[EO Arizona] Building Scalable Businesses Through Documentation and Delegation With Chris Ronzio

Chris Ronzio is the Founder and CEO of Trainual, a SaaS platform that helps small and growing businesses document, organize, and share their processes, roles, and training materials. Before launching Trainual, he built and sold a national video production company and led an operations consulting firm focused on business efficiency. Chris also hosts the Organize Chaos podcast and authored The Business Playbook, which offers practical guidance for building scalable, process-driven companies.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:19] Chris Ronzio shares why he began writing The Business Playbook before launching Trainual
[5:50] The early struggles selling only three lifetime deals of Trainual
[6:28] Customer feedback that shaped Trainual’s accountability and reporting features
[7:40] Building role-based training bundles and interactive knowledge checks
[8:21] Key roles Chris prioritized when relaunching Trainual in 2018
[11:21] Scaling past 100 employees while sustaining company culture
[13:56] How the MAP system helped Chris strengthen his leadership and management skills
[23:59] Positioning Trainual between LMS, wiki, and knowledge base tools
[25:05] Chris explains how the Delegation Planner helps leaders map roles and responsibilities
[43:08] How the Phoenix Suns and Mercury use Trainual for seasonal staff training
[46:45] Hospitality and global adoption of Trainual across industries and countries

In this episode…

Scaling a business often feels like juggling people management, processes, and growth all at once. Many entrepreneurs get stuck doing everything themselves, which stalls progress and burns out leadership. How can leaders create systems that free up their time while empowering teams to succeed?

According to Chris Ronzio, a seasoned entrepreneur and bestselling author, the key is documenting and delegating with clarity. He highlights that every business has a unique playbook made up of its brand, products, policies, and processes, and codifying this knowledge ensures consistency across teams. The result is stronger accountability, smoother onboarding, and the ability to scale without bottlenecking growth. Chris explains how early struggles shaped his focus on building tools for role-based training, feedback loops, and culture-driven leadership. He emphasizes that creating repeatable systems is what allows founders to step back and focus on long-term strategy.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Chris Ronzio, Founder and CEO of Trainual, to talk about building scalable businesses through documentation and delegation. Chris shares the lessons from his early product launch struggles, explains how customer feedback shaped Trainual, and discusses the importance of core values in scaling culture. Chris also gives insights on partnerships, leadership development, and empowering teams to take ownership.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

“I saw everyone has this formula for who they are, what they do, and how they do it.”
“I had three friends that agreed to buy me my tool like a lifetime deal.”
“The feedback was that they wanted the accountability of like, you know, I hire people.”
“It’s hard to manage people if you didn’t articulate it or explain it correctly.”
“We’ve always been really tight, and so growing up we were never really competitive.”

Action Steps

Document your company’s processes and policies: Capturing workflows ensures consistency, reduces mistakes, and makes onboarding far more efficient.
Delegate responsibilities with clear accountability: Creating ownership empowers employees, improves performance, and frees leaders to focus on strategic growth.
Build role-based training playbooks: Tailoring content by position equips each team member with relevant knowledge for faster ramp-up.
Reinforce culture through core values: Embedding values into daily operations sustains alignment, motivation, and collaboration as the company scales.
Invest in leadership and peer learning groups: Surrounding yourself with experienced mentors accelerates decision-making and strengthens long-term business growth.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:12

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here cohost of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders in EO. Also. Chris. So I always before I formally introduce Chris of Trainual, you can check him out at trainual.com, some other episodes people can check out of the podcast. So I had creating heart centered experiences with Joey Goone.

This actually relates to Chris’ past business. Joey goes around, he does a lot of the EO events. So I met him at one of the big EO events like Central Region events, and he was running all of the video crew stuff. And so just an awesome guy. And so I had him on the podcast.

