Founder Bottleneck: Why Another Doer Will Not Fix It, With Kati Peterman

Nate Grossman: I got off a call this week with a founder two years into a career ownership coaching practice. He told me he needs more people in his funnel. That was his read, volume. So I asked what volume looks like right now. Eight hundred conversations in the last year, three closes. More conversations was never going to fix that. Every one of those 800 started with him interrupting someone who is not looking. The people actively researching his category, reading the directories, listening to the podcasts, never once ran into him. The reason that persists is structural. He does not own a single surface. His only public page is a template the franchise system controls, and he can't edit it. So there's nowhere for someone researching the category to land. And nothing that keeps working after a conversation actually ends. He has no follow-up schedule for the candidates who said, not right now, and no trigger at the moment a client buys, which is the one moment a referral is easy to ask for. he's offering a cash bounty for referrals into a system with nowhere to put them. Until he own something, every month starts back at zero. That is this week's growth ceiling. Okay, you are the CEO, the head of sales, the operations lead, and the person who fixes whatever broke this morning. You know you need real leadership in the seats, but a full-time executive team is expensive and slow to build. So you keep carrying all of it yourself. The result is a business that grows only as fast as you can personally push it. there is a version of this where you get senior leadership without betting the company on a full-time hire. And that is what we're getting into today. With me today is Kati Peterman. Kati places fractional executives with owners who have outgrown doing every job themselves. Her firm is FRX, and the line they lead with tells you the whole model. You're number one, we are your number two. She has spent about a decade in operations consulting and has sat across from more than a thousand business owners. Which means she has heard every version of, quote, I just need another person, unquote. And I learned, and she's learned to tell which ones are actually true. Her placements run across five functions: sales, marketing, data, human resources, and leadership. And the match is the entire job. Put the right senior operator in the seat that is actually empty, and the owner gets their capacity back. Put one in the wrong seat, and you have added cost without removing anything. and that's the difference we're getting into today. Kati, welcome to the gross ceiling.

Kati Peterman: Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Okay. So you spend your days matching owners with fractional executives. When you first talk to an owner, what is the leadership gap that you tend to see that they either misname or aren't realizing that it's there?

Kati Peterman: I think that for a a lot of owners, you know, they're kind of stuck in this pattern of I have to do it, I'm the only one that can get it done. you know, it's it's a little bit of control, it's a little bit of safety, it's a little bit of, you know, self-protection, right? but really it's just it's there's a lot of fear. And so even though they think that they're coming from a leadership standpoint, they're actually projecting a lot of fear that they have.

Nate Grossman: Gotcha. Yeah, we don't want to operate from a place of fear. although, you know, they say fear is a powerful motivator. you know, I guess it could also

Kati Peterman: Yeah, yeah, it definitely it doesn't.

Nate Grossman: be powerfully detrimental to ourselves. okay. So I think, you know, we we we talk about on this program, we talk about the three pillars, right? visibility, viability, and value in a business. And I feel like what you are doing for businesses sits in that va viable layer. So that's like whether the business can actually generate and run its revenue without having the the business owner in the middle of everything. you're kind of helping

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: to take them out and take a lot of the pressure and the the day to day off of them. and I think that unfortunately, you know, a lot of owners, maybe maybe if they're new to hiring, especially, they maybe misdiagnose which one to hire first. but it's okay. A lot of times yeah, go ahead.

Kati Peterman: I think that one thing that you and I really connected on was, you know, that viability piece, right? That's something

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: that you have also seen a lot. And that's why it's one of your core you know, pillars. But I think people's perception of what viability means is always a little bit different. And it's like, well, hold on, like that's that's not, you know, viability. We need to be Profitable.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kati Peterman: Sometimes we have owners and founders and they're just like massive spenders. So it's like we're never gonna get to a place of viability that way unless we cut back. And then they view it as like, you're you're being a wet blanket, you're crushing my dreams, you're slowing us down, you're you're pulling back the reins and and keeping us too tight knit. And then you know, on the other side is like, hey, we have to get to a place where we're viable. We need to make some investments and get some momentum in the company and the sales teams and we have to actually like test these products and services. Like we've got to we've got to get to market. We have to get out there. but definitely I really appreciated that, you know, you and I when we had our like a jam session, like really talked and had that alignment about viability because in the early stages, right, And I know later we're gonna talk about the the five phases of business and the five pillars,

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kati Peterman: but you know, there's a big difference between startup to perseverance to viability. And a lot of people they just think, yeah, no, I'm viable, I'm out of startup phase and it's like, no, technically you're still in startup.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, that's that's an interesting interesting point. I've heard it said said, I can't remember where I heard this, but I've heard it in more than one place, I think, that oftentimes business owners tend to think that their business is in a more progressed state than it actually is. You know. May maybe that's wishful thinking, you know, that's that eternal optimism of an entrepreneur, maybe.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. A little a little bit of that. You know, it's so funny 'cause it's it's we see that in in all of the phases. Like people get stuck and they just they they think it's trendy or cool to be like, we're we're a startup, you know, like yeah, we're we're in startup.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: And it's like you've been operating for two years and you're in startup, like that's a that's a red flag. Like what do you what do you mean? Like it's time

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: to get out of that. Like why why are you proud of that? You know? So

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: We kinda see it at all phases, but yeah, the I'd say the awareness of where they're really at, that's something that we also see very early on, like, well, hold on a minute.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. A lot of owners think that their next move is is another person in the trenches doing the thing, right? So why is that often the wrong seat to fill, would you say?

