Lauren Goldstein is the Founder and CEO of the award-winning and globally recognized boutique business consulting firm, Golden Key Partnership. Her clients lovingly call her “The Business Doctor,” because Lauren helps business owners diagnose the REAL root cause of their team and operations challenges to bring the business back to a healthy flow and retain more revenue.
As a trusted advisor to some of the fastest growing businesses of the past decade, Lauren’s greatest asset is helping business owners successfully transition through the gap of business operator to true business owner; from chief everything officer to powerful and effective CEO & leader. Her unique 4D framework helps CEOs reclaim time to create more freedom within their business so they can have more impact, success and still take vacations (worry free!) Bottom line, she helps business owners avoid burning out and burning down as they’re scaling up.
Lauren is also passionate about the Mental Health of entrepreneurs and creating a space for entrepreneurs to have more fun, play, and doing good in the community both in their lives and business.
In this episode, Lauren and Bryan discuss:
- How leaving the medical field changed Lauren’s sense of identity
- Why doubling down on our innate talents helps get us further
- The benefits of mentorship and self-discovery, and how they helped Lauren find her career path.
The show is shared on the following platforms:
Transcript:
Bryan Wish:
Lauren Goldstein, welcome to the One Away Show.
Lauren Goldstein:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.
Bryan Wish:
Great to have you here. Happy Monday. So Lauren, what is the one away moment that you want to share with us today?
Lauren Goldstein:
The one away moment. So for those of you who have not met me, my name is Lauren. In my former life I was actually in the medical field. I was going to be a doctor. I worked in pediatric neurology and epilepsy research. Was just about to embark on going to med school and all of that and all that entailed. I’d been in the medical field for about 10 years. I worked during high school, college and then of course post grad. And I worked in pediatric neurology. I was also an EMT, and I remember very distinctly when I got my last rejection letter from medical school, ’cause I don’t know if you know this, but it’s actually a year process.
So whatever year you want to go, you need to start applying a year beforehand. And it’s a two step process and I thought I had it in the bag, had the grades, the hospital experience, the scores, all the things. But God had a different plan. So I remember just being devastated in that moment. ‘Cause I don’t know if you are a planner, but I had the perfect plan. And what is that saying? You plan, God laughs. I don’t know. Anyways-
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, yeah, that is the quote.
Lauren Goldstein:
And I just remember being really bummed. And then a few days later I was in our epilepsy monitoring unit and we had a little baby come in who the team treated and we felt really hopeful for this baby. They stopped seizing, the protocol that we put them on was going to give them a really great quality of life. And then the insurance company came back and said, “Actually, we ran the numbers. We’re not going to pay for their continued treatment.” And it was this really interesting out of body experience where the mother just crumbled to the floor and our docs were furious. And the whole team was just in disbelief that this, forgive me for saying, this bozo in a bow tie who was just looking at the bottom line at an insurance company could put a value on a human life. And in that moment I knew why I didn’t get into medical school.
And the reason was because at the end of the day, doctors really can’t practice medicine anymore. They can’t do what’s really best for the patient because insurance companies are dictating patient care. And so I went, I don’t want to go spend the next eight years of my life and hundreds of thousands of dollars to go into a field to help people when I can’t help people. I know what they need, but insurance companies are dictating patient care and in my opinion not doing a good job of it. And so that was really, to your initial question, my one away moment where I went, “Oh my God, this life that I had planned of helping tiny humans and being a doctor that I had so strategically planned out just kind of went up and smoke.” And I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have a plan B, I wasn’t a plan B kind of person. And so I just said, “Well, I don’t know plan B, but this is no longer plan A.” And so that was the moment that I left the medical field.
Bryan Wish:
Wow. I know those moments when, yeah, your whole life’s going one way and then all of a sudden takes a total 180. There’s no going back, and that’s-
Lauren Goldstein:
No going back. Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
It’s hard to reckon with. What I’d like to maybe know before we maybe talk about where it led you and all the things, but I’d love to know maybe why from a young age you wanted to be in the medical field, and where that came from.
Lauren Goldstein:
That is a great question. I don’t know where it came from because my great grandfather was a doctor, but I actually never met him. But I just remember some people play like house with their stuffed animals or school teacher and I always play doctor. I was always putting bandaids on them or if I grew up with the dogs and cats and horses and all of that. So if someone was hurt then I was always the first to be like, “Let me fix them.”
So I don’t know. I feel like I was born with this innate sense of wanting to help people or make things better and just the way that my brain works solving problems lent itself really well to medicine because you come in and you don’t know a lot of things. You’re just gathering data and looking at what the data is leading you to diagnose and treat and then see what happens after you treat. And it’s just a lot of that relates very well to what I do with my clients now in operations and team. And so I think I just …. I don’t know. Was born to solve problems. I just think healthcare has the main one.
