Scaling Founder-led Businesses - the first common mistake
Ernie Cote
CXO | Advisor | Keynote Speaker | Digital Marketing Leader | Strategic Revenue Generator
I might write a book titled, Cloning the Founder. As I advise and invest in early-stage tech firms, I’ve observed a pattern among founders; they are hands-down, the best salesperson for the business, and that can be a problem.
A Tale of Two Founders
I advise and invest in a company that is doing extremely well in a highly technical space, even amid COVID. This Founder tried for years to find the right salesperson - his clone. He failed over and over. The good news is, he is open to advice, in fact, he craves it. So we put together a process for hiring and training the right salesperson, his ‘clone on the phone’. The idea was to hire slowly, kiss a lot of frogs before we found our Sales Prince, or Princess. It took a minute, but we found her, yet her ramp was slow, scaring the Founder who almost canned her. But he hung in there, and she is killing it! The company is thriving, even amid COVID. And the company can now scale, freeing the Founder to be the Visionary the company needs.
I advised another company that was growing like crazy, though highly leveraged, and COVID might be the death of it. The scaling never happened, because the CEO was what Jim Collins describes “a genius with a 1,000 helpers”. In other words, he believes he’s the smartest guy in the room, and wants it to stay that way. Amid COVID, when the company needs a team of creative thinkers and closers, they have a leader, but lack leadership. The Founder’s unwillingness to be cloned has threatened the company.
Cloning the Founder
Last week, I was asked to advise and potentially invest in a growing start up. On the phone with the Founder he struggled to explain what made him call me. After 20 minutes of listening, I asked, “Do you feel like you’re the only person who can sell for your company?”. He practically screamed ‘Yes!” It wasn’t a wild guess.
From my experience, the first step toward scaling sales - beyond the Founder’s innate ability to sell the value - is a recognition that the Founder must be cloned (their sales skills at least).
That requires patience that most Visionaries don’t have.
They just ‘know what to say’ to the prospect, based on their experience and believe ‘that can't be easily taught’. And that’s correct, it cannot be easily taught, but it must be taught if the business is to scale.
I have a thought on the next step, but first, do you agree? Is ‘‘cloning the founder’ a real issue? If so, do you agree the first step is a recognition by the Founder that their sales skills must be cloned?
Partner & vendor relationship manager/ Sales leader in education, tech & retail industries
4 年Great article! Clone? Sure. The loophole or bottleneck is when the leader(s) have not been trained nor practiced in their coaching skills to attain that in either their top, struggling or emerging talent. I trust you "get it" Ernie because I know you. : )
Managing Partner at Top Gun Ventures
4 年Ernie, I agree... We have spent over a decade placing and assimilating GameChangers into organizations. Many of these hires have been to replace founders (that would not be cloned) or to bring in the first or sometimes second wave of senior executive professional Sales, Technical or Marketing execs (to clone the Founder as you say) to scale the company. We have learned a lot along the way. One of these areas is in the pre-hire discussion phase with founder and board and to run a GameChanger team Assessment/Workshop. This is where the Founder gets to see the team profile of himself/herself and the other key executives. This is a ah ha moment for most founders as it clarifies why they have been successful to date and clearer still why this team profile is not what they need for where they need to go next. It spotlight both the parts of the founder that need to be cloned so founders can more easily let go and focus on bigger things and additionally what parts are missing from the team that need to be added for future success. By being able to profile the new execs hired in the same way the founder and team can see what their new roles are going forward to all make the biggest contribution to scaling the company. Happy to share more and transfer the knowledge. Be fun to test it out on the genius Founder with a 1000 helpers.