Gwen Taniguchi: Fix the Founder Bottleneck Before You Sell

Simone Henry: Here is something almost nobody says out loud. You can build a business that is bigger every single year, more revenue, more people, more clients, and be more fragile than you were at half the size. somewhere along the way you became the thing holding it together. The live in your head. The big decisions wait for you. Your best call you, not your team. And the day breaks, everything looks everyone looks one person. That feels like success, most of the time it's fragility wearing a nicer suit. Our today has spent years walking into those businesses and building the structure that finally takes the owner out of the middle. Welcome, Gwim. She is our guest today. Nate, you want to jump in?

Nate Grossman: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, welcome Gwen. Yeah, yeah. Sh yeah. So is someone who sees the part of ⁓ businesses that most owners tend to undervalue, I think, which is how much the company is still running through one person and what that may cost in both how the business operates today and what it may be worth tomorrow or somewhere down the line, right? Gwen is an operator.

Gwen Taniguchi: Thank you for having me.

Nate Grossman: than 15 years working businesses their most critical moments. spent a lot of that time in operations, but also financial services, mergers, and acquisitions. she started in operational work and moved into strategic advising, including inside the founder led businesses, cleaning up what she calls the messy middle. And today she is an advisory partner at Peak Advisory a certified exit planning advisor. And she runs her own practice, Gwen Tanaguchi Consulting. And so combination means that she sees the same problem from two ends: how the business runs day to day, ⁓ and what same structure is worth when someone finally puts a number on. All right, Gwen. So you have been inside a lot of these businesses from the operator seat, not the outside advisor seat. What is the pattern that you keep seeing that the owner almost never sees themselves?

Gwen Taniguchi: Seems, I mean, honestly, they seem to work themselves into a corner really quickly, especially founder-led businesses. You know, it's typically started and grown based off of what they're good at, right? So whatever skill, whatever industry, they're good at that thing and they become the expert. They become the person that's indispensable. that's ⁓ while growing ⁓ it But if you're looking to actually a business and really revenue, you have to take the time to get yourself out the weeds and actually into a true founder seat. I think that a lot of people confuse that. Well, I started the business, so I'm the founder, but they're actually sitting at a CEO operator type of a level and not actually in the founder seat. So, I mean, they work themselves into a corner by becoming the expert in their business, which is rightful, and like I said in the beginning, and they don't take the time to themselves out of the weeds. And that's a comp, like that's hard to do. I have empathy for being in that situation because when you have all of the client work and all of the things that you're doing, to take the time to train to document how you think. about the work, how you approach problem solving within the business, that's like that's a real emotional, and time consuming lift. so I think, you know, another thing that like revenue covers up poor systems and all of those things are like a symptom of, like I said, becoming the indispensable, the most indispensable person in the business.

Simone Henry: That's a really profound statement you just made. Revenue covers up poor systems. a lot of companies are out here thinking, okay, that they're doing just great. I'm making money, everything's fine. and they're thinking because they're making money, they're bringing in revenue, they've got good clients that that they're doing they don't necessarily need systems. ⁓ Thinking about systems.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. I mean, it like the the thing that I feel like ⁓ surprises a lot of business owners is how much growth exposes problems. Like it doesn't actually really like create them. They've always been there. They've just been easier to manage, right? So they're more available to answer the one-off questions. Well, like the busier busier you get. The harder it is to set time aside, and it the more frustrating it is to be answering the same question over and over again. ⁓ like. Busy just does not always mean healthy at all. I see that especially ⁓ you lower middle market, Main Street, especially in professional service providers. Like it busy not mean healthy at all. And ⁓ they themselves a corner so fast. It's crazy.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Gwen, on on this show, as you know, we we look at businesses through three different layers. Whether it's, you know, visible, whether it is ⁓ viable, can stand its own two legs, you know, and whether it's valuable. And what what you're working on, as I understand it, lives ⁓ at the top of I think the the valuable you know. whether the business is w worth more than what the owner has put into it as far as time and blood, sweat and tears, you know. the that tends to decide it from what I'm hearing what you're saying is is almost like one layer down, which is actually and how the work gets done. ⁓ And can you can you give us an idea or an example of a business that you walked into.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: that look successful from the outside, but really in reality it was pretty fragile underneath. You don't have to like, you know, call them out by name or anything. Yeah, that's good. ⁓

