Welcome to The COO Solution Podcast, the go-to resource for business owners, CEOs, and visionary entrepreneurs looking to scale smarter, lead better, and build businesses that run without bottlenecks. I’m your host, Derek Fredrickson, and today’s episode addresses one of the most critical mindset and strategy shifts in entrepreneurship—how to stop being the bottleneck and start building a self-managing business that can run (and grow) without you.
In This Episode:
- Why Businesses Stall (01:05) – How businesses outgrow their systems, leadership styles, and operations.
- The Bottleneck Truth (03:20) – Why the same strategies and systems stop working at scale.
- Scaling with Leadership (04:43) – The need to shift from doing it all to leading strategically.
- Operator to Visionary (06:08) – Why founders must become CEOs, not Chief Everything Officers.
- Hiring a Second-in-Command (07:28) – How a fractional COO or senior OBM can take the reins.
- Leadership Culture (08:13) – Empowering leaders to manage teams and drive accountability.
- Operational Systems (08:57) – SOPs, project management tools, and CRMs to streamline growth.
- Living Systems (11:54) – Why adoption and usage matter more than tools.
- Accountability Culture (12:45) – Establishing clear roles, KPIs, and performance reviews.
- Bottlenecks to Break (16:00) – Identifying operational, leadership, and system bottlenecks.
- Evolving Business Models (20:14) – Shifting models, pricing, and processes to scale smarter.
- Summary of Growth Essentials (23:22) – Six core areas to structure your business for the next level.
- Action Assignment (23:57) – Audit your time, identify bottlenecks, and revise your model for scale.
Why This Matters
If your business can’t grow without you, you’re not scaling—you’re surviving. This episode guides you through the mindset shifts, structural changes, and leadership strategies needed to grow your business beyond your current ceiling truly.
Action Steps for Listeners:
- Audit your calendar, emails, and tasks: What can be delegated?
- Identify where your business model feels stuck and why.
- Explore what systems and support (like a COO) you need for the next level.
- Reflect: “Where am I the bottleneck—and how can I systematize or delegate it?”
Resources & Links:
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Transcript:
Have you ever felt your business is stuck at a certain level, like no matter what you do, you’re hitting a wall that you just can’t seem to break through? This happens to so many entrepreneurs and today we’re going to dive into how to break past that growth barrier.
So welcome back to The COO Solution Podcast. I’m your host, Derek Fredrickson, and today’s episode is about how to unlock your business’s next growth phase. and structure it for long-term success.
And in this episode, we’re diving into why do businesses stall at certain stages and how to move past them, the role of leadership and systems and accountability in scaling beyond six and multiple seven figures. And most importantly, you can take actionable steps right now to break through your growth ceiling. Let’s get started.
Now, as business owners, myself included, I’m assuming that we’ve all experienced that plateau, right, where things start to slow down despite our best efforts to grow. I often call this the glass ceiling. We’re trying to break through. Perhaps we’re at low multiple six figures and we want to get to that half million mark or we’re at high multiple six figures and we want to get to that seven figure mark and break through or perhaps we’re at a good seven figure mark but we really want to scale and get to multiple seven figures.
regardless of where you are on that business evolution scale or level, and there’s no judgment, we’ve all been there no matter where we are, it feels like we’ve hit that wall, right? And we don’t know how to get to that next level. And the question we want to ask ourselves is maybe why does this happen?
Well, let’s break that down. Businesses often outgrow their initial systems, leadership styles, and operational structures as they scale. I know that sounds a little intense and we’re gonna break that down to make it more real and more understandable, but it’s really a function of their kind of systems on how they do what they do, their leadership style in the sense of how is the business owner showing up and operating in the business.
and the kind of operational structures and workflows on how stuff gets done, right, in terms of how we collaborate and how we communicate. It’s really broken down into those three areas. And essentially What worked to get you to seven figures or even multiple six figures might not be enough to sustain the growth beyond that.
And the problem isn’t the business, right? It’s not your business. It’s maybe not necessarily how you’ve done things in the past, right? The business is right. It’s that the model and the strategy has to evolve. So here’s the reality. If you’re the bottleneck in your business, your business can’t grow as fast as you want.
if you’ve been listening to my episodes, you’ve heard me say that time and time again, and it is the case over and over, right? If you’re the bottleneck in your business, your business can’t grow as fast as you want. And at a certain point, the same strategies, leadership, and systems that worked in their early stages stop working for larger growth and larger scale.