I had “Delegate, Elevate, Transform: Unlocking EOS® With Kevin Hundal”. Speaking of Gino, Wickman was also on the podcast of traction. If people have heard of EOS and Traction. I had Boost your sales team’s productivity with Robert Hartline. He started he CEO of Call Proof.

He’s in Nashville and he built up a chain of cell phone stores. Chris to like $100 million business then sold it. And then he also had because he wasn’t busy enough, a separate SaaS company called Call Proof. So those are all interesting interviews. Check them out on Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast.

And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do this in two ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, accountability, and the full execution.

Number two, we’re also an easy button for companies gifting. So we make gifting and staying top of mind for clients, partners, prospects and even staff. Simple, easy. And it’s important to us for it to be affordable. You just give us a list of your people.

We do everything else and, you know, create the gifts and everything’s has your logo on it and everything like that. So, Chris, we kind of call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background, that make it stress free for a company to build amazing relationships. And for me, I found no better way over the past 15 years to profile the people and companies I admire on the podcast and send them sweet treats in the mail so you can go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com. I’m super excited about today’s interview. Not just because he’s good at pop shop, but because Chris is the Founder and CEO of Trainual.

Trainual is a platform which transforms how businesses onboard train and scale their teams. Okay. He’s a lifelong entrepreneur, and he helps leaders document and delegate effectively. He’s also the best selling author of the business book The Business Playbook: How to Document and Delegate What You Do So Your Company Can Grow Beyond You. So big shout out to Mike Caito who introduced us who runs MAP.

So Chris, thanks for joining me.

Chris Ronzio: 03:08

Thanks for having me. You talked to some cool people. I feel honored to be here.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:12

You’re cool to hold up the book for a second and talk about I mean, you’re busy enough. Why’d you write the book?

Chris Ronzio: 03:19

So I actually started writing the book before founding training. I was working one on one with a lot of entrepreneurs behind the scenes in their business and kind of picking apart their operations. And I saw everyone has this formula for who they are, what they do and how they do it in their business. And you’d package together your brand, your products or services, your stories, your policies, your processes, your people. And all of this became like your company’s guide, your manual, your playbook.

And so I started working on this book. And then I thought, you know, let me push this software out there. Let me focus on that. And I waited until we had a few thousand companies in the tool to validate. What are people actually putting in their playbook?

And then circled back and said, okay, let me make the playbook for how to document and grow your business. What is everything you should probably write down. And that was the project.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:10

Talk about, you know, early on we’ll get to the I have questions about the video crew days. That seems like a a really hard business because there’s so many logistics involved. And I think you had, I don’t know, 300 or so projects or videographers like running around doing different events and you eventually sold it, but then you started doing consulting and you, you know, you’re like, okay, how do I make this super sticky? And let’s build a SaaS for the consulting business? And initially, it didn’t get exactly the traction that you wanted.

Can you talk about the early days of training with your consulting business?

Chris Ronzio: 04:46

Yeah, so I had sold my video company and we can dive more into that later. But I had sold the video company I was consulting for entrepreneurs. I started this little newsletter and I was putting out tips on how to make your business more efficient. And then I had this idea for Train You’ll. And the more I thought about it, the more I started to build it out.

I thought, okay, this is a goldmine. Like I’ve got all these people paying me big cheques to do the services in their business. Of course, if I have a $99 product, I’m going to sell it hundreds or thousands of times, like no brainer. And so I built this whole marketing sequence, and I put together these videos, and I read books on how to do a big product launch. And I blasted it out to my newsletter list and said, guess what?

I’m a software mogul. I have this like software tool. Everybody’s going to want it. And it was like crickets. I had three friends that agreed to buy me my my tool like a lifetime deal for the tool, and at that time I just realized, like, if.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:41

Only they had Product Hunt at the time, you would have sold a lot more. But those lifetime deals are killer, right? Whoever’s on it. Yeah, they still got a great deal.

