Courtney De Ronde – Scaling Priorities: What Thriving Organizations Focus On

SEASON: 5 EPISODE: 15  Episode Overview: Welcome back to the Becoming Preferred Podcast, the show dedicated to fueling the drive of business professionals and entrepreneurs like you. Today, we have a guest who is a true architect of achievement, a guiding force for growth, and a master of strategic advancement. She's the visionary behind Forge Ahead, a company dedicated to empowering businesses and leaders to not just meet their goals, but to shatter them. With a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial journey, she brings a wealth of experience in transforming challenges into triumphs and potential into profit. Whether you're looking to refine your leadership, optimize your team, or strategically scale your operations, her insights are invaluable. Join me for my conversation with Courtney De Ronde. Guest Bio: Courtney De Ronde is the CEO of Forge Financial and Management Consulting and the creator of the Simple ScaleUp System™. She helps business and nonprofit leaders use a proven system to take charge of their personal and organizational development so they can fulfill their purpose and lead their organizations to do the same. With 20+ years as a CPA and 15 years as a business leader, Courtney has firsthand experience running, scaling, advising, and serving small businesses. Today, she shares that knowledge as a speaker and consultant with her team at Forge. Recognized for her expertise in business intelligence, leadership, corporate finance, and productivity, Courtney presents at conferences and events nationwide. When she’s not helping companies grow, she enjoys time with her husband and three children on their latest family road trip or at home in Des Moines, Iowa. Resource Links:Website: https://www.forgeahead.com/Product Link: https://www.forgeahead.com/services/business-coaching-and-training/  Insight Gold Timestamps: 01:35 I took an accounting class and it just clicked 02:50 Finances can feel like a foreign language 04:36 You keep thinking, I'll just keep doing what I did to get here 06:55 One of the biggest bottlenecks is that they're trying to do everything themselves 08:48 Empower other people to lead in this organization 10:28 I have to tell them, it's not going to be me to serve you 13:44 We call it the Simple Scale Up system, we really talk about four main areas of a business that you need to focus on when you're scaling 17:43 Anytime that a business is reliant on a certain personality, or their skillset, their connections... 18:35 The size of your business is going to be limited by your capacity 20:20 You need to be able to follow the money through the organization 20:49 We also have a group coaching program called Scaling Leader 21:14 Four Steps to Scalability 22:50 If we look at information that's not accurate or trustworthy, it won't matter 26:34 You need the insights that come from the data 28:50 Their less crucial tasks, like the tedious email monitoring and things like that, for times of day where they have less energy 30:28 The biggest difference between for-profit and nonprofit 30:48 Nonprofit is not a business model, it's a tax status 32:48 A great place to start is to define who you are, and where you want to go 33:20 When you know who you are, and you know where you're going, you can use those two things, your values and your vision, as a filter for decisions 35:02 Whatever happens here is on me 36:36 Most people want to help each other out 37:41 One of the