The Founder Is the Bottleneck: Fixing the Real Problem in Scaling Businesses with Forrest Derr

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues (formerly Career Coaching Secrets), the host is Pedro and guest Forrest Derr, a fractional integrator and COO who helps founders turn chaotic, owner-dependent companies into structured, scalable businesses that can run without them.

Forrest shares hard truths from working with scaling founders between $2M–$50M revenue, where the real bottleneck is often not the team—but the owner themselves. He breaks down why accountability issues usually come from lack of clarity, how empowering teams changes everything, and why most founders unknowingly build businesses that trap them instead of freeing them.

The conversation dives deep into the shift from trading time for money to building outcome-based consulting models, the danger of overusing AI without real strategic thinking, and why systematizing—though boring—is the key to scaling and eventually exiting a business.

Forrest also walks through his own fractional COO model, including his one-day deep-dive diagnostic process and six-month engagement structure designed to install leadership systems and replace himself with a strong internal second-in-command.

Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forrestkderr/?skipRedirect=true
Website: https://derrconsulting.com/

Transcript

Forrest Derr 0:00

Well, more than more often than not, the owner is the problem. So that that's that's pretty typical of my engagements. And what what I've worked through with them is ask them a lot of questions. Like one of the questions I ask them is how often is your phone ringing? And typically they're like, man, I'm you know getting 100 phone calls a day. Well, let's talk about those phone calls. What are those phone calls involved? And more often than not, what I find is that founder is answering the phone and answering questions because they will not let their team make decisions. They will not empower the team. So it is the teams not working well, but it's the team's not working well because the founder will not let go and let that team make decisions. So building out the structure to where that team can be accountable, first of all, know what their roles are, because that's another clarity issue that I find regularly in businesses, where there's an accountability chart, but there's really not clarity on who owns what. And then empowering those team members to make decisions. Again, more often than not, the founder is the problem. They come to me to tell want me to tell me, you know, how I'm gonna fix their team, but it's really the reverse. It's like, let's fix you first. And then, you know, your team is gonna do great once we fix you.

Davis Nguyen 0:57

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro 1:28

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and today I'm joined by Forrest Durr, a fractional integrator and COO who has spent 25 plus years helping visionaries transform their companies from high-paying jobs back into real businesses that they can actually lead rather than manage. What makes Forrest's approach powerful is his recognition that most successful entrepreneurs didn't start their businesses to run every department. But somewhere along the way, they became the bottleneck, stuck approving decisions they shouldn't have to make. Forrest specializes in working with companies between 2 million and 50 million who are scaling fast and feeling the pressure. Most already running on EOS, but needing that crucial second in command to bring structure to chaos. His focus on clarifying accountability charts, installing discipline through proven tools, and freeing owners to operate in their zone of genius transforms businesses from constant firefighting into systems that actually work without the founder's daily intervention. Welcome to the show, Forrest. Man, Pablo, that was a great intro. Appreciate that. Well, that's I always say this. You're the one to blame, right? That's not my fault, man. That that's all you're doing. Okay. But great to have you, okay. And uh, you know, I'm a comic book nerd, to be candid with you, and I love the origin story, right? So I'd love to rewind a bit because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you, Forrest?

Forrest Derr 3:12

Yeah, it was back when I was working full-time for a company. And uh, I had hired an executive coach, and what I thought was I was hiring that executive coach was for to help me build up the leadership team I was working with. And so I figured, hey, I'll just hire this executive coach, uh, leverage her for about six months and see how it works out, make sure it's a good program. And next thing I know, she coached me into leaving my full-time job.

Pedro 3:36

Okay. Now, walk me through one shift that I love to would love to know and and share with our audience is that shift that happened, you know, from I'm helping people, I'm tasking the waters here with coaching, right? To I'm building a real business around this.

Forrest Derr 3:50

When that happened, or yeah, that happened a couple of years ago. I was working full-time for another company, and I'd started a local group called Energy, ENRG, and it was local businesses that were meeting together once a month around EOS. And basically, curious people, people running on EOS, how do I get them in the room and get them talking? And as I was working through that process, I ended up having coffee and lunch with members of those groups. And I tell people I was I was coaching them for free, providing free business advice, which was a passion of mine, and really recognized that after that I did that for a couple of years, people kept telling me, you know, people will pay you to do what you're doing. You know, you're you're doing it for free right now, but people will pay you. And that was kind of the inflection point that it was like, okay, what now's the time to go ahead and make this transition.

