My Journey as a Fractional COO
In this video, I share my professional journey and how it led me to become a Fractional COO, helping businesses streamline operations, improve efficiency, and scale successfully. With decades of experience in law, finance, real estate, and entrepreneurship, I specialize in solving operational challenges for service-based businesses, law firms, and health and wellness professionals. Learn about the specific problems I solve, how I help businesses grow, and the process of working with me to achieve sustainable results. If you’re looking to free yourself from day-to-day operations and focus on scaling your business, this video is for you.
Hi, I'm Rochelle Poulton with Kaizen Operational Strategies and one of the questions I get asked a lot is how did I become a Fractional COO?
So, my journey to this new chapter of my life started a long time ago.
I have about 20 years of real estate and finance experience. I started working for a commercial and residential broker back in undergrad. After I graduated college, I moved here to Arizona and was a mortgage lender for a few years. But the market started to crash; and I ran away to law school, where I studied all things real estate, tax, business, and bankruptcy. I really enjoyed all of the classes that I took in law school.
When I started my own practice, I ended up doing consumer rights. I helped people with credit repair, debt settlement, and bankruptcy. I taught a lot of continuing legal education to the community. I also taught continuing education to realtors and loan officers, and I really loved that. I ultimately executed my exit strategy and sold my practice.
Several years ago, I joined a local practice called KLM and the awesome owner Kelly Lorenzen and became a business consultant turned business strategist. There I did a lot of project management, marketing, and consulting for small businesses, helping them figure out, how to get to the next step. And so I sort of started to specialize in that transition from being owner-operated into owner-managed and then things just evolved from there.
So I started Kaizen Operational Strategies to help businesses, you know do things more efficiently. My personal philosophy is “Kaizen for Life.” Kaizen is this Japanese manufacturing term meaning “continuous improvement.” And so in my personal and professional life, I believe in continuous improvement.
And I believe that a lot of small businesses are doing all of the right things, right? You've been off the ground, you‘re running, you're making money, but maybe you just don't have enough time. Maybe you’re not experiencing the benefits yet of owning your own business, right? Like that flexible schedule, you were supposed to have.
That's usually because of an operational inefficiency. So, whether that has to do with your customer journey or it has to do with improving your employee productivity or maybe, you know, it's just taking a look at your business optimization and automation. Those are the three areas that I really love helping businesses grow. Because all you need is a few small tweaks to kind of get to where you want to go next, right?
Whether or not you're crossing that first $1,000,000 threshold, or you're trying to get to that $10 million mark, or that $20 million mark, or beyond. You know, that's what my services are designed to help you with.
I come in; we have a few discussions during our free consultation to decide “Are we a good fit?” “Is this a good vibe?” And then if we are, then we'll book what's called The Business Discovery Session. And that's 60 to 90 minutes where we take some time to deep dive into your business, figure out what's really going on, what are the major hurdles. And from there we’ll do a Proposal Meeting where I will decide and help you determine what level of service you need.
Maybe we were able troubleshoot your problem during that discovery session, or maybe you need to engage me for a longer period of time. And so usually that starts with The Operational Strategy. That is your road map to success. I sit down, I look at your industry, look at your business and determine what are the key area, projects that we need to tackle in order to help your business thrive.
Sometimes that's hiring and onboarding, maybe you need SOPs and templates. You know, sometimes that could be software automation, software audits, reviewing things. Helping you with optimization, all areas, you know, are kind of my fave.
I love dealing with marketing. I love improving your sales process. I love improving the customer journey. I love, you know, helping with your team and helping them solidify and become a machine for you that operates regardless of whether or not you're there.
And the benefits of having, you know, kind of a Fractional COO is that I'm a short-term engagement, right? So, whether you have me as one of my Fractional COO clients or if you have me on more of a project-based service, either way, you know, I'm not designed to stick in your organization forever. My goal is to replace myself when I leave, right? Like, I want to leave your business in better shape than I found it, to help you meet those revenue milestones, to help you reach those operational milestones. So that way, your business is running more smoothly.
And then when you're ready for that next phase—to scale or launch a new project, or a new product, or enter into a new market—I'm here to help. Or, if you're ready to start looking at an exit strategy, right? Like, how do I sell my business? And what's the timeline for doing that? We can start, you know, taking a look at your financial outlook, start improving the lifetime value of your clients, and really kind of smoothing things out so you're in the best position to sell.
So yeah, that's me in a nutshell. That's my story. I have a real estate and law background. I have a finance background. I have a business consulting background. I've done tons of speaking. I've had podcasts. I've done it all, and I'm still an entrepreneur. I practice what I preach. You know, I own a couple of small local businesses here in the Valley, including Kaizen Operational Strategies and Melrose Vintage Market. I invest in a local restaurant, and I have a couple of patents.
I really enjoy business. That's my jam. I can talk business all day. And as a business strategist, this is just my personality. I love processes and systems, and that's just how my brain thinks—in terms of organizing things and making things better with my philosophy of continuous improvement.
So if you're interested and you want to work together, or see if there's any room for us to work together, just book a free consultation. That's why it's free, right? I just want to get to know you, and I hope you want to get to know me and see if we have good vibes and see how we can catapult your business into the next level.
Thanks for watching, and this has been my story.