Post-Exit Entrepreneur Scott Ritzheimer Reveals How To Create Predictable And Massive Success (#418)

418 Scott Ritzheimer
===

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Scott Ritzheimer helped start over 20, 000 new businesses and nonprofits, and with his business partner, led their multi million dollar business through multiple growth stages for over 10 years of double digit growth, all before he turned 35. Today, Scott helps founders and CEOs identify and implement the one essential strategy they need to get on the fast track to predictable success.

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

Or how about Emry, who says, and I love this, and I quote, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program helped me create the right mindset for both growing my business and later my future exit. I now know what questions to ask, what to do and what not to do, which is priceless. The team and I have found dangerous skeletons and gaps that we're now addressing due to the Deep Wealth program. [00:01:00] Today, our actions have a massive ROI. 

Absolutely love that. 

And now, speaking of growth and adding value, check out what Bruce says, and I quote, As a business owner, I'm always looking for new programs, systems, CEO peer groups, and strategies to improve my business. Hands down, the Deep Wealth Mastery program is the absolute best. I'm both growing my business and preparing for a future exit at the same time. It doesn't get any better. 

And I gotta tell you, as I hear these testimonials, this is exactly why I do what I do. My mission, the team's mission here at Deep Wealth, is to literally change the social fabric of society, one business owner at a time and one liquidity event at a time.

The Deep Wealth Mastery program, it's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery and that's exactly what helped myself and my business partners welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine [00:02:00] figure deal.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, Whether that's three years away or 33 years away, and if you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. 

Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S at deepwealth. com. 

We'll send you all the information about the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, otherwise known as the Scale for Ultimate Sales System. Better yet, why not hop on a complimentary strategy call? We'll see where you are at your business and what's standing between you and your financial independence and your dreams.

So that's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders, just like you, who are looking to create market disruptions, whether you're a startup, whether you've been in business for three or four decades, whether you're manufacturing, whether you're a high tech, SaaS, low tech, whatever the case may be.

Come on in and network with other business owners, with other businesses, just like you, because they all want to lock in their [00:03:00] financial freedom and enjoy both success and fulfillment. Again, the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Please send an email to success at deepwealth. com. 

Deep Wealth Nation, I have a rhetorical question for you. 

Would you like to accelerate your growth and success? 

Are you feeling frustrated not sure well, where do I turn and what do I do? 

And I know you said, yes, show me the path. That's exactly what we're going to do today with today's very special guest.

So Scott, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us. Scott, I'm always curious because there's a story behind the story for everyone. So what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Scott Ritzheimer: Jeffery, well, first off, thanks for having me on the show. Super excited to be here and share with you and the audience today. I was in the seat that many of my clients today are. I was a founder had grown what was beyond my dreams of success at the time, especially at the start. and we're probably Five, ten years, somewhere in that ballpark, seven years [00:04:00] into the process of launching, sitting around 7 million in annual revenue.

And for several years during our strategic planning process, we'd seen a problem with our profit margins dipping. And this is like a really boring intro to a story, but it gets better, I promise. And so a lot of folks will relate to this. not quite the profit you're looking for, maybe not bad, but it was moving in the wrong direction.

So in our strategic planning process, we had, yes, we're going to fix it. We're going to add, five percentage points to our profit margins and everything will be wonderful. And we get into the year and we do our quarterly strategic planning and yes, we're going to do this. And then the end of the year comes, we get our P& L and it has not gone up five percentage points.

It's gone down seven percentage points. And It's kind of like, drat, you know, like, what do we do? How did that happen? You know, And there's maybe a little bit of finger pointing, a little bit of frustration, but we're a good team. We're gonna rally and we're gonna figure this out. And so we get back into our next year's strategic planning, and yeah, we took it on the chin [00:05:00] last year, but we know how to figure this thing out.

We're gonna get it done. Fast forward, drops another seven percentage points. And Even a relatively deaf gentleman like myself will start to see trends when they arise we can't just keep doing the same thing, but the problem was weren't doing the same thing, we had tried all sorts of things had read the business book, We had books, we had hired consultants, we had tried to hire new executives, we had tried to launch new products.

It felt like everything that anyone would tell us to do, we had tried to do. And it was some degree of success. But the net of all of that was we're working way harder and making less the end of the day. And so we're two years into this trend and Going into the strategic planning process, I no longer had the confidence that we could just turn it around, right?

That we could rah rah our way into a change, but I had no idea what to do about it. And wasn't the actual planning process that was such a challenge, but that [00:06:00] feeling of there's this really meaningful part of our business. We have to be profitable be sustainable, and it's not working, and I as a leader can't solve it.

And the coaches and consultants that I've hired. Actually, not only didn't solve it, they made things worse. We spent a lot of money on coaching and then lost a lot of money on the decisions they helped us make. Jeffrey, I felt so alone, right? I mean, you've heard this. You work with founders, with business leaders, and there's a certain degree of loneliness that just comes with the territory.

