Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is gonna be a good one. Today we’re going to catch up with an old friend, Andrea Beach, who is the CEO and founder with Growth Concierge. Welcome.

Andrea Beach: Thank you so much for having me, Lee. Good to see you again.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to get caught up for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Growth Concierge? How are you serving folks?

Andrea Beach: Uh, sure. Of course. So after 22 companies and doing it wrong almost as many times as I did it right, I started to see that there were some patterns and some, you know, continuity if it was done correctly. So as a business advisor and investor and everything else, I got a lot of requests for how do you how do you structure a business that can be profitable, scalable, but where I’m not completely tied to it, I want some freedom in my life. And that’s where Growth Concierge was born. People are familiar with the word fractional these days, but that’s, uh, a wide net on things that that can mean. All of our fractional experts are seasoned entrepreneurs. Uh, they’ve all started, grown and sold or IPO companies for hundreds of millions, and they’re just too young and energetic to golf all day. So they still want to be in the game. And we do that by helping grow stage companies. So we actually have a fractional membership model, which is very different. You’re not just paying for hours, you you get a whole team. And so that’s what we’re about is helping companies break through to the next level and find some freedom in their life and hopefully enjoy the ride.

Lee Kantor: So what, who was the initial target for this kind of an offering? Was it the small aspiring entrepreneur or is it the kind of the entrepreneur that’s plateaued, or just the person who’s tired of doing all the work and said, there has to be a better way?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, well, I would say all of the above, but initially we were thinking that our target was going to be founders that had maybe a 3 to 5 year goal of wanting to retire or step back. There’s a lot of baby boomers and older Gen Xers that are even looking at succession plans. And so originally when I came up with the idea of the company, I thought, that’s going to be my target, is people that have maybe grown the business for however many years. They’ve reached a certain level, they’re getting a little tired, and they know they want to jump out, either sell IPO or hand it off to someone in the next 3 to 5 years. And so they want as big a growth and as much stability before they do that. That’s all good and fine. We actually bring in a whole team, kind of like a special operations team with exit planners and strategists on valuation, and we can do that. But then the more conversations I had, the more I realized that other companies and other founders that said, no, I’m good, I don’t need to sell. And the next 3 to 5 years, I just want more profit, stability, and freedom. Can we still work together? So I actually expanded the offering quite a bit. So now we serve founder CEOs all the way from 5 million up to 50 million is kind of our sweet spot.

Lee Kantor: Now. Is there a story you can share about working with somebody who came to you with a challenge, maybe share the challenge and how you were able to help them get to a new level? You know, you don’t have to name them or the company.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, sure. Actually, one of our very first clients that we ever had as a behavioral health company who led by a psychiatrist, so not a business person by education or training, um, had grown the company to the point where he knew he wanted to entertain the idea of maybe looking at a PE firm and taking some kind of a, of an exit that would be good for his family. But he also knew that he had some cultural challenges. There were a couple of different sections of the business that didn’t get along, and so we almost treated them as two separate companies, which of course isn’t scalable or sustainable. And he was right around 40 million when he found us. Um, I can’t even believe this, but it’s really true. Lee, we did a 190 minute strategy session, and at the end of that session, we had gotten him from 40 to 50 million just by rearranging the Legos. Um, better and smarter. So that’s a obviously a great win for him. He immediately found some interested PE firms. I think he was courting several. And because of the work we did together, he didn’t have to figure it all out and juggle it all. We could sustain the new structure that he needed and give him a lot more valuation and a lot more leverage, and he got exactly what he wanted.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with these leaders at that level, are you seeing kind of common threads amongst them in terms of what’s holding them back or, or mistakes that they’re they’re making?

