Rick Crossland
A Player Advantage LLC
Dublin, Ohio, United States
About
Rick Crossland works with CEOs who want their businesses to rank in the top 5% of their industry. A Scaling Up–Rockefeller Habits™ Certified Coach and founder of A Player Advantage, LLC, he combines business performance coaching with A Player recruiting to help companies build exceptional teams, accelerate profitable growth, and maximize business valuation.
He also helps leadership teams ready to graduate from EOS to Scaling Up, with a focus on profitable growth and superior business valuations.
A Scaling Up coach for 14 years and one of the network’s senior coaches, Rick integrates his A Player Performance System (APPS) with Scaling Up to strengthen the People decision—powering Strategy, Execution, and Cash to drive superior business valuation. His clients view this combination as a powerful enhancement to Scaling Up. This integrated approach led to the formal creation of Scaling Up A Players, which Rick developed and leads as a partner.
Rick uses A Players—the top 10% of performers for the compensation paid—to build talent density, positioning the percentage of A Players on a team as the ultimate lead measure of business performance. He combines the Scaling Up framework with practical systems for recruiting, validating, coaching, and developing high performers. These include Topgrading™ hiring methodologies, Job Scorecards, A Player Agreements, playbooks, and disciplined performance coaching.
Based in Columbus, Ohio, Rick works with CEOs and leadership teams across the United States and internationally. His fun, approachable style challenges leaders to raise their standards, strengthen accountability, and turn ambitious goals into measurable business results.
Professional Highlights
Entering his 20th year of coaching, Rick brings a proven record of growing businesses through People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. Many of his clients’ businesses have achieved talent densities of 90–100% across their teams. His clients’ results include sustained profitable growth, increased strategic value, and exceptional exits—including valuations of 25× and 67× EBITDA.
One Australian engineering services leader credits the A Player initiative as his company’s greatest initiative, linking it to a tripling of market capitalization since its 2024 IPO and annual revenue growth of 52.4%.
Rick is the author of The A Player, a contributor to Scaling Up, and an internationally approved YPO speaker. He is currently writing his second book, tentatively titled Scaling Up A Players, on building high-performing teams that drive profitable growth and exceptional business value.
Rick brings more than 38 years of expertise in business growth and leadership development, including leadership experience at some of the world’s leading brands: Johnson & Johnson, Nabisco, Ford Motor Company, and Bath & Body Works.
His work and insights have been featured in Fast Company, Inc., Entrepreneur, Fortune, CEO Magazine, Recruiter.com, Columbus CEO, and Columbus Business First. An international workshop leader and keynote speaker, he equips CEOs and leadership teams with practical methods for building A Player cultures and improving business performance.
Rick holds a BA in chemistry from the University of Delaware and an MBA from Duke University.
Personal Highlights
Rick has helped mentor more than 20 Scouts, including his son, to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. An avid photographer, he enjoys shooting with both classic film cameras and modern digital equipment. Outside of coaching, his interests include tennis, skiing, bicycling, hiking, and cooking. He reads two to three books per month, continually exploring new ideas in leadership, business, and history. He loves to travel the world sharing the power of Scaling Up A Players to business audiences.
Coaching Regions
US - Northeast
US - Southeast
US - Midwest
US - Southwest
US - West
Industry of Expertise
Accounting/Finance
Automotive
Building/Construction
Coaching/Business Consulting
Commercial Real Estate
Computer/IT/Software Development
Defense Tech
Education/Training
Engineering
Food Services/Hospitality
Legal Services
Logistics/Transportation
Manufacturing/Production/Operations
Retail
Other
“When we started Scaling Up we wanted to get the right coach to fit our company, Kaivac, Inc. We found Scaling Up had a great network of coaches throughout the Midwest and interviewed 6 different coaches. We made the right pick with Rick Crossland. Rick is a world class coach, he pushes and encourages all of my team to be their very best and puts time, energy, and effort into making us better. Rick is highly energetic, wise for his age, quick to read people, very knowledgeable of many and varied business issues, and truly wants us to win! In less than a year, our business is up over 60% in spite of the Corona Virus and other head winds affecting the economy. His book, The A Player and the Scaling Up road map are setting the bar for our employees and Rick is helping our entire team to reach our goals. If you are serious about growth and looking for a great coach and adviser, I highly recommend Rick”
— Bob Robinson, Sr. President/Founder | Kaivac, Inc.
“Rick has immersed himself into our business and industry to help us immediately address our challenges. His strategic approach to our business, specifically the sales process, helped us to develop a digital sales playbook as well as a lead measure tracking system to drive accountability throughout the organization. Combining these improvements with his approach to attracting and retaining “A Player” talent has been a tremendous asset for our business including the turnaround of a key region, reduction of employee turnover, and the coaching and development of several rising leaders.”
— Matt Butzier, COO | The Palmer-Donavin Manufacturing Company
“Rick has been an executive coach to many of Palmer-Donavin’s key executives since 2016, helping these leaders achieve peak performance through new and more strategic ways to approach the business and lead their teams through his Scaling Up and A Player methodologies. He achieves this through robust and proven “how to” systems that also reinforce our core values. This work has led to very impressive sustained results, process and cultural changes in our organization. As the author of The A Player, Rick knows talent! In addition to his coaching, his organization has successfully recruited multiple candidates for key executive positions including my successor for the CFO role. He has introduced the Topgrading interview methodology to our company which has improved our success rate in hiring and promoting the right executives. If your organization is ready to be challenged and energized, Rick will help you get to the next level, by improving your talent and bottom-line. He is a trusted and “go to” partner for us.”
- Robyn Pollina, CEO, |The Palmer-Donavin Manufacturing Company