00:00:06 Sana: Sometimes a business doesn't stop growing because the market disappears. Sometimes it stops growing because the founder is still doing everything. And honestly, listeners, that's a strange moment in entrepreneurship. I mean, just think about it. You started the company because you cared deeply about the work. You built it with your hands, your energy, your late nights. But then something shifts. The same dedication that helped you start becomes the thing that quietly holds the company back. And that's not because you're incapable. No, not at all. But because leadership eventually becomes less about effort and more about systems, less about being everywhere and more about building something that works even when you are not.

00:01:05 Sana: So listeners, welcome back to today's episode on the podcast, we are exploring that shift exactly what I mentioned in the beginning. And let me introduce my guest to all of you. But before that, yes, I'm your host here and my guest. Um, well, he has spent over seventeen years helping businesses move from founder driven chaos to operational clarity. Now, with a background that blends biology system thinking, executive leadership, he approaches business like like a living ecosystem, you know, where people processes culture. They must stay in balance For growth to actually last, to actually sustain. And let me tell you, he has helped scale a service company from one million dollars to ten million dollars in less. Oh, in just over two years. Not just by pushing sales or revenue, but then by building the operational structure underneath it. And along the way, he has learned something many founders resist hearing. Growth isn't always about doing more. Sometimes it is about letting go of control. So today we'll be talking about fractional operations, scaling systems, leadership, evolution, and the uncomfortable truth about when founders themselves become the bottleneck. So let's begin and let's welcome our guest, Brian Baker. Brian, welcome to whisper, and I'm really glad you are here.

00:02:41 Bryan Baker: Yeah. Thank you. Sara. Great. Glad to be here.

00:02:45 Sana: Okay. Um. Okay. Brian. Um, I'm very sure for many of our listeners, especially those who are, um, early stage founders or maybe, uh, they are knee deep, um, in, in running their own company, they will be able to connect with, uh, the way I started the intro in there. I mean, uh, at some point of time, it becomes like, you know, um, like a cage, you're just stuck with doing the day to day operations. You're stuck with just putting out the fires. Fire out there. But then you don't have that time to think creatively out there. How to grow your business, how to scale, maybe how to think about new ideas where you can actually make something out of your company in there. Um, and I'm really glad that we are talking about it, especially keeping in mind the operations part of it, especially fractional operations and scaling teams. But before that, let's try to understand, um, the founder versus leader kind of conundrum here. Like most people start businesses because they're good at something. I mean, they could be good in designing or consulting or marketing. Um, creative thing. But then running a company eventually becomes a whole different kind of game altogether. So at what point do you think Brian, does being a great founder actually become a limitation for the business?

00:04:11 Bryan Baker: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, and it probably is a little bit different from company to company, but I will say that, um, you know, first off, these founders who get their company to a million or two million dollars in revenue, it, um, you know, it's an impressive feat and it's something to be proud of for sure. Um, what, where, where that becomes problematic is when all of the systems really are surrounding the founder. So I hear a lot from founders like, you know, um, you know, I'm working, you know, seventy, eighty hours a week. Um, I am, uh, my people come to me for every little question, like they can't seem to figure out how to do things on their own. Um, those are telltale signs that the founder has become, has become the process has become the bottleneck. And the company can't not only cannot scale, um, but it actually will begin to crumble like the processes themselves begin to crumble because now the founder is having to prioritize and having to figure out what they can't do that day because there's just not enough hours in the day. And so then certain things start to fall apart. And, um, that's, that's when businesses have a tendency to fail. So really when it comes down to is just, you know, is everything reliant on you, the founder? And if that, if the answer to that question, if not everything, but most everything. If that's the case, then you know that you are you have become that bottleneck.

00:05:52 Sana: I mean, a good, a good kind of, um, question, uh, or kind of, you know, um. An assumption would be that if for one day as a founder, I'm not there, is the company going to operate or not? Is the company going to be there or not?

00:06:09 Bryan Baker: Yeah. Or like, or like a vacation, right. If, if the founder goes on like a, you know, even like a three or four day vacation, you know, are they going to come back to a much bigger mess, you know, um, and so founders then don't go on vacation because they're, they're just, you know, they're worried about things falling apart. Um, yeah, that's, that's, that's a real good indication as well. Yep.