Going out, starting something from nothing, it can be a little lonely. Being at the top of an org chart can be a little lonely, but this wasn't that. This was a journey. All of that, plus, I don't know how to solve this problem, have no idea where to look to solve it. just out of ideas, I'm out of options, and as CEOs, we like to kind of put on this big smile, and get your chest out, your shoulders back, and we're so proud of it, but underneath the surface, most of us, if we're honest, are dealing with some degree of imposter syndrome, and I didn't [00:07:00] have the luxury of being able to hide that anymore.

with the continued kind of failure in, in this metric, and there were other things that were challenging that were leading up to this, I felt like I was found lacking, right? I was on display, I didn't know how to lead my team forward, and everybody knew it. And, it was in the context of that, just some really challenging times as an executive team with my partner at the time, just all of that swirl, I heard about this book called Predictable Success, actually on a podcast like this, that's why I love doing podcasts.

And as I was listening to this gentleman, he's a dear friend of mine now so I can say it this way, listening to his Irish accent is probably what kept me on, the first couple of minutes but he started describing different stages that businesses go through. That there were distinct stages that had distinct strategies that were necessary in each of those stages.

And as he's walking through, it's like he's reading our mail. It's like, I'm wondering where the video is in my office, because he's just describing like, everything we've gone through over the last couple of years. And it was for the very, very [00:08:00] first time, as an entrepreneur, that I actually felt like I was on a map.

It was the first time that I actually felt like somebody knew what was ahead of me. I didn't have to make it up as a god. I didn't have to forge out into the unknown. and in doing so I felt seen and understood. It sounds funny to say this because it was listening to someone on a podcast that you know thousands and thousands of people were listening to at the same time, but I finally felt seen.

I finally felt like I understood where I was, that you are here moment. And it was transformational for us. Once we knew where we were, once we knew why these challenges were coming up in terms of profitability and how you don't solve them on your P& L you solve them in how you make decisions as a team and walked through the steps that he lays out in the book, it was, Completely transformational, not only for my company, we tripled our bottom line in a year, but for as a leader I finally felt like I had the competence and could justify that.

And in going through that multi year process finding the [00:09:00] solution finally, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the actual process of solving that problem that I had and decided at that point that I would transition out of my role in a couple of years and then spend the best years of my career, honestly, helping others to solve that very problem.

How they can turn around and tame that complexity and become the leader they really want to be.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Scott. What a journey. So much there. By the way, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes. There's all kinds of resources there, but specifically, I want you to click on the link where you can download the book for free from Scott and team, The Founders Evolution. And Scott, we're going to be talking about that, but let me ask you this with what you just shared with this incredible journey that you went through.

A bit of a loaded question here, but I'll ask it anyways. When you look back, what Was there a key factor or a few key factors that really, looking back now, enabled you to achieve, really, it's incredible, this decade of double digit growth. What's going on there?

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, looking [00:10:00] back, and this is a challenging question, you said it's a loaded one, and it's loaded for a reason. I don't really believe that there's any one thing that did that, but except for knowing the one thing at each stage of the journey, right? And so one of the challenges that we have is, As coaches, as consultants, as communicators, trying very hard to simplify our expertise, right?

We're trying to make it easy and accessible, but in doing so, if we're not careful, we can actually over simplify the problem. We can over simplify the solution, end up in this kind of silver bullet territory, where it's if you do this one thing, you'll Outrageously successful, the derivative of that, if you do this one thing, you'll be as successful as me.

And that's just not it, right? If you look back, there are patterns that play out of success, and if we can understand those patterns, if we can understand the stages of the journey, organizationally personally, knowing what stage you're in. And then knowing what [00:11:00] the, it's not even a silver bullet at that point, but the highest return activity is for that stage is what did it.

And for me, I kind of intuitively and through School of Hard Knocks, bumped into the first couple of those. But the School of Hard Knocks did not prepare me for the third one, right? It didn't prepare me for that third one. third big transition, that third big stage. And and so if I had listened to the folks who said, the one thing you have to do to grow early on and applied that, it would have worked great, but it would have left me hanging, right?

Or if I had taken what works in later stages for example, and tried to apply it too early, it wouldn't work. So, somewhat convoluted way of saying, I think the one thing that you need to do is understand what stage you're in, and then find out what is the one thing for that stage.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, fair enough. And you know what, as you're saying that, and I'm looking at your book, The Founders Evolution, there's a hero's journey theme to this, because there's seven stages. And again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes, click on it. It's free, the [00:12:00] F word free. It doesn't get any better. You can download that and read it.

So as you're going through the hero's journey, the different stages from stage one, and we're talking about the dissatisfied employee all the way through to stage seven, where we all want to be the visionary founder. Let me ask you this, very high level, I'd like to say with Pareto's Law, the 80 20 principle, that often times, it's the 20 percent of actions that can either catapult us to our 80 percent of results that we want, or 80 percent of the results that we don't really want.

Generally speaking, back of the envelope, as founders, entrepreneurs, business owners, What are some of the common patterns that you tend to see that are holding us back, keeping us in the earlier stages of the founder's evolution?

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, from a pattern perspective, it's that success in one stage necessarily thrusts you into the next, right? as a dissatisfied employee, you figure out, hey, I can go start my own company. I can go do this. You start your own company. You're not playing the same game anymore, right?

Sitting on the sidelines talking about [00:13:00] how it could and should be better is different than jumping into the game and actually playing it. Being that star player on the field that startup entrepreneur and having so much success is I've got to hire folks, I've got to bring in a team around me.

Well, now you have to lead that team while you play the game. It's not the same game anymore, right? Leading while you're playing is different. And so the pattern is that we have a tendency to over rely on what has worked. And that makes total sense, like, why would you rely on things that haven't worked, but what happens is when those things work, when we focus on the right things, when we focus on the 20 percent and we can actually let go of the 80%, that produces a degree of success that actually changes the 20%.

It changes what we have to focus on, and if we don't adapt and evolve, we'll get stuck just trying to work harder, do more growth by addition, right? And what you'll find is for every single person, some it's higher than others, but There's limits [00:14:00] to what you can achieve in each stage.

And so, rather than simply looking at a problem like I did for years and saying, hey, how are we going to fix it? By doing more, by trying harder, us, it was selling more, right? You can't sell your way out of every problem. And so knowing. What worked in the past is great, but knowing what will work in the stage that you've graduated into is even more effective.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Scott, as you're talking about that, I'm sure you can relate to this. I know with my companies, startup stage, we get some success, we're growing, found some things that worked. Ah, sigh of relief. We can finally lay off the gas pedal and just continue to zoom forward. But you're so right, oftentimes what works for us today, it just stops working, perhaps it's the marketplace has changed, perhaps the size of company, the dynamics has changed.

And to your point, adding more people isn't necessarily the answer. And oftentimes, sadly, oftentimes it can create more of a problem than the solution. So what's going on with that? So for listeners saying, guys, yeah, I hear you. I've kind [00:15:00] of seen that, but I just don't get it. Why is it that what's working today in your experience isn't going to work for forever and things do change?

So what are some of the telltale signs? That I should be on the lookout for. Hey. Maybe this is going to stop working tomorrow or suddenly that I better start that change process now.

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So, I would say it is. It's going to change. Unless you're in stage seven, which very few of us are, you can reasonably expect that if you do well, the game's gonna change on you. So, don't think that we ever really reach this point where we don't have to be thinking about what's coming. as founders, at least, as business leaders.

So it's always there. What are some signs that it's right there, right? You're right on the cusp. There are seven big questions. I'm going to zoom in on a couple in the middle. The rest of them are in the book, but for folks that are kind of in the middle of the belly of this journey, right?

The hero's journey has that dip in the middle third, the middle act, right? and in that. difficult period, there are three big questions that we find ourself asking. The first [00:16:00] one is what's wrong with these people, right? And so usually what's happening is this is a founder who's had some success.

They've hired a team of people and they realize these folks don't think like me. They don't solve problems like me. They don't do things the exact same way that I do. They don't take ownership like I do and this resentment builds up because. You're having to manage all of those things and then, let's be honest, you're also having to sell two and three and four times as much to pay everybody's salary to keep the lights on.

And so one of the signs that folks are struggling, this is in stage three of the process and need to evolve is that they find themselves waking up Monday morning and asking, what's wrong with these people? When, in fact, the question that we really should be asking is, what does my team need to succeed?

You have to stop making it about you and what you need to succeed and start shifting to what your team needs to make to succeed. shift of being a star player to becoming a [00:17:00] captain of a team. So, that's the first one and found that it trips up just about all of us but it's not the last question either.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. So it's not the last question. It's one of many questions. So we're starting to see these changes. And of course, what entrepreneur doesn't want, Hey, I want to accelerate growth. I want to create a market disruption. I want to see my profits go up. I want to see my market share go ups. And the list goes on and on with that.

Again, it's going to be general. It's going to be very high level and you'd be perfectly right to say, Jeffrey, I don't It really depends on the company, on the leadership team. And we'll get there in your step seven and all the way through that. But again, generally speaking, how as entrepreneurs should we be changing and adopting our mindset because, Hey, what we're going in is not going to be the same for what we need to eventually get the company to the next level and even exit.

So again, big picture wise from where we are today, what would you want us to know?

Scott Ritzheimer: This is gonna sound a little abstract but the reality of it is at every stage it is less about [00:18:00] you want to continue success in business, I believe you have to wrestle down the that it's not about you anymore. For example, you start your business, it's about what you can close and what you can deliver.

Well, you hire a few employees and now it's about what They can deliver and you can close. You hire a few more, it's about what they can sell and what they can deliver. You hire a few more, it's about how you lead the people who sell and deliver. And what happens is, if we were to take you as a percentage of the total number of people in the company, right?

In the beginning, you're a hundred percent. Well, at ten people, you're just ten percent of the puzzle. At a hundred people, you're one percent of the puzzle. And so your skills are increasingly less. That's about you and your individual performance and they're increasingly about you and the structures and systems and to some extent skills that are necessary to lead the organization.

Not be the organization, but lead the organization. And I think if you look [00:19:00] at the big kind of milestones between these stages, they are usually at places where we have to evolve very heavily with regard to how we lead. From leading ourself, to leading others, to leading leaders, to leading executives, these are all big, distinct shifts in the necessary and beneficial leadership style for a founder.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Scott, as you're talking about that, you're taking me right back to stage four in the founder's evolution, and stage four being the disillusioned leader, where, as you say, hey, it's no longer about you, yes, you started the business, yes, you put your blood, sweat, and tears, as the saying goes, into the business.

