Clarity Over Chaos: Building Teams That Work

Summary
In this episode, Holy Porter interviews Katie Peterman about how retreat and event leaders can scale their businesses without chaos. They discuss operational mistakes, when to hire support, and how to build high-performing teams to sustain growth.


Takeaways
Operational mistakes retreat leaders make
When to hire your first team member
Building high-performing teams on a budget
Turning chaos into clarity in business
The role of fractional executives in growth
Effective delegation and communication strategies
Identify the right time to hire support to avoid burnout.
Use clear KPIs and metrics to track team performance.
Communicate your vision effectively to align your team.
Hire the opposite of your strengths to balance your team.
Start with small, manageable changes to improve operations.


Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Growing Retreat Businesses Without Chaos
01:14 Katie Peterman's Background and Mission
02:20 Creating Systems to Support Sales and Growth
04:50 What Is Business Chaos Behind the Scenes?
06:26 Managing Change and Data-Driven Decisions
08:39 Focusing on Revenue and Structural Foundations
10:01 Operational Mistakes Retreat Leaders Make
12:56 Hiring Support: When and How to Do It
15:54 Timing and Strategies for Building Your Team
20:22 Common Challenges for Creative Entrepreneurs
22:54 Effective Communication of Vision and Expectations
25:34 Final Tips for Leaders and Support Systems

🔗 Connect with Kati Peterman | YourFRX
📧 Email: kati@yourfrx.com
📧 Business Email: management@yourfrx.com
🌐 Website: www.YourFRX.com
🔗 LinkedIn: Kati Peterman
📸 Instagram: @ik.ati


🔗 Connect with Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
📧 Email: holly@hollyporter.com 
🔗 LinkedIn: Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
🎵 TikTok: @retreatrnr 
▶️ YouTube: @intlretreatassociation
📸 Instagram: @retreatrnr | @hollyporterinternational 
📘 Facebook: HollyAnnPorter

