From Operator to Leader: Lessons from Scaling a Business | Ep 170
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What's up, guys? So I am recording this while I am getting ready for the day. And I just had a couple of things that were top of mind that I felt like might actually be worth sharing with other people who are listening to the podcast, who are growing their businesses. You know, whether you're hiring people for the first time, or you're hiring a lot of people for the first time, or you're continuing to hire people and build out your leadership team, I thought some of this might be helpful for you.

So, you know, for me, really a lot of this has been in growing acquisition.com a reflective period because, you know, my first business that I grew was Gym Watch. And when I grew that company, I had no idea what to expect. I hadn't managed people before.

I hadn't had even one single direct report before. And so to go from having nothing to suddenly managing all these people and having a company of 120 people by the age of 23 was difficult, to say the least. And I, a lot of the time, thought that I was doing things wrong because I just didn't know if I was doing things right. It wasn't that I was actually doing things wrong. It was just like, I didn't know what way was up, right?

And in hindsight, I actually did a lot of stuff right. I've just seen time and time again that if I put my focus on my people and I put my focus on my people skills,

My business grows by consequence. And so it's not an immediate thing because obviously if I tweak a sales script, if I make new ads, if I write copy, my business will immediately grow. So there's definitely a lot more reward in that kind of stuff. And contrary to what people might think, I actually like that stuff. You know, I know how to write ads. I know how to tweak a sales script. I know how to do all those things.

But I've just seen that long term, this is the stuff that really grows a business in a way that I do not have to feel like I'm the bottleneck of the business. And recently, we are going through a growth spurt. You know, Acquisition.com is going to probably this year do $3.

six to seven times what it did last year in terms of revenue. And next year, I believe we'll probably do 10 to 12 times. And so that's a big leap to take. And what I'm watching right now is I'm watching my leadership team and new people managers go through so much of the same stuff that I had to go through when I was running Gym Launch for the first time. And so I'm

A couple of the things that I'm noticing that I've been sharing with them and that I thought might be useful to share with some of you guys is I think that there's a misconception when you're a new leader because what happens is if you've never led people for the first time,

When somebody says that you have areas to improve or somebody's talking about you getting better at something, a lot of the times we assume, okay, well, how I've gotten better in the past is I've doubled down on this skill. So if you're good at sales, right, then you might get better at sales. You might get better at objection overcomes. You might get better at the script, right? And so for most of your career, if you've been a salesperson, to get better in your career and to get rewarded for it, you get better at that specific skill.

But what happens if you take somebody who was, for example, a salesperson or, for example, a marketer, and you make them into a manager or a director, is that the skill that they've doubled down on for so long is actually not the skill that takes them to the next level, right? And the reason for that is because at some point, what we realize is that the tool that got us here is not the tool to get us to the next level.

And I realized that for myself when I was running Gym Launch because I was a fantastic operator. I am very organized, I'm detail-oriented, I don't forget things, I can make long lists, I can get people to collaborate, I can clearly paint the vision, and I can run pretty much a million projects at once. And what I realized is that that skill on its own wasn't going to take me to the next level. I actually needed to chunk up and I needed to become a great leader who could get other people to do those things.

And so what I'm seeing in my team right now, and I've been talking to them about, and I think would be really relevant for a lot of you, whether you're an entrepreneur or a leader in a company, is understanding that to be a better leader, the difference is not being better at your specific function, but being better at being a leader overall, right? And so I'll give you an example of this. When I was looking to build up my finance department for the first time, and I'm looking to hire a CFO, right?

The only technical difference for the most part, like majorly between a controller, like a really advanced controller and a CFO is leadership ability. A CFO typically has much more aptitude for leadership. In fact, I say like they take one of my quote leadership slots in the company.

And if I look at the difference between a controller and a CFO, the main difference is not their knowledge of financials, their knowledge of gap accounting, their knowledge of how to do an audit. It's actually their knowledge of people and their knowledge of how to communicate, how to influence people, how to train people, how to delegate people. And so what I'm seeing with a lot of my leaders is they feel this pressure. They see the business growing and they feel like they need to perform better. And what a lot of them do is they actually...

regress into what is comfortable. They go to the tool that they've always used. And if it's a hammer, then they keep hammering, right? But now what we need is a screwdriver. And a lot of entrepreneurs do this too. We think, oh my gosh, more of what I got, more of what got me here is going to get me there.

