The Founder Bottleneck Is Not Time. Chris Atwell on Where Decisions Live

Simone Henry: You built the agency. You are the one who closes the big accounts, settles the disputes, and answers the question nobody else can answer. And somewhere along the way, the business stopped being able to run a full week without you. Every deal, every decision, every fire routes back to your desk. That is not a growth problem. That is a you problem. And I mean that in the most freeing way possible. Today We talk about what it actually takes to stop being the bottleneck in your own business.

Nate Grossman: All right, yeah, exactly. So with us today is Mr. Atwell. He is someone who spends his days inside manufacturers' rep agencies, watching capable owners get stuck in the same trap over and over again, where the business depends on them for everything. Chris has spent over a decade in sales and leadership across manufacturing and distribution before founding Mindset Conquest. where he helps owners build the leadership layer that lets the business run without them in the middle. He's helped hundreds of leaders across North America reclaim time by changing how the business is led, not by adding more hours. And of course, he is the author of, I think a few books, but the most recent is Momentum by Design. Chris, welcome, sir.

Chris Atwell: Thank you so much for having me.

Nate Grossman: Awesome. So you have been inside a lot of these rep agencies. And when you walk in the door, yeah,

Simone Henry: Can I ask a fundamental question?

Nate Grossman: little definition of a rep agency.

Simone Henry: Yeah, what's a manufacturer rep agency?

Chris Atwell: I love that question because most people would be like, What what the heck is a manufacturer's rep agency, right? So let me paint a picture for you. You've you all know what a manufacturer is, right? It's

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: a company that makes products, all right. And there are manufacturers in multiple industries. They might have a plumbing manufacturer, an electrical product manufacturer, an HVAC product manufacturer. Well, these manufacturers, they have A lot of products, but they have in many cases limited resources when it comes to selling that product in the field. Okay, they have a few salespeople, but they need more. So what they do is they reach out to a manufacturer's rep agency. And what these companies are is they are third-party agencies that are experts in that industry, whether it's plumbing, electrical, or HVAC, for example. And they own the relationships with the end users, with the distribution network, with the engineers, with every stakeholder involved in that sales process in their territory. So you might have a manufacturers rep agency for American Standard Toilets, okay, that represents Texas, Oklahoma. And they have the relationships with the engineers, the distributors, and the and the contractors, and their sales team goes out and educates those those contractors on why you should you should install American Standard in your home, you know, the the development of all these homes that you're building, or maybe a commercial building. They influence the specifications of these products with engineers who are designing these buildings and They negotiate pricing contracts with the distributors who are carrying stock of these products so that the contractor buys it. So Manufacturers Rep Agency is a third-party agency that represents multiple manufacturers in a given territory and are the experts in that field. They sell it for them.

Nate Grossman: Nice. That was a solid definition.

Simone Henry: Never knew there was such a company. That's very interesting.

Nate Grossman: Okay, so you've been inside a lot of these agencies presumably. So when you walk in that door, what pattern do you keep seeing that the owner doesn't necessarily see?

Chris Atwell: Yeah, this is this is something that well, this is why I built my business. I mean, a lot of these third party agencies, these manufacturers' reps, are multi-generational. Okay. So they they often started grandpa or dad started this 30, 50, 60 years ago in his garage. He met a a manufacturer, he knew how to sell the product and he became the rep in that area. And over time, what happens is he's the Best sales guy. He ran the business by himself, and then he started adding his friends as sales reps to join him. 30 years later, his son or his daughter come in and they become part of the business, and they're the best salesperson. Okay. But now the business is growing. And all of a sudden, you've got a team. You've got an operations team, a marketing team, an IT team. You've got multiple salespeople, you've got an inside sales team, you've got quotes team, and you're doing tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in top line sales. But you, as the owner, are still the best sales guy, the one who owns all the best relationships, the one who manages all the relationships with the manufacturers, the vendors. And you have no idea why your team isn't holding themselves accountable. Why aren't why aren't they doing Everything at the same level that I am. How come they're not performing and treating this business like I do? I mean, geez, don't they get it? Right? So I see this pattern all the time where the leader of the business became the leader of the business either by family succession or because they were the best salesperson on the team and the automatic. assumption was that because they're the best salespeople, they'll be able to manage the team as effectively as they should. And what that causes is because you're the best at this and you're noticing your team members are not solving the problems the way that you would, you step in and you solve the problem for them. Or you step on their toes and you do the sale for them. Or they're having a a challenge with the manufacturer or with the the end user. So you step in and you handle it. And this creates a major bottleneck because everything starts to really rely on you even more than it already does. And you become the go-to for everything. And as your business is growing, you hit a plateau, you hit a ceiling because you're stretched for capacity. You still got to manage all these relationships. You're supposed to be developing your team, yet you're actually not developing them because you're handling everything yourself. And that is a major, major challenge that most organizations they start to create awareness around this when they hit a certain dollar value. Like, okay, well, I I think I gotta change the way that I'm leading this business because what I did to build this business got me here. But I gotta start thinking like a CEO, not like a top sales guy. Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, I'm sure that they probably start feeling like, you know, they want to keep growing obviously, but this is the thing that's preventing that from

Chris Atwell: Yeah. One of the things. One of the

Nate Grossman: because, well, yeah, exactly. But it's like, you know, they can't be all things at all times anymore, like they used to.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, yeah.