FREE GIFT: 2026 Retreat Industry Report
https://internationalretreatassociation.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast. I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R and R. With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats. I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences. Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here. Enjoy the ride. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome back to the All Things Retreat podcast, where we explore ideas, strategies, and people sharing the future of the retreat industry. Today we're talking about something every retreat reader, leader, and event leader eventually faces: how to grow without creating more chaos. As your business expands, it can become harder to manage the details, lead a team, stay organized, and still deliver exceptional experiences for your participants. At some point, passion and hard work are no longer enough. You need to do the right systems, structure, and support behind the scenes. My guest today is Katie Peterman, founder of your FRX. Katie is an operator and growth strategist who has helped scale multiple seven and eight-figure companies and has worked with more than 1,200 business owners. In this conversation, we're going to discuss the biggest operational mistakes retreat and event leaders make, how to know when you have to become the bottleneck in your own business, and when to hire your first team member. Also, what it really takes to build a high-performing team without breaking the bank. We're also going to talk about financial or fractional executives, sustainable growth delegation, and how to turn business chaos into clarity and action. Katie, welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Thank you so much for having me, Holly. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, so excited to have you too. I always love to chat with my guests a little bit beforehand. And so it's nice to get to know Katie. And um, all right, we we are just gonna get into it. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I'm ready. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So you have a strong back at background in sales. I'm tongue-twied today. I can't get my words out very well. But let's start. You have a strong back background in sales, operations, and organizational leadership. How did those experiences lead you to create your FRX?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yes. So, you know, as a salesperson, uh, you like that drive, you like the chase, you like the excitement, right? Um, typically most people and most sales teams are not fond of operations, right? But because I cared about my sales team so much and I wanted to create a way for them to win, right? I think even if you do like that ever-changing environment and the chase and the excitement that sales can offer, everybody likes a little bit of reassurance and consistency and safety, right? No one's ever gonna say no to that. So I was able to take operations and translate that into hey, here's exactly the playbook, the systems, the KPIs, the metrics that we can break down for you as a sales individual because each personality, each human being is just so different. And here's a roadmap to success that's going to set you up that provides safety and security. And when I saw that change, I was like, wow, I want to do this for more people. I want to create, you know, a proven path to success. I want to create frameworks that set people up. And people are like, I get it now. And it's it's almost like I found a way to make operations sexy, which it's like whoever thinks that operations is sexy, no one. But I found a way for people to to buy into it so it wasn't like a chore. It wasn't like they were being micromanaged. And when I started to see that pattern, I also was like, okay, the traditional COO role is kind of broken. And a lot of small businesses, right, especially in their first two to three years, which is so critical if you're trying to avoid failure, but they don't have these crazy budgets to go hire a CEO or some, you know, fancy executive with two, three, four hundred thousand dollar salaries, right? Um, and I'm a natural supporter, right? Like I operationally, um, I am just a supporter at heart, both personally and professionally. That's what I strive for, is bring, you know, bringing people's visions to life. Um, and I really want everyone to have an opportunity to have access to high-level people and be able to do that and to get them off the ground and get them running. So that's how I started your FRX. So it stands for your fractional executive. You get a high-level executive and it's a plug and play. Um, you have someone who immediately has your back and can step in with the experience, the tenure, the grit, and just get it done.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, and so needed, especially for a lot of solarpreneurs, even when they're just not ready quite for that next step, but you can help them get there. So when we talk about turning chaos into clarity, what does business chaos usually look like behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Well, with events, you could talk about that for a very long time, right? Retreats. Um, there's so many things. In the beginning, I think what's awesome, and you have to remember that this is the grounding place you want to get back to. So in the beginning, right, you have this vision and you have this dream and it's fun, and things are just naturally coming together, right? The people are coming, the team is coming, the agenda is coming. You have the first couple events and it's it's going well, and you're like, wow, that felt good. We got two clients, you know, we got we got one client, we started this membership, we had such a good experience, people are talking about it. Um, and then event, you know, two, three, four, five, we really need to start focusing on revenue. We've got to make this a system, we need to make it a business. This is where the chaos starts. Um and I think it starts because as a visionary and as an owner, right, as the leader, you start getting all these new ideas. And so each event, what you're doing starts to change, and then it becomes different every event. And then you are switching things last minute, maybe pricing, maybe the format, maybe the agenda. And we're not getting enough data to really make educated decisions. We're kind of doing things like on a whim or with a gut feeling, and then the team, they may feel different. Their experience, their background, their gut instincts, you know, they might not agree with the change. And so when we're moving fast, because now we're on event, you know, three, four, five, right? We're doing our next set um with everyone that's came to your retreat, but we're making these changes, that's when the chaos really starts. And so, you as the owner and the founder, you need to stay very high level and you need to stay locked in. Let your team, and I would say, like, really try and stick to the consistency. Um, I know everyone does it differently. Some people have really big retreats once a year. It's really hard to get data and make data-driven decisions when we don't have the frequency of it, right? Um, but you can do research with other events or other retreats that do one once a year events, right? If you have the frequency, like you have three, but it's like commit to three before we make massive changes and then only change two or three small things, right? Or maybe one big thing and one small thing, maybe two small things, right? Um, don't make too many changes at one time that you can't actually track and have data for to say, okay, this resulted in success. This was a good change for us. Don't implement too much technology or don't change all the entire confirmation process up. You know, we have to have a little bit of data, but I think that people get focused and they get a little bit panicky about revenue when we get into those later events or stages, or like, okay, we spent XYZ on the retreat and now we really need to recoup that. We felt great, we had a great experience, but we get a little kind of crazy and panicky when it comes to the revenue side sometimes because so many things can be out of your control, right? Weather, flights, um, whatever's happening on the news, you name it, so many things can affect events and retreats. Um, and so I get it, we've all been there that we need to focus on revenue, but we can't go start from ground zero, blow things up, make nuclear changes, and then expect a good outcome. And I think that that really creates a lot of chaos, is because we waited too late to kind of focus on revenue. Um, and then we, you know, you should always start by putting structure in the beginning and growing from there.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, with International Retreat Association, that's my 12th startup company. So I'm no stranger to starting something from nothing, but I'm growing it so differently, and it'll be the biggest thing I've ever grown because of the industry of what it is. And it's exciting, but it's like those are the things like what you're teaching is what we want to bring people into this community and help them to understand and learn and grow. And sometimes, I mean, there's very, very few events that focus on retreat leaders that are training. And I mean, very few, because I'm I'm looking for all of them right now, wanting to sponsor them because um I don't look at anything like that as competition. An association is is a group that people should all sit under, you know, whether they're a software provider in in events or whether they're doing their own events, it's like, no, that's this is a community and we all want to grow together. But when we're talking about operational mistakes for uh event and retreat leaders and things that they make when as they start to grow, how do you think they can fix that before it comes costly and they don't have that mistake of the cost involved?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah. So a lot of times, um, and I totally get it, because it's your vision and it's your mission, and there's a really big, a lot of times with retreats, there's this huge like purpose pull to it, right? It's a very deep connection to the event that you're putting on. Yeah. And so it becomes very personal. There's this like really big attachment to it. Um, and you need to stay in that space, right? You need to stay high level and building the relationships and the connections. A lot of people will naturally, because it's a safety mechanism. I I don't really believe that it's ego. I know sometimes that can come into the picture, but let's say best case scenario, it's a safety mechanism. And so we'll say, Well, I got us this far, I reached this level of success, I was able to build the vision and the mission and the dream is out there. So I need to go find another me, someone who thinks just like me, someone who does all the things like me. If I could just have one more me and put that in the space, like we would reach X, Y, and Z. And that's actually the opposite. So you actually don't need another you. You are the leader, you are the visionary, you are the one casting the vision and setting out the mission right for everyone. You need to stay big picture. You don't need someone coming in and changing your big picture, trying to take it a different direction, right? Coming up, they're coming up with three, four, five new ideas, and you're like, hey, that's not, that's not what we're doing, right? I know a lot of people experience that. So I'm like, wait, that's not even the path I wanted to go down. You actually need to hire your opposite, right? And I'm talking to all the visionaries and the dreamers right now. You're really good at building those relationships and you're really good at getting out there as a connector and a collaborator. And like I said, taking the dream and the mission to someone. But we all know if we have a very honest conversation for some of you that even you're a little bit operational, we're not good at follow-up, we're not good at details, we're not good at, you know, um getting, I would say even the execution part sometimes is really tough. And I get it, your brain is moving a mile a minute, and you're just zooming and going and talking and connecting with people. You need to hire the opposite of you. And I promise, there is someone out there that loves doing everything that drags you down, that takes your energy, and you're like, oh man, I don't I don't want to do that. I want to go out and I want to talk to people and you want to charge your batteries and you want to like collaborate, and you should be doing that. You need to find someone who loves the follow-up, the admin, the payments, the invoicing, the the follow-ups, the scheduling, the moving things, the renegotiating contracts and you know, especially with events and and retreats, like your your venue space and the audio visual setup and like what you have contractually and and putting things together and how many bodies you can fit in a room and like the logistics of things. That's not necessarily fun, but that's a make a break, a make or break for your event, you know? And so you need to go hire the opposite uh uh of of what you've created. And I think that that is like the best place to start.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah. Well, you talked about retreat leaders being highly creative and visionary, and they are, but where do creative entrepreneurs tend to struggle most, do you feel, when it comes to systems and operations?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I think one of the bigger things is they really struggle with um communicating what that is, right? So they will just assume that because it's it's so clear to them and it's so clear in their mind, and they can see five, 10, 15 years down the road, right? Sometimes of like this big, even with what you're explaining to me for the association, like you already see it. It's there, it's in your mind. You have like you know exactly what that looks like. And I get that because I've been trained working with enough people that I can easily kind of tap into that space. But your admin assistant, your personal assistant, your event coordinator, your assistant of operations, sometimes they can't see that. And so just to assume that they get it, they can see that exact same big picture that you're seeing, or that they know all of the details, um, that's where communication-wise, we really kind of get off track. And I think that that's the most um hurtful in the launch of things because I know how hard as a founder and an owner and a visionary to get people to buy into like your heart's dream of putting that out there. And like I said, this is something in the retreat world, it's very um passionate, it's a why, it's a it's purpose-driven for a lot of people. And so getting that buy-in when people you feel like don't connect with your dream or your vision, that really can like put a damper on things, you know. And it's it's not fun to have a bunch of wet blankets around. Um but if you learn to communicate the vision and the dream and really paint that picture in their mind for them exactly how you're seeing it with communication and set like clear expectations of deliverables versus just assuming they got it, you are gonna see the buy-in go up. You're gonna see like people want to support whatever it is that you're doing. There's people out there that they're just so bought in and they have the same kind of like purpose or why, but they want to support it differently. They're not the the visionary or the owner or the founder, they're there to support you. And the more that you give people a very clear path of how to support you to do that, you're gonna see such a huge shift um in all of it. And it doesn't have to be so painful when building.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah. Oh boy, boy. You're describing when I ran for political office years ago, which definitely was not my journey, and it took me a lot to figure that out. It's it's such a different feeling when you are like, feel like you're forcing something on somebody rather than they gravitate towards you because of that similar vision, and it feels so much better, so much better energy around that. Um, what or when is the right time, would you say, for a business of a doing retreats for them to hire their first team member when they know they really do need some extra hands?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Um, I would set, you know, I totally understand um putting things into it. I think that team members could mean something different for everyone. So whether you start with a virtual assistant, right, whether you start with someone who just books the event, an event coordinator, this could be different for everyone. But I would say the moment that when you are thinking about your dream or your passion and you're doing this and you have that moment of like, this isn't fun anymore, like do not let that light go out. Do not like let that damper. It does not have to be a day like that. But if you are not enjoying it, it's time to do it. Reminds me of a divorce. Yeah. Yeah. And then I will say this, and I know that you know, this isn't necessarily what everyone wants to hear, but this is this is the truth, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

