836 Dena Patton:

Start acting like a CEO as soon as possible. Whether you give yourself that title or not, leadership is not a title, it’s a way of being, it’s an action. You are the CEO of your business, whether you have one employee or 50 or 300 or a thousand, you need to start acting like a CEO.

What would a million-dollar CEO do? They would put in systems.

The word “systems” may seem bureaucratic or boring to a scrappy, agile, and iterative entrepreneur but that word … systems … often spells the difference between success and failure. Most entrepreneurs wait too long to create replicable systems that drive sales, marketing, hiring, onboarding, and finances, says Dena Patton. Dena is a successful entrepreneur turned elite coach to fast-scaling businesses who helps turn entrepreneurs into great CEOs by focusing on sales, sales systems and mindset. We’re going to break it all down today so you can start acting like a CEO no matter the stage of your business.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Podopolo, the interactive app revolutionizing podcast discovery and discussion and making podcasting profitable for creators. I’d like to invite you to take a minute, download Podopolo from either app store, listen to the rest of this episode there, and join the conversation with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice … Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who sold her PR and marketing company Select Entertainment just before the dot.com bubble burst in 2000, and went on to work with thousands of top entrepreneurial CEOs of fast scaling businesses as an elite coach.

Dena Patton focuses on turning entrepreneurs into great CEOs, and she gets results that shows up in significant growth in the revenue and profitability of the companies run by those she coaches. Since 2001 Dena Patton Coaching & Training has offered a unique Greatness Methodology, which focuses on sales and marketing, replicable systems and mindset. Dena has won 9 business awards for her coaching and she’s also the bestselling author of The Greatness Game.

Dena will be here in a moment, and first,

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There is such a long, long, very long list of mistakes every entrepreneur can make as they grow their businesses from that first glimmer of an idea.

One of the biggest is not setting up operational systems for their business from the earliest stages. And it’s an easy one to make because it often feels unnecessary when it’s just you and a small team. Problem is, as you hire your first people and grow a team, it sets up a big block to growth when everyone is just winging it. Start to grow, and it becomes chaos. The result is lost revenue, lost profitability, and likely burnout for the founders and the team.

Dena Patton has been on a mission to change all that for more than 20 years as an elite business coach who has driven results for founders by helping them to transition from an entrepreneurial to a CEO mindset – and build the systems across sales, hiring, onboarding and beyond that grow highly profitable and fast-scaling businesses.

We break all of that down today, so let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Dena Patton and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Dena, welcome to Wings.

Dena Patton:

Thank you for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

You are an elite business coach who’s actually built and sold a significant business. So you’ve been there and you’ve built that. What is the biggest pain point of all the clients, the men and the women that you work with and coach to really growing and scaling a successful business?

Dena Patton:

Well, I could answer that in so many different ways, but given I have been doing this a very long time, what I have realized is everything starts in the mindset. So sales starts in the mindset, growing your team starts in the mindset, your own CEO self-care starts in the mindset. So mindset is definitely a huge barrier. People jump into entrepreneurship with an idea, but they don’t understand what it really takes, that mental resiliency, that mental toughness that it takes to really build a business. So mindset is definitely huge. And then sales. I think sales is a humongous barrier for most people. I think it is the reason that a lot of people go out of business in a couple of years. They just can’t get their sales to a place where they’re making the profit that they need to build their business. So I would say those are the top two that most people struggle with.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So let’s break that down, because I do agree with you that mindset, it really dictates everything. And if we think that our subconscious minds basically run us, and that’s like at least 90% of our actions are dictated by that. If you’re not aware, you can just be making mistakes inadvertently, consciously you can be thinking you’re doing the right thing, but subconsciously, gosh, I joke that the world’s run by toddlers and I include everybody, I include myself in that. So we get into this awareness. So how does that manifest, for the most part, for women in sales? Because I think sales is a really difficult thing for everybody. People are afraid of being salesy or pushy or there’s a whole bird’s nest of mindset issues around sales. How do you find that it manifests most often for female entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to be good at sales?

