Ultimately, get your team to be a self managing team, right?

So that you can be free to be the visionary, be the idea guy or gal,

or be the relationship guy or gal, or the culture warrior within your

business or the thought leader in your industry or whatever it is that

you're, that your superpower is.

It's about time doing that and have a leadership team that actually comes with

batteries included, you're not pushing and pulling to get everything done because

they won't do it without you pushing and pulling and prodding all the time.

Welcome back to seek go create.

This is Tim winders here.

I've got a question for you.

Ever felt like you're drowning in the chaos of growing your business, wishing

you had a top notch COO, but don't have a quarter of a million to spare.

If this sounds like you, then buckle up because today's episode

of Seek, Go Create is a must.

Listen, I'm thrilled to bring Ben Wolf to the show.

He's the founder of Wolf's Edge and the brains behind Fractional COOs.

Ben found himself tangled in the complexity of his own growing business,

but instead of staying stuck, He figured out a way to rise above it.

He redefined success.

That's what we like to do here at Seek Go Create.

He eventually grew his venture into the largest of its kind in his state,

but the journey inspired him to help others avoid the chaos altogether.

Today, WolfSedge provides fractional COOs to businesses across America.

Filling a significant gap in the market.

Plus he's an Amazon bestselling author with his groundbreaking book, fractional

leadership, landing executive talent.

You thought was out of reach this guy, seriously adding value to the

conversation on business leadership and growth, which is one of the things we're

all about here at seek, go create Ben.

Welcome to seek, go create.

Thank you so much, Tim.

It was such a beautiful introduction.

I appreciate it.

I'm glad you're here.

We've just met somewhere, pretending a little bit here,

and I ask you what you do.

What do you say when people ask you what you do?

I say that I have a firm of fractional chief operating officers, COOs.

Which essentially means that when a business owner is hitting the ceiling

and they're not able to grow anymore, they realize they need somebody who's

actually done this before to help lead them and their team to towards the path

of actually scaling and achieving their dreams and not being stuck in the weeds

in the day to day of the business.

we become that experienced executive that COO to help them

get their business to where they want it to achieve their dreams.

Live their highest and best value, not stuck in the weeds in the day to day

and stuff they don't really like doing so they can live their ideal life.

And then after nine to 18 months helping pass the baton and find a new long term

person for that on a full time basis.

I think a lot of people will be familiar with some of those

terms, the fractional leadership, fractional executives, things like

that will define it in just a moment.

But before we do that, I want to do a backtrack.

And it seems like a cool story of how you came into this type industry and,

usually journeys are what we're all about.

we're go through this and we find out we like this or don't like

this, then we pivot or go somewhere.

And it seems like that was part of your process.

what can you share about that?

What do you want to share about that?

Just how you came to be where you are now.

I was a corporate restructuring and bankruptcy attorney in a previous

life at a big Manhattan law firm.

That, that sounds super exciting.

Was that exciting as it sounds?

in certain ways it was, it was, I came into it, after the.

The 2008 recession and, worked on some really interesting cases, high profile,

bankruptcies of, Lehman brothers, American airlines, hospital, hospital

systems and all kinds of things.

So it was interesting in certain ways, but, happy that I'm not doing it anymore.

Ended up through a very strange series of events after doing that at a healthcare

startup that you mentioned earlier.

in New York state and, learn how to, launch the business.

I had to figure it out.

I did not have an entrepreneurial background.

As I mentioned, I was an attorney before that.

but just learned a lot from having to do it at this company.

I ended up at, but most of the operations there, we were over, again, zero revenue.

I was the first full time employee.

And by the time I left, we were 130 people and, and over a hundred

million gross revenue and largest healthcare agency of our category

in the entire state of New York.

And so just learned a huge amount about, growing a five person business,

a 50 percent 100 person or 100 plus business learned a huge amount just

by doing and everybody there was also doing it for the first time.

Nobody had done it before and really saw the need there for having.

somebody who had been through this journey before, as we were figuring

everything out for the first time.

But after, as I left there looking for new challenges and came to a smaller

healthcare business as COO, and it was, found myself in a very unhealthy

environment and, came to realize after a couple of months that it was not going to

be a situation where I was going to have a path to success and helping this company

be successful and what it wanted to do.

And so I put in my resignation and was thinking what.

You know what to do next.

I had a certain amount of PTSD of like diving in with both feet in another

organization full time and, and I heard about this concept of doing this thing

fractionally of doing this, doing this kind of role for multiple companies.

I wanted to make a big impact.

That's why I left the first business that became so successful and, just decided to.

hang up my shingle as a fractional chief operating officer, also

called fractional integrator.

As a solo practitioner, I learned from tons of people.

I did tons of networking, learned from tons of people what it takes to be

a solo, whether you're a consultant or a fractional executive of some

kind, or, any kind of independent professional, business developments,

huge part of the job description.

So I had to learn how to do that.

And, maybe grew faster than some slower than others took me

about 15 months to become busy.

what I consider to be fully booked the first time.

And after that, I guess I had hit a certain Critical mass of

the work that I'd been doing.

And so continue getting a lot of leads, refer them out for a while that

eventually started to build a firm.

And so that's, ultimately decided to build that firm.

And I learned through this whole process.

I talked to also lots of CF fractional CFOs and, people in fractional sales and

marketing and finance and operations and people leadership and learned a tremendous

amount from doing and from other people, and I saw nobody had written a book

explaining to business owners, what this whole concept of fractional executive.

is, you don't, you may need someone who's done this before as your CFO or

your CMO or your VP of sales or your CTO or your CIO or your COO, but you can't

afford that 250, 300, 000 person who's actually an executive that's really

done this before to bring them on board.