Nate Grossman: So on this show, we talk a lot about the three V's, right? Visibility, viability, and value in a business. And I feel like this, what we're talking about today, really sits in that, the viable layer of the business. That's where internal leadership in the systems that either carry the growth or they ends up buckling, right? And the first thing most, a lot of business owners in that situation get wrong is what exactly the bottleneck is. And I think that it may be that many, and you can, know, clarify or correct me, but. that most business owners might think that the bottleneck is a time problem. And so maybe they try working faster or longer. What do you think, Chris? What is it actually?

Chris Atwell: Yeah, I'm certainly I would agree that many owners would perceive that I don't have enough time, right, to handle all these problems and to and to grow the business. you know, when I start conversations with owners of businesses, they reach out to me because they they're like, Hey, maybe this guy can help us. Most often they say, I need your help to train my sales team. Because they're not doing the things that I'm expecting them to do. They're not holding themselves accountable. They're not filling out the CRM. They're not they're not prioritizing all these things. And they believe that the problem is the team.

Simone Henry: So is the problem's over there. The problem's not me, the problem's them.

Chris Atwell: Right. When

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: I ask them questions around, okay, well, what's your approach to ensuring that they're holding themselves accountable? Often you get deer and headlights, right? do you understand the CRM system? How well do you understand the CRM system? Again, deer and headlights. So

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: time is certainly one of the challenges because when you start to ask them around those questions, what are you doing to hold people accountable? I don't have enough time to do it. They should be handling it themselves. Or I haven't really looked at the CRM. I don't have time for that. I got my people are supposed to be filling that up. It becomes part of the I don't want to call it an excuse, but it's one of the constraints that's stopping them from being a guide, a leader, someone who is helping them develop rather than because ultimately They should be doing the training for their sales team, not an you know. So I help them create awareness around, okay, maybe, you know, like Simone said, maybe maybe it is me, right? Let's look in the mirror here.

Nate Grossman: Nice. All right, so...

Simone Henry: To do that myself. Like, I think about like my my team, I have a team of VAs, and sometimes

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: I'll I'll look up one day and I'll get frustrated, like, why didn't I get this on time? And what happened here? And and then I, you know, and sometimes I'm like, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. But then I have to realize, like, okay, wait a minute. Let's step back. Do I have a hand in this?

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: did I not? Did I not give them, you know, right expectations? Did I not give them a deadline? Did I not, you know, what what happened there? You know? So that's it's it's a learning curve. It really is.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, yeah. I I was I had a conversation with a guy once. He was a trainer for I think it was a book company or something. I I don't quite remember what company it was, but he told me that there are four reasons why people aren't performing. And he broke it down so simply. He said the first reason is the expectations were not And that's not their fault. That means that you have to look at yourself as a leader and make absolutely sure that you clarified those expectations expectations and they can reiterate them back to you in a in a second. You know what the expectation is? It's this. Okay. So that is a leadership reflection. The second reason is they don't know how to meet the expectation. So again, we need to look at ourselves as leaders and say, Okay, have I set them up for success by giving them this this the knowledge, the discipline, the skills, the understanding, the tools, the training in order to meet that expectation. And if you haven't, well, then you've got to step up and provide it, right? But then the third reason is they're deciding not to. So that's different. That becomes on them because you've already clarified the expectation, set them up for success, but they're choosing not to. So then you have a leadership. responsibility to understand why are they choosing not to. And then creating some sort of rhythm to make sure that they choose to. And if they don't, well, then, you know, you sometimes you have to implement consequences or whatever. But then the fourth reason is that they're simply not in the right role. That they, you know, maybe, maybe there's a bet a different position for them that is better suited for them because they just they can't do it. Right. So I thought that was a a really interesting breakdown and simplifies things.

Simone Henry: That's good. Mm.

Nate Grossman: Elsewhere you talk about moving from effort and intensity to energy and clarity. I think that's kind what you're kind of hitting at here just

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: now. So what does an owner feel differently when they're actually running on the wrong one?

