Build a Business with Structure, Freedom, and Purpose with Stephen Goldberg

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Stephen Goldberg, entrepreneur, business coach, franchise consultant, and leadership advisor who helps individuals and business owners navigate the path to entrepreneurship, business ownership, and long-term success. Drawing from his experience helping grow a family business from startup to a thriving organization with dozens of employees, Stephen shares valuable insights on scaling a company, building sustainable business models, and the lessons learned from transitioning into coaching and franchise consulting. We explore the advantages of franchising, the importance of community and mentorship, how entrepreneurs can leverage proven systems to accelerate growth, and why having the right support structure can make all the difference in building a meaningful and profitable business. Whether you're considering business ownership, exploring franchise opportunities, or looking to scale your current venture, this conversation offers practical guidance and actionable strategies for achieving success.

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephengoldbergcoach/
https://www.youtube.com/@StephenGoldberg
https://www.optimusperformance.ca/
https://manage2lead.ca/en/

Transcript

Stephen Goldberg 0:00

I have this I realize I have the solution to help them, those that want to, you know, evolve to free themselves from the stress and day-to-day struggle of running a business, staying profitable, managing it, and really not using their strength, their core strength of why they got into the business in the first place.

Davis Nguyen 0:23

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swain, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're gonna learn lessons that took far yet years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:07

Welcome to Sixtast Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Steven Goldberg, who frees established business owners from day-to-day operations by building teams and systems that run the business without constant owner involvement. After 30 plus years working with hundreds of business owners, Steven has identified the same frustrating pattern repeatedly. Successful entrepreneurs build solid companies but end up trapped in their business instead of working on it. Overwhelmed and unable to delegate effectively. Stevens managed to lead system works with business owners of companies typically having 10 to 15 employees that have been around 15 years plus, focusing on building teams that take ownership, developing managers who lead instead of just doing tasks, and creating systems that free up 10 to 15 hours plus per week of the owner's time. His approach combines a leadership development, validated employee assessments, strategic planning, and practical implementation support to help business owners get their time and life back while the business continues to grow. Welcome to the show, Steven.

Stephen Goldberg 2:30

Thank you, Pedro. Nice to be here. Pleasure.

Pedro Stein 2:33

Great to have you. Okay. And uh, you know, I like to rewind a bit because every coach has that moment when they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you, Steven?

Stephen Goldberg 2:48

Well, I guess when I uh decided to make the leap from a family business to getting into the what we called at the time was uh training and development, because uh I was in a family business and I was I had no training to be a manager or leader other than watching other people, my dad, and he was the owner, the founder of the business. And at one point I was approached by someone, a consultant or trainer, and I was at a period where I was not doing very well in terms of the business. I was highly stressed, and I wasn't just h I wasn't happy, and I saw this as an opportunity, and I managed to find the money to pay them and go through this process that took several months, and it had a transformational effect on me so much that I realized I hated what I was doing, and I wanted to take the knowledge that I was acquiring and help other small business owners uh apply what I had gone through. And so I jumped into the at the time what we called training and development field. Or uh we didn't, I was Ben saying to you before the call, we didn't have the word coaches back then, other than sports coaches. We associated a coach with a sports team or a you know sporting uh uh endeavor and event. And so that only became popular, started to become known as an industry, as a as a vocation, I guess maybe 15 years after I started in this field. So really what drove me here was wanting to find something that fit who I was and that excited me. I can get up every day and be happy to go to work.

Pedro Stein 4:48

Okay. So, first of all, it sounds like you're serving past Steven, right? You were stressed, things were not collecting for you, and eventually you overcame that. Okay. But I'm curious about one thing, the shift that helped that happens, because in the early days, and I know you call that training and development, not coaching, but in the early days of coaching, it starts eventually with like I'm helping people, some advice given, you know, and and trying to task waters. So, how did it happen for you? From okay, this might be a thing to you know what, I'm building a real business around this. You know, that that was there a moment that really clicked for you.

Stephen Goldberg 5:32

Well, I really had no choice. I mean, I had to make it into a business or go get a job because I had left. Uh, we actually had closed the family business. It was floundering. My dad had another business, uh, he was had owned a restaurant, so he went to work there. He was getting on an age, and I could have stayed. We were in the automotive parts distribution field. I could have easily found a job there, but I, you know, I took the dive to become a trainer, coach. I had a wife, two children. My wife uh wasn't working actually at the time, she wasn't that well, and I had to earn earn a living, and I had to make it a business to pay the bills. You know, it was about survival at the time, but it was driven by my passion to want to succeed at this.

