Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / How Delegation Creates Freedom: Madeleine Niebauer's Approach to Sustainable Growth

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How Delegation Creates Freedom: Madeleine Niebauer's Approach to Sustainable Growth · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:07
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
0:17
and today's guest is Madeline Niebauer, founder and CEO of
0:20
VICI. Established in 2016, they
0:24
provide flexible on demand executive staffing to help
0:28
organizations fill critical leadership gaps.
0:31
They specialize in placing fractional executives such as
0:34
Chiefs of staff, Co OS, and CF OS through a network of more
0:39
than 400 experts who each average 18 years of experience.
0:44
Their mission is to transform how organizations solve
0:47
leadership challenges so they can focus on driving growth.
0:52
With a 97% client approval rating, V Chiefs has become a
0:55
trusted resource for businesses seeking both strategic and
0:59
operational support. Madeline brings 2 decades of
1:03
experience spanning the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.
1:07
Before founding V Chiefs, she served in key leadership roles
1:11
at well known organizations, particularly in education and
1:14
nonprofit work. Now before we get into all that
1:17
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:59
today, founder and CEO of V Chief Maddie Niebauer.
2:03
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:05
Thanks, Anthony. I'm so glad to be here.
2:08
So, Maddie, you have an interesting work background that
2:11
seems a bit unconventional, is a pathway to founding a, you know,
2:17
recruiting company is quite the right term.
2:19
But, you know, you work for the Peace Corps, some nonprofits.
2:23
Things always look more clearer in the rear view mirror.
2:26
But can you walk us through the path prior to founding your
2:30
company and maybe a couple of the formidable stops for you
2:33
along the way? Yeah, As you mentioned, I
2:37
started my career in the Peace Corps in West Africa and then I
2:42
ran a tutoring center. I went to Business School, so
2:45
that definitely helped with the business journey.
2:48
And then I did strategy consulting with nonprofits at an
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organization called Bridge Span that spun off from Bain.
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And that was definitely a place that prepared me well, I think
2:59
both to be a chief of staff and to lead be chief.
3:04
And then I was a chief of staff at Teach for America and then I
3:09
launched V chief. So that's the the quick and
3:12
dirty journey. OK, so where did the?
3:14
Idea for V chief come from. Yeah.
3:17
So I was working as a chief of staff at Teach for America, and
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the leader that I supported was starting a new nonprofit.
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And so while we were both still at Teach for America, we were
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both spending part of our time working on that new nonprofit.
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And then she left to lead it and I moved into a different role.
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And then she came back and said, I need you back in my life.
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But she wasn't ready to hire for a full time role.
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So she asked me to work for her 5 or 10 hours a week.
3:45
So it became a side gig and I was, it was essentially V
3:50
Chief's first, first client was my side gig.
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And then about six months into it, I realized, you know what, I
3:57
think there are other people who could use this need and I was
4:00
ready to take a leap. And so I founded V Chief and in
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the early days we were focused just on the chief of staff role
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and providing that on a part time basis to clients who were
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looking for that type of capacity.
4:12
And so that was how the seed was planted for Beechy.
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And explain what the role of Chief of staff typically is.
4:21
Yeah, there's often confusion around this because people
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mostly only have heard of it in government and it looks a little
4:27
different in the private sector. So a chief of staff is really a
4:31
leaders right hand partner. There's someone who takes things
4:34
off their plate and frees up their time so that they can stay
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focused where they can have the most impact.
4:40
And what that looks like on a day-to-day basis varies a lot
4:43
from chief of staff to chief of staff because it's really
4:47
focused on what the leader needs.
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So some common themes that you will see.
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There's often a lot of project management.
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Chiefs of staff will often quarterback different projects
4:58
that don't have a natural other leader.
5:01
There's often some component of directly supporting the leader
5:06
that they work with, with things like communications, you know,
5:09
rather that's drafting emails or building pitch decks or writing
5:14
speeches. It often they we help them think
5:18
about the ways that they spend their time and helping them set
5:22
their own personal strategic priorities so that they know
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which things on their plate they can hand off to other people.
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And then often they play other roles through the organization.
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They're often culture keepers and people who sort of have an
5:36
ear to the ground so that they can keep the leader up to date
5:39
with things. They often support the leaders
5:42
direct reports in one way or another.
5:45
They often play in meetings and retreats and agendas.
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It's kind of this Jack of all trades role.
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But the common theme is that it is focused on, you know, both
5:55
strategy and operations. And it's all in the vein of
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helping a leader do their job better.
6:01
I mean, what's your sound? What's your saying?
6:04
Sounds like almost too good to be true.
6:07
It's somebody who can do everything and be everywhere
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kind of all the time. And I'm trying to wrap my head
6:11
around like, is there another function or functions in most
6:17
companies that this is sort of a combination of?
6:19
I mean, it, it almost sounds like like a secretary or, or an
6:23
administrative assistant, like on massive steroids.
6:27
It's sort of somebody who sits right to the right of you and, I
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don't know, is just helping you with everything.
6:33
Yeah, yeah, I, I've often heard of this sort of people think of
6:40
executive assistants, which is, is more like logistical,
6:43
tactical support, like actively managing your calendar and
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things like that. And then there's like the COO
6:49
that is leading like the strategy and operations for an
6:52
organization and thinking about like the systems and processes.
6:55
And the chief of staff kind of sits between those things
6:58
because like an EA, they're directly supporting a leader,
7:02
but like a COO, they're thinking about big picture operations and
7:07
strategy questions. And So what does it look like in
7:12
other organization? Sometimes people will call it
7:15
like a director of operations or a director of special projects
7:18
or things like that. And there's certainly like some
7:20
leaders who don't have this type of capacity, right?
7:24
But I think most of the big, big organizations have it.
7:28
And I think a lot of smaller organizations are just realizing
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the value of it. But I think the challenge is
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sometimes you don't need someone full time in the role.
7:37
And that's that's where that's how we were born, right?
7:41
Yeah. So, OK, so the idea was kind of
7:44
burst because somebody you had worked with before said, hey, I
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need you back in my life, but only for a few hours a week.
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And as you did that for a while, you said, hey, there are
7:52
probably other folks that need this kind of service.
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So I wanted to ask how you got your first client, but we
8:00
already get that. How did you get your second
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client sort of the the the one that like sort of helped you
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start stacking clients on top of each other?
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Well, it was one of two ways because the first handful of
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clients kind of came at the same time.
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So a couple of them were referred by the woman who I was
8:20
supporting, right? Because she was like, I know
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lots of people who could use you.
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So sort of a direct referral that way.
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And then another one came actually from LinkedIn and I
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posted this thing about this is what I'm doing.
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And then other people posted that on my behalf.
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And then one of their contacts or a friend of a friend or an
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acquaintance, I'm an acquaintance even I've reached
8:42
out and was like, this is exactly what I need.
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So it just sort of spoke to him. So, OK, in the beginning you
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were the one being placed in all these different positions.
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Only for my former boss. I decided very early on to not
8:58
do the client work myself, which actually was one of the smartest
9:02
things I did when I started this business.
