Focus On Talent: Navigating Founder’s Journeys - Insights of Entrepreneur Visionary Scott Ritzheimer

🌟 Welcome back to another inspiring episode of Pathways with Amber Stitt! 

🏆 Today, we have a special guest, Scott Ritzheimer, the founder of Scale Architects, who shares his invaluable insights on building scalable organizations and effective leadership. 

🔄 In this episode, Scott dives deep into the unique challenges faced by businesses, practices, nonprofit organizations, the fascinating world of entrepreneurship, and the critical importance of succession planning. 

📈 Drawing from his own journey—from the highs and lows of relaunching businesses to the intricacies of practice management—Scott offers practical tools and resources to help founders accelerate growth and navigate their complex roles. 

🎢  Whether you’re a business leader, an aspiring entrepreneur, or deeply involved in nonprofit work, Scott's wisdom, including his "Founder's Evolution" program and free ebook, will provide you with the actionable advice you need to succeed. 

👥 Scott Ritzheimer is an visionary entrepreneur with a passion for building and scaling organizations. He has helped build over 20,000 businesses and organizations! 

📚 With a rich background in business operations and a unique perspective on entrepreneurship, Scott provides invaluable insights and actionable advice for both aspiring and established founders.

🚀 Join us as Scott and Amber explore the art and science of leadership, strategy, and maintaining a balanced approach to personal and professional growth. Tune in for an episode full of transformative insights and powerful strategies!

🔗 Stay Connected:

- To Learn More About Scott Ritzheimer:

www.ScaleArchitects.com

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottritzheimer

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottritzheimer

- Connect with Amber Stitt:

www.AmberStitt.com

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amber-stitt-acp-chfc%C2%AE-cltc%C2%AE-clu%C2%AE-gallup%C2%AE-1b186821/

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberstitt_

- Join the Conversation: Use hashtags #PathwayswithAmberStitt #Entrepreneurship #ScottRitzheimer #ScaleArchitects #TheFoundersEvolution #PredictableSuccess

💪 Don’t miss out on this episode packed with wisdom and practical advice for navigating the entrepreneurial landscape. 

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🎧 Listen and Watch - Check out the full podcast episode:  https://youtu.be/E_tp58x4_PE

💡 And remember, let's take action today! Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Amber Stitt [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to Pathways. I am your host, Amber Stitt, and today we welcome Scott Ritzheimer to the show today. Welcome, Scott.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:00:08]:
Amber, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Amber Stitt [00:00:10]:
So you are the founder of "The Founder's Evolution" ebook and also the founder of ScaleArchitects.com. Have you always been a high achiever, building things since the beginning, or did you stumble into this life that you've been leading for over ten years?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:00:27]:
I definitely stumbled into it. I'd fancy myself an accidental entrepreneur. And it kind of marks my late teens, early twenties, is where this all started to kind of swirl. And I had no idea what I was doing through this stint at all. And really weird stuff happened. So I accidentally dropped out of high school. You probably didn't know that that was possible, but it is possible. That's a long story for a long time.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:00:50]:
But suffice it to say, I was trying to get into college early and had everyone on the same page. Everyone was good, but I couldn't get any financial aid. So they said, well, if you have a GED, you can get financial aid. So I went in, took the test, it was fine. I turned it in. And this is two weeks before the financial aid deadline. So we're right down to the end. And they tell me two things after I turned it in.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:01:12]:
They say once you've attempted the GED, Pennsylvania state law does not allow you to go back to a public school.

Amber Stitt [00:01:17]:
You just like, you closed off from it, you moved to another level.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:01:21]:
This is the first time we're sending the results out of state for grading. And you'll get your results in three weeks...one week after the deadline.

Amber Stitt [00:01:28]:
I mean, I know you're not that old, but that would have been a while back. We're talking like, what, 20 years?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:01:33]:
Yeah. And so...

Amber Stitt [00:01:34]:
You have to sit and wait and go, "Now what?"

Scott Ritzheimer [00:01:35]:
Yeah, and so I accidentally, that day, I dropped out of high school by accident. And so that kind of set this series of, "what do I do?" I'm 17. And so ended up doing like a two year program at a ministry school, of all places. Moved to Georgia because it was kind of...It was one step shy of chucking a dart behind our backs. I got married when I was 20 to the love and wonder of my life, but we had no idea what we're doing. So we're in Atlanta.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:02:01]:
We're both working with this ministry part time, and we need to pay the bills. So I don't tell this part of the story very often. But it's actually true. She got the job first. So she got a job at this company.

