June 17, 2025 • 47 mins
What if the very success you've worked so hard to achieve is now preventing your business from reaching the next level? This fascinating conversation with Scott Ritzheimer, founder of Scale Architects, reveals the hidden barriers that stop entrepreneurs from scaling successfully.
Scott unpacks a revolutionary framework of seven distinct growth stages that every business passes through. What makes these transitions so challenging is their invisibility—no one warns you when you've moved from one stage to the next, leaving many founders implementing yesterday's solutions for today's problems. As Scott explains, "Whatever's creating success or not creating success right now is dependent on the stage you're in right now."
The conversation dives deep into leadership dynamics, with Scott challenging conventional wisdom about what makes someone an effective leader. Rather than focusing solely on visionaries with big ideas, Scott introduces three other essential leadership styles: operators who execute relentlessly, processors who create systems, and synergists who harmonize the team. Knowing which type of leader your business needs at each growth stage can mean the difference between breakthrough and burnout.
Perhaps most valuable is Scott's candid sharing of his own entrepreneurial journey, including the painful "whitewater stage" where his company's success began creating more problems than profits. By restructuring his leadership team, reimagining the organization chart, and implementing the right operating systems, Scott's company tripled their bottom line in just 13 months.
Whether you're struggling with scaling challenges now or preparing for future growth, this episode offers a clear roadmap for breaking through each ceiling you'll encounter. Listen now to discover how to stop being the bottleneck in your own business and scale with confidence.
How connect with Scott?
https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders - Free book and assessment.
Website: https://www.scalearchitects.com/secrets/
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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottritzheimer/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the Firing the man podcast, the show
for entrepreneurs who are readyto take control, fire the man
and build a business that worksfor them.
Today, we're sitting down withScott Ritzheimer, the visionary
founder of Scale Architects andhost of the Secrets of High
Demand Coach podcast.
Scott is a true expert when itcomes to helping successful
(00:47):
entrepreneurs and founders breakthrough growth ceilings and
scale with clarity andconfidence.
He's worked with over 2000entrepreneurs and has built a
reputation for guidingleadership teams through
critical stages of businessgrowth, especially that tricky
spot where your success startsto outgrow your systems.
In this episode, scott divesdeep into the hidden pitfalls
(01:11):
that stop great businesses fromscaling, how to build a
leadership team that actuallyleads, and what it takes to grow
beyond being the bottleneck inyour own business.
If you're serious aboutsustainable scaling and stepping
into the CEO role of yourcompany's needs, you do not want
to miss this episode.
(01:31):
Scott, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
David, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
I always get this moment ofanticipation right at the start
of a podcast, because it wasjust another podcast of a show
that I, like I, was listening to.
One day that totally changedthe course and trajectory of my
life, and so there's this littlehope and expectation that this
episode will be that for someonelistening today.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So to start things off and Itouched about on this a little
bit in the intro is you talkabout hitting the ceiling as a
founder, and so what are someearly signs entrepreneurs miss
that indicate they've become thebottleneck in their own
business?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, I mean we have to start off.
The unfortunate news is youalmost certainly are at any
given point in time.
So and that's part of the gloryand the joy and the challenge
of being an entrepreneur is thata lot of the success rides on
your shoulders.
Now, what this looks likethere's actually seven times
that we hit ceilings, and that'spart of what makes it such a
(02:32):
challenge is, as we progressthrough this journey of being a
founder, there are theseinvisible barriers and
boundaries that we have to cross.
There are, I call them, stages.
There are seven distinct stagesthat we face, and each one of
those stages has a verydifferent set of challenges and
benefits, actually.
And so what happens forfounders is, when you succeed in
(02:56):
one stage, you know that verysuccess necessarily thrusts you
into the next, necessarilythrusts you into the next, but
it doesn't tell you that.
No one tells you that's what'shappening, right, and so some
signs that that you're, you'rebumping into this, right.
There's actually a handful ofquestions, and they follow each
of the stages, so we won't doall of them, but like one that
(03:17):
might matter for some of yourfolks, especially those that are
in the pre launch phase Right,they're, they're working for the
man.
You know we're early, earlypart of their journey.
One of the signs that you're thebottleneck on even that process
moving forward is are youasking yourself isn't there a
better way, right, like, isn'tthere a better way?
Because that's different.
(03:39):
And the thing that I love Ilove the title of the show and I
love the sentiment behind it,because when you can go out and
be your own boss, like when youcan, when you can make that leap
, when you can jump in, be dothe entrepreneurial thing, it's
magical.
Like I love, love, lovefounders and entrepreneurs.
But just because you don't wantthe boss that you have right
(04:01):
now doesn't mean you should beyour own boss, right.
And so there's a reallyimportant distinction and I love
the way that, how this show isborn and your goal of kind of
documenting your way through theprocess.
And I think you said before wehit record that it took you a
year to make that leap, if Iremember correctly.
And so often, if we're notreally paying attention, we'll
(04:24):
start to like feel, hey, I wantto get rid of the boss, I should
start my own company, but wedon't really stop and ask the
right question and we certainlydon't take the time to learn.
What would it take to solve forthat?
And so it's these sevendifferent questions.
We can go through them.
I'll let you kind of lead howyou want to do it, but a good
example of that early on isisn't like, isn't there a better
way?
(04:44):
Because that's ultimately thedriving question that leads
entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, and we don't
necessarily need to go throughall seven but and I think you
gave a very telling sign of isthere a better way?
And so, when you talk aboutthose seven stages, are those
generally defined by revenuetargets, by number of clients,
customers?
How do you define when you'vegot to the next level?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, so it's different through the different
stages and, unfortunately,revenue isn't a very helpful
tool, because revenue numbersfor a construction company look
entirely different than revenuenumbers for a fractional CFO
firm, look entirely differentthan the numbers for a Wall
Street investment firm, right.
So it's very difficult to makerevenue generalizations across
(05:35):
industries, particularly withhow does that affect you as a
founder?
And so each stage, the, thedemarcation points are a little
bit different, but a lot of themhave to do with um, uh, from a,
a, a milestone perspective.
They actually have to do withthe, the, the quantity and
quality of leaders around youthat's probably the best way of
(05:56):
putting it and uh, and so there,the reason for that is because
when you're an entrepreneur,only early on is what you do
actually a defining part of yourjob, right?
So if you love coffee and youdecide to start a coffee shop,
you'll do most of your coffeeroasting, you know, or
barista-ing or whatever you wantto call it, in the early days,
(06:19):
and the further you go, thefurther you'll get from that,
and so it's more so about, well,as you get further from those
things, who's going to help youlead this and how?
So that's generally it, but morespecifically for the audience
that will be listening today, ifwe start in the very beginning.
The first stage is pre-launch,and so the demarcation point is
(06:41):
pretty obvious actually, fromstage one to stage two, and that
is that you go full time right,it's like this is the thing
that I'm going to make myrevenue on my income on, and so
that's the demarcation point,just as an example.
So specific events that'sreally the most specific one
outside of way, at the end ofthe process, when you you sell
or step out, and then in themiddle, where things tend to be
(07:05):
kind of the most muddy orconfusing from a stage
perspective, it has to do withthe quantity and quality of
leaders around you.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Let's dive into that a little bit more, and I think
this is something that I havepersonally gone through and I'd
be interested in your input onit when you are hiring, in your
input on it when you are hiring.
Leadership is something that Ifeel is tough to gauge when
(07:32):
you're interviewing.
Like, I've had very charismaticpeople that I thought would be
very good leaders when Iinterview them and then they
show up and they're not greatleaders, they micromanage, and
so when you are screening forleadership which I think is an
excellent thing to do whenhiring what are some things you
should be looking for?
(07:53):
Are there any practical testsor questions that you think
would be helpful in finding thatgroup of high quality leaders
around you?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I want to start off with thedefinition of leadership that I
really like.
It's from a mentor and friendof mine.
His name's Les McKeown.
He says leadership is any actthat moves a group of two or
more toward their shared goalsor purposes.
Right, so that's a pretty broaddefinition.
(08:22):
Why is it leadership?
Because it's moving more thanjust yourself.
Right, it's moving a group oftwo or more.
It's directed with an aim.
Right, there's somewhere thatwe're going together and it
actually moves us forward.
And so that definition isreally important.
Because if we use what most ofus think of in terms of leaders
as people who have ideas andtell others what to do right, of
(08:45):
leaders as people who haveideas and tell others what to do
Right, and you know varyingdegrees of niceness, that's,
that's really only you know, 20to 40 percent of the population,
something like that.
It is not a big pool and it'snot the only way to lead by any
stretch of the imagination, likeif and here's the here's the
litmus test for this I'll walkinto organizations that have all
(09:06):
people of that type.
They're all leaders.
It's a company of seven peopleand they all lead their own
division inside the company.
Right, there are sevendivisions in a seven-person
company and you have too manycooks in the kitchen.
You have too many people withideas but no one actually
executing on those ideas.
So is it really leadership tohave ideas if none of those
ideas actually get across thefinish line?
(09:28):
No, not really.
So we have to broaden thedefinition of leadership to
include there are four stylesthat we work with.
What those are isn't asimportant We'll get into a
couple of them a little bitlater but you have to broaden
the definition of leadership.
And then it's looking at it andsaying what kind of leadership
do I need right now?
(09:49):
And so for folks that are inthis process of, you know,
starting their own company,going from solopreneur to having
a few people around them,there's actually a very specific
kind of leadership that we'relooking for, and it's not ideas.
It's folks who lead by doingright, who have a bias to action
, who get stuff done.
They generally aren't the moststrategic people in the world.
