01:03 Hey, welcome back to the show. And today I've got a very kindred spirit with me to talk about growth and scaling on a systematic level, because it is all about systems. Joshua, help us understand this. Who are you and what do you do? How do you help people with their growth journeys?  

01:20 Sure. Uh, so my name is Joshua Monge and I work as a fractional COO or Chief Operations Officer. Um, and basically I help people get their business structure and organized. Uh, and basically. You know, businesses, they had something that they got started. Right. They were excited for it. They're growing. And then they get to this place where they're like, wait, who are all these people and what's all this stuff. And I have all these orders and I have all this money and I have all these things. And it's just, they're going from like, you know, maybe part time working or working 60, you know, 40, 40 hours, then 60 hours, the next day, another 80 hours. Oh, so I love basically kind of walking in and helping people get those things structured and organized reallocate. Those tasks to different team members, and I do a lot of that through process mapping and process visualization. 

02:14 I love it. So, so walk me through that because I, I hear on this podcast quite a bit, um, that one of the biggest problems with people's growth journey is  exactly what you said. People, processes, and tools that those three words come up in almost every interview I've ever done. So walk us through that. What do you do to kind of dive in and help people understand?  Hey, I think this is your problem and this is what we're going to do about it. 

02:40 Well, fortunately, when you talk to a business owner long enough, you know, just for a few, you know,  you know, first five minutes there, you know, who are you, what are you doing? Like, why do you want to know what my business is?  Once you get past that though, then they know pretty quickly, you know, Hey, these are my source points, or these are, Choke points are these are things i'm frustrated about my business and then as a consultant, I basically coax that you know that out through some leading questions and try to look at certain diagnostic areas Uh, because right I think fundamentally businesses they have kind of the same chassis or the kind of the same build to them 

03:18 Yeah, I do too.

03:19 Yeah, so if it's you know And, and I focus on service based businesses. So then we're kind of, uh, there's a clear delineation because product based businesses, that's another thing. Um, so with service based businesses, it's very much about, you know, making your product, uh, making your service, uh,  known in the market. So when you have. You know, that's what marketing and sales is. So everyone has to deal with that. Then usually have an intake process. Then you have to deliver on what you promised. You have to show that you delivered on what you promised. And then there's some sort of back end, you know, continuous marketing. So, and then, and there's, and there's collecting money somewhere in there.  Yeah.  I've missed two steps. Yeah. So there's the collecting the money, but there's also the fulfillment piece too.  Um, so basically what I do is I try to look at those areas very quickly and see how those are doing. And then at that point, that's usually where then we can kind of follow the trail, you know, down the river of where, where there's right. Or what the problems are. And then if I get, if I get some things where it's like, Oh, my team never listens to me every time I come up with new ideas. Okay, that's the down river problem. So let's go up river and see like, you know, yeah How are you communicating that or how is this happening? And so basically what I try to do is just identify very quickly Those bottlenecks in the operation that are really causing problems And yeah, really work to eliminate those and the best way to do it is the documentation I you know, you could say totally 27 times, you know, oh sales department never gives us, uh, You know You know, they never fill out the paperwork, right’ It's like, okay, but let me see the documentation and then let me show me How show me how the process is supposed to work,  right? And it's funny because you've probably seen this too You talk to this. Oh, yeah sales guys They're like this is the way the process works, but then you talk to customer service that has to take in the orders  They think something else is happening. And so if you map that all out 

05:18 Yeah. There's a  huge disconnect. It, it is like, it's like you got your product team, you got your, your sales, your marketing, and then you've got customer service. All four of those teams are rarely on the same page. Oh. So, so how do you solve it? 

05:31 So best way to solve it is you treat everybody like a customer. So when, when somebody goes from a sales team over to customer service.  Basically, we get feedback from customer service to say, Hey, how is sales delivering this to you? Do you like it? Is this going well? And so when we interesting so we map the process out we say, okay Now you get this from sales and then We basically will say like, well, sales says they only have to fill out the name and the phone number and how much money it is. And the customer service is like, no, we want to know like email address because in case we have questions and we need to know if they're sold. And so basically what we do is we, we map out several different maps and then we look for where the gaps are. There's where the opportunity to say, okay, here's the location points.Here's why you have those. And then we work to address those.  

06:13 I love it. And are you actually providing these services or are you saying let's plug someone in here to fix that problem or Well, what does it typically look like on your engagements? 

