Unlocking Potential: The Role of a Fractional COO with Ben Speich

🚀 Dive into the world of fractional leadership with Ben Speich, a fractional COO & EOS integrator, as he shares insights on stepping into roles that bring structure and efficiency to founder-led businesses. #TheWaterTrough Podcast! #BusinessLeadership #FractionalProfessionals 

Transcript

Ed Drozda 0:10

Welcome to The Water Trough, where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Welcome back to the Water Trough, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and today I'm joined by Ben Speich. Ben is a fractional COO and EOS integrator, who's based in Austin, Texas. He works with founder-led businesses, typically in that five to 50 employee range, where growth has outpaced the operational infrastructure which holds it together. His work sits at the intersection of leadership, structure, team accountability, and the systems that make execution actually happen. He's not an advisor who hands you a deck and leaves. He builds the operating model and he runs it alongside of you. Ben, welcome.

Ben Speich 1:32

Hey, good to be here.

Ed Drozda 1:34

It's nice to see you, Ben. How are things in Texas today?

Ben Speich 1:38

You know, they're fairly good. We got good weather going on, which is always nice to get into the springtime. Looking forward to Easter weekend and some relaxing time soon.

Ed Drozda 1:49

Sounds like a great plan. Well, let's jump into what brought you to your current role as a fractional COO. I understand you left an executive role. Can you tell us about that transition?

Ben Speich 2:01

Yeah. I had realized before even going into that role I've been really good at working myself out of a job, which I think people don't see as a good thing. What I mean by that is I wanna go on vacation and not be bothered. You know what I mean? I don't need that pat on the back to come back to work and go, everything's on fire when you're not here. I enjoy when things just work and they go hey, welcome back, and then I just go right back into my day. I think that scene, especially transitioning from pre COVID times when you were in person to remote times, I think that was a newer kind of realization for people, like they had to be needed, and if they weren't there it would fall apart. That was their job security. So, coming into even the previous two to three jobs that I had, I started realizing I'm able to make stuff happen and make stuff work without me being around and being in every meeting, and that that's a good thing. So I started to move companies and as each one came in, found a little bit of the what's working, what's not working, set it up and then go okay, what do you guys wanna do now? What's the next thing? And the full-time roles that I did that with, not necessarily planned, but we came to the realization of oh, if you did all that I guess I don't need you. So then I was like, what if that was the point? What if that's just what I started with in the interview? I'm gonna build something where you don't need me, and then I'm gonna leave. That's how I got into this, and that's the fractional part of fractional. I don't plan on being with one company forever. I plan on handling multiple companies, a couple hours a week, and then I'm able to leave when they're up on their own and can run it themselves.

Ed Drozda 3:55

Would you say that the outcome was the result of that circumstance, or it was what you were looking for all along? Did you actually help it along or did you decide after the fact, well that sounds like that's where I belong?

Ben Speich 4:11

I think it was a realization of that's what I am doing. The more I did it before, it was very much on finding projects to do and then that being done, and then going onto the next project. At my company where I started my professional career let's say, I created every role that I got promoted into, meaning the role didn't exist before I had it, because I just kept doing things, and making things better, and along the way was like hey, no one's doing this now. Do you mind if I do it and then, yeah sure. New role. And there we go. So I think it's always what I've been doing, but I didn't realize it until farther along. Then post COVID, the world changed a little bit and this word fractional started getting thrown around and I think people were familiar with CFOs. I think they've been doing it for a long time in the CFO space. I think the CMO, the marketing side, people understood you could come in and build the marketing plan and then leave and a marketing person can execute it. In the fractional sales manager stuff, I think it started with workshops and consulting, and then it got into I'm hiring an entire team, so can I bring somebody on just temporarily? But it hadn't really been done in operations, or at least popularized until post COVID.

Ed Drozda 5:42

What do you suppose gave rise to the slow development of the fractional COO? The fractional CFO goes back as long as I can remember. I knew people back in the '90s, in the '80s for that matter that were essentially doing the same thing. So why did the fractional COO take so long to come around?