Chris Atwell: Hmm. So when when an owner is feeling like they don't have enough ca capacity, they're they're drained, they're spinning their wheels, they're constantly reminding their team members, they're you know, chasing their tail and and being like, gosh, can't, you know, why can't we get all this done? You know. They're they're feeling that way. And It most of the time it's because there is a lack of clarity. There's a lack of awareness and they're not protecting their energy, right? And they feel drained. Maybe they're getting close to burnout. Maybe they're overwhelmed. They're overthinking. There's all of these things that, you know, come crashing down. We've all been there at some point or another, right? We all know what it's like to overthink. It's not fun. We all know what it's like to be overwhelmed. but that capacity makes you it pulls you in in different directions and you start to sacrifice things like your own well being. And that's the the the scariest part. When you're really stretched and you feel that you got to put in the extra hours and you're solving all the problems, one of the first things to go is your own self preservation. You start trying to save everything externally and you don't take care of yourself. Maybe, maybe you're drinking more than you should be working out. or and hydrating. Maybe you're forgetting to drink water throughout the day. Maybe you're skipping meals because you're too busy. Maybe you're not getting enough sleep because you gotta catch up on things or you're overthinking at night. And all of those can lead to very serious consequences, right? Your health your health matters and you need to protect your energy if you want to show up for the rest of the team. So it kind of it's kind of like this this rude awakening, right?

Nate Grossman: Yeah,

Chris Atwell: So to speak.

Nate Grossman: trying to avoid the cascade of failures.

Simone Henry: They cast all our life too. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: So I often bring this article up, but it just continues to be applicable to my conversations that I have. But a few years ago, I read this Harvard Business Review article where they interviewed a bunch of CEOs. And ask them, what is the most important thing in your business, right? That you need to be working on. And number one, almost across the board was we need to think strategically about the business, right? And so the next question basically was, well, why aren't you doing that? And they said, well, because we're too busy. and

Chris Atwell: Ray.

Nate Grossman: it's like, you know, the kind of like one of the main ideas of the article was maybe this is like an American thing, but. being busy is seen as being needed, necessary, right, as part.

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: And so unfortunately, a lot of owners may confuse being needed with being valuable in that case, right? And so, and a lot of them are secretly proud of being the person that everything runs through. So what do you do in that case?

Chris Atwell: Yeah, I call that being the hero, right? It's like, yeah, like so many. I mean,

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: you built this business. There's a there's a level of pride that you have in it. Of course, you feel good being

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: busy, which gives you that sense of you know, that maybe I'm accomplishing a lot of tasks and I'm really good at it. And I get to save the day all the time because the business needs me, right?

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: And there When when when you recognize that that's not sustainable, what you need to really understand to your point with the Harvard Business Review report was saying is that you need to spend time working on the business rather than in it, right? That's

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Chris Atwell: that's it's it's there's this big transition that happens from being a business owner to being or a a business operator to being

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: a business owner, right? And you're operating the business by working in it and doing all the tasks and getting everything going, but you own the business by creating a machine that operates on itself. And to do that, you need to focus on four things. You got to focus on your people, making sure you have the right people in place, you're developing them consistently, and that they have the tools, the resources to continue to grow, right? Opportunities to grow. That You're leveraging those people in a way where you can delegate and you can give ownership of certain outcomes within the business. The second thing is your systems and your your your your procedures, right? So you need to make sure that you're developing systems that create efficiencies in your business that allow you to capture data effectively, that allow people to Have access to things that are gonna keep things moving smoothly. Then you need to be really close to your numbers. The amount of business owners that are winging it every day and they're focused on the that day, it's like survival mode, right? And they're like, Hey, geez, I gotta generate a sale today, but ho don't have the visibility on long term forecasting, sales pipeline, you know, commission reports, you know, expenses, bills, all of these things. They're just kind of day by day just chugging away. You need to get really good at understanding the numbers and have a a system in place to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Again. And then finally, the last thing, the fourth thing is strategy. You've got to constantly be making time to be sure, be clear on what the game plan is, keep everybody on the same train, moving in the same direction, what initiatives are gonna help you attain certain outcomes. And pivoting when necessary, being really aligned with the mission and the vision of the business. So when you're making that transition, the biggest challenge is time. When am I going to do that? And this is where you

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: develop the discipline to protect your time. You get really clear on when you're going to make time to do these four things. When are you going to develop your people? When are you going to create systems or or Make sure you understand which systems need to be developed and which people are going to do them, when you're going to review numbers and when you're going to work on the strategy of the business. And you create time blocks in your calendar and you treat those time blocks as sacred. You don't

Nate Grossman: Hmm.

Chris Atwell: make any exceptions. You have your one-on-ones with your team members on an ongoing rhythmic basis. You review your numbers consistently on an ongoing rhythmic basis. You do the same for everything else. You and and strategy can be done either over a 30 minute minute period once a week, or maybe you're setting aside time and you're going to sit in a hotel overlooking downtown and you s you spend that on your own with your with your phone off for a two day period. Right? But it's intention.

Nate Grossman: Hmm.

Chris Atwell: It's all about intention. And one of the best ways that you can do this is by putting it in. your calendar. Don't let other people dictate your calendar, you know, fill your calendar with all these meetings, but you make intentional time and then you create space for when others need you.

Nate Grossman: Mm.

