In this feasible episode, Jen Goldman, Founder of My Virtual COO, shares operational strategies for scaling teams. If you struggle with team frustration or management overload, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– How to implement lean processes for efficient scaling
– Why hiring aligned talent prevents management headaches in stage 3
– How to implement lean processes for efficient scaling
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and this episode is for all you reluctant managers out there, you know who you are. I just actually had a call with a small business owner who was ready to throw it all away. She was done. And like, with a capital D, and she was so frustrated with the team that she’d built. There were about 20 people at this point. They just added several more, and that was the tipping point. And to be honest, like they were super frustrated with her. And so she had just had enough, and was asking for advice on how to sell, because in a moment of, you know, just genuine honesty, she shared that she was she had given up hope that it could get any better than it currently was. And if you felt that way, if you feel that way, it can get a whole lot better. In fact, most folks who are in this position are just a couple turns of the dial, and we’re going to talk about one of those important ones in this episode, from just a completely different experience, completely different growth, and a whole lot of fun and that with a capital F and so here to help us have a little more hope, and for all the right reasons, is Jen Goldman, who brings 30 years of experience as a business transformation. A transformist for small businesses, she has helped hundreds and 1000s of service businesses to learn how to scale up teams, profit and clients through operational skill and mindset improvements. Jen’s experience includes strategic business planning staff and provider recalibration, change, acceleration, tech integration and optimization, lean process creation and implementation and high adoption of operational efficiencies. Her philosophy includes visualization, product collaboration, the 4w and four P’s, purpose documentation and IDEO. She’s here with us today. Jen, welcome to the show. Very excited to have you on. A question for you coming out of the gate here is, what would you say to the founder like her, who’s waking up pretty much every morning wondering what’s wrong with these people? How can a COO help?
Jen Goldman
Yeah. So first off, I hear you certainly, I’m a business owner too, so I’m smiling with you, and I’m feeling the pain. Secondly, to be perfect, there’s a middle person missing off the team, and so just to be as transparent as possible, I think what you’re missing is that COO or Chief of Staff, and there is a slight difference between the two, but we’re going to blend them together today.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I’m so glad you brought that up, and I actually do want to separate those just momentarily, and then we’ll lump them together, because it was actually a question that I had, and I didn’t know if we’d be able to get into it. But what do you mean by that? Because most folks probably haven’t had either. So in you as short as you can, I know that’s a lofty ambition, but what’s the Chief of Staff? How’s that different than a COO?
Jen Goldman
Yeah, so a chief of staff is going to come in very people oriented, bringing the team together, aligning and kind of sit between you, the CEO, biz dev, and the team’s day to day operations. Okay, so, but they’re going to lead with people. A COO is going to lead with operational efficiencies. So they’re going to be a little more tech geeky. They’re going to be a little bit more into processes that kind of guide the people they care about, the people, don’t get me wrong, but their their first and highest calling is more around systems than it is around people.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right, how do you know which one you need?
Jen Goldman
That’s a great question. I think if you think the culture is lacking, like, let’s say you have turnover or low retention, or everybody seems a little basically fried out, I would say you need a Chief of Staff first, or somebody that will put that first and then kind of come in the unicorn. This is what everybody wants. I want it, right? You want the Chief of Staff and the COO in one person, yeah? So you can try for that if you want. But I would say again, if culture is dragging, mood is dragging, everybody’s just struggling, bring in the Chief of Staff first, then bring in like a COO mentality, or hopefully groom up from somebody on the team.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so let’s talk a little bit about what this COO role does. You talked about operational efficiency. How does that role, that second in command in a COO mindset, help a founder to scale? How’s it different from what the founder is doing themselves?
Jen Goldman
Well, first of all, they’re the day to day, so the founder gets to be especially if you’re a biz dev founder, which you understand you know more than anyone, right? If you’re a biz dev founder, and you get your energy from relationship building outside of the office, outside of the company, with new leads or referral sources, right then that COO is the one that does in the office. They’re the one that runs the team meetings. They’re the one that looks for ways to cut down on the workload so your team can stay lean and not. Mean, but happy. And so basically, as a COO, you’re freed, like once they’re onboarded and ingrained, you’re free to go out and do your thing and bring out your vibe and sell and let the COO deal with the day to day.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve found, and I’d probably venture to say it’s the most important thing you might push back on that. I’d be interested in your thoughts. But it seems to me that the biggest contributor to success is trust in the relationship between COO and CEO. You could have an unreal COO, it’s just a Jedi at all the process. But if you don’t trust them, you’re going to go in and undermine every last one of them. So I’d love to know from you, what do you see as the role of trust, and how do you start to build that from even before day one in an interview process?
