Jen Hamilton (00:00.704)
All right, welcome. Today my guest is Mark Ross. And Mark, I'm so excited for us to hear a little bit more about you and your superpowers and dig into our conversation, which we'll talk about in a bit that is really around, we'll get into the conversation a little bit, but it's around being strategic around your market, who you serve and the products and services. So that's to come. But first I want us to get to know you a little bit more. And welcome. I should let you say hi first.
Mark Ross (00:24.441)
Sure, yeah.
Mark Ross (00:29.807)
Hey Jen, good to see you.
Jen Hamilton (00:31.822)
Glad you could be here with us. Okay, Mark, let's figure out what is your fractional COO motto or mantra? What's something you kind of live?
Mark Ross (00:41.297)
So my, I'd say my model, like my, what I present to like owners of small businesses or medium businesses is that your company should feel more like this. And on my background, you can see that little Polynesian palm tree and the blue waters. And like sometimes I feel like, and I've been a owner of a small business myself, it's just frantic and it feels like you have to do everything. It feels like your team's not doing stuff.
on their own unless you drive them and just things are just a little bit of chaos and it's just frustrating and so my goal would be like how can we and we successfully do it make your business feel a little bit a little bit more like a Polynesian vacation beach experience.
Jen Hamilton (01:23.276)
That sounds amazing, I love it. That's a great goal and a great way to check off the goal too if they can't get on vacation. One of the things I love to say is that part of what fractional COOs do, we give them the chance to enjoy uninterrupted vacations without their businesses falling apart.
Mark Ross (01:42.839)
Absolutely right. And whether that's I'm a fractional and I'm literally there a number of hours a week and managing departments or groups or I'm just coming in to help set it up so your current team can manage on their own without you having to micromanage them, you know.
Jen Hamilton (01:56.878)
I love that, I love that. Speaking of the businesses you come into, what types of businesses do you love to work with and are excited when they put out the call for help? I need help.
Mark Ross (02:08.721)
You know what I love? It's never the person's like, know everything and not at all. It's those people who are just, they know that they don't know the best way. Like they've been 10, 20, 30 years in their business managing it. Like they don't have all these fortune 500 experiences of different companies, different departments, different leadership structures. So they're the people that recognize, hey, I'm really good at this business, but I recognize there's a whole world out there.
Jen Hamilton (02:12.782)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Ross (02:38.595)
of experiences that I didn't gather throughout the years. And so they're looking for somebody who can bring in, that level of value to their organization.
Jen Hamilton (02:45.612)
Yeah, it's so powerful because the business owners experts in their product or their service, they're not experts in running a business. And so for them to be at least aware of that enough is I could see how that would be a great fit.
Mark Ross (03:01.041)
And sometimes I run into these people who are like, man, I'm on vacation all the time. I've got a great team. They care of everything for me. I'm like, that's awesome. Good for you. Have a great trip again across the world. But then for the people who don't have that, there's a lot of value that you and I can bring to those folks.
Jen Hamilton (03:13.89)
Yes.
Jen Hamilton (03:18.702)
Absolutely, Yeah, because we want them to be able to step away and have it all still there when they come back. Even if it's just to like a dentist appointment. I mean, it's kind of crazy, right? Not that we want to do too many dentist appointments, but you know, we got to, we got to. So I want to hear what's one operational mess that you like to fix and makes you feel like that ops superhero when you do?
Mark Ross (03:26.801)
Exactly.
Mark Ross (03:32.952)
Yes.
No.
Mark Ross (03:49.581)
one operational mess. would say, and I hate to see it and that's why I love to fix it, is multiple layers of management where just you've got people who maybe weren't trained in management or how to manage people. And so you've got people doing the best they can and they're great people and they did great at individual contributors or frontline managers but now maybe they're
frontline managers or higher level managers and they just don't have that skill set. They don't have the toolbox. And so being able to come in, one, give them the structure or framework and how to manage that business. But then also how do they manage the people side of it? And a lot of times it's just training that they haven't received in the past.
