Episode 236 – Jamie Eliason

Richard Matthews: [00:00:00] Every superhero has an arch nemesis.

This is a thing that you constantly have to fight against in your world.

And a business

takes a lot of forms

but generally speaking

in the context of your clients

it’s a mindset or a flaw

that you are constantly

have to fight against

in order to help actually get them

the result that

they came to you for

so in the world of operations

what is the common

enemy that you

constantly have to you know

work on or fight against

when you’re trying

to help your clients

get the results they want.

Jamie Eliason: Well, I can tell you that

it directly relates to

what you were saying

as far as people think that

operations

they can take care of themselves

and so I’m constantly

fighting against the fact

that people

don’t think that they need it

they’re concentrated on sales

they’re concentrated on

you know, marketing they’re concentrated

on other things

even as a small business owner

that becomes an issue

It’s one of the hardest things

to convince a small

business owner that

they need help because

they started the business

because they didn’t want help

in the first place

it’s hard to go in

Jamie Eliason: and tell somebody there’s

flaws in your company.​

Richard Matthews: [00:01:00] Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I have the pleasure of having on Jamie Eliason and Jamie are you there?

Jamie Eliason: I’m here.[00:02:00]

Richard Matthews: Awesome.

Nice

Jamie Eliason: to be here, Richard. Thank you.

Richard Matthews: So glad to have you here. Where are you calling in from?

Jamie Eliason: I’m actually located in Santa Barbara, California.

Richard Matthews: Santa Barbara, California. I don’t remember when we were talking ahead of time. That’s one of my favorite places in the country is Santa Barbara there we go to their library there and go to the beach there in Santa Barbara really love it.

Jamie Eliason: Very lucky to be here, and I’m a native of Santa Barbara, so. I’m glad to be.

Richard Matthews: And one of my wife’s favorite TV shows is in Santa Barbara psych I don’t know if you remember that it’s a murder mystery with the modern day version of what do you call it? Sherlock Holmes.

Jamie Eliason: Great. I do. And we also had, you know, back in the day we had Santa Barbara as an actual half an hour soap opera, I believe. And so a lot of people became familiar with our city through that.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. I really like Santa Barbara. For those of who are watching our show and follow along with my wife and I’s journeys, we’re currently in Illinois. We finally moved out of Florida. We’re visiting family. So, you know, freezing to death up here, that’s why I got a jacket on, because it’s cold in this part of the country.

[00:03:00] So what I want to start off with Jamie is just, we’ll go through just a very brief introduction. We’ll get into your story. So you are the CEO and founder of Fruition Endeavors, which is a business operations and management consulting firm. And as someone who runs a business, I can tell you operations has been the biggest like lever to change how profitable we are and how much fun the business is to run.

So I’m really excited to have this conversation today. So what I want to start with is what is it that you’re known for, right? What’s your business like, who do you serve? What do you do for them?

Jamie Eliason: So, basically, what we are known for is helping small and medium sized businesses stabilize their operations and help them grow, expand and then eventually link into their communities. This is a huge endeavor for us, hence the name, and it’s something that I’ve been really excited to share with others.

It was a little slow going at first, but everything has been picking up wonderfully. And basically it started from my wide array of knowledge from working for the [00:04:00] different companies that I have for the last 25 years and seeing the difficulties that people face.

And I wanted to be able to offer services to help these people grow, stabilize, expand, and then we eventually want to do it on a global basis. But right now we’re starting in the United States and actually slowly growing into international shores. So I’m really excited to be here and talk about it today.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. I know operations is just, it’s one of those things that it’s like, you know, the quote unquote, boring part of business, right? You know, everyone’s all excited about sales and marketing generally, but what I’ve learned as I’ve grown my company is that operations is where all the good stuff happens.

Jamie Eliason: It is. And it’s the base of where every company starts, really, if you don’t have a good operations line, then you don’t really have much of anything is, you know, when you get later down the line, you’re not ready to grow. You’re not ready to, you know, do what it takes to get the business to the next level.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. One of my [00:05:00] favorite companies to study because they’re one absolutely incredibly successful is Apple but one of the reasons I like studying them is because people think they’re famous for their product designs and their marketing and their sales and stuff, which is all good.

It’s all top notch. But like the reason for their success is because Tim Cook is an operations genius. And like, that’s what’s allowed them to become a trillion dollar company is their operations and people don’t realize that because it’s not the flashy stuff. It’s all the stuff that you don’t really see. So,

Jamie Eliason: But it is, when it comes down to it, it is the base of the company because it’s where your employees start, it’s where your profit margin comes from it’s where all of the ideas really take place because if you don’t have a firm operations plan, then you can’t really move forward with whatever ideas and sales and so on and so forth that you do have.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, and it’s fascinating. I get asked to speak regularly to you know, just because our business has grown the way it has over the past several years. And generally, when I come in and speak, we, you know, we do talk about like what we do for PushButton Podcasts. And we talk about like our product and the delivery [00:06:00] of services.