Jen Goldman
Yeah, I’m a very big proponent of documentation. So if you met any one of my quote, business friends, or even our clients, they would understand trust comes not only with the verbal but the written. So for example, you asked about even before hiring, how do they cross communicate asynchronously? Are they clear? Are they understandable? Do they respond in a timely manner? All that matters in an interview process, I don’t know. I look at it, I care about it, because that’s how they’re going to be when they’re working with you, hopefully, right? And and if they’re poor in the interview process, let me tell you, they’re not going to fit, right? We know that automatically, because you get better, not get better, that’s right. So things like that when they’re on boarded trust weekly meetings. Do they come prepared? Is there a set agenda? Are they documenting what they’re doing? And I think also too, let me flip this the person that’s documenting that gives you dopamine hits, it makes you feel jazzed up, and it gives you a list of saying, Hey, this is what I just accomplished for the business. So there’s a win on both sides. It’s not supposed to be a drag, right? That builds up a ton of trust, another thing. And actually, somebody did this to me. My wing man in the past, actually would write an end of the week summary and say, These are the top five things I accomplish. Obviously, she was getting the dopamine hit writing it, but I automatically went into the weekend and a mindset of this person is on it, and they care, and they’re doing the work.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so powerful, because it’s the weekends where we go crazy. Yeah, it’s like, Monday morning. I have some interesting calls, you know, and I get it, you know, because it’s you, you have a little time, you get into a project, you kind of start poking around and stuff, and then, boom, your whole weekend’s gone because you just went down 19 rabbit trolls, of of what feels like awful. And so to be able to just set that up and say, Hey, we’re good, right? Going into the weekend, we’re good, it’ll all be here. Monday will be okay, is, I mean, from a life impact standpoint, it’s massive for founders.
Jen Goldman
No, I mean, that’s we don’t get our energy in those moments, whether it’s weekends or nights. We’re not good leaders, whether they’re whatever direction we’re heading in. And that’s where you get the owners that say, I’m out, like I’m just done, like I’m burnt. And the reason they’re they’re burning themselves out because they don’t have, to be frank, the systems in place, and they don’t, and it’s okay because you don’t know, like, this is stuff that I took for granted, and then I realized most people don’t know this, but that also burns out the team. So then you’re wondering, why, why are these people on my team, and why are they not, like, kicking it up, and you haven’t given them a method or a way to communicate up the ladder or to take credit and advocate. Yeah, yeah. So systems matter in that in that instance.
Scott Ritzheimer
And I love the way that you describe systems, because most founders wouldn’t describe them that way. They describe it as like, prison. You know, go back and listen to it again. It’s just fantastic. There’s a lot in there. I want to kind of stay on this thread with CEOs, though. So let’s say someone’s like, Yes, that’s what we need. We need someone to bring some more structure to this thing. I’d love to have someone looking inside my business so I can look out on the horizon and create some growth. What do they need to look for in a great COO, what are some of the qualities that you’ve seen make those folks successful?
Jen Goldman
I’m going to give the answer, but I know the follow up question would be, well, Jen, what question would you ask in an interview? So let me give the answer first. It’s called, I call it constellation thinking. So we believe in this thing called the four Ps. And I made that up for myself, just to be fair. And now I teach it that when we think of anything in a business, we think about, how is it going to affect the people, the productivity, the profits and the presence, internally and externally. Okay, so public presence and internal presence. So that’s constellation thinking automatically that everything you do has an impact and has a trickle effect. You need to see. See that in that person. So you need to give them an instance or a story and say, What did you take away from that story? And they see if they connect the dots between all the areas of the business and the impact of what was going on, yeah, you need that. You need to know they can articulate it, right? I’m trying to think what else you can ask them, but I do think it’s going think it’s constellation. Thinking you’re looking for that. You’re looking for an eagerness to learn. They really have to be learning junkies. So and how they learn, that’s a big one. If they learn verbally, that’s going to slow you down, because the fact is, you don’t have the time you’re busy on your calls or talking to clients, or for whatever you’re doing, CEO out there, leading, presenting, it doesn’t whatever your business is. You have to make sure they can learn without the verbal Yeah. So it might be on their own, through video, on their own, through written word, on their own, through some other way. Are they resourceful? I think that’s another, another big one.
Scott Ritzheimer
This idea of constellation thinking is is really profound, because as you look back at like, who are the hires that precede this? You don’t really hire them for that, right? You might hire them for one, maybe two of these, but it’s like you’re you the first handful of folks you hire for them to get stuff done and and to some extent, the less they’re worried about all the connection points, the more efficient or effective they’ll be in their particular role. But then that leaves you like doing the juggling number, you know, and trying to hang it all together. And so where I’ve seen folks struggle here is that they don’t apply that switch, right? They try and bring in somebody else to solve what they think is a single problem. I need someone to connect me in the team, or something like that, and it’s missing that constellation thinking. That’s very, very clever way of putting it, but very, very important. So there’s another thread to this that I’m very interested in hearing what you have to say, and that is, how do you figure out the the full time in person, virtual How do you know what’s right for you in terms of how much coo you need and in what format?
