Intro

 📍 Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we take you behind the scenes to explore integrated self leadership and help ambitious family men build lasting legacies for themselves, their tribe, and their community. I'm Scott Raven, and together we'll discover how successful leaders master a delicate balance of career advancement, personal health, financial growth, and meaningful relationships. Get ready to soar. 

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Introduction

Hey everybody, it's Scott. Welcome to this TL DL episode on The Corvus Effect TL DL Standing four. Too long didn't listen, and this is my summary of my conversation with Ben Finkley, founder of CE Marketing and fractional CMO for trade businesses. Ben's journey demonstrates something that we champion here at Corvus that you can build professional success.

Without sacrificing family presence. And he's a perfect example of early decisions to design his business around his family's needs and the recent evolution that that had in terms of true delegation. Based on the support that he has around him, this has allowed him to have conscious choices that create both business resilience.

And family strength. 

Designing Business Around Family

So let's dive into a couple of the key takeaways first, Ben has a foundational principle that transformed his entire approach to entrepreneurship, and that was to design his business around his family. Rather than fitting his family around his business, he explained it beautifully by saying, my business, my job is my side gig.

My family is the main thing. We've always looked at it that way and coming from people who he's observed, his corporate friends, I've done it myself in my corporate career where they wake up early before their kids wake up. They get home late at night. Kids are already in bed and they lack presence with their family.

He doesn't find that to be very successful and neither do I. So he, along with his wife, Beverly, made the deliberate choice that if we're gonna have kids, I. Let's be parents, and they created a tag team schedule to allow them to be present with their kids as parents, while also pursuing their professional endeavors.

Something very much in line with the Corvus philosophy. 

Setting Boundaries for Business Success

Second, then discovered that setting clear boundaries with clients actually enhanced rather than hindered. His business success. A lot of times he would have clients come up and ask them, are you going to be available 24 7? And he would politely say, no, I'm not.

I will respond to you in a timely manner, but I will not be there for you 24 7. And he was more than happy to let clients walk away when they were not. Happy with the fact that he was not gonna be available during those periods of time. It allows him to go out and not only serve his clients even better, because his energy is more focused, but actually that becomes a selling feature in terms of the referrals and recommendations because his clients, particularly with them being in the trades. 

Say that he is living the life that they want and being able to focus on family as well. So it's actually a very attractive way to bring in the clients that you want to bring in. 

Overcoming Founder's Syndrome

And then finally, we talked about Ben's recent car accident, which left him unable to do a lot of the things that he would normally do as part of his business, and he had to confront.

Founder's syndrome. I look at it in terms of you've built your business up to a certain level and it's fantastic, but you're wearing two hats. You are chained to your business that you don't feel like you have the proper way to delegate and trust down to your team.  And he had to face that firsthand because as he's recovering from his spine injury, he had to give people shots.

Things that needed to be done, even though he didn't hire them specifically for that role. So, as an example, a new hire that he had, Malala, who was originally supposed to help him with some of his efficiency work, he had to turn into a marketing coordinator and lo and behold, she did the job and she slate it.

She was great. So sometimes it's the ability to give ourselves. The grace to step away and allow our teams to show us what they are capable of so that we don't feel like we have to do everything ourself. That's one of the biggest things that Ben took away from that experience, and that's really something that we emphasize here in Corvus.

Sustainable success. Requires building systems and developing others, not just personal heroics. 

Conclusion

So I encourage you to reach out to him directly. You can reach out to him@benatvoe.com. That's VOL acc  i.com. And always remember how he beautifully concluded, which was, nobody's gonna remember how many companies I sold.

My legacy are my kids, and certainly the way that his kids came to his aid during his recent car accident. That speaks volumes in terms of the legacy that is not already built but will build in the future. I hope that you will subscribe and shared this episode with those people who may fan value of it.

Please go back and listen to the full conversation with Ben. That's was fantastic. Please leave a review because we always love to hear from you in terms of what we're doing well, and I will see you next time on the Corvus Effect. Take care. 

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Outro

Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect.  To access today's show notes, resources, and links mentioned in this episode, visit www.thecorvuseffect.com While you're there, you'll find links to our free tools and resources to evaluate where you currently stand versus your aspirations with personalized recommendations for action. If you found value in today's episode, Please take a moment to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share with those who may benefit from it. You won't want to miss future conversations that could transform your approach to leadership and life.  Join me next episode as we continue our journey towards building lasting legacies that matter. Remember, it's time to soar towards your legacy.