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I didn't realize it at the time and it felt kind of risky
9:08
because you know someone else is doing the work, You're paying
9:10
them to do the work, right? Whereas if I did it, I would be
9:12
making all that money. And you know, it's scary when
9:17
you're an entrepreneur starting out and you want to make sure
9:19
that things work. But what it what it did was let
9:22
me really focus on all the other things that it takes to start a
9:26
business, right? So I wasn't sucked in the weeds
9:28
with client work. And in fact, after about a year
9:31
of supporting my former boss, I had to give her a new
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consultant, which might have broken her heart.
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But we're still good friends. I'm trying to catch up with her
9:40
sometime soon, but yeah, yeah. And so how are you finding
9:45
people to how are you finding people to fill these roles as
9:49
these? Yeah.
9:51
Do you know that, Chief of Staffs?
9:52
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
9:54
It's it's always been incredibly easy.
9:57
That's the part of our business model that takes almost no time
10:00
and effort. It was all through my network.
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I think for our first few projects, I posted some things
10:08
online that was like, I was looking for someone who has like
10:10
a little bit of marketing experience and a little bit of
10:12
this and a little bit of that. Because as I said, like the
10:14
chief of staff role looks different everywhere.
10:16
Sometimes they need to do a bunch of hiring and sometimes
10:19
they need to do some marketing work, whatever, right?
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And so now we have a pool of talent that has all of these
10:26
different things. But at the time it was like, oh,
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I have this sort of specific need.
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Let me go like meet like hunt down through my network people
10:34
who could do it. But what I will say is like
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very, very quickly we started to amass a pool of talent and
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people would refer their friends.
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And it's just never been the hard part for us, I think for a
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lot of reasons. 1 You know, there especially before COVID,
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because we started well before COVID, there just wasn't that
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much out there that is remote and flexible and part time and
11:01
pays well and is interesting. There's not that much out there.
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And so we have so many people who want to do that type of work
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who are seeking that flexibility who and so it's been great and
11:18
very, very easy. And in fact, we've had to turn
11:20
off our applications because we just have so much more supply of
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talent than, you know, our current demand from clients,
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which is not insignificant either, but there's just a lot
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of people who want to do that kind of work.
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And at what point did you decide, hey, we're going to
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branch out from just doing sort of the chief of staff role to
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other types of roles? I would say that was probably
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four or five years ago. And what happened was our
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clients just kept coming to us for other things.
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And so, you know, they were like, oh, do you have ACO or do
11:55
you have ACFO or do you have this or do you have that?
11:57
And so, you know, in the past we sort of would just staff things
12:02
with people who were in the chief of staff bucket, but like
12:04
I can't staff ACFO role with the chief of staff, right?
12:07
Like I need someone who's been ACFO before.
12:10
So yeah, it was really in, in response to client needs and,
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and I'm really glad we were so niche in the beginning because
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it allowed us to really like get a foothold.
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And we were the the first and only people in that business
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when we started for a long time. Now there are some other folks
12:28
who do it, but again we've sort of broadened our scope and and
12:31
work in other positions now. And So what are all the
12:34
positions that you're able to help fill?
12:36
Yeah. So we do Chief of Staff.
12:39
We do associate Chief of Staff, which is, I would say it sits
12:44
somewhere between an EA and a Chief of staff, like a little
12:47
bit more of a project manager. We don't do executive assistant
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and that's a deliberate decision, but we partner with a
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lot of agencies that do. So when people have that need,
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we have great resources to send them to.
12:59
I just think it's a real different profile of candidate
13:03
than than the folks we have. So associate Chief of staff,
13:07
chief of staff, COOCFO integrator, which if you know
13:14
the EOS, it's an entrepreneurial operating system.
13:19
It's very similar to a chief of staff.
13:20
They just use very specific framework in lingo and
13:23
technology and whatnot, an HR business partner, which is sort
13:28
of just an HR generalist who can do any number of things that
13:32
that people are looking for. So those are the roles that we
13:34
place. We have in the past also done
13:36
some interim executive, executive directors at
13:39
nonprofits and things like that. So people can come to us with
13:43
things that are outside the scope of that, but but those are
13:46
really the ones that we focus on.
13:48
And when you're placing somebody into a position, are they like a
13:52
1099 contractor for them or they AW2 for you and then you build a
13:57
client, How does sort of the the back office work?
14:00
So the people who work with clients are 1090 nines for us
14:03
and then we are the 1099 that contracts with the company.
14:07
So the the company works through V chief and then we contract out
14:11
with with our consultants and then we also have like our
14:15
central team is W2. Gotcha.
14:19
So what industries do you serve? What's the typical company
14:24
profile look like? They're between, I don't know,
14:27
X&Y headcount or N in Z in revenue.
14:32
Like paint a picture for it. She's a good fit.
14:34
Well, what's interesting is there's an enormously wide range
14:38
in terms of size. Like we have worked with
14:40
solopreneurs and we have worked with multinational corporations.
14:45
I would say our typical client is on the smaller side.
14:50
Often they will start at maybe a million in revenue, but into the
14:54
hundreds of millions. And the industries that we are
15:00
in are pretty varied. Actually we started very heavily
15:04
in education and nonprofit. No surprise because those are
15:07
the industries I was coming out of.
15:10
We started very quickly working with a lot of service based
15:15
small businesses, things like marketing businesses or
15:20
executive search businesses or other things that were really
15:23
founder driven and the founder just got overwhelmed and needed
15:27
so a right hand person. We now do quite a lot in a wide
15:33
variety of other industries. Healthcare is 1.
15:35
We do a lot in, we've done some Consumer Packaged Goods.
15:39
I mean, you name it. It's kind of across the board.
15:41
My philosophy is like, it's really a role that can be
15:45
industry agnostic. Like you don't always need a lot
15:49
of industry expertise to be able to jump in, in these like
15:53
strategic and operational roles. I mean, sometimes you do and
15:57
sometimes people have come to us and been like, we need someone
15:59
who's been in biotech and sometimes we have that and
16:03
sometimes we don't, right. So we're candid with clients
16:06
about like this is what we have in our pool and either it works
16:10
or it doesn't. So let's talk a little bit more
16:13
about that. I'm curious how you approach
16:16
matching clients with the right executive talent, especially in
16:22
what I understand, it's a pretty short time frame.
16:24
A lot of times you're able to turn this around in a week or
16:26
so. Yeah, yeah.
16:28
So the first thing we do and that and that time frame has
16:31
decreased over time I would say. But we've always been pretty
16:34
quick, but we are leveraging a lot more technology to do it
16:37
than we used to. So we start with an intake call
16:41
with a client where they will share all of the things that are
16:44
on their plate that they want our person to to take over.
16:48
And sometimes that's, you know, just like one big project and
16:50
sometimes it's 15 different little things, right.
16:53
And so we think about, and we talked with the client about
16:56
like what are the most important functional expertise areas?
