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- [00:01]
A
Hey, everybody. Roland Frazier and Ryan Deiss here with another episode of the Business Lunch podcast. Welcome. And I'm not even going to say we're live this time. I mean, we're live right now, but it's a continuing discussion.
- [00:12]
B
I believe we're live.
- [00:12]
A
Ryan does not, you know, which is. Gives me some concern about Ryan. But more importantly, you had some things that we've been kind of futzing with that you wanted to chat about, so let's talk about it.
- [00:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's this concept of an operator in a business, right? What is an operator? We get the question a lot of times when. Because we're working with a lot of entrepreneurs who, frankly, are like us. They're more. I hate. I hate the term visionary because it just sounds like that you basically just, like, visionate all day. Like, I don't know, like, look at me. Like, it's not real work. It's just, I just sit here and I have ideas, now go do them, which is not what it is. But I do think that we tend to, you know, attract and work more with people who are like us. I mean, entrepreneurs who are more on the visionary side, which doesn't mean they don't have some operational responsibilities, you know, of course they do, but most of the folks who work with just wish they had an operator. And so I've just been thinking about that idea of, like, what is an operator? Because we have an operator, you know, in our business. We have a guy, our business partner, Richard, you know, who is the operator. And I think we. We all kind of collectively realized that we sort of took Richard out of the operator role and almost kind of like asked him to sort of be a visionary alongside of us, but never really define that. So, yeah, I just thought it might be good to have a discussion just around this idea of, like, what is an operator? How might an operator vary from maybe an entrepreneurial CEO and just, you know, what that might mean for folks if you're feeling like you're in the weeds of your business. You know, you talk, Roland, about no longer, like, not having to work, you know, in or on, but over the business. So for those who want to, you know, get over the business a little bit more, feel like they can even know, maybe exit the org chart one day, they're going to need an operator to do that. And so what are you looking for? How do you. How does that role define? So I'm just curious, like, before we.
- [01:56]
A
Because I've been.
- [01:56]
B
I have the. The luxury of maybe doing a Little bit more research on this than, than perhaps you have. So I always think it's fun to, to throw things out of you without any preparation whatsoever and just see if what your kind of general idea is of the job description of an operator, what they do.
- [02:10]
A
Well, I mean, I, I think it depends on, on what level you're looking at for, for the operator. If you're talking about kind of somebody who is going to be primarily in charge of making the business go and sit at the top of the org chart, or are we talking about somebody who's doing a specific role within the company?
- [02:25]
B
You're so smart. Pisses me off sometimes because it took me. Because as I was answering the question, I realized what you just went to immediately, which was, well, it depends on the role, right? Because what I realized is that operators and organizations come in a number of different shapes and sizes depending on where they are within the org. So I was going, I was like, actually, you know, a personal assistant and an executive assistant. They're an operator like for that person at that level. And like a project manager, you know, is an operator for a project, you know, and then you get into like an operations manager. And maybe they're, they're an operator for a division or a business unit. You might have a director of operations, a VP of operations, or even a coo, right? And so, yeah, that was kind of the first distinction, is that there are operators at every level. And I think to me that was very helpful because what that means is that if, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, you may not need to go out there and hire a coo. And I mean, how many times we heard that, I think I need to go hire a coo. And it's always a fricking train wreck, right? It's like, do you maybe see the project manager or an ops manager or something like that?
