Transforming Small Businesses: Expert Advice from Fractional COO Jennifer Hocutt | Fractional C-Suite Series

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony (host): 10:08

welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotis Bodhi, and today’s guest is Jennifer Hocut, CEO of J Hocutt Group. She’s a consultant, a fractional coO, and a motivational butt kicker. She has an MBA in organizational leadership and leverages her frontline corporate experience to propel struggling businesses into thriving entities within six to twelve months. She understands the complexities of business and believes that finances should never be a barrier to executive support. She’s a midwestern girl at heart and was raised on the principles of hard work and loyalty. Before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company add back benefits agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company, and some organizations may not be eligible to find out. If your company qualifies, contact us today@addbackbenefitsagency.com. dot now back to our guest today, the CEO of Jho Cut Group. Jennifer, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Jennifer (guest): 11:32

Thank you for having me.

Anthony (host): 11:34

So, Jennifer, tell us in your own words, how did you get started with Jho Cut Group and then transition into what it is that you do there?

Jennifer (guest): 11:43

I got started with my group because toxic work environment.

Anthony (host): 11:49

Okay.

Jennifer (guest): 11:49

So I started in private practice in healthcare, back when doctors used to own their own practices. And when the landscape of healthcare transitioned over to the corporate environment, I was not a corporate girl, but I just had to go along with it because that’s where the medical field was headed. So I was in administration, I did management leadership there, and so I transferred over to the corporate environment. And I didn’t love it, but I spent a lot of time there because that’s what I knew. And that was kind of my career home. Several things happened and I just started looking for opportunities for me to fulfill my purpose and really what that was. So I started exploring, helping people write their resumes, navigate their careers, and I just decided to do my own consulting. I had been consulting for several years, but not charging, just being a bleeding heart, wanting to help people. And one day somebody said to me, you should really charge for this. And I was like, what? That’s crazy. But it stuck in the back of my mind. And when things got really rough in my corporate environment, it started to come to the forefront and I started to build up the confidence to believe in myself. And J Hocutt group was born.

Anthony (host): 13:09

And at what point along the path did you get your MBA? Was that why you, before you entered the corporate world, while you were there, after you left there, before you started J Hook?

Jennifer (guest): 13:18

Hut it’s while I was in my corporate environment. So I started out as a manager and I had a bachelor’s. But if you ever wanted to move up to director or anything beyond, you had to have your master’s degree. So I reluctantly went back to school with two kids and a husband and a house and full time job and pursued my MBA. And I’m not a marathon runner. I always say I’m a sprinter. I like to get to things quicker. So I finished my MBA with all of that on my plate within a year and a half.

Anthony (host): 13:50

Oh, wow.

Jennifer (guest): 13:51

I just knew if I dragged it out to two to three, four years, I’d never finish. So I got it done. I overloaded my coursework and got to the finish line really quickly. I took classes year round. I went in the summers and we were at the beach and I’m writing papers and it was a really painful process. But I always tell people, if I can do it, you can do it. And my best advice is to laminate any notes you take so that when you’re crying, the tears just roll off very easily.

Anthony (host): 14:21

I was going to ask, what kind of support system did you have in place? What kind of helped you get through that crazy time?

Jennifer (guest): 14:29

Just my friends and family. I can never, ever do anything in my life without my community. I am so lucky and blessed to have amazing people behind me. My parents are always strong belief people. They’re my ultimate cheerleaders. And my family, my husband and my kids, especially my kids, I just sat them down and had a conversation and said, look, this is what mom’s doing and how can I support you guys better? But how can you support me? Which means we’re not going to be running the roads on the weekends because mom has to write papers. And where can dad step up? And just my friends encourage me all along the way. I would go on vacations with friends girlfriends and they would know that I had to go back to the hotel to do the paper. And they’d come with me and we’d make it a pajama party for the evening. So just those little things that are very supportive. I have my MBA, but my whole community has an honorary MBA right along with me.

Anthony (host): 15:27

That’s terrific. I love that story. Okay, so now let’s get into a little bit about what J Hook group is about and what are the services that you provide.

Jennifer (guest): 15:36

So we are a private consultant agency and we offer fractional COO services to small and medium sized businesses. We do work with larger corporations, but we only have a handful of those clients because my passion really is the small to medium sized businesses who traditionally cannot afford and don’t really need a full time COo behind them, but can really benefit from the high level support that comes along with that. You would be really surprised about the solopreneurs or the small businesses that just having a coo in their pocket just to be able to tell people, hey, let me go consult my coo, makes them feel so empowered and like they’re a really big deal, right? And so it really motivates them and inspires them. And I’m kind of like their business advisor in their back pocket. They can come to me about anything. We develop strategies. I love a good strategy. I love goals. So we set their teams up for success. And you don’t need us long term. Our magic is we get the results within six months to a year. I’ve never hung on to a client beyond a year.

Anthony (host): 16:44

Wow, so you’re setting yourself up to be fired. That’s a best case scenario for yourself.