17:00
So like, do you want someone who has HR background or finance or
17:04
you know, whatever sort of ties in more with their functional
17:08
needs? And you know, for some roles
17:11
it's obvious, right? Like ACFO needs a financial
17:13
background, but in the chief of staff or even in the COO role,
17:17
like you'll see a deeper need in one functional area or another.
17:22
So that's one piece of the matching.
17:24
The other piece of the matching is industry background.
17:26
So where there is a match, we will make one.
17:30
If they want someone who has a background in healthcare or in
17:33
education or whatever it is a We have people from a lot of
17:37
different industries in our talent pool.
17:40
And then we also think about time zone, if that's important
17:44
to the client. Most of our clients and most of
17:47
our consultants are based in the US, but occasionally there are
17:50
exceptions to that rule. So we just try to be thoughtful
17:53
about that. And sometimes it matters.
17:55
Rarely once in a while we'll do some work in person.
17:58
So if people are like, I need someone who can come into the
18:00
office like that will very much limit the pool of candidates
18:04
they have 'cause our people are all over right?
18:05
But and then the other thing is really sort of personality and
18:13
work style and how do we think these people will work together?
18:17
And so as I said, we have started leveraging a lot more
18:21
technology in terms of, you know, using AI to observe the
18:26
meetings, put together the scope of work with us, for us.
18:32
And so that kind of thing, what used to take our, our, our
18:36
business development people like a couple hours to pull together.
18:39
Now a machine does it and it doesn't take any time, right.
18:42
And then we also have invested in systems that we use Zoho, but
18:48
it, it is both our CRM system and our applicant tracking
18:51
system. And then we created a custom
18:53
module that takes the information from the CRM and the
18:56
information about our talent and says, OK, you're looking for
18:59
someone with an education, education background who has
19:03
done a lot of hiring and who, you know, like XYZ, right?
19:08
And then it'll give you the list of people and how good of a
19:11
match they are. So the machine comes up with,
19:14
here's your initial best set of people.
19:17
And then the humans look through and say, OK, who do I think
19:21
based on what I know about these people would be a good match?
19:25
So there is still a human touch to it, but it's much more
19:31
technology enabled. And I think the reason we can do
19:34
it so fast is because we have the pool of talent already
19:37
built. Like we've done the vetting.
19:38
We, we don't have to go search for Joe Schmo, who's, you know,
19:42
a healthcare consultant who has done whatever, like we found Joe
19:45
Schmo a while ago. We just have to say, hey, Joe,
19:47
are you interested in this project?
19:49
And what is Joe doing in the meantime when Joe Schmo doesn't
19:53
have a project? Is he retired?
19:56
Feet up on, you know, a beach chair.
19:59
So what I would say is our typical client profile or
20:02
consultant profile is people who have come out of W to work.
20:05
So they used to work, you know, for businesses and they want to
20:09
work for themselves. And so often they have their own
20:13
consulting business. All of our consultants have LLCS
20:16
and liability insurance. And so often they're doing this
20:20
type of work with other people already, and some of them work
20:23
with us because they don't. Love business development or
20:26
they're not good at it, they don't wanna do it.
20:28
And so we take that piece of the equation for them.
20:31
Sometimes they're just starting out and so they just don't have
20:34
a network of clients yet. And we know that sometimes that
20:37
means that over time we'll lose them if they like go off and
20:41
build their own practice and they don't have time for be
20:43
cheap clients anymore. What's interesting is people
20:46
flow in and out of it, right? So sometimes because it's the
20:49
nature of consulting work, right?
20:50
Like, oh, I have a lot of time now.
20:52
I don't have a lot of time now. And now before it used to be a
20:56
lot of like people reaching out like, oh, I have some time or
20:59
what, right? And now it's all in the
21:02
machines, right? And people fill out like this is
21:04
how much hours a month I have available right now, etcetera.
21:07
So we can see immediately if Joe has, you know, 20 hours a week
21:11
or five or none. So Joe is going and updating
21:15
that on a somewhat regular basis.
21:18
Yeah. And you guys have built some
21:20
layer of AI on top of all the data that you're keeping track
21:24
of inside of Zoho. And so you can use the AI
21:28
component that you've built to sort of query your systems.
21:31
Like, oh, we need somebody who's got, you know, online marketing
21:35
experience and, you know, experience with this particular
21:39
CRM, you know, check these boxes.
21:41
And it's like, oh, here's 7 people that meet that criteria.
21:45
Now a human can go through them and look and say, OK, these are
21:48
the ones I think are worth a conversation.
21:50
Exactly. And then we send to our clients
21:54
a handful of candidates because at the end of the day, I want
21:58
the consultant, the client picking the consultant because
22:01
then they have more buy in. Like this is the person that I
22:04
chose, this is who I want. I just think there's something
22:08
to be said for that. Yeah.
22:10
Give them some options. Yeah, Say more about the
22:15
importance of work life balance as it pertains to what you guys
22:19
are doing there. Yeah.
22:20
Well, I mean, here's the thing. I think you and I both know lots
22:25
of entrepreneurs who just work all of the time, right?
22:30
And there's some hustle culture where people think they're like,
22:35
they have to work 60 or 80 hours a week to get their thing going
22:40
or to make it scale and thrive. And my thought and belief and
22:48
philosophy is that that is, is false and imaginary and that if
22:55
we are spending our time well, we can stay focused where we can
22:59
have the most impacts and let other things go to other people,
23:04
right? And so at what we do for clients
23:07
is give them the person who they can give all of their other
23:10
things to, right? When they look at their To Do
23:12
List and they're like, this is not one of my priorities.
23:15
This is not my one of my priorities, but doesn't mean it
23:16
doesn't need to happen, right, But that they can farm off to
23:20
other people. And the nice thing I think about
23:23
like work life balance as it pertains to our consultants is
23:28
our work is flexible and it's part time, right?
23:33
And so the consultants can do the work when and how they want,
23:37
right? If you have kids in school and
23:39
you want to be free every afternoon between 3:00 PM and
23:42
8:00 PM, you can do that. You can do the work before that,
23:45
you can do the work after that. And so I think it is one of the
23:49
reasons that we never have trouble finding client, I mean
23:54
consultants. And it's the reason that clients
23:57
love us because we take things off their plate that they would
24:00
otherwise be doing. And then they're like, Oh my
24:02
God, I've seen the leg. I don't have to do it all.
24:05
It's so everybody ends up with better work life balance, right?
24:09
And I think actually it's very much the way that the workplace
24:12
is going in general. Like there's so much more of
24:14
this, you know, like fractional was not a thing that people
24:18
talked about. I mean, yes, there were
24:19
consultants doing work, but there's whole industry that's
24:22
been built up around it. And I think it's a really,
24:27
really beautiful thing because I think when people take a step
24:31
back and spend less time working and and more deliberate time
24:37
that is thoughtful, that is not just like endless emails and
24:42
endless meetings back-to-back all day every day.
24:45
I think they they can really focus not only on like the
24:49
things they're good at at work, but the things that actually
24:52
matter in life, which by and large is not work in my opinion.
