Ep 162 – Megan Long, Second First – What Agency Owners Get Wrong About Delegating to Their Right-Hand Leader
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Featuring: Megan Long, Second First
In episode 162, I sit down with Megan Long, founder of Second First, a company built for the COOs, integrators, and right-hand leaders who sit next to agency owners and founders.
Megan and I get into what the second-in-command role actually is, why title matters far less than the ability to run the day-to-day while partnering on vision, and why the "impressive resume" hire so often falls flat. We talk about delegation, why founders keep pulling work back onto their plate even after handing it off, and how two-way communication builds real trust. We also cover what it looks like for a founder to step back, whether that's a weekly report or full autonomy, and how the role evolves as a business scales toward an eventual exit.
If you've ever hired a number two and quietly taken half their job back, this conversation will hit close to home. Megan makes the case that this is one of the most isolating jobs in a company, and that investing in it might be the highest-leverage move an agency owner can make.
Key Bytes
• The second-in-command role isn't about title, it's about who can run the day-to-day while still partnering on where the business is headed.
• The best partnerships aren't built on opposites. They're built on a mostly overlapping Venn diagram, with just a sliver of complementary difference on each side.
• Hiring a "sexy resume" into your number two seat is one of the fastest ways to create friction. That role needs someone who can build the playbook, not someone who needs one already built for them.
• Every founder loves to say "I delegated that." Fewer of them actually let go of the ownership that comes with it.
• If your second-in-command isn't hearing from you, silence reads as failure. Downward communication is what keeps trust intact.
• The real test of whether your business can run without you isn't a weekly report, it's turning the reports off altogether and seeing what happens.
• A second-in-command carries the burden of knowledge with nowhere to put it. That isolation is real, and it deserves the same support founders get from their own peer groups.
• Founders and their number twos are living on two separate islands. The work is building the bridge between them.
Chapters
00:05 Welcome and introducing Megan Long
01:01 Megan's origin story: leading through a tornado and COVID as a COO
03:56 What second-in-command actually means beyond title
06:29 Turning a founder's vision into an operational plan
10:09 Why the best founder-operator partnerships mirror each other
12:18 Why founders struggle to actually delegate
17:06 Building trust through two-way communication
19:17 How the second-in-command role matures over time
21:11 Exit readiness and running the business without the founder
28:26 Rapid fire and where to find Megan
Megan Long is the founder and owner of Second First®, a firm dedicated to the Second-In-Command (COO/Integrator) of entrepreneurial companies. Through national mastermind memberships, one-on-one coaching, and certification programs, Second First® equips right-hand leaders with the confidence, systems, and peer support they need to scale with impact, transforming their partnership with the founder in the process. Megan is also the host of "The Right-Hand Roadmap," the only podcast specifically created for Seconds-In-Command of founder-led small businesses.
An experienced COO and CPA, Megan most recently served as the Second-In-Command of a $10 million IT company. Her leadership has earned recognition including Stevie Woman of the Year, the Nashville Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, the Nashville Emerging Leader Award, and Belmont University’s Top 100 Alumni Entrepreneurs. In addition to her professional work, Megan is also a professional athlete, bringing her discipline and commitment to winning to all aspects of her life.
Contact Megan on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok, take the Second First Assessment here, and tune into the Right Hand Roadmap podcast here.
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Steve Guberman (00:05.808)
Welcome to Agency Bytes. I'm your host, Steve Guberman from Agency Outside, where I help agency owners build the business of their dreams. This week, my guest on Agency Bytes is Megan Long. She's the founder of Second First. They're a firm built specifically for the COOs and integrators who sit right next to the founder. Through masterminds, coaching, and certification programs, she helps right-hand leaders gain the confidence and systems they need to scale alongside the people they serve. Megan's also the host of the right-hand map.
She's a CPA, a former COO of a $10 million IT company and a professional athlete. Way stronger than I will ever be in many ways. So Megan, thanks for joining me. Welcome to the show.
Megan Long (00:46.76)
Yeah, so good to finally sit down with you and have this conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
Steve Guberman (00:50.908)
Yeah, so let's do kind of the first question is always like, give me the backstory. How did you get here and talk about like how you like what you're building and what's going on at second first.