Amber Stitt [00:02:11]:
I believe it.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:02:12]:
There's someone from our...Yeah, if you met her, you would definitely believe it. She's definitely the better half. But she gets a job at this company that was owned by someone we had met at the church that we were a part of. If a business plan ever includes a guy at church, that usually doesn't end well. But this story actually did. And so she's there, and they're like, "We need someone for our tech support." And she's like, "Well, my husband knows computers.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:02:35]:
Maybe he can do it." So I literally came in the bottom of the org chart, answering emails, printing out the faxes and distributing them and doing tech support. And I didn't care. It was like I was doing what I want to do. Nothing to do with business, really. Couldn't care less. And over the next couple of months, we actually found out that he was selling the company. So two months after we start, he sells the company.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:02:57]:
Owner finances it to a group out in Nashville. Wonderful guys. And they tried to...They did their best, right? They tried to keep the office in Atlanta open and run it kind of in parallel with the office in Nashville. And long story short, they systematically but unintentionally destroyed the company and almost destroyed theirs in the process. There were no bad guys in this situation, just nothing about it worked out. And so I watched this company. That was my sole source of income, right, for us as a family and my only connection with the world outside of just a couple of things around, just start falling apart, and there's nothing I could do about it.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:03:32]:
And it's one of those experiences, you probably had a couple yourself where you wouldn't trade it for the world, right? But you would never, no one in their bright mind would choose...

Amber Stitt [00:03:41]:
When you're in it, it can be miserable, but sometimes, or, like they say, failure sometimes brings the opportunities. I mean, some of this, you just have to get through it and just see how things will shake out. But almost putting yourself in a position. I've had a lot of people drop me in and in my younger ages into insurance, or loan processing without any guidance. And sometimes it's good for you and picking up the phone, the cold call or whatever it is that's outside of your comfort zone.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:04:06]:
Yeah, absolutely. And what it was, for me, it was a learning opportunity. I learned more in that year and a half watching a company shrink from 13 employees and a couple million dollars a year to two and a half part time employees working from home and nothing per year. Right? I watched a sale go wrong. I watched the owner suffer. I watched the people who were buying it suffer. I learned so much about what makes businesses tick, and not tick, during that time that I couldn't have learned, at least in that short a period of time, any other way.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:04:37]:
I mean, I ended up going back to business school a little bit later, just kind of check that box so I could stop writing "Last Year: 11th" on any paperwork that I was doing.

Amber Stitt [00:04:47]:
Yeah.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:04:48]:
And I mean, I learned nothing compared to what I learned in that year and a half. So, terrible experience, wonderful experience all wrapped up into one. Most of them...most of the best experiences are like that.

Amber Stitt [00:04:58]:
And I'm not going into this, this whole topic today, but I do know that a lot of successful business owners don't necessarily have the college degree. And there could be a very interesting twist and change. My daughter, who's five, going, "What's college going to be like by the time she gets there?" So it's interesting when you hear these stories where it's not just so much about the academics that propel you into the next, whatever it might be. I do think, though, you must have had, it could have been just like fight or flight or just survival mode, but you're watching people and paying attention, and that sets you up for your first business ownership situation. You found a way into taking over this potentially failing company, correct?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:05:40]:
Yeah, absolutely. The really interesting thing that caught me completely out of left field was during this time, I started to fall in love with business. It's this terrible business situation, but it just fascinated me, you know? And what happened was I started to see what could be different. There's a better way here. We don't need to be doing that. We don't need to be spending all money on this. We should be focusing on that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:06:01]:
And I had the opportunity to see all of that kind of in real time. And so what ends up happening again? About 18 months after the sale, they call up the previous owner and say, "Hey, we're throwing in the towel. We can't do this. We're gonna declare bankruptcy. You can come get the stuff back if you want it." Which by this time is like three broken computers and a desk chair. You know, that like, all the padding was gone in the middle.

Amber Stitt [00:06:22]:
It seems to been lit on fire.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:06:24]:
Yeah, just right on the plastic. And that desk chair actually survived another seven years.

Amber Stitt [00:06:30]:
Oh my gosh. It was like the dollar bill that you hang on the wall, but you're just sitting in it.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:06:35]:
Yes. And so he says, "Yes, I'll take it." So from the U-Haul on his way to Nashville, he calls me and says, "Hey, I know you've got some ideas on how we can make this business work. Will you help me relaunch it and give it a go?" This is September 2008. I remember that year. Yeah. And so, you know, the first six months of us giving it a go, stock market goes down, I think it was like almost 40 points, something like that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:06:57]:
And we're not making any money, we're not getting paid. There was a whole bunch of client work that hadn't been done, so we ended up inheriting 250 clients we had to do for free.