24:57
Not that it doesn't matter, but you know what I mean.
24:59
Yeah, Maddie, when you're talking to a prospective client,
25:01
what's the biggest objection or hurdle that you typically have
25:05
to overcome? I think there's they come in a
25:10
couple different varieties. 1 is like, oh, it's going to take
25:13
just as much time to teach someone else to do this as I do
25:17
it right. So it's like a hesitation to
25:19
delegate. And I would say it actually
25:21
isn't when you get to the root cause about like how much time
25:27
it will take. It's like, are they mentally
25:29
willing to let go of things, right?
25:31
There is some piece of us that is either sort of feels a need
25:36
to keep things because of a lack of trust or because like a
25:39
little bit of a piece of ego that is like, this is me and
25:42
this is my company and I need to hold all of the pieces, right?
25:46
So there's some people that struggle to delegate.
25:50
And then I think the other piece sometimes is financial, right?
25:53
Especially if we're working with small businesses.
25:56
Amusingly, as we look at different industries, like the,
26:01
the most sensitive are often the like scrappy startup businesses,
26:06
right? I would have thought it might be
26:08
non profits but turns out that's not the case.
26:13
Small entrepreneurs, right? They've had this scrap, scrap
26:16
save for, you know, everything that they've got.
26:19
And the idea of giving up a few of those dollars, they, they
26:22
think I'll just continue working harder.
26:24
I'll just put in longer hours and save.
26:26
Them right, and I think people don't always prioritize
26:28
themselves and like their own mental health and they're like,
26:31
I can just do more and more and more.
26:33
But the reality is if you like do you can still do more and
26:37
more and more. But like let's have it focused
26:38
where you, you are driving the business forward instead of just
26:42
more chunk work along the way that's not really moving the
26:45
needle. Sometimes specific stories can
26:49
really help people wrap their brains around what you do and
26:54
how effective it is. Can you think of 1 client's
26:57
story, a case study where maybe without mentioning names, you
27:00
could be like, here was the situation before, here's what
27:04
you know, when we placed our executive, what we were able to
27:07
help them do and So what it here's what it looks like kind
27:09
of afterwards. Yeah.
27:12
So we were working with a leader at a nonprofit organization.
27:19
He was new to his role. He didn't have a chief of staff
27:22
assigned to him. But in his old role, he had had
27:24
a chief of staff. So he knew the wonders of a
27:26
chief of staff. But like, it wasn't in their
27:29
budget cycle to get him a new chief of staff.
27:31
But he's like, I need something, right?
27:33
And so he's like, I'm just going to do this for like 6 months
27:37
until our next budget cycle and then I'm going to hire a full
27:39
time chief of staff. We're like great, perfect.
27:41
So we jump in. We're doing a bunch of work for
27:44
him. Budget cycle comes around.
27:48
They do get the budget for their chief of staff.
27:51
They decide to hire our chief of staff.
27:52
So we do have a like conversion program where they can pay us
27:56
basically an executive search fee and they can keep their
27:58
person. But what was interesting about
28:01
it was he saw so much value in the program that they also had
28:05
like a director of finance role that was open.
28:07
So he's like, I need one of those please.
28:09
And then like 5 different people in his organization were like,
28:13
oh, I have this gap in talent. I have this gap and talent and
28:17
so they have been a client for years and years and years, but
28:20
with so many different engagements because like they
28:24
fill one need and then they're like, oh, I have another need
28:27
and I have another need. And I think what's nice about
28:30
our model is that we can be there for a shorter as long as
28:34
you need, right? Like we don't lock people into
28:36
any long term contracts. It's all month to month, but we
28:40
have so many clients who sort of boomerang in that way.
28:43
And what I love about that is like you're really meeting this
28:46
immediate need that an organization has and you might
28:52
not be the long term solution forever, right?
28:55
Like fractional, fractional support or interim support is
28:58
like, by its nature, not necessarily a forever solution,
29:02
but like we can keep coming back and coming back.
29:06
And, you know, then they tell their friends about us or other
29:09
things like that because they're having a great experience with
29:13
their consultant. How often do you see clients?
29:16
Sort of treat this as like drive before you buy kind of a thing.
29:21
Like like, let me let me like, like, yeah, let me take this
29:26
fractional on for a few months and see how they work out.
29:28
And then it's like, oh, we love this person or OK, you have
29:32
filled our need. Not quite the right person long
29:34
term. We're going to move on.
29:36
Like how often do people sort of convert into that like
29:38
executive? I mean, I don't have the hard
29:41
numbers in front of me. If I had to guess based on my
29:43
experience, it's probably somewhere between 5 and 10%.
29:47
OK, what I think it often happens and, and actually that
29:50
was one of our like challenging points in the early days because
29:54
we didn't have a high enough conversion fee that made it feel
29:57
worth it, right? Like we were sad that that
29:59
person left because they were like such a valuable part of our
30:02
talent pool. And we're like, maybe I would do
30:05
that differently now. We feel fine about it.
30:07
Like it feels like it works out for everyone because it that,
30:10
you know, if you had to go pay an executive search fee, this is
30:13
like that, but you also get to try your person 1st and make
30:16
sure it's a good fit, right? So in some ways I think that
30:20
that it's great for that. And, and sometimes they don't
30:24
hire our person and we take no offense to that.
30:26
Sometimes our person doesn't want to be hired, right?
30:28
Like sometimes they're like, no, I want to do this consultant
30:31
thing forever. And so sometimes we play the
30:34
role of helping them find that person, right?
30:36
We'll write the job description, we'll do the interviews with
30:39
whatever we're like preparing to replace ourselves.
30:42
And we actually feel fine about that too, because ultimately we
30:45
know, like we want clients who are here because they need us in
30:48
this moment. And if they don't, they might
30:51
need us later. Or they can tell other people
30:53
about us. What growth strategy has been
30:56
most effective for you, Maddie? I think the growth strategy that
31:01
has stood with us through time is referrals.
31:05
I think that's true for so many businesses, right?
31:07
But I think the level of service that we provide often surprises
31:14
people. And they're like, wow, I didn't
31:16
expect this person to be able to come in and like work so
31:19
autonomously so quickly and add so much value immediately.
31:23
And So what that does is get people excited about what you
31:27
offer and get them excited to talk to their friends about it.
31:31
So we have had a lot of people who have referred a handful of
31:36
people. We've had some champions who
31:38
have referred us like non-stop all the time, which feels really
31:42
great and amazing. We have a partnership program
31:45
that is sort of burgeoning with both clients of ours, but also
31:50
other people who serve similar clients in different ways than
31:53
we do. And so we look to ways to
31:58
highlight each other's work. Actually just did a, a webinar
32:02
with, we work with a bunch of charter schools and they provide
32:05
insurance to charter schools. And so we did a webinar together
32:08
because often like the chief of staff is the person who is like
32:11
looking for insurance policies or helping with the renewal
32:14
thing or whatever, right? So like, it doesn't seem like a
32:16
natural immediate like, oh, why would you be partnering with
32:19
them? But it turns out to be a, a
32:21
really good fit. And you know, it's interesting,
32:26
we have in recent years like really devoted more resources
32:32
towards marketing, right? Like before it was all organic
32:35
and now we're more strategic. So we, we do more paid marketing
32:39
and other things like that. And I will say, I think our
32:42
marketing team is doing a really great job of figuring out how
32:47
traditional SEO does not apply in the same way to ending up in
32:53
ChatGPT and other AI searches. And so just constantly thinking
32:58
about what that means in terms of putting ourselves out there
33:01
in different media ways. Like they're like, you need to
33:05
be on video all the time, which I find a little bit cringy into.
