Hero to Architect: The Leadership Shift You Must Make to Scale

Most business owners say they want “growth”… but what they really need is scaling—getting bigger while becoming more efficient. In this episode, Josh and Chrissy break down why so many small and mid-sized businesses hit the same painful glass ceilings (hello: $1M, $5M, $10M) and what has to change at each level. 

Chrissy dives into the hardest shift founders face between $1M and $5M: it’s not strategy, it’s surrender. If your identity is still tied to being the hero (rainmaker/fixer/closer/everything person), you have become the bottleneck. She explains the “hero to architect” upgrade and the three traps that keep CEOs stuck: control over capacity, presence over process, and approval over alignment.

Then the conversation gets practical: before you even think about doubling your headcount, you need the 3 S’s in place:
✅ Structure (clear roles, reporting, decision rights, SOPs)
✅ Standards (performance + behavior expectations that scale)
✅ Stewardship (leadership capability + feedback systems that catch issues early) 

Josh brings the operations + marketing side: fix the leaks before you turn on the faucet. Scaling a messy process just gives you a bigger mess. You’ll also hear why marketing budgets must evolve as revenue grows and why “just spending more” eventually hits diminishing returns, rising CPA, and channel saturation (yes, there’s only so much search volume for your best keywords). 

They also tackle the Tech Stack Trap: software doesn’t fix broken processes… it just scales them faster. (Jet engine + shopping cart = accurate.) 

Quick hits at the end include when it makes sense to bring in fractional leadership (CFO/COO/CMO), and one book every scaling founder should read (Who Not How). 

👉 Want help building the machine for your next growth ceiling? Visit https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/ and connect with us.

If you're looking to get help with your culture, or to help out an entire group, reach out to Josh and Chrissy today!  We would love to see how we can help you, your business, or your event. Contact us!

ClarityHR is your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it’s compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate — we’ve got your back. So if you’re ready to stop using duct-tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to ClarityHR.com

If you're looking to start your own podcast or maybe you just want to add the next level of professionalism to your podcast and brand, you should be working with the producers behind The Business Fix at Pedal Stomper Productions. Click the link to learn more about how you can get your podcast to the next level. https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com

🎙 Ready to Fix What’s Holding Your Business Back?
The Business Fix podcast delivers real-world strategies to grow your business, lead your team, and reclaim your time. New episodes drop weekly—packed with insights for business owners and managers who want to do better.

🔗 Connect with Chrissy and Josh at https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/ for more tools, support, and clarity.

Enjoy the episode? Leave us a review, share it with your leadership team, and let us know your biggest takeaway in the comments!