Andrea Beach: Oh, absolutely. And I think it’s so interesting that founders think they’re on an island. They think, well, my company’s different or my situation is unique. And the more you do this, the more you realize that’s actually probably not true. Um, there are very predictable phases of business. There’s about five major phases. Phases that all businesses go through. And each phase has its own set of predictable patterns. And those predictable patterns are going to appear until you hit an invisible ceiling. And that’s when they tend to lean in like they want to work harder and grind harder and do the things that worked before, and they get confused and frustrated why it’s not working and they stop growing because effort stops equaling growth at that point. What has to change is their mindset, first of all, and then the behaviors and things have to change because what worked to get them there is not going to get them to that next level once they break through and make some of these changes, which of course, we can help them him with. But there’s ideas out there on how to change these things, but you’ve got to make sure their identity can handle it. You know, if they’re the hustler, they like to call themselves the grinder when the next phase comes along, where it’s about systems and automations and having your people become autonomous and empowered. That’s an identity shift for that founder. But yes, there are predictable phases, predictable patterns in each and every phase, and very predictable ceilings. And then thankfully, predictable ways that you can break through to the next level and keep going.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned invisible ceilings. What do you mean by that? And what’s an example of 1 or 2?

Andrea Beach: So in the beginning, when a company is going through that grind and hustle phase, this is when efforts are scattered. They’re probably making more exceptions to the rule than any kind of structure. They’re basically selling to anyone and everyone because every dollar is precious. Um, the founder tends to be the one doing a lot of the sales or the negotiations, and there’s people behind him are trying to just catch all the balls as they’re coming across the net and do the fulfillment that works until it doesn’t. And so when you hit that ceiling, it’s because the ceiling essentially is the bottleneck of the founder and the fact that every day is a new day and there’s no predictability or stability. So what you have to do to get through that is narrow in on your right fit buyer, your ICP, your ideal customer profile. And that feels counterintuitive because they think, oh, I can sell my widgets to anyone. Yes, you can, but you probably shouldn’t because then you become invisible out there. You don’t you don’t actually have a brand. You’re not known for anything. So instead you become the company that sells widgets to veteran owned companies or however you need to narrow your focus, then you’ve got to build that repeatable sales process. And then you’ve got to start documenting and automating what’s working. That’s the only way you’re going to break through from you being the one kind of cooking the French fries all day, or making the donuts or whatever example you want to give to break through to that next level because more of you grinding is not going to equal more success in your business. You’ll plateau.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with a team, the team that you deploy of these, I don’t know. Do you like to call them fractional executives or what do you call your team members that you deploy?

Andrea Beach: Yeah. I don’t love calling them fractional because then it lumps them in with the corporate refugees who’ve worked for some big company until they got laid off. And now they’re, they’re doing fractional work on your dime while they’re job hunting. These are really successful seasoned entrepreneurs and operators. So I don’t love that word, but it is the one that meets people kind of where they are in the market right now. Um, but yes, we, we will deploy a growth team. So it’s always led by a chief growth officer. Our chief growth officers are, you know, black belt lean Six Sigma, multiple successful exits, best selling authors, and they come in and do the assessment. They’ll figure out where your bottlenecks, your gaps, your challenges are and your easy wins. And then whoever that additional team needs to have as far as a compliment, we usually bring in a CFO, we’ll bring in a COO and a CTO before we ever get to marketing and sales and things like that, just to make sure the infrastructure can handle it. Because sometimes, Lee, you have to go slow to go fast. And so we make sure we do the structure right. So when we’re ready to hit the gas, they can handle it.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re deploying a team like that, is this something that the team has been trained on, the, uh, Andrea Beach methodology, or is this something that they’re experts in the niche or industry you deploy them in and you just kind of let them go and do what they do?

Andrea Beach: I would say both. So having started, own, sold, grown and acquired companies my whole career, there are certain things that I know to be true regardless of industry. There’s best practices. And like I already mentioned, the predictable phases and patterns. Folks that have had those kinds of experiences as well will nod and say, yeah, that’s right. It’s an 80/20 rule. Pretty much everything’s about the same. So on some of those, I would say they’re just standard. But when it becomes industry specific or becomes niche specific within an industry, we do bring in growth operators that have experience in that industry, but also maybe have encountered some of the same challenges. That’s when I’ll step back as far as the philosophies or the structure or the scalable patterns and say, hey, you’ve walked this step before, you’ve seen this movie. So whatever needs to happen to get them, you know, successfully navigated through the minefield, go for it. So I’d say it’s a really perfect compliment of tried and true proven structure and their personal Expertise, having been in that industry and walked that path.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you go about vetting your experts?

