In this transformative episode, Joe Patneaude, Owner of JP Coaching, shares how to break through the silent ceiling and scale without chaos in stage 4. If you struggle with growth stalling despite effort and feeling trapped doing everything yourself, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What mindset and structure changes turn daily firefighting into strategic freedom
– Why founder heroics create invisible ceilings that block sustainable scaling
– How to shift from operator to leader by building repeatable systems early
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 I’ve been in this seat that I think many of you are in today. I’ve been there as the founder. I’ve had success, and I’ve come to the wonderful No, the terrible realization that businesses and nonprofits get bigger, but they don’t necessarily get better. And it’s so frustrating, because you feel like you’ve did not, maybe not everything right, but enough, right? And the business grew, and with it comes this complexity that you just never expected, and you start spending more and more of your time babysitting instead of believing in the future of the organization, and there’s just this wave after wave after wave of frustration that comes that ultimately feels like it stalls us out, and it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, I believe that folks are in this stage are actually just one step away from the biggest transformation that’s available to them, but it won’t happen by chance. So here to help us figure out what we need to do next to get out of this and break through what I believe he calls the invisible, the silent ceiling, awesome phrase. I’m excited to explore that with him, but here to help us out is Joe Patneaude, who’s an executive coach and a business scalability strategist who helps founders break through the silent ceiling. There it is that stalls growth after early success. With more than 25 years of experience in financial services, Joe has built his career from the mailroom all the way to the C suite, serving as Director of Technology, COO and Chief Compliance Officer, before building and selling multiple businesses of his own, he’s created the star scalability method, a framework that aligns strategy, team, assets and rewards to eliminate operational Drag and help leaders reclaim their time, restore their clarity and scale with confidence. He’s here with us today, Joe, I’m excited to have you on the show. Welcome. You’ve coined this term and this idea of silent sealing. What is it and why might it be affecting some of our listeners here today?
Joe Patneaude
Well, thanks for having me, Scott. And yeah, the silent ceiling really refers to that, that combination of a leadership gap and how leaders are perceiving the growth of their business versus how the reality and how the staff are seeing it is going and what’s really happening is they’re capping themselves out. Now we’ve all heard of the glass ceiling, right where, you know, we can only get so far in somebody else’s organization before we sort of cap out at our career. The silent ceiling is when a leadership is doing it to themselves, when an owner or a founder has gotten to that point where they can’t grow anymore, or they feel like they can’t grow anymore because they’re, as you said, doing all the right things, but things just don’t seem to be clicking. They may even be getting some growth, but it’s more inflation than growth, and that’s where the silent ceiling comes into play. And we have to break through that to actually make something that’s scalable and sustainable.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Why? Why does the silent ceiling happen? Like, what is it that causes it to come into into place? Is it higher for some people, or is it lower for some people? How do we know when we’re there?
Joe Patneaude
The the way you’re going to know that you’re there? Because to answer your question, Scott, yes, it’s different for everybody, depending on your industry, that you’re in your own personal experiences and so on. But the way you know you’re there is when you find yourself at that point of frustration where you feel like you’re putting in more and more and getting less and less out of your business, or, you know, maybe not even less, but you’re putting in more and you’re not seeing the benefits of it. Because when you’re investing, whether it’s your time, your money, your energy, if you’re doing it the right way, you should see an exponential return, not a one for one or less than a one for long term. And when you start seeing that and you start feeling that frustration and saying, why can’t I get past this point, that’s when you know you’re there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So there’s this challenge that I see folks have in this space, and they they might recognize that they’re at a ceiling, but they almost always look outside for the ceiling, like, oh, I don’t know if the market’s big enough, or, you know, the economy, or some other factor that exists outside of themselves and their organization. Is that usually the cause?