Chris Ronzio: 05:50

They still have it. So. So I sold three. And then I thought, I guess I should just go back to consulting. And so I was just kind of on the shelf and it became something that I gave to every consulting client I worked with.

And they would get it for free for six months, and then they would start paying for it if they wanted after that. And little by little, we built up a few dozen companies. And that was kind of my R&D talk about.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:13

What was the feedback you were getting early on that helped shape what we see now with Trainual. And by the way, if people are listening to the audio, I’m going to pull up the site just so people can can see that as well. But what was the feedback you were getting that helped shape it?

Chris Ronzio: 06:28

The feedback was that they wanted the accountability of like, you know, I hire people, I tell them things, but I don’t get any validation that they’ve read it, that they’ve seen it. You know, I might send a Google doc, I might send an email, but I didn’t have that feedback loop. And so early on, the thing we added was just that ability for someone to acknowledge something. And it saves the time and date stamp. And you’ve got a basic report that, yes, they did see the thing that you want them to see because it’s hard to hold people accountable.

It’s hard to manage people if if it’s on you, if you didn’t articulate it or explain it correctly. But if you can close that loop and say, yes, here’s where I showed you. Here’s when I showed you, here’s when you acknowledged it. You can be a better manager. And so that was one of the first things.

After that it was, how do I bundle together training by someone’s position in the business. You know, like I have a different set of things that I want our sales reps to know and a different set for our receptionist and a different set for my assistant. And so bundling and rolls was one of the early things. And then it was.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:34

You could see this here. If you go to product, you can kind of probably see like here’s the roles and Responsibilities piece.

Chris Ronzio: 07:40

Yeah yeah yeah. It’s still in there. And then it was you know beyond just Static kind of text. How do I make this more interactive? And so how do I we embed videos and make little knowledge checks.

And so those first couple years were really iterative. It was just getting feedback from my consulting clients, making the tool a little bit better one year at a time, and then got to a place where we decided to try to relaunch it. And that was in 2018.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:07

You know, I know that initially you kind of bootstrapped it and invested like $10,000 and getting it running. What were some of the key roles you had to put in place when you relaunched it, and you started having customers on it?

Chris Ronzio: 08:21

When I relaunched it 2018, so I had the little consulting firm. We had a few people in our consulting firm that just kept supporting the customers, and then me and my assistant or project manager, chief of staff kind of like do it all sort of person. She was the first one that filled every seat as soon as it was, you know, brand new. It was like she was the first customer support person. She was the first salesperson doing demos.

She was the person that issued refunds. She was the person updating the blog post after that. My brother actually moved out to Arizona, where I am for a couple months, and he took on a marketing role to create videos and testimonials and case studies and a sales deck and all those collateral type things that we didn’t have. And after a couple of months, it was only meant to be a just a project. He got so into it that he wanted this to be his full time thing.

So almost eight years later, he’s he’s still our CMO and CRO in the company. After that, we brought our full lead, our lead engineer into the mix. And so we needed someone to oversee the product and fix the bugs and, and come out with new features. And then we hired a sales rep, somebody that could talk to customers. So those were the first five roles.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:41

Talk about your brother and you working together because you even worked together in the video days too. What are some things that you learned by working with your brother? Like things that, you know, complement each other, things that you overlap on?

Chris Ronzio: 09:55

Well, we know each other so well. We’ve always been really tight. We are three and a half years apart. And so growing up we were never really competitive. We were always complementary.

You know, like I played the traditional sports basketball, baseball, football. He was like the X-Games, you know, skateboarding and snowboarding and ice climbing and that sort of thing. We always had different interests. And so I was the operational systems processes kind of guy, and he was the brand and storytelling kind of guy. And so in the video business, he was just like my kid brother that I would tag along and, you know, run cables and play with the audio switcher boards and eventually started production managing events for us and then ran our LA office, and when I sold that business, he went and worked for a marketing firm in Boston.

