The Jasmine Star Show

How to Build a Sellable Business That Doesn’t Depend on You with Jessica Marx

• Jasmine Star

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Jessica Marx joins me to share how she helped scale a biotech company to a multi-billion-dollar acquisition—and why she’s now on a mission to help small business owners build companies that run without them. We dive into what makes a business truly scalable, the most common reasons entrepreneurs burn out, and how to turn your business into an asset instead of a job. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to exit—or just step back—this episode is for you.

Click play to hear all of this and:

[01:30] How Jessica went from a corporate career to a risky biotech startup (and why a folding table didn’t scare her)

[04:00] What it really takes to scale a company—and why her corporate experience was the opposite of most women’s

[06:55] Inside the multi-billion-dollar acquisition and what she learned reporting to legendary CEOs

[08:45] Why fast growth is often a red flag—and how to avoid building a business that self-destructs

[11:30] The one belief shift that changed how Jessica helps small business owners scale (without sacrificing freedom)

[17:10] How Jessica supports high-achieving entrepreneurs to create businesses that run without them

[20:00] Tactical ways to remove yourself from the “everything” seat in your company

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Connect With Jessica Marx:

Jessica Marx is a powerhouse business strategist, speaker, and host of the Millions Were Made podcast. With a background in commercial real estate and biotech startups, she scaled a company from startup to multi-billion-dollar acquisition, overseeing a 500+ person sales division. Today, she helps 7- and 8-figure entrepreneurs build sellable, sustainable businesses that don't rely on them to survive. She’s passionate about transforming burnout-prone businesses into true assets that provide freedom, impact, and—yes—massive ROI.

📧 Join my Newsletter for a weekly cocktail of insider business strategy, personal reflections, and the journey of being a thought leader: https://jasminestar.com/newsletter 📧

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Jasmine Star 00:00:00  On August 12th, 2025, I dropped a podcast where I gave a particular shout out to a brilliant mind. I had recorded that podcast before we actually met in person. She came as a guest speaker to my mastermind, and let me just tell you, the women in the room had their minds blown. There was a long line to talk to Jessica after the event. We had lunch together and everyone just surrounded her. She was just like honey to be's. And the beautiful thing about this whole thing was that I said, I can't keep this amazing, brilliant mind. Somebody who's passionate about business and passionate about helping entrepreneurs build scale and if they would like, sell their business. I could not be more excited to introduce you and have on my show for the first time, and hopefully the first and not last. Jessica Marx. Thank you for being on my show. Thank you for having me. It's an honor. I'm happy you're here. I'm happy you're here. And you are. A podcast host for Millions Were Made.

Jasmine Star 00:00:51  And so from one podcast host to another, we're going to have a lot of fun today. Yes. Okay. I think we can both talk it up. I know because we both love what business does. We love how business empowers us, and we love the freedom that it provides. And we get to build our lives according and around it. But before we get there, and I don't ever really start the podcast right here, I always go to what is somebody immediately going to learn? I want to give value, but I think that part of the value that you instill is actually sharing your story and adding context. So I'm going to go against my podcasting norm and say, how did you get here? And what does me do? So passionate about making sure that businesses are not owner dependent and building a business for freedom? Yes. And I will give the cliff notes version.

Jessica Marx 00:01:31  Because obviously it is lengthy from 2006 to now. But in 2009, I made the leap from commercial real estate working for the Irvine Company into a brand new company in the bio health space, which was a pharmacogenetics company, and at the time, genealogy was on the horizon.

Jessica Marx 00:01:53  It was still something that physicians weren't that well trained in and and more importantly, insurance companies weren't a huge fan of. So as you can imagine, we had an uphill battle because what a PGT test does is it helps physicians prescribe the right medication and the right amount based off of your genotype. So that gives a lot of context in that I was in a startup environment selling something that truly was first to market, and also something that a lot of physicians, a lot of insurance agencies, a lot of health care providers didn't want that information. It was untraditional. So flash forward to 2015. I was the only female executive on the team. I was overseeing our entire national sales division of over 500 sales reps, as well as our commercial operations in our corporate office, which is a really unique role because to anybody that has corporate experience, sales is normally segmented completely out. And the way that the infrastructure of this company was built. Because I was involved early on, I ended up reporting directly to the CEO and board of directors, and I oversaw not just our sales division, but the entire commercial operations team at our corporate headquarters.

Jasmine Star 00:03:12  Okay, but we should pause here because when we were talking now I'm going to get ahead of this. Jessica, I had mentioned Jessica on my podcast on August 12th, so check out that episode. I talked about how we met and what our connection point was, and we met over lunch. And one of the things that you had said that I just have never forgotten is you had this amazing job with Irvine Company, who had risen through the ranks, and then you were pitched this startup position, and your first day you were at a fold out table. Yes.