Pedro Stein 6:32

Okay. And by the way, we were talking about uh before the podcast, right? And you were telling me you're 32 years in the game, okay? And I can understand there's an evolution to it, right? So after you got rolling, who are the people that kept showing up, Steven? You know, from the early days, okay, I'm trying to see who I can serve to today, the the ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe.

Stephen Goldberg 6:55

Well, it's small business owners. You know, I started really my how I got business uh was just cold calling local companies. I bought a directory and I would just look at, you know, the directory had the name of the owner, their phone number, the size of the company in terms of employees. That's what I was looking for. Uh seven to ten employees plus. I started off with very small companies, and I would just get on the phone every day, call, call, like doll for dollars is the expression that we often hear. You know, people don't do that much anymore. They hire, you know, people in the Philippines or whatever to try and do cold calls for them. I don't think that works very well. But that's how I got started. And then eventually I started getting contracts with bigger companies through networking or whatever, and I would do uh bigger interventions. Uh but my heart was always with small business owners because that's where I come from. And I recognize the pain over a long period, and that's why I decided to go back to really focus on small business owners because I see the problem that most of them face, or a lot of them, and I have this, I realize I have the solution to help them, those that want to, you know, evolve to free themselves from the stress and day-to-day struggle of running a business, staying profitable, managing it, and really not using their strength, their core strength of why they got into the business in the first place. I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but a good portion of small businesses suffer from that. And I know I have a solution for them, and I started this brand called Manage to Lead under my Optimist Performance Company, and I put together this complete process, A to Z of what a small business owner needs to transform from a stressed-out manager to a strategic leader, and I have all the tools and know-how to help them make that shift, and that's where I'm focusing right now. Okay, and locally too, mostly local, you know.

Pedro Stein 9:18

Mostly local. Okay, now I wanna I wanna do a quick exercise with you. Okay. Um, let's pretend I'm your ideal client profile, right? A small business owner. To be candid, I am actually, but let's pretend I am also uh the same guy I'm pretending to be. Okay, so I'm like, first of all, marketing-wise, Steven, how would I be able to find you, you know, in the first place?

Stephen Goldberg 9:42

How would you find me?

Pedro Stein 9:43

Yes.

Stephen Goldberg 9:44

Well, either probably I would find you because I'm doing the outbound marketing. Like what I said just earlier, that you know, when I first started, I just used a directory and called people. Well, now marketing has shifted because of the the internet. I mean, when I started, um uh the internet wasn't even around really. I mean, I don't even know if we had email back then. I don't even think we had email. Um, and you know, it's then it grew. And of course, now everything happens online. And so I've shifted my approach from cold calling with telephone to now marketing via email and content as well. I mean, I have a presence on YouTube, LinkedIn, of course, but it's really about you know targeting and approaching small business owners uh directly through email marketing and of course networking is always there. So, you know, having an influencer in in your uh that knows your niche and can connect you with people that have the problem that you can fix is also another thing that I'm working on developing right now. Uh, and actually what I want to do is start a podcast, a new podcast for the fall, where I would interview small business owners that have gone through or are going through that process of transformation and really uh shine a light on people uh locally or outside. I have a few people that I admire um in different cities in North America that I'd like to interview.

Pedro Stein 11:42

Okay.

Stephen Goldberg 11:43

You know, one of them is this guy that I'm into cycling. He doesn't know this yet. I don't know him. But I was uh I bought a bike from his company. They have very specific bikes that they design in the US, they're made offshore. Nobody here, none of my friends have this, even knew of this company. And then one day I was watching this uh YouTube video, and the guy who was making the video was riding with the owner, co-founder of the company. And I'm saying, wow, this is fantastic. Here's a guy that's running a very busy company, but he has the time to go out and ride his bike on a four-day trip while the business is still running. This is an ideal example of somebody who's evolved enough to put a structure in place that allows him to do that. So that's an example of the type of transformation that some companies can do.

Pedro Stein 12:40

Oh, nice.

Stephen Goldberg 12:41

And of course, I mean, every large business like Amazon, uh HP, I mean, all the big guys, they all started Facebook from their bedroom or from a garage, and somehow were able to make the right decisions. And one of the biggest, most important things is hiring the right people and then trusting them to, you know, carry the torch in their specific expertise. And and just doing that for a lot of small businesses, because they make a lot of hiring mistakes. Just doing that can really propel the success of the business if you let them do their job and not you know crush them with too much control.

