You Can't Scale Busy - A tale of Wearing Too Many Hats
In the beginning stages of helping our clients, we find that many people in the business are wearing multiple hats. That's fine for an entrepreneurial company in its early years -- it's likely that it's even necessary. The owner is juggling sales and marketing, accounting and tax preparation, answering phones, AND delivery of the product or service. It's run them ragged, but they wear it as a badge of honor. It's a well-deserved badge. Running a small business is hard work!
When it's just gotten too busy for one person to handle, that owner puts an ad out for a new hire. Peruse through the job boards and you'll see many postings of small-medium companies looking for "entrepreneurial mindset", "ability to multitask", "take ownership", "go getter", "fast paced environment", "self-managed". We've all seen those job postings. It's rare that you actually find employees who fit all of that and take the job with the budget you had in mind. It's even rarer for those employees to stay when the business is just busy.
What many business owners try to do in growth stages is replicate themselves. Ask any busy entrepreneur if you can help them, and you'll likely hear, "Not unless you've figured out how to clone people. I need another me".
But scaling a successful business isn't about replicating what you're doing. To stay with the visual, your hats are getting bigger, but you can't just cut them in half and expect someone to wear all the hats you were and do the job in the same way. It's about defining the many hats being worn by the owner and key employees that are overworked, documenting how to do that work, and finally, finding a person to fill that role.
Sometimes a business kind of does that. They might start by hiring a bookkeeping service or a salesperson (the two most hated hats by most entrepreneurs), but the owner simply takes that hat off and throws it away, expecting the new hire to just do their job. Many an exasperated salesperson is out there thinking, "I was hired, but I'm not really sure what to do." Many aggravated managers are out there thinking, "Why aren't they just doing their job right?"
Accountability Chart vs Organizational Chart
To ask an employees to take ownership without having ownership is really an unfair expectation of an employee. Your employee isn't an owner. What you really need is accountability. You get accountability by having documented policies and procedures and clear ways that those are measured. It's about having roles that people are accountable for, not direct reports.
Scaling a business isn't a people problem, it's a systems problem. If you want to scale your business, it's important to create systems and processes that lower the scope of knowledge and skill that is required of an employee. Trust the process. Rely on the process. Train the process. Then, measure your results.
Automate, Delegate, Cut. As you build and document your processes, you'll have a visual representation of the various tasks that are carried out in your business. Take that opportunity to make your business more efficient.
Automate the tasks that make sense to do so. Use systems like Calendly or Bookings to schedule appointments. Use a tool to automate outreach scripts. Use Forms to collect data.
Delegate what you can. Don't be afraid to trust someone else to do what you've been doing for years. If you've properly documented and trained the processes, you have little to worry about. And don't be afraid of little mistakes here and there. The process should always be refined!
Cut what you shouldn't be doing. If it's not bringing in profits, or if you don't have the skill set to do it correctly, get rid of it. It doesn't matter how much you spent on it. Stop! Don't get stuck in an escalation of commitment fallacy.
You can scale a business without having another "you". You can put systems and processes in place that will help you make the most of every hour and scale your business. It's going to take some effort on your part, but if you take the time to invest in systematizing, you'll create a successful future for yourself and your business.
If you need help or guidance in any of this, reach out! We help businesses scale quickly and efficiently. Learn more at www.frameworksconsulting.solutions
Happy scaling!