Is Your Business Ready To Scale Up with Lauren Cohen

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Is Your Business Ready To Scale Up with Lauren Cohen

I have Lauren Cohen with me and after many years of running a successful business, working with hundreds of global entrepreneurs seeking access to the US and domestic companies and franchises, seeking foreign investors, Lauren recognized a need for a high single-source toolbox to help business owners navigate the journey to success. Accordingly, she built a signature system designed to help foreign investors and US business owners achieve their goals simply and strategically using her company’s vetted network of professionals. Lauren truly has their back and she’s going to be sharing some of the information that can help you build a more profitable business, which requires a rock-solid foundation. She’s all about helping you build that rock-solid foundation. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Rodney. It’s such a pleasure to be here with you and to see your smiling face.

We’re going to be changing the game now. It’s more than just kicks, giggles and smiles here on the show. I’m excited to have you here as well and I can see that you have gone through a game-changing experience yourself. I didn’t mention in your intro, you are an attorney, a business owner and entrepreneur. I want to talk a little bit about that and what made you make that change in your life. I want to talk about a little bit about where you were as a lawyer and how life was for you as a lawyer and how life is for you right now and what you’re doing to change the world. You were an attorney and now an entrepreneur.

I still am in two countries.

What are those countries?

I’m from Canada and I live in America, so those are the two countries.

Talk to us about life as an attorney and the transition that you’ve made.

It’s funny because I’m being featured in this book called Immigrant Hustle and I talk about what caused me to become an entrepreneur. I’m editing that section right now of the book. It’s about 50 immigrant entrepreneurs that have created successful businesses in the US. I came here to the US and I was a Canadian lawyer. I was limited in terms of the scope of what I could do as a Canadian lawyer. I got licensed in the US and still there were limitations. I never was truly just a lawyer. I always wanted to work in-house and do merges and acquisitions and make deals happen and do transactional stuff. It was challenging. I had some personal circumstances that led me to fall into being an immigration lawyer.

Instead of being an immigration lawyer in the true sense of the word, I became an immigration concierge. That’s where my passion lies, is being a concierge, having your back, looking after my clients every need from startup to scale up to exit and making sure that through the process of whether they’re coming in from another country, raising money from foreign investors or developing their domestic businesses. They have that all in one solution and accountability partner that has their back. That’s where I was able to shine, make a difference and have an impact, which is for me what it’s all about.

You’ve gone through this transition over the course of the last X amount years.

I was an in-house lawyer until around 2008 at which time I started my first entrepreneurial business. I started writing business plans on the side and it turned it into a business and then brought the lawyer piece into it and started doing a lot of concierge work in the immigration world. I launched ScaleUPCheckUP, my assessment-driven system and I created this algorithm-based assessment, which scores your risks and outlines your gaps so you can fill the gaps and build that rock-solid foundation for growth. It came from a lot of different avenues.

For example, as I’m sure you see and we see this at CEO Space, there are a lot of business owners that spend a lot of money on coaching and sales and marketing, but no money on their foundation. They reach a certain point in their growth, development or ability to scale and they hit a wall because you need that foundation. It’s like building your dream home on a sinkhole and eventually the sinkhole is going to cave in and your house is going to collapse. I kept seeing the people spending tens of thousands of dollars on all of these coaching programs and sales and marketing and not paying any attention to the store, looking after the home, making sure that they could scale, making sure they had the foundation and infrastructure in place. It’s not sexy to deal with the infrastructure, but it’s essential.

It’s the grunt work that no one wants. Everyone wants money, to scale up and look successful, be successful, but you’re talking about the foundation but just some of the first steps, fundamental steps into building a business. Let’s dive into that a little bit. What are some of your recommendations when it comes to taking care of their foundations? What are some of the items that you feel need to be paid attention?

There are seven essential risk areas that I address and we uncover gaps in each of these seven risk areas through my process. That doesn’t mean that I’m an expert in all seven of these risk areas. As a matter of fact, I’m definitely not, but what we do is we say, “Your branding is lacking. Your systems are lacking. Your financial matters are lacking,” which is definitely not my wheelhouse. “Here are the professionals that can help you. We’ve vetted this professional. We know they can get the job done. We trust them. You don’t have to go and find through the internet, which used to be the yellow pages somebody that can help you.”