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm. ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: I would not do that. Actually, see what's especially like I said, you know, I work a lot with like the main street lower middle market businesses, and fragility actually looks like super ordinary. I recently with a ⁓ large estate brokerage. They had volume. They had all of all of metrics on the outside where it's like, They're killing it, top 1%. But I mean, it was everything was contingent the face of the business. So she was answering all the questions. The team waited for everything. Everything to run through her. I mean, it w it's really like a decision bottleneck that creates so much fragility and also it creates insecurity within the team because they don't feel. Like they have the autonomy to just like hit the gas and make decisions and take off with what their job responsibilities are. so it's not like it's funny, none the businesses are ever in what like you would look at as like a internally like a crisis, right? It all is just like. Minor frustrations, minor inconveniences, time sucks here and there because owner primarily and like a long-tened employee can also be same version of that, where they they become just truly like the speed bump in any sort of regular, activity happening.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, they're kind of like, you know, or at least they attempt to be the glue that holds everything together, right? The the numbers, all the decisions, the client relationships, direction the team is going, ⁓ solving, everything, know. yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah. That erodes culture though. Like from my experience, not only is it just inefficient workflow, it really like erodes the culture and confidence of a team. And over time, those things are also profitability killers because that frustration, you know, just really like chips away at innovation, you know, and Like having a team that's like, okay, I know that this is a problem. Here's a solution. I know that my I know that the founder trusts me to do this. And even if I stumble a little bit, they still given me like the reins to take control to get it done. And not the ability as a team member, especially in a smaller business, that really can erode the confidence and also job satisfaction.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. I guess excuse me. Was it ⁓ Tony Robbins said that the business is psychology, you know, and so I think oftentimes we kinda are thinking about it from the perspective of the the business owner, the founder, and their psychology, of course, which kinda is like a trickle down effect on everybody else, right? There's also the psychology of everyone else that's in the in in the business.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: have to take into consideration. Everybody wants to feel like, hey, they're they're contributing and you know they're ⁓ able to function and you know think on their own and make decisions and you know and that kind of stuff. So f let's say like the numbers, the decisions, client relationships, team direction, problem solving, which of those would you say do the owners tend to hold on to longest?

Gwen Taniguchi: Decision making, hands down. Like with no hesitation, decision making. It's like, and what's funny about that, it's like that always running through them. It like it creates a queue, right? So, so you have this like backlog of decisions that need to get made. Initiatives keep getting pushed longer and longer. Your Q1 initiatives are like in the decision making queue for Q three. And then it

Nate Grossman: Okay. Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: know, you it's just stalls out meaningful progress because again, you know, like ⁓ owner's typically doing some of the work, whether that's client delivery work, whether that's fabrication, like manufacturing, whatever, like they can they're still typically like doing some of the work ⁓ and creates backlog.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Okay, and so yeah, like I guess can you you go into more details about that? Like what does that look like? Backlogs ⁓ jammed up. ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: So I'm let's say, I mean, it could be on ⁓ it could be ⁓ client exceptions. I see this one a lot. And I mean, it shows up throughout a business with client exceptions. Maybe it's in how the contract's written, maybe it's in how they're billed, how they pay, like maybe it's vendor relationships. Okay, well, we can't deal with this vendor in this way. ⁓ That has to go through Bob because he he's gonna get a special pricing. Because he's worked with them for, you know, 20, 25 years. ⁓ what's funny is I this is years ago. I was, mean, I was in my early 20s. So really this is like a long time ago. I on and was doing collections. I was doing AR. And I started through my list. I was really diligent. And ⁓ I remember it a very small business. ⁓

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: And I remember the business manager being like, ⁓ you called this person? You can't call this person. the I know that they they always pay late. Well, like they're net 30. And we're they're already like, you know, they're 15 days late. Like we should be calling to just get an update. ⁓ no, no, no, no. Well, that's that type of like they always pay, they're always like they always pay at like 45 or 50 days. We they're good. Well. Though all of those things, all of those exceptions, and that's what I was saying, where it's not always the founder, sometimes it's a long-tened employee, that like tribal institutional knowledge that documented. It's just kind of passed down by the next person that comes in the line. Like that's where I really feel like

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Mm.

Gwen Taniguchi: Those are the things that get hung on to for far too long. And they're insidious in smaller businesses.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah yeah. It's death by a thousand cuts, yeah,

Gwen Taniguchi: Yes, it it it really is. And, you know, and it and honestly, all of those things, those are profitability killers because you can't like your books are always gonna be not look as well, they're not gonna look as good. You can't, it's hard to make confident decisions when every single client or every single vendor relationship some sort of exception tied to it. It's really hard to make.

Simone Henry: Sorry, ⁓

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Gwen Taniguchi: Confident decisions about the future of your business, whether that's hiring, whether that's like putting more energy into another service line. It, it just again, it kind of like erodes. And also new hires. I will tell you, like, I still remember that moment, and that was over 20 years ago. And it's like, I would did not feel confident in that moment, know, and being like, yeah, it made me want to ask.