Transcript

0:30

We all like growth, but really in a business it's not just growing, it's you should call it scaling. Yes. It has nothing to do with fish. No, it has nothing to do with weights. No, not not usually at least. Growth. Yeah. Growth. You've done a lot of that. Yeah. Positive kind. Good. Most of the time. Good. I always like to say I'm a growing boy. It's just horizontally instead of vertically. Oh, Lord. We'll be right back. She's the CEO. He's the marketing and operations guy. If it's broken, you need the business fix. It's springtime ish. I love that you think it's springtime. Springtime adjacent ish. The calendar says it's springtime. It's getting there. Yeah. Um, with spring comes new things. Yeah. And because of what you do. Yeah. With every podcast. Yes, I decided that I needed to go find something. Oh, dear. What did you get? I have a present for you. Are these letter people magnets? That is letter people magnets. I'm so excited. I told you I was gonna get you the letter people. And I always said that facetiously. Josh. And then I went online and looked at letter people. I found them. They do? They were on eBay for like eighty five dollars each. And I'm like, Chrissy's not getting letter people. Oh no letter people. It's fine. I wouldn't spend eighty five dollars each. Each. Right. I'm like, this is. I am not a kindergarten teacher. I do not need the letter people. Right, right. I mean, Chrissy needs letter people. She does not need sixteen hundred dollars of letter people. So then I saw the letter people refrigerator magnets, and I thought, oh, yes, yes, I can't wait. Like, I know it's crinkly and it's gonna drive everybody nuts, but I'm like, I'm so excited. I have to open them. Oh, yeah. No. Open, open open. Opening them. I'm spreading them out on the table. And the nice thing is, they're all gonna stay together. Stuck together because they're magnets. So they will go on your refrigerator. Oh, um, my family's gonna be so excited. Yeah. Don't ask me what I would spell with them. Oh, I can't wait. We're gonna have such a good time with these people. Oh, they're so fun. I'm preparing. Which letter person am I using today? Yeah. No. So while I play the letter people, you play with the letter people. I am. We're going to talk about, like why you play with the letter people. I'm going to get people prepared for scaling. Um, now that Chrissy has a toy and she's distracted. Ah. Found it. Oh, good. She had to go digging for that one. Most small businesses, most medium businesses, they hit these ceilings where there is just. It's the four minute mile. It is the the sub nine second one hundred meter dash or sub ten second one hundred meter dash. It is these just barriers where it is just like air. And once you get past it, like it's pretty good sailing until you hit the next one. Yeah. You hit the next ceiling. Right, right. Next ceiling. In most cases, there's a reason why it's called a ceiling because you smack into it. Mhm. There's not a hey look we got this and we're just going to ease right on through. This is not a soft landing. Um, this is kind of like when you're about nine years old and figured out I am too tall to jump up and down on my bed. Oh, yeah. We we we all remember that moment as a child. I remember hitting the ceiling fan, whacking me in the back of the head. Oh, no. My bed was fairly tall. And, uh, that could explain some of the things I say in the podcast. Yeah. It does. Uh. That being said, as someone starts to move, like, especially from the CEO is it's their job to push through those ceilings to figure out the ways around it. It's not anyone else's job that squarely lies on the CEO for the most part. Yeah, as you hit those one million, as you hit the five million dollars Mark's, what's the hardest part of that identity shift that like companies have to go through that in many cases they get wrong. Yeah. So I think the hardest part it's not strategy. It's really surrender. And so you know at one million you're still the hero right? You're the rainmaker. You're the fixer. You're the closer. You're the you're the guy. I mean, and your identity is built around output. And you feel valuable because of what you are personally producing. But somewhere between that one and five million mark, there's an identity shift, right? And that identity becomes the bottleneck. And here's where most CEOs get it wrong. They try to grow the business without growing themselves. We've talked about this in other episodes. It's really important because you want to hold on to being the doer instead of becoming the designer. So there's there's three big identity mistakes I think that happen during that shift. The first is control over capacity. So they equate letting go to losing control and in reality refusing to let go caps companies capacity. The second is presence over process. So I mean they rely on being in the room. They have to be there. Everything has to still revolve around them instead of building systems that work without them. And then that third is approval over alignment. They still really want to be liked by everybody. They need to be the favorite instead of being clear with the team. So instead of telling everybody this is what needs to happen, they just want everyone to love them. And that's a hard shift, because I think it feels like you're losing relevance in a lot of ways, but you're not. You're upgrading from relevance to responsibility. So you got to grow up the weight. Did you also get out the r? I didn't, but I can find it very quickly. Keep looking. So yeah, I mean I think you can't scale if your identity still tied to being indispensable. So that's I mean, summary of that question that you asked. It's really about the identity shift from hero to architect. And that's where most CEOs, they're either going to level up or they're going to stall out. Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree. See that all the time when you see it on the HR side of things. Yeah. This is the one that I always think that people um, they do not put proper protection over the fan until the fan has been hit. Yes. By large amounts of fecal matter. Yes. Um, what are the HR like infrastructure pieces that have to be in place before a company tries to, like, scale up or let's say, double? Yeah. So if you're about to double your headcount, you need more infrastructure as opposed to hustle. I know people think like, oh, I'll just hustle harder. No you will not. That's not that's going to make things messy. So from an HR standpoint, I think there's three things that you absolutely have to have in place before you try to scale your people. And I have the letter person hear the s? Today's letter is. Today's letter is S. And there are three S's to doubling your headcount. And those are structure standards and stewardship. Those are good ones. Those very much fit. Yeah. So structure clear roles clear reporting clear decisions. Right. If you can't draw your org chart on one page and clearly explain who owns what, you're not ready to double your team. No. Yeah. Yeah. And structure because people are like I don't understand what you say when you mean structure. Like it's documented. Job descriptions define decision rights, clear reporting lines, standard operating procedures that don't live in someone's head. This is really I feel like I'm talking your wheelhouse here, but it's just because when you double your people without doubling clarity, you do not double productivity. You just double politics. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You get twice. Twice the payroll. Yes. With half the work. Yeah. So and if you don't document it before you double it, I think you're going to regret it. So that's the first first test. So second the standards. And that's behavioral and performance expectations. And I think this is the one that leaders underestimate. You need clearly defined standards for four things performance communication accountability and culture behaviors. It's not just what gets done it's how it gets done. Mhm. So when you scale without those standards every new hire interprets the culture differently. And that's how you go from tight knit to tense over tight. Yep. So yeah it needs to the customer needs to not be able to figure out who did it. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Standard scale culture vibes don't. So it's just. Yeah. There we go. Yeah I mean, consistency is I mean, from a legal standpoint, consistency is protection too. So inconsistent enforcement is a risk. So when you have the right type of standards you're also making yourself more compliant. Last s with super S is stewardship and that is leadership capability and feedback systems. And I think that out of those, the three things that we're talking about, Josh, this is the most overlooked. I agree, because if you're doubling the headcount, you're also doubling the leadership complexity. Yep. Yeah. And you need managers who know how to coach a real onboarding process, feedback cadence that isn't just once a year. Listen to our podcast on employee reviews and a way to catch issues early. So like stay interviews, tell us what's going on. What's great because doubling people without doubling leadership capacity is how burnout, turnover and lawsuits can show up six months later, sometimes six weeks later, say six months, six weeks, six years, they show up. It's not if it's it's when. I mean, I think it's really important. I think, you know, scaling isn't just it's not about adding bodies. It's about adding the foundation that's strong enough to hold them. Yes I agree. Mhm. Wow. Um the stewardship one two is one that like I would have needed the thesaurus to get there for that one. Um, how do you identify that employee that's going to help you scale rather than the one that, like, is the like the there's the person that's been at every company for thirty years, the founding employee. Correct. That. Like everyone's like, hey, Bob's been with me since the, the Nixon era. Um, yeah. And they're like, yeah, Bob's great. Bob knows everything. How do you like, who's the one that gets you past where Bob is to the the next level? Yeah. So I have I have more letters here. Um, I would say this is probably one of the hardest parts of scaling because, you know, founding employees, it can be emotional. They helped you build the business. Yes. Yeah. There's loyalty there. There's gratitude there. Because they were probably the person that was like up doing the things with you that when you're trying to figure it all out, you didn't know how it was all going to work. They may have helped figure you. Yes, exactly. But scaling doesn't ask who's been here the longest. It asks who can lead at the next level. And so really it's in it's in the terms we have three E's for this elevation, execution and emotional range. Did you get the E out? I didn't I can't find it right now. I know you can look for it later. I'll find it later though. So, you know, founding employees are often phenomenal at doing so. Let's talk about elevation. And the question with elevation is can they think bigger than the task? So founding employees, they know the work inside and out. They're usually scrappy. They'll stay late. They'll figure it out. But a scaling manager has to elevate above the work. They have to think in systems. They have to anticipate those bottlenecks. And if someone still solves everything personally, instead of building processes that solve things repeatedly, they're operating at that founding level, not a scaling level. So you have to remember, founding employees generally have built with their hands scaling managers build with their head and their team. Ooh, yeah. This to me. I want to plug something too, at the same time. Um, there was a post that went on Instagram that was you talking about if you put someone in leadership and don't