One Big Idea 4 - Driving Operational Excellence: From Algorithm-Free Organic Scale to Transformational Self-Leadership

0:03Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. You asked for it, so we made it happen. Every Friday, we're doing something a little different. Instead of one long conversation, we're packing in four of them, four experts, four big ideas, all in about the same time it takes to drink your morning coffee. We call it One Big Idea Friday, and the format is simple. I ask each guest one question, and they bring their single best idea. idea for business leaders who want to grow without the noise. No fluff, no rambling, just the thing they actually want you to remember. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it.

0:44With us right now with our next one big idea is Nicholas Haik. Nicholas, you are the founder of JUS Official Services. You work in talent management. You work with a lot of creators, a lot of folks that are streaming, they're building audiences, influencers. So you get to see a lot of cool stuff behind the scenes. Please share with us your one big idea. My one big idea is that most creators and influencers and even businesses don't fail necessarily from lack of effort. They fail from scattered momentum. Right now, especially on social media, businesses have become a ultra active environment. Everyone is posting constantly, launching constantly, pivoting constantly.

1:32And there's a lot of new marketing ideas, algorithms, and reactions you have to start considering. Founders and creatives alike feel pressure to always be doing more. What I've noticed is that they aren't necessarily struggling because they lack the effort. They're struggling because they lack that strategic clarity, that strategic knowledge and drive. They have multiple voices, brand voices. They have inconsistent messaging, inconsistent posting, random content styles, and a lot of changing audiences, offers, and strategies that shift every week depending on the latest trend, the algorithm. And even though they're active, nothing really compounds into what we need.

2:19And that's honestly one of the biggest reasons that businesses, creatives alike, stay invisible online. The founders who scale well aren't the loudest people in the room, despite common misconception. It is the people, or it's not the people posting the most content either. It's the people that create consistency between their positioning, their messaging, the psychology, branding, etc. A lot of founders think marketing is about constantly creating new ideas. But in reality, great marketing is usually about repeating the right idea clearly enough that the market really remembers it, that it hooks them.

2:58The brands that grow well and sustainably and efficiently tend to understand a few things very well. how their audience thinks. You got to understand your audience in order to really truly provide the best content for them. You got to also know what emotional factors and problems you can solve or address because we're all humans. We all have emotions. And you also got to know how to position yourselves differently without confusing people. A lot of businesses and creatives will try to position themselves differently, but they'll confuse their audience from their main focus. And another thing is making sure that you create a reputable system.

3:37You've got to have predictability. You've got to have structure. You've got to have consistency. Instead of just random burst efforts, inconsistency is a massive issue in your ability to succeed. What we do here at JOS Official Services is we end up coaching clients on constantly making sure that your strategic cohesion is efficient across everything you do. whether that be your social media presence, your partnerships, outreach, branding, your content strategy, and even your operations. And honestly, even the way you just simply speak, either publicly or privately. Because once all these things kind of reinforce themselves together, momentum starts compounding instead of resetting every month.

4:22And in highly competitive social media markets, that compounding effect, it matters more than constantly chasing the next trend. I think the founders who win long-term are usually the ones who stop asking, what else can we do? Or what should we post it? Instead, you need to ask, what do we want people to remember us for? Once the market understands you clearly, growth gets dramatically easy. I love it. Nicholas, thank you so much for sharing your insights. So one of the biggest insights I took or got was, you know, once you really figure out what your lane is going to be and what your contribution and what your content is going to be, commit to it.

5:04Quit trying new things every single week. I get it. You're confusing your audience. That makes a lot of sense. You know, there's followers. You know, they're not necessarily the most efficient or, you know, flashy at what they do, but they're consistent, and I like it. And if they were to ever just, hey, folks, I'm just going to do a whole different thing from now on, I'd be kind of like, that's not what I subscribed for. So that makes a lot of sense, particularly if you can kind of line that up to, as you mentioned, your ideal person. Great advice. Nicholas, tell me just a little bit. We have about 30 seconds here.

5:44But tell me a little bit more about JUS Official Services. and who you work with and kind of where you fit in. Yeah, so JOS Official Services, we started it officially last year in July of 2025, but we didn't really start operations until January of 2026. We were able to take off very fast because we built a model that wasn't expected. It broke the system. It wasn't fitting that standard that everyone expects is the industry standard, but the standard isn't perfect. And that's what we built our entire business model off of. The idea of helping people, flexibility, transparency, which is lack of that is one of the biggest issues in this industry.

6:30I believe that being able to work with the creative individuals I've had the pleasure of working with, such as Izzy Burns, Rebecca Rule, Adam and Jerome Bell-Bastion. These are some of the up and coming artists of tomorrow. and being able to work with them. It's also taught me a lot personally as well as professionally. I realized - I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead. You're going to finish up. Yeah, I realized that there's a lot of personality and emotion in this industry. And that's kind of where I'm at now is kind of making sure that that isn't forgotten because that matters. JusofficialServices.info is your website.