Pedro 4:37

You know, I want to tap into that real quick because you mentioned coaching for free, right? And I see a lot of coaches out there, and sometimes they're like offering services in a pro bono basis, right? For free, like you mentioned. And some of them tell me that they're like it lacks commitment when there is no skin in the game, right? So I'm what I want to know from you is did you felt the same like when money came to play and skin in the game was showing up? People are like showing up more, putting in more to work. Did you felt like that too?

Forrest Derr 5:08

Absolutely. You know, when there's skin in the game, even if it's a a small coaching engagement, when there's money on the line, people are definitely more invested in doing the homework, you know, coming back with the information that I asked for in the next meeting. When it's over coffee or over lunch, they appreciate the free advice and take it and and maybe do something with it. But definitely once there's money on the line, there is more commitment.

Pedro 5:31

You know, that that brings me back to my college days, you know, when I was playing Texas Holding with my buddies, and there's like no stakes, right? Zero dollars. And then everyone is so courageous, right? All ends all over the place. And then we've introduced a dollar to the pot, and the guys are like having second thoughts, right? So it sounds like commitment, it's it sounds like that's the key word, right? To put to really put into work. Is it like something you felt that too?

Forrest Derr 5:59

Absolutely. Yeah, and I've got a college story too. I mean, the first two years I was in school, I I tell people uh politely I was registered for class for two years. Attendance was not very optional. Um, so I resulted in failing out of school. I mean, I flunked out of University of Delaware after two years of going to school because I didn't attend class and I wasn't committed because my parents were paying for it. Well, fast forward, you know, I took a semester off, managed a gas station, decided I didn't want to do that the rest of my life, and decided to move away 20 hours away from my home to go to a different school. Well, guess what? I was paying for school at that point. The student loans were on me. And instead of taking electives like basket weaving, I took global business. I was I was committed to make something of that education. And it's totally true. If you're paying for something, you are definitely going to be more invested in it.

Pedro 6:47

Interesting how you had to went through that, right, to actually value it. So you actually do have the same story, basically. It's like going through and and like a like a son, me too. I always had those type of moments. So I'm right there with you. Now, after you got rolling, and I asked this because for most coaches, sometimes they're trying to help everyone, right? Especially in the early days. They're like, Yep, you need coaching. I'm right here. So in your experience, who are the people that kept showing up? You know, for us, the ones you realize, okay, this is my trial.

Forrest Derr 7:19

Yeah, it's the founders that really were struggling with their business. And so I was regularly talking to founders. Maybe they're one or two person businesses that were scaling quickly, and then they were five boys, then they were 10 employees, and the next thing you know, you know, they're working 80, 100 hours a week and they're just drowning in their business. And many of the companies that I've worked with, they read the book traction, they implemented EOS, they maybe even hired an EOS implementer, which is a whole other discussion around helping businesses scale their business, but they didn't have that number two second in command to help them buffer their crazy ideas, but also help them balance out the team and make sure the team was rowing in the same direction. And so that's that's the niche that I've carved out. And I kept seeing the pattern over and over again. It was founder-led businesses who were drowning. They tried to create a business for freedom and they ended up putting handcuffs on themselves.

Pedro 8:10

Handcuffs. Okay. Now let's do an exercise here, okay? Let's pretend I'm I'm one of those founders struggling with my business, right? First thing, marketing-wise, how would I be able to find you in the first place?

Forrest Derr 8:22

Yeah, to find me, I'm I'm very active on LinkedIn and actually podcasts, which is what we're doing right now. So I think I've recorded about 50 different podcast episodes as a guest, and that has been very interesting. The the last three or four people that I've talked to have found me through using AI that crawled my LinkedIn posts and crawled podcast guest episodes.

Pedro 8:43

Okay. Continuing our exercise, resonated with what you posted on LinkedIn. I'm still your ICP or your client profile, or even listen to one of the podcasts you you you showed up, right? And I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, that's there's something out there. I may need this guy. Eventually go through the the sales process, whatever that looks like. Okay. There's alignment. Let's say there's alignment. We're closing. Okay. I want to work with you or your business, however, that looks like. So if you have different offers, you can pick the main one. Okay. Now, what I want to do is for you to walk me through step like how does it look like to work with your business and what are the potential outcomes I could expect.