Simone Henry: Call those CEO days. You know, have have some time

Chris Atwell: CEO days.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: where you're the CEO and not the not the operator, not the manufacturer, not the sales guy, not the this, that or the other thing. You know, schedule some

Chris Atwell: A hundred percent. Yeah.

Simone Henry: time to be the CEO and look at your business from a higher

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: level.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, and there's there's two questions you can ask yourself when you're putting your CEO hat on. The first one is, what are the things that I'm gonna refuse to do moving forward?

Nate Grossman: Mm. Yeah. Saying no is a skill.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, like not gonna do the quotes anymore. I'm not gonna it fill

Simone Henry: Yes.

Chris Atwell: out purchase orders anymore, I'm not gonna do these calculations anymore. I got people for that, right? But

Simone Henry: Exactly.

Chris Atwell: some people they just they they like doing it, makes them feel good, they feel busy and they feel productive, right? And

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: then the other is, what does my calendar look like? Does it look like a CEO's calendar? Or does it look like I'm just running like a chicken with my head cut off.

Nate Grossman: Thanks

Simone Henry: There's there's this a quote that I got from Ryan Dice when I was watching one of his videos one day and he talked about Ryan Dice is a digital marketing guy, or least he was. I think now he's into scaling, scaling up businesses, but

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: he talked about how, you know, there's all these books on productivity. And he said as a founder, I you know, after reading all these books, I realized my job isn't to be productive. My job, that's my team's job. My team should be productive.

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: I should be leveraging. That's what I should be focused on. Leverage. You

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: know. how am I spending my time, you know, making sure that they're productive, they're, you know, producing and outputting what needs to be output, but I need to be looking at my business from, you know, a high level view. I'm need to be looking at that strategy and the, you know, developing the team and all all the things you said, you know. Being the CEO, I should be

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: I should be focused on leverage, not productivity necessarily. And I thought, wow, what a shift.

Chris Atwell: A a fun little

Nate Grossman: Yeah

Chris Atwell: a fun little exercise that that anyone can do is you you make a you draw a line in the middle of a page, two two two columns, okay. And then on the left side you write old me and on the right side you write CEO me. Okay. And then under old me you write down all the behaviors and activities

Simone Henry: Think he froze. There we go.

Chris Atwell: and things that you've done that got you to where you are today. And then under under CEO me you write down all the things that you know you need to be doing in order for you to be the CEO of the business. And then you really compare the two and then you you start shedding things on the left hand side.

Nate Grossman: Old me and CEO me. I like that.

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm. I like that too. All right, 'cause somebody has to

Nate Grossman: Okay.

Simone Henry: be the CEO.

Chris Atwell: Right? Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Might as well be the CEO. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Right?

Nate Grossman: Okay. So as we, I'm sure are aware, one of the promotions that many owners make first is they have that really strong salesperson, right? And so they think, well, this person should be the manager. maybe of the sales team. But unfortunately, doing that often backfires. So why, Chris, why do you think that strong salespeople often struggle once they become managers?

Chris Atwell: Well, because they they're really good at sales, but they've never learned anything about leadership before, right? So they're completely different. I mean getting

Nate Grossman: But they are different, aren't they?

Chris Atwell: in front of customers and understanding customer solutions or or pain points and creating solutions to to secure that business is one skill. But ensuring and teaching your team How to do that is a completely other skill, right? And what often

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: happens is we promote the top salesperson into a management role, thinking that they're automatically going to be able to cascade those skills down, but they've never learned how to cascade them down. To them, it's like, well, I just get it, right?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: So the expectation bec becomes, well, the team should know. And then they they tell them, well, this is how you do it. And then the team doesn't do it, and then they get frustrated.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: So They step in and they do it for them. And that's that's the most common mistake I see newly promoted managers just continue being great salespeople because that's what they're comfortable doing when it requires them to step away and allow their team to become great salespeople and give them feedback and not

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: not punish them for making mistakes, not stepping in. And doing the job for them. So it's a it's a huge shift. It's a massive shift. And most organizations, especially small to medium sized businesses, private companies, most corporations I have seen this and they know how to deal with it. But smaller companies, they they they maybe they haven't figured that out yet. Right. So they they keep seeing, he was a great sales guy, he's a terrible manager. Now I gotta get rid of him, right? So

Nate Grossman: Great.

Chris Atwell: the

Simone Henry: And it's really like maybe you don't need to get rid of him. Maybe you need to train him on how to be a manager, right? Yeah. That that's the problem.

Chris Atwell: Exactly. Right. And and so many companies have great onboarding plans for new employees, right? New entry level position. We got this.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: We got the but then when they're growing and they're expanding, they haven't developed the onboarding plan for the new manager. So it's trial by fire. We just throw him in. He should figure it out. He knows what he's doing. He or she. Right.

Nate Grossman: Right, right. He's a veteran. Yeah, that's

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: why we're promoting them because they've been there, right? And so they know how it goes.