Jen Hamilton (04:28.718)
you
Jen Hamilton (04:32.75)
Yeah, for sure. I think it's so interesting because there's assumptions, I would say, and I actually was having this conversation earlier with another fractional CO, that they assume that as operations people and chief operating officers, our focus is on processes and data and systems. And it's actually more the people side. So I can imagine you coming in and fixing that actually fixes the other things too.
Mark Ross (04:51.001)
of those.
Mark Ross (05:00.965)
But it's funny. And I think I've seen both where like, we've got the systems and processes, but the people aren't like they were put in place by someone, a previous regime. And now the current folks don't know how to manage it. Or you just got some great people, great leaders, but they never had the systems installed. But if you can get the systems in place, they can manage it. They just need help getting like what, how do I do this better? So I've seen both sides of that spectrum.
Jen Hamilton (05:27.342)
Yeah, absolutely. But again, it's a people question. How do I do this better? And having expertise is usually missing. So it's awesome you can come in and put on your cape and save the day. Well, let's shift into our topic for today. And overall, we're looking at the strategic direction of the business. is kind of the part of the series that we're in right now. And I'm excited to hear from you and dig into this about being strategic with your market.
And so I want to hear a little bit more like why should small businesses be strategic about who they serve and what do they provide to products and services?
Mark Ross (06:06.767)
Yeah, my gosh, it's such a big question too. We've got a couple hours, right?
Jen Hamilton (06:10.862)
Well, we'll get started at least and get this surface level, nothing else.
Mark Ross (06:16.901)
Well, and I'll just start with a typical organization that's not, you know, one of the Fortune 500s does, and even some of the Fortune 500s will do, okay, we'll do our two day offsite, and then we're to figure out all the strategy needs for the entire year, get it dialed in, and it's going to be perfect. And we're just going to follow that, you know, 12 months out. And it's just, it's not the most successful strategy I've seen, right? From what I've seen, like Procter & Gamble, and I love their model, it's,
starting to look at, you know, what are the internal like you do the SWOT analysis, internal, external, but then also, if all those things are true, what's the strategy you want to take? And then what would it take to successfully execute in that market? And what if we run into challenges, then how do we adjust or change? And what do we need not only from a
product we're trying to sell or a service we're trying to sell. But what infrastructure do we need to support that in order to make sure the customer is happy and wants to come back to us, make it at a price that's affordable that makes them want to come back. And sometimes you're a premium priced product, right, or service.
So what does that look like? How do you differentiate that from like I'm going for a low dollar, high volume type business. And a lot of times you get people, they don't want to be too expensive and they don't want to be the low cost. So they find themselves in the middle and they're just not as successful as if they would have taken the time to just really search out the market, decide who they want to be and then just really execute on that from top to bottom within their organization.
Come
Jen Hamilton (07:53.378)
go a little bit further into that, which is really when they don't take the time, like you said, if they don't take the time to just step back and be like intentional is what I'm hearing too. This is who we serve and not being stuck just in this in between the middle is not the best place to be. So what does it look like in businesses when they don't have that time to be intentional and strategic about who we serve and why is what I'm also hearing you say.
Mark Ross (08:20.791)
It's trying to do all things, right? They wanna give an excellent level of service, but they're not charging enough to have the infrastructure to provide that. So everyone's running around chickens with the head cut off, hair on fire, because they're trying to do more than they can afford to do. And so it makes a little bit of crazy. Or they're trying to...
serve a really broad market and get their product out there to make a bunch of products, but they aren't getting their costs low enough to effectively give themselves enough margin to play in that area. So great, you want to make a million widgets, but you're going to have to get really efficient at making them inexpensively to give you enough profitability to reach out and do the marketing you need to continue to grow that. so it's like this, if you've got the flywheel running well,
and it just keeps on spinning and you're making the profit to continue to reinvest and it just keeps going higher and higher. So you're making a million widgets and now you're making enough profit. You can advertise and sell 2 million widgets next year and you're reducing your cost every year. It's a great thing, right? But if you don't have that infrastructure, now you're just making something, you're selling something for less than it costs you and you're just digging yourself into a hole and it's not going to turn out well for you.