- [03:34]
A
I had a, a really good, and I told you about this. I, I had a really good conversation with a fractional CFO company that is one of the ones that we were looking at working with. And the distinction that he made when we were talking about, we, you know, we're looking for somebody to take over the finance department. And he said, well, you've got three different categories of people there. You've got bookkeepers who make entries. You've got controllers who are a little, who are a significant, actually step up from a bookkeeper, but really focus on the present. And then you've got the CFO on the present and internal of the company. And then you've got the CFO who focuses on the present and supervising the bookkeeper and the controller, but also looks to the future by creating budgets and then tracks actual to budget and also interfaces with external people like banks and credit facilities and things like that. And I thought that was really an important distinction that I hadn't thought about as much as I should have. And I think with what you're talking about with the in the operations role that you also have, like if I was going to go down from cfo if we started at C Suite and we say CEO is the ultimate operator, but is one of the most misunderstood titles that exists because the CEO's real job is not to spend much time in the day to day operations of the business. It's to coordinate the delivery of the vision from the board of directors into the hands of the other C Suite people that are going to make things go and they're not really operating at all. But you could call them an operator because they are the head of all operators. But then if we looked under each of those functions and said well we've got a CEO and we know what she or he does, then we've got cfo which we have those three levels, bookkeeper, controller and cfo. And then we've got chief Operating Officer who really is the one that's supposed to be the head of the show. And under that you'd probably have like a VP of operations or you know, a head of operations which is one that we use so we don't have to give that other title when it's not yet appropriate. And then under them you might have a manager and the manager might be a mid level person all the way down to a project manager that would be really in charge of a very specific operation. And so, and then on the marketing side you can go all down that side too. And so I think one thing that's really helpful is for us to think that really we have these different levels of quote unquote operators that fill each of these roles. And even within those roles we have a tendency to accidentally take a bookkeeper and call him a CFO or a project manager and call them a coo. And that's not going to really help us because we need more sophisticated people that have completely different job descriptions and functionality in those roles. So that, that's kind of to me that's what that like gets me thinking about.
- [07:01]
B
How about you? Yeah, I mean like when I was doing I trying to find just like a definition because you're right, the operator is to A certain extent it's. You just described everybody and you describe nobody. Right. So I'm trying to think, like, what does an operator do, whether they're a COO or a VP of OPS or a Director of OPS or a project manager. And ultimately, like, this was the definition that I wrote down. That's kind of an amalgamation of all the other ones I heard. So they build process and structure around what the business needs, then hires the team and assembles the resources and hires the team and then holds them accountable to achieve the desired objective. So basically it's. This is what it needs. Now, it's not necessarily their job to come up with the need. Right. Because that's generally going to be the CEO's job. They may inform it. But if we're going to say what you said before, and this is like classic Fred Wilson, you know, there's three things that a CEO is responsible for. Set the vision, hire and redeem the best.
- [07:55]
A
The CEO does not set the vision. That's just wrong.
- [07:58]
B
Well, that's, I mean, that is pretty standard amongst, like, at least carry and inform the vision. Right. I mean, it depends on the structure, but very often it's going to be the CEO that's going to set the vision and it might be approved by the board. But if you're going to look at like, what is, like what do a lot of the definitions out there, they would say the three things are set the vision, hire, train and retain the best people and then don't run out of money. Right. Basically hold the purse string. So you would disagree with that definition for CEOs?
- [08:25]
A
I would, on most of the accounts, interestingly enough. Like, so set the vision. That's absolutely the function of the board. The board says this is, we're taking a look at everything and we're setting the vision. And then they're responsible for the governance of the company. The CEO is to implement the vision of the board. And very often the CEO is part of the board, or in a smaller company, the CEO might be the board. In which case, yes, the CEO is doing that, but not in his or her capacity as the CEO. They're doing it in the capacity as being the sole director. And then seeing that it doesn't run out of money isn't really the CEO's job. That's the finance people's job to say, hey, what do you want us to do? Oh, let's create a budget for that. And then we're going to track and let you know if something's not working out. And what was the third thing? So, just so I can disagree with all of them.
- [09:21]
B
Hire and retain the best talent. Yeah.
- [09:23]
A
So, so for the CEO, that would, that would fall to the CEO with respect to the C suite. But, but they shouldn't be hiring people down under that either. Right. And it's just, to me, it's interesting.
- [09:34]
B
So I think with all these. So I would, I would absolutely disagree with you on the vision part because I think that vision by committee is a trainer, man. You've been wrong before.
- [09:41]
A
It's no big deal. I, I'm totally cool with that.
- [09:43]
B
I would though, man. I mean, I think that that vision by committee, like, I think that as a board, like, if you're truly dealing with a real board, they're going to put a, a CEO in place who can. And their job is to be like, here's where I think we should go. And they either agree with that and they support them in that vision, or they disagree and they fire them. And so I agree that the board would have general, like, oversight and essentially like veto. But what that's going to look like more times than not is, you know, are we going to, you know, hire a, you know, a CEO that has, that has a plan. But especially if you talk about like a founding CEO, like somebody who was the, I mean, obviously the company was their idea. Yeah.