06:23  So as a fractional COO This is where we're a little different than like maybe a consultant or a coach Uh, you know a coach is the guy that's like rah rah rah, you can do it I'll check in with you in a couple weeks make sure everything's okay consultant says hey, by the way That's on fire and that has potential to be on fire You You should probably deal with that and I'll be back in a week. Rectional, Rectionals should be the ones that say, Hey, by the way, we see a fire. I'm going to go grab some shovel and dirt and some water and  fair enough. Fair enough. I like that. My engagements. Um, Yeah, I do want to help solve problems and I actually want to do push things forward. Uh, and then as an operations person don't listen. I'm a i'm a terrible salesperson You don't want to hire an operations person if you're trying to move fast and nimble Because all they're going to do is slow things down and try to structure and organize but uh, so You know depending on what your motivation is and what you're trying to get done Uh, but if you want to slow things down and get things fixed and have them, you know, take a step back,  build that structure that you need to then get that neck growth going to get that speed. Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but 

07:33 No, it's, it's a hundred percent accurate. And I feel like even from a marketing perspective, you know, I do a lot of fractional CMO work. Uh, it is a matter of understanding why are we doing this activity? And if this is the one that's helping us the most, how do we replicate that a hundred times instead of, uh, trying to make it up every time we do it for the first time?

07:54 Yeah. And I think this is where having documented processes is great. And then, um, you know, when you have those documented and everyone agrees, this is how we're going to do it. You now have kind of essentially a third party that's kind of managing that relationship. And almost like a contract. So then it's not the supervisor that's trying to get on this person, but it's the fact that, Hey, this is the way we're supposed to be doing it. And this is the way we all agreed to do it. So  in alignment with this or however you not, and then how do we get you into alignment?  

08:24 So Joshua, when, when you are, um, meeting with someone in a  500, 000 to 5 million range, and they look at you and say,  Dude, I am the operations. Uh, how do you help them? What are the first things you look at and say, you should not be the operations because of this, this, and this, like, how do you, how do you start that conversation and how do you get them to kind of buy in that? Okay. I am the bottleneck. I am not the operations. 

08:54 So this is the hard part. And I think  You know, as a consultant, I, I don't take everything that comes my way because I have to be able to know if I can help the person that they're in a place to be helped. And then I can actually make an impact for what they're paying me. So I'm very concerned about that. And so I have this initial kind of intake process. I meet with them and I'll talk to them. And once I realized, wow, this person's actually at a place where they're like, okay, my knowledge, my expertise, my team, everything I have is taking me to this point. But I can't, it's not sufficient because I'm still, you know, half a mile from up from where I need to be. How do I get,  I can come in and then give them those insights and help them. And, um, I'll tell you right now, and this is, will disqualify me really quickly from a lot of people that are probably listening right now. But, um, you know, they say that the fish stinks from the head. So if you're having problems in the organization, it's, it's, I'm sorry. It's leadership. It's your business. You built it. That's great. But. What the other caveat to that though is that yeah, this isn't everything that got you here It's not necessarily what you need to get to the next leg or do that next destination totally agree Yeah, so it's not it. It's not a diss on like hey, you were a bad leader or you weren't whatever But it's that everything that you set up and that you've allowed happened and that you orchestrated has created the situation You're currently in And right get to a better place where you can scale and grow You're going to have to change some of your behavior some of the way that you've built that organization So that it can have more people on board You're not the bottleneck for everything and we can bring people and grow so, so you could very quickly see why uh, I would have to say you have to recognize as a leader that it's it starts with You  yeah, and then from there everything else kind of goes Folds up from underneath that.

12:24 For those of you listening, I hope you are paying attention because, uh, it likely is you. You, I think that  unless you're completely a perfect individual. Most bottlenecks in businesses are going to be your fault. Uh, either you didn't outline a process completely, or you, you need to be the one checking things off before they get done, or just a lot of stupid things that we do as business owners. That put us in the position to be the bottleneck. And once you learn to stop doing that, that's when you actually start to experience the most growth. So, so Joshua, when you get into a situation, there's a, there's a level of humility. I think that a lot of founders need to kind of  embrace  of, I don't know how to do this as awesome as maybe I could, um, to, to kind of getting into that, that humble situation where it's like, you know what? You're right, man. If I could hand this off and only focus on these two things, I could take this business to the next level, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, where do you get them in that, in that happy place? 

