Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Ben Wolf Unveils First-of-its-Kind Software to Help You Choose the Perfect COO | Fractional Series

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Ben Wolf Unveils First-of-its-Kind Software to Help You Choose the Perfect COO | Fractional Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:17
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:20
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:23
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:25
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Ben Wolf,
0:29
founder of Wolf's Edge Integrators, a fractional COO
0:32
and integrator, ServiceNow. Today's interview is special for
0:36
a couple of reasons. First of all, Ben is the first
0:39
repeat guest of the show. And secondly, today's interview
0:42
is going to take on the form of an on screen demo.
0:46
See Ben has developed a new tool that helps businesses understand
0:50
what type of COO slash integrator they currently have
0:54
and what they need for their current level of business, where
0:57
they want to go and the timeline in which they want to achieve
1:00
that. So if you are listening to the
1:02
audio version today, you're going to get a lot of really
1:04
great content for sure. But if you can make your way to
1:07
a screen to see the demo portion of it that's going to come in a
1:10
few minutes, you're going to get even more out of today.
1:14
And before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:16
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1:19
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1:43
Now back to our guest today, the CEO of Wolf's Edge Integrators,
1:48
Ben Wolf. I appreciate you making the time
1:49
to Share your story today. Thanks for having me on,
1:52
Anthony. I really appreciate it.
1:53
Good to see you. Again, likewise, So Ben, a quick
1:56
review for folks about what Wolf's Edge integrators does,
2:00
maybe let's start with an explanation of what fractional
2:03
Co OS and integrators do in general and then kind of move
2:08
into what makes Wolf's Edge special.
2:12
Sure. Well an integrator or COO, they
2:16
go by different names, some people call them second in
2:19
command or number two president all they go go by many titles.
2:24
That's the person who's responsible to run the business,
2:29
the drive execution of the of the business and of the business
2:32
plan, like towards towards the business vision.
2:35
And regardless of whether somebody fulfills that role in a
2:40
full time capacity or a fractional capacity, that's what
2:43
the role is, right? The person who's responsible to,
2:46
you know, it's on their shoulders, sitting on the
2:48
accountability chart or the organizational chart, whatever
2:50
you call it to drive the business.
2:54
And when you talk about doing that fractionally, that simply
2:58
means that somebody is doing that on a fractional or part
3:01
time, non full time basis. And what's interesting, I don't
3:06
remember if we spoke about this last time, but most full time
3:11
Coos or integrators are actually fractional integrators, right?
3:15
Because the majority of them also sit in another seat or more
3:19
than one other seat on the accountability chart, on the org
3:23
chart of their organization. They may be head of OPS, they
3:25
may run special projects that they spend night, you know, 80%
3:28
of their time on. They maybe had a product or, you
3:31
know, CFO or sit in some other seat or multiple other seats.
3:35
And so when they're functioning with their integrator or COO hat
3:39
on, they may only be doing that 20% of the time where they're
3:43
leading the rest of the leadership team, driving
3:45
forward, you know, company vision, you know, reporting to
3:49
the CEO, managing the rest of the leadership team, etcetera.
3:52
That's only maybe 20% of the time.
3:53
So actually they're fractional integrator too.
3:55
They do have the advantage though of being full time in
3:57
that one business, which definitely has it's definite
4:01
benefits, but that's what a fractional COO is.
4:04
And so our firm office edge integrators, we that's all you
4:07
know, that's all we do. We do fractional integration, we
4:11
take on that seat in the accountability chart.
4:13
We just give people the ability to get someone of a much higher
4:16
caliber in that role than they would be able to get if they
4:20
were to only want to do that full time.
4:22
Either because they couldn't afford someone of our of our
4:25
team's caliber full time or because they just don't know how
4:28
long it's going to take to find someone of that caliber full
4:30
time. And they want to keep the ball
4:32
moving forward or get the ball moving forward much sooner and
4:35
not have to be held hostage by just not having the right person
4:38
in that role because the owner is forced to sit in that role or
4:41
somebody maybe who might be underperforming would be sitting
4:43
in that role. So we just get you much faster
4:47
to having someone effective driving things forward in the
4:50
direction you want it to go in by doing it fractionally.
4:53
And I, I think you also asked what, what differentiates us
4:55
from the rest of the world out there?
4:58
You know, I guess one main, one main thing.
5:00
There's a lot of a lot of great people in this space, a lot of
5:02
our quote UN quote competitors, because again, I think there's
5:04
more than enough room for all of us.
5:06
So none of us are truly competitors, which is why I put
5:08
it in air quotes. But but the thing that I think
5:13
really makes us unique and stand out is the caliber of experience
5:17
of our team. Is that, well, first of all, our
5:20
team. So that anybody who's working
5:22
with, with a, you know, with someone with an integrator or
5:25
Col. from the Wolf Century integrators team, they're
5:27
getting the brain trust of all of us.
5:28
So you're getting like, you know, 9 COO brains for the price
5:31
of one. Because everybody's always
5:32
coming every week and bringing up sticky client issues coming
5:36
up with, you know, multiple suggestions for multiple
5:38
people's experience. But also experience, I would say
5:41
is the main thing. People that have owned or run
5:42
businesses before, people who you know, that are bigger than
5:46
the, you know, or you know, of the size that you want to get
5:48
yours too. And they're, they've actually
5:52
done before the things that you want to do.
5:53
So they're not experimenting. It's not the first time you're
5:56
not, you're not a Guinea pig, but you know, people can just,
6:01
you just save time and frustration by getting where you
6:03
want your business to go much faster by putting someone in
6:06
that seat who's actually done what you want to do before.
6:09
What you're describing almost sounds to me like a built in
6:12
mastermind. You know, executives, business
6:15
owners, they spend a lot of money to join mastermind, to be
6:18
around other like minded, you know, people to share ideas to
6:21
learn from and you guys have that built in with that.
6:25
You know, your team of Cos, right, your your team of
6:28
fractional Cos. It's like you've got one person
6:31
working on a client job and they run into something they're
6:33
scratching their head on it. They can bring it back to the
6:35
group and you know, spitball kind of, you know, brainstorm
6:39
some different solutions. That's that's pretty powerful.
6:42
People people love it are coming our team definitely loves it
6:45
that client clients love it. I, I have, I, I had AI had ACFO
6:49
question about a certain comp plan.
6:52
Is there a certain way to do a certain kind of like, you know,
6:54
bonus compensation for certain salaried employees that our CFO,
6:57
you know, CFO with one of our clients was asking about?
6:59
And so it's on my To Do List this week to bring back a whole
7:01
bunch of suggestions from the team back to the back to the
7:04
client, because that's, you know, that's the power.
7:06
They've, they've seen all these things, you know, these people
7:08
have seen, I don't know, decades and decades and decades worth of
7:11
companies, you know, being run and different situations that
7:14
they've seen resources vendors to, to recommend all, you know,
7:18
all kinds of things that we're, you know, we're all able to
7:19
bring to bear for each other. So quickly describe who is your
7:24
ideal client what what's a good fit for you, size, revenue,
7:28
employee count, industry, whatever these kind of you're
7:32
looking for. And so our, our ideal client is
7:35
people who are very ambitious want to do big things.
7:38
They don't want to just kind of manage the current state or you
7:41
know, or even do like, you know, somewhat, you know, somewhat
7:45
modest growth goals or somewhat, you know, tweaking growth goals
7:49
with people who are ambitious. That's going to be the best fit
7:52
for us, people who want to achieve massive things because
7:54
our, you know, we have a high caliber team.
7:56
There are people who want to make a big difference, not just
7:58
a tiny difference. So I would say ambitious
8:02
business owners is one people who want to do big things in
8:04
their business in terms of size and scope.
8:07
I would say, you know, people are, you know, at 5 million want
8:10
to get to 10 million on their way to 50.
8:12
People who are 10 million want to get to 20 on their way to
8:15
100. Those types of scale are those
8:18
types of dreams. I would say is a good size and a
8:20
good fit for our team. We have some that are smaller,
8:24
some that are, you know, some that are bigger, but that's a,
8:27
that's a pretty good guide. And in terms of industries,
8:31
mostly in the United States, most, you know, mostly we have
8:34
some prospects. I don't know if we've ever had
8:36
any team members on the other side of the Atlantic or any of
8:39
the other side of the Pacific, but that have actually come to
8:42
become clients. But most are in the United
8:45
States or Canada. We've had, you know, we actually
8:47
have one Canadian team member, but so we're international in
8:51
that sense, but we're basically continental United States.
8:55
And industry wise we're we have a tremendous diversity on the
9:00
team. So we've got people with a
9:01
background in manufacturing, construction, franchising,
9:05
professional services, home services, e-commerce, just like
9:12
kind of a wide variety of backgrounds.
9:13
So really, you know, any industry would be a fit, OK.
9:18
Now I'm really excited to talk about the tool and before we
9:21
share your screen and, and have you walk us through what this
9:24
looks like and what it what it does, let's talk a little bit
9:27
about the inspiration behind it. Right.
9:29
Most good innovations come from they're trying to solve one or
9:33
more pain points. What were the pain points that
9:37
you were trying to address when developing this tool?
9:41
Also, I have to make a confession, which is that we,
9:46
you know, we, we, we, we did come up with it from a place of
9:49
pain, you know, from a place of, of, you know, in, in the world,
9:57
people think of like ACO or Integrator and you just think of
10:00
like, you just think it's one thing I knew either a good one
10:03
or a bad one. That's just one thing.
10:05
And there's one type of thing needed.
10:07
And we were sort of operating under an assumption like that
10:10
ourselves too, and it was actually hurting us.
10:14
We're going to get, you know, you know, the, the, the
10:16
assessment is, is, is based on a discovery that there's really
10:20
three main levels of integrator and that each of those levels of
10:23
integrator are a good fit for different kinds of businesses at
10:28
different stages of their, of their, of those of their
10:30
businesses growth. And there's not
10:33
one-size-fits-all, right? It's just a question of which
10:36
level of integrators or which fit for, you know, for which
10:38
business and which business owner.
10:41
And we, you know, of those 3 levels, just a little, you know,
10:45
spoiler alert for a second is that one of those 3 levels is
10:49
executive integrator or executive COO.
10:51
And we realized and and our team was just executive Co OS like
10:57
that was, you know, people that are owned or run large
10:59
businesses before and you know, just had a tremendous,
11:03
tremendous high level experience running.
11:05
I'm still entrepreneurial businesses, not just big
11:06
corporate, I mean not big corporate, still entrepreneurial
11:09
businesses, but much larger entrepreneurial businesses.
11:12
And it you know, it scaled, you know, massively, you know, some
11:15
from, you know, from 250 people to 2500 people, you know, some
11:19
from, you know, some from, you know, startups to, you know, to,
11:24
you know, to to 102 hundred, you know, person $25 million
11:27
companies. So the, what we realized though
11:30
is that there's different levels of integrator and that we were
11:34
like by only offering one thing, just the executive integrator,
11:37
we were not serving many of our clients or our potential
11:41
clients. And so we, we realized that we
11:43
were just like, we're kind of like wondering like we're so
11:46
awesome. Like we're like tweaking our
11:49
sales process. We're trying to like keep
11:51
changing that, changing and changing it, trying to see like,
11:53
why do we have such a sucky close rate, you know?
11:57
And we're realizing that one of the things that it came down to
12:01
was we're turning away a lot of leads because, oh, we can't
12:03
really help them. Let me refer them to somebody
12:05
who can. Let me refer them to another
12:07
fractional COO or another integrator, another firm or
12:09
another individual. Why couldn't you help?
12:10
Them all we had was that executive integrator to on our
12:15
team and if we come, if I come to meet somebody that doesn't
12:18
need that, I'm not going to I'm not just going to try to sell
12:21
them something they don't need. I want to refer to somebody who
12:23
can help. I want to.
12:24
Shows a lot of integrity, yeah. Yeah, right.
12:27
And if somebody comes into our my world, I mean, I want to
12:30
help, even if I can't help them, I want to at least point them in
12:32
the right direction. So we're, you know, sending some
12:34
people away and other people that are maybe more borderline.
12:39
We just weren't closing right 'cause maybe they were really
12:41
more for that mid tier integrator, which we're going
12:44
to, you know, which we're going to call conductor integrator or
12:46
conductor Col. We'll explain that more in a
12:48
minute. But we're, you know, we just
12:51
came to, you know, just, we're not closing them, right?
12:54
Because they're talking to other people that are, that are
12:56
charging a conductor integrator rate, which is, you know, and
12:59
we're charging an executive integrator rate.
13:01
It's a difference. And they don't really need that
13:04
executive integrator. And so they're just going with
13:06
somebody else and, you know, which is understandable.
13:09
I mean, it makes perfect sense. So we just realized that like
13:12
we're missing something. We're just missing something.
13:15
And so we, you know, we started to ask ourselves, you know, how
13:20
do we differentiate, you know, how do we differentiate between
13:25
businesses and their needs? And how do we different
13:27
differentiate between the different levels of integrators
13:29
and then identify and match between the two.
13:32
And like see what level of integrator do they need And like
13:35
based on their own information, based on their own insights,
13:37
based on deep questions that they can answer.
13:39
Not necessarily like not necessarily have to come to a
13:42
discovery call with me to like spend an hour with me, but like,
13:44
you know, just get that much more easily and quickly on their
13:47
own. And then we could, you know, if,
13:49
if they come our way, they could just learn from that and find
13:52
their own integrator, right? Or they could with this
13:54
assessment, find that out, you know, through US.
13:57
And that'll just help us in our sales process to make sure that
14:00
we help them in the in the most accurate way possible.
14:02
So a bit of a painful self reflection process to go through
14:06
to say, man, our close rate isn't where it should be, but
14:09
kudos to you for, you know, not sort of just sitting in the
14:13
corner and sucking your thumb. It's like, what can we do about
14:15
this? Like, what can we learn from
14:16
this? Like what's going on here?
14:18
And so that was the inspiration behind trying to fill in those
14:22
gaps, right, with the other types of of integrators.
