Beginning in business ownership often looks like the owner in all roles. You can grow your business that way, but you cannot scale your business that way.
There is a difference between growth and scale in your business. GROWTH in your business is more clients, money, inventory, etc… SCALE is when your business can handle growth with excellence because it is rooted in repeatable methods supported by systems and resources.
Part of the resources needed for scale are people resources; known in corporate America as “human resources”. Having other people as a part of your business takes you from being the only one driving your vision forward to a team driving your vision forward. How much faster could you get to a location if you had a team of horses instead of walking? Lesson #1 The goal of having a team of horses is NOT so that you can hold on to them and try to walk with them. Instead, it is so that you can steer the team doing the work of getting you to the goal. I hope that gave you a great visual so that you understand that as the CEO, you are not the work horse.
As the CEO, you can sit inside the wagon, wave, and politic to the crowds to build like, know, and trust to attract clients. But your most important part is one that no one else can fill: the visionary. Lesson #2 There are other roles that actually run the operation of the vision. Your COO uses the CEO’s desired destination (vision) to create the road map as the plan for the company, then keeps a high-level eye on the direction and whether it follows the vision. Your Business Manager has the reins and manages the horses following the map. The Business Manager is in the thick of things driving the team and other resources to follow the plan for the vision.
But let’s go backwards a bit. Lesson #3 Before running the horses they are equipped with a saddle, reins, horseshoes, etc… Before letting your team run, you should equip them with training, processes, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
If you would like to talk about the operations roles you need to plan and drive your CEO vision, let’s talk. ShaCannon.info/talk