Bryan Wish:
You just think you were naturally drawn to it, where you just wanted to help? And so you nothing … No one modeled that behavior for you growing up. It was just came out of the womb and you were a healer.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, essentially. Yeah. No, I didn’t have anybody who was like, “You should be a doctor.” I mean, I’m Jewish so everybody thinks that you should be a doctor or lawyer, whatever. But in my family, I come from a family of entrepreneurs so nobody said you should be a doctor or lawyer. And actually, I remember … Well, bless my father. When I decided to leave the medical field, I was like, “You know what? I think I could be a really great attorney.” And my dad said, “Great, just what the world needs. More attorneys.” So I obviously didn’t become an attorney and I actually love my attorneys. I think they’re great, but nobody had modeled this and I was like, I don’t know, this is something I’m really enjoy.
Bryan Wish:
Interesting. So you went against the grain of your culture in a way? No. I’m kidding. I know there’s a lot of entrepreneurs in the Jewish community. So before we maybe dive in ’cause I know you like the coined term of being the business doctor, but what kind of entrepreneur was your father? How did he inspire you growing up?
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, so my mom and my dad owned a custom tack shop. So they made bridals and leather goods for horses. And my grandmother had, she trained horses. And then my grandfather actually took over his father’s repossession business. And then on my other side, that was where my great grandfather was a doctor, so he had his own practice. So I don’t know if you would consider that an entrepreneur, but everyone had very out of the norm … You don’t meet very many people that are horse trainers or have a custom tack shop or repossess cars. So everybody had kind of a little bit of a unique entrepreneurial business. And I think just what drew me to that was, well, after I left, but what drew me to it afterwards is just taking your gift and giving it to the world and helping other people who something that’s so easy for you is difficult for someone else. So really supporting them so that they can make an bigger impact with their business.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, it’s cool that you had parents who were more entrepreneurial, entrepreneurs themselves. That maybe you taking a similar leap at a later point in time maybe wouldn’t feel as scary to lean on the people who brought you into the world. I think that’s so important and also so hard to do. So that’s very cool.
Lauren Goldstein:
Thank you.
Bryan Wish:
What, Lauren, I want to go to that moment now where you realized my life is going to take an utter turn and there was a sense of permanence to that. In that moment, if you can take me there, what were the thoughts running through your head? How were you feeling? What were conversations you were having with yourself, with other people? Just curious kind of that moment in time.
Lauren Goldstein:
Oh yeah. So the moment I made the decision or the moment that I actually walked away?
Bryan Wish:
However you’d like to answer it.
Lauren Goldstein:
Okay. So the moment I made that decision, the thoughts that were going through my mind was just like I didn’t want to be trapped in something where I felt so constricted and like I would be forced to do something that maybe wasn’t in my patient’s best interest just to acquiesce to an insurance company. So I was mad I think in that moment. I was frustrated and I felt like the dream that I had in front of me just evaporated. Which was, I think I had a lot of grieving to do around the life that I thought I would have when I made the decision.
And then when I left and actually walked out of the hospital doors for the last time, that was pretty tough because like I said, I didn’t have a plan B, I had no idea what was to come. I had to go and do other part-time jobs until I could figure out really what I was doing. Because I didn’t really have any real world experience outside of hospitals. So I could go get a similar job. I could continue being an EMT, which I did for a little bit, but I didn’t have any … It wasn’t like I worked for a tech company, I’d just go work for another tech company or something like that. I truly did a 180. So there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of like, “Oh my god, why did I do this?” Was this the right thing to do? Again, that sense of loss or grief.
And then also there was a sense of freedom and excitement, and you know how fear and excitement are actually the same physiologically in your body. You just have to label them differently. I would ebb and flow between being scared and excited probably for the first year plus. But I knew … Even today I know that it was the right decision, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss that portion of my life. There’s just certain … Even though your hands are tied with insurance companies, there’s a certain altruistic, good feeling you get when you’re doing that kind of good work and helping people that it’s hard to find in business. When a kid smiles at you and says thank you, that’s pretty hard to get anywhere else.
Bryan Wish:
So the medical space, the way you were serving, there’s an element of service to children that maybe that you were grieving, knowing that perhaps what you did next you want to have that.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, and I think I was grieving the life that I had planned in my mind. I think that there’s a certain level of anytime you close a chapter and you open a new one, there’s a certain level of hope but also a certain level of you have to properly acknowledge, appreciate, and let go of that other chapter. Otherwise, for lack of a better word, it’ll haunt you. And so there were people, there were experiences, there were moments in time that it was such a huge … I think probably the thing that I was grieving the most is my identity in the medical field. Yes, I love the kids and I loved all of that and it was very sad to leave them. But when you have an identity that’s so wrapped into what you do, then it’s a little bit who am I? I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know what’s next. So there was a lot of figuring out who I am without this very rewarding and challenging career, and the people that built that career.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. I think what you said about being so unshakably tied to career, or identity wrapped into a career, or a relationship or the pieces, when that circumstance kind of takes a turn, I think you’re right. It makes you look inward and ask some of those deeper hard questions, which it sounds like you did, or did some work around. I’m just curious if I was to ask you, just for time, I’m going to ask you my question, but for time scale, what year was that?