Andrea Beach: That’s a great question because it is so important in such a distinction for what we do. Um, well, first of all, I’m very fortunate that after, you know, decades in business, I have met and mingled with people way smarter, way more successful and way more interesting than me. Um, and they have along the way, you know, remained friends or we’ve stayed in each other’s orbit. And when I came up with a concept for growth concierge, I really wanted the A players. I wanted people that no matter what situation I dropped them into, they were going to guarantee results, which we do, by the way. Um, and so I had a handful of those folks that I already knew and that I brought on board and they were totally down for this concept. But then as I started having additional conversations, there were people that said, oh, man, you need to meet so and so, or that sounds exactly like such and such. And then as I met people and went through the criteria, they have to be entrepreneurial. They have to already have walked that path and had a successful growth and exit at least one. And they have to understand more about human behavior than just spreadsheets. And you know, what goes on to like maybe a valuation or a term sheet. They need to understand people. So those are the main criterias that, you know, we look for as we’re bringing our cxos into the network. And currently we have 39. Well, about to be 40 by the end of this week, we’ll have 40.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned, uh, human behavior and I know that’s a passion of yours and expertise of yours that you’ve had over the years. How much of the issues that your clients having are they mindset issues versus maybe operational or tactical issues?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, such a smart question, Lee. So I would say there’s a good combination of both, especially in the beginning where they do hit those break points and those bottlenecks ceilings. And then they’ve got to change their mindset and change their behavior to break through. But where the mindset shift becomes really personal is once you get to some of the later phases. So once you’ve brought in some leadership team and there is such a thing as the leadership illusion or like fake leadership where they might have the fancy titles, but everybody’s still coming to you as the founder for everything, at least the big decisions that is not going to get you to scale. So once you’ve actually architected, moved from operator to architect, and you’ve architected a system and structure that truly doesn’t need you on the day to day operations. This is where founders struggle with their behavior. This is the identity shift of, well, if I am not the smartest person in the room or the subject matter expert with all the answers, then who am I? You know, if I’m not solving problems and firefighting and leading this company, then do I really matter? And that’s a personal experience that needs to be addressed long before that moment arrives, in order to not slow that momentum, because a founder will say, yeah, I want freedom. I want to go spend time with my wife, my kids, whatever. But then when I actually get to it, they have a really hard time letting go. So I’m really proud of our team and our ability to work through those behavioral challenges before they become obstacles.

Lee Kantor: And it’s something that you really have to deal with those up front, right? That’s not something you wait till the end.

Andrea Beach: Absolutely not. And people will sometimes say, hey, I’ll call you when I’m, you know, six months to a year away from wanting to exit. And we’re like, no, no, no, uh, we need to think about that now because it’s not just how the company’s physically structured and who you bring in as far as team members, but it’s, you know, it’s everything from how you do the books to then what that founder focuses on. And sometimes it requires them multiple years in advance to shift that mindset in their behavior, to empower that next team of leaders so that honestly, the business runs just as well, if not better, without them.

Lee Kantor: Now, when people are thinking about exiting, are you finding that they’re having these kind of questions like way too late? Like this is something they should. Obviously, a lot of people believe that you should be thinking of that when you start, but for a lot of people, it’s also. Well, I think I’m ready. And then you got to cut to five years later when it actually happens.

