May 31, 2025 • 34 mins
Episode 105 Unlocking Momentum: Eden Lovejoy on Working With Your Team Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Eden Lovejoy joins us to share her revolutionary approach to business management that flips the script on traditional leadership. With her Virtual GM Matrix, she empowers teams to take charge of general management tasks, allowing leaders to concentrate on the bigger picture—strategy and vision. We dive deep into how fostering ownership and engagement can transform workplace culture into something that energizes and motivates everyone involved.
Eden emphasizes that it’s all about working with your team, not just managing them from the top down. If you’re looking to cultivate a thriving environment where everyone feels valued and aligned with the company’s mission, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.
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The episode takes a closer look at the practical implications of Eden Lovejoy's Virtual GM Matrix, unpacking how it can revolutionize the management landscape for small businesses. With a focus on empowering teams rather than micromanaging, Eden encourages leaders to shift from a top-down approach to one of collaboration and shared responsibility. Throughout the conversation, she illustrates how this shift can lead to increased engagement and productivity within teams. The discussion also covers common challenges faced by business owners, such as resistance to change and the importance of establishing clear expectations. Eden provides vital strategies for overcoming these hurdles, including building feedback loops and ensuring everyone understands their role in achieving the company's goals. By weaving in personal experiences and client success stories, this summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting how effective leadership can transform a business into a thriving ecosystem of advocates and super fans.
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Takeaways:
- Eden Lovejoy introduces the Virtual GM Matrix, empowering teams to share management responsibilities, thus freeing up leaders to focus on strategic planning and vision.
- A strong business culture is vital for success, as it transforms teams into advocates who promote the company and enhance customer experiences.
- Effective management is about facilitating team success rather than controlling every aspect, fostering an environment where team members feel valued and engaged.
- Incorporating structured roles and clear expectations can dramatically improve team performance and satisfaction, leading to higher productivity and reduced turnover.
- Aligning individual contributions to overarching company goals ensures everyone understands their role in the bigger picture, enhancing motivation and teamwork.
- A successful leader must shift from a top-down approach to a collaborative style, where team members feel empowered and are encouraged to take ownership of their work.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(01:52):
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 105,
we're joined by Eden Lovejoy,a trailblazer in reimagining business
management. Eden is thecreator of the Virtual GM Matrix,
a groundbreaking system thatempowers teams to take on general
management responsibilities,freeing leaders to focus on strategy
(02:14):
and vision. With her approach,she helps business owners move beyond
the traditional. Work on yourbusiness mindset and embrace a new
model. Working with yourbusiness. Get ready for a conversation
about cultivating ownership,fostering engagement, and building
a workplace culture that'sboth impactful and energizing.
(02:37):
Welcome, Eden, to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're super excited
to have you here this afternoon.
Thank you, Freddie. Reallyglad to be here with you today.
Tell us a little about yourbackstory. I know you operate as
a virtual general manager, buthow you go about creating that business.
From when I was very young,before I went into college, I knew
(03:00):
that I wanted to work withsmall to mid sized businesses. It's
always been this drive to helpas many people as I can. There's
only so much that you can dowhen you're a general manager with
one company. Right? You get tohelp one company, one team. But I've
always had this internal mapof got to be able to help more people.
I love the work that I do. Itell people I'm a general manager
(03:23):
by craft and inclination. Ilove the work of facilitating the
performance of teams and Ilove to bring that to as many clients
and companies as possible. Sojust internal drive would be the
answer.
Well, is that how you startedoff, just jumping into a general
manager role or did you workyour way up?
Well, I was in leadershipright away in college. I was in an
(03:44):
entrepreneurship class and hadan assignment to write a business
plan and I saw on the noticeboard that someone was hiring a person
to do a business plan. Ithought, let's get paid to do this
work. For my class. Thatturned into grant writing and management
of a venture capital fundedstartup. It was a small manufacturing
(04:06):
startup funded by a technologyinnovation grant. From there moved
into executive director ofInventors and Entrepreneurs Association.
So I went from school intoleadership roles in smaller organizations
and then kind of grew fromthere. So I've done for profit, nonprofit,
range of things.
(04:27):
Okay. So that gives you thebackground to do what you do from
that aspect, which is a greatopportunity, especially starting
off the way you did. Mostpeople don't have those kind of opportunities
and I worked myself up to thatlevel over years. But you started
off from a different path. Andthat's really cool.
(04:47):
I think it's partly the marketthat I was in, partly the size of
entities that I was working into begin with. But yeah, it definitely
has been a great adventure andI'm still doing it today. I have
four companies of my own teamsthat I'm leading and continuing to
run as I'm working with otherclients as well. I love what I do,
so I just keep doing it well.
(05:08):
It's empowering because youreally can be transformative to the
team, to the customers you'redealing with, to the suppliers you're
working with. The distributionbusiness, the complementary business.
Nobody ever really talks aboutancillary businesses, but they all
come into the equation andyou're in a position to really kind
(05:28):
of elevate everybody into itas everybody's growing.
Exactly. And it is myphilosophy and what my book, Activate
youe Virtual GM talks aboutbuilding the skills and talents of
the team to actually replacethe work that I do. So in a small
to mid sized company, youdon't necessarily hire a full time
(05:52):
general manager. That's moreof an investment and more of a need
than a small business has. Butyou need the skill set ingrained
in the company. So we need tobuild that skill set in the team.
Yeah, absolutely. Correct.Because good management empowers
their team and then actuallygets out of the way and lets the
(06:14):
team do what they need to do.When I learned management and I went
through numerous trainings,the things I learned was that my
job was not to manage people.My job was to help the team accomplish
their goals. And I became afacilitator. What do you need? How
can I help? What resources doyou need to be successful? If I took
(06:35):
care of them to be successful,I didn't have to worry about myself.
Took care of itself.
Exactly. My definition ofsupervision is to allocate resources
and establish priorities witha team that is engaged and focused
on accomplishing their goals.We want to lead people with the supports
(06:56):
they need to be successful. Idon't want to have anybody on my
team that I don't trust.Absolutely is out for my best interest
and is doing their work. Myjob is to to make sure they have
the tools they need to be successful.
Oh yeah. In my book I callcreating business superfans and it
starts with leadership. Thecore of it is transforming your team
(07:18):
into superfans of you as aleader and as a company. There's
no better advocates thanhaving your own team promoting the
company they work at. Thatenergy transcends to prospective
customers. Existing customers,the whole ecosystem gets affected
by it. And if you've got agreat culture and a great team, you
(07:40):
can move mountains andaccelerate business growth.
You and I are really reachingthe same message from a slightly
different perspective. Absolutely.
Yeah. That's my flare is whenI wrote my book, it was like, okay,
how do I write somethingdifferent and cool? Because everybody
else has done it. Think of asports team. Sports team's got the
(08:01):
fans, faces, painted jerseys,banners, they're throwing tailgate
parties. Who are theypromoting? The team. They're wearing
all the gear and talking tofriends about, hey, did you watch
that game? Is the team payingthem for that? No, they're making
money off the merchandise. Somy idea was, why can't businesses
transform their ecosystem intobrand advocates, business superfans,
(08:22):
and have them start promotingthat company? It just explodes. I
mean, there's no other option, really.
Exactly. Right. When you havethe team fully engaged and on board,
you've got that energy. Andthe studies are consistent over the
years, study after study. Whenyour team is engaged and excited
to be in the business, you'vegot better safety record, more profitability,
(08:46):
higher performance, lessturnover. It is the key to success
across the board.
Think of it like a rowing teamand you've got one oh each, and you
have eight people on a racingrowboat. So you've got to get them
all going in synchronization.They've got to be operating as a
team. Otherwise, you know, ifnobody's in sync and knows the vision
(09:07):
of the company and everybody'sdoing their own thing, that boat's
going no place.
Well. And I think one of thethings that happens often is that
people in a company see thevalue of their contribution, but
not everybody always sees thevalue of everybody's contribution.
So really important in orderto get those oars rowing together
(09:28):
is to build that relationalintegrity, right? For everyone to
know the value of everybodyelse on the team and how it flows
together. I was talking withsomeone yesterday on a construction
company team, and, you know,carpenters and plumbers tend to think
that they're driving the wholebus, right? They're the big picture,
they're getting the work done.The analogy I've always used is on
(09:52):
a muscle truck, you see thosebig tires in that drivetrain are
getting it moving, but if thesolenoid goes out or a spark plug
comes undone, you're going tostop in the middle of the road and
not be able to move. You gotto respect and embrace the contribution
of everybody on the team, orelse that rowboat gets out of whack.
Yeah. Everybody's rowing intheir own direction. It's not even
(10:13):
going in a circle. It's justkind of wobbling.
It's just not going.
And the important thing thatyou said, though, is that everybody
really needs to understandwhat the vision of the company is
and where the company isgoing. You got to know what direction
you're rowing and what thegoals are that you're shooting for
as a company. And so you geteverybody to buy in, and that's where
you start creating that momentum.
(10:35):
I walk people through aprocess of ensuring that the vision
for the company is broken downinto strategic goals for organizational
units, departments, or teams.Each person should know how their
particular contribution tiesto. To the goal that the team has
for whatever time frame you'reworking from.
Absolutely. So, Eden, share astory of one of the companies you
(10:58):
stepped in as a gm, and howdid you turn it around?
Well, it's a virtual gm. Icame into the company because there
was chaos and a consultant hadcome in and said, you really need
a general manager. You reallyneed some organization here at the
front end. The most importantthing is to articulate, right, what's
(11:20):
our mission, what's ourvalues, what's our vision, and make
sure everybody's on board withthat. Creating that organizational
chart and role definitions andmaking sure people know their alignment.
The owner of the company, Ihad been there for a couple of months
doing some work with the team,and he said, I really didn't think
my team would like this muchstructure, but they seem to be really
(11:41):
enjoying it. Owners sometimeswill think, I trust my people. They
should have as muchflexibility as they need. What happens,
though? People really do likestructure. They like to know where
the guardrails are. They liketo know how much authority they have,
the room they have to maneuverin. And so we brought that structure
(12:01):
into the company, and veryshortly, especially one key department
that had been unprofitablewithin just a few short months was
outperforming the level it hadever done. And the owner came back
to, well, was it this or thisor this that changed? Well, it was
all of those things. You can'tpin it on one thing. We got the team,
we got the oars, all rowingtogether in the same direction. To
(12:24):
use your analogy, yeah.
No. When I was running acompany as general manager and I
was doing multiple things, Iwas the sales guy, the marketing
guy. You know, I handled allthose aspects for that company. It
was a small company, about 10people. We put in some SOPs in place
because they didn't have them.We set up some processes and more
(12:45):
importantly, I empowered someof the team members to come up with
their own processes for thedepartments they were handling. I
got out of the way to see whatthey could come up with and they
came up with some brilliantideas that I wouldn't have thought
of because I empowered them, Itrusted them.
Wow.
You know, he's empowering meto do this thing and people transform.
(13:08):
And you'd be surprised howpeople that you would never think
would be able to step up tothe plate, actually knock it out
of the park for you. And theones that you think would be the
rock star actually fall flaton their face.
Well, you never know howpeople are going to respond. And
my experience, when we bringclarity and organization and delegated
(13:32):
authority to a team, with thatcomes accountability. You have authority
to accomplish results, but theaccountability is there to be successful
as well. Sometimes you'll seepeople self select out because they've
been hiding in the cornersmaking it sound good, but not really
producing anything. Thosefolks will jump ship pretty quickly
when you start to bring inreal clarity and organization.
(13:55):
Oh, absolutely correct. Youknow, I experienced one person that
talked the talk but couldn'twalk the walk. And when you started
assigning them things andchecking up, then they started getting
confrontational and saying,don't you trust me? To me that's
a flag. It turned out theywere faking it and not doing their
(14:15):
job. When you start lookinginto it, you find out the ones that
got assigned stuff fell flaton their face because they realized
they actually have to do something.
The key point, I tell peopleall the time, delegation is not abandonment.
There has to be a feedbackloop and a follow up dialogue to
stay in the conversation of doyou have the resources to be successful?
(14:37):
And here's the successfuloutcome and having those deliverables.
I think when people move intothe place of really wanting to trust
their team, sometimes we moveinto like, okay, well, I gave it
to them so it should be done.I gave it to them, so it should just
be done. And then we getdisappointed when it's not done to,
to the timeline or the waythat we want it done. And so there's
(15:00):
some skill set to developaround leading a team to successful
performance. It's not supercomplex, but when we build in those
feedback loops, clearguidelines, clear articulated authority,
clear expectation of result,then we're giving folks the tools
to really deliver to us whatit is that we want.
(15:21):
Yeah, absolutely correct. Andsometimes you uncover that some of
the people you thought weregoing to be able to do what they're
supposed to do. You have tomake decisions that they are no longer
part of the team.
