Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:01.578)
If you're a founder who feels shackled and drowning in their business, then Forrest Dare is going to show you how he helped a founder of a 40 million dollar business get his phone to stop ringing once and for all. Forrest is a fractional COO who brings people, process, and structure together to make your cell phone stop ringing in your bank account to start singing. Forrest, so excited to have you here. This is going to be such a great episode.
Forrest Derr (00:26.114)
Appreciate you. Thanks for the invite Adam
Adam O'Leary (00:28.248)
Absolutely, so tell me what sort of problem was your client dealing with when they decide to reach out to you in the first place?
Forrest Derr (00:34.478)
Yeah, this founder, similar to most of my clients, they have founders who have started businesses and they've scaled to a certain point. But what happens is these business owners get to a tipping point where they realize that they can't continue to grow the business because so much of the business relies on them. So their phone is ringing more often than not from employees and or clients to solve problems.
And so they haven't built the structure or accountability in their business to allow them to take a month off or take a week off even. And so those clients are typically reaching out to me and asking for help on how to build structure out of the chaos, so to speak.
Adam O'Leary (01:16.696)
That's awesome and when you're working with your clients, what do you typically look at? I guess the most important question is how do they figure out what the next most important thing is for them? What does growth mean to them? What does that ideal outcome look? How do you actually go into that with your clients?
Forrest Derr (01:32.632)
Yeah, one of the first things I ask them is where are they taking the company? And a lot of times a founder knows where they're taking the company, but nobody else in the organization knows where they're going. And that sounds so basic, but I find it over and over again where the founder has a clear vision in their head, in their mind on where they're taking the organization, what steps they want to go through, but nobody else in the organization, even at management level, understands where the company is going. And so...
first part is really just to break down what is that clear vision look like for the organization. You what are the values of the company. What do you want to be in 10 years. What do you want to be in five years. Where do you want to be in three years. Just breaking that down into components so that then it's clear where the visionary where the founder is going but also clear that we can communicate that to the rest of organization.
Adam O'Leary (02:25.122)
love that and how do you go about kind of solving that for them like what is the solution to these clients issues
Forrest Derr (02:31.681)
Yeah, yeah, again, the first is to I say I lock them in a room to make sure I can understand what their business looks like. I had one that I spent a whole day in a room in a dry race board. And when they got done, they were exhausted, but clearly understood that where they'd been missing the mark, they had not been communicating to their team where the company where the organization was going. So the first step is to make sure we have a clear documented vision. And then the next step is to go in and start looking at the people.
looking at the different team components in the organization, the leadership structure, as well as making sure that each role for each person is clearly defined. Because one of the problems I find over and over again is I'll go and ask somebody, you who do you report to? And they will tell me and then I'll ask somebody else that they said they reported to, do they report to you? And they're like, no, they don't report to me. And you know, it's just interesting to see how organizations have grown.
by brute force instead of by structured organization. And so my job is to come in and build that structure and build that accountability so that everybody is rowing in the same direction and everybody knows what their responsibilities are.
Adam O'Leary (03:45.038)
That's awesome. So walk me through that just one more time. I just want to make that crystal clear. So step one, step two, what were those again?
Forrest Derr (03:47.386)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Step one is to make a clear vision, clear documented vision. And then step two is to figure out, do you have the right people in the right seats? So go in and look at all the different roles and responsibilities, make sure that they're clearly defined and make sure there's a clearly understood accountability structure. Who reports to who and what are the outcomes that we're looking for for each one of those people? And then the last step is to figure out what is that
Adam O'Leary (03:53.39)
Mm-hmm.
Forrest Derr (04:16.825)
core processes document look like. So what is the proven process on how the organization operates so that it's clearly documented and everybody understands how to do certain things in the business and just the major components of the business.
Adam O'Leary (04:32.8)
So first, before we go through that, we have to kidnap the person and lock them in a room. Not joking, joking. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's go through each of those steps, because I think that's going to be super valuable for the listener. So let's go through clear vision. How do you go about creating a clear vision with your clients?
Forrest Derr (04:36.217)
I like my strategy right now.
Forrest Derr (04:44.109)
Yeah. Yeah.
Forrest Derr (04:49.655)
Yeah, it's really not about creating a clear vision. It's about documenting the vision so it's clear. So just taking that company, that founder step by step through, why did you start this business? What is the purpose behind it? What is your focus? What are the problems that you're trying to solve for your clients? And documenting that step by step so that they understand it, but then so that everybody else can understand it. And then looking at where the company is going. Not only where has it been, but where are we going?
I find it very regularly that the founder may want to take the business in one direction, but some of their key management players may not want to go in that direction. And so there may be some issues that we've got to work through where somebody may be working in the organization and they're not a good fit for the organization. So clearly defining that vision step by step, going through core focus, core values. What is the target market even?
I find organizations that they just spray and pray with marketing. And so they're just doing Google ads or sending email notifications out. And they're not clearly defining who they're targeting and where they're spending that money. So that's the first step is really just defining that vision of where the organization is going.
Adam O'Leary (06:06.798)
Amazing. No, I really like that. And I totally see what you see when you're talking about the target market, because I've seen that as well. I've seen so many companies say, you know what? My target market is everybody in this. And it's like, maybe not. But I think it's fascinating. The fact that you're talking about that people, like the key people inside of the organization aren't aligned, that's crazy to me. And I can't even imagine how much that hinders company growth.
Forrest Derr (06:11.939)
Yeah. Yeah.