7:10It's been a great conversation. Nicholas Haik, again, you're the founder. Thank you so much, Nicholas, for sharing your one big idea. Thank you.

7:23With our next one big idea, it is Scott Doggett. Scott, you are the founder of the National Academy of Leadership Development. You're based here in the Orlando area. And you are also the author of the book, Priceless, See People Differently, Lead People Better. Scott Doggett, thank you for sharing your one big idea. Love to hear it. Well, thanks for having me, Josh. And I'm so excited to be here and share my one big idea. It's funny. Everywhere I go, I hear executives talking about trying to solve these big issues, right? Customer experience and retention and innovation. And these are the big buzzwords.

8:02And they're spending a whole bunch of time and money and resources is in trying to improve employee engagement and organizational performance. And underneath it all, there is a deeper issue going on. And that's what I'm here to talk about. It's a perception problem. Now, here's the really good news that I'm here to share with you all, is that fixing this and improving this does not require these huge budgets. In fact, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money at all. and it doesn't require these big complicated systems or a whole bunch of time. In fact, it often starts with something much, much simpler.

8:43It requires a shift in perception, a change of heart, and also a daily commitment in treating people like they matter. And yes, leadership skills, yes, they do matter. But skills without that humanity really very rarely help to create those healthy cultures. Because the way that leaders see people truly shapes the way that they treat people. And then the way that people are treated shapes how engaged they become. So here's the thing. We all place labels on people, whether we realize that we're doing it or not. So think about it. Somebody walks into your office or down the hallway, you see someone and we put a label on them.

9:30Maybe, oh, there's that person. That person's emotional or they're new, they're inexperienced or they're just an intern or there's my poor performer or there's my high performer, right? It goes good and bad. Or we even just look at them based on their title or rank or even based on their educational background. We put all of these labels on people. And the moment we do that, it often changes our home, right? Our, even the level of our patience, our empathy, the level that we listen to that person, and even the level of respect that we show that other person. The problem is people can actually feel the way that we see them, even if we don't say that part out loud.

10:21And when people consistently feel that feeling of being dismissed or being undervalued or being unheard or unseen, that's when engagement levels drop, right? That's when people stop bringing their ideas. That's when they stop taking initiative. that's when they stop speaking up and they stop giving that extra effort that is so valuable for any leader in in with their team members however when we can start to make people feel trusted and respected and valued and supported that's when people give more of themselves that's when you start to see more creativity more ownership more collaboration more energy And that, over time, ladies and gentlemen, is what impacts everything, right?

11:15That's what improves customer experience and retention and innovation and accountability and productivity and yes, even culture. Because higher engagement doesn't just make people happier, it actually creates better business outcomes. This is what I'll leave you with. Culture is such a huge topic for me. It is not created through slogans and what we put on the wall, right? It is created in those everyday interactions, the meetings. It's how people are treated when they make mistakes or when they have those big wins. And we are spending far too much money trying to solve these problems with disengagement and burnout and turnover when all employees want, all they want is to feel respected and valued and heard and treated like human beings.

12:05I have seen this. I've seen employees thrive under one leader and then completely shut down under another leader. And it's not them that changed. Their talent didn't change. It's the environment that changed. One leader saw them as a problem to be managed. The other one saw them as someone who was worth developing and investing in. Guess what? That one leader got compliance. The other got full on commitment. it. So here's one thing that I would challenge people to try today. This one thing that you can literally try today. The next person that you see, the next person that walks in your office, I would challenge you to say, what label might you be placing on that person right now?

12:46And then replace it with this. Replace it with that person in front of me is priceless. That person is a priceless human being. They have a story. I may not know what that story is, but they have a story. They have struggles. They have family at home that love them. They have strengths that they bring. If nothing else, they are worth dignity and the respect and the time that I can give them right now in this moment. And the way that I see them in this moment is the way that I'm going to lead them. It's the way that I'm going to make them feel. And ultimately, better leadership experiences is what create better business outcomes.

13:22And so, Josh, that's my one big idea for you today. And what an idea it is, Scott. Thank you so much for sharing that. Again, you are the founder of the National Academy of Leadership Development. Your website is nationalald.com. Scott, your book, new book, it's called Priceless. See people differently, lead people better. It's available on Amazon and everywhere else. And you can also get to it at nationalald.com, including some great workshops and resources that you've got all linked up. Thank you so much, Scott, for sharing your idea. Great. Thanks for having me.