Jessica Marx 00:03:39  I mean, and at the time, that's what a lot of startups looked like. Of course. Of course, right now in 2025. Branding is so important and image is so important. And a lot of newer companies that are getting investors are putting those funds into these lavish offices and these experiences, and Google is really the first one to start that. But we were kind of ahead of that. So we didn't really care what any of this looked like.

Jessica Marx 00:04:08  And it was all hands on deck. And so I had a very unique opportunity. And at the time, I didn't understand fully how strategically I thought and how different that was. And I know that there are a lot of women that say they had really bad experiences, or they never felt like their opinions or their thoughts were validated in their roles. I had the complete opposite experience. I had a wonderful experience. I had a seat at the table. I was very well respected. The ideas that I would come up with in the strategy that I could layer in, and the freedom that I had and the budgets that I was allocated to be able to do what I was able to do at that company were because not not just the way that I thought and not just the strategy I had, but the way that I was able to communicate that and with the confidence I had in the outcome, and always correlating every strategic plan to the growth of the business, for it to be scalable and for it to ultimately have an exit.

Jasmine Star 00:05:19  And so let's talk about the exit. That was beautiful and amazing and really impressive.

Jessica Marx 00:05:25  Yes. So the company ended up going to acquisition for a multi-billion dollar deal. And I ended up having to stay on for another two years. Obviously, buyers don't want a mass exodus from a sales force and a sales force that had a really phenomenal culture we had, which I think is important for small business owners to understand. We had uncapped commissions, so we had sales reps making well into the multi-million dollars annually in their commission plan. And that's part of the reason why we had the growth that we had. But obviously when new leadership comes in new boards through that next two years, I had the experience of reporting to some of the top CEOs, the former CEO of Tennent, PepsiCo, A.S. and different boards, and it was phenomenal. But what I started to see was one, I had worked 100 hours a week for the last 7 or 8 years, and I was exhausted. But I also started to look around in my personal life and see that I didn't know anybody building a company of this size, but I knew a lot of small business owners and the way that they had set up their companies, the infrastructure they had, it's almost like this billion dollar industry of this small group of founders know something that small business owners don't know.

Jessica Marx 00:06:55  And I obviously had a front row seat to all of that and how we built it and how it could run without a CEO, and it could run without leadership to a certain extent and being in the executive office. And so I thought, I wish more small business owners knew how to scale and scale in a way where their companies are not just liabilities, but that become true assets not only along the way, but for them to have an exit strategy.

Jasmine Star 00:07:23  Yes. And that's what brings us to today. Hey that passion and what you saw. You had a unique purview. You had a very unique experience. And so you're taking this very unique experience and you're making it accessible. And you've built a business, one of the businesses that you run. You've made it a business around taking that philosophy of saying your business is an asset, you can either sell it or this could be creating revenue with you without you having to be in the driver's seat. So talk to us about the first beginning parts of that business.

Jasmine Star 00:07:54  How did you get started? Who was your first client? What did you see? Because what I want to do is I want listeners and viewers to be able to see themselves in that story and then watch your iteration, but then also see how you serve these business owners.

Jessica Marx 00:08:05  Yes. So I will say, I think I went into it very blindly, partially because of the season of life I was in. So obviously I was very fortunate. I did well financially. I did not need to go back to work. I missed a huge part of the story that I was pregnant with twins when my deal came up, and so I stayed on through kind of maternity leave and then decided, you know, there's just no way I'm going to go back with two newborns. And at that time, I knew I could get a CSO job with pretty much any startup or scale up at that point, and I could put in some pretty high demands. But I also knew I was going to be trading time for dollars, and at that point I just didn't need it and I didn't want it.

Jessica Marx 00:08:50  And so I did slowly start consulting, and I didn't fully grasp how many issues and how many layers I was going to need to pull back in the small business sector that are no longer relevant when you're working in a nine figure company. And so one of the things that I started to notice is that there were companies that were having fast growth, so they were getting to 2 million or 3 million within 3 to 5 years, which is incredible. But the founders were completely overwhelmed. A lot of them were just ending up shutting down the companies or self-destructing, and didn't fully understand or didn't view success in a way that others were viewing it. Right. So to others that looked successful, but they didn't feel successful. And I knew looking at the companies that they were throwing all of this money into programs, into courses, into business coaches, but nobody was really coming in and fully looking at the entire business, doing full due diligence to say, okay, let's stop for a second, because even though you got to this point, this thing is duct taped together or you are burning yourself out, you don't have a team, you don't have leadership, you don't have something that's scalable or sellable.

Jessica Marx 00:10:21  And a lot of times they weren't even making money themselves financially. They were in debt to the company or they were barely getting by.

