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

🔔 Subscribe for more conversations with founders and entrepreneurs sharing the decisions, systems, and lessons behind building stronger businesses.

What if your biggest success is actually your greatest vulnerability? In this Season 2 wrap-up episode of the Your Business Growth Podcast, host Jeremy Shapiro breaks down the exact strategies used by Season 2's guests to break through revenue plateaus, escape the hustle trap, and build scalable, predictable businesses.

🔥 KEY HIGHLIGHTS & STRATEGIES IN THIS EPISODE:

• Surviving Sudden Revenue Collapse: How Peter Boolkah rebuilt after losing 80% of his revenue in the GFC, Jon Morris turned a 40% client loss into a $40M agency by taking salary haircuts and hiring top sales talent, and Mike Wiston bounced back when Morning Brew paused spending overnight.

• Radical Niche Specialization: How Maria Gallucci built a $30M real estate business serving the Deaf community and Isaac Justesen achieved 97%+ client retention in physical therapy marketing through radical transparency.

• Decoupling Time from Income: How Joel Miller grew agency revenue for 18 years with zero employees and a strict 5pm shutdown, and David Feinman productized video post-production into modular customization buckets.

• Unconventional Growth Hacks:
✔️ David Feinman's 2-month severance "opt-out" offer that reset company culture.
✔️ Steve Barton's $5 Maine wholesale permit loophole and 3-tier pricing strategy.
✔️ Rael Bricker's overnight 5,000-poster campaign and reverse-listing 9 acquisitions.
✔️ Joe Rockey's Wall Street-backed $50M nonprofit funding model.
✔️ Aaron Jensen's 8-figure agency exit using "popcorn pricing" and red-yellow-green KPI guardrails.
✔️ Mike Wiston's free MowPod charts lead magnet and Crunchbase lead sourcing strategy.

📚 TOP BOOKS & LEAD SOURCES:
Discover the most recommended books across the season—including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The E-Myth Revisited, and The Goal—and top lead sources like Crunchbase and strategic referral networks.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR SEASON 3!
Don't miss an episode—subscribe now and leave us a rating and review to support the show! 👉 ⁨@YourBusinessGrowthPlaybook⁩

#BusinessGrowth #ScalingUp #Entrepreneurship #YourBusinessGrowthPodcast #PodcastWrapUp

Chapters:
00:00 The Vulnerability of Success
01:09 Surviving Revenue Collapse
03:03 Radical Specialization for Growth
04:28 Decoupling Time from Income
06:17 Unconventional Solutions to Business Challenges
08:24 Actionable Tactics for Immediate Implementation
09:50 Books That Shape Business Minds
10:48 Finding New Clients
11:34 Critical Business Advice
13:02 A Wild Business Exit Story

Episodes covered in Season 2:
https://youtu.be/yGaxrCKXj6k
https://youtu.be/YVt7G_IMRuU
https://youtu.be/4b5Jp5LEGsE
https://youtu.be/2J7F3dTQ-lQ
https://youtu.be/Mn_2NzAFfBY
https://youtu.be/XOGdUEKx4Fg
https://youtu.be/tzz_lzuqNto
https://youtu.be/sK7AX9eGQMM
https://youtu.be/8ATIDW1Iko0
https://youtu.be/z5U9V6HiQzw
https://youtu.be/sVxmNezrZM8
https://youtu.be/iQocFdwGSkY

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

🔔 Subscribe today to get notified of new episodes, interviews, and shorts when they drop! ⁨@YourBusinessGrowthPlaybook⁩

What if firing your highest-paying clients could actually make your business stronger?

In this episode of Your Business Growth Podcast, Jeremy Shapiro interviews Jerad Hill about how he went from running a six-person agency with a large physical office and demanding anchor clients to building a leaner, more profitable business with recurring revenue and far more control over his time.

Jerad got started in entrepreneurship with ~$4,000 and a small skateboard shop. When local sales weren’t enough, he taught himself web development, moved the store online, and eventually turned those skills into a full-time digital agency.

Years later, what looked like success from the outside became increasingly difficult to manage.

Jerad was still involved in quality control, client strategy, project management, and training his team. Some of his highest-paying clients demanded the most attention, creating major revenue concentration risk.

So he changed direction.

In this episode, we discuss:
✔️ Going from retail entrepreneur to agency owner
✔️ Scaling from solopreneur to a six-person team
✔️ Why employees sometimes create more work instead of less
✔️ Walking away from high-paying clients
✔️ Reducing overhead and improving profitability
✔️ Moving from 70% project work toward recurring revenue
✔️ Creating monthly services clients continue to value
✔️ Cutting services that no longer fit the business
✔️ Building an audience through YouTube and online education
✔️ The downside of building an audience on a platform you don’t control
✔️ Turning course students into an owned email audience
✔️ Why content would be Jerad’s top lead source if starting again
✔️ What he would do differently when building his next team

Jerad also explains why business growth doesn’t have to mean more employees, more overhead, and more complexity—and why the right size business is different for every founder.

👉 Connect with Jerad Hill:
• https://jeradhill.com
• https://youtube.com/@jeradhill
• https://substack.jeradhill.com

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

Chapters:
00:00 Anchor Client Risk
01:23 From Skate Shop to Web
05:32 Scaling the Agency Team
07:25 Overhead and Quality Control
13:51 Retainers for Stability
17:34 Letting Go of Big Clients
20:21 Downsizing and Refocusing
23:45 Cutting Services to Specialize
27:08 Courses and Udemy Breakthrough
32:30 Owning Your Audience Platform
36:52 Recurring Revenue Model Wins
42:24 Advice for Agency Owners
45:48 Mentors and Humility Lessons
48:48 Rapid Fire Takeaways
53:46 Wrap Up and Where to Connect

Jerad Hill, Jeremy Shapiro, agency growth, recurring revenue, web design agency, digital marketing agency, entrepreneurship, business growth, agency profitability, founder bottleneck, content marketing, YouTube marketing, online courses, Udemy, solopreneur, business systems, client concentration, recurring income, business podcast

#BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #podcast

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

🔔 Subscribe for more conversations with founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders sharing real lessons on growth, leadership, and building sustainable companies. @YourBusinessGrowthPlaybook