What is the priority list for this week?

It was a great recurring question from our new employees, and one that I hadn’t been available to answer because I was in the weeds managing my own to-do list, customer outreach, and customer support.

All throughout the early stages of Vendevor, I had been managing myself. I knew my tasks, my responsibilities, and my routine. And I knew how that contributed to growth.

That process was working, and so a little while back, Vendevor grew in staff by 25% practically overnight.

We wanted to scale our sales team, and so it seemed to me like we would just be doing more of what I had already been doing.

Easy, right?

Not exactly.

We had hired the right people — really talented people. Really awesome people to work with in general.

But having more bodies in a room doesn’t just mean you get to make more bricks. It takes some serious organization. Organization and directing that I wasn’t expecting — simply because I was used to my normal schedule and to-do list.

I felt like I had walked into a room with a talented orchestra waiting for me to conduct them.

This video couldn’t possibly better describe what I was feeling:

We hired amazing new people who are extremely talented at what they do. Designers, salesmen, you name it. They are amazing people, and amazing at their job. But just as anyone would, they needed initial direction and leadership, or if nothing else, a vision and a goal for what we were all working towards.

Truthfully, I felt very inadequate to step up and conduct an orchestra of talented people.

But did you notice how in the video, regardless of how bad or awkward the “conductor” was, once they conducted the start of the song, it didn’t quite matter what they did after that?

They could look around, look at the crowd, stop conducting, or just about anything else, but the orchestra kept going. Flawlessly.

That is the benefit of hiring the right people. You can lead them and then let them do their thing. They know how to play in the orchestra, you just need to help them get the song started.

This was a huge relief for me, but I didn’t realize it until later on in retrospect that I should have “started the song” better. Or at least with more confidence and charisma.

I believe it’s some entrepreneurs’ (myself included) tendency to fall into a niche. Not necessarily industry niche, but position niche.

Some people are really good at building things.

Some people are fantastic at biz dev.

Some people could sell water to a fish.

But something I didn’t anticipate as Vendevor was/is growing was needing to be good at your niche but ALSO willing to lead, conduct, and inspire staff. Delegating tasks and leading people that are much more skilled than I am in their particular roles. And that was a surprise to me.

We’ve been blessed at Vendevor to hire amazing people that are unbelievably good at their position. So much so that it’s intimidating at times to be the one to lead them towards the growth goals that we have for Vendevor.

But as the CMO, that’s my job. Like it or not, I have to own that. I have to sell that. And I have to lead towards that. Even if I have no idea how to actually conduct an orchestra like our friends in the video didn’t, it’s what they’re wanting, even needing, me to do.

While in the chaos of trying to communicate the vision to our employees of what we’re wanting to accomplish (which in and of itself is a huge task because at the end of the day we could be going in the wrong direction. You never fully know until hindsight kicks in.) and then actually delegate tasks that help us work towards that vision, I placed guidelines on myself for how I wanted to lead and “manage” (although, great people don’t need to be managed. They simply need to be led).

1) Write down the overarching goal for your company. Display it. Then write down the goal for the next 30 days that is the first step in getting you there. Display it.

When you are leading, casting your vision of where you’re steering the ship towards is everything. This could be a financial goal, a customer goal, or any metric in your business that you decide is ultimately contributing towards your success as a company.

Keeping that goal in mind is what is going to unite everyone involved, and pull them (and you) through the times of trial, stress, and ambiguity.

So, communicate to everyone the overarching goal of the company, and then also right down and display on the wall the goal for the next 30 days that is going to help get you there.

This will help in the short-term to-do list for your employees.

Remember, if they are good at what they do, they simply need to be led, not managed.

2) Always, always put the needs of your employees before your own.

When you are in any leadership position of any kind, the cliche organizational pyramid is actually flipped on top of itself. YOU are actually serving the rest of the organization or company, even though you are seemingly at the top. This is the only way to lead, in my opinion.

So, instead of selfishly taking care of my tasks when I get to work in the morning, I need to be meeting with our new hires and asking what they needed of me that day to help them do their job better and complete the goals outlined in #1.

3) Accept the fact that you are conducting.

When I’m not online, my absolute favorite thing in the world to do is fly. I’ve been flying since I was 14, and feel like I’m fully alive in the air. Particularly when I’m flying in the Texas Hill Country at 500 feet above the ground.

When I was learning to fly, we always, always, practiced engine-out procedures. If your engine quit right now, what do you do?

The first thing we always, without fail, had to do if the engine quit: Fly the airplane.

You might not have an engine, but you’re still flying. It’s then your responsibility to fly the airplane until it’s stopped.

You can’t freeze, you can’t freak out — you have to keep flying the airplane.

In the same way, when Vendevor grew in staff rather quickly, it occurred to me one afternoon that I needed to get over the fact that things were a little chaotic and that I needed to own the position of leadership. Communicate to everyone what we were going to accomplish, and how we were going to get there. Keep flying the airplane.

The good thing was we hadn’t actually lost an engine, and in fact, we had added an additional sales engine mid-flight. Keep flying the airplane.

Continue to lead. Don’t stop communicating the vision just because things are busy or your schedule is hectic.

4) Genuinely listen to feedback.

Regardless of how good or bad it is, listen to (and even solicit) feedback from your employees. This will help you put their needs before your own. This one is pretty simple, but can’t be said enough. Sit down and make time to listen to employees and understand how you can help and encourage them, and keep them motivated and excited for the goals you have set.