In this revealing episode, Jason Ambeau, Business Architect of Exit Momentum, shares how he has helped hundreds of leadership teams break from co-dependency and false consensus so they can create the change they need for the success they want.
You will discover:
– How to lead a high-powered executive
– Where to find the source of 90% of your problems
– Why can’t you hire your way to better leadership
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is the one and only Jason Ambeau, who’s been a business leader for over 40 years and an owner for over 20 years and a coach for over 10 years. He helps business owners redefine the word freedom for themselves and their teams by guiding them in deploying a proven business operating system, he helps leadership teams to achieve results as yet unattainable by deploying a customized operating system for growth companies, the exit momentum system is a prescribed method customized for each individual to conquer the chaos of growing business and convert that energy into more significant growth and scalability. He’s also the author of the momentum system, a brand new book that’s a playbook for hiring, and he’s here with us today. Well, Jason, I’m very excited to have you on the show. It feels like this year in particular has been a really, really big year for leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs that are just struggling with the leadership quality of their team. We’ll kind of put it that way, in a generic sense. And the question that I have for you to kind of open things up, is, as leaders, when we feel that frustration, or teams performance, anything in that world, how do you know if it’s a specific team member problem, a you problem, or even both?
Jason Ambeau
Well, I would suggest first off, and thank you for having me, Scott, but I would suggest first off, that 90% of the time it’s the owner you are getting in the way Period End of story. You know, what is it like? 80 something, almost 90% of businesses reach the $3 million mark, and they kind of get stuck. That next big leap is to 10. Them to 30, right? And to get to 10, invariably, it takes people. It takes processes. Right? You gotta measure performances, but mostly for owners, you have to let go of the vine. You have to actually trust some people to do some things, empower them to make some decisions without that, you know, heavy monitoring, without having the heavy hand on it. And I really think that’s where most people fail. What they’ll do. Scott, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, and maybe some of your viewers have as well. That frustration gets to be so great, they go, you know, what the hell with him? I’ll just be a $3 million business, yeah, and I’ll make my little $180,000 a year, and that’ll be a good life, and that’s fine, and that’s okay for some folks, the truth is, you are either growing or you are shrinking. There is no stagnation, so you have to make a choice.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so true. The the question I find a lot of folks asking is, is this it like? Is this really as good as it gets? Is this really what being a founder is all about? Like, I fought for all of this. And so the next question I have for you here is, I’ve heard you say this and it I’ve never heard someone describe it this way before, but one of the ways that we get this wrong we hang on to the vine is actually by building a co dependent team and and so tell us what you mean by that. You know, folks may or may not know what codependence is. I’ve not really heard it shared in the context of a leadership team. So what does a co dependent team look like? Maybe. What are some of the symptoms of that, and how do we overcome it?
Jason Ambeau
Yes, so again, this is from from experience of working with dozens and dozens of businesses on my own, and really over 100 as exit momentum, as as a company in general. What happens is, again, owners have this wonderful, beautiful, amazing trait, right? It’s the grit and determination. I’ll do whatever it takes, and I’ll get in there, and I’ll proverbially sweep the floors, I’ll make the sales, I’ll bake the cookies. I’ll deliver. You know, they’ll they’re willing to work their butts off and do anything at all to get them it’s also the greatest obstacle for them to get to the next level, because they just can’t let go. So they become and, you know, so they go through this process and get this $3 million ish mark, they’ll hire one or two or three, maybe even five people to start operating, and they still operate in what I call proximity osmosis. It’s a term that I coined that describes someone connected at the hip, right? I don’t have to get clear about what my culture is. I don’t have to be super clear what the processes are. I don’t have to have follow up systems. I don’t have any of that stuff, because everybody that operates in my in my world is connected at the hip, right? So it’s a one on one relationship, and what you described earlier. And so that’s where there’s co dependency. We’re all leaning on each other. So like a little bit of a house of cards. And when you begin to scale, just you start pressing just beyond the capacity of the owner. And there was a limited. Capacity. That’s when that difficult and the pain comes, and because they don’t know how to get to the next level, they just shut it down, right? Because they can’t get past this proximity osmosis idea that they can really let somebody go and do something for them.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve found keeps us trapped in this mode is even if we figure out, okay, maybe we need some other people in here. Maybe this team isn’t the, you know, in its entirety, the team that’s going to get me to 10 million, or 15 or 20, or whatever it might be, and they go to hire in someone else, and it doesn’t solve the problem, right? And so there’s, there’s two big challenges in this is one, I’ve found it’s it’s very hard to hire the right people if you haven’t figured out why you’ve got the wrong people in the first place. And two, even if you hire the right people, if you treat them the way you treat the rest of your people, they’re not staying around. So I want to unpack both of these here real quick. How does, how does hiring need to change when we’re looking for that executive to come and help us out.