Nate Grossman: Mm. What watching out for yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: on each single person that I called. Well, can I call this person? Can I call this person? Because I just didn't know. And like that didn't empower me to do my job where I would just would have gone in there and killed it. I was like, it created that pause.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Constant stumbling, ⁓ to figure out and asking questions. I did that for I I've been I've been there, done that for the first couple of years of my job doing international sales. It was like I felt like I was asking questions all the time. Just because there was nothing written down. So it's like ⁓ Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm. Yes, no like actual standard way of doing things. And I think everybody wants to default to like, ⁓ we need an SOP for that. And then they over, mean, I've seen thousands of SOPs. And it's not even just an SOP. ⁓ You can go too far either way. It's like, it's not a manual on how to do the job. It's literally a guideline ⁓ what the true standard is and sticking with that standard.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. ⁓ you can go t too far either way, I guess. Yeah. Do them. Mm-hmm. All right. So let's get into, you know, your framework, how you approach things here. Can you can you walk us through how you actually start? Let's say, you know, an owner says, you know what, it's me, I'm I'm the problem, I'm the bottleneck. so day one of your work, what's the first thing you take off of their plate and why is that one first?

Gwen Taniguchi: Well, I don't actually start by taking anything off of anybody's plate first. I I ask a lot of questions. I have conversations of course, the founder, you know, ⁓ also the employees. I a huge like advocate for team. They have so much insight that when they feel safe to share their frustrations or their concerns or, you know, what their perspective is, there's so much to be

Nate Grossman: Okay, okay, okay, okay. No voy

Gwen Taniguchi: gained improvements to the business. So I mean it it's it's but it's finding like where Somebody's asked where somebody has to ask the same question over and over again. kind of trying to identify what those bottlenecks are. I am huge ⁓ I kind of feel silly every time I say this, but like irritation is a signal that very few people pay attention to. It typically has a like there's emotion like that attached to, well, I don't know, you have to ask Susan. you know, I you have to ask the owner on that.

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Gwen Taniguchi: Or it should be done like this, but we have to do it like this. You know, you start to see those things and you sense like just a little bit of irritation, just a little bit of frustration. That is typically what I look for in the conversations because then I'm gonna dig. Okay, like let me poke around and ask questions to be like to get to the bottom of it, because that's really where the inefficiency lies. That's where they lack the confidence, they lack the empowerment to. make improvements or to just do the job. So that's really where I start.

Nate Grossman: Are you are you talking to the owners and the leadership or are you actually going in talking to your employees? Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Is it is it like, you know, are you doing like anonymous surveys, that's something are you talking you're meeting with them one on one or?

Gwen Taniguchi: No, you you talk to the people that are doing the job as well. No, I like to I I really think that surveys are great, but I mean, it's my daughter actually just recently at her company was like, I got the survey, should I be honest? And I was like, Yes. You know, and I feel like there's something that's lost in surveys they don't feel like they could actually, they're like, I'm getting monitored, you know, it's gonna be used against me in some sort of way. And there's a certain level of like,

Nate Grossman: Yeah. ⁓ huh. Right. Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Look, I'm a person. I'm here to do this job. I'm here to make your job easier. Actually, in the scheme of things, all of this is for the team. Yes, the owner is reaping the ultimate reward of like a more profitable, like efficient business. But really, like I try to frame it like, I'm here to help you. I'm here to support the business in running smoother. And that can only found that that can be done with establishing trust with people. Like I'm not here to have a gotcha. I'm not here to hold this over your head. I'm not trying to cut positions. I'm really just trying to like make everything run smoother.

Nate Grossman: So of those five things that we talked about earlier, numbers, decision, client relationships, team direction, problem solving, is there one is an order that you kind of work on for handing off as far as those are concerned or

Gwen Taniguchi: You know. Wish that I could say it's always it's always X, Y, Z, it really, it's not that cut and dry. And I I actually think that's one of the things that like when people say that they have a framework, I'm like, there's just so much nuance. Not always, not every business can be tackled in the same way. I have a hard time with like it's black and white like this, because it not every some have certain things in place that

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: really it it's minor tweaks, right? So I can get input from the team. I can be like, these are the decisions that need to come off of your plate that are still here, but you've done a good job at kind of offloading and delegating. and these are the pieces that we need to automate. Sometimes it's just not like that. There's so much especially it comes to founders, like there's so much emotional weight that comes with delegating and removing yourself as decision maker. That it r just requires like, like that's gonna be the last thing that we tackle because you need to feel confident in all of these other pieces being in place so that you can trust that everything is gonna get done. So, there's not an order in which I do it. That truly is something that's bespoke ⁓ really tailored to just what kind of business I'm stepping into ⁓ ⁓ they are.

Nate Grossman: Mm. Yeah. Nog.

Simone Henry: Do you have to do like work or, you know, ⁓ I don't know, just just like a little bit of counseling, I guess, when it comes to helping these these founders to to to, you know, let go and delegate and automate and, you know,

Nate Grossman: Gotcha.