So this episode is all about breaking past those barriers and shifting to long-term sustainable growth. So we’re gonna break this down into a couple different points and I’ll number each one of these for you so can kind of follow along because they’re each equally important but different and unique in their own right.
And so the point number one is why do businesses stall at certain stages. Right. So let’s let’s ask the question what are the key reasons businesses hit a growth barrier and stall. And the answer is this many entrepreneurs feel that they’ve outgrown their current systems leadership, and processes at this stage doing everything yourself becomes what I call a growth inhibitor rather than a strength.
And there are leadership shifts that are needed. Moving from six figure to seven figure growth requires restructuring leadership. And what I mean by leadership is the key players that are on your team, getting more strategic support, less of the kind of day-to-day tactical implementation. We need that, but we also need an up level in our strategic and leadership support. And essentially delegating more responsibilities. Again, you’ve heard me talk about this in previous episodes about how to delegate, outsource, systematize, and get out of the day to day.
And then the third component is systems and operations. Without scalable processes, you’ll continue to hit roadblocks. Systems aren’t just about keeping the wheels turning. They make a business move faster as it grows. You’ve heard me say, perhaps, we want a process-driven company, not necessarily a person-driven company. And that doesn’t mean we don’t value our people. Of course that we do. But in order for them to perform, more efficiently and more effectively, we want to have a very solid process in place so that they can use that process as the foundation for them to do really good work.
So that’s number one, which is just generally why businesses stall at certain stages and what are the key reasons that they kind of hit that growth barrier and stall and they really come down to the current systems, leadership and processes.
Point number two, let’s talk about the role of leadership and scaling beyond seven figures. So we’re to break some of these down in little bit more detail. So the question we want to ask ourselves is what leadership shifts are required to scale beyond six and seven figures? Well, the answer is this. Moving from operator to visionary is essential for scaling. Getting out of that day-to-day mantra of having to be the one that’s doing it all, did a social media post recently which got a lot of attention. I said, you need to stop being the CEO. which is the chief everything officer and instead focus more on that leadership capacity of being the chief executive officer. So you must begin delegating operations and focusing on big picture decisions at this multiple six and seven figure mark. Okay. And again, if you want to look at some previous episodes about some best practices and some ideas about how to do, you know, some delegation, perhaps you’ve got some team, you’ve got some structure, you’ve got some systems in place, that’s fantastic.
But there’s always a next level. always up leveling our ability to delegate and get out of the day to day. What you were doing perhaps in the day to day a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, you’re not doing now, but there may be things that we want to make sure that you’re not continuing to do going forward as it pertains to the day to day. So an example is to hire a second in command, right? A fractional chief operating officer or a senior OBM online business manager that can be that, you know, as a visionary leader, you’ll need that kind of true operator who can handle the day-to-day operations while focusing on strategic growth. It’s that partnership. It’s that trusted second-in-command that can help make things happen, that can help make things real, and then cascade that into the plans and the processes and the people organization in order to make that true. And then the third component is building a leadership team. Scaling the business requires hiring key leadership positions who will manage teams effectively.
you can’t do it all on your own, right? So when you bring in that second in command or an OBM, not only they can ensure that you’ve got the right people and the right seats, but they can lead and manage and hold them accountable, lovingly accountable, so that they’re able to produce and perform based on their responsibilities and their role and their expectations. And that’s that leadership culture. So you’re not having to check in with all of the different team members and did we do this and did we do that and where are we with this and where are we with that? They take care of that for you.
Okay, so that’s point number two is the role of leadership and scaling beyond seven figures.
Let’s talk about point number three, the importance of systems and operations, right? And the question we’re asking ourselves here is what are the systems every business needs to scale efficiently? Now, full caveat, I’m not going to do an entire episode here just on all of the systems because there could be many, many, many. And I’m going to generalize in some respect, but these are in what I see and in my experience, some of the core necessary relevant systems for most businesses at most growth and scale stages. Growth meaning you’re at that multiple six figure mark and scale where you’re at that multiple seven figure mark. Okay.
So what are some of those systems that need to be in place to scale efficiently? And again, when I say system, this is not a technical system. This is not about teaching you the ins and outs of how to build your WordPress website or how to use some sort of zappier automation. No, it’s not about that. These are the operational systems, the workflow systems, the how we get stuff done around here systems. Okay.