give them training, that as of like the point of recording this, it's like seventy some odd thousand people have watched this thing and been like, hell yes. Yes. Um, that to me fits here. It does. Promoting people without leadership training is irresponsible. Yep. Yes. Because this is the same thing. Yes. Um, if you are trying to get someone into a scaling position that is a builder, it ain't gonna work. No. No. Founder. That's. Yeah. You try and scale someone that's founding. That's founding, and they're used to building, like they're just doing the same thing. They're building over and over and over and over, but they're not really looking at, how do I build the infrastructure? Yeah. So that takes us then to execution, which is can they build repeatability. Right. Ooh, yeah. So founding employees might be heroic. They can just get it done. But scaling managers create clarity so that others can get it done. It goes from the me to the we scaling is about we right. So they document they create accountability. They delegate effectively. Their job is to remove bottlenecks instead of just being the person that does the work, removing the bottleneck so that other people can do the work. I mean, and here's here's the other thing. If production drops every time that person goes on vacation, that's a founding profile. That's not a scaling one. You want people, I mean, they miss them because they're just wonderful, but they don't miss them because the work keeps getting done right. So if the machine only runs when you're there, you're not scaling your substituting. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last one is emotional range I think this one is again one that leaders often miss. And it's can they handle complexity. So as you're looking within your team this is a question you need to ask an emotional range. Because scaling introduces more personalities ambiguity more pressure more politics. It's just going to happen when you add people so scaling managers, they need that emotional range. And so founding employees are often loyal and hardworking, but they're not always emotionally equipped for leadership at scale. And I've watched this in my organization and we had some people that I promoted. And then they just they quickly said, this is not what I want to do. And then we had to figure out, you know, do you want to stay? Do you want to go? And I had some that stayed and I had some that exited. And it was hard because these are people that have have helped build the business. So I think that when you get to that point, when you see that they're not emotionally equipped, it's not a character flaw, it's a capability gap. And you've you've got to you've got three options with these people. You reskill, you reseat or you release. So now we've got s e s e r and r. I know, I really think it was really fitting that you got the letter people for today because I really I had fun with this. So I mean so your three options to avoid and I think avoiding the decision is the worst one. But it's reskilling reseeding or releasing. So reskilling you invest in training that person. All right. Leadership development coaching clear expectations. You give them a real runway. You don't just tell them to try harder. Oh yeah. Don't just tell them to try harder. Give them the ability to learn new things or receipt okay. Not everyone who builds at five belongs at fifty in the same role. Correct? Most people don't. Most people do not. And it's not it's not wrong. But most people cannot run a fifty person company and a five hundred person company. It's just not possible. It's it's it's a different skill set. It's a totally different skill set. And so sometimes the right move is moving them into a senior specialist track, moving them into a different part of the organization where they can shine without having to carry people leadership that they don't enjoy or they're not wired for. So reskill receipt, some of that that can be uncomfortable. I would say the hardest one is, is release. And that's if you've been clear, supportive and structured and that gap remains, you have to protect the organization. Yes. Which means it's time to let people go, because I think here's the uncomfortable truth. Loyalty to one person cannot come to the at the expense of the whole team. It just it can't it doesn't. Yeah. So scaling doesn't mean abandoning the people who helped you build it does mean being honest about what the next chapter requires. So the question isn't, are they loyal? The question is really, are they aligned and equipped for what's next? And that's heavy. It is. You know what it makes me think of what I believe. I've mentioned this before. When you become a US Coast Guard swimmer, like a rescue swimmer, you know what? The first thing they teach you is? Know how to subdue the person you're rescuing. How to not drown them while you're trying to save their life. Know how they don't drown you. How to make sure they don't drown you. You can't let the the person that helped you build it. Drown. You know, and I've. I've made that mistake. And it can be a really expensive mistake, too. It can be. Yeah. I've I've it has been an expensive mistake. Yeah. I kept sending checks and I'm like, why isn't this getting better? Yeah. And, uh, sign the check. It doesn't get better. Sign the check, it doesn't get better. And I'm like, wait a minute here. So, yeah, learn from my mistakes. If you want to learn, if you want more details, you can message me. We'll have an off podcast conversation. That's the whole reason why we do this podcast. We have both screwed this up. Yeah. And it's a good reminder to not do it again. Right, right, right. So let's talk about operations. Sure, I'd love to. Yay! So Josh wants the vision set. How do you actually operationalize that growth? How do you turn hustle into predictable marketing and operations? Uh, this is the thing that's so to me, like when the CEO says, hey, guess