Dena Patton:

Such a good question, because I love that you said it’s a bird’s nest because it is so… The barriers are layered, right? It’s not just a magic pill. It is layers of the bird’s nest that is in a lot of people’s way. But I wrote a book on mindset because I think that is where everything begins. And so the mindset of sales, when you are in a business, you have to understand the problem you’re solving because you’re selling the solution. And so you have to understand the value of your solution so that you’re selling it to the right people at the right price, and you’re making the right profit. And I say that with ease, but that’s a very complicated thing for most people. They’re like, “I don’t even know the problem I’m solving, or I don’t really know how to language the solution I am, or I don’t really know my value. So I’m undercharging.” So you can already hear the bird’s nest in there.

Melinda Wittstock:

I see women under price, over deliver, even pick the wrong clients, or end up in this service type business that has no scalability. So when their pipeline dries up, their sales effort dries up, when they’re serving their clients, suddenly they have no pipeline. I’ve often also seen women and men, be really good at evangelizing for a product or a service and just not actually asking for the sale.

Dena Patton:

So that actually brings me to the next point is there’s layers of the mindset of understanding your value and your solution and your worth, and knowing that you’re worth it, and pricing it, and all of that mindset, beliefs piece. But then the second piece is what I see, when I say that I see this in 80%, 85% of my clients, even my clients that are $20, $40, $50, $60 million clients do not have this. And it is a clean, well-oiled sales system.

Melinda Wittstock:

A sales system, a sales machine.

Dena Patton:

A sales system. They don’t even understand their own steps of this is how I attract them with my branding and marketing, and then I do this, and then I do that, and then I do this. For me, I see sales as leadership. When you reframe it as I am leading someone through a great experience where they’re going to learn about me, learn about my value, and then be able to choose. I do not believe in force. I don’t believe in slimy sales. I’ve had very, very successful businesses and I’ve never had, ever, had to force someone into a sale. And so that’s a belief. I can hold my value, I can hold my prices and charge what I charge, and not shrink and ask for the sale. And they get the freedom to choose.

Melinda Wittstock:

And they can just say no. And if they say no, it’s not personal, it doesn’t mean anything about you.

Dena Patton:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And that’s I think a difficult one for women because I think we’re so acculturated to please everybody. So, the ‘no’ feels existential.

Dena Patton:

Yeah. Which brings us back to mindset. I’m telling you, it all comes back to mindset, is letting go of the belief. So all of our actions are tied to a belief. So if I think I need to get everyone to say yes to me, there’s probably a belief there, a small, what I call a small misbelief, where I have to be liked and everybody has to say yes, and I have to be for everyone. Those beliefs will drive you into the ground. And my first business, I actually had a stroke at 27.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh my goodness.

Dena Patton:

I’ll tell you why I had that stroke, it’s because I was saying yes to everybody. I didn’t even know I could have the permission, I could give myself permission to say no to people that were not a fit. I didn’t even know that was possible. So I said yes to everybody, completely worked myself to death 17 hours a day, and at 27 had a minor stroke that literally put me on my knees, and I had to learn how to speak for six months. And I make my living speaking, and I had four employees. It was devastating.

But let me tell you, it was a blessed interruption in my life because I will never take my wellness, my mind, my body, my spirit for granted again. I believe in CEO self-care. A sign of a very good CEO is that they are healthy, they take their health of themselves, their business, and their employees seriously. So back to sales systems is… A client, I started working with them two years ago, they were about the $60 million mark. But within a month of working with them, I realized that their sales, obviously they were doing something good, but there was no system there. There was no steps. There was three or four different people that would do sales. And they just pretty much said whatever they wanted to say, there was no materials or a deck, or we say this in sales meeting one, and then we say this presentation in sales meeting two. There was nothing.

They were throwing spaghetti on the wall and they were a $60 million company. But when we put systems in place, not just a sales system, but then an onboarding system that really represented their values, because your values are so important in how you operate your business, and that includes how you operate your sales, their sales skyrocketed. They went from 60 million to a hundred million. And then we put other systems in place, operations and customer service and things that… We wanted to control the experience for the customer better. We wanted it to be excellent and fabulous. And when you have no systems, it’s really hard to do that because you’re winging it.

Melinda Wittstock:

You’re winging it the whole time, and entrepreneurs get used to winging it. This is an interesting thing that gets into what you do with a transition from going from founder, entrepreneur to CEO.

Dena Patton:

Correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

And who you’re being at these different stages of entrepreneurship is very different. And some people are inherently good at starting things, but not necessarily good at building or scaling or maintaining or growing things. And so do you have that within you to make those necessary transitions because… Well, the only thing you can take for granted as an entrepreneur is constant change, but if you have those systems in place, it’s just so much easier. And so a question for you in terms of when is the right time to start building a system. So say you’ve got a tiny team, or maybe it’s just you, and your business is just getting going and you’re making sales, you’re doing all these things, and it’s a bit trial and error to begin with, to figure out what system is going to work, or you’re getting good at, say, assuming that you’ve gotten good at the sale. At what point should you really be conscious of building those systems from the get go, or is it a little bit later? I think a lot of people leave it later.

Dena Patton:

Yes. One of the biggest differences between entrepreneurs and CEOs is we have to remember there’s no fairy that’s going to come and bop you on the head and say, “You are now a CEO.” How I teach, how I coach, how I speak, is start acting like a CEO as soon as possible. Whether you give yourself that title or not, leadership is not a title, it’s a way of being, it’s an action. You are the CEO of your business, whether you have one employees or 50 or 300 or a thousand, you need to start acting like a CEO. And that is such a huge difference, you just made that distinction, is a lot of entrepreneurs, they get their business going with themselves and they’re like, “Oh my god, I need help.” So they hire a person, and then they hire another person and then they hire another person.

All of a sudden they have three or five people, and they’re hiring people. And then the people are creating their own systems or ways. And why that is dangerous is, let’s just say that now you went from three people to five and five to 10. Let’s say that you’re at 10 people, and you never stop to create systems for each one of those people. You now have 10 people who have 10 different ways of doing things, 10 different ideas, and they are running those divisions instead of you creating the system and then plugging the person into the system. So for example, let’s just say you’re at the point where you are working yourself to death. You have to hire your first assistant or your first person, write down, here’s an exercise, write down three to five systems that you would love them to manage. So let’s say it’s an assistant.

That assistant needs to be trained on the calendar system, booking you. That is the biggest part of my assistant’s job. She controls everything on my calendar. So how to book it time-wise, the colors on my calendar, all the details, booking my calendar is the most important thing that my assistant does. There’s a system of how we book podcasts, how we book clients, how we book appointments, all of those have… I trained her in that, right? So you have a calendar booking system. You have an onboarding system. So how is she going to be onboarding your clients? There’s customer service systems. How do you want your assistant to be affecting or impacting your customer service? You are telling them, this is how many times I want you to reach out to them, or this is the system of how we serve them. There’s some people, some of my clients who serve their clients for a very long time, six months, one year, two years, you better know what you’re doing in customer service and not winging that, right?

So to answer your question, in my world, the faster you create a system, the faster you become a well-oiled machine. And when you are not a well-oiled machine and you have three, five, 10 people just doing it their way, what you’re creating is more chaos. And where there is chaos, there is no system. So give yourself an audit and say, “I’m going to look at my business today. I’m going to take 30 minutes, and I’m going to think of all the different things in my business. And I’m going to write down what things are in breakdown or chaos.” And this is what I challenge you. Where there is breakdown and chaos, there is no system. So let’s say you are a service-based company and you sell someone on your service and they say yes, and they pay you. What now is your onboard system? I have a five point onboard system. So here’s the thing about systems and hiring that’s really important.

I create the system out of my head. Once you write it down, now I have, “Oh, here’s the five steps of my onboarding.” I can now train an assistant to do that. But when it’s in your head, and maybe it’s 10 steps, it’s very hard to delegate, which we have to master. We have to master delegating. But it’s very hard to do that if it’s not written down. So write down your sales system, and then your onboarding system, and your marketing system, your customer service system, your booking systems, all of these systems. And then that way, good news, you can delegate it, you can hire someone to do it. And you can train them, do it, and then they become a well-oiled machine. So it makes everything good when you have a system. But that again is a mindset is I’m going to run this business like I’m a million-dollar business today.