And the answer is businesses need systems that grow with them, not just systems that keep the lights on. Right. This is not about status quo. This is about elevating and expanding what we’re doing. So number one, SOPs, standard operating procedures, documenting what we’re doing. Right. I often say when we work with our clients, it’s just as important that we’re focusing on the how.
we’re doing what we’re doing in addition to, of course, what we’re actually doing. How are we doing this? Are we documenting it? Are we coming up with the checklist? Are we coming up with the steps? Are we refining the process so that we have a written or online or something in place that’s not in somebody’s head, right, or just a memory, something that’s an SOP. This is the blueprint of how we do things around here
And they allow your business to run smoothly. without needing your constant oversight, right? Because there is that blueprint, there’s that template of not only what we do, but how we do it. So that’s number one, SOP as an example.
Number two, I firmly believe every business at one stage or another needs to have a project management tool. There are countless of them out there, Asana, monday.com, Trello, ClickUp, I could go on and on. And these tools help streamline workflows and improve team efficiency, especially when it comes to working with teams.
so that your team members are aligned in not only what they need to do, but when they need to do it by and who they need to collaborate or communicate with in order to get that done.
So that’s number two, project management tools. Number three is some sort of a CRM, right? Customer Relationship Management System, a database where you track, you know, your clients, your customers, your leads, et cetera. So using systems like HubSpot or Infusionsoft. Zoho or Salesforce. Again, there’s so many that are out there to ensure that your customer interactions, your leads, your sales and inventory are aligned and integrated.
And there are others, right? There are finance systems out there for bookkeeping. There are customer support systems out there for customer service and ticketing mechanism. And then there’s a whole plethora of automation tools that are out there being able to automate and streamline so many of your day-to-day workflows. The importance with all of these is to have something in place. The importance of a system is not just having a system for the sake of having a system.
The importance of having a system is that it’s in use, is that it’s followed by all. It’s something that’s actually living and breathing and people are adopting and adapting and utilizing it. And you can start with something even more basic than the ones I provided as examples. Have a spreadsheet, have a checklist, have something that’s maybe, again, not written in somebody’s head.
or something that doesn’t even exist, let’s put it down, pen to paper, and start to create that in more of a systematic way. So that’s number three, which is the importance of systems and operations.
Let’s move on to number four, the role of accountability and breaking through growth barriers. So the question we’re asking ourselves here is how does accountability play a role in scaling your business? Well, the answer is a culture of accountability creates ownership, empowering your team to act without constant supervision.
And when everyone knows their role and the expectations, they perform better. This is all about building a self accountable, a self responsible, a self reliant culture within your organization. Building a culture of accountability can look like a couple of different things.
And I’ll give you just two examples just to start. Number one, clear roles and responsibilities, ensuring that your team members identify and understand what their role is. but even more specifically, what are the responsibilities of that role? And when I mean responsibilities, it doesn’t necessarily equate to what are their tasks or what are the to-dos. That’s kind of the output of their responsibilities. Their responsibilities is I am responsible for bookkeeping. I am responsible for social media. And that may have more detailed to-dos, like I post on social media three times a week on these platforms using these expectations for collateral or graphics or quotes or whatever that might be, right? Or bookkeeping. I’m responsible for bookkeeping. I balance the books and records three times a week and I ensure that payroll is taken care of and cash flow is, you know, moving forward, etc. Right?
So first is roles and responsibilities. I often ask when we work with our clients and we look at their team structure, are your team members aligned and clear on what their role is, but more specifically the responsibilities that go along with that role. when I again, when I say responsibilities, they get it, they own it, they want it, they’re clear that they’ve taken ownership, that they’re accountable for that particular responsibility. Okay, so that’s one example, roles and responsibilities.
Number two, metrics and KPIs. You can track key performance indicators by ensuring everyone is aligned on the business goals, right? So if somebody again is responsible for social media, ensuring that we’re looking at the metrics and KPIs that are tracking.
the result of that social media activity. Are we getting more visibility? Are we getting more leads? Are we getting more awareness on our various social media platforms? Using bookkeeping as an example, metrics and KPIs to track P &L, cashflow, profit, et cetera, to ensure that we’re increasing profit, we’re increasing cashflow, we’re managing the books in a sustainable and positive way. So we create that kind of culture of ownership as it pertains to the numbers that they own. Okay, so that’s number two.