Forrest Derr 9:23

Yeah, absolutely. So the first step is to have an alignment call. It's a 60-minute call to make sure that we're a good fit. And the next step is to sign a contract for a one-day session. And basically, what I'll do will spend a day with that founder getting documentation on their business, mapping out what's going on in their business, how are they structured, where are the bottlenecks, where are the gaps. And my pitch is that we will leave that meeting room together after a day and they will have a plan on how to get their business aligned to where they can be liberated. They can either execute that plan themselves, or more often than not, after we develop that plan, they want to take it to the next step. And the next step is a fractional engagement. And the way I work with my clients is I work sitting on the same side of the table as the founder. I have them sign a six-month contract, and that six-month contract is for one day a week. And during that one day a week, we are building the structure and alignment and the cadence so that we can find my replacement. And my whole pitch is I don't want to be there for 12 months, 18 months, 24 months. I want to be there six months, maybe nine. It may take nine or ten months to finish out the project, but the outcome is that they will have a second in command that we have promoted internally or get somebody externally to fill that seat so that they have that right hand to help them grow the business.

Pedro 10:35

I love how you create from scratch an access plan already. I mean, that I believe that creates, you know, trust immediately. That makes a lot of sense. Now, let me ask you this, right? You mentioned you spend with them a day, and we we're living in a digital world. So are we talking about an in-person, one full day event? Is that what you're telling me?

Forrest Derr 10:57

Most of my clients, it is. So most of the prospects I worked with. I had one that was completely remote uh out of New York, and so I work with them remotely. But most of the clients are close enough that I can get to them. So one's like four and a half hours away, and the other two that I'm working with, because I work with three at a time, one day a week, are within an hour away.

Pedro 11:15

Okay. So I'm gonna throw you a little curveball there. Okay. Don't don't don't get mad with me. Okay. Because I see a lot of coaches out there advocating against burnout, right? But sometimes they're burning out themselves. Right. And the reason I say this is because more often than not, they're wearing all the hats. They're the upside, they're the marketing, they're the sales, they're the business development, all and all that that entails. And you told me yourself, it sounds like it's a kind of a customer, custom approach, right? And you spend a day with a client. So there's that. So your work seems pretty hands-on. So how do you think about capacity? So don't stretch yourself too thin. Yeah, you know.

Forrest Derr 11:54

It is a great question. So that is one of the challenges with my business model, is I can tap out at three clients because Thursdays and Fridays are for BizDev or working on projects or you know, personal things, et cetera. So how I'm going to scale my business is leveraging other fractionals to do the work that I'm doing and me oversee those fractionals. So the concept is to build a firm to where I've got four or five fractionals working for me. I'm building the relationships, coaching them on how to do the work, and having them actually boots on the ground doing the projects.

Pedro 12:26

So it sounds like we're in the process of also developing some SOP, some standard operating procedures for those who doesn't who don't know about what that is. So we can extract that information out of your head, you know, create a procedure so others can follow something like that.

Forrest Derr 12:41

Correct, correct. Something uh standard operating procedures, but also coaching of these newer fractionals. Because I've got numerous people who have reached out to me over the years wanting to start their own fractional business. So I I did build a playbook that helps them build their business, but they're still asking for more help in that coaching process to help them grow their growth and seal their practice.

Pedro 13:02

Okay, that makes sense. Now I want to tap into another topic that I feel is very important, especially because you mentioned you were coaching for free in the early days, right? And one thing I see every coach out there wrestling with is pricing. But I'm not talking about hard numbers, okay? It's more about the mindset behind it. So the thing is for coaches and service and overall the service industry, sometimes you're trading times for time for dollars, right? And it's a very self-worth bat. Like sometimes it's a feeling of am I charging enough? Am I placing myself out of the market? So, how do you think about it today? And weren't there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed where you are right now with the pricing topic?

