Lauren: You built your product, you launched your business. You saw success, money in the bank, growing team, happy client, but now you feel like you’re drowning. I’m here to help you get your head above water. I’m Lauren Goldstein. My clients call me The Business Doctor.
Together, we’ll diagnose the root cause of your business. Worries. Whether it’s your people process your product, we’ll clarify your businesses. So you can scale without the burnout and then we will simplify it all. So your business can do what it’s designed to do, make a profit and an impact. Welcome to the Biz Doctor Podcast.
Welcome back, in this episode, I’m going to dive into if the founders should really be the one running the biz. Let’s get honest here. We all started our business to make a difference. And then there came a point where we needed to step out of the day-to-day not being in the trenches, grinding away and actually lead the team.
If we wanted to stop being a one-person. But a lot of times when that time comes, there’s this moment of reflection where we ask ourselves if our skills are best used in the C-suite leading the team as a visionary leader, or if the business would be best served by someone else leading. So you can still deliver your magical, super powers that people that we work with.
And this is a question that I think probably crosses. Everybody’s mind more often than we talk about, because I’ve heard from my clients on numerous occasions, things like, ah, managing the team is so hard or so frustrating. And I didn’t know it would be like this and I almost think it would be simpler and easier.
They didn’t have a team. And that really actually makes me sad because when you have the right team, it’s a lot of fun. But what this also tells me is that it’s possible. That maybe being the leader of the business, it’s just not your happy place. And that’s okay. It’s perfectly fine to start a company to be a business owner and not be the person that’s leading the team.
You can also be a business owner and leader and not lead the team by having a really great COO or a chief of staff. So there’s many ways that you can lead the business and run the business, but the question really remains. If that’s going to serve the business best to have you at the helm or not. So a great question to ask yourself to kind of determine [00:03:00] if this leadership role is going to be best for you, or if you need a co CEO or a different CEO, a co-founder et cetera is really these three questions.
Do you know what you need to do to be successful? Do you know what someone else needs to do to be successful? And here’s the kicker. Are you comfortable telling somebody else what they need to do to be successful? Let’s dive into these questions in the neuroscience behind them and what they tell us. So the first question is essentially a no-brainer.
Are you aware enough of what your accountabilities are and what success looks like in your role as business owners? And what success looks like. Do you know that? Do you know what you need to do day in day out to be successful to make the business successful, et cetera? The answer is yes. Great. If it’s not, I encourage you to have maybe some journaling moments, hire somebody to help you, like get really clear because otherwise you’re just going to be like a plane on autopilot going in the wrong door.
The second question is, do you know what someone else needs to be successful? I see this one actually trip up a lot of founders because let’s be honest. Some of us have some egos and we don’t like to admit that we don’t know everything, but guess what? You can’t know everything and you can’t be effective of everything.
And that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t know. Needs to happen for somebody to be successful in their role, but it might mean that you don’t know how to do the things that they’re doing. This goes back to in a previous episode that I did about a lopsided team and also players versus worker bees.
It’s really important that you hire people that are smarter than you and are experts in the area of business that you need, the biggest help in that compliment your weaknesses. And just because you’re not doing their role, doesn’t mean you don’t know. What they need to be successful. Now, if you really don’t know, then that is an inkling.
That leadership probably is not up your alley, because that might mean that you don’t have the frame of reference and awareness to really support someone in stepping into that success. And then the last one is one that. That honestly, if I could tell just about every business owner to do this with people that they’re promoting, I would not, everybody’s meant to be a leader.
They’re really not. If you take your best person and promote them, just because they’ve been in your business for a set amount of time, and don’t really understand if they are the leader that you need. Chances are you’re going to do a disservice to you in your business. And the same is true. If you don’t ask yourself the same question, if you’re not comfortable having the hard discussions, giving the feedback, supporting them in a way that is going to [00:06:00] help them be successful.
And in turn your business, be successful through a win-win. Then leadership is not something that you’re equipped for in this moment. It’s not necessarily something that you might not be equipped for later, but in this moment, probably not your best bet. So my advice is if you answered no to any of those questions, take a hard, look at yourself and ask why.
Ask if it’s just a gap in leadership, you know, some, I see this a lot and it’s honestly why we created our C-suite services to help bridge the gap, to go from business operator to business owner. Cause don’t get yourself, you know, this to get from business operator, running the day-to-day. And as I jokingly say, chief everything officer to true CEO and business owner.
There is a transition to leader that everyone has to go through. If you don’t want to go through it, that’s fine. If you just don’t have the skills to go through it, I encourage you to find the resources, find the support, the mentorship, join our C-suite, whatever it is, to get the skills you need to become an effective leader because effective leaders build effective businesses.
Ineffective leaders build chaotic businesses. Now, what is the point in a business that you decide? It’s time to step into a leadership. This is a question I actually get a lot. When is the first time that I should hire a person or when is, when should I grow the business more and add more to the team or add more operations?
The equation that we like to use, which again is from wealth dynamics is wealth equals value times leverage what that means is the right time. Add to your team and stop being chief. Everything officer is when you have quote unquote too much money and not enough time. There’s a moment in every business.