But, hey, now it's grown and this is much bigger than you. It's more than you. In fact, it shouldn't even be at all about you. And what I like about that, as challenging as that is with phase number four, it's also here at Deep Wealth, one of the biggest obstacles that we see. So when business owners are coming to us, hey, I want to lock in on my financial freedom.[00:20:00] 

I want to move on to the next chapter of my life. I want to be independently wealthy. Terrific. It's right here that we find, well, the company doesn't run without them. Everything revolves around them and nothing happens without them. Big problems that are going on there. And for most entrepreneurs, they're not getting past it.

And once they realize that, to your words, they do become disillusioned. And some of them. Just don't cross the finish line. They don't get out of there. So what's going on with that particular phase that so many entrepreneurs just throw in the towel or they keep on doing what they've always done, hoping that it's going to get the results that they've always gotten, but usually it never works out that way.

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So a funny story from a few years back my wife and I had we had our third child and our kids were spaced out a little bit. So they were 10, eight, and zero at the time. And finding a babysitter for 10, eight, and zero all at the same time is not a simple task, right? If someone has mastered that I want your information.

I need to talk to you about a lot of things. But it was tough for us to find a sitter that could. [00:21:00] have all of those stuff for us to get away. And so our date nights were few and far between during that season. I'm not proud of it. It's just the truth. But well, we decided enough's enough.

We're going to make this happen. And then the height of romanticism or suburbian romanticism, I should say, what did we do? We did dinner and a movie, right? That was that was it. So the babysitters there, we go out and had a nice dinner. Wasn't amazing, but it was nice. time together, awesome go to the movies, what are we gonna watch, it was right about the time that Maverick came out, Top Gun Maverick, and so, we're watching the movie, and it was, like, it was cool like, it's hearkening back to the original I'd seen it as a kid, and, the 80s music, and the fast jets, and the motorcycles, and the beach volleyball, the whole nine yards, right?

and I'm watching it and it's kind of brutal, actually, the very first scene, spoiler alert, Tom wrecks his plane I think flying like Mach 10 or something, not sure how that's possible, but you know, he gets in trouble again and again, everyone says that the world is passing him by, [00:22:00] he ends up in Even greater relational conflict with the son of his dead wingman, like it's just everything that can go wrong seems like it's going wrong and so we're watching the movie and I'm kind of sitting there like enjoying it but wondering like Wow, this is brutal for Tom.

not having a great day. They're on this impossible mission, and the name of the movie is not Mission Impossible, so we don't know if he's gonna solve it, right? It's just the whole nine yards. And so, it gets to this point, they're on the mission, he gets shot down again, they're behind enemy lines, and right about this time My wife's phone rings the babysitter's like, you need to come home.

Now, everyone was safe, everyone was healthy, but the two boys were fighting downstairs and the youngest wouldn't fall asleep and it was chaos. So, I didn't see the last about 20 minutes of Top Gun Maverick for two years, right? For two years! And again, if you stopped the movie there, right where I did, behind enemy lines, Everything that can go wrong has gone [00:23:00] wrong.

And if you think about like, the movie itself, it's just kind of depressing if that's what movies are, right? If that's what they were. and what makes it all worth it, two and a half years later, I came out on Amazon Prime or something like that, and I was able to watch the final 20 minutes. And it's the triumphant return and the whole nine yards and, he gets there.

That's the girl and it's, all those circles come back together. But what happens if Tom, when he's behind enemy lines and it seems like all hope is lost, if he says, is this it? Is this what I did all of this for? What if he just decides at that moment, man, this, I see where this is going, the harder I work, the worse it gets, I think I'm done.

And, it would be crazy, wouldn't happen, it would make for a very bad movie. But, I see that happen all the time in businesses, right? We get to this part of the story where everything kinda looks like it should be okay on the outside. right? You know, Revenue is, you know, way more than it was.

You've got a team of people. They're [00:24:00] writing magazine articles about you. From the outside, you look massively successful. You look like you've got it all figured out. But inside the organization, you're dealing with some problems similar to what I did. Your profits stuck. You're having trouble with leaders.

You actually don't know what you're going to do strategically because of these changes coming in the market. And. Even more than that, every degree of success you've achieved seems to come at the expense of your freedom, right? And so we look back and it's internally, this is just getting harder and harder.

The more we grow, the more miserable we become. And it leaves us wondering, down in the valley, down in the depths of that Tom Cruise moment, thinking, is this it? Is this really as good as it gets? And it can be on crazy stuff that comes up. had a a client, he hit his first million dollars in profit in a year, and you know the very first thing he said to me afterwards was, now I've got a 400, 000 tax bill.

Now, we can talk about his tax strategy, [00:25:00] that's for another time, but the reality of it is, what you discover is that businesses get bigger, they do not get better. Not on their own, right? Not just because they get bigger, and become disillusioned because the illusions we had about reaching this milestone or accomplishing this goal or doing something, big, all those illusions start to fade away when we come to the reality of There's a lot about this that's tough, that I can't do this all on my own anymore.

I can't be the one that everyone depends on for every decision inside the company. I don't have it all figured out, and if I want to grow, it has to get beyond me. And so, so often we try and make big decisions down in the depths of that, rather than taking some time to actually look at it. out and say, hey, what does it look on the other side of this hill?

What is my vision for the company? What is my vision for what we can accomplish? And it's only in light [00:26:00] of clarifying your vision, getting that separation from just the reality and drudgery of your business that you can really get a clear sense and purpose for which way you need to move forward.

Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, It's interesting, Scott, as you're talking about that, I'm really going to visionary founders, which in your version of the hero's journey, that's really where everything culminates. And as entrepreneurs, when we look back from when we first started. The company grew, now we have some revenue, perhaps it's in the hundred thousand, then later in the million, and then tens of millions, and on it goes.

Every step of the way. It's a different company. And just when you cross the finish line for one goal, oh my goodness, I need to invest in the infrastructure, that bank account of profits that I had, well, there it goes because I got to put it back into the business so I can continue to support what's going on and grow it.

And for so many founders, they don't understand that, to your point, it can be really a road of disillusionment and disappointment and quite [00:27:00] openly looking back on my own journey and let's compare notes with yours. If I didn't get to the visionary founder side of things, when I took myself out of the picture and I said, what's best for the company?

And I realized that what was best for the company wasn't me, which it's a hard realization when you start a company. And I realized for this company to continue to grow, my e learning company, Embanet, to continue to change lives, to keep up this market disruption, I was not the best person for it. To lead the charge with that.

I didn't really have the, those corporate skills or that experience. Could I have done it? Maybe. I wouldn't want to bet on that. Could I have stayed on with the new owners? Probably not because I know my personality and it would not have been the happy ending. And so it's really checking the ego at the door and saying, okay, my team members who helped get the company here, the clients that we serve, the ones that we will be serving, they don't know about us yet, but they will for their benefit, let me step out of the way.

And put the right things in place [00:28:00] for me was one of the toughest things that I had to do, but the spoiler alert, had I not done that, had I been selfish and said, Hey, this is all about me. I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to be here until. I'm in the hundreds and you're going to take me out and at the very end.

And that's when it's done. There never would have been that exit deal. There never would have been that growth of the company and all the wonderful things that, happened after that. What are your thoughts on that? Because I'd imagine you see this all the time. You've probably gone through this yourself.

Would love your personal take on that.

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think there's a couple things when it comes to the exit that really matter. One is exit timing is a really big deal, right? And again, if you try and exit in that stage four disillusioned leader, you will be under so much emotional pressure to get out. That it's going to be difficult to get the best deal.

The second facet of it is many times the problems that you're experiencing that are causing you to be disillusioned are the very same problems that someone else is going to have to deal with [00:29:00] coming in and a wise, or astute buyer is going to see that. And so a lot of times you'll see for those reasons and several others, the actual effect.

The value of your exit is significantly diminished that stage four because you're just exiting at the wrong time. Now the flip side of that, which you're hitting, and sometimes these can happen at the same time, but you can hang on too long, right? You can die with the mic on. Particularly for the folks that I work with, the kind of segment of founders that I tend to, my work on, they have that same sentiment as you, which is, yes, I've built this, yes, I want to personally benefit from it, yes, I'm proud of it, but yes, I want this thing to live on, right?

I want to see this company continue to flourish. I want to see it continue to grow. And so the timing becomes less about when you want to leave, right? And becomes more about when it's best for you to leave. those are two different criteria. And interestingly enough, you tend to get the highest value on your [00:30:00] exit when you do it that way anyway, because it's the most valuable that it'll be.

And so, yes, I think the big switch here and, and the way that I describe it is that the secret to succession so again, this is a subset of exits, it's not all exits, but if you want to see your company succeed and you want to enable your successors to do that, then the secret to succession is not about finding someone else to be the CEO for your vision for the company, But it to enable your successor to bring a new vision for the company, someone that you trust to take it further than you did and further than you could.

And that's a hard thing. It takes wrestling that down, right? There's some ego stuff that goes into that. There's pride. There's even, questions of whether or not they can do it and control. There's a very personal journey that happens through that whole process, but it's worth it because when you see, and joyfully had the opportunity to do this, when you see your [00:31:00] successor create more success than you did, when you see them winning, right?

Of course, there's a question of like, how much was I actually holding that company back, on the flip side of it, there's so much joy that comes from that, right? season of joy that you get to walk into in stage seven, that Visionary Founder, when it's not about you and your needs anymore, but it's about what you can create in and through others.

There's no more rewarding stage. And for a lot of folks, especially that are down in the thick of it, that's hard to imagine. It's hard to believe to some extent, but you ask, Anyone who's made it to Stage 7, you ask anyone who's had the opportunity to kind of look back, to give back, to be free of kind of bonds of the earlier stages, and to a T, every single one of them will tell you it's the most rewarding stage of their career.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh, absolutely. In order to get there, though, things have to change. And we've been talking about that. I want to fast forward just a tad. And let me ask you this. You've had the privilege [00:32:00] and the honor of 20, 000 businesses that you and your team, you've been able to work with. I mean, that is a massive amount of businesses, a massive number of businesses that you've been in the trenches with.

And again, from a very high level, when you look back, we can look at the glass half full, half empty. Why don't we do a little bit of both? So when you're looking at the 20, 000 businesses, I'm sure some perhaps stumbled, maybe some didn't even make it out of that freefall that they went into, and others perhaps they did and they went on to wonderful, terrific things, trends, insights, best practices.

What should we not be doing as you reflect on those 20, 000 plus businesses? What would we want to avoid at all costs?

Scott Ritzheimer: Again it's hard for me to answer these questions because I believe that what the answer for that in each stage is different. And I would say if you were to take that, you take a pattern that big and you say what's the common denominator some of them had too much system in process. Some of them had not enough, right?