Ben Speich 5:59

I don't know exactly. I do feel though it was, as people and mainly CEOs, I would say founders in the medium and small business space, I think a lot of the assumptions was what we're doing is unique and there's no way an outside person can really do it. Where they started realizing okay, CFO is numbers, right? You don't really have unique numbers. Maybe you have a little bit of stuff that's funky, but for the most part you can analyze numbers and that's pretty much written. Then I think there's different sales strategies and that's where you can bring in specialized consultants if you're doing certain styles of sales. But I think everybody had this assumption that the way I operate is unique. Our special sauce is all this internal stuff. I think it took a while for people to realize that there is a repeatable system that multiple businesses can run on, and have success on that in a standardized fashion. I still find resistance to it. That's one of probably the biggest objections I hear. You don't know our industry, and I usually respond with I don't want to. I will, I'll learn it. I'm a very smart person. I've proven that through what I've done. But, I think the benefit of fractional, consultants, and coaches is you have experience from many different places to bring in. So I think people had that you don't know my business, so you can't come in and tell me how it works, and now it's starting to be, hey since you don't know my business, can you come in and tell me what's broken? And then we rebuild it from there. It's a bit of a mind shift that I took. I just think took time, and I think COVID, as weird as it was, I think it was a big. Part of that because it forced everybody to be remote. It wasn't you're in the office so you're having success, it was actually, okay what are you doing? That was, I think, the right shift that it needed.

Ed Drozda 8:13

I understand the piece about industry neutrality, if you will. I look at it the same way. You mentioned coaches and as a business coach I often have people say to me, what industry do you work with? And as you have said, I don't have an industry that I work with because I come in at a fundamental space, as do you. In your case it's a bit more refined than mine. It was rather fortunate for you to find this that fit you. In this last job you're going like, duh. You even said all this time, have I been trying to work myself out of a job? Boy, what was that like? That sounds like a light bulb moment.

Ben Speich 8:56

It was, and it was fun to do. I found myself in this transition between roles and I had a pretty nice network of people. So, I messaged all the people and I said hey, I don't know exactly what I'm doing next, but I got a little bit of time to figure it out. This is kind of what I'm looking for and I had originally been saying I wanna find another full-time job. And somebody messaged me and said hey, I have a couple people who are doing this fractional thing. Do you want to talk to them? And I said sure, I don't know exactly what that is, but why not? I was thinking more of okay, if they're fractional helping somebody and then they go you now need a full-time person, that I would be one person that's like heads up, I'm looking for a job. But the more people I spoke to, the more I was like this sounds fun, this sounds like a good time. The community in the fractional space has been absolutely amazing. Everybody's been very open, here's my playbooks and here's how to do it, and stuff like this. It's been a great community to be a part of. There are definitely people who are trying to make money off of fractionals and get you to sign up for their thing and stuff like that. But for the most part it's very welcoming community to say here's how I do it. You're welcome to repeat it and do it where you want to do it. It is a blue ocean. There is plenty of fish in the sea who need fractional help. There is no shortage, and I can count on one hand the number of fractional COOs I know in Austin, Texas. It's not flooded by any means, but it is now I think more so a starting to realize that the personality fit with who you're working with more so than I'm in the mood for, or I think I'm ready for a fractional, they're more understanding that it's not an industry thing. It's more of a personality connection. That shift is happening, it's definitely happening. It's a fun group and that's what got me hooked, meeting all these people and going yeah, you're right, this would be a cool thing to do. So, a lot of fun.

Ed Drozda 11:09

Let's take a step back here for a moment. In the beginning I introduced you as a fractional COO and an EOS integrator, and I realize I never took the time to really get into the definition of those two terms. So why don't we go there before we continue on?