33:08
I mean, I love about going on podcasts.
33:10
I'm having to talk to people, but I I'm not always the
33:14
favorite of watching myself in these videos and they're like
33:17
make me more videos. Almost nobody is, I'll tell you,
33:20
a rare exception is my 9 year old son who his favorite thing
33:25
is to look at himself. We'll be walking down the
33:27
street. He'll see his reflection in one
33:29
of the store like windows and and he'll run into people
33:33
because he's checking himself out.
33:34
But by and large, and I've done hundreds of these interviews, I
33:37
talked to almost everybody like, oh, I don't like to hear myself,
33:41
I don't like to see myself. So you're not alone there.
33:44
So one of the interesting things you, you talked about is
33:47
something I've, I've actually been really curious about is
33:49
this sort of switch from traditional search engine
33:52
optimization, right? Like lots of strategies that
33:55
have existed for years about how to get yourself to the top of
33:58
the Google ranking. So when somebody searches for,
34:00
you know, whatever the, the term is fractional CFO, like you're
34:05
coming up at, at the, the top of the, but now so many people are
34:09
starting their searches in ChatGPT or in Claude or, you
34:12
know, any of the Gemini, any of the other tools.
34:15
And so how can it, how is it that you can show up inside of
34:18
those resources? And this is something that you
34:20
guys have been working on. Well, our marketing people have.
34:23
OK. I will not say like we're the
34:25
experts, but what I will say is what what they have conveyed to
34:29
me is that the more places that you are showing up external to
34:35
your own website, right? Like before it was about like
34:37
optimizing your headers and certain key phrases in your
34:40
website, right? But now it's like, where are you
34:42
showing up that is not your website?
34:44
Like what are the reliable other sources and how do you put more
34:50
of that out there, right? And, and video especially,
34:53
right? So you can't just put up a bunch
34:55
of videos on your YouTube. You have to like, go on podcasts
34:59
or like have your articles in Ink magazine or whatever it is,
35:02
right? And so we're trying to do more
35:06
of that. OK.
35:08
Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more expertise behind it.
35:11
This is like the dumbed down version.
35:13
You've we've get, you understand that on a high level, it's like,
35:15
OK, this is the path that we're going.
35:17
I'll let the experts work on it. I've got other fish to fry.
35:20
What's been the biggest hurdle to your growth?
35:25
The biggest hurdle to our growth, I mean, I think it's
35:27
always been finding clients, right?
35:31
Finding talent has never been a bottleneck for us.
35:35
It's finding client. You know, I think we've done a
35:40
good job at inbound leads, right?
35:44
When people find us and we do a really good job of sort of
35:48
converting them. Our sales are good, right,
35:50
because we have a great product and it's easy to sell.
35:53
And I would say our marketing has become much more
35:56
sophisticated. Like we didn't even have a
35:58
marketing team for a long time. But you know, it's like it's
36:04
only so predictable, right? Like you're putting stuff out
36:07
there, you want people to come your way, and sometimes you have
36:12
to work a lot harder for a lot fewer leads.
36:16
And we have gone through, you know, like we went on this
36:19
really rapid growth trajectory and then things slowed down a
36:23
little bit and then they picked up again and then they slowed
36:25
down. And like you sort of before you
36:28
get into this entrepreneurial world, you just think you're
36:30
just going to sort of consistently grow, right?
36:32
And then I think you have to accept that sometimes market
36:36
forces make everybody's, you know, like budgets tighter.
36:44
And so, you know, you just have to fill the top of the pipeline
36:49
a lot more to get the same number to come out the bottom,
36:52
right. And so that I think is is the
36:57
hardest thing. Yeah.
36:59
So what What have been sort of the triggers for the down parts
37:04
of your cycles as well as the up parts?
37:07
Like I'm going to guess, you know, I talked to a lot of
37:09
people in kind of the staffing space and a lot of people are
37:12
down, right. The economy is slowing down.
37:14
We've got uncertainty with tariffs, government shutdown
37:18
just recently, a lot of uncertainty there.
37:21
And so a lot of staffing companies are suffering COVID.
37:24
Depending on the kind of staffing company you had, you
37:27
went one way or the other very quickly.
37:29
What, what are some, what are you saying?
37:31
What are what are sort of the levers that that have been
37:33
moving for you? I mean our first big growth was
37:37
right after COVID. So things went dead in like
37:41
March through June of that year. And then it was like, so that
37:46
was both like a down and an up for us.
37:50
I would say we have generally followed the, the trend of, of
37:54
staffing agencies just from what we've seen, like we were down in
37:59
2023 and then up in 2024 and then back down so far this year.
38:04
Often we I think are well positioned for when there is a
38:10
lot of churn in the labor market when companies are like, I'm not
38:15
so sure about full time hiring. I've, I've let these people go
38:18
and I, but this work still needs to get done.
38:21
And so we are a good solution in those moments, in moments of
38:25
economic uncertainty, but you have to be enough.
38:28
Like there can be some uncertainty, but there has to be
38:31
some hope that you're coming out of the uncertainty, right?
38:34
Like if you're in this uncertainty that people still
38:36
think is going to go down more, we don't do well in those
38:41
moments. And I think that's where we are
38:42
right now. I think people are really
38:44
worried that that there is a deeper recession coming, whether
38:47
it is or not. Like there's just so much
38:48
uncertainty. And some industries are more
38:53
immune to that than others, right?
38:55
And some industries are less cost sensitive than others and
38:59
things like that. And so we have had to think
39:01
about diversifying the industries that we work with and
39:05
have more like deliberate marketing campaigns to specific
39:09
industries, right? Like we'll always have a lot of
39:11
education and nonprofit because we are so deep in that world
39:14
that like the referrals will just keep coming forever.
39:18
But in places where we're newer or we want to build more of a
39:24
reputation, it just takes a lot more marketing dollars going
39:29
that direction, more people time, building relationships in
39:33
those spaces, etcetera. And so, you know, I think we
39:38
have to be thoughtful about about how we approach that and
39:41
how we spend our limited marketing budget and people time
39:46
and budget. Yeah.
39:48
What are some industries that you'd like to grow into that
39:51
you're? Experiencing now?
39:53
Well, I think I, we have, we have gotten a decent foothold in
40:00
healthcare and we are building our, our pool of talent in that
40:04
space. So I would love to just go real
40:06
much deeper in healthcare because I think there that is a
40:11
space where there's always, always more need and some
40:15
interesting sort of industry changes there, I think.
