What Is Brilliance Mining™?
Brilliance Mining™ is a proven method and mindset that empowers businesses and organizations to leverage their internal knowledge, scale effectively, and sustain growth.
Will Brilliance Mining™ Work For My Business or Organization?
Case studies provide real-world examples of organizations that have successfully implemented Brilliance Mining.
There are three phases to businesses or non-profit organizations:
Start
- Start strong
- Become aware of your brilliance and how to best put it into play
Scale
- Scale up
- Create leverage and go beyond yourself and a small team
- Knowledge transfer and systems are key to making this happen without costly mistakes, losing work-life balance, or losing your innovative edge
Sustain
- Make it durable
- Succession planning for key people, including yourself
- That gives you options
- Ensure your business is sellable (85%+ are not; they just shut down when the owner retires)
Note: When you are working to scale, you are also preparing your company or organization to become sustainable, i.e., it can do well without you - giving you the freedom to lean out, sell, create a legacy, or focus on innovation!
Case Studies Inspire Action
The case studies here demonstrate that Brilliance Mining™ is:
- Transformative during any of the three stages: Start, Scale, and Sustain
- Versatile: Different industries and company sizes
- Practical and easy to implement
- Focused on addressing specific knowledge needs
- Producing fast payoff and high ROI
Brilliance Mining™: Method and Mindset
Brilliance Mining™ isn't simply a method—it's a transformational mindset.
It begins with appreciating the immense worth of the unique knowledge and expertise harbored within individuals and organizations.
At its core, it's about unearthing this precious intellectual treasure, appreciating its value, and harnessing its power to drive sustainable growth and success.
CASE STUDIES fOR THE "START" STAGE
Lifestyle Coaching Program to beat insulin resistance
- Initially too complex for the target audience of people age 50+, a heap of 60-70 medical doctor's articles was transformed into a structured lifestyle program.
- During the restructuring, Dr. Stephie's fresh eyes recognized that the program consists of six lifestyle areas and four support pillars for the participants. As a result, the team redesigned the logo for the venture.
- The content was broken down into bite-sized courses, including workbooks and assignments.
- The program's imminent launch will impact hundreds of thousands of people.
Read more here
Coaching Program for Young People from Challenging Backgrounds
- A former football player and serial entrepreneur, Bruce Carter, aimed to break the generational hopelessness cycle for young people who grew up in poverty and traumatic situations.
- Brilliance Mining helped extract his vision and expertise, resulting in a trade school portal called Pathways to Independence (PTI).
- The foundational program ("Solid Foundation") addresses trauma and teaches entrepreneurship, conflict resolution, and civic engagement, to name a few of the areas.
- Completing the Solid Foundation program is a prerequisite for students to attend the PTI campus, where they will get further career training.
- The advanced career training will combine in-person instruction and online learning.
- The collaboration with Dr. Stephie helped Bruce bring his vision to life, improve his approach, and make it tangible and immortal.
Read more:
CASE STUDIES fOR THE "SCALE" STAGE
A Speciality Staffing Company Grows Big - And The Owner Gets His Life Back
- Using Brilliance Mining, we extracted the owner's 25 years of expertise in low-voltage and electrical staffing.
- By making the owner's unconscious competence visible and teachable, the company empowered its staff to execute business operations with the same level of expertise the owner brought to the company.
- The business experienced remarkable growth, is opening two new locations, and considering franchising.
- The owner regained work-life balance, enabling personal pursuits such as cruising with his family, hunting, and building a house on his weekend ranch.
Read more:
Treasure Tuesday #2: A Powerful Case Study, TEDx, How To Learn Anything Fast
An Innovative Software Company Scales Up And Multiplies Its Valuation
- An innovative software company specializing in software that revolutionizes and modernizes editing of huge, rigidly structured documents (legislative documents) faced the challenge of teaching its employees and partners the unique combination of technical expertise and legislative knowledge that drives their business.
- Furthermore, the company needed to educate their prospective customers on the benefits of their product, which meant that government IT people had to understand the software well enough to recommend it to their bosses.
- We used Brilliance Mining to develop training materials for prospective customers to drive sales and cross-train internal staff and external partners.
- These training materials were delivered through a training portal or Learning Management System.
- Additionally, pocket guides were created to capture the founders’ unique knowledge and principles.
- The company's valuation is estimated to have increased at least 8-fold due to these efforts!
Read more:
Treasure Tuesday #3: Metro Map of Training, Powerful Analogies, Fun T-Shirts, Feedback and Speaking
A Digital Marketing Company Goes Gangbusters
- Through Brilliance Mining, the marketing company harnessed the expertise of its owners, who were highly experienced and outstanding in their field.
- By capturing and sharing their brilliance with prospective clients via powerful visuals and emails, the company tripled its business within a year.
- It further evolved its focus, honed in on a specific niche (digital marketing for plastic surgeons), and achieved a significant revenue increase.
- The team grew from the two owners to now a total of eight people.
- Revenues skyrockets by at least a factor of 7 (more like 10 now).
Read more:
How a Marketing Company Found Its Ideal Client and Increased Revenues Seven-fold
CASE STUDIES fOR THE "SUSTAIN" STAGE
A Bathtub Refinishing Company Makes Its Quality Control Trainable - and the Rest is History!
- This multi-location bathtub refinishing company recognized the need to capture and transfer critical knowledge related to quality control, customer interaction, upselling, and fleet maintenance.
- Over several months, Brilliance Mining extracted and documented the company’s processes, resulting in a comprehensive company manual, training videos, and checklists.
- The owner shifted from daily firefighting to growing the business and nurturing employees.
- He regained his joy in running and growing the business and is much better prepared for retirement.
Read more:
A High-End Glazing Company Regains Profitability
The high-end glazing company faced several challenges, including needing a successor to the owner, losing major projects leading to financial struggles, and transitioning to an employee-owned company.
As a Fractional CEO and Brilliance Miner, Dr. Stephie worked with the team to address these challenges:
- Regaining Profitability: The company had suffered financial setbacks due to the economic slowdown and inadequate systems and processes. The company had not established and documented processes as they scaled up, which impacted profitability. The hiring and estimating practices were inadequate, resulting in underbidding and loss of profitability. We extracted the current practices and identified areas for improvement. The result was a unified estimating process and better hiring, bidding, and training practices.
- Succession Planning: The owner needed to retire and find a suitable successor. Through a Fresh Eyes Assessment, it was discovered that the owner was overpowering her staff, hindering their growth. By removing this obstacle and fostering a culture of learning and empowerment, the controller was eventually chosen as the successor.
- Transition to Employee Ownership: To encourage employee ownership thinking, Dr. Stephie used coaching techniques to resolve conflicts among the personnel. By fostering a sense of ownership and aligning everyone's interests, the company successfully navigated the transition to an employee-owned structure.
Results:
- Within six months, the company regained profitability through improved hiring practices, a unified estimating process, and refined bidding criteria.
- By streamlining these processes and providing training, the company experienced significant improvements in profitability.
- Additionally, implementing employee ownership thinking led to a more engaged and empowered workforce.
- We set the stage for a smooth succession, promoting a highly capable employee from within (after clearing up some misconceptions).
Read more:
Unlocking the Power of Effective Knowledge Transfer: Scaling and Succession in Technical Industries