Pedro Stein 13:25

Right. Okay. Now, continuing the exercise, okay. I'm still that guy. Then uh I received an email from your business, right? Marketing email, or check your content out there. And I'm like, you know what? Steven sounds like a cool guy. I'm gonna work with him, okay? So let's speed up the sales process. Let's just say there's an alignment, okay, Steven. And I understand you may have different offers, but if you want, you can pick the main one. My question to you is how does it look like to work with your company and what are the potential outcomes I can expect out of it?

Stephen Goldberg 14:03

Well, if you look at my key offering now, which is the manage to lead, the process is well, obviously, first of all, there has to be a conversation. You know, if somebody reacts to an email and and you know replies, well, I'm interested in talking to you. So you go through that process of establishing a rapport, building a relationship, there has to be trust. And then you know the process begins. And this managed lead process takes anywhere from six months to a year. So it involves a combination of uh uh analyzing the current situation, establishing the objective, the long-term objective, looking at the current situation, what's the gap, what are the roadblocks to get there, so there's some diagnostic, and then embarking on a process of uh putting into place certain uh structure systems, and also personal development around leadership and team development. It's really about in the end, if the business owner, and this is the promise to give, and you read it, you know, free up at least 15 hours, 10 to 15 hours a week of time for the business owner to work on a strategic initiative or just time for themselves. I know when I was involved in my family business, I was so stressed, and that stress built up over the years, and it ended up uh me suffering a heart attack. And I ended up with quadruple bypass surgery, and nobody could believe it because I was a vegan. I was exercising almost daily. Uh I but I ended up in this situation. I know a lot of it was just uh stress built up over the years. Plus, I had a genetic tendency to have clogged arteries because of specific uh cholesterol, uh bad cholesterol, they call it. But uh so it the promise is to free the business owner to enjoy the business, have the business serve them, not be a slave of the business and have all that stress and have financial worries all the time, you know, become profitable so you could enjoy the fruits of your labor and continue to work if you want, but do it in a strategic way and enjoy life. So that's the promise I make, and and the process takes time. It's a transformation that the business owner has to look at themselves. You know, a lot of it is uh if you want to have an autonomous team that carries the business for you, you need to change your leadership style. Instead of being too controlling and autocratic, you need to move towards what I call a participative leadership style, where people now, over time, you give people a voice in decision making to the point is where you start trusting their decision and you let them start taking higher responsibilities, like even management decisions. The team runs their department more on their own, and that even frees up the manager to become more of a real manager. You know, most managers in small business aren't real managers, they're managing, but they're also expected, you know, maybe they're running the engineering department. So they're also expected because they're a great engineer and they were so dedicated and good in engineering, they were made a manager. They probably never received management training. So they're still doing an engineering job while still trying to manage the team, and they're not filling the needs of their employees. You know, I went to a retirement party on the weekend, a friend of mine's retiring, and he had 60 people there. One of them was his boss, and his boss was leaving, and after I said, uh, he was telling me how that was the best boss he ever had. And this was a guy that was a colonel in the army before going into business. And I said, Well, what made him the best boss? He said, Well, all he he kept telling his P his employees, I'm here to serve you. Tell me what you need, and I'll get it for you. And he realized that that was his job. He hired uh skilled people, but they needed support and they needed the tools to be able to shine, and that's was his definition, and that's what he did, and which made my friend say that was the best boss he ever had.

Pedro Stein 18:56

Okay, interesting. Uh appreciate the insights uh and the story, by the way. Now, I'm still the ICP, okay? I'm we're still in the exercise. Um, and I loved everything you you told me this far, but I'm like, you know what? How am I going to get those 15 hours, Steve? I I'm my wife's counting on those, okay? I told her we're gonna get the 15 hours, okay? So structure-wise, explain to me. Is it a is there a one-on-one component? Is there a group setting? Uh, is there are there actually homeworks, assignments I need to do? How does that look like?