(10:09):
They're generally not the mostidea oriented people in the
world.
They oftentimes aren't the mostcharismatic people in the world
, but these are folks who getstuff done.
They get an enormous amount ofstuff done.
They lead by example, they leadby doing.
We call them operators and again, they're just ruthless
finishers in the best, mostpositive sense of that phrase.
(10:31):
And the reason why we needoperators is because most folks
who start their own businessthey've got and I mean, tell me
if you've had a differentexperience, but they have way
more than enough ideas to goaround.
They're not at a shortage ofideas, they're at a shortage of
execution.
I need someone to actually getthese things into the real world
.
I've sold a bunch of clients.
(10:52):
I need someone to actuallyservice them and so in the
interview process, especiallyearly on, and then this is true
for every stage but making surethat you're looking for the
folks who will lead in the waythat you need right now.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that yougave the definition of that
person being a doer, somebodythat can complete the tasks,
because if I look at my ownorganization, or organizations
that I've been a part of, thereare a lot of idea people that
struggle on the execution sideof things, and so two areas I
(11:30):
like to hire when finding aleader.
I'm curious if you have any protips here I really like for
operators people that have beenin the military and people that
have been on sports teams.
And if they've been oncollegiate sports teams, that's
even better, and so not that Iexclusively look at those, but I
definitely, like you know, thatresume floats to the top of the
(11:52):
pile, if I know that about them.
And so what are some like othercharacteristics, or do you have
any similar things like that?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's so spot on.
I want to unpack why a littlebit, because the reason is a
little different.
So, when you're looking foroperators, military experience
for sure, but interestinglyenough, when they test right,
when they like, they take ourassessment, they don't test as
operators all that often.
So what's happened is they havethe learned skill and behavior
(12:20):
of an operator, which is great,right.
So what the military tends todo for folks is add the ability
to operate is the best way ofputting it.
Now you'll get, you know, wiredlike folks who are wired as
operators, who are attracted tothe military.
But the bigger thing from themilitary is that it puts those
skills in you Super, superhelpful, especially when you
(12:40):
need a blend of different styles.
Now, sports, on the other hand,is much more a reflection of
wiring right Folks that areattracted to sports, and I would
say individual sports more thanteam sports, although not
exclusively, but there's aslight edge there, because a lot
of folks, if they don't get D1or higher, then a lot of it
(13:02):
might be social right.
They do it to be part of a teamand that's a different type of
person.
So individual sports very, verymuch.
So I was telling I was teachingthis to a group and I said I
don't know of a single operatorexecutive, right.
So these are operators who haverisen to the level inside of
bigger enterprises where thereare executives in it.
(13:23):
I don't know a single one whodoesn't have a Peloton and and
the operator on the team he justlike hangs his head.
He's like I have one.
So, yes, those are the biggesttells and they're they're very,
very helpful in in findingoperators.
The other thing that I would sayis you tend to find them in
(13:48):
jobs that require them to workwith their hands more, to be
more kinetic and move around.
So oftentimes if you have a rolethat requires operators, a
great place to go, look for them.
If you're in a small businessand don't feel like you can
compete in some ways, a step outof the warehouse and into the
office is a huge step up for alot of people.
And into the office is a hugestep up for a lot of people,
(14:09):
right, and you'll find folksthat are in a warehouse that are
really smart, really clever andfor whatever reason, they're
working a warehouse job, butthey would be able to roll right
into your organization and itwould be a huge step up for them
.
So that's another place thatyou can look.
If you have an office type job,a lot of folks see that as a
step forward in their career,even if it's somewhat lateral.
(14:31):
From a pay perspective, thatwould be the biggest one.
I would add to it is some typeof job where they're more
kinetic.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I'm adding that one to my bag of tricks because
that's a really good one and aperspective that I haven't
thought about.
But I do personally have awarehouse and I have people that
work over there and they'revery capable and they're working
with their hands all day and ifI were to put them in an office
role, they would like it and Ithink they do a tremendous job,
(15:00):
and so I'm glad that youmentioned that.
Zoom out and talk about yourjourney a little bit in building
and scaling your business.
What have been some roadblocksthat you've run into and what
are some mindset shifts thatyou've had to take on as you've
(15:21):
been growing your business?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, so I got into the whole entrepreneurial thing
by accident and it's a reallylong story, but I was hired by
someone who knew someone whoknew someone kind of a thing,
and I was just looking for apart-time job early in my career
and about two months after Istarted there, the company was
(15:43):
sold on an owner finance dealand then just systematically but
unintentionally destroyed overabout 18 months.
It was really really painful.
I stayed on with a new employer.
I was one of the three peopleby the end of all of it that was
still on.
It was just awful, and Iwatched this company that I'd
come to love just be torn topieces.
And in the midst of like thisreally excruciating experience
(16:07):
for everyone involved like therewere no villains right, there
were no like victors, Like itjust it wasn't pretty.
Everyone was hurt because of itI fell in love with what
business could be.
It's this really weirddichotomy, but long story short,
I ended up relaunching thatcompany with the original
founders.
So we we you know shuteverything down, built it back
(16:28):
up in September 2008, which wasnot a great time to be starting
a company and I had no idea whatI was doing.
I was 21, 22, something likethat.
Whenever we first started and Iwas right out of the gate
because we were relaunching thecompany, we had to hire in a
(16:50):
number of folks right away.
So I had a team almostinstantly out of the gate.
Because we were, like,relaunching the company, we had
to hire in a number of folksright away.
So I had a team almostinstantly out of the gate and I
had no idea what to do with themand there was so much imposter
syndrome.
Most of them were significantlyolder than me.
It was just a real challengeand I had always had success by
what I could do right.
That was, you know, for sports,for school, for early in my
(17:13):
career is basically just likehow do I handle myself really
well?
And the thing I struggled withthe most and had to get and had
to move into very, very quicklywas how do I create success
through a small team?
Because we weren't big enoughfor everyone to have their own
role.
We weren't big enough for me togo hire a bunch of specialists.
I just had a bunch of folks whowere operators, who would get
(17:34):
anything done, and it took mequite a while to really learn
how to leverage that well.
And, you know, give them theclarity they need to stay out of
their way.
Not micromanage which was a hugetendency of mine, especially
early in my career was a hugetendency of mine especially
early in my career.
But that shift from individualkind of star player to captain
(17:54):
on the field, where I have myown job but I also have to
orchestrate everyone else's jobat the same time, that was that
was a pretty big challenge forme early in my career.
And I see that happen for a lotof solopreneurs, a lot of folks
that are that are early stage.
They're like super talented,super gifted, no one can do
anything as good as I can, andto some extent like that's true
(18:15):
early on, and and so they end upin a little bit similar to what
I did, in a little bit of aprison of their own making, of
like I can't delegate any onanything because no one can do
what I do, and that's amiserable place to be Like when
you create a company that justconsumes every last bit of your
(18:36):
energy and you've got no oneelse that you can trust and turn
to, you've got a huge, hugeproblem.
So early in my career that wasone of the biggest challenges I
faced.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So and this is coming from a I would consider myself
a recovering micromanager andalso a perfectionist, and I have
what you're talking about.
I have been through, and so,when you noticed that this was
happening, what were some thingsthat you did to break out of
that cycle?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, it wasn't like this.
I wish it was like thisovernight revelation.
You know, like I get to helpfolks with that now, because
it's just a normal stage thateveryone goes through, and how
you do that is actually verystraightforward, right, one of
(19:28):
the huge frustrations like whydon't these people solve
problems the way that I do?
Why don't they think like I do,right, why don't they take
ownership like I do?
And so, instead of owning theresponsibility for solving that,
I found myself just gettingfrustrated by them all the time.
Right, and a lot of folks youknow folks listening will
(19:49):
resonate with this.
There were so many times I wokeup on Monday after, like,
working all weekend to, to, andnot getting to my job Cause I
was cleaning up stuff that otherpeople had done.
You know, either wrong or notto my liking.
I wake up Monday morningexhausted, the whole week is
ahead of me and I'm like what'swrong with these people?
Like and.
And one of the things I learnedin that season was, if there's
something wrong with everyone,then there's really just
(20:11):
something wrong with one personand that's you, and I had to
come to that conclusion.
And there are lots of littlestories and anecdotes, but I
remember one time I was tryingto actually take a smaller
element of our team and say, hey, I need you to be leaders in
the team, like I want to inviteyou to this, and I so had no
(20:34):
idea what I was doing and I wasso confusing in my presentation
that like I actually ended upmaking most of them angry, like
they thought that I had likedemoted them or something.
It was just terrible, terriblecommunication, I mean just
utterly embarrassing.
And like that same week I hadgone to a conference where Dan
Cathy spoke and I just rememberlike contrasting the two you
(20:59):
know communications and thestyles and everything about it.
I was like I have to learn howto communicate differently.
If I'm going to create successthrough others, I have to talk
more like that than like this.
To create success throughothers, I have to talk more like
that than like this, and sothat led to a number of things.
But it was really this ideathat my success was now
dependent on my ability toclearly communicate my
(21:21):
expectations and follow throughon accountability with the team.
And in a kind of strange way,my like woeful, pathetic attempt
at that, contrasted so sharplywith Dan Cathy's presentation on
the same topic reallyhighlighted that for me and, you
know, kicked my ass into gearfor lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I like it.
I like it.
So when was Scale Architectsborn?
What's in?
What's the backstory there?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, so fast forward a lot.
So basically, that business wasall about starting
organizations the one that Ihelped co-found in 2008 and
worked there for for about 13years something in that ballpark
and as we were going through itseven, eight years into the
(22:09):
journey it got it was likeawesome.