Megan Long (01:01.55)
Yeah, happy to. So I'll give a very brief version of the origin story just because it is relevant. So you mentioned I was a COO of an entrepreneur led company. I was in that seat for 10 years. And I think through that experience, well, 2020, which we all know was a very easy year for business. Yeah, nothing, nothing at all happened. Running the day to day.
Steve Guberman (01:22.802)
Great year. Yeah, nothing happened. Yeah.
Megan Long (01:29.996)
while my entrepreneur had to be on leave for family issues, in February of 2020, our office was hit by a tornado. So took the roof off, we had to implement our disaster recovery plan. We were up and running and serving clients by I think 8 a.m. the next morning. But there were a million little things like, okay, where do our clients mail checks now when we don't have an office? Remote work wasn't really a thing yet. So
Steve Guberman (01:40.84)
Wow.
Megan Long (01:59.482)
navigating all of that in that second-in-command seat. And then a couple short weeks later, COVID shut everything down. So we were in Nashville, Tennessee. So we had clients in the entertainment and tourism space that went out of business almost immediately, having to figure out how to keep everyone on payroll, ripping out non-essential expenses, figuring out the PPP loans. It all was just a lot. And it was
the most lonely and isolating period I think I have ever experienced in an already isolating role. And I was seeing, know, EO chapters were having emergency, all hands on deck, let's co-work this and figure it all out together. And I didn't have that in my role. I was basically peerless. So,
Steve Guberman (02:39.281)
Wow.
Megan Long (02:55.598)
Through that experience, kind of the idea of Second First was born and started with a one-on-one coaching framework for the Seconding Command reporting directly to an entrepreneur and has since grown into now a national mastermind. We partner with EO chapters to run their key executive programs. So it's really just programs specifically for that Seconding Command role to help transform
their partnership with their entrepreneur.
Steve Guberman (03:27.464)
It's such an underserved community. It's crazy. Um, I think I mentioned this to you when we first met that I had, I do masterminds for founders and I was like, oh, we should support second and commands. so the founders would be like, oh, here, you know, here's my second command. should invite them into your mastermind and the second command, command, Why does, why does Joe think I have three hours a month to sit on a call and do anything other than run his business? Like they were almost like not offended, but just like, don't they know I have no time for that. And so the fact that like you've got.
Megan Long (03:36.077)
Yep.
Megan Long (03:43.246)
Yeah.
Megan Long (03:55.928)
Totally.
Steve Guberman (03:56.808)
traction in the space. It's such a, such a needed thing because agencies get to a point where it's like, all right, you need a critical hire. You need that number two person, but then who's supporting them and here you are. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about kind of what second, secondary command means and how is it different from just like a really good ops person or what, what is that the DNA or definition of that person and the impact that they can have on a business.
Megan Long (04:00.376)
Mmm.
Megan Long (04:08.928)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you.
Megan Long (04:18.679)
Yeah.
Megan Long (04:25.356)
Absolutely. So in specifically entrepreneurial companies, I think the title does not matter, especially in like agencies. It could be a great ops person. It could be a director of client delivery. It could be a whole bunch of different things. So we try to be pretty agnostic when it comes to title. We have a lot of COOs. We have a lot of chiefs of staff, directors.
Steve Guberman (04:32.658)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Long (04:54.474)
managers, that kind of thing. It could even be a badass admin, depending on what stage of business you're at. So I think it really comes down to someone that can help run the day to day of the business. And then also someone whose true unique ability is being able to partner with the entrepreneur and say, okay, where are you trying to go? Maybe you don't have an exit.
Steve Guberman (04:59.176)
Interesting.
Megan Long (05:21.262)
plan specifically in mind, but let's start with the five-year plan. And then that person can work backwards and create the action plan to get there this year, this quarter, this month. My friend Hallie Warner, who wrote a book called The Founder and the Force Multiplier, has this brilliant concept called the one to 10 principle, where founders and entrepreneurs and
agency owners, they have an idea that'll be fleshed out to like a one or a two. Like they know what they want it to be, but to get there, that requires, you know, all that admin work or the messy middle. And so the second in command can take it from a one or a two all the way to, let's say a nine. So put together the plan, the resources, the budget, and then hand it back.
to the entrepreneur to take it from a nine to a 10. So they can put their final finessing, still see themselves in the work. So I think that's really the sweet spot for whoever that number two is.