And the reality is that that's just not the case. That's never how it works. You know, for me, for example, I'm at a point right now because the business is growing where I recognize I can't do more. I can't do more operating. I actually can't even do more communicating. I have to teach other people how to do it for me. I am at my max in terms of direct reports and ability to properly delegate. And so, you know, given that my schedule changes,

can't put more on it, I need to level up what's on it and make sure that what is there is of the highest, best leverage and use of my time for the company, right? And so that's the first thing where a lot of people tend to, I would say, I don't wanna say fail because that like sounds shitty, but

A lot of people do fail there. It's like they get stuck because they just don't know how to pivot and learn these other skills. And the thing is, is you can be a 10 out of 10 at sales. You can be a 10 out of 10 at marketing. That doesn't mean you're a 10 out of 10 leader. And yes, there are transferable skills, but gosh, sometimes there's not that many. And I know it can feel really tough sometimes,

But it's the biggest thing that you need to focus on if you want to continue to grow with the company. And so that's the first thing that I see. Now, what this applies to founders of businesses and leaders is you have to understand when you're promoting somebody that's doing really well, ask yourself, what's going to be the requirements of this role in 12 months? Are they going to need to be really good at sales or are they going to be collaborating with other people on sales systems? And I can tell you those are completely different skills.

And the people who usually really like sales probably really don't like talking to CRM people all day, coordinating audits, setting proper expectations, making compensation plans. I mean, it's a completely different ballgame. And so you have to ask yourself as a leader who's promoting people in a fast growth company or in a company at all, what's this look like in 12 months? Is this really a skill match with the person that I'm promoting or the person that's currently in this role?

And I like to handle this in a couple of ways, which is one, I always want to put in place a career path. So what does that mean is that I'm laying out, this is what the next 12 months, these are the skills I want us to focus on. And here's how we're going to go about focusing on these skills.

Right. And so that means that I might pay for these people to get training. I might train them myself. I might give them resources, books, right, to acquire these skills, or I might have them train with somebody else within the company. But basically, the first thing I do is lay out, you know, over the next 12 months, what are the skills that I would like you to acquire?

require to be able to keep up with the role, right? And so that doesn't mean that we're promoting them. But what I like to be really clear about is if the company's growing, that means your role is growing, which means we need to be really clear about where you're going to be in 12 months and where the current skill gap is that you keep up with the role. That's the first piece. The second piece is

If you do that and the person is just not keeping up with the role, that doesn't mean a lot of people misunderstand. You might not need to get rid of that person, right? And this is something that I think a lot of leaders say, oh my gosh, they're not even keep up. I need to get them off the team.

Okay, maybe, but also think about this, right? Is there a role that can exist above this person, right? Like if you got rid of them and brought in the person who has the skills to do these other things that maybe they're not able to keep up with, is that person going to do the things that the other person's doing today? And the answer is probably no, they're probably not going to. And so if they're not able to keep up with the role, then the second option that you have is that you can

Basically, get a, I like to say, like, get them a mentor. I like to say that instead of a boss because it sounds nicer. But if somebody's not able to keep up, then it might mean that you have a gap in terms of you've skipped a level of leadership and you need actually two people to fulfill all the things that need to be done.

This is not uncommon at all, especially in fast growth companies, is that you very quickly build out two, three, even four layers of leadership. And you don't necessarily hire them in sequence because sometimes you don't know how fast you're going to grow. You don't know what's going to happen. And so you have to be prepared to say, okay, you know what? I think I need to bring in a mentor because this person's not fulfilling or I would say skill stacking at the rate that I need them to. And so I probably need to bring in someone to help.

And this isn't a bad thing. We shouldn't punish people for this, right? Because some people just are slower learners than others. There's still work to be done with them, especially when you're growing quickly. It's just that it might not be as an executive in the company. It might be that they're a manager or a director or something else, right? So that's the second thing I do. The third thing that I do is constantly talking about these things with people.

Okay, so I am very transparent with my team. I had multiple conversations this last week where I'm talking about people's career plans. I'm talking about their development and I'm saying flat out if I think that they can fulfill this in the next 12 months or not.

So for example, I met with one of my heads of departments and I said, like, frankly, there's an option where I could bring somebody above you, but I actually really believe that you can hit these, you can acquire these skills in the next six to 12 months. And I don't think that we need to bring in somebody above you. But here's the skills that they are. And here's how I think we can get there. And she was like, wow, thank you so much. This is so clear. Like I've never had anyone lay this out like this for me. And thank you for being so transparent about this. And I was like, absolutely.

versus I have another department where I have somebody who is, I would say like in terms of growth, a little bit of a laggard, right? This person's growing a little bit more slowly. And so I had the conversation with this person. I said like, hey, just to be completely transparent, I actually do think that we're going to be bringing somebody in. And this person will be able to mentor you and coach you on the things that you're working on in a way that I can't right now because I just simply don't have the time.