And number three can become something like performance reviews, right? Regular performance reviews or check-ins to help assess where your team members need support and where they excel. I firmly believe in doing these at least once, sometimes twice a year. It doesn’t need to be a big formal exercise. It could be something about just generally checking in and, you know, how are things going, what’s working, what’s not working.
How can I support you more? And giving them an opportunity to share, not necessarily about the work that they’re doing specifically, but more generally about how they feel about the work that they’re doing to ensure that they feel happy and pleased and supported and positive in moving forward, okay? That’s number four, which is the role of accountability and breaking through growth barriers.
Let’s move on to number five, identifying and removing bottlenecks. So the question we’re asking ourselves here is what are the most common bottlenecks that slow business growth and how do you address them?
And I’m gonna give you the answer in three parts, okay? Number one, operational bottlenecks. These are the inefficient processes or lack of automation in customer service or marketing or really anything that you’re doing. And this is where, going back to the point around, for example, a project management tool can address those operational bottlenecks and create a more efficient process or a more automated way of how we do what we do.
I’ve seen this time and time again where the operational bottleneck is not just perhaps with the business owner, perhaps with one or other team members. It’s in the way that they’re doing what they’re doing. And if they’re not utilizing, as an example, a project management system, they might be doing everything over email, or they might be doing everything over Slack, or multiple spreadsheets and documents that nobody can easily find, or God forbid we’re using text messages.
all the time in order to communicate and collaborate. I love it. said, I don’t believe you can scale a seven figure business on text messaging or even email for that matter. Email has a purpose, but at the same time to create a more systematic process driven culture and removing those bottlenecks that are based on the people or the lack of process is that we need to create these systems that allow us to do things more efficiently, more effectively so that operational bottleneck can be addressed in the context of having a very solid project management system.
Number two, our leadership bottlenecks. Founders and business owners, or maybe even key team players that won’t let go of the daily tasks leading to micromanagement and slow decision making. Again, no judgment. We’ve all been there. And this is an exercise where we’re constantly upleveling, where do I have trust in my team? Where do I have trust in my process so I can relinquish control and let those team members that are supporting me take on more responsibility to free up the business owner to focus on the bigger picture, the future, the vision. And a lot of that goes with just being able to rely on that team and that structure that’s in place, again, going back to that project management system and a more fluid way of doing things and also ensuring that they’re aligned on what they’re taking ownership of. But it usually starts with the business owner and perhaps some key team members. We’ve worked with clients where there’s been one or two key team members that have been maybe in place for quite some time and
You know, they’ve done things the way they’ve always done things and there’s not a lot of openness to change. I’ve always said that generally people are not very open to change, generally speaking, in the sense that they like to keep things consistent, they like to keep things, you know, status quo and they don’t like to feel threatened in some way if there’s going to be a change in how they’ve done what they’ve done. But oftentimes, you know, growth and scale is as a result of making change.
and changing involves how we do what we do. And so looking at your team and understanding that perhaps there may be some team members that are holding on to the way that we’ve done things. And if that’s an inefficient model because it’s done, you know, not in a system and it’s done based on, you know, their own kind of whimsical way of going about doing it, you can’t scale that because that can tend to be a bit confusing. I’ve often said that you can’t scale complexity. So looking at not only
leadership bottlenecks, but key team member bottlenecks.
And then number three are systems bottlenecks. We’ve touched on this a little bit. It’s related to operational, but using outdated or disconnected systems that don’t scale as your business grows. Again, if there is not a system in place, it’s often maybe even a better step forward than perhaps having an antiquated system or a system that’s in place that nobody uses. I think having no system is better than having a system that’s in place but nobody uses because then they might be resistant to having a more effective system in place because they might be, well, we’ve tried that before and it didn’t work because nobody used it, nobody understood it, and so we’ve defaulted back by just doing everything over email. That’s going to be a hard hurdle to overcome versus an organization that has never used any sort of structured system in that way may be open to a more efficient and effective way of doing that.
So how do you go about doing that? Addressing your operational leadership and systems bottlenecks.
Regular audits of your processes, systems, and leadership team will help you identify those bottlenecks. And then you can start by delegating, upgrading your systems, and then streamlining your processes.