Ben Speich 11:30

Yeah, it's a really fun way to introduce myself when I do networking is to say I'm a fractional COO. Everybody gets a kind of a look on their face and goes, okay. Then I go, yeah exactly, now let me keep going. It's not the best taught way to introduce yourself, but it's a way to do it. Fractional meaning I work with multiple businesses at one time. During the week it's about five to 10 hours per company, and that can be broken up however you want. Some companies I'll do very heavy Mondays and then light the rest of the week. Some of them it's all sprinkled in. But my calendar just gets filled up with different meetings and I jump from one to the next. Very much a testament to how organized and structured I am, in all of my things is that I'm able to jump from thing to thing. And then that usually goes every week. The other side of fractional is I also don't want it to be forever. It's usually some sort of project based or timeline thing. Generally six to 12 months. So there's transition periods in there, and then periods of training where I walk myself out as well. That's the fractional piece of it all. I think it's also a little bit misunderstood. I just did a blog article about the difference between coaching, consulting, and fractional. Those are three levels of interactions that we have, right? Coaching, very much of a one-on-one situation, guiding things, listening, business therapist in a way. I'm sure that you run into that. I've had a business coach and it's, here's my issues I'm dealing with this week, and they give you new perspective on things. Great relationships, I love coaches. Then you get into your consultant side, and those are typically ones I find that are, here's the thing that I do, here's the template that I use. Maybe they meet with you a couple times a week as a training, but they're not in it with you. They're not next to you going, okay now let's start actually building it and seeing how it executes. Even potentially getting in front of customers with you and things like this, whereas fractional, I feel like I'm very much inside businesses doing things. I'm building stuff. I'm working with their client issues. I'm working with different things to really improve the operational flow of it, but I'm there with them doing it so I can experience the hiccups and problems, not just sending templates and moving on.

Ed Drozda 14:16

So then, what is an EOS integrator?

Ben Speich 14:20

That's the next difference, the COO versus the integrator piece. COO is like more of the broader sense of operations. It can lean in any direction of the company. The EOS integrator, EOS is Entrepreneurial Operating System. It's a book or comes from a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. He wrote that and it's basically a framework for structuring your business. He will probably say this if you ask him, but it is nothing new and revolutionary. It's just all of the things in one place. It's a very easy, step-by-step playbook. It's very much a manual for how to do it, so it reads in a weekend. You need this, you need this, you need this, and you fill in this massive checkbox of all of the stuff that you need, but you then have to apply it. The integrator is the person who's taking the ideas from the visionary, from the CEO typically, and filtering them into do these new ideas, support our current objectives, and if they do let's convert and systemize them so that everybody can execute on it. If they don't, we need to filter or triage these into future thinking or future review. The integrator's that person and doing fractional integrator is a very specific part of COO, with a different set of hours than a fractional COO. There's different pieces, but in the EOS community fractional integrator is how I would say what I do, and if I'm not in that community I'll say fractional COO.

Ed Drozda 16:08

Thanks, Ben. I really appreciate that further explanation of the fractional and the EOS integrator. So let's go back to where we left off. We were talking about the importance of personality in this relationship? Elaborate on that a bit.

Ben Speich 16:28

Yeah, I think it's an overlooked aspect of business. There's the hire somebody that you would have a beer with kind of mentality, and there's some truth to that. But I think it's just an outdated way of saying it. I think there is a yin and the yang relationship between a CEO and a COO, a visionary and integrator, the driver of the ideas of the company versus the executor of those ideas in the company. There has to be a relationship there and it has to be extremely healthy and it has to be built on trust. And it has to be something where you can both be vulnerable with each other. I think there's a few of those things that if you don't have it's gonna be a rough relationship. It very much is like a marriage. I joke all the time that when I get into a contract with a client I want my wife to be jealous. I want her to be like oh my God, stop talking about whoever it is, because that's how close I need to be aligned with this person so that when I'm in the room and they're not there, I am able to bring and say the things that they would say. And vice versa I have to trust that when I'm not in the room, they're gonna go you need to talk to Ben about that. For a CEO that's a very difficult thing to say, especially as the founder of a small business to say, that's not me who's supposed to solve that. That's a scary feeling for them. That's where I think personality is so important. It's radical candor that you need to have with somebody to say hey, that's mine. You need to give me that. We have to be on that same wavelength. So I think personality's a undervalued skill or attribute when you are picking a second in command.