40:19
We have had some luck in certain parts of tech.
40:22
So Ed tech is a space that we've worked a decent amount in.
40:26
But I would say like the broader tech sector, I would love to.
40:30
I think we have a lot of ways that we could support them in
40:34
particular. So those are just a couple that
40:38
come top of mine. Any thought to expand the
40:42
services that you're offering or does this kind of feel like you
40:45
are where you want to be? You know, it's interesting.
40:49
And we always have this conversation.
40:51
Should we do this? Should we do that?
40:52
And I was just having a conversation with a friend of
40:57
mine who is a lawyer and she is like, there are so many like new
41:02
law firms, like these lawyers will come out of big firms.
41:05
They're like, I'm going to start my own thing by themselves or
41:07
with one or two other people and they don't know anything about
41:10
running a business. They, they're great lawyers and
41:12
they don't know about like insurance or office space or
41:17
this or that over like ACRM system or a billing system.
41:20
And so like she's like, you could do some really amazing
41:24
work with lawyers who are coming out of that space, right?
41:26
And we've worked with a handful of lawyers, whatever.
41:28
But and then I was like, you know what, I think there are
41:32
other industries where that is also true.
41:33
So for example, there's this growth in the concierge medicine
41:38
field. So there's all these doctors who
41:40
are like, I'm going to go out on my own and do my own thing
41:42
because I'm sick of the healthcare system And I just
41:44
want to charge my clients. I'm like flat monthly fee, but
41:47
they're good at being doctors. They're not good at running a
41:49
business. And so and I have a friend who
41:52
is a Doctor Who's thinking about launching A concierge thing.
41:55
And I was like, do we have any people who know how to do this?
41:57
Because I don't know always what our talent pool is full of.
42:00
And my team is like, yes, we absolutely have people who do
42:02
that. So I just think as it relates to
42:07
like what new roles we will offer, I think that will evolve
42:11
over time, right? Like we've had conversations
42:14
about all sorts of things like should we go into marketing or
42:17
sales or what's it called more deliberately into fundraising.
42:25
We do a little bit of fundraising now.
42:28
So I mean, I think it will probably be a little bit driven
42:32
by what clients are asking us for.
42:35
I also just think our wheelhouse is very much in strategy and
42:38
operations, which is not to say like I was real gun shy about
42:41
the CFO before we started. I was like, gosh, I don't know,
42:45
like that feels risky because they're running money.
42:47
You want them to like know what they're doing.
42:49
But it turns out we're just real good at finding great talent,
42:52
right? And and great CFOs also want
42:55
flexibility. So you know, there, there will
42:59
be people who are, who are great fits on the talent side.
43:03
And when you have the talent, it's not that hard to find the
43:05
clients. So you know.
43:08
Let's shift gears, Maddie. Whether it's personal or
43:11
professional, I would like for you to pick a a big serious
43:14
challenge that you've overcome in your life.
43:17
Well, walk us through that. How did you get through it and
43:19
what did you learn? Yeah, I think the most recent
43:25
one comes to mind. A couple years ago, I was going
43:30
through a lot of personal challenge and change.
43:34
I separated from my husband and it was also at a moment that
43:42
business was struggling. And so in one week, I had to
43:47
like have really, really hard conversations with my husband at
43:54
the time and also had to lay people off at work.
43:59
And I was like, does it get any worse than this?
44:04
And I suddenly became a single parent.
44:08
And I, I mean, thank goodness my kids are old enough, they're
44:14
teenagers now that it wasn't, you know, like as hard as it
44:19
could have been, but it, it's incredibly difficult to all of a
44:24
sudden be the only one who is supporting your children both
44:28
like financially, but also with their emotional health on a
44:34
day-to-day basis when they are also experiencing like the loss
44:39
of having a parent on a regular basis.
44:42
Right. And it was a moment that I
44:46
really had to reflect and step back.
44:48
And I actually took a step away from Vici and I decided to take
44:53
a leave of absence. And I, I was really fortunate
44:57
that we had built up our bench of internal talent running the
45:01
organization that I had president of our organization
45:06
that I could just say, I, I need you to run this thing.
45:09
I, I got to just step away. I got to focus on my kids.
45:13
And I thought it would just be for the summer.
45:17
And then I, I decided not to step back in in the same way
45:23
that I was before. And, and that lasted a long
45:27
time. And in fact, I still haven't
45:29
quite stepped back in the way that I was leading the
45:32
organization before. I'm still in a leadership role.
45:35
I'm still doing work, Obviously, I'm still doing podcasts, but
45:39
I'm not managing the day-to-day and the business.
45:42
And in some ways, like I think it was a great opportunity to
45:48
give my Co CEOA chance to shine, right, a chance to lean in and
45:54
step up. And she's she has historically
45:56
been an incredible leader and she took the reins and she ran
46:00
with it. And she has she has exceeded all
46:03
of my expectations. But it's hard to do that in a
46:07
moment that business is struggling, right?
46:11
I think it would have been easier to say, I'm going to take
46:13
a step back when like business is growing and booming and
46:18
great, right? I have to lay people off and
46:20
then I'm like NPS, I'm out of here for a little minute.
46:24
And I think like the benefit of having a really great team
46:28
culture where people really care about each other as humans 1st
46:34
and as team member second meant that like everybody understood
46:39
everybody was great about it. Did it make things hard?
46:43
Yes, yes, it did. And you know, I think I also
46:46
spent some time thinking about like, what do I want to do?
46:50
Like, what is my next chapter? Am I going to keep running
46:52
Beachy forever? Do I have all these other dreams
46:55
and ideas? And you know, once you, you do
46:57
the entrepreneurial thing, once you get the bug and then you
46:59
have other ideas and you're like, oh, shiny thing, maybe
47:02
I'll go do that. I, I became a yoga teacher.
47:05
I started playing hockey. I'm learning the banjo like I
47:08
have, I have a serious pottery habit, right?
47:11
So like I was having, I was finding joy and satisfaction in
47:17
places outside of work in addition to just all of the
47:20
heavy, heavy lifting and, and difficult times with the
47:23
parenting. And now I think we've come back
47:25
to a happy medium where I am leaning in ways that are both
47:30
beneficial for, you know, keeping the business moving
47:33
forward, gaining awareness and building relationships and
47:38
things like that. And I'm still not running like
47:41
the day-to-day of the the meat and potatoes of the business
47:45
because we've built up an amazing, amazing team and we
47:49
have all the right people in all the right seats and it feels
47:52
really good. And yeah, they are working
47:55
harder than ever. And you know, it's hard when
48:01
you're still not growing, you know, like you grow, grow, grow
48:04
and then you think you're going to grow forever and then you
48:06
don't. But you weather the storm and
48:07
then you'll be ready to to, to grow on the other side when when
48:11
things ease up. So.
48:12
So what you described there, Maddie is, is like a pretty
48:16
powerful 1-2 punch, like either one of those things or it's
48:20
separating from your spouse or business struggling is enough to
48:25
bring a mere mortal to their knees.