Lauren Goldstein:
I left in 2010.
Bryan Wish:
Got it.
Lauren Goldstein:
So 11 plus years ago, 12 years.
Bryan Wish:
So if I was to ask you 11 years ago, who is Lauren Goldstein, I was to ask you that same question today. What do you think you’d say and how would they be different?
Lauren Goldstein:
That is a really good question. I think back then I would’ve very much said, “I work in a hospital, I’m going to be a doctor, I’m also an EMT.” It was very tied to the title on my ID badge. And at that point I was only a year and a little bit out of college. So I think those first four year, five years out of college are wobbly for everyone.
But I think at that time I was like, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to be a doctor. So that’s who I was, is I was a medical professional. And today I would say that I’m a friend, I’m a speaker, I’m a philanthropist, I’m a volunteer, I’m a daughter. Things that are not tied … Yes, I’m a business advisor and consultant, but when I look at who I am in my core, I’m a generous, loving, free woman. The life that I’ve created allows me to have really great relationships and the freedom that comes with a business and contributing that way. And so I see it less as the title makes me the woman, but instead the woman makes the title. If that makes sense.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Oh I like that. That’s good. Well, I appreciate you sharing. I mean I find it so interesting the journey that we all go down or where we put comfort or a sense of belonging outside ourselves and then realize where it actually is within. So it seems like you’ve been on a nice journey these 11 years since the decision. So Lauren, when you know mentioned you talked a lot about the grief, but also the fear and the excitement and what was ahead. As you are navigating next steps, I know you started doing some things, but how did you think about those next steps? How did you think about maybe the next few years, 10 years, five years of your life and where you wanted to be once you started to really feel the end of the chapter and also realize, hey, I’ve got to plan for what’s ahead.
Lauren Goldstein:
In a lot of ways I felt really far behind, because I feel like a lot of my … Well, that’s actually not true. Most of my friends in college actually went on to be doctors or in the medical field. So most of us followed the same trajectory and were whatever our degrees were, biology, chemistry, psychology, whatever it needed to be for medical school. And so that was a majority of my friends. But I had a few friends who actually did what I think looking back college is actually supposed to be, which is experimenting and figuring out what you want. And so I didn’t take all the classes to really see where I fit. And so I felt like a lot of my first few years in this new world was just figuring out what the heck I was really good at. I think we are all born … I don’t think I know we’re all born with innate talents that when we focus more on those and not … I’m going to get on a soapbox for a tiny moment, our schools are designed to make us mediocre.
We get punished when we want to focus on something we’re good at. So for example, I was always really good in math and so I was a year ahead in math, but I was not great in chemistry, which you would think I would be great in chemistry, but I was not. And I was also really great in psychology and some of the other things. But instead of getting excellent, excellent grades in that and saying, “Oh she’s not great at chemistry, let’s just have her focus on what she’s good at.” It was all of a sudden, you’re not great at chemistry, I need you to focus more on chemistry. And so I think our schools punish us for actually having skills that we could go and follow and instead of saying yes, go do that, it’s like no, you need to get A’s in everything or something like that. And so I don’t think our school system really sets us up to be able to hone the things that we’re really good at.
And so, for me, a lot of what I spent the first two years doing was figuring out what I was really good at. Because I had been very good at things that were related to the medical field, but you know don’t normally, like nobody’s bleeding at work or nobody’s having a seizure, so it’s kind of hard to translate. And so what I did is I read every self-help personal development book I could get my hands on that was recommended for people transitioning in their business life. I hired a coach, a Tony Robbins coach and I had a lot of mentors who were in the business field. And I just remember over breakfast one morning, my mentor looks at me and goes, “I think you should be a consultant.” I’m like, “What in the heck is a consultant?” This was before being a consultant was cool, now there’s like a gajillion consultant, but he’s like, “Essentially, you’re paid to solve problems.”
And he said, “The way that your brain works and the way that you were trained in the medical field is really relevant to business and most consultants don’t have it.” I was like, “What on earth are you talking about?” And the more he explained it, the more it made sense. And this is actually how I became known as the business doctor. Not because I’m a doctor but because I come in and I diagnose because that’s essentially what I did for so many years is you come in, you present with certain symptoms, we dig in the surface, we run tests, et cetera, and then we pop out diagnosis. And so he said, “The way that your brain can just take in so much information and sift through it and see what connects and how the chess pieces move and all that.” He’s like, “It’s a very rare gift. Most people don’t have it.” And he said, “And most consultants come in with a cookie cutter. You say you need sales, we’re going to follow this road. But what you do is say is that actually the thing that you need? Is sales what you need?”
