I walked onto my first job site at 24 with an engineering degree but no idea what I was looking at. I was in charge of demoing, moving, and reinstalling a set of pick lines that involved learning from electricians, PLC programmers, and more.
I've spent most of my career since then being useful. From designing products, to testing programs, to technical and field support, at job sites in every state and province and several other countries. Then from sales person, popsicle company founder, to sales team training to eventual executive and leader.
I've been called many names, kicked off more job sites than I care to count.
Learning One System
From the outside it looked like I was "hopping around" but what I realized thanks to a very wise coach and friend (Gene Hammett) is I was learning one system from many different seats inside it: what has to happen between a product being designed and a product becoming something the market knows how to buy, install, trust, and specify again.
Some of those lessons were expensive. But never forgotten.
From the unrealistic 5-year goals that I couldn't control but built the system anyway, to the win of seeing a product I designed gain incredible market share for that company.
Post Graduate Work
Both my failures and wins have been 27+ years of career education. My post graduate work. The installers who taught me things nobody in the conference room knew. The launches everyone called sales problems that turned out to be channel problems, operations problems, adoption problems, or a market nobody had prepared for what it was being asked to absorb.
Eventually you accumulate enough evidence that you have to stop treating what you know as a collection of experiences. You have to name it.
Spec to Scale
I made the decision to start Spec to Scale about 18 months ago, and today it exists out loud.
Spec to Scale exists to help building product companies build what has to happen between specification and repeatable adoption: the people, the economics, the field conditions, the channel decisions, and the small sequential yeses that decide whether a product makes it through. The specification is a milestone. It is not the sale.
Understanding why project fluency matters is central to this work. Knowing who influences specs, when decisions happen, and how to show up separates the reps who thrive from the ones who struggle.
The Joy
What I underestimated most about choosing my own work is the joy of helping other people win. Literally watching my clients' shoulders dropping. The fun of the chase on someone else's behalf, watching it click and fall into place. Nobody could have prepared me for that.
I am grateful for the clients that I've had the privilege of helping so far in my journey and here open to the ones that are making their way to us now.
What's Next
The new site is live at spectoscale.com. Send me your contacts, your launch, your inherited number.
27+ years of learning what has to happen between a product being designed and a product becoming something the market knows how to buy, install, trust, and specify again. The specification is the milestone, not the finish line.
I am willing to be known for knowing this.
Visit spectoscale.com to connect.