Jennifer (guest): 16:50

I always tell my team it’s hard to let go of our clients and they, I normally have to be the one to initiate the conversation to say, you don’t need me anymore. And I feel like it’s a breakup every single time. It’s more of a, it’s not you and it’s not me. It’s just the thing between us. They don’t always take it so easily. They want to hire me full time, they find thing ways to hang on to me, but they can always bring me back in. I keep in touch with all of my clients in some way, shape or form. Whether it’s just wishing them happy holidays or checking in around goal time, they can always bring me back in if they have a gap in their leadership team or they’re wanting to grow or scale or launch a new service or product. I now know their business. So it’s super easy for us to pop back in and work on those special projects or solve those issues really quickly because we know them and we know their team. But yes, my job is to work ourselves out of a job.

Anthony (host): 17:46

I’m curious. I want to hear you say more about that because if you’re being helpful to them, you’re providing a good service. They want you to stay. Why are you so steadfast about keeping this to a six to twelve month term?

Jennifer (guest): 18:02

Well, for one thing, I want them to know that they can always deploy us when they need us. But I’m not somebody to sit back and just collect money off my clients if they don’t need me, it’s not fair. If they certainly need me, I will stay on for as long as they need. But the great thing is, if they need me for long term, I’m not doing my job effectively. So it is to get them to a place where they’re confident they can stand on their own. And a lot of times it’s a wind down. By the time we’re ending services, we literally are just meeting once a week and it feels almost like therapy. They’re coming to me and talking to me about, you know, I get to know them and just their team and, and their family and all these personal things. And when we start talking more about personal things for the hour, more than business, I know it’s time for us to just part ways on that contractual agreement. But they could bring me back quarterly. Some. Some clients will bring me back quarterly for. For a goal session where we’ll do half a day goal follow up with their team. I come back in for leadership development, so they may deploy me in a different way that isn’t just weekly or monthly, but just wherever they need those high level operational support services.

Anthony (host): 19:22

So let’s. Sometimes being more specific can help the audience kind of wrap their heads around what it is that you do. Can you think of maybe one or two client stories that you can share? Where you came in, here was the situation. Here’s what you were able to help them accomplish before you left.

Jennifer (guest): 19:41

Sure. So one of my recent clients is in the financial industry. She’s in the banking industry. She’s a service provider. She has a community, and she specializes in community development and certification. So she brought me in because the banking industry was releasing this, these new rules and regulations, and she was wanting to set her team up to get them prepared. She needed a business manager, and she felt like she needed extra leadership on her team, so that when the regulation dropped and they had no idea when it was going to drop, but when it dropped, she would be ready, she’d be set up for success for this big influx of new clients and team members on her team. So she brought me in to lay the foundational groundwork. She didn’t have a lot of protocols and process in place to really accomplish that with her team, to leverage them internally, to move them to the next level as her business was inevitably going to scale. So we came in, we did an operational deep dive. We looked at the structure of her current business and her team and the goals that she wanted to accomplish, ways that she could improve. Like, she didn’t have an HR process, so bringing new team members on, but she really didn’t have an outlined structure to bringing them on and giving them a good experience. Just setting up her meetings, how she conducted her meetings, there was really no strategy or structure to it. So we set up more of a collaborative type of meeting and a roundtable environment where everybody shared what they were doing at different points during the week, because this was a fully remote team. So just leveling up her current team and highlighting communication and putting different structures in place to help her scale. When the regulation dropped, it was very messy, and it ended up changing and shifting. We hired a business manager for personal reasons. It didn’t work out. We needed to hire another business manager. So we did talent acquisition for her long story short, how it all was going to vet out with the regulation didn’t work that way. So they put a pause on it and now they’re restructuring the regulation. And so her business didn’t scale in the way that she thought it was going to scale. And she is still moving forward in preparation and education of the regulation dropping again with new updates. But it put a pause in what she was trying to accomplish. So luckily she had us on her team and we were able to help her navigate that because it was very stressful for her. She didn’t see it going the way she thought it would when she initially brought us on, and we didn’t either. But when things changed, it was so good that we were there to be supportive for her. And she wasn’t nervous and upset and feeling like she didn’t have the answers to move forward because she did have that high level support. So when I went to her a month ago and said, you don’t need me anymore, she understood. But she was very honest in saying, I could have never made it through this past year without you. And she visits here where I live, outside DC. She has family, so we get to meet in person, and we’ll be meeting for dinner soon. And so it’s really great to establish those connections. And it feels so good to know that I helped her through a time that looked really different. And the reasoning for bringing us on ended up being totally different than how our engagement ended. But she felt that we did our job really well.

Anthony (host): 23:24

That’s a terrific story, and I think it highlights one of the things that small business owners in particular really experience a lot of. And that’s sort of this feeling of isolation, you know, like she was telling you, like, I could, I never could have gotten through that period. She had one idea in mind. She was going to ramp up for all this new business that was coming through from this new legislation and then got thrown a series of curveballs. And having you there as, you know, cool, calm, collected, you know, level headed and, okay, this is the new situation. Let’s look at it and let’s, let’s see how we can pivot. What, what support do you need now? I have to imagine all of that would have been incredibly reassuring and helpful to her during that stressful time.