00:06:32 Sana: Mhm. And do you think, Brian, is it because of, um, the way or the kind of perception that has been built around, especially entrepreneurship and the founder culture in there. Or is it because you're just trying to, um, you know, uh, go the minimalist approach in there just to keep because, you know, if you, if we look at, okay, let's say, if I want to, uh, deploy some kind of AI agent in there or maybe an AI co-founder in there who can, you know, without any human intervention, oversee everything. But then I have a lot of, um, financial, um, I have to consider the financial aspect in there because I'm just running dry on cash. I have to be very careful. What exactly are the reasons behind this?

00:07:21 Bryan Baker: Yeah. My, my experience is that they just, they just don't have confidence in or the time to build these systems. Right? So, um, it's not that their people are incompetent, um, or that they're there are people that they work with are incapable of doing the job. I'm not saying that is never the case. Sometimes that is the case, but it's pretty rare. What's really what's happened is they've built a system that's completely dependent upon them. And so now they're in this paradox of they can't stop doing what they're doing to fix the systems. Um, and then they don't have any confidence if someone, you know, if they were just to have one of their people just take over a process. Um, they don't have confidence that it's going to be run the way that they would do it. Right. That they, that it's, that it's set up and, and like, they feel like, hey, this person's just not going to do it as well as I will do it. So I'm just going to do it myself. And the problem with that is you create this vicious cycle, right? Where the, the, the dependency back on the founder just keeps coming back to the founder. And so that's why we say, um, this is where, you know, I can help or other Fractionals can help is to help create these systems and create the confidence on the founders part to let those systems go. It's not that their people are incapable, they just haven't been trained. And the the process hasn't been documented there. No one's been trained exactly how to do it. Um, they don't know how. They don't know how to think in terms of the variabilities that may come up during that process. And so when we take care of all those things for the founder, then they become confident that they that they could let that process go because like, hey, they may not do it quite as well as me, but they're going to do it ninety percent as well as me. And we can now scale it to a team of ten or twenty or thirty people, and every one of them can do it ninety percent as well as the founder. And so now you can have a situation where you can go for it, and you can spend a bunch of money on sales and you can really grow your business, because now you have a system in place that you have confidence in.

00:09:36 Sana: And I'm really thankful he brought up the fractional part here because that's exactly, uh, going to be my next question. So thank you for the perfect segue. So, uh, for, for our listeners, you know, maybe, uh, because fractional operations, it's a term that's becoming more common, but then a lot of people probably would still misunderstand it. Uh, like some founders hear fractional leadership and assume that it's just a temporary consultant, but then it sounds like it's actually something more structural than that. So in simple terms, Brian, what does a fractional operations leader actually do inside the company?

00:10:14 Bryan Baker: Yeah. So, so I know that the industry is pretty, um, it's pretty wide open right now. I, you know, obviously fractional CFOs and CMOs have been on the, have been around for quite a bit longer than fractional CEOs. And so I think that there's a lot of confusion as to what, um, some of them may do now. I, I can't speak for everybody, but I can say for myself, um, what I want to do is not just build a system, dust my hands of it and walk away. I want to build a system and a process for, for, for a founder that they will feel comfortable and confident in. But then I want to install the accountability mechanism. So if they've got a manager or two or three, I work with those managers to ensure that they know how to hold their people accountable. Right? So, um, that they, they know that their people know what to do, when to, when to do it, who to report to and when. And they are, um, they know by what mechanisms they need to be able to change any sort of deadlines. Um, they know how to, they know how to make changes on the fly and be comfortable with all those things. Um, and then we'll realign the KPIs, right? So you have metrics that you're looking at on a regular basis. This will realign those and make sure that everybody in the company is up. It has high visibility to those KPIs. Um, so that that way they are familiar with what they're working towards, right? So everybody knows and has high clarity on what they're looking for. So what I would say is instead of, instead of what some fractional CEOs or, uh, EOS integrators may do, they're not, some of them just build a system and then walk away. I'm going to build a system and I'm going to install that system, and I'm going to make sure that it's working as it should. Um, and so that way, um, again, the, the founder has confidence that, that, that is exactly what they're going to get and that the systems are going to run the way they want to. And they can just sit back now, work on other parts of the business, growing the business, working on strategy, things like that with confidence, knowing that these systems are built the way that they want them to be built.

00:12:35 Sana: HMM. Makes sense. Absolutely makes sense. Basically. You mean that? You know, I mean, maybe a strategy or maybe that system that a fractional, let's say, a CEO. I mean, it looks it would look good on paper, but then the actual, I think, you know, kind of the game starts in at the time of execution and the implementation that how kind of it blends into the culture of the company. Uh, you know, whether it's, it's, uh, it's, um, you know, giving the desired output or not.

