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Scaling a Company? Here's Why Most Leaders Fail · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Welcome, listeners, to the Speak and Flow podcast, the Legacy Growth Series. In our last episode, we talked about those high-pressure moments that define a leadership team. We gave some really practical tips to help your leadership team navigate those difficult conversations.
• 0:19
  Melinda Lee: And so today, we're going to talk about how when, even if the leadership team rises above and the CEO is there, it becomes bigger than that. It becomes more about the whole organization and the complexities of the organization. There's more people, there's more misinterpretation, there's more opportunities of possibility, and also misalignment.
• 0:44
  Melinda Lee: And so joining me today is Sarah Fruey. We're going to dive deep into how to scale a company.
• 0:52
  Melinda Lee: And still remain the culture that really kept it where it's strong and, what it's meant to be. And, she's a chief… she's a fractional CMO, so fractional marketing officer, chief marketing officer, a marketing consultant. She has had over 20 years of brand experience, driving revenue, leading cross-functional teams.
• 1:16
  Melinda Lee: She has helped two companies scale past $100 million, and also led in the exits of both Walmart and AAA. Welcome, Sarah. Glad you're here.
• 1:29
  Sarah Fruy: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
• 1:31
  Melinda Lee: I'm so excited to dive in, and let's just start off with the first question. There is a busy executive who has stopped to listen to this episode, and so if this person implements everything that you're about to teach us, what would change in his or her life?
• 1:52
  Sarah Fruy: I think that… Part of dealing with rapid change and growth in an organization is,
• 1:59
  Sarah Fruy: learning to also grow with the company as a leader, and making sure that you are investing in yourself along the way, and not just in the growth of the company. I think that's where some executives can kind of miss the mark. They're chasing numbers, they're chasing product milestones, and things like that. But the best and most successful executive that I've seen are the ones that, invest in mentorship and coaching and things like that along the way.
• 2:23
  Sarah Fruy: That help them to really excel and grow with the company, rather than being replaced by somebody who may have more experience, than they do in this regard.
• 2:31
  Melinda Lee: I love that! And are you talking about, coaching and mentorship for themselves, or for the people, or both?
• 2:37
  Sarah Fruy: Both, both, yeah. I think CEOs and the leadership team, like,
• 2:43
  Sarah Fruy: you lead by example, right? And as you step into bigger roles, into bigger shoes, into bigger responsibilities, you have to level up yourself as an individual, and it's really important to, take the time to do that, and not just assume that you can go to the next level without acquiring new skills or new understanding, and having, you know, a sounding board to sort of get advice from someone who's been there before, or in similar shoes in the past, and learn
• 3:07
  Sarah Fruy: By others' examples, so that you can be a better leader yourself.
• 3:11
  Melinda Lee: I love… yeah, no, and you've, seen companies scale quickly, and also companies that not scale so quickly, and so I'd like to just really dive in on where that really plays a part when the CEO or the executives don't develop themselves, and then therefore develop the teams.
• 3:28
  Melinda Lee: And so, can you share more for the audience, more what you do as a chief fractional CMO and also Marketing Advisor, and what excites you about it today?
• 3:39
  Sarah Fruy: Yeah, I have spent my career working in-house and leading organizations and really helping with strategy, and it's brought me to a place now where I like to apply that to a number of different clients, and the thing that excites me most about doing fractional work and being a marketing consultant is the ability to, like, really see the change that I'm driving in the organization itself. I think that's just, in general, what I really love about marketing.
• 4:04
  Sarah Fruy: I can actually see the wins, moving the business forward, we're hitting revenue numbers, we had a great event, we launched an amazing piece of content that really connected with people, and so there's a reward at the end of the tunnel in the work that we do, and I also just get to meet so many new people this way, and I'm a very social person, so that's another fun part of the job as well.
• 4:24
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, so any company who hires you is really lucky to have you, because you can bring all that knowledge into their organization.
• 4:31
  Melinda Lee: Absolutely. And also that you enjoy it, too, so it's great, great. And so, tell me, when you think about companies, they're growing, and it's getting more complex.
• 4:42
  Melinda Lee: I bet that the communication and the way that it scales starts to dilute quickly or sooner than before it's seen. Can you describe when that happens and when it starts to dilute? Where do you see that happening?
• 5:00
  Sarah Fruy: I mean, usually it happens during rapid, like, hiring phases. I've been in organizations where we've doubled our staff within a year's time, and so, you know, every week you're onboarding new cohorts, you're going from a more intimate setting into, like, a broader scale setting.
• 5:17
  Sarah Fruy: Generally, you're adding people from other regions, definitely different parts of the world in some cases, so not only are you dealing with new, employees, you're dealing with new cultures, new time zones, new ways of working. There's kind of, like, the tribal mindset of how things used to be that just can no longer be sustained. And so, one of the things that I've noticed in going through this a few times throughout my career is there tends to be this friction between kind of, like, the old
• 5:42
  Sarah Fruy: and the new garden, the new folks have no idea the way things used to be. They're just excited to be along for the ride, and then the older folks either can accept this change and this new way of doing business, or they can't. And so sometimes you see some turnover, and I think that that's healthy, and that's natural.
• 5:56
  Sarah Fruy: Joining a company where there's, you know.
• 5:59
  Sarah Fruy: a couple dozen employees versus a couple hundred employees, or a thousand employees, like, that's a different environment for anyone, and either you want to grow with the company, or you don't. Some people I know really like working at really small companies, and other people like working at larger organizations where they can have a more specialized role.
• 6:14
  Sarah Fruy: The other thing that I see a lot that causes friction is when you're in a smaller company, in a startup setting, you tend to wear a lot of hats. And as the company grows and scales, your work becomes more and more specialized, and so in that process, sometimes egos get involved, people that used to be running things are no longer running them, and they're no longer consulted, and so I think good communication is really
• 6:36
  Sarah Fruy: Being aware of some of that historical knowledge of who used to run certain programs, whether they continue to do that or not, who needs to be informed.
• 6:43
  Sarah Fruy: evaluating your meetings, whether that's talking to your own team, or your colleagues, and making sure you have the right people in the room for the right conversations, so that you aren't sort of, like, bristling up against people where they might have thought that they had ownership of that, or there should be a shared ownership on this project. But I think communication is really essential to that, and just being aware of the growth and the new roles that are coming into the business. Some teams maybe hired somebody you don't even realize this is now their actual mandate.
• 7:08
  Sarah Fruy: And it used to be something that sort of fell into your purview in the past. And so, as leaders, I think it's really important to
• 7:15
  Sarah Fruy: Keep everybody up to speed on new hires as your teams are expanding, and what those people are expected to do, and how that impacts other teams and departments at the same time, to make sure that people aren't stepping on either toes, and that you can collaborate and grow those projects to the best of your ability by adding this new staff, so that the company succeeds as a result.
• 7:35
  Melinda Lee: So you see a lot of… when the roles are not clearly identified, because it may be that as a small company, one leader's doing a lot of things, and then the roles start to get more niche, and then there's not a good communication on who does what, and then there comes… there has more friction, because
• 7:54
  Melinda Lee: People are not clear about who does what.
• 7:57
  Melinda Lee: And then…
• 7:57
  Sarah Fruy: Yeah.
• 7:58
  Melinda Lee: What about when there's shifting priorities? When companies change strategies, or maybe change in the way that they message or deliver their brand promise? What about that? Does that happen a lot, too? Because there's so much change happening in organizations nowadays. That also adds complexity.
• 8:18
  Sarah Fruy: Absolutely. I mean, I work in marketing, and I think that's sort of status quo when you work in a startup.
• 8:22
  Melinda Lee: his face.
• 8:24
  Sarah Fruy: You know, when I…
• 8:25
  Sarah Fruy: when I'm hiring, it's like, I never really know what my job is going to be like from day to day, and that's one of the things that I love about it. If that isn't something that you enjoy, you know, people should work at, like, a larger corporation where things are not in that growth stage, but part of being in a growth phase company is dealing with change. It's constant. It can be really dramatic. You could be spending a whole quarter on a project, and all of a sudden it gets sunset for a bigger priority.
• 8:49
  Sarah Fruy: that can be really devastating personally, but, like, you kind of, again, have to put your ego aside, and what's best for the business at this stage? Maybe it's a new product or feature that got released that needs to be prioritized now, and the program that you were leading before is no longer going to move the needle the way that you thought.
• 9:05
  Sarah Fruy: or, you know, deals fall through. I've been with certain executives where they sort of put the cart before the horse and have teams starting to prepare for a launch, expecting contracts to get signed on time, and then
• 9:16
  Sarah Fruy: for whatever reason, the deal falls through, and being okay with that, too, on the other side of it.
• 9:25
  Sarah Fruy: And so, I think if you want to work at a growth stage company, you have to be comfortable with change, and be willing to just sort of put your feelings aside and follow what's best for the company in order to move forward, because that's the only way you're going to grow.
• 9:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I can see that, where people, just to be resilient and have that mindset of growth and continuing to, listen, pivot when necessary, so the shifting priorities are friction, and then also the, you know, the expectations of what the role
• 10:00
  Melinda Lee: Is that what you're telling me, is what I'm hearing. Like, what… those type of changes happen quite frequently when people scale, when that company scale.
• 10:07
  Sarah Fruy: Absolutely, and I think, also.
• 10:09
  Sarah Fruy: Part of the culture of a growth stage company is a lot of experimentation, and
• 10:15
  Sarah Fruy: not necessarily needing to be right yourself, but being able to determine what's right, again, for the business. And so running a lot of experiments, leaning into what's working, being able to move away from things that aren't productive, that's a really important part of, like, a growth stage mindset, and to be able to move forward as a business. If you just keep running the same things and putting more money into it, or adding more headcount, that's not necessarily going to grow the business. Sometimes you have to take
• 10:39
  Sarah Fruy: bets that are a little bit more risky in order to grow really fast. And knowing, as a leader, what bets to take, when to lean in is… is a big part of that, success.
• 10:50
  Melinda Lee: And is this where you mentioned when a leader develops themselves and gets coaching? Does that help with knowing when to take the risk and what risk?
• 11:01
  Sarah Fruy: I think, yeah, absolutely. The other thing that I see some leaders failing at in growth stage companies, or the aspiration of being a growth stage company, is, wanting to control too much, especially, like, at the CEO or the C-suite level. A lot of what made you successful before was being able to run things and make the big calls and things like that, but as the company starts to scale, you really have to be able to delegate more and more.
• 11:23
  Sarah Fruy: And I think that, for the highest level leaders, it's really important to be able to hire teams that you trust, and that you can delegate to.
• 11:32
  Sarah Fruy: Because there's certain leaders that I've seen who have way too many direct reports, and they're just always kind of, like, buried in the weeds of, like, people management and, trying to know everything, rather than trusting their leaders to be able to go out and accomplish tasks and see their plans through. And so that's… that's a big failure point that I see with some folks, is that they want to have the same level of control as when they had a smaller company, but at a larger scale, and it's just not possible anymore.
• 11:55
  Melinda Lee: What do you think is happening? Why is it so difficult for these executives and CEOs to let go?
• 12:02
  Sarah Fruy: I think it's… it's control, right? Like, they… they trust themselves that they can make the right decisions, and they lack the trust in the people around them, and I think that
• 12:12
  Sarah Fruy: because growth is risky, you have to have a level of trust. You need to hire really great people around you, and believe that they're the most competent people to do this work, and that, and that they can go and succeed. And when I've been the best in my career, it's when I've had the longest, like, leash, so to speak, you know? Like, people are like, Sarah, just go do your job, and, we trust you to do it. And when people are sort of, like, micromanaging me, that's where, like, I have less creativity, I'm…
• 12:37
  Sarah Fruy: I'm really, like, worried about making someone else happy versus, like, what's right for the business, and I think people are too nervous about, like, appealing to making an individual happy versus thinking about what's best for the company. And the… to be a growth stage company, you really need to think about what's going to move the business forward beyond, like, anything else, and have really clear goals. I think that's the other part of it, too. Scaling quickly requires very clear goals for the organization beyond a revenue number.
• 13:03
  Sarah Fruy: Obviously, revenue is really important, and we have, like, stakeholders and investors and things like that that, you know, you need to make happy, and you have to… that's, like, a requirement, but beyond that, the companies that I have seen the most successful are the ones that have a very clear mission and vision to drive the business forward, that everyone in the company is rallying behind.
• 13:22
  Sarah Fruy: And if you can't articulate that well, and you can't inspire the people that are working for you.
• 13:26
  Sarah Fruy: you're just not gonna get as much effort out of them, and I just don't think that companies are as successful without that.
• 13:32
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and how does a CEO or executive communicate those clear goals, mission, vision, value goals, like, consistently?
• 13:42
  Sarah Fruy: I think one of the tools I found really helpful is having KPIs, so, when you have,
• 13:51
  Sarah Fruy: or OKRs, sorry, not KPRs, OKRs, objectives and key results. And that starts at the top layer, so you have objectives and key results for the senior layer, so, like, we want to do this, and in order to achieve it, we have to do X, Y, and Z. Those are the key results, like, these are the things that prove that we have accomplished our objective. And then you cascade that down into the different departments, and
• 14:14
  Sarah Fruy: ideally into individual employees. And so every action that each individual, each department is taking is in service of a company-level objective. And if it isn't, that's a great way to say, hey, I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe this is a great idea, but it does not fall within our OKRs this quarter.
• 14:30
  Sarah Fruy: Or this year, so we… we can't prioritize this. And that's a great way to help facilitate decision making, like, effective decision-making. It also gives people a sense of ownership, because they can clearly see a path to what their individual job is, and what the company's objectives are, and how that maps up, and what… what success looks like, because there's a defined, result in order to achieve that objective.
• 14:54
  Sarah Fruy: And so, I just feel like…
• 14:55
  Sarah Fruy: All of that is, like, really strong planning, really strong communication, and then every time you have, like, a weekly all-hands, for example, you're mapping to those, you're talking about your progress, are we in the green, are we in the yellow, are we in the red?
• 15:08
  Sarah Fruy: Why are we in the red? And then trying to solve those problems as quickly as possible to unblock people so that we can become green and hit those,
• 15:16
  Sarah Fruy: key results that we committed to at the beginning of the quarter. And so that… that's one tool that I find to be really helpful. And I think just constant reiteration, right? Like, having the CEO remind everybody where we're headed, what the ultimate path is, again, keeps everyone laser-focused on the future, versus
• 15:34
  Sarah Fruy: I think where I have seen it kind of fall off the rails is when
• 15:38
  Sarah Fruy: The only goal is revenue, and that's really inspiring for, like, a sales team, maybe, but not necessarily, like, the developer of your website, for example.
• 15:46
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And how often do you think that the CEO should communicate it, and executives?
• 15:54
  Sarah Fruy: I think it should just be a part of, kind of, like, the ethos of the company. So, if we're… I typically do, like, weekly all-hands in the companies that I work with.
• 16:05
  Sarah Fruy: And, you know, having a slide and a talking point every week about how we're… we're pacing towards the company goals, I think, is really important, again, to keep people focused. Also looking at your project management tools, other ways to sort of map those objectives and key results into the project management tools that the teams are already using.
• 16:23
  Sarah Fruy: Another thing that I found effective is, like, as a marketing leader, you know, sending out weekly emails, so letting people know, within my team, and then on the executive level, like, what our team has been up to, the things that we've accomplished,
• 16:41
  Sarah Fruy: because sometimes you work on projects and things like that, and it just sort of stays within your team, and so being able to communicate really well, putting things on Slack, making it visible, not everybody reads email, not everybody, like, reads Slack all the time, and so
• 16:52
  Sarah Fruy: folks from, like, different touchpoints, I think, is also a part of, like, good communication. Not everybody's gonna be, like.
• 16:58
  Sarah Fruy: focused in the all-hands. Maybe, like, they have a sick kid at home, or, like, the doorbell just rang, or whatever. So having, like, a deck as an artifact from those meetings that people can slip through the slides, or, like, an AI recap that goes out to the organization, maybe with a little footnote from the CEO. These are the three things that I think are most important from today's call. There's ways to sort of…
• 17:18
  Sarah Fruy: Have, like, these regular, like, routines and rituals in terms of meetings, and then look at different communication tools within your organization about how do you reiterate and emphasize the things that are most important, so they don't get lost in all the shuffle of all the day-to-day.
• 17:32
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, no, it's so important, right? Because I love the different, yeah, approach of getting them from all different places, because, yeah, like you said, not… we're not gonna just get one. I mean, there's so many times where I'm like, I think I saw it somewhere, but I don't even know where, you know, because we're getting from messages from all different types of platforms, which is good, and also to know that people are
• 17:54
  Melinda Lee: you know, torn from all different types of places, and so it's good to have them communicated and over-communicated in different areas, so it's great. And then, so, what are your thoughts about also communicating as marketing, and an expert in marketing? What about to your clients? Updates to clients and partners? What have you, where have you seen companies at scale
• 18:18
  Melinda Lee: Effectively done that well.
• 18:22
  Sarah Fruy: I think…
• 18:23
  Sarah Fruy: sometimes working with outside resources, like fractional CMO, where I can't be there all the time in every meeting, that maybe I'm required to be just because of, like, a limitation on, like, hours and things like that.
• 18:38
  Sarah Fruy: creating, like, very clear documentation, I think, is really helpful, whether you're working with a consultant or not. I think this is just something that I carry throughout my career, especially, like, working in an age now where you're dealing with a lot of remote workers and things like that, and people, again, from different time zones, different regions,
• 18:52
  Sarah Fruy: one of the things that I make a mandate of the folks that I'm managing is that when we have an important meeting and we're making decisions, that we go back into our project management tool and document that. So even if everybody was in the room, and we all… or the call, for example, what are the things that we decided, and then going into the project management tool to document that. So if one of my peers or another executive or something like that needs to check in on the project,
• 19:15
  Sarah Fruy: a team member from a different department, they can see some of the dialogue and the decisions we've made. If we're reviewing documents, whether it's, like, a new blog post or a piece of creative, not just showing it in the meeting, but uploading it again to the project management tool. And then you also have these artifacts of, like, going back of, like, oh, we need, like, a file from a certain campaign, we know exactly where to find it in the project management tool, or, like, you know, the Google Drive, or wherever you're, like, storing files, but I try and keep
• 19:39
  Sarah Fruy: as much information and documentation as possible in the project management tool, so that anyone can jump in at any point and kind of catch up, whether it's, like, you know, they have some free time at the end of the day, or, they're heading into a meeting and they just need, like, 5 minutes to kind of, like, proof themselves in what you're doing. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to know
• 19:59
  Sarah Fruy: where we are, where I am with the project, and then I think regular updates, you know, once a week, I think
• 20:06
  Sarah Fruy: I'm kind of conflicted about, like, stand-ups, right? Like, sometimes it feels very performative, and a lot of times, if there's a lot going on, I will just say, like, give me your updates over Slack.
• 20:16
  Sarah Fruy: We don't need to have, like, a meeting about this, and so I think also being an effective leader, a growth stage company is, like, auditing your meetings. Is… is a meeting required every week, just because we normally had one? Is this week a better week for us to be, like, heads down working on some stuff? Are all these people necessary to be in the meetings? Sometimes I will dismiss people in meetings, like, I need you there for the first 15 minutes, because this is the stuff that you need to know, and then after that, go do your thing, but they don't need to be there for an hour-long call. They really just
• 20:41
  Sarah Fruy: need, the quick brief at the beginning, and then some of the more, like, in-the-weeds stuff can happen, that's helpful to be collaborative in a meeting versus sort of, like, stand and deliver. And so, I think
• 20:54
  Sarah Fruy: That's another thing to be mindful of, like, when you're limited on time and resources, is how do we sort of, like, cut through
• 21:01
  Sarah Fruy: Unnecessary calls.
• 21:03
  Melinda Lee: makes…
• 21:04
  Sarah Fruy: Or that information is clearly and easily accessible to update stakeholders.
• 21:09
  Melinda Lee: Right, right. So knowing when to have a conversation, and knowing, and then documenting things that are important to pass, to others, is that what you say? Yeah, just so that people, if they're not on the call, if you don't have a call, that at least it's documented somewhere. At least the important
• 21:24
  Melinda Lee: core processes, right?
• 21:26
  Sarah Fruy: And tagging people, too, right? If they can't be in a meeting, they're about double-booked, or they just don't have time to attend for whatever reason, but there's something that's important, and you're working, like, Google Docs or, again, like, a project management tool or something like that, like.
• 21:40
  Sarah Fruy: directly tagging people in the piece that's important to them. So, like, if I have, like, 5 minutes, and I go into my inbox, Sarah, you need to look at X, Y, and Z, like, I know what's important for my team or my colleagues to… to use my attention, and vice versa. I try and do that for them, and just, again, to save people time from, like, digging through materials and stuff like that, but, like.
• 21:59
  Sarah Fruy: is this paragraph up to your standards? Does this quote work? Does this event budget meet, you know, what we discussed? Whatever the thing is, so it's really clear that people can be decisive quickly.
• 22:10
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, that's so important. And so, can you… can you… if you think about the companies that have scaled effectively, and those that have scaled slowly, like, what are some of the key attributes, maybe, like, pillars that made it successful and not as successful? Can you just…
• 22:29
  Sarah Fruy: I would say at a high level, kind of what I was talking about earlier in our conversation of, like, the ability to delegate versus micromanage, and feeling like, as a leader, that you need to be involved in every decision in order for it to be a good one. So there's… there's a lot of trust
• 22:45
  Sarah Fruy: that I think high-growth companies have. The ability to hire well, and to hire within your cultural values. I think some people…
• 22:57
  Sarah Fruy: write values, they put them on their website, and they kind of call it a day, and then other companies actually live their values, and they hire for their values, and they,
• 23:04
  Sarah Fruy: and culture is, like, an essential part of the business, and I think that when you have a really strong culture, you have a really strong workforce, and when you lack culture, it's a lot more people that are just sort of, like, showing up for the paycheck, for the job, they're less inspired, they're less motivated, I think you get less out of them. It's not that they're less talented.
• 23:22
  Sarah Fruy: But I think that people that have the same shared values and live their values at work tend to just be happier and perform better, in my experience. And so being really clear about your values and living them, I think, is important.
• 23:35
  Sarah Fruy: like, I've seen an organization once where they had, you know, a value around work-life balance, but then we would be on all-hands calls, and they would celebrate someone who worked all weekend on a project. That's not work-life balance.
• 23:48
  Sarah Fruy: Right? Right. So…
• 23:49
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 23:50
  Sarah Fruy: that's fine. If that's really, like, your company values, is that, like, we do everything to get the job done, then make that your company value, but don't say that we value work-life balance, and then reward people who are overworking, because that creates a disconnect with the employees, that upsets people. They're like, well, does that mean that in order for me to succeed, I have to work every weekend? Maybe it does, but let's be clear about that from a high level, that those are actually the things that you value as an organization versus
• 24:13
  Sarah Fruy: saying what you think people want to hear in order to get them to join your organization. I think that, again, like, being inconsistent in your values versus living them creates conflict, and
• 24:24
  Sarah Fruy: can create, you know, unhappy or unsettling situations with the employees at a growth phase. I think also having a really strong board of directors is important.
• 24:33
  Sarah Fruy: companies, where I've worked at where they have a very hands-on board that maybe even, like, meets sometimes with, like, leaders within the organization, and acts as a mentor in addition to, you know, an advisory committee. I think that that can be really helpful. I'm a big fan of mentorship, in case you can't tell. I just think that I'm a lifelong learner, and I think there's always opportunity to grow. And that's part of a growth mindset, but
• 24:58
  Sarah Fruy: So having a board of directors that also embraces that kind of a mindset, I think, is really helpful.
• 25:04
  Sarah Fruy: I've seen other organizations that haven't grown as quickly, where they just sort of view this board as something like, we give them the report every month, don't worry about it, like, I have them under control, and the rest of the execs really don't have a lot of face time with the board at all. So we don't get that guidance, we don't get that feedback on the work that we're doing, and I think that there's a drop-off there.
• 25:22
  Sarah Fruy: And, I think…
• 25:28
  Sarah Fruy: having clear milestones is the other thing, right? If… if you just have, like, one big…
• 25:34
  Sarah Fruy: audacious goal at the end of the year, but not, like, a clear plan on how you're going to get there. That…
• 25:40
  Sarah Fruy: stagnates growth, but if you have a big, audacious goal, and you have very clear milestones on how to get there, and you're create… you might not have all the answers, but at least you're giving people a vision and a path of, like, a way that we can be successful as a company to grow at the scale that we want to. And then you have the people around you that are going to come up with the ideas that are going to, like, pave it, and add the lines, and, like, get the people on it so that we're gonna drive as fast as we possibly can.
• 26:05
  Sarah Fruy: Versus this is the big thing, and then not telling people what you think is going to be a way to get there, that's another area where I feel like companies are more stagnant versus growth-focused.
• 26:17
  Melinda Lee: I love it, I love it. So if I think about this, these four things that you just planned out, and I think about, communication as the through line across all of this, stemming from
• 26:27
  Melinda Lee: the… the leader, letting go, trusting the organization, letting the organization know that, hey, I trust you, this is what we need you to do, these… this is the goal, these are the milestones.
• 26:39
  Melinda Lee: These are our values, this is how we're going to communicate with the board. Like, if communication was a third line across all of those, right? And there was communication, it was the system.
• 26:50
  Melinda Lee: And, with clear standards, how are we going to share our message? How are we going to interpret the message, reinstate the message, act upon this message across the organization? How would that change? What would be possible for organizations when they do that?
• 27:08
  Sarah Fruy: I think you can…
• 27:10
  Sarah Fruy: see what I've seen, which is, like, 10x growth year over year, you can double your revenue in a year, you can double your staff in a year, or more, and you have…
• 27:22
  Sarah Fruy: employees that are really excited to be there, and are really motivated to be there, and at the end of the day, I think as leaders, that's what we want, is people to feel empowered, excited, and…
• 27:31
  Sarah Fruy: not only hitting our goals, but exceeding them. And that… that's where the biggest growth happens, is like, hey, we thought we were gonna do this, and actually we beat that by, like, 13%.