Amber Stitt [00:07:07]:
So it was a free list, right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:07:09]:
Yeah, it was just crazy, but we made it work. And so there's just this whole epic thing. And looking at it now, yes, there was that entrepreneurial wiring inside of me. It wasn't something that I really understood. My dad had actually started a business, so I'd been exposed to it. It wasn't a foreign concept. And when I had discretionary time, I was always fascinated more than about business, but about how things are built. That's where I got the idea of Scale Architects.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:07:35]:
It's this idea of how do you actually build a scalable company? And I feel that's a big part of what I was able to learn. And seeing it not happen well. So long and short of it, that wiring is there underneath the surface. But it wasn't actually something that I consciously chose, it was something that I fell into, and I'm so glad I did.

Amber Stitt [00:07:52]:
Well, sometimes when you have entrepreneurs around you that might make you not want to do it, because sometimes you notice the bad, you know? But it's interesting, I feel that once it's around, it can be something that maybe the kids follow in their own time, in their own way, might get back into it. So would you say that anybody could be a founder?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:08:11]:
Ooh, good question. No, I don't think so. Let me rephrase that, anyone can, it's not one of those fatalistic things that you could never possibly do this. I think the vast majority of people should not. If you're talking about building a business now, everyone can have a side hustle.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:08:26]:
Everyone could probably replace their income. To me, that's not necessarily being a founder. Technically, that meets the definition. But if it's just like, "Hey, I'm going to do what I was doing for someone else, for myself. And it's just that I have one client." That's a little different. You're still kind of an employee. It's just the mechanics of it are slightly different.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:08:43]:
But when it comes to building an organization, when it comes to getting something up off the ground, getting it bigger than you, I actually think that there's a very specific wiring that's needed in the mix to start. So you either need to have it, or you need to partner up with somebody else who does.

Amber Stitt [00:08:57]:
Yeah. And the strategic partnerships, we haven't really...you and I talked about the Pathways of Peak Performance, which is a framework we follow a lot of times on our podcast. With you today, I had some more specific things in mind, but when you focus on your talents and where your strengths are, not everybody wants to be a business owner. Or, it could be a season, too. Maybe they are focusing on just family and they have to leave at five, or whatever the hours could be.

Amber Stitt [00:09:19]:
It was kind of a trick question to throw at you, because if you have the right mindset, then you can partner up with people. And I think that's where we see a lot of very successful business people and strategic partnerships and making a lot of money. And we see that with celebrities and athletes, there is their skill set and their abilities, but they certainly might be doing the apparel line, the speaking gig, whatever, but they might be partnering and not doing that every day. And so I think you've talked a lot about community, and I can see it in this story where these people around you, the church, and then your wife, and then you had these other people, a way that you guys could all come together in your own form or fashion. And it was maybe clunky, not always from what you guys were doing and learning. It was also the economy, too.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:10:04]:
Yeah.

Amber Stitt [00:10:05]:
So I know that you teach a bit of that framework in your founders program with your ebook, right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:10:09]:
Absolutely. And you hit a big point, which is that I actually think the founders journey starts before you ever become a founder officially. And stage one of this founders evolution we've talked about, there's seven total stages, but stage one is what I call, "dissatisfied employee." Now here's the truth of it. Just about every founder was a dissatisfied employee. Like, even when you go through my weird situation, I was there dying inside of this organization that was dying. But just because you're a dissatisfied employee doesn't mean that you should be a founder. Right? There are a lot of folks who just need to get a better job.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:10:41]:
There's a lot of folks who just need to get a better boss. And so the thing that separates founders from other dissatisfied employees is that even when things are good, the dissatisfaction doesn't go away.

Amber Stitt [00:10:52]:
Sure, so you have something else you have to correct or fix because it can happen again.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:10:57]:
There's this thing inside, and we can't really describe it, and we don't know why it's there, and we kind of some days wish it wasn't. But I tell folks, to your question, could anyone start a business? I tell folks, and I love starting businesses, by the way, I've helped 20,000 people start some type of organization.

Amber Stitt [00:11:12]:
Very impressive track record, yes.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:11:14]:
But coming from a guy who says that, my recommendation is always, if you can do anything else, do that. If you can do anything but start something, go do that. Because it is so hard to start something. It's not necessarily complex to understand. It's just difficult to do. It wears on you personally. It takes time and attention and energy, and you just get beat up. You'll face more rejection in the first couple of years of trying to start something than most people will experience in a lifetime, even if they've spent time on online dating.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:11:44]:
You know it's just, it's a lot of just really challenging stuff. And we don't always talk about that on shows like this. We don't always talk like, about that on instagram because we want to share the highlight reel. But it's a difficult journey.

