Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Don’t Trap Yourself in Your Business: Leadership and Money Lessons with Lindsey Korell
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:15) Hello, I am MoneyMarci, welcome. I am so happy to welcome today's guest, Lindsey Korell. Lindsey is an operations strategist, fractional COO, that's Chief Operating Officer, and founder of Daily Principal. She helps high-performing CEOs, which is Chief Executive Officer, and established small business owners, redesign their companies so the businesses can run without them. Her work removes the owner from the center of every decision and builds operations that stand on their own. Lindsey built her first business through grit and long hours. It grew, but it grew around her. She built it wrong without knowing it. Every decision relied on her and closing it was both painful and a relief. She rebuilt her career in corporate operations and rose to COO where she learned a truth most owners miss. Businesses do not struggle because the owner lacks talent, they struggle because the structure was never designed to operate without the owner. A major health event forced another reckoning. Lindsey rebuilt her company with clear structure, documented systems, and leadership ownership. She proved a company can thrive without the owner driving every task. Today, she teaches other leaders how to step out of the weeds and build businesses that run cleanly without them. Her clients regain time, strengthen leadership, increase valuation, and create companies that perform with clarity and confidence, even when they step away. Welcome, Lindsey. Lindsey Korell (01:52) Thank you so much, Marci. I'm so excited to be here with you today. Marci Grossman (01:56) So how did you get here? as a COO, you were probably making good money and having a lot of responsibility and having a lot of resources. What made you decide, yeah, I got better ideas. Lindsey Korell (02:10) Well, I was on the operations team and COO for startups and you know the startup game that is go, go, go, go, go. You can sleep when you're dead. And also with startups everybody gets to go through the you get laid off cycle at least once So I got laid off one year and I decided that was the last time I was going to rely on somebody for a paycheck and I was going to do it myself. So I was pretty sure that I was amazing at it and I could do it myself. Marci Grossman (02:46) Well, and you must have been because you don't get promoted to COO, to being a decision maker, to being someone that they come to for answers if you don't have answers. Lindsey Korell (02:56) Well, I had answers. My specialty, especially in the smaller companies, is dig and fix. I love to dig and find where the problems are and then shut the barn door and then go find the horses. So it's like every problem, it will be found. sooner or later it will be found, whether you want to recognize that it's there or not. And almost every one of those can be fixed, but it's finding them first and then... patching the hole and getting the business back on track. Marci Grossman (03:26) Yeah, and I love the analogy you use that you fix the barn door before you go and get the horses because I think a lot of business owners probably do the reverse of that. I better go catch my horses and if you don't fix that barn door, it's going to keep happening until you make that a priority. Lindsey Korell (03:44) Absolutely. Marci Grossman (03:46) So that means you're a business person, business background? Lindsey Korell (03:50) I have a master's in financial managerial controls and my undergrad is just business marketing. So, yes, all the way through. Marci Grossman (03:56) Just. There's no just about it. If you're in the business department, you had to work and marketing is a mindset. You really have to understand people and marketing to be able to do the things that that requires. So that's pretty impressive. Did you learn about money growing up? Is this something you came to on your own? Lindsey Korell (04:17) Well, partly some of it. I got a scholarship to do my graduate degree, so I was very thankful to do that through the Rotary organization. But my dad was very good at teaching us about money because we weren't a rich family. There wasn't a lot of extra money to throw around. But if me or my brother or sister wanted something, my dad had implemented the 50 % rule. So if we could come up with 50 % of the cash, he would fund the other 50 % and that was for cars, in my case horses. Sometimes I show up saying, dad, I bought a horse, but I need the other half. That didn't always go over well. Marci Grossman (05:01) You know, maybe that's why I never got my pony when I was five years old. Lindsey Korell (05:06) you didn't have the 50 % already. Marci Grossman (05:07) I didn't know that there was the potential of a 50 % negotiation, but at five I probably didn't have the 50 % either. Lindsey Korell (05:16) And I'm sure that when he said that you come up with 50%, I'll pay the other half, he had no idea how motivated that makes a 16-year-old girl. I can have a horse if I can just come up with, you know, four or $500. Absolutely. Marci Grossman (05:32) But there's all the maintenance costs that come afterward. Lindsey Korell (05:35) Well sure, but we were fortunate. We were a ranching family, so we had 350 acres so the horse can just go hang out on the 350 acres. They're fine. Marci Grossman (05:45) Okay, that's nice and and have you implemented this forward? Do you have kids or kids in your life that you have a 50 % rule for? Lindsey Korell (05:57) Well, I don't have kids, but my brothers and sister have kids and I'm the village in this equation. And my brother, when they were very young, I shot my mouth off and told them I would take them anywhere for their 16th birthday. And my brother was thinking anywhere would be like to Denver or somewhere like