And I positioned it like a positive rather than negative. And so though I'm not bringing in that person right now, they know that in the next three to six months, they might have a different boss.

And so I say all this because I want you guys to understand the level of transparency if you want to do these things right. You don't need to keep secrets from people on your team about future hires if you position it in a way that it's a win for everybody, right? And as long as you make sure that you know that person's individual growth plan, if you're going to hire somebody above them, what does their growth plan look like?

If it's not that role that they're going towards. And that's where a lot of people, I think, get this wrong is they think, okay, well, if I'm bringing someone above them, then there's no growth plan for them. That's not the case at all. It's that you need to think of a more creative growth. There's always a growth plan for people in a company. It's just a matter of taking the time to sit down and think it through. And if you want to retain the best people when you're growing quickly and you need to bring in other leaders, this is how you do it.

So that's the first thing that I've noticed is just in terms of understanding growth, understanding a plan and being really clear on it and understanding that the skills that you have today are probably not the skills you're going to need in six to 12 months to be doing your job well. And so you want to get ahead of that and say, what skills am I going to need to do my job well in six to 12 months? And then be clear about it with your leader.

The second thing that I've noticed that a lot of people do when they are on a team that's growing quickly or they are first-time leaders or they're just on, I would say, a team where maybe they haven't been on a smaller team before, maybe they've only been in big corporate, right, is really defending their deficits.

And I call it defending their deficits because what I've seen is that the best people that I've ever hired, they welcome feedback. They want feedback. They ask for feedback. And when somebody gives it to them, they're grateful and relieved. I myself, when somebody gives me negative feedback, I can truly say that I'm relieved because I so seldom get feedback.

You know, negative or critical feedback. And so it's like, I would love to know where to improve. I don't have a boss. Can somebody else tell me? Right. And the best performers, what you'll see is that they have that mentality. They're like, I want to know where I can improve. And they are ruthless about that. And they will ask everybody and they will take everybody's insight. Right. They don't have an ego about it.

But what I see a lot of people is that, especially if they come from places where it was very fear driven, there was a lot of punishment and very much like a corporate environment is that they defend their deficits till the day they die. It's like anything that goes wrong in their department, the first thing that they do is they try to pin it on somebody else. Even when it's clearly them, what you see is that they try to pin it on somebody else.

My preference as a boss and my preference as a person, what I like to do is I always will take more blame and also give more credit. Take more blame, give more credit. Those are the best leaders in my opinion. Best leaders take more blame. They give more credit. They don't defend their deficits.

But what you see is that when people are scared, they're scared of like, am I able to keep up with the company? Am I able to keep growing when they're in these roles that maybe they haven't been in before? You start to see them defending themselves left and right. And they think this is working. They think that by defending their deficits, they're protecting themselves.

But they're actually perpetuating the exact thing they want to avoid because who wants to work with somebody who can't take feedback, who constantly defends their department, who constantly defends the deficits of their team? And there's nothing worse than somebody who makes a mistake except somebody who says they didn't.

And that is something that I have told my team time and time again. I am never upset about mistakes. I'm really not. I mean, maybe in the split moment, but I don't show that to my team because I choose not to. I'm grateful when they tell me. What really, though, is upsetting is when someone makes a mistake and then they deny it. And then they push it off on somebody else, right? And so I want to take a second, right, whether you're a business owner or a leader in a company, and really think,

When I make a mistake, do I defend myself? Do I defend my deficits, right? Am I fighting to keep what currently is, right?

And I really think that this is a huge piece of, and it's honestly just fear masked by defense. And I think that's the biggest thing to understand is that it's not that these people are doing this because they are. They don't believe what they're seeing, right? That they don't believe that there's anything wrong with them or wrong with their team or that they could improve on. It's that they're so scared that they're going to get fired or how they're going to be seen if they're not perfect. And so what you have to understand if you're a leader in a company

is that there is no benefit to defending your deficits. The best leaders own up to their mistakes. They talk about their mistakes and they ask for help. They ask for feedback. They ask for guidance. I learned this in my last company. There was a time when we had a strategic planning session and I went in and felt really confident about the plan that I had laid out. And like,

you know what, this is what we need to do. I feel really confident painting this picture to the team. And then I walked into my strategic planning session and what happened during the session was a couple people brought up an idea that was, I'll say, a very shiny object type idea and it stirred the whole room.

And suddenly our strategic planning session that I was very excited about and very clear what was going to happen went completely the opposite direction. It was like, everyone's like, Layla, we haven't considered this. Have we considered this? You know, what's going on? Should we do this? Let's consider it. And I honestly wasn't really sure what to do.