Joe Patneaude
No, it’s usually those, those things that you’re talking about there these outside factors tend to be reasons that are just more convenient and easier for us to point at, because sometimes it’s hard to look in the mirror. You know you you as a business owner and a founder, you may have done a tremendous amount of work to start your business, build your firm, to whatever level it’s at now, and it’s hard to start letting go of some of that. So what happens is you start building in a lot of invisible bottlenecks. And typically it’s the leader getting in their own way. They they are struggling to do things in a new way, or to trust others to do things for them. It’s kind of a kind of a balance there, and when they hit that point, it’s easier to start looking outside instead of looking internally to say, Am I growing in a way that aligns with my value system? Do I have a team that’s helping me grow that way, and am I the one that’s actually slowing things down now, because I can’t let go, that’s a big part of it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that brings up what I think is a pretty hotly debated topic, and that is, can they do it? In your experience, folks that are asking that question, many of them will will kind of jump to the conclusion, especially because it’s some external factor that’s driving it, and think, Oh, I’ve got to get someone else to run this. For me, is that the best way to move forward?
Joe Patneaude
Well, that really depends on where the bottlenecks are, and that’s the sort of the problem I have with the entire concept, really, of of people coming in saying, there is a solution. And here’s what it is. You know, anybody who’s heard me talk before knows that I have this issue with what I call catchphrase coaching and just coming in and saying, Oh, everybody needs to do this a certain way. Is, in fact, a part of the problem. What I would challenge everyone to do is really look at yourself and your business and say, Why did I do this in the first place? And what are the values beyond money that you’re doing it for? And then are those decisions you’re making aligning with those values? Sometimes it means you just have to be more efficient in the way you do things in your processes. Sometimes it’s more of a updating tools and things like that, and sometimes it is a delegation factor. So there’s no shortcut answer, and all of us as business owners know this. Every time we try a shortcut, it ends up getting us mediocre results. Right? We have to put in the work to actually make it work.
Scott Ritzheimer
We also don’t have to just completely guess or make things up out of the Wild. You’ve got something you call the STAR method. And walk us through a little bit about what are the different components of that method, and how can folks use it to break through the silent ceiling.
Joe Patneaude
Yeah. So one thing that’s makes star scalability a little bit more unique is just the idea that there is no one size fits all solution for every business. So it really goes back to the core, and it says, Hey, before you build a house here, you got to have the foundation, right? And it starts with the s, which is your strategy. And we want to have your strategic vision for your company and your life really centered around your value system. Okay? We all have different priorities and values. And again, I always challenge everybody to say, beyond money, money is just a byproduct of what you do. Why do you do it? And that’s what you really have to ask, even if money is part of the answer, what’s the money for? And then once you’ve got that, we start building the vision for your firm, and then we get the team in place, which is, of course, the T of star. We get the team in place, and we start figuring out, how do we get people who are on board with the same vision, and then get them trained to where we need to be so that we can delegate effectively. And then the A is for assets. That’s all of your assets, for your firm, your operational assets, your IP, your technology, tools, you name it, your buildings, your machines, whatever you have. It’s anything that you can use to leverage your process better. And then the one thing that’s really unique about the star scalability method is the R. We don’t want to focus on results. We want to focus on rewards. And the difference is, as humans, when we focus on something, we tend to get more of it. So if you’re focusing on a result you don’t want it’s actually harder to achieve a positive result. If you focus on something that’s negative, you’re going to get more negative. So what you want to do is change your perspective and how you reward yourself and your team to a reward system that rewards the decisions that generate profitability and scalability. And it’s a slight mind shift difference that makes an enormous impact in everybody that we work. That’s how you design the template for your own business for scalability.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I really like that. I want to dive into something that I think is very subtle but very important about the first two elements of that. So with the strategy, the essence star, this idea that we’re going after your vision, singular for the founder, there’s so many who try and pick like, the right vision, because somebody else has it, or somebody else thinks it’s important, or they want the right thing for their team. But if they’re not behind it from the start, it’s dead on arrival. What is it? How do you help someone go about finding their vision beyond money.
