1757- How Outsourced Leadership Can Help Businesses with Bill Simmons

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0:58with us right now it's bill simmons bill you are the owner and ceo of thrive business operations you're found on the web at thrivebusinessoperations.com i love this subject bill it's great to have you josh thank you for letting us be a part of this i've been excited about this i've actually listened to a couple podcasts where you were the guest and i just couldn't wait till we were going to get together. Ah, fantastic. Well, I appreciate that. Well, Bill, give us an overview of the work that you do at Thrive Business Operations. And founders, listen up. Bill's about to become your best friend.

1:31Yeah. So very simply, fractional COO services, chief operations officers. The marketplace has been using fractional CFOs on the financial leadership side for decades. And I saw a need in 2006 of outsourced executive leadership on the operations side. and about 10 years of that doing it solo, now doing it on my own. The way I describe it is if you have a vision as a business owner that operations can't keep up with, we should have a conversation, right? And I can't promise you that we're going to eliminate that gap because if you're a good visionary, there's always a gap. But we want to shrink that gap, right?

2:11Let's try to get operations to be able to meet the demand of where your vision and where you want to go as a company. Yeah. Would you mind talking just a little bit about the role of a founder? And also, you had mentioned kind of that personality type of visionary. And I think my suspicion is that a lot of founders are visionaries, but I'd love your take on this. Yeah, visionary. I love the word creator too, right? I don't think creativity is limited to artistry. I think business and entrepreneurship is an act of creation and we get to create, we get to have ideations and get those ideas executed.

2:53and in the life of a lot of founders and business owners, when they have that clear vision and they are successful and what they, that baby they've created, there comes a point where scaling it needs partnership, right? And you're not on your own. And being able to bring somebody else where you are, it's not, you know, the book is right, not how, but who, right? We, and we're big on being the who to come alongside that creator, that visionary to take their business to beyond where they can on their own. I think the other thing is most founders and business owners feel compelled that they want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

3:33And if that's the case, you need more than yourself to be a part of it. So don't be a founder or business owner that we've all fallen into that trap where we may be tempted to say, nobody does it like me. Nobody will manage this or love this like me. that is a trap to contain you right where you are as a business owner. And so get out of that trap, find real legitimate partners that believe in what you're doing and take this beyond your wildest imagination. What are the consequences of staying stuck in that trap? Well, certainly frustration. I call it the frustration quadrant. That's a whole other thing.

4:11Give me a whiteboard or a yellow pad and I'd love to draw things out. But in the context of this, I think it's really about understanding that when you get trapped, being the person and developing the processes to execute the majority of your business, frustration is the result. And then what happens is you start turning on the thing that you love, right? Because it's working you instead of you working it. And you need to be a leader, not just a business owner. I know that can be semantics, but leadership requires people and processes to lead. And that's what we're looking for. We're looking to work alongside leaders.

4:53Yeah. What do you think keeps most founders and or CEOs from bringing in the operational leadership that they need? Well, I think there's a couple of things. One, first and foremost, not really knowing what they want them to do. They just know there's a gap and there's a hole to be filled, or there's just stuff I don't want to do anymore and I need somebody else to do it. Not being clear on what a COO should be doing. I think that's the first thing. The other thing is they've had some type of operational support and it went bad. And dare I say, because of unclear expectations, I'm using that word frustration a lot.

5:36That's when, you know, unspoken, unmet expectations equals frustration, Right. And so you have either a bad experience with somebody operationally. And now you're like, hey, I might as well just do it myself, which is, again, a lie you tell yourself. Or you just really don't know how to use them. And I think that's part of what we do. We want to say, here's how you should use us. And a good fractional COO. Now, listen, there's a lot of competency out there and we're getting into a crowded market. I've been doing this a while when I can say, hey, I think we were on the early stages of fractional COOs.

6:06And the reality is, Josh, most people don't care, but I will at least carry that card as long as I can. Right. But the market's getting crowded. Don't settle just for somebody who has competency and experience because they've been with a company in the past. Yes. Act with a fractional COO that has a process and how they're going to deliver this operational service to your company. That's a whole other conversation. We talked about how we do that, but I think that sets us apart to be able, we can tell you as the business owner, here's how you should be using us. Here's how we implement that so that you are on the right track.

6:40We're big on what we call quarterly sprints. We believe our number one job is to help you run your business 90 days at a time and being clear on those expectations on how we work together. So if you can overcome those two things, having that bad experience, let's work with somebody that has experience doing this in multiple industries over multiple years. And at the same time, that really knows how to help you utilize the service. Yeah. Bill, and I think that that kind of moves nicely into my next question. And that is, you know, in terms of options are available to us. So three, I think that immediately come to mind is to say, well, look, I'm still going to stay on pretty hands-on.

7:21I'm just going to bring in this project manager or something like that. Not necessarily, they're not C-suite, they're not executive level, but at least they're going to start managing some things. So I don't, you know, hopefully I can kind of tell them what my vision is and they can kind of manage the troops a little bit, you know, or a small team or something like that. That's one option. The other option could be, again, fractional C-level executive leadership, but on a fractional basis. And then finally, you could also say, well, no, I'm just going to bite the bullet and I'm going to get a full-time COO in here.

7:56Maybe you could talk about the pros and cons of each of those. And those are just three off the top of my head of ways to kind of solve this. I guess option number zero would be do nothing, which we already talked about. Yeah, do nothing is a guaranteed way to stay right where you are, right? Yes. So you are a business owner. You're the founder. You're the entrepreneur because you took a risk. Scaling is risk-taking also, right? And so dance with who brung you. You want to be calculated risk, but if you are a risk-taker when you began, be a risk-taker to nugget there. Let's talk about your three things.