what? We're gonna, like, explode this thing. This thing's going to grow. Buckle up. Um, you hope they don't already have that plan in action. Um, because that is when it goes sideways to me, there has to be this, like, Prescale audit. Are we ready to scale? Um, most CEOs think yesterday is the best time to scale. Yesterday is the best time to figure out if it's time to scale. Once you have figured that out, um, to me, the the one that I like is the leak principle, where before you turn on the faucet, you make sure the pipes don't leak. Oh, I like I have done some plumbing in my own house, and whenever I turn it back on, I always kind of do it with one eye open, kind of one eye closed. And I turn the valve slowly like, hey, is something coming apart here? Because if it's coming apart, I want it to come apart with one gallon in the pipe instead of thirty five psi and forty gallons in the pipe, you cannot multiply a process that isn't already working. Well, um, if it's not working well, it's I mean, scaling it is going to make it worse. Um, one of the one of the things I love. I'm going to make a ten thousand small businesses shout out here too, is I still remember one of the first things that they said, like, the first day of class, is if you're doing something and it doesn't make money, doing more of it is not going to make it better. The same thing goes true for your operations. If it's not working well, scaling it is not going to make it better. Because inefficiency scales faster than growth every single time. If your current workflow has a ten percent waste or friction or leak or whatever you want to call it, and you grow fifty percent, you are now not at fifteen percent problem, because that would be a a fifty percent increase. No no no no. You typically end up with a twenty or thirty percent inefficiency problem because like I said, the problem scale faster than the business does every single time. It's not always exponential. Yeah, but it's there. Whatever holes are in your boat. You like pushing the boat deeper in the water makes the water rush in much, much faster. And then you add more people to it. Yeah, right. More people. More complexity to a broken system. Um, you just have literally more people running around going, I don't know what the hell to do. Um, the the other thing is too, is like, I always like to call it the house cleaning is like, scaling is going to put a magnifying glass on things. You think it's bigger, so it's easier to hide things. Uh, I disagree. Those small operational quirks, that thing that you thought, ah, we can deal with this suddenly is a forty, fifty, sixty thousand dollars problem. Yeah. And it like those operational quirks or the shadow workflows where someone goes around the corner. Yeah, those are those massive bottlenecks. Now, once you add the weight of growth, if there's that person, that one person that is the founder person that has to do everything, you've scaled the business, you're trying to grow fifty percent, and now everything still has to go through Bob and receiving. No, no, no, it's just not going to work. Fix it when the stakes are lower. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's just it's not gonna it's it's not going to work out well for you otherwise. And it becomes very expensive very, very quickly because the expense is obviously always scale. Before the before you get that money. Yeah. I wish it was the other way around. But it is not. No, it is not. Buckle up kids. Um, so to me, like I said, the foundation, it comes down to your standard operating procedures. Uh, you cannot navigate a ton of change when your processes are all willy nilly, as you always like to say. Your processes are just in there in Bob's head. Yeah. I don't know why we're making fun of Bob today. It's good. Bob. Bob's the guy. Yes. Is, uh. They're all in Bob's head. Bob's good. Um, yeah. No. If Bob gets hit by a bus tomorrow and you're in the middle of scaling, your business is going to feel like you get hit by the bus, and that's just not know. You have to lock down those SOPs in advance. I mean, once again, I always talk about them as foundational. Yeah. If you try and build a bigger house on an already shaky foundation, that ends up poorly. Um, yes, that ends up with a in a house that is in the basement. Yeah, a little bit of wind and you're you're screwed. Right, right. And it doesn't matter which way the wind comes, it doesn't because it's gonna hit. It is just going to hit. Um, the other thing is too, is I mentioned this like in my notes here, it's hero culture to process culture. If there's a process for it. Yeah. I mean, we've had some switches in our company even recently where like, look, it's I had someone up and running within about a week. Yeah. Because we have the processes down to bring them in. I'm able to say, can you read? And they say, yes. And they read the processes and they're like, great. And as we scale and as we add people, once again, here's the process. What does it look like to you from marketing? This is where I think it becomes interesting with marketing, because you have to be very direct about how the budget evolves and grows. Now your budget, like in most cases, one million dollars of revenue, you're spending five to twelve percent. Typically that's fifty to one hundred and twenty K a year, three million dollars of revenue. You're looking at one hundred and twenty to three hundred K a year. That's four to ten percent range is what you're spending on marketing ten million dollars, three to eight percent. I mean, so it comes down a little bit as you scale. I mean, we're not talking big jumps, not significantly. No. And you cannot keep the same marketing budget at one million that you have at three million. And that's a struggle. I watch people deal with that all the time. Like this is our budget. We're like, no, correct. Right. No, the, the the it has to grow the the number has to