But the stuff that people are other business owners are super fascinated with is how we run like our operations and what our dashboards look like and what our project management system looks like and how we communicate with our team and how we’re building some of those things. Because like, that’s what has allowed us to scale.

And when I start showing people our back end operations, they’re like, Oh, wow. It’s so much different than having a good marketing message or a good product. Like, there’s so much to being a successful company that comes in terms of like, I said, you know, for us, we’re an all online business. So we don’t have like a lot of the logistics that you might have for physical products or for, you know, other like in person services.

So it’s like our project management system and our team communication systems and our client communication systems and like the dashboards that we keep track of all of the things that are going on those things. They make our business run and they allow us to scale. And so when I show people like the backside of it, they’re like, Oh, that’s why you can do what you do at the price that you do it for and can scale the way that you’re scaling because you have the back [00:07:00] end dialed in a way that a lot of people don’t because they focus all of their time and effort on the product development and the marketing and sales of that product.

So what I want to dive into is your origin story, right? So, every good comic book hero has a good origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. And I want to hear that story. Were you born a hero or are you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want it to get into operations?

Or did you start in a job and eventually move over to becoming an entrepreneur? Basically, where did you come from?

Jamie Eliason: So, you know, I came, like I told you originally, I’m here from Santa Barbara and my dad has been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. So I grew up in that, you know, in that pretty much the theory of the best thing that you can do is be yourself and work for yourself and try and put something good out into the world.

And so he taught me from a young age that, you know, entrepreneurship is a great way to do that. So when I was 18, I decided that instead [00:08:00] of going to work for somebody else, I was going to go ahead and start a company of my own. And so, you know, this has really been. The start of my career as far as that went, I became someone who worked for large companies doing their telephone systems and their security systems back when that wasn’t popular.

You know, I started off in the days of AutoCAD. And so it’s been a lot of fun to do that and to grow with. Pretty much the companies over the years to see how different things and this was even before the dot com era. So I was working, you know, my first computer was a commander 64 that had the tape that you put in so I’ve been creating and building for a long time.

I had my first company for 12 to 15 years at the same time as I also got married and became a single mom of twins and then another one. And I had an amazing time figuring out both the work life [00:09:00] balance and running a business. You know, and I did that well into my late twenties. And then the recession hit and I decided, hey, you know, I want to try something new.

And so that was at the point where I went back to college and decided, okay, I’m going to do what I can to up my knowledge, and while I was doing that, I, like I said I was a single mom, my third child had just been born, I literally strapped her to the front of me, and worked during the day in Montecito, in the Santa Barbara area, as an executive assistant, and I grew my contact book to huge levels, and while I was doing that, people were constantly telling me, you know, Jamie, you have great ideas.

You really know how to make things happen. I love working with you. You make me feel good about what I do. And so, you know, that let me know that what I was doing was the right thing. And so, eventually that led to working in San [00:10:00] Francisco. I got a huge opportunity to work for a media SAS company PICS codecs, which is an amazing company, but it also allowed me to go in to a situation where I actually ran the operations on an international basis for the first time.

And when I came into that office, there were pretty much two sides of the office, East Wing and West Wing. Nobody knew anybody. There was 82 employees and you couldn’t tell from one side to the other who their names were if they saw them in the kitchen. They only knew them through the Slack channel, which I thought was kind of funny.

And so I knew that my main goal, when I walked into there, was to decide that this needed to be a team, this needed to be a community. And the best way to do that, I realized, was through operations, because it’s the little things that matter that actually bring people together. And so, this is where I really started getting a flavor [00:11:00] for people and people operations, HR onboarding, offboarding, all of these different things that actually make such a huge difference in a company.

You know, I created team events and then it all led to the owner of the company coming to me and saying, Hey, you know, we need to change office spaces, we’re going to go ahead and we want to build a 10,000 square foot office space, and I’m going to give that to you to do, because you seem to know our employees well enough to be able to do with a six month timeline, and a pretty tight budget, I was able to create an amazing space for 82 employees. And by the time I was done, not only did everybody know each other’s names, but they also knew. They knew their culture, they knew their families the team building events became amazing.

And then it started showing in operations, it started showing in the bottom profit line, it started showing in all of these different things that you come [00:12:00] together to do. And I realized that, you know, I think I have a knack for this. And so, you know, it was an amazing eye opener for me. And at that point, I knew that in the future, I was going to be able to open my own company doing something like this.

Now, fast forward a couple of years, I ended up back in Santa Barbara, working for a local artisanal ice cream company. And, you know, she had two locations when I first started. I grew her to over 10 locations, and I did this by operations, by making sure that everything was streamlined, by changing what her tech staff was, by dealing with all of the HR, and you know, you have to realize with an ice cream company, it also changed my employees, they were now, you know, in between 18 and 22.