And then it got really, reallyhard.
I mean it got really, reallyhard.
Like there were days when, eventhough we're bringing in
millions of dollars a year, Ididn't know if we would be there
the next year.
Right, there were days when theconflict between me and the
other founder was so painfulthat I didn't know if I even
(22:31):
wanted to be a part of itanymore.
There were days where it's likeit wasn't days, it was weeks,
where it was just like peopleproblem, people problem, people
problem.
It's just this mess.
And the biggest problem I hadin all of that was David.
I felt so alone in it, like wehad gone out and tried to hire a
couple of coaches andconsultants in various different
(22:52):
ways and I didn't realize thisat the time.
But there's a lot of.
I'm not gonna say that they'rebad coaches and consultants, but
there are a lot of people whodo bad coaching and consulting
work and I lost in the course ofthree different people.
Over a span of about four years, we lost about a million
dollars following their advicewell-intentioned but ill-meaning
(23:15):
advice and so when we couldn'tfigure it out and then we hired
the people who promised us thatthey could help us figure it out
and they couldn't figure it outI felt totally isolated.
I felt like this is, I guessthis is it.
I guess this is as good as itgets.
I guess this is as big as weget.
I guess this is as much as wecan dream.
I guess this is it.
(23:36):
And it was actually at thattime, going to what I opened up
with that.
I heard that podcast.
It was also by Les McKeown andin it he's talking about one of
the most boring things that youcould talk about business life
cycle stages, but I think it wasthe Irish accent that kept me
interested at least long enoughto listen.
(23:58):
And he starts describing thesedifferent stages and it's like I
remember that.
I remember that.
And then he gets to the stagecalled whitewater and it's where
complexity inside the businessstarts causing you problems
profit drops, problems go up,infighting in the leadership
team, lack of alignment, revenuestill moving, but you're not
keeping any more of it.
(24:18):
You know all of those differentthings that we were
experiencing.
Like all of them, he startslisting off and it's just a
natural stage in the process.
Natural stage in the process.
And that hit me like a ton ofbricks because it was the very
first time that I ever felt likeme and my business were on a
(24:38):
map that already existed.
Right Every day before that itfelt like we were walking off
into the wild, unknown, you know, and that's really fun for a
couple of years.
It's really exhausting after awhile because you started
stepping in potholes and stuffand it's just not a pleasant
experience.
It gets old and.
But I didn't have any other wayuntil I heard Les speak.
So I got a copy of his book andas I'm looking through all that
(25:02):
he has to say on whitewater andhow to get out of it, I realized
two things at that stage.
One was like this is it, thisis the path to get out.
You know, I'm really confidentthat this is going to work and
it did.
We tripled our bottom line in13 months.
It was amazing.
But the other thought that hitme totally out of the blue, and
this is a very long answer toyour very short question was if
(25:24):
I could help other peoplerecognize this stage and get out
of it, and if that's what Icould do for a living, I would
die a happy man.
And that was back 2016 or 2015,something like that.
And it took a few years forthat to really brew.
But once I got us out of thatwhitewater stage, we had this
massive transformation as acompany.
We were bringing new leaders inand putting them in place.
(25:46):
I realized that's really what Iwanted to do.
I wanted to help other founderswhose dreams were being
squashed just by virtue of thefact that the complexity in
their business was overcomingtheir ability to execute.
They were in that whitewaterstage and they needed help
getting out, and so ScaleArchitects was fundamentally
created to help foundersrecognize those different stages
(26:08):
and excel and succeed throughthem.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Very nice, very nice.
What were two to three chessmoves that you made when you
recognized that you were in thewhitewater phase and wanting to
get out?
You had mentioned bringing inbetter leaders.
Were there any other areas thatyou really doubled down on or
focused?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, it's interesting because these are
like some of the most boringthings in the world, but I've
watched them transform mycompany and I found, now that I
do this every day, my, ourresults were pretty normal.
They weren't actually veryexceptional, which I thought we
were awesome at the time, youknow but it's it's a pretty
normal process.
So it starts with, with the orgchart, just the design of who
(26:51):
does what inside theorganization.
And we had one.
It just reflected where we werecoming from, not where we were
going, and so what was happeningwas because folks weren't clear
on what they needed to do forus to succeed.
We had a bunch of peoplerunning in a bunch of different
directions and none of it wasreally working together.
(27:12):
The other one was getting ourleadership structure in place.
We, again, we had leaders, butwhat I realized during that
process was that we needed tomove from having a leadership
team to an executive team.
We didn't need just leaders whoran around getting stuff done
anymore although we needed someof that but we had to balance it
out with, like executivequality caliber folks that
(27:34):
brought a different skillset.
So the other styles, just realquickly visionaries, which makes
a ton of sense.
Operators, which we've talkedabout so far processors, folks
who think in terms of system andprocess don't need them early
on, desperately need them inwhitewater.
And then the fourth style is asynergist style which kind of
melds the other three together.
But we needed to balance outthat team.
(27:55):
I had to re-engineer myleadership team almost top to
bottom and some people stayed on.
They all had different rolesbecause of it.
But getting that leadershipstructure right.
And then also right underneaththem we had another layer of
leadership that was forming inour management group and we had
to get those two workingtogether, which was trickier
(28:17):
than I had expected coming in.
So those are two big first ones.
There's other things likealignment and how we do
empowerment and delegation, andthen cross-functionality is the
fifth one.
So there's some building blocksin there.
But ultimately having an orgchart doesn't do anything for
your bottom line.
Changing right Like having goodleaders doesn't in and of
(28:38):
itself, just because you havethem doesn't mean that it's
changing anything.
But what it did was it led usto just this unreasonable amount
of clarity on where ourstrategy wasn't working properly
.
When folks were finally clearon what they were responsible
for, they're like there's no waythat that can happen or we're
only doing half of what canhappen, right.
(28:58):
So that clarity, particularlywithin the org chart and the
leadership team, and alignmentwhere we were trying to get in
the long term helped us torecognize there were significant
parts of the business that weactually had to shut down.
Term helped us to recognizethere were significant parts of
the business that we actuallyhad to shut down and there were
other parts that we had todouble down on.
And so the structures that weput in place you know, rote and
(29:19):
mundane as they are were thevery thing that created the
environment for us to see theactual problems we were facing
and solve for them.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I like it.
I like it.
And one common thread I'mhearing you talk about is the
personnel, the people, the team,and I know it's been my
experience when I first startedmy business.
Of course, on day one I'm doingeverything and then I hire a VA
, and then you slowly build theteam.
And I had a guest on the podcastthe other day and he said
(29:52):
something that has I've honestlylost sleep over it and I'm
curious what your opinion is onit.
So he had said hourlycompensation and salary
compensation is a lazy way ofcompensating people and if you
can align compensation in a wayto where people are rowing the
(30:13):
boat in the same direction,where you have perfect alignment
, you will get much betterresults.
And the reason I've lost sleepover that is I agree with them.
There are hourly employees thatwork very smart, work very
efficiently and they bill lessand in turn they get compensated
(30:34):
less.
There's really not a ton ofincentive for being more
efficient Salary it kind ofseems like whether we outperform
by 50% or we underperform by50%, like this is my cut.
And so I'm curious, as you weremaking those chess moves that
(30:55):
related to personnel, was thereanything that you did with
compensation that you found tohelp get people rowing the boat
in the same direction.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
You're hitting a big item because I'm philosophically
very torn on this issue rightnow.
Item uh, because I'm I'mphilosophically very torn on
this issue right now.
Uh, no, thanks to, uh, danielPink.
So, um, I don't know if you'veread the book drive by Daniel
Pink, um, but the wholemotivation 1.0, 2.0, um, there's
a lot of evidence there's waymore evidence than there was at
the time that I was making thesedecisions that motivation 1.0,
(31:27):
um, you know, get eat what you,you, you kill, kind of a thing,
has some really significantlimitations.
And it doesn't matter what thecompensation model is, it's
really really limited.
And then motivation 2.0 doesn'thave any answers.
It just it just shows thatthat's wrong.
So there's not a whole lot ofmodels out there that are there
(31:48):
and there's definitely not a onesize fits all.
But I will say one of the thingsthat gave us a tremendous
amount of success in the kind ofmiddle that they completed we
use that very heavily somewherebetween 70 and as little as like
(32:16):
25% of most people'scompensation was tied to what
they do.
It's hard to make that one sizefits all because a lot of folks
don't fit into that, andincreasingly so as you scale.
And one of the things thatyou'll find is, in the earlier
stages, what you kill, what youeat is pretty much the most
effective strategy.
It's a very, very effectivestrategy, but as you go further,
(32:37):
it has some serious constraintswhen it comes to scalability.
It has some serious constraintswhen it comes to teamwork and
motivation sustainablemotivation and motivation,
sustainable motivation.
And it also has some seriousconstraints in that it does not
value stability, which, as youget bigger, you find you need a
stable position to be strongfrom.
(32:59):
So, yes, as much as you can,especially early on, especially
when you have operators, youwant to, you really want to go.
They want to be paid that way,right, like they want to be paid
by what they produce.
So here's the, here's the, the,the principle that, I think,
kind of supersedes all of thiscompensation strategy.
(33:28):
Compensation strategy thatinspires the highest degree of
ownership andself-accountability in the type
of people that are needed atthat stage.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I like that I like that.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
So in the stage that uh that you know you're in
coming out of I'm not real surewhere you are today, but uh, and
for those who you know havehave fired the man and are
progressing through where, tothe extent that you're dependent
on operators, then, yes, that'svery true, operators want to be
, they want to have some controlover what I want, and they're
very results oriented.