Forrest Derr 13:45

Yeah. 100%. I I was stuck in the I'm charging for time trap. So when I first started working with clients a couple of years ago, you know, I thought that charging for a day meant I needed to go in at seven and leave at five when working with these clients. And so I found myself getting there at seven o'clock and staying until five, and there wasn't enough work for me to do to fill that time. And good thing for me, I had an executive coach who said, What are you doing that for? You're not billing by the hour. And I said, Well, I know that I'm billing by the day. She said, But it a day is a day, depends on what the client expectations are. And so one of the things that I had to do was to take a step back and ask the client, what does success look like? What does the outcome look like on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis for them? And I found that every client's a little different, but I don't need to spend necessarily eight hours a day working with the client. It's really what the outcome is and how they need help. They they value time differently, they value the outcome differently. And what I think is success, for example, walking into a day with a client. I'm thinking I got a 12-point agenda I got to cover and get this done. And I was wearing my clients out. I had my you know assessment of what success looked like rather than them. Backing up, figuring out what a day a week is, it really is not based off of time. It's based off a level of effort.

Pedro 15:06

That's funny because I uh I'm a coach too, right? So I'm thinking about the I was doing pricing based pricing hourly and all of that, all of the that stuff that doesn't really work. And the reason it doesn't, and sometimes it does for some people, but for me it didn't, it's because they start comparing me to other people that are not even in the same industries. Like I'm being compared to the dentist, I'm being compared to, I don't know, the cleaning lady or whatever. And the thing is, it turns me into a commodity, right? That's one thing. The other thing, it's like nothing magical actually happens when the clock hits the 60-minute mark, right? You know, and it makes it weird. First, like, for example, if I hop off early, I feel weird inside because it's it feels like I'm stealing their time. If I'm working 10 minutes later, should I be charging more? And then it makes a weird kind of vibe on the math that it's not really tied to the outcome. Did that make sense?

Forrest Derr 16:03

It 100% makes sense. And I I struggled with it that first three or four months. I was just like, man, I feel guilty leaving at two o'clock. And you know, they're still here working, but they they didn't need me. They I need they needed me for a certain amount of effort during that day. There were three meetings that I had with a client every Tuesday for four months, working through a process with them, and that was all. So, I mean, I showed up around nine and left around one, and it was not a big deal. So that was that was probably the big thing that I had to get my arms around is is not looking at the clock, not looking at the time, but looking at what is the outcome that we want, that they want, and how do I get there? And that might take longer sometimes. I might have to work later in the evening sometimes doing something to get ready for the next day.

Pedro 16:48

That's true. And the thing is, I'm not sure if you agree with me, it's because like I worked at a consulting firm, I worked at banking. So there's there are trade-offs that exist, right? The first one, like comparing the experience of being a business owner, the first one is like when I clocked out, I clocked out, right? As an employee. But when I'm when I'm an owner, it doesn't really work like that, right? I cannot make that separation so easily, like I did when I was working with that. But the other thing, it's like the employee mentality of the clocking in and clocking out, it's hard to distance yourself from. I'm not sure if you're right there with me, but I feel like that sometimes, you know.

Forrest Derr 17:28

No, I I I get it. It is a mindset shift. And I've talked to several people recently that are two employees looking at going fractional, uh, as a fractional executive. And one of the mindset shifts is that you know, you when you're working on your own business, it's very different than working for somebody else's business. So yeah, 100%.

Pedro 17:47

You know, and I I'm curious about one thing because I know your business is calling their consulting. We established that, right? Now, the thing I'm curious about is like, let's say I'm hiring you, okay? I'm that founder and your ICP and all that, and I'm telling you, hey, Forrest, um my team's not working, right? This is not working, blah, blah, blah. And you join me for a day, right? And you realize I'm actually the problem here, right? I'm the paying customer, the paying client that hired you, and you realize that the problem is Pedro. So, how to navigate that conversation to actually make that person, me, aware that actually the team is not the issue here.

Forrest Derr 18:33

Well, more than more often than not, the owner is the problem. So that that's that's pretty typical of my engagements. And what what I work through with them is ask them a lot of questions. So, like one of the questions I ask them is how often is your phone ringing? And typically they're like, Man, I'm you know, getting 100 phone calls a day. Well, let's talk about those phone calls. What are those phone calls involved? And more often than not, what I find is that founder is answering the phone and answering questions because they will not let their team make decisions. They will not empower the team. So it is the teams not working well, but it's the team's not working well because the founder will not let go and let that team make decisions. So building out the structure to where that team can be accountable, first of all, know what their roles are, because that's another clarity issue that I find regularly in businesses, where there's an accountability chart, but there's really not clarity on who owns what. And then empowering those team members to make decisions. Again, more often than not, the founder is the problem. They come to me telling wanting me to tell me, you know, how I'm gonna fix their team, but it's really the reverse. It's like, let's fix you first, and then you know, your team is gonna do great once we fix you.

