How to prep your business to scale

I fired 2 property managers in 6 months. The biz owners personally knew how to manage a property. But their failed to build a business that delivers what they deliver.

They lost income on services they advertise but never provided, lied about their progress, and lost a customer forever.

H͟e͟r͟e͟ i͟s͟ w͟h͟a͟t͟ t͟h͟e͟y͟ w͟e͟r͟e͟ m͟i͟s͟s͟i͟n͟g͟:

• 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻/𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻/𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀 (Alignment)
  • Vision: Why we are here
  • Mission: What we do to serve the Vision
  • Values: What we will not jeopardize to deliver
• Cohesion
  • This means everybody knows each other on a personal and professional level.
  • They understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
• 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
  • Results without process are not repeatable.
  • Build workflows that deliver your service reliably.
  • Transparent processes yield meaningful metrics enabling intervention.

When scaling a team, whether in tech or appliance repair, nail these three cultural elements!!

Take a look at this illustration by Mounica Jammu (give her a follow!):

In the first picture, the proximity of the balloons is created by the confines of the box.

This is a group of people who’s closeness is limited to the assigned seating; they share neither direction nor connection.

In the second picture, the balloons are connected with a ribbon. They are soaring together in the same direction.

For me, this ribbon symbolizes Shared Purpose. Shared Purpose is the intersection between Connection and Alignment. I also imagine “Process” in that connection as a collective “this is how we do what we do.”

​

There was not enough time and money allocated to fix their project. And the failed project was directly related to the team’s dysfunction.

The communication was positively awful. The product was not working. They were a year behind schedule and 2x over budget. They had no cost projection and no commitment for future resources.

​

I’ll tell this story interspersed through the framework I described above:

𝟭. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺

“Evan, do you know anything about this problem?”

“No, but I’ll find someone who does.”

I spend a morning asking around.

I’m eventually pointed to the resident expert. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.

They had never met, I had to introduce them. I had been there for 1 week. They sat together for months. Like Mounica’s illustration above of balloons in a box, their closeness was only defined by their physical proximity.

𝘓𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘯 1: Build cohesion within the team. A team that knows each other asks each other for help.

2. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

They had no process for tracking issues. I built one. When I left there were 285 issues written down.

Some were hard.

I found a problem with a consistently-low pressure reading. “Oh I’ve always known about this.” “Who else knows.” “My manager.” “How long has he known?” “Two years.” …

I did some calculations showing the pressure reading error lead to a system error larger than our target performance.

So I set the issue priority to urgent.

The solution required:

• a new pressure sensor
• a software fix
• a circuit card redesign.

That only took us 2 days.

But we had just got our circuit cards back from the only respin we had time and funding for.

A problem that was “known about” for 2 years, but never written down, never quantified, and never prioritized was solved in 2 days. 3 weeks too late. Had it been re-discovered before the board respin, we’d have been fine.

𝘓𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘯 2: Transparent processes yield meaningful metrics. Meaningful metrics facilitate prioritization. Prioritization creates focus. Focus creates energy. Energy drives results.

Say it louder for the people in the back:

Track👏🏻 Your👏🏻 Important 👏🏻 Stuff👏🏻

Or as my wife says when I get frustrated that I can’t find something she moved (because I left on the floor:)

“It’s confusing that it’s haphazardly on the floor but you say it’s important to know where it is. If this is important to you, please treat it so.”

𝟯. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹

This is what finally killed the project:

There were two major disconnects with the Customer’s (undocumented) expectations:

𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵 1:

• The Customer thought they were getting a production ready design.
• The team had a barely working prototype and no runway to mature it.

𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵 2:

• They Customer had promised a price in their catalog.
• 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 > 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦.
• Every unit would be sold at a 50% loss

They added features without addressing the recurring cost. Nobody tracked the recurring cost. Almost nobody knew the promised price.

If you’re selling a pizza for $5 and the cost of the dough, sauce, and cheese, and pepperoni is $6, you’ve got a problem. You can remove scope (remove the pepperoni), reduce quality (get cheaper sauce), or increase price.

𝘓𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘯 3: Document your project goals in a Charter which is signed by the project Sponsor – in this case, the customer. For an internal project, the Charter might be signed by your manager.

In my experience, the manager will almost never create the charter. Document it youself, get her to sign it, and you can deliver what was actually requested through that alignment making you a superstar.

So – create Alignment, Cohesion, and Transparent Processes before things pass the point of no return. And if you are about to scale – if you are about to scale your business from one to several or several to many – or if your team has just hit a major milestone and you are about to grow from a single team to a team of teams, document things NOW.

I was speaking about this with an aquaintance who is an appliance repair person. She is planning on hiring her first employee with goals of growing much larger. She asked me if these ideas might apply to her business.

I told the story of the property managers. She asked for a draft to give her an idea of how this would look. Here’s what I came up with.

𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦:

𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: We set your mind at ease and keep your family and business running

𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: Reliably deliver timely, competent repairs through well-trained, well-tooled personel with access to parts.

𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀:

𝘏𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘺 – we will never lie to get your business

𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 – we’ll never ghost you. We show up when we say we will, or notify you as soon as we something comes up.

𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦 – we hit our cost estimates. We may not be the cheapest service provider, we aim to be the most reliable.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀:

A KANBAN tracks our service calls. We build it in Jira/Monday/Trello so we can prioritize our backlog, ensure everyone has work, ensure we hit the important tasks before things become urgent, and we’ve communicated with our customers.

​

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙨.

They will set the tone for the rest of the company.

𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟰 𝗗’𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 (from Fred Kofman’s book The Meaning Revolution):

• 𝗗ocument the culture you aspire to (Vision/Mission/Values and Processes)
• 𝗗emonstrate it
• 𝗗emand that others demonstrate it
• 𝗗elegate that others demonstrate and demand it of others

By documenting, you can screen for culture while you hire, get them aligned as you onboard, and get them to demand it of those they onboard.

​

Ciao,

Evan

Evan Hickok

Evan Hickok has over twenty years of experience designing and managing high-complexity systems in high-consequence environments. As a Systems Engineer and Program Manager, he has guided projects through every phase of the product life cycle—from concept, detailed design, transition to production, production, installation & activation, and operational support. A dedicated researcher of team dynamics, Evan focuses on building high-performing teams capable of delivering exceptional results in the most challenging environments. He shares his insights and frameworks in the Lighthouse Leadership newsletter, published almost weekly at evanhickok.com.

See Full Bio