What would a million dollar CEO do? They would put in systems. They would totally understand their sales, and who are they going after? Champagne, wine or beer clients? Let me tell a story really quick about this because this was… It really shows you how people are disconnected. I had someone come to me who said, “We keep doing these consultations, we get called on these consultations. We are a high-end remodeling company, and we go to their home, we give them the estimate and they freak out over our prices. And literally we are not closing. We’re going on 10 estimates and we’re not closing one.” Which means they are attracting beer clients.

What beer clients or beer customers are looking for, they’re only looking for one thing, they’re only looking through one buying lens. And that is, “I’m looking for the cheapest.” So the cheapest plumber, the cheapest coach, the cheapest supplements, whatever it is. And you can make millions of dollars going after that. If you listen to your local radio, you’ll hear someone saying, we are the most affordable plumber in town. Guess what they’re doing? They’re going after those beer clients on purpose. You can make a lot of money going after beer, but let me tell you, if you aren’t going after beer, you’re going to be broke. Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

It totally Does. It is really understanding that and pricing accordingly.

Dena Patton:

Accordingly.

Melinda Wittstock:

So you have to know what you are doing there. And I think a lot of people… I hear so many entrepreneurs say, “Oh, this service is for everybody.” No.

Dena Patton:

No, it’s not. No, it’s not. And you know what? When I audited their business, what I saw was the words matter in your branding and marketing. When you use any forms of words like reasonable prices, or we’re affordable, or we will match your budget, what that’s doing is calling in those beer clients. And again, if you’re a beer service or product, then that’s great, but if you’re a high-end remodeler, that’s bad news because 10 out of 10 estimates are not your customer. So what we did is we cleaned up any words that were beer, and I said, “If you’re going to sell champagne, you got to be champagne.” So we cleaned up their language, and really painted them in the light that they are there. They are one of the best high-end remodeling companies in the Scottsdale area. And so their language, their branding and marketing had to reflect that so that it attracted that champagne client.

And they literally went, the next 10 clients, they closed four out of 10. And then they got better and better and they started closing six out of 10. That conversion, when you look at your conversion… I encourage you to look at your conversion rate because if you’re closing one out of 10, two out of 10, three out of 10, what I’m going to say might hurt your feelings, but you’re building a hobby, not a business, because your language is not attract… It’s not representing your value, and it’s not attracting and calling in the right target market. So it’s a big concept, but really it just sparks you to think differently. If you’re going to go after beer clients, then own that. Go down that road. Be the most affordable and own it and go attract those beer…

Melinda Wittstock:

And then your systems, your systems are different where you see people trying, this is where women’s propensity to try and over deliver or do more than what they’ve sold, is a significant issue. That’s that people pleasing thing. So yeah, decide what market you’re going for, but then assuming that your branding and what your website looks like or that how you communicate on social media, has to all be in alignment with that. But you’ve got to know who you’re serving. And this is huge. Sometimes it takes a while for a company to really figure it out though too, because they don’t necessarily know what their market is.

So they’ve got to do a lot of testing out to figure out where they best play. And sometimes [inaudible 00:20:46] take a little bit of time just even to know through the testing. Our Brand Studio, part of Podopolo, which is an AI-powered podcasting app, and we just literally say, “Look, if you need a cheap podcast, we’re not the people for you.” Right?

Dena Patton:

That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

We’re expensive because it’s a very holistic thing around your business, around your brand, it’s very strategic.

Dena Patton:

That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so we put a lot of effort into the qualification process in that aspect of the business. What kind of revenue do they need to qualify? What kind of EBITDA numbers are we looking at here to figure out whether they can even afford us? And then how many clients do we want to work with at a time? Because it’s bespoke, right? It’s white glove.