that. And I was thinking anywhere that could be London or Paris or somewhere exotic, which is of course, Marci Grossman (06:25) And that's your nieces and nephews, not your brothers that you were taking when they turned 16. Lindsey Korell (06:28) Not my brother, yeah, not my brother. My nieces and nephews. they, of course, were thinking my way because I had several years to groom them into the international. Lots about that. So yes, I did take my nieces, one to Paris, one to London, one to Machu Picchu. Marci Grossman (06:47) I turned 16, it's been a while, but I can come up with half. Lindsey Korell (06:50) Yeah. Would you like to be my niece? Absolutely. Well the fun thing about these trips is because I was paying mostly for them, there was a budget. And I am a spreadsheet geek. I love Excel. whether the girls liked it or not, they got my spreadsheet. And it had the normal stuff. The hotel, the flight, this is how much it cost. And then it had the rules that were set out for them. They had to pay for one dinner, two lunches, and one major attraction. So they had to have some skin in the game for this event. And then when the money was out, the money was out. We do what we planned and when we hit that number that I had planned to spend, we were done. We weren't gonna do anything else. And normally, you know, I'm a pretty good planner so we could get most of that stuff in. But occasionally, yeah, we'd have somebody that wanted to do something extra. Marci Grossman (07:54) Okay, and was that a negotiation? Lindsey Korell (07:57) Yes, it was. I'm so proud of my niece. She came to me and we were like last day in London and she's like, I really want to go to Windsor Castle and we we've been everywhere and there was money was done as far as the spreadsheet was concerned. And I was like, well, great. How do you propose to get to Windsor? And she's like, I got a great idea. I'm all ears. Tell me what you got. She said, I'll pay for the tickets to Windsor if you will pay for the train ride. I don't know if you've been to Windsor, but the tickets into Windsor are expensive and that they were far more expensive than the train ride was. So I was very impressed with this young lady that she came to me and she even offered to take the most expensive side of the equation. I was like, absolutely. We will definitely go. I'll pick up lunch too. So we ended up going to Windsor and yes, she did pay for the tickets. And I think kids need that opportunity to step up. and make that decision and then let them go through with it. Don't take it away from them. Let them pay with their own money. Don't rescue them. Marci Grossman (09:04) And have they, so this has been a few years since they turned 16. They're now in college or past college or. Lindsey Korell (09:08) Yeah. Actually, my niece that we had this trip with, she just came back from two months in Europe where she traveled by herself for two months. So I was very jealous and very proud of her. Marci Grossman (09:23) Okay, so they are out in the world, free-range nieces now. Lindsey Korell (09:27) Free range, yep. Marci Grossman (09:28) and they have learned how to, I mean you were a part of their equation of how they learned about money. So that's fabulous. Lindsey Korell (09:36) And it's fun too, you know, let's be honest. That was one more way for me to get another trip too, so. Marci Grossman (09:42) Well, I understand, but it's so important for sharing the knowledge, the things that we grew up with, because we all learn from our experiences. We learn from what we see other people do, but not as much as we do from our own experiences. And any opportunity to help someone learn a little bit more is so beneficial to them in the long run. Lindsey Korell (10:06) Absolutely and especially with travel, there's so much that goes into a detailed itinerary especially when they're your brother's kids and you don't want to lose them. You have to make sure that you come back with them. Marci Grossman (10:20) Are there kids you would take who it would be okay to lose? Lindsey Korell (10:23) Nah, I never want lose them. But it's like, it's when they're, well, I don't have kids, so what am I talking about? It's a little bit more, I really made sure that some of the things that we did were very kid-friendly and safe. I'm a little bit less of that kind of a traveler. I've been in many third world countries that might not have been the safest place to take kids, especially my brother's kids. I really thought a lot about what would be a great experience for them, especially if it's their first time overseas. Because I love to travel and I want that first experience to be amazing for them so that they will continue to go out and experience more of the world. Because I think kids, younger kids need to go out and see that wherever they grew up is not the end all be all. And there's not just one way to make a decision there's there's a hundred different ways to make a decision. Marci Grossman (11:19) Let's take a quick break. Marci Grossman (11:58) And have you found that as you work with different business owners that they have varying level of knowledge of how to run their money, how to run their business, how to determine how to make decisions? Lindsey Korell (12:13) Absolutely. You get the whole gamut, especially the small business owners. They start their business as a dream. You start your business, I start my business, and I figured this is the way it's supposed to look. I have all the free time that I need, all the money is coming in, decisions are easy to make. I think a lot of people just hope. that when they start their business, that's how the business will turn out. And a lot of times we're learning as we grow these businesses, especially if it's our first business or even second, third, fourth businesses, you're growing and learning along the way. So some of the pieces don't get in there. Like you read