Simone Henry: Okay, it's okay if somebody else makes this decision. You don't have to do it all the time. It's not it's not it doesn't have to be like your identity and the business isn't gonna fall apart if somebody else does this, take and takes this off your plate, you know.

Gwen Taniguchi: ⁓ for sure. I used to, I literally used to joke at the beginning of doing operations work that I was like a business therapist because they're like there's so much baggage that comes to and the identity that we hold with being the leader. And each person kind of has like a different identity attached to what they think a leader is and how important those decisions feel. And also, they're not gonna do it like me. Well, like they don't actually need to do the job like you. They just need we just need to establish what done looks like and how they arrive to that. ⁓ actually none of your business, at least right now. Until you have evidence to support that it needs to be done exactly like you, so long as they're arriving to a solid outcome, like begin have trust that you know, and so yeah, there's a there is a bit of that like mindset. Coaching, kind of like of the emotions. And I don't mean that in a condescending way ⁓ all. I sat in that seat. I've helped do this. And I was actually surprised that I was confronted with those same types of feelings when it came to bringing on help in my firm. Like when I was doing fractional COO work and I just got to the point where it's like I have too many clients. I need assistance. And I was confronted with those same things, those same feelings of like, ⁓ what if I hope this relationship isn't ruined. Like, what's it gonna look like to the client that they're getting a deliverable from somebody else? And, you know, just all of those kind of things. I th so I have a lot of empathy for that as well.

Nate Grossman: Good thing. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I I think that's you a a mark of quality experience. You know, like ha having for ⁓ the situation that you find your clients in. ⁓ super helpful. okay, so can we ⁓ make this concrete for listeners out there if let's let's throw out a a a what if scenario here.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: And we have a company doing two to three two to three million. And let's say they have a team of twelve or so and owner is still ⁓ involved every decision. What what do the first ninety days actually look for for that scenario?

Gwen Taniguchi: Okay. You need to have visibility who's doing what. You need to assign ownership and create an accountability rhythm. Like the thing is ⁓ being transparent. here's what here's what each not person role or responsibility is needs to And because we people love to get tied to like, This person does this, this person does that. Okay. Well, we need to remove the people from from the equation here. Like what is the role support? Okay, assign ownership. Now we could put a name to it. You know, Bob handles this, Jason handles this, Susan handles this. And then consistent operating cadence. is the rhythm? And that looks different. You know, I don't think that you need to meet every week. I think that you should. bi weekly once a month, but like get into a rhythm that supports Also, visibility on what's being done, what's in the pipeline. you know, the goal isn't to like have the goal isn't perfection right out of the gate with that, but to reduce the unnecessary dependencies and refining it as you go. So once a check-ins on a 90-day sprint is like workshops. where are we at? Used like what's hanging you up. What do you need support in in order to achieve what, you know, like a clearer ownership or, you know, fewer decisions, like what's and tracking those things within those first 90 days? I'm a I am huge on collecting data and then 90 day sprints, like having your objectives, assessing those on a monthly basis, ⁓ then refining for the next quarterly objective.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, surely, you you want to be able to show the before and after, right? Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm. ⁓ absolutely. And and also even if I'm not in the business, that's just good like operating structure. And it also allows for, I think it's really easy for team, especially to be like, I've been really busy. Well, what do you have to show for it? Because not only is it is it like a measure of success for the owner, but it's a measure of success for the team members to feel like, look at what I accomplished.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Like we're able to do a little bit of like a retrospective and and see like we started here we ended up here. Like, are we at the finish line right now? No, but we've made meaningful progress and that counts for something. And it's really easy to kind of lose sight of that when you're working on bigger goals on the true progress that's been made, especially the more like, you know, if you're working on a three year goal and it's easy to lose sight of where you actually started.

Nate Grossman: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, one one percent better every day, right? Yeah. Yeah, okay, good. let's think here. Mm hmm. So I'm assuming then during that ninety day period, you are you're meeting with them and you are telling them what needs to done and how to do it, right? That's yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: ⁓ I love Atomic Habits. I like that's on my bookshelf. I've read that. I love that. Yes and yes and this is where I feel like team empowerment and creating trust with the founder, involving your team on what the objectives are, what's involved in that, who's owning that. That is critical in to remove dependency because the owner wants like the founder wants to see they need that proof. Okay, look at you know,

Nate Grossman: Okay. Okay.

Gwen Taniguchi: Really, it helps you kind of establish who your A and B team members, team players are as well, like how involved they are in the process. So yes, I help strategically set here's what the goal should be, but like involve the team on what actually like what does that look like in the day-to-day? They know their jobs better than anybody else. want the involvement from team. That is a super empowering thing to do. And like I said, I I'm All about like having team success. The goal is to have team members that stay around that cost the money that cost the business less money over time. And so if you can involve them they also see that their suggestions are getting implemented, that job satisfaction, that confidence in what they're doing accelerates. And that's huge.