Chris Atwell: Exactly, right? Yeah, so it's a it's it's a it's a real challenge. It's out there.

Simone Henry: some people like that and it feels like okay they they were promoted because they were good at what they did but they're

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: terrible at managing people and so now you end up with a

Nate Grossman: And, yeah.

Simone Henry: department of all these disgruntled employees because they have a new manager and the

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: manager's just he's not great.

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: There's nothing worse in my own experience than having to feel like you're competing against your manager for sales. It's

Simone Henry: Mm.

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: a bizarre scenario, I have to say.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nate Grossman: Anyways, all right. Let's see here.

Simone Henry: So, how does this show up day-to-day for the team? And what are the early signs before it becomes a real problem?

Chris Atwell: Hmm. Well, you you you mentioned it, they get disgruntled, right? The team the team is like, Well, you know, I don't even really like working with this guy. He's he's kind of a jerk or whatever, right? Because they don't feel supported. When anything whenever they have a challenge, the manager just steps in and fixes the problem for them. So they kind of just throw their hands up, right?

Simone Henry: maybe berates them for not knowing what they should know and when

Chris Atwell: prevents them from growing, from not knowing what they should know exactly.

Simone Henry: Like maybe he was a superstar and he's expecting them to be the same kind of superstar and they're different.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: Mhm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, those are all definitely signs that you would see. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. All right. Very good. So let's get into some of the framework here, get a little practical. You have a way to walk owners through all of what you have to offer, what you talk about, right? So you talk about creating energy, building clarity, installing momentum. So can you take us through that? Let's start with energy. Why does

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: that come first before strategy or the org chart?

Chris Atwell: Yeah, so energy clarity and momentum, you know, when you're in a plane and you're flying at, you know, twenty thousand feet and oxygen masks fall down because there's chaos and you're sitting there and you've got people beside you, you're supposed to put your oxygen mask on first before you help others. Okay. And that's a great analogy because in business, if the business is chaotic and it's, you know, you you feel like you don't have the capacity, you're overwhelmed, imagine what your team members are feeling. Okay, if you're the owner of the business

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Chris Atwell: and you're feeling that, you need to protect your own energy first. So as the owner, you have a responsibility to show up, to show up as the best version of yourself every single day so that you can handle. The pressures, the chaos, the development of your people, all the reviews, working on the strategy, the discipline, the knowledge, developing the skills, all those things. So energy comes first. And this is always what we work on. It's really creating awareness around simple things. Right. How are you starting your day? Are you starting your day on your laptop right away, answering emails? And going straight for the coffee before even hydrating? Or are you setting your day up for success by creating a really solid root morning routine that's going to resource you so that you can show up as the best version of yourself? You know, maybe a little bit of exercise, hydration, meditation, reading, journaling before you look at work, right? Source yourself. Okay. What is your exercise routine look like? Do you have one at all? Right. Are you meal planning or are you out every single day with clients drinking beer and and eating burgers and wings? Right.

Nate Grossman: Doh.

Chris Atwell: So we all love burgers and wings. Don't get me wrong. Right. But it's like you right, that you're still

Nate Grossman: That's the bane of salesmen.

Simone Henry: Sure.

Chris Atwell: the top sales guy and you're running the business, chances are you're having lunches all the time, right? And dinners, right?

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: So it's creating awareness around, okay, those basic fundamental things around how you create and generate better energy within yourself. Whether that's physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. So I help people see that and come up with plans on how they can create better morning routines, evening routines, fitness routines, etc. All right. And when your energy is full, you can show up better. Then you can start working on the clarity piece, right? Everybody wants the clarity without the energy. They want don't worry about that. I want to get straight to the clarity. You got to work on yourself first. It starts with you. You're the owner of the business, right? And

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Chris Atwell: the clarity comes from really understanding the systems that need to be implemented in the business, really understanding what processes need to be developed, really understanding the gaps, the numbers, the re re the historical revenue trends, the skills, the knowledge, and discipline that your team needs to develop, and capturing all those things in a format that give you clarity, recording them. documenting them and putting them in a place that's going to allow you to take action. The mission, the vision, the values of your business. So many owners of a business, they think they have a mission and vision, but maybe they wrote it 20 years ago, right? 15 years ago, five years ago, and it's no longer relevant. So take the time and reestablish clarity around what's the mission and the vision of the business. Where are we today and where are we going? And communicate that with your team. And what values are we going to expect our team to demonstrate on a regular basis? The behaviors that they need to show us that they're living by those values. Otherwise, we're not, you know, we're scattered, right? There's a misalignment. So clarity comes from all of those things. And building momentum comes from making sure you have the energy. being clear on where everything is going and how you're going to get there. And then momentum comes from establishing re regular consistency in the business. Repeatable habits and routines that support making sure you see the numbers regularly, make sure you're developing the people right regularly, make sure that you're doing your exercise regularly. And that's when the momentum really starts to build.