Jen Hamilton (09:40.182)
If that doesn't convince you that your productivity and your profitability are counting on your focus in your market, I don't know what will. So let's talk about though, even though it's that important, why do so many business skip this step? Like you said, we think we've checked the box of strategic pleading, but oftentimes I see this all the time and they haven't really done the deep dive work of like, who is our market? What is our product and why? So why do you think they skip this step?
Mark Ross (09:47.205)
Yeah.
Mark Ross (10:10.385)
So I would say in most cases I've seen it they just haven't seen a good model so they don't know what good looks like or two maybe they've seen it somewhere else but they just don't have that almost like if I use like a sports analogy like I've seen what good pitching looks like but if I walk out to the mound I can't do it.
Right. And so I think people like, I've seen really good strategy stuff, but that's just not my, who I am or my skillset. And so I don't, I think it's either they haven't seen it or they don't know how to, or sometimes I'm not willing to invest in that. I'm going to do it today. We're going to get it dialed in and we're going to try to stick to it, even though we know by January one, it's going to fall apart. So.
Jen Hamilton (10:55.95)
think the absolute is true on all of that. I also see that, like you said, invest in it. That it's very hard, in my opinion, it's very hard to do this internally. It works better because if you heard earlier what Mark was sharing was so many questions like, okay, well, why is this? And what about that? And have you looked at this?
So it's hard to question yourself when you live in it. And I think part of that investment and part of what gets them stuck is that they think they can do this internally. But this is so much more effective when you have an outsider who is not deep into it and already kind of bought into this is who we serve. This is what we do. I think that that's part of what also is missed is like you said, making that investment, but having that outsider like yourself or like
another fractional CEO or even strategic advisor, somebody to be able to challenge your thinking, to get you think differently and to facilitate that thinking to be able to get a whole new way of answering those questions or even knowing what questions to ask.
Mark Ross (12:06.673)
It's so true because a lot of times what I do is just challenge assumptions. I was working with electronic software, a hardware software organization. 80 % of the sales came from US and then South America and Europe was a huge market. They had customers in the US and South America who were huge in Europe. And I said, why aren't we looking at, you know, Europe? And they said, well, in order to get all the regulatory standards for all of our products into that market, it would cost us over a million dollars.
And I'm like, okay, but I mean, for your top clients that are here in US and South America that make up the bulk of your sales, they're using like four products. Like, so really, if you want to penetrate that European market with just your top selling items for the customers who already know and love you in the US, and a lot of times it's the same buyers, like they want you to go to Europe. They're going to, it would be a minimal increase in expense to get some regulatory hurdles for a couple of products. And then the doors would blow open for that.
And they just had never thought of that because they were thinking in terms of it would be too much to do everything. And so me just coming in from the outside, challenging some assumptions, opens up some really good doors for them.
Jen Hamilton (13:17.582)
It's very powerful because it is hard to challenge your assumptions when you're on the inside. One of my mentors loved the analogy she had said is that when you're inside the jar, you can't read the label on the outside. And I think that's part of the power of it and having you be able to step back and take even the time. So I think part of it is like the investment and it is worth investing.
Mark Ross (13:31.333)
That's so true.
Jen Hamilton (13:45.578)
in another person. Obviously, it doesn't have to be a full fractional COO that's there for the whole time. It can just be a project base where we come in. have fractional COOs who do quarterly and annual planning just to help that outside thinking and that facilitation as an operations person. the other thing I think is, like we were saying, it's not only that outside view, but it's taking it to the next step.
You had mentioned this early on, and I think this is where a lot of businesses get stuck. It's like, okay, we did our strategic planning check or yeah, we've, we've met. I've had this clients tell me before, well, I've already met with a marketing strategist and we know who we're serving. great. Can I see all of that information? So we're, we're someone like us, whether they're internal or not, you've got to take that strategy and put it into action. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about like taking it from idea.
to implementation and what can businesses do to be better at that part that they miss.
Mark Ross (14:48.609)
Let me clarify, so you're looking at for businesses who want to improve their strategy, like what's practical ways to do that or how do they, once they've kind of figured out their strategy, how do they make sure they follow that playbook for the rest of the year?