Kati Peterman: you know, I think that someone that will just come in and like execute and like do do do or the do or the person in the trenches, you know, or or you have to go and you have to build this specific thing. you can really easily hire a lot of people very quickly and you can have a huge payroll and a really big expense, and you may hire the wrong person. if you don't have leadership in place and you are not casting the vision and you're not clearly communicating your mission, your vision, your dreams, like the things that's like why you created this service, this product, this company, right? And taking people, which a doer doesn't always cast vision for five, ten years down the road, right? So if you're not attracting the right people and cementing them to that vision and that mission of the company, you could have a very expensive payroll and you could go in the really wrong direction very, very quickly and burn it to the ground.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. yeah. And not maybe not on purpose in that case.

Kati Peterman: No, it's just, you know, and and I commend the people that do hire people. You know, they are open minded. Like that's a hurdle that we see a lot. I know that that's a tough place to say, okay, I'm gonna dish out the salary, even though I'm in this phase, or I'm gonna go ahead and make the investment. But if you're not clear on casting that vision, even if someone is a rock star, you could bring in the wrong rock star. That they were a rock star over here, but they're not necessarily a rock star for Taking your company where it needs to go. You can attract the wrong talent, essentially.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. I think I remember studying in my MBA about the different phases or different types of leadership styles, especially in management. You know, you have like the laissez faire versus you know, the the the shot collar, the one that's basically, you know, cutting heads, you know, lopping heads and and saving money and that kind of thing and directing

Kati Peterman: Dictator. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: all the all the things. And so each one has sort of like their time and place, you know, in a in an organization, in other words. okay. So you you're you're placing fractional executives and not they're not full-time. So what does in your experience, what does an o an owner get wrong about what they think they need full-time versus what they actually need?

Kati Peterman: I think that when an owner gets to that point and they say, Okay, I'm gonna hire an executive, I'm going to you know, bring somebody on, they just think, Okay, you're the expert, you're the rock star, you're the blah blah blah, you got it. Just just take everything. Just just go and and maybe they go disappear for four days, or maybe they go work on another company or another project, and they kind of just do a really quick turnover and then they're like, I'm out. And they don't spend time developing someone and they think, this person is just gonna handle everything. And again, they're not cementing this person. Like you still have a responsibility. Like you're leading that that leader that you brought into the company, right? You're still leading the mission and the dream and the and the reason of the deliverables for the company. and they'll just kind of bring someone in and then they'll be like, all right, you got it. See you later. They also don't take the time to understand the role of the executive. Whether this is a CFO, we see this a lot. So whether this is a CFO, whether this is a CEO or a C O O or a C O, right? they'll bring in this person and they didn't take time to fully map out the roles and responsibility of that role or what they think. that role should be doing and then communicate that or kind of just verify if the other person that you're bringing in agrees that's what the position should be, right?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: a an executive leader or someone coming into your company is not necessarily like, Okay, yep, good to go, come in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is great. You guys really have to do a discovery period together and you have to like, you know, make sure that they fully understand the mission and the the vision and the values and the dream and the five year plan going down to make sure that you guys are in alignment and agreement and then they have an opportunity to ask questions and do a discovery period as well. I think people just move too quick on that. And really once you get past that initial phase, like you probably don't need you know, unless it's a really large corporation. Most of the time, like you don't need a full time CEO. A a lot of companies don't need a CFO. that's crazy. I'm like, you need a data analyst or a bookkeeper. Like you do not need a CFO.

Nate Grossman: Hmm. That's interesting. So I think you kind of mentioned this. You have sort of a list of things that that should be documented in in place so that leader can actually step in. you said five year plan, vish vision mission,

Kati Peterman: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: job description that everyone agrees on. Does that sound right? Okay. Is there anything else that we missed?

Kati Peterman: Yes. yeah, I think that, you know, coming into it when when you're being clear so that the right person can say yes to working with your company is you know, you need to identify what phase of business you're in. that's really important. And then you need to identify how quickly you want to move into that next phase and what your expectations are. and then what phase you're okay staying in and for how long. You know, there should be like commitments and timelines to each phase of business. And then you really should be mapping out and be clear on your priorities. I think that's extremely important. A lot of people are like, Well, I need help, but I don't know. And like, just come in, like you know what you're doing, just do it.

Nate Grossman: Sounds like a lot of strategic groundwork needs to be in place

Kati Peterman: Yes.

Nate Grossman: in order for this to actually pay off and work well.

Kati Peterman: Yes.

Nate Grossman: okay. Let's see here. So when let's say for example, hypothetically we have like a business owner who's doing, let's say, between five and fifteen million, and they're still in that, you know, I gotta do everything function. what would you say Is that costing them that doesn't necessarily show up on the profit the the PL statement?

Kati Peterman: Yeah. I think that you know, that that five to fifteen million is a is a perfect example. We work with a lot of H VAC plumbing, med spas, you know, dental practices, right? that are in that range. And what we see that's not showing up on the PNL is the person who is so excited, To go out there and to start this. And, you know, they had like a full download and they were energized and excited. And they're like, yes, this is what I'm doing. I can't wait to bring this to the world or my community or to people. And they start to lose the joy and they start to kind of lose that like spark. And that's not

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: going to show up on the PL, but it is going to show up in your quality of life and it will start showing up because your relationships will not feel the same. The connections will not be the same. The things that you used to enjoy, you know, you will start to feel resentment and a pull, and you'll start questioning, you know, your alignment with your vision and your dream. Because for a lot of you, and we've seen this over and over again. So I know a lot of people are going to resonate with this, but relationships and talking to people bring you joy and you get energized, right? And the admin and the follow up and the payables and the billing. And the invoices and all that stuff

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: that you're doing, right? Payroll. Yeah. Right. But like that's that's not you. That's not who you are. And

Nate Grossman: The business. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: so you're doing all of that stuff and it's killing your joy, which is translating to your conversations and your relationships, and you're not connecting with people and you're not excited about your mission and your vision anymore. And so the translation and it's kind of dull, like that does end up hurting your business. And so the things that are like really weighing you down. that you know if you hired a bookkeeper or a data analyst and they could do it in two hours, but it's taking you three and a half days and you're cranky on the weekends because you're trying to

Nate Grossman: Hmm.

Kati Peterman: run payroll last minute, we gotta hand that off.

Nate Grossman: I I know someone that does this every year. They own a they own a bike shop and they do this every year. They wait until the last minute and it's like they spend thirty hours straight not sleeping, getting everything done at the end of the year. Like,

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: wow. Why would you do that to yourself?

Kati Peterman: Yeah, we have investors that do it quarterly and I'm just like, Okay, so every quarter

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: you lose three to four days and you're

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: the worst person to be around and your family doesn't want to see you for a week.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yikes. okay. So let's get into your framework and you and the approach that you guys take here. So we we we've we've kind of touched on this a little bit here. You have a system that you describe as five phases, five pillars, and a core four. So

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: let's let's go in order here make it usable. So let's start with

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: that those five phases. What are you moving an owner through from first conversation to to a leader who is actually producing?

Kati Peterman: Yes. So when we're looking at the five phases of business, right? first of all, we have startup, perseverance, viability, scaling, which is trending right now, and a lot of people think they want to be in that, and then you have exiting or succession, you know, leaving a legacy, right? now all five phases are available to everyone. However, some people don't want to scale. They want to stay in viability. and I say that because if you're happy with your business, right? we see this a lot in like a lot of mom and pop businesses, that

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: they have a company that's viable, they're clearing, you know, one to two million dollars a year and they're fine with that and they have no idea, no no desire to scale. That's absolutely fine and you can stay in that. But everyone has all five phases. when we are in startup, and this is where a lot of people kind of get off track. When we recognize startup, a startup is truly a predetermined amount of time and a predetermined amount of money. So if someone is, let's say that they're launching a restaurant, or let's say that they are launching a car detailing business, or they are launching, you know, even a dental practice. we had this happen in St. Augustine. You say, okay, we're gonna commit This much time to be profitable. We're gonna commit this much time for hiring. We're gonna be committing this much time. And in each phase, we're gonna do X, Y, and Z to get to profit. So it's a predetermined amount of time and a predetermined amount of money. Now, if you have gone through that time frame and you've blown through the resources and the investment, right? Or you've done the capital raise and you've still burned through that, right? What a lot of people do. is they just go ahead and they tr they try and keep continuing and they are are not getting to a point of success, which actually hurts them and puts them in a worse position to be able to pivot and start over and relaunch, you know, something else later down the road. you have to once it's hit that predetermined amount of time and that predetermined amount of money, if you haven't hit that, you need to pull the plug. and we just don't see a lot of people end up doing that, or they're not advised to do that. They're not sure what their options are. but startup, and then you have perseverance, right? Of like, okay, we've got a few months of cash on hand, you know, we've got cash on hand for four to six months. We're like, we're okay, but we're two events away, or we're two sales cycles away, from kind of like being back to to phase one, right? That's perseverance of like we've got a concept, we have a product, we're taking it, we have an idea of what this looks like, but we still need to figure it out. viability is we are profitable and we have the right people in the right seats and we have systems, we have an operating system or we have a company system, we have some type of system in place, right? We're fully viable. and then when you have all of those things, then you have the ability to scale. I know scaling is like a key word and a buzzword right now and it's very trendy and everybody's like, I wanna scale, I wanna do this. And it's like, well, yeah, but if you don't have an operating system, if you don't know if you have the right people in the right seats, and if you don't know what products and services and your profit margins, why on earth would you take gasol gasoline and, you know, put it put a fire on there and then burn through your resources and take yourself backwards two, three years? back into perseverance, you know. So a lot of people think scaling

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: is is, you know, the the trend right now. and a lot of people don't realize that they need to really focus on perseverance and viability.