But in my case, a lot of times when people are like, “We have a sales problem.” I’m like, “Nope, you actually have a fulfillment problem and if you don’t fix that, sales won’t matter.” And fulfillment being ops or team anyway. So it was a very long winded way of saying there was a lot of personal discovery via books and courses and mentorship. I really cannot say enough good things about having a mentor who has been where you’ve been or knows how to get where you want to go. That can objectively tell you where you’re hitting your head against the wall. ‘Cause it’s hard to read the label when you’re in the bottle.
Bryan Wish:
It’s hard to read … That’s such a good quote. It’s hard to … I’ve never heard it like that. Well, thank you for sharing. Seems like you did a lot of searching and finding in conversations with people and yourself. What really stuck out to me in what you were just saying though was someone said, mentor, “Hey, you’re really good at diagnosing problems, symptoms, and that’s a gift.” Totally. Obviously in the medical field that was necessary to do things well. But I’m curious on maybe the deeper layers of that. To diagnose something properly, to really look at something holistically and then really understand how cut it up to say, you’ve got to fix these four things to get these things working. How are you able to do that? If you had to break down or maybe articulate, what’s enabled you to do that beyond just taking in a lot of information, how would you say that your … What I’m trying to ask you is what enables you to be so good at that?
Lauren Goldstein:
Magic. No, I’m kidding.
Bryan Wish:
Of course. That too. Lucky guessing.
Lauren Goldstein:
Lucky guess. Oh, what enables me to do that? I think it’s probably a combination of three things. One, I have a veracious appetite for knowledge. So I read a ton, I research a ton. If I don’t know something, I’ll be the first to go look it up and get a little inkling of what’s happening. So there’s that. I’m not resting on my laurels and being like, “Oh, I know enough.” And the curse of knowledge is the more you know realize you don’t know hardly anything.
Bryan Wish:
So you just stop learning together, right?
Lauren Goldstein:
No, definitely not. So there’s that. The second part is, I mean I really can attribute this to tiny humans who can’t really explain and their parents are like, “I don’t know, they’ve just got a tummy …” A lot of entrepreneurs basically are, if you think of your business like a body, the same thing, the entrepreneur’s the parent. And I’m trying to talk to the kid and figure out what’s happening. And I think I have a great gift of seeing … Reading between the lines enough that I’m like, “I need to ask a deeper question or there’s more here.” And I’ll never forget when … So I do diagnostic deep dives on businesses and I have an advanced, a more intensive version where I actually interview the top leadership instead of just the business owner and CEO. And I remember I was interviewing one of my clients’ business partners and in that moment I could just see how all the puzzle pieces aligned based on one of her answers.
And I said to myself in that moment, I was like, “Oh, this is why the business is struggling.” And I emailed my client and I said, “I don’t normally share these interviews but you need to watch this.” And what I had uncovered, because she’d originally come to me and said, “We need to tune up the team, tune up the operations. Because our sales have really stagnated and so our business keeps hitting this ceiling and we can’t break through it.” And that’s a lot of the work I do is figuring out what’s stopping you from sustainable growth or what’s going to blow up if you grow your business. And so I came in and I did my interviews with the team and I found out that really, truly a lot of what they had was working. But there was one cog in the business, which was this business partner that was basically sabotaging the business and she didn’t know it.
And so I sent it over and I said, “You have to watch this.” And her response to me was one line and it said, “Oh my god, it’s so much worse than I thought. “And so a lot of consultants would just come in at surface level and ask the same basic questions. And don’t get me wrong, I have the same basic questions I ask everyone, but I’m listening, right?
Bryan Wish:
Right.
Lauren Goldstein:
I’m listening for what they’re not telling me I’m listening for that, oh, how long have you had that cough? Oh, it’s a cough, it’s fine. Okay. I don’t think it’s just a cough sort of thing. And then I can tug on that thread and see where it goes. And then I think the third component is I have this way of, beside having the experience and the knowledge and asking the right questions, because I’ve been interim COO to companies and I’ve seen the whole landscape, I can see how everything actually works together. And I think a lot of times when you bring in a consultant or advisor, they’re just in the silo. Whereas I’m a 30,000 foot, okay, if this part isn’t working, what is the ripple effect that it’s having in the business and what can we fix? What system’s blocked so that we can have a full healthy body of a business?
And most people don’t operate that way. If you bring someone in for sales, they’re just going to focus on sales. Or if you bring someone in for ops, they’re just going to focus on behind the scenes. But I actually come in as the business doctor and say, “Well, what’s actually the root cause of the symptoms that you’re seeing?” Because revenue is just a symptom of something else and it’s actually a lagging metric. And so you have to really say, “What’s the root thing that we’re solving for here, that when we fix that, it’s going to fix everything else?” Instead of just putting bandaids and tourniquets on the business.