If you cannot afford to hire someone and it's not being supported and it's not coming together financially, like a startup, even in even in the events in the retreat world, a startup is a predetermined amount of time and a predetermined amount of money. And you like, yes, this is a dream, and you can have people support you, and you can go out and you can make changes and you can do all of these things, but you have to make some commitments and you need to stand by those. And if you get to a place and you're still not able to hire someone, then it has to like that's when like the model has to change because you can't do that forever. No business is built on a solo team. Um, and you you have to reach a point that you need to hire someone. And so, really, I don't really like to see people being by themselves, especially in the event space for more than 90 days.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, it's true. I mean, I I had a conversation with someone just about a week ago. They had literally no-showed me for three scheduled meetings, you know, and if it wasn't somebody in the industry that I wanted to really build a relationship with and work with, I would have peace out, you know, that this is obviously you don't value my time, you know, for one, but it's like, oh, I I need an assistant. You know, there was that excuse. And it's like, well, then why don't you have one? You know, I mean, yes, you're running around with your head cut off, you don't have time to look for one, you know. I mean, there's we can always make all these excuses, but the bottom line is when it's affecting your reputation, which I felt like it definitely was how I was feeling towards her. Um, like I said, I would have never continued uh playing that, playing that game with her if it wasn't somebody I I really liked and I knew that yeah, you are too busy. But it's like don't don't ever um let it ruin your reputation, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