Jennifer (guest): 24:10

Absolutely. And I didn’t need to know the ins and outs of the legislation because, and it was great because I wasn’t caught up in all of that. So I wasn’t emotionally invested in that aspect of it. I was emotionally invested in her success and so I could have a clear mind and a different aspect and approach and vision than what she had because she was sitting in a different seat and very close to that aspect of her business to which I was coming from. Just strictly operations.

Anthony (host): 24:41

Trey Jennifer, how would you describe your either typical or ideal client in terms of, I don’t know, maybe industry revenue, size, number of employees, geography, what do you find is typically a good fit for your skillset?

Jennifer (guest): 24:59

So I love healthcare, but healthcare is being bought out by private equity groups and corporations and it’s really hard for privately owned medical groups to really take the lead on that. So I love to help them try to transition into either developing an exit strategy to a private equity group to make it more amenable and digestible, or to help them stand on their own 2ft so they don’t have to go that route to really inject a new energy into their business so that they can survive on their own and create an exit strategy that doesn’t lead them to private equity. So healthcare is my home. I understand all of the ins and outs and the terminology of healthcare because that’s where my career has mainly been. But most of my clients are just small to medium sized business owners, a lot of service providers, so a lot of remote teams, but small to medium sized businesses that they don’t need a CEO full time, but they really need a higher level of support. Sometimes they have business managers in place or team leads that have grown up through the ranks and only know what they know. It’s good to bring an outsider in. I’m an outsider with an insider’s perspective, I like to say. So I’m from the outside, I have a corporate background, so I know all the ins and outs and strategies and mindset and goals of the corporate environment, which a lot of small businesses can really benefit from. But I love the operations of a small business that really family feel. You lead from the heart and you are really there to provide a service to your clients. And so I love that smaller feel and I can see and through the experience with my clients how they can benefit from having a corporate experience, but yet somebody with a small business heart.

Anthony (host): 27:05

And so would you describe your clients as maybe like a small dental practice with less than ten employees or like a, maybe a nursing home with 50 employees or what? Helped to paint a little bit of a picture there?

Jennifer (guest): 27:18

Yeah. So for healthcare, the clients that I have are medical groups that are owned by physicians. They have multiple practices, some across multiple states and regions, primary care, cardiology, gastroenterology. So any specialty in the healthcare place. Healthcare providers are struggling because of reimbursement rates from insurance companies and negotiating contracts, things of that nature. And I can come in and help them do that. But for the majority of my small to medium sized business clients, they’re service based in the banking industry, financial industry, interior design, architects, you name it. Just small businesses that are sometimes brick and mortar, but most of the time, online service based businesses who they are, the CEO, wearing many, many hats, and they have small teams, probably anywhere from, you know, five to 50 team members, and that are sometimes United States based, but also international based as well. And they just have a lot of moving parts. They either have a new service line they want to expand upon, a new product they want to launch, or they’ve just kind of hit this place where they just can’t grow in scale. They’ve tried everything, and they just don’t know what to do going forward.

Anthony (host): 28:44

And so, I mean, the kinds of services that you’re describing that these clients need, they’re kind of a wide range of things. Do you have folks on your team that you can sort of go to to help provide specialized support in some of these areas?

Jennifer (guest): 29:05

Absolutely. So we definitely focus on operations. That’s our specialty. And I have a talent acquisition specialist that is a new service that we’ve added within the past year and a half. A lot of times we’ve come in, and the common thread has been a lack of team alignment. We don’t always have the right people in the right places. We don’t always have the right roles on the team. And what we found is when we told our clients and advised them to add new team members or expand their team, they’re like, really? Seriously? Now I have to go recruit. That’s like, the worst thing I hate doing. And so we started to see that they just wouldn’t make movement and take action on that type of advice. And they were still stuck with trying to leverage a team that wasn’t working for them. So I started to implement talent acquisition. We are not recruiters, so I only do talent acquisition for our clients. So we will hire team members, we will do the entire interview process sourcing, and then we will pass on the top candidates, three to five candidates to our client to interview them. And then we help with the onboarding process. If they don’t have an onboarding process in place, we will develop one for them, giving them all of the documents that they need, helping them create an. A stellar onboarding experience for the new candidates and new team members, because what we’re finding is a lot of small businesses. They’ll say, well, I’m just a small business. I don’t have a process. And that’s you’re just joining my team and we’ll figure it out. And while some candidates are okay, we’re finding that regardless of your size of business, they want a good experience because it speaks to your culture and it also speaks to your investment in them as a new team member. So it’s important for small businesses to really start honing in on that in order to secure top talent.

Anthony (host): 31:09

I think you touched on something that this hones around, a question that I always like to ask in my interviews. Because there is such an acute labor shortage, it’s hard to find good folks. It’s hard to hold on to good folks. And so I always like to get advice from our guests on what are some creative things that you’ve tried and you’ve seen have worked to help with recruiting and retaining. And you mentioned a new one there, which is just sort of this. They want a good onboarding experience as they’re coming into a new, unfamiliar place. They want it to be smooth and frictionless and make it seem like they’re working with an organization who has their stuff together. I’m curious if you’ve got any other tidbits like that that you found have been helpful for your clients along the way.