And maybe you don't even need that.

That's.

Person at your scale and size, or you can't afford it.

So it's a great tools.

it's a great democratizer of talent and making it available for business owners.

But, nobody had written about it.

I couldn't believe it.

So I wrote the first, and I'm not the one that's been doing it the longest.

I'm not the biggest expert, but I wrote the first book on the industry.

And like you said, became a bestseller.

That's, the basics of how I got into this space.

as often happens over the last few days, I read

in my normal reading style about 40 percent of it per my Kindle.

And then early this morning, I went, Ooh, I'm talking to Ben.

And then I did a super high speed reading of the remaining 60, but I agree.

it is a very good definitions.

I'm someone who understood a little bit of fractional, but it really covers a lot of

basics and a lot of good basic questions.

We'll talk about that in just a moment.

I want to get to the book a little bit later here and talk about really

the value of fractional leadership and really how it's even come to be.

So we'll get to that in just a moment.

I want to back up just a second here though.

Because there were a couple of leaps that you gave in the story

that I think I want to understand more about those leaps to me.

I've been around quite a few lawyers and so you're trained in law.

I'm sorry.

You know where I'm going here.

I'm trained in law and I've also worked a lot with startups as a

coach and executive person, myself, I've worked a lot of with startups.

And I got to tell you, Ben, I'm having trouble with someone

going from law to being the first person hired at a startup help.

There's got to be a little bit more to this.

We don't have to go into if it's ugly, we're okay with ugly too, but

Yeah, there's,

was going on there?

there's a couple of angles that we could go with for that story.

one is from their perspective, like, why would they bring in

this guy with a law background?

But the, so that's one aspect of the story.

The other aspect of the story is my experience, right?

Which was that after five years there, things said, Things were getting slow

in the corporate bankruptcy world.

our department's billings were getting low.

my billings were particularly low within the department.

So a few of us, mid level or senior associates were, let go.

And, so I lost my job and, on my 40th birthday.

And, and so that was not fun.

I started trying to look for.

in house counsel jobs and other bankruptcy law firm jobs and, I had

some progress with some of those, but, I don't want to limit, limit

that I took the, I had a friend give me the Clifton StrengthsFinder.

If you're familiar with that assessment

Yeah, I want to say we're very familiar here in our audience

is we've actually interviewed some experts in CliftonStrengths here.

And I love that assessment because it goes for the strengths, not just

this personality profile thing.

So yeah, we, I love that.

I just want to add that commercial in.

yeah, no.

So it was very interesting and it was part of me trying to get a better

understanding of myself and what other things could I potentially, even later

in life, think about going into that would utilize my strengths, that would

maybe utilize more of my strengths than what I was doing in the law.

And so I started exploring that, started to.

I started, applying at non profit, executive director jobs, actually, either

running small non profits or, or running regional divisions of larger ones.

so I had a number of applications to this.

There's a guy I met was starting in a, I don't know, I mean, he

already had a non profit looking at someone to run it and met with

him, had a good meeting, two hours.

Ended up not hiring anybody, but he texts me three months later.

I was unemployed for a total of five months.

He texts me three months later after this meeting, Hey, yeah, whatever.

He's just text me, we got on a phone call.

And then by that Thursday you offered me this job.

And so that's my part.

And I know one of the themes on your show is, you know, and then, and then ended

up learning and accomplishing amazing things in that role, but the, one of the.

One of the themes I know you have in your shows show is redefining success.

And so it was a major journey for me to think about, not feeling successful

and like losing a job and being a man and wanting to support your

family and not wanting to be at risk and also getting help from family.

And that's not a fun feeling.

it's wonderful that people could do it, but it's not fun.

And it was, it was a scary time.

And and to think and then, I go from that, being a, mediocre big corporate

lawyer to, to, to being the main builder of this organization that

got to be 130 people at the time.

it's over 5, 500, 600 people now and multiple hundreds of millions in

revenue, but it's, Just was a great experience that I never would have

had and never would have been open to if I hadn't lost my job, right?

I would not have been open minded to put myself in those situations or think,

try to think more creatively about what I could do if it hadn't been for that.

And circumstances Providence just put me in that situation to

rediscover, and now I've got the yeah.

Book on a, the first book on an entire industry and, I've leading this whole firm

to my own business that I never would have had the bravery to start my own business.

Or I never would have even been in the entrepreneurial world if

it hadn't been for what happened.

So there's not my doing, but just, Providence, the taking control

and redefining, and forcing me to redefine success, and I could tell

you from his perspective too, why he wanted to hire somebody like.

Me, but that's a separate story.

It is.

It is.

It is funny, but

the cool thing, have you ever thought about what your life would

be like if you were still in, in law?

I try not to

Okay, good answer.

Good answer.

my wife and I are almost the same, Ben.

we would not wish what we went through back after 08 with our companies and all.

We wouldn't wish it on anyone, but just like we were chit chatting

before we hit record, we're living in an RV traveling right now.

We're with grandkids right close to them for the month, for the entire month.

And we know we would never be in this position had it not been for that ugly

time And but I do want to there's one thing that I popped in my head, startup

world You have to be a little bit, I'm going to use a couple of words here

that may or may not be a good fit, but I'll, maybe you'll understand.

Sometimes you have to be a little bit naive, like sometimes

almost not know you can fail.

And also you need to be pretty brash and bold.

I don't want to use the word delusional.

But that's sometimes what comes to mind to be really good.

and I know when I went through some ugly things and you mentioned you got

fired and let go from this firm, and I'm sure that was part of your identity.

