You inherit a team of 35 people. Morale is in the basement. Processes don't exist. Nobody knows what success looks like. And somehow, you're supposed to turn this around.

Most leaders would panic. Ryan Ford built a system.

In this episode, Ryan breaks down exactly how he transformed an underperforming team into a high-functioning operation—not through motivation speeches, but through structured systems, clear metrics, and a decision-making framework that stopped making him the bottleneck.

The Reality of Inheriting a Broken Team

Ryan walked into 35 people with low morale, unclear expectations, and no real processes. The kind of situation where everyone's busy but nothing meaningful gets done.

His first move wasn't motivation—it was understanding. Before changing anything, he invested time learning the team dynamics and figuring out where the breakdowns actually happened.

The uncomfortable truth: Sometimes the people aren't the problem. The lack of clear expectations and accountability systems is.

The LEAF Decision Framework: Stop Being the Bottleneck

Here's where most leaders kill their own productivity: they become the decision-maker for everything.

LEAF Decisions - Low-impact decisions that don't require leadership approval. If it's a LEAF decision, the team makes the call and keeps moving.

How to implement it: Create a decision tree with your team. Map out what requires your input and what doesn't. Give them permission to make LEAF decisions without asking. Then get out of their way.

The Turnaround System: Metrics, Accountability, and Cadence

Ryan didn't turn around his team with a single meeting. He built a system with three core elements:

Clear Metrics: Everyone knew what "good" looked like. No more subjective performance reviews.

Accountability Structure: Regular check-ins where progress was reviewed and blockers were identified. Not micromanagement—strategic support.

Rapid Adjustment: When the plan wasn't working, they changed it. No ego about sticking to a failing strategy.

Real example: Ryan led a critical product launch with tight timelines. He established daily check-ins, tracked progress against milestones, and adjusted when reality didn't match the plan. The product launched successfully because the system caught problems early.

From Individual Contributor to System Builder

The hardest transition for new leaders: realizing your job is no longer about what you personally accomplish. It's about what your team accomplishes through the systems you build.

What Ryan learned to love about leadership:

• Setting people up for success
• Building cultures where high performance becomes normal
• Creating teams that function even when he's not in the room

Why Systems Beat Heroics Every Time

Heroic leaders jump in and save the day. They make all the critical decisions. And they become the ceiling on their team's performance.

System-building leaders create frameworks that allow their teams to solve problems without them. They empower LEAF decisions and reserve their energy for choices that actually need their expertise.

The result: Teams that perform consistently, not just when the leader is present.

The teams that win aren't the ones with superhero leaders. They're the ones with systems that turn ordinary people into high performers.

You can learn more about Ryan Ford over on LinkedIn.

Want help designing systems that make your business more effective? Let’s talk about creating a customer experience that catches problems early and turns your team into problem solvers. You can join the next Customer Experience Zoom Workshop to find out how to improve your customer experience and get more referrals.

You know your expertise inside and out. You've got proven processes that deliver real results. But here's the problem: your business only grows as fast as you can personally deliver.

Sound familiar?

This week's guest, Ryan Musselman, cracked the code on something most service business owners struggle with—creating systems that scale your expertise without making everything feel automated and soulless.

The Custom GPT Framework That Saves 15+ Hours Per Week

Ryan didn't just throw ChatGPT at his content problem. He built an interconnected ecosystem of custom GPTs that generate stories, case studies, and sales copy that actually sounds human. Here's what makes his approach different: each GPT knows exactly what it's supposed to do, how it should sound, and what outcomes to deliver.

The result? Content that scales without sacrificing quality or authenticity.

Why Your AI Content Sounds Like a Robot (And How to Fix It)

Most business owners try AI once, hate the generic output, and give up. Ryan shares his process for identifying the telltale phrases that scream "this was written by AI" and systematically eliminating them from his system.

This isn't a one-time setup—it's a continuous improvement loop that gets better with each iteration. Sound like someone's approach you know?

The Onboarding System That Catches Problems Before They're Expensive

Here's where it gets really interesting for service businesses: Ryan built a centralized feedback system that gathers client input from day one. No more wondering if your onboarding process has friction points. No more clients silently struggling with parts of your program.