grow. The percent of your total revenue can come back a little bit. Yeah. But the overall number. Yeah, you have to ratchet that up. Do people do the same thing with personnel? We're going to grow to five million, but we're going to keep the same headcount. No you're not. You are for about three weeks. And then there's going to be a massive revolt and they're going to burn it down. Well, and then they start to hit a ceiling. And we don't understand why we can't break through the ceiling. It's like, well, are you adding capacity? No. Right. Then you're not going to be able to break it. Here's the other thing. I will tell a lot of small business owners. Um, as you get as you in your pursuit to become richer, you are going to feel poorer for a period of time, because there is you've talked about the delay of growth or the delay of of the revenue coming in, and that is that is real and felt. And if you are not willing to make a lifestyle change for a quarter or six months or a year, then you really need to think about if you want to grow, you have to feed the monster. You do, you do. Which means sometimes you gotta exercise your line of credit. You got to deal with it. Sometimes you have to pull on debt. Sometimes you bring in an investor, like if you really want to do this and you truly want to scale, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices around some things that maybe you just. I mean, it can also be around time. Sometimes you got to spend more time. Yep. Yes. But don't fall into the trap. No. Um. Do time the right way. The speed at which you said no. There. I don't even think I was done with this sentence. And she's like, no, don't do it. Move on. Get coaching around it. Train yourself first. Before you decide that you want to scale aggressively. You have to be at the next level before you can expect your people to be. Pull the reps in. Yes, it the one thing with marketing a lot of people don't understand too is if you are business consumer, you have a higher percentage of revenue that you're needing to spend on marketing because you are trying to reach a broader range of people. Um, when you look at the checks that people write, compared to the checks that businesses rate, they are very different. Um, typically by a couple of decimal places. Yeah. They are. And so that just dictates the number of people that you have to talk to, the number of people that you have to. To reach the number of people that need to be writing you checks. And with that, it's there's that law of scale in there. Yeah. Um, the other thing is, too, is if your growth is thirty to fifty percent, like you alluded to earlier, do not budget for your entire year with the same budget you gave for marketing last year. Ain't going to work. It's just not. Why not? Why can't you just be a miracle? Not gonna work. No, it's math people. Correct. The other thing that I see, too, is what so many people look at is they're like, okay, we've done a million dollars worth of business in this channel. We want to do three million dollars worth of business in this channel. And like the channel may not be able to support that. Yeah. So some people don't look at and I mean, this is like the most basic marketing exercise that people don't look at is the total addressable market. What is your total addressable market? What percentage of that do you think you can get. And then look at that. Too many people are like, we're growing to five million when their total addressable market might be three. Yes. And if it's three in that market and you're like, I want all of it, it's not going to happen. No, no. So I always tell people like, you have to realize that putting more money into this, and the example I always like to give is from like Google Ads, if you're effective at five thousand dollars a month in Google Ads, jumping to ten thousand dollars a month is not going to double your business. Know Google will love you doing that, correct? But there's a reason why Google made two hundred billion dollars or whatever it is last year. You're going to hit a ceiling on that, so you eventually need to find another way to do it, because you're going to bid for more volume. And you also have to at that point, you have to target a broader, lower intent audience. Yeah. Um, you've figured out who the. Yeah, I can see you wincing at that one. You're like, this sucks. Yeah, I want to do that. Yeah, yeah. Because you're like, we need more people. These are the like, if, let's say it's thirty five year old males that typically buy from from someone. Okay. Well, if you've kind of exhausted thirty five year old males, now you have to figure out how to get the thirty and forty year old males in. And they may not be your exact audience. No, but you need to still figure out a way to go after them. So the the cost per customer is going to rise your, your it's just what's going to happen. The other thing is too is there is a finite amount of search volume for your big money keywords. Um, once I mean, when you think of like when I look at Akron podcasters, um, there's not ten million people like, searching that every day. No, no, there's not there's really not like twelve. Um, right, right, right. Five of them are our fans, right? The difference the difference between that is too is there is not ten thousand people searching, uh, like Akron podcasting. There's not ten thousand people in Akron searching, podcasting every day. There are probably ten thousand people in Akron searching. Why is my health care screwed up? that is. Yes. Yes. Which is a whole other problem when you're trying to pay for ads. Correct. So to me, there's there's scaling past that ceiling though. You have to diversify to a certain extent to be like, look, where are we going? We cannot I mean, because one, at this point you've built a business that can support itself and those that are in it. If you want to branch out into other things that are adjacent, that's