Stephen Goldberg 19:35

Yeah, so we we look at first we do a visioning that's one-on-one with the business owner. What is your in five years from now, if you had 10 to 15 hours freed up a week, what would you be doing different? What would that look like? We create that kind of vision board. Coaches are very familiar with that, right? Then we look at the current situation, I mentioned this earlier, and we look at the gap, and we look at then what is he doing that's a bottleneck in achieving that uh ideal situation. And we even assess his time, you know, where does he what does he work on every day? You know, a time uh audit, it's called. Many consultants and coaches do that, it's standard practice. So we do that. And but the key thing, uh one of the first steps is really assessing who you have on your team, right? I mean, look at sports, they're constantly looking, analyzing the plays, and you know, I'm watching hockey now, the Stanley Cup. My team just got put out, but it's still a great series that's going on if you're into hockey or now we're having FIFA, the soccer is gonna be great. So, you know, they're always looking at, you know, trying to make that best synergy, that team. So you need the right person in the right job, right? So I do that and I use tools, I use a psychometric assessment that we create profiles for the job, and then we see where the fit is or isn't. And there's always somebody that's not performing, and we have to understand why. And then we need to put that right team together, and then uh we can make strategic decisions about that. The next step would be clarifying uh role expectations and not just writing a job description, but then having the owner, the manager review it, have a conversation with each person, and make sure that the role is clear, certain deliverables, like minimum standard performance criteria is there, and that there's some dialogue going on properly to keep people on track. Track and I take it further to the next step where we start establishing levels of authority. So if you hire me for to be, I don't know, an order entry person, right? You know, maybe I could I have, or I don't know, that's maybe not a let's say a customer service, right? Customer service order entry, and I gotta, you know, uh talk to people and make decisions if they have a situation. What decisions can I make on my own? And what do I need to go to my boss for? Now, if I'm just hired, I should be at the lowest level of authority level of decision making. But if I'm still there after two or three years, I haven't been delegated anything. I haven't grown. And that's the management's responsibility to understand that they need to teach people how to take higher level decisions so I don't have to tell you what to do all the time. So we go through that process as well. It's part of the role clarification, and then we start building teamwork with uh, well, first I'll do a leadership workshops so the management understands, not only sees the things we need to implement from a system perspective, but also from their evolution in terms of leadership style, which I mentioned earlier. And delegation and giving authority is part of the moving towards a participative leadership style and teaching people to solve their own problems rather than being the hero and telling people what to do all the time, solving everybody's problem. Managers love to do that, it keeps giving them power, right? But it's not empowering people to do their job and make decisions and think strategically. So you want your people to do that, and that's where leadership training workshops as a group comes in, and then we do the same for the employees. So they learn teamwork, they start building team spirit, they learn about each other, they learn techniques of um how to resolve conflicts on their own. You know, if somebody's not pulling their weight, instead of running to the manager and saying, this person's not, you know, working, how do you confront that person as a team member? How do you express yourself so you don't erupt the conflict, but you build teamwork around a potential conflict or problem? These are skills that people need to learn to practice real autonomous teamwork. Teamwork isn't about people just getting along, haha, let's go for a beer after work and you know, I like you or I don't like you. It's about working together to propel something forward and to continuously improve. You know, uh, that's what we teach problem-solving skills, taking responsibility. And then we transfer that into what we call win-win agreements. So win-win agreements are where you, the employee, let's say, if you were the employee, now you're at a level where you're more flexible because of the training, you understand what where the business owner wants to go with the business to become more autonomous and what their role is, your role. So now you tell me, you make your own performance commitments in writing. You know, you set your own goals, where you need to improve, what you want to achieve, and you present it to me and we discuss it. We agree on it, but the flip side is you tell me what I need to do to support you. What are the management commitments? So now you have a balanced approach, and we have a way of evaluating that on a regular basis. So the employee gets evaluated based on their commitments, but the manager gets evaluated based on their support commitments. So, because often when you have performance reviews, you know, you have like your criteria or whatever, and it's always the employee that's getting assessed. But the manager doesn't get assessed by the employee in terms of supporting them. So we flip that with the win-win agreement, so it's a balanced approach. And then we move into uh continuous improvement strategies where people are practicing prevention, they look, they look for bottlenecks in the system, areas to improve. And we see that with large corporations, right? With all the apps, software, they're always trying to outdo each other. And the only way they can do that is by practicing agile processes, which is really about continuous improvement. So that in a nutshell is really, and then you know, so when you ask is so part of it is group training, like the leadership and the team, and then the implementation of a lot of what I just said, the win-win agreements, the it's working one-on-one with the owner and the managers and the employees. So it's not just give you know, educating them, it's accompanying them in implementing all those ideas, all those uh improvements.