If you want to use, I like to use the word identity.

I mean, we kind of get wrapped up.

That's why I ask, what do you do at the beginning of the show?

Because I like to really see where people are with, quote unquote, what

they do and their identity and all that.

And, but how was your confidence level?

Did you think you can do it?

you were stepping into something that,

We're in the startup.

yeah.

Now looking back on it.

Obviously you and the other team, everybody y'all

nailed it or you did great.

And I know you went through a lot of bumps along the way, but

40 years old, lost your job.

You're going through all these things you're thinking about

where was your confidence level stepping into this startup

with anything.

I do, there's obviously the internal confidence and doubts,

but it's about making a decision.

if you just decide to do it, then there's no, then, it's not even a,

like once you start something, it's not even a, it's not like confidence

is almost an irrelevant point.

it's really irrelevant.

It's just, we decided to do it and success is the only option.

So we're just going to do it.

And there's no real thought of, there's no real thought

of failure, of actual failure.

you just do what you got to get, you just do what you got to do.

There's no thought of confidence.

you just have to, so when I was building up my solo practitioner, my

solo fractional COO practice also, it was 15 months before I was full, of

course I doubted, can I really do this?

Am I ever going to get clients?

Is this going to work?

Of course I had those doubts.

Whenever I got on a phone call, whenever I'm doing the business development

things, I decided to do hit my metrics and my measurables that I set for myself.

I didn't, there's no room for doubt.

There's no room for.

Looking unsure of yourself when you're actually in a conversation with anybody or

when you're writing an email to sound meek or unsure of yourself, you just gotta,

you just gotta fake it and act confident.

And I can just tell you for myself, with whatever I felt on the inside, just

acting confident and trying to do what I understood to be the right things to

do to grow the business, ultimately.

ultimately was, relatively successful.

I'm, in, in my certain sub worlds that I live in, I'm pretty well known

at this point and well respected and getting leads and referrals, multiple

every week for our team members.

thank God, I'm just going to fake it till you make it,

sometimes I don't want to say our backs need to be against the

wall or we need to be in a, we need to be pressed, like the olives there,

they're pressed and grapes, you press them to get what's good out of it, the

olive oil or the wine or whatever it is.

So maybe we do need to be pressed at times.

I.

I've thought this is an interesting thing and we'll talk about this and then we're

going to move into, I want to do a deep dive into fractional leadership in the

book and all, but I've often thought I, I went to Georgia Tech and I got an

industrial and systems engineering degree.

And I think back.

About how I did that and I really look back and I go, you know, that's not

what I was created to do I was created to do roughly what i'm doing now Maybe

with some variations that i'm still working on putting pieces together

and all that So so i'm going to ask you a little bit of a trick question.

Were you created to do what you're doing now?

And if so, then how did you end up going to law school because that to me

sometimes I wonder and I wonder because i've got young i've got young children

You know, my children are you know in their 20s 30s and I always wonder how

to counsel people that are attempting To do something at a young age.

So That's a little bit of the layer here it seems like law was just a doorway for

you to go through to get to something else

Yeah, it feels that way.

the, I think that at least looking backward, the unique set of experiences

and skills that each of us get from whatever particular winding path

we took to, to get where we are.

Are, created a unique and particular set of skills, as Liam Neeson

would say, that will, that uniquely equips us for whatever we're doing.

And, that attention to detail, that analysis, that legal

knowledge and background.

And also at that startup, I also served as general counsel.

So I, broaden the legal subjects there a little bit, but, oversaw multiple outside

counsel, but the But it's, it just come, it just altogether puts, it puts a unique

set of skills into a person, but, it's a different perspective when you think

about, okay, now you're talking about your kids in their twenties and thirties

or teens thinking what they should do.

And, there's no, there's no career path that says, in my case.

go to college and go to rabbinical school, then go and join a Jewish educational

organization in Iowa for three years, and work in industrial real estate brokerage

for two years, then go to law school as a night student, While you work full

time in the law during the day, because you're supporting a family, then get this

great corporate job for a bunch of years, and then go in and create a startup.

that's not a career path that, someone can opt into, from the

beginning, it's not anything that anybody would do, but somehow it

all uniquely comes together to...

to make me who I am, but all I tell my kids is, to, to, is to look to the

best clues that they can in themselves for what they're more likely to enjoy

or be interested in and pursue that.

nobody knows what their future holds.

That's really all you have to go on is your own interests and

skills, talents, and strengths.

So follow those wherever they lead.

And then will it work out?

Will it not work out?

I don't know, but you just trust that there's some sort of providence out

there that's going to lead you on, on the ultimate right path for yourself.

I'll say that I know we're both, I know we're both men of

faith from, I'll call it a related faith, but maybe different faiths.

And I think that the only thing that we really have some foundation with, the

only thing to really share with kids or anyone else, it's you know what, get that

foundation of faith because everything else is just, it's hard to gauge.

It could go in any direction.

and I.

You have to have some trust.

Yeah, yeah, trust.

and one of the things that I think that bothers me in the world we're in,

you and I were just talking about this briefly, just with some current events

and just, the way the content creation and news cycle is that there's so many

people out there that speak in such a tone of definiteness of, Absolutely.

This is the way it is.

And then, a few days later, we realized that wasn't the way it was.

And, just like we're talking about our careers.

I don't know.

I'm about to be 60.

You know what?

I'm preparing for my next decade and learning a few new things and, diving

into AI and practicing some stuff and, I'm actually super intrigued

with fractional leadership from reading your book and thinking,

huh, I've actually been doing that.

