Episode 411

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As your agency grows, your leadership team must grow alongside it. You’ll notice as your team gets bigger, the day-to-day operations become more complicated, and you might want to start taking a step back from certain tasks altogether.

That’s where a COO comes in to save the day. A successful, growing agency must have someone to handle day-to-day operations and implement systems and processes properly. And if you have the right person to take some tasks off your plate, that opens you up to focus on the parts of the business you’re most passionate about, like being a visionary.

This week, I’m talking with Carolyn Lodge about the signs and symptoms of when it’s time to grow your leadership team and hire a COO. We discuss how to identify the right person for the job, their roles and expectations, how to integrate them with the rest of your team to build trust, and what traits are most commonly needed in the COO position.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

leadership team

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • The clues that show it might be time to hire a COO
  • What size agency is too small to have a COO role
  • The skills and traits of a good COO
  • Implementing the founder’s or owner’s vision
  • Building trust within your leadership team as you bring on new team members
  • Ensuring your COO is a good culture fit for the job
  • How a COO changes the day-to-day of a CEO
  • Go-to questions to vet a potential COO

“If the team has wonderful ideas, but trouble implementing them, it might be time for somebody to run operations.” - Carolyn Lodge Click To Tweet
“I think we sometimes can forget that as a leadership team, implementing the process and the operations is as important as the vision.” - Carolyn Lodge Click To Tweet
“I think that trust between a CEO and a COO is really important — and it goes both ways.” - Carolyn Lodge Click To Tweet
“The idea of having somebody else come in and run your business for you can be a scary idea, but there's so much freedom in it.” - Carolyn Lodge Click To Tweet
“We talked about project managers and directors of client services. Those are often the same skill sets that will be good in operations.” - Carolyn Lodge Click To Tweet

Ways to contact Carolyn:

Resources: