Fractional Leadership and Business Coaching for Startups and Small Businesses Seeking Breakout Growth
🫵🏼 Are you a founder CEO who’s realized what got you here isn’t going to get you where you want to go? 🚀
🫵🏼 Would you love to hand off responsibility for thinking about all the operational details and ensuring proper strategic execution to a trustworthy partner with the skills, passion, and dedication necessary to make your vision a reality? 😅
☑️ If you answered “yes” to both questions, let’s talk!
Read on to learn more…
Overall, I help businesses develop the operational systems, organizational capabilities, and strategies they need to succeed. Depending on the engagement, I may also drive execution and results. Here are a few key ways I can help you:
📌 Define or clarify and operationalize your core values, mission, vision, and purpose
📌 Design and implement an org structure with the business functions, roles, and metrics you need at every level to succeed
📌 Build and/or implement scalable systems, processes, and teams
📌 Research, develop, communicate, and execute viable growth strategies
📌 Ensure alignment, accountability, and effective collaboration across all business functions
📌 Guide your business to long term sustainable growth, profitability, and impact
Typically, I work with clients in one of the following ways:
1️⃣ Inside your business, working with your team as a Fractional COO or Integrator™ for companies running on EOS®
2️⃣ Coaching you and your leadership team: implementing operational frameworks and tools, teaching you how to use them, and facilitating your ongoing progress 🚌💨
3️⃣ Coaching individual business leaders 1:1 or in group cohorts
To achieve breakthrough growth, business owners need two things:
1️⃣ An operational leader who understands how to align an entire organization around a strong vision, strategy, and plan.
2️⃣ The right operational infrastructure, leadership skills, and organizational habits to execute on strategy and hold people accountable for delivering results.
Fractional leadership can offer exceptional value. As a Fractional COO or Integrator™ for companies running on the EOS®, I will accelerate your growth by bringing years of executive leadership experience, knowledge, and skills to your company — along with a proven business operating system — at a fraction of the cost of a full-time exec. You’ll get all the incremental horsepower you need to jumpstart your company’s next-level growth without having to pay for excess bandwidth.
As a Fractional COO, I bring the structure, focus, and discipline your organization needs to transition from chaos to order, confusion to clarity, and stagnation to steady growth. Here are a few examples of how I do that:
As a Fractional Integrator™ for companies running the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS®) management framework, I’ll help you move from stagnation to traction. Here are some ways I can make that happen:
I’m a certified System & Soul (S2) coach. S2 is a next-generation business management framework with a powerful tool set that enables founder-led businesses to transition to scalable, senior leadership team-led businesses, ready and aligned for breakthrough growth.
System & Soul builds on the process strengths of earlier frameworks, but distinguishes itself in the following ways:
1️⃣ Culture-building. The ideas and tools for engineering a healthy culture are built into the S2 framework itself. Other popular management frameworks don’t address culture-building in all its nuance and complexity.
2️⃣ It’s flexible. You can customize it, adapt it, and plug in pieces from other sources without “breaking” it. By comparison, other frameworks can be rigid and unforgiving.
3️⃣ It grows with you. System & Soul is Lean and open source, so it will continue evolving, innovating, and improving over time. By comparison, other frameworks are static, so you may outgrow them as your business grows.
If you’re exploring business management frameworks for the first time, struggling with your existing framework, or looking to find a new one, I’d be happy to explain the S2 model and tools and discuss how S2 compares to other available frameworks.
🔗 Click here to complete a five-minute diagnostic questionnaire that will tell you where your business stands today in terms of the System & Soul operational standard. The goal is 90% or better, which means you’re well on your way to sustainable breakthrough growth.
You’ll get an instant email copy of your diagnostic results, which may yield valuable insight in itself. If you’d like to discuss your results with me, schedule a free consultation, and we’ll dig into the details and explore potential next steps.
I also work as a 1:1 coach with Founder CEOs, Operations Leaders, and Nonprofit Executives seeking to maximize their leadership effectiveness and organizational impact. I can help no matter what industry you’re in. What matters most is that you have a growth mindset and a desire to grow, are honest with yourself and others, and willing to be vulnerable, learn, and try new things. As long as that’s the case, we’re likely to accomplish a lot together and have fun doing it!
1:1 coaching operates on a rolling quarterly calendar and is customized to meet you where you’re at, address your specific needs, and provide as much structure and accountability as you need to deliver the outcomes you seek.