Nate Grossman: Do you this this question was not on the list, but not for that

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: matters, but do you find that because I I have heard that like especially in business, the movement through the different phases tends to be more fluid. Is that is that a normal thing where you have businesses that are that are regressing? And then making progress. They maybe they they've tried something, it didn't work, so they find that they've regressed, and then they try something new to see if they can get that to work, or is it because it it seems like it seems almost like it would be fantastical to think that they would be able to get it right the first time, you know, like

Kati Peterman: Just keep moving through the phases. Yeah. I think every operator, right, that is every support person or every operator that is listening to this is gonna be like, yeah, like if if only they just stayed on track, like we'd be moving through the phases, you know?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: I think what owners and founders, you know, sometimes forget is that they'll go to a conference, they'll go to a networking event, they'll read a book, they'll meet someone, whatever it is. And now they have all these new ideas and they want to change this and they want to change that. Most of the time, what we see is, you know, the reason why they're like going into viability and then coming back down to perseverance and then getting to that point of via viability and then they're back down in perseverance, you know, or hey, we're, you know, in this division or this product, we're completely over in startup phase, is typically the owner coming in, not giving enough time. for something to be fully implemented and then they're going and making a bunch of changes or they're saying, Well, actually let's

Nate Grossman: Interesting.

Kati Peterman: do this, let's pivot, let's vote. And they're actually bringing themselves back down and they're regressing their company.

Nate Grossman: their own worst enemy. Okay. All right.

Kati Peterman: Yes. We see that a lot. And it's like, I know you're excited about things. You have to give your time your your team time to execute and implement and stick with it. Like we really encourage people to not make massive changes within a 90 day cycle. Like we don't do, you know, 30 day sprints. We don't do massive financial changes within a 45 day window. Like really sticking to things to get true data so that we were making data driven decisions within a 90 day period.

Nate Grossman: Nice. yeah, it's it's kind of like I was saying earlier how different leadership styles are important at different times, right? There's a time and a place for everything. So maybe in that those early stages, the the the the founder, the owner, the CEO has the vision that drives everything forward. But at some point you gotta take them out and they gotta take themselves out. That's why you see like a lot of CEOs getting fired, right? And replaced by somebody else, because there there was a time and a place and And th th you know, they're visionary and they want to keep doing th new things, but you can't do that, you know. it's on once the ship is you know, on a on a certain course, right? It's not not depending. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. Innovation innovation is important, right? Some of the the best people have created the most amazing products, whether that's

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: Steve Jobs, Adam Newman with with We Work is like the perfect example, right? Like he didn't give up, he was crazy, he had new ideas, he was outside the box, he was like raising money and painting the dream, but you know, then like to actually like be efficient and to be viable and to scale and to do all of that, like perfect example. on a crazy level of bringing in too many ideas and and trying to scale before you're not viable. Like you'll just burn it all to the ground.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how about the pillars? What what are the pillars every company needs standing? And where do most owners have one or two missing without realizing it?

Kati Peterman: Yeah, so the five pillars you have marketing and sales. We lump those together, finance, leadership, operations, and personnel. So HR. when you are looking at those five pillars, those all should be treated separately and not grouped together. And you need to start kind of classifying the importance, and each one needs to have its own commitments and priorities on those. A lot of people are They go through phases where they're focused on leadership and then they're not focused on, you know, finances, or they're focused on finances, but they're not focused on the people, right? Or they're focused on marketing and sales, but they're not focused on operations. And we'll see like typically like two might be doing well and then one will completely fall off. And you know, one will be doing really well and two will completely fall off. You need to be assessing and looking at all five pillars every single month, right? So every single month you should be looking at all five pillars and doing basically a health score on each of those for what's working, what's not working, where can we improve, what could we change here, where are we being efficient? What does that look like? What do we need? and everyone should be giving feedback. on your leadership team, everyone should be giving feedback because the things that you don't see as an owner, trust me, sales is gonna have an opinion on how marketing is doing. Marketing is going to have an opinion on how personnel is doing. Yeah, but they do. And sometimes

Nate Grossman: Yeah. That goes without saying.

Kati Peterman: we shut those things down, but a lot of times they will have their own great innovation and things that they're seeing where we might have blind spots, right? And so it's really important

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kati Peterman: to get your leadership team together reviewing all five of those pillars on a consistent basis.