Steve Guberman (06:29.82)
So the mindset is this integrator is, well, guess the step before that is there's the founder who's maybe got an idea of a vision or the concept of a plan, but they don't know how to really build out what that vision looks like. So they're not in an EOS group or in an EO group or they don't have somebody that's pulling them through. And this second in command at whatever level the business is at can come in and say, what is your vision and build out that plan and really operationalize what that take that vision and put it into reality.
Megan Long (06:53.091)
Yeah.
Megan Long (06:59.158)
Yeah, and I would even say, so you mentioned like maybe they're not in like an EO forum or a Vistage group or something like that. I would say and not or. So I think for founders and entrepreneurs having a peer community outside of the organization is hugely beneficial, just like it's hugely beneficial for the integrator to have a peer community outside of the organization. it's that partnership between the two of them in the company.
Steve Guberman (07:09.34)
Okay.
Steve Guberman (07:21.906)
There you go. Yeah.
Megan Long (07:28.482)
that really turns into, the military, there's the concept of a force multiplier, something that allows the weapon or personnel to be more effective with them than without them. So I think this person in your company makes you more effective with them than you would be without them.
Steve Guberman (07:50.44)
So talk about, what size, from an agency standpoint, is the right size to start bringing this person in, the right size to start thinking about, when I get to this point, I'm gonna need this person because, fill in the blank.
Megan Long (07:55.928)
Yeah.
Megan Long (08:07.622)
I think no matter the size, if you have employees, you probably have someone in the company that if I say second in command, you think that person. So I don't think that there's a revenue threshold before you can start thinking about what this partnership looks like. Some of the best COOs started somewhere else down in the organization and just were identified. Yes, exactly.
Steve Guberman (08:17.192)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (08:34.653)
grew up.
Megan Long (08:38.213)
Honestly, where I see the most friction and the most failure is when a founder, you know, they think they have to hire into this role to mature as a company. So they see a super sexy resume, a fortune 500 experience. Oh, this person was the VP of operations at, you know, this massive global agency. So surely they'll be able to come in and help us and it falls so flat.
Like that is someone that needs a playbook. They need structure. They need systems. So yeah, I think just someone that can relate to you as an entrepreneur, someone that gets excited about the same things. A lot of times it's shown visually as like puzzle pieces or a yin and a yang, or like you have to find your opposite. And we study the partnership between
founders or entrepreneurs and this role. And we find the most successful partnerships are when it's almost a completely overlapping Venn diagram, where there's just like a small sliver on each side where you like have your strengths and weaknesses that are opposite that you're complimentary. But for the most part, you're very similar. You're similar in personality and in values and in how you like to work. So
I feel like I'm not totally answering your question.
Steve Guberman (10:09.586)
Well, no, because I want to ask about that because that to me is the opposite of what, like, I mean, kind of think that it needs to be a complete compliment, right? And you're saying almost, almost a mirror overlap. And so what are the areas outside of that overlap that are essential differentiators between the founder and what this right-hand person, the second-hand command is bringing to the table.
Megan Long (10:31.306)
Yeah, so I think it comes down to complementary skill sets or what drains your energy gives the other person energy. And I think this is where, especially in like the creative industry or like if someone is an entrepreneur but also really loves the work they do, there can be pressure sometimes, especially with
Steve Guberman (10:40.488)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (10:57.053)
Yeah.
Megan Long (10:59.374)
I love these OS systems. I love EOS and Pinnacle and scaling up and all of that. But I think there's a lot of pressure for an agency owner or an entrepreneur to think, I have to just be a CEO and I have to just be a visionary and I have to just sit in this seat up at the top of the org chart and delegate or abdicate everything else. And that's how you create a job you hate. That's how...
Steve Guberman (11:13.052)
Mm.
Megan Long (11:27.726)
at least from like our members and clients, that's when their entrepreneur starts to feel put out to pasture in their own company and they start breaking shit to like, be like, see, this is why I have to be here every day. And it drives our members crazy. So I think role clarity is where it starts. And it's really from the agency owner's perspective, what would I come to work every single day and absolutely love my job. And if that's client work,
Awesome. Find a way to incorporate that. Like it's really crafting your dream job and then working with whoever that operations leader or integrator or second in command is to say, now how does your role compliment that to create one complete like leader of the organization here?