Pedro 19:42

You know, that that always brings me back to my kids, right? I have two boys, three and seven. Congratulations. And thank you. And sometimes I I see myself doing stuff on their behalf because I'm in a hurry, right? It's like I want to keep going, like we gotta leave in 30 minutes, we gotta do the thing, and it's faster for me to just do the thing instead of explaining what they need what I need to be doing or what they need to be doing. So the feeling is like sometimes, and sometimes it's on the founder side, sometimes a part of it is an ego stuff, right? Like parting of letting go of accepting there's something different is coming to play. But do you feel like they create this environment that relies on them and then they blame the team? Like, how why are you relying on me? You know, it's kind of wild if you think about it.

Forrest Derr 20:30

It is, and and it definitely is an ego thing. It's an ego thing and a speed thing because they think it's easier to answer the question than it is to spend the time to help somebody understand how to solve the problem. But, you know, again, one of the questions I ask the founder is what's your exit strategy? That's one of the first questions I ask. And most of them look at me like deer and headlights. What do you mean, exit strategy? I'm like, no, I want to know what is your exit strategy. Where, where are you, where are you gonna take this business? And if your exit strategy is to sell this business, you can't sell it if you're taking 100 phone calls a day because you are the business. You are the bottleneck. Nobody wants to buy a business where the owner has to be involved in the business. And what I find is if we can focus on that exit strategy, you know, if we build the structure where three or four years out, they've got this business running without them, shorter than that, but eventually running to where they can take three months of vacation, they're probably gonna want to keep the business, but it's gonna be valuable at that point in time. So, one of the best compliments I got from one of my first clients, and I was not expecting it, we're sitting in a meeting and we're sharing good news, personal professional. And he said, the good news this week is I had a meeting for four hours yesterday and my phone didn't ring one time. And I was like, Well, tell me about that. He said, Normally a four hour meeting, I I'd be interrupted 10, 20 times with phone calls from people asking me to make decisions, and we've built the structure to where my phone is not ringing. And so that that would that's the inflection point that I like to see with founders is their phone stops ringing.

Pedro 21:55

Their phone stops ringing. That's a great catch, great hook. I love that. Okay. Yeah, you know, I've been in the we talked about this before, right? I was a high-ticket sales closer for a landscape business coach. And one thing I noticed working with those guys is like sometimes they were trying to exit their businesses, but they were actually trying to sell a glorified contact list because everything relied on them. Yeah. So there's that. I'm right there with you. You know, if you don't have systems, if you don't have that type of exit, I love the idea of exit plan because it it stress tests what they need to do right now. Right. Right. Like imagine you have to sell tomorrow. You need to hand over those keys. So that's one way to exercise that. So I really like that. Now, you know, I'm curious about one thing, and I want to shift gears for a second, which is future, right? For their consulting. You know, so where are you taking all this? You know, looking ahead, where do you see the business going? And you kind of brown about that a little bit, right? The fractional team and all that. But are you thinking about scaling, hiring? Is there a next step you're excited about, you know, for us?

Forrest Derr 23:00

Yeah, I'm really excited about building content. So I've built a playbook initially to because of people just kept asking me the same questions over and over again. How did you get started so quickly? How did you do marketing? How did you do sales? How did you, you know, get the business off the ground? And that has turned into several coaching engagements, helping people that want to leave W-2 employment. But I see the future for me right now as to continue to build out content. You know, here's how you build your business, here's how you run your business, here's how you scale your business, here's how you make products. Because at the end of the day, you know, I ask people, can the business operate without you? And right now, the business cannot operate without me. My business can't. I I am the business at the moment. So my goal in the future is to get the business to where it operates without me. Maybe I have a team of fractionals that are are doing the work and I'm just capturing revenue off the top and coaching them as needed, and then building products and systems that are sellable products to people to where you know I have mailbox money coming in and I'm not actually having to do the work anymore.

Pedro 23:59

Okay. That makes sense. Now, whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, which you are, there's always something we're refining in the present, right? So right now, what are you currently trying to prove or tighten up in your business?