Jasmine Star 00:10:30  And I just thought, we have. Okay. So if you are feeling burnt out, if you have a business that you feel chained to, if people are looking at your business and thinking, it's so impressive and on the back and you're looking and thinking, this thing is put together with duct tape and bubblegum, if you're not actually getting money and putting it in your pocket at the end of every year. This episode is for you. So you are looking at the layers that you have to go through to truly understand what is causing the burnout, or what is causing the lack of profitability. What do you start seeing in the beginning?

Jessica Marx 00:11:00  Yes. So we've always been a private advisory firm. So if we work 1 to 1.

Jasmine Star 00:11:05  Actually let's.

Jessica Marx 00:11:06  Pause. Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:11:07  As, as a as a host, I know a lot of information about you. Yeah. Now, what we do in the story is we put in context of what you do now so that when we go back to that iteration story or that that journey, people have more context of what it is you do now.

Jessica Marx 00:11:19  Yes. So one of the companies I own and my true love and passion is Tailored Premiere. We are a private boutique advisory firm. We typically work with companies generating anywhere from 2 million to 25 million that have had some pretty decent quick growth and would like somebody to come in. That is a thought leader in the space. I also have a team of phenomenal advisors that have all gone through acquisitions and run eight figure companies themselves to come in. And we have a proprietary method that we've copy written where we go through full due diligence. Prior to me starting this firm, the only time a company went through due diligence is when they were ready to sell. And then all of the skeletons came out of the closet, and either a banker or an M&A attorney or a broker was looking at them and saying, your company's not really worth what you think it is. And here is why. It's more than the PNL. It doesn't have the right systems. It doesn't have the right reoccurring revenue. It doesn't have the right margins, it doesn't have the right team.

Jessica Marx 00:12:23  It doesn't have the right offers. Your leadership isn't qualified. I mean, there's a million reasons why a company becomes devalued through that process. We wanted to offer something to business owners who are really serious about making a ton of money along the way and at the end by giving them a not only doing full due diligence, but saying, here's the go forward strategy. Here's where you need to focus the next 2 to 3 years. Here's all of the risk in your markets. Here's all of the opportunities you have in your company. Here's all of the areas where if I was coming in with my own dollars to buy you, I would devalue you or I would negotiate the deal because this to me is glaring. It may not feel huge to you, but to me as a buyer, I'm not going to. I'm going to negotiate this down all day long. And so we are really the first of our kind. We audit 2 to 3 companies per month. We are referral only, we are always waitlisted.

Jessica Marx 00:13:22  And we've built this brand off of we want to put and we predominantly work with women. We want to put more wealth in the hands of women and not just at the end of their journey. We want to do it along the entire way.

Jasmine Star 00:13:38  So when you first started this and you are looking at businesses, what are like 2 or 3 of the most common struggle points for entrepreneurs? Because people are watching it and you're like, okay, can she predict my future? Or can she say exactly where I'm at? And then how do I how do I get out of it?

Jessica Marx 00:13:53  Yes. Well, I will say 95% of the clients that come to us identify a problem, right? They tell us, I have a sales problem. I have a marketing problem. It's my team. It's, you know, whatever it may be, it's my positioning, it's my branding. And when we get in there, 95% of the time, what they've identified as the growth blocker or the thing that is causing them the most stress, is actually not the core issue within the organization.

Jessica Marx 00:14:20  So that's another problem is that they're trying to fix something that maybe should be 4 or 5 steps down the road, because they have a much bigger issue that they need to fix now that they don't even understand is there. And so I will say a lot of times it comes down to, so what we say business models for the most part are the same, right? Whether if you're a service based business, you've got your branding, you have your positioning, you have your offers, you have your marketing, you have your sales, you have your operations, you have team, you have all of those things are going to be the same fundamentals that create a business that's able to scale. We oftentimes find that companies are not as profitable as they should be, and so they are not able to reinvest into quality leadership or positioning and branding in the right marketing. But a lot of times they're not profitable. And it all comes down to the offers. And in 100% of the businesses we have audited, we have restructured in some capacity the offer and product suite.

Jasmine Star 00:15:27  In I won't forget, I'll never forget this question because at the mastermind, the women in my mastermind, they have different business structures. Some are service based, some are MRR, some are courses. And a woman had raised her hand and said, well, what is a general rule of thumb for profitability? Then you had said, well, what kind of business do you have? And she's like, I have a course in membership, online education, style of business. And do you remember the number, the percentage that you had given her?

Jessica Marx 00:15:51  Yes. So for something for a true online business, healthy margins can be between 40 and 50%. We oftentimes see them higher than that. And it can be. We are so lucky that we live in a time right now where we have automations, we have AI, we have tech stacks. We have so many things playing in our favor to make companies more profitable. Now, if you're a restaurant or you are in a different market, 40 to 50% may be a huge stretch.