So I'm, I wonder if I'm a fractional leader and, different things like

this is, and, it's just that growth thing that I think, I think a lot

of people need to latch onto it.

So let's shift a bit and let's start really diving into this

topic of fractional leadership.

I want to say that in the book, you go over some great, you really

do build just like a lawyer would you build a pretty darn good case.

Look at what we did there.

We connected the dots, didn't

Nice, nice segue.

You built a great case for people considering it.

Some people it works for some people.

It doesn't but why don't we start off this conversation for those

that may not be familiar with it?

Why don't you give us just a you know, a nice general simple definition of

what we're talking about And then we'll start maybe zigging and zagging

and seeing where we end up with the conversation But just what is when we say

fractional leadership or fractional sea level or fractional, you know Whatever,

there's a lot of different terms.

Maybe this is a good time to hit a lot of the terms with it.

all right, ready?

Go.

Fractional leadership or fractional executive is essentially

the same as a regular executive at its most basic level, right?

Because what's the difference between an executive and a consultant, right?

Is the executive.

Whether it's marketing, sales, operations, finance, technology,

people, or whatnot is responsible for a major function of your business.

They don't, they're not working on a project.

They're not just there to give advice and give you a big report and tell

you what to do and wish you good luck, but they are responsible for

a major function of the business.

If it's marketing, they're responsible for the marketing function of the business,

all of its metrics and all of its people.

And all of its results and same thing for operations or finance

sales, technology, et cetera.

And so that's what a fractional CTO, CIO, CMO, COO, et cetera.

CFO is there your head of finance there?

You're, and they're responsible for your people, your systems, your numbers

in that department of your business.

They just fulfill that role in a fractional as opposed to full time basis.

But it's the same as a regular executive in that sense.

And the difference is that you're able to, unless you're a very large

organization, you're able to, afford somebody, with a much higher level of

experience and background having done this before, than you would otherwise,

if you were doing it full time.

All right, let me hit, I'm gonna hit some devil's

advocate, some counters to it.

It's like, how could someone do a great job in my organization if

they're not working for us full time?

so that's a great question.

The.

The, it's interesting.

I think one of the things you have to delve into to understand

where that question comes from for, at least for most of us is.

A perception, that comes from what I call helicopter.

I talk about in the book helicopter management, which is this idea that,

the way that your organization evolved and grew over time, you end up having

a bunch of people who are maybe not the right people for their roles.

And some who are maybe not even right for the organization at all, maybe

toxic or whatever issues that they have are not a good work ethic or whatnot.

And they're people issues, not enough attention to detail, not enough

care about customers, whatever it is, they're not the right people.

or you have processes that just developed and were added onto and

turned into this Frankenstein's monster of processes and systems.

that don't work, don't make sense.

Or maybe an organizational structure that doesn't make sense.

And you end up having, people that are not right or systems

or processes that are not right.

And then because you have full time managers that are hovering like a

helicopter parent over their people and their output and whatever goes

to customers and whatever people see.

Or you're doing it or you have three levels of review of something

that really should only need one.

So because that helicopter management, you're masking all these people

issues and these process issues.

So you think it has to be full time because if you would take away that

babysitting and that helicopter management, all heck would break loose.

it wouldn't work if it's not full time.

I think that it's important to realize that I think that kind of mindset, that's

how a lot of businesses work because it's just like a lot of helicopter managers

or helicopter people and babysitters.

And when you have a fractional, what that takes away is it takes that.

As it takes that mask away, it takes that mask away from people

issues and takes that mask away from process and metrics issues.

And when a fractional comes in, they're not there full time.

They're not there to babysit.

It's true.

They can't babysit.

So what they have to do is they set up meeting cadences with the relevant people

that they supervise or the teams that they supervise, or in the case of a COO with

the leadership team that they supervise.

And they set up measurables to which those people are responsible.

I set up, accountability around projects or goals or milestones, and they

review those at that weekly cadence.

And if stuff is not happening in between, there's nothing to cover

it up, like the numbers are there or the milestones are met or they're not

met or like people either doing what they're supposed to be doing or they're

not doing it and you're not there to always save them when it doesn't work.

When people aren't working.

And so just brings to the forefront all these issues that

may have been masked before that.

and so part of the answer to your question is how do you do

it when it's only part time?

And the answer is through measurables through meeting

cadences through one on ones.

But, setting it up at a cadence, not like constant, chipping

10 20 questions a day, right?

But Setting that up at a healthy cadence, which honestly, actually,

that really is what you should be doing even in full time.

cause you're, you as a manager or leader are going to be much better

used to yourself and your team, not to be answering 50 questions a day

or supervising, every single proposal that goes out and every single detail.

But, but if you're freed up from that by having good processes, good

systems and the right people, then you could also add much more value to the

business, even in a full time role, but certainly in fractional, like you're

only there for the leadership part of it.

So you are, and I think that's an important aspect.

I think that underlies or the question when people have a hard time getting their

head around, which is understandable how you can have an executive, a leader level.

That's not full time.

What's interesting, I like the parenting, analogy that you use

because I was sitting here thinking, as you were saying, I was thinking about

organizations I've worked with or for and it does seem as if often the leadership,

we'll just say leadership, sometimes it's a founder, sometimes it's You know,

there's also this no man's land for a lot of companies, and I think you deal with

it, you see it, there's this place where people say, if we just have more money

and resources, we could just hire all the people we need and things will be great.

I don't know that I agree with that.

I think there needs to be a progression and the progression

needs to be, and I'm spending time right here with my granddaughter.

So they're one in four.

And I think a lot of people treat their business.

Someone treat their lives this way, as if they're dealing with babies and toddlers

when they're 21 years old and they really need to be treating them with a little

bit of just accountability, let them go do their own thing, check in, like you were

talking about process systems and things.

and I think that's a culture thing.

In fact, I think you talk about it in the book some, that there is important,

it is very important to have a culture that, And have a fractional leader and

that is open to it because you also need to have a team and a group of people that

are okay with someone coming in and out.

let's just use an example.

One day a week.

Is that seems like a good rhythm, Is that correct?

Yeah, very often.

Yeah.

So they come in one day a week.

But so there needs to be the culture that's there that can handle it.

Talk a little bit about, you already mentioned the helicopter parent.

what type of a culture and a business would be ripe for

something like a fractional leader?

I'll speak more to the business owner.

because that's really the most relevant question when it comes to what culture

is open to it, because if the business owner is, has got the right attitude

and he, he wants to help and is, open to growth and learning and wants to

do things better, because that's why they're bringing somebody in, right?

Because they want something different than what they have.

And.

if they're behind it, if they have got a good attitude, then even if everybody else

in the organization doesn't, it may take a while, but you'll eventually get there.

You may have to replace most of the company, but you'll eventually get there.

You'll eventually be successful.

so it's really, and even if the team has got great attitude and everything, but if

the business owner is not open minded and is not really committed to making the hard

decisions to, Actually achieve the success that they ostensibly want, then you're not

going to be successful, even with a great team and a great culture among the leaders

and managers or for frontline employees.

So there's more about the business owner and if the business

owner is, has a certain level.

Obviously, they have a certain level of expertise and a certain level

of genius to have built what they build and done what they've done.

But they have to together with that also have a level of humility and a level of

frustration with how things are going and really a desire to want to know and do

a better way and be open minded to that.

I've had calls with potential clients where we get on the phone and they spend,

or zoom and we get on the Call and hear on and on what a great team they have,

what a great product they have, what great customers they have, what great

processes they have, how great they are.

And we're just like, okay, what, like, why are we on the phone then?

need, you don't need anybody.

you don't need it.

it sounds like you're doing good.

No, it's always good, to tweak and you can always grow and there's

always room for improvement.

That sort of engagement is not going to work.

such a person is not going to be successful with a fractional

executive, or many things just cause they think they know it all.

the, when it comes to having to make tough decisions or.

evolve and change to the new reality that they're either in or that they want

to be in, to set that up for success.

They're not going to be willing to do it.

and then ultimately they're not going to be successful in it.

And they're going to probably blame you for not being successful since they had

hired you if they would have hired you.

so I would say it's more about the business owners, desire,

frustration with how things are going, and desire for a better way.

and if that's there, and there's a more or less a core values fit between,

between the fractional executive and the business owner, that I think that you

can overcome almost any other obstacle

Yeah.

That's interesting.

I, as you were saying that I was sitting here and thinking that

it's the same thing with me.

I call myself a coach at times.

I'm not even sure that's a good term.

I've tried to use the term strategic coach before, cause I'm more strategy and all.

And I do you talk about it in the book.

I actually find myself being part of the leadership team.

I'm Because I don't like that term consultant you talk about drive by

consultants I do think there's a time and place for consultants though

Some people need those but one of the things you do I Maybe I want to

divide up our conversation here over the next few minutes with two areas.

I want to talk about the business owner that might be considering or thinking or

might need to consider or think about it.

and what I was thinking about earlier is people that say we could use some help.

That's really the foundation for when people talk to me

and they probably talk to you.

It's you know what?

We're not perfect.

We need help.

And, and that's, I think valuable to come to that.

But let's talk about the business and just, the, I don't know if it's

levels, I don't know if it's stages that they go through that might

lead them to say, we could use this, or maybe we need to consider it.

I've actually got a client that I thought about when I was reading

the book, I'm going, they might.

Could use one in the area of sales.

we've been struggling with some things in our sales team recently let someone go,

I'm going, we actually could use, I'll call it a hired gun, but we could use

a fractional, salesperson that can come in, but go through some of those stages

and talk about stages that people might go through that might end up connecting

them to you or to a fractional person.

stage would be that, when you just realize that you don't have.

You don't have the knowledge or experience on your team for a particular role in the

business, for a particular function of the business to get it where it needs to go.

the sales example is great.

you're, you tried this, you tried that, you tried experiments, you try taking

a course or while learning and reading.

And you just realize, like one of the books behind me for those watching on

the video is called who not how, right?

Which is.

That, sometimes it's not the best use of your own time and energy to just learn

a whole new thing from the ground up.

Like sometimes, it's a better use of your energy to focus your energy on

what you're love doing and are great at, because that's going to be, that's

going to be where you can add hundreds of thousands, if not millions of

dollars in value to your business is by focusing on what you're great at

instead of taking away time from that.

To learn everything about sales and try to be the sales leader yourself,

bring in for eight, 10, 12, 000, whatever per month, a fractional sales

leader to, to, who's done it before, who's built sales organizations, who

knows about metrics and training and systems and CRMs and everything else.

And it's like they're doing it in their sleep.

they've done it a million times before, and.

And you could just have all the benefit of that without having to reinvent the wheel.

that's a, it's a good example of that.

same thing on the CFO side.

Again, very often when you have C, the CFO is somebody that just grew

up in the organization and figured out how to use QuickBooks and how

to run the numbers and everything.

And they're not really functioning as a CFO.

they're more of a money manager.