(33:57):
So it's it's very helpful, but,like processors and synergists,
it's not anywhere near aseffective.
In fact, it can trigger fearresponses in them that are
debilitating.
So the biggest principle isthat compensation, or the type
of compensation, is largelyirrelevant.
What the goal is is a anexceptional degree of ownership
(34:18):
and self accountability.
So if you pay people in a waythat causes them to take more
ownership, that's the rightanswer, no matter how you've
paid them.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I like that, that the more ownership equals better.
And my next question relates tooperating systems and I will
share with you and to anybodywho's listened to this show for
a while knows I'm a huge fan ofthe entrepreneurial operating
system from the book Traction.
I think I'm in my eighthimplementation of it this year
(34:53):
and it has been remarkable interms of setting long-term goals
and then breaking those downinto actionable steps, and I
think that kind of goes alongwith what you're talking about
is giving ownership to teammembers or more ownership, and
so are there any?
And I would call that kind ofan out-of-the-box operating
(35:17):
system.
Of course I'm in my eighth yearof implementation.
I would say we do it 90% by thebook, but are there any
operating systems that you'veused or you've consulted on that
you find to be incrediblyhelpful in getting out of that
grind stage and more into alegitimate operating business?
(35:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So the operating systems I like to call them
operator systems because that'sreally what they do they're the
least restrictive set ofmechanisms that allow operators
to do their best work whenthey're used properly, right,
and so the operator systems aremost helpful in what I call
stage three, that reluctantmanager stage we talked about
(36:02):
earlier.
What's wrong with these people?
Those people aren't the same asyou.
They're not visionaries likeyou, and so what EOS does very
well is it takes what thevisionary knows, wants and needs
and interprets that in a wayand then protects the operators
in their ability to execute on.
That Does it very, very well,right, top to bottom.
That's really what it does,which creates more freedom for
the visionary, and it's just,it's magical.
(36:25):
So EOS is a good one.
Very, very closely related toEOS is something called System
and Soul, which has a little bitmore of a cultural edge to it
that I really like and found myclients appreciate.
It's a little bit easier to doan implementation and not be
skewered by the community fornot being like drinking the
(36:45):
Kool-Aid and going 100%.
So a very similar framework,but has a much deeper cultural
edge to it, and that's what Itend to implement with my
clients, a lot of similaritiesbetween them and when you look
at it fundamentally like, eos isjust bits and pieces pulled
from a bunch of other operatingsystems.
They all share the same thing.
So what do you need?
(37:06):
You can use EOS, that's great.
What you need is this you needto have a healthy number one,
number two relationship.
If you don't, it's just a waybigger lift for you as an
individual.
But to the extent that you canget a healthy person in charge
right hand man or woman and youcan get that relationship
working well, which they dothrough the visionary integrator
(37:27):
and the same page meetingthat's a way of solving that
problem.
Having two people leading fromthe very center is very, very
effective.
You've got to have a set ofleaders who at least can execute
on the things that you wantthem to do right.
There are various degrees ofhow much input you need from
them throughout the stage, butyou've got to have some
(37:50):
semblance of a leadershipstructure.
You have to have really clearexpectations, right?
Everyone has in numbers theexample of this.
Here's how we measure yoursuccess and we actually measure
it right.
So there's accountability thatcomes with that, and then you
have to have a way of linkingwhere you want to go, your
long-term vision, to what you'redoing now, right, and they do
(38:12):
that through the vision tractionorganizer with you know the
longer term goals I forget whatthey're named all the way down
to the quarterly rocks.
And then, last but not least,you have to have a regular
meeting rhythm.
It's not every week for everycompany, some it's a little less
, some it's actually a littlebit more frequent, but that's
what makes EOS work for folks,and they've done a great job at
(38:34):
putting all those piecestogether.
But if you look at anyoperating system, they're all
going to include those sameelements and so long as you have
those in place, that's going todo 90% of what an operating
system can do during that time.
Now, just quickly, it'simportant to note what an
operating system doesn't do.
It doesn't tell you that yourvision, mission, values are
(38:55):
right, like.
It doesn't tell you that you'regoing after the right thing.
It doesn't tell you that whatyou do is valuable to your
customers, right, that you'vegot a high quality offering, and
so one of the things we have tobe cautious of and I see this
more in the EOS community thanmost others is an operating
system is nothing apart fromthose things.
(39:17):
Right, it assumes that you havethe right answers to some of
those questions, and so we haveto be a little conscientious and
make sure we're actuallyplugging the right inputs into
the operating system.
Otherwise, you can do a wholelot of work and be exactly where
you are today.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I think that is a tremendous, tremendous opinion
on operating systems, and thatthey can guide you in the wrong
direction, and KPIs andmeasurable outcomes are really
important, and so I really likedthat.
I have been a disciple of thetraction program for a long time
.
However, I've I've had badyears in business when I've been
(39:57):
running it and I've made poordecisions while I've been
running it, and so I do thinkthat that's a helpful thing to
point out is what it doesn'tachieve.
And so now, scott, I think wecould probably talk for two or
three hours, but I do want to berespectful of your time and I
want to save some time for ourfire round.
(40:17):
But at the beginning of thispodcast, you had mentioned that
you had an experience where youheard something that was very
high impact to you on a podcastand it changed your life, and so
you know, talking to the Firingthe man Nation, this is a group
of people that are e-commerceentrepreneurs, people that want
to fire the man.
(40:37):
What would be something thatyou'd like to share with them
that you think will be pivotalin their overall journey?
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah, the number one lesson that came from all of
those lessons and from helping.
I've had the opportunity tohelp around 20,000 different
entrepreneurs at this point, andwhen you do something that many
times, you start to see apattern and there's no one thing
that's going to grow yourbusiness every time right?
There's a lot of this like, ifyou just do this, your business
is gonna explode.
(41:05):
No-transcript major on in eachstage, but they're different in
(41:34):
every stage.
So the biggest thing I'd hopefolks recognize, and that I wish
I knew early on, is thatwhatever's creating success or
not creating success right nowis dependent on the stage you're
in right now.
And so that means two things.
One, you better know what stageyou're in so that you can just
do the things that are helpfuland not have to worry about the
30 things that aren't.
And number two, when yousucceed, it's going to push you
(41:57):
into the next stage.
Don't be surprised that it does.
Just recognize that this stagehas changed and take on and
embrace the new set of skillsthat are needed at that stage.
So if you do that, yourpropensity to get stuck is
almost zero because, like thepath, it's the same for everyone
.
The stages are zero mystery.
Once you know what they are,it's just like walking down a
(42:19):
road with road signs, but youjust need to know where to look,
and so my biggest thing wouldbe that it's not about what you
do.
It's about what you do rightnow.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's huge.
That's huge and you couldprobably do a mic drop and we
could end the episode with thatone, but that is really really
good advice.
And, yeah, that's really goodadvice.
Now, scott, we have a sectionof the show called the fire
round.
It's four questions.
We ask everybody at the end ofthe show Are you ready?
I'm ready, let's do it.
(42:50):
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Favorite book.
I have to give a shout out toLes and his book Predictable
Success.
Again, it's a huge part of mystory and if someone is
listening and hasn't read it,you are absolutely missing out.
I joke, les is kind of theMorpheus of the business world.
Once you see the world throughthe lens of these different
stages, you will not be able tounsee it.
(43:14):
So sorry, not sorry, but it'llchange the way you look at your
business and just about everybusiness you work with.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I love it.
I love it.
I'm adding that to my readinglist Number two.
What are your hobbies?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
reading list Number two what are your hobbies?
What are my hobbies?
I still love to play soccer tothis day.
So Saturday mornings for me, Irun out and, like an old man,
play dad soccer, which istremendous, but it's a blast.
I get to bring the kids outevery once in a while too, so we
have fun Outstanding.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
What is one thing that you do not miss about
working for the man?
What is?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
one thing that you do not miss about working for the
man oh gosh, the thing that Idon't miss is having my wings
clipped when you like.
For me it's a little unfairbecause to some extent I was the
man, but I did it with apartner, and I don't have a
partner in this endeavor, andthe degree of freedom that you
get flying solo versus having tostay in sync with a partner is
(44:05):
pretty magical.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So I don't miss you know having to ask someone
else's opinion before I moveforward.
Very nice, very nice.
And number four what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I think it is principally that they either
intuitively or intentionallyunderstand what stage they're in
and deploy the right strategiesfor that stage.
So just to expand on that realquickly a lot of folks you'll
see and I saw this a ton earlyin my career we had all these
folks that are starting out.
It was awesome, it was reallycool.
And then, like three, four orfive years later, some of the
(44:44):
best ones I would have banked onearly and you know when we
started, we're coming back andsaying, hey, it didn't work.
Well, what the heck is that?
How does that happen?
And so the best entrepreneursare not good at a thing, they
are good at adapting to thething.
Going back to my answer rightbefore our round here so when
(45:04):
you can adapt to the thing, yourability to succeed goes through
the roof.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Outstanding, outstanding.
Now, scott, who is your idealclient at scale architects?
What type of companies do youwork with?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, so I do a ton of work, um, with folks that are
uh, in in the, the language ofthe book, which we'll make sure
folks can get a copy of it,there's stages three, four, five
.
They're managers, leaders andchief executives, but
founder-led businesses usuallyhave 15 or more employees and
are looking to grow rapidly.
We help folks that are tryingto scale all the time and that
window from, you know, 10 to 15to 150, something like that is
(45:45):
where we do most of our mosttransformational work.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Outstanding, and if people are interested in getting
in touch with you, what's thebest way?