- [10:21]
A
It's just because they, they sit in all those spots. So, yeah, I mean, I will agree,
- [10:26]
B
Yeah, I agree that the board ultimately approves the vision. And if they don't. But I mean, at that point, if the board disagrees with the vision that the CEO has, whether you want to say proposed or set. Right. Ultimately the board is going to approve it. But I would say, I mean, if a board, it's the CEO's job to bring forth a vision. Right. Here is what I think we could and should do. And the board can say, you know, yes, no, maybe, so discuss it. And at that point, if, if the board's like, we completely disagree and the CEOs like, well, I think you're wrong, then the CEOs gotta gotta go. Right? The board's not going anywhere. The CEO's gotta, gotta go. So in terms of who sets it, I mean, I would say that it's ultimately the CEO's job. They gotta be, they gotta be in it enough to know here's where we should go. So maybe we're saying the same thing in different ways, but I would totally think that the CEO's job is to set the vision in terms of the people I agree with you at a micro kind of thing. But, but like, if you're going to say that, that the CEO is going to hire train to retain the best at the C level, then that should trickle down. I agree there. I've heard that interpreted as. And therefore a CEO should be in every interview. Give me a freaking break. That's a terrible use of time. But they should at least set the. If they're going to help define the culture in and around the values, and that should help, you know, retain it. And then in terms of cash, I would also agree the CEO is going to leverage the help of the finance people. But in terms of deploying and approving how resources are spent, to the extent that the board is given that discretion, I think they're the ones who, you know, if, if the company runs out of money, ultimately that's gonna be the CEOs like, fault. If, now, if, if they're running out of money and the CFO never said anything about it, well, then that's a problem. They get fired too. Or if the CFO is flat out lying, then I agree. But, yeah, so though, assuming those three things, broadly speaking, then really from an operator perspective, the vision is pretty much set. Their job is to say, okay, in light of this vision and where we're going, let's unpack its different component parts and figure out, so this is A, that's B over there, what's all of the steps in between, and that's what. And, and then now how do we make it real? By bringing together all the different resources. That's what I personally kind of suck at. Like, I can see down the future where it needs to go, but how we get from here to there is not always like my thing. And I think that's the distinction of, you know, of the operator.
- [12:50]
A
So the B to Y person.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. And I, you know, and in the, in the earliest days of a company that looks like somebody who's just doing the, you know, it can look like an admin person at the lowest levels. But I think when you start to have somebody who they're not just doing work efficiently and effectively, but they're actually now beginning to build systems and processes, and they're saying, you know, what if we were to actually go and get this over here, work with this team, we could do that better. Now they're pulling resources together and understanding how to do that. Then. Now I think that's when you're dealing with somebody who's a Project manager or an ops manager, director, all that other kind of stuff. As like you said, the needs of the company fit.
- [13:32]
A
So would you say though, when most people say I need an operator, they really want somebody that's primarily responsible for the day to day workings of the company?
- [13:42]
B
Well, I think with a lot of the folks, they don't even know what that means. What, what they're basically saying is I want somebody to do all the stuff I don't want to do, which can be dangerous depending on what falls in that category. Yeah. And so I do think it's important to know like what are the things that you're, you know, what are the things that you're gonna hand off. But yeah, I mean, I do think practically speaking it looks like the day to day. Right. Because the day to day is that resource allocation and project management.
- [14:09]
A
So then if we were trying to step, step it up for people, would you say the first step is know
- [14:14]
B
the role of the operator? Yeah. Know the specific things that need to get done. If we're gonna define it as B to Y, which I do think is A is a pretty good definition. What I'll. It goes into that because it can't just be, you know, you do all this stuff that I don't want to do, so I can just sit over here and visionate. Right. I think that's really, really, really tough. It's a tough role to put somebody else in then.
- [14:36]
A
So then step one is know the role with the complete description of the outcomes you want those people to be responsible for, right?