Nate Grossman: Are I'm assuming that you're recommending certain industry benchmarks for each of those pillars so that they can kinda see how they stack up or is that not

Kati Peterman: Yeah, we go through a tradition traditional SIPOC So S I P O C. So your supplier, all of your lead sources, that's gonna be on marketing, right? They need to be tracking referrals, socials, new introductions, website traffic, right? All of that, your input, so your lead capture, what happens when that lead comes in, the input. the process. So now that we have a lead in our system, what is the process? That's your operations pillar, the output, so your deliverables, your customer service, your fulfillment, your promises, your guarantees, all of that, right? That's gonna be a little bit of a combination of of sales and fulfillment and customer service. And then the C is for the customer journey. So what do we need to do in order to get a five-star raging review from someone? Where is this person coming from? What is their journey like? Is that documented? Is it repeatable? Do we know where they came from? Why they purchased, what they bought for, and why we got a five star review.

Nate Grossman: And that is what you're recommending that as far as f the the assessment that they're doing every you said every month or every quarter for the five five pillars?

Kati Peterman: So the side box should be at you know once a quarter, but like for

Nate Grossman: Okay.

Kati Peterman: their quarterly reviews. but the five pillars, everyone should be communicating monthly on that with your leadership team. Yeah. Because if

Nate Grossman: Map. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: we're only looking at that quarterly, what will happen is you'll have a division like marketing or sales, and they'll be working on a completely different project for 13 weeks and going in a completely different direction that doesn't coincide with the rest of the other divisions. And this is where it's like, hey, everyone was working, right? Everyone was super busy on projects, but we didn't actually collectively as a company or a product get something across the finish line. So if we're not consistently touching base on that every 30 days as a team and reviewing all five of those pillars, this is where people can really be rowing in different directions and your leadership team has a a divide.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Okay. Okay, so for let's do the the core four deliverables. Every company should have. What are they and why those four?

Kati Peterman: Yes. So that SIPOC that I talked about, everyone needs to go through that experience and have it fully documented. That's extremely important to have. Everyone should have a company meeting structure, right? So a communication structure, a reporting structure, you know, how do we communicate these things? a lot of people, their time on efficiencies of like taps on the shoulders, hey, you got a minute meetings, you know. And just overall efficiency and productivity really goes down when a company doesn't have their own formal meeting structures and communication preferences in place. It's really important to set guidelines for that. So SIPOC meeting structures, core KPIs. A lot of people they don't track any data or make data driven decis decisions. We see more of that. or they're tracking a ton of data. And everyone is just like, we have so much data that it doesn't even make sense and we don't know why we're tracking this or what it is.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: But I just have 14 reports to do on Tuesdays and I don't know why. Right. that's not helpful either. So you need to have just your core KPIs that you're focused on. And the last one is roles and responsibilities, like a very clear outlined and org chart that everyone knows exactly where they sit, who they report to. who they can go to for support and exactly what that looks like. A lot of people, they're like, well, I was hired for this and I was brought in for this, but I kind of do this and this has changed and I've taken that person's responsibilities. And I think this is my project, but it could be that person's project. And it's like, my goodness, like no

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kati Peterman: wonder we feel like we're not getting anything accomplished, right? so

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: a really clearly defined org chart is critical in a company.

Nate Grossman: I had the CEO or the president of a company that I work for say Nate around here we wear a lot of hats. It's like okay What does that mean? Yeah. Yeah, right.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. We hear that quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. It just means nobody knows what they're doing. So congratulations. Your payroll is extremely high, but it's going out the window.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. You might think you know you're you know what you're supposed to do, but you're in for a surprise.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: okay, so as far as I think we we've again we've we've touched on this already, but systems automation, how does that fit into making all this work so that it's not depending on any one person necessarily?

Kati Peterman: Yeah, I think a lot of the times, you know, we will have wins, we will have success in a company, people will see that. But if we were to come in and ask, like, is this repeatable? Do you know why it was successful? Do you know why you're getting these sales? Do you know where the sales are coming from? Do you understand your best lead source? A lot of people can't answer those very basic Questions, right? you might have an amazing salesperson on your team. We see this all the time, like an absolute rock star, but you have no idea what that rock star does. And so for the people, you know, we we tell them, like, okay, if you're gonna sell your company, right, you're looking to exit. This is also very trendy right now. Everyone wants to exit or have an exit.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: the person that's looking at your company to buy it. They might say, all of your sales, right? When they're doing the an evaluation, all of your sales are coming from one or two people and we don't know what the process is. That's not attractive to them. That's absolutely not attractive. If you don't have a system that's documented of why that salesperson is absolutely crushing it and they have a 40% close ratio, they don't think that it's repeatable. So it's not worth the risk to them. having a system where