about my first business. I thought I knew everything. I hired an assistant, but I didn't let her do anything. I told her to do things, but I didn't actually delegate the power to her to make that decision. So she always had to come back to me to make sure that what she decided was good. And I thought I was doing it right and all I was doing was digging myself a bigger hole. Marci Grossman (13:21) Right, you had an assistant to be an extra set of hands, but what you really needed was someone who could take some of the brain tasks off of you. Lindsey Korell (13:31) Well, she could have, but then that would mean I would have to actually let go. Marci Grossman (13:34) Right, right, it's not about her capability, it's about her knowledge of what you needed and how best to utilize what you had. Lindsey Korell (13:42) Right, and so many times I see working with companies, things are delegated, but the permission's not delegated. Or I find that the business owner is the top salesperson or only does one thing and all of that knowledge is just in their head. It hasn't been written down anywhere. They haven't shared that piece with other people because that's their favorite thing to do. I love that too. My favorite pieces I kept to me. And then, if something happens to me, then that part of the business might just be stalled. Marci Grossman (14:15) That can be a problem. So are there signs that a business can't run without the owner? Because people from the outside say, that's a successful business. It's growing, it's making money, it's doing all these things. But you're looking at a very niche portion of that overall picture when you say, you know, what happens if we take that owner out of the equation? Because so many businesses, okay, well, I'm going on vacation for two weeks. you can reach me by phone, you can whatever else. So even though they're leaving, they're not really leaving. Lindsey Korell (14:51) Exactly. Well, my goal with Daily Principal is to get any small business owner to the point where they can a whole month vacation without their laptop. I'd love to tell them to leave their phone at home too, but I know that's not going to happen. But that would be the goal is to get them to be able to step outside of the business for a whole month. And oftentimes they can't do that. They have so many different dependencies that need to be identified within the business that have maybe complete control over or maybe even 90 % control over. Whether that's the leadership decisions, the financial decisions, the they the number one salesperson? Some of those decisions that could be given to others or delegated to others would start helping them so they could get out of the business. But it's like, it's just looking at all of those dependencies. to see how is it laid out across the business. Marci Grossman (15:51) Why do you think that they get stuck with that? Is it just, I enjoy doing this so I want to keep doing it? Is it a control thing of being afraid that if they're not needed, they're not needed. Lindsey Korell (16:05) That's two things. One of the things that I've been kind of toying with is you know, you delegate somebody else to be the CEO for for two weeks and there's a lot of fear that comes up with What if that person does it better than me? What if I'm not needed after that? What is my status in this company if that secondary shadow CEO does a better job than me? We're all human. We all have that psychology. this is my company, I built it. What if their different ideas or different ways they do it is better than what I did. so you're not only looking at, you know, let's get you out, but it's the psychology of, I built this, this is my baby, what if somebody does it better than I do? Marci Grossman (16:51) And have you got answers for that? I don't want to give away all your trade secrets, so don't let me cross any lines in that way. But are you able to help them work through that? Lindsey Korell (17:02) Yes, in many cases Some are going to take to it very well. A lot of times the people that I work with may have bigger issues that they need to move on to, whether it's health issues or they need a little more time to take care of their parents. There is usually something pressing in their lives that they need to create more space within their businesses so that they can take care of those things. And health is a big one. You know, I had a major health issue myself, I had heart attack, and that is something that you know God taps you on the shoulder and you need to take time and you need to do it now. If you have something else going on, maybe an autoimmune, maybe who knows, just some health issue that is slowing you down, that is actually making you take a step back and take care of yourself. I know we never want to do it. I mean, if you're like me, I'm a driver. I never want to take the time to go backwards. I mean, cause I look at it like going backwards, but sometimes you just have to take that time to take care of yourself. And in those cases, people are much more motivated to actually let go of the range and start delegating and giving 100 % permission to people to do that delegation. Marci Grossman (18:20) Right, but some of those things you have lead time in and some of them you don't. God didn't say a week before, by the way, next week you're having a heart attack so get some paperwork ready for whoever, but you were on your own at that point in time so you would have had clients Lindsey Korell (18:37) Yes, I did have clients. And believe me, sitting in the hospital staring at that ceiling tile, you think about two things. Thank God I'm alive, and then holy shit, how am I going to take care of my clients? Am I going to be capable in the next two weeks to be able to make those calls and to actually do a good job for those people? So it's... Yeah, having been in that spot, I understand so much where people may be