- [14:44]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think you've got to be clear on the role. I, I would actually say step one, even before that is you've got to have some kind of an operating system in place already. I think it's brutally difficult to bring somebody in from the outside and have them kind of build up and define your company's operating system when they don't know anything about the way that anything's structured.
- [15:03]
A
But wouldn't you want the person that was going to be doing that to be able to bring that in? Like, like think about Most of the CEOs, you know, that are not operators. They're not going to know where to start with the operator. Like they'd be the, they wouldn't necessarily be very good people to put that in, would they?
- [15:20]
B
Yeah, I think they need help for sure. Because you're, I mean most CEOs are so in the weeds, they don't know up and down. I would argue that's what we do at the scalable company. Right. Is helping entrepreneurs systemize their businesses so they can get outside a little bit. And most of them, when there's a process or a framework in place, they can, they can figure, oh yeah, okay, so that's that, like they can connect the dots. I think it's great if you already have an operator in place that can drive that incidentally, because CEOs like the idea of it, but they're generally, you know, bad at driving it all the way to Z. And so, but, but I think where it's difficult and where I've seen this fail is when a visionary CEO just hires an operator and says, okay, come in and fix all this stuff. Right, right. That can be really, really tough. It's like, okay, everything's broken.
- [16:07]
A
Fix it.
- [16:07]
B
Like just make it happen. And the CEO won't engage in the systemization process. So it's better if there's like the kernel of some kind of an operating system there that now an operator is coming in and optimizing it. Because where it can get really devastating is if an operator comes in and starts changing things that the CEO didn't even realize was kind of the secret sauce.
- [16:27]
A
Okay, so, so step one, choose an operating system. Step two, determine the role for the person who's going to be this operator.
- [16:37]
B
Yeah, that sounds about right.
- [16:38]
A
Okay, and then what next do you think?
- [16:40]
B
I mean, I think you gotta bring somebody in and allow em to start to do the role. Leveraging that operating system to get some stuff done.
- [16:48]
A
I would hop up first to how do we find that person? So what does the search look like? So now we know we have an operating system and we have a role. Now we've gotta fill that role. What do you think the best way to do that is?
- [17:01]
B
Yeah, I mean, well, that's, that's when, now we're, we're out to recruiting and hiring. Right. Which is always the toughest part. And this is where it's gotta be a combination of, you know, job posting and depending on the level that you're hiring for, maybe even leveraging a recruiter because it is hard. And I'll tell you, the people that you want, guess what? They're working for somebody else. Right. I mean, almost exclusively.
- [17:24]
A
I would throw another one in there too, because you've done such a great job of this is I think that like finding before you even search, creating the environment that clearly states what the company is about and attracts the right people and repels the, the wrong people even. And, and I mean, not that they're bad people just they're not the right fit. I really think that having that and maybe it's this goes back to your first step because it's part of the operating system. But that like that character diamond and we believe video values thing is to me really critical because you have to be able to, to be sure that they're the people you'll sit down and as our friend J. Cron says, have tacos and tequila with. But also that is aligned with you on what you want value wise for the company. Especially if they're going to be in a hiring like, if they're going to be kind of at the top of the pyramid to hire the people that are down below, they've definitely got to be about as in alignment as possible with the culture of the company, right?