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: things are documented and repeatable. is extremely important. If you lost that rock star tomorrow, you know, if they got recruited, they jumped shipped, they, you know, went and and did whatever that they wanted to do, right? And they weren't there anymore. If you don't know how you could repeat that system or what was working, you would be at a loss. And now you're you're fully dependent on that person. So systems are extremely important. And then automations, you know, Everyone is concerned about capacity. That's just a really common trend that we see. I hear it from owners all the time of like, well, I don't know what they do all day, right? I know that a lot of owners listening to this, they'll say, Yeah, I've said that, or yeah, I have that thought. Maybe I don't say it out loud to the team, which I hope you don't, but they have the thought of like, I don't know what they do all day. What do they do? Where are they well, I don't know, why isn't this done? a lot of the times automations are very helpful to get the highest and best use. And your return on the investment of the people that you have working for you. Most of the time it's not hiring more people. Most of the time it's helping the right people that you have who are truly bought into your company, helping them be more efficient. And automations are the way to do that, right? They will appreciate the investment in them to have things automated that they think are tedious and repetitive and redundant.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. And then that makes I would I would assume that that would mean that some of that stuff that you say as you say is kind of tedious or redundant, presumably is important, you know. But if you're if you're automating it, then it doesn't rel necessarily rely on the in any one individual to kind of remember it, put it together. It's kind of like the system is telling you the the important information that you need to know.

Kati Peterman: Yes.

Nate Grossman: hopefully at the right time to make it usable. okay. Yeah. Right, exactly.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. Yeah. Well if you had a system in place, you would know that it was done at the right time.

Nate Grossman: I I eat chicken or the egg, right? Yes.

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: okay, so let's say let's say for example, this little another hypothetical, let's say that you place the right fractional executive and The pillars are there, you know. So what has to be true in in how the business actually generates revenue for the leadership to start to turn into growth and not necessarily just about having a better internal order.

Kati Peterman: Yeah, I think that having someone that has experience on identifying so so let's say that you're coming in and and you're focused on revenue, which everyone always is, right? a lot of the time someone will come in and they'll say, We just need more leads, we have to improve marketing, we have to but you really truly need someone that will come in and they're gonna look at the entire picture, right? Because yes, we would all love more leads and would we we'd love more volume, but It's so much more. It's the touch points, it's the turnaround time frame, it's what happens, the CRM, the communication, the follow-up, what's happening on that sales call or the the sales process, right? what does that time frame look like? Is there is there an opportunity to decrease that time frame it to have the sale quicker? Is there an opportunity to you know, have multiple sales with the same customer. There's so many things that you can do throughout that customer journey to improve retention, referrals, the average sale. There's so many things that can be done outside of just more leads. And so you really need someone to come in and to really experience that growth. You need someone who feels fully confident and they can step back from a 30,000 foot view and look at the entire journey of the customer.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's it's as much as it sounds like anyway that you're saying it's as much about improving efficiencies as it is generating new revenue. Improving efficiencies and maximizing the customer lifetime value. That's what I hear. So yeah.

Kati Peterman: Yes, yes, yeah.

Nate Grossman: okay. So let's get into the multiplier effect here. Talk talk about what happens when the right leader is in the right seat and the core deliverables actually exist, and the and the owner is actually getting their their capacity back. So what what starts working when the we have the right executive in the right seat? What what starts to work that maybe the owner did not expect?

Kati Peterman: Just with I'd say like having the right leader in place, when you have the proper channels of communication and the right style of communication, you're going to see a cultural shift. And so a lot of people don't necessarily think that they're investing in culture or that, you know, that's gonna be a a big difference. A lot of people don't even fully understand the culture that is in their current company or what that looks like, or the culture that they project onto people. And so when you have the right communication channels happening and then you have a cultural shift because people feel seen, heard, clear, understood, like people want to do their job well. People want to have daily success. They want to win, they want to feel valuable and like they're absolutely crushing it. And with the right communication, they have the ability to deliver. So now they have the ability to have. what they view and what you may view as daily success, which turns into

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: excitement and joy and productivity starts to go up,

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: right? And then that translates into hey, I have a new idea. There's shared innovation. There's now buy in, there's better results. And everyone knows this. Like, how crucial is it for your sales team to be in the right headspace, right? The right mindset. It is

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: absolutely crucial For your sales team to have the right mindset going into every single day. That starts with communication, and that communication comes from leadership. So having the right leader in place that knows how to communicate to your people to get the buy-in, to make them feel valuable and know that, hey, I know exactly what I'm responsible for. I know how to deliver, I have all the tools and resources available to me to deliver on this. I said yes to something I feel like I can commit to. I feel like I have, you know, a opportunity for success here, which gets people excited. And so that has a chain reaction on everything in the company. But it starts with a really good leader that understands communication.

Nate Grossman: Year years and years ago, I was a a camp counselor for therapeutic wilderness program. And one thing that that we talked about there was setting setting up setting your group up for success for the day. And

Kati Peterman: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: a lot of that had to do with as much about the psychology of the leader, right? If you're in a negative headspace for whatever reason, that is communicated. sub subtly, you know, it's not necessarily overt, but other people can tell, you know. And so it's kind of like this cloud that hangs over everything, you know what mean? And so

Kati Peterman: It does.