Nate Grossman: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. So, know, going along those lines, you know, we're documenting the ⁓ right? you you'd mentioned earlier about finding places to implement automation at where needed. So I

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Wh which problems your experience tend to be the ones that can be systematized which and which cannot

Gwen Taniguchi: No, that's a good question. I mean you can't I think some there's like idea ⁓ of I don't think that it's necessarily like Clear that pe a lot of people try to automate like judgment or leadership type decisions. Like I think that again, it depends on the industry. It depends on what type of business you're going into. Automate the things that are just like repeatable. That's where you start at least. I mean, what are those mundane tasks that don't actually require judgment? That don't actually require like a true decision to be made. So I mean, you start there. Systems and automations help create consistency. Like the people for judgments and decisions and ⁓ leadership. I know that really doesn't super answer your question. It it's kind of one of those things where it it it just it kind of depends on what automate. love automations. I don't think you could I and I love AI as well, but I don't think that.

Nate Grossman: No, that's good. Yeah, yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: This trend we're seeing, especially in the AI automation conversation, is like, ⁓ it can it's replaced my entire my entire marketing team, or it's you know, I my accounting function or whatever. And it's like, yeah, sure. That's scary, but who's making the judgment call on the quality? Because it takes somebody with an understanding of what that job entails.

Nate Grossman: Uh-huh. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: to be able to look at the quality of the output or the work and can't get rid of that.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. So many so many horror stories of of businesses finding that out the hard way.

Simone Henry: Absolutely. I'm always famous for saying it. Yeah. artificial intelligence really only works with human intelligence. you know, overseeing it really. ⁓ Yeah. I I with a founder.

Gwen Taniguchi: yeah. And and there's gonna be a whole market for cleaning up all of the AI misses.

Simone Henry: Yeah, that's true. That is true. I worked with a founder who thought that who thought that she needed be that she couldn't automate like this this particular decision that she had to do. she had she had people sending her applications and she would go through application and either approve them or deny them for, you know, for to come to this retreat that she was doing. And it just one day I said, So what she just kind of mentioned that, you know, yes, most people are most people are are accepted, you know, most most of these applications are approved. I said, ⁓ really? So which ones are denied? well if they're underage and if they have this particular disability. Thinking, Well, you can automate that. Just you're you're them to put their age or their date of birth on the system.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: and then and ask them if they can climb the stairs. If they say, you know, after that, once, you know, once they put their age in or or they say no, I can't, I can't, you know, I can't have a room upstairs, whatever, well now the application is denied. You don't need to be a part of this, a of this decision at that point. ⁓ yeah, there there are some interesting

Gwen Taniguchi: Exactly.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: That was a it was a it was kind of eye opening for me, ⁓ that like ⁓ are some decisions out here that you're thinking that you're making when you're not really. You're just looking for a couple of different things. Once those things are cleared, you know, the the decision is very clear. You know, it's either this way or this way. Yeah, what's the parameter? ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: Well, it's like understanding what the parameters are, right? It's not actually a decision that needs to be made real time. The decision's already been made. The human was for that. Now you create the automation to support that decision rem and eliminate the mundane task of having to sort through. That's the type of thing where I think like you could look for so much of that within a business and free up time.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Absolutely.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. And it's it's funny that you said automation is for consistency when you know was it Mark Cuban said that the AI's biggest problem right now is its inconsistency. So like I always like to highlight that. But okay, so good. so if we about this, so you're you're working on building the structure.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm. It's true.

Nate Grossman: That that allows that business to run and hold its value without the owner in the middle, ideally. what needs to be true about how that business ⁓ generates for that structure to hold? So because ⁓ you build clean operations, you can build operations, great, you know, works works fine. But if every new client still shows up because the owner personally knew somebody, then dependency is still there, right? It just it kinda moved.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, relationship dis dependency is still a dependency. ⁓ if you know, especially if it's that does not carry with the business. I think that that is actually culture, like a kind of a team culture shift that needs to happen. understanding what you want the client experience to be. So whether that's like, you know, new sales people that come in.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. And that doesn't carry with the business, right? Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: That's the owner establishing that the client relationship, hey, this helping me now. ⁓ My they understand mindset. And then bridging that relationship and building out your sales team to kind of like understanding what the culture of the business is, empowering your and so that that means when you have a culture that's strong, the that is. customer centric, they can come to anybody on the team. They can call your the receptionist can answer the phone and they know that like the customer is going to be taken care of. People care. So their experience isn't only tied to the founder, it's tied to every single person they they interact with, whether that's the salesperson, whether that's the receptionist, whether that's accounting, you know, whether that's they have a a question on specs. So they're talking to somebody in in the shop. That carries that carries over when you have a strong culture and the team understands what the values of the business are. And that is like one of those things. It just takes time. It's not impossible, but it takes in being intentionally like intentionally setting time to s establish those things and then that gap. But yeah, owner dependency is still a dependency. ⁓ that ⁓ ⁓ hurt the value of a business when you try to sell it.