13:32 Yeah. So to do that, there's kind of two paths that we take and you know, anyone listening, you can, you can do this without paying me.  Again, I told you I'm a terrible salesperson. Um, so one is to do a time audit. So actually go through your day, write down your write down tasks that you, as you remember them, um, if you're.  Yeah, I mean, if you're really good, you can do like pomodoros where you basically it's 25 minutes. You work intensely and then take a five minute break So whatever you did for that pomodoro write that down And then what I would do is see like is that a task you absolutely had to do or is that something that somebody else? Could do and sure and So if you do an inventory, if you do a time audit, that's one way to do it. The second way to do it, and this is the one that I help people with, is what we'll do, we'll do what we call visual process mapping, where we'll sit down with Lucidchart and I'll actually like write out a step. So, Um, my favorite example was one of my first clients I got. Um, they do, um, outbound like lead generation. And so then they have this whole lead validation process and the owner's like, I've got this down. He's like, it's 10 steps. We're, we're got it. It's solid. I was like, great. Let's just talk through it. Like, let's just go in an easy one. Then.  It's actually 35 steps and they're like, there's like redundancies and there's information being handed on like Excel spreadsheets and it's being emailed. And it just, I was like, dude,  like you've, yes, you guys have nailed that, but do you know that it takes you about 60 hours to get this process done? By the way, we'll shortcuts and fix things here. You know, we can make that more efficient. So, but as, sorry, let me get back to the owner though, trying to do this. Totally sit down. Okay. Write down your process and then write down each of the steps that you, that you have to do, who has to do it, right? And so all those ones that you see your name next to, now see if that's something that you can actually hand off to somebody else, right?And then, then you can start creating a short list of things that you're like, Oh, why do I do that? And I'll give you a great example in my own business. We use ClickUp for all of our task tracking, for all of our information. Um, I have someone, and I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this or not, but she's my chief ass kicker. And so she will go through my ClickUp and make sure that everyone is on task.  Things are moving forward and everything's checked off. I used to do that and I would spend hours because I would See something not done and then I would go do it or it wasn't done and I would totally so But now totally she does it. So now what she tells me? Hey, by the way, this isn't done, right? I was like great. So what happened? She goes. Oh, I just followed up with the person that was supposed to do it And they took care of it. I'm like, okay, great.  Right. Seriously. I mean, I  don't have to do that. So, um, so I would say those two methods are probably super helpful. Um, do a time on it or, uh, do like a process, like write out some of your processes and then label who's supposed to do those different tasks. And then review that. I think those are two quick tips. 

16:28 I think that's fantastic advice. You know, I, I have done time honest before and I've always been astounded at how much time I waste on things I shouldn't be doing. Um, I haven't done one of the last year. I would say it's probably about time for me to do that again, because we all get this scope creep of just  what we know we should be doing. We started doing more and, uh, of stuff we shouldn't be doing. Instead of doing the opposite as a business founder operator. Um, I think this is for everyone. I think this is, you would probably agree with me on this. We all need to be learning how to delegate better, not to take on more projects. Oh my God. And yes. And the better we, the better we get at delegating and the better we get at outlining what needs to be delegated. We become better delegators. And so there has to be this flow of information of delegation of tasks, and I love that you mentioned ClickUp or big ClickUp advocates. Uh, I highly encourage people to be using that or a tool like that. Yeah, it helps you organize and structure projects and programs. But, but Joshua, you know, as you start to, you know, your engagements, it sounds like there's a timeline on it most of the time. How do you determine when you're wrapping things up? I mean, it feels like. Every time a business reaches a certain stage of growth, there's a new set of problems, right? How do you actually? Get them into a place into a flow where they say okay in six months. We're going to be there I think we're going to need to implement this.

18:02 Yeah so, um, Oh, lots of reading, lots of learning, lots of studying, uh, and I think, you know, as an operations person, I'm trying to get a base level, um, documentation and processes in place at the core of the business. And so that's where. My strength is so, um, kind of, maybe you would consider me like a minor league coach, right? I'm i'm the gear that i'm the guy that takes the people right out of you know High school or the new right the business owners that are doing okay, but they're growing without a whole lot of intentionality They're just missing some of those core. Yes. I help build those core pieces. And so then once those are Implemented then we get to the next phase of like, okay now you're taking on bigger projects. You're doing product development You're doing r& d you're doing these other components am I the person to go with you on that journey? Right, and there are like I just wrapped up an engagement with one of my clients longest clients that i've had two years  Now at a place where he found someone to replicate him  takes care of the like proactive pieces And so right vision cast then she can execute and oversee and implement And then what I did was I got them using click up Every meeting has an agenda. Um, we have tasks, like every task has someone that's responsible for it. It does a due date. Our SOPs that everything is not SOP, but we have the core processes. Our SOP so then right, you know, and then I taught her how to write SOPs. I taught her how to do the follow up on it. And so, um, he has now an operations person.That's at a way cheaper. me that I can execute this and then now when he hires people like we kind of made some rules, too You can't hire somebody unless you have a job description, you know, right? What they're doing, um,  and then we have uh, even You  Yeah, we just we've created a lot of structure and organization and created some rules which um, It's fun for me with an engagement because I tell the ceo. Hey, listen, i'm here to help structure and organize everything It's definitely your business so you can break whatever rules you want But i'm going to be here to remind you by the way, we set these rules now you're breaking through So there you go And that's awesome. And I think for some of these folks You know having somebody in your business that actually cares about your business wants to grow wants us to succeed And talk to you in a real like way. I think that's important And I think this is where it becomes a challenge when they try to hire consultants other people Sometimes they become yes people because they want to keep that revenue going. Yeah and for me i'd rather i'd rather end an engagement knowing that i've got an ally and a resource now because Anyone that wants to talk to a previous client. I'm like, Hey, talk to this guy. He'll be more willing to tell you exactly what I can do for you.  