And so he had that marketing expertise. And so it was just perfect to to reunite. We complemented each other well. I think what makes it work is that it was never a, you know, 50 over 50. Let’s just start this.

You do this half, I do this half. It was like, here is your explicit role. Here’s the position that I’d be hiring for. Here’s the salary I’d be hiring for. Here’s what the market value of that is.

Do you want that position. And so we were very clear about that from the get go.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:10

You know as your team grew over time, I think at this point you’re maybe over 100 people. What are some of the things you did to sustain culture?

Chris Ronzio: 11:21

Yeah, we’re almost 140 today and culture has been consistently driven by our values. But the way that we maintain culture, I’d say, changes every quarter, every six months. Like we’re always changing the frequency of our all hands meetings. The way we the questions in our engagement surveys, the way we do town hall questions like your business is constantly changing and at different sizes. Things that used to work won’t work anymore.

Like for instance, when we had, you know, ten people, 15 people, we’d stand around in the same room and do our all hands meeting when we’ve got people across different time zones. Now, you want to be more mindful of what time of day you’re doing that, and are you recording it? And how do you communicate to people that are out on PTO? And so it takes just a constant intentionality. And I think that stems from our values.

And so, you know, our values at Trainual, we can go through these in depth if you want to. But first make ideas happen. It’s all about execution. And like, you know, a good idea is one thing. But actually like taking action is, is a different thing.

So make ideas happen. Everyone has a key is about ownership and about how everybody can play a part. And we’re not victims. You know, we actually do things here. No red tape is, you know, there shouldn’t be anything in the way of you being efficient and productive.

And if if a process exists and it’s not benefiting the business, then we should tear that down and start over. Show up. Ready? That’s about being professional and not wasting each other’s time. You know, doing the homework before meetings, collect experiences.

This is like we’re all people outside of work and we value, you know, growing and pushing each other and learning things that we can bring back as a, as a collective. And then the last one is carry the groceries. And this throws back to when I was 14, bagging groceries at my local supermarket and how I used to carry groceries out to someone’s trunk for them. And it was that like little unexpected thing that just made their day. And so by going above your role, what’s expected, we can help customers.

We can help each other. And so those six things are just at the core of how the business runs. And we iterate on how it shows up through the, the processes every, you know, all the time.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:43

I love that Chris talk about what’s helped you as a leader. So I mentioned EO, I mentioned MAP. Talk about MAP for a second. I know we were introduced by Mike Caito.

Chris Ronzio: 13:56

Yeah. Shout out to Mike. So MAP is a incredible system for teaching managers, especially new managers, how to be managers. You know how how to be self-aware, how to know their limitations, their opportunities, how to have a cadence for how you look at the vital factors in your business and the, you know, the key metrics in your company. And so I went through map while I was in my consulting business, and it was really interesting because I was helping other businesses with their structure, but I didn’t have a ton of my own in my consulting firm.

And so turning that lens in and looking at myself really made a huge difference in my consulting business and how that started to grow. So I highly recommend MAP. They’re a great partner of ours. For me, going to workshops like that immersive kind of workshops, whether it’s MAP, EO, you know, learning days, I’m in YPO, I’ve been in, in SaaS, different groups. Being in a community with people that are a step or two ahead of you is, is like, to me, so inspiring and so motivating.

And it’s like that story of the, you know, the, the four minute mile, like when you see somebody else can do something, you’re like, okay, I guess I can do it too. And so I think it’s so important to put yourself in rooms and groups that are immersive, that show you examples of progress that’s beyond you.

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Search Interviews:

[EO Arizona] Building Scalable Businesses Through Documentation and Delegation With Chris Ronzio

[EO Arizona] Building Scalable Businesses Through Documentation and Delegation With Chris Ronzio

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

In this episode…

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

Action Steps

Sponsor for this episode…

#1 Our Predictable Podcast ROI Program

#2 Our Comprehensive Corporate Gifting Program

Episode Transcript:

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