48:27
And you had them happen simultaneous.
48:30
You know, in my experience, if there's a tornado in one aspect
48:36
of your life, but you have some peace, stability and
48:39
predictability and another aspect, there's at least a place
48:43
for you to go to feel safer, right?
48:45
To feel like I've got it over here, right?
48:49
Like I, I matter over here. I got my arms around this.
48:53
Your your whole world was chaos at this time.
48:57
Who were you going to? Who supported you?
49:01
How did you get through this time?
49:03
Yeah, yeah, I think a few different people. 1 is my
49:06
therapist. God bless the therapist.
49:11
I yeah, I can't say enough about therapy.
49:14
I've also, throughout my entire journey of V Chief had an
49:18
incredible executive coach who I just happened to fall into
49:22
through a relationship at Teach for America.
49:25
And she was, she was doing this like outplacement consulting for
49:31
TFA did around the layoffs. And she was working with my
49:34
team. And I was like, well, I'm just
49:35
going to meet with her and maybe she'll have ideas for how to
49:38
like market my new business on LinkedIn or whatever.
49:41
And she just ended up being an amazing resource both to just
49:46
like build up my self-confidence as I was starting this business,
49:50
but also like practical, tactical things that were really
49:54
helpful along the way. And she has been a cheerleader
49:57
for me ever since then, including when I was going
50:00
through some really, really hard times.
50:02
And then I would just say like certain members of my team I've
50:06
been really close with, and also I have an incredible chosen
50:10
family and my mom's amazing. She just moved to Madison.
50:14
She's not in great health but it's been amazing having her
50:18
closer so. And so you gave voice to a
50:23
couple of things here, which I'm really grateful that you did.
50:26
You know, 1 is kind of admitting the struggles of the business
50:30
cycles right up, down, up, down. And right now you're in a down
50:33
cycle. You know, I, I get the chance to
50:35
talk to a lot of folks and a lot of times we're really
50:38
highlighting all the good stuff, right?
50:40
And so people hear stories and they're like, oh, I'm the only
50:42
one struggling. Everybody you know that's out
50:44
there talking is talking about how great things are going.
50:48
And you guys do have a lot of wonderful things going, right?
50:50
And you've got such a great base of business and such a great
50:53
internal team. It's just things aren't where
50:57
you thought they would be right now.
50:59
And, and I think it's important that people hear that life has
51:04
these cycles to it, right? Yeah, it's real weird to be like
51:08
posting, oh, it just got in the Ink 5000 list for the fifth time
51:11
and I'm like, but you know, based on three years of growth,
51:15
I'm like that's we're probably not going to hit that list for a
51:18
couple more years. But it it just feels, yeah, I
51:21
think it's helpful to remind people that it's not a straight
51:25
line. Yeah.
51:26
And the other thing that you gave voice to and thank you is
51:29
the importance of therapy. Right when you're going through
51:32
something difficult, it's it's so important to raise your hand
51:37
and ask for help, whether that's a professional therapist,
51:40
whether it's a close friend, a trusted family member, some
51:44
combination of all the above. When we hold that stuff inside
51:48
just turns into poison. It's toxic, it eats us, it eats
51:52
us from the inside out. And so when you find somebody
51:55
that you can connect with, that you can talk to, that you can
51:57
unload and, and put this out, you know, of your speak it out
52:02
of your mind, speak it out of your mouth into the world.
52:05
It it it lifts the weight off your shoulders.
52:08
Yeah, Yeah, it does. And I think I, I think it's,
52:14
it's, I'm also really lucky to have a couple of my best friends
52:17
are also therapists. So I feel like you have a lot of
52:20
therapy swirling around me. But there's also just tools that
52:23
like you realize are applicable to all sorts of relationships,
52:28
right? Like if you look at attachment
52:29
theory and if you're like anxiously attached or avoidantly
52:32
attached, you're like, oh, I see that dynamic not only in my
52:35
personal life, but also in this business relationship I have or
52:38
whatever else, right? Like the lessons transcend.
52:43
So where do you think the overall industry of fractional
52:47
executive placement is heading? I mean, things are in a downturn
52:52
right now, but in general, things are in a downturn.
52:54
But what do you think the overall future curve looks like?
52:58
Well, you know, I think it's really interesting, right?
53:02
Fractional is kind of a new word, right?
53:04
Like, I think this thing has existed often in some form or
53:08
another. I think it has grown a lot
53:11
lately for a few different reasons, because I think people
53:16
are looking for a lot more flexibility in their work,
53:20
right? There's so many more people who
53:21
are going out and becoming consultants and other things
53:24
like that. And people often ask like, who's
53:27
your biggest competitor? And we do have competitors in
53:29
specific niches that we're in, but I think our biggest
53:32
competitor is like just other independent consultants, right?
53:35
And so it's like what benefit do you bring as a company company
53:39
that someone doesn't have as an independent contractor, right?
53:43
Because otherwise everybody just goes to their their friend down
53:46
the street who they know who is doing the same thing, right?
53:48
And so I think you have to build this brand awareness that people
53:52
know and trust what they're going to get when they come to
53:54
be chief, right or to any agency in particular.
54:00
So as they think about what that means for the industry, I think
54:04
there will continue and probably have a growing amount of people
54:08
doing this on an individual basis, right.
54:11
And I think that will put pressure on the agencies like
54:14
ours to really have some proof points and some cases to to show
54:21
why it makes more sense to go with us than go with someone
54:25
independent. I think that's one piece of it.
54:28
I also think it's, I think it's not going to go away no matter
54:31
what happens in sort of like the market and there being a market
54:35
downturn or this or that. You know, I think probably
54:39
things will go a little bit lower before they get better,
54:44
right. And then I think before the
54:46
economy fully turns around, I think the staffing industry in a
54:50
particular fractional staffing will, will ramp up before you
54:54
see the full. But I think once people see that
54:57
we're going to get on that upward trajectory, then they
55:01
start to think about, you know, staffing up for it.
55:04
They feel confident enough to spend the resources to bring the
55:07
people in. So, but again, I, I just think
55:12
we'll continue to be here 'cause there will continue to be needs.
55:15
Like it's never the, the talent market is just never perfectly
55:21
alive. Like you're never going to lose
55:22
someone and get someone new in the same day.
55:24
There will always be gaps. And so there will always be gap
55:27
fillers like us. And, and it's not necessarily
55:30
like people leaving their roles. It might be maternity laser.
55:33
It might be like, I just need a low level of this forever.
55:36
But I just don't think those things are fundamentally going
55:38
to change. And I do think there's a
55:40
question about like, how does AI change things?
55:42
That's probably the biggest question mark, right?
55:45
But I think what we see is like, like, yeah, there is, there is.
55:53
Well, who knows where the future is going, but I can speak from
55:57
like our business perspective, like we are using AI in really
56:01
powerful ways. That means our it takes less
56:05
time for our people to do things right.
56:09
But then they are freed up to do things that maybe the machine
56:12
can't do. There will always be things that
56:13
the machines can't do. And yeah, they might get better
56:16
at it and other things like that.