Jennifer (guest): 31:58

So one thing that I’m adamant about is that we are highly invested in both the candidates and our clients. It’s not that we are just invested in our clients. These are all human beings, and their time is the most valuable asset that they have. We will not waste your time if you are not the right candidate. We are very highly communicative and we will let you know right away. We keep every candidate in our pipeline fully informed. We reach out on a regular basis. If we are interviewing candidates, if the recruitment process has taken longer, we let them know and we let them know what the recruitment process looks like. So that’s one thing we nailed down with our clients really early on, is what are the stages of the recruitment process? What are the steps that the candidates can expect to go through? And we outline that so that we can communicate that to every candidate. So high communication over communicating. I don’t think you can ever over communicate, but that’s what we strive for. We send emails and we have conversations. We don’t have these behavioral questions. Tell me about a time when you know, if you know these kind of different questions to kind of throw people off guard, to see, we just really want to get to know the heart of the person because we already know the heart of our client, and we can easily align whether or not it’s a good fit during those conversations. So we don’t always call them interview. We call them conversations and connections to kind of lower that expectation that you’re there to give us the right answers and try to impress us. We want to get to know you as an individual because your personality and attributes can’t be taught, but we can teach you everything else. So it’s really about culture, fit, and definitely their experience and their talents that they bring to the table. But if they lack something, an experience that we can teach them, but they have these attributes that are so meaningful and add value to the culture, then we hire on that. The other thing I would say is just the onboarding process and experience. We keep in touch with all of our candidates. So even after they start with our clients, I reach out to them every single week for the first month to check in, see how things are going. And it’s not inclusive of our clients. It’s outside of our clients. Any feedback that I get, I am able to be honest with our client and say, listen, you’re putting too much on their plate too soon. They’re very overwhelmed. And so I get to be that buffer to which the candidate would normally not tell their new boss. I feel overwhelmed already. You’re so geared up into creating a good impression that you just go along with whatever. You’re just happy to have the job because it’s such a competitive market. I can be the advocate for both my client and the candidate, and it totally sets them all up for success.

Anthony (host): 34:58

Jeff, I love that. And I don’t, I’m not familiar with the talent acquisition space, but I would guess that that’s sort of an unusual step to take. But it makes so much sense, right? Because if something isn’t going to work out, a lot of times it happens pretty quickly, and it’s not good for either party. Right. It’s not good for the employer, because now they’re. They’re behind schedule even more, and they’ve invested time in trying to train this person, and it’s not good for the employee who’s leaving, because now they’ve got to find a new job. And if you can sort of, you know, you’re almost like a counselor there for the two of them, you know, for a few weeks, if you can help them sort of bridge that communication gap, smooth over some of the rough edges. Right. You set them up for success a lot better.

Jennifer (guest): 35:40

I feel like I’m a matchmaker sometimes, my talent acquisition specialist, and I, Christine, she just, it feels like a love match when it goes right. It’s like, this is so exciting, and it’s exciting that we’ve changed lives, so we’ve changed the lives of the candidate by giving them this opportunity. But we’ve also changed the life of our client because they now have support in their business that they need, and they can now serve their clients better, which also impacts the lives of their clients in a positive way. One of the biggest negative issues to revenue impacts to revenue for a business is turnover. So attrition rates. When you have a high attrition rate, it negatively impacts your bottom line. So it’s really important to create a really good, positive experience for your new candidates. And you can’t use the excuse that you’re a small business and you just don’t need to have it together because I’m telling you, candidates are not buying that narrative anymore.

Anthony (host): 36:40

They’ve got options. I’m curious, Jennifer, what’s your favorite interview question to ask?

Jennifer (guest): 36:46

My favorite interview question to ask. I like to always just say, this is a conversation for us to get to know each other and tell me a little bit about yourself. Now, a lot everybody hates that question because they’re like, do you mean professionally or personally? I’m like, whatever you want to share. And so I start with that to kind of lessen the. We’re going to head into these normal types of questions to ask, but I always ask them what they want in their career. What are you looking for in your next professional home? It gives me a lot of insight as to what’s important to them. Is it compensation? Is it time off? Is it financial freedom? Is it, you know, being able to work autonomously, what is important and what really matters to them, because then we can make sure that we are providing that to them. If it’s leadership development, if a lot of people say professional development, I just didn’t get a lot poured into me from my last employer. I can then go to my client and say, listen, they are really interested in professional development. Let’s see how we can make that happen.

Anthony (host): 37:58

You mentioned talent acquisition as a service that you offer only to your clients, and you’ve got a skilled professional that you can bring in to assist with that. Are there other services categories like that where you’ve got a. Some other, I’ll call them tools in your tool belt, but other experts that you can bring in as needed?