good to be able to scale that way. But once again, you can't just you can't expect to get more blood from the stone. Yeah. Um, if you're already at a great level with it. Um, the other thing that I always like to say, too, when it comes to the marketing and the, uh, the operational piece of it, you have to identify the twenty percent of crap that is taking up eighty percent of your team's time. Yes. Um, if you can figure that out and save. I mean, I see so many people that there like, oh, we can save a little bit here and we can save a little bit there. And I'm like, they're ignoring the big problems. Yes. They're checking off a couple of little problems. Like, look, we saved our employees five minutes a day. Yeah, but you're ignoring the big thing that, like, Bob hates his job and is twenty percent as productive as he could be. Yes. Fix, fix. The big problems are. Especially before you scale. I mean, this this is all pre scaling stuff. Yeah. Um, as we like to talk about like you're more the CEO, you've got that lookout vision. You can see what's down the road. I'm the guy that can see in between me and the the camera over there. And that's about as far as I can see. So to me, it is like we're preparing for the hell that you're about ready to unleash. Yeah. Uh. You're welcome. You're so welcome. That's me. I mean, and it's a hell of a ride. It's a fun ride. But you don't, um, Take a lesson from the Titanic. Yeah. Put the. Make sure you've got enough lifeboats on the boat. Make sure you've got enough life vests. Basic math. Um, right. Do that before you set sail. Um, yeah. Do the basics, then set sail. Yeah. A little planning. I mean, sometimes things are still going to break, but at least you plan for most of it. Right, right, right. So let's talk. Um, I love this because I know so many people that have tried to software themselves out of a problem. I know I have. Multiple times. I was about to say, I was about to say, I know a lot of people that have done this. Two of them are in the room. Yes. Um, two of the room. Two of them are in the room with us right now as we speak. Yes. Like when it does, it fix the broken process? What? Like what happens when you add software to problems? It scales them. I think I'm gonna get hate mail from software developers. Um, I think you really have to be clear in your process. So. And if software doesn't fix a broken process. So if your process is already broken, it's just going to magnify it. So I feel like, you know, buying an expensive piece of software is like putting a jet engine on a shopping cart and you're going to move faster, but it's not going to probably be a helpful direction. I see this as a guy. Yeah, sounds like a great idea. Like this sounds like fun. This sounds like may be fun, but you're probably gonna hit something hard. No, that's. That's okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm glad that you're okay with that. I also would equate buying software that you may that you think is going to fix a problem, but you really haven't even diagnosed. What the problem is, is you're flushing money down the toilet. Oh, I will say I mean, I can it's like, how many, Chrissy, how many times in the last eighteen months have you flushed money down the toilet because you were looking for a software opportunity. Like, I don't want to talk about it. No. And the problem is, too, is it's what's difficult about that for me. We try and stay on the edge of, like, what we can do for efficiency and absolutely. Especially with implementing new technology. Correct. The, the thing that's such an easy trap that I have found to fall into is this should not like software will never fix problems. It will fix efficiency, but it won't fix problems. Yes. Um, and that's the problem. What's difficult about that is what is an efficiency issue and what's where. How can we make this more efficient or how can we fix this? Those when you're sitting in the trenches and there's explosions going around, you can look kind of the same. They can. And it's really important that you do diligence the software fix that. You're looking at one sales demo is not enough. No. And I mean, we just case in point, we have a software that we use for our agency management system. We have had it for eight years. We have been trying to. This is us. We just did it wrong. We're trying to implement the same module for the last eight years. And finally, the software company admitted that it doesn't work. And we're thinking that we are the problem and why can't we figure it out? And they finally admitted, oh yeah, it doesn't work that way. And nobody ever uses that piece of the software. So we just we just didn't tell anybody because no one's using it like we've been trying to use it for like three years and we're like, oh, well you shouldn't. I'm like, well, maybe we shouldn't work together anymore. Like, it's I wouldn't want to be on the other end of that phone. It was not with you. It was not friendly. No, it was not comfortable. We're still working through our relationship right now. I mean, but that's. I would say not. It's not a quick fix. Like anytime when you're like, we're going to implement this new piece of technology and it's going to be wonderful. Buckle up. Yeah, just buckle up. My biggest thing with that is, is I am constantly asking the questions. How does this go sideways? Yes, yes. And I usually do too. But in this case it was like, oh well this is it's got to work. Everybody else says it's wonderful. Know those testimonials were fake. Not okay. Those are AI generated testimonials. Um, how do you ensure that your team benefits from the scale, rather than just feeling like, oh, Chrissy just gave us more work? And I mean, to me, I'm saying this because, you know, our core values success is a shared thing. Yeah. And to me, if we're growing, our people should feel like, yay, we're growing as opposed to yay! As opposed to, oh, shit, he's at it