But yeah, no, I think that's really important, and and people just don't understand how much of an impact that has. Yeah, yeah. And going back to uh kind of like ego, um, and I will just say this because we all have to work on it on a daily to hourly basis, right? Um, there is no success and there's absolutely zero winning. There is no prize or reward in life for saying I stayed up till 2 a.m. I did it all by myself, like, oh, I just worked all weekend. There's no prize in that. There is no prize in that. Hire somebody. No one, and and maybe this is for the younger generation that's listening, but no one that is a credible source is gonna look at that and be like, wow, I really respect that. People are gonna be like, Why are you being cheap and not hiring someone? Like it doesn't sound professional, it doesn't sound good. There really isn't an excuse. Like, yes, people have turnover. I totally understand that when someone's like, hey, we're sorry, I I currently don't have an EA or I don't have support right now. We're backlogged. Totally understand turnover. But to just be a one-man show and then you're dropping the ball, that really says a lot about how you like think about the world, which would be a concern for me as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, I know. I had I had a lot of lessons last week of what I don't want to do and how I don't want to show up. And it was like, okay, you know, it just I think I think we get those for a reason and realize, you know, that's not how I want to handle my business either. And I need to be very cautious that I'm never coming across that way when when these certain circumstances are happening. And um what let's talk about founders hiring for the tasks that they don't like, or the task consuming the most time, or the task requiring skills that they don't have. Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yes. So we kind of touch base on this, and what I see happen is you're busy, things are going, you'll bring somebody on board and you'll be like, okay, well, I just need you to do the follow-up and I need you to do this and like handle the contracts and stuff, and like just let me know how that goes. Um, that doesn't work. And most of the time, your first few hires, uh, if they're in the price point that you're starting out at, they're not just gonna be able to come in and get it and like, no problem, yeah, I've reviewed all the contracts. Like, you're not hiring the rock star for your first two hires most of the time, right? Um, we're we're trying to be budget conscious, we're trying to be budget friendly, we're doing this, we're building, we're growing. And so when you're not bringing in the rock star, you have to set this person up for success to act like a rock star. And so, you know, I would say it starts from the very beginning. A lot of people are not even clear on the role, and they'll be like, I just need to hire an event coordinator, I just need to hire a podcast booker, I just need to hire a customer service person, right? And then they go, they put up a very generic, basic ad, or they reach out to people, they don't fully describe it. This person introduces them to someone who sometimes is completely the wrong fit, you know? Like, yes, sometimes things work out and that's fantastic, but it starts really early on in that job description process. We need to sit down, we need to brainstorm a little bit. And now with things like AI, this is a fantastic tool. I know that you're not a writer. I know that you know, when you're moving fast and you're doing events and retreats and things, you don't want to sit down and do the work. Get out. Chat GPT on your phone, pull up the voice note and say, Hey, this is the person that I'm looking to hire. This is everything that I want them to do. And I need to do them. I need them to do this at a very high level. This is what I'm looking for. This is what I think I want to pay. What are your thoughts? What questions do you have for me? Can you help me design a job description? And then review that. And really just ask yourself, because this is another thing I hear all the time, is people will hire someone and they are still very focused on revenue. So they're wanting an immediate return on this hire, right? And they'll say, Well, I don't know. I don't even know what they do all day. I hear that all the time. I don't even know what they do all day. Well, of course you don't, because you're not doing that. And like we like we've discovered the details that follow up with contracts, that's not your wheelhouse. So there's a little bit of a lack of appreciation for some of the things in the details that I see with people sometimes. And you need to, what will give you peace in that new arrangement, right? And will keep you in alignment and be able to have a very transparent conversation is two or three KPIs, key performance indicators. Two or three KPIs that either on a daily or weekly, I wouldn't suggest any longer than that, daily or weekly, especially when the relationship is new and you're investing in this hire for your company, that you guys are communicating, are we on track or are we off track? And that's it. This is going to be a learning curve for the both of you in establishing this relationship. But now you know. And so at the end of the day, if you're like, hey, how many folks registered for our event? And you just check in at the end of every day and they say we had two people register, we had 12 people register. Did that align with your weekly goal, which attributes to your monthly goal, which attributes to your quarterly event, you know, that you're trying to hit? You reverse engineer those things, and now we have a daily or weekly success metric that, okay, if we didn't register 12 people for the week and that's our goal, but maybe we only hit seven, that carries over to next week's deficit, right? And I would then go ask the team because again, you hired someone, so you've transferred that responsibility and you say, Hey, let's brainstorm on this. We're behind on registrations, we're gonna have to double down next week. What do you propose? You know, is our plan. What's our next step? And brainstorming on that. But you know, having clear responsibilities for that role and having two or three measurable items that you can check in daily or weekly when it's in your relationship is gonna be vital for that person to have success, for you to feel like you made a good investment, for the relationship to grow. And then that way you're not bringing someone on board who, like we talked about earlier, they might not have had said yes if they got the full picture. They might be the wrong person because they didn't fully understand the vision. They didn't even know what they were saying yes to. You just went out last minute, made a gun at the hip higher, right? Brought somebody on board, and now you're frustrated with that payroll because you feel like money's going out the door because you're trying to generate revenue. You have all these big goals that we don't have metrics for.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