Jennifer (guest): 38:19

Absolutely. I feel wildly selfish that I have. I feel like I have all the good people in my circle. Sometimes I feel greedy that I know so many amazing people, but I’m not going to trade. I’m not a single one. So nobody else can have them. They’re all mine. I don’t feel that bad. But I have amazingly talented, good people in my circle. So I have an excellent dei specialist. When a client needs dei services, I have an amazing human resource partner that I can bring in. So when you need an employee handbook or there’s an issue coming up with employment laws in a specific state, because these are remote teams, but you still have to adhere to the state in which you’re employing them in, we can deploy that individual. I even have a phenomenal life coach that if your team is having some personal challenges and you want to support them, but you kind of want to keep that a little separate, outside your business, I can easily make that referral. So I’ve got all the bases covered and I certainly am an operational expert in my field for sure. But I can’t cover all of that. I can’t serve all the people myself. So I make sure that I have a highly supportive team behind me that can serve my clients. And every single one of them is so invested in my clients just as much as I am. And we’re part of the group. That’s why it’s J Hocutt group, because it takes all of us for our clients to be successful. So whatever my clients need, if I cannot personally provide that, I will definitely find someone who can. And if they’re on my team, great. And if they’re not on my team, I’m not going to hold that information back. I will definitely refer them out.

Anthony (host): 40:10

That’s terrific. You know, as whether it’s a fractional CFO or fractional COO, you know, you’re, some of those roles are a little bit intertwined. You get to help operationally. You’re ultimately trying to drive a healthier bottom line for your clients. And that p and L, that number can shift. I’m going to put them in sort of two big lever buckets, if you will. Like, you can increase sales or you can decrease expenses. I’m curious some of the creative strategies that you and your clients have tried in pulling either one of those levers to help impact that bottom line.

Jennifer (guest): 40:49

A lot of times we’ll have teams that are overloaded. So we have a lot of people on the teams that the CEO gets to know because it’s a small business and they just can’t let them go. And they know that they’ve outgrown them or business has shifted and they just don’t need that type of talent on their team right now. And so they’ll hang on to them because they’re so personally invested and they’re too close to it. I come in and I either find a different way to leverage their talent, whether they become part time or 1099 contractor or deploy them for a special project, or we just have to end the relationship. And so I help the CEO navigate that and be a part of that process. And I will have the conversations with them, or I will help coach and advise the CEO in having those conversations. But the great thing is that combined with talent acquisition, I try to find the person another fit for either another client, or I reach out to my network and let them know that I’ve got this great person. And so we always try to help people land. Well, business needs change, and it’s really hard when there’s human beings involved that feel the impact that we can’t control, that they are not always on the positive end of business changing. So we always try to be respectful. Well, we don’t always try. We are always respectful and we always do whatever we can to help them land in a good spot. I used to write resumes for clients and I used to advise them in their career. And I will do that for people going forward that we have to let go. I’ll look at their resumes, I’ll give them free advice. I’ll help set them up for success. I will spend time with them, interviewing and kind of coaching them through how to navigate the job market. So we go above and beyond to help people. The other thing is sometimes we have to let a service go that a CEO is really, really tied to and they really love, but it’s not revenue producing. And so they’re, a lot of times what they need is just permission. Ironically, they just need permission that it’s okay to let this person go, it’s the right move, that it’s okay to let this service go. It’s okay to put a pause on this goal. And they know in their heart that it’s probably the right thing to do. But for some reason, they just need permission from somebody else. And when they get that, they feel relieved. In a lot of ways.

Anthony (host): 43:37

It’s probably something that they’ve been thinking in the back of their minds or feeling in their gut for a while, but there’s an emotional attachment to it, you know, and, and that can make it hard. And so, yeah, when you’ve got a very qualified, seasoned veteran who’s coming in and saying, yeah, this has got to go, it’s like, okay, thank you.

Jennifer (guest): 43:57

And they get to blame it on me. Right? It’s like, well, Jennifer has made this decision as our cooze, and so they can sleep better at night knowing that they weren’t in it alone, and that sometimes I am the one that they can kind of shuffle it off to. And that’s okay. It’s totally okay.

Anthony (host): 44:17

You know, and the other thing that you said that I really loved, because this is something that I’ve always done in the past with my businesses, is, yes, if there is a time where an employee needs to go, and particularly if it’s not for, you know, something egregious, you know, like a really poor performance issue or something like that, I’ve always gone out of my way to help them land on their feet. And you mentioned one of those scenarios in which maybe we’re no longer offering that service or that little department or that little thing that you were doing is no longer abuse to us. I’ve also had it in the past where I’ve sold a business, and so I’ve got a whole collection of team members that are now looking for jobs, and I will spend days and weeks working with them and working with my connections to help them land on their feet, find positions, oftentimes making more money than what they were making before. And so, you know, they come into it all scared and nervous, but, you know, I assure them this is going to be okay. And I’ve seen how transformative that is for those people and just what a wonderful thing that you’re able to do for them, you know, because that’s one of the most challenging life events that can happen. Right. Is, you know, being transitioned out of a job and not knowing where you’re going to get your next paycheck. So a lot of kudos to you and your team for taking those extra steps. I think that’s terrific.

Jennifer (guest): 45:41

Yeah. And there’s so many creative ways that you can do that. You know, you can do a slow wind down, maybe they’re a full time working, you know, 40 hours, and you drop them down incrementally. There’s just so many things that you can really do to help people transition. It does not have to be a hard cut.

Anthony (host): 45:58

That’s a good reminder. Yeah. I’m curious, Jennifer. I’d like to explore maybe a big, either personal or professional challenge that you’ve overcome and some of the lessons that you’ve learned coming through the other side of it.