They take care of AR, AP.

bookkeeping, reconciliations, but they're not, but you're not having that financial

leadership of, that you really need.

And so when you get to a scale where you start to need that, you need that extra

insight, you're throwing away tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands

of dollars a year on waste or missing out on opportunities, or not seeing threats

coming or not building relationships with your bank, because you just don't

have a real financial leader that knows what an organization of your Maturity

really needs to have to be healthy and successful and not put itself at risk.

And so bringing that CFO has done it before again, could

be 5, whatever per month.

You can have a CFO, like a real CFO who's done this for multiple businesses,

on your team, as your financial leader.

It's a great thing.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

You don't have to figure it out yourself.

And, and that person who's good at the day to day of finance, they

could run the day to day of finance.

That's perfect.

Pair up that person with the CFO.

It's a perfect marriage.

it's something with operations and with the COO side where we are, where we

lead the leadership teams and we hire a lot of these other roles, whether

full time or fractional, we're putting the right people in those roles.

And so we're at the nexus of it all in the COO role.

And again, it's very often the business owner has to fulfill that COO

role, in the absence of anyone else.

And they're, they may be great at product development, or maybe they're

great at sales or they're great at, whatever they're great at, and

should spend their time focused on.

But then the day to day to the business, when you grow beyond a certain point of

20, 30, 50 people, and you just, it just stops working, it's too complicated.

You start getting into problems.

You try things and they're not working.

You try one thing, you try another thing, you're not working.

You need someone that's built a business like yours before someone who's done

this before, and say, then you could focus on what you do love doing, what

you are great at and bring in an outside COO that's done this before to help lead

your leadership team, help elevate those people so they could be the right people.

And if they're not, I'll probably replace them with the right people.

and.

Ultimately, get your team to be a self managing team, right?

So that you can be free to be the visionary, be the idea guy or gal,

or be the relationship guy or gal, or the culture warrior within your

business or the thought leader in your industry or whatever it is that

you're, that your superpower is.

It's about time doing that and have a leadership team that Actually comes with

batteries included, you're not pushing and pulling to get everything done because

they won't do it without you pushing and pulling and prodding all the time.

I guess somebody else who's an expert in, in, in doing that or in setting up a

group of people who don't need that done.

One of the things I love about it, I love testing things.

And to me, it seems like a good way to.

Test out some stuff.

Let's see what our culture is like and all that but that's not it's not the I

don't want to go Down that road right now.

I want to ask a question that I'm sure you've heard this because I hear this

all the time and i'm gonna ask it and then i'm gonna let you say how you would

respond to it or and maybe you would respond to it differently because we're

in this nice cool interview format and you're not actually You know closing a

sale or talking to anyone about it You know, you're having this conversation

and I say something to the effect of Ben, but our business is different.

We do it differently here.

We've got our own this or that, or our product is different or whatever.

And I know you've heard that I've heard it.

First of all, this might be the cool thing.

What goes through your mind when you hear somebody say that not what comes

out of your mouth, but what goes through your mind when someone says, but Ben.

Our business is different.

all right.

Obviously in the mind that goes through the concept of terminal

uniqueness, 80 percent of businesses are the same, regardless of whether

it's manufacturing or SAS companies, or retail or professional services,

like 90 percent of running a business.

when in right structure and vision and accountability and metrics.

Now, what those what that vision is, what those metrics are, what that

kind of abilities are specifically for that will be different.

But the fact that there are those things and we just need to name

whatever they are at each unique business is where the different.

Differences come in and there, there are unique things.

Of course, 20 percent of businesses are different.

And, and so there are unique things that are different in your business

than anybody else's, or your customer, your product, or your clients and

customers than any other business.

But what I say out loud to the, to answer that question is that what a fractional

If they're good and like my team is adept at is marrying together their experience

running businesses and managing teams and setting vision and driving execution

towards whatever the unique visions of each of those businesses are most

of that is the same and similar and marrying that experience together with

learning from you guys, learning from the business owner and the other members

of the team, the unique things of their business and Not, usurping or replacing

your knowledge of your customers, your product and your team with ours, because

it is going to be unique in some ways.

And so marry you know, when we would even after a year, even after full time for

a year, we wouldn't understand all the nuances of the business and your customers

and your product the way you know it.

We would never accomplish anything if we had to understand

it to the same extent you do.

So what we do is we marry together that utilization of the wisdom in you and

your leadership team and marrying that together with our experience about what

works and what doesn't work and how you have to build a business and what things

are important so we're not reinventing wheels and marry those two things

together and then drive execution on it.

And that's essentially how we do it and why we're able to start making changes in

business and making an impact within the first few weeks, even though, we don't

know everything about the business within that amount of time, but we don't need

to, we marry together your experience and your knowledge with our background

and our experience connected to together.

So another thing being someone who lives a little

bit of a different lifestyle, we get the question all the time.

Why would you, live in a motor coach and travel and because the fractional

leader is a little bit different than tradition, we'll call it.

I'll ask you this way, this is something that as I was reading through the portion

of the book I was deeply reading, not scanning, I was thinking what I really

wanted to ask you was, especially because you see a number of them, tell me what

you can about the mindset, not the technical skills or the skills or even

the background of a fractional leader.

But tell me about the mindset of someone who has an interest in being

a fractional leader because that, that to me, that seems fascinating.

and if you say, no, it's not that fascinating, we'll move on.

But to me, it seems fascinating to take this group of people that's, that

are saying, I have either done certain things in my life and I want to move

forward and do it with three, four, five.

Companies or whatever and work here one day here one day maybe all virtually

but still So does that is that an okay question to ask about the mindset and

is that something you can speak to?