So I had a whole different outlook on how this business was to be run. So here I am at this time of my life when I had run all of these different businesses and [00:13:00] each one of them in a different way. And then the pandemic hit. And this is really where it became just front and center to me, how much small and medium sized businesses needed help with operations.

When you’re a small business owner, you are so concentrated on just day to day and getting from one point to the next that the operations don’t come into play. And so during the pandemic, I started watching all of these wonderful main street companies. And it just broke my heart. There was, I knew I had to come up with a way to fix this.

I was an essential worker driving through apocalyptic L.A. where there was nobody around and, you know, nobody going to the restaurants, nobody going to shop on main streets. I mean, even Santa Monica, which is a huge place. I was watching them fall. I was watching these doors close and I knew something had to be done about it.

And so towards the [00:14:00] end of the pandemic, I decided I was going to go ahead and start Fruition Endeavors. I wanted to bring our services to these small businesses that I knew I could help. And part of the reason I did this is because, you know, besides the fact that they need it so badly. They’re also the ones that don’t necessarily understand what’s being released, how to look into the future and decide, okay, this is what needs to be done.

So, I mean, for instance, had these restaurants been on delivery platforms prior, they may not have failed during the pandemic. Had they been in, you know, ingraded into their community, where everybody was helping everybody, if these supply chains were the way they should be, then they wouldn’t have failed like they did.

And so, my goal going into this is to make sure that never happens again. If something,

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Apocalypse proof businesses.

Jamie Eliason: Exactly. If something like this comes along again, then they’re open [00:15:00] to the change. They know how to move forward, how to make it happen how to operate and stay open and not that, but to expand, strengthen their communities.

Richard Matthews: That’s a, it’s an amazing story to go from starting a business to like building a whole skill set in the operation space to starting your own business there. I love, and it seems like it’s been like a life, a lifelong journey to learn operations and learn how it grows businesses. And I completely agree with you cause I know the businesses that I was involved with or talked to, the ones that had their operations nailed.

Didn’t struggle during the pandemic. They thrived.

Jamie Eliason: That’s exactly what happened with the ice cream company. You know, I had grown them to 10 locations but once the pandemic hit, those locations didn’t matter so much. What mattered was that we already had our delivery platforms in place. What mattered was that we already had our sales strong.

We had our profit margin strong. And so during that, I was also pretty much allowed to you know, into these wonderful places like Dodger [00:16:00] Stadium and things like that, which was wonderful. So here I am in the pandemic, growing a business while everybody else is actually failing. And so I knew that I had knowledge to bring to the table.

I’ve worked for so many different industries across the board, Richard, just because I love knowledge. I absolutely love it. And even if I don’t work for the company, I want to know how it runs, how it works, how they’re, you know, who they’re connected to the whole nine yards, because in the end, it’s going to make a difference to whoever I’m working for, regardless of is.

Richard Matthews: And I just want to point out a couple of things that you, said in your story that I want to make sure people who are listening picked up on, because when you’re talking about operations, I don’t. Not that the people don’t know what operations is, but if they’re depending on where they’re at in their business career, they might not know like all the things that you mentioned, they had a sales system in place, they had an HR system in place, they had team building systems in place, they knew what their profit margins were and how everything fit into those things right there.

There’s like all the little pieces that are like, it’s the [00:17:00] boring spreadsheet stuff, right? They have their project management in place, they have their supply chains like dialed in all the little stuff that just it’s it makes the business work. And I know, because I just went through the same thing in our business.

Luckily, we sort of nailed it right before the pandemic happened. So we had the same kind of thing happen in our business where we grew a lot during the pandemic because our operations were in line and we’re continuing to grow now. And it’s, a lot of it has been a result of really getting good at the operations.

And I don’t have everything done yet, right? I don’t have all of the systems in place. You know, I still am working out. I need to get system in place. I know we’re going to talk more. I know it. I think at some point I’m going to hire you to coach my operations manager on like the different things that we’re used to to do. But it’s such a key part of business. And I love that you’re focused on that and you’re helping businesses with it because you know, if you would ask me five years ago, I would have told you the most important part of business is sales and marketing.

Jamie Eliason: But you do anything with sales and marketing if you don’t have a good base.

Richard Matthews: If you don’t have operation, yeah.

Jamie Eliason: And it’s funny that you say, you know, it’s one of the most, people view it as one of the most boring parts of the [00:18:00] business because they do. But in all reality, it’s actually the most exciting. Until you get down into it and realize how much you can actually change a company, and their employees, and the way that they view their products and their services, that’s what’s going to lead to more sales.