Some of them had too great a focus [00:33:00] on sales and revenue. Some of them didn't have enough. Some were too innovative. Some were not innovative enough. And you have these gradients across all these different. Spectra. And so it can be hard to say what's the common pattern? And the common pattern is, are they focusing on the right things at the right stages?

And so tend to sound like broken record at this point in most podcast episodes, because we keep coming back to, you've got to know what stage you're in. You have to know what stage your business is in. And when you understand what stage you're in and what stage the business is in, the, what you have to focus on is highly predictable.

What's going to cause you grief and what's ultimately going to cause you to fail if you're not paying attention is highly predictable. But, in some senses subtle, but in others dramatic, what those things are is very different at each stage. And so, again, to give one piece of advice, it would be to recognize what stage you're in and to be a student of what works in that stage.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, that's actually wonderful [00:34:00] advice because love and respect what you're saying, hey Jeffrey, you know what, there's so many different moving parts here that I can't give a one size fits all, but you did in really that sense of hey, where am I, what's going on here, what are some of the scenery that I'm passing, what are some of the trend lines here that I should be aware of.

So just being aware of what particular stage I'm in and then how to deal with that. And I suppose that could cut both ways, Scott, of okay, let me stop doing this because hey, the scenery's changed. Marketplace has changed or the company has changed and what worked today isn't going to work tomorrow. So I better start making that change right now for both the not so great and also, hey, I want to get to a wonderful, terrific place.

Let me start doing that now. And so with that in mind, Some of your secret sauce here, so I'm showing up to you and the team, okay, Scott, here's my company, here's what we're doing, let's work together. What does that look like in terms of timing and the process and the kinds of results that I could expect to see?

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. Yeah, so with my clients, when we [00:35:00] first get started, we usually work over the course of a year. And there's two big phases to that. There's the individual phase and then the organizational phase. And so what we do early on through a coaching setup is we get really clear. on what stage they're in, what their leadership style is, and what their organization stage is.

We use all three of those. And if you could kind of picture it as a Venn diagram of sorts, what I've found is that the essential strategy, the thing that's been missing, the answer to your question that you keep asking actually comes at the intersection of those three things. it can be unique to each person to some extent.

Really what it is unique to each combination of these different factors. And so we've got some assessment tools and a process where we can take folks through the discovery of understanding those three elements. And what that essential strategy is in the middle. So, we're able to boil down the world of all the things that they could possibly focus on to that 20 percent for right now.

And then what you'll [00:36:00] find for folks that are especially stages four, five, and six, where I do most of my work you can't fix it all by yourself. And so what we do after working six months together and cleaning up everything that we need to from the founder's perspective, we can then shift to the leadership team.

And we work through a series of workshops over the next six months to build the structure around the founder and ultimately build the organization that they want, get them to the stage that they want.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And in doing that, Scott, because again, you can have the best system, the best strategy. For me, as the leader or the entrepreneur or founder, if I'm not willing to make that change. Then it's all academic, it's all theory, it's really not going to make a difference, I'm not going to be executing properly on it, I'm just not going to be there.

So from that side, and again, Jeffrey, on base or off base, that's nothing to do with the business as much as it is on the personal side, hey, entrepreneur, hey, founder, business owner, are you willing to put yourself out of business in some areas with how your mindset [00:37:00] is, what you're thinking, what you're not thinking, what should I be expecting of myself in terms of setting myself up for success, not failure?

To do that.

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. And again, I think it's a Venn diagram. And so what tends to happen is I always get hired to fix teams, right? Founders like, Hey, I need you to fix all these other things. And what we end up realizing is, they're part of that puzzle as well. So again, if think of a Venn diagram, there's some overlap in between.

It's not entirely personal. It's not entirely corporate. We have to understand both and the impact that they have in the intersection of both of them. And so the reason I developed the Founders Evolution book is because I was working off of Les McKeown is the gentleman's name. I don't think I mentioned that earlier in the show.

I was working with his model. It's called Predictable Success. And we were doing all these, tools and workshops for teams. And some of them were tripling and quadrupling their net income in the course of a year to a year and a half. And then others accomplished absolutely nothing.

It's like, [00:38:00] how does that like, they went through the same process. How does that happen? They're in the same organizational stage. How does that happen? And you're exactly right. The difference when I was looking at them was the founder's willingness to change. In the ones that, our services had no effect, they either didn't know, didn't realize or didn't want to change.

to make the personal changes that they needed to. So even though they implemented all the tips and tactics and tricks and processes, they undermined all of those things with their own behavior. And so what I was able to do in the book is map out that personal side of the journey so that folks can see.

This is how you need to evolve. This is why you need to evolve. It's not because you're fundamentally flawed. It's not because of all these things that we tend to ascribe it to. It's just because you're using the strategies that have worked but won't work in the future. And so, again, it's that intersection between the two of them.

And again, going to the secret sauce, it's why we don't do it. Just do pure coaching and one-on-one. [00:39:00] And why we don't just do team workshops for most of our clients is because we actually need to integrate both. And by integrating both, that's where we get the transformational results that they're looking for.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And it goes back to what, personally, and here at Deep Wealth, we've always said, whoever said that business isn't personal has never been in business or owned or operated a business because it absolutely is. And really as the leader, the founder, it starts with us and ultimately it ends with us, but how it ends, that's completely our choosing in terms of what direction to go.