Dena Patton:

Well, and you bring up a really good, a really, really important piece to this sales system growing is capacity management. I’ve been coaching one-on-one for 22 years, and that is my specialty. And it is very high level coaching, weekly coaching, and then I do my three-day luxury one-on-one retreats, because my clients are usually scaling, building their businesses, and there’s a lot at stake in their business. I don’t really coach the person that’s like, “I’m making $5 and this is my first year and I am struggling.” Unfortunately, that’s not my client, right? Now, through podcasting and speaking, and my books, those people get a lot of value because I give a lot of tips, free tips, and low cost tips through those methods. But as far, like you said, knowing who your target market is and then serving them at that level, if you-

Melinda Wittstock:

So you have, with all the free stuff is top of the funnel, maybe one day those people do eventually qualify.

Dena Patton:

Right. Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

They’re coaches for different phases-

Dena Patton:

Totally.

Melinda Wittstock:

… of the business. I think what can easily happen though, too, is that you can, especially in emerging growth, fast-growing companies, especially in the technology space where I’m at, so you have these different phases of the business, especially if you’re a technology or a product focused business, and you’re getting your product out there, there’s all kinds of systems around that, of testing, who it’s for, what are your ideal marketing channels, all that kind of stuff. And so you feel like a scientist in a lab testing all of that out, and then boom, you’re growing quickly. And if you don’t have the systems when you’re entering into that fast growth period, oh my goodness. So in the case of Podopolo, we’re only about two years old, but There are systems for all the engineers, for design for the marketing. There are [inaudible 00:24:17] And they’re iterating all the time too because we’re still [inaudible 00:24:20] but we’re growing quickly.

And so that’s a very vulnerable time for a company, because if your systems don’t catch up, as the CEO, you don’t take time to step back and work on your business and you’re kind of in it, months go by and you can find that, yeah, you just haven’t progressed or you’ve missed something really big or whatever. So in terms of your clients, there’s so many different types of businesses, I think, in terms of that scaling. So you want to get those systems in place early enough. How about the iteration of the systems in terms of how much should your team be involved in helping you define those systems?

Dena Patton:

Yeah, That’s a good question. As the CEO when you’re building, especially a tech company, it can take off very quickly. As soon as you get that funding and it’s all of a sudden you’re hiring 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, maybe even a hundred in a year. Again, it goes back to that CEO mindset. You went from this idea and now you’re managing a hundred people, you’re leading a hundred people, a hundred people’s paycheck relies on you. So you’ve always got to be learning to be a better leader, because this business you are leading. And so that leadership and the growth, like you said… I had a client who came to me and said, I have this brilliant tech idea. I saw you speak at a conference and I want to work with you to pull it out of my head.

And it was not a normal client. Again, I don’t usually work with someone in a startup phase, but we worked together and he took that out, and it took about four months to get to launch. And what I did is I had him create all the systems to support his first hundred clients. And he said to me, “Are you crazy? I don’t even have one client. Why am I creating systems for my first hundred?” And I said, “I know this is going to take off, and you are going to scale so fast, you’re not going to even have time to stop and build the next system.” And that was the CEO of designpickle.com, and he went from literally one employee to 500 employees in two and a half years.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s fast. That’s very fast.

Dena Patton:

Yeah, $15 million a month and killing it. But I’ll tell you, he resisted building those systems in the beginning. He is like, “I don’t need them.” And it’s like getting the bank loan when you don’t need it. You should probably get that bank loan when you don’t need it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. We’re about to close a funding round and the minute that funding round closes, I’m going to go get venture debt [inaudible 00:27:36] because I can.

Dena Patton:

Right. Because you can. And when you’re desperate and you need a loan today to make your bills, tomorrow is not the time to go get a loan. So I want you to… And this is a CEO mindset, is I build systems before I need them. An entrepreneur is like, “Screw that. I’ll build them after I need them.” And my employees are so desperate for them. And so it was so good for him to build that because it’s exactly what happened. He just took off and he was so in the middle of the heat because he was getting all this press and he was speaking at entrepreneur events and he was so busy that he’s like, “Thank God we have all this built.”