Jessica Marx 00:16:24  But I have a rule of thumb, and I say it all the time, that if you're not at 20% profit, why are you even running a business? Because chances are, if you look at 20% profit on $1 million company, that's 200,000. And we know that 200,000 really isn't 200,000. Right. And then you've built a seven figure company and you can't even live off of that.

Jasmine Star 00:16:51  Right.

Jessica Marx 00:16:51  And so profit is the number that we find. So many business owners are not focused on enough. They know it. They know the number, but they don't understand how to change or modify it to their favor. And the different layers of the company that impact profitability and where to start with that.

Jasmine Star 00:17:12  So somebody is listening and they've had their business X amount of time. What's the trajectory. Like if somebody has a digital business. Yeah. How many months or a year do you say aspirational. It's gonna be between 40 and 50 is healthy. And then versus a service based business like what's the timeline that somebody somebody should be assessing.

Jessica Marx 00:17:29  I mean, we can shift profit pretty damn quick by making some very small shifts.

Jasmine Star 00:17:35  Okay, so let's say somebody started a digital business two years ago. Should they be at 40% profit?

Jessica Marx 00:17:40  You know, it just depends. And and I know it's hard and and I always am. This is part of the reason why we do full due diligence. And this is why I think a lot of business advisory out there fails the client because they don't have enough information to really provide guidance. And here's what I mean by that. So could we say at two years, yes, you should absolutely be at 40%. We could. But if we're trying to get you to an exit and we're trying to take advantage of a market right now, maybe it's an AI, then we're wanting to reinvest as quickly as possible. And I'm less concerned about the profit as I am growing and scaling and getting in front of markets to be able to attract that buyer and to come in at the highest multiple. So would I take maybe on a digital company or a tech company, would I say, I'm going to play the long game and know that I can wait 4 or 5 years and have a massive exit versus maybe a health and wellness online health and wellness practice, where we're going to need a lot of proof of concept.

Jessica Marx 00:18:49  We're going to need to grow and scale the business, and we can kind of pull some profits and, and do owner distributions and make sure that that person is taken care of so that they can really reinvest into the company their time, because that's what it's going to take for that type of business model. Yes. So it is very nuanced. And I think that's why I want your listeners to understand. And I say this frequently, advice can be good or bad, depending on who's giving it and who's taking it. And so it's really important that when it comes to your business model and when you ask questions and we have this conversation with your mastermind, you can't ask a vague question and expect to get a response that is going to have massive impact on your business, because anybody who's going to give you really great business advice is going to need to know the data. They're going to want to know the analytics, the metrics. They're going to want to know the history that plays into what got you to this moment, because it could be multiple different ways that got you here.

Jessica Marx 00:19:54  And that's going to be important from the brand story of okay, where do we go next?

Jasmine Star 00:19:59  I love this okay. So when we're talking about the mastermind, we're talking about asking vague questions. We get vague answers. Now, a very specific question that a lot of the women were asking. They're with you in the room. And then after you had left was this idea of owner dependency? Yes. Because I would say the room was about split. Now, this is a room of all seven figure founders, but the room is split between people who are like, I am still very much in the business. And one of the women that you had spoken to, I mean, she had profit margins that were close to 63%. And she's just like, is that too high? And so we have these people who are still so in the business, and then we have a support structure. Can you explain owner dependency and why you are such an advocate to make sure that people are on the business and not in the business?

Jessica Marx 00:20:42  Yes.

Jessica Marx 00:20:42  So you as the founder, have to understand what a CEO actually does. And one of the things I talked about with your mastermind group is that small businesses should run like large corporate companies. It's just a reduction in headcount and sometimes budget from a dollar perspective, but not a percentage perspective. And what we find is that especially women, they get into business because they want to change their life in some format. For those coming out of corporate, it's that they want their time back. They don't want to have to clock in and clock out and miss their their children's events. For others, it's that they want uncapped wealth. For other individuals, it's that they want to make a massive impact, whether it's in health, wealth, you know, finances, whatever they may be. You know, we work with a lot of private physicians, and so they want to be able to have that impact. But then they get into business and they get to seven figures and they realize I'm not doing any of what I actually wanted to accomplish by starting this business.

Jessica Marx 00:21:54  I'm not rich. I don't have a ton of time. My team is heavily reliant on me. I'm the focal point of the company. I could probably walk away today and go get a job that's higher pain. That requires less hours. And so they get to this space, but they don't know how to get out of it. And so we've become a huge proponent. And I talk about it and I share it a lot. And it's the reason why I can run three companies in a CEO seat right now, very effectively, at about 20 hours a week, is because I understand what my role is in each company as the CEO. Does it look different in every company in every season? Absolutely. But I have really strong leadership. I have an incredible number two in every single business I operate. I know what data and information I need to see on a weekly and monthly basis to understand the performance of the company, without being in the day to day or the weeds, I can articulate very clearly what needs to happen, what the goals are, what the numbers we need to hit, the metrics.