No, it's just having those systems in place are so important, and they they get missed a lot. Well, I think, yeah, this has been a great conversation. I'm sure the retreat leaders have gotten a lot of tips out of this. Um, and it's got a lot of things top of mind for me right now, too, just because we're creating our first couple virtual and live events for the association. So yeah, it's it's like, okay, get back in the swing of things. I've done events for many, many years, and and you know, it it always has its challenges, and you just have to figure out the best solutions and be a good leader. But yeah, definitely be clear on on who you hire in what their job is because you can't hold someone accountable that doesn't know what they don't know. You didn't communicate it to them. How can you expect them to just do it, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Um, well, thanks a lot to today, Katie, for being here. And I'm gonna put all your contact information into our show notes. So if any of our listeners want to reach out to you, then we they will have the information there and can do that. And we appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise with us in the in the events, uh, information and fractional support for executives.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for the association, and I can't wait to see how fast it grows.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, me too. All right, everyone. We'll see you next time on the show. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Thank you for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat. We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you. And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infobewretreatrnr.com. Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates. Until next time. Remember, great retreats start with great intentions. Let's make them extraordinary, one step at a time. Thinking about posting a retreat. Before you dive in, let's make sure you're really ready. Grab your free RU Retreat ready checklist and find out if you've got everything in place from your purpose to pricing to your audience and agenda. Don't get it. Get clear. This quick checklist will show you exactly where you stand and what you need to make your retreat success. Click the link below in the show notes to grab your gift and take the first step toward hosting.