Amber Stitt [00:11:57]:
Yeah. And that's pretty much why you started this "Founder's Evolution," because you wanted to help people through that very difficult but wildly exciting, can be successful journey, correct?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:12:07]:
That's exactly right. Because there are a lot of things about the journey that I lay out for founders that are similar to other worlds. Right? There are leadership journeys, there are universal principles, but there's a couple things that are really unique about founders. And the first one is there's no real clear demarcation point that you're moving through different stages as a founder. It almost feels like it happens to you. So let's take an employee's experience is different, right? They start out like I did, on the front line, and if you do a good job, you get promoted. You know, it might just be the title, it might come with compensation, but at least there's some type of external validation that now the game has changed. I don't succeed by just doing what I do,

Scott Ritzheimer [00:12:48]:
I succeed by helping others do what they need to do. Well, when does a founder become a manager? Right? Is it when they hire one employee? Is it five employees? Is it seven? Do they ever become a manager? Should they be a manager? Should they hire someone else to do it? There's no clarity around that. There's no validation that the game has changed.

Amber Stitt [00:13:06]:
And no patting you on the back to saying, "Good job, now we're moving into the next level," like on a game, you know? Nope.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:13:12]:
That's exactly right. And so what ends up happening is, as founders, we know we want to progress. There's this drive for more. There's this drive to improve and to get better, but we don't know if we should get better at what we're doing, or if we should actually be adopting a new skill set that's necessary for the stage we're moving into. Because succeeding as a manager, for example, is very different than succeeding as a solo entrepreneur. Very different than succeeding as a CEO of an x million dollar business. And so what happens is we're just trying to do all these different things all at once, and it's exhausting and it feels lonely and isolating, and I don't think it's necessary.

Amber Stitt [00:13:49]:
So you equate some of your analogies to football. So I have a question for you. What's your favorite sport? You're not 100% in on football.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:13:56]:
I am not a big fan of football, actually. So I'm a Steelers fan. I'm actually not a football fan. So football is a helpful analogy, especially here in the US. So big ones for me are hockey. I love how kinetic it is and it's just always moving. Right. I got a little bit of that ADHD thing going on.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:14:12]:
So like, wait a second. You know, we just did a play, it was 10 seconds, and now I gotta sit and wait 40 seconds for the next one. What is this? So I'm a big hockey fan. There's some references in the book to hockey as well, but the other one is Formula 1. I think Formula 1 is absolutely fascinating because of the engineering that has to go into the sport, the teamwork.

Amber Stitt [00:14:30]:
I mean, I had somebody else talk about where it's okay to take a break, that pit stop, and it's okay to get sleep and take some time off and do these things that we need. But sometimes we equate that to failure if we need that moment. But the team with the cars, they have to have all the things to make sure they're successful.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:14:49]:
That's absolutely right.

Amber Stitt [00:14:50]:
Yeah. So you have mentioned before in other podcasts, you've talked about these visionaries like Steve Jobs or some of these others where if they were to transition out of the business, sometimes the businesses don't do so well because potentially it's all tied to that one person and working with business owners. Being in an industry where I have a lot of...I'm kind of in the middle. I see next generation, and then I see that business owner that maybe should start thinking about their succession planning. Is there anything you would like to say to those that you see about as much as they might be the superstar, and that's important, where maybe there's more of a case study where people that we could study to say, it can't just be that one person, and that's where that scaling comes into play.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:15:33]:
Yeah.

Amber Stitt [00:15:33]:
Do you have any advice for the person? That's part of it.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:15:36]:
Yeah, it's a great question because a big part of it really comes down to as a founder, one of the beautiful things about being a founder is you have a lot of options. Right? You know, coming from the church world, succession's really tough in the church world, and you'll have pastors that are in the eighties and, "I'm going to die with a mic on," or big personalities right. Where they are the business. A big part of why the company that I ended up relaunching failed was for that very reason. It was woefully founder dependent.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:16:05]:
And let's be honest, that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? If you say, "Hey, I want to build something around me, I want to make a bunch of money doing it, and then I'm fine with whatever it is after the fact." Right? Like pick your favorite on air personality, they're gone at some point in time.

Amber Stitt [00:16:20]:
Yeah. For you, I think you like to build and package it. I mean, you've done that multiple times. So that's something that's interesting for you. So that's okay. And maybe if there is the one person, the comedian, or whoever, and that's their brand, that's okay, too. But looking at you want to continue and have some legacy and longevity and continue making money from that one company, better start thinking about other game plans.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:16:41]:
That's exactly it. And so the very first thing is you just have to decide do you want to do the work for it to outlast you? Are you in this for legacy? And I've actually found when most founders find out how you actually do that, they're much more inclined to do the work to make it happen. Now, it's not easy, right? But it's clear and a lot of times, yeah, a lot of times, founders want it. They just have no idea how to do it. Here's why. Nothing that they've done to date requires the skillset that's needed to make that change. They just don't have it yet.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:17:12]:
It's not something that's baked in, or not. It's a skill set that you need to learn, and they just don't know it. So that really is the first thing, is you have to make the decision, what do you want? Do you want to leave a legacy behind in the form of a vibrant organization, or not?