Andrea Beach: Yeah. I mean, the earlier the better because you want to get them where they can actually have the most impact on the valuation when they’re ready. And the most impact is usually at least 3 to 5 years ahead. So if somebody still comes to us a year out and says, you know, or even a month out, they say, I’m ready, I’m ready right now, they’re probably going to get a smaller valuation. Maybe they get a one or a two X. But if we say, hey, if you will follow this path, this growth strategy and plan for the next 18 to 24 months. Do you have it in you? Can you still hang in there for the next year and a half to two years? If we can get you a six or a seven X sometimes Lee they’re like, no, I’m done. I’m burnt toast, I’m cooked, I’m ready to go. And shame on them. Maybe for not, you know, thinking about it earlier, but that’s okay. Everyone’s different. Other people say, heck yeah, I can get an additional 5 or 6 X on top of what I thought I was gonna get. Yeah, show me the way. And I think that’s probably more often we see that.

Lee Kantor: So when a person is about to exit or is taking the steps exiting, they, they contact you and you deploy your team. Is this something that your team is kind of coaching them? Or are they actually doing the things that need to be done in order to get that seven, eight X return?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s another really big differentiator is we actually implement, I don’t know, a single founder or CEO that needs more on their to do list. And in cases of, you know, where they’re bottlenecked or they’re burnt out, they really can’t handle one more thing. They don’t need more advice. They need implementation. So we come alongside them and we have different levels of membership. So at our base level, they just get a chief growth officer, and they’re the ones doing the assessment and the strategy and figuring out what that founder should be focused on in what order. And they’re still the ones doing the work, but they’re doing it alongside the chief growth officer and only focusing on the things that matter at the next level up, they get a plus one. So a chief growth officer plus a CXO at a time, maybe they start with a CFO. That CFO is doing the work. They’re actually running the reports. They’re shoring up whatever the automations are. You know, they’re future proofing. They’re helping them attain, say, lines of credit or whatever they need for growth. So they’re not giving advice. We’re not consultants, we’re not advisors. Even though we all have that Capability. We are implementers. We’re operators.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a critical distinction because there’s, like you mentioned, there’s a lot of folks out there that will give you advice or sell you a playbook, but they’re not ready to roll up their sleeves to actually get things done and be held accountable for outcomes.

Andrea Beach: Yeah. And accountable for outcomes is key. You know, everybody’s great at giving advice or giving you a report that they charged you six figures for that sits and collects dust on your desk. But if you can actually not only be held accountable, but have ownership of outcomes, it changes the game. And that’s why right off the bat, I said, I want to guarantee that we find at least $300,000 in the first 90 days either in, you know, cost savings like immediate waste or cost savings or in low hanging fruit. And that’s found that’s not projected. That way. I can get the ROI conversation completely off the table, and we can just get down to business and everybody’s comfortable.

Lee Kantor: So now if somebody raises their hand and say, okay, I’m in. I want to do this. What is kind of the process when you onboard somebody or at least vet them to see if you’re the right fit or they’re the right fit for you?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s a good question. The main thing is we will connect them with the chief growth officer that understands their industry, understands exactly where they are, what phase or stage of business and what their goal or trajectory looks like. So that has to be a right fit because that chief growth officer is your quarterback, their maestro. Um, then we will fill out the rest of the team based on that. Some of it has to do with industry, but a lot of it has to do with personality and who we think is going to work well with whom. Um, and then we also have 80 to 100 support staff that comes in up underneath and does things like rebranding, marketing, social media. You need a new website, you need your website to be ChatGPT, you know, crawlable all those things that require time and energy that maybe you and your team don’t have. That’s also included in your hours that you get based on your level of membership. So we’re taking all that off your plate. So we’re going to assign when you first get onboarded, your Chief Growth officer comes first. If you’re happy, you guys, you know, fall in love.

Andrea Beach: Everything’s wonderful. We then bring your full compliment depending on your membership level, um, how many additional team members you have? And sometimes you just need them at a time. You know, you need one at a time and you kind of go at a predictable and comfortable cadence. We still assign dedicated cxos to you. So even if they’re not up to bat, they’re still watching, they’re still paying attention, they’re still weighing in because these, these, uh, different areas of business really shouldn’t operate in silos when you’re trying to holistically grow the whole organization. So we assign that team and then we get to work and the first thing we do is assessment, of course. And then while we’re doing the assessment, we’re looking for quick wins. We’re not going to do a six month assessment. You know, like a lot of consulting firms, we want to get that founder some quick wins and some quick leverage. It’s in our best interest to do that so that we can, like I said, take the ROI conversation off the table, give them a comfort level. Okay, let’s dig in and keep going.