56:17
And I think it's crazy to ignore AI.
56:19
I mean, there's so many people who are like, AI is ruining the
56:22
world. And yes, I think there are many
56:24
ways that AI is ruining the world that I'm scared about.
56:27
And I don't like. But I tell people I think is
56:30
like saying I don't like automobiles because they
56:33
pollute. Well, yeah, but where would we
56:36
be without automobile? Like it's happening whether you
56:38
wanted to or not. So either you can embrace it and
56:41
use it for good, or ignore it and be left in the dust right in
56:44
your horse and buggy. Yeah, sticking your head in the
56:48
sand doesn't really help anything.
56:50
Yeah. What's your personal superpower?
56:54
You know, I think the thing that people consistently say about me
56:59
is I'm incredibly authentic. What you see is what you get.
57:03
And I'm really open, as you saw, just sharing like my own
57:06
personal challenges. And I think people really relate
57:09
to that. So I think I do a really good
57:12
job of, of seeing other people and of being willing to be seen
57:18
in ways that, you know, might not align with like, oh, Maddie,
57:23
is this like big Ink 5000 business leader, whatever.
57:26
But I'm also like just super real.
57:29
And I really just love people and I love getting to know
57:32
people. And so I think a combination of
57:35
my authenticity and relationship building.
57:39
Favorite book or podcast that you might recommend to our
57:42
listeners? I think, you know, I, I think
57:48
traction is a really great one, like not to get on the EOS train
57:52
'cause I see pluses and minuses of it.
57:54
But I think one thing that's great about it is it helps
57:59
people have a really deliberate framework for how they approach
58:05
their business in a strategic way and, and setting goals and
58:08
working towards them and holding people accountable.
58:12
I think it can be overly prescribed, right?
58:14
Like I think there's lots of other frameworks that can work
58:17
well. I'm not like such an EOS person
58:19
that I think it's the only solution.
58:21
But I have talked to enough leaders who have said that has
58:24
been transformational for their business.
58:26
And that's why I was like, all right, great, let's have some
58:28
integrators because that feels like something that that's a
58:31
need out there. Yeah.
58:34
How about some daily practices or habits that either help you
58:38
get your day started or keep you on track?
58:41
Yeah, I work out every single day.
58:45
I was just sick for a few days and it killed me not to move my
58:48
body. And and for me, it's not just
58:51
like the physical benefits of it, it's very much the mental.
58:55
I just feel like I thrive when I have, you know, the endorphins
59:01
from from moving my body. And I also feel like health is
59:05
the most important thing we have.
59:07
Like if you don't have that, like everything else is for
59:11
naughty, right? And that doesn't mean that like
59:14
just because you're in shape or you work out a lot, like you're
59:17
going to be health, you're not going to die tomorrow, right?
59:20
But you know, if you want to live a long time, it's probably
59:23
your best bet to, to get out and work out.
59:26
And I, I am a yoga teacher and so I teach a few classes a week
59:31
and it's been really beautiful to sort of build a practice with
59:37
class members who I see every week.
59:39
They, my gym talked me into doing chair yoga, which I was
59:41
not into because I was like, I wanna do the hardcore, like
59:44
vinyasa flow. We get a really hard workout.
59:46
I was like, all right, but I love that class so much.
59:49
My sweet little old people. And they come in and they tell
59:51
me all these stories and it's just like, it just warms my
59:55
heart and in so many ways. So exercise is, is the biggest
59:59
thing. The other thing I will say and
1:00:02
this is like so random, but I bought an electric flosser
1:00:06
recently. It's called the slate.
1:00:08
And this is the one habit I swear I've never been good at
1:00:11
flossing. I'll floss a lot right before
1:00:13
and right after I go to the dentist and then I'll go like a
1:00:15
month without flossing unless I eat a mango or something.
1:00:18
But now I floss like twice a day.
1:00:20
I freaking love this thing. I feel like I should start an
1:00:22
MLM for a life. Selling this flosser and has
1:00:26
these things that like like rub into your gums.
1:00:28
It like actually feels good. We'll put your affiliate link in
1:00:31
the show notes for everybody. I need to get one.
1:00:33
I'm like, guys tell me I'm like I will.
1:00:35
I have given them to my children, to my mother in Like
1:00:40
all of it. Wow, that's impressive.
1:00:43
All right, Well, it's I don't know.
1:00:45
And right now, as we're talking, it's like Amazon Prime Day in
1:00:49
the fall. So I don't maybe that'll be the
1:00:51
thing I go and search for as soon as we're done here, you
1:00:54
know, and as you're talking about, you know, the, the yoga
1:00:56
classes that you get to teach, like kind of reminds me what you
1:00:59
were saying before, like you still haven't fully stepped back
1:01:02
into the role that you had before.
1:01:04
And it sounds like maybe you won't like maybe this is a
1:01:08
better place for you and and for the business as well.
1:01:12
Yeah. I mean, I think it's hard not to
1:01:15
step back in when things feel like, you know, like when you're
1:01:19
in a down cycle. But I think stepping back in in
1:01:23
a meaningful way that is not all consuming feels like the right
1:01:26
call for me. And I just am really grateful
1:01:29
for my team who is just like next level.
1:01:33
But I feel like I don't have to, right?
1:01:34
It feels good to feel like it's in good hands.
1:01:38
I've just got one more question for you today, Maddie.
1:01:41
But before I ask it, I want to do three things.
1:01:43
First of all, everybody who wants to get in touch with
1:01:46
Maddie or her business, Here's a few ways.
1:01:48
V Chiefs with an S bechiefs.com is their website.
1:01:54
You can connect with Madeline Niebauer on LinkedIn.
1:01:57
We'll have a link to that in the show notes and you can find them
1:02:00
on a lot of the other socials with the hashtag be Chiefs.
1:02:03
Again with the S on the end of it.
1:02:05
And for folks, as a reminder, if you want to get your employees
1:02:09
more access to benefits that won't hurt them financially and
1:02:13
carries financial upside for the company, reach out to add back
1:02:17
benefits.com. Finally, if you'll take just a
1:02:20
moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast
1:02:24
app, you'll hold a special place in our hearts forever.
1:02:27
So Maddie, last question for you.
1:02:29
We reconnect one year from today and you're celebrating something
1:02:33
big. You're super happy.
1:02:34
What's that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from
1:02:37
now? That's such a good question.
1:02:42
I'm going to go on the personal side for this one if that's OK.
1:02:46
I have a senior this year and she will be leaving for college,
1:02:50
so she will have been just settled into college for a month
1:02:54
or two at this point. And I hope that I will be
1:02:56
celebrating that she feels like she made the right choice and
1:03:00
that she's really happy, and that our little family still
1:03:04
feels complete and happy even with her potentially far away.
1:03:09
I love that Madeleine Niebauer from V Chief, I want to be the
1:03:12
first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story
1:03:16
with us today. I really appreciate it.
1:03:18
Thanks so much, Anthony. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:03:22
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:03:24
Thanks for learning with us today.