Amber Stitt [00:17:25]:
I like that. That's very simple, Scott. You gotta decide, and you have to let it happen, and you've got to start transitioning and trusting. You've talked about bringing other visionaries around, and they have to be visionaries, but different from you, right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:17:38]:
Yes. So if you want it to succeed, right, then the success is in the succession, right? You're not leaving a corporation behind. You're leaving a leadership team, or a leader behind. And so what happens is their job is not to fulfill your vision for your company. Their job is to bring a vision to build on your vision for the company, right? You don't want to hire someone else who can caretake your vision. Right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:18:07]:
Because the organization just has no option but to decline after you're gone. You want to bring someone in who can bring a fresh, new vision to the organization. Not a departure from what you've built, but an amplification, an extension of the next iteration of the vision that you built. And that's what ultimately creates the legacy that you really want.

Amber Stitt [00:18:28]:
Well, when you say it like that, it sounds very exciting.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:18:31]:
It is very exciting, but it's also very scary, because what's on the backside of that is, if you didn't have that vision, right, what does that say about you? There's just some real stuff in there. When you take founders in particular, we talked about the beginning. Those early stages are so personal, it never really gets unpersonal. Right? Like, your business is part of you, you're part of it. And so if someone else could improve on that, especially as that visionary, which is kind of the last thing that you're really hanging on to, that's a little scary. It's an emotional thing, and they're not going to do things the way that you did. They're not going to listen to you like others did. Right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:19:09]:
If you're going to get someone who can really drive it forward, they need to be capable of driving it forward like you did, which means that they're not followers at heart, not in the same way that most of your other employees were.

Amber Stitt [00:19:21]:
That's a good point. You have to let it happen. You have to be open minded, and you can't take it personal. If they can do something different, or maybe better, they're bringing something else to the table. That's interesting that you say it like that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:19:32]:
Now, what makes that worth it is that as someone who's been able to equip and train and be succeeded by another visionary leader. Someone else who can drive the organization forward, that's where you really unlock the ability to own and not run your organization. Right? It's this super trendy thing, again, especially in kind of social media culture, you know, build a company that you can own and not run. And one of the reasons why we do this so wrong, and you'll have seen this in your practice, is we try and skip to that step. We try and go straight from I'm a solopreneur to I'm going to own and not run my business. It's like, well, that's stage two, and you're trying to get to stage six.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:20:09]:
Yeah. The reality of is you don't get to skip stages. Now, you can shorten them by doing the right things, but each of these stages accumulates on top of itself, primarily in the skill set that's needed to do that effectively. And so what happens is, if you leave your organization early, if you don't do the work to prepare it for your departure and finding someone else to take over for you, you might be able to look like you did that right. You might even get people to write articles about it. But the reality of it is, at best, they're a caretaker of your vision from the past.

Amber Stitt [00:20:38]:
Caretaker! Working in insurance planning that word just stands out to me. We have a lot of people looking in their younger years into some long-term care planning, but younger because we're seeing what's happening with the older generation, having kids at home, and then there could be other dependents along the way. You just don't...we have a lot on our plate these days. But when you put it that way, I think your book helps people walk through the stages. Correct? But you don't want caretaking. And part of that is just being...

Amber Stitt [00:21:03]:
I have to say this, it's a little direct, but it's almost irresponsible, just like with family, when we talk about risk management, to just leave that kind of clunky behind it. Caretaking is not so much a great plan. So you need to start early and really train for going into ownership. You're talking about different pathways into that, but on the backend. And you need to give yourself time too, then. To transition on the way out so that you can still be a part of something great, but trust that people are managing that for you.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:21:30]:
Yeah. And it's usually, and you've said, you've got to let it happen. You've got to give it space to happen. It's intentional work. It usually takes somewhere between three and five years to do that. Well, now, it is not that that's the only thing that you're doing. Right? It's not that you stop the rest of business, so that you can do succession planning full time.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:21:46]:
That's not what we're talking about. But you have to intentionally, if you're thinking, "Hey, I want to get out in 5 to 10 years," then you don't start this in 5 to 10 years. You start this now. And what will happen is, let's take worst case scenario, let's say you want to be around for 10 and you find out that you've got a successor ready in 5. Go enjoy being retired 5 years early. Right? Like, and if you've got some runway left, then that's fine. There are lots of things that you can do with that runway.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:22:11]:
But I've rarely come across somebody who's like, "I exited too soon. My people were too prepared." That just does not happen.