Forrest Derr (06:17.901)
Yes. Yeah. Not that you wouldn't...
Forrest Derr (06:28.057)
Yeah. Yes.
Forrest Derr (06:35.191)
Yeah, and it's one of those silent things that hinders growth that you don't even realize. So I've had organizations where the management team was like, we've got enough business, we don't need anymore. And that was uncovered in the process of interviewing and talking with people. And the founder's like, no, man, I want to take this business to 100 million. And if you think we've got enough business and you're happy where you are, then maybe you're not a good fit from where we are.
Adam O'Leary (07:00.682)
Sure, absolutely. Okay, so once we've gone ahead and documented that clear vision, the next part is that organization structure. Walk me through this.
Forrest Derr (07:06.679)
Yep. Yeah. So one of the things I've seen is companies focus on organizational charts and organizational charts are really about hierarchy. You know, what's your title and who does who reports to who from the standpoint of tiers and from an accountability structure standpoint, I like to focus on who reports to who as far as who's accountable for that outcome. But then what are the individual responsibilities that that person
is focused on on a weekly basis, on a daily basis. Many times, you know, I asked for a job description for somebody and it's a three page document with 27 bullet points. That person cannot focus on all those 27 bullet points. That's not how that, that's not a practical way to get things done. So what I go back and I say, what are the five to seven things that really make up 20 % of their job, but makes up 80 % of the results? Goes back to that 80-20 rule.
Let's focus on those five to seven things that really move the needle for their role in the organization and really make an impact. And let's focus on building those out and making sure they understand and are accountable for those. But not only just making sure they're clearly defined, but creating scorecard metrics around that. One of the things that's been interesting to me is finding people inside a business where they don't know what success looks like.
So they've got team members that don't know whether they had a good week last week. And so if we can focus on what are the five to seven things that really move the needle, make sure those are documented, but then create scorecard metrics around that. Your people can actually say, and they can define whether they had a good week or not. They don't have to wait for somebody to tell them whether they had a
Adam O'Leary (08:53.262)
love that. That makes crystal clear sense right there and actually think that's really good advice especially if the individual knows that they're having a good week or not. Because a lot of the times it's like, oh, how's the company doing? I think it, I've seen this before working with companies is that it's sometimes like the founder will get so stressed out and they're like, why isn't the team doing this? And the reality is it's like you don't have the metrics in place to even know where the problem is.
Forrest Derr (09:01.005)
Yeah, right.
Forrest Derr (09:21.291)
Right, right. And take it step further. A lot of the companies, they'll do an annual review. Well, you wait till the end of the year to tell somebody whether they had a good year or not. Why not give them a way to be able to tell that weekly? Because then you can start doing course correcting on a weekly basis rather than just at the end of the year and say, all right, we finished this year. Let's figure out what we're going to do for next year. You did a bad job, so do a better job next year. So see it all the time.
Adam O'Leary (09:47.886)
Absolutely and the last part that you said there was the core process documentation. Walk me through this. How do you go about doing that process documentation?
Forrest Derr (09:53.463)
Yeah.
Forrest Derr (09:57.338)
Yeah, the first step is to make sure that we understand what that proven process is for the organization. it could be, it's really the client journey. How do you take your client through the journey, your customers through the journey to be successful and be happy with the product or solution, whichever you're offering as an organization. So once you've gone through and defined that five, six steps, whatever it is, it shouldn't be 20, it should be maybe four to six steps.
of that client journey. Once you define that, that can now become the proven process on how an organization operates. That is the North Star. So we can go back and look at that over and over again and say, where do we miss the mark? We can skip this step for the client. So once that proven process is documented, now you can start building out the core processes below that. There should be core processes beneath each one of those major components.
where a team member has a step in the process to make sure that that client journey is going successful. first thing is define what that client journey looks like, that proven process, and then define the core processes underneath that. And again, it shouldn't be a 100 page document. It should be five to seven steps, something like that, under each of those core processes.
Adam O'Leary (11:20.77)
That's amazing. I guess from your side, so I know that you've helped one owner or one founder be able to get their phone to stop ringing, but using this process, have you been able to help others as well do the same thing?
Forrest Derr (11:31.961)
Yeah, I've been able to help several founders this year do that. And it's interesting that hoping your phone to stop ringing was not something that I came up with. It actually happened in a meeting. So I was in a meeting with one of the founders. We call it a level 10 meeting where we meet every week. And one of the things we do is we share good news, personal and professional. And the owner shared, he said, know, this week I had a four hour meeting with a client. He said, my phone didn't ring one time. And I was like, OK.
And he said, no, I usually get 20 to 30 phone calls in a half a day from people asking me questions, asking me to make decisions. And we've gotten this organization now to a point where my phone doesn't ring. And then I had another one right after that did the same thing. So I didn't start the business to help founders get their phone to stop ringing, but that is a result that has been clear to define whether I was successful in that organization.
Adam O'Leary (12:27.404)
love that and for any of our listeners who feel shackled to their businesses then where can they go to learn more about you?
Forrest Derr (12:33.029)
Then go to my website, derrconsulting.com, D-E-R-R, consulting.com, or they can look me up on LinkedIn. And I think I'm one of two people out there on LinkedIn. I think the other person's a biology major, so probably pretty easy to find out there.
Adam O'Leary (12:48.351)
That's awesome. Well, Forest, thank you so much for joining me today. Absolutely. Thank you guys for listening, and I will see you on the next episode.
Forrest Derr (12:51.289)
Appreciate it. Thanks for that invite.