Ed Drozda 18:22

I agree with you 100%, maybe 200%. I think that the importance of personality is not recognized in business in general, and I believe that those personalities foster trust and the trust opens possibility But I think in some cases, in some circles, it's seen as too weak. It lacks the business macho, if you will. That's unfortunate in my opinion, because these are things that level the playing field and make things more comfortable to do. You pointed out a really important thing. The founder, the owner, the big boss if you will, has a lot of ownership and ego attached to their title, to their person. Some are neutral about the ego part, but nonetheless this is their baby. It's important to acknowledge that this does exist. I feel strongly about this sort of thing. You talk about personality and the need to have an understanding. I'm sensing humility, responsibility, and clarity. What role do they play in you being a, quote, outsider? Fitting in? What would be considered a potentially awkward position for you?

Ben Speich 19:45

Humility is one. I enjoy being able to play the ignorant card in meetings with my clients. Now we can say it's being humble, because I'm not gonna walk in there and act like I know what everything is going on. I'm not gonna say no, I've already done this before. Just follow me and do what I say. But going in there with an ignorant sense of you know, how does this work? How do you guys do it? Why do you do it that way? I think the ignorance gives you a very inquisitive ability. If you are walking in there like you're the macho, hot stud, you're not gonna be able to learn about that client because there's gonna be no questions from you. You're just gonna be, here's what you need to do, follow my orders, that kind of thing. And so I believe you have to be humble to be able to do that. I think they're one and the same, and I think it's very nice when you are conversating with people when you can tell the difference between a humble person and a not humble person because they're listening to the things that you are saying, and they're thinking about those things instead of just waiting to speak again. They're thinking about the things that are coming out of your mouth. There's definite ties to humility in there. So I think that has to happen very quickly, almost first in all of this kind of thing. And I think through that humility and that comfortable ignorance is clarity in what is needed. Clarity in where the company is lacking. Clarity in where there's conflict. Clarity in the disconnect between the CEO's vision or a founder's vision in the team's execution. I don't think you can get clarity if you are not listening and not asking questions and just throwing out here's how you should do it. Those two things are extremely related and important. And those two things together will give people accountability and they will give people the responsibility. That will come, if you have clarity on what you're supposed to deliver, and that's why I really push those things. I talk about them, probably way too much. But, they're amazing pieces to push forward.

Ed Drozda 22:10

Do you use your own experiences then, with your clients? I surmise that you are a humble person, not just for the sake of being able to disarm people, but that you are a humble person. And so when you're dealing with a humble person, they're more inclined to tell you things, more things than they might otherwise want to tell you. Now, we both know you need that if you're gonna be effective, right? If there's not the ability to get that information, or as you suggested, clarity, you're gonna be of no value to them. But when you're engaged, once you've made this entree and now they know who you are, and they've begun to develop this sense of trust, do you find yourself engaging in conversations from your own experience that are relevant to what's going on, to illuminate and to help further their development?

Ben Speich 23:16

Yeah, it's a lot of storytelling. It's like, okay here's the situation that I was in before, not everybody reacts to those the same way. Sometimes it is very much a real world storytelling, like in scenario ways like, okay this is how I think it would work right now, versus let me reflect back a minute and explain something that happened to me, and then let's see if we can tie that into being relevant today. Having a lot of that stuff in your wheelhouse is amazing. I do a lot of blogging, posting, and writing, so I have lists and lists and lists of all of these different nuances and stories and things that I've developed. This is why journaling and all of that is so important. You have these things to reference and fall back on. Real world examples are always the best, so I do a lot of that stuff. My wife will also say that I do a lot of idioms that people don't know about anymore. I apologize to people when I say I have to get up on my soapbox and then realize I'm talking to a bunch of 20 year olds, and I'm like for those of you who don't know what a soapbox means, you know, uh, so things like that. But I do really enjoy the art of storytelling, rather than instruction.

Ed Drozda 24:32

I would think that when you're in a situation such as yours that really does help to further build trust, and to bring solution by virtue of experience.