If you have a team that is strong, and that knows how to operate, then that’s going to make the end difference. And people don’t necessarily realize that.

Richard Matthews: There’s so many knobs and dials and levers that you can turn and pull on the operation side, like in sales and marketing, there’s like, how many calls are you doing? Right? And what’s your conversion rate? And like, what’s the number of clicks that you’re driving? Right? It’s all very simple stuff.

And there’s not that many of them. And once you’ve mastered them, there’s like not much else there. You’re just, know, maybe you chest the color of a button here or there, or maybe.

Jamie Eliason: The lean gen. Yeah, no, I.

Richard Matthews: Make all changes here or there once you’ve got it. Dialed, but there’s not a lot there. But on the operating side, there’s so much, there’s so much that you can play with and you can really, and they have, they don’t just have like little impacts on your business [00:19:00] either.

Like, if you can increase, like the team camaraderie. Like on, you know, you can double, triple, quadruple the business with that kind of a change.

Jamie Eliason: Absolutely. Well, and sometimes it even just comes down to the small things, you know, like I was telling you. When I started my own business when I was 18, one of the things that I realized right away is that operations is often ignored. And so, there’s huge savings in that.

So, let me give you a good example. If I have 20 banks, right? And they run off of these huge telephone systems, nobody’s really paying attention to operations and how it’s going. So, the next thing you know, they’re paying for 100 blocks of lines that they don’t even need. They’re not disconnecting lines when employees come. So that’s taking away from their overall budget.

And not by a little bit, but by millions of dollars by the end of the year. And it’s these small changes that make a difference. Because all of a sudden then, well, look at how much that budget changed. And now we can go ahead and put this towards something else that’s actually going to [00:20:00] make a difference, versus telephone lines that don’t work.

So there’s a lot of little things that people don’t realize change the outcome of the business.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely, and the more that I have started to focus on operations in our company, the more I’m realizing that like in every little space, you’re like, Oh, this, you know, if we can make this a little bit better here, it makes everything else better. Then you make it and you take your savings and whatever you fixed on that side and you just roll it into something else.

And you just have, you have exponential gains on there, which is it’s super cool. So what I want to dive into then is your superpowers in this space, right? Every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by your genius intellect or the ability to call out thunder from the sky, or maybe a super strength.

In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a set of skills or a skill that you were born with. Where you developed over the time that sort of energize all of your other skills. And it really, it’s what sets you apart. It’s what allows you to, you know, help people slay their villains in their life and really come out on top of their own journeys.

And the way I like to frame it for my guests is if you look at [00:21:00] all the skills that you’ve developed over the course of your career, there’s probably a common thread that ties them all together. And that common thread is where you find your superpower. So in this world of operations and business management, what do you think your superpower is?

Jamie Eliason: So, my superpower really is my memory and my ability to relate to people no matter what their walk of life is. We’re all human, right? And so when I go in and I help with companies, this is what I do. I get to know the people. I get to know what their goals and their dreams are. I get to understand who they are as people to help them build that company.

And so that’s really my superpower is that I can come in, I can work with you, and then I can understand really quickly where the issues may lie and how I can help with that. And, you know, I didn’t really notice that about myself until I went into another company that had an operations manager that maybe didn’t do the same thing. And they went well, [00:22:00] maybe that is my superpower.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So, the ability to both remember things and to relate to people. How do you think being able to relate to people positively impacts your, the outcomes you have with operations?

Jamie Eliason: Well, like I was telling you with the Media SaaS company, when I walked in and nobody knew each other. Operations was almost at a standstill because department heads weren’t doing what they needed to do. So what I did, and this is going to sound maybe funny, but I put myself in the kitchen. I put myself where I knew people were going to come a couple of times a day, at least.

And I got to know every single one of them. I remember every one of their names, their wife, husband, children, every single one of them, because then I know what’s going to make them happy at work. What’s going to make them operate better. And so by building these relationships, not only when I leave the company do I have all of these wonderful relationships, but they’re also at a comfort [00:23:00] level to where they feel they can come to me if they ever need anything.

I still receive texts from all of the companies that I’ve worked for, even employees that aren’t at those companies anymore, or teenagers that I’ve mentored. And they’ve come back to me and said, Jamie, thank you so much for teaching me how to relate to people. And using my memory, I can, you know, it really allows me to connect with people, which is an amazing thing.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. And so that allows you, because when you build the relationships, then you can make the suggestions for changes, and you can put things in place, and then you have buy in from the team members to actually, like, to change which is, people don’t like to think.

Jamie Eliason: But we spend a lot of our day at work, and so it’s important that these people are really our family or our team members, because without that. The business is not going to operate and it allows me to provide the right recommendations and the right services.

You know, Fruition Endeavors has partnered with many different [00:24:00] companies and for that reason, so that when we do get to know the building and the company that we’re working with. Then I can supply the correct solutions and options for them. And this is really all built on how do they run? How do they want to run? What type of person are they?