Jen Hamilton (15:02.348)
Let's do both. I love your idea first, like how to figure out the strategy and then we'll talk about, okay, then how do we implement it?
Mark Ross (15:09.871)
Yeah, so strategy, I mean, I've got a secret sauce that I use that I didn't create myself. I've been trained in it from other experts. And it's about looking at, you know, beginning with the SWOT, but also understanding your market, where you want to go, what it's going to take to be successful there, both from a product standpoint, marketing standpoint, and then from an infrastructure standpoint, and then considering all the factors that may come into play, challenging some of those assumptions. So what you've got like, this is our strategy.
Now we need to work through what assumptions do we have built into that and can we prove those assumptions are true or not? And that can be so key. Like we know we're going to be able to sell a ton in this market. Well, what little things can we do to test that out before we put all eggs in that basket, right?
So that's a big part of how I like to do the strategy, but it's not just a one weekend thing. It's like an ongoing. So you need to give yourself time to think and brainstorm and challenge yourselves, work through those, do some assumptions and some testing. Make sure when you test assumptions, it works out and it fails or works. Either one's good information, right? And we're not trying to be judgmental of strategy. We're just trying to learn. And then once we've, let's say it's Q4, we've got our strategy in place. Now January starts.
Before we start January 1, we should have those metrics in place. What are we going to measure? How are we going to know if we're on track? What are the things we need to do in order to make sure this is successful? What are we all signing up to do in support of this? And then we're measuring and tracking. So let's take an easy one, which is sales. You're not just looking on February 1, how are my sales in January. Throughout January, how are my sales going? Are we on track? Are we all on track? What do we need to do differently?
Is it particular customers, territories, salespeople? Like, let's have some things that we're tracking so we can see if we're on track or not. And then you don't want wait till the end of Q1 to find out you've horribly missed your target, right? You need to know where you're at and what's going on. And if sales are falling out, let's say it's a COVID year, right? Nobody foresaw that. So now you've got to figure out what am I doing from customers, inventory, supply chain, people I'm buying from, how do I...
Mark Ross (17:23.151)
work with them, say, don't send me all that stuff because I don't know what to do with it. And hopefully you've already built the relationships with customers, with suppliers, so that when those either it's great and you're selling more than you planned or it's horrible and you're selling less, you've got really strong relationships on both sides of the coin that they understand and trust you and are going to work with you through those challenges.
Jen Hamilton (17:48.238)
There's so much goodness in when you share it. Like, I want to dig into it.
Mark Ross (17:51.673)
It's a piece of cake. Yeah, just do that. You'll be successful, right? It's just knocking out of the park. Yeah.
Jen Hamilton (17:54.796)
No problem. So there's two pieces I want to highlight. The first one I want to highlight is I love that you said test small. I know I've seen this mistake. I've made this mistake along early in my career is that I test big and I see this a lot of times, right? It's like, of course it's going to work, but we don't go test it in the market and we test big. It's like a launch of a whole new service instead of like, let me just pilot over here. One of my favorite words.
became pilot, you know, like, let's just pilot it. Let's do a little teeny test. And even before that, testing the market, cause we are talking, talking about like, who do you serve? Being able to understand, does the market want this is a really great question before you take all the investment of people and time and marketing to say, let's go do this. And I again, made that mistake. And I see it out there too, where it's like,
Well, I think it's going to go there. And I love what you said is like challenging those assumptions, challenging what we think it's going to be. So thank you for bringing up the small test and making sure you actually have an answer outside of internally. If everyone in the, in the internal team is answering, yeah, this is going to work. That's what that's a sign. It's a problem.
Mark Ross (19:14.499)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Jen Hamilton (19:15.922)
gosh, the other thing I love is what you were saying to about when I, when we were talking about implementation and love to get into that even a little bit more. When we're talking about implementation, I love how you came back with metrics. One of the things that I think is really powerful is that you are clarifying where you want to be and what it should look like before you start taking action. And that's the beauty of metrics. think a lot of times people go.