Jennifer (guest): 46:13

So one of the reasons I started my own business was really out of a health issue. I was in corporate for a long time, and I was, like I said, I was not a corporate girl. I knew that right away. So I was just trying to band aid a bullet hole. I guess I didn’t love it there, but I was trying my best to find my way and learn to love it. And a lot of times we are caught in to the golden handcuffs of a corporate job. You make a lot of money, but you just hate going there every single day. And I did all the things. I bought a really great car to drive to a job I really hated and thought that would be an answer. I still have that really great car, but I don’t have to drive it anywhere to the job that I now love. But what happened was after trying to not really address the real issue, that this is just not where I belong, this is not the environment I belong in. Instead, I took the route of maybe this isn’t the specialty. Okay. Primary care, maybe that’s not for me. I’ll go over to cardinal cardiology. Okay. Maybe. Maybe inpatient. Maybe I need to try inpatient and work in hospitals. So I went inpatient, and then that wasn’t the right fit. So then I went back outpatient. Oh, maybe dermatology. Maybe that’s the way to go. And I kept just trying to make it work when it clearly was not. And what that ended up leading to was a highly, highly stressful environment, which started to affect my health. And in 2017, I was faced with. My organ was shutting down. And I was on a work trip, and I ended up in the emergency room. And when I got back home, I immediately flew in and I went to the doctor, and the doctor’s like, um, you’re not supposed to be experiencing this. This is. This is. They ran a lot of tests and discovered that it was stress, totally stress induced, that my organ was in such stress and my health was in such deterioration that it was really scary. And you would think that that would be the end all. When my doctor looked at me and said, you need to make serious changes. And I said, yeah, yeah, I’m going to. I’m definitely going to make some serious. I’m going to talk to my boss on Monday. He said, I think there should be a resignation in that conversation. Yeah, I’m definitely going to think about that. And what happened was I had the conversation and I left, but I went to another job. And two months into that job, I just knew. I just knew. It’s just more of the same. This is never going to get any better, and it’s just more of the same. So I started to look at businesses that might align with my beliefs and my purpose, and I figured out that I’ve been trying to do that all along, and that just doesn’t exist in this corporate environment. So I started my own consulting. That little voice in the back of my head that I had pocketed years ago from someone telling me I should actually charge for these services and support that I’m providing, I started to actually charge, and I did it in the career space. I could not go immediately into offering business consulting services because I needed to heal from that environment. I just could not go back into operations. It was too painful and there was just too much to face. So I left. I gave myself one year. I started J Hook hut group in 2018, and I worked it every day. Every day, I did something. Whether it was something really big or something really small, I did something every day. Either make a new connection, post something on social media, do my logo, talk to a website designer, research, listen to a podcast, read a book, whatever. It was one thing every single day. And I gave myself a year. And at that year mark, if I could not sustain and I didn’t think that I could make a go of my consulting business, then I would at least know I gave it a try. But if I could, in any capacity make a go of it, I would leave my corporate career behind. I was getting ready to leave on August 12 of 2019, and on July 17, I received a call that they were making cuts within our organization and they were going to shut one of my practices down in the middle of the night, let the doctor go, let the entire team go. And they were strategically getting rid of individuals, and I was on that list. So when my. When the HR team came, I. They asked me for a meeting. And I came in on July 17 for a meeting. And before I walked into that meeting, I went into the restroom and I just said a quick prayer, and I said, if this is where you want me, if you want me to go into my business full time, I, on the other side of that door has to be a severance package. If there is anything less than three months severance package, I will know that this is not what you want for me. But if there is, I will never question what I’m supposed to be doing in my life ever again. Seven minutes later, I was given a three month severance package, and I’ve never looked back.

Anthony (host): 51:52

That was the sign from above.

Jennifer (guest): 51:54

It was a sign from above. And let me tell you, I would love to sit and say that I’ve never questioned since then, but you know how it is running a business. It is so tough. And there’s not one entrepreneur who doesn’t look at the job boards and say, should I really go back? Is this really shooting for me? But I am reminded of that, you know, that conversation that I had, and I was given exactly what I needed, and it ended up working even better because I had saved for a whole year to leave my corporate job. And I was prepared to live off of a very, you know, a nice little savings nest egg that I had, but it was only going to take me to the end of the year, and I really had to make some power moves between August and December of that year. With the severance, it bought me so much more time. And the great thing is, as I said, it was in July 2019. Nobody saw 2020 coming. So all during COVID here, I’m building a new business. But the great thing is that I decided to go into the career area of it and the career consulting aspect, which businesses were just closing down at that time. So if I would have went into operations, it would have been more of a struggle. But here I was going through helping people navigate their career and what it was going to look for them after Covid and the whole great resignation. So it all ended up working for good, even though I could have never predicted that or saw that coming.

Anthony (host): 53:25

Stars just seemed to align for you there.

Jennifer (guest): 53:28

They did. They did. Although at the time, when I was going through it, it felt terrible.

Anthony (host): 53:34

And so how did you get that first client?