And so it is very important. And people don’t realize that. And when you go into something like, let me give you an example, a point of sale, there are so many options and the whole market is oversaturated. So as a small business owner, when they go in, they don’t even know what they’re looking for.

But if I get to know the small business owner, and I know that they’re not, maybe not necessarily an organized person, or they have a problem with sales, or, you know, they have too much going on in their life to be able to focus, then I know what solution to provide them that will make their operations better.

And that’s very different than maybe the OCD client that I get. And so I would offer them very different solutions. And so it [00:25:00] really makes a difference on how they view their company goals. And how I can teach them to operate.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So, I love that.

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Now back to The Hero show.

Richard Matthews: So now my question, then, is every superpower always has the flip side of the coin, right? The fatal flaw. And just like every superman has his kryptonite, or Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad, you probably have a fatal flaw that’s held you back in your business.

Something you struggled with. For me, it was perfectionism, right? Kept me from shipping product, and I always wanted to I could always speak it a little bit more before I got it out into the [00:27:00] world, and then I would never put anything into the world, which is You know, that’s a problem. And I also struggled with like lack of self care, which meant that I let my clients walk all over me.

I didn’t set up good boundaries. I didn’t have good communication, like standards and stuff like that. But I think more important than the flaw is how have you worked to overcome it so that you can continue to grow and hopefully sharing a little bit with our listeners we’ll help them learn from your experience there.

Jamie Eliason: Yes, so I would say that one of my weakness is my inability to tell people, no. I really struggle with that sometimes and, you know, it can get in the way as far as things go. When people come to you and they ask for certain things and I want to make them happy and so maybe no isn’t the answer that I give them when really I should.

And so I’ve learned to take a step back before I give an answer and think it through entirely. Is this the right answer to give? Why am I giving this answer? And, you know, [00:28:00] am I capable of doing what they’re asking? And that’s really important. It, you know, it also allows me to not burn the candle from both ends, I guess you can say. And so, you know, it’s my weakness, but definitely something that I’m working on.

Richard Matthews: And what’s interesting is I always find that the weakness is always like it’s the flip side of that superpower, right? You have that ability to understand people and to connect with them and to remember them and to just be to. It’s like empathy as a superpower, right? And then you flip the flip side of that is sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop caring about the other person and start caring about yourself. And that’s a hard.

Jamie Eliason: And business, you know, so you want to be able to draw that line. But at the same time, you know, it’s a gray area that I have to constantly struggle with, because you want to build that relationship, like you’re saying, but you also don’t want to be taken advantage of. And so that’s, you know, that’s a hard line for me.

Richard Matthews: So, what are some of the things that you have put in place to help you with that? [00:29:00]

Jamie Eliason: Well, I’ve made myself a sheet that I go through when I get a new client and I look at all of the different things that they’re looking for, what I’m looking for. And I cross examine them. I make sure that we’re both going to be a good fit for each other. And if we’re not, I need to be able to tell them, you know, no, this isn’t a good fit.

But let me find you someone else that is or you know, I’m still in that learning process, otherwise it wouldn’t still be my weakness but I’ve been working, I’ve been working on it. It’s interesting. I really, I’m struggling with it. I really hate to tell people no, but I’m learning, it’ll work.

Richard Matthews: You’ll get there eventually. I know, I’m the same way, like, with my perfectionism thing. One of the things that I’ve had to start doing is, like, I build all of our processes for our business. Where it’s like whatever I’m in charge of, like, I need to not be in charge of the make it live button. Right?

Whatever it is that ships this thing, like I can help you with all the [00:30:00] things that lead up to that, but then someone else needs to be in charge of this is okay. It’s good enough to go now because if it was up to me, I would continue to iterate forever and then it would never get published or would never get put live or would never get turned on or would never get implemented in the business.

So I’m like, okay, let me, I’ll help you with the strategy. I’ll help you with the development, help you with all these things that, you know, all the front stuff that requires like the thinking and the strategy and all that kind of stuff. But then actually implementing it. I need to have implementers on my team, people who will take whatever those things are and run with them and then make it happen.

And then we can iterate on those things to work towards perfection eventually. But, you know, it’s for me, I have to get that off of my plate because I know my weakness is to, I can make it a little bit better this way. I can make it a little bit better that way. I can do, you know, I can change this.

I can do other things to it. I can do all sorts of things to it. And then, you know, three years later, we still don’t have anything because I’ve been fiddling with it for.

Jamie Eliason: It’s the never ending tweaking. Well, you know that’s what updates are for. I don’t know if you’ve heard.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that’s what updates are for. So that’s how I work on it. But it’s the same kind of thing, right? You have to have something that is helping you. You know, to shore up that weakness so that you can, [00:31:00] you know, I just find people who are strong at that thing and put them in a place you handle that.