Well, years ago I had a mentortell me if someone's not doing what
you want, it's for one ofthree reasons. One, you haven't clearly
(15:44):
communicated the expectation.Two, you haven't provided the resources
for them to be successful. Andthree, they're quite simply not a
fit for that role. I used toget upset when people weren't doing
what I want. The moral of thestory is none of those three reasons.
Emotional response. Right. Wejust get to be clear about it. But
I definitely prove out thefirst two options first. Before I
(16:09):
ask somebody to step out of aposition, I gotta make sure I've
done my job.
Yeah. Reiterate those optionsfor our listeners because I think
that's important and I want tomake sure we drive that point home.
Sure. That people don't dowhat you want for one of three reasons.
One is that you have notclearly communicated the expectation.
Two is that you've notprovided the resources for them to
(16:31):
be successful. And three isthey're quite simply not a fit for
the result or the positionthat they're in.
Right. Yep. And I'veexperienced all three with people
in different ways, so I cancompletely appreciate. But I really
like how you just put it insimple terms. 1, 2, 3. So tell us
(16:52):
a little bit more about someof the things that you've done or
experience with differentcompanies as a virtual gm. And how
does that apply to someonethat may not think that they need
somebody like yourself?
A recent example, I have aclient who's a small retailer, a
local retail company. When westarted working together, she said,
(17:15):
oh, I don't need an org chart,it's just simple. We just have retail
floor and then we havemanagement. But when I was able to
show her the nuance, there'sactually a differentiation of skills
between somebody who's just abrand new cashier and somebody who's
been on the floor for a yearor two and is able to contribute
in a different way. A couplethings happened. One, she was super
(17:39):
surprised that her team got soexcited about it. Like, oh, there's
a place for me to go here.Right. I'm not just stuck in this
flat level. And two, she gotto recognize there really was a differential.
And what happened is that areally high turnover has slowed way
down and people are moreexcited about building their skills
(17:59):
and knowledge to be more ableto contribute to the result. So that's
a simple and recent example.
That's a good example becauseif people don't know that there's
a growth path for them,they're just showing up for a paycheck.
That's the mindset, I gotta godo my job. They're not fired up,
it's just a job. But ifthere's a roadmap, opportunities
(18:22):
and skill sets they can learn,that may not necessarily be applicable
here, but can be down the roadfor them. Game changer.
Absolutely. It's one of thecomponents of that engagement. We
talk about general management,but really internalizing that. We
manage things and lead people.We need to understand what motivates
(18:47):
people. They're inspired byour mission, motivated by our vision.
They understand where they'regoing to grow. We will never motivate
people to the level ofperformance that we want by simply
paying them well enough and dowhat we say. That fail every time.
Absolutely correct. Forexample, my wife sells hearing aids
and they're high end, highquality hearing aids. And she's been
(19:08):
with the company seven yearsnow. They've made adjustments, they're
positioning themselves forgrowth. They're over north of 100
million in sales. They'vereadjusted the pay scales and commission
structures. It just keepsgetting changed and changed. And
she's making less than she wasa couple of years ago. But the culture,
(19:28):
the company, the way theytreat people, they made sure that
she was covered for four weeksout of the five weeks we were gone.
She got paid for that. And youdon't see that, especially in US
Companies. They have prizes,contest. She's won a multitude of
Airbnb cards. So you'rehitting a point here that I want
(19:51):
to make sure that ourlisteners understand that it's not
just always about money, it'sabout the culture of the company.
Companies need to be able toaccommodate each individual's personal
life goals.
Absolutely. Without feelingtaken advantage of. When owners have
that compassion for people andwant to provide opportunities, sometimes
(20:15):
they end up feeling takenadvantage of. So the flip side of
it is we want to supportpeople and care about them and have
compassion for their lives.But it needs to be built on this
shared agreement about whatwe're here to do. And what we're
here to do is to achieve themission, fulfill the vision, right?
(20:35):
To have a successfulenvironment for everyone, there's
reciprocity needs to be builtin. Because especially in small businesses,
I've seen it where owners arelike, I've offered this time off
and I've offered thesebenefits and I'VE increased the wages
and it feels like theemployees are only taking. When employees
are not engaged with, theyhave buy in for what we're up to
(20:58):
as a business, it can get headin that direction sometimes, unfortunately.
But you said a key word there,buy in. And I think a lot of owners
don't do a good job of gettingtheir team to buy in to the mission
to be part of it. Because ifyou believe in the mission and you're
part of it, it's a wholedifferent mindset.
(21:22):
Absolutely. One of thefounders of Travelocity said culture
is a contact sport and I lovethat line so much. Right. Culture
is not something that we havea mission and values. We just stick
on the wall and say, okay,there they are. We have to live it,
breathe it, talk it, implementit, demonstrate it and weave it into
everything that we do. If youhave a company value of family values
(21:47):
are important, then it'sreally important that when somebody
asks for time off to go to aparent teacher conference, you don't
make it hard on them. Live itor else very quickly the team sees
through a story. If we're notliving it and practicing it day to
day.
Oh, absolutely correct. Youhit the nail right on the head. One
hit, boom, done all the waythrough. And you remind me of stories
(22:11):
when I was running sales for asoftware company globally and we
were taking a product, nobodyknew about it, putting it on the
map, and we hit a threshold, Ithink it was when we hit our first
hundred thousand for the monthin sales globally. I ran around,
told me to meet in theconference room. Nobody knew what
(22:32):
was up. But I had lunchcatered in, already brought in, set
up in the conference room.Nobody knew what was going on. I
brought in the softwaredevelopers, the owner of the company,
and I basically said, youknow, big market board, it says we
just hit 100,000 in sales. AndI want to just take a moment to thank
everybody for making thishappen. And we had champagne, some
(22:54):
lunch and some cake. Everybodywas just fired up, they were high
fiving one another and theenergy was just contagious.
You know, we spend so much ofour life in our jobs, in our careers
and our professions. If we'renot having some fun, then we're not
having a fun life. So that'simportant to celebrate. Absolutely.
Well, Sir Richard Branson saysit the same. It's not work and personal
(23:20):
time, it's called life. It'sall in between, it's all together.
You're living, you're working,but you're still living there's.
No difference.
Yeah, absolutely. The way Ilike to live is one time I came in
on a Monday morning andsomebody said, you know, how was
your weekend? I was like, myweekend was great, but I have as
much excitement coming in on aMonday as I do even on a Friday.
(23:43):
Because it's life, Right?We're living life to the fullest
in the game we're playingduring the week, which is business,
and the game we're playing onthe weekends, on the evenings, which
is family. That's how I liketo live.