So then it just became a sales game. And then, to your point, after the first a hundred, of course, we had to keep building and keep building. And the thing about that is you have hired good employees that will help you innovate your system. So you don’t have to always be doing it, but once you lay down the systems in that department, it gives your employees some foundation, “Okay, this is how he wants this done.” Whether it’s sales or the financials or HR, this is how we hire people and this is how we train them and onboard them. That’s a whole other conversation.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s a huge, that’s a huge-

Dena Patton:

Oh my gosh.

Melinda Wittstock:

… huge. Because gosh-

Dena Patton:

Huge pain point of hiring, training, onboarding. I could spend literally two hours speaking about that and how I help people create those systems. Because it’s scary hiring your first 10 or 20 employees, you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not in HR.

Melinda Wittstock:

You can make mistakes too. You can easily hire the wrong person.

Dena Patton:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. That can cause mayhem. Really, what’s your system for making sure they’re delivering on the results they were hired to deliver? Where do they need help? How can you know? When does the blinking red light go off? Okay, this person needs help or this person isn’t the right person, or this person is the right person but is in the wrong seat. So you [inaudible 00:30:06] things which you need to know. You get really busy as a CEO at that point, like the gentleman you’re describing, and you can lose track and there could be problems developing that you’re not even aware of.

But if you have systems in place, at least there’s a much higher chance that when there’s a bottleneck in something or when something, whether it’s the wrong team member or whether it’s just something wrong with the process, or you’ve learned something in the market, or the market’s changed, which means that you need to change your system. So it’s an interesting conundrum because the innovative aspect and the flexible, nimble aspect of the entrepreneur, if you want to retain that within a culture as it becomes more systemized, that’s a tricky one for people. How do you navigate that, staying nimble, all of that while you’re building these systems so you don’t become kind of corporate bureaucratic in the worst sense of that?

Dena Patton:

It’s funny that you bring that up. I was just actually talking to a client yesterday who’s gotten super, super overly rigid around their policies and their systems. And they’re only a team of 32, and it’s just becoming too rigid. And we were talking about finding the line between holding your policies, your rules, your structure, your systems, because that is the foundation that… People need that stability. But also being flexible and knowing what you are flexible around and what you’re not, holding what lines. And I think that’s each individual, again, CEO mindset is I make good decisions, where entrepreneurs throw a lot of decisions on the wall and see what sticks. And so I would definitely say you have to find your line between being flexible and holding that policy or that system saying, “No, this is our system and I need you to do it this way.”

And there’s going to be certain things where you do have to fight for your… This is your way. Then there’s going to be places where you need to be flexible and say, “You know what? I see it your way. That’s a good addition. Let’s add that to the system, or let’s add that to the culture,” or whatever it is. So I think the capacity management, what I see a lot of CEOs doing is they start their business. They understand, “Okay, I need to…” You have to understand sales first, because with revenue, you can do anything, right? You can hire and you can buy things that you need. But when you have no revenue, you pretty much, again, are building a hobby, not a business. So they do understand their revenue, they get those sales, then they hire that first one and third one and fifth one, and they’re starting to become a CEO in the seat of CEO in their highest and best use.

And then they’re utilizing their people in the departments. But what starts to happen, again, this is usually when people get above 20, between 20 and 70 employees, this is what starts to happen. Capacity management falls apart. The CEO isn’t managing their capacity. They’re starting to overwork and start to get that burnout. Burnout is a real thing, right? Chronic overwhelm, untreated overwhelm becomes burnout. So you have to watch your own CEO self-care. But just the capacity of your team, and it’s always these CEOs that have 20 to about 70 employees, they’re just piling on the sales. So they’re bringing in the business, but they’re not aware that their team is completely breaking and overworked.

Something that is very invisible to a lot of new CEOs that are scaling in that is they just don’t understand capacity management. So for every 10 accounts that we get, we have to hire one more person and every 10 hire one more person. They don’t get that. They just keep selling and selling and selling, which is good, but it’s going to break your team. So that’s just something, again, it points to mindset. It points to systems, it points to hiring is this capacity management. When your people get bitter and resentful, they’re going to leave and then you have to hire again, which sucks.

