Only 2 Things A Manager Is Responsible For In A Growing Small Business.

From the hundreds of small businesses we have guided to profitable growth over the decades, and in most of my early 15 businesses, the role of manager is usually poorly trained and armed to succeed.

In small businesses with 5 to 30 team members, we talk about three roles:

Most times, a great technician or individual contributor is promoted to manage people, but never given any training on how to be an effective manager.

Or when they are given some material, it is usually rushed, short and / or general shit advice.

We believe there are only two things a successful manager in a small business is responsible for:

Let’s run through each of these, and some advice on how you and your managers can be more effective in retention and results.

By retention, we mean keeping great team members - your A-Team.

This team is made up of A-Players, people who take work off the owners’ plate, use all their discretionary effort and make business (and life) so much easier.

And, they add a lot of value to your business - not just in annual profits, but also if you ever sell your business one day.

So, it is key your managers focus on retention.

If you have high churn or turnover of team members, you’re probably a shit manager.

And, you can do something about it.

Firstly, up your PD (Professional Development) so you absorb the best advice out there on how to manage your people better, and keep them longer.

Here are the main points around retention we go through in detail in our 16 week ‘Business Transformation Program’:

Most managers rush recruitment, and soon after experience the effects of ‘the warm body syndrome’ (I’ll hire anyone with a pulse, to help us with this workload).

They let a B, C-Player or worse (a toxic asshole) onto their bus and the team and business performance suffers.

The risk of not nailing recruitment and only letting A-Players on is not only in the, less than A-Player, exiting soon after joining, but also that your existing team may think about leaving.

We have read most of the great, and not so great, books on recruitment and have included the top 5 in our ‘Ultimate Recruitment Toolkit’ course.

The two week online course not only expands on the lessons in all those books, and provides you with tools, templates and a Playbook you can copy and tailor for your business, but it is also packed with the experience and mistakes we have made in recruiting for our own businesses.

Another thing most small business owners and their managers rush or do poorly is onboarding.

More than half spend less than two days onboarding new team members, when best practice is 90 - 100 days.

A great cast with Joey Coleman, author of “Never lose an employee again: the simple path to remarkable retention”, that went live this week has some valuable tips as well as stats on why onboarding is so important (the book is free on Spotify).

Joey mentions a mis-hire can cost between one and three times the roles’ salary, in some reading we have seen this can be as high as 27 times!!

Another great cast to help you get your onboarding right is with Brad Giles, author of “Onboarded: How to bring new hires to the point where they are effective, faster” (the book is free on Spotify).

When we say ‘kick-ass’, we don’t mean you kick the asses of your team to get them to higher performance!!

We mean you become kick-ass at this vital skill when growing a small business, be a world-class manager.

There are so many things in this area to write about here, which is why in our 16 week Program, around half our teachings in the three courses and weekly one-on-one coaching with a Growth Guide is dedicated to helping you become a more effective leader, and you and all your managers Kick-Ass.

If you improve as a manager, and especially build a strong professional relationship with your team (using the mindsets, habits and tools in our Program), you will increase the retention of your A-Team.

Every business has a culture, the difference is whether you have proactively built and maintained an effective one.

If people love working in their team, and are aligned to the vision, mission and values of the business, of course they are going to stay with your business longer.

There are some simple things you can do, needing very little time or cost, to lift your culture to new levels and get more discretionary effort from each team member.

Again, check out our Program for tools and tips on crafting and maintaining a great culture.

An Employee Share Ownership Plan, or ESOP, is a great tool to boost your teams’ retention.

As you will hear in this cast I did with Craig from Succession Plus in 2020, an ESOP can double retention, from around 5 years to almost 10.

We did a more recent cast on ESOPs with Tom Lewin too, and I spoke about ESOPs here as well.

Finally, a terrific book which outlines the increased value to your business from using an ESOP is The Great Game of Business: The Only Sensible Way to Run a Company.

Check out the next post, where I talk about the second thing a manager in a small business is responsible for - results.

If you want specific advice for specific resources to help you and your business grow, especially for you and your managers to increase retention, book a 20 minute Growth Chat with me and I will point you in the right direction. I always provide some books, podcasts, courses or contacts in my network to help you with your #1 growth challenge - I love talking everything small business!!

Remember to check out the footer on our website for other great resources we have to help small business owners grow their business with ease, so they can live the lifestyle they signed up for.

Cheers,

Troy | Founder | Grow A Small Business