20:55 Love it. Love it. So that's a good that's a good recipe for for I think everyone listening to is is, you know, uh,  If you're solving a specific problem for clients and you solve the problem well They shouldn't need you forever. 

21:13 Um, that being said, well, wait a second. What?  

21:16 That being said, you know, if you're a business founder and you need consultants, you know, find different roles for if, if someone's helped you solve a problem really, really well, there's a chance, there's a good chance they can probably help you solve a different problem. Uh, I, I have a relationship right now with a client. Uh, that's a. 180 million a year company. And they have several consultants managing different parts and different elements of their flow. And, and it's fascinating to watch because I've never been in quite that type of environment where there were so many of us consultants managing different things that overlapped that we had to have conversations and say, okay, where are you taking your services to? Because I'm trying to take it here. And, uh, and it was fascinating. It is fascinating because we're still in the engagement.  But it's, it's an interesting model. You know, when you get to the level where you've got that many moving parts, it's okay to take a good consultant who's helped you solve one problem, have them help you solve a new problem.

22:19 Yeah and, and I was going to say, I think that's one of the challenges with operations is usually you solve one problem. And then because it was a bottleneck, right? So when you look at the flow of how everything's flowing that you fix that bottleneck, now it creates a problem somewhere else because all of a sudden maybe sales was holding up everything. And now that you fixed the pipeline problem, now all of a sudden fulfillment is like, wait, what's all these orders coming in? Tell us, tell the salespeople to stop. Which, by the way, never tell the salespeople to stop.  So then, so then fulfillment all of a sudden now has to figure out how do we, how do we make sure that we, we one, don't over correct for the flood that's initially coming in because maybe there's not a pipeline continuously, right?It's just a flood because that we fix the bottleneck. But anyway, so we, anyway, as an operations person, you fix one bottleneck, it usually creates another. And it's really important and I want to encourage anyone that is a consultant when you have that happen Make sure you articulate to the client, but remember we solve this other problem.That's why we have this new problem Because otherwise otherwise your engagements are always hey, you're always creating problems for me And they always forget about the solutions that you solved for them.

23:32 That's awesome.  Very good point. Very good point. So so so two ends of the spectrum here As a consultant, you got to make sure you're, you're pointing out, Hey, we did fix this problem. That's why we've got this, uh, from, from, uh, from someone who hires a consultant's level and you're growing your business.  I do, I do have this tendency to believe that, that most of us, uh, until we reach a certain point where we are a nine digit company where we're, we're doing, you know, hundreds of millions of revenue. There, there is always room for strong consultants to help you adapt and build new roles for people that you should be adding to your company. In your case, you helped build a role and a defined, uh, purpose for a COO in that company. And you built it, you designed it, you trained them, and now they took it over. Um, from, from a business owner's perspective, I really think it's important to, to hire fractionals. I think that fractionals and consultants fill a really healthy role in developing a growth strategy for you and your business. Yeah, um, help me out here. What do you see in your current list of clients that, uh, that what other roles should they be thinking about fractionally so that It's not someone like you trying to come in and be the sales be the marketing be the everything guy? 