Scaling Up: If you’re underfunded or under-capitalized, your business is not going to survive. You need a strong business plan with a mission, a vision, and an exit.

We look at these seven areas. They are funding and capitalization because if you’re underfunded or under-capitalized, your business is not going to survive. Business planning, you need a strong business plan with a mission, a vision and an exit. Your exit is super important because I believe strongly in beginning with the end in mind. Branding and marketing, legal and compliance, that might be in my wheelhouse a little. Financial and taxes, operations and security and that for security means backup. It’s your cloud and all of your backup to protect your business and insurance and licensing.

These are the seven areas that we look at and we basically do a seven-point inspection and identify the gaps in our assessment phase. We diagnose the prescription to fill the gaps. We provide prescriptions on how to fill the gaps and then we bring in the professionals to deliver, which is phase three. It’s inspect, diagnose and deliver. The delivery phase is with the professionals to actually get the job done. Branding professionals, marketing professionals, accountants, financial advisors, systems people and not any of those things. My four favorite words that I love to say over and over and I’m sure you’ve heard me say this is, “Stay in your lane.” It’s so important for us as entrepreneurs because everybody tries to do everything. There’s no I in team. You cannot do everything.

There’s a reason that people went to law school or had their CPA designation or created a systems-oriented business or financial advisor. We are not experts in everything. I think that that’s so important for us, that knowledge. People pull these documents off the internet and say, “I have a coaching agreement.” That has nothing to do with your business, but if you think you have a coaching agreement, good luck to you. It’s a shame because there’s so much information and that leads to misinformation.

It’s good that you’re packaging this service because I feel that a lot of people have ideas, they want to become entrepreneurs. Something like this that you gave me, that’s the seven-point inspection, they go, “I’ve got to do all of this before I can even get started.” You’re like a one-stop shop and acting as a liaison and you have the power of your businesses in the relationship that you have with people and perform in these different areas. A client or a potential entrepreneur can come to you and they can get all of these services in one place and start to build those relationships.

That’s important and helpful for people that are reading that want to start a business. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Go slow to go fast.” I think this is perfect because it’s taking care of these things first. That’s a game-changer mentality note right there. You take care of these things first and then you don’t have to worry about those because they’re set. When you don’t do that, you get out there and realize that you got leaks, there are holes, there are things that you haven’t done and so it slows you down. Sometimes you have to take the time.

It also costs a lot later and a lot of business owners don’t realize. For example, you’re in turnaround mode. Let’s say you had a very successful business. Your business’ revenues drop significantly because you weren’t paying enough attention. Now you have to turn your business around and you lost traction in doing so. You have to fix all the problems instead of preventing them. It’s like insurance basically. If you prevented the problems and we’re monitoring it every step of the way, what could be a $5 million expense five years down the road could have been $50,000 or less now.

If you don’t have your proper corporate entities set up or documentation in place or insurance to protect your business or licensing, that could be a huge fine. The list goes on and on. It’s just a matter of having a trusted advisor, that single source that you can trust. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad apples out there as we know. We’ve all probably used them, including myself. You need to have at least one or two people that you can trust. In my goal and role, it’s to be that ongoing source of support and guidance and serving as a trusted advisor and managing all of these relationships so that you can focus on building your business and scaling.

You created a business called ScaleUPCheckUP. I guess the checkup is to go back and see if all of these things are done. After that’s done, what is the path going forward? How does the relationship go from here?

As I was alluding to, we have an assessment phase where we assess the gaps. We have a quiz and we have an assessment that I developed. We have the diagnosis phase, which is where we provide a prescription to fill the gap. That’s our success plan and our success plan is a proprietary product that I’ve developed that brings all of those gaps and provide you with guidance on how to fill them. We prioritize with our clients. We’ll sit down with you, let’s say Rodney and say, “You have these ten gaps that are prevalent. Some of them are opportunities, not just gap.” For example, you may have a potential trademark that could be an opportunity to build something big and make a lot of money, but you haven’t trademarked it so it’s at risk of somebody taking it.