Lastly, point number six, moving beyond the limitations of your current model. The question we’re asking ourselves here is, how do you move beyond the limitations of your current business model when you’ve outgrown it? The answer is, scaling requires evolving.
your business model, upgrading systems, rethinking your service offerings or restructuring your team or a combination of all of those. It’s really about creating a scalable business model, right? So businesses must assess what has worked in the early stages or in the past when you got started and adjust for growth and then adjust for scale. This may include changes to pricing, client onboarding and more efficient delivery of their service and or product. I use as an example, perhaps
Some of you may be in the service-based industry. There was a point at which you shifted from one-to-one to one-to-many, right? In terms of doing individual service delivery to a group model, or perhaps you’ve scaled and you’ve brought on other team members that can do what you do, and you’ve been looking at your client onboarding process and your ability to recruit.
team members and acquire clients and what’s the pricing that needs to be included and what’s the delivery model that needs to be reflected in all of that. So we’re looking at it at a higher level in terms of our business model. I’ll give you an example, full transparency here at The COO solution. This is something I’m constantly looking at. For those of you that know, and I won’t go into my whole story, but when I did fractional COO work for many, many years before I created The COO solution, obviously it was just me. So my model was, one-to-one, right? That was the way that I provided my service. Now it’s, I have a team. I’ve got more than a dozen team members that are fractional COOs and OBMs to several dozen clients, right? And that’s a business model that completely shifted from how I got started. And as a result of that, we’ve shifted our onboarding process. We’ve shifted our team process. We’ve shifted how we serve and provide the support and the model to our clients. So we’re constantly revolving and reflecting on moving beyond the limitations of your current model and always looking ahead in terms of what is the business model that I may need to be looking at in the future and what are the changes that I need to be making now in order to get there.
So those are the six points, right? When we’re talking about unlocking the next phase of growth and how to structure your business for the next level, right? Those are the six points.
Number one, getting really clear about why businesses stall at certain stages.
Point number two, The role of leadership in scaling beyond six and seven figures.
Number three, the importance of systems and operations.
Number four, the role of accountability in breaking through those growth barriers.
And number five, identifying and removing bottlenecks.
And finally, number six, moving beyond the limitations of your current model.
So now let’s take this and make it a little bit more actionable for you if you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed with the day to day in your business. Here’s what I want you to do today. love, again, in my episode, I always give an action takeaway, a little bit of an assignment, if you will, something that you can put into place right away. So step back and ask yourself, where am I still involved in the daily tasks? What am I doing that others could take on, right? What am I still involved in?
What am I still doing? What am I still focused on? What are my activities that are taking my time and my energy and effort that could be used in better ways, right? So really just kind of look at whether it’s your email, look at your calendar, if you’re using a project management system, looking at your task list, where am I still involved in the day-to-day? And what am I doing that I know others could take on that are already on my team or perhaps people that I may need to bring on?
Secondly, look at your business model and ask, where is my business getting stuck? What systems need to be optimized or automated to move forward? This is that future thinking exercise in terms of where I am now, that business model, if I want to grow and I want to scale, maybe I start to think about, I need to start thinking about what that business model may need to look like in the next six to 12 months.
And most likely, it’s going to be very different than what it is right now. And when we know that that is to be the case and we have some clarity and some vision about what that may look like.
It will kind of give us the motivation and the prompt to start making some of those operational and leadership and system changes now so that we’re primed for that growth and we’re primed for that scale.
So again, what systems need to be optimized or automated to move forward? Where’s my business model keeping me stuck?
Here’s the insight I want you to take away.
The first step is to consistently identify where you’re the bottleneck time and time again, and then create the systems to relieve that pressure. When you do this, the next level of growth is possible.
So before we wrap up, a quick reminder of how you can move forward, right? If you’re interested in supporting this podcast and sharing it with others, I would love for you to share a review, share it on social media with other business owners that you think could benefit from these conversations that we’re having here at the COO Solution Podcast.
And you might be wondering, is now, Derek, perhaps the right time for me to think about getting a fractional COO or OBM support in my business? And if that’s the case, we’d welcome you to go to thecoosolution.com.
And you will see a free quiz that’s available for you to understand in seven different areas of your business covering marketing to sales to operations to team to finance. Where are you in terms of your current structures and systems and processes and support and where do you need to be? And that’s again a free quiz that’s available for you at thecoosolution.com.
That’s it for today. So thank you for joining me on this episode of the COO Solution Podcast. I appreciate you listening. And until next time, keep scaling smart. Thanks so much.
