work in into something

you work on. Your business becomes a well-oiled machine, allowing you to

focus on strategy and growth.

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ARSAD FUNNEL

The only way to improve things is by having

a systematic approach when you’re thinking

about how to increase business efficiency.

This was one of the more important

concepts that allowed me to transform and

scale up Vodien successfully.

I use the ARSAD funnel to create this hyper-

focus to increase business efficiency.

The ARSAD funnel has these 5 steps:

Analyse, Remove, Simplify, Automate,

Delegate

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Most people don’t finish things, and that’s why success is tough.

If you’re reading this, you might have the qualities that can allow you

to Super Scale your business and finally obtain freedom and profits.

5/6/7-figure business

Leverage on the Internet to sell/deliver

Open-minded

Obsessive and extreme

Believe in efficiency

Committed

Willing to make sacrifices

GOOD WORK!

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SUPER SCALING YOUR BUSINESS

The 5E Scale Engine is what I used to Super Scale my business

from $0 to $30m.

If you are a 5/6/7-figure business owner and are looking to:

Stop feeling lost in the jungle by having a clear direction to

scale up

Get a mob of raving customers who are crazy about your

product/service

Systemise your business so that you’re working on it, not

working in it

Hire and retain A-Players so that you can have a high-

performing team

Continuously meet and crush your business goals and targets

Have a business that gives you freedom and profits

Then you’ll benefit from my Super Scaling masterclass where I

teach you in detail how to apply the 5E Scale Engine to your own

business. Find out more here:

➡ AlvinPoh.com/masterclass