So I really love what you're saying there. Hey, it's got to be a combination, it's not an either or, it's really all of it that we're throwing into the arena here, and then making the changes as we need. Now, Scott, let me ask you this, because we're going to be going into wrap up mode shortly. I know there are so many questions that I haven't asked, but let me ask you this, is there one particular question that we didn't get around to, or a particular topic that we haven't touched upon yet, or even a message that you'd like to get out to the Deep Wealth Nation?

Thanks

Scott Ritzheimer: I think the question that for most folks is kind of [00:40:00] burning in their mind, listeners is okay, if I deal with this stage four, is this it Tom Cruise moment? What's on the other side? is it something that's actually worth it? and so, what I encourage folks is, yes, there is, stage four is not the end of the journey.

There are three more stages, and they're amazing after that. Stage five in particular is where we move from the disillusioned leader, to the chief executive. And when I teach this, get to teach this in small CEO groups around the country. And you'll see this really interesting dynamic play out in those who have made it to stage five and those who haven't, right?

Those who haven't, when you start describing stage five and how the ease that comes with it, the freedom that comes with it, the scale that comes with it, the peace that comes with it, folks that are in stage four, like nonsense. It can't possibly be true. But everyone who's been to or is in Stage 5 is like nodding.

They're like, yeah, I remember that. I remember that switch. I remember that transition. [00:41:00] And so Stage 4 is, would say, the hardest of all seven stages. It's a really tough spot. It's where most founders get stuck and can struggle to break through. It's all out. Also the single most rewarding transformation to make.

From stage four to the, for lack of a better term, glory of stage five, right? The grace, the ease, the poise, the scale, all of that is worth it. So if someone's sitting there listening and feeling that, is this it? Is this as good as it gets? The answer is unequivocally, no.

It can always get better. And. It doesn't mean that you have to work harder or work longer or do more. what you need to do is focus on doing the right things. And that transformation is a lot closer than you think.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Scott, as you're talking about Stage 5 and Deep Wealth Nation again, please go pick up the book. It's free. Founders Evolution. So Stage 5 being the Chief Executive, and I agree, hey, that is getting much better. But then to your point, to Stage 6, okay, the true [00:42:00] owner. Now we're getting closer to why we started this business in the first place.

You probably forgot about that. Hey, I created this business not just to help other people, but to also help myself to have a specific lifestyle and have a lifestyle that really resonates with me. But you're not stopping there with stage six, the true owner, you're going to stage seven, the visionary founder, and yeah, that's the ultimate bliss.

To your point earlier, I mean, it's interesting because it's now a 360 that we've done because really we're going back to where it all began and with the visionary founder, to what we've been speaking about. And Scott, you're going to say Jeffrey on base or off base. To be that visionary founder, where you have this team that's running the day to day of the business and quite openly.

The business is running better with you out of it than you in it. And you're choosing how much time you want to spend in the business. And the time you are spending in your business, this is where you're applying your superpowers, whatever those are, likely on the creative side, finding new problems to solve.

And these market disruptions. [00:43:00] But to your earlier point, Scott, to get to that visionary founder, wow, that's a lot of inner work that you don't really hear a lot about because we have to change as the founder of the business to get out of the way, to put the right people in the right way, if I can say it just like that.

We'd love your thoughts on that.

Scott Ritzheimer: That's exactly right. So, again we've talked through a couple of these questions. What's wrong with these people? Stage three. Is this it? Stage four. The question for stage five is probably the most shocking out of all of them. So stage five, chief executive, leading an executive team, scaling your business.

Number one question for the founder, who am I? And it's stunning, right? Stunned me when it hit me for the first time. Stunned me 80 times as much when I realized I wasn't the only one who felt that way. But when you succeed at getting yourself out of so many parts of the business and it succeeds without you, you start to wonder like, well, who am I?

Like, If I'm not my business, [00:44:00] if I'm not essential for every decision every day if I'm not even essential for every decision some days, you know, if this whole thing can live and run and breathe without me. If it's different than me, then who am I? What's left? And if you can't wrestle that to the ground you can't thrive in stage five because you're going to constantly undermine your success and go back to stage four and you're just going to deal with the frustration of that.

So yes, that inner work, that personal understanding, that self awareness, that independence. Vision for your life that isn't bound to or even limited to your business. That's where you start to set the framework for achieving stage six and stage seven. All that happens in stage five.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Scott, what's interesting about that, in Deep Wealth Nation, please pay careful attention to this, because I'm going to take myself out of the microscope here, and I'm going to look at some of the now alumni from the Deep Wealth community, the Deep Wealth [00:45:00] Mastery Program, this is our 90 day flagship program.

And oftentimes, when I speak with entrepreneurs, they'll ask me, Jeffrey, what's the difference For people that have gone through your program that have a seven figure offer or an eight figure offer or even a nine figure offer, and the short answer is it's a huge difference. It could be the same company, but the ones that, and I'm thinking of one particular business owner, came to us, turned down an eight figure offer, went through our system, made no guarantees, no promises, actually told them, To take the offer, not work with us, but he did otherwise.