Steve Guberman (11:59.57)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (12:18.044)
Love that. So I'm going to tell a little story about a current client that's going to lead to a question. So, so they run, they run a design agency. They've got about 20 retainer clients. They've grown amazingly with zero effort. all like, Hey, you should talk to so-and-so. And so it's effortless growth. and the founder just was, they came to me working six days a week, a thousand hours a week. I'm burned out. So we put a lot of things in place to get that right size. So it wasn't like a job that was killing them.
Megan Long (12:21.516)
I would love that.
Steve Guberman (12:47.208)
two years in, was like, all right, I'm doing the kind of work I want to be doing because to your point, I don't want to just be doing account management or biz dev. I'm a designer. I want to be doing design work. let's build the business and the, and the roles and the systems to get all that other stuff off your plate. And it's crept back on and they onboarded their, their second in command, two months ago. And it's going so well. So this person has operationalized the business for them. However.
Megan Long (13:10.913)
Okay.
Steve Guberman (13:17.266)
The founder keeps, and so great success across the board, the business is doing really well, but the founder keeps pulling things back in. And so you mentioned the word delegation and so many founders are like, I'm going to delegate this, I'm going to delegate this, but they still refuse to like let go and keep pulling things back off to the point that they have a PM that we put a plan in place just this morning of they need to let the PM go. They're not being effective. And this ops person would fill the role perfectly to bring that on.
So the founder was like, I'll just, I'll do that temporarily and I'll do that. I said, no, you get rid of this person. Nothing falls back on your plate. That's the plan we need to build. So why is it founders are always pulling things back on their plate? What's the delegation? what's the challenge with delegation? And I'm leading you cause I have a whole workshop on this, but I want to know your perspective on why founders suck at delegating.
Megan Long (13:55.587)
Right.
Megan Long (14:10.85)
The fact that you led with, have a workshop on this. feel like now I just want to like geek out and talk about all these things with you. So we...
Steve Guberman (14:16.944)
let's go.
Megan Long (14:23.992)
I want to rewind every area of friction in the organization, especially when it comes to the entrepreneur and their second in command, I believe is a symptom of something else behind it. And usually it kind of falls into one of like three or four different categories, starting with communication. So the second in command role is usually a very high performing professional. You do not.
get into that role if you are not just an incredible professional. So there is a tendency to, if someone delegates something, like if the entrepreneur delegates something, they go, yep, boss, got it, they go do it. Done. They're used to just GSD, right? There's no feedback mechanism to inform the entrepreneur again of either status or that was done and that was finished.
from an entrepreneur's perspective, usually if I'm not hearing anything, my default is nothing's happening. So that is when they are making dinner going, I wonder if that ever happened, or they're trying to sleep that night and they're going, I wonder if they ever did that that I had told them to do. Downward communication, so that's what that is, means...
Steve Guberman (15:33.17)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (15:44.712)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Long (15:51.128)
they're still holding onto the ownership of the thing that they delegated. We want that second in command to practice upward communication where they are so in sync with their entrepreneur that they are proactively pulling things off of their plate that they know that are keeping them up at night.
Steve Guberman (16:07.962)
And communicating back up that, Hey, here's a status update or like on an L 10 meeting or on a whatever. Here's the update. Okay.
Megan Long (16:14.99)
100%. So having a agreed upon mechanism to keep them informed. Another symptom of this is usually an entrepreneur will have like one or two people in the organization that they trust. They just know we'll always get something done. And so they become the go to. And so now they're delegating around
their second in command to their favorite people that they know will always do things except now those favorite people are getting burnt out. They're doing work that aren't in their job description and you're giving them a flight risk because they feel like now they have multiple bosses, they're overwhelmed. So there's like this whole snowball effect of kind of what you're describing but this is what I mean by everything is a symptom and the goal is to figure out, okay, what is this a symptom of and how do we alleviate this?
Steve Guberman (17:06.044)
Yeah, I've, I've always seen it as the inability to delegate is a lack of trust and somebody will dissect that and be like, there's a childhood trauma there. And so we can go back 30 years and that's, that's where the, the issue stems from and how do we treat it today is learning to trust with better communication and pull some Brene Brown in and say, all right, your job, if you're delegating somebody and saying here, I want you to run with this, take it autonomously.
Megan Long (17:18.093)
Yeah.
