Companies should pick partners, vendors, and hires that match their current size, not too big or small. The speaker switched to a large accounting firm that ignored them, then hired a VP of marketing who was the right fit despite knowing she'd probably leave as the company scaled.
Well, my favorite children's story for business is Goldilocks. And I have learned this lesson again and again about people, about vendors, partners, customers. Like everybody, there is a just right kind of level. Not too big, not too small, just right. And that just right, Goldilocks, for your business, for your time, for this job, for whatever is an ever changing thing, especially as your business grows. What was right for you at one point won't be right for you at another point. So some years ago we leveled up our accounting firm and I was really excited. This is a big accounting firm, but we are now growing and becoming a much bigger company. But then we hit a little thing. So we got this new accounting firm. They dealt with much bigger firms with bigger problems, that kind of thing. And they had the skills, resources, experience, the team to help get us to the next level. And we were headed there for sure. So we chose them. But then we had a little hiccup and I really needed the firm to help us solve this problem. And it was going to require some thinking, some networking, some resources, some stuff like that. And I couldn't get them on the phone. Now it was at a time when they were busy with a whole lot of other things in their world and in the world in general. But I wasn't interesting to them. And at that point I was way too small to be important to them. And their bigger regular clients were really important to them. I was not their Goldilocks in this case. So it was a total disaster. I had to go back to another old smaller firm that really cared, that was right sized for us, that wanted our business and could do it, might be at their limit, but was right serve for us another time. I needed to hire a new VP of marketing. We were going into a period of growth. We'd already started some significant growth and now it was time to take it further. So we went looking for a new VP of marketing and we ended up with three finalists, right? Great for a Goldilocks story. So we had three finalists. One of them was like super high end, big brands where we wanted to be and came in with a very, very polished proposal, polished, strategic, well articulated, that kind of thing. But I got this distinct impression that this person was never going to do any of their own work. They wanted a department and big vendor partners, agencies, that kind of thing to do everything for them. They were used to that. The next person we got was the like obvious industry person, the person in our world who'd been in our space, who already knew what to do. They were a Little bit like the past. For us, though. Like, they had a scattershot approach, like, here's all the things I do for you. And they were all kinds of things that we had done and would do, but there was no elegance and there was no leveling up. And then we had a young person who came in and who had very limited experience in our world. Very little indirect thing, not very experienced in general, a pretty young person, but really very smart and with a great education and a lot of passion. And they gave this beautiful, elegant, focused pitch to us about what they do with one of our product groups and how they would take it. And it was focused, it was elegant, it was innovative. We knew we'd found our Goldilocks, and in fact, we were really clear how special this person was. We looked to each other, we said in private, I think we got this person for about two years, and then they're going to go on and do their own thing. But let's do some great work and level up our business with their brilliance for a little while. We'd found our Goldilocks, I think, in every role and every time with your vendors, your marketing partners, your suppliers, producers, factories, like, whatever, there is a level that works for you at the level you're at, it might be just above, but it's not too far above. Finding Goldilocks is really critical for any situation that you're dealing with, and you gotta remember that it changes over time. I deal with this again and again in the companies that we work with that are scaling up. It's a focus that you've gotta do. Not too small, not too big, just right. That's Goldilocks for you. I hope that's helpful. We'll talk to you again next time. In the meantime, keep scaling.