Amber Stitt [00:22:19]:
Yeah. And that's where in retirement planning, oh, you really run into all these people like, "I had so much money when I retired," it's usually trying to make sure that we aren't the opposite of that. So I love the way you put that. And a lot of my clients, a big majority of my clients are medical professionals. And I know you've told some stories, too, just equating that physician going into their practice and making sure things are well oiled and efficient. Is there anything that you could say to my client base? More like an application, a takeaway that could speak to them today?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:22:49]:
Here's one of the biggest challenges for professional services. This is for physicians, it's for chiropractors, it's for coaches and consultants like myself, for financial planners, is that we run into something called the star player paradox. And that is the better you are at what you do, the better you are as a doctor. If you are the doctor, let's take a surgeon, right? You are the surgeon for this procedure, and people fly from all over the world to come to you. The better you are at what you do, the harder it is to train other people to do it.

Amber Stitt [00:23:19]:
Yeah.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:23:20]:
And replace yourself. Right? The difference of being a star player versus being a captain on the field. Moving into a management position is very difficult whenever you're great at it. So, where we get this wrong is if we think, "Hey, no one else can do this as well as I can. So I'm stuck with it." We bump into the paradox. We get it intuitively, and we just use that to say we throw our hands up and like, "Oh, it can't be done."

Scott Ritzheimer [00:23:42]:
And that's just not true. Right? To get through the star player paradox, you don't need to find people who are better than you. If you can, great. Wonderful. Makes it easier. What you have to do is find people who can do the job, this sounds terrible but, well enough.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:23:56]:
Right now, you get to define what well enough is, but they don't have to do it exactly like you.

Amber Stitt [00:24:01]:
We want to make sure we have successful surgeries. Right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:24:05]:
Right. No, it's 100%. There is a bar. I'm not tossing the bar out the window. But you aren't the bar. And that's what makes it so hard is that as that ultra star player, the bar is so high, no one else can ever live up to it. And so let's fast forward this.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:24:21]:
You know, call it 50 years. You're out of the business, and you leave, but you've never, ever trained anyone else to step up to it. Which was the better service? Right? And so it's a decision that you have to make is, as a physician, do you want to just practice until the cows come home? Is that what you want to do, or do you want to build something bigger? And for me, I love building things bigger. So the answer is really clear, but that's not necessary for everybody. What you can't do is build something bigger and hang on to being the star player. That's the challenge.

Amber Stitt [00:24:54]:
OK so, star player, but there's something that just popped into my head. I had gone through IVF and had an awful experience in a practice here in Phoenix. And at first it was okay, but then I noticed just their practice was so not well run. The nurses seemed angry at the main physician. There was this weird thing happening, and it made it very uncomfortable, especially when I wasn't getting results. I don't want to go in there. There's probably also a part of that star player, but then also that leadership of a well oiled team.

Amber Stitt [00:25:21]:
And it could just be outside of physicians, too. But how better of a package if your practice is welcoming? There's a certain vibe when you walk in and people are happy and smiling and helpful.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:25:31]:
Yeah. And the big part of, again, that star player paradox is that it's harder to become an excellent manager. And that's where this happens. And you see it. You know, doctors practices are one of the worst examples of this because they're so focused on how do we serve our folks? By being in the room with them. Right? By doing what I do with them.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:25:49]:
Everyone else is here to support me. That's not true. Right? Everyone else is to support the patient. Customer experience. So we've got to get out of this idea that all we do is be a doctor and get into the idea that we are actually leading an organization. We're leading other people.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:26:06]:
Those people need to be managed and trained and held accountable and equipped. And if you're so focused on just how much can I pack into my schedule, right? That's how I make more money, then you will lose that game every single time.

Amber Stitt [00:26:18]:
Yeah. And then back to the visionary, your client base. It could be anything. There's so much, I'll say, juice in the orange, that that's not just your primary patient, or client. It could be their kids, and it can just trickle down to grandchildren. So when we're talking about visionaries, too, I think sometimes people forget that we have to keep innovating because what might have worked for them at that generation or couple decades worth, it's like there's other ways to do it, too, that we don't even know about yet. And we have to be open minded to that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:26:45]:
Yeah. 100%. And so what you find is, and again, this is very true for physicians and those in the medical world, is there's this really big gulf between being the solo. You know, I'm in there seeing patients all day, every day, and the medical practice CEO. There's a big gap in between those two. And so what we have to do is we have to start making those incremental steps.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:27:08]:
And that's a big part of why these stages are so helpful is because you can't just jump from one to the other, you know, just practically. You can't stop seeing patients overnight. They want to see you and so we've got to understand there's a process to that progression, as well. And if you don't want to get all the way to that CEO seat, right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:27:26]:
If you don't want to build that thing that's going to outlive you, then you probably want to just put a cap on your practice so that you can do what you do well, at the size you do it well, and just stay there. There's nothing wrong with that.