14:27
And then from that came the idea for this tool, so we can help
14:33
prospective clients sort of discover where they are, what
14:36
they need, what type of fractional they need going
14:40
forward and better be able to serve those folks, right?
14:43
Yeah. OK, so let's frame this for the
14:47
listener. Who is the intended user of this
14:51
tool. Is it a business owner
14:53
exclusively? Is it someone else in the
14:56
company? So this tool is meant to be used
14:59
by the business owner and it is, it is meant to tell them to
15:04
answer the question. What as you said before,
15:07
Anthony, what kind of integrator or COO do you have And what kind
15:12
of integrator COO do you need to if you want to actually achieve
15:15
the results you want to achieve in the time that you want to
15:18
achieve it? So that's basically the question
15:20
it's going to ask. And when we do this demo in a
15:23
second, I'm going to ask you, Anthony, to be, you know, to, to
15:27
be the business owner and think of a business.
15:31
When you answer the questions that we're going to that we're
15:33
going to show you, I want to ask you to to, you know, to, to play
15:39
the role of a of a business owner and have in mind some
15:42
specific business and answer the way you think the owner of that
15:45
business would answer. OK, you're going to put me on
15:47
the spot. I like it.
15:49
Make me think of my. I mean, you don't.
15:50
Have to do you know, you know whatever you could choose which
15:53
business you have in mind you've worked with a lot of people but.
15:58
OK, so will this tool be behind some kind of a paywall or
16:02
require some kind of like special registration process?
16:06
No, it's not, not behind a pay wall.
16:08
It's just our website, wolfsedgeintegrators.com/assessment.
16:12
OK, so it's Wolfsedge integrators.com/assessment.
16:16
Anybody who's listening to or watching this can take it
16:19
themselves. OK.
16:20
So no other requirements. You have to have a certain
16:22
number of employees or certain revenue size.
16:26
No, I mean, look, I would say if you're like a solopreneur or
16:29
something or a very small business, like I think the, the
16:32
results could be somewhat skewed.
16:34
But you know, so it's, it's, you know, I would say people with,
16:39
you know, with a business with employees, preferably with a
16:41
leadership team of some sort, even if they might be
16:44
underperforming, but there was some sort of leadership team in
16:46
place. OK, All right, let's get to it.
16:49
Let's have you share your screen, Ben, and let's see what
16:52
this this new. Tool is all about.
16:55
I will share this so starts with a punchy question at the top.
17:01
Does your integrator suck? And that includes very often a
17:06
lot of people who take this assessment.
17:07
The business owner is also serving in the CEO or integrated
17:10
role. Like they really have no other
17:12
separate person doing that. They're doing it themselves.
17:15
And so you're going to be assessing yourself when you wear
17:18
that hat if if that's it. And OK, so we're going to get
17:26
going. You're going to have in mind a
17:27
business going to use your name. Did I spell that right?
17:37
That's pretty close. It's AT instead of AD at the
17:41
end. OK, there you go.
17:44
I was so close. That's.
17:45
Impressive. I'm going to use.
17:46
I'm going. To use my e-mail so I can get
17:49
the results and pull it up on the.
17:51
OK, why don't, why don't we call this, we'll call it ABC daycare.
17:57
I've been talking with lots of daycares lately.
18:00
OK, awesome. ABC daycare, let's rock'n'roll.
18:05
And I, I will read the questions and the guides if it's like a
18:08
lot of them are one through 5. So I'll actually read the
18:11
description of what one looks like and what 5 looks like out
18:13
loud. Especially for those who are
18:14
listening and maybe don't have the video or if you're on a
18:17
small video that might be hard to read if you're on like a
18:20
device. So part one, where's your
18:22
Business Today? Where are you going?
18:23
Do your best. Exact isn't necessary.
18:25
All questions are required for accurate results.
18:29
So what is your annual revenue? Let's say I don't always get
18:35
transparency into that, but let's say $4 million.
18:38
OK, $4 million, what is your profit as a percentage?
18:44
Say 10%. All right.
18:48
How many people on your leadership team?
18:51
Let's call it 5 all. Right.
18:56
And how many people total in the company?
18:59
Say 100. All right now, what is your
19:04
number one goal for the business?
19:06
Massive growth, healthy exit. Escape the day-to-day consistent
19:09
and sustainable growth. Like 2X or working on the
19:13
business, not in the business. And so you want me to select one
19:15
here? Look, one, yeah.
19:17
This is. The one question that has
19:18
multiple but this is one your main.
19:22
Goal, I would say. More main number one goal for
19:24
the business. Yeah, we'd say with a daycare,
19:26
it's hard to have massive growth unless you've got sort of the
19:29
capital to open up multiple centers.
19:31
So I would say consistent and sustainable growth.
19:35
OK. What is your timeline where you
19:38
think you can achieve that or you'd like to achieve that?
19:41
Three years. All right.
19:46
That's the demographics portion. What brought you to this
19:49
assessment? So what is your current
19:53
integrator or COO situation? So I would say I'm the visionary
19:58
and I've got a different integrator.
20:01
Which one of those options there?
20:04
So I'm the visionary and the integrator or I've got I'm, I've
20:08
got a visionary who, I'm sorry, I've got an integrator who's
20:10
also wearing other hats. I would say that one, yeah, I
20:13
would say that's pretty common. OK.
20:17
And what brought you here? Here you could select multiple
20:21
businesses. Well, maybe for this one there's
20:23
a lot to read. So I'll, I'll let you pick some
20:25
as you read them. There's options A through L that
20:32
Anthony is. Currently, well, I'll tell you,
20:33
I'll tell you what I see from a lot of folks not only at this
20:37
stage but even earlier is that they don't want to oversee the
20:40
day-to-day any longer. You know, they really want to
20:43
kind of take a step back and be able to work, you know, on the
20:47
business instead of in it. OK.
20:51
And the and the other one you can.
20:52
Select multiple here. OK, that also fit.
20:59
I probably need more people who think strategically.
21:01
I'm going to guess that in an environment like this, I've got,
21:04
I know folks that have been that are I there.
21:07
I've got folks that have been with me since pretty early on
21:09
that were real helpful to get to this point, but maybe don't have
21:13
the skill sets to kind of get to where we want to go, which would
21:18
suggest that K is also appropriate.
21:20
Ready to take an evolutionary leap forward?
21:23
OK. And yeah, probably L as well.
21:27
You know, we've tried a lot of things and, you know, we keep
21:29
bumping our heads up against the same kind of.
21:31
Stuff. The same stuff.
21:32
Yeah. Yeah.
21:33
OK. All right, halfway done.
21:36
Here's some questions about your current business stage.
21:38
What happens if you take two weeks off?
21:40
Anywhere from one things fall apart and we go backwards to
21:42
five things not only keep going but continue improving.
21:46
Oh boy, If I've got a leadership team of five folks, I've got 100
21:49
employees, I take two weeks off. I'm still heavily engrossed in
21:53
the day-to-day of the business. I would say probably out of two,
21:57
probably a lot of people who are still relying on me to to give
22:00
answers. Right now, how does work get
22:03
done today? Anywhere from one, you're barely
22:05
running the nitty gritty of the day-to-day to five.