Nate Grossman: OK, seems easy enough, I guess. Makes sense. One thing kind of flows into the next. All right, so installing second layer leadership

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: is maybe that part that owners tend to avoid. And it may be because they believe that nobody can do it the way they can.

Chris Atwell: Hundred percent.

Nate Grossman: So in that case, how do you get an owner to actually release a decision to someone else and rely on that second layer there?

Chris Atwell: Yeah. you know, that's a that's a real common situation. There's a great book by John Maxwell called The Five Levels of Leadership, right? And he kind of talks about that every time you start a leadership role, level one, you know, he's just the manager. He got the title. What's he done for me? Right? Who is this guy? Who is this woman? And Level two is when your team members really start to feel like, okay, this manager is making a difference, is having an impact, is helping us grow. Level three is when the impact of that leader is having an impact on the organization, on the company. Everything is going, there's improvements, there's efficiencies, there's things being implemented, there's initiatives. Level four is when you start to develop other leaders. Okay. And then the ultimate is level five, where you're developing leaders who are developing leaders in the business. All right.

Nate Grossman: Mm. Mm.

Chris Atwell: So every owner hits this crossroads where it's like, okay, I can't handle everything anymore, but I'm the only one who knows how to do it. So I I I don't think I'm ready to bring on a manager. So the key here is to identify certain attributes, certain behaviors. That are gonna give you at le at least a little bit of confidence that this person could be a potential future manager. You need to create a leadership bench. You need to take a look at all of your people and say, does is this person coachable? Does he have potential skills that he maybe he could lead a team later? All these things. And if you're caught in the day to day and you're working in your business, you're never gonna stop and think about that stuff. So this becomes a strategy and mission and vision exercise. That working on the business, you need to be intentional about thinking about who can potentially lead a team. And once you've done that, then you need to be responsible for helping develop them in order to be ready to handle things that maybe you feel you're the only one who can handle. And that requires you letting go. There's this fear of letting go that the whole place is gonna fall apart, right? So start small. Start small. Give this person ownership of look, we're implementing this new CRM system. You're I I I I believe in you. I think that you should be the one who's gonna hold the team accountable to entering the data and filling

Nate Grossman: man, what is going on?

Chris Atwell: out all the information and generating the reports and making sure that all the cells are what we need, So so start small. Identify someone that you can give ownership of some potential outcomes. All right. There's an outcome that you want to have. look, I'm stretched for capacity. I need to make sure that we implement the CRM system. I know that I I could take it on, but you know what? This person, I believe. should be responsible for the outcomes of the CRM. So I'm going to give them ownership of it. And you share with them what outcomes and responsibilities they're going to handle. And you, you start there. And then, okay, you add something else. And then you slowly add something else and you you start offloading the things that you know are important that need to get done in the business that probably don't need your specific level of expertise, that don't need your skill set. So that you can help develop a future leader before you give them that title of manager. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. And it's probably good for them to know how it works anyway,

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: Yeah. So you know what it sounds like to me. It's like it's like you have to 'cause I'm sure not every CEO, not every founder is is or knows how to necessarily coach somebody up, themselves. So it's like they have to be coached to become a coach in their own, you know. in that in their in their in that right, you know, like so that they can then coach their teams.

Chris Atwell: Well, and that's exactly where mentorship, coaching comes in. I mean, if you if you don't feel comfortable in the gym, okay, and you go to the gym and you're not getting the results that you want because you don't really know how to, you know, understand what it looks like to increase the load every single week without hurting yourself or lose the weight that you're looking to to lose. You need a personal trainer, you need a nutrition coach, right? In many cases. And the same goes in business. And that's why there's so many great resources out there. You've got like tech groups, you've got associations that offer leadership development, you've got coaches like myself that can give you one-on-one coaching or group cohort coaching so that you can really create the awareness around how do I teach my people how to be better performers in my business? And how do I show up differently so that we can change the environment and go from chaotic workplace, you know, being the hero all the time to scaling a business where I can actually step away for a week on vacation knowing that the place isn't gonna fall apart and I don't have to be on while I'm sitting on a beach in Ath you know, in in on the the coast of Greece type thing.

Nate Grossman: Was it Gandhi who said, be the change you want to see, right? Kind of the same idea.

Simone Henry: Right, right.

Chris Atwell: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: it to business, Gandhi in business.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, Gandhi and business total.

Simone Henry: huh. So for for an owner doing two to three million and they've they have a team of maybe ten or twelve or so, where does a simple system or a piece of automation take pressure off before they even hire somebody new?