And in that moment, because I didn't have the skill of, I would say, like directing the room in the moment like that, I kind of let the room go in whatever direction it went. I let the team keep talking and I said, "I guess we're gonna have to continue this virtually." And I kind of entertained the idea for like a few weeks. And the thing is, is that when the idea was brought up, I was like, "I really don't feel like this is the right idea." Right? But I felt so...

I felt like I needed to entertain it because I was nervous. I was scared. And I didn't have at that point the skill of being, I would say, certain enough and decisive enough to tell my team, you know what? I get that you guys all like that, but no, I've made the decision. I've gotten all the information from you guys and we're not going to do that.

And so it wasted probably a month of the company's time just pitter pattering back and forth about this idea that I really just didn't think was what I wanted to do with the company. And so about four weeks later, I went to the team and I said, I made a mistake. I'm sorry for not being a better leader, for not being decisive enough.

And I made a mistake. We should have just kept with the plan that we originally had. And so I understand that we've done all this work and we've been talking to all these things and researching, but this is not the right decision for us. And I'm sorry, I acknowledge this is something I'm working on is that I really need to work on being decisive in a group setting when everybody is, I would say, not every single person is aligned with what I want to do. And that was an area where I realized I was like,

I'm not perfect here. I'm working on this. You know, something that I've struggled with throughout my career is I always want everyone to feel heard. I wanted my team to feel like they're bought into decisions. I want them to feel like they're part of the decisions, right? But sometimes I let it take it to too much of an extreme where I'm like, it's like consensus by committee. And so I've had to realize, and this was about a year and a half ago, and I was like, wow, I really need to work on that. And so I told my team, I said, hey,

Just so you guys know, this is what I'm focusing on right now. This is a skill that I think I need to develop that I'm really trying to. And so if you notice me changing my behavior and doing things differently, it's because I'm trying to get better at this.

And I can confidently say that one, it was received very well by the team that I was trying to get better at this. Two, it was super helpful for me to tell them because then they gave me feedback. They were like, hey, I noticed you ran the meeting differently at this time. And like, here's what I thought went really well. And here's where I feel like if you said it like this, it would be received better.

And honestly, it was like the most helpful thing I could have done because me owning my development, me owning my deficits and being open about them, it then allowed me to have accountability from my team, right? In a position where like, I don't even have a boss to tell me what to do, right? And so it was really empowering. And I get to now use that as an example with my whole team of like, guys, I have deficits too. And you know what? It doesn't help us to hide them, to defend them. We just need to own them.

and understand that

We are all working on things, right? But we get better faster if we get more feedback. But people aren't going to give us feedback if we defend our deficits, right? And so think about it. Like whether you're a leader in a company or a business owner, do you have somebody that's defending their deficits right now? Are you defending your deficits, right? We don't benefit. Here's the thing. Even if something could not be true, considering that it could be and that it could be our fault leads to more learning than the opposite.

And so every time somebody brings me feedback, that's what I've trained myself to think about is, you know, what could I learn from this? Is it really something that I could do better? And I really sit on it and think on it. I try it on almost like a sweater. Like that's how I feel about when I get critical feedback is I'm like, I'm going to try this on and I'm going to think about it and like really sit with it and decide if I really want to accept it or not.

And when I say accept, to me, that means do something about it. Now, the last thing that I want to talk about that I see a lot with people who are on teams that are growing quickly and they are trying to keep up with everything that's going on is doing like 30% of someone else's job.

So something I've seen, especially with my team recently, is what they don't factor in when we're doing projections. When I say, hey, I want you to build out the org chart for your department. What does it look like in three, six, 12 months, right? But what I'm seeing with my team and with a lot of leaders who are newer is that when they build out that organizational chart, they take everybody's job into consideration but theirs. Right?

What does that mean? That means when they're looking at what the future of their team looks like, they're thinking about relieving their teammates, but they're not thinking about relieving themselves. So what happens there? What does that mean, right? The best way to scale your department or to scale your business is to relieve your time. What I have learned is that rather than looking at an org chart and thinking, who do I need to hire to grow this?

look in the mirror because you're the one that's supposed to grow it, okay? If you're the owner of the company or if you are the leader of the department, you're the one that's supposed to grow it. So what does that mean? That means you need to look at the order and say, who do I, where do I need help so that I can put all my energy into growth?

Because think about it. If you don't grow your department, who does? If you don't grow your business, who does? Seriously. And you don't grow your business on 20 minutes of downtime a day. You don't grow your business on 30 minutes of time a day. You grow your business when that's what you're focused on.