Bryan Wish:
I love it. I love what you said about asking questions, but I also really like what you said is you’re not just [inaudible 00:29:31] people for the basic questions, you’re listening, right? For the tethers to unfold, that the person’s not saying or client’s not saying and I’m a very similar, very much a root cause type of thinker like you. Maybe I don’t do it with the operational brilliance that you do, but I think about the … I mean, given health, how important to me, I’m always thinking about okay, want healthy skin. Well it’s probably not … You can’t just supply a topical solution to it. ‘Cause like you said, it’s probably some root, maybe it’s nutrition, maybe it’s X, Y and Z, obviously many different factors. And so you apply that to the business, like you said, revenue lagging indicator. Yeah, you couldn’t be more right. Revenue’s probably a byproduct of great team performance, great delivery and fulfillment and services.
But again, your ability to break that down is obviously your gift and know how. So let ask you this. You come into a company, or you come in, you start talking to different leaders. Once you unveil the diagnostic, when you take them through the diagnostic process and you really gather your information and you really can see the picture at a 30,000 foot view, but then also understand how they come out of that maybe a 500 foot level, what does that look like, right? ‘Cause I think that’s so interesting once you really understand that picture and then are able to knife your way in. So how do you do that and what does that look like for you?
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, so a lot of times … Because at the end of the day, business owners started their business because they wanted to solve a problem. It’s not like they went to leadership business school. Even if you get an MBA, like it’s hard to actually learn something until you’re doing something. And so once we’ve diagnosed, generally we’ll find three to five things within the team, within operations, within finances, leadership that are either standing in the way of sustainable growth, causing significant leaks in time, team or revenue due to friction points, revenue cliffs, et cetera. And so a lot of times it’s tempting for an entrepreneur to be like, “Let’s fix it all.” Which almost never goes well because then everybody’s stretched too thin and the team gets pulled off of things that actually do produce revenue. So generally when we have those few things that are the biggest priorities, we’ll pick priority number one.
And then within reason, operational and team challenges as well as leadership and revenue take about 90 days to solve. Whether you’re hiring a team member or you’re solving a system, you’re solving a financial whatever. And so we’ll prioritize for the next 90 days solving that. And the one that we pick is generally the one that when we solve it will solve many other symptoms that we’re seeing in the business. So for example, if … One of my clients, she came to me because she was absolutely burned out. She’s like, “I don’t think I have the right team. I have a team, but so much still falls on me and I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, but I’m at my wits end because one of my team members …” A lot of my clients are in the wealth space, and she said one of her team members transferred half a million dollars to the wrong account. And I’m like, “Oh god, that’s a pretty big mistake.”
And she’s like, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m telling her exactly what to do and she’s still making mistakes.’ And so we came in and I was like, “Okay, what’s the thing that’s going to make the biggest difference?” And that particular thing was having a team member that actually did their job. And so we actually saved that client $150,000 in top line personnel costs because we realized that there were redundancies in two of the team members. They both had different titles but were doing similar things, both not doing it well. So we actually let them go and brought in one part-time person with very clear expectations, deliverables and accountabilities of how they were going to handle what was getting handed off from the partners. And so it made … It solved all the problems. It doesn’t always happen that way, but in that particular case, having this one person solved all the operational challenges that they were having. Because they were having problems with the clients not getting the right money, they were having problems with balls getting dropped, details getting lost.
And so by bringing in the right person who had the right back to that innate talent to succeed in the role, they not only saved $150,000 in cost, but they increased fulfillment to their clients and had a better client experience. So they actually grew their AUM, which is assets under management. So it was like this thing that was a huge pain in everybody’s butt. Nobody likes hiring. I mean, I like hiring, but most people don’t like hiring. But it solved so many different problems. And so once we have the diagnostic, to go back to your question, we really look, again, for the thing that’s going to solve the biggest problem, make the biggest dent in the business, and then prioritize the other things as we go down the line so we can focus, instead of a flashlight, like a laser and make the biggest difference in the shortest amount of time.
Bryan Wish:
What really stuck out to me from what he said is when you noticed the problems, the CEO or the founder goes into action mode, which isn’t always the healthiest for the team. I perhaps have made that mistake. So anyways, it’s good to have that person over your shoulder kind of saying, “Hey, slow down, let’s think about how we’re going to implement and roll this out.” Which your skills with the COO type of brain also is so critical to a CEO, especially if they don’t have that type of role in their company. So super important, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs think they can just figure it all out, but then I think as companies get bigger, as I’m sure you know, once you get companies close to 20 people are more, the wrong piece of communication can be fairly detrimental. So it seems like you give a lot of thought to how, when and why to fix something, but then the way in which to go about doing it that’s effective for everybody.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yes, definitely. So I’m fond of saying probably three things that my clients can quote. The first is, as you grow your business, you get more simple, not more complicated. The second is unshared expectations are nothing more than premeditated resentments.
Bryan Wish:
That’s good.