Yeah, sure.

I would say that there's the people who go into this, who do this does three main

benefits that they want from it or that they feel drawn to, which I call more

fun, more flexibility and more money.

So it's more fun for them, at least, again, everyone has different interests,

but more fun for them because they, get to work with different companies every day.

There's more variety because they're fractional, not full time.

They get pulled in a lot less into the boring parts and the administrative stuff.

And they really get to operate much more at a higher level with the

businesses that they work with, and they get to make a major impact.

Work with them for 12 or nine or 12 or 18 months, and then move on

to the next major challenge, right?

They see major change that they were able to drive, feel a

lot of satisfaction from that.

So it's more challenging, more variety.

So it's more fun in that sense, more flexibility because you could really

make a lot more in three days a week and fractional work than you can in

full time of a full time executive role.

And So you, and let's say in just three days a week of client work, so

you can have that more flexibility, during those other two days a week, so

to speak, of whether it's driving your kids, driving your kids to sports games

out of town on the weekend or whatever, taking long weekends or, Conference

or whatever, just, you could use that time or, doing business development

and internal administrative work, but it's just, it's more flexibility.

so people like some people like that flexibility in the, and,

the last thing is more money.

Like I said, you could make more in about 3 days a week of client

work than you can full time in an executive, for most executives.

you can make more money.

And so people like that too.

And that's what attracts people to it.

I think there's a perception among some that fractional executives are

people that like lost their corporate jobs and can't get another one.

And so they just put themselves out as fractional.

And there are people like that out there.

And, they may say fractional and really they're just.

job seekers, and they're hoping to do a rent to own situation, right?

They're hoping it like works out and that they'll get hired

at whoever their client is.

so there are those out there like that, but the people who really

want to be fractional leaders, the people I wrote my book about, were

those who really want to do this.

And if, I've been offered full time jobs.

A lot of people I know have offered full time jobs.

You're like, why in God's green earth would I ever give this up

to like work full time again?

Like I wouldn't.

Never do that.

So that's, it's almost like laughable when you, like, when you

think people offer a full time job.

It's thanks, but no, thanks.

I've heard the same thing about you know Someone who's like a

coach or an executive coach like me.

It's like oh can't you know lost your gig lost your job, whatever and No, but one

of the things and I think you skirted it on some of the things you just brought

up in those three items one of the things that I love that To me would be

super appealing about being a fractional leader is I think the word diversity

might be part of it, but the ability to see a lot of examples and sample a lot

more stuff, because one of the things that I feel like some of the biggest

value that I bring in with a client.

Is not the fact that I had companies and, we lost them, even though that is actually

part of my story, but the fact that I'm working with eight to 10 at one point, and

I'm learning from every one of them, and I'm taking from one, not Trade secrets,

not, nothing like that, but I'm, just taking things that worked here and saying,

this actually could work here also.

and you know what, I actually find that I enjoy interacting with

diverse, I don't even know if it's companies, people, leadership styles,

cultures, different things like that.

That's part of it too, isn't it?

yeah, it's definitely an appeal.

You have, we have the same benefit, obviously, and fractional

executives have the same benefit.

And we, with my firm, Wolf's Edge Integrators, we try to

multiply that by having you.

All of our team members are meeting every week and talking over a sticky

client issues with each other.

So we have a brain trust, of fractional COOs.

They're all benefiting from each other.

So we got one challenge and we'll, we'll come back to our client

with eight different ideas and other things that have been done.

And other companies, not just from our own experience, but from our

colleagues experience, which is nice.

Nice.

Could I pay a couple bucks and just be a part of that?

Brain trust.

Interesting thought there.

so a couple things I want to wrap up and talk a little bit more about the

book, but before I do, there's a couple of learning points I want us to get

from you because I always love when I interact with people, it goes back to

what I just brought up, interact with people that get to see a lot of examples.

And I know you see a lot of things from companies, company leadership,

businesses, and organizations.

And then you also see a good bit, from the leaders and, your

fractional leaders that you have.

I would like for us, we've got a few minutes left here before we start

wrapping up, talking about the book as we finish up, but tell me...

A couple of things for anybody listening that are like a best

practice or a tip or something that you've picked up just from companies.

And I guess if you want to say hire a fractional leader, that would be okay.

It would be a little bit lighter than I'm looking for here.

I'm looking for something that you have learned from dealing with all the

organizations and then maybe something from all the fractional leaders.

And then, and then we'll, mention a few things about the

book before we finish up here.

maybe what I'll share is this, one of the, you know, for people that want

to understand what, let's say a fractional COO would be doing in their business

and, but besides hiring one, like, how could you do some of that stuff yourself?

What are we doing in our businesses with our clients?

And one of the things we do, especially in the first quarter is we put

together, we get a, we get a, A sense of what's going on, what all the

issues are, what's the 1000 potential priorities and issues and challenges

and all the ideas that are vying for attention and looking for priority.

And we put together a road map during that 1st quarter of what is the actual path?

Look like you, you say, we get clear from them what they want to

accomplish, where they want to get to.

And then we look, we get a clear understanding of what all the

issues are and all the potential options and priorities are.

And then we come up with, okay, based on our experience, what's the pathway?

What's the.

Roadmap to get from where you are to that destination that you want to get to.

So we put together a roadmap template that people can use themselves

to apply to their own business.

If you go to WolfSedgeIntegrators.

com forward slash resources.

There's a roadmap there that you can download.

It's an Excel format.

it gives you some, ideas on a number of stages and, so you

could fill in what applies to you.