Jamie Eliason: Exactly. Exactly. It’s good to know what your weakness and when I come across the client that I may see, I have that weakness with, I also am not afraid to turn it over to one of my business partners to do the same thing. You know, or if I get a client that I want to definitely tell yes, but maybe it’s not advantageous for them.

And so I want to make sure that, all the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed and everybody’s happy at the end of the day. So I need to be able to bring that out and to speak about it a little bit. And that’s part of why I’m doing the podcast with you today. To get a little bit about who I am out there. And so that people understand a little bit.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, which leads me right into my next question, which is your driving force. We talked about this a little bit in your story, but the flip side of Oh, you know what? I’m going to skip that because I want to ask you one other question first. I want to talk about your common enemy, right? So every superhero has an arch nemesis.

This is a thing that you constantly [00:32:00] have to fight against in your world and a business takes a lot of forms, but generally speaking, in the context of your clients. It’s a mindset or a flaw that you are constantly have to fight against in order to help actually get them the result that they came to you for.

So in the world of operations, what is the common enemy that you constantly have to you know, work on or fight against when you’re trying to help your clients get the results they want.

Jamie Eliason: Well, I can tell you that it directly relates to what you were saying as far as people think that operations, they can take care of themselves. And so I’m constantly fighting against the fact that they, people don’t think that they need it. They’re concentrated on sales. They’re concentrated on, you know, marketing they’re concentrated on other things, even as a small business owner.

And you know, that becomes an issue because as I go into these things. It’s one of the hardest things to convince a small business owner that they need help because they started the business because they didn’t want help in the first place. And so it’s hard to go in and tell somebody [00:33:00] there’s flaws in your company.

And you need to be able to fix these in order to expand and grow and do all of these things. And so that’s one of the things that’s, you know, very hard to come up against. Even though every company, I don’t care what you do, needs operations. It’s still one of the hardest things to convince people that they need.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And do you think that comes because operations is hard to track directly back to revenue? Where it’s like, I make this shift in operations and it does an equal increase in sales, therefore it’s hard to sell? Is that, do you think that’s part of the problem?

Jamie Eliason: Well, I think it’s part of the problem that people don’t think that. And so when I come in and I do a presentation, it’s very important that I give them those numbers and those ROIs and the difference, even just the small changes of what they can do and how that’s going to affect their bottom line.

And so that’s often what gets us started during that introductory consultation is maybe me not pointing out what’s wrong but [00:34:00] by getting them to tell me. And so if, when it runs down that way then they realize okay maybe I do need more help than I thought and so it just becomes a self, kind of a self enlightenment moment for them but I have to get them to that point and it’s, it can be difficult.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. And I know it would have been hard to convince me five years ago that operations was where I needed to focus on my company. So like, I see how that’s a problem, right? Because I was there. And then you start to realize you’re like, Oh, operations is like it’s the 80/20, right?

Jamie Eliason: Yeah, absolutely. But it’s also the more expensive portion of things. So when people look at it, they, you know, I’ll get a lot of, I can’t afford this right now. And my answer to that is you can’t afford not to. You really can’t because when it comes down to it, this is going to be your profit for the future.

You know, just like I was telling you about those telephone lines that weren’t disconnected, people need to actually step back and [00:35:00] look at their business and go, what can I change? What can I do to make this better for myself, for my customers, for my employees? That’s a big deal. You know, at a lot of the times, especially in small businesses, their employees are, this is their first job.

We are introducing them into their careers and their world of work. And so if it’s not a good experience or it’s not operating correctly, we just gave that person a bad outlook either about the company, about the job that they do, or about working in careers in general. And so it’s very important that we set that.

And you know, like I said it becomes an amazing reward when that person comes back to you later and says, you know, if you wouldn’t have taught me that I wouldn’t be where I am today. And so you have to take that into consideration as a small business owner, looking forward into the future.

How am I going to do this? How am I going to mentor these people? So [00:36:00] that they either stay with me or grow as a person and move on to where they need to be. And this all directly comes back to the communities that these small businesses are in. And so, you know, it’s very important to make it around robin of businesses and community, because that’s what your whole supply chain is. That’s what your customers are. That’s everything.

Richard Matthews: I have someone I need to introduce you to. I have another podcast I need to get you on. It’s called Elements of Community, and they talk about he talks specifically about how business and community works together. So I need to get you on his podcast, but I.

Jamie Eliason: That would be great.

Richard Matthews: Yeah I think the same thing, and it’s been a huge part of what I’ve been working on with our company is how do we like. Our business has responsibilities to our community, and that’s the community of the business itself, the people who are working for us, and we have responsibilities to the community of people that we’re serving, right?