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Yeah, so I would recommend kind of a two for one.
Here is head toscalearchitectscom forward slash
founders, and there you canactually get a free copy of the
full book, the FoundersEvolution that goes through all
the stages and everything youneed to know about them.
You can get a digital copy forfree there's no payment at all
and when you do that you'll getan opportunity to schedule some
(46:13):
time with me so you can do thatas well.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Outstanding and to all of our listeners, check out
Secrets of the High Demand Coach.
This is a podcast.
This is where I discoveredScott, and I discovered Scott
and you do an outstanding jobthere and really enjoy tuning in
.
So I will post links to all ofthat in the show notes.
Scott, I want to thank you foryour time today and looking
forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
David, thanks for having me on.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the Firing the man podcast, the show
for entrepreneurs who are readyto take control, fire the man
and build a business that worksfor them.
Today, we're sitting down withScott Ritzheimer, the visionary
founder of Scale Architects andhost of the Secrets of High
Demand Coach podcast.
Scott is a true expert when itcomes to helping successful
(00:47):
entrepreneurs and founders breakthrough growth ceilings and
scale with clarity andconfidence.
He's worked with over 2000entrepreneurs and has built a
reputation for guidingleadership teams through
critical stages of businessgrowth, especially that tricky
spot where your success startsto outgrow your systems.
In this episode, scott divesdeep into the hidden pitfalls
(01:11):
that stop great businesses fromscaling, how to build a
leadership team that actuallyleads, and what it takes to grow
beyond being the bottleneck inyour own business.
If you're serious aboutsustainable scaling and stepping
into the CEO role of yourcompany's needs, you do not want
to miss this episode.
(01:31):
Scott, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
David, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
I always get this moment ofanticipation right at the start
of a podcast, because it wasjust another podcast of a show
that I, like I, was listening to.
One day that totally changedthe course and trajectory of my
life, and so there's this littlehope and expectation that this
episode will be that for someonelistening today.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So to start things off and Itouched about on this a little
bit in the intro is you talkabout hitting the ceiling as a
founder, and so what are someearly signs entrepreneurs miss
that indicate they've become thebottleneck in their own
business?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, I mean we have to start off.
The unfortunate news is youalmost certainly are at any
given point in time.
So and that's part of the gloryand the joy and the challenge
of being an entrepreneur is thata lot of the success rides on
your shoulders.
Now, what this looks likethere's actually seven times
that we hit ceilings, and that'spart of what makes it such a
(02:32):
challenge is, as we progressthrough this journey of being a
founder, there are theseinvisible barriers and
boundaries that we have to cross.
There are, I call them, stages.
There are seven distinct stagesthat we face, and each one of
those stages has a verydifferent set of challenges and
benefits, actually.
And so what happens forfounders is, when you succeed in
(02:56):
one stage, you know that verysuccess necessarily thrusts you
into the next, necessarilythrusts you into the next, but
it doesn't tell you that.
No one tells you that's what'shappening, right, and so some
signs that that you're, you'rebumping into this, right.
There's actually a handful ofquestions, and they follow each
of the stages, so we won't doall of them, but like one that
(03:17):
might matter for some of yourfolks, especially those that are
in the pre launch phase Right,they're, they're working for the
man.
You know we're early, earlypart of their journey.
One of the signs that you're thebottleneck on even that process
moving forward is are youasking yourself isn't there a
better way, right, like, isn'tthere a better way?
Because that's different.
(03:39):
And the thing that I love Ilove the title of the show and I
love the sentiment behind it,because when you can go out and
be your own boss, like when youcan, when you can make that leap
, when you can jump in, be dothe entrepreneurial thing, it's
magical.
Like I love, love, lovefounders and entrepreneurs.
But just because you don't wantthe boss that you have right
(04:01):
now doesn't mean you should beyour own boss, right.
And so there's a reallyimportant distinction and I love
the way that, how this show isborn and your goal of kind of
documenting your way through theprocess.
And I think you said before wehit record that it took you a
year to make that leap, if Iremember correctly.
And so often, if we're notreally paying attention, we'll
(04:24):
start to like feel, hey, I wantto get rid of the boss, I should
start my own company, but wedon't really stop and ask the
right question and we certainlydon't take the time to learn.
What would it take to solve forthat?
And so it's these sevendifferent questions.
We can go through them.
I'll let you kind of lead howyou want to do it, but a good
example of that early on isisn't like, isn't there a better
way?
(04:44):
Because that's ultimately thedriving question that leads
entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, and we don't
necessarily need to go throughall seven but and I think you
gave a very telling sign of isthere a better way?
And so, when you talk aboutthose seven stages, are those
generally defined by revenuetargets, by number of clients,
customers?
How do you define when you'vegot to the next level?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, so it's different through the different
stages and, unfortunately,revenue isn't a very helpful
tool, because revenue numbersfor a construction company look
entirely different than revenuenumbers for a fractional CFO
firm, look entirely differentthan the numbers for a Wall
Street investment firm, right.
So it's very difficult to makerevenue generalizations across
(05:35):
industries, particularly withhow does that affect you as a
founder?
And so each stage, the, thedemarcation points are a little
bit different, but a lot of themhave to do with um, uh, from a,
a, a milestone perspective.
They actually have to do withthe, the, the quantity and
quality of leaders around youthat's probably the best way of
(05:56):
putting it and uh, and so there,the reason for that is because
when you're an entrepreneur,only early on is what you do
actually a defining part of yourjob, right?
So if you love coffee and youdecide to start a coffee shop,
you'll do most of your coffeeroasting, you know, or
barista-ing or whatever you wantto call it, in the early days,
(06:19):
and the further you go, thefurther you'll get from that,
and so it's more so about, well,as you get further from those
things, who's going to help youlead this and how?
So that's generally it, but morespecifically for the audience
that will be listening today, ifwe start in the very beginning.
The first stage is pre-launch,and so the demarcation point is
(06:41):
pretty obvious actually, fromstage one to stage two, and that
is that you go full time right,it's like this is the thing
that I'm going to make myrevenue on my income on, and so
that's the demarcation point,just as an example.
So specific events that'sreally the most specific one
outside of way, at the end ofthe process, when you you sell
or step out, and then in themiddle, where things tend to be
(07:05):
kind of the most muddy orconfusing from a stage
perspective, it has to do withthe quantity and quality of
leaders around you.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Let's dive into that a little bit more, and I think
this is something that I havepersonally gone through and I'd
be interested in your input onit when you are hiring, in your
input on it when you are hiring.
Leadership is something that Ifeel is tough to gauge when
(07:32):
you're interviewing.
Like, I've had very charismaticpeople that I thought would be
very good leaders when Iinterview them and then they
show up and they're not greatleaders, they micromanage, and
so when you are screening forleadership which I think is an
excellent thing to do whenhiring what are some things you
should be looking for?
(07:53):
Are there any practical testsor questions that you think
would be helpful in finding thatgroup of high quality leaders
around you?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I want to start off with thedefinition of leadership that I
really like.
It's from a mentor and friendof mine.
His name's Les McKeown.
He says leadership is any actthat moves a group of two or
more toward their shared goalsor purposes.
Right, so that's a pretty broaddefinition.
(08:22):
Why is it leadership?
Because it's moving more thanjust yourself.
Right, it's moving a group oftwo or more.
It's directed with an aim.
Right, there's somewhere thatwe're going together and it
actually moves us forward.
And so that definition isreally important.
Because if we use what most ofus think of in terms of leaders
as people who have ideas andtell others what to do right, of
(08:45):
leaders as people who haveideas and tell others what to do
Right, and you know varyingdegrees of niceness, that's,
that's really only you know, 20to 40 percent of the population,
something like that.
It is not a big pool and it'snot the only way to lead by any
stretch of the imagination, likeif and here's the here's the
litmus test for this I'll walkinto organizations that have all
(09:06):
people of that type.
They're all leaders.
It's a company of seven peopleand they all lead their own
division inside the company.
Right, there are sevendivisions in a seven-person
company and you have too manycooks in the kitchen.
You have too many people withideas but no one actually
executing on those ideas.
So is it really leadership tohave ideas if none of those
ideas actually get across thefinish line?
(09:28):
No, not really.
So we have to broaden thedefinition of leadership to
include there are four stylesthat we work with.
What those are isn't asimportant We'll get into a
couple of them a little bitlater but you have to broaden
the definition of leadership.
And then it's looking at it andsaying what kind of leadership
do I need right now?
(09:49):
And so for folks that are inthis process of, you know,
starting their own company,going from solopreneur to having
a few people around them,there's actually a very specific
kind of leadership that we'relooking for, and it's not ideas.
It's folks who lead by doingright, who have a bias to action
, who get stuff done.
They generally aren't the moststrategic people in the world.
(10:09):
They're generally not the mostidea oriented people in the
world.
They oftentimes aren't the mostcharismatic people in the world
, but these are folks who getstuff done.
They get an enormous amount ofstuff done.
They lead by example, they leadby doing.
We call them operators and again, they're just ruthless
finishers in the best, mostpositive sense of that phrase.
(10:31):
And the reason why we needoperators is because most folks
who start their own businessthey've got and I mean, tell me
if you've had a differentexperience, but they have way
more than enough ideas to goaround.
They're not at a shortage ofideas, they're at a shortage of
execution.
I need someone to actually getthese things into the real world
.
I've sold a bunch of clients.