Instead, you get immediate visibility into what's working and what needs adjustment—before small issues become big problems that cost you clients.

What Actually Matters When You're Building a Business

In a refreshingly honest moment, Ryan pulls back the curtain on his personal systems for maintaining perspective. Daily exercise. Journaling. Prayer. These aren't just nice-to-haves—they're the foundation that keeps him from getting lost in the weeds of running a 7-figure coaching business.

Because here's the truth: the best systems in the world won't matter if you burn out trying to implement them.

The Most Valuable Insight

There's no single "right way" to grow a service business. Ryan's systems work brilliantly for him, but the real lesson isn't about copying his exact approach. It's about finding the systems and processes that align with your personality and strengths.

Some coaches thrive on intimate, high-touch relationships with a small group of clients. Others excel at scaling through group programs and automation. Both can build highly successful businesses—they just require different systems.

Why This Matters for Your Business

If you're running a service-based business and feel stuck at your current revenue ceiling, chances are it's not a strategy problem. It's a systems problem.

Ryan's approach shows you how to:

• Leverage AI without losing the human touch that makes your business special
• Build feedback loops that help you improve continuously
• Create operational systems that free up your time instead of consuming it
• Stay grounded in what actually matters while scaling

This episode is packed with practical, implementable ideas you can test in your business this week. No fluff. No theory. Just real systems from someone who's already figured out what works at scale.

Listen now to discover how to build magnetic systems that help your business grow without requiring you to clone yourself.Want help designing systems that make your business more effective? Let's talk about creating feedback loops that catch problems early and turn your team into problem solvers.Learn more about working together.

Most service business owners are asking the wrong question about AI. They're wondering "What can AI do for me?" when they should be asking "How can AI help me understand what my customers really need?"

Dan, an AI systems expert who works with founders who refuse to blend in, sat down with us to flip the AI conversation on its head. His background in ministry and psychology gives him a unique lens on technology—one that puts human understanding first and automation second.

The Hidden Gold Mine in Your Customer Conversations

Here's what keeps most service business owners up at night: They know their customers are telling them valuable things, but there's simply not enough time to capture and act on all those insights.

Dan shares how AI can analyze your customer interview transcripts and surface patterns you'd never catch manually—the repeated pain points, the subtle language your customers actually use, the themes that connect seemingly unrelated conversations.

This isn't about replacing human judgment. It's about augmenting it so you can actually use all that customer wisdom you're currently leaving on the table.

Your AI Project Manager (That Never Takes a Day Off)

Forget the hype about AI replacing workers. Dan reveals how he uses AI as a personal project manager to stay organized, track priorities, and document daily wins—essentially creating a second brain that remembers everything you'd otherwise forget in the chaos of running a business.

The key? Maintaining control. Dan walks through his process for continuously refining AI systems through "meta-prompting"—having the AI itself suggest improvements to how it serves you. It's like having an assistant who proactively figures out how to be more helpful.

Real Results: The Valuation Firm Case Study

Theory is nice, but results matter. Dan shares how he helped a valuation company transform their data extraction process from legal documents. The result? Dramatically increased team capacity without hiring.

But here's what makes this different from typical automation stories: The AI handled the tedious extraction work so the humans could focus on the high-value analysis and client relationships. The business became more human-centered by letting AI handle the robotic parts.

The Bottom Line for Service Business Leaders

If you're running a service business, you're sitting on mountains of customer insights and drowning in administrative tasks. Dan's approach shows how AI can help you:

• Capture and act on customer feedback you're currently missing
• Stay organized and strategic instead of constantly reactive
• Free your team to do the work only humans can do
• Scale your capacity without sacrificing the personal touch that makes you valuable

The businesses that will win with AI aren't the ones that use it to remove humans from the equation. They're the ones who use it to make their teams more effective at understanding and serving customers.

Want to explore how AI could work specifically in your service business? The conversation is just getting started.

This episode is essential listening for any service business owner who's drowning in data, struggling to scale, or wondering how to use AI without losing the human touch that built their business.