Jessica Marx 00:23:01  What are the KPIs that are set? I have really great incentive comp plans, which we layer into every single company we work with. So when I win, when the company wins, they're winning too. And what happens? And the reason why we have so many owners that come to us and the the business truly is dependent on them, which means it's never going to be able to sell or it's never going to be able to hit a peak performance state is because they don't know what they don't know, and they've never sat down to look at the company through a lens like we look at it. We're not emotionally attached to these companies. We're looking at the data. We're looking at the analytics. We're looking at markets. We're very well connected in multiple industries. So I have other thought leaders I can reach out to. I know what companies are trading at. I know what deals have been done. And I can take all of that information, and I can write strategy for them to be able to go and do the same thing, whether they want to sell or not sell.

Jessica Marx 00:24:01  It's my goal that none of our founders are working more than 20 hours a week, and they don't. We take ten private clients a year. They've all gone through our audit process before they're welcomed into that container. I sit basically as their board of directors, and I can't have ten of those clients if they're ten clients that are working 40 to 60 hours a week. Can you imagine the amount of pings I would be getting daily from these business owners. And so the criteria to be a private client of ours is that you are a CEO and you're sitting in that seat, and that you and I together can grow and scale this company and make you a lot of money. It pays my fees easily. The ROI is massive for them and that there is endless opportunity. Two years from now, five years from now, should they decide to exit.

Jasmine Star 00:24:52  So when we talked about owner dependency, one of the things that you had said is you have a very powerful number two in each of the businesses that you run.

Jasmine Star 00:24:59  What were you looking for in each of those number twos? And then what was the process in finding them? You have very different businesses.

Jessica Marx 00:25:06  Yes. So it is a lengthy process and we find that. So this is also something that we offer as a back end strategy, where clients who do go through our audits, who either don't have the right number to or don't have a number to at all, they have a VA or an executive assistant that they've turned into their number two. That has no skill set in growing and scaling a company. This is a service that we ultimately ended up layering in, is going out and helping business owners create the infrastructure in their company to be able to hire effectively, but then to also show them through our own proprietary process, how we go out and hire this talent. And it is a lengthy process. If somebody tries to say, well, I need somebody in 30 days, we're not the right firm for you, because one, you're only going to capture a very small audience in two weeks to go through an interview process.

Jessica Marx 00:26:01  Two, it's leveraging networks. It's finding the right experience of somebody who's already gone where you want to go in another business. So they've maybe worked for a larger name in your industry, and now they're looking to move on, or they have experience within a corporate marketing agency or, you know, Hawk Media or some of the media companies that you can then that they're now looking to come in and take their expertise and help build and scale a startup. So we're looking for not just previous experience, but then we're also looking for how do they work with the founders leadership style and how can they complement that. So my number two has a very different skill set in tailored than I have. She is very systems and operations and I'm the opposite. I'm like I print out paper. I'm not. And I said this at your mastermind, I'm not in slack. I'm not in base camp or whatever they use. I don't know the logins, I don't care, do they all leverage it and function as a team using that? Yes.

Jessica Marx 00:27:15  I don't. And so she has to bring me information in a different format that works well for me. I don't need to adapt to what they're doing in order for the company to be successful. I know how I operate, and I knew what I needed in order to operate in my zone of genius and be able to grow and scale the company as a CEO.

Jasmine Star 00:27:34  How did you find her?

Jessica Marx 00:27:35  So she was a former client of mine.

Jasmine Star 00:27:37  Really?

Jasmine Star 00:27:38  I didn't know that. I took her.

Jessica Marx 00:27:40  Through double acquisitions. She sold her companies. She then went on to be a COO for a big name in the online space. And then she had sent me a message and said, I'm looking for my next big move. Do you know anybody that's looking? And I actually started thinking, oh gosh, I have like three people that I know need somebody of this caliber. And I said, yes, let me connect you. Let's get on a call though, so I can really understand what it is you're looking for.

Jessica Marx 00:28:13  And then 30 minutes into the call, I said, okay, Brooke, I am not giving you to anybody. I'm like, we're doing this. I'm like, come on board. And so.

Jasmine Star 00:28:23  Amazing.

Jessica Marx 00:28:24  A week later, we were in a hotel room figuring all this out, how it was going to work, what it needed to look like, how we were going to build it out and brought her on board.

Jasmine Star 00:28:34  That's amazing. And so when you look at that experience of your number two versus your number two in the other businesses that you run, what was the similarities and what are the differences? Like, you know, the way that you work that's going to be the similarity. And then based on those other businesses, what were you looking for for your number two? You know.