Yeah, well, it's really ablend of both. We do the same thing.
We're looking at differenttrips that we're trying to plan and
weekend getaways, but we workit around her schedule, my schedule,
(24:05):
how do we make it happen andhave fun at the same time? When she
has so many appointments thatshe schedules, she's all excited
and fired up. And likewise,when my downloads are increasing
and I'm into 34 countries now,and we've only started this in November,
is just taken off. So that'sexciting. And firing up as well.
(24:25):
That's great. That's great.Well, you certainly. It's a lovely
conversation we're having heretoday, so I'm sure that everyone's
enjoying listening andfollowing and seeing what you're
up to.
Well, thank you. So let's gointo some of the challenges or things
that owners overlook and thatyou've identified they should be
(24:46):
doing. Let's share sometakeaways that our listeners can
really apply to their businessthat they probably didn't even think
of.
I think first and foremost, Ilike to share with people. My perspective
is, for years we've beentelling owners, don't work in your
business, work on yourbusiness. I suggest you change that
(25:09):
mindset. Your team doesn'twant to be worked on, they want to
be worked with. The trick isto discover how you can work with
your team to achieve the goalsyou want. And it's about communicating
the goals, overarching the bigcultural pieces. It's also about
delegating authority andbuilding in feedback loops. If there's
(25:30):
one takeaway, I would say,yeah, think about how you work with
your team to get things done,invite them into supporting you in
what you want to be up to.
Very well said. That's reallyhow you get the buy in. That's how
you get everybody in therowboat. Rowing in the same direction
is you're working with them.That's something I learned a long
(25:51):
time ago from a manager. Thatwas one of the best managers I ever
had. And I try to mimic himand he was shoulder to shoulder.
There was no difference.
Yeah, well, we all havedifferent roles, Right. The owner
has a different role, themanager has a different role. But
we're all here to achieve thesame results. Result.
(26:14):
Right. And I remember a CEOthat I worked for and the company
got acquired. And what he did,which I remember class act, was he
brought in everybody andeverybody got a check based upon
their years with the company,their contributions to the company,
(26:34):
everything else, instead ofjust the investors and everybody
else making the money, heactually shared a percentage of it
with the team because as heput it, if it wasn't for everybody
here, we wouldn't have beenable to pull this off.
Oh, that's love.
My hat's off to that guy.Because that was a class act. Everybody
(26:55):
felt really good becauseeverybody was concerned about their
jobs and everything else. Buthe handled it perfectly.
Yeah, we're not doing italone. We're not growing big businesses
alone.
Right, right, right. So whatare some of the other things that
you can share another storywith our listeners of how a virtual
(27:18):
GM can actually impact abusiness and help them go from level
A to level C.
Well, or one of my favoritestories, and I got this just yesterday,
I got a bouquet of flowersfrom a client I've worked with for
10 years as a virtual GM withher team and her company. You know,
(27:40):
when I met her 10 years ago,she was working in the day to day
of the company, but it reallywas a very expensive hobby. She'd
been in business five or sixyears, putting money into the business
all of that time and nottaking anything out. And somehow
had gotten reconciled to thatbecause it was operating, being successful.
(28:03):
And then we had thatclarifying conversation, said, let's
turn this around. Within ayear, she was out of the day to day.
She and her husband went on awonderful vacation to the Galapagos
Islands and were offline for amonth and the company ran itself
even better. She was drawingmoney from the company, a very quick
turnaround. So I think that'san extreme example, but idea is that
(28:30):
when you work with the teamand go from disengaged just showing
up to do the job, to engaged,inspired, active contribution to
leadership. You can go fromlosing money to making money very
quickly. You can go from beingin the day to day grind, chopping
vegetables or packaging boxesor doing whatever it is that you're
(28:53):
doing to being a true leaderwho's strategically planning the
growth of the company, whichis where you should be. I think business
owners feel like they'resupposed to know how to do this right.
This is my job to dooperations, to be an operational
manager. I'm the owner of thecompany. I think that we don't have
enough conversation about howthis is actually a skill set, a skill
(29:16):
set that needs to bedeveloped. And there are people who
have that skill set, like youand me, that can contribute in a
way that's meaningful andimpactful very quickly. But even
better is this next step ofbeginning to build that skill set
in the team to get the resultsthat you want. I am all about business
(29:36):
owners. I think they shouldlive a life that they want, running
a business that they love, andnot feel tied to or trapped. Very
quickly, we can move out ofthat feeling of being tied to or
trapped in a business intofreedom, pride, and success.
Yes, 100%. Because I've seenbusiness owners that have the mindset
(30:00):
that they're the only onesthat can do it the right way. I've
learned something not too longago is that 80% is good, considering
that you did 100%, none of it.Oh, you know where I'm going with
that.
(30:20):
Well, it was one of the bestpieces of business advice I ever
got before I hired my firstemployee. Years ago, a business owner
I knew said, if you can standto have things done to 80% of how
you would do it, then you canhave employees. And if you can't,
then you should stay asolopreneur. That has held me in
good stead. 20% differentialdoesn't mean it's 20% worse. It just
(30:44):
means it's different. Wecreate space for other people to
contribute their perspectiveand strategy and skills to the table
if we're ever going to grow.
You're absolutely right. Anindividual's perception is their
own reality, right or wrong.And they may perceive that they've
done an excellent job. You maysay, okay, well, it's 60%, but that's
(31:07):
where you need to step in as aleader and say, okay, I really appreciate
what you did. You did anexcellent job, because that's in
their mind. Then you got topackage it to say, okay, here are
a couple tweaks. So we get youto the 80%, but that's not the conversation.
But I'm just talking to. Thedifference between you and I is you
got to somehow get them toelevate their perception. But you
(31:28):
can't poo poo their perception.
No. And again, clearexpectations and clear guidelines
and knowing where there's roomfor flexibility and where things
absolutely have to be preciseis a bit of how we get people on
board with our vision.
Right. So Eden, as we getclose to the end of the show here,
(31:49):
how can people find you?
The best place to find meright now is on YourVirtualGM.com
okay. You're curious about howa virtual GM works or about the book?
Activate your virtual GM orwant to connect with me personally?
YourVirtualGM.com I'm also onLinkedIn, a great place to reach
(32:10):
out.
Okay, we'll have that in theshow notes. And you happen to have
anything for our listeners?
Yes. If you go tofreebusinessbook.com I would like
to gift you with a copy of mybook. It's a downloadable version
but free business book andthere's no s at the end of that.