Jason Ambeau
Oh yeah. So I break this down to a three part process, right? It’s attract, recruit, screen, compensate and retain. And all five elements have to be in place. And they can’t be ad hoc. They can’t just be made up. So what happens to business owners giving this three, four, $5 million range of them? Well, we need somebody to do X, right? Somebody’s got to take this off my plate. They hire somebody to do that thing right? It’s just so limited in scope and so limited in really understanding so that they don’t, again, they don’t attract the right person, right so their public persona, their website, their social media, their everything about them. They’re not attractive enough to the high to the high quality candidates. Secondly, they don’t have a real recruiting program. And what I mean by that, even if it’s just as simple as what I call the tentacles paradigm, which is, where are all your tentacles in, in your community, within your marketplace, right? And your social networks, your professional networks, your all the places that you interact with people. And are you actually actively letting people know that you’re seeking something? The third thing, in terms of screening that the big mistake that people make is they’re not really 100% clear on what they want, so they don’t know culturally what it looks like. We use what’s called an ace profile. So aptitude and attitude, I need in this position, core capacity. It’s gonna be capacity and core competencies and enthusiasm, right? And outlining those things really, really clearly, at least on a one page document, exactly what some of that stuff looks like, and and again, and your cultural norms, getting all that right, and then hiring to fit those things, not not compromising, not saying, Well, this person’s experience fits. Who cares, right? Tom Brady has a ton of experience at quarterback in the NFL, doesn’t he? But does he have the capacity to be a quarterback in the NFL anymore? No, he doesn’t, right. So just just as an example, and then compensation. So I can’t stand flat compensation systems. I love incentivized compensation systems. So any position you hire like that, Scott, whether it’s it’s this next move to scale, there are there something you can measure some place that they are going to have an impact, and you have to be clear what those measurements are, and then, and then set some targets, and when they exceed those targets, great, you’re going to give them some extra compensation for that. It also gives the opportunity to find out very quickly if you made the wrong hire because they’re not moving the needle on those things right. And then, from a retention standpoint, it’s at its most basic level. You have to have some schedule feedback loops. And I know you might see this person every day or every year I don’t care. You have to have a some formalized time that you sit down, you go over the expectations, you listen to any issues they have. You work actively to keep that great employee on board, or because they’re, if they are high level employee, just believe this. They’re being recruited constantly. Opportunities come across their desk constantly, and you will lose them because you’re not that cool.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so, jumping on that, not that cool thing. We have this kind of tendency to oscillate between, everyone would want to work with me. Why would they never want to work with me? Too? Nobody wants to work with me, right? And imposter syndrome kicks in and and we get some, especially when you get a couple high caliber folks on your team that are really stretching you in terms of leadership, skill and capacity, which is exactly what you want. It can fire up that imposter syndrome, and you’re sitting there thinking, well, like they don’t, what do they? What can I possibly give them, right? And, and we’ll kind of back out of it. And so I want to pose that question to you, what do great executives need from their CEO to do their best work?