If you trademark it, suddenly you can build something from there. There are opportunities, not just filling gaps. It’s also missed opportunities. We could create the success plan and then we work with the client on implementation and we create implementation strategies. We come in on six months to eighteen months and maybe longer engagement to help you to manage the professionals that are going to be involved in filling the gap. Some of them we’ll handle directly, some of them we won’t. It depends on the gaps that we’ve identified. The key is that it is about those relationships and a lot of the relationships I have are within CEO Space for obvious reasons, not all, but a lot. That’s because we are collaborative and my network is collaborative. Everybody has to help each other. It can’t just be everybody for themselves or it’s not going to work because the client needs that holistic approach and deserves it.

I think it’s wonderful and comforting to have a service that you can buy into that will do all of this for you. It takes a lot of the risks out of building a business because you have someone who’s taking a look at all of these other things that need to be done, ensuring that they are done, identifying those gaps. Nothing is 100% foolproof, but at least this gives you the ability to sleep well at night knowing that you have the safety net here taking a look at your business. Let’s take a little turn here and talk about what made you want to get into this type of business. Was there some type of experience where you experienced those gaps?

Not me personally exactly, although I do have a story I could share but it might promote another business in doing so. What happened was I was part of this very big and very extensive high-end coaching program. Within the group, it was a closed Facebook group and I offered to review a few agreements at no charge just to review client agreements or something. I think I offered to review up to five and I’ve got a bunch of them in, but I didn’t order. Three of the first five that I reviewed had no corporate entity. Here are three so-called companies paying over $20,000 for coaching, one of which had been in business for 30 plus years and somehow had no corporate entity and they had missed the radar and now they were ready to scale.

They’re going to be caught by the radar and now they need to look at that. Another one, let’s say there was a fire involved in the delivery of their services. They had no insurance and they decided to let their limited liability company go because it was too expensive to maintain it and file taxes and annual returns with the division of corporations. Those were a couple of examples and I was like, “How do you overcome this? How can they be spending all this money with this coaching program and paying no attention to these essential elements of their business, insurance, a structure or anything? I decided to come up with something that would go across the board and allow every business to see where their gaps are in a very easy, fun way, seeing how assessments were so popular in the industry.

It’s a great way to build a rapport. I created this assessment tool. It took some time. I did not build the back end clearly because that is not staying in my lane. I had the whole concept and I knew the questions that we created a score and we did all the mapping and we did all this. We created an assessment. I don’t think you’ve tried it, but I’d love you to. We charge $47 now for these assessments, but I will be happy to give it to everybody reading at no charge. I’ll give a coupon code. It’s great because it gives you a nice little report, tells you a score and then you can actually click through and have a free consult with me to discuss what that score means and how you can fix the gaps. That’s what I did. I came up first with the assessment and then I said, “Now what happens with the assessment?” They get the score. What does that do for them? That’s when I created the system of implementing, respond to the score, having a success plan of how to deal with the score and improve your score and then how to deliver with all of the professional services that are needed to make sure that their gaps are filled consistently.

Scaling Up: Your business won’t be able to scale up if its foundation is rocky. Make sure that you have a solid business plan and everything else that makes your business function at the very basic level.

What type of success are you experiencing from your clients that go through this process?

I have clients at different levels of their business. For example, I have one client that came to me and her goal is to exit within two years. We created an exit strategy for her, which included a nonprofit which we’ve set up and we’re just waiting on designation because she wants to focus on delivering a message. In the process of doing that, we are scaling her business. We have gotten some additional funding for her, not directly, but again, funding capitalization is one of our seven areas. She’s in the process of finalizing funding so that she is ready to sell her business within probably two years. That was her goal.

Another client came to us, they’re in a startup and they’re developing a very significant business. We just did a trademark search and we found a conflict, which is a good thing because if we had filed for the trademark without doing the search, the other company that she was potentially violating would have been on notice and she would’ve had a lawsuit on her hand. We saved her this and now she gets to modify her brand before she truly launches. That’s another example. We’re helping another company that’s been in the investment space for quite some time and now wants to make their business more serious. We’re getting the woman on certification and helping them scale their business so that she can focus on what she wants to focus on. It’s taking the business owner’s goals and helping them achieve them by putting various elements in place that will lead to that.