Lauren Goldstein:
The third is, your business should be boring. Because if you’re actually growing your business, because it’s getting more simple because you have accountabilities and processes and systems, it should be really boring. But the problem is that when the business gets to that point that it’s really running a well oiled machine, and the entrepreneur gets bored because we’re all very creative, we go, “Huh, what can we do?” And we try to make the business more interesting, which then inadvertently will blow up a cog in some department where they’re like, “Ah, we were doing so well and now you want us to go do something else.” And so what I advise a lot of my clients is you can have all your creative ideas, don’t get rid of those, don’t stop thinking of those. But they just get to live in this backlog and you get to have a gatekeeper between you, your ideas and the team. Generally that’s a COO or a chief of staff or a project manager to ask the very important question of is this really moving us to our goals?
Is it getting us closer to the business goals? Or is this just a fun project that you want to do? And if it is moving us closer to the goals, when are we actually going to integrate this into the business? ‘Cause a lot of times, to your point, if an entrepreneur gets really excited about something, they’re like, “Okay team, we’re going to go work on this.” And the team’s like, literally I see this so often. They’re so close to having whatever project you put them on before really running and they’re like the last 10%. And then you pull them off to something that you’re very excited about and then you’re like, “Actually, let’s not do that. Let’s go back to this other thing.” And so they’re in this constant state of like, well, what’s the boss going to do today? And that’s like, you just can’t scale and grow a business like that.
And so it gets to be boring, which is really hard for business owners to be bored. So if your business is boring, that is a good sign and you should probably get a hobby or have somebody that you can talk to about what excites you and then see if those are things actually your business should be doing, or if it’s you just needed to get it out of your brain. Because sometimes you just need to get it out of your brain into a piece of paper and you’re like, “Okay, I’m good.” Sometimes they’re great million dollar ideas, but it’s just a matter of when are they going to be great ideas.
Bryan Wish:
Or just call Lauren.
Lauren Goldstein:
Or just call me. Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
Or just call Lauren.
Lauren Goldstein:
Exactly. Yeah, my clients do that all the time. They’re like, “So I had this idea that I think we should do this.” And I have a business coach that also does this to me where I’m like, “I’m thinking of making a new product.” And she’s like, “Do you need a new product?” And I’m like, “No, I don’t.” Okay, thank you, bye-bye. It’s just having that sounding board to be like, “Nope, focus on what you’re doing.”
Bryan Wish:
The doctor’s doctor,
Lauren Goldstein:
The doctor’s doctor, everybody should have a doctor, a coach.
Bryan Wish:
It’s like the therapist who has a therapist, it’s great.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, everybody should have a business advisor.
Bryan Wish:
So let me ask a question, then I’m going to [inaudible 00:40:03].
Lauren Goldstein:
Okay. I’m read.
Bryan Wish:
Out of all the clients that you work with, how many have a COO?
Lauren Goldstein:
Very few. I would say 1%. So the companies I normally work with are between one and 10 million. And so most of them have somebody who helps with operations, but I think COO tends to be a little bit of a intimidating title. And so they have a team and they probably have a project manager or somebody that helps with operations, but an actual COO, I would say maybe not 1%, maybe it’s a little bit more, but I would say maybe one out of five. And so I actually come in as in interim COO at that level to tune up the business and then help them find that operational, that second in command person.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about … So I think that I’m not surprised. I was going to say if it’s over 20% it’d be shocked, given-
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, no.
Bryan Wish:
What you do. So I’ve been thinking a lot about this conversation, but I have a COO and every day we’re like marriage, it’s like a marriage. So we want to kill each other at times. And if he heard me say that, he’d probably ask me why. Anyways, we have a great relationship, but we definitely have our moments that really bring us together and make things better. Sometimes I question though, without that critical lens and eye on the business, we just wouldn’t be as far as we are. Now, he’s implementing a lot of my ideas, but like you said, he’s doing it at the right time for the business.
And my question to you is when you’re going in and doing a diagnostic, you’re able to see what needs to happen. You’re able to obviously make a plan, but you also, if I’m reading correctly, you also need to think about where the business is going a few years out. So yes, you need to tune them up in the short term, but how do you ensure they’re set up for long term success? How do you find that person to come in as that second in command? Because that’s a huge role to help someone do that. So yeah, would love your thinking there.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah. So to your point, so we don’t do anything in terms of we’re just going to do it for the next 90 days. We actually start at what is the end goal you’re going to and work backwards so that we’re setting the foundation. The analogy I like to use is trying to build a business with a garden hose versus a fire hose. So we want to make sure that whatever foundations we’re putting together in ops or team or whatnot is actually going to be expandable instead of finite. And so with the team, something we do very different than anyone else is we actually look at the CEO and what your unique CEO profile is and what that means for the team that you need around you. Because a lot of times, a lot of CEOs build teams because they think they need these people. And I’m not saying you don’t. You definitely need a sales and marketing and an ops person, but you might not need them in the order you think you need them, or you might need to tweak how you work with them.