Amber Stitt [00:27:38]:
Yeah. Find the capacity. What are you comfortable with? But again, it goes back to the original thing. You decide. You get to decide. But don't be upset if you didn't take that time to be honest with yourself and go to some other executive, potentially coaching or other mentors that can help you see things a little differently. I think any of the greats always say you have to constantly be learning, reading and working with the community and get some mentorship to just have that balance of just the right decision making.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:28:05]:
Yeah, Henry Cloud says, when it comes to being CEO, or this is true for founders, you are ridiculously in charge. Right? There is nothing in your organization that you didn't allow, or create. You are ridiculously in charge. And that's a big part of why I love being with founders is because they, there is, we get into this thing of like, can I do that, or can I not do that? And while I think that you shouldn't and not everyone should get into it, once you boil it down to those who are founders who've gotten through those early stages, there's actually not a whole lot of, can you do it, or can't you do it? It's not very fatalistic at all. It's just, are you willing to learn the new set of skills that are needed to do that?

Amber Stitt [00:28:43]:
Yeah. And do you think that's like the serial entrepreneurs kind of, once they get it, they're like, let's rinse and repeat that and let's try this now.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:28:49]:
Yeah. So it's interesting, there's two versions of serial entrepreneur. There's those who have a little bit of shiny object syndrome, and what happens is they bump into the next stage and they don't want to adapt, and so they bail. Right?

Amber Stitt [00:29:01]:
Okay.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:29:01]:
So we call them early struggle obsessives. It's not a great thing to be. It might be exciting, and you might get to say, I started 17 businesses, and it's like, well, but 16 of them failed. Right? There's this badge of honor that we really shouldn't carry. So there's that version, but then there's those who've said, "Hey, I understand this arc now." Once you understand the arc, it's just running the plays.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:29:23]:
And depending on the industry, depending on what you do, it can take a little bit longer, a little bit shorter, but once you see the map, the guesswork goes away. It's just a question of, okay, it's ultra clear. We got to get from here to here. This is how we're going to do it. Are we willing to do that? Yes or no? And it really comes down to that. And founders, once they decide to do it, come hell or high water, there's nothing that's going to stop them. Right?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:29:44]:
That's what I love it about that makeup. But that's why that decision is so important. Cause if someone, you hear a podcast and like, "Oh, Scott said, we need to do this." You're never going to do what Scott said you need to do. Let's just be honest. But if you decide that's what you want to do, nothing can stop you.

Amber Stitt [00:29:59]:
I think this is a good way to transition to, I have a fifth step, which is focusing on community. And originally it was like, okay, as a business owner, have some resilience. Have these strategic partners. If you can't work, if there's Covid, if you're pregnant, sabbatical, pass it off to your favorite referral, because they'll probably send that person back. But beyond that, I'm now doing a lot with nonprofit space, and I see, as I train on leadership for my company and scale and start leading and building a team, I'm like, "Oh, this can be used in the nonprofit space as well." The biggest issue I see is these meetings that happen in these companies, meetings for meetings, and it's like, do we need these meetings? I see that happening in the nonprofit space, and it's like, everyone cc'd, or this...So I've come into this most recent role, and I'm like, "We gotta get more efficient with people's time, otherwise, we're never going to get new leadership if it's built like that."

Amber Stitt [00:30:48]:
So can we spend a little bit of time from your perspective, you built and worked with nonprofits. Maybe just selfishly. Can I get a little feedback on what do you think? If you're taking that founders cap into the boardroom, what is something that you can just natural application. What should we be doing?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:31:04]:
Yeah, there's this fascinating thing that happens in nonprofits, and it's universal. It's called being over synergized. And so what happens is a lot of times, especially when you take stuff out of the business world we are under synergized, right? We're all kind of doing our thing. It's big attitudes, big egos. It's like hard charging numbers, numbers, numbers. And so a little synergy goes a long way in the business world.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:31:25]:
Most of my business clients, we're trying to get them to be more synergistic, to work together, to understand different leadership styles, to communicate a little bit more. And the tendency for businesses to get over processed, that's what slows them down over time. Now, nonprofits, they don't necessarily tend to get over processed, but they get over synergized. Right? It's like death by 'CC, and it's just like everyone needs to weigh in on every decision, and so no decisions are ever actually made. And one of the things that nonprofits do is they mistake activity with action, right? They think we're having all these meetings, and it's high fives and vision, and... But nobody actually goes and does anything.

Amber Stitt [00:32:03]:
Execution, I know.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:32:05]:
And so what happens when you have an over synergized environment is that it actually repels the folks who are most wired to get stuff done.

Amber Stitt [00:32:16]:
It's almost like you're putting your own force field around it, and people are pinging off. And what we've noticed most recently is we have a lot of people that want to execute, and it's like, this is awesome, but we're putting people in the roles, checking it off the list. Okay. We're involving where they need to be, but everything else via email and less email, trying to build out that process. And it's okay to trim it back a bit, sometimes do a little bit less, but have a lot more fun when we have those one of those meetings together, the events.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:32:44]:
Yeah, absolutely. And so anyone from the nonprofit world, almost regardless of what stage they're in organizationally, the one thing that you need to do is you need to honor the contribution of folks who get stuff done just categorically across the board. If every single nonprofit went into their next meeting and they said, "Hey, how can we make a bigger deal out of folks who get stuff done? Not folks who play nice with others, not folks who have great processes, not even folks who have great ideas, just those down and dirty fingernails, let's get it done, people," if you can find a way of honoring them and valuing them more, building a support structure around them to help them do their best work, that will accelerate the growth and impact of your mission like nothing else.

Amber Stitt [00:33:28]:
Yeah. And it's not specific to my group, but I can see it. I've heard from others when I've joined up and now been participating. I've heard other things through the grapevine, from a national perspective down to a chapter level. There's just a lot of...it's very interesting. It's kind of like business, where you're like, "Wow, I didn't think it was that hard. But holy crap, we need a whole leadership overhaul." Seems like it's a pretty common thing.

Amber Stitt [00:33:49]:
So I really appreciate that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:33:52]:
It is exactly the same. It's interesting. I mean, what it is is that organizations are organizations, right? If you are ever trying to get a group of two or more people to go after common goals, right, there are patterns and processes that govern the success of that, or the failure. And in the business world, we deviate from those patterns in a very predictable way. In the nonprofit world, we deviate from those patterns in a different way, which makes us think, oh, businesses and nonprofits are different. We need to treat them different. But the reality of it is we actually need to get them both to move toward the same pattern.

Amber Stitt [00:34:23]:
Yeah, well, let's wrap it up with that, because I want to talk a little bit about your website, which is a really nice website and easy to go through, where people can get your ebook. So let's talk about that a little bit, and we'll link up where to find you in the description box. But can you share a little bit more about how people can find you and get access to all your resources?

Scott Ritzheimer [00:34:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. I've got a running bet with a mentor of mine who talked to me right around the time I was starting the business, and he said, "Scott, you can never outgive the market." So, like the recalcitrant visionary that I am, I've tried to prove him wrong for four years. All that to say, we give away as much as we possibly can. On the site you'll find free assessments, free resources, free tools, free courses. There's so much stuff in there, really around the idea of helping founders build scalable organizations, both in the business world, the nonprofit world, helping folks become better organizational leaders. The website is ScaleArchitects.com No dashes or slashes, or anything like that, just ScaleArchitects.com.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:35:19]:
And when you get there, there's a link at the top that says free book. You can get a copy of the book, "The Founders Evolution" that we talked about here today, and it'll walk you through the seven stages that founders go through. And the big thing that it does is say okay, here are the two or three things that you have to focus on in each stage. Now, read between the lines. That means there's 20 to 30 things you don't need to be doing in each stage. And so what happens is when folks get it, they grab onto it, they recognize what they actually need to do. You start implementing that for a month or two, and you'll find you can get 10 hours back a week just in low hanging fruit.

Amber Stitt [00:35:51]:
Yeah, it's almost like when we do some personality development with Gallup StrengthsFinder, we talk about developing the top 10. Let's not try to fix and be over here. Let's focus on what's really going to work and become more efficient. Don't give brain space to the things that we just can't control, or fix, or just...you don't have time in your day for that.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:36:10]:
Absolutely awesome.

Amber Stitt [00:36:11]:
Well, thank you so much for being here. Lots of facets here, depending on the type of founder, or where you're involved. So much to provide as far as application goes. So thank you so much for being here, and we'll make sure everyone knows where to find your items.

Scott Ritzheimer [00:36:24]:
Absolutely, Amber. Well, it was an absolute pleasure being here. Thanks so much for having me.

Amber Stitt [00:36:28]:
Thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Pathways. For more information about the podcast, books, articles, the blog, and so much more, please visit my website at: www.AmberStitt.com And remember, let's take action today! Thank you for listening!