Speaking of goals, what’s the number one goal in building your business?

My goal is a couple of things. Eventually, I want to have this assessment go viral, which we’re working on. I’m actually working on it with somebody from CEO Space, so that we can have all of the systems in place to allow it to go viral. I’m very hands-on, I can’t help it, but the assessment tool itself can go viral. That’s the goal. I want to impact as many business owners as they can and make a difference to help them achieve their goals no matter what stage of business they’re in. More for the businesses that are in turnaround mode or exit mode because the startups have so many people vying for their attention. Some of them are just not ready for this whole analysis. They may be six months away. We’re helping those serious or accidental business owners. That’s very common in the tech space, for example, because people started businesses, they came up with these brilliant ideas but they had no idea how to run a business.

They’re like, “I have to run it like a business.” They had this great idea, but they weren’t a business person. They had no business training. It’s helping them to create the structure around their amazing technology so they can scale and sell. They don’t just sell to have a nice nest egg, but this way they actually have some business skills and structure in place. I’m helping a lot of the other businesses that are seeking to sell or create strategic partnerships to make sure that they can pass due diligence and doing so. What that means is these seven areas are going to be considered when a prospective investor or strategic partner is looking at your business. You want to make sure that you have all seven of them covered. My goal is to have an impact.

To be clear and correct me if I’m wrong, just listening to that statement, the target audience for your business, is it for established entrepreneurs or business owners? I’m a little unclear when you said that it’s not particularly for startups. Can you clarify that a little bit?

I do work with many startups because startups need me, but our target is on businesses that are in scale up mode. It’s those moving from mom and pop to serious business, from one or two employees to an enterprise. Moving from seven to eight figures or potentially exiting or looking to exit in two to seven years and not knowing how that looks or how to structure that. Those are my targets that’s why it’s called ScaleUPCheckUP. However, I work with many startups as well. Startups sometimes are not ready for all of this because they need to get some numbers in. It’s all a matter of what comes first, the chicken or the egg and figuring out do they have a business plan. That’s going to be our first goal, is getting a business plan in place for these startups. How much money do they need to run? Is there is a place for startups? Absolutely, but it’s just a little bit of a different approach.

I understand that. Thank you for that clarification. What drives you? What is your passion?

It’s impact. I love knowing that I have made a difference and helped my business owner to be able to achieve their goals because they become part of me. I know it sounds strange, but you can probably relate to this because we’re passion-driven entrepreneurs. I sleep better at night knowing that my clients are getting their needs met and able to accomplish their goals so that their family is safe and their business is getting the love and attention it needs, not only from the sales, marketing and fun, sexy perspective but also from that not so fun infrastructure perspective.

What about the money? It sounds like there are a lot of clients out there that could use your services. Does money drive you with this business?

I think we all want to make money. I would be lying if I said, “I’m truly a philanthropist and I just want to give.” At the end of the day, I’m a single mom and I have to support my family, but it’s not only about making a lot of money. If it were, then all I would care about was going viral with my assessment. For me, it’s about having that impact. It’s about the relationships. They’re what drives me and that’s why I love CEO Space so much because it drives me to create strong relationships and I’m not selling, I’m collaborating and helping each other. By the way, it’s a network of vetted professionals. I’m always looking to expand that.

If you know very good quality professionals that provide services in any of these seven areas, I’m happy to talk with them and see if you might be a good fit because it’s a win-win. We bring clients to you, you bring clients to us for this seven-point inspection. I feel strongly. I don’t want a million clients because I can’t serve them. I need to be able to have that impact and know that when our engagement is done, they’re on their merry way to accomplishing their goal. Six months down the road, we’ll have a checkup call to make sure that they’re still going strong and accomplishing what they want to accomplish and making things happen. That’s what it’s about for me.

I asked that question and it is a game-changing question. I asked that question because there are a lot of businesses popping up all over the place posing to help entrepreneurs because a lot of people are now starting their own businesses. One of the ways that you can be successful is to help entrepreneurs. I’m finding that a lot of people that start these types of businesses are focused just on the money. It’s hard to distinguish between those that are passionate about helping people and those that are trying to get a dollar because you can go out and learn how to say the right words and there’s information out there to help you sail. You’ve got someone who’s passionate about an idea and bringing it forward and they’re looking to do that.