And he did, he ended up getting the nine figure exit. When I look at that deal, when I look at my deal, when I look at all the other deals that we've worked on behalf of our clients in the community, the companies that are ascending to the top with these astronomical exits, these huge market disruptions, it's not about the owner and the.

Buyer, the investor, that is what they want. And when I speak to the buyers, investors on this very podcast, Jeffrey, I don't [00:46:00] want another second full time job, otherwise known as this business that I just bought because the owner has to be involved because I know the owner is going to ride off into the sunset.

They're not going to be there. Maybe I don't want them there. It has to run without the business owner and as entrepreneurs. It's like throwing cold water in our faces for some of us, because what do you mean? What do you mean it's not about me and you don't want me there? It's really a hard pill to swallow on that.

And so before we go into wrap up mode, we just love some of your observations on that in terms of what you've seen with the 20, 000 plus companies that you've done and where it's been and where it hasn't been relative to what I shared.

Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of folks who don't have a business, they have a job. But even in the context of these larger organizations, yeah, when it's all dependent on you, are they buying you? Most visionary founders do not find on their own. A huge amount of joy and, gladness in working for somebody else.

I mean, that's disillusioned leader status. That's why they got out in the first place. And so [00:47:00] the average, kind of life expectancy of your time with the company once it's purchased, for most founders, not all, but most, is very short. So then you have to think, well, then what are they buying?

If you're the biggest asset and you're not part of the deal, What's left? that's a scary question. So in this process of separating ourself ahead of time from the company, becoming a CEO what it does is it actually sets us up for stage six and having another CEO in our place. Well, if you've got a buyer who doesn't want to be CEO, right?

Which is most big buyers at least. And you can say, here's a business that already has a CEO. Here's the success that they have. I mean, what's the valuation on that? It's enormous, relatively speaking, especially compared to here's a business that I'm completely knit into and going to fall apart without me.

And so, yes the stages and the separation that you need to do to achieve those stages has a profound impact on the exit process as [00:48:00] well. And I would say for founders, there's this kind of question of when we get to stage six, what's next? Now what do I do? There's only so much golf and gallivanting and what makes stage six really cool is it's not just about owning and not running your business, which would be enough in and of itself.

That's an amazing place to be. It's actually that In owning and not running your business, you now have the capacity and resources, most of the time, to start thinking not in terms of your business, but your businesses, right? And start thinking about other things that you would want to start, other folks you would want to partner with, other assets that you'd like to purchase, and It opens up this whole new creative domain for founders to express their vision, right?

To solve interesting challenges. And none of that's possible if you're constantly having to deal with all the nitty gritty intricacies of, you know, the world inside your business. So again, that graduation from stage five to stage six, and then [00:49:00] ultimately to stage seven, your world just gets bigger and bigger in every stage.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And it's ironic that for it to get bigger, we have to get out of the way more times than not to do that. And, obviously make sure that we have the right people surrounded and really leading the charge with that. So a lot there again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes. It's a point and click, get the book.

So Scott, that said, we have a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast. Every guest, I have the privilege, the honor of asking the same question. It's a really fun question. So let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie and we're speaking about movies earlier, here's a different one for you.

Back to the Future. You have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time. So Scott, imagine now it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window and not only do you see that magical DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now going to go to any point in your life.

Scott, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. What are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom, or hey, Scott, do this, but don't do that? [00:50:00] What would that sound like?

Scott Ritzheimer: Wow. There's about a thousand answers to that question, but I would say I would go back. So I actually left and went to school early. I was 17 years old and I don't know if it would be right in that window or right before it. I'd have to give it a little more thought, but I would go back and tell myself that life is a lot harder and a lot more rewarding than you think.

doing meaningful things in general is a lot harder. But it's way more worth it, right? It's easy to sit on the couch, we don't get anything out of it, but the things that are most important in life, they tend to cost us the most, but give us the highest return on investment.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, that's such great advice of, hey, do the hard thing. Yeah, it's hard at the time, but it's really a gift, and it's a gift that keeps on giving. Or sometimes you hear, hey, if it was that easy, everyone would do it. So much truth, so much wisdom to that. And Scott, before we officially wrap up, somebody has a question, they want to speak to you or the team, they want to begin to work with you, where would be the best place online to reach you?

Scott Ritzheimer: We're across all the social media [00:51:00] platforms, I'm a little bit of a dinosaur, so the best way to reach me would be to head to scalearchitects. com, either grab one of our free resources there, or you can reach out to me directly with the form on the site.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, Deep Wealth Nation is all there in the show notes, it's a point and click, doesn't get any easier. Well, Scott, it's official, this is a wrap, and as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Congratulations once again, and thank you so much.

Scott Ritzheimer: Thanks, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're [00:52:00] saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

And every time you subscribe and a fellow entrepreneur subscribe, it's a testament to how together, Yes, we are. We are changing the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time. So don't let the momentum stop here. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast channel.

You'll never miss an episode. You'll be the first to hear from the top industry leaders, the innovators, the disruptors that are really changing and shaping the business world, and maybe you're commuting, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're taking a well deserved break that we spoke all about on this episode.

The Deep Wealth Podcast, it's your reliable source for the next big idea that could literally revolutionize your business. So once again, [00:53:00] please hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. And again, your next big breakthrough moment, it might just be one episode away. Maybe it was even this episode.

So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.