Nate Grossman: But but the the key there that I want everybody to hear, culture. Vitally important to your business. all right. That's good stuff.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: It is, it is values and culture. And that's that's where I go. I I, you know, I keep I've said this so many times in our conversation, but it's like that's where empowering your team it it they become like of everything that you lay and also demonstrate to them. That's carried over to what are what the vendors experience, what the clients experience. It's

Nate Grossman: Yeah. What what would so and so do, right? Yeah. all right, so let's get into the multiplier effect. What happens when you the owner stops being the glue and they're they've extracted themselves, they build up the culture, things are working well. What what are the compounding effects here? So ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: It's huge. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Nate Grossman: I think you and I talked about this in our in our pre-interview talk, but something along these lines, how owners treat treat treat their exit as a someday problem, right? ⁓ And they don't most of them don't realize how long it actually takes, and and what actually into it. ⁓ And

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah. I mean, a good a good exit is planned like three to five years in advance. And so many people, it's almost like when somebody decides to retire, they have that short timer syndrome. They're like, okay, well, like decision's been made. So I feel like I should be done. You know, but when you start thinking about creating value, which gives you optionality. So whether that's ⁓ your business, whether that's bringing in, you know, ⁓ to run it, like a management team, whether that's sent

Nate Grossman: Yes. Right.

Gwen Taniguchi: Family succession, whatever, it removing yourself, it your team. So to answer your question, your team grows. Like what you're gonna see is your team grows. When your team grows and it they're doing so from ⁓ empowered place, your profitability's ⁓ grow as well. So there's more ownership, better decisions, more confidence. Like once The owner is kind of removed from the middle. It it has such a compounding effect. Most most team members need more supervision. They just need to be crystal clear on what the expectation is and what done looks like. So and I mean apply that apply that to every department or function in the business. ⁓ What done look like? What what and Here's all here's everything you need to know to do that. And this is what the values of the business are. So you're not cutting corners. We're focused on the customer and having a great deliverable. When you remove the owner from the middle of that, I mean it it's like a rocket ship. It truly, it might slow down initially while you're removing yourself, but that momentum picks off big time. And when those things are established, onboarding becomes easier. Everything becomes just a little bit easier. It's like oils have been put on the gears.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. another thing that we talked about was the the silver tsunami, right? So those those business owners out there are thinking, it might be a good idea to sell the business. And and not to not to use, you know, fear as a motivator here, but if the silver tsunami is fact happening, then doesn't doesn't that mean that there's gonna be the market's gonna be flooded potentially?

Gwen Taniguchi: I mean, that's that's kind of what people are predicting or saying is that we have, you know, a large generation, know, the boomer generation, the baby boomers, have hold most the ownership of middle market small businesses. Well, there's gonna come a point very soon where ⁓ they wanna and get on to like another act of their life. Like what does that look like? ⁓ And

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Th them and all the other ones at the same time, right? Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Exactly. And so what makes your vi your business you have put all the blood, sweat, and tears in? That you this is your biggest asset in so many ways. I mean, because you've you've given your life to it, you know, you've you don't get that back. And need to make it as valuable as possible to make it appealing to ⁓ buyers not just get absorbed by, you know, big corporate. Like to have it actually like legacy is important. least it is to me. ⁓ so thinking about that value, giving yourself the option to when you make the decision to sell, it actually could be a quick sell. And you don't have like years worth of work where you're kind of just like ⁓ emotionally taxed and done, and you want out and you don't have the ability to get out, or you're good, or you're gonna take a hit on your multiple.

Nate Grossman: No. Mm. Right. Uh-huh.

Gwen Taniguchi: And that business that, you know, thought was worth so much money and sure the revenue is great, but all of that walks out the door with you potentially, that's not you're gonna you're gonna ⁓ for that in some way.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. So sooner the better for those of you out there listening. Get going. you are a certified exit ⁓ quit. Go ahead, Simon.

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Simone Henry: Yeah, it's it's No, I was just thinking it it just makes sense to to think about about all of these things years years ahead. Set up a valuable business as soon as possible so that 'cause you never know what's gonna Like what what does your legacy look like? How do you exit, you know? I remember having I just asked this one question to to Michael Gerber once on a on

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm.