Freebusinessbook.com okay,we'll make sure that's in the show
(32:32):
notes and great conversation,Eden. Great insights for our listeners
and we look forward to havingyou on the show down the road again.
Thank you so much, Freddie.It's been great to talk with you
today.
Thank you.
Hey, super fan. SuperstarFreddie D Here. Before we wrap, here's
your three a playbook powermove to attract ideal clients, turn
(32:54):
them into advocates andaccelerate your business success.
So here's the top insight fromtoday's episode. Your team doesn't
want to be worked on, theywant to be worked with. So shift
from control to collaborationand unlock unstoppable momentum.
So here's your business growthaction step. Replace your top down
(33:15):
directives with a team poweredmission session this week. Get everyone
aligning their roles to thecompany vision in real time. If today's
conversation sparked an ideafor you or you know of a fellow business
leader who could benefit,share it with them. Support the show
with the donation and grab thefull breakdown in the show notes.
(33:36):
Let's accelerate together andstart creating business super fans
who champion your brand.
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 105,
we're joined by Eden Lovejoy,a trailblazer in reimagining business
management. Eden is thecreator of the Virtual GM Matrix,
a groundbreaking system thatempowers teams to take on general
management responsibilities,freeing leaders to focus on strategy
(02:14):
and vision. With her approach,she helps business owners move beyond
the traditional. Work on yourbusiness mindset and embrace a new
model. Working with yourbusiness. Get ready for a conversation
about cultivating ownership,fostering engagement, and building
a workplace culture that'sboth impactful and energizing.
(02:37):
Welcome, Eden, to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're super excited
to have you here this afternoon.
Thank you, Freddie. Reallyglad to be here with you today.
Tell us a little about yourbackstory. I know you operate as
a virtual general manager, buthow you go about creating that business.
From when I was very young,before I went into college, I knew
(03:00):
that I wanted to work withsmall to mid sized businesses. It's
always been this drive to helpas many people as I can. There's
only so much that you can dowhen you're a general manager with
one company. Right? You get tohelp one company, one team. But I've
always had this internal mapof got to be able to help more people.
I love the work that I do. Itell people I'm a general manager
(03:23):
by craft and inclination. Ilove the work of facilitating the
performance of teams and Ilove to bring that to as many clients
and companies as possible. Sojust internal drive would be the
answer.
Well, is that how you startedoff, just jumping into a general
manager role or did you workyour way up?
Well, I was in leadershipright away in college. I was in an
(03:44):
entrepreneurship class and hadan assignment to write a business
plan and I saw on the noticeboard that someone was hiring a person
to do a business plan. Ithought, let's get paid to do this
work. For my class. Thatturned into grant writing and management
of a venture capital fundedstartup. It was a small manufacturing
(04:06):
startup funded by a technologyinnovation grant. From there moved
into executive director ofInventors and Entrepreneurs Association.
So I went from school intoleadership roles in smaller organizations
and then kind of grew fromthere. So I've done for profit, nonprofit,
range of things.
(04:27):
Okay. So that gives you thebackground to do what you do from
that aspect, which is a greatopportunity, especially starting
off the way you did. Mostpeople don't have those kind of opportunities
and I worked myself up to thatlevel over years. But you started
off from a different path. Andthat's really cool.
(04:47):
I think it's partly the marketthat I was in, partly the size of
entities that I was working into begin with. But yeah, it definitely
has been a great adventure andI'm still doing it today. I have
four companies of my own teamsthat I'm leading and continuing to
run as I'm working with otherclients as well. I love what I do,
so I just keep doing it well.
(05:08):
It's empowering because youreally can be transformative to the
team, to the customers you'redealing with, to the suppliers you're
working with. The distributionbusiness, the complementary business.
Nobody ever really talks aboutancillary businesses, but they all
come into the equation andyou're in a position to really kind
(05:28):
of elevate everybody into itas everybody's growing.
Exactly. And it is myphilosophy and what my book, Activate
youe Virtual GM talks aboutbuilding the skills and talents of
the team to actually replacethe work that I do. So in a small
to mid sized company, youdon't necessarily hire a full time
(05:52):
general manager. That's moreof an investment and more of a need
than a small business has. Butyou need the skill set ingrained
in the company. So we need tobuild that skill set in the team.
Yeah, absolutely. Correct.Because good management empowers
their team and then actuallygets out of the way and lets the
(06:14):
team do what they need to do.When I learned management and I went
through numerous trainings,the things I learned was that my
job was not to manage people.My job was to help the team accomplish
their goals. And I became afacilitator. What do you need? How
can I help? What resources doyou need to be successful? If I took
(06:35):
care of them to be successful,I didn't have to worry about myself.
Took care of itself.
Exactly. My definition ofsupervision is to allocate resources
and establish priorities witha team that is engaged and focused
on accomplishing their goals.We want to lead people with the supports
(06:56):
they need to be successful. Idon't want to have anybody on my
team that I don't trust.Absolutely is out for my best interest
and is doing their work. Myjob is to to make sure they have
the tools they need to be successful.
Oh yeah. In my book I callcreating business superfans and it
starts with leadership. Thecore of it is transforming your team
(07:18):
into superfans of you as aleader and as a company. There's
no better advocates thanhaving your own team promoting the
company they work at. Thatenergy transcends to prospective
customers. Existing customers,the whole ecosystem gets affected
by it. And if you've got agreat culture and a great team, you
(07:40):
can move mountains andaccelerate business growth.
You and I are really reachingthe same message from a slightly
different perspective. Absolutely.
Yeah. That's my flare is whenI wrote my book, it was like, okay,
how do I write somethingdifferent and cool? Because everybody
else has done it. Think of asports team. Sports team's got the
(08:01):
fans, faces, painted jerseys,banners, they're throwing tailgate
parties. Who are theypromoting? The team. They're wearing
all the gear and talking tofriends about, hey, did you watch
that game? Is the team payingthem for that? No, they're making
money off the merchandise. Somy idea was, why can't businesses
transform their ecosystem intobrand advocates, business superfans,
(08:22):
and have them start promotingthat company? It just explodes. I
mean, there's no other option, really.
Exactly. Right. When you havethe team fully engaged and on board,
you've got that energy. Andthe studies are consistent over the
years, study after study. Whenyour team is engaged and excited
to be in the business, you'vegot better safety record, more profitability,
(08:46):
higher performance, lessturnover. It is the key to success
across the board.
