What if the person holding your company back is you?

In this episode of Your Business Growth Podcast, Jeremy Shapiro sits down with Derek Fredrickson, Founder & CEO of The COO Solution, to break down how Derek built a seven-figure business in its first full year—while discovering that his own strengths were creating a new growth ceiling.

Derek spent years as an operator, including a Wall Street career and helping grow his wife’s business beyond seven figures. He knew how to build systems, manage teams, create accountability, and turn ideas into execution.

Then he launched his own company and fell into the same trap he warns clients about.

Derek was getting pulled into operations and delivery while resisting founder-led sales. He even considered hiring a salesperson early—until his mentors told him he hadn’t earned the right to delegate it yet.

He needed more conversations. More knowledge of his ideal client. More firsthand experience hearing objections and understanding what buyers actually wanted.

That realization changed how he approached growth.

In this episode, we discuss:
✔️ Derek’s transition from Wall Street to entrepreneurship
✔️ Building a seven-figure business in its first full year
✔️ Why being great at operations became a founder bottleneck
✔️ Moving from operator to CEO
✔️ Building a bench of 15 fractional executives
✔️ Why Derek initially hated selling
✔️ Reframing sales from persuasion to problem-solving
✔️ Why founders may delegate sales too soon
✔️ Simplifying marketing to one offer and one primary funnel
✔️ Why 3–4 qualified leads can beat 30–40 weak leads
✔️ Showing pricing before the sales conversation
✔️ Improving an existing funnel instead of chasing new tactics
✔️ Why “you can scale simplicity—you can’t scale complexity”
✔️ Using systems, automation, and AI to reduce founder dependency
✔️ Building a business around the life you actually want

Derek also explains “your Paris”—his way of defining the freedom your business is supposed to create. For Derek and his family, that meant moving from Connecticut to Paris for what was supposed to be one year. A decade later, they’re still there.

👉 Connect with Derek Fredrickson:
• The COO Solution: https://thecoosolution.com/
• Derek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekfredrickson/

📘 Hosted by Jeremy B. Shapiro, Author, Your Business Growth Playbook ( https://yourbusinessgrowthplaybook.com/ )

Chapters:
00:00 Simplify to Scale
00:30 Meet Derek Fredrickson
01:31 Wall Street to Operator Mindset
03:12 Joining the Wife’s Business
05:54 Finding the COO Zone
10:12 Entrepreneurial Freedom Paris Move
15:26 Building a Fractional COO Firm
19:21 Early Growth Delivery Evolution
22:56 Bottleneck and Sales Resistance
26:10 Bench Over Founder
28:06 Energetic Resistance to Sales
28:52 Warm Leads No Selling
29:16 Sales Call Anxiety
30:30 Conversation First Sales
31:46 Embrace Founder Sales
34:26 Build For Scale Systems
38:10 One Offer One Funnel
39:51 Quality Lead Filtering
41:35 PPC Hiring And Metrics
45:10 Prequalify Before Calls
47:39 No Downsell Stay Focused
49:05 Delegate Sales Later
50:55 Rapid Fire Books Mentor
54:32 Recap And Where To Find

Keywords: Derek Fredrickson, The COO Solution, Jeremy Shapiro, fractional COO, fractional executive, founder bottleneck, founder led sales, seven figure business, business growth, CEO mindset, business operations, delegation, marketing funnel, lead generation, sales strategy, business systems, entrepreneurship, operational leadership, business scaling

#podcast #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #FounderLedSales #FractionalCOO #Leadership #businessstrategy

Want to be a guest on Your Business Growth Podcast? Send Jeremy Shapiro a message on PodMatch, here: https://podmatch.com/hostdetail/your_business_growth_podcast

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