Simone Henry: on an online forum. I you know, I asked him, I said, you know, people say that, ⁓ you shouldn't you shouldn't be thinking about this kind of stuff like when you're when you're just starting. ⁓ Think it later. And he said, Well that's stupid. Think about it at the beginning You know? And they say, think about, you know, start with the end in mind. Exactly. So

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Begin with the end in mind.

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah, you need to be able to build your business to grow.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Start and build your business to be able to grow quickly, sustainably, with optionality.

Simone Henry: Absolutely. Don't box yourself into a corner.

Nate Grossman: Awesome. So being ⁓ being a certified exit planning advisor, you you see the the end game, you know, from a different perspective that most people aren't really thinking about, like we've just established. So we we kind of touched on this, ⁓ but like how taking the if if the owner is taken out of it ⁓

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: How much things improve. But do we have, you give us a some kind of a sense on how that changes the value of the business, how much it's actually worth?

Gwen Taniguchi: Not on how much it's actually worth because that the number of that there's way too many variables. But I will tell you value from potential buyer, they see less risk because they're not just looking ⁓ is this business making money? They're looking at what's the risk involved with this purchase? What's the risk involved with running this? ⁓ Yes, it's running now, but is it going to run in the same way when I purchase it? And so, know, buyers and value predictability. So when the owner's removed, that predict that like it increases the predictability of the business, right? Yes, we could probably maintain the team. We have the processes and the systems and the workflows in place to where let's say we lose a couple key members, it's not gonna be detrimental to the overall value. And it's it's still, you know, a relatively reasonable ⁓ and honestly, owners benefit even if they decide to never sell. Like let's say pass it off, that just becomes an asset that gets passed off. you to a family member or you like do an Aesop or something. it it just ⁓ overall the value, I I can't tell you in numbers what that does because that really just depends on financials and industry and all of those things. But for a buyer, they're gonna see less risk. And that that is a lot to a buyer.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. And we when we touch we touched on that earlier, you know, especially when it comes to those relationships, if it's done right and it's done with the end in mind, I guess, you know, in that case, those relationships in theory could travel along with the business and be transferable in that yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Absolutely. Because the culture then is embedded into the business and it's not contingent on the owner holding it.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Nice. ⁓ right, exactly.

Gwen Taniguchi: Or like leading the culture.

Nate Grossman: okay, here's there I talked about this on the last podcast, but that Simone and I did. But it's it's like such a such a good little vignette. I I bring it up a lot. But there was a Harvard Business Review article that I read not too long ago where they interviewed a bunch of CEOs, you know, leadership, and they ⁓ asked them what is most important thing? about your business. And almost ⁓ of two OT, said, you know, thinking strategically, right? Being able to think strategically. And so when they fuck asked them follow-up question, why, ⁓ you know, are you you know, being strategic or or basically they said that we don't have enough time. Okay. Why don't you have enough time? Because we're so busy. So but it's like but like

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm. The catch twenty two.

Nate Grossman: They it basically like the it was it was saying you there's sort of like a connection, an ex an inextricable connection between the the owner and the opp the the business owner the leaderships view themselves, like their importance in the business, to the business and and being ⁓ busy, right? And it's like happens when you extract from that, know.

Gwen Taniguchi: Mm. It's emotional.

Nate Grossman: And then very exactly, yeah, I would imagine. then also the other side of that coin is the team, right? So if you're gonna take the that portion, you know, th those things that that that the owner was doing away from them and give it to the team, and they're the ones who are starting to make the call in order to make that business easier to to transfer, right? What d what tends to be the hardest part of that for them?

Gwen Taniguchi: Identity. I mean, for sure. They've it whether they would identify as being the hero of the business, that's really what when you've become the person who has all the answers, who has the relationships, who holds the culture and everybody likes to be around, and you know, they're the rainmaker and all those things, you become the hero of your own business. And so when you

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: When you go to remove yourself, there's a huge identity, you're confronted with do what does my role look like? What what does it mean for me? And this isn't like a weepy emotional like crisis necessarily. It's more of like, I honestly don't know what this version ⁓ leadership or being a business owner even looks like. It's more of like white space, you know?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: ⁓ that you're kind of confronted with because, like, I'm the doer. I'm the one who does all of these things. I literally have no idea what that looks like for me specifically, taking the team out of it. But think ultimately with identity shift comes a value shift. You know, rather than you valuing being the one who's making all of the right decisions, you begin to value building up people who are empowered to make those decisions on behalf of.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Building the business. So it's really like an investment into your team and building people up to empower them. ⁓ so it's it's a value shift for sure. And honestly, it's really not that far of a gap you begin to like, okay, my my identity was in building the business. Now my identity is in building the people to grow the business.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Nice. do you find yourself coaching ⁓ leadership through that? Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: Absolutely. I mean that that goes back to that really hard to without piece in place to actually successfully and sustainably remove them from being the bottom bottleneck and like the decision default. You have to have that piece locked down because otherwise, okay, I leave after whatever the the sprint is that we do ⁓ and things gonna just

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: kind of backslide to what they were because the identity hasn't changed. Now am I an identity mentor? No. ⁓ it's just kind of built into naturally to to the work that I do.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's that's that business therapist part, right? Yeah. All right. Simone, do you want to take us out on the rapid clarity round here?