22:08
There's a strategic driver, conductor of the orchestra who
22:10
overseas the executives. Let's put it right there in the
22:14
middle out of three. OK, now do you have one or two
22:19
people who are single points of failure?
22:21
What would happen if they suddenly got sicker left
22:24
anywhere From one we would immediately go into crisis mode,
22:26
to five, we would manage perfectly well.
22:28
Knowledge and processes are well distributed.
22:31
Yeah, I would guess that it at a team this size that, you know,
22:35
any one of our leadership team members, we've probably got a
22:37
couple of them in particular that would be critical slash
22:42
bottlenecks. And if they were gone, like it
22:45
would be a huge rebuilding process.
22:47
I actually saw this with another much larger daycare that had
22:51
some folks in their leadership team leave in the process of
22:54
doing, you know, some acquisitions and it and it
22:56
created a, a real big poop storm, we'll call it.
23:01
And you know, had had a lot of work.
23:03
So I'm, I'm going to put it out of one.
23:04
We we go into crisis mode now. What is the status of process in
23:09
your business? Anywhere from one we've talked
23:11
about someday having a process to five our processes are
23:15
documented, well trained and followed, and consistently
23:17
optimized well. I'm going to, I'm going to put
23:20
it right there in the middle. I'm somebody who really
23:22
appreciates and enjoys processes.
23:25
But I'm going to guess, you know, getting to this size that,
23:28
you know, one of the reasons I'm looking for some help is those
23:32
processes are probably not serving us as well as they did
23:36
when we were smaller. And we're not doing a great job
23:39
teaching them and training them to the rest of the staff.
23:42
So yeah, probably somewhere in the middle there.
23:44
OK, now where are things with culture and people development
23:49
from any anywhere from one to underwater to focus on that yet
23:53
to five, regularly assess team health and intentionally lift
23:56
the ceiling of all leaders and team members?
23:59
Let's say that our culture is pretty good.
24:01
Let's put it at a four. Definitely, you know, always
24:04
room for improvement, but feel like we're doing well there.
24:09
All right. And are you having real
24:10
conversations about financials anywhere from 1 can't because we
24:15
don't know or won't share because it's scary to five.
24:19
We understand our reality and our proactive and strategic.
24:22
I'm going to put that one right in the middle.
24:24
We're we're out of three like we've got some idea of what's
24:26
going on. But you know, talking with
24:29
somebody who really knows how to to analyze AP and L and a
24:33
balance sheet and tell us where there are some opportunities
24:35
would would probably be really helpful for us.
24:39
OK, Now what is the current pace of growth?
24:42
Anywhere from stagnant 1. Stagnant and going or going
24:45
backward to five. On track for massive growth 10X.
24:51
Leave it there to three like we're we're doing all right,
24:54
We're profitable, but we want to, we want to pour some gas on
24:58
this fire. Yeah.
25:00
Yeah, love gasoline. Like I said that we love, love
25:04
ambition, whatever that ambition's about.
25:07
I mean, some of it's very idealistic, but it's just, you
25:10
know, people that want a 10X qualitatively, quantitatively,
25:13
that's the. That's a great.
25:15
That's your ideal client, Yeah. Are the long term goals of your
25:20
business consistently part of your conversations?
25:24
Anywhere from one head down, Focus on the day-to-day to
25:26
ensure survival, to five. We update the strategy at
25:30
regular intervals and are on target.
25:32
I would say this is an area where we could use a lot of
25:35
help. I would put that at a one.
25:36
Yeah. We're, we're really focused on
25:38
the day-to-day and we we need some help stepping back to work
25:41
on that big picture. All right, so let's let's ask
25:46
some questions now. The last set of questions is
25:47
about your Co or integrator that you currently have.
25:50
OK, So does your integrator give you the feeling that they're
25:55
driving the business anywhere from one to the end of the day?
25:58
It's still all me to drive us forward to five.
26:01
They're in the driver's seat, driving us towards our goals.
26:04
Well, I hate to throw them under the bus, but I'm going to give
26:06
it about a two. I I think we we can do a lot
26:09
better in this area. OK, does your integrator know
26:15
how to extract a story from your financials and collaborate with
26:19
financial leaders to build a financial strategy anywhere from
26:21
one no financial acumen to five narrates and strategizes?
26:25
I would say A3 doing OK, but we've got definite room for
26:29
improvement here. Now, does your integrator or COO
26:34
create a road map that they know will turn strategic objectives
26:37
into reality? Anywhere from one process for
26:41
process sake road map was completed to five imposes their
26:44
will on the process to achieve the outcome.
26:50
Well, considering that I feel like we don't really have great
26:54
strategic objectives for that long term growth, I'm going to
26:57
put this at about a two. And you know, as we're going
27:00
through this bad, I'm realizing like somebody has to come into
27:04
this process ready to be totally honest with themselves and where
27:08
they are, right? It's not about you can't wear
27:11
the hat of, you know, and we're doing this in sort of a public
27:14
setting. And it certainly helps that I'm
27:15
giving answers for a hypothetical company that, you
27:18
know, I'm not a part of. Because it would be difficult to
27:22
do this in in front of other folks or sometimes even
27:25
difficult to do directly yourself because you've got to
27:29
be really honest with, you know, where you're at and where your
27:32
gaps and your holes are. So people listening who are
27:35
going to, you know, go and check this tool out, just, you know,
27:37
kind of go into that with let's put the ego aside and let's be
27:41
honest about, you know, where we are right now.
27:43
So, OK, next question. Yeah, especially where you're
27:47
where you're the one taking it. The owner is also sitting and
27:51
trying to fill this COO reintegrator seat as part of
27:54
their role in the business. So they're assessing themselves
27:58
and that and yes, no, one other, it's not public like us, right?
28:01
Like the other people may not, other people may not see this.
28:06
But yeah, it still could be hard to answer the question even in
28:10
private if you know, you're realizing that, you know, I
28:13
guess the the question is, though, are you serious about
28:16
the, the things you want for your business?
28:17
Let's put aside your assessment of yourself or your assessment
28:20
of your team members. You know, are you, are you
28:23
serious about what you want for yourself?
28:25
You say you want to get out of the day today or you want to
28:28
spend more time with your family or, you know, you, you, you say,
28:32
you know, you want to make this kind of impact on the clients
28:34
and we're just not delivering. Well, whatever it is that like,
28:37
you know, is your passion or your 'cause if you're not
28:39
getting that or, you know, if you want to, if you want to be
28:42
able to be ready for exit and sell for a good multiple in five
28:45
years, Like, are you just wishing?
28:48
Are you just like, you know, wish is not a strategy.
28:50
Hope is not a strategy as they say, you know, are you serious
28:52
about it? And so, yeah, it's a, it's a
28:54
great point you're making. We have to, if we really are
28:57
serious about wanting the things that we want.
29:00
Forget about ego for a second, like you who wants the thing?
29:03
Not me. Like it's not doesn't hurt me.
29:05
If you don't achieve your goals, that might hurt your team, might
29:08
hurt their families, might hurt yourself, might hurt your
29:11
family, but it doesn't, you know, no skin off my back
29:13
personally, but it's, you know, are you serious about the things
29:17
that you want? I would think of this almost
29:19
like like a health assessment. You're going to the doctor and
29:22
you're sick. You don't want to lie about
29:23
that, right? You put in bad information,
29:25
you're going to get bad help, you're going to get bad
29:28
treatment back. So got to be honest about where
29:31
where it hurts, where the illness is, where the sickness
29:33
is. Yeah.
29:36
So next question, does your integrator challenge you and
29:39
refine your vision while providing feedback to improve
29:41
your leadership? Anywhere from 1 yields to you
29:44
doesn't challenge you to five. It's on your level.
29:48
They improve and expand your abilities.
29:51
A man, I, I wish I was getting challenged a lot more from them.
29:54
They, they followed my lead for a long time and I think that's a
29:58
pattern that we've developed. So I would, I would say we're at
30:00
about a two there. OK.
30:04
Does your integrator proactively innovate to solve problems and
30:07
capitalize on opportunity? Anywhere from 1 reactive and
30:10
protects the status quo to five proactively drives change in
30:14
innovation. I would say we're probably about
30:16
a three there. There's there's some ideas that
30:19
are coming out, but we've got room for improvement.
30:22
OK, now do they level up your leadership team?
30:26
Anywhere from one allows plateaus at middle manager to
30:29
five unlocks full potential to turn them into true executives.
30:33
Quote UN quote. Let's let's go with a four.
30:37
I think that, you know, they're pretty good at spotting talent
30:40
and, and, you know, helping them move along and finding the right
30:43
training for them and encouraging them.
30:46
Awesome. Does your integrator
30:48
breakthrough obstacles to achieve goals?
30:51
Anywhere from one makes reasonable excuses to five
30:54
drives to completion. Regardless of obstacles, No.
30:56
They're they're pretty determined.
30:57
They're they're maybe not that helping us, you know, drive to
31:00
those long term strategic visions that we've not done a
31:03
great job of outlining, but what's put in front of them,
31:06
they do a pretty good job. So I'll say about a four there.
31:09
OK. And does your integrator channel
31:13
your strengths and call you up to your highest and best use
31:17
anywhere from one leaves you or puts you on a shelf to five
31:20
unleashes and channels you a three?
31:23
Yeah, I I could use use a little bit more of a a kick in the butt
31:30
there. OK, now does your integrator or
31:34
COO use a business operating system like EOS or there's
31:38
definitely others out there to achieve your goals.
31:41
Anywhere from 1 doesn't even run the meetings consistently to
31:44
three, it's the only one that has three, you know, three kind
31:47
of guides, but to three, you know, facilitator runs meetings
31:51
well to five leverages the system and experience to
31:54
accelerate business towards your goals.
31:56
We're we're solidly at a three there.
31:58
The the meetings are run efficiently, but we're not
32:02
driving that that big long term growth.
32:06
Got it. All right.
32:07
Your assessment is complete all. Right.
32:11
Now it could take up to 5 minutes because of the way the
32:15
technology works on the back end for me to get the results.
32:19
So shall we maybe go over some of the underlying business
32:25
stage, business stage levels and the integrator levels while we
32:28
wait for these results? I think that would be helpful,
32:30
yeah. I I think you were telling me
32:31
that you might have a visual there that you can bring up
32:34
that'll kind of help people understand this a little bit
32:37
better all. Right, So you can see this.
32:39
All right, OK. So for those with the video, I'm
32:43
going to, you know, do this with verbal as well.
32:46
So hopefully we can have some value for those who are
32:48
listening on the other side as well.
32:51
But yeah, so you know, Anthony, as we spoke about before, this
32:57
assessment sort of came from a discovery that there's different
33:01
levels of business growth and that different people, different
33:06
business owners are going to need a different level of
33:08
integrator to achieve their goals depending on the stage
33:12
where they are and the stage that they want to get to.
33:14
That's a, you know, Simply put, that's, that's what the
33:16
assessment is about. And that and that, and that we
33:22
also realized that because there's not only one level of
33:25
integrator, it's not like there's a right integrator and a
33:29
wrong integrator or a good integrator and a bad integrator
33:32
or like pros and cons, you know, oh, here's the strengths and
33:34
weaknesses of different things. What we realized is that if you
33:39
know, you, you just need the right level of integrator,
33:41
that's the right level for your stage of business.
33:43
And that person may not be the right stage for a later, you
33:45
know, may not be the right fit for you at a later stage of
33:48
development. But by the same token, if you
33:51
get a, you know, quote UN quote higher level integrator at a
33:56
point when you need, you know, a quote UN quote lower level
33:59
integrator, it's going to serve you badly.
34:01
You're going to not achieve your goals.
34:03
You're going to face frustration just like you would if you did
34:06
the result, if you did the reverse.
34:08
Excuse me. So I guess what we, what we
34:10
realized if you look at the top half of the page, for those
34:12
seeing the visual, is that there are four different levels or
34:16
four different stages of business growth, right?
34:18
One on the left side is survival.
34:21
It's just like where you're barely surviving the day-to-day,
34:23
you're staving off catastrophe all the time, barely, rarely
34:28
struggling and keeping the day-to-day going.
34:31
The second business stage is what we call owner dependent.
34:35
That's where that's the stage where you've gotten past the
34:39
chaos, right? You've gotten past that staving
34:42
off catastrophe phase, which is amazing news and it's and it's a
34:45
great advancement, but it still means that the owner is pulling
34:48
all the levers, making all the things happen.
34:51
If the owner would step away for a couple of weeks without an
34:53
e-mail, I mean, things would probably move backwards or at
34:56
least not move forwards, but just everything that's
34:58
completely owner dependent. And so it's at least that's not
35:02
chaos, but it's a but it's a job.
35:04
It's a big job. It's a long hours job, It's a
35:07
job. But again, it's, it's, it's
35:10
beyond the chaos. And the third level is what we
35:13
call incremental growth, right? That's where you do have other
35:15
drivers in the business. You have people that are to one
35:17
extent or another also driving parts of the business.
35:21
Things are growing, things are incrementally improving.
35:23
And that's wonderful. And some people like this is
35:25
their end goal, like they want to get to this point.
35:28
And then there's others, some who really want to scale.
35:32
It's the fourth stage of business growth, which is, you
35:35
know, which is people who just want it, they want a 10X, they
35:37
want to make massive growth. They want to open up another
35:39
ten, another 10 daycares. I want to turn it into a
35:41
franchise. I want to whatever, like they,
35:44
they want to, or they want to buy another, you know, 3
35:46
franchise, you know, franchise units or whatever.
35:48
But the, the, the, the goal is to, is to scale in, in one
35:53
extent or another. So that's the, the fourth thing.
35:57
And what we realize is that there's different levels of
36:01
integrator and each one is right for different businesses,
36:05
different stages. And when you're at survival,
36:08
like if you don't have a great VP of OPS, if you don't have
36:10
somebody that's good for as what we call an operational
36:13
integrator or someone who just heads down, get stuff done just
36:17
like, you know, good at just like driving and getting,
36:19
getting things done. If you don't have a great person
36:22
to do that to probably also besides integrator really sit in
36:25
that VP of OPS seat or the head of operation seat, then it's on
36:29
you to do it. I mean, you're never going to
36:30
get out of anything if you know, you can't focus on growing the
36:33
business at all. You can't focus on it on any any
36:37
major improvements or innovations.
36:41
If you're just trying to make sure each individual order is
36:44
getting out and getting done every day, that's you know, it's
36:48
just not going to happen. You need a great person that in
36:50
that in that role. And if you try to get some
36:53
fancier person than what you need and what you really need is
36:56
an operational leader, just someone to run UPS, then you're,
37:01
you're not going to be well served with that.
37:02
You need that operational person in order to get to any of the
37:04
other phases. And even an executive or
37:06
conductor, they still need that operational person in place as
37:08
well. Even if you had these these
37:11
other levels of. Integration.
37:12
And Ben, do you think it's possible for that operational
37:15
level of integrator to be a fractional or is that typically
37:19
somebody who is entrenched there full time?
37:23
Yeah, vast majority of the time I would.
37:24
I would agree with you that it needs to be full time.
37:27
I was saying that that is that is majority of the time.
37:30
I think there's certain exceptions.
37:32
I do know, look, you look online, there's people who who
37:34
bill themselves as fractional head of operations, you know,
37:39
and, and I think that, and it's interesting, I use the term COO
37:43
to mean the one who's running the company.
37:46
But as you, as you may have come across this as well, a lot of
37:49
people out there use the term COO to mean VP of OPS, just head
37:54
of operations, which is that one seat below the one who's running
37:57
the company, right? So, so there's a difference in
38:00
terminology that some people use, but I think the majority of
38:05
the time it's operational does need to be full time.
38:07
I would agree with you, although there are those who do it
38:09
fractionally. Often times those people are
38:12
doing it two to three days a week, though they're doing just
38:14
like a lot more hours in their engagement because they're just
38:18
a lot more in the weeds of everything that happens on the
38:19
day-to-day. And so I think that there are
38:22
those who do this on a fractional basis, but it's
38:28
usually does need to be full time.
38:30
OK, middle level of integrator is we call conductor and they
38:35
got that image on the screen of a conductor of an orchestra
38:37
because that's that's what they are.
38:39
They're not playing an instrument because they're, I
38:41
mean, if they're fractional, at least they're not playing an
38:42
instrument. If they're full time, they may
38:44
be playing an interest interest instrument while they're wearing
38:46
a different hat, but in their integrator hat they're not, or
38:49
in their COO hat, they're not playing an instrument and
38:52
they're just ensuring they're installing structure in the
38:55
business. Welcome to structure, right?
38:56
I mean, you did everything you grew up to where you got to
39:00
through, you know, through maximum agility, maximum of
39:04
everybody doing everything anytime, all the time to get to
39:07
a certain level of growth and certain level of scale.
39:10
And that just stops working. It just creates more and more
39:12
chaos. Clients stop getting clients,
39:14
customers stop getting results that you want them to expect,
39:17
that you want them to receive, and things just stop working.
39:20
And ultimately you're going to need some conductor of the
39:22
orchestra. You need somebody that's
39:24
installing the structure processes, running the
39:26
leadership team meetings, you know, ensuring that your
39:30
business operating system, whether it's scaling up or EOS
39:33
or or a system in Seoul or next level nonprofit or something
39:36
else, that your business operating system is actually
39:39
working and that you know that it's being used, that metrics
39:42
are being used, measurables are being used.
39:43
They're creating accountability, supporting the leadership team,
39:47
and through them, the rest of the team, the rest of the team
39:50
are the employees beneath them. The they're ensuring that
39:55
they're just ensuring that everybody's playing the same
39:56
sheet of music at the same tempo as each other, that everybody's,
40:02
everybody's acting in concert with each other, that nobody's
40:05
acting in their little fiefdom where one, what sales is doing
40:08
is conflicting with operations. What operation is doing is
40:11
conflicting with marketing, not doing what was promised.
40:13
Like that everybody's playing from the same sheet of music.
40:17
And there's tremendous, tremendous value that's needed
40:20
and that that provides for the company that needs it.
40:23
And if a company wants to get from survival to well, first
40:27
owner dependent and then even to incremental growth, they're
40:29
going to need that conductor integrator.
40:31
I mean, at some point you need that operational person in
40:33
place, but you need somebody either if they can elevate
40:37
themselves or help be elevated through support, they can get to
40:41
the point where they can become a conductor integrator, then
40:43
amazing. But if they're not able to get
40:46
there or if they're not getting there, then bring a conductor
40:49
integrator in whether full time or fractional to, you know,
40:53
they, they can get you up to owner dependent, they can get
40:55
you to incremental growth. And then the third level of
40:58
integrators for those that really want to scale.
41:00
And again, you can, you can start at a very early stage of
41:04
the company if you just want to move really fast, if you've got
41:06
the money to invest in it. But bring in an executive
41:09
integrator. That's the third level.
41:10
That's somebody that's not just able to install structure,
41:14
create accountability, keep everybody playing the same sheet
41:16
of music, but also have like a major opinion about things,
41:23
right? The executive integrator is
41:24
somebody who's they've done this before, wherever you want to
41:27
take the business, they've done that in business before and
41:30
they're able to take where you want to go, take where you want
41:33
to where you are now, chart a path, chart a road map, chart a
41:37
road map to get there. And you say, OK, this, this is
41:39
the things you need to do if you want to get to that destination
41:42
that you described. Here's how you get.
41:43
There and so most of your fractionals have been at that
41:46
executive level up until now, right.
41:48
And what the insight is that, you know, you shared with us
41:51
before about you know, sort of doing some self reflection about
41:54
where you guys were, why you weren't getting the close rates
41:57
that you wanted is that you needed to add that conductor
41:59
level of of fractional too, OK. Yeah.
42:04
And 100%. And we, we, we, we, we recently
42:07
innovative not only by creating this assessment to help us see
42:10
and help business owners even if they're not talking to us, see
42:13
what kind of integrator they have, what kind of integrator
42:16
they need to get to the, to get to the goals that they say they
42:18
have. Is that we realize that if we
42:22
want to help the, the, the plurality of people that we come
42:25
across need that conductor integrator, not the executive
42:28
integrator. And that's what we came to
42:30
realize. So we added a, you know, a, a, a
42:33
group of conductor integrators to our team.
42:36
And now we're able to help with both right and Wolves age
42:38
integrators is now able to help with those who need an executive
42:41
integrator, those with just a much more substantive experience
42:44
to able to just like really help you move much faster towards
42:47
your goals. Not to have to experiment, but
42:50
you know, somebody who can see the path from where you are to
42:52
where you want to get to. And obviously not as a dictator,
42:55
but you know, through collaborative conversation, you
42:58
know, paint that road map, paint that order of operations, What
43:01
goes first, what goes second, what goes third, you know, work
43:04
together with the team to get everybody aligned on whatever
43:06
the plan is, adjust, get alignment on it, then drive
43:09
execution. That's an executive integrator
43:12
necessary for that scale stage. That's really a question at each
43:15
stage of what's the right fit for your business and where it
43:18
needs to be. And so the, the assessment's
43:20
telling some people, hey, you, you may be at survival stage and
43:24
you've got an operational integrator, all right, but it'll
43:26
tell you, you want, based on your answers, you want to get to
43:29
scale and you're not going to get there with that operational
43:32
integrator. You need to bring on an, you
43:34
know, an executive integrator, let's say.
43:35
OK, Ben, the suspense is killing me.
43:38
Do you think the the results are ready yet?
43:40
Do you? Think the results are ready?
43:43
Yeah, here they are. OK, it's going to pull up.
43:47
This will be interesting for you know, our listeners, our our
43:50
watchers, our viewers to to experience is you know, they put
43:56
a few minutes into opening up their their hearts and souls to
43:59
your to your tool. What?
44:01
What can they you know expect in response then?
44:04
Well, this is the e-mail that they'll get and there's about
44:07
192 different permutations that people might, you know, the, the
44:13
people that come out of in the back end based on people's
44:15
results. But anyway, we do a bunch of
44:18
math on the back end and this is what it's coming up with for
44:21
you. So I'm interested to hear, you
44:23
know, does this resonate? But your integrator assessment
44:25
result, there's more to discuss here.
44:28
Schedule a meeting to review your results.
44:30
I guess we have sort of an undecided result that it sounds
44:33
like so. Which makes sense because I'm
44:37
I'm giving made-up answers, right?
44:39
So. Maybe that's.
44:40
Why there's there's a lack of continuity in in what I'm
44:43
describing? So that it could be so where you
44:46
are today and sometimes if there's that lack of continuity,
44:48
sometimes that'll sort of flag, hey, there's something about
44:50
these results that don't make sense.
44:51
And so we reflect that in the results.
44:54
But your stage today, incremental growth, you just
44:56
sort of click on the pop up, it tells you what incremental
44:59
growth means. OK.
45:01
We already discussed that you currently have an operational
45:03
integrator, that's what it's saying.
45:06
That makes sense from a lot of the answers that I gave.
45:08
Yep. OK.
45:09
So what you're experiencing, there's mild, there's a mild
45:12
disconnect in your results that is worthy of notes.
45:15
You scored your integrator as an operational integrator, which is
45:17
in general and capable of guiding an organization to the
45:20
stage that you're already in, in the incremental growth.
45:23
So you might be growing consistently, but is it coming
45:27
as a great sacrifice of your time and energy?
45:29
I mean that you're filling in the gaps of that person.
45:32
You're possibly covering up for some of the weaknesses in your
45:34
integrator to keep the business healthy.
45:37
Make sure your integrator is moving things off your plate and
45:39
truly freeing you up your future state.
45:42
You want to get to incremental growth, which is already where
45:44
you are. You need a conductor integrator
45:46
to get there. That's the next stage for me.
45:49
It's not what you have, right? That would be the middle stage.
45:50
That's what it's saying. That's what it's recommending
45:52
for you, what change feels like. You're the main, you're the main
45:56
driver, and while you're growing consistently, it might be
45:58
tending towards burnout. Imagine having the same kind of
46:01
growth but without the back breaking efforts.
46:03
Focus on other passion projects, other facets of the business, or
46:06
even spend time in other areas of your life.
46:08
OK action items. Schedule a console call if
46:11
you're curious about reviewing your results.
46:13
And So what does that look like if, if I want to schedule a
46:15
call, am I talking with you or one of your other executive
46:19
fractionals? What?
46:20
What does that call kind of look and feel like?
46:23
As of now, you'd be having a call with me.
46:25
I believe it's 1/2 hour. If we're discussing results
46:27
rather than a discovery call, then it's then it's 1/2 hour
46:31
call. And if after that call we
46:33
realize, hey, you know, I already know a great recruiter.
46:36
I want to bring on somebody full time as a conductor integrator.
46:38
Great. And you know, use this
46:40
knowledge, print this out, you know, use this, use this
46:42
knowledge and information and help find that person.
46:45
If you want us to help you find, you know, I mean, we could have
46:48
somebody, you know, on your team in in two to three weeks who's a
46:52
conductor integrator. So we can, you know, just
46:55
schedule that discovery call or if we have enough time, maybe we
46:58
could do it right then. But if there's no time, we could
47:00
schedule that time, do a full, a full blown discovery call, take
47:03
your results into account. I could see all your answers in
47:05
the back end. So you don't have to.
47:07
You know we don't. And that's the benefit of having
47:10
this this tool in place before the call because you've got a
47:13
lot of really helpful data about, you know, where they are
47:17
before you ever even get on the call.
47:18
It can help to make that call even more efficient.
47:21
And I know, you know, before we went live with today's
47:23
recording, then you were, you know, sharing with me.
47:27
It sounds fantastic. Like there's been just a lot of
47:30
interest in Wolf's Edge since this tool came out.
47:34
Do you guys have, you know, you've had a lot more inquiries
47:38
coming in, you know, more, you know, new client leads?
47:40
Do you guys have the bandwidth to to handle, you know more
47:43
folks that might, might fill this out and and have an
47:46
interest in working with you? Yeah, I believe so.
47:48
I mean, we're we we brought on three new people about a month
47:51
ago and we're and I'm currently in the process of recruiting
47:55
somewhere now because we've seen, you know, we have, you
47:57
know, certain, certain backgrounds that I think are,
48:00
you know, not not sufficiently represented on the team.
48:03
So we were looking to for, you know, maybe one or two more as
48:07
of now, but but yeah, we're, we're, you know, we're, we're,
48:11
we're ready for it. And, you know, we could talk to
48:13
people. We've got our CRO could take
48:15
additional excess capacity for these calls if I, if I, if I hit
48:18
capacity. So we should be able to help.
48:22
And they can see I'm just pulling this up here.
48:24
When you, when you look at your results page, there's another
48:27
PDF that allows you to do which kind of goes even more in depth
48:31
than what I shared with you. I shared with you that screen
48:34
that sort of like one page screen that showed the four
48:38
business levels and the three levels of integrator.
48:40
But when you go on your results page, you can actually download
48:43
this PDF that gives you all that information, right?
48:45
Just it downloads with a little more detail.
48:48
What are the, you know, what are the four business stages gives
48:50
you a little data about what some of the people taking the
48:54
MOA so far are are indicating. So you get a little data about
48:57
where you fit into others that are taking this.
49:00
Sorry I missed what is MOA. I'm sorry, MOA is what we call
49:03
the assessment. It's kind of a joke.
49:05
It stands for mother of all assessments.
49:07
MOAA, That's what this is, doesn't what it's called.
49:10
So that that, that that's the name of this assessment.
49:14
Sorry, that's great. But anyway, so the three levels
49:18
of integrator are the four levels of business.
49:19
Growth. Yeah, this has been really
49:22
terrific. Ben, I've got one more question
49:25
for you, but before I get to that, you know, since we covered
49:27
a lot of ground here, is there anything else that you want to
49:29
say about the tool, something we didn't ask the right questions
49:33
to get to yet? Yeah, I, I would just say that
49:39
if you're, if you're, if, if you've got a business and you're
49:42
struggling with just kind of like seeing the same issues
49:47
month after month, quarter after quarter, you're not sure what's
49:51
causing it. Look, I mean the, the, the one
49:53
who's supposed to be in the driver's seat of your business,
49:55
your COO or integrator. And again, that could be another
49:57
human or it could be you. It could be you as the business
50:01
owner who are de facto sitting in that seat.