14:01With our next one big idea, it's Carol Schultz. Carol, you've been a longtime friend. You are the founder and CEO of Vertical Elevation. You're found on the web at verticleelevation.com. Carol, please share with us your one big idea. Josh, good to be with you. My one big idea is that every CEO, whether you're in a large company or in the SMB space, needs a chief of staff. and how that epiphany happened for me was that I actually had my own chief of staff for, gosh, about four years. I was at the gym one morning, and I was talking to my buddy Ted, who's a fractional head of sales, and we were just chatting about this, that, or whatever, and I was grousing about something, I'm sure, and he said, Carol, you should be a fractional chief of staff.

14:53You know more about the SMB space than anyone I've ever met. So I thought, wow, that's a really nice thing to hear from someone. And when we, my chief of staff and I thought, God, I've got a chief of staff. How come that never dawned on me? But what actually dawned on me was that I'm not the fractional chief of staff. I go in, I fix these companies up, free the CEO, because what happens is in these small companies, CEOs are spending way more of their time than they should be in the business, like involved in minutiae. They have no business spending their time in. So as an organizational strategist, I put these processes and frameworks together.

15:34I go in, I work side by side to the CEO. And what that did for them and what that does for them is it frees 90 % of their time. So they can now spend 90 % of their time working as a visionary, scaling their company, not wasting their time in meetings they have no businesses being at. And then I exit out of them in three to six months and backfill myself with the chief of staff for them, either fractional or full-time, depending on the size of the company. It's as simple as that. Yeah. Tell me about the difference between what a chief of staff is and, let's say, a director of operations, for example.

16:15Right. So your head of operations, whatever you want to title that person, that person manages the operations of the company. The chief of staff manages the operations of the CEO as their force multiplier, as their partner. The chief of staff is the bridge between the CEO and the rest of the team. They go to meetings in place of the CEO. Occasionally, CEOs do need to go to those meetings. A great example of that is Virgin Atlantic. Remind me, Richard Branson. He sits down with his chief of staff daily. The chief of staff briefs him on everything that's going on, and he goes off on his jet to go heliskiing or whatever he wants to do.

17:01Right. So so that's just an example of the importance of a chief of staff at freeing 90 percent of the CEO's time, if not more. Yeah. And and I would imagine then kind of last question on this is tell me a bit more about what happens both in the life of the founder CEO and then operationally. Obviously, there's some opportunities here. I'm not sure if I get that question you're asking me. Yeah. So what's the transformation? Like, you know, if you have a chief of staff in place, what happens? Like what's a paint paint for us a vision of why this is so powerful. Right. So I have a client currently, in fact, that's a great example of this, who who everyone adores working for him.

17:53Greatest guy in the world. But he will tell you he is the worst leader ever. Right. Right. So he hates running meetings. He doesn't want to go to any meetings. He really just wants to do the work that he has to do. And he wants to entertain clients and build his business. Right. So as we've started putting things in place for him, he's now he just reaches out to me and he says, you know, what should I be doing? What don't I have to do? Are you, you know, you can handle all this for me. And that's exactly the transformation for him. I've already removed him from most of his business. Like I said, not as his chief of staff, as his organizational strategist, working side by side.

18:39But when I backfill myself with that chief of staff, he will have everything in place so that the chief of staff just gets to pick up what I've put in. Because the chief of staff may not be in the next, is not an expert at all the things that I do. but they can take everything I've put in place and carry that forward to continue supporting him so that he's not wasting his time thinking, do I have to run this meeting? Do I have to run that meeting? We're just building a culture of feedback for him. And when I fly back out to California next month, he has to run that first meeting. This is what we're doing.

19:13This is what culture of feedback looks like because they do not have one. Here's what's going to happen. And then I will take that from him and continue to build it and put it in place so that that chief of staff can pick it up and carry it forward. Carol, I love this. There's your one big idea to our friends listening right now. Get yourself a chief of staff. Carol, how can you help with that? I think you've got some resources and obviously this is what you do. Yeah, this is what I do. I mean, the best thing to do is you can go to my website, as Josh mentioned, verticalelevation.com. You can book a call with me.

19:44We can talk about what your challenges are, what's working, what's not working. And we can talk about what my nine-step process looks like. It covers about 80 % of what all you CEOs need. The other 20 % generally comes from me working side-by-side and learning what's in the blind spot. That's actually almost more important than the other 80%. So don't just go out and hire a chief of staff because you're going to miss easily that 20%, if not a little bit more than that, on what you need. Excellent. Carol Schultz, your website, verticalelevation.com. Carol, thank you so much for sharing your one big idea.

20:21My pleasure, Josh.