24:54 Yeah, no, that's that's a good point Um, I think so I mean for a fractional co in particular, we don't we're not the first one that people call Yeah, they usually call cmos because they have a product or idea or service and they're trying to get more People to buy whatever it is,  or the higher, the finance guy, because our person, sorry, because they, uh, they have, um, investors or they've gotten alone or they've got something. And so we're like the third consideration. Um,  but I think, um, when you're very self aware, John, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I gotta know where I fit. So I think having an operations person, um, will help you once you've gotten through some of the early stage, like practicing training, getting those things together. Um, as far as like the other roles, um, I'm actually forming a fractional co op group that we're going to do this. So one flat, you get access to a team. And so, uh, it's funny that you asked this question. I think the nice thing about hiring consultants and fractionals, even for short season is you get outside perspective. You sure you get someone that basically they're not w 2, right? So they're if yeah, if you need to let them go because whatever like hey, they're they're it's okay part of the game I mean seriously. Yeah. Um, yeah, and I think the other one is um, You know, you definitely want to fill where wherever it is You have a shortage in your kind of plan for your business. So Uh, even on the marketing front, you know, hiring someone to the initial marketing setup is one person Uh, but then maybe the next person is the go to market, you know product launch with the people 10, 000 people signing up and totally right. So totally, but, um, and I think a good consultant hopefully knows where they start in the end and then how to refer out to that next one or helps you make that introduction to that next person.

26:51 I love it. You know, I, I think that, uh, it just in, in reviewing in my head, this conversation, I really feel like the important thing that I want everyone to really capture from the conversation is that. It's okay to hire fractionals. First of all, it's probably way more important than hiring someone or bringing up a buddy who says they're really good at marketing to come and do marketing, or someone really good at operations to come and build operations. Yeah. Um, having someone like you, uh, or another type of fractional to come in and set up the parameters for what your business actually needs. Right.  Create those roles and then plug someone in when you're ready. 

27:33  And, and you know,  Todd.

27:34 Yeah, go ahead. 

27:35 It's like a top, it's a top down approach too.  Cause you know, you take the guy that's been with you or the person that's been with you for a really long time and you keep promoting them up. That's great. But they have all that history and interest in internal knowledge of everything in the past. And, and sometimes they can't make that switch to all of a sudden looking at numbers and looking at a dashboard and then basically making decisions based on that. Um, And so having somebody come in and build that framework for that, even for that person to love into, I think, 

28:02 I  love it. I love it. I think, I think this is really healthy conversation. Uh, this is something that for those of you trying to consider your next step and your growth and, and, uh, development in building out your business into a bigger level, you've got to consider these things. It, it is so often people, processes and tools. And as you bring in the right types of people to help you deploy. The right processes and build the right growth strategy and systems. Um, the tools will come along and you'll recognize I need something to help me do that. Boom. You plug in the right tools. Um, Joshua, I think that what you've done today is, is fantastic for our audience and helping them be thinking about their next hire or the next fractional hire.

28:48 Okay. Good. 

28:49 Um, any other last thoughts you'd like to leave off with our audience today and what they, what they should consider in, in finding the right partners like you. 

28:59 Well, I, I definitely want to give this message from an operation standpoint of document your document, what you have and get things running to where if You're the business owner. You're not the choke point and you're not the, the be all end all of the business, uh, transition from founder to actual business owner that has a business that can run without them, you need documentation. And even if you're not selling your business or, you know, you have no vision for that. By doing it now and, and implementing some like continuous improvement and documenting as you go along, um, I think will help in case, you know, like Florida, we just had that big hurricane and then  there's, uh, maybe you're getting a divorce or whatever life happens. Your business might actually have to be in a place where it has to transition or shift. Having something documented, having something structured and organized in a way that can help you kind of ride through those times or. Uh, you can get that valuation if you need it or whatever, right? It's better to do some prep now and then later. So the operation documentation is not just because they hire a consultant to do that for you, but it's also, I think, helps hedge against any potential Uh, hiccups in the future.  

30:11 Totally agree. Totally agree. I love it. This has been a really fun conversation and, uh, I hope for those of you listening, you got, you got something more out of it than just our fun conversation. I hope you learned what it feels like from a fractional side to be helping companies who, who need those fractionals and how to kind of evolve into. What's my next hire going to be? How do I fill that role? And then what do I do with my fractional? If I really like him, where do I plug him in next? I think that's a fun conversation to have.

30:41 That's fun. Thank you. Yeah. This was really cool. I really appreciate it. Thank you. 

30:47 Cool. I appreciate your time too. And for those that want more information on what Joshua is up to, all of his contact and information is in the show notes below, so do check them out. And, uh, I, I feel like operations is probably the second most important thing after marketing,  but, uh, I definitely feel like it's, it's an important role you need to consider because processes will lead to growth.And if growth is on your radar, you need a fractional COO to help you develop those things out. So Joshua, thanks so much again,  

31:18 Todd. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation.