How to Build a Solid Foundation to Scale Your Business – In Just 7 Minutes with Stephen Goldberg

Resources/Links:

• Wanting to Find Out How to Scale Up Your Business to the Max While Getting Much of the Free Time You Deserve? Learn more about the importance of hiring the right people and maximizing their potential for your time and your business: optimusperformance.ca

Summary

Have you been feeling like you’ve been spending too much time and doing most of the work in your business?

Are you ready to find out how to build a promising solid foundation that can guarantee your business growth?

Do you want to know how you can select, train and develop the best of the best of your employees?

Stephen Goldberg has over 26 years of experience training, coaching, and guiding small business owners on leadership and employee performance.

In this episode, Stephen talks about why employee performance is critical and important for managing your time and scaling your business. He also shares his tips and insights on why you should ditch the dictation and let your employees show you their commitment.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:40 – Stephen’s ideal client: “It’s small business owners, small medium-sized business owners. Typically, with 10 to 100 employees would be the type of businesses I work mostly with.”
• 01:58 – Problem Stephen helps solve: “I help them to scale their business or free up their time to work on the opportunities that present themselves, whether it be to scale their business or simply to put their talents and abilities where it’s going to benefit the business and them the most.”
• 03:22 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Stephen: “Often they’re running into time problems, trying to get everything done. So, it leads to a lot of stress, sometimes even heading towards burnout. It’s affecting their relationships, and also money problems.”
• 04:28 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Stephen’s solution: “Often they’ll try and, you know- I say often that the business owner is stuck doing the work that some of his managers or key employees should be doing. For example, maybe they’re selling. You know, they started the business selling and getting key clients.”
• 05:57 – Stephen’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “It’s to really get clear with your managers on what the expectations are, and not dictate it to them. People don’t want to be dictated to but have the managers come to you with their commitment that will free you, as a business owner.”
• 06:50 – Stephen’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Stephen’s Website: optimusperformance.ca
• 07:39 – Q: What got you into this? A: Well, I was working as an entrepreneur in a family business. And this was in the early 90s. And I realized I didn’t really know how to manage people and I was running into the same problems I just described.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Let people come to you with their commitments. They know their job. They know what they should be doing. Don't tell them what to do. Let them come to you. And then you negotiate that like you would anything else.” -Stephen Goldberg Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to you from little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia, joined today by Stephen Goldberg. Stephen, good day. Sir, welcome from Down Under. Where are you based?

Stephen Goldberg 00:24
I’m in Montreal, Quebec on the complete another side.

Tom Poland 00:27
Right, up the top of the world.

Stephen Goldberg 00:29
Far away out, and I flew to Australia. So, I know how far it is.

Tom Poland 00:34
Yeah, it’s a long flight, isn’t it? From Montreal to Australia, or vice versa? For those of you who don’t know Stephen, he’s got over 26 years of experience in training, coaching, guiding small business owners on leadership and employee performance. And everyone who has got a business is a leader. And everyone who’s got a business has a team, whether they’re remote, whether they are suppliers, we all have a vested interest in both of those subjects is what I’m saying. So, our title today is, “How to Build a Solid Foundation to Scale Your Business”. And I don’t know if people find the idea of a foundation sexy or not. But if you don’t have it, then the whole thing falls down. And over 40 something years of being in business and leading businesses and starting businesses, I’ve seen countless businesses up with a flash, down with a crash because they didn’t build a solid foundation. So important subject! Stephen, thank you for sharing this. We’ve got seven minutes, and that time starts now. Question number one is who’s your ideal client?

Stephen Goldberg 01:40
It’s small business owners, small medium-sized business owners. Typically, with 10 to 100 employees would be the type of businesses I work mostly with.

Tom Poland 01:52
Perfect. Thank you, sir. And question number two, six and a half minutes left, what’s the problem you solve for them?

Stephen Goldberg 01:58
Well, I help them to scale their business or free up their time to work on the opportunities that present themselves, whether it be to scale their business, or simply to put their talents and abilities where it’s going to benefit the business and them the most. And sometimes that’s doing things that they’re really good at, and they enjoy doing and letting everybody else do what they’re supposed to be doing.

Tom Poland 02:26
Do you find the things that they do best, other things they tend to want to do as well?

Stephen Goldberg 02:30
Yeah, typically. You know, I have clients that are often engineers, and they have an idea, or they’ve developed an expertise, and they’ve seen a niche in the market for a specific thing related to that expertise. And they develop that business to solve a problem that may be where they’re working, who they’re working for, is not addressing. And that’s the- you know, a lot of startups just start that way, right? It’s people that are working in a particular field and see an opportunity where it’s not being addressed.

Tom Poland 03:05
It’s a fun and exciting place to be. So, talk to us a little bit, if you would, five and a half minutes left. Question three, some of the typical symptoms. So, when you get a new client that starts, just before that, what’s going on in their business that they think, “I really need to talk to Steven”?

Stephen Goldberg 03:22
Well, often they’re running into time problems, trying to get everything done. So, it leads to a lot of stress, sometimes even heading towards burnout. It’s affecting their relationships, and also to money problems. You know, when your business isn’t being maximized, the productivity of people, you could start running into financial problems, too. And sometimes that’s when they call me because they’re heading down the rabbit hole towards you know, where they’re not going to be able to come back from. So, I don’t solve money problems, but I solve the cause of maybe what’s led them down that.

Tom Poland 04:02
It sounds like your ideal clients have something that could really take off, but they’re just struggling with resources and how to organize it all. So out of time, out of money, feeling perhaps like they’re not paying attention to details, and so on. We’re talking about people that are generally growth-orientated and quite ambitious. So, question number four is- they’re going to try stuff. We’ve got four minutes left. We’re on track. What are some of the common mistakes that your ideal clients have made before they find your solution?

Stephen Goldberg 04:28
Well, often they’ll try and, you know- I say often that the business owner is stuck doing the work that some of his managers or key employees should be doing. For example, maybe they’re selling. You know, they started the business selling and getting key clients. And they haven’t given their salesmen or sales manager the reins enough so they could start working on other things, but still being on top of that. So, they try and do too many things themselves, and they don’t empower their managers well enough so that they can take full responsibility to free up the business owner.

Tom Poland 05:09
Right. Okay. Perfect! Thank you, sir. So, the delegation, the outsourcing, the systemization. Anything I’ve missed in big picture terms?

Stephen Goldberg 05:20
Well, they don’t use outside resources, you know, consultants enough. They try and fix everything themselves. I call it the “Superman Syndrome”. And they wait too long to ask for help because they think sometimes it’s a sign of weakness-

Tom Poland 05:37
The secret as they say-

Stephen Goldberg 05:38
That they need to get help.

Tom Poland 05:39
Right. The secret to success is, you don’t have to be very smart, you just have to be smart enough to know how dumb you are and which areas you really should get help on. Thank you for that! Question five, two and a half minutes left, one top tip. A valuable free action, not going to solve the whole problem, they probably need you for that, but it might start them to step in the right direction.

Stephen Goldberg 05:57
Well, I guess it’s to really get clear with your managers on what the expectations are, and not dictate it to them. People don’t want to be dictated to but have the managers come to you with their commitment that will free you, as a business owner. Do what you need to do to address your problems and grow the business. So let people come to you with their commitments. They know their job. They know what they should be doing. Don’t tell them what to do. Let them come to you. And then you negotiate that like you would anything else.

Tom Poland 06:36
A great top tip, folks! Empower your people. Get them to come to you with what they believe their commitments are and talk about that. 90 seconds left; I better move along. What’s a valuable free resource? Where’s the website? Someone can go there and find out more about what you do.

Stephen Goldberg 06:50
Okay, well, on my website, optimusperformance.ca, which is my company, I have a place where you can go to the blog section, and I have tons of articles and videos. And also, on my YouTube channel. I publish a video tip every week. And I also make available forms, templates. Like one of them, we talk about empowering your managers. I have a Levels of Authority Worksheet where you could define for each key responsibility, what is that level of authority you’re giving your manager?

Tom Poland 07:26
Right, thank you for that Optimus, O-P-T-I-M-U-S, performance.ca. We’ve got a whole 30 seconds left. Stephen, what’s the one question I should have asked you? And the answer, please?

Stephen Goldberg 07:39
I don’t know. I mean, we covered quite a bit.

Tom Poland 07:42
A lot! Tell me, in less than 15 seconds, what got you into this?

Stephen Goldberg 07:49
Well, I was working as an entrepreneur in a family business. And this was in the early 90s. And I realized I didn’t really know how to manage people and I was running into the same problems I just described.

Tom Poland 08:01
Perfect!

Tom Poland 08:02
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.