And as the founder, as the CEO, as the entrepreneur, your time should be spent growing the business, improving the business, pushing the business towards its goals, not dealing with the day-to-day.

And the same goes for your leaders. And the thing is, is that you will be in the day-to-day if your leaders are in the day-to-day, right? Because what do they talk to you about? What are you filling in the gaps on, right? And so what often happens is it's this trickle-down effect, which is the leader of the entire company really can't be quote-unquote free until everybody else in the company is also in that same position, right?

And so something that I was talking to my leadership team about about two weeks ago, we had like a little

leadership meeting is I said, listen, you guys need to grow your departments. And you can't do that until you essentially get your time back. And I think it's so contrary for so many of them. I think it's actually terrifying for a lot of them because they've been in companies where they say they're basically measured for their success based on being extraordinarily busy. But here's the thing. I'm not

I'm opposed to being busy. I'm opposed to being busy with shit that doesn't grow your department. I am busy, but I prefer to be busy with things that grow my business. If I'm busy with things that don't grow my business, then I think that that's a problem. And I need to look at where I'm really allocating my time, right? But being busy with things that grow the business is the best thing you can do. And so if you want to figure out

How do I grow my business? Look at where you're spending your time. Your time is a more valuable resource than literally anything else in the company. You can make more money if you have more time. Think about it. Time management comes before money management because if you don't have time and you don't know how to manage it, how are you going to create or invest or duplicate or compound money?

You're just not. And so this is why looking at where you spend your time is the most important thing. And so I'll give you a little trick that I tell my leaders to do, which is two different things, right? One, they need to be

protective of their time, right? A lot of people get to leadership by being very generous with their time, by giving it to everybody, by constantly accommodating people, right? Because that's what they're taught to do. But then it comes to a point where that actually doesn't work anymore. That actually works against you because what happens is you start doing things that aren't actually the most important things.

And so what you have to do is you have to do, in my opinion, a calendar audit, which is looking at your calendar, looking at where your time goes and saying to yourself, am I spending my time on the right things? Are these really the things that are going to grow the business? Or am I just kidding myself, right? Am I spending time on things? And guys, this is anything. For me, I look at every single thing in my day.

laundry, right? If I have to refill a toothpaste container, I'm like, you know what? I got to the point because I used to have a house manager and I don't need more. And it got to the point I said, oh my gosh, I can't even be doing this anymore. I'm spending, you know, even just having 40 minutes a week where I have to reorder things from my home. It just doesn't make sense with where I'm at right now.

right? Driving. I looked at driving and I said, wow, if I could work in the car, then that's an extra 35, 40 minutes a day back in between the office where I can take meetings and I can do work that drives things forward, right? So what did I do? I got a driver, right? So

Look at every little area. Where can you take things off your plate that are non-value add, that are not important, they're not driving the future of your life and your business that you can outsource? Now within the business, this might look like other things, right? It might look like scheduling. It might look like coordination. It might look like prepping for meetings. It might look like doing research on things, right? It might look like planning events. It might look like, uh,

gathering agenda items for a meeting. There are so many things that you're probably doing that somebody else can do. And so if you want to grow your department, start with thinking, if I had to get everything off my calendar, besides the things that grow, directly grow my business and people, what would it be? So for me, I'll tell you what my non-negotiables are, right? I am never going to get rid of my one-on-ones. No matter what, I keep my one-on-ones and I keep my leadership meeting that I run. That is important to me.

I also will always allow touch bases for 5, 10, 15 minutes with people on other teams. So I don't deny when somebody asks for my time. It might only be five minutes, but I will give it to them because I do think that more time I spend with my team, the faster the business grows because I am the one with the most perspective. So if I can help somebody solve a problem in two minutes, I'm going to do it.

So ruthlessly protect the things that you know grow the business, ruthlessly protect the time that you know is going to add to growth, and then get everything else off your plate. And then that's how you build your organizational chart. You don't look at the people below you and what they need to get off their plates. You first have to look at yourself.

And the thing is, if you're a great leader, this probably feels so contrary because you feel like that's almost selfish in a way. And I'm here to tell you it's not selfish. Selfish would be not growing your business because you're afraid of being perceived as so.

And so I hope those three things help you guys. This has just been top of mind for me because I think these are the messages that I've been sending to my leadership team. And you know what? Reminding myself because I can get stuck in things too. You know, just because I've done this three times in the past, it doesn't mean that I don't need to continue to remind myself of these things. And so hope this episode helped you. Let me know if you like the new format and I will see you guys on the next one.