Ooh, metrics are math and they run and hide if they're not math people. But what I hear you saying is it's kind of like that GPS, right? If you can't type in the address of where you're going, how do you expect to be told by the GPS how you get there? And that's what I hear in what you're sharing. But maybe you could go a little bit more into like, okay, how do we go from annual plan to I have this metric I want to hit for sales or marketing by the end of January?
Mark Ross (20:15.377)
Yeah, so I like sales is the easy one because I'm going to say every company should be measuring sales, right? At least. So you want to say, OK, this is where I'm going to be in 12 months because you need to know how many products you're going to be making and manufacturing. So how many machines do you need? How big of a warehouse do you need? Or it's people.
Like how many customers are gonna have to be servicing from maybe my team that's going out there servicing them or infrastructure. If I'm growing through high rates of growth, is like one accounting person gonna do everything and how long, how long am gonna stretch them, right? So that can always be a challenge. So, but within so many things is important. Like when you get into the finances, things like day sales outstanding, like what is that? It's just measuring how much money you're owed
and how long it's taking you to get it in. And if all of a sudden you're doing a lot of sales, but the money's not coming in, unless you're watching a metric like that, you just don't know. Customers are paying later and later and you're like, hey, why don't I have any money in the bank? Well, you know, it's just one of those things. So, and every...
business just has so many things I could measure. And I was talking to a, I was working with the president early this year and he was like, how do I know if my customer service team is doing what they're supposed to be doing? They're supposed to be doing X.
But I don't know, I just got a call that made me think they're not doing it. I'm like, well, we could probably put some metrics around what are they supposed to do? We spot check their sales calls or their emails or whatever. And then we're just checking, just a spot check. Are we doing what we say we're doing or are we not? And then if we are, when you get that call, you can feel good about, yes, we're doing it, right? Or if you find out you're not doing it, you find out before you get the call from the customer. So those kind of things just help the business run smoother and make sure you're seeing what
Mark Ross (22:10.589)
you expect to see from your organization.
Jen Hamilton (22:14.018)
that. Do you have any being generic and not giving away specific, do you have any client stories either warning sign or warning stories for our listeners or success stories of going from not clarity around their marketing strategy to getting some clarity and seeing what has happened.
Mark Ross (22:38.693)
Yes, yes. So many. I think of one organization I was working with and product was supposed to launch like in March and now it's like July and they're still three months out from launching.
Jen Hamilton (22:43.822)
You
Mark Ross (22:56.025)
And they're kind of joking around, hey, this always happens. We're always six months late. So they wound up all the marketing. They did the press releases. They bought the time in the magazines with the product pictures and things. But the product wasn't coming for six months later. And it was consistent. And so it just broke my heart. I'm like, my gosh. And so we sat down with marketing, engineering. We had some within the organization who like, project management. I'd love to do some of that.
I'm like, great, let's just, so we've been a light version of project management, took all the pieces, put them down and there's people like, oh, this will take me, you know, six weeks to do that. Okay, when are you gonna start? Today? No, no, I can't start till they finish.
So yeah, you may only take you six weeks, but you can't do that until X is complete. So you put it all together into a timeline like, oh, the next product, not going to take us one and a half years. It's going to take us two and a half years. But at least we know that now, right? And so it just makes everything run smoother when everybody knows when they're supposed to do and how long it's going to take them. And then if people aren't performing, that's different than you just not knowing how long it's going to take.
Jen Hamilton (24:07.118)
Well, and I would imagine it shines a light on what the challenge is that has been the, we're always six months late. I love that you backed up and said, well, what is it that we're missing? And you had someone who said, hey, I'd like to do some project management so that we're putting right people into there, not just shoving someone who's like, I have no interest in doing project management.
Mark Ross (24:31.237)
That's so true because sometimes an organization is like, the marketing person has to do that. Well, the marketing person may be greater than creative, but may not be good on project management. And so you get a non-project manager to manage a project and it's not going to get managed very well.
And sometimes I find within organizations, there's those people who are looking to take on more responsibility. So it's not always that I need to hire another person. This person can get their job done, typically less time than it takes, especially if they've got something fun they can do and learn a new skill. So you're going to get a project manager for free because it's going to take 20 % of their time. They're going to get to develop a new skill, and you're going to get products out on time.