(10:52):
I need someone to actuallyservice them and so in the
interview process, especiallyearly on, and then this is true
for every stage but making surethat you're looking for the
folks who will lead in the waythat you need right now.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that yougave the definition of that
person being a doer, somebodythat can complete the tasks,
because if I look at my ownorganization, or organizations
that I've been a part of, thereare a lot of idea people that
struggle on the execution sideof things, and so two areas I
(11:30):
like to hire when finding aleader.
I'm curious if you have any protips here I really like for
operators people that have beenin the military and people that
have been on sports teams.
And if they've been oncollegiate sports teams, that's
even better, and so not that Iexclusively look at those, but I
definitely, like you know, thatresume floats to the top of the
(11:52):
pile, if I know that about them.
And so what are some like othercharacteristics, or do you have
any similar things like that?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's so spot on.
I want to unpack why a littlebit, because the reason is a
little different.
So, when you're looking foroperators, military experience
for sure, but interestinglyenough, when they test right,
when they like, they take ourassessment, they don't test as
operators all that often.
So what's happened is they havethe learned skill and behavior
(12:20):
of an operator, which is great,right.
So what the military tends todo for folks is add the ability
to operate is the best way ofputting it.
Now you'll get, you know, wiredlike folks who are wired as
operators, who are attracted tothe military.
But the bigger thing from themilitary is that it puts those
skills in you Super, superhelpful, especially when you
(12:40):
need a blend of different styles.
Now, sports, on the other hand,is much more a reflection of
wiring right Folks that areattracted to sports, and I would
say individual sports more thanteam sports, although not
exclusively, but there's aslight edge there, because a lot
of folks, if they don't get D1or higher, then a lot of it
(13:02):
might be social right.
They do it to be part of a teamand that's a different type of
person.
So individual sports very, verymuch.
So I was telling I was teachingthis to a group and I said I
don't know of a single operatorexecutive, right.
So these are operators who haverisen to the level inside of
bigger enterprises where thereare executives in it.
(13:23):
I don't know a single one whodoesn't have a Peloton and and
the operator on the team he justlike hangs his head.
He's like I have one.
So, yes, those are the biggesttells and they're they're very,
very helpful in in findingoperators.
The other thing that I would sayis you tend to find them in
(13:48):
jobs that require them to workwith their hands more, to be
more kinetic and move around.
So oftentimes if you have a rolethat requires operators, a
great place to go, look for them.
If you're in a small businessand don't feel like you can
compete in some ways, a step outof the warehouse and into the
office is a huge step up for alot of people.
And into the office is a hugestep up for a lot of people,
(14:09):
right, and you'll find folksthat are in a warehouse that are
really smart, really clever andfor whatever reason, they're
working a warehouse job, butthey would be able to roll right
into your organization and itwould be a huge step up for them
.
So that's another place thatyou can look.
If you have an office type job,a lot of folks see that as a
step forward in their career,even if it's somewhat lateral.
(14:31):
From a pay perspective, thatwould be the biggest one.
I would add to it is some typeof job where they're more
kinetic.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I'm adding that one to my bag of tricks because
that's a really good one and aperspective that I haven't
thought about.
But I do personally have awarehouse and I have people that
work over there and they'revery capable and they're working
with their hands all day and ifI were to put them in an office
role, they would like it and Ithink they do a tremendous job,
(15:00):
and so I'm glad that youmentioned that.
Zoom out and talk about yourjourney a little bit in building
and scaling your business.
What have been some roadblocksthat you've run into and what
are some mindset shifts thatyou've had to take on as you've
(15:21):
been growing your business?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, so I got into the whole entrepreneurial thing
by accident and it's a reallylong story, but I was hired by
someone who knew someone whoknew someone kind of a thing,
and I was just looking for apart-time job early in my career
and about two months after Istarted there, the company was
(15:43):
sold on an owner finance dealand then just systematically but
unintentionally destroyed overabout 18 months.
It was really really painful.
I stayed on with a new employer.
I was one of the three peopleby the end of all of it that was
still on.
It was just awful, and Iwatched this company that I'd
come to love just be torn topieces.
And in the midst of like thisreally excruciating experience
(16:07):
for everyone involved like therewere no villains right, there
were no like victors, Like itjust it wasn't pretty.
Everyone was hurt because of itI fell in love with what
business could be.
It's this really weirddichotomy, but long story short,
I ended up relaunching thatcompany with the original
founders.
So we we you know shuteverything down, built it back
(16:28):
up in September 2008, which wasnot a great time to be starting
a company and I had no idea whatI was doing.
I was 21, 22, something likethat.
Whenever we first started and Iwas right out of the gate
because we were relaunching thecompany, we had to hire in a
(16:50):
number of folks right away.
So I had a team almostinstantly out of the gate.
Because we were, like,relaunching the company, we had
to hire in a number of folksright away.
So I had a team almostinstantly out of the gate and I
had no idea what to do with themand there was so much imposter
syndrome.
Most of them were significantlyolder than me.
It was just a real challengeand I had always had success by
what I could do right.
That was, you know, for sports,for school, for early in my
(17:13):
career is basically just likehow do I handle myself really
well?
And the thing I struggled withthe most and had to get and had
to move into very, very quicklywas how do I create success
through a small team?
Because we weren't big enoughfor everyone to have their own
role.
We weren't big enough for me togo hire a bunch of specialists.
I just had a bunch of folks whowere operators, who would get
(17:34):
anything done, and it took mequite a while to really learn
how to leverage that well.
And, you know, give them theclarity they need to stay out of
their way.
Not micromanage which was a hugetendency of mine, especially
early in my career was a hugetendency of mine especially
early in my career.
But that shift from individualkind of star player to captain
(17:54):
on the field, where I have myown job but I also have to
orchestrate everyone else's jobat the same time, that was that
was a pretty big challenge forme early in my career.
And I see that happen for a lotof solopreneurs, a lot of folks
that are that are early stage.
They're like super talented,super gifted, no one can do
anything as good as I can, andto some extent like that's true
(18:15):
early on, and and so they end upin a little bit similar to what
I did, in a little bit of aprison of their own making, of
like I can't delegate any onanything because no one can do
what I do, and that's amiserable place to be Like when
you create a company that justconsumes every last bit of your
(18:36):
energy and you've got no oneelse that you can trust and turn
to, you've got a huge, hugeproblem.
So early in my career that wasone of the biggest challenges I
faced.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So and this is coming from a I would consider myself
a recovering micromanager andalso a perfectionist, and I have
what you're talking about.
I have been through, and so,when you noticed that this was
happening, what were some thingsthat you did to break out of
that cycle?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, it wasn't like this.
I wish it was like thisovernight revelation.
You know, like I get to helpfolks with that now, because
it's just a normal stage thateveryone goes through, and how
you do that is actually verystraightforward, right, one of
(19:28):
the huge frustrations like whydon't these people solve
problems the way that I do?
Why don't they think like I do,right, why don't they take
ownership like I do?
And so, instead of owning theresponsibility for solving that,
I found myself just gettingfrustrated by them all the time.
Right, and a lot of folks youknow folks listening will
(19:49):
resonate with this.
There were so many times I wokeup on Monday after, like,
working all weekend to, to, andnot getting to my job Cause I
was cleaning up stuff that otherpeople had done.
You know, either wrong or notto my liking.
I wake up Monday morningexhausted, the whole week is
ahead of me and I'm like what'swrong with these people?
Like and.
And one of the things I learnedin that season was, if there's
something wrong with everyone,then there's really just
(20:11):
something wrong with one personand that's you, and I had to
come to that conclusion.
And there are lots of littlestories and anecdotes, but I
remember one time I was tryingto actually take a smaller
element of our team and say, hey, I need you to be leaders in
the team, like I want to inviteyou to this, and I so had no
(20:34):
idea what I was doing and I wasso confusing in my presentation
that like I actually ended upmaking most of them angry, like
they thought that I had likedemoted them or something.
It was just terrible, terriblecommunication, I mean just
utterly embarrassing.
And like that same week I hadgone to a conference where Dan
Cathy spoke and I just rememberlike contrasting the two you
(20:59):
know communications and thestyles and everything about it.
I was like I have to learn howto communicate differently.
If I'm going to create successthrough others, I have to talk
more like that than like this.
To create success throughothers, I have to talk more like
that than like this, and sothat led to a number of things.
But it was really this ideathat my success was now
dependent on my ability toclearly communicate my
(21:21):
expectations and follow throughon accountability with the team.
And in a kind of strange way,my like woeful, pathetic attempt
at that, contrasted so sharplywith Dan Cathy's presentation on
the same topic reallyhighlighted that for me and, you
know, kicked my ass into gearfor lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I like it.
I like it.
So when was Scale Architectsborn?
What's in?
What's the backstory there?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, so fast forward a lot.
So basically, that business wasall about starting
organizations the one that Ihelped co-found in 2008 and
worked there for for about 13years something in that ballpark
and as we were going through itseven, eight years into the
(22:09):
journey it got it was likeawesome.
And then it got really, reallyhard.
I mean it got really, reallyhard.
Like there were days when, eventhough we're bringing in
millions of dollars a year, Ididn't know if we would be there
the next year.
Right, there were days when theconflict between me and the
other founder was so painfulthat I didn't know if I even
(22:31):
wanted to be a part of itanymore.
There were days where it's likeit wasn't days, it was weeks,
where it was just like peopleproblem, people problem, people
problem.
It's just this mess.
And the biggest problem I hadin all of that was David.
I felt so alone in it, like wehad gone out and tried to hire a
couple of coaches andconsultants in various different
(22:52):
ways and I didn't realize thisat the time.
But there's a lot of.