And so we start with what are your unique innate talents as a CEO that you’re very strong in? What are your strengths versus what are your weaknesses? So we can protect your blind side. And so building the team that way. So we do a diagnostic on the team you have now, how they fit in with you, expectations, roles, and then operationally speaking, if we turn up the water pressure, what’s going to break? And so we start with, if you’re going from let’s say two million to five million, not a lot generally changes in the one to five, but the five to 10 generally it’s a pretty big jump. So we want to make sure that we’re … We don’t always put in people or operations in prematurely. In fact, we generally don’t. But we do shift you from being reactive in your hiring and operations to proactive. And the way we do that is by saying, “Okay, at this level, the kind of org chart that you’re going to need to support that is, this is the impact it’s going to have on operations.”
Because the thing that a lot of entrepreneurs, to your point about a cost of a COO, they don’t think about the step cost of … A lot of times they’re just like, “We just want to grow.” And I’m like, “Okay, great. But you have to think of …” I’m just going to think of a really simple step cost of, you have a piece of technology that your team uses and you add five new team members and they need to use it. So a step cost is your technology went from a $100 a month to $200 a month, which means it went from $1,200 a year to $2,400 a year. And so that’s just a very simple step cost. But you also need to think about, okay, so if you grow to five million, now you need another person to help with fulfillment. So that adds $50,000 to the bottom line.
And so to answer your question, a lot of times what we’re doing is actually proactively looking at, if you want to get to this level, what does the business need to do? But also more importantly, what do you need to do as a leader? Because there’s a lot of ways to get to $5 million, but do you want to have a life or do you want to be a slave to your business? And so since my primary objective when I come into a company is getting you out of the trenches, out of operator into visionary, CEO, and owner, I’m not trying to tie you down with more stuff. So we just need to be very clear about what your business is going to look like in relation to your life and your team so that we can build it accordingly.
Bryan Wish:
That’s pretty solid. It resonates a lot. And just even with me, I think this is so interesting, just ’cause this role is, I think so important. I think people in the CEO profile, they’re really good. Unless they’re just rare. They can see the board, they can see the board so clearly and they might be responsible for a piece of that board really hands on. Figuring out the rest of the pieces can sometimes feel so fuzzy. And I think there’s so much value in coming in and addressing companies, especially in that one to 10 million range. Because I think to go beyond 10 million, I think it’s really hard to do it without a COO, at least from what I’ve seen. So I’m sure you’ve seen that too. Now you mentioned something, you’re helping companies also find that number too. Did I hear you correctly?
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
Where do you find that kind of talent? Because I think that’s a [inaudible 00:47:43], if I’m an entrepreneur listening to this, I’m at two million in revenue or whatever it is, and I need a COO so bad, I say, “Lauren come help not only solve my problems today, but find me Lauren 2.0 to carry the torch forward.” How do you do that? That’s fascinating.
Lauren Goldstein:
I mean, do you want me to say magic again? I’m kidding. So I mean, there’s a lot of different ways. Some companies really don’t need COOs. They think they do, but they really don’t. Like, maybe they just need a chief of staff or a VP of operations or an operations manager. But a COO is truly the person that is the right hand to the CEO that’s overseeing all the different … The reason they’re chief operating officers, they’re just overseeing all the departments and acting part gatekeeper, part strategist, part getting … They can drop in, drop out. And so sometimes you need a full time one, sometimes you don’t. And so the way that I find them is really, it all comes back to properly looking at the CEO and seeing what they need. Because the strengths of the CEO are going to determine the kind of person that they need as a second in command.
I have a client where we determined that they didn’t actually need a COO, she just needed a more strategic assistant. And then the assistant took a lot of the stuff that was bogging them down. And then we also put in a person that’s a project manager. And so they’re at the lower end of the revenue that I work with. But for them, she didn’t really want to grow it more than what it was. She just wanted it to be more efficient and more profitable. So we looked at how can we give you more time? How can we give the business more efficiency and profitability? And the answer was not with a COO, it was with two very strategic hires. And so there’s a lot of different ways to find a COO, but it all starts with the kind of CEO that you’re working with.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Lauren Goldstein:
Does that answer your question?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, it’s great. Right? And it’s not like, “Oh, let’s just put a COO in place to make things happen.” No. What’s the CEO need? What’s the business need? And if they need a COO, great, but what are other roles around it that can supplement it? Okay. I got one more question for you.
Lauren Goldstein:
Tell me.
Bryan Wish:
To the doctor, and then we’ll close out. Something that I’ve noticed and is if you come in and you start working with a CEO, sometimes the business can only grow as fast as their personal development. And if they don’t address certain things it’s going to limit, I think, the business for getting to where it needs to grow to go and grow.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
No matter how much maybe operational work or infrastructure you’re able to put in place. So how do you address those hard conversations with CEOs? Because it’s not just a functional game when you’re running a business, [inaudible 00:50:58] level of emotion to it. How much of your work with these CEOs involves some of those harder conversations?