Ben Speich 24:45

Absolutely. Even if it's not direct, I think people misunderstand that and I mean misunderstand as in I'm too young or not experienced enough or something to be able to do that. And I'm like, anybody who's lived on this earth for any amount of time has had very similar experiences. Maybe it's not, oh I lost the business. Not everybody's done that, but you have lost things and you do understand failure, finding a lesson, and then retrying and succeeding. There's so many things that I think we all experience, regardless of who we are and regardless of age, and when somebody can see and connect those dots, that ability to see and connect those dots is not an age requirement. You don't have to hit 40 and then go, oh now I can start getting advice. I think there's this misconception with that. So if there are people out there, listening or whatever, that just can get things, you know, and it's hard to say what it is, but when you get something you can start applying that and sharing that gift to other people in a very similar way. That eventually can turn into coaching, or consulting, or fractional operations, because you've gotten that thing that you can share with the world. So I do find there's younger people who are like, how do you get into this? And I'm like, you're probably already there. The fact that you're asking, you're probably already along your way. So I don't think it has anything to do with age. I think there's a maturity, if anything else to it. It's an interesting quirk that I hope some people can start to see that path for themselves.

Ed Drozda 26:35

You found yourself getting things done and somewhat impatiently waiting, now what do I do? That was your experience, right?

Ben Speich 26:45

Yeah, absolutely. Very early on somebody had joked, I wish I could remember her name, she had joked idle hands are the devil's work. Since then when I was working with her, she would always ping me, what are you working on now? And if I didn't have anything, she would send me to somebody else to see if this person has anything. Because she saw that early on I was able to do that. It wasn't a supervisor or anything like that, it was just another coworker who realized I love to do stuff. I think that's when I started realizing that it didn't really matter if I was doing stuff for a colleague or doing it for the CEO. I just liked to do stuff and it was less about who it was for and getting over that intimidation factor and stuff like that as a young person and just saying, well hey, how about I just do the thing and that's what I'll worry about. I won't worry about the rest of it, and that started to build confidence of itself. It was a good time to realize that stuff, and it's fun to see how it's evolved into an actual career.

Ed Drozda 27:52

That's great. You're making a case for the fact that there's so many opportunities out there for self-employment, and age is not a factor. There's a lot of different things to do at any age.

Ben Speich 28:04

Oh, there's countless, especially now the age that we're in, it's getting easier and easier to solve problems faster. Or at least attempt to solve the problem faster, because first try is not always the one that's gonna fix it, but you can iterate on it so much quicker now. Why wait for your career, or the age, or that next promotion, or whatever. Just start doing it. And, don't worry about all the rest of the stuff, let's just solve the problem and then keep moving. So yeah, it's a fun time to be doing what I'm doing, in the AI world and all of that stuff. It's been exciting years figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing with myself.

Ed Drozda 28:42

As we all must do. So Ben, our time has come to an end. Before we go is there anything you'd like to leave us with?

Ben Speich 28:52

There was some quote that I saw, I think it was Gary Vee, where people were whining I'm already 40 or I'm already 50, or I should have done this last week. So what? Do it now. It's the best time to plant a tree. There's two times to do it, 50 years ago and today. Do it scared, do it tired, do it unsure how it's gonna turn out, do it unprepared, but do it and then learn from it as quickly as you can and try again. I joke with my wife 'cause she's like, how do you know how to do this? I'm like, I just click on stuff and see what happens, and I'm really good at learning, adapting, and continuing on. So, yeah if I can leave anything, I'll leave with that.

Ed Drozda 29:34

Great advice, thank you so much for that. Well, Ben, I want to thank you for being here today. It's been a real pleasure talking to you.

Ben Speich 29:41

Yeah. Absolute pleasure. I would love to do this again. Hit me up when we can do session two.

Ed Drozda 29:47

Sounds like a plan. Folks, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and here at The Water Trough as always, I wanna wish you a healthy business. And as Ben has told us, if you're hesitating about something, why not just go out and give it a go. Thanks folks.