Jason Ambeau
What they need? So the most important question, I would tell you that you could ask is it’s this simple, what impediments can I help remove for you, as long as we’ve been clear, right? Like this is the goal. Here’s here’s what I need you to produce. I need you to produce x, y and z at these levels. Here’s how we’re going to measure that. Here’s the intervals that we’re going to measure. Here’s the strategy, I think, that we developed together to get there. Here’s the tactical pieces that you’re going to do on a regular basis produce those results, right? Yeah. And then, and then it’s, it’s, it’s simply being 100% clear with those folks, right? And then sitting down and go, Okay, are we clear? We’re here. We want to get here. Great. We’re clear. Awesome. What can I do to help you produce those results? Yeah, that simple. Just, what can I do? Or what, what impediments are between? Is it some training? Is it processes? Is it people? Is like, is it leads? Like, what? What do you need from me on a regular basis asking that question, if you look at like Maxwell’s leadership hierarchy, for instance, that’s one of the higher level pieces of leadership, when that person sees you as their greatest champion for their own cause.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. I love that. There’s a question Jason, that I like to ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you’d have to say. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jason Ambeau
Well, I really think it’s connected to what we just talked about, right? So the only way for you to expand your businesses with great people, people is at the center. So yes, processes and products. People have this imagination that there’s some breakthrough moment in business, some similar event, some new product, or new market, or we grabbed, we got lucky, to get a big customer. None of that shit is true. It’s just not true. It is a it’s the steady, regular, non stop, consistent, moving forward, right? And to do so, you have to have great people, because you can have great products and great processes, but if you don’t have people to execute, it’s just an idea. It’s literally meaningless, right? So I, and I know that sounds so, so cliche or trite to say people, but getting the people part, right, yeah, and then trusting them. And I think that’s the main thing when you begin to scale, is you have to get people on board, and then you let them do shit for. You, let them do the things you hired them for and get out of their damn way. And again, continue to ask the same question, What can I do to remove the impediments between you and the targets that we’ve set and then they see you as their champion, their facilitator for their own success, you will create an incredibly loyal and incredibly high performing employee in that sense, and if they’re not then you have to be honest with yourself and say, Guess what? I’ve got the wrong person. Yeah. And move on. Just move on. They may be super, they may be great, they may be fun. You guys may have all the same hobbies and interests and similarities, and who cares? This is your business. It’s what’s the line? It’s not show Friends is show business. So,
Scott Ritzheimer
Jason, tell us again a little bit about your book and where we can get a copy.
Jason Ambeau
Yeah, so the momentum system is an entire system that we teach at exit momentum. And again, it revolves around the four pieces of people, purpose, playbook and performance, and this particular book that’s coming out next, the playbook for hiring is specific to those five areas I’d mentioned before, attract, recruit, screen, compensate and retain, and getting those things aligned. When people think about hiring, they don’t. I take great analogies like football to say, well, football, just football. No, there’s offense and defense and special teams, and even inside of that, there’s line play, there’s receivers, there’s running backs, there’s quarterbacks into that. So breaking that down and understanding that’s critical, and that’s what the book does. It’s literally the easiest book in the world to read, because it’s not full of a bunch of fluff and stories. Let me tell you the story about Jane and Jim at such and such company. It’s got none of that. It’s idea after idea after idea after idea that you can execute on. So it’s really easy. It’s really like, it’s a it’s a great bathroom. You could open it up, read an idea and go execute it tomorrow without reading the entire book, just like a bathroom book kind of thing. And so it’s just, it’s easy to use and deploy to help you build your business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, we’ll get a link to the book for everyone in the show notes. Tell us, Jason, where can folks find more out about you and the work that you guys did Exit momentum.
Jason Ambeau
Exitmomentum.com, You’ll find us there. You’ll find all of all of the coaches. That are on our team, our founder, you’ll find myself there as well, and you’ll be able to see a little bit about what we do in a whole bunch of phenomenal testimonials from our unbelievably successful customers. I don’t think we’ve ever had a failure, so.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic, fantastic. Well, Jason, thanks for being on the show. It’s a privilege and honor having you here, and for those of you watching and listening. You know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Jason Ambeau
Jason Ambeau has been a business leader for over 40 years, an owner for over 20 years, and a coach for over 10 years. He helps business owners redefine the word “freedom” for themselves and their teams by guiding them in deploying a proven business operating system. He helps leadership teams achieve results as yet unattainable by deploying a customized operating system for growth companies. The Exit Momentum System is a prescribed method, customized for each individual, to conquer the chaos of a growing business and convert that energy into more significant growth and scalability.
Want to learn more about Jason Ambeau’s work at Exit Momentum? Check out his website at https://exitmomentum.com/ or grab a copy of his book The Momentum System: A Playbook for Hiring.
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.