Lee Kantor: Now, talking about quick wins, do you have any advice for the listener right now? Maybe they’re not ready for you and your team yet, or maybe they’re would like to be ready shortly, but is there any advice for getting a quick win? Where do you look for quick wins if you’re listening right now? Where would you tell them to go and what would you recommend they do?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, well, it depends on the stage of business, but I would say if I had to pick a universal quick win, it would be do an honest assessment of where you as the leader or the founder, the CEO of the company, where are you the bottleneck? Where do all roads lead to you? Or where do you still block anybody else’s autonomy or ownership of a decision making process, and free yourself from as many of those roadblocks or bottlenecks as you can. That’ll give you some breathing room. And then think about what the ideal structure would be to actually grow or get to the next level. Do it on a piece of paper. You may not have those people yet, but even if you can step back and, and look at that as far as what I would need, what would have to be true at the next level for me to be able to get there and not be involved in every single sale, conversation, negotiation, or decision, that is the easiest win. Is figuring out how to get yourself out of the way. Because people always think it’s a strategy problem. They’re always looking for. What is the new strategy I need? You probably don’t need a new strategy. You probably need new structure because you have frankensteined together, the different systems, tech platforms. You know, the way people have done it. You know, if Janice comes in and has done your workflow of your onboarding process for clients a particular way for nine years, that’s just how it’s always been done may not be the best way. You may need to completely re-engineer that to get to the next level. So before you look for a new strategy, I would look for a new structure that gives you the support to be able to even get to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you are there symptoms or signals that tell you that you’re the bottleneck in an area? What is it like? You’ve been doing it for so long you may not even realize.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And like I said, there’s an identity and an ego that’s kind of wrapped up and being the one that’s got all the answers or being the subject matter expert, but ways that you can identify if that’s the case is if you feel like, I couldn’t step away from my business for two weeks and go off grid and come back and it still be running, well, that’s probably your biggest sign. If you can’t step away for a couple of weeks and let your team manage and handle everything. You automatically have a bottleneck problem. The other way to know is if they have titles and they have particular roles that are more task based instead of outcomes based. So you look around at your leadership. If you’ve got managers or directors or VP’s or whatever levels you’ve got, if they still have to come to you for the big decisions, or if they maybe don’t have that authority, but they really still come to you for guidance, they don’t. It’s an illusion. So those are ways that you can immediately assess, am I the bottleneck? Because you probably are.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, I appreciate that. So growth concierge.org is our website. We are on all social platforms as well. So I would say just, you know, reach out to us. We’d be happy to have a discovery call, an initial conversation, not a sales conversation per se, just a discovery conversation to see where are you stuck? Maybe give you some ideas or suggestions on how to break through. Hopefully then we earn your trust. And if you feel like having a sales conversation at some point, you know we can always set that up as well.

Lee Kantor: And then the ideal client for you is what range of sales annually.

Andrea Beach: Well, I would say in order to make the most effective changes, we really need a company to be doing at least 5 million. So that 5 to 50 million is our sweet spot. However, we do have a CEO club which is CEO club.online. That is for our founders doing a million in sales or above. And some of those we have CEO club members doing half a billion. Um, they just don’t really care if they grow too much or they’re a lifestyle business. They’re just looking for more profits, more stability, and of course, more freedom. But they also want to be around like minded, you know, growth minded entrepreneurs. So if you’re doing a million or more and you’re an actual company, meaning not a, not a solopreneur, not an agent or a distributor, if you’re a real company million or over, and if you’re looking for that kind of like the personal trainer, so to speak, or the, the team around you for growth concierge, that’d be over 5 million.

Lee Kantor: And the website for CEO club, again.

Andrea Beach: It’s the CEO club.online.

Lee Kantor: The CEO club.online.

Andrea Beach: You got it.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was good talking to you again.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.