Scaling Up: It’s always best to work with a person or a company that’s been vetted by somebody you know and not just someone that you found in an ad.

The only way to determine whether it’s a good decision is to be able to distinguish between those that are wanting to help you and have a passion to help you or those that are just saying things to get your dollars. Once they get your dollars, you find that this service is not as of quality as it should be. They’re not as authentic as they should be. I think that’s the game-changer when it comes to dealing with people, building this relationship is authenticity. As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably been there before. A lot of people reading this, they’ve been burned. They’ve been in those relationships where people said one thing and then they broke their agreement or they’re not as authentic and you get disappointed. You spent money and you’re still in the same place you were before you opened up your wallet.

My heart goes out to my audience, my heart goes out to you and people like me and for others that have gone through that type of experience. I like to use this platform as a way of helping people get more comfortable and more inclined to build relationships with good quality people. I only have good quality people on the show as a result of that. Not to make you feel uncomfortable, but having open and candid conversations about those things are helpful, because I think that’s what helps you make a decision whether or not to work with someone or not. Here’s a question, “What makes you work with someone? How do you determine who’s going to be a part of your network to help your clients with those gaps that they may find their business?”

First of all, I think it’s how they show up. For example, if somebody makes an appointment and doesn’t show up, I’ll forgive them. If they don’t show up twice, the third time you’re done. They’re not going to happen. I don’t care how much I need them in my network. I’m going to give most people a chance. What that means is, let’s say that I need an accountant in Phoenix specifically for a client in Phoenix that wants to meet them in person. I don’t have one in my network. I’m going to ask my network of people in Phoenix or that area to refer somebody to me and I’m going to do my due diligence, but of course to get that person to my client, I can’t do my full due diligence because I’ve never worked with them before. I’m going to be completely candid with my clients and let them know that I’ve done due diligence. This person was referred into the network and I’m going to give them one chance. If that client is not happy with the deliverables or the timeline or whatever, they’re done. If on the other hand, I bring them in and I have worked with them before, they have more than one chance and we do have a way to resolve issues and so on because of course people have their own perspectives on things.

It’s important that everybody that works with me has come to me from a reliable source or from my own resources. It’s not just somebody that I find randomly on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever like the yellow pages of old or Google AdWords. It’s somebody that I’ve personally vetted or that one of my people have personally vetted or worked with before. This is very common because as a lawyer, we’re often asked for referrals to lawyers in certain areas. I’m not going to refer somebody just because for example, there were some lawyers that can pay referral fees. I’m not going to refer a client to somebody that’s going to pay me a referral fee because I’m getting a referral fee. That’s my reputation on the line. Anybody in my network that I refer puts my reputation on the line. At the end of the day, what do we have other than our reputation? I’m not going to compromise that to get a couple of dollars or to satisfy the client. Sometimes I have to say, “I’m sorry I don’t have somebody in that area.” It’s possible because you don’t have everybody in every area. Sometimes you have to be able to say no.

What is your game-changing message to a startup entrepreneur that is hitting roadblocks and wants to get his message out or wants to start some type of business or service? What is your game-changing message to them?

Don’t do it yourself. Don’t do it alone. Speak to somebody that’s been there, done that and remember that you don’t know what you don’t know. If you don’t want to find out the hard way, work with professionals. It’s not worth taking the risk any other way. People are like, “I don’t need to set up an NC. I’m not making enough money.” Protect yourself and your family and get the right advice now before you get yourself in too deep. It’s like dating. You don’t want to find out that the person is married when you’re already going along the whole process. It’s the same concept because you have to vet. Rodney, I don’t think you know this, but I’m teaching. I’m developing online courses and the first one is on joint ventures. It’s accountability, transparency and congruency because so many entrepreneurs are in joint ventures. “I’m JV-ing with this one. I’m JV-ing with that one.” What does that mean and how do you ensure that you’re actually entering into that joint venture, that dating relationship, that marriage of sorts with somebody that you want to be involved with?