20:25With our next one big idea, it is Andrew LaFuente. Andrew, you are the founder and principal and president of LaFuente Sign and Awning. You are found on the web at lafuentesignandawning.com. Andrew, it's so great to have you. Please share with us your one big idea. Josh, good morning. Thank you for having me. The one big idea that I have is understanding your competition as you grow a business, both regionally and nationally. We do custom awnings. And in our market here, you have some good awning businesses and even at a national level as well. So we took a lot of time to understand what people are doing online, how their operations work, seeing what they're doing in terms of ads and market outreach.

21:17and taking those ideas and trying to improve on them. So we do a lot with social media. We probably have one of the best social media campaigns and networks in the whole country. We do a lot with Instagram, a lot with Facebook, and we've really perfected that. And that has been really been able to put us above everybody else in this field. How is it that understanding your competition led you to really go social media? heavy. And, you know, and quite frankly, not, you know, a lot of your business is commercial. So why you would think that investing a lot of time and effort into Instagram would be kind of a really kind of a B2C play.

22:02But you guys have made that an integral part of a very B2B business. Yeah. And that's a great question. So this industry, it's a very old industry. I'm actually one of the youngest, if not the youngest awning owner in the whole country. at 36 years old. So a lot of these guys, they just haven't incorporated Facebook, Instagram, other social media platforms to the extent that they could. So when people look at what we're doing there, they just think it's incredible at the B2B level. And it just gives this much more elevated look and feel to the company and what it is that we're doing. Yeah. And then, And, you know, Andrew, I wonder if there are other folks like me.

22:47I don't really concern myself too much with, quote unquote, competition. However, I'm curious what you find the greatest value to be around understanding the competitive landscape, particularly as it applies to, you know, the type of service you want to provide for your customers. Why is that important? Sure. Sure. Yeah, I think it's important simply because you don't want to become too complacent. You know, if I look at the landscape of other awning companies and I just say to myself, oh, I think we're the best, you know, what we're doing now is good enough. We don't really have to do anything else.

23:25I think that you eventually just flatline. But when you have a good competition, that forces you to think a little bit more creatively, think more aggressively. And you say to yourself, OK, you know, this awning company here in Massachusetts is doing this. One's down in Florida doing something else. You know, I see them excelling in certain things. So you just kind of take what other people are doing and you perfect it and you tweak it a little bit to your liking. And I think that it's just good for the overall market to have good competition. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously, if they're running experiments, you kind of, you know, it's almost like you get to outsource your R &D.

24:03You get to see what other folks are doing and then maybe not necessarily be first to market, but like, you know, how could we improve upon even that, which we're seeing or feedback you get from other customers and say, you know, well, how could we even? I get it. That's very, very cool. So it's not like, you know, oh, those guys across the street, those dirty birds, we're going to put them out of business. It's not at all that energy, right? No, no, no, absolutely not. Andrew, tell us a little bit because you have quite a success story with La Fuente sign and awning. Do you mind sharing just a little bit about who you do work with?

24:44Because you have quite some popular clients. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we've had an opportunity to work with some really great clients all across the country. Those include Chase Bank, Trader Joe's, Jay McLaughlin, Ralph Lauren, The Cheesecake Factory. And it's cool just to see the clientele that we've had across the spectrum, everything from the small mom and pop shop to these national brands to regional brands. We do a lot of work with restaurants too. And the restaurants are always cool because you go into these places and they always want to take care of you. They always offer free meals and everything else.

25:24You're reluctant to take it just because as a business owner, you know what people go through and you know what the struggle is like. But it's very interesting because you get a pulse on what's happening in so many different cities and markets across the country. And just as an entrepreneur, a business owner, it's just cool to see what's happening in different places. And even how you redirect certain marketing campaigns, certain strategies in those different markets. It's not like what works in Boston is going to work out in California or Texas or Florida. You have to look at things, you know, at a macro level.

26:00So it's a very cool experience. I really do enjoy it. Yeah. Well, Andrew LaFuente, to our friend that's listening, who should be reaching out? First off, I just recommend to anyone who wants to see some really cool signs and, you know, kind of like, you know, what's being done. And a lot of these things, you know, these architectural features, sometimes you take for granted. But I really love some of your videos and photos on your website where you kind of show off the work that you do. But who should be reaching out and, you know, kind of where do they go from here? What do they do? Yeah, absolutely.

26:39So I always tell people, if you own a business, if you own a home, there's an opportunity for us to work together. On the residential end, we do a lot with retractable awnings. We've built some really beautiful custom products for people's decks, even window awnings, stationary awnings as well. And then obviously the B2B, anything related to storefront signage, patio signage, awnings, coverings, shade structure, different shade solutions. So we can really help on those two ends of the market. I love it. Well, listen, I live here in Orlando, Florida. So if it weren't for our awnings and, you know, all the places like, you know, when you're a local, you are constantly looking for shade.