going if they have a sudden health issue. It's like I've been there. Marci Grossman (19:16) Right, obviously when someone gets a warning or has something happen immediately, they're motivated to pass things off so the business can continue to be successful. But when nothing has happened, and I don't know whether it would be the board or somebody else saying, by the way, we need to get things delegated around here. So we're gonna bring Lindsey in and she's gonna. see that you get these structures in place so that when you go on vacation, you're really on vacation and they're not motivated to do that because they feel they need to be charge. How do you work around that? Lindsey Korell (19:54) Well, it is always better if it's the business owner's idea, 100%. In that case, if somebody else is bringing me in, it's really gonna depend on how much they respect that person that is bringing me in or the board. It is very difficult when they're just told what to do. So a lot of times I'll come in with, show it with examples of what other companies have done, when all of the processes and procedures are in place and when everything that is in their head is out and there's somebody that can actually take care of everything that they are doing as well so they can start seeing what the benefit is. But it's sometimes it's definitely using a little bit of psychology. Marci Grossman (20:43) I recall you saying marketing, I don't recall psychology in your education, so you had to pick that up on the fly. Lindsey Korell (20:46) I know I should have. ⁓ yeah, I am trained in NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming, so that has definitely come in helpful. Marci Grossman (21:00) Okay, I love hearing that people, yeah, but I also this. And in the meantime, I'm fronting a rock band and... Lindsey Korell (21:04) I don't sound good. Wouldn't that be fun? Marci Grossman (21:10) Let's pause for a moment. Marci Grossman (21:13) What do you think is the biggest misconception about fixing operational chaos? Lindsey Korell (21:18) I think there's two things, maybe even three things now. I can bring in AI and that'll fix it. I can hire another person that'll fix it, or I can bring in along the AI one more piece of software and that will fix it. And so many times I that you actually just need to sit down and map out the whole thing because everything can be fixed. You need to find where it needs to be fixed. So if you can map it all out, that's the first start and then with all the AI, you know, have a reason that you're bringing AI in, have a reason and know exactly what you're using it for because otherwise it just becomes a colossal waste of time for people trying to learn it especially if it doesn't have a very specific reason. Marci Grossman (22:01) Wow, that's just like when I talk about budgeting to people is first you have to know where you are. First you have to know really what's going on before you can decide how you're gonna fix it. yeah, that goes back to fixing the barn door. Lindsey Korell (22:13) Exactly. Close the barn door, then we can go find the horses. Marci Grossman (22:20) Okay, so if someone who's listening to this now thinks that maybe the business they're in is leaning too heavily on them, what is the smartest first step they can take? Lindsey Korell (22:34) Well, get a hold of me. Marci Grossman (22:35) we will have your contact information in the show notes. Lindsey Korell (22:39) Excellent, I do two levels of a dependency assessment basically and they're just short questions, just eight questions that kind of start you thinking about how much your business depends on you. And it looks at what's your leadership, where's your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, are they actually written out, do people know where they are, are they being followed? Just looking at a handful of things that are in your business and that can give you big overview of if you have a problem or not. And let's face it, if you're the business owner, you know when it's too dependent on you. Marci Grossman (23:19) If when you go on vacation, everyone else either has to go on vacation too, or has to have you on their speed dial, they might be too dependent on you. Lindsey Korell (23:28) If you ended up in the hospital tomorrow and your business might stop, then it's probably too dependent on you. Marci Grossman (23:35) That makes sense. That makes sense. How long does a process like this take? And is it dependent on the number of people or the dollar size of the business or the type of business? Lindsey Korell (23:47) I think it depends on the will of the owner. I've had some clients that we've gotten through the main, the big steps in three or four months, up to six months, because the owners are motivated to fix those things and bring more space back into their lives. And these are the ones that need the extra time, whether it's for their family or for themselves. The ones that don't have that direct driver it definitely takes longer, because they they may be dragging their feet a little bit on it. But it's I guess we'll give an example if you're looking to sell your business And you need to put all these things in place Then you have an 18 month to 24 month window that that you should make all these changes If you need time now, we can make enough changes in four to six months that you can get eight to 12 hours a week back into your schedule. Marci Grossman (24:48) I hadn't even thought about it about for if you're getting ready to sell your business, you want to make sure you can do the handoff because, sometimes people sell their business and they're kept on paycheck or on retainer of some kind for an extended period of time. And sometimes they really just want to walk away for whatever the reasons are. Having someone like you come in and make sure that the processes are not stuck to one person can be huge. Lindsey Korell (25:15) Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I've been working with some business brokers looking at doing some readiness assessments for some of their clients just to how can I come in and help that transition process from the seller to the buyer, just picking up all those pieces to make sure that one they don't the buyer doesn't lose them and two it takes some of the pressure off the seller so they don't have to be in there 90, 180 days. They don't want to be there. Most likely. Marci Grossman (25:44) Right, That makes sense because when you are buying a business, theoretically with existing clientele, if you're the seller, you might be getting the money you get over the period of however many years of the transaction is going to be somewhat related to how many of those customers stay. And the the new owners are able to take care of the needs of these historic clients will affect your pocketbook. It will affect the money you get. So what's the smallest to the largest size businesses you deal with? Lindsey Korell (26:10) Absolutely. I deal in the small business realm, in the 2-3 million to 20 million, 5-25 employees. Marci Grossman (26:27) Okay, so as small as five employees. Lindsey Korell (26:29) Mm-hmm. Marci Grossman (26:31) Right, you don't think about it when you've got five employees. Well, this one does that and this one does that, but if they're not cross-trained or if there isn't a manual, if someone leaves tomorrow, that can impact the future of the business. Lindsey Korell (26:44) Right, and even there's a few companies that I've looked at that their employee turnover rate is every six months, every nine months. Even in those situations, if that's kind of historic and that's how the industry's going, all right, let's just plan for that turnover. What can we put into place to bring the new people on a lot faster, get that onboarding process down? I mean, that's one place where you can help keep the money in the business versus training new people every six or nine months. Marci Grossman (27:14) I would hate having to train new people every six to nine months. Whenever I hired someone, my goal was that they worked for at least five years because the first year is all training and you're like a two foot boss. And then the second year, you're like a five foot boss because you still want to kind of keep an eye on them so that they feel safe. And the third year is when you can finally let go and you need a couple of years to get that payback of the training. But I guess it also depends on the nature of the business, whether it's a year cycle or a monthly cycle as to how long and how quickly you can get hands off on an employee. Lindsey Korell (27:54) Absolutely, and if you can put in the place that you can onboard them in two weeks versus two and a half months, you've already got an employee that can be running and you know they're six to nine months, so you need to get them up and running as fast as possible. Marci Grossman (28:07) This is fascinating. as my podcast, I'm only myself. So I can't it to anyone, the cat, but she hasn't shown up today. ⁓ Lindsey Korell (28:18) She's not your best employee yet. Marci Grossman (28:20) No, no, she's never gonna be my best employee Lindsey do you have anything you might like to mention about personal finance, your money journey, your job journey, the things you do that maybe we haven't covered Lindsey Korell (28:34) I don't know if I'd be this far along if my dad hadn't really started that 50%, you know, creating that 50 % because... My sister and brother and I, we weren't the $20 kids. We were the, I'm going to buy a horse and a horse even then was a thousand dollars to buy a good horse. And it was still $500 that I had to come up with. I don't know if I would have hustled as much if I didn't have to come up with $500 for the horse. But then I watched my dad, he's a farm and ranch broker. So I watched him sit down at the dining room table every evening after dinner with a phone book and just make cold calls. So it's like I had a great role model to show me what business was. And honestly, I'm going back and forth between the hustle and anti-hustle and hustle culture because I believe hustle will eventually kill you, but especially with the heart attack. But it's like I see how much it brought to my family's life and to my life in the beginning. It's really kind of a dichotomy at this point. Marci Grossman (29:43) I totally feel you. My father, I'm a second generation CPA. We had dad's desk at home and he would come home for dinner. We would have dinner together and then he would sit at his desk and work on the files that he had brought home and that was just life. So yeah, I totally can relate to that. It makes a difference what you see, even if you don't realize it at the time. these lessons you bring forward in everything you do. Lindsey Korell (30:12) Absolutely, and I think the other thing that he taught me is the joy in the job. He's in his 80s and he's still selling ranches because he loves it. He's really an inspiration and a role model for me. Marci Grossman (30:28) That is awesome. Well, shout out to Lindsey's dad. Lindsey, thank you so much for being my guest today. Lindsey Korell (30:33) Thank you, was a pleasure being on, a pleasure chatting with you about all sorts of financial random things. Marci Grossman (30:39) Well, you bring so much useful information. This was a lot of fun and I appreciate you taking the time to join us here today. To my listeners, I will be sharing a link to Lindsey's information in the show notes. Please check her out. She has a lot of interesting information. And if you're a small business owner, evaluate whether you should be looking at who knows what for your business. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and stay tuned. I will see you next time. This has been Money Marci on Marci Talks Money (and Life).