Nate Grossman: i i it it happens in business as well, you know, relationships, it's it's kind of very similar. You know, we're talking it's people, right? People dealing with people. And so there's a lot of psychology involved in business and and you know having the right like you said, the right mindset. is is crucial in so many different ways, but especially in there. And so if the business, presumably the leader, is you know setting up everyone for success. You know, I think that's that's the the critical the critical point there. and having a plan, right? Having a strategy, knowing where you're going, all of this stuff

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: is gonna help to do that, right? So

Kati Peterman: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: all right. So When when you talk about turning chaos into clarity, when so when that clicks for an owner finally, what how does it change what the business can take on in that case?

Kati Peterman: Yeah. I think that chaos, you know, there's all different stages. Some people don't realize how chaotic they may be, whether that's coming back with all the new ideas that we talked about, right? People don't always understand that that really overwhelms, changes, lose momentum with things. But sometimes chaos is as simple as you think that you have translated your vision and what you want done to something. And because your communication is off and it's not translated properly, like they're not receiving what you're saying. That's chaotic because now you have everyone like doing their own thing and going in different directions. So when I say turning chaos into clarity, what I really mean is having a framework to make sure that everyone is very clear. The best thing that you can do for yourself, for your mission, for your company, for people, right? The people working for you, the people saying yes to your product or your service or your deliverable is to be extremely clear on what it is and what purpose it serves and why it serves that purpose. And you know, making sure we all know this, it's extremely important to be clear on pricing and deliverables and contracts. And it's just so important to be clear on those things. And when we're not clear on each of those things, and we can talk about how to be clear in all five of the pillars and all five phases, right? There's so many, if you go through that SIPOC journey, there's so many opportunities where we're not clear. And if you ask your team, like, hey, where do majority of our five stars, where do 20% of our five stars come from? Our reviews, our top clients, if you don't have the answer, you're not clear, right? Hey, what's our best lead source? A lot of people will guess, but they don't have data for it. Like clarity clears up all of the chaos, right? From just shooting at the

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: hip, going out there and making fast decisions and making you know, gut check decisions of like, hey, I feel well, I feel that this is off, isn't always grounded. You could be someone, and I know some amazing owners who they have a gift and they just have like very high discernment. They have very high intuition and their intuition is is typically correct. but even with those folks, we say, like, hey, you know, let's have some data to make sure that this is the right decision. And you need to be able to give the data enough time and have enough of the data to make that decision. And so really chaos is when we're just making ungrounded decisions that are not data driven.

Nate Grossman: And so having having the these the frameworks in place as you're kind of described as as we've described them, the pillars, the stages, the deliverables, keeping those things in mind, do you find that that helps to kind of shape, you know, people's thinking around the business? And that is what kind of contributes to the the clarity, like especially when it comes to decision making, right? Like, if if you're making decisions within those frameworks then Is that is that what we're what we're talking about here?

Kati Peterman: Yeah, I mean, you know, think about it. If if you have an owner that thinks that they're in viability, right? Like let's just talk about the five phases of business. You have an owner that thinks that they're in viability. You have a leadership team that may think two or three of them may think that, okay, we're in perseverance, and then your staff Because it's chaotic and there's a lot of changes and there's turnover and there's new hires and there's people constantly being added, they truly believe that they're in a startup phase, right? Everyone has a different perception or a different feeling or a different impression of what phase the company is in. So when leadership makes a change, the owner may not agree with that change and understand because they think that they're in a different phase. The staff may not be on board with that change because they think that they're in a different phase. Or when someone on the staff presents an idea to leadership and leadership shoots it down because they're like, no, we can't afford to do that. We're in perseverance. Like, I don't know why you're bringing new ideas. We're out of startup, like we're sticking to this plan. It just creates a lot of confusion and people don't feel like they're contributing to the overall mission, which that kills productivity and that kills contribution, which can really hurt a business. And so just everyone not being like, nope. I understand why this decision was made. This aligns with what phase of business the company is in. We've committed to this phase as a company and as a team and as a leadership team for the next six months. It's very clear they told us what phase we're in. They told us why we're in this phase of business. They told us what we're going to be doing to progress and what the company goals are. Because a lot of the times staff will push back, right? And they don't understand. They're like, why is corporate or whoever giving us this goal? Like that's crazy. Crazy. Why do we need

Nate Grossman: Right. We we don't know why we're doing this. We're j we're just we're you know we're just doing it 'cause they told us to.

Kati Peterman: Yeah, there's no buy in. Yeah, there's no buy into it because they don't understand the company goals of like, Hey, we have to get out of perseverance and we need to get into viability.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yep. okay. So when when when when the the company has real leadership in the seats

Kati Peterman: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: and deliverables are are built and functioning, what comes off of the owner's plate then?

Kati Peterman: I mean, so much. Just think about all the stuff that that really weighs it down. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Throw throw a dart, right? It's like

Kati Peterman: I mean, again, it goes back to that like, if you're in a place and you're not experiencing joy and that kind of like excitement and the passion and all the things that got you super fired up about about doing this this is is not there. Just I mean, think of two or three things that you could get off of your plate, whether it's you know, having the hard conversations and you need someone else to do that, whether it's accountability, maybe you're not great at the execution and the follow-through. A lot of visionaries, they're really great at like launching an idea or product or service and then casting the vision for five, 10 years down the road, but they're not good at the execution of all the steps between, you know, month six to month 146. Like they're just not great at that.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yep. Yep. not not not great at you know I guess carrying everything along the path that they had already kind of forged in some way. They're already off on another one side.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. Yeah. That happens a lot, yeah.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Okay, so let's get into the rapid clarity round. It's just gonna ask you some questions. The first thing that comes to mind, You know, just little bit little useful tidbits for the audience out there. so what is one question every owner should ask this month about their leadership seats?