00:13:09 Bryan Baker: Right. Yeah. And the accountability really is the key here, right? So holding the, uh, you know, I like, you know, many times people think accountability is a negative thing. You know, I got to be held accountable for something that I did wrong. Right? But, but when, when accountability is done right, it actually becomes a founder or manager's superpower, where your people are no longer fearing to have those weekly or monthly accountability sessions, but instead are looking forward to it because they're in a situation where they have a complete understanding of what it is that is expected of them. That's the key is that they know what they're looking for, they know what's expected of them, and so they're able to do it. And when, when, when, when people get frustrated is when they don't know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. So they try to appear to look busy and they try to, you know, they, they look overwhelmed because they have so many, so much busy work to do. But when they, when they know exactly what the process is, what they're supposed to do, how it affects the customer, how it affects the company and the most important KPIs, then everybody's aligned and they can let the, the lesser important things go and focus on the things that are most important that will help the company grow and to grow well.

00:14:31 Speaker 4: MM mm mm. Yeah, I agree, I agree with you, Brad. Oh, okay.

00:14:37 Sana: And I'm just going to bring up a bit of a, um, challenge in here because a lot of entrepreneurs believe brand that, you know, the best companies, they stay founder driven. I mean, they would probably argue that bringing in an operational leadership too early, it can dilute the original vision. So, um, can operational structure sometimes slow down creativity or entrepreneurial energy?

00:15:08 Bryan Baker: It can if you bring in a full time operator as an employee, um, and they're not aligned with the, with the, um, with the founder's vision, um, or they have their own agenda. Then you could have, you could have a real big conflict there and a pretty enormous waste of money, time, resources. It could be a drain on the culture of the company, no question. Um, but that's, that's the beauty of working with fractional, um, leadership like myself is that, uh, my sole purpose is to create value for the founder, right? If I come in as a fractional, uh, leader, part time contract base, um, and I'm not immediately providing value to the founder. Well, then the founder just lets me go, right? There's, there's no point in hanging on to a contractor that that isn't providing value. Right? Or that's much more difficult with an employee because you have a different relationship with them, you've invested more money into them. Um, and so you feel obligated to, to try and fix that situation. And that could end up costing, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of many months or years. Um, and so that's why, uh, fractional leadership at the beginning can set a good. And this just, this goes for all fractional leadership, not just operations, but finance, marketing. You know, and, uh, you know, HR, those types of things, because the sole purpose of why we exist as fractional leadership is to relieve things from the founder that other people can do and to help the founder be able to focus on the bigger picture of the company and do so in a way that is completely in line with the vision of the founder. And because it's a contract basis, um, it requires us as founders to be constantly creating value to that, to, to that founder. And if we're not doing that, then we don't have a job, right? So I do agree that if you bring in the wrong person, um, especially on an employee basis, that can definitely stifle growth if you do it too soon. Um, but, um, you know, you have to kind of keep in mind what the goals are in the company and where you want to go. And, and what I can specifically do, just to be clear here is I can set that foundation, uh, so that later on, a full time operator can come in and just pick up where I left off. I understand that if I do my job well, it's temporary, right? I understand that if I do my job really well, I should be around for a short period of time, probably, you know, a year or two years, and then be able to hand it off to a full time operator that can just pick up from where I left off. Um, and that's okay. That's, I, I, I understand that and I'm okay with that. And that's actually my goal is to be temporary. So, um, that, that is a good question. Um.

00:18:08 Sana: Yeah, and, and I really, um, love how you actually answered it because, um, the kind of the balance, it seems tricky. It really, really seems tricky. But then, um, how you're mindful about, um, about the, the, the, the inputs and the outputs in there in, in line with the founders vision and the company's goal. I think that is something, uh, which is definitely worth considering for. And, uh, also, Brian, is there any, any, um, time like, you know, when exactly a founder or maybe the company should consider, uh, bringing in, um, a fractional operational leader or a fractional leader, let's say.

00:19:00 Bryan Baker: Yeah. I really think that, that, that's a telltale sign is when that founder has finding themselves working an enormous amount of hours. Um, and when the, when the people, uh, around them are, are constantly asking the founder a lot of questions, things that the founders probably thinking to themselves, man, this person should be able to know the answer to that question. So if either of those two things come up, the founders working an enormous amount of hours, way more than forty hours a week, um, and, or your, you know, your people are asking questions that you feel that they should know the answer to and shouldn't be bothering you with on a regular basis, either either or both of those things are happening. It's time for factional leadership.

00:19:47 Sana: Mhm.