- [18:31]
B
Yeah. And I'm baking all that into that step one with the operating system, right. So the operating system is both what's the source code, kind of the algorithms, the processes and procedures of kind of running the business. And again, that's not going to be as well defined if a visionary entrepreneur is running it than if you've got a trained coo, Six Sigma black belt comes in and does it. Right. But there's going to be the kernel of something there. It may be scribbles on a whiteboard that somebody took a picture of, but there's a general idea of like this is generally how we do this thing. This is generally how we go out and get customers, generally how we fulfill on the customers. A couple of, you know, checklists and SOPs and things like that, right. There's some job descriptions of some of the people that work there. They're old. Like there's going to be the kernel of some bit of that. That's all kind of the source code. And then there's the user interface, right? There's the, there's the piece that is the, that's like what are the metrics that we're looking at? And again, they probably don't have advanced dashboards, but there's a couple of things here and there that they're looking at. They've got a general meeting rhythm, even if it's super loose. That's all kind of in that user interface. But yeah, that, that last piece which is the one you're talking about, you know, the, the central processing unit, like that chip, like that, that thing that is the heart and soul, you know of, you know of the business. That is its, that's its culture, right? And that's going to come down to, you know, shared goals, where we headed, shared purpose, shared values, a shared understanding of what we're good at and not good at. And yeah, all of that is encompassed in this thing that we would call an operating system. And that. And that's, I guess what I'm saying, that has to be maybe not completely built out, but largely informed by the visionary founder, CEO or it gets lost. That's when you, Steve Jobs gets. Gets fired and it. Everything goes to crap. Because all that either wasn't codified or it was thrown out intentionally. Right. So that has to be there, you know, and I think you can have an operator who's there helping to bring it about. But if you have an operator just come in from the outside and say, well, this is all dumb and you suck at this stuff and let me go in and fix it. You got a John Scully situation. You got, frankly, and you remember this, what happened to us about 12 or 13 years ago. Right. Yeah. Where somebody comes in from the outside, doesn't understand what makes the business work. They run off all the good people, build fiefdoms from all the not so good people, and the business just tanks. And. And so, yeah, I think that's definitely step one, you know, figuring out. And I think when you said figuring, like step two, figuring out what B to Y is that so much of that is figuring out, Do I really need a quote unquote COO right now? I mean, if B to Y doesn't mean leveraging, you know, a handful of directors who all have managers under them, who all have dozens of team members under them, then no. Right. You probably need a, you know, a project manager or an operations manager at this point.
- [21:22]
A
I think shockingly, a lot could be accomplished with a project manager. But a project manager is by definition a manager. Right. So it's like when you have more than one project to manage, you maybe want to move beyond the project manager, but when you just kind of have a couple simple things to get done, that's, you know, that could be it. So let's take a break and then come back and see how do we find these people. Let's talk about that and then anything else you want to cover. So we'll hear from our sponsor and then we'll be right back.
- [21:56]
C
Hey, business hunch listeners, we're going to get right back to the show, but Roland wanted me to invite you to a brand new training that he's doing on acquiring businesses with no money out of pocket. It's something that he's talked quite a Bit about on the show, but he's doing a free training where he's going to walk through the entire process. So if you want to get access to that, go to businesslunchpodcast.com epic that's businesslunchpodcast.com epic and you can get signed up.
- [22:22]
A
Okay, so we got a couple of steps. We've got the operating system, which we talked about quite a bit, and then we've got the kind of what is the outcome? What is the role? How do we find these people? Brian, what do you think?
- [22:33]
B
Yeah, and I mean, there's got to be a job description which. That's what we kind of talked about in step two. Right. So getting clarity on what you're looking for. Because if you don't know what you're looking for, you'll either never find it or even worse, you'll always find it. You'll find it everywhere. You know, you'll have like some waiter that seems nice and organized.
- [22:49]
A
So we have that.
- [22:49]
B
Yeah.
- [22:50]
A
Now we. Now we just go to the operator store and we buy an operator and put them in our business. Right.
- [22:55]
B
Yeah, I think that it's out there. You're gonna need to leverage recruiter. I think you're wise at a certain level to leverage recruiters, but really it's ultimately on the CEO to go out there and network and find this person. I mean, man, all the best people that we've got. You know this like, they've come from my network and your network. And I think this, who better than the CEO to trumpet the opportunity and the benefit and the values of coming and working for this company? And I think where it's really, really hard, you gotta hang out in different circles. Cause entrepreneurs or operators aren't hanging out in entrepreneurial circles. Not the ones you want.
- [23:27]
A
So, yeah, I think, yeah, that, that is a.
- [23:30]
C
You.
- [23:30]
A
You really don't want an entrepreneur as an operator. I think they'll end up competing with you.
- [23:35]
B
You'll.
- [23:36]
A
You'll smash heads together and. And good things don't come. I don't think you want employees that are entrepreneurs really either. But so assuming that we've got the role now and the CEO, let's say so step one, if you know somebody great. If not, then what do you think the best way is for the CEO who's frustrated because they're telling you that they need a operator but can't find anybody?