Forrest Derr 24:10

Yeah, I'm definitely trying to tighten up the marketing side of my business because I recently hired a fractional executive, a fractional executive assistant, so to speak. I've got an executive assistant that manages my calendar as well as my email. So I had that covered, but I hired somebody that's actually doing project management with my CRM. I leverage HubSpot because I've got tons of people that I need to follow up with that don't quote, need me to follow up with them. They just need follow-up. And so she's basically going to be a sales development rep working through my um HubSpot and working through my systems to where we can start automating the follow-up for prospects that come in asking for playbook help or asking for coaching group cohort help, et cetera.

Pedro 24:51

Okay, that makes sense. Now, I want to tap into your experience for a second because people listening can really benefit from this. I would say, I mean, you've been in a game long enough to see all kinds of business advice, right? Some are good, some are terrible. Let's put it like that. So, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think it's overrated, for example?

Forrest Derr 25:12

Man, there's a lot of advice out there. So business advice that's overrated. I think business advice that's overrated, uh, I see a lot of times people saying, you know, you've got to believe in yourself and you can do it, and that you just need to read another book or you know, go to another seminar. And those are all good, but I pivot to, you know, I know we're talking about coaching, but I pivot to you need to have an executive coach that really understands what's going on in your world to help you scale. I, you know, Tiger Woods had a coach, all these different sports athletes had a coach, executives need coaching. So I'd say the the worst business advice is go to a seminar, read a book, and everything will be great, but you really need to get help.

Pedro 25:54

A little bit more hands-on, right? Not just staying in the room and trying to observe, it's like really taking action about it and from someone who actually been there and done that, right? Something like that.

Forrest Derr 26:06

Yeah, and Claude is not going to help you with that. You know, that's another thing I see. I see founders just diving into AI, which I think is good, but unfortunately, a lot of people are are using Claude to be their chief operating officer and or or you know, Chat GPT or whatever. And those tools, while they are good to help you brainstorm, unfortunately they will reinforce bad ideas and make you think something's a good idea. I don't know if you've experienced that, you probably have, but it's just like, no, this is not a an intelligent being that's going to help you discern and stress test your ideas. It's actually gonna keep confirming going, Yeah, that's a great idea. Once you go rent, you know, buy a building and buy 10 trucks. That sounds awesome. You could, you know, put a sign on the wall.

Pedro 26:50

Um so I mean, it gaslights us in so many ways, and it's so conversational. And it almost I feel like I'm a genius when I'm talking with AI, right? It's like, what like if I ask AI what's the best way to punch a wall, it will give me the top three ways to punch a wall, but eventually will not call me out about punching a wall, if that makes any sense. It's like, dude, what are you doing, right? Why are you punching the wall? Yeah, no, but you had to to buy this glove, and then you're not gonna hurt blah blah blah and blah blah blah. And then if you you hit with the are you left-handed, are you right-handed? You know, so it's and it's so it's so biased. I mean, at the same time, because it wants to be conversational, so it doesn't come confront you as much as sometimes it it pretends to do. If you if you go to a custom level like configuration and all that, you can add some stuff, but it goes back to the core code and it tries to be conversational again. I've been there, I've done that. It's like it's kind of funny to be honest. Like, I I feel sometimes people overvalue in a way. I mean, it's a great tool, don't get me wrong, for efficiency to break, you know, breaking down some ideas, data, uh, you know, transcripts, top uh points that were talking, you know, all that thing that that stuff that it needs grinding more, you know. But I I'm not right there with venting ideas, like really, really venting ideas. You know, I'm not sure if you agree with that.

Forrest Derr 28:12

Here's the best illustration that I I've come up with, and it seems to have resonated with people when I've talked to them. If you think about when LegalZoom came out, you know, LegalZoom, I use LegalZoom, LegalZoom's out there, it's it's your attorney, you know, on the internet. You say, Hey, I need an LLC agreement. It says, sure, here's your here's your LLC agreement. I see AI as that. Yes, it does expand things and it makes faster. The uh a real attorney is gonna ask, well, why are you trying to create an LLC agreement? You really need to create an escort. And here's some ideas on how that the tax implications of doing what you're doing. So I see AI as it will do what you ask it to do, just like LegalZoom will do what you ask it to do, but it's not gonna challenge you to determine is it the right thing to do or is there a different option to look at? It's gonna take you down a rabbit hole without giving you options that are really cause and effect on decisions you're gonna make.