Steve Guberman (17:34.81)
What do you need from me to clear the path for you for success or let's talk about what success looks like. And so I love those kind of like questioning mechanisms to help number two or anybody who's doing something that you're delegating to. But then to your point, like let it go, trust that they're going to get it done. So long as you've got the cadence of how are we doing with this, this, and this. So when I am cooking or mowing the lawn or doing the thing, I'm not like, dude, did Susan do that thing I asked? And I'm texting them at three in the morning. Cause that's not cool.
Megan Long (17:42.475)
Yeah.
Megan Long (18:02.674)
No, and it is up to the integrator or the second in command to be the one to build that trust. So I heard even just this weekend, all trust is self-trust, going back to kind of what you're talking about, if all you know is this role, if all you know is hustling, if all you know is, you know, that's your nervous system. So you have to get
Steve Guberman (18:10.056)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (18:16.68)
Hmm.
Megan Long (18:31.118)
comfortable as you kind of grow into what this next phase looks like for you as an agency owner or as a founder. But it's up to your operator to be the one to build that trust with you. So I think that's part of our coaching as well.
Steve Guberman (18:38.621)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Guberman (18:48.616)
So I want to like do like an Ascension plan with two questions. And so the second question is it going to be about M &A. But the first question is more about like what, you know, is the second in command, is it a COO, an integrator, an ops director, or a really good PM, or you even mentioned like a strong admin. Like what's the true definition of what this role is to take so much off the founder's plate? Because, all right, so I'll let you answer that and then I'll give you the because part of that.
Megan Long (19:17.034)
Yeah, think so. For me, it's not that the role should be a membrane. So we're really careful that it's not, you're not keeping everything from bubbling up to the entrepreneur. I made that mistake in my career so many times as COO. I thought that, you know, if I was doing my job well, I had to
Steve Guberman (19:25.041)
Okay.
Megan Long (19:41.806)
keep all the bad news, keep everything, all the problems from even reaching him. And I got myself into so much trouble doing that. So no, and it's a continuum. I think the important thing is that that role is always going to be a continuum. So it starts with being very task-oriented. So that's probably like delegating to-dos to an admin. And then it turns into managing
Steve Guberman (19:50.024)
You're not there to insulate. You're there to communicate and work through together. Yeah.
Megan Long (20:10.766)
people. So now you're taking some of those direct reports off of the owner's plate. Then it grows into, now we're going to like your client that you were talking about, he came in and operationalized and systematized a bunch of things. That's creating process and structure and maturing the organization. And then kind of the final boss of the second-in-command role is being a true
thought partner, you know, getting to play devil's advocate with some of these big picture ideas and creating the vision together and saying, all right, if we want an exit in five years, you mentioning &A, how what's the what's the path to get there? How can we put this together? So as your agency grows, the the scale and scope of this role will grow to and you hope that through coaching or through
just experience the right person will grow along with you. It doesn't always, but you
Steve Guberman (21:11.452)
Yeah. But also, and this is going to divert from my second question, but also, and you said it before, like that super sexy resume lands and this person has this experience and this experience. like somebody growing in the business from like, all right, we were making a quarter million. Now we're making a million. mean, like that person growing unless they get outside support, they're living in this bubble and all they know is what they've learned from this little like grassroots farm table, agency to now this like three, $5 million powerhouse agency. need outside influences to help them.
level up what they know or that sexy, you know, corporate fortune 500, whatever Ogilvy, uh, resume is going to look really attractive. Like that person has scaled on that level. So outside support is vital. M and a twist of the question is I work with a lot of founders who come to me and they say, you've exited your agency. want to exit mine. And so what does exit readiness look like? And we get them on a map and on a path and they, and they do this work.
Megan Long (21:47.714)
Right.
Megan Long (21:54.402)
Yeah, absolutely.
Megan Long (22:04.194)
Hmm.
Steve Guberman (22:11.144)
Put the number two in place, get out of the day to day, reduce their owner concentration. Now they've just got a really well-run business. That's a success story. Like I could preach that all day long. And I love that. The other side is I'm out of the day to day. Now I can focus on doing programmatic acquisitions to grow the business at massive scale. The person that you're talking about this number two needs to.
Megan Long (22:18.989)
Yeah.
Steve Guberman (22:38.95)
I guess more of a true or false or your perspective. Can they run the business in the founder's absence while they're focusing on other big picture executions or playing in other spaces or like, is that the path for them or is it better to keep that person as number two and put another CEO in place?