again. Yay! We're growing. Right. So they should be. Yay! We're growing. Not. He's at it again. Yeah. I think sometimes teams can get a bad rap because they just. You assume that they hate growth? I don't think they hate growth. I think they hate the feeling that they're carrying it alone. So I will agree with that. Yeah. So if you want your team to celebrate scale, I think they need three things. One, the workload has to be manageable. So you may like like having a fire hose every day. But I guarantee you your team doesn't know. That's why they're not the business owner. So workload has to be manageable. Number two their growth opportunities increase. So I grow, we grow. You can grow too. Yes possibilities are endless. And then the third is that their voice still matters. Yep. Because I think a lot of times when we scale really fast, especially with individuals that are growing from being those founder employees into managers, they can sometimes feel like they get left behind, or that you're not listening to me anymore or you're not paying attention. And so I think it's really important that you can maintain voice. Scale should feel like expansion. It shouldn't feel like exploitation. And I think that's something that's really important as you're scaling your business, is you have to scale capacity and you have to scale people. That is my biggest one. If you don't scale people, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. It's. That is to me. I mean, all three of those are the points that I just truly feel like deep down, like. Yes, because the growth thing is, is even if it's not them changing positions or anything like that, they should feel like their lives get better as we scale. And even if it's not today, they should feel like if they help scale it, there's something better on the other side of this. Exactly. Um, that's. They just need to feel like they're involved. Like they're a part of it. Not like, hey, I'm going to get Josh another Lambo. Yeah. No. Um, a couple of key takeaways from this. Uh, first one for me, the capacity audit. Before you find, like, before you even start this, find a manual process that you automate or document and why I say this about one, because you're going to find one and you're going to be like, oh, there's this over here, and this becomes one after the next, after the next. And that is what will help you build that solid foundation to scale off of. I'd say the next one is the vision check. So it's really about clarifying the expectations and making sure everybody knows where we're going. Making sure every employee knows what success looks like for the company. Twelve months from now, you should be able to ask everyone in your organization, where are we going? And they should be able to tell you in like one or two sentences. Yes. And you should be in alignment one hundred percent. Yeah. Uh, scale radical directness. Yes. I feel like that's a good line for me to say. Yeah, I like that. Um, he had a t shirt. Radically direct. Radically direct. I believe there should be, like, an aka the jerk on the back of it or something of that nature. I like that. Yeah. No, that radically direct. Radically direct. Um, if someone's out there, if they if they do t shirts, we would love one. Yes. Yeah, we would love one of those. Um, it goes along with something that you say every once in a while. Yeah. To be clear is to be kind. Yeah, I believe so. I believe so that I think it's like that's a theme or something like that. It is especially in HR and leadership. Uh, let's do a quick shot with that. Um, what? I'm. I kind of like all of these that we have listed here. The one that I want to go with, though. Let's talk fractional. Yeah. Because this is the thing that people don't often address. There's a couple others that people do address. Yes. Um, where does something fractional become necessary in your opinion? So it depends on what type of fractional you're talking about. So which one are you talking about? Uh, where where should people start looking at fractional HR, fractional CFO fractional CEO fractional HR is as soon as you have an employee. Yes. That's it. Because you don't need full time HR. You just need someone you can call when you've got an issue. And it shouldn't be your lawyer. They're expensive. Yeah. And they generally don't always answer the question the right way. Correct. So that first employee, um, fractional CFO, CEO I think when you get to three million or more or when you're growing so fast that you need an additional skill set. But fractional CFO is generally that three million dollar ceiling. And that makes sense because really, to me, at that point, you are managing enough that you need someone that knows how to manage those numbers and looks for the correct way to manage those numbers. Yeah, and fractional marketing when you decide you want to grow. Yeah, yeah. No I, we fully agree with that one. That's that's the one. Immediately I see all of the time where I'm like yeah that's not that's not marketing. That's posting on Facebook. Yeah. No no no not somebody who's doing your social media management. You want a fractional chief marketing officer that's going to help you create a strategy that find that person, pay them on the fractional side, it's well worth it. Correct. They will tell you what to do, how to do it, where to do it. You still may be doing the stuff, but they will give you the guidance and the strategy. It's not, it's not. It's not as simple as you think it is. No. Uh, thank you to everyone that has stuck around. Um, I believe we're going to take a week break here while Chrissy plays with the people. Other people? And, uh, do us a favor. Hit the business. Com, um, next episode, we are going to talk about how scaling breaks your culture, how to scale, and then how that's going to screw up your business even worse, how to fix it. This is exciting. Do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.