Don’t jump into that until you’ve done your vetting and made sure that you are creating that relationship of equality on a level playing field, accountability, congruency, transparency, alignment on every level. Whether it be a small business starting up and getting the right professional guidance, a business scaling up and making sure that they’re properly protected as they scale or business exiting. You don’t want to get pennies on the dollar. Take a look under the hood at the earlier stages so you can avoid a lot of pain later. It’s a short-term pain for long-term gain.

Does that message hold true for a more mature business?

Yes, 100%. I think that it holds true for a business at any stage. Some of the more mature businesses like the big corporates of the world, this is not going to resonate with them. A lot of them will have in-house legal, in-house insurance, in-house HR and in-house systems and they’ll have all of that. This is for the smaller business and medium-sized businesses, the emerging growth business that just has not paid as much attention or any attention to their foundation. They can’t get to that next level from the seven to the eight figures or even larger without paying attention and looking under the hood of the business. Most of them, I bet you that you can attest to this, of the seven areas I mentioned, do you think that there are a lot of businesses that we know that have all seven of those areas covered 100%?

No, absolutely not. I think there’s a lot that doesn’t have all of those covered because most people are focused on providing their service, building their business. That’s the grunt work. No one wants to do the grunt work where even the best of us don’t want to do the grant work. There are a lot of businesses out there that are at risk in multiple areas, just to hear you name a few. We’re human beings and sometimes as human beings, we neglect. You can probably look around your house and see areas that you neglect simply because it’s not something that you feel that has to be done right now and you try to take care of the things that more readily need your attention. It’s a cycle. You say, “I’m going to get to it and you never do get to it. You keep going and over and over.” The next thing you know, 30 years have gone by and you haven’t done it.

I’m sure we all have situations where we neglect and it becomes a cycle where we don’t pay attention to those things. All it takes is just for one situation to show up and then everything starts to crumble down because we have to take care of that. I think many businesses are out there in this situation. That’s why for people that are reading that have many businesses or thinking about starting a business, this is something that you may want to look into. I’m going to take your assessment. I want you to send that to me because I want to take a look at it.

It’s like your car. After so long, you have to take your car in. You can’t see everything. You can’t touch everything on a car. You can get around and you can look at it. You may even jack it up and look up underneath but sometimes you need someone who knows what they’re doing, knows what to look for, to take a look at your business and see what areas need to be fixed. The critical thing in having someone do that is trust. It’s having someone that you trust. You mentioned CEO Space and I can’t agree with you more. I love CEO Space because that’s where you and I met and we’ve we developed our relationship there.

That gives you a sense of trust because you have all these people of the same mind all about collaboration, coming to a place where they can collaborate together and help each other. That fosters a sense of trust in that group and then you can spread that to our customers and clients. I would encourage anyone that’s reading to take a look at the assessment if you can. This is a good opportunity for me to ask, how can people reach you? If they want to work with you and get the assessment so that they can take a look at their business, how would they do that?

The easiest thing to do, the fastest and most fun is our quiz, which is ShowMeTheMoneyQuiz.com. That’s our first step. It’s a quick two-minute quiz for those that don’t want to spend the six or seven minutes doing the assessment. We created this quiz and I will share the assessment with you, Rodney, so you can share it with your people as well with the coupon code. We’ll give you a quick and dirty overview of where your gaps are and then provide you with access to my calendar to set up a call to discuss those gaps and discuss the potential steps. Also you can reach me at Lauren@ScaleUPCheckUP.com, toll-free at (866) 724-0085. You can reach me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram, @ScaleUPCheckUP.

Scaling Up: Sometimes it takes a professional outside of your company to help address the things that you don’t see in your own business.

Everything I do is based on ScaleUPCheckUP. I’m also an immigration concierge. If you have any clients from other countries, it’s what I’ve been doing along longer than I remember and I’m an immigrant myself. That’s a whole another part of my world, but they’re so interconnected and I would love to work with each and every one of your audience and with you of course. I think you’re going to enjoy the process. You may not enjoy it, it may be a little painful at first, but it’s going to make you think and realize things that need to be paid a little more attention to.

Are there any social media handles that they need to know about in order to reach you?