8:27I believe that when it comes to fractional COO versus a full-time COO, sometimes that depending on the company, that a person coming in full-time still gets lost in the day-to-day urgency of executing fire drills and maybe doesn't have a strategic approach that really is driving. having somebody that is willing to partner with you, but is also somewhat disconnected from you, gives you the ability to have a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost actually get more accomplished because you want high level things accomplished. I'll use numbers for exaggeration for effect, but let's don't pay$500 an hour for somebody to do tasks that should be$5 an hour, right?

9:18Just exaggeration for effect. And so we want to make sure that we can actually get more accomplished. And when we hire somebody full time, I say we end up asking them to deliver lower level tasks they should be doing. Now, talk about the director side of things. That's actually somebody, Josh, we'd love to work with in a company. If a company has maybe somebody that seems very competent, very organized, they're that office manager, director of operations, but they're not quite strategic in their direction. Well, that's where we can come in and be a partner on the strategy and execution and clarifying quarterly objectives along with that person and elevate their efficiency and effectiveness as a director and saving you costs and dollars and revenue as well.

10:09Yeah. So Bill, what does engagement look like? So someone says, look, I think we might be a good candidate. All I know is I'm overworked. And what does that, those initial conversations, the kind of that initial discovery look like? Yeah, you know, certainly discovery is it's everything's built on relationships. And, you know, first thing we want to do is connect and make sure that we're aligned and we want to work with people that we can share values and we want to share their vision. We can get behind that vision as well and support that. Ultimately, you know, our engagements, we have a five-step process we call the Thrive Op Cycle.

10:49So I can say every engagement is going to work along this way. We start with our strategy advance. We want to be clear on the vision and culture you're trying to create. It is not our job to come in and disrupt your vision and disrupt your culture, but we can't replicate it if we don't take time to truly understand it. So we want to start the engagement there. Then recognizing as a part of that strategy advance, what are the most impactful goals and initiatives we can take on in the next year to bring growth and health to this company? And once we've identified those, then it's off to the races identifying quarterly objectives.

11:29We're an OKR firm. I know it stands for our objectives and key results. I like the term outcome and key results. What outcomes are we clearly going after on a quarterly basis? And that's where the rhythm just keeps working from there. So every engagement starts that way. And then from there, it's rolling up your sleeves and getting involved. We often say, don't call us coaches or consultants, but everybody on our team is capable of being a coach and consultant. And we do that stuff for free and not to be cynical. Okay, I'm being cynical. Everybody's a coach and everybody's a consultant these days.

12:01So let us just bring that as a value you add, let us roll up our sleeves and get involved in your team. Yeah. Bill, your website, thrivebusinessoperations.com. You know, I know we've shared a lot of great value here, but I suspect that you've got some valuable resources here. Yeah. One of the things we're very proud of is our ebook, The Thrive Op Cycle, that shares our business operating system that we want to install in your business to keep us on track. You may have heard of other business operating systems like with traction and EOS and the 12 week year and scaling up. We're all saying similar things.

12:41This is our version of our business operating system so we can have predictable, executable results. And so I would highly encourage somebody to visit our site. That's our free gift to you. And it's a great way for us to start a conversation to know how we can come in and help you install that. Yeah. And, you know, kind of finally, tell me a bit about Thrive Business Operations as a business itself. Who are you? Like, where have you come from and where are you going? Yeah, so I started the company in 2006. That's a story in and of itself. I had been an executive director of a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., had the privilege of being on the road quite a bit with a lot of speaking engagements.

13:25I had 300 speaking engagements in six years. I did a lot of public school assemblies. I was young, skinny, and had hair back in those days. And you've got to be a little ballsy to stay in the middle of a high school gymnasium with 3 ,000 high school students, right? But that led me to having a lot of conversations with community leaders, business owners that were funding our participation in those events. And I just saw the need of that outsourced executive leadership and started the company, did a lot of it on my own, but then had a vision for what a firm looks like and how we could productize delivering the service, bringing other highly capable, experienced COOs to help serve our clients.

14:06along the journey. You know, we had different team members, but Kai Bailey is my partner now. I'm in the Greenville, South Carolina market. She's in Atlanta. We serve clients all across the country, but we're now business partners. We've joined forces. And I think we are the definition of synergy. We truly are better together than we are separated and are able to provide a much better service and product for our client. Excellent. All right. Again, Bill, your website, thrivebusinessoperations.com. What does somebody click on? What do they do? Where do they go next? Yeah, definitely go to the website and right on the front page is going to be the Thrive Op Cycle.

14:46You get an instant download of the ebook. Also, I love having conversations like this, but schedule a time with me. You're going to get me and sometimes Kai will join me, but we can just have a get to know each other session. You can also just go to just about any social media platform, LinkedIn, Instagram, all of them find Bill Simmons Live, L-I-V-E. If you look for Bill Simmons Live on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you're going to find me. I like being friends. I like being connected and I love sharing, you know, hopefully what we think is good, motivating, and sometimes contrarian content.

15:22I'm just tired of hearing the same things over and over again. So I like to say things just a little bit different and hopefully we're providing that for you. Awesome. All right, Bill Simmons, again, thank you so much. Founder is CEO of Thrive Business Operations. The website, one last time, is thrivebusinessoperations.com. Bill, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh. This has been great.

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