Jen Hamilton (25:13.326)
Functionality when we get into our silos and we have people just stay like you gave a good example Okay marketing people creative and then what we can do is maybe bring in an executive assistant or a project manager from the the team and being able to have them work together they're going to start to Work better for a solution for the company and not just for their department and their own position Something magical happens when they work cross-functionally. So bringing those different skills together
in putting some implementation around strategy is an excellent idea to be able to do it. So I'm guessing now with them having that clarity of project management, when is things going to happen and understanding the workflow is what I also I heard is like, I can't do this until that person does that. Now they're much more capable of actually predicting.
This is what it's gonna take. We know that's like you said, now we know it's gonna take two years so we can start playing for it instead of constantly being disappointed because what I would imagine would happen if you're always just assuming we're gonna be late, you don't trust each other to be on time and so starting to shift that to we can actually count on each other for what we say is gonna and what we're able to do. It brings the energy up and it brings the ability to like
work harder because you're not like well they're just it's just not gonna happen so yeah whatever yeah here we go
Mark Ross (26:43.151)
Yep, if you've got that lack of trust from broken promises or missed expectations, it's hard to get over that in your day-to-day work, you know.
Jen Hamilton (26:51.982)
There's so many elements into being strategic and putting it into place and making sure you're measuring once you do decide on your strategy. Let's break it down into something simple. Let's talk about some steps our listeners could take. What's step or two they might be able to start implementing and heading in the right direction.
Mark Ross (27:12.901)
Gosh, if I was to just come in and if we're sitting down having some coffee, like, hey, Mark, I've got this business. I feel like my strategy game is not what it could be. So it's that SWOT analysis. Maybe they've already done that strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
the internal factors that are strong and weak and the external factors where you've got advantages, where your competitors have advantages. So taking a look at that, not doing it on your own, but bringing in a larger team, right? And sometimes your core leadership team has the answers and some of the core leadership team doesn't want to be there and it's not adding value.
Let them go do whatever they want to do, right? A lot of times I've seen where the person who doesn't want to be there is there, and it's not adding value. And it just makes them feel bad that they're there and they don't want to be there and they're not contributing. And then maybe there's some other people who are lower levels in the organization, not in the senior leadership team, but have great creative minds or have experience in specific aspects or have been working at larger organizations, seen other things happen. There are great people to have on that team.
and then start to focus into what are your products? How do they line up against competitors? And maybe that's a service. Who are your best customers? And if you don't know who your best customers are, that's an issue. And when I say best customers, it might be the largest dollar volume, but it might also be the most valuable or profitable. And you should have a really good understanding of how your customers line up.
and then how their profit lines up. So if you've got a customer, oh, he's only 20 % of my revenue, but he's 50 % of my profits, how are you treating that guy and how should it be different? And if you've got somebody who's 25 % of my volume, but it's just a small fraction of my profitability.
Mark Ross (29:02.145)
Is that a customer that you really should be focused on? Is there a different level of service or a different product you could give them that makes it more profitable? Or at some point, sometimes, I know this sounds counterintuitive, you need to fire some customers because it's costing you a lot of internal angst in order to try to give them what they want because it's outside of what you really do well.
Jen Hamilton (29:17.016)
Yeah.
Jen Hamilton (29:25.506)
You gave such a great example of how just a few questions around your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunity and threats can open up so much more of the conversation to be able to realize what do we need to fix? And so I think that's an excellent place to start is just to see where are we good, where are we not good? Internally, externally, what's an opportunity? So thank you for sharing that. And then it's a perfect example of part of it is...
That's a little bit of tipping open that Pandora's box is like, okay, well, let's look in here. But you can't fix what you don't see. And what you're doing around sharing about challenges and asking these different questions helps you see so you can make a much better decision about what to fix and what to focus on.
Mark Ross (30:12.057)
Absolutely, yeah.
Jen Hamilton (30:14.008)
Alright, Mark, tell me now what is your question for me? I get to flip the mic and have you ask me something and I don't know what it is so I get to be surprised.