Chris Atwell: Mm. Yeah, I think the first thing is making sure that Everyone is prioritizing the right things, right? So if you've got a team of twelve people and they're in different roles, you want to make sure that they understand where they should be spending their time and you as well, right? So a system around making sure that you're reviewing priorities on a regular basis and you're focused on pr future performance and progress on things. Rather than just checking in reactively all the time, calling them up, saying, Hey, where are you where are you with this? is a really powerful way to create consistency. And one of the ways that you can do that is by having an established weekly or bi weekly one on one with all of your team members. Where in that one on one, you're reviewing progress on the priorities that you had last week. Right. Where are you? What support do you need? How can I help you move this forward? You're getting clear on what their priorities are for the upcoming week, right? So that you can make sure you're aligned and that there's no gaps and and maybe they forgot something, maybe you forgot something. And then you're also talking about development. What skills, knowledge, and discipline do they need to continuously develop? And what are they committing to developing over the next week so that you can continue moving the business forward? And this is Just a a communication system, a weekly one on one system that's h highly effective as long as you stick to it. And one of the things that owners often start are these one on ones, and those are the first things to get pushed aside because of a customer call or a customer meeting. And if that works to the detriment of your team and your company. And these these are things that most organizations don't implement. They just have the regular phone call. Right. Like, hey, how's it going here? How you know, you're driving, you you, you call and then you pick up the phone and it disrupts your day, right? So scheduling it, making it intentional, and following a structure where the person whose one on one it is actually leads it, not the manager, will be a system that's gonna help you ensure that you're building a team that's gonna continue to grow before hiring other people.

Simone Henry: So they have to speaking of like fires coming up, you know,

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: come customer calls, whatever, that kind of thing. so if these these one-on-ones are really important and they want to make sure that they that they don't get pushed aside because of emergencies, then It's so it's important for them to maybe schedule some sort of or have have a contingency in place, right? If if a if a fire needs to be put out, well, once the fire is put out, now what? You know, make sure I get back to who was next on the schedule for for that one on one. make sure that there's there's time built in there to to still have it so that it just doesn't get pushed aside because yeah, an employee who's like really looking forward to maybe putting their idea on the boss's table and then they get they get their spot gets chopped off because of something, you know, they'll

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: they'll feel they won't feel great if well, you know, we'll just do it next week, you know.

Chris Atwell: Yeah, and that's and that's funny though, you know, these fires that you're referring to, the owner in many cases is the glorified firefighter of the business, right? But your job as an owner is actually not to stop putting out fires, but it's to reduce the amount of fires that you as the owner are putting out because you've got a team who can put them out for you.

Nate Grossman: Hmm.

Simone Henry: Makes sense.

Nate Grossman: Okay. So going off of that a little bit. So let's say that you've worked with the business, you've helped them install the leadership structure, the accountability structure that they need. What in that case needs to be true in the rest of the business, especially in like the way the revenue is actually getting generated so that leadership layer holds and doesn't snap back to the way it was before with running through the owner, right?

Chris Atwell: Yeah, what needs to be true is that there's there's a hundred percent clarity on what leadership is responsible for and what outcomes they are being held to the standard of achieving. Okay. So yes, sales results, revenue results are one thing, but Without that clarity, you know, you start building a leadership bench, you've got a VP of sales, you've got a VP of business development, you got a VP of marketing. If there's no you'll often see without clarity on responsibilities and outcomes that there's still a lot of stepping on toes, right? well, I helped that person because I, you know, I just they asked me, right? so You you really need to take the time as your leadership team grows to make sure that everybody knows exactly what their role is. And that you hold them to the standard that they take ownership of that outcome without the cross-pollination and stepping over each other's toes. And without that clarity, you're naturally gonna, you know, the the the business development director might. solve a problem for the sales team guy and then the sales manager will solve a problem for the business development guy. It's just it kind of just gets messy.

Nate Grossman: Everybody stays in their lane. Basically. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. And it doesn't mean that you can't help, but it means that there's clarity on what your lane is.

Simone Henry: Like yeah, you can help but you you still

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: have your own space, your own slot that you need to be paying attention to.

Chris Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Knowing where the boundaries are is important. OK, so let's get into the multiplier effect. So when this is actually working in the business, and getting out of that bottleneck is not necessarily the end-all be-all, right? It's kind of like what makes the rest of it possible. So when an owner. let's say, finally gets out of the middle, gets out of their own way, you know, what starts working that they maybe didn't expect.

Chris Atwell: Yeah. The first thing is you see your team performing performing at a higher level, handling challenges themselves, making decisions. Their confidence level starts to increase. They start to trust themselves rather than, you know, there's a problem. I'm gonna go ask the boss how I handle this. The boss tells them how to do it, so then they just do it and that becomes the the perpetual way of doing things. Instead They're gonna say, here's a problem. You know what? I'm gonna handle this. I'll let I'll let the boss take care of what they need to take care of. And that that alone frees up a ton of capacity. The other thing is, is when you create a sense of ownership, when people believe that they can handle these challenges, that they own the outcomes, you you see, you see some magic happen around their their desire to grow, to take chances, to mitigate risk, to help others and these kinds of things and that that's a beautiful thing. So that's what happens.

