We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lorie Clements. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lorie below.

Lorie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I always knew that I wanted to start my own business, it was always just a question of what and when. I had lots of ideas, rough draft plans, big ambitions, a busy mind and a strong work ethic.

But when waiting for that ‘right’ idea, it can be hard to know when to just go for it. With each next big career decision, working for someone else, or working for ourselves, we’re all faced with the ever important question – is it time I start betting on myself?

After initial business success, working internationally, and getting my MBA, I had my first President role. When I realized I was ready for my next adventure, what a valuable moment that was! But yet, I spent a few more precious years, backing the ideas of others.

When I reflect back, I have to be grateful for all my career and life experiences that have led me to where I am, so it’s hard to say I have regrets. When I realized I could use my experience and skills with scaling up businesses, clarifying vision and getting traction towards a leadership team’s views, it literally took only one month for me to make the decision, quit and wrap up my comfortable executive job, and take the plunge!

So could it have been sooner? Maybe, yes, but maybe I would have missed a valuable lesson I later passed on to one of my valued clients nationwide.

When I think back, I distill it down to this; as soon as you can craft a plan to bet on your dreams, take it!  If you’re willing to do the work, bet on yourself!  There is no substitute for being a champion of your own destiny.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve led companies in a variety of sizes, industries and countries. I’ve scaled up ops departments from 1 to 18 employees and grew service volume 400% in just 2 years. I’ve been through the tough times where we couldn’t make payroll and so the owner and I went without a paycheck and the good times when I couldn’t hire people fast enough to keep up with the explosive growth.

When I was leading a mid-size Transportation company, I first discovered the a system to run a better business, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS for short. I loved how logical it was in orienting priorities and vision, it helped us address tough team dynamics issues, and created clear accountability. After living and breathing EOS, I took it to the next company where I led the day to day of a healthcare IT company, and was thrilled that EOS worked there as well – a completely different industry. In fact they worked so well, that when the founder of that company left to start his second company, he took me and the EOS tools with him, and we saw the same immense benefit yet again.

By then I had seen the EOS tools work in 3 companies and decided that I could make a bigger impact helping multiple companies get these same results, than if I kept the tools to myself, using them in just one company. It was time to bet on my own abilities and start my own business. So, I left my cushy executive job and have been implementing EOS as a business ever since.

When I boil down what I do, I am a growth coach for leadership teams of small and medium sized businesses. I help leadership teams clarify their vision, get traction towards their goals, and work together in a more healthy, cohesive way that gets results.

I help people to get what they want from their businesses. I do that by providing a complete system with simple tools and disciplines to help you get 3 things we call vision, traction, and healthy.
1. Vision, from the standpoint of first getting your leaders 100% on the same page with where your organization is going and how it is going to get there.
2. Traction, from the standpoint of helping your leaders to become more disciplined and accountable, executing really well to achieve every part of your vision.
3. Healthy, meaning helping your leaders to become a healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team because unfortunately, leaders often don’t function well as a team.

From there, as goes your leadership team, so goes the rest of your organization. We get to the point where your entire organization is crystal clear on your vision, all much more disciplined and accountable in executing your vision, gaining consistent traction, and advancing as a healthy, functional, cohesive team.

What sets me apart is my experience using the EOS system to scale up 3 businesses before launching my practice as an EOS implementer. I am naturally a curious person, and I’m passionate about solving business problems and empowering healthy teams.

What I’m most proud of, is the pleasure of helping more than 80 leadership teams craft and execute their vision. Through that work, the amount of jobs created, the increase in revenues and profitability, and the lives changed through crafting healthy, dynamic work environments where transparency, results, and fun thrive, has been tremendous.

I am beyond passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams. For me, it’s a calling and I can’t imagine doing anything else!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When COVID hit, you can imagine all of my clients got incredibly stressed seemingly overnight. Several of them thought we might have to suspend our work together so they could conserve every last dollar. When the rest of the business world shut down, I went to work. It’s times when leaders don’t know which end is up, that you need a coach, a confident, and the help to think clearly.

I started holding 3 hour resiliency planning sessions with every client, we created scenario plans, identified ways we could use the opportunity to better serve our end clients, came up with new revenue streams, and developed plans to take care of our most important asset – our people. We put the practice of ‘anti-fragility’ to work by using the trauma of COVID as an engine to create a better business.

The results were amazing, and my clients outperformed their peers, used the opportunity to acquire better talent and in some cases competitors, they retained their clients, and emerged in stronger. Their successes are my successes, and my practice in turn was even more successful for it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had big dreams of pursuing my MBA full time, I was accepted to 6 great schools, had scholarships lined up, my future mapped out, and boom, I was presented with the opportunity to work for a Private Equity backed company going through a turnaround in Paris, France.

The opportunity was just too good to pass up. Had I stuck to my plan, I would have missed out on an incredible experience, and I wasn’t willing to gamble that an experience like this one would come my way again.

So, in an afternoon, I unraveled all my carefully laid plans. I became the first female Director in the company’s history, I learned French, I helped expand our operations to China, I learned to manage sales, human resource and accounting teams, and grew my business operations experience by leaps and bounds. It was a pivot that had such a huge impact on my life, I can’t imagine where I’d be had I played it safe and stuck to the plan. And I got that MBA, just 4 amazing years later.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thespringboardsolution.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorieclements/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lorieclements/featured