- [24:01]
B
I don't have a great answer to this. I think to me, this is kind of the most difficult question to answer. And I don't know. I mean, I've asked this question. I've been asked this question. It is a combination of a lot of things and they all suck. Right. It's a combination of going out and networking and hitting people up on LinkedIn. Right. To grow that network. It is a combination of getting out into circles that you don't know, asking around. It's why it's smart to be in different types of business and industry masterminds. I do believe it's hiring recruiters which are painfully expensive and oftentimes you're paying them even when they don't find the person. Right. I mean, so. But I think that this is an important enough hire and I think it is so disconnected from what most visionary founder type CEOs do that you have to go outside of your bubble and it's going to be uncomfortable and likely expensive. And I think if you just accept it and lean into the suck and just have it be, this is something that I gotta do because it's a part of the job and it's. And it frankly is going to make your life so much better, then you'll do it. If you try to shortcut it, then you'll do what, what I've done a number of times, we've done. And you'll hire people who are bad fits and for one reason or another. And man, putting somebody in that role who's a bad fit sucks.
- [25:13]
A
Yeah. Or, or, or promote them up, you know, like Peter principled them.
- [25:16]
B
Right.
- [25:17]
A
That's like, you do great at this. Yeah.
- [25:18]
B
That's something not to do. Boy, you've done a good job of, you know, managing my calendar. You know, I'm going to make you coo. And we've known entrepreneurs who literally have promoted executive assistants to coo. Like, come on, it doesn't mean they're a bad person, but that's a different, that is a orders of magnitude different in terms of role.
- [25:40]
A
Yeah. I think having the, I would say, like probably number three should be what are the qualifications? I think it's big enough that it should be a step and to stop that internal Peter principle thing and also provide you with some defenses to the people in the company that say, hey, I'd like to do that, I want that promotion, I want to be that role. To say, you know, well, as long as you qualify, you are welcome to apply. But if you don't qualify, then you shouldn't apply because this is actually somebody, you know, somebody actually has to have these qualifications to be in this spot. And it might be operating experience as a coo, right, Or a VP of Operations or whatever it is that is that role. So if, if two is to really clearly define the role, I think three is to clearly define the qualifications. And then once you've got the qualifications, you could go to four, which would be, okay, what's my search look like? And within the, the scope of that would be we could go to a professional recruiter, we could go to a Korn Ferry or somebody like that and say, okay, we're going to pay you 100 grand to find us this person. That's, that's how important they are. Another thing that you could do would be to go to a fractional agency and say, hey, I think we need this person. But I've never had one. Particularly a lot of people I think that are, that are looking for these operators that, that haven't had one and say, you know, here's the qualifications and the role that I'm looking for and what the company operating system looks like. I need somebody that can come in and help with this and then let them help shape that, that person from the people that they've got that are fractionalized and see how it feels to have that person. But the thing that I, the conversation I was having with the gentleman about the fractional cfo, I thought is applicable here because it's like, maybe you don't need a COO yet and a search firm or a fractional firm that's good is going to tell you, you know, well, we need to know what you need. I have nothing right now. Okay, well, you might just need like a manager to start with. And, and so start with, get a fractional COO to give you the operational. Somebody that's been there to all the things that you want, you know, that that's seen and has that experience and can say, well, right now you're missing this, this and this, and let's build out that stuff first. I think that's kind of a good strategy to, to get someone who has, like, if you've got none, somebody that's got operations personnel perspective, right? To, to bring in and kind of help guide you. And then I know, like, I asked a few people what, what is your primary who are good at? Like, they're like, I can put operations team together and, you know, heartbeat. Those are easy. It's always fun when people are really good at something. It's like, it's easy, you know, and it's easy because they have very good deep networks with people who are in operations and so it makes sense for you, if you're going to be a good CEO, I think to develop those connections and like you said, gets you're going to maybe, you're going to maybe move in some circles that you're not used to moving in. But having a good network, even if you're networked among entrepreneurs, can be very helpful because then you can ask those entrepreneurs, I need somebody, you guys know my company. I need somebody that can act as a VP of operations. If you, if you could give me anybody that might be good for that, let me know. I know that a couple of people said that publishing the content about the company, like going out and registering for awards, whether it's the Inc. 500, which is just financially based really, or growth based, or like the, you know, the Ernst and Young, you know, Top Entrepreneurs Award or Best Company in Austin award or whatever, that those will actually create a flow of people coming in saying that they would like to work with the company. And so that's a good way to do it. And then publishing content regularly on LinkedIn is another way that I've heard that is very, very effective as well. So I think it's basically referral, fractional recruiter, slash search content networking. And that's kind of, kind of five ways that you might set about trying to find that person. What are your thoughts?
