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- When to Hire a VP of Ops?
When to Hire a VP of Ops?
Your Firm Needs an Ops Person at This Level
Hey đź‘‹ - Brandon here.
Happy Saturday to 1,428 growth-minded accountants.
Here’s one growth tip for you and your firm.
Today’s issue takes less than 10 minutes to read.
Today, I’m going to explain when you need to hire a VP of Ops for your accounting firm.
My COO, Blake, started as my VP of Ops in January 2022. For context, we did roughly $3.9M in 2021 and $6.1M in 2022.
Prior to his VP of Ops promotion, Blake had a ~5 month transition into the role (transitioning from a client advisor role).
The catalyst for his transition was a leadership failure in our tax compliance department.
In July 2021, we hired three new tax managers and one of them quit, no notice, two weeks into the job. In speaking with the exiting manager and gaining feedback, I learned that the tax department was in disarray.
I called up the tax leader at the time and asked him for a plan of action.
He couldn’t give me one.
I called Blake up and asked the same thing. Blake immediately rattled off five things that needed to be fixed, how to fix them, and two things he recommended fixing longer term.
As a client advisor, Blake had optimized our processes related to delivering planning services to clients. So he had proven his capabilities, to some degree, around streamlining operations.
He also had a habit of connecting with people across the firm to build relationships.
All on his own accord.
So I called the tax leader back and told him Blake would be leading the service line from now on.
Today our firm runs smoothly.
There are no fires, client satisfaction is at an all time high, and 40% year-over-year growth feels calm and controlled.
Hopefully, you won’t have a leadership meltdown as a catalyst for hiring a VP of Ops.
Here are some other signs that may indicate it’s time to hire a VP of Ops:
You are working 60+ hour weeks
When you are getting a firm off the ground, you have little cash flow to invest in people so you must supplement with hours.
80+ hour weeks are the norm.
But at the $3M revenue level, working 60+ hours a week is a sign that you are not investing your capital well.
In other words, long hours are self-imposed.
Assess your day-to-day… you are likely spending time delivering to clients, developing people, hiring, firing, building systems, tweaking software, holding people accountable, etc. etc. etc.
A VP of Ops can handle the systems, optimization, people, accountability, and more and help you buy back your time.
You are constantly putting out fires
Client complaints, poor quality, missed deadlines…
Every day is stressful. Every email spikes your adrenaline.
Your team is great at triaging emails because they are firefighters looking to put out the next fire.
But for some reason, you never seem to get ahead.
A VP of Ops will help systematize the workflow and deliverable. Having someone primarily responsible for air traffic controlling work product will make your life easier and calm the fires.
Your team misses deadlines
If you find yourself consistently frustrated your team misses internal deadlines, and ultimately client deadlines…
Have you looked hard at who you put in charge?
Often, we place capable people into leadership roles and then “abdicate” responsibility. Effectively, we wish them well and hope for the best because we have other tasks that demand our time and attention.
Unfortunately, this sets the leader and their team up for failure.
If you do not have significant time to invest in coaching your various leaders and holding them accountable to expectations, it’s time to hire a VP of Ops.
A VP of Ops tracks KPIs across the firm and manages your firm’s scorecard. They crack the whip when necessary to get people moving (and hopefully less necessary over time as you build a culture of accountability).
You don’t have time for sales and marketing
As the owner of the firm, or a partner of the firm, your primary job is to bring in business and talent.
Without expanding branding and bringing in sales, your team doesn’t eat and your firm doesn’t grow.
If you don’t have time to spend on growth activities, it’s time to look for operations help.
Your firm can run smoothly…
When I was running an $2-$5M firm I didn’t think it was possible to have:
A smooth tax season
Overwhelmingly happy clients
Predictable and data-driven capacity planning
But transitioning Blake into the VP of Ops role changed my perspective.
Your VP of Ops will be the foundation for the platform you build and will help everyone around them be more successful than they could otherwise.
That's all for this Saturday. See you next week.
Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you.
→ Work with me 1:1 to grow your firm (now accepting waitlist coaching applications)
See you again next week.
Cheers,
Brandon
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