Nate Grossman: Nice. So you've helped hundreds of leaders across North America get their time back. What do the best owners do with that reclaimed time? How

Chris Atwell: Mm.

Nate Grossman: does it change the business?

Chris Atwell: Yeah. The majority of the leaders that create more capacity within their business shift the focus of time that they're using from being in the day-to-day, right? Making sales calls, making handling all the relationships, putting out all the fires, to working strategically on the business, developing their people and Creating systems and processes that create efficiencies in the business. They free up time so they can see things from that lens. So it's not that they're creating a bunch of free time and some of them choose to use that time to go golfing or go on more vacations and all that stuff too. But most of them just apply their time in a different way in their business that is just different than what they did before. They're no longer putting out the fires, but they're they're looking at a long term plan. For the next five to ten years, and they're creating the initiatives that are going to support that. They're no longer out in the field selling to every single customer. Maybe they're just managing the relationships with the top customers, and they're seeing them at a senior level every couple of months. They're no longer putting together all the quotes and purchase orders in the business that are coming through and approving pricing. They're actually creating systems that allow those things to happen without their their hands in it.

Nate Grossman: Nice.

Simone Henry: I think you answered this one about when leadership is distributed instead of centralized, what changes about how the team executes, even when the owner's not in the room?

Chris Atwell: When things are done correctly, the team knows what the priorities are. Right. Rather than just doing a milk run, answering the first phone call every morning, and that becomes the priority, they they know that, hey, I can I can kind of navigate my way through my day in a way because I'm prepared and I'm gonna be focused on the priorities that are gonna have the biggest ROI in the business. That is the beauty of that situation.

Nate Grossman: All right, let's do Yeah

Simone Henry: Everything is working like a well oiled machine. Sounds

Chris Atwell: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's it's all visionary

Simone Henry: good.

Chris Atwell: and of course it sounds sometimes like too good to be true, right? But but it over time over time

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. It's quite the picture you're painting here.

Chris Atwell: you you put the building blocks in place and it and that machine starts to operate more smoothly.

Nate Grossman: I guess that's the nature of getting 1 % better every day, right? It starts to compound over time. All right. So let's do rapid clarity round and get wrapped up here.

Simone Henry: Okay, so quick answer for all of these, right? I've got four questions. What's one question every agency owner should ask their leadership team this month?

Chris Atwell: Hmm. That's a great question. What are your top three priorities this month and why?

Simone Henry: Awesome. If an owner has never built a second layer of leadership, what's the first, what's the single first step this week that they should do?

Chris Atwell: They should think about which people in their business could potentially be a leader and why.

Simone Henry: Okay, the one decision an owner should stop making themselves starting tomorrow.

Chris Atwell: Anytime that a the first person that comes to you and says, Hey, how do I solve this problem? right then and there, don't solve the problem for them. Instead say, I don't know. What are what are a couple of ways that you would solve the problem?

Simone Henry: Hmm. It's like yeah, give me some options. Yeah.

Chris Atwell: Yeah.

Simone Henry: Okay. Finish this sentence. The business is ready to grow without you when.

Chris Atwell: When you you're not doing all of the fire fighting yourself.

Simone Henry: Awesome. And then you'll have a more

Nate Grossman: All right.

Simone Henry: valuable business, right?

Nate Grossman: Indeed, indeed. That's what everybody wants to get to. That's the dream, right?

Chris Atwell: That's right.

Nate Grossman: OK, so just to give a little bit of a wrap up here, what we've, my takeaway, from what Chris has said is that the bottleneck is not necessarily your workload. It's where decisions live or die, And when you build a leadership layer that can carry clarity and accountability without you, right? People actually own, they have ownership, then the business stops running on your stamina and starts running on its own structure. And so that is the difference between a job you own and a business that holds value, just like Simone said, right? A valuable business. All right.

Simone Henry: So if what Chris shared resonated and you own or lead a rep agency and you are tired of being the person everything runs through, connect with Chris at his website mindset-conquest dot com slash resources, where the companion tools for the book leave live. And find him on LinkedIn under Chris Atwell. His book, Momentum by Design, is worth your time if you want to go deeper on this. And if this conversation put a name to something you've been feeling, there is a way to find out where it actually sits in your business. We are running original research right now called the Growth Ceiling Report. It's 16 questions and it only takes about four minutes to fill out. You walk through the eight stages of the revenue systems and mark each one. Does it run through you? Does it exist without leaks? Or does it not exist at all? The moment you finish, you see your own count. How many of the eight run without you? Go to thegrowthceiling.com/slash report. Your answers go into the report and you get the findings before they're public. And subscribe to the growth ceiling wherever you listen. And if this episode helped you see something differently, Send it to one founder who needs to hear it. Thank you for being here with us today, Chris, and thank you all for watching and listening.

Chris Atwell: Thank you.

Nate Grossman: Thanks Chris.