Pedro 29:03

You know, I'm right there with you, especially, and people could mention, well, that's the prompt and all that, but they're in reality, if you don't have experience in the subject, you don't know the right questions to ask sometimes, right? You're super tactical, you're thinking about the LLC when in reality you shouldn't, you shouldn't in the first place. You need to sit down with someone that actually peels up the onion and tells you, okay, but what exactly are you trying to achieve here? And how does your business look like? So that makes a lot of sense. And I see a lot sometimes I see a lot of business owners overall, and sometimes coaches too. It's like they're trying to do something in their business, but they have like not even a surface level knowledge to do so, right? So they lack on the ability to evaluate what good looks like. Right. Like, for example, let's let's say I'm I'm a coach and I'm terrible at selling and I'm bringing my first closer, right? So if I have zero experience on sales, sometimes that happens, right? I'm gonna have a hard time evaluating that guy, right? A hundred percent. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, last shift gears, and I I want to talk about the other side. Like, what would you say is a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously, you know, something boring.

Forrest Derr 30:16

Yeah, this one's easy, and founders really struggle with this because they grew their business. They started we in the landscaping business up here, we call it Chuck in a truck. They started one guy in a truck in a lawnmower, and they went out and started mowing grass, and then they added another truck, and then they added another guy. And so they've been so flexible in their business to scale it. They've had to take every piece of business they can get. They hadn't been selective about what they did. It's just grabbing money every which way they can just to survive and be scrappy. And the challenge for them is systematizing is boring for founders. It is so boring for founders. They don't like having structure, having guardrails, having step-by-step processes. But that is one of the things that any founding owner has to do to be able to continue to scale, but absolutely has to do to be able to exit. And it's boring. And people like me like to do that. So they need to find somebody that likes to get into the guts of that and get into the systems.

Pedro 31:15

Right. I love that because yeah, they didn't get into this business to to you know, build a Excel spreadsheet or develop a PDF. Right. They're like digging holes, they like the the outdoors and that example. So that makes perfect sense. Okay. Now, and if someone, Forrest listening, wants to connect with you or follow your work. And by the way, we're gonna have all the links in the description. Okay, but where can people find you best and connect with you?

Forrest Derr 31:40

Yeah, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn and just look for Forrester on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find out there. And then I've got a website, Dir Consulting, D-E-R-R consulting.com. Okay.

Pedro 31:50

You know, there were a few things that you shared with me today that really stay with me. I'm gonna highlight some. Okay. Well, first of all, when you mention you you started coaching for free, right? In the local group and all of that, you know, that's a two-way street that I've seen coaches getting like in a pickle sometimes because we were mentioning the lack of commitment. And sometimes I saw coaches that were like telling me they're they're trying to offer for free and nobody was taking and they were feeling undervalued. But sometimes it's not about their journey, it's about the perception of value that customers have on something. It always brings me back to this meme I saw on Aaron as like there's this fridge on the sidewalk, and there is like for free a taken, and a day goes by, nobody picks it up, and then the other day you add a price tag, like $50, and it vanishes. So same fridge, right? It's just a perception of value. It's free, it's worthless. So for the coaches out there that are struggling, I just I love the reminder. Okay, that's one thing. The other thing that you brought to my attention, it's like you were super open about it, right? You're coming from their consulting, but I can sense the coach right there when you mentioned, for example, you flunked that school, you mentioned the business cannot operate without you right now. And the reason I think that's tied with coaching is because that's a vulnerability asset, okay? And I think that's an important piece for a true coach because you can meet them at their level. You're not just pretending uh you're a no at all, you're in the same journey, you're still learning. You you're just an expert on X, Y, and Z, and you can help them with that, but you still have your own struggles. That humanizes you, and I I love the reminder. Um, and last but not least, I would say is like that when you mentioned why is the phone ringing, right? When you asked that to peel it off that onion from the founder, um, and a micro level to understand what they're actually trying to they're doing on a daily basis, and then they are realizing they're just putting fires out, and sometimes it's ego, sometimes it's lack of systems. Uh, you cannot operate a business like that. So I really like that when you you peel that off and explain to me how you did that. Forrest, this is my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you being here today and sharing so openly. Great having you on.

Forrest Derr 34:09

Appreciate it.

Davis Nguyen 34:09

Thanks for letting me talk to your audience. Editor, cut here, boink. That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.