I'm not gonna say that they'rebad coaches and consultants, but
there are a lot of people whodo bad coaching and consulting
work and I lost in the course ofthree different people.
Over a span of about four years, we lost about a million
dollars following their advicewell-intentioned but ill-meaning
(23:15):
advice and so when we couldn'tfigure it out and then we hired
the people who promised us thatthey could help us figure it out
and they couldn't figure it outI felt totally isolated.
I felt like this is, I guessthis is it.
I guess this is as good as itgets.
I guess this is as big as weget.
I guess this is as much as wecan dream.
I guess this is it.
(23:36):
And it was actually at thattime, going to what I opened up
with that.
I heard that podcast.
It was also by Les McKeown andin it he's talking about one of
the most boring things that youcould talk about business life
cycle stages, but I think it wasthe Irish accent that kept me
interested at least long enoughto listen.
(23:58):
And he starts describing thesedifferent stages and it's like I
remember that.
I remember that.
And then he gets to the stagecalled whitewater and it's where
complexity inside the businessstarts causing you problems
profit drops, problems go up,infighting in the leadership
team, lack of alignment, revenuestill moving, but you're not
keeping any more of it.
(24:18):
You know all of those differentthings that we were
experiencing.
Like all of them, he startslisting off and it's just a
natural stage in the process.
Natural stage in the process.
And that hit me like a ton ofbricks because it was the very
first time that I ever felt likeme and my business were on a
(24:38):
map that already existed.
Right Every day before that itfelt like we were walking off
into the wild, unknown, you know, and that's really fun for a
couple of years.
It's really exhausting after awhile because you started
stepping in potholes and stuffand it's just not a pleasant
experience.
It gets old and.
But I didn't have any other wayuntil I heard Les speak.
So I got a copy of his book andas I'm looking through all that
(25:02):
he has to say on whitewater andhow to get out of it, I realized
two things at that stage.
One was like this is it, thisis the path to get out.
You know, I'm really confidentthat this is going to work and
it did.
We tripled our bottom line in13 months.
It was amazing.
But the other thought that hitme totally out of the blue, and
this is a very long answer toyour very short question was if
(25:24):
I could help other peoplerecognize this stage and get out
of it, and if that's what Icould do for a living, I would
die a happy man.
And that was back 2016 or 2015,something like that.
And it took a few years forthat to really brew.
But once I got us out of thatwhitewater stage, we had this
massive transformation as acompany.
We were bringing new leaders inand putting them in place.
(25:46):
I realized that's really what Iwanted to do.
I wanted to help other founderswhose dreams were being
squashed just by virtue of thefact that the complexity in
their business was overcomingtheir ability to execute.
They were in that whitewaterstage and they needed help
getting out, and so ScaleArchitects was fundamentally
created to help foundersrecognize those different stages
(26:08):
and excel and succeed throughthem.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Very nice, very nice.
What were two to three chessmoves that you made when you
recognized that you were in thewhitewater phase and wanting to
get out?
You had mentioned bringing inbetter leaders.
Were there any other areas thatyou really doubled down on or
focused?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, it's interesting because these are
like some of the most boringthings in the world, but I've
watched them transform mycompany and I found, now that I
do this every day, my, ourresults were pretty normal.
They weren't actually veryexceptional, which I thought we
were awesome at the time, youknow but it's it's a pretty
normal process.
So it starts with, with the orgchart, just the design of who
(26:51):
does what inside theorganization.
And we had one.
It just reflected where we werecoming from, not where we were
going, and so what was happeningwas because folks weren't clear
on what they needed to do forus to succeed.
We had a bunch of peoplerunning in a bunch of different
directions and none of it wasreally working together.
(27:12):
The other one was getting ourleadership structure in place.
We, again, we had leaders, butwhat I realized during that
process was that we needed tomove from having a leadership
team to an executive team.
We didn't need just leaders whoran around getting stuff done
anymore although we needed someof that but we had to balance it
out with, like executivequality caliber folks that
(27:34):
brought a different skillset.
So the other styles, just realquickly visionaries, which makes
a ton of sense.
Operators, which we've talkedabout so far processors, folks
who think in terms of system andprocess don't need them early
on, desperately need them inwhitewater.
And then the fourth style is asynergist style which kind of
melds the other three together.
But we needed to balance outthat team.
(27:55):
I had to re-engineer myleadership team almost top to
bottom and some people stayed on.
They all had different rolesbecause of it.
But getting that leadershipstructure right.
And then also right underneaththem we had another layer of
leadership that was forming inour management group and we had
to get those two workingtogether, which was trickier
(28:17):
than I had expected coming in.
So those are two big first ones.
There's other things likealignment and how we do
empowerment and delegation, andthen cross-functionality is the
fifth one.
So there's some building blocksin there.
But ultimately having an orgchart doesn't do anything for
your bottom line.
Changing right Like having goodleaders doesn't in and of
(28:38):
itself, just because you havethem doesn't mean that it's
changing anything.
But what it did was it led usto just this unreasonable amount
of clarity on where ourstrategy wasn't working properly
.
When folks were finally clearon what they were responsible
for, they're like there's no waythat that can happen or we're
only doing half of what canhappen, right.
(28:58):
So that clarity, particularlywithin the org chart and the
leadership team, and alignmentwhere we were trying to get in
the long term helped us torecognize there were significant
parts of the business that weactually had to shut down.
Term helped us to recognizethere were significant parts of
the business that we actuallyhad to shut down and there were
other parts that we had todouble down on.
And so the structures that weput in place you know, rote and
(29:19):
mundane as they are were thevery thing that created the
environment for us to see theactual problems we were facing
and solve for them.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I like it.
I like it.
And one common thread I'mhearing you talk about is the
personnel, the people, the team,and I know it's been my
experience when I first startedmy business.
Of course, on day one I'm doingeverything and then I hire a VA
, and then you slowly build theteam.
And I had a guest on the podcastthe other day and he said
(29:52):
something that has I've honestlylost sleep over it and I'm
curious what your opinion is onit.
So he had said hourlycompensation and salary
compensation is a lazy way ofcompensating people and if you
can align compensation in a wayto where people are rowing the
(30:13):
boat in the same direction,where you have perfect alignment
, you will get much betterresults.
And the reason I've lost sleepover that is I agree with them.
There are hourly employees thatwork very smart, work very
efficiently and they bill lessand in turn they get compensated
(30:34):
less.
There's really not a ton ofincentive for being more
efficient Salary it kind ofseems like whether we outperform
by 50% or we underperform by50%, like this is my cut.
And so I'm curious, as you weremaking those chess moves that
(30:55):
related to personnel, was thereanything that you did with
compensation that you found tohelp get people rowing the boat
in the same direction.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
You're hitting a big item because I'm philosophically
very torn on this issue rightnow.
Item uh, because I'm I'mphilosophically very torn on
this issue right now.
Uh, no, thanks to, uh, danielPink.
So, um, I don't know if you'veread the book drive by Daniel
Pink, um, but the wholemotivation 1.0, 2.0, um, there's
a lot of evidence there's waymore evidence than there was at
the time that I was making thesedecisions that motivation 1.0,
(31:27):
um, you know, get eat what you,you, you kill, kind of a thing,
has some really significantlimitations.
And it doesn't matter what thecompensation model is, it's
really really limited.
And then motivation 2.0 doesn'thave any answers.
It just it just shows thatthat's wrong.
So there's not a whole lot ofmodels out there that are there
(31:48):
and there's definitely not a onesize fits all.
But I will say one of the thingsthat gave us a tremendous
amount of success in the kind ofmiddle that they completed we
use that very heavily somewherebetween 70 and as little as like
(32:16):
25% of most people'scompensation was tied to what
they do.
It's hard to make that one sizefits all because a lot of folks
don't fit into that, andincreasingly so as you scale.
And one of the things thatyou'll find is, in the earlier
stages, what you kill, what youeat is pretty much the most
effective strategy.
It's a very, very effectivestrategy, but as you go further,
(32:37):
it has some serious constraintswhen it comes to scalability.
It has some serious constraintswhen it comes to teamwork and
motivation sustainablemotivation and motivation,
sustainable motivation.
And it also has some seriousconstraints in that it does not
value stability, which, as youget bigger, you find you need a
stable position to be strongfrom.
(32:59):
So, yes, as much as you can,especially early on, especially
when you have operators, youwant to, you really want to go.
They want to be paid that way,right, like they want to be paid
by what they produce.
So here's the, here's the, the,the principle that, I think,
kind of supersedes all of thiscompensation strategy.
(33:28):
Compensation strategy thatinspires the highest degree of
ownership andself-accountability in the type
of people that are needed atthat stage.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I like that I like that.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
So in the stage that uh that you know you're in
coming out of I'm not real surewhere you are today, but uh, and
for those who you know havehave fired the man and are
progressing through where, tothe extent that you're dependent
on operators, then, yes, that'svery true, operators want to be
, they want to have some controlover what I want, and they're
very results oriented.
(33:57):
So it's it's very helpful, but,like processors and synergists,
it's not anywhere near aseffective.
In fact, it can trigger fearresponses in them that are
debilitating.
So the biggest principle isthat compensation, or the type
of compensation, is largelyirrelevant.
What the goal is is a anexceptional degree of ownership
(34:18):
and self accountability.
So if you pay people in a waythat causes them to take more
ownership, that's the rightanswer, no matter how you've
paid them.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I like that, that the more ownership equals better.
And my next question relates tooperating systems and I will
share with you and to anybodywho's listened to this show for
a while knows I'm a huge fan ofthe entrepreneurial operating
system from the book Traction.