- [30:11]
B
Yeah, I think it's that and just an acknowledgement that all of those are terrible. If you're a legionary CEO, you don't actually want to do any of those, but there you go, right? I mean so when we're talking about the steps and here's the other, they all take time and they all compound. So like step four is if you need a you to need know this kind of operation COO person tomorrow is build a time machine, go back in time and start this process, you know, six to 12 months ago. And so I think a good action item for everybody. If you think you might want somebody running the day to day of your business, now would probably be a good time to start networking in entrepreneurial circles among companies that are well run and going out there and you know, engaging, you know, on LinkedIn and following people who maybe they're not super charismatic, they don't have the best coolest stuff, but they're high level operators at really good sized companies that you respect and you know, they're well run starting a relationship with those folks and being able to say, hey, you know, in the next six months or so I'm going to be looking to Hire this. So if you know anybody that comes available, will you let me know? They may, especially this role. They may not know anybody right now, but you tell them that if they say yes, they will do it. I'll also say it's incredibly self serving, but I will say it. This is the role that we're looking to fill on a semi fractionalized basis at the scalable company. Right. When we work with entrepreneurs and founders board and we're helping them to design their operating systems, that is a really good first step to do. And we tell everybody all the time, please don't go and hire a COO until you have a sense of what your operating system is going to be. Because how do you know who to hire? This is step one, you know, let's do that. So I will say shameless plug and God dang it, it's our podcast so we can. This is something that, that in the, that step one, the construction of the initial operating system, that's kind of what we do. Like we can help with that. And so yeah, people need help with that. Let us know.
- [32:04]
A
I like it. Okay. I guess anything else on that subject that we didn't cover that we should.
- [32:10]
B
I think the point that you made is a really good one, that you, you might just need a manager. I think a lot of times entrepreneurs, they want to hire a COO because they want somebody to do all the stuff they don't want to do. If you can begin to compartmentalize what are the things that you don't want to do, what you realize is that you don't really need a COO or an operations manager. What you need is an operator of this one little piece and that may look like a marketing manager or a sales manager. Like there's a good chance that the things you don't want to do fall in a couple of categories. And there's a very specific role where the job title doesn't start with a C, that you can hire somebody to do just that one thing that you don't have to do and it'll solve the issue so much faster and they're just frankly easier to find and usually less expensive than more generic high level executive level operational talent. And most businesses, until you're in the very high eight figures, don't need it anyway.
- [33:05]
A
That makes sense. The other thing would be, you mentioned that you know, when you're ready to have an operator, the thing there is that if you want to have a quality of life and grow your company, you're going to have to have an operator that's in there and it ideally isn't you if you are the CEO or the founder because you're going to ultimately stop the growth of the company at some point and the value of the company. If you're ever thinking you want to be somewhat ready to exit, you've got to think that an owner operated company very often isn't saleable at all and if it is, you're going to have a discount and receive less for it than if it was not owner operated. You'll also likely be stuck with a three to five year contract saying that you're going to have to be an employee there so you get kind of handcuffed to it. So you really do want to solve this challenge and you do want to have it be someone other than you that's there and hopefully this has provided some help and directing you in a way to go. So that said then I guess we will wrap up and thank you guys and if you enjoy this, we would love for you to share it with someone who is looking for an operator or you think should be and and ask them to comment and love to hear what you guys have as your thoughts on the best way to find operators and anybody that's done that successfully, please share that with us as well and would love to hear your questions as well, which is@businesslunchpodcast.com ask. So if you have questions about this kind of stuff, go there and we will be happy to answer those for you online and we'll see you next time.
- [34:49]
C
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