Megan Long (22:56.43)
I see it being extremely successful as long as you're able to, like you mentioned, have a personal board of directors and a mastermind like second first, or you have a coach or something like that. I do see it working really well when the second in command is able to just run the day to day almost autonomously as long as there is a, let's say like a weekly one-on-one between them and the entrepreneur.
you tell me if you agree, but right now, especially I am seeing a lot of business owners in their, let's say mid fifties that are having that moment where they're like, shit, I don't want to do this another 20 years. And I haven't put much thought into succession planning or developing who could do this. So in our coaching, usually
that will be kind of like the plan to begin with. And so like one client, for example, we're testing it where the entrepreneur is going on a six week vacation, just time away. aside from, let's say a company runs on like EOS or some other OS like that, that's not sufficient in those situations to keep an entrepreneur informed. So we put together
a weekly Friday CEO report that the second-in-command sends them just so they know what's going on weekly. It has all of the need-to-knows. And yeah, he's just been kind of off attending different conferences and going on vacations. And then after that six-week period, we'll assess and be like, all right, what broke down? What did we not think about? What...
what do we need to get really clear on like decision rights, you know, even down to a dollar threshold, like what decisions can be made without you.
Steve Guberman (24:50.568)
Mm-hmm.
Decision tree, yeah. I would argue that that's almost the right experiment. The true experiment is no weekly reports. Don't contact me unless the building's burning down. Because that's true, like autonomy and operational capabilities. And if I, as a CEO, get a report on a Friday, I'm like, I don't know, this looks like it's trending in the wrong direction. I expect that person should pick up that trend and correction course. Or, you know what mean, something along those lines.
Megan Long (25:01.026)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Megan Long (25:15.278)
Hmm.
Megan Long (25:20.142)
Yeah. Right.
Steve Guberman (25:22.16)
send me to the moon for a month and let's see how the business grows without me. You know, and I've told the story a million times. like, when I had my agency, it was like vacation year after year. And one year suddenly, you know, we put systems in place and suddenly it didn't like, like it ran fine without me. There was no contraction. And then next year it grew without me, like they closed a piece of business somehow. And so that's, it was only a week, but to me that's like, can it run without you? Awesome. Can it grow without you? Like,
Megan Long (25:25.998)
I love that.
Megan Long (25:40.451)
Yeah.
Megan Long (25:48.845)
Yeah.
Steve Guberman (25:50.704)
These things are running while you're off completely disconnected. Now, most founders don't want to be fully disconnected. But again, if this business is running and I'm off doing &A or I'm off doing my side hobby of running a coffee shop, like sure, you're still going to give me weekly check-ins and I'm still going to want to know the state of my, you know, I've poured my life into this thing, 30 years or whatever it looks like.
Megan Long (26:08.279)
Yeah.
Megan Long (26:14.574)
Totally. Well, and there's a lot of other cases for exactly what you're describing. another client that I can think of, the founder wrote a book and wants to start building her personal brand and do speaking on stages and be more of like a keynote thought leader. So, you know, she doesn't necessarily want to exit her business, but she just has kind of more dreams for herself. So.
That's the motivation to get that second in command running the organization.
Steve Guberman (26:46.77)
Yeah. And, and unless like the book is all about pottery and, it's not tied at all to the agency, like that's an elevation factor that helps the agency. Right. So you want to get them out on the road, go be a spectacle on stage and drive more business to us. Yeah. Yeah. Give me the support for that exciting stuff. listen, man, I can't preach enough how much support number two's need. There's enough CEOs that don't invest in themselves, but
Megan Long (26:55.214)
Totally.
Megan Long (27:02.848)
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Steve Guberman (27:14.62)
Darn it, invest in your second-in-commands, invest in your team, give them the support they need because they're operating. Just like a founder feels like I'm alone on this island, number two feels the exact same way. The rest of the team, not so much. There's other designers, other account managers, other project managers, or whatever. There's so little, that number two person, right-hand person, second-in-command, whatever you want to call them, they're on an island by themselves also. It's like founder, second-in-command, they're on two separate islands. Maybe they're crossing back and forth. Yeah.
Megan Long (27:15.299)
Yeah.
Megan Long (27:23.694)
Yeah.
Megan Long (27:37.048)
Yeah.