Melinda Wittstock:

So in the context of a CEO, we talk on this podcast a lot about the necessity to double down on your strengths and hire your weaknesses. So it’s knowing what your talents are as the CEO, because you have this potential partnership between a CEO and a COO, or perhaps chief revenue officer, or you have a chief of staff, or you have different things where somebody else has maybe more of an operational brain and you’re the innovator, visionary.

Dena Patton:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And because some CEOs are just systems thinkers, so they’re just going to be really good at that, but not necessarily as good at the vision. A lot of founder CEOs are visionaries. And I remember reading a book many years ago called Rocket Fuel, which had a test. It was about the relationship between the visionary and the integrator, so the CEO/COO basically, in that sense. And there was a quiz at the end of it that you filled out to figure out who you were. And it was interesting. So I filled it out and I was like 98% visionary, which is totally true. Bleeding edge, innovator sort of person. But what was interesting for me is on the integrator test, I was 85%.

So I actually set up a conundrum for me because it’s like, who am I being? What should I really double down on? Because I’m a systems’ thinker, I’m a visionary about systems, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I should be implementing them or managing them. So it took me a while to just understand that about myself. So what’s the process that you go through with entrepreneurial CEOs? I guess just combine that to really help them understand where they should be really focusing and where they really need a partner or they need to hire those higher reaches, whether it’s a CRO, chief of staff, COO, or VP operations or whatever it’s going to be.

Dena Patton:

Such a juicy question, because I love this part of working with people. I love the psychology of what makes people tick and what their highest and best use is, and their greatness. I’m all about greatness. My book is The Greatness Game. My business is Greatness Training. And it is about this. It’s exactly what you were saying. It’s how do I get into my greatness lane, my highest and best self and kill it there and hire everything else? And out of 19 clients that I have right now, 11 are that systems oriented mindset and eight are the visionary. They can see the vision, they can see where they’re going, but they’re not really great with systems. So part of my onboarding, because of course I have a system for it, right? Part of my onboarding process, I have people do two strength finders, true colors, and another survey, because as their coach, I’ve got to know that and they’ve got to know that.

And most of these people, it’s the first time they’ve ever done that. And so it’s a really great discovery process for them to say, “Oh my gosh, that’s why I am so bad at systems. This is real. I’m bad at systems.” And so they understand what their strengths are. So then we can hire people that can complement. Every visionary needs and an executor, and every executor needs a visionary, but know better, do better. If you don’t know who you are, what your strengths are, what your greatness is, how do you even know what game you’re playing? And then how do you know how to hire?

It makes so much sense to understand the game you’re playing, because we’re always winning the game we’re playing. So I want you to understand yourself. If you’re bad at systems, listen, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make you a bad CEO or a bad person. It just means that you have other strengths. That’s where you should stay, and let’s hire someone that their strength is that. And that’s the beautiful part of team. Everybody’s hired for their brilliance and their greatness, and that’s what makes the business go.

Melinda Wittstock:

And then the CEO aligning everyone around shared values, shared mission and such. And there’s a lot of talk about this, how to make sure your team is really diverse, Not just diverse in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation, but experience, age, talent, skills, but then taking that diversity and melding it where everybody has a shared purpose or a shared mission or a shared vision, shared values, operationalizing those values. That’s an area where I’ve focused a lot, certainly with Podopolo, And it becomes a better organizing principal. And so the CEO and the entrepreneur tends to set the tone for that, but it requires awareness of what are your values? Why are you even building this business to begin with?

Dena Patton:

That’s right. Yeah. And that’s another reason to have a coach. A lot of people build their business and they skip over steps, especially not fun steps, like what are our values? What is our vision? They just go. And one of the first steps on my survey is, what is your vision? What is your values? I hire, fire and lead by my values. And it’s important that people understand that values are the things that keep you on track. I use the analogy of a train. Clarity moves the train, confusion derails the train. If you’re confused about anything, something in this meeting, or where we’re going, or your values, what do you stand for? If you’re confused, that train’s going to be derailed. When we have clarity, clarity moves the train. And so the clarity moves the train towards your vision. Your purpose is the thing, the why that’s pushing the train.