Lauren Goldstein:
A lot, actually. So my degree is in cognitive neuroscience, and I’m also a board certified NLP practitioner. And so a lot of my psychological background is about the blocks in the business in leadership. So we do diagnostics as one of our primary services. But then when they step into golden key advisory, that’s a container where it’s about leadership mindset as well as accountability and the rubber meeting the road where we have 90 day plans. And there’s a certain developmental objective. Because to your point, your business is only going to grow to the level of development that you have. Because there’s this analogy about fleas in a jar, if you’ve heard this analogy,
Bryan Wish:
No.
Lauren Goldstein:
Okay.
Bryan Wish:
Enlighten me.
Lauren Goldstein:
So fleas, this is totally a disturbing statistics, can jump feet in the air. They have a tiny thing, anyway, they can jump feet in the air. Anyway, if you put them in a jar, they’re going to try and jump out. So they’re still trying to jump feet, but they’re hitting their little noggin on the ceiling. So eventually they’re going to adjust their jumping so they don’t hit the ceiling. And then when you take the top off, they’ll still just jump enough that they don’t jump out. And a lot of times I see that happen with entrepreneurs, where they’ve gotten burned out, frustrated with the team or something. So they’ve incidentally, started limiting themselves. And a lot of times this plays into everything needs to go through them or aren’t taking risks. They’re not adjusting, they’re putting their fingers in every pie. And the team’s like, “Just let us do our job.”
And so then we get to have a conversation about, well, what is your role as CEO? Like what are the three big things that you love doing that make the most impact in the business? And how can you, quote, unquote, stay in your lane? Because again, board business owners burn down businesses. So we’re trying to keep them … We’re trying to keep them bored, but also making an impact. And so a lot of the conversations I have … I have the funniest stories about clients, but I remember a couple months ago, one of my clients had this look on his face. You could just see the light bulb had just turned on. And I was like, “What? Tell me what just happened.” And he’s like, “I think I finally just realized that I am their leader.” I was like, “What?”
He’s like, “Yeah. I mean, I knew it, right? I knew that I was the leader and the business owner, but I really don’t think until you just dropped that bomb on me, that truth bomb on me, that I need to actually act a leader and support them and do all these things that I haven’t been doing. And I am the bottleneck.” And I’m like, “Oh, thank Jesus. You finally got it.” And so I think consciously they know it, but subconsciously they’re like, “I can’t do it.” Or they’re having some sort of existential crisis about can I handle the next level of success? That’s a lot of the conversations that I have about, can I handle if the business gets to the next level? ‘Cause a lot of times I see that the reason they’re hitting this revenue plateau and falling back down is actually because there’s some self sabotage in the business from the owner.
And so if we go back to the example I shared before about the business partner, you had one business partner that is probably the best kind of entrepreneur to have, where she takes calculated risks and says, We’re going to launch this, we’re going to see how it goes and we’re going to learn from it. That’s the kind of business owner you want. Versus this partner wants absolutely no risks. Has to have all the data very slow to move by the time they move, the opportunities already moved through and has to have their finger in everything. And so this is basically what I told her. I said, “This partner is the reason you can’t get past where you are.” Because every time you do, she goes, “Oh, no, no, no. This is making me nervous. We can’t continue doing that.”
And so a very long winded way of saying a lot of mindset and leadership work goes into the work that I do. Because the hardest thing that you have to get comfortable with when you’re building a seven figure business and building a team and creating something that’s sustainable and scalable without you, is letting go. Letting go of control, letting go of your baby, trusting other people. And so if you’re not building the team that you can trust, then you’re not going to let go. And then when you do have the team you can trust, you have to let go. And you just have to trust that you’ve hired the right people, that the operations are there and move forward. Otherwise, the business is not going to grow past you because you’re stopping it.
Bryan Wish:
Lauren, thank you for the explanation. I think the examples you just shared were awesome. Definitely hit the nail on the head. You clearly know what you’re doing.
Lauren Goldstein:
Thank you.
Bryan Wish:
I mean, I hope so, but-
Lauren Goldstein:
I hope so. I mean, it’s been 10 years, plus 10 years.
Bryan Wish:
There you go. I think you have an MD in business doctorate, so we’ll give it to you.
Lauren Goldstein:
Thank you.
Bryan Wish:
Where can people find you, reach out to you, get to know you? Where’s the best place to send them?
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, so the best place, I hang out on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Instagram @itsLaurenGoldstein, or you can always go to goldenkeypartnership.com. We’ve got some great resources there. We’ve got our scorecard, which helps you get the most out of your current team as well as proactively hire so you can get the perfect team member moving forward. And then we also have a very awesome resource called Player versus Worker Bee, the difference that makes all the difference. If you don’t know what a player is versus a worker bee and how that impacts your team in business, go check it out. But yeah, that’s probably the best way to get ahold of me.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome. Well, thank you.
Lauren Goldstein:
Yeah, thank you. This was so much fun. I enjoyed being here.