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Simone Henry: Mm. Sure. So these are just rapid fire questions. Give us some short answers and to take us out. so number one, ⁓ one question every ⁓ should ask themselves month about how much the business leans on them.

Gwen Taniguchi: So I would look at what is my business unnecessarily dependent on me for? And use irritation as a signal.

Simone Henry: Ha ha

Nate Grossman: Yeah. What are other people irritated about, right? That's the that's the

Simone Henry: If you

Gwen Taniguchi: Yes, yes.

Simone Henry: Yeah, yeah. And it's it's interesting 'cause a lot of times like ⁓ the the owner won't even know really. The sometimes it's the team members talking amongst themselves and the owner doesn't doesn't really know.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, that seems like it would be its own project.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: I yes,

Simone Henry: a founder has never written down a single process, what is the first one to document?

Gwen Taniguchi: Whatever they get interrupted with the most. So know, i it's in every business, it just looks a little bit different. But whatever you get interrupted with the most is the first process to begin to document. It's gonna look different in every business.

Simone Henry: Make sense. That's good. the one number that tells the business depends on you more than it should.

Gwen Taniguchi: Honestly, how long it takes to close the books, financials usually means delayed decisions.

Simone Henry: Okay. All right. So what separates real structure from an owner who has only handed off a few tasks?

Gwen Taniguchi: Can you repeat that question one more time? You kind of broke up.

Simone Henry: ⁓ what separates real structure from an owner who has only handed off a few tasks?

Gwen Taniguchi: So guess the way to look at it would be like delegation is the handoff of task where structure is a true handoff of ownership. so Identifying what ownership looks like, what done looks like is a way to begin to care of that.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, the tasks aren't necessarily identifying yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Simone Henry: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Gwen Taniguchi: No. It's ownership. It's ownership of the thing.

Simone Henry: Yeah, it's like when you once you do hand off a lot of tasks, yeah. really it it gives you a fuller picture of what's really going on and yeah, the attitudes, the culture.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Gwen Taniguchi: It it does. I mean, delegation and ownership are are two differ or delegation of tasks and ownership of the outcome and the responsibility truly I mean it's gonna it's gonna lead to more success with it act with things actually happening without again defaulting to decision bottleneck.

Nate Grossman: All right. Gwen, thank you so much for joining us. the yeah, the through line here the for our listeners ⁓ that growth and strength are not the same thing. A business gets stronger, believe it or not, when it stops needing the owner for everything. And is also the moment that it becomes worth more. Gwen builds structure that gets an owner out of the middle. If what Gwen shared,

Gwen Taniguchi: Thank you for having me.

Nate Grossman: you know, put words to something that you have been feeling, go find her. We're going to include ⁓ the link that she has provided, which I believe is Quintanagucci dot com. ⁓ maybe not. Peakadvisor dot com. Okay. All right.

Gwen Taniguchi: actually peakadvisory dot com. Peakadvisory dot com. And that's P E E K like peekaboo.

Simone Henry: advisor dot com.

Nate Grossman: P E A K, gotcha. All right.

Gwen Taniguchi: P, P E, double E.

Simone Henry: Yeah,

Nate Grossman: Yes. ⁓ P E E peekaboo. Gotcha. ⁓ right. We'll we'll we'll put that in the ⁓ in the show notes. and the financial side, if you're ⁓ you need bookkeeping, month end reporting, I guess that's would be the the peakadvisory.com, right? and her exit playbook and value readiness review. ⁓

Simone Henry: E E E K ⁓ Okay.

Gwen Taniguchi: Yeah, peekaboo.

Nate Grossman: Are ⁓ a straight look at where your business actually stands. So, Gwen, thank you very much. It's a good conversation. Appreciate that. Yeah. this conversation made you realize that you're not sure where your biggest growth constraint actually lives, that is what we dig into every week. Subscribe to the newsletter at thegrowcealing.com. You get

Gwen Taniguchi: Thank you. Yes, it was nice chatting. Thank you.

Nate Grossman: Growth, real growth constraint each week and how to spot it in your own business, whether that is owner dependency or something else. subscribe to the growth ceiling wherever you listen, and if this is one helped to see something differently, send it to the owner who needs to hear it. Thanks a lot.

Simone Henry: Thank you so much. I think that's all. yeah, if if you're watching on YouTube.

Gwen Taniguchi: Amazing.

Nate Grossman: Right.