Think of it like a rowing teamand you've got one oh each, and you
have eight people on a racingrowboat. So you've got to get them
all going in synchronization.They've got to be operating as a
team. Otherwise, you know, ifnobody's in sync and knows the vision
(09:07):
of the company and everybody'sdoing their own thing, that boat's
going no place.
Well. And I think one of thethings that happens often is that
people in a company see thevalue of their contribution, but
not everybody always sees thevalue of everybody's contribution.
So really important in orderto get those oars rowing together
(09:28):
is to build that relationalintegrity, right? For everyone to
know the value of everybodyelse on the team and how it flows
together. I was talking withsomeone yesterday on a construction
company team, and, you know,carpenters and plumbers tend to think
that they're driving the wholebus, right? They're the big picture,
they're getting the work done.The analogy I've always used is on
(09:52):
a muscle truck, you see thosebig tires in that drivetrain are
getting it moving, but if thesolenoid goes out or a spark plug
comes undone, you're going tostop in the middle of the road and
not be able to move. You gotto respect and embrace the contribution
of everybody on the team, orelse that rowboat gets out of whack.
Yeah. Everybody's rowing intheir own direction. It's not even
(10:13):
going in a circle. It's justkind of wobbling.
It's just not going.
And the important thing thatyou said, though, is that everybody
really needs to understandwhat the vision of the company is
and where the company isgoing. You got to know what direction
you're rowing and what thegoals are that you're shooting for
as a company. And so you geteverybody to buy in, and that's where
you start creating that momentum.
(10:35):
I walk people through aprocess of ensuring that the vision
for the company is broken downinto strategic goals for organizational
units, departments, or teams.Each person should know how their
particular contribution tiesto. To the goal that the team has
for whatever time frame you'reworking from.
Absolutely. So, Eden, share astory of one of the companies you
(10:58):
stepped in as a gm, and howdid you turn it around?
Well, it's a virtual gm. Icame into the company because there
was chaos and a consultant hadcome in and said, you really need
a general manager. You reallyneed some organization here at the
front end. The most importantthing is to articulate, right, what's
(11:20):
our mission, what's ourvalues, what's our vision, and make
sure everybody's on board withthat. Creating that organizational
chart and role definitions andmaking sure people know their alignment.
The owner of the company, Ihad been there for a couple of months
doing some work with the team,and he said, I really didn't think
my team would like this muchstructure, but they seem to be really
(11:41):
enjoying it. Owners sometimeswill think, I trust my people. They
should have as muchflexibility as they need. What happens,
though? People really do likestructure. They like to know where
the guardrails are. They liketo know how much authority they have,
the room they have to maneuverin. And so we brought that structure
(12:01):
into the company, and veryshortly, especially one key department
that had been unprofitablewithin just a few short months was
outperforming the level it hadever done. And the owner came back
to, well, was it this or thisor this that changed? Well, it was
all of those things. You can'tpin it on one thing. We got the team,
we got the oars, all rowingtogether in the same direction. To
(12:24):
use your analogy, yeah.
No. When I was running acompany as general manager and I
was doing multiple things, Iwas the sales guy, the marketing
guy. You know, I handled allthose aspects for that company. It
was a small company, about 10people. We put in some SOPs in place
because they didn't have them.We set up some processes and more
(12:45):
importantly, I empowered someof the team members to come up with
their own processes for thedepartments they were handling. I
got out of the way to see whatthey could come up with and they
came up with some brilliantideas that I wouldn't have thought
of because I empowered them, Itrusted them.
Wow.
You know, he's empowering meto do this thing and people transform.
(13:08):
And you'd be surprised howpeople that you would never think
would be able to step up tothe plate, actually knock it out
of the park for you. And theones that you think would be the
rock star actually fall flaton their face.
Well, you never know howpeople are going to respond. And
my experience, when we bringclarity and organization and delegated
(13:32):
authority to a team, with thatcomes accountability. You have authority
to accomplish results, but theaccountability is there to be successful
as well. Sometimes you'll seepeople self select out because they've
been hiding in the cornersmaking it sound good, but not really
producing anything. Thosefolks will jump ship pretty quickly
when you start to bring inreal clarity and organization.
(13:55):
Oh, absolutely correct. Youknow, I experienced one person that
talked the talk but couldn'twalk the walk. And when you started
assigning them things andchecking up, then they started getting
confrontational and saying,don't you trust me? To me that's
a flag. It turned out theywere faking it and not doing their
(14:15):
job. When you start lookinginto it, you find out the ones that
got assigned stuff fell flaton their face because they realized
they actually have to do something.
The key point, I tell peopleall the time, delegation is not abandonment.
There has to be a feedbackloop and a follow up dialogue to
stay in the conversation of doyou have the resources to be successful?
(14:37):
And here's the successfuloutcome and having those deliverables.
I think when people move intothe place of really wanting to trust
their team, sometimes we moveinto like, okay, well, I gave it
to them so it should be done.I gave it to them, so it should just
be done. And then we getdisappointed when it's not done to,
to the timeline or the waythat we want it done. And so there's
(15:00):
some skill set to developaround leading a team to successful
performance. It's not supercomplex, but when we build in those
feedback loops, clearguidelines, clear articulated authority,
clear expectation of result,then we're giving folks the tools
to really deliver to us whatit is that we want.
(15:21):
Yeah, absolutely correct. Andsometimes you uncover that some of
the people you thought weregoing to be able to do what they're
supposed to do. You have tomake decisions that they are no longer
part of the team.
Well, years ago I had a mentortell me if someone's not doing what
you want, it's for one ofthree reasons. One, you haven't clearly
(15:44):
communicated the expectation.Two, you haven't provided the resources
for them to be successful. Andthree, they're quite simply not a
fit for that role. I used toget upset when people weren't doing
what I want. The moral of thestory is none of those three reasons.
Emotional response. Right. Wejust get to be clear about it. But
I definitely prove out thefirst two options first. Before I
(16:09):
ask somebody to step out of aposition, I gotta make sure I've
done my job.
Yeah. Reiterate those optionsfor our listeners because I think
that's important and I want tomake sure we drive that point home.
Sure. That people don't dowhat you want for one of three reasons.
One is that you have notclearly communicated the expectation.
Two is that you've notprovided the resources for them to
(16:31):
be successful. And three isthey're quite simply not a fit for
the result or the positionthat they're in.
Right. Yep. And I'veexperienced all three with people
in different ways, so I cancompletely appreciate. But I really
like how you just put it insimple terms. 1, 2, 3. So tell us
(16:52):
a little bit more about someof the things that you've done or
experience with differentcompanies as a virtual gm. And how
does that apply to someonethat may not think that they need
somebody like yourself?