Megan Long (27:42.478)
Two separate islands, yes. Well, and I think from my experience, I had the burden of knowledge. So I knew everything the entrepreneur knew, down to cash and all of that. Couldn't talk to the leadership team about it. I was always spinning things from like a either, God, it's not manipulation. It's like influence in a certain direction, right? You're trying to always like spin things.
Steve Guberman (27:44.721)
Yeah.
Steve Guberman (27:50.919)
Yeah.
Steve Guberman (28:06.109)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Long (28:09.25)
But then I also couldn't come home and talk to my husband about some of these things either because he would be like, my gosh, is the business in trouble? Do I need to worry? So yeah, it's extremely isolating for both the entrepreneur. So thank you for the work that you do. And then for the second in command is why we exist.
Steve Guberman (28:26.63)
I love it. All right, let me hit you with a couple of quick rapid fire questions. What is something that you are binging these days? A show, a book, a podcast, something that you just can't get enough of?
Megan Long (28:30.542)
Okay.
Megan Long (28:38.158)
Gosh, something I'm binging. I don't know about binging, but this is the year that I'm definitely trying to add more whimsy to my life. Well, I retired from professional bodybuilding and did that maybe like, let's say three years ago and never replaced it with another hobby. So right now I'm trying to just like,
Steve Guberman (28:50.694)
Okay, what's that look like?
Megan Long (29:07.404)
you know, decompress from the grind of entrepreneurship by like watercolor, reading gothy little horror books, you know, like all of the things.
Steve Guberman (29:14.056)
Perfect. Yeah.
Steve Guberman (29:19.282)
Horror books or horror books?
Megan Long (29:21.358)
Horror books. Yeah.
Steve Guberman (29:22.6)
Horror, okay, all right, wanted to clarify. is a, AI cannot be the answer here. What is a gadget or a tool or something you recently integrated into your life that you look back and you're like, how the heck did I live without this thing?
Megan Long (29:36.908)
Yeah, I'm a little bit of an AI hater, so it would not be that answer. Tool that I have integrated into my life.
Megan Long (29:51.722)
Man, I should have been more prepared for this. Literally, I'll go backwards. think our membership community runs on a software platform called Circle. That truly is just such a game changer. I think just having a national community as well as all of our expert video library cohorts, just everything all in one place on one platform has been really great.
Steve Guberman (29:53.916)
You can't be, it's why it's called rapid fire.
Steve Guberman (30:21.19)
Yeah, I've launched a circle. I've been in part of circles. I've seen the value of it. The community is everything. So I love that. And then finally, what is an invaluable piece of business advice that you wish you knew 10 years ago?
Megan Long (30:26.027)
Yeah.
Megan Long (30:35.998)
Just that you don't have to go at it alone regardless of your role. think whether it's a formal community, even just informal, I kind of had this aha over the weekend where I was like, why am I not finding other people that do exactly what I do and have an abundance mindset and we just meet once a quarter, right? Like I think that there's such
such transformational impact of having those conversations. And even in our cohorts, you could have a company that has a million dollars in revenue and a company that has $30 million in revenue. And the $30 million revenue company is learning things from the smaller company on how to be scrappy and creative and not so bogged down by process. So yeah, I just think community in general is definitely like such a hack.
Steve Guberman (31:28.636)
Always community over competition 100 % wins every single time. Amazing. Megan, thank you so much folks. Be sure to check out second first amazing community resources coaching masterminds events, right? You all do events too.
Megan Long (31:31.66)
that. Yep.
Megan Long (31:43.66)
We do a retreat once a year, yeah, here in Nashville. we also have, so if anything resonated about the partnership aspect of an entrepreneur and operator, we also have a free assessment for your listeners at secondfirst.com slash assessment. It's the entrepreneur operator sync score. They get a full diagnostic report on how to take where you're at right now in your partnership and kind of take it to that next level. So would love to offer that to your folks.
Steve Guberman (31:45.138)
There you go. Yeah.
Steve Guberman (32:11.602)
amazing. I will make sure we link to that wherever we link to things when we link things out. So thank you so much. Can you tell how much I got it dialed in? So involved. All right. Thank you so much. I'm super grateful for your time, Megan. It's great to see you. Thank you.
Megan Long (32:16.43)
Perfect. You're so involved. Steve, thank you so much. Yes, amazing.