Jessica Marx 00:28:49  For me, I'm not a micromanager. And I will pay very high salaries in order to not micromanage. And I also need somebody that is operationally inclined. But I also need there to be a pretty high level of strategy from them as well, because I'm probably off the charts when it comes to strategic thinking.

Jessica Marx 00:29:12  And most people do not think in that capacity. They're creatives or they're visionaries or they see the end, but they don't see the 20 steps it's going to take to get there. And so I knew I needed somebody that was going to be able to take my ideas and then be able to figure out, okay, what are those 20 steps? Because I don't have the time, nor do I want to be doing that. It's not in my best interest. And so that was a skill set that I really needed to that I'm always looking for is that can this person work independently? But are they going to come to me when they get stuck? Or when we're crossing a bridge that we have maybe never crossed before, and they want that guidance? And then how are they at communicating that level of guidance that they need? And then the other thing that was really important is we work with really big brands. We work with celebrities, we work with Olympic athletes, like the the type of clientele that comes through our firm.

Jessica Marx 00:30:13  It was very important that anyone that works for me. Understands white glove. They understand concierge. They understand how to effectively communicate with our clients and that they understand, at the end of the day, what our mission is. And we're not box checkers. We're not. No, we won't jump on another call unless, you know, we believe by the 15 minutes that's not how we operate. And so I can't have people in my company that have come out of situations where that's been their experience, because I don't want to untrained that.

Jasmine Star 00:30:46  When you say, I need somebody who's like, operationally minded, how are you measuring that? How are you testing it? Like, yes. Talk to me about that.

Jessica Marx 00:30:53  So we have an extensive protocol. You could say that when we are interviewing. I mean, even in my construction company with my husband, we do test projects we do on sites. So right now with the companies that we're hiring CEOs for or senior vice president of operations or even we just hired a head of national sales for a designer that owns a wedding dress company, a fashion house.

Jessica Marx 00:31:20  We are running them through. Typically, it's a test project that brings in three areas of skill set that are going to be most critical and important to the growth of the company. And so with sales, obviously it's creating a sales strategy. It's creating a commission structure plan. And then we also need to see like how does that align with the luxury industry. So we're layering in. And we also set I mean there's got to be a better word. But there's booby traps in these projects where we know that we're not giving them enough information. So is it that they're going to come back and ask for additional information? Are they going to go out and do market research on their own? Are they going to get creative and then kind of shift the project to say, you know, you didn't really specify who the end buyer was going to be, or you didn't really specify how large of a team that was going to be involved in this. So I went ahead and assumed that we would have three, and the three that are on the team are going to be this, this and this.

Jessica Marx 00:32:18  And here's how they all play a role. And so it allows us to see because sometimes, like I didn't have any information on that. So I just didn't include it. Well that's not good enough in a small business right. We're moving very quickly now.

Jasmine Star 00:32:31  Do you prefer, as a side note, before I jump in, because I'm like, oh, this, I have this this. Okay. So do you prefer when somebody asks you for additional information. Do you like when they do go and do general market research, or do you like when they make an assumption?

Jessica Marx 00:32:44  I never love the assumption. Right. Because that could be a detriment to the company, right? If we have teams that are just assuming that they can go out and and create what they thought we were thinking, it typically doesn't turn out the way we wanted to, right? So I would rather have either somebody go out and do more research, which is typically how we set this up. The information is out there.

Jessica Marx 00:33:11  They just need to go find it. Or even if they want to reach back and say, you know, I had some clarifying questions. We're doing this right now for a concierge physician who's hiring a practice manager. They work with celebrities and athletes, and it's a whole different ball game of private practice than what a traditional practice manager would be. So it really is finding that very specific person. And we were I'm already blown away by one of the candidates because our client said, here's what she came back with as her clarifying questions and her clarifying questions were not only relatable to that project, but relatable overall to what the practice, what she would need to know in order to hit eventually what are going to be her KPIs that tie to her incentive comp plan?

Jasmine Star 00:34:02  Oh that's beautiful. So when somebody is listening right now and you, the beauty about talking to you is that you swing high and then you swing back down, and then you do it very fast. And so somebody's listening and they're finding themselves in the spectrum in which you're talking.

Jasmine Star 00:34:16  And so if we go back to somebody who's listening right now and they know that they're too much in the business, yes, they know that they have some profitability, but they're they know deep down it's probably not what it should be. If somebody is listening, you know, one of the biggest and greatest gifts that we've created with the show is that somebody can go and start taking action. So what would somebody take action on? And I know that for you, it's always very specific to the business. Yeah. But if we had to speak generally yes.

Jessica Marx 00:34:40  So to generalize this and what I think everybody, even if you feel like I am the best CEO and I have all the time in the world, I would still run through this exercise because it's something that I do honestly quarterly to make sure, you know, is this the best use of my time? Like, where am I leaving money on the table? And when I say money, it isn't always necessarily financial and what we ask our clients to do as part of our audit process and something that you can.