So those are our clients, and we have responsibilities [00:37:00] to the communities that our people are a part of, right? So that means, like, you know, my community of people, my operations manager, she has her community of people and, like, her job is part of her community. Right. And that’s the same is true for every single person in my company is they have a community that they go back to when they leave work and their work, that work is part of their community.

And you realize, like, as a business owner, our responsibility goes far beyond just delivering good products and services to our customers. But delivering a good work experience to our employees and delivering a good community experience to their communities as well. And realize that, like, small business is what makes the world go round. And it’s.

Jamie Eliason: Absolutely is and we saw that during the pandemic, because when small business failed. You know, then you’re reliant on corporate and big box and nothing against them, of course, but as I sat here in Santa Barbara on Highway 1 and saw the line of tankers waiting to get into port in Long Beach just to [00:38:00] deliver paper supplies that I knew were available two miles away, it really brought it home to me that, you know, we need to be able to connect communities.

So that we can help each other. So that we can build this without waiting on that tanker for spoons that’s out there. I’m not gonna, you know, let my ice cream company go down because my spoons are sitting a mile offshore. And so, but had that community connection been there, and it was for me, but I saw it not for others. It’s what it’s how things fall.

We watched our agriculture fall. Well, had all of our restaurants been ordering from our local farmers, that wouldn’t have happened. And so that’s a huge difference. I think in between the way that I bring solutions to people and the way that other companies that are consulting bring solutions to people,

Richard Matthews: Yeah, and that’s where I want to get into the driving force, right. So the flip side of your common enemy is the driving force, and just like spider man fights to save New [00:39:00] York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information.

What is it that you fight for at Fruition Endeavors? What’s your mission?

Jamie Eliason: My mission is really to fight for communities and to grow them exponentially. And I knew that in order to do that, I had to start with myself. And so as saying that you know, we do have partners in the business. I have a wonderful partner. His name is Taha and he works on the other side of the world for me strengthening communities over there in the Middle East.

And one of the things that drew us to each other was the fact that we knew that community was the key, right? And so instead of me going out and hiring a hundred employees in my area to then farm out different projects around the world, what I do is when I get a client, I hire from their community. So [00:40:00] even like, let’s say for instance, they’re going to open a new location.

I make sure that those contractors and those subcontractors come from their community. I make sure that lumber comes from their community. And if I can’t find it in their community, I’ll go to the next closest, but it’s really important. To strengthen these communities. Metro cities are millions of people.

They come and go big box, a lot of different things like that. And they never get that connection. And so a lot of the times they’re stuck at the end of the day. So, what I want to do is build these communities and then link them together. One of my goals this year was to meet at least two people from every country around the world and learn about their community.

And when you think about it, that’s not really that big of an ask, right? You’re looking at maybe 500 people total. And I’m proud to say I was able to do that and I have learned so much this year about the different communities and cultures around the world and how we can work together [00:41:00] and how we can support each other.

And so that to me is, that’s my main goal. That’s my main fight with my company is to do this and to bring people together.

Richard Matthews: I love the combination of operations and community and how operations really help support the communities in the same the other direction if you support the communities they’ll help grow your operations help grow your company and I love that and as far as a mission, right?

It’s such a potent thing to try, and improve in our world, right, is, you know, is just the United States. Small business is like 65 million businesses. It’s huge. It’s like it’s such a big part of our culture and our community and our success as a country. And it all comes back to community.

And you know, just like you were talking about the we saw a lot of that community struggle during the pandemic. And it’s because they don’t have these focuses that you’re talking about. The focus is on operation, the focus is on their community. And, you know, and what works for big box companies and, you know, big giant firms is not the same way that you wanna [00:42:00] operate a small business and that kind of stuff.

So anyways. I look forward to seeing you grow and seeing, well, how that mission plays out for you, because I think it’s a great mission to drive for I’m going to shift gears and talk a little bit about something. That’s very practical, right? I call this the hero’s tool belt and just like every hero has a tool belt with, you know, magical gadgets like their batarangs or their, you know, web slingers or their laser eyes.

I want to talk about the top one or two tools you couldn’t live without in your business. Could be anything from your notepad that you take notes on, to your calendar, to your marketing tools, to something you use for your actual delivery of services. Something you think is essential to getting your job done.

What would be your top one or maybe two tools that you use for operations management?

Jamie Eliason: My very top tool is my contact book, the people that I have built relationships with around the world, because these are the people that I go to when any business needs anything. This is my contact book. This is how I’m going to make it happen. And that directly links to things like my partners and my affiliates and my tech stacks.

[00:43:00] If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. There’s just, there’s no way I would be able to do half of what I do to provide these people with the solutions that they need in order to grow. And so that’s,

You know, what

Richard Matthews: I love about that? Is it ties right back into your community, right? That’s your, it’s like your community book.