• 27:41
  Sarah Fruy: And nobody thought we were gonna hit that goal in the first place. Like, it felt completely insurmountable at the beginning of the year, like, our CEO is crazy, there's no way this is gonna happen, and then we beat the goal, you know? That's an incredible feeling as an employee, but it takes a lot of strong leadership and vision in order to get there.
• 27:57
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, vision, strong leadership, communication, and how could this impact the legacy of a company? Meaning, how does this help the company last?
• 28:07
  Melinda Lee: Even when the CEO, that's the ultimate goal, the CEO or the people are not there, and the CEO or executives are not physically there, but how does the, like, the people continue to drive the company growth and the legacy?
• 28:23
  Sarah Fruy: I think in today's society.
• 28:27
  Sarah Fruy: change is going to be constant, right? And so, if you don't have a growth mindset, and you're not open to new ideas of how to do the business,
• 28:36
  Sarah Fruy: new product lines that you can launch, new ways of packaging things up for your customers, new services that you can provide, whatever it is that your business is. You have to always be thinking with a growth mindset if you just want to continue to
• 28:53
  Sarah Fruy: perfect one way of doing things. I think that that is going to…
• 28:58
  Sarah Fruy: stifle growth. And so having that legacy of… of always pushing forward, always wanting more, never being satisfied, always being hungry, that's what's going to leave, like, a legacy of growth for your organization. And…
• 29:13
  Sarah Fruy: I think status quo is what leads to, like, stagnation, is when you're like, oh, this is good enough. And maybe for some organizations, that is. Not everybody has to be rapid growth, you know, rocket ship, striving to be a unicorn in the startup world, but knowing what's important for your business, and
• 29:33
  Sarah Fruy: I think that's… that's just going back to having a very clear vision. Your legacy should be around that, is really knowing what's best for the company, and having everybody be able to rally around that.
• 29:43
  Melinda Lee: I love it. And so there's a busy leader out there, and they're growing, it's getting more complex, more noise, more people. What would be that one takeaway or shift that you can support them with to help them be more consistent and clear?
• 29:59
  Sarah Fruy: I mean, I often come in to lead really complex projects across the organization that are marketing-centric and require a lot of communication, a lot of interdepartmental work, and so, for folks that are looking to, you know, enhance their marketing strategy, improve how their brand is being implemented in the world, hitting ambitious revenue goals, those are the kind of things that I come in as to lead really
• 30:24
  Sarah Fruy: ambitious projects, from a strategic or a brand-focused mindset, and now also, you know, with the layer of AI added onto it of what can we automate in order to make this more efficient and more effective for the organization to help scale it as quickly as possible.
• 30:38
  Melinda Lee: Love it. And so, how would this person get ahold of you for fractional CMO services, marketing, advisory?
• 30:46
  Sarah Fruy: Yeah, I have a website, it's sarahfree.com, and then also, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I'm the only Sarah Fruy out there, so I'm pretty easy to find.
• 30:55
  Melinda Lee: There you go. Sarah Frui, thank you so much, Sarah. I've learned so much in terms of how to scale while still keeping the culture that built it. It's really good to hear your experience, and thanks for sharing with us.
• 31:08
  Sarah Fruy: Yeah, it was great. I love talking to you.
• 31:10
  Melinda Lee: Yes, thank you so much, and thank you, audience, for being here. I hope… I trust that you got the takeaway that you needed, and I've learned today that it's not the growth that really breaks companies, it's more about having the consistency with both your communication, your vision, your milestones, your shared values, staying consistent, as you scale. That's what's going to help you.
• 31:34
  Melinda Lee: And so, in our last episode of this series, we're going to take this a next step further and talk about why companies that have a communication, culture communication, that's how it lasts. And so stay tuned for that. Can't wait. Until next time, keep communicating what matters so your people move together.
• 31:59
  Melinda Lee: Thank you.
• 32:01
  Melinda Lee: Bye. Bye, Sarah!
• 32:03
  Sarah Fruy: Bye!