Jessica Marx 00:35:12  Self audit is for two weeks and it has to be a minimum of two weeks because as entrepreneurs, as small business owners, our schedules really fluctuate. What we're working on and initiatives can drastically change week to week. But I want you to keep a running log. And sometimes these are 4 to 5 pages long of every time you start a task or every time you get on a call, write it down. Write down every single thing you're doing from putting stamps on your quarterly tax checks to, you know, getting on the phone with a branding agency to every time a client that really isn't supposed to have access to you then pings you, and then you're having to respond every time your team needs you and you create this list. And then what I want you to do is I want you to go through that list, and I want you to highlight only the things that you could do as the CEO, and then you're going to be left with this really long list of things that could be outsourced. Could be a VA, could be marketing, could be sales, could be it could fall into multiple containers.

Jessica Marx 00:36:21  And I want you to take that remaining list, and I want you to put it into containers. Is this business development in sales? Okay. That's going to go into this column. Is this a marketing initiative. Put it in the marketing column. Is this administrative. Put it in administrative. Is it financial. Let's put it in financial. And then what you'll see is you have this list of containers. And one of them is going to be substantially longer than the others. That is where you need to hire. What we find happens is a lot of people in the online space will say, just pull together all the things on your list that you're doing that you shouldn't be, and then pass them off to somebody. But the problem is, is financial skill set is very different than a marketing skill set. And so if we want to make the most amount of movement in your schedule and by back the most time. We need to have these in containers that are very clear. So if it's administrative, let's hire an EA or a secretary or a practice manager, depending what industry you're in, that's going to take all of that administrative work off of your plate.

Jessica Marx 00:37:23  And that could buy back, let's say, eight hours a week. Okay. That's 32 hours a month. Then the goal is what are you doing with that eight hours.

Jasmine Star 00:37:32  Right.

Jessica Marx 00:37:33  Where do you apply it? And then let's look at the next role. And is it marketing heavy. Okay. Great. Let's then hire for that marketing role. And one of the biggest shifts that we remind our clients is I'm never looking at headcount of what is this costing me? I'm always looking at it as what is this going to make me? And I can very specifically say from admin to marketing to operations, I know exactly what making that $80,000 investment, $90,000 investment can then go around and flip it and make the company in revenue, even if they're not a revenue producer.

Jasmine Star 00:38:08  That's right. So if you guys are following the podcast with any sort of regularity, you will think that I had orchestrated Jessica to say all of these things at this very moment. In fact, right as the cadence of what we're dropping our episodes, we had dropped an episode specifically around a prioritization framework that we shared.

Jasmine Star 00:38:26  It's like, what's the domino? What's the thing that would have the greatest impact? And that's what Jessica spoke in the beginning. It's like you might be working on something, but it's out of an order of operations. So if you would like to learn more about Order of Operations, there's an episode on this podcast that I'll be linking in the show notes. Also, when it comes to creating a time audit, I've been saying this forever and people are just like, please, no, not that. And Jessica took it to another level. She said, time out it. Yes. And like I had also said two weeks minimum. But what you had said is to designate them in certain areas. And that to me was like that. Right there is next level so that we have a clear way of saying, once I abdicate these things, what then do I go and focus on it? That is so, so, so good. So your action item as you're watching and listening will be to time audit into categories and then figure out what am I going to prioritize.

Jasmine Star 00:39:14  And then looking back and linking this person I am paying. But they're making the business money.

Jessica Marx 00:39:19  And it creates the job description for you, right? And so I am not super tech savvy, but I am a huge proponent of AI and everything that's coming down the pipeline with AI. So if you were to take that list, the container that has the longest list and you threw that into ChatGPT and you defined your company and and you gave them all of the information, this is our revenue. This is what our goals are. This is who I am as a founder and really prompt it in a way and say, here's all of the tasks that I need to get off my plate immediately. Good. Create me a job description and an incentive compensation plan to go with it, and then play with what it gives you, because then that's going to give you everything you need to go out and post that. And then you can say, this is a remote job. What is the compensation that I should be allocating? Or this is very specific.

Jessica Marx 00:40:16  I live in San Diego. San Diego is very expensive. You know, you live in Newport. And so this is an in-person, full time job. What are some of the other compensations for open job descriptions out there that I should be mindful of? We have people ask me, well, what should I pay? You know, my marketing manager and I'm like, you have to do the research, right? What is the caliber of a marketing manager you're bringing in? Yes, it's going to be very different. And is it in person? Do you live in Chicago or do you live in Arkansas? Those are going to vary vastly. Generate a different job description. So leverage AI to help you understand. Because what you don't want to do is you don't want to bring on an administrative person and say, I also need you to do the bookkeeping and can you create?

Jasmine Star 00:41:05  So should I see this?

Jasmine Star 00:41:06  Can you do the time and can you.

Jessica Marx 00:41:07  Create social media graphics? And we see this a lot in even the 4 million to $7 million sector.

Jessica Marx 00:41:16  Part of our audit process is when we look at the org chart, we ask for their resumes from when they applied, because we want to see what experience. And a lot of times we're looking at the resume and we're thinking, this has nothing to do with where this company is going. And this person has zero skill set for the trajectory in which this company can have. And so then we'll talk to the founder. And the founder will say, well, she was really nice. She was so sweet at the interview, and she was the only one that showed up on time. So I went ahead and hired her. And so then we know to okay, we've gotten into a situation where there's no hiring infrastructure here, and maybe the founder isn't great at hiring. Most aren't. So don't beat yourself up for that either. Just know that if you're not great at interviewing and you're not great at developing job descriptions and really getting to know people and putting them through a three step interview process, then that's important that you layer it into.

Jessica Marx 00:42:12  And I would just lean on ChatGPT for the time being until you have the funds to reinvest, to really make some of these higher level strategic hires.

Jasmine Star 00:42:21  Okay. So we started off this conversation talking about the common pitfalls that small business owners fall into. And then we talked about a few key things that they would have to have in place. And we talked also about the importance of having a number two that's really reflective, not just of a skill set, but how they deal and work with the CEO. And then you also described your version of being a CEO, what you want to do. And you're not going to change who you are to run the types of businesses that you want to run. And then we also talked about building out a time audit to figure out what somebody would be doing and where they get help, and they start moving themselves out of the business and focus more on profitability and big lever moves. And then we shared a very great framework for how they might be able to get started with what they have right now and where they are in the moment, and people are listening.

Jasmine Star 00:43:11  And there, I believe, thinking you are a treasure trove of knowledge and insight. And maybe their businesses aren't qualified yet to be pursuing a relationship with you or doing an audit. Jessica mentioned that you work with business owners between 2 and 25 or beyond. For people who want to say, I want to earn the right to have more conversations with Jessica and perhaps have an audit and perhaps go through her firm, Millions Were Made is your podcast?

Jessica Marx 00:43:38  Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:43:39  I want you to talk a little bit more because before we turn on the cameras, you were talking about how passionate you were, and you created the podcast specifically with a reason. Can you share a little bit more about that now?

Jessica Marx 00:43:48  Yes. So I think one of the most important areas of as founders that we really need to lean into is being true to ourselves and what we are really passionate about, and where we are willing to draw a line in the sand. Because there is a lot of noise online that's going to tell you to go this way or to go that way.

Jessica Marx 00:44:07  And even in my case, it was you have to do these mass group coaching programs and you have to do live launches. And I'm like, I'm not doing any of that. Like, that is not me. I'm not doing it. And so I know that I thrive. And the areas where I can have the greatest impact are those founders who are ready to invest into an audit. And it really, really should be at, you know, multiple 7 or 8 figures by then. And so it didn't mean that I didn't want to give back and to be able to get more women and men past that seven figure mark, because it really is a critical point in business. And right now, with the cost of living and inflation and employee costs and just everything, a business really needs to get to a million in order to even just sustain and be able to pay the founder a comparable salary of what they could go make at another company. So I am really passionate that businesses need to get past that mark with millions were made.

Jessica Marx 00:45:07  I wanted there to be two things. I wanted it to be my legacy, where every single week business owners or those even in corporate that are thinking about leaving could walk away with tangible, actionable steps that they could apply to grow and scale their business. But I also wanted them to understand what's happening up here, what's happening with women like you that have eight figure companies, or some of our founders that have had nine figure companies. It's not the huge houses, it's not the Ferraris, it's not all the bags. There is such a freedom that comes with wealth. And I am on a mission to get more wealth and more hands of women, because I know we're able to give back. We're able to make an impact. The philanthropic work that we're able to do. The freedom I have as a mom to never miss any of my kids activities. I have a son that's severely autistic, that I've been able to get him the best treatment because of the wealth that's been extracted from business and growth and scalability.

Jessica Marx 00:46:17  And so we talk a lot about that on the podcast and what you can do once you have that wealth.

Jasmine Star 00:46:24  Oh thank you y'all. You can find Jessica Marx on all social platforms. And she also does respond to Instagram DM. That's how we met. I'll be like I said, I shared the exact way that we had met online. We've developed not just a peer to peer relationship, but I see her as a mother, a wife, and as a friend and as a ally. Millions were made for her podcast, so you could definitely check her out. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on The Jasmine Star Show.

Jessica Marx 00:46:50  Thank you for having me.