Jennifer (guest): 53:37

So my very first client, I actually hired a business coach because even though I have an MBA, I didn’t know how to navigate the online space of a business. So I met a lot of people at networking events and conferences, and one of the people that I met had a great business coach. And so while I had my corporate job, I invested in a business coach to help me navigate the online space. I had never set up a website and did networking, specifically honing into my business. I was always advertising and networking on behalf of another company. It’s different when you talk about yourself and your services opposed to other companies. And I had marketing departments, so I was never in those spaces. So while I had the business sense and knew how to grow a business and navigate that, I needed other support. So my business coach helped me. I had her for six months. And she introduced me to my first client. And then it just networking events, getting to know people, and immersing myself into the entrepreneurial community to which I had no exposure to before. I was just always in the patient space and just making a name for myself. I started in my own backyard, so I did in person networking events. I started doing speaking engagements and I started in my area, and then I started to expand online. And so I think it’s always good to kind of start in your backyard and make a name for yourself in your own community and then expand your reach. Because it’s hard when you try to do all the things all at once when you’re first starting out.

Anthony (host): 55:19

Yeah. And I’m curious, you mentioned that there’s certainly been times that you’ve questioned whether this is the right move because it’s stressful, it’s hard finding clients. Maybe you get a challenging client that you’ve got to work with. Was there a point in your trajectory where you felt very comfortable that, okay, we’ve got this process down, this is working, we’ve got a good thing going here. This has got some longevity to it.

Jennifer (guest): 55:46

So yes and no. I think it’s always changing. Right. When you think you have something nailed down, the market shifts and you just have, it’s an ever changing environment and you just need to get used to that. You always need to be learning. And so learning about what is new and working, but really identifying what works for you, what works for everybody else, you can get really caught up in the and what everybody else is doing and go down rabbit holes, but you really need to figure out what works for you. What’s your personality, what really speaks to people. And for me, I don’t have any problem closing people on a call once I get in front of them, it’s easy. We talk about what they need and how I can solve their problems, and I’m really invested in that for them. And that’s where the motivational butt kicker comes in. Because when we talk, people take action. They’re just excited to take action because I’m really excited about it. I love a new challenge, so I get them excited, but it’s getting in front of them that can be the challenge because email inboxes are flooded. Nobody loves that. How many LinkedIn messages do you get a day? And don’t open them because they’re not somebody you know. So it’s hard to stand out from the noise. And finding what works for you is what’s important. The market will shift and the strategies will shift, but understand what your special magic is, what your secret sauce is, and try to incorporate that into your structure.

Anthony (host): 57:18

How are you sort of filling the front end of that funnel? What are you finding to be the most effective way to get that first conversation with somebody?

Jennifer (guest): 57:26

Referrals. So just really putting yourself out there and listen. I do not love public speaking. I do not love videos. I do not love any of those things. And people are always shocked at it.

Anthony (host): 57:39

Because you’re very comfortable, you’re a natural.

Jennifer (guest): 57:42

They say that I show up confidently in my mind. I, like, put on extra deodorant and I put powder on my hands so I don’t sweat like I’m dying inside sometimes, but I don’t love it. But I do it because I always think that it’s not about me, it’s about the impact that I can make on somebody else. And if I don’t show up, I can’t make an impact for anybody. So I remove myself from the scenario on what I like to do and what I don’t like to do, and I just do it. And because, like you said, I seem natural on video. I don’t love it. But I’ve gotten so much feedback from everybody else that I think everybody can’t be lying to me. So this is the way to go. And so that’s what I do, public speaking. Don’t love it, but I do it. And because that is where I just have the ability to connect with people that way. I don’t fully understand it about myself, to be quite honest, but I’ve gotten enough feedback and enough reassurance and I’ve gotten enough positive results that I just do it. And I always come with the intention that my goal is to reach one person and impact them in a positive way and get them to take action that they wouldn’t have taken if I wouldn’t have gotten in front of them. And that is a win.

Anthony (host): 59:03

And you hit on something important there, because what little I know about you, Jennifer, I think this is probably core to your character about how important it is for you to inspire and motivate people in their current situation. Can you say more about that?

Jennifer (guest): 59:20

So I am definitely a, quote junkie. I’m just a positive. I’m just a positive person all the time. And I hate that we’ve come up with this new term toxic positivity, because it’s, it like, breaks my heart. Why does positivity have to be toxic.

Anthony (host): 59:40

The first time hearing about this? Yeah. I don’t know.

Jennifer (guest): 59:43

Yeah. So I am typically a positive person. Now, that’s not to say I don’t have imposter syndrome. And I, the little head, the little voice in my head can be very negative and very harsh. But for other people, I can just, I just get so excited for them. And so for me, I just find ways for people to take action. Every conversation I have. I don’t, I’m not the typical person where it’s like, oh, I could tell you what to do there, but I’m not. You have to hire me to get that information. I want to help, period. Whether you hire me or not, I want to help because not everything I get from the work that I do is monetary compensation. I am in this work. I want to do good work with good people. That’s it. That’s all I want to do. The money will come. I truly believe that if you show up with pure intentions of just a service heart and helping others, that needs to be your driving factor. So when people ask me, what is your ideal revenue of a company? I don’t care. I want to help you. And your revenue doesn’t always speak to success, because I know multimillion dollar companies that don’t treat people right, that don’t have, that don’t believe in a culture fit, that are just totally miserable human beings because all the rest of their life is just very chaotic. And so revenue doesn’t really speak to success for me. It’s not about the money. Of course, you have to make money to be in business. So I’m not saying it’s not important if you’re not making money. You have a hobby. It’s not a business. You got to make money to keep going. And I don’t care what industry that is, but it should not always be the driving factor for me. It’s just all about showing up and doing good work with good people.