Kati Peterman: Yes. are you fully confident in what your team is doing on a daily basis?

Nate Grossman: Okay. Okay, that's good. seems like that would be I don't know, they they might want to leave keep that to themselves, but like I said at first.

Kati Peterman: Yeah, well, no, it's it's it's important, but are you are you fully confident in in what you're because then if if if the answer is no, like you need to have some conversations, right? You're just again, people are running in different directions

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kati Peterman: and you could totally clear that up. But yeah, are you fully confident in in what your leadership team is doing?

Nate Grossman: Yeah. and I guess confidence may may be relative, but anyways. so if if an owner has never considered a fractional executive, what is the single best first step?

Kati Peterman: If an owner has never considered a fractional executive, again, I think this is fear. And you have to ask yourself, you know, do I have fear of bringing someone on? or is this something that like this this truly is is the right step in in doing that? and then is it like what is it that they are not? pulling the the trigger on. You know, we see a lot of people hire VAs or executive assistants and they treat them like COOs, they treat them like executives. They want them to go execute on their behalf. and really if it's

Nate Grossman: Hm. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: just a financial thing, and so that's what it is, there's other solutions out there. I think that someone needs to clearly identify like what is it that they're not moving forward with.

Nate Grossman: Hmm. Well this kind of a a side question that goes along with this. what if what if they want to use an AI to do that? Is that do you do you encounter that? Yeah.

Kati Peterman: Yeah. we we do, right? and I would say like that's just another like control thing and

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kati Peterman: most of the time it's just really someone being cheap. Like I'll just I'll just say it and I'm sorry. I'm sorry if this gets a nerve, but I'm also not like your your

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kati Peterman: mission, your company, your like the deliverable is is actually important. And if you're gonna be serious, like stop being cheap. And like this isn't one

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: that, you know. AI is not gonna go to bat for you and they're not going to have the the same level of of output at all. it can be a virtual assistant, it can be an an executive assistant, it can be a doer, right? But it it no. I think that's just someone being cheap.

Nate Grossman: What is the one deliverable out of the four deliverables that we talked about, every that every company should have that most owners are actually missing? Or at the that the the most owners are missing, would say. Another way to put it, I guess. Excuse me.

Kati Peterman: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just crazy to me because it's it's really all of those. And that's why we have that package the way that we do. That's why we hit those four things. Because no matter what company we come into, no matter what industry, no matter what size, not a lot of people are making data driven decisions. So when we're going over KPIs and we're cleaning up data and we're being clear on those things, like teams just don't have the deliverables. They don't have accountability, they're not used to Saying, like, and and when we go in there and we look at the people and we look at the meeting structures, and these two kind of go hand in hand, but KPIs and meeting structures, how often are you and I having a meeting, right? And what are we discussing in that meeting? Is that meeting even productive? And am I asking you for the two or three core deliverables that you should be looking at every single week or every day or every month, right? Like, what is the purpose of our meeting? people don't. People don't have that at all. So I

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Kati Peterman: would say like meeting structures, communication, and then just KPIs and data. They that is consistent across the board. People just

Nate Grossman: Maybe in that order? Is that yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay, and finish this sentence. You need leadership, not another doer when blank.

Kati Peterman: When you're not experiencing joy.

Nate Grossman: Okay. Uh-huh. Turn that frown upside down, as they say. all right, very good. So here here's my take on all this. growth, company growth stalls when the owner is still the entire executive team. and it's not something that you're going to fix with another hire in the trenches. You're it's something that you need to That you fix by putting real leadership in the seats that are actually empty and you build the few deliverables every company should have. so get the right people in the right seats, and the business stops depending on you for everything.

Kati Peterman: Yes. Yep. That's a great takeaway.

Nate Grossman: so if what Kati shared resonated with you out there in Listener Land, and you are carrying leadership seats that you should not be carrying, connect with her at your excuse me, you your frx.com and find her on LinkedIn under Kati Peterman. If you are weighing whether a fractional executive is the right is right for your stage, she's the person to talk to. And if this conversation made you realize that you're not sure where your biggest growth constraint really is, then that is what we dig into every week. Subscribe to our newsletter at thegrowthceiling.com Each week, one real growth constraint and how to spot it in your own business, whether that is the your leadership structure or something else entirely. And as always, subscribe to the growth ceiling wherever you listen. And if this episode helped you to see something differently, send it to one own founder who needs to hear it. Kati, thanks a lot for coming and yeah, been great. Good conversation.

Kati Peterman: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it.