Pedro Stein 27:28

Okay, I appreciate the insight, the rundown. Now, I want to shift gears for a second, okay? Because I'm curious about where you're taking all of this, Stephen. You know, looking ahead a bit. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Stephen Goldberg 27:45

Well, I'm bringing on a new associate. We just struck a deal uh in August. He's leaving where he is, he's joining me, and um, I hire um freelancers to work with for the marketing part. So I have a lead generator, and I have I'm actually creating a new website. I created one for my manage to lead brand, the beginning of the year, and now I'm redoing my Optimus Performance website. So the same developer or freelancer that took care of the um other one is doing this one. We're in the process. Um he's supposed to deliver me a framework today based on my my structure, my blueprint. And um then I'll be hiring a new VA to help me with the marketing. Um so I I use VAs a lot, but long term, and I have a part-time bookkeeper, so I try and keep it very lean. My law, my vision, my dream is to be able to build a license the manage to lead system so that you know I want to make a prove that it's doable here locally, and then I want to help other coaches and trainers to replicate that in their cities and build, I guess, um, like uh not an association, but build a brand. I'm not sure how financially it would be structured, maybe uh partnerships to a certain degree, so everybody has skin in the game financially as well. Or a friend, I don't know about a franchise. I don't I I find franchises is too controlling. So I I prefer people motivated and using their creativity to, you know, the the goal is really to deliver the results to the client. It's not about building an empire anymore for me, although it never was really. I have other things I'd like to do as well, like uh creative stuff. You know, I one of my interests is just being creative. So I'd like to do some uh like animated series. I created this character. I don't know if you can see that.

Pedro Stein 30:12

I can see it.

Stephen Goldberg 30:13

So this is I I was going through a tough time after my surgery. I had never really been depressed in my life, but after my surgery, I just went through this really tough emotional period, mental period. It's feeling really down. And as I was getting better working on myself, I created this character. It's kind of a little bit based on, well, it's quite a bit based on my dog. I have a great dog. So it his name is Kalf, and it stands for know yourself, accept yourself, love yourself, and forgive yourself. So that's I'd like to make a series for children based on this character to teach them certain principles of life, you know. So that's one of my dreams uh as well. I started working on it, but uh, you know, I have a lot of I don't have that much time. I'm very busy riding my bike and camping and traveling, enjoying life, you know.

Pedro Stein 31:20

I love that, man. And if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Steven, where can people find you and connect with you? I mean, we're gonna have all the links in the description, but the best way to find you.

Stephen Goldberg 31:33

I guess LinkedIn, YouTube, you could look me up, Steven Goldberg. I publish regularly, not as much as I used to. I'm actually working working this morning on a new video series about the managed lead system. And yeah, my email address it's on my YouTube channel and my uh LinkedIn profile. So that's basically or my website, I mean optimistperformance.ca or managed to lead.ca. Both of those you can I look a bit out of focus here. I don't know. Here we go. Okay, okay. I know my autofocus is moving.

Pedro Stein 32:17

Right. Okay. You know, there were a few minutes, a few things you shared today that really stayed with me. Okay, I'll I'll highlight them. Um the first one would say it's in the origin story when you told me you had no option but to make this succeed, right? That you had to close the family business and all that. So that tells me how open you are about your own struggles, right? You're not trying to to push something you're not, you're just being yourself. Yeah, I I had to make it, and you eventually made it. Um, so kudos to you on that. Okay. Also being very open about the heart attack, your own pitfalls, right? So I always commend a coach that can do that gracefully, talking about their own struggles, and so there's that. Um another thing that caught my attention is the code calling bit, right? I see a lot of coaches out there today struggle with this. Uh the fear of rejection, you know. Oh, I don't want to bother people and all of that. Um, and me, like myself, I I was I was in a one like four to five years ago. I did code calling too for a company. 800 plus calls a day, believe it or not, Steven. So I'm right there with you. I understand where you're coming from, and also great and powerful reminders to coaches out there. Not that they have to code call today, but sometimes you just need to get uh outside of your own head and do the thing so it can create your book of business, you know? So there's that. And last but not least, I would say is like when we were talking about your business, you mentioned creating a vision board and a time audit, right? Uh the time audit is really a great tool. I was a consultant here in Brazil, right, for Ernest and Young. And whenever we're talking about a time audit, and you're you told me yourself you're gonna buy them back to 15 hours, right, per week. You gotta take a look at the low value skills and see what they're wasting their time with, you know? And sometimes they're coping, sometimes they're just trying to avoid what they should be doing, you know. And uh eventually you see the divorce coming a mile away, like they're working 60, 70 hours, you know, and and it just doesn't end well, as you kind of already know that. And it's thanks for guys like you that you can help them with that, you know. So then again, this is my just my long-winded way of saying, you know, Steven, that I appreciate what you do and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. You know, great having you, Wayne.

Stephen Goldberg 34:42

Well, you're welcome and thank you for inviting me. It's always nice to talk about this process of uh development and uh moving towards your ideal uh business situation, if that's resonates with people.

Davis Nguyen 34:59

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight-figure years, all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.