00:19:48 Speaker 3: Yeah. It's really good. Strike a note of superb.

00:19:52 Sana: Um, and Brian, before we conclude, um, I think, um, let's also bring in culture and crew because you have talked a lot about the connection between culture and operational success. Um, you help reduce employee turnover significantly in one organization, but then once again, culture, I mean, it's, it's a word that gets thrown around a lot, a lot in conversations. So, um, I would love to know, like, what does culture actually look like operationally inside a company?

00:20:23 Bryan Baker: Yeah. A good culture is sometimes confused with like nice perks, right? So, um, health insurance or like free food for the employees or like ping pong tables or a common thing here in the states. And it's, it's one of those things where those are all nice and they're helpful, but culture, it really does come down to accountability and accountability done the right way. So a good healthy culture is full of people who, um, hold each other accountable. So you have people who are not in leadership who are looking left and right of them and saying, hey, you're not doing your job right. Like I'm going to call you out. Uh, and I'm going to make sure that you are not letting the team down by slacking off, right? And so a healthy culture is where everybody up, down, left, right in the organization, hold each other accountable. And we're accountable to the vision, right to the vision, to the goal, to the mission of the company. And anything that gets in the way of that, um, just gets tossed aside. Right? Yeah. And, and a healthy culture looks like where people can feel comfortable having difficult conversations. If you've got a, you know, if you have to have an anonymous, you know, uh, box where people, you know, file their grievances, you have an unhealthy culture period in a sentence, no questions asked. Um, and you have to be able to say, okay, my people feel comfortable coming to me and telling me, hey, I'm even though I'm the founder, you know, hey, this is dumb. We shouldn't do this, right? They should feel comfortable coming to me and saying, hey, I think this is misalignment with what we are trying to do as an organization and feeling the confidence to be able to do that without fear of being fired. Right. Those those are the things that make a healthy culture accountability. And the and the and the and the freedom and the comfort to, to speak your mind respectfully. Of course, you can't be disrespectful about it, but respectfully speak your mind without fear of retribution. Those are signs of healthy culture.

00:22:42 Speaker 3: MM. Yeah.

00:22:45 Sana: I appreciate you mentioned, um, I mean, you kind of, you know, approached it with with a clarity in here because. Yes. Um, it's kind of very common that, you know, we, we equate, uh, culture of a company with the perks and the benefits and there, but then what's the point of having all of that is, you know, there is no accountability, once again, not in a negative sense, but then in a way that, you know, as as a team member, as an employee, you, you are not seen or you're not heard of, not heard about because you're just kind of in that rabbit hole of somehow getting the work done, getting the output done. There's no operational, there is no team clarity. There is no leadership clarity. So it absolutely makes sense.

00:23:35 Bryan Baker: Yeah, absolutely.

00:23:38 Sana: Super, super. Um, Brian, before we wrap it up, I'm very sure our listeners, especially all the entrepreneurs and founders who are listening to us, they would be very, very curious to explore more about the work that you are doing. So how can they reach out to you?

00:23:53 Bryan Baker: Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, I very easily you can email me at Brian B r y a n at get executives now dot com. Brian at executives dot com or my website at. Just, you know, get executives now.com. And yeah, I appreciate you having me on today and look forward to hearing from some of your listeners and we'll go from there.

00:24:20 Sana: Superb. Uh, listeners, I'll make sure that all the links and details are mentioned in the show notes. So just hover over to them, find them attached along with this episode on your favorite podcast platform or wherever you are tuning into your podcast right now. And, um, you know, listeners, honestly, what I found, what I find very powerful and maybe a bit bit surprising about this conversation that it, it reframes what leadership actually means because many founders believe that it means working harder, pushing longer, staying deeply involved in everything. But then what we have explored, what Brian has helped explore here today, it suggests something different Sometimes leadership might actually mean stepping back. Not disappearing, but then building systems, people and culture strong enough that the business no longer depends on your constant presence. And I think that shift from founder to leader, it is uncomfortable. But then it might also be the difference between a business that survives and the one that truly scales. So Brian, really, really thankful this was really an eye opening, enlightening episode. So thank you so much.

00:25:40 Bryan Baker: Yes. Thank you for having me.

00:25:42 Sana: Awesome. And listeners, if today's conversation resonated with you, especially if you are a founder navigating growth, leadership or operational challenges, this is exactly why this blend exists. So do follow us. Do show your love. Follow this blend on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time. This is your host Sana and I'll catch you in the next episode. Stay tuned and thank you.