Anthony (host): 1:01:40

Jennifer, what’s something you wish you could teach a younger version of yourself?

Jennifer (guest): 1:01:45

Oh, bet on you every single time. Every single time. There’s never been one time in my life that I bet on myself that I regret. I regret all the times that I didn’t. I am undefeatable. But so are you. You have totally made it through every single bad situation in your life. You’re totally undefeatable.

Anthony (host): 1:02:09

By the way, she’s, sorry, sorry to interrupt. She’s talking to everybody who’s listening right now. Everybody, not just to me. Please continue with this great message. Jennifer.

Jennifer (guest): 1:02:18

Everybody, you are undefeated. You have made it through every terrible situation. Dark space. You have made it through because you’re still standing. And if you are not a sure bet, you need to look at why that is. Because you should always be a sure bet on yourself and do the work that is needed to rectify why that is for yourself. And then define whatever success means to you. Not society, not social media, not the influencers, not the title or the corner office, or the compensation or the car that you drive or the purse that you carry, or the number of kids you’re supposed to have. Your success. Success is defined by you. And you should always be the sure bet to get there.

Anthony (host): 1:03:13

I loved all of that. I’m curious, Jennifer, if there are any specific mentors or books that have been helpful to you on your path.

Jennifer (guest): 1:03:22

Oh, my gosh. So many. The very first thing. Well, my mom is my biggest cheerleader, and she’s also my hero. So my mom definitely is my ride or die. She’s honest with me. She’s been through it thick and thin my whole life. Right? And so my mom is my greatest inspiration and mentor in my life. She set the bar high on just being a good human being. And so living up to that is always something that I try to go forward with. But I have three books that I highly recommend. The first one is grit by Angela Duckworth. It talks about the power of passion and perseverance. A lot of times our inner voice says that we don’t have the talent, and she actually dispels this. If you don’t have love to read or you want some just really short snippet, you can look her up. She did a TED talk on perseverance, and she talks about how perseverance trumps talent any day of the week. So I love that. And that is great for imposter syndrome. The other thing, the other book that I love is superfans by Pat Flynn. It is a great book. It talks about how to create raving fans that are sustained. And it’s interesting. He talks about boy bands and how boy bands are so successful. His wife was in her forties and she was still wanting to go to this concert. New kids on the block. She just loved them. And all these years later, she was still a raving fan of this group who had not toured or, you know, been out. But because they spoke to her during a time in her life, through music, through storytelling, it related to her and it brought her back to that space. And she. It helped her through a certain time in her life. I think it was a breakup with a boyfriend in high school, and she stayed a raving fan because they helped her in that way. She never met them, she never got to know them, but she, she was a fan. Much like Taylor Swift speaks in her lyrics and music does that for us. But creating super fans by being yourself, being authentic, and speaking to the heart of people, it’s a really great book.

Anthony (host): 1:05:47

Was there a third one?

Jennifer (guest): 1:05:48

And the third one. If you have a team and you’re looking to implement a book club, which all my teams love to do, I highly recommend the energy bus by John Gordon. It’s a very easy read. And even if you have team members who hate to read, it speaks to ten rules to fuel your life, work and team with positive energy. And that is a really easy read. And it’s something that you can do with your whole team. And they’ll really get, everybody will get something out of it different. And it’s really great.

Anthony (host): 1:06:25

Jennifer, I’ve just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, if you’re listening today and you like today’s content, please hit the like share and subscribe button on your favorite podcast. Excuse me. I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What would that be? Through my website, which is jhocutgroup.com. hookut is spelled h o c u t t. It’ll be in the show notes. But for those of you who are listening, maybe driving jhocut tgroup.com. so last question for you, Jennifer. I’m curious how you see the fractional CEO space, your industry, kind of evolving in the next five years. What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Jennifer (guest): 1:07:12

Well, I absolutely love what’s on the horizon. I love that people are finding new, innovative ways to work, and I love that they’re really honing in to having their work support the life that they want instead of their life needing to support the work that they do. So I am really excited about the way people are starting to work, and a lot of negative things came out of COVID but there’s been a positive shift with people redefining what matters to them in their life and how they want to work. And the days of just being employed by somebody else and being paid for 40 but working for 60 hours, those days are gone. People are fed up. And there’s more people than there are employers that they get to call the shots. You’re a bigger army. You have a bigger voice. And so I love that people are taking on freelance, 1099 contracts, side hustles, Shopify shops selling on Amazon becoming influencers. There are so many ways to do business and I am really excited. And in the fractional space, I love that really highly talented executives are able to serve in different ways and help those individuals who are starting out or have small to medium sized businesses. I love that these resources are now available where they weren’t always before.

Anthony (host): 1:08:41

Jennifer, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Jennifer (guest): 1:08:48

Oh my goodness. It was such an honor. Thank you so much for having me, folks.

Anthony (host): 1:08:53

That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.