I think I'm in my eighthimplementation of it this year
(34:53):
and it has been remarkable interms of setting long-term goals
and then breaking those downinto actionable steps, and I
think that kind of goes alongwith what you're talking about
is giving ownership to teammembers or more ownership, and
so are there any?
And I would call that kind ofan out-of-the-box operating
(35:17):
system.
Of course I'm in my eighth yearof implementation.
I would say we do it 90% by thebook, but are there any
operating systems that you'veused or you've consulted on that
you find to be incrediblyhelpful in getting out of that
grind stage and more into alegitimate operating business?
(35:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So the operating systems I like to call them
operator systems because that'sreally what they do they're the
least restrictive set ofmechanisms that allow operators
to do their best work whenthey're used properly, right,
and so the operator systems aremost helpful in what I call
stage three, that reluctantmanager stage we talked about
(36:02):
earlier.
What's wrong with these people?
Those people aren't the same asyou.
They're not visionaries likeyou, and so what EOS does very
well is it takes what thevisionary knows, wants and needs
and interprets that in a wayand then protects the operators
in their ability to execute on.
That Does it very, very well,right, top to bottom.
That's really what it does,which creates more freedom for
the visionary, and it's just,it's magical.
(36:25):
So EOS is a good one.
Very, very closely related toEOS is something called System
and Soul, which has a little bitmore of a cultural edge to it
that I really like and found myclients appreciate.
It's a little bit easier to doan implementation and not be
skewered by the community fornot being like drinking the
(36:45):
Kool-Aid and going 100%.
So a very similar framework,but has a much deeper cultural
edge to it, and that's what Itend to implement with my
clients, a lot of similaritiesbetween them and when you look
at it fundamentally like, eos isjust bits and pieces pulled
from a bunch of other operatingsystems.
They all share the same thing.
So what do you need?
(37:06):
You can use EOS, that's great.
What you need is this you needto have a healthy number one,
number two relationship.
If you don't, it's just a waybigger lift for you as an
individual.
But to the extent that you canget a healthy person in charge
right hand man or woman and youcan get that relationship
working well, which they dothrough the visionary integrator
(37:27):
and the same page meetingthat's a way of solving that
problem.
Having two people leading fromthe very center is very, very
effective.
You've got to have a set ofleaders who at least can execute
on the things that you wantthem to do right.
There are various degrees ofhow much input you need from
them throughout the stage, butyou've got to have some
(37:50):
semblance of a leadershipstructure.
You have to have really clearexpectations, right?
Everyone has in numbers theexample of this.
Here's how we measure yoursuccess and we actually measure
it right.
So there's accountability thatcomes with that, and then you
have to have a way of linkingwhere you want to go, your
long-term vision, to what you'redoing now, right, and they do
(38:12):
that through the vision tractionorganizer with you know the
longer term goals I forget whatthey're named all the way down
to the quarterly rocks.
And then, last but not least,you have to have a regular
meeting rhythm.
It's not every week for everycompany, some it's a little less
, some it's actually a littlebit more frequent, but that's
what makes EOS work for folks,and they've done a great job at
(38:34):
putting all those piecestogether.
But if you look at anyoperating system, they're all
going to include those sameelements and so long as you have
those in place, that's going todo 90% of what an operating
system can do during that time.
Now, just quickly, it'simportant to note what an
operating system doesn't do.
It doesn't tell you that yourvision, mission, values are
(38:55):
right, like.
It doesn't tell you that you'regoing after the right thing.
It doesn't tell you that whatyou do is valuable to your
customers, right, that you'vegot a high quality offering, and
so one of the things we have tobe cautious of and I see this
more in the EOS community thanmost others is an operating
system is nothing apart fromthose things.
(39:17):
Right, it assumes that you havethe right answers to some of
those questions, and so we haveto be a little conscientious and
make sure we're actuallyplugging the right inputs into
the operating system.
Otherwise, you can do a wholelot of work and be exactly where
you are today.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I think that is a tremendous, tremendous opinion
on operating systems, and thatthey can guide you in the wrong
direction, and KPIs andmeasurable outcomes are really
important, and so I really likedthat.
I have been a disciple of thetraction program for a long time
.
However, I've I've had badyears in business when I've been
(39:57):
running it and I've made poordecisions while I've been
running it, and so I do thinkthat that's a helpful thing to
point out is what it doesn'tachieve.
And so now, scott, I think wecould probably talk for two or
three hours, but I do want to berespectful of your time and I
want to save some time for ourfire round.
(40:17):
But at the beginning of thispodcast, you had mentioned that
you had an experience where youheard something that was very
high impact to you on a podcastand it changed your life, and so
you know, talking to the Firingthe man Nation, this is a group
of people that are e-commerceentrepreneurs, people that want
to fire the man.
(40:37):
What would be something thatyou'd like to share with them
that you think will be pivotalin their overall journey?
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah, the number one lesson that came from all of
those lessons and from helping.
I've had the opportunity tohelp around 20,000 different
entrepreneurs at this point, andwhen you do something that many
times, you start to see apattern and there's no one thing
that's going to grow yourbusiness every time right?
There's a lot of this like, ifyou just do this, your business
is gonna explode.
(41:05):
No-transcript major on in eachstage, but they're different in
(41:34):
every stage.
So the biggest thing I'd hopefolks recognize, and that I wish
I knew early on, is thatwhatever's creating success or
not creating success right nowis dependent on the stage you're
in right now.
And so that means two things.
One, you better know what stageyou're in so that you can just
do the things that are helpfuland not have to worry about the
30 things that aren't.
And number two, when yousucceed, it's going to push you
(41:57):
into the next stage.
Don't be surprised that it does.
Just recognize that this stagehas changed and take on and
embrace the new set of skillsthat are needed at that stage.
So if you do that, yourpropensity to get stuck is
almost zero because, like thepath, it's the same for everyone
.
The stages are zero mystery.
Once you know what they are,it's just like walking down a
(42:19):
road with road signs, but youjust need to know where to look,
and so my biggest thing wouldbe that it's not about what you
do.
It's about what you do rightnow.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's huge.
That's huge and you couldprobably do a mic drop and we
could end the episode with thatone, but that is really really
good advice.
And, yeah, that's really goodadvice.
Now, scott, we have a sectionof the show called the fire
round.
It's four questions.
We ask everybody at the end ofthe show Are you ready?
I'm ready, let's do it.
(42:50):
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Favorite book.
I have to give a shout out toLes and his book Predictable
Success.
Again, it's a huge part of mystory and if someone is
listening and hasn't read it,you are absolutely missing out.
I joke, les is kind of theMorpheus of the business world.
Once you see the world throughthe lens of these different
stages, you will not be able tounsee it.
(43:14):
So sorry, not sorry, but it'llchange the way you look at your
business and just about everybusiness you work with.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I love it.
I love it.
I'm adding that to my readinglist Number two.
What are your hobbies?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
reading list Number two what are your hobbies?
What are my hobbies?
I still love to play soccer tothis day.
So Saturday mornings for me, Irun out and, like an old man,
play dad soccer, which istremendous, but it's a blast.
I get to bring the kids outevery once in a while too, so we
have fun Outstanding.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
What is one thing that you do not miss about
working for the man?
What is?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
one thing that you do not miss about working for the
man oh gosh, the thing that Idon't miss is having my wings
clipped when you like.
For me it's a little unfairbecause to some extent I was the
man, but I did it with apartner, and I don't have a
partner in this endeavor, andthe degree of freedom that you
get flying solo versus having tostay in sync with a partner is
(44:05):
pretty magical.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So I don't miss you know having to ask someone
else's opinion before I moveforward.
Very nice, very nice.
And number four what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I think it is principally that they either
intuitively or intentionallyunderstand what stage they're in
and deploy the right strategiesfor that stage.
So just to expand on that realquickly a lot of folks you'll
see and I saw this a ton earlyin my career we had all these
folks that are starting out.
It was awesome, it was reallycool.
And then, like three, four orfive years later, some of the
(44:44):
best ones I would have banked onearly and you know when we
started, we're coming back andsaying, hey, it didn't work.
Well, what the heck is that?
How does that happen?
And so the best entrepreneursare not good at a thing, they
are good at adapting to thething.
Going back to my answer rightbefore our round here so when
(45:04):
you can adapt to the thing, yourability to succeed goes through
the roof.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Outstanding, outstanding.
Now, scott, who is your idealclient at scale architects?
What type of companies do youwork with?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, so I do a ton of work, um, with folks that are
uh, in in the, the language ofthe book, which we'll make sure
folks can get a copy of it,there's stages three, four, five
.
They're managers, leaders andchief executives, but
founder-led businesses usuallyhave 15 or more employees and
are looking to grow rapidly.
We help folks that are tryingto scale all the time and that
window from, you know, 10 to 15to 150, something like that is
(45:45):
where we do most of our mosttransformational work.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Outstanding, and if people are interested in getting
in touch with you, what's thebest way?
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Yeah, so I would recommend kind of a two for one.
Here is head toscalearchitectscom forward slash
founders, and there you canactually get a free copy of the
full book, the FoundersEvolution that goes through all
the stages and everything youneed to know about them.
You can get a digital copy forfree there's no payment at all
and when you do that you'll getan opportunity to schedule some
(46:13):
time with me so you can do thatas well.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Outstanding and to all of our listeners, check out
Secrets of the High Demand Coach.
This is a podcast.
This is where I discoveredScott, and I discovered Scott
and you do an outstanding jobthere and really enjoy tuning in
.
So I will post links to all ofthat in the show notes.
Scott, I want to thank you foryour time today and looking
forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
David, thanks for having me on.
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