A recent example, I have aclient who's a small retailer, a
local retail company. When westarted working together, she said,
(17:15):
oh, I don't need an org chart,it's just simple. We just have retail
floor and then we havemanagement. But when I was able to
show her the nuance, there'sactually a differentiation of skills
between somebody who's just abrand new cashier and somebody who's
been on the floor for a yearor two and is able to contribute
in a different way. A couplethings happened. One, she was super
(17:39):
surprised that her team got soexcited about it. Like, oh, there's
a place for me to go here.Right. I'm not just stuck in this
flat level. And two, she gotto recognize there really was a differential.
And what happened is that areally high turnover has slowed way
down and people are moreexcited about building their skills
(17:59):
and knowledge to be more ableto contribute to the result. So that's
a simple and recent example.
That's a good example becauseif people don't know that there's
a growth path for them,they're just showing up for a paycheck.
That's the mindset, I gotta godo my job. They're not fired up,
it's just a job. But ifthere's a roadmap, opportunities
(18:22):
and skill sets they can learn,that may not necessarily be applicable
here, but can be down the roadfor them. Game changer.
Absolutely. It's one of thecomponents of that engagement. We
talk about general management,but really internalizing that. We
manage things and lead people.We need to understand what motivates
(18:47):
people. They're inspired byour mission, motivated by our vision.
They understand where they'regoing to grow. We will never motivate
people to the level ofperformance that we want by simply
paying them well enough and dowhat we say. That fail every time.
Absolutely correct. Forexample, my wife sells hearing aids
and they're high end, highquality hearing aids. And she's been
(19:08):
with the company seven yearsnow. They've made adjustments, they're
positioning themselves forgrowth. They're over north of 100
million in sales. They'vereadjusted the pay scales and commission
structures. It just keepsgetting changed and changed. And
she's making less than she wasa couple of years ago. But the culture,
(19:28):
the company, the way theytreat people, they made sure that
she was covered for four weeksout of the five weeks we were gone.
She got paid for that. And youdon't see that, especially in US
Companies. They have prizes,contest. She's won a multitude of
Airbnb cards. So you'rehitting a point here that I want
(19:51):
to make sure that ourlisteners understand that it's not
just always about money, it'sabout the culture of the company.
Companies need to be able toaccommodate each individual's personal
life goals.
Absolutely. Without feelingtaken advantage of. When owners have
that compassion for people andwant to provide opportunities, sometimes
(20:15):
they end up feeling takenadvantage of. So the flip side of
it is we want to supportpeople and care about them and have
compassion for their lives.But it needs to be built on this
shared agreement about whatwe're here to do. And what we're
here to do is to achieve themission, fulfill the vision, right?
(20:35):
To have a successfulenvironment for everyone, there's
reciprocity needs to be builtin. Because especially in small businesses,
I've seen it where owners arelike, I've offered this time off
and I've offered thesebenefits and I'VE increased the wages
and it feels like theemployees are only taking. When employees
are not engaged with, theyhave buy in for what we're up to
(20:58):
as a business, it can get headin that direction sometimes, unfortunately.
But you said a key word there,buy in. And I think a lot of owners
don't do a good job of gettingtheir team to buy in to the mission
to be part of it. Because ifyou believe in the mission and you're
part of it, it's a wholedifferent mindset.
(21:22):
Absolutely. One of thefounders of Travelocity said culture
is a contact sport and I lovethat line so much. Right. Culture
is not something that we havea mission and values. We just stick
on the wall and say, okay,there they are. We have to live it,
breathe it, talk it, implementit, demonstrate it and weave it into
everything that we do. If youhave a company value of family values
(21:47):
are important, then it'sreally important that when somebody
asks for time off to go to aparent teacher conference, you don't
make it hard on them. Live itor else very quickly the team sees
through a story. If we're notliving it and practicing it day to
day.
Oh, absolutely correct. Youhit the nail right on the head. One
hit, boom, done all the waythrough. And you remind me of stories
(22:11):
when I was running sales for asoftware company globally and we
were taking a product, nobodyknew about it, putting it on the
map, and we hit a threshold, Ithink it was when we hit our first
hundred thousand for the monthin sales globally. I ran around,
told me to meet in theconference room. Nobody knew what
(22:32):
was up. But I had lunchcatered in, already brought in, set
up in the conference room.Nobody knew what was going on. I
brought in the softwaredevelopers, the owner of the company,
and I basically said, youknow, big market board, it says we
just hit 100,000 in sales. AndI want to just take a moment to thank
everybody for making thishappen. And we had champagne, some
(22:54):
lunch and some cake. Everybodywas just fired up, they were high
fiving one another and theenergy was just contagious.
You know, we spend so much ofour life in our jobs, in our careers
and our professions. If we'renot having some fun, then we're not
having a fun life. So that'simportant to celebrate. Absolutely.
Well, Sir Richard Branson saysit the same. It's not work and personal
(23:20):
time, it's called life. It'sall in between, it's all together.
You're living, you're working,but you're still living there's.
No difference.
Yeah, absolutely. The way Ilike to live is one time I came in
on a Monday morning andsomebody said, you know, how was
your weekend? I was like, myweekend was great, but I have as
much excitement coming in on aMonday as I do even on a Friday.
(23:43):
Because it's life, Right?We're living life to the fullest
in the game we're playingduring the week, which is business,
and the game we're playing onthe weekends, on the evenings, which
is family. That's how I liketo live.
Yeah, well, it's really ablend of both. We do the same thing.
We're looking at differenttrips that we're trying to plan and
weekend getaways, but we workit around her schedule, my schedule,
(24:05):
how do we make it happen andhave fun at the same time? When she
has so many appointments thatshe schedules, she's all excited
and fired up. And likewise,when my downloads are increasing
and I'm into 34 countries now,and we've only started this in November,
is just taken off. So that'sexciting. And firing up as well.
(24:25):
That's great. That's great.Well, you certainly. It's a lovely
conversation we're having heretoday, so I'm sure that everyone's
enjoying listening andfollowing and seeing what you're
up to.
Well, thank you. So let's gointo some of the challenges or things
that owners overlook and thatyou've identified they should be
(24:46):
doing. Let's share sometakeaways that our listeners can
really apply to their businessthat they probably didn't even think
of.