There's a 10 minute video instructions on how to use the roadmap for yourself.

so that's, wolvesedgeintegrators.

com forward slash resources.

You can download there a roadmap that you could use yourself.

that's one resource or tip.

I think that it can be useful.

Stop

Very good.

Very good.

Anything from just a leadership standpoint that you've seen from

dealing with leaders that are fractional leaders that are business owners,

anything that comes to mind that you can share this big leadership tip.

compromising on your dreams.

You were.

You are like, why are you not firing the people who are not

performing who you love, right?

Why are you not holding people accountable for the results

that they're supposed to get?

Because you love them and because you're a nice guy or you're a nice gal, right?

But presumably you're in whatever the business your business is because you

want to make an impact in the world You have bigger dreams for yourself for your

children for your grandchildren for your community for your customers, you have

some bigger dreams for yourself and you're enslaving yourself to mediocrity into

a life of babysitting, by not, by not taking your own dreams more seriously.

And so I guess I would just say, stop being so nice because you are.

Because your niceness sometimes is really cruelty because you're robbing

yourself and your spouse and your children and the world and your

customers of whatever your mission and your dreams are for your business.

And, for the short term avoidance of hard conversations and hard decisions

because you're such a nice person.

Stop being so nice.

You heard it

Stop being so nice and take your dreams seriously.

Make hard decisions.

Yeah, no, I think it's a, yeah, I like that.

Be mature, have mature conversations, mature decisions.

I like that.

The book is fractional leadership, landing executive talent.

You thought was out of reach.

Then who should get ahold of this book?

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I thought it was a great read, but I'd love for you to tell us who should go

get it and then maybe lead into where they could find it and things like that.

And we'll gather.

A few more questions before we wrap up here.

The book is for well, it's written for business owners.

So first and foremost, anybody with a business If you've got some kind of

gap on your leadership team, right?

you or somebody else is sitting in multiple seats or you have somebody

on the leadership team or you have some, no, nobody that's filling certain

seats, important functions of your business, or you've got the wrong person

potentially, or an underperforming person in certain roles in their business.

that's, you should read it.

it's, using someone fractionally, not necessarily needing somebody for you.

Maybe full time will work, but, might not.

And so it's worth learning about, whether you can fill that gap or replace

that underperforming person with.

or replace yourself.

If you're that underperforming person, in a certain role in the

business, if you're sitting in two or three seats and, potentially the

fractional to explore it that way.

I have been told by a lot of fractional executives, whether part

of firms or solo practitioners.

That they've got, that even though the business owners are the target audience,

so to speak, of the book, but that's who it's officially written to, but that

they've gotten a lot of value from it and understanding the fractional role better

or understanding if they want to go into a fractional role or if they're already

in it to get a better understanding of it.

Better understanding of it or to get terms and ideas and ways of explaining things.

Maybe that you struggled with explaining when people asked you questions.

I've been told a lot that it was very helpful in giving people words

to explain concepts that they knew, but had a difficult time explaining.

Okay.

I can find it, I guess, wherever books are available and

Yeah.

it's look, Amazon, it's audible, Kindle, a paperback hardcover,

whatever format you want it.

It's, it's available.

Sure.

Tell us about the podcast.

Win win.

Is that the name?

Yeah, win win, the win win podcast, our theme is anything that

gives value for small and mid sized business owners, that's really our

theme, so it's a wide variety of things that would give value to those kind

of business owners, it's not really focused on personal growth, except as

it applies to business owners, it's not really focused on things that would be

only applicable to solo practitioners or people in large corporate environments.

It's really small and mid sized business owners or leaders.

That's who it's applicable for anything that we give value for them.

And we had Chris Voss recently from never split the difference on the show.

and Marcus Sheridan from they ask you answer, a lot of really good people.

Yeah, I think I listened to some of that Chris Foss.

That was really good.

I actually watched it on YouTube.

So y'all have YouTube just like we do and we're calling these podcasts, but now

they're just There's content out there.

If someone just wanted to connect with you Ben, where do you want to direct them?

Where should they go if they just want to get with you either?

I don't know if you want to go to linkedin website, whatever just tell us that

LinkedIn works.

Yeah, just let LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is perfect.

If it's for me, if it's anything about WolfSedgeIntegrators.

com, there's a lot of good information there.

A lot of FAQs, videos, long blogs and videos that just

answer your major questions.

but, but if it's to connect with me, LinkedIn is the best.

Excellent.

Ben, we're Seek, Go, Create, those three words that we mashed

together for this podcast title.

I'm going to let you pick one of those as my last question, Seek, Go, or Create.

Which word, I don't know, means more to you, resonates with you

more than the other two, and why?

I don't know if everybody says this, but it's

create, it's, building big things.

that's what I enjoy is, is building things, building teams,

building my company, building other people's companies,

creation's what resonates with me.

Very good.

Not everyone says that.

It's actually...

Pretty evenly divided.

It really is.

Ben Wolf, thanks for joining us on Seek, Go Create.

This has been a great conversation.

Loved the conversation about fractional leadership, and I highly recommend

if you've, if you're listening in, go get the book, Fractional Leadership,

especially if you don't know much about it or want to know more, it is a great

read and it's perfect to get educated and understand what it is and how it

might benefit you and your organization, if you lead an organization, and then

also check out Win Win, the podcast.

Think that would be a great place to jump right when you're finishing

up here, because you're already on your podcast player and you can go

over, I think it's great compliment.

I listened to some of the things there and it is a great compliment

to what we're doing here.

So thanks for joining us.

We have new episodes every Monday until next time here at seek,

go create, continue being all that you were created to be.