Where you have that role of chief everything officer and it’s sucks. We’re not going to sugarcoat it. It’s terrible. Like you’re doing the accounting, taking out the trash, doing client calls, you’re doing it all. And it’s exhausting. Like I shared a few episodes ago, so you’re just about maxed out, having consistent revenue.
And so that’s the moment where you can say, okay, our revenue is showing a certain trajectory. It’s sustainable. We’re not having those peaks and valleys. We have a proven product. We have a proven process. That’s the time to start adding. And again, that goes back to a couple episodes ago. I talked about inflection points, AK reflection points.
When you are at this point where you have more than enough money, your profitability is growing and your expenses are staying the same and you can anticipate your step costs. Then you’re going to be in a really great place. To step into leadership to add to your team, to know what your business needs next.
Because otherwise, if you pull the trigger too soon, you might be creating more friction and stress and even hire the wrong person, which will actually set you back and cost you more money. My best advice is to dig into yourself as a business owner and uncover your strengths. So you can hire for your weaknesses.
Because through team, you will see who can support your weaknesses and how that will look from a leadership perspective. Working in line with someone is sometimes more powerful than leading the team yourself. And I know I’ve mentioned this several times and it is a theme through all of my episodes.
When you understand your unique CEO profile, it unlocks everything. It doesn’t just unlock your business and unlocks your life. It unlocks your communications because when you understand how you view the world, something as simple as it’s always makes me laugh. This is actually a really great example. Uh, supporter, which is a profile in the test that we use versus a Lord, a supporter type profile processes externally.
So what this looks like is they love to be in meetings, talking about solutions, you know, just bouncing ideas off people. They thrive on that. Whereas the Lord will process internally looking at data past experiences, whatever historical things they need to pull from to make an informed decision now where this creates friction on a team.
Is when you have boards in a supporter meeting and they’re just thinking to themselves, oh my God, this is such a waste of my time. Why am I doing this? Can’t these people just shut up. And conversely, the supporter is thinking, why is he not contributing? Or she are they not contributing to their, not like my ideas.
Everybody’s judging everybody because you process information differently. That’s just a little example, but the reason why I’m such a stickler around. Really knowing yourself as a leader and a business owner is because when you know yourself in your team, you’re less likely to have communication issues, conflicts, friction, because you know what their strengths are.
And you know, you’re not going to set them up for failure by giving somebody who’s not, let’s say. And lover of spreadsheets, a spreadsheet to fill out. Like, I see this a lot with sales teams where the sales people, their main focus is connection sales and people not filling out the software. And so I see a lot of times where teams are creating conflict that doesn’t need to exist because you’re forcing somebody who is not systems oriented into a system and vice versa.
So when I discovered. Amazing test wealth dynamics and what I take my clients through it. The most common denominator that I get is, oh my gosh, I feel seen, or I understand myself so much, or I now understand why I was failing at X or succeeding at Y or my favorite is, oh, I finally have permission to build the business that I was.
Because every profile is different. The way that you build a business is different. The way Oprah builds a business is different than soaker Berg, which is different than buffet. If I have any advice for you in this episode, it’s really to get clear on why you want to lead your business, where you want to go, the impact you want to make and how that translates to how you want to build a life.
Because a lot of times. What I see is we’ve built a life that is trying to fit into the business instead of trying to fit the business around a life. So what I mean is we didn’t start our business to be a slave to our business, but if you don’t think proactively about where you want your business to take your life, The impact the customers and all of those things, then chances are, you could quite possibly end up in business shackles again.
And then unfortunately you just have a job, right? If you’d like support with your unique CEO profile or any sort of. Oh man, is this right for me? Am I doing this right in my building, the right team? Am I being the best leader? I encourage you to connect with me on our website, golden key partnership.com or LinkedIn.
Again, wherever you hang out on the interwebs so that together we can build a business around you. Instead of the other way around, we can help you step into leadership. If that’s where you want to go, or if it’s not where you want to go find that partner, that’s really going to. Light you and your business on fire to make a bigger impact.
Thanks for listening to The Biz Doctor Podcast. You’re probably wondering what your next steps are. So here’s some options for you.
No matter what, head to the show notes or to my website, a golden key partnership.com. That’s real fine, too. Awesome business resources to help you unlock your team and your business. Plus more information about stepping into the C-suite with me and my team. The C-suite is the only container of its kind for entrepreneurs.
It was created to give you the tools to bridge the gap that most entrepreneurs have learning how to be an effective business leader. And [00:14:30] also providing the mental health support that is necessary to build a world-class business.
after that our diagnostic deep dive might just be what the doctor ordered this deep dive will help us identify what is really holding you and your business back from more profitability impact and sustainable growth. All of that info is on our website@goldenkeypartnership.com. I’d [00:15:00] also love to connect with you on LinkedIn.
Finally, if you love the biz Dr. Podcast, I’d be grateful if you share it with your friends and colleagues on social media, or give us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