I think first and foremost, Ilike to share with people. My perspective
is, for years we've beentelling owners, don't work in your
business, work on yourbusiness. I suggest you change that
(25:09):
mindset. Your team doesn'twant to be worked on, they want to
be worked with. The trick isto discover how you can work with
your team to achieve the goalsyou want. And it's about communicating
the goals, overarching the bigcultural pieces. It's also about
delegating authority andbuilding in feedback loops. If there's
(25:30):
one takeaway, I would say,yeah, think about how you work with
your team to get things done,invite them into supporting you in
what you want to be up to.
Very well said. That's reallyhow you get the buy in. That's how
you get everybody in therowboat. Rowing in the same direction
is you're working with them.That's something I learned a long
(25:51):
time ago from a manager. Thatwas one of the best managers I ever
had. And I try to mimic himand he was shoulder to shoulder.
There was no difference.
Yeah, well, we all havedifferent roles, Right. The owner
has a different role, themanager has a different role. But
we're all here to achieve thesame results. Result.
(26:14):
Right. And I remember a CEOthat I worked for and the company
got acquired. And what he did,which I remember class act, was he
brought in everybody andeverybody got a check based upon
their years with the company,their contributions to the company,
(26:34):
everything else, instead ofjust the investors and everybody
else making the money, heactually shared a percentage of it
with the team because as heput it, if it wasn't for everybody
here, we wouldn't have beenable to pull this off.
Oh, that's love.
My hat's off to that guy.Because that was a class act. Everybody
(26:55):
felt really good becauseeverybody was concerned about their
jobs and everything else. Buthe handled it perfectly.
Yeah, we're not doing italone. We're not growing big businesses
alone.
Right, right, right. So whatare some of the other things that
you can share another storywith our listeners of how a virtual
(27:18):
GM can actually impact abusiness and help them go from level
A to level C.
Well, or one of my favoritestories, and I got this just yesterday,
I got a bouquet of flowersfrom a client I've worked with for
10 years as a virtual GM withher team and her company. You know,
(27:40):
when I met her 10 years ago,she was working in the day to day
of the company, but it reallywas a very expensive hobby. She'd
been in business five or sixyears, putting money into the business
all of that time and nottaking anything out. And somehow
had gotten reconciled to thatbecause it was operating, being successful.
(28:03):
And then we had thatclarifying conversation, said, let's
turn this around. Within ayear, she was out of the day to day.
She and her husband went on awonderful vacation to the Galapagos
Islands and were offline for amonth and the company ran itself
even better. She was drawingmoney from the company, a very quick
turnaround. So I think that'san extreme example, but idea is that
(28:30):
when you work with the teamand go from disengaged just showing
up to do the job, to engaged,inspired, active contribution to
leadership. You can go fromlosing money to making money very
quickly. You can go from beingin the day to day grind, chopping
vegetables or packaging boxesor doing whatever it is that you're
(28:53):
doing to being a true leaderwho's strategically planning the
growth of the company, whichis where you should be. I think business
owners feel like they'resupposed to know how to do this right.
This is my job to dooperations, to be an operational
manager. I'm the owner of thecompany. I think that we don't have
enough conversation about howthis is actually a skill set, a skill
(29:16):
set that needs to bedeveloped. And there are people who
have that skill set, like youand me, that can contribute in a
way that's meaningful andimpactful very quickly. But even
better is this next step ofbeginning to build that skill set
in the team to get the resultsthat you want. I am all about business
(29:36):
owners. I think they shouldlive a life that they want, running
a business that they love, andnot feel tied to or trapped. Very
quickly, we can move out ofthat feeling of being tied to or
trapped in a business intofreedom, pride, and success.
Yes, 100%. Because I've seenbusiness owners that have the mindset
(30:00):
that they're the only onesthat can do it the right way. I've
learned something not too longago is that 80% is good, considering
that you did 100%, none of it.Oh, you know where I'm going with
that.
(30:20):
Well, it was one of the bestpieces of business advice I ever
got before I hired my firstemployee. Years ago, a business owner
I knew said, if you can standto have things done to 80% of how
you would do it, then you canhave employees. And if you can't,
then you should stay asolopreneur. That has held me in
good stead. 20% differentialdoesn't mean it's 20% worse. It just
(30:44):
means it's different. Wecreate space for other people to
contribute their perspectiveand strategy and skills to the table
if we're ever going to grow.
You're absolutely right. Anindividual's perception is their
own reality, right or wrong.And they may perceive that they've
done an excellent job. You maysay, okay, well, it's 60%, but that's
(31:07):
where you need to step in as aleader and say, okay, I really appreciate
what you did. You did anexcellent job, because that's in
their mind. Then you got topackage it to say, okay, here are
a couple tweaks. So we get youto the 80%, but that's not the conversation.
But I'm just talking to. Thedifference between you and I is you
got to somehow get them toelevate their perception. But you
(31:28):
can't poo poo their perception.
No. And again, clearexpectations and clear guidelines
and knowing where there's roomfor flexibility and where things
absolutely have to be preciseis a bit of how we get people on
board with our vision.
Right. So Eden, as we getclose to the end of the show here,
(31:49):
how can people find you?
The best place to find meright now is on YourVirtualGM.com
okay. You're curious about howa virtual GM works or about the book?
Activate your virtual GM orwant to connect with me personally?
YourVirtualGM.com I'm also onLinkedIn, a great place to reach
(32:10):
out.
Okay, we'll have that in theshow notes. And you happen to have
anything for our listeners?
Yes. If you go tofreebusinessbook.com I would like
to gift you with a copy of mybook. It's a downloadable version
but free business book andthere's no s at the end of that.
Freebusinessbook.com okay,we'll make sure that's in the show
(32:32):
notes and great conversation,Eden. Great insights for our listeners
and we look forward to havingyou on the show down the road again.
Thank you so much, Freddie.It's been great to talk with you
today.
Thank you.
Hey, super fan. SuperstarFreddie D Here. Before we wrap, here's
your three a playbook powermove to attract ideal clients, turn
(32:54):
them into advocates andaccelerate your business success.
So here's the top insight fromtoday's episode. Your team doesn't
want to be worked on, theywant to be worked with. So shift
from control to collaborationand unlock unstoppable momentum.
So here's your business growthaction step. Replace your top down
(33:15):
directives with a team poweredmission session this week. Get everyone
aligning their roles to thecompany vision in real time. If today's
conversation sparked an ideafor you or you know of a fellow business
leader who could benefit,share it with them. Support the show
with the donation and grab thefull breakdown in the show notes.
(33:36):
Let's accelerate together andstart creating business super fans
who champion your brand.
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