Jen Goldman
Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say most of the time. I’ll get let me give a real example. So we were talking to a business that was sent to us through a connection at strategic coach. And they were probably, I’m thinking, looking down to think about maybe 1819, people on the team, two owners, right? One was like the head of sales. One was operations, and they were maxed out the story like you started with, just by showing them all the different pieces. And we show visuals, by the way, we’re huge individuals around people and systems and everything. We literally have a map for each item the minute. We actually showed them that, in probably under five minutes, they were like, Whoa. I didn’t realize I was thinking that way. No wonder my brain hurts trying to figure this all out and make it better for the next scale up, we need a full timer. They instantly knew that, because when they saw it, they’re like, I want that. So I think you don’t know. Well, you don’t know Right? Like, you just know you’re burning out, right? Or you just you’re tired of everything. That’s one thing. If you think that you want to touch on your people and your systems and your processes, and, God, there’s so much to go your finances, like I want to project my profitability through all this. Then I think you need a full timer. Then the question is, do you do virtual or in house? Well, first of all, depends on your company model. I’m going to tell you virtual works with a quarterly visit in house, because, frankly, a lot can get done, and you can get better talent, maybe not in your backyard. And also budget matters, right? Like, maybe you’re in I’m in the Northeast. Let me tell you what people like this make, right? They make a lot. Maybe you can’t afford that. So I would say to do the virtual and have them visit you quarterly type of thing. If they’re good communicators this way, like we’re even communicating and in written it’s not a problem. Yeah, it’s your problem,
Scott Ritzheimer
And it’s it’s so much better than just sitting and waiting you, because really it’s like, even if you don’t think that virtual is ideal with the end, with the tools, and not just like zoom, but like the organizational tools that are available to us. Now, it’s remarkable what you can do virtually. But on top of that, even if it were an intermediary step toward a full time in person, whatever that might look like, it’s going to rapidly accelerate that process for you. Would you agree?
Jen Goldman
Absolutely, I say to businesses, if you want to continue to grow healthy. You need this role. You need it. Otherwise you’re going to burn out, you’re going to miss and make costly missteps, or you’re going to stagnate the growth. I can’t tell you. This will pain you more than you know how many businesses come and I’m starting to see them flat line. It’s not that maybe the revenues are down, but they’re just not. To uptick, and that’s a bad you’re already on the you’re already in a bad place. And so I just don’t think, I think businesses I care to make an impact and help more, whatever that is, whether it’s other businesses, individuals, I don’t really care. But if you want that, this is the role you need. So the difference between hiring full time or doing a fractional I’d say, Listen, that comes down to how you feel, what your budget is, and if you want to dip your toe in, but dip your toe and I’m not, you know, and people say, Oh, I’m self serving, because this is what I do. I really, honestly, I really don’t I love for people to reach out to us. I’d love for people to reach out to anybody that’s a COO and do this, because when you do, you hear the great stories, and you then you become the great story of success.
Scott Ritzheimer
What, Yeah, what a way. So I want to end on that note, but I’ve got one more question for you, and that is, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jen Goldman
The one that came to mind is something you would say, and not me, but I’ll say it because I live in it. No, no, no. Saying no is crucial, even when you’re a startup and you need that extra client, or you like that person you wanna add them to the team? You gotta I think we all need to trust our gut a little bit more and say no, because I think what happens is we dilute the business and our own personal health. So if I would leave it on that secret no is important right at the beginning.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, it’s so important. It’s so scary, especially early on. It’s terrifying, but it’s terrifying for all of us. And there’s just a you’re saying no, whether you want to or not. It’s just a question of whether you’re doing it or it’s happening to you. So take the initiative and do it. Jen, we could go on for a really long time and help a whole lot of people doing it, I’m sure, but they can get a lot of help by reaching out to you directly. How can folks find more out about the work that you do and connect with you?
Jen Goldman
Yeah, if you just want to go to My Virtual COO, we’re there. We’ve got some freebies. Feel free to jump on and then you can reach out to us if you want.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, myvirtualcoo.com We’ll get it in the show notes for you so you don’t have to go find it. Jen, thanks for being on today. What a fun conversation. It’s a privilege and honor having you here for those of you who are watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Guest Name
Jen Goldman brings 30 years of experience as a Business Transformist for Small Businesses. She has transformed hundreds and trained thousands of service businesses on how to scale up teams, profits, and clients through operational, skill, and mindset improvements. Jen’s expertise includes strategic business planning, staff and provider recalibration, change acceleration, tech integration optimization, Lean® process creation, and implementation and high adoption of operational efficiencies. Her philosophy includes Visualization, Productive Collaboration, 4W and 4Ps Purpose Documentation, and IDEOS ™.
Want to learn more about Jen Goldman’s work at My Virtual COO? Check out her website at https://myvirtualcoo.com/