The easiest way to see if we hit it off is to set up a free exploratory call. We’ll get acquainted with each other, talk about where you are now and where you want to go, and explore possible next steps. There’s no risk to you, so go ahead and book a call with me today!
Mark Scrimenti
I’m a business coach, strategic advisor, and fractional COO for SMBs and startups. I get entrepreneurs and their leadership teams focused around a clear and compelling purpose, vision, and set of values. I help them build operational systems, teams, and cultures aligned with their values, metrics, and goals. And I lead or facilitate execution, breaking down big picture objectives into actionable next steps to deliver steady growth, sustainable profitability, and meaningful impact.
I started my career at the dawn of the World Wide Web, working as a systems integration consultant and technical writer with a focus on end-user instructional design and training. During the dotcom boom of the late ’90s, I joined my first startup, wearing multiple hats including project manager, requirements writer, UX designer, front-end coder, online community manager, copywriter, and so on.
From there, I started my own digital marketing and web design agency focused on SMBs, solopreneurs, artists, and nonprofits with a few agencies and large corporate clients mixed in for good measure. I also started my own nonprofit, a free online social media platform and content site for charitable organizations seeking volunteers and volunteers seeking local service opportunities and community with others sharing a common cause.
I’ve been in operations leadership since 2008, when I first had the opportunity to apply my growth mindset and diversity of hands-on experience to get an entire organization rowing in the same direction. I had a lot to learn, and it didn’t happen all at once. But, in embracing the operational challenges of scaling a high-growth, tech-driven business, I developed a love for systems thinking, dynamic structures, testing and tweaking, and all things Lean. I also grew as a leader, building teams, collaborating across functions, and mentoring others, while keeping everyone sane, healthy, and focused on the prize.
For over 10 years, I led operations and customer experience for an ecommerce company and online retailer in the music equipment space.🎸🎶 We ran multiple B2C and B2B businesses and handled all engineering, product management, creative, content production, digital marketing, data analytics, SEO, and SEM in house. I led a team of over 120 people including Product, Sales & Marketing, Customer Service, HR, and Facilities. Together, we scaled operations, aligned teams, and executed an innovative growth strategy that delivered over $100 million in organic sales growth, while more than tripling profitability.💸💸💸
From a people-centric standpoint, we:
🎯 Built a data-driven culture aligned with the business’s core values and unique capabilities
🎯 Hired, coached, and mentored the right leadership team to take us to the next level
🎯 Fostered ownership, initiative, accountability, innovation, and healthy collaboration
🎯 Drove relentless customer focus, talking directly to customers on a regular basis to identify opportunities for innovation, optimization, and improvement
🎯 Consistently received the highest customer satisfaction ratings in our industry
🎯 Transformed a low morale, high-turnover culture into a place where the best employees stayed long term, recruited their friends, grew professionally, and became a tight-knit community
🎯 Exceeded shareholder’s expectations for growth and profitability
In 2019, I opted to go back on my own again. From direct customer research my team and I had gained lots of insight into how we might reach the next generation of customers with innovative strategies, initiatives, and partnerships, but the company wasn’t ready for that yet. While success, accomplishment, and money are great, I needed something more — a commitment to continuous growth and innovation with a clear sense of purpose that transcended the bottom line.
I started working as a fractional COO for SMBs, because I wanted to share all I’ve learned — and continue learning and growing — with those who can most benefit from my help. Soon, I expanded my practice into coaching founder CEOs and other business leaders, because I can make a greater impact that way. I believe Business can be a force for good, and I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs build businesses that reflect and deliver the changes they want to see in the world. The work is rewarding, the journey is fun, and the results, when they come, are a joy to celebrate!
👉🏻 To talk to me about the change you want to see, schedule a free exploratory call!
🖊 “Scaling Draper & Olsen: Navigating the Pitfalls of a Growing Services Firm” | Vendux | Apr 18, 2023
🎙️ “What Frameworks Should You Use in Your Business?” | Inspired Insider Podcast | Jan 12, 2023
🖊 “Five Ways to Improve Your Company’s Culture to Stay Competitive for the Long Term: A Quick Start Guide” | Vivid Path | Jan 27, 2022
🎙️ “Knowing Your Customers, Applying the Right Frameworks, and Building Great Cultures” | Fractional C-Suite Retreat Podcast | Jan 11, 2022
🖊 “Jumpstart Your Business Growth with a Fractional COO” | Fractional Leadership | Dec 22, 2021
🖊 “Rising through Resilience: Why You Should Listen to Your Team and Get to Know Them Personally and Professionally” | Medium | Mar 4, 2020
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