Joe Patneaude
So when you want to explore that, you really do have to sit down and have a conversation. It’s it’s difficult to have the conversation with yourself, right? Because having that outside perspective can ask you the tough questions. You know, I can sit there, for example, and ask a business owner, well, why? Well, why? And keep pushing one level further and another level further, but it is difficult to do on your own, not impossible, but more difficult. Now, the reason it is so important exactly as you said, if you’re picking a vision out of thin air that seems like it’s either popular or will be popular with your customer base, for example, or the people you think you’re going to be working with, it’s never going to truly connect with you, and then everything you do is going to feel like work. And most of us, who are business owners, picked the businesses we did because we found something enjoyable or exciting or rewarding about being in that line of business, if we don’t do our vision the same way for the business, then it just becomes work, and at that point, you might as well go work for somebody else on a job that you hate, because you’re going to create a job that you hate.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true and and on the flip side of that, it we’re not quite out of the woods yet, because you find something that’s super motivating to you, you really unpack like, what’s that why? And then you you realize you’ve actually got to motivate the whole team around it. How do you then interpret that into something that the whole team can rally around, especially if it’s something that’s very, very personal to you.
Joe Patneaude
That’s an excellent question, and one that I really always find an interesting challenge in addressing, because part of that is going to change a little bit based on whether you are trying to go back in time and put this into an existing business and with an existing team, it’s obviously a little bit more challenging, right? And that’s where the reward system helps to do that, because if we generate rewards around the behaviors we want that align with the values, that kind of helps to motivate in the right direction, I guess is the word I’m looking for. But it’s a little bit easier if you just start from scratch. So for those people who are in the earlier stages, even if you’re not at like stage four or what have you yet, and you’re listening to this, I would say that is something you want to think about right off the bat, because the earlier you can address it, then when you get to a point where you are hiring staff or expanding your team, you can look for the people that share the same value systems.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Joe, there’s this question that I have that ask everyone. I’m interested to see what you have to say. But the question is this, what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Joe Patneaude
You know, a lot of businesses don’t need to actually grow faster. They need to grow cleaner and more efficiently, because it’s really not about size. It’s about sustainability.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting, because that’s not nearly as romantic, right? It’s, it’s, you know, no one ever brags like I grew my business cleaner. And even if they were to try, it’s actually difficult to explain sometimes what it looks like. And so it’s such an interesting dynamic, because it’s true. And if you were to show a business owner, hey, here’s what this looks like, almost all of them would take it. Why do you think we’re so reluctant to jump there first?
Joe Patneaude
I think as business owners, one of the problems that we have is the fact that we’ve put our heart and our souls and so much time from our personal lives into our business, and a lot of us have invested everything we have financially too, right into our businesses, in startup mode, and it feels so personal that it’s really hard to let go of the way we built it, to keep pace with what’s happening in the world, And to let go enough to let others help us, because we feel like we’re, you know, you know, for those of you who are parents, it’s like, it’s like letting your kid go to school the first time. You know, you’re terrified of seeing him get on the bus the first time. It’s the same thing with your business and and we have those mental blocks internally of, because I did it, I’m the only one that can do it, and that’s really hard to let go of, but we end up holding ourselves back and making decisions that hold our business back.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, Joe, I know there’s some folks listening that would love to hear more about the work that you do and connect with you. Where can they find out about you, your your work, and where can they link up with you?
Joe Patneaude
Absolutely. So the best way to get in touch with me is through my website. My website is JPcoachingnow.com and then from there, you can connect with me on all the different social media platforms, whether it be LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, all of those things. You’ve got my email and phone there, and even links out there to buy the book about the star scalability method called fall of the star.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. We’ll get all that in the show notes for you. Do check it out. This is fantastic material, and we’ve only scratched the surface, Joe, thank you for being on it really was a privilege and honor. Having you here with us today. I love this conversation. I know someone needed to hear it, and for those of you who are listening and watching today, 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 Joe Patneaude
Joe Patneaude is an executive coach and business scalability strategist who helps founders break through the “silent ceiling” that stalls growth after early success. With more than 25 years in financial services, Joe built his career from the mailroom to the C-suite, serving as Director of Technology, COO, and Chief Compliance Officer before building and selling multiple businesses of his own. He is the creator of the STAR Scalability℠ Method. This framework aligns Strategy, Team, Assets, and Rewards to eliminate operational drag and help leaders reclaim time, restore clarity, and scale with confidence.
Want to learn more about Joe Patneaude’s work at JP Coaching? Check out his website at https://jpcoachingnow.com/
Connect with Joe through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepatneaude/
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