Latest / Better Together / From Bottleneck to Founder-Optional: A Conversation with Scott Raven
Transcript
- Shawn Sundsvold: Hey everyone and welcome back to this episode of Better Together, the podcast that shares the stories, lessons, and practical advice from founders and leaders that can help you improve your business. I'm your host, Sean Sunsvold, along with my partner in business and life, Kelly Sunsvold. Today's guest is Scott Raven. Scott is the founder of Corvus Solutions, a fractional COO firm helping small business owners build companies that can grow, scale, and compete, all without the founder becoming the bottleneck. After navigating the challenges of owning and exiting a franchise business during COVID, Scott turned those hard-earned lessons into a mission, helping founders create operational systems that actually support growth instead of holding it back. He's also the host of the Corvus Effect podcast where he shares real conversations around leadership, operations, entrepreneurship, and what it really takes to build a business that works without consuming your entire life. is going to be a great conversation for anyone who feels like they're stuck in the weeds. and ready to take their business to the next level. So Scott, thank you for being here. Welcome to the show. Scott: Thank you, Sean and Kelly. Appreciate you having me on. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, when we first talked, I loved just kind of where you were coming from and the stories you had. So I'm excited to share some of those lessons along the way here. ⁓ for people who ⁓ are first hearing about Corvus Solutions, ⁓ exactly do you do to help business owners? What problem are you solving for them? Scott: I would presume there's a good number of owners out there that if I ask them, is your business founder dependent? Does it rely too much on you that they're sheepishly gonna put their hand up and say, yes, that's my business. my goal in life is to come ⁓ and make your business more founder ⁓ so that you can go after the dreams that you want, whether it is the growth of your business that you always wanted, whether it's to position it as an acquisition target for sale, whether it's so that it's a better part of a life and lifestyle that you meant for having a business and the freedom that that comes in with. I come in and I will take a look at what are the biggest challenges that you have and how do we build or rebuild those internal business systems in your company, inclusive of your people, your processes, and your enablers to get you what you want. Shawn Sundsvold: Thank you. It's a great explanation of it. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah That's awesome. I know it's very much needed and so many businesses right now You talk a lot about founders becoming bottlenecks in their own business, which We've seen ⁓ as worked ⁓ in We've seen in our own business From time to time. ⁓ What that actually look like day to day ⁓ where founder is actually bottlenecking? Scott: Well, they take a look at their email in the morning and they've got seven red letter emails from their staff and they're looking at all seven and saying, didn't I hire you to make this decision? Why am I having to make this decision? Or that they are at their son or daughter's event and all of a sudden the phone goes off. and they have to step outside because there's something urgent that they have to deal with. potentially that they've gone to the business broker because they're like, hey, I'm thinking about, you know, ⁓ us in position to be sold. And number that comes back is not even half of what that they thought they would get because they're too tied to their business. And that business is not a distinct sellable asset. Those are a couple of examples of what this could look like. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, and that's always a... I think that's always a gut punch, right, for lot of business owners. think they've built something ⁓ right? They love their business ⁓ all of a sudden they've had a really hard lesson in having those blinders removed and realizing, ⁓ this isn't as valuable as maybe I thought it was. ⁓ Walk us through that a little bit when you're kind of bringing somebody through process of opening their eyes and ⁓ what that look like for them? Scott: with. Yes. Well, and honestly, the first thing that they have to do they have to get a little bit vulnerable. And lot of times business owners do not like to express the frustrations or fears or imposter syndrome that each and every one of us goes through every single day. We have to look like the, we have it all together for lack of better term, right? When We all know that that's crap. Nobody has it together 100%. Right? biggest things that have to come out of that conversation. Number one, an honest address of the things that are challenging with the way that their business is ⁓ and understanding of what is the root causes that are having that occur. But the second, and this is actually more important, ⁓ is Shawn Sundsvold: You Scott: to go back to the time when they didn't know any better and ask them, what was the original dream that you had when you put this business together? Before you knew any of the shenanigans of running a business, what was this meant to do for yourself, for your life, for your legacy, whatever it is, what was it meant to do? Because you wanna anchor on, we're gonna drive towards that positive dream. that you wanted from this, not get caught in the weeds in terms of what's wrong and what's got to get fixed. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, that's ⁓ yeah. Getting stuck in the weeds is such a thing, you know, like I just, when- Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Scott: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: I think Kelly and I can both kind of speak to that. mean, we're in year six of our business, right? And ⁓ a constant reshaping, right? You start with one goal and you realize, okay, we've kind of hit that goal and the business has taken us in another direction now. And it's just that constant evolution ⁓ where are we ⁓ Where were we a year ago to where we are now? What does the next year look like? And somewhere in there, you have to keep that dream and that vision somewhere and not just do the little stuff Scott: Yes. guest. Kelly Sundsvold: you Shawn Sundsvold: know? ⁓ Scott: Yes. And your dream can evolve with time and with results and with different levels that you have achieved. Absolutely can evolve. But the core of the dream remains the core of the dream. It is the why why you did this in the first place. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Sean and I found a note that we had written back in 2020 as we were ⁓ starting Gold Bear Media. And, know, it's it's comical sort of, but in a in a cute like, ⁓ bless, you know, kind of like the way that we started. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Yes. Scott: And now you're like, ⁓ if I knew what I know now Kelly Sundsvold: Exactly, exactly. So it's interesting seeing, like you said, and I think that's that to our listeners who are listening, it's okay to evolve your business. ⁓ Like you are dead set on doing this, it is you have to. Yeah. If too, like just, I mean, you know, the six years of our business, AI has like come to the forefront. I know you kind of you sold during Covid. So you've also had that experience to where it's. Scott: Yes, it's mandatory, it's necessary. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: You know, you have all this new technology that wasn't accessible six years ago, which is crazy to think about. And so if you don't evolve, you're going to get left behind. I know you primarily work with service-based businesses. Why are those businesses especially vulnerable to the founder dependency effect? Scott: Well, when you take a look at it, a lot of those businesses, how they succeed is a combination of the intellectual capital, which is held up in the people that are associated with this business, also the internal business processes that allow that information and knowledge to transfer very fluidly, both within the company and to the clients that they serve. If the founder is the central hub too much of that flow, then everything gets gated on the founder. And all of a sudden the efficiency of the entire environment grinds to a screeching halt. That's why the founder has to learn to let go and allow the business to be a much more distributed model across the people and the processes that he or she has in place. in order to get what he or she wants. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure for you this is, mean, I know this answer, but it's from personal experience, right? So let's go back just a little bit to before you set up Corvus, what were you doing? what ⁓ that look like when you were going, I want to do something different than corporate America world? What kind of led you down that path? And yeah, us those lessons. Scott: Yes. Yes. So in 2019, I was informed that my executive position was going to be eliminated in a reduction in force as to multi-billion dollar banks were merging and that I was going to be a positional casualty of that merge. And I was at that point that I wanted to go forth and go into entrepreneurship to play in a different arena. specifically not only to have output of what I produce from my work, but also impact to others and fulfillment in myself and what I was doing. And so the opportunity arose to join on with a martial arts franchise or that was expanding in the Atlanta area. And so I signed up with them. This was late 2019. COVID. was not even on the forefront of anybody's mind. But you're, you here was COVID and there were a number of other things along the way in terms of extenuating circumstances. But I don't take my three years say ⁓ there weren't things that I didn't know and that I didn't learn about myself. The biggest single ⁓ was when I expanded from ⁓ operating location to two. I forgot that I couldn't clone myself. And because I was distributed between two different locations, I quickly became the bottleneck of my entire operation. Kelly Sundsvold: you? Scott: It wasn't until the post-mortem after I had exited and after I had some time to really do some deep reflection terms of what were the lessons that I was supposed to learn here? Because as I said, I had a very successful corporate career. I wasn't used to going through this type of post-mortem. And so it took me a while to come to the place to have proper self reflection, not to beat myself up, but say, how are you going to learn and grow from this? Right. And it just so happened that as I was learning and growing in those philosophical business lessons, the advent of AI was coming right alongside it, which made for the perfect marriage in terms of how to bring this all together in terms of some of the tactics and tools that I now employ in Corvus today. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. One of the things that stood out to me in our initial conversation, right, ⁓ you kind of felt like when you started your ⁓ there that you were ⁓ away from corporate instead of running towards something. Scott: First off, I would say it is not a bad thing to say I know what I don't want in life. so when I take a look at my decision to move from corporate into entrepreneurship, the fact that I said I don't want a corporate life was very solid, right? But I not ⁓ knowledgeable in terms of what type of entrepreneurial life that I wanted, right? And that is the environment, whether you're doing a brick and mortar versus something that could be done virtually. That is the type of industry, that is the type of business, that is the type of clients that you are taking in, that is the selling process, that is the backend operations. you really have to think about it. from a standpoint of if you're doing it right, most of your time is spent doing things you're good at and things you like doing. If you're looking at what you're doing right now and the vast majority of things can't fall into those two columns where you're like, I'm doing things that I'm good at and I'm doing things that I like doing, it's time for a little bit of a reflection in terms of Why am I doing things that don't meet those two questions? Shawn Sundsvold: you Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, it's definitely a realization as an entrepreneur for sure. So in your experience, why do businesses wait so long to put systems and operational structures in place? What's holding them back? Scott: think in many respects, because entrepreneurs by nature are rebellious. ⁓ going ⁓ they are the crazy ones who are going after their definitions of green space ⁓ they don't want to be bounded. Don't fence me in for lack of better term, right? But it exactly having good processes and good discipline that gets you the freedom towards what you want to do. And more importantly, it reduces the amount of wasted cycles in your efforts towards what you want. Shawn Sundsvold: how important is that mindset to help them not stay stuck where they're at? Scott: Okay, well, I will your question with two questions that are for every entrepreneur who ⁓ listening to this. Do you have a consistent morning routine? And do you have a consistent evening routine? Your morning routine ⁓ be that which helps you prepare for the day and gives you a clear idea of what a good day looks like for you. not only in terms of what are the top priorities, but what are your constraints? And guess what? Real life is a constraint. If you have to go take your daughter to a doctor's appointment at 11 o'clock in the morning, that is a constraint that should factor into your morning routine. Your evening routine is also as important because not only should it be a reflection on how you did versus what you thought you were going to get done that day, but it should also do two things. Number one, set yourself up for the next day. But number two, and more importantly, shut off your brain, that you get the cognitive release and the refreshment and the rejuvenation that you need at night in order to go strong the next day. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, so let's, can imagine a lot of business owners ⁓ have that, right? It's, we out a lot of fires, right? That's kind of our day, right? We wake up to an email and there's five things already that we have to do, right? So to, talk a little bit about how to build that morning routine and what mindset has to in order to make it effective. Scott: Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, if you are that entrepreneur who fires up a laptop and immediately goes into, all the emails that came in overnight, let me go ahead and start responding to them, right? Then quite honestly, you're setting yourself on a back foot already, okay? You need to be able to see the forest from the trees and those emails that came in overnight. are somebody else's to-do list, not yours. need to be able to say, okay, let me first take a look at what do I need to broadly drive today. And if I do need to say, dedicate time for the one-offs, the emails, et cetera, let me get that on a calendar block. Let me schedule that. Let me get myself into a consistent pattern. so that my body begins to develop a time dependency in a good way to doing things. So it knows every day at 8 a.m. for the next half hour, I am completely focused on what are the things that are the fires that need my immediate attention. And that way I don't have to switch in my brain what am I thinking about? Because every time you switch in your brain what you're thinking about, That takes a hit not only on your efficiency, but also your overall energy in the day. And eventually, if you keep doing that too many times, you'll hit the definition of burnout. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm. Kelly Sundsvold: ⁓ yeah, I think, multitasking is always something, you know, like, ⁓ I multitask, but I like the idea ⁓ you know, ⁓ your day first and then responding to those emails. I, I love that little piece of advice there. Definitely something that I'll tuck away. so ⁓ kind on that multitasking, you know, ⁓ I know, it's a theory, I guess. How can tell the difference between ⁓ being productive and simply just being busy. Scott: So first off, out of 100 people cannot effectively multitest. So guess what? ⁓ are it's not you. I'll put it that way. That is my public service announcement, right? But in terms ⁓ being productive versus just being busy, this is where the concept ⁓ prioritized objectives and key results comes in, right? ⁓ everything should be leading towards Kelly Sundsvold: Exactly, exactly. Scott: What are those broad objectives and goals that you were looking to accomplish? Whether that be on a quarterly basis, a half-year basis, a yearly basis, right? What is it that broadly speaking from a strategic perspective you are meant to drive? And that if you start to notice an imbalance between where your efforts are going versus what the objectives are, then That's where you have to do a checkup for the neck up and say, am I taking on too many things that don't align with what's really going to drive the needle for my business? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I think as business leaders, we what I like to call SOS, shiny object syndrome. ⁓ Right? Where it's like, ⁓ there's the new thing we should try. And then you do it for three months and then it's like the next thing. Right? And you do that for maybe two or three months and it's the next thing. Right? Like not only does that not help your consistency for your business, right? It, it, as you mentioned, it kind of keeps you shifting from focus to focus to focus to focus and never really kind of picking that direction to really put time into. So, ⁓ has business leaders do you, ⁓ especially in coaching people, Scott: All right. Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: How do you sort of help them get away from the shiny object syndrome and ideas for their, you know, growth? Scott: Well, one of the biggest things that you can do to make it ⁓ a reward for a week well done. you James Clear's Atomic Habits has this concept of being able to have rewards in life, right? ⁓ So reward that I have for myself ⁓ is I have what I call my free Fridays. I purposely try ⁓ not have a lot of productive related tasks associated on my Fridays. That's my free day. That is my free day to wax philosophic or to experiment or to be able to get a better understanding in terms of things coming into the marketplace that may be things that I may want to consider in the mind of Corvus, right? But it allows you to not take something that you naturally want to do. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Scott: and take it away from yourself. It's like if you go to, if you're eating, if you're on diet, and you're trying to be good, but you're purposely saying, I will never have desserts. I will never have desserts. That willpower works for a bit, but unless you're really good, you're gonna start decaying because you are punishing yourself. and your mind is going to say, why am I punishing myself? Versus a different philosophy saying, I will allow you to have that piece of cake every Friday night as a reward for sticking with the plan. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I like that mindset is everything. So if is trying to scale their business without sacrificing, you know, their health, their relationships, sleep, ⁓ sanity, ⁓ what advice you give them? ⁓ Yes, all things. Yeah. Yeah. What advice would you give them? Shawn Sundsvold: tickets. Scott: Mm-hmm. Yes. All the things. So first things first, right? If the mind and the body are not healthy, your business is not healthy at the end of the day, right? Second, if you are building a successful business, but you are sacrificing those who are most important to you in real life, then I would suggest that the priorities might be a little bit in first at the end of the day, right? because nobody's tombstone says he worked hard. It's all about who cared about you at the end of the day. Now, part of that is going to be the people that you positively impact through your business and the fulfillment you gain from that impact. So don't get me wrong. Your business discuss is a very critical component of that, but it's not the entire component of that. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm. Scott: and need to take care of yourself and those closest to you as well. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I love that. So let's take this a little step further, right? For those who are listening and maybe they ⁓ trapped in their career, right? Or maybe they're in a business they've outgrown. How they start figuring out what they should be running towards ⁓ next? how do they figure out that next step from where they are? Scott: So, would suggest first saying, let do a challenge ⁓ on point of view, right? Let me understand that nothing in life is perfect. Even the best jobs, 30 % of it is going to suck. And am thinking about this from a ⁓ rational perspective than an emotional one? That would be my gate number one, right? My geek number two would be of trying to boil the ocean in terms of all the different possibilities, start ⁓ what I know that I don't want? Because human nature, we're very preconditioned to better understanding the negative than the positive. It's our survival mentality, right? So it's much more easy for you to say, here's what I know I don't want. and be able to have a smaller universe to play with versus saying, what do I do want from a wide universe? Right. that, ⁓ you have that in place, then brainstorm ⁓ prioritize about three or four different directions that you think you might want to go. And this is the trick. Don't ⁓ before you look, or in this case, don't leap before you talk to people. So those could be people in your inner circle. Those could be people who are already in industry in those positions, get a good grounded understanding of what that would mean before you go committing to something. And then the final part of it is always make your initial commitments as small as possible. expecting that they're not going to be perfect. Don't try to scale your commitment to quickly learn at the outset through small incremental steps. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, that's concept of like bite sizing your approach, right? Of, know, where it's, think we've all done it, right? I think as business leaders, we love to just jump, right? Like, ⁓ we have an idea, let's go, right? And talk little bit about why the idea of bite sizing is so important, not just from the short term, but from the long term. Scott: That's great. Yep. Yep. ⁓ ⁓ know, let's look at it this way, right? Let's say that you are standing and looking at ⁓ a broad ⁓ and horizon is out there and you know Somewhere along the horizon ⁓ is where you want to be You don't know exactly but you have an idea, right? Well, here's the thing when you take that first step If you continue in that direction without adjusting course in terms of where you're going, the more that you are off on your first guess, the further off you will be as you continue to walk. So allowing yourself to refine your path incrementally at the start. So you get it tighter and tighter at the jump. And that way you don't have so much zigzagging. you're learning as you go at the outset so that your path is much more straight towards where you want it to go. That's the reason why bite-sized chunks are so good at the beginning. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, that makes total sense. So kind of wrapping up, if listeners walk away from this conversation remembering one thing, what do you hope that is? Scott: The one thing I always tell not only myself, but people that I have the privilege of working with is you have to compete for the life and the lifestyle that you want. Nobody's gonna give it to you, right? You have to compete for it. But competing is different than working hard. And there is a very good video vignette from the Duke women's basketball coach, Kara Lawson. where she described this concept of hard work versus competing. To paraphrase, hard work would be if you ran from one end of the gym to the other and back, and you just did that a whole bunch of times. Competing is that same exercise, but there are three other players next to you, and you're all trying to do it simultaneously. You have natural energy to move faster because you want to be better than the environment. around you. The number one thing that I always ask myself and others is, are you competing for the life and lifestyle that you want? That not only means working hard, but also doing so in a manner that you're pushing yourself beyond the environment that you're in. So a lot of respects, you've got to ⁓ a lot of frogs to find your princes in life, right? And this is where having an understanding that you're going to go through and you're going to find a bunch of people and not everybody's going to be a fit, but then you hit one and then that one finds you another one and that one finds you another one. And you slowly build your tribe of trusted confidants. And they don't always have to be in your industry. They don't always have to be, you know, people who directly know your space, but they may have a similar business model and they could very well be your competition, but you don't have to make your competition people that you avoid. You can make them your coopetition where you push each other in order to be better. Right. So always look at the people around you from the lens of. Did they push me to be better? If they push me to be better, then they're probably good to have in life. Kelly Sundsvold: Well, awesome. So Scott, how can people find you? What's a good website, LinkedIn? Scott: Yep. So I'm on LinkedIn. find Scott Raven. ⁓ website is corvissolutions.co. That's C-O-R-V-S-V-I-C-T-O-R-U-S solutions.co. And you're there, I encourage you to take the free vacation test assessment. It's a short little 10 question quiz that basically says, if you were to go away, What would happen to your business? help give you an idea in terms of where are the areas that your business may be too dependent on you. Shawn Sundsvold: And as a founder, such a big thing too. well, awesome. Scott, thank you so much for being a guest today. Great insights that you've got, and loved your story of just kind of ⁓ your own thing. And I think it gives encouragement to others out there who are trying to do the same thing. So thank you very much for your insight today. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Scott: My pleasure, Sean and Kelly. Thank you so much.