Everything can be found, @ScaleUPCheckUP. Just push in ScaleUPCheckUP in social media and you’ll find me.

As a former athlete and dealing with some physical challenges pretty much all my life, I’ve understood the value in going to get a checkup. It’s so valuable. How many times have you run across someone that has not gone to get checked up pretty much all of their lives? They find out they have some terminal illness or something incurable or life-threatening or something like that and all of this could have been prevented if you would have gone to checkup. I’m recommending you go get your checkup. Any last words for the audience?

I’m here to help any of you. There’s no obligation. It’s just so much smarter to ask for help when you have the chance to and realize that we’re not all about money. Those of us that are passionate entrepreneurs like Rodney and myself, we want to help you and give you the chance to scale your business. This is how we all win.

Let’s all get out with checkups so that we can win. Lauren, thank you for being on the show. I love you. I love what you are doing. Thank you for the service that you’re providing. I can’t wait to get my assessment so I can check it out. I’m sure I have some gaps. I know I have some gaps, but we’re going to get those gaps. There’s power in knowing. I want to thank you for being a guest. I appreciate it. For the audience, I hope you go get your checkup. It’s very important. What better way to serve our people to be the best that we can be is to understand where we are, what we have and what’s going on? Let’s not be afraid of what comes up out of the checkup. That’s what the checkup is for. It’s to let you know what’s going on and what you need to fix. I think that there’s power in knowing. Go get your checkup and as always remain resilient in your pursuit for greatness. Thank you.

Thank you, Rodney. It’s a pleasure.

Important Links: 

• Lauren Cohen
• ScaleUPCheckUP
• CEO Space
• Facebook – ScaleUPCheckUP
• LinkedIn – ScaleUPCheckUP
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About Lauren Cohen

When entrepreneurs and business owners want to ensure they have a sound corporate infrastructure for growth, need to protect their financial interests, wish to craft a professional strategic business plan, or plan to eventually execute a profitable exit, they call expert advisor and attorney Lauren Cohen. For over twenty years, Lauren and her teams at e-Council Inc.com and ScaleUp Enterprises have advised U.S. and international businesses, providing concierge-level, professional guidance in many of the areas critical to success, including professional business plans, financing, legal and compliance matters, insurance and licensing, and operational systems and security.

Lauren is also a non-profit specialist both in terms of setup and ongoing operations and compliance. A graduate of York University and Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada, Lauren is also an expert in business immigration law, boasting a stellar record helping foreign entrepreneurs realize the “American Dream” by obtaining EB-5, E-2, L-1 and other business visas and starting a business in the U.S. or investing in an established corporation. In doing so, her clients have raised and invested millions of dollars in capital. Lauren has spoken throughout the world on the topics of business immigration and scaling businesses, and she was recently named to the faculty of the Forbes and INC. -renowned global networking and training program for successful business owners. Lauren knows well the challenges and the efforts necessary to obtain a U.S. visa.

She is Canadian by birth and immigrated to the U.S. in 2001, becoming a U.S. citizen in 2012. Prior to forming her e-Council Inc.com and ScaleUp Enterprises, she served as corporate counsel in various industries, during which time she became interested and involved in immigration law. Lauren’s best-selling book “Finding Your Silver Lining in the Business Immigration Process” offers a wealth of information and tools for those seeking to access U.S. markets through business immigration, and she also authored a second book entitled “A Burning Desire to Succeed: Striking the Perfect Franchise Match”. In 2017, Lauren was recognized as a “Super Lawyer” by Attorney-at-Law magazine and in 2018 received the “Leader in the Law” award from the Florida Association of Women Lawyers.

She was recently featured on the global TV series Unlocking Your Limitless Life and has been interviewed on NPR and NBC-6 and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The South Florida Business Journal, The Palm Beach Post and several other news outlets and publications. Lauren is also a regular featured guest on webinars, podcasts, radio shows and other similar media. Lauren also serves as legal strategist for many international groups and organizations and has spoken at several regional, national and international events as well as EB-5 Innovation Summits and Investor Conferences. She has also presented at numerous events for attorneys and other professionals, including locations in Canada, South America, Europe and Israel.

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