And then your values are the things that are keeping the train on track. You know why? Because you’re hiring, firing, and leading by your values. These are your non-negotiables. So there might be three or five or seven, but they are the things that are non-negotiables, it’s what you stand for in this company. And they have to be in your culture and in your decisions and how you praise people. They have to be alive in your business for people to know them and to stand for them, so that you’re all harvesting the same values and representing the same values. So I deeply believe in vision, values, purpose, it’s foundational.

And I get, again, this and systems, none of that’s the fun stuff. The creative is fun, and getting clients are fun, and building the business, but you have to have a foundation or the house will implode. And that’s where… I’ve been an entrepreneur for 28 years. In this business, 22 years. I’m super passionate. When I’m speaking at conferences, my biggest message is, you can do this and you can figure all these pieces out, but put yourself in the environments of learning. That means podcasts. That means conferences. Know better, do better. Don’t just wing it and do it on your own, because that is going to make you implode. So trust yourself that you can learn.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. And we can. Entrepreneurship really comes down to constant learning. If you’re curious and you’re a learner and you’re just always, any little failure, you choose your mindset to make that an opportunity to learn.

Dena Patton:

That’s right.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s a really big part of the resilience. We started the conversation really with mindset, and so much of this is awareness and knowing your value. Just the threads are just so clear. But I think one other point that really emerges from this, especially in terms of creating the systems earlier, be right now who you want to become.

Dena Patton:

That’s right. That’s right. I call it million dollar CEO. Today, make a decision who I’m going to be. I’m not saying that you would say I’m a million dollar CEO. No, that’s who you’re being. That’s your mindset. Be, do, have. It all starts on who you’re being. I’m going to start showing up like a million dollar CEO. I’m going to start strategizing like a million dollar CEO. I’m going to start running my meetings like a million dollar CEO. It calls you to a higher level of your greatness, and you start mastering that and you’re like, “Huh, wow. That was a totally different way that I strategized dddd that,” or “I thought that through thoroughness,” versus, oh, just winging it. So it’s a way of being. Be, do, have. Your beingness and beliefs impact doing, your actions and your actions are going to impact what you have, your results.

So if you want to have certain results, start with who you’re being, what you’re believing in your head. Are you believing your smallness? I hear a lot of new entrepreneurs say, “Well, we’re new. I’m new, so I have to have cheap prices.” Or “I’m new, who am I to go after big clients or big contracts?” That’s all smallness thinking. So let’s shift over to start believing greatness, thoughts and believing those. And that’s what I talk about in my book. I know that I’m making… Just a comment about it is a deeper learning. But at the end of the day, you’re either believing your smallness, which is what the thing that wants to keep us very small, safe and in our comfort zone, because our comfort zone, we’re safe and it’s good, but there’s so much more.

You are made for so much more. We need great leaders. We need great entrepreneurs to be innovating our world. And if you sit at home believing your smallness, you’re never going to do the thing that you’re called to do. So I’m here to, as your interruption today, to say, start believing your greatness. Get back on the horse. Go get the team or the funding or the client you need today, and believe that you were made with greatness. And it’s just all up to you to believe that every day, even in the suck moments. You’re going to have suck moments. We all have, but they come with it. The point is to learn the lesson, take the lesson, and go do it again and learn from that

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. So Dena, you talked about the type of clients you work with. For anyone listening here, can you just go through that again? If anyone having heard this conversation is like, “Oh my goodness, I really want to work with Dena.” Who are you looking for and what’s the best way to engage you?

Dena Patton:

Yeah, absolutely. So I primarily work with business owners who have 10 to 75 employees that are purpose-driven. They know they’re changing the world with their business. I love people who are passionate around what they are doing. My website is denapatton.com, D-E-N-A-P-A-T-T-O-N.com. You can find my book there, my services. Read more about me, and hop on a consultation call if any of this resonated with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for such an illuminating interview, on putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Dena Patton:

Thank you. It was great to fly with you. Thank you for having me.