Jamie Eliason: It is and it’s great because I, now I have all of these different communities and if I can’t find it in one community, then I can find it in another. And, you know, the pandemic brought around this huge influx of people coming into social media and into the internet and making it. Easier to connect these different types of people.

I’m part of a women’s entrepreneur group at several actually, and even part of the women’s group for United Nations. These are all things that are super important and keep that tool belt in place.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. So, I want to talk then about one of the things that makes heroes heroic, [00:44:00] and that is that they live by a code, right? For instance, Batman never kills his enemies. He only brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you regularly use in your life, your guiding principles, so to speak, and maybe something you wish you’d known when you first started out on your own hero’s journey.

What would one of your guiding principles be for your business?

Jamie Eliason: You do ask good questions. I can tell you that. Okay. So I would say that one of my guiding principles is basically to build people’s dreams and give them strength to be who they are and to grow in that community. I want to be able to give them that confidence. And so, you know, I think that’s really what it comes down to is when you come to me, you’re not just coming to me for an operations tech stack.

You’re coming to me to learn how to make your dream and your goal of that business come true. That’s it for me. You know, that’s what is [00:45:00] rewarding is those callbacks that I get that says, I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you so much for showing me how to grow, not only as a company, but maybe as a person.

So my mission is basically to help those that don’t know that they can do it, that they can. To get rid of this imposter syndrome, to get rid of, who am I to say that I can do this? Because small business people struggle with that all the time. And so that is one of my main goals and my main missions.

Richard Matthews: You know what popped into my head when you were talking about that is you’re a hero builder, Right? So like, I’m familiar with the old Disney movie Hercules and there’s the little goat guy who like trains Hercules.

Jamie Eliason: I do remember the little goat guy. Am I the little goat guy?

Richard Matthews: Or probably even more cool than that would be like the Matrix, Trinity trains Neo.

Jamie Eliason: There you go.

Richard Matthews: And so it’s a hero builder, right? You’re, that’s what you do. you help people become the hero that they know they can be, right? To become the chosen one in their community and to, [00:46:00] for their business.

Jamie Eliason: Yes, to be more than just a number, you’re not just a number, you’re a person, and you’re amazing, and I’ll show you that. I don’t care who you are.

Richard Matthews: And I love that is entrenched in the world of operations for business. It’s just. It’s so cool.

Jamie Eliason: It is. It’s one of the, my favorite parts about it. And you get to meet every department in every company, because it doesn’t matter which department it is, they need operations. So,

Richard Matthews: That’s wonderful. Well, I think that’s a great place to wrap our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge I call it the hero’s challenge and we do this to get access to stories that we might not find otherwise on our own. So the question is simple, do you have someone in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story?

Who are they first names are fine and why do you think they should come share their story with us here on The Hero Show?

Jamie Eliason: I do. The woman that I worked for at the ice cream company, her name is Rori Trovato, and she owns Rory’s Artisanal Creamery. And she taught me so so much and just basically even just about community and about [00:47:00] caring about your employees and giving back. And she really taught me a lot. And I think that she would be a wonderful entrepreneur to interview.

Richard Matthews: Awesome, we’ll see if we can get an introduction and get her on the show. Not everyone says yes but when they do we get some cool we can get an introduction and get her appreciate that and in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people find you for you on this show, as we close is we want to know where can people say, you know, Hey, where can people go is who are the right types of people to raise their hand and ask for your help?

Jamie Eliason: Well, like I had told you before, it’s in every industry, every company you can find us on all of the social media platforms as well as our website FruitionEndeavors.com. And you know, whenever you see me, don’t be afraid to talk to me, to chat, to build that relationship, whether you need operations or not build a community with me.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. I love it. Thank you so much, Jamie, for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. We’ll make sure the links to Fruition Endeavors are in the show notes for people if they’re looking [00:48:00] for that for help with operations. And I can tell you, as someone who has been growing my business a lot over the last couple of years, that if you are struggling at all in your business with growth, and you haven’t considered operations.

Give Jamie a call, right? Because it’s one of those things that you may not know that’s the thing that’s holding you back, because I didn’t before I started working on it. And so, to have someone who focuses on that and knows how to teach you and work you through those things, if you’re in one of those, I don’t know what you call it, like a roadblock, and you’re like, I don’t know how to grow, maybe check your operations and call someone like Jamie.

So, again, I appreciate having you on the show today, Jamie. Thanks for coming on and sharing your story. Do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience before I hit this stop record button?

Jamie Eliason: Well, thank you very much for having me, Richard. And my final parting words are let’s grow community together whether you think you need operations or not contact me. Let’s find out if you do and let’s grow together. Let’s connect you with other communities let’s do this worldwide. I count on you.

Richard Matthews: Perfect. Thank you. Jamie.

Jamie Eliason: Thank you. ​

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