Mark Ross (30:23.601)
you
Mark Ross (30:28.209)
You know, I put some thought I really wanted to ask you something to put, you know, challenge you and make you squirm. got nothing. I so I'm going to give you a softball today. So Hamilton COOs, the mad marvelous Jen Hamilton, like you've been doing so many things like we've known each other for probably a year and half now and you continually breaking out with new things and now this podcast. So we're sitting down to coffee a year to five years from now like
Jen Hamilton (30:38.254)
Thank you.
Mark Ross (30:56.249)
What will you have done between now and then that's different? What new things do you have on the horizon?
Jen Hamilton (30:59.606)
That's a great question. So as of the recording of this, I've got a book coming out and part of what I'm looking at is taking a much bigger stand in advocacy and education. There are so many small businesses out there and you gave some examples today, but there's so many examples of things that need some tweaking.
to be able to run better because at the end of the day, most of what can be lost is productivity, which of course means profitability. And what's at the heart of that is that the dream you had of having the ability to have a business that allows you to go on that Polynesian island and having your team be empowered by it, your family to be free by it, what gets in the way of having that bigger dream?
is what most business owners don't know. And it's putting these operational pieces in place. So that's where I see is that I'm out there and more people are understanding the impact of operating a business strategically and having a system for that. So that's where I see my big opportunity. And it's not just for me, it's for other small businesses too, really. You don't have to say,
stuck, there are solutions. Of course, I believe that operations consultants, fractional CEOs, having access to these expert minds and simple strategies and sometimes complex strategies, but we make it simple, will get you over the hump, will get you to the Polynesian Island, will get you to the dream you started with, will get you to not have to resent your business, but
Mark Ross (32:50.393)
Right.
Jen Hamilton (32:50.626)
but really appreciate and so that's part of what makes me happy. But there's a lot of people who don't know it's a simpler solution than you realize and it doesn't have to be all on your shoulders as the owner. So ideally in five years there's many more small businesses that can go, I have some help, it's not all on.
Mark Ross (33:13.487)
That sounds great. Look forward to the book.
Jen Hamilton (33:16.472)
Thank you. It won't have all the solutions to that, but maybe there'll be another book in five years between now and then. Mark, this has been so amazing. Thank you so much. I always learn from you. I love being with you and I'm grateful that other people got to hear from you. While I know that people who are like, I don't know who's the right fractal CO for me can come to us, will help match you. I have been lucky enough to find
great matches for you and I know that people who get to work with you are very very lucky. If people are listening and they're like gosh you know what Mark's my guy how can they find you how can they reach out to you?
Mark Ross (33:59.535)
And Jen, thanks so much. trust that you share those trust relationships with me and I'm able to help out the people that you work with.
Um, so yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the Mark Ross connected to Jen, um, also RossCG.org, RossConsultingGroup.org. Um, and, I've always got time for folks too, because I know a lot of folks who just need an hour or two and I can get a point in the right direction and then they can try out some things like, Hey, have you tried this? Are you measuring that? Have you tried looking at doing it this way to see if can get those people to perform? And a lot of people get a lot of value from that. And then there's other folks who are like, I
had it. I'm working way too many hours for way too little money. I haven't gone on that stupid Polynesian vacation in a long time and I need someone to come in here and just help. And once we get it up and going I usually work myself out of business in three to nine months. So but we call out to me free call if I can help you get get you pointed in the right direction I'd be happy to do that.
Jen Hamilton (35:01.12)
I love that you do that for folks because I know people are a little hesitant to go get some advice or like I'm gonna get pitch or whatever and I know it's you truly just being authentically able to point them in the right direction. So I appreciate you offering that up and I hope people will take you up on this generous offer. Thank you so much for being with us and until next time I look forward to the next time you and I actually will have to do this again. This was incredible and I can't wait to have the next conversation with you.
Mark Ross (35:19.697)
next time.
Mark Ross (35:30.801)
Thanks so much Jen, I appreciate all you do for our community. Thanks, bye.
Jen Hamilton (35:33.93)
Absolutely. Thanks, Mark.
Jen Hamilton (35:38.382)
Don't hang up.