50:03
If you have no one else running the business, then it is you and
50:07
you know, it it, it could be enlightening to take this
50:10
assessment. Again, it's Wolf's Edge
50:11
integrators.com/assessment should be available on the front
50:14
page at some point soon. I'm not sure if it already is,
50:17
but the, you know, Wolf's Edge integrators.com/assessment take
50:22
this as Anthony said, with a open mind.
50:25
Be, you know, be mindful of the fact that you that, you know,
50:29
some of these things might be painful to answer the questions.
50:33
The way we came up with these questions, by the way, we've
50:35
been working on this for months. And the way we came up with the
50:38
questions was I've got a team of experienced CIOs on the team
50:40
here, right? So we're just leveraging them
50:42
and we're saying, what are the, you know, what are the things
50:45
that tell you? We could ask like one thing and
50:48
it just tells you this whole story.
50:50
You know, like, like, for instance, that's that question
50:52
about do you feel like the integrator is driving the
50:55
business or like really behind the scenes, it's you driving
50:58
everything and you're kind of having to like follow up and ask
51:01
and ask and ask and ask and you're sort of behind the scenes
51:03
pushing or are they really driving and just like coming to
51:07
you? Like, you know, like Steve Jobs,
51:10
I, I heard quoted as saying that I don't hire people to tell them
51:13
what to do. I hire people for them to tell
51:15
me what to do. I mean, who's driving?
51:18
Like if they're fully owning, like for the integrator, they're
51:21
fully owning the running of the business.
51:22
If the same thing applies to any other role, you find someone to
51:25
run to run sales. I don't want to hire someone to
51:28
run sales and then how to tell them how to run sales.
51:30
I want them to tell me how to run sales and whatever they need
51:33
from me or whatever decisions they need from me.
51:35
Like let like them just be like pulling out of me whatever
51:38
decisions they need so that they can, they can run things.
51:43
And so, you know, if you feel like, you know, if you know, we
51:46
just said, like if you just ask somebody like, do you feel like
51:48
they're driving the car or are you really driving the car and
51:51
just kind of they're sitting in the driver's seat and you're
51:53
kind of like having over their shoulder grabbing the wheel.
51:57
And, and so that's like one of these things.
51:59
It's just going to tell you a lot from little questions.
52:02
And so that's, that's what that's what the team did.
52:04
They just kind of leveraged all of their experience and they,
52:09
you know, we came up with lots of questions, kind of narrowed
52:11
it down, combined, keep kill, combined, got it narrowed down.
52:15
And I tried to come up with, you know, with a minimum number of
52:18
questions that we thought could give accurate results for the
52:21
answer, the questions that we're trying to help people answer.
52:23
And that's a great thing about having sort of that panel of
52:26
experts, those, you know, that built in mastermind that I was
52:28
talking about is that you're pulling on so many people's
52:32
multiple years of experiences to construct this this tool.
52:36
I think that's great. So before I ask the last
52:39
question, Ben, for those people listening and or watching today,
52:44
if you like today's content, please hit the subscribe, like
52:47
or share button on your favorite podcast app.
52:49
And then the last question I have for you, Ben, is if I were
52:52
to check in with you one year from now, what will we be
52:56
celebrating in regards to the release of this tool?
52:59
What's your hope? Celebrating for this tool.
53:05
I don't know, I hope we have a few thousand people that have
53:07
taken it by then and we'll have a lot of good data that we could
53:11
share with the world about, you know, the state of small and mid
53:15
sized business, you know, and and how well they're doing how
53:20
well they're doing. I mean, I would hope Wolfsage
53:22
Integrators is able to say that, you know, maybe we've hit, we've
53:26
hit our, our big, our big, you know, kind of core target of
53:32
getting to helping 140 companies at a time with 50 team members.
53:36
We've got 9 now looking to add, you know, add one or two.
53:39
I'd love to be at 50 team members helping 140 companies at
53:42
a time with an average company size of 40 people.
53:46
That would be 5600 lives that we would be able to be affecting,
53:51
you know, employees that are hopefully no longer completely
53:54
stressed out and being, you know, being taken on, you know,
53:58
whiplash journey by their, you know, business owner with all
54:01
the new ideas that come along every every couple of months.
54:05
But is able to have, you know, a better life, a, a, a less
54:09
stressful life, smoother life, able to, you know, everybody
54:12
wants to be successful in their job and able to feel like
54:16
they're making, they're making a difference doing whatever their,
54:19
you know, business does for people best supporting their
54:22
families, paying their mortgages.
54:24
I don't know, 5600 people. I think that's, that's pretty
54:27
exciting. And it's just the tip of the
54:29
iceberg too. So like, that's just, you know,
54:31
that's just the first core target.
54:32
But I think those are, I don't know if I don't know if a year
54:35
is reasonable for that. But you know, we would love to
54:38
be celebrating that not, you know, not too long later.
54:41
I think those are a lot of great goals to have and pretty
54:43
exciting. It would be interesting to have
54:45
folks, you know, who, who took this assessment early take it
54:50
again, you know, a year after they've been working with you
54:54
or, you know, put somebody into that role and see how those
54:57
scores compare. Yeah, it might be helpful
55:00
actually sort of just reflecting to have not just a bottom line
55:05
recommendation or a bottom line assessment, but it would be
55:09
would be cool to have maybe some sort of numerical score where
55:14
then it would be easier to kind of use for that use case.
55:16
And I agree with you that that use case is would would be very
55:19
valuable. So like give somebody this to
55:21
create accountability for ourselves too.
55:23
You know, do you, we come in here, you know, you've been
55:25
working on us for working with us for a year.
55:27
We give you this assessment again, I would hope that you're
55:31
rating your integrator higher, like at least at the at the
55:34
level. That they're supposed to and
55:36
that's something you can use in your own marketing, right?
55:38
Like we're helping people increase their MOA score by, you
55:41
know, an average of 15 percentage points in a year,
55:44
something like that. Well, as you can see, folks,
55:46
it's an amazing tool as it exists today.
55:50
Go and check it out again, Wolf's Edge, integrators.com.
55:54
Oh, and I just clicked off the page forward slash assessment
55:59
and, but you can hear there's already new ideas, you know,
56:03
being thrown about on this call. And obviously Ben and his team
56:06
have got a lot more ideas behind the scenes that they're
56:08
discussing. And so it'll be fun to to track
56:11
the progress of this. Well, Ben, I want to be the
56:15
first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your
56:18
story and the MOA with us today. I I really appreciate it.
56:23
Yeah, no, my pleasure. I appreciate you making the
56:25
time, appreciate you sharing it with the world.
56:26
I look forward to, you know, amplifying our conversation
56:29
today, and I just appreciate the time that, you know, the time
56:33
that you set aside for this commenting on the LinkedIn stuff
56:36
that started this conversation. So I'm just grateful for you,
56:39
Anthony. Thank you.
56:40
Absolutely, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
56:43
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
56:46
today.