Solopreneur to Team and Delegating Clients To Staff
You’re a business owner. You started alone, and now you have a team of people that take care of different things. But certain old clients insist on getting you on the phone to get simple things done that can be done by your team, disallowing you from focusing on other more important aspects of business growth.
This is a very good business problem I had to suffer first-hand. The fact that your business grew from a solopreneur stage, where you had to do it all by yourself, to a team stage is a great thing. You are generating enough revenue to justify the staffing costs, and you are able to have each staff specialize in a part of the work flow and have a great delegation mechanism. This is how businesses grow — it’s what you wanted when you started.
“I feel like I’m not being taken care of by the owner/CEO anymore.” — Common complaint of an early stage customer
However the problem arises with old clients who are used to dealing with only you, or used to dealing with the smaller early-stage team, are not happy about the adjustment. Maintaining old clients and continuing to service them is critical to your growth. High client turnover is a bad signal for most businesses (exclusion: funeral homes and pest control!). While most clients are OK with this, there are situations where some people will be upset, mostly for following reasons:
- They don’t feel special anymore
- They are unfamiliar with the new name (fear of change)
Mitigating these complaints without actually having to step back to the front-lines is something I was very successful at over the last few years. It took a while (and still working on it) to go from the phrase “Call Jeff Kee” to “Contact Brixwork“. I do not want people to say “call Jeff” anymore. It’s not the business I intended to grow, and I’m not an individual salesperson. Our clients being Realtors® who, for the most part, are their own salesperson & brand presence, this was a tough concept to get across — but I succeeded so far. Here’s what worked for me.
For the team to work well and not require the founder/owner/CEO’s presence on everything, your team naturally needs to channel your knowledge in what they do. While I am not available for clients as much, I always make myself available for my team to ask me questions, or seek consult. But ultimately, the conversations, recommendations, and the work is all presented by my team directly, because they know what they are doing. I can proudly say that my team is able to take care of everything on their own, without me being on the frontline.
#1 — Clear Objectives, Clear Workflows
Every team member needs to be clearly aware of what the objectives are — both internally (hour targets, completion time, efficiency) and externally (design standards, final product finish, quality control for errors/flaws reduction). Workflows are merely steps to achieve the right outcome. Without a clearly defined outcome, the workflow is bound to lose direction.
When you get the client who says “I want to talk to [insert owner’s name] about this” and it’s clearly not something serious/important enough to be escalated to the top level, gently but firmly delegate by communicating directly to the client (so you make the client aware that the owner is aware of what is going on). “Rebecca will take care of you for [whatever].” Resist the urge to jump back in. If your input is required, pass it to your staff, and he/she should be directly communicating that as the team/corporations voice. By writing this email directly, you’ve soothed the client so he/she understands that you are still involved in the business, but you also put faith in the team. Do not lead the clients to think you have abandoned the ship — let them know you are still there, but in a different role than before.
The original article linked here has the FULL article! Below are summaries only
#2 — Introductory Meetings With New Staff & Clients
Another great to way ease clients into the team environment is to simply have a meeting or a Skype conference with the new person. Often this face-to-face interface takes away the foreign feeling of working with a stranger. Once the rapport is established, it becomes much easier to get a client accustomed to working with the new staff.
#3 — Never throw anybody under the bus unless you are ready fire them!
“John totally messed up! I’ll fix it.” is the most perfect way to tell a client that your staff are incapable, and that the owner has to step in to get anything done. Passing the blame onto the person (even if they did mess up) is a great way to break that team image, and relegate yourself down to individual status again.
#4 — The Right Online Collaboration Tools & Infrastructure
Apart from a well trained staff, your infrastructure must allow the teamwork as well. Have a common communication queue (such as Freshdesk for customer support). Make sure you have the right collaboration tools on the cloud by utilizing Dropbox, Asana, and other cloud-based solutions for access from all teammates. Making sure your staff have the right tools and equipment to get the job done is your job as a business owner.
#5 — Don’t be afraid to let go of stubborn clients
You’ve done all of the above and you have a well trained team who work as a unified team, and some clients still won’t budge… whether out of ego, or inability to accept change in this modern world, or a false sense of entitlement — doesn’t matter why. Let the client go. Be bold enough to say “It seems like our workflow and our organizational structure is not suited for your needs anymore. I think you would be better off if you hired an in-house team to handle [insert whatever service].”
Originally published at www.jeffkee.com.
Interested in following me further on my journey of small new venture that is growing rapidly? Follow me on Medium, or check out my company Brixwork REM! You can find me on Twitter, Instagram as well.
