Jay Reeder knew his business was really taking off when he got a call from
Kuwait.
Reeder’s company, VoiceNation, offers
voice communication solutions to its
clients, and he was curious how one of
Kuwait’s state-run companies heard of him.
When he asked the caller who referred him
to VoiceNation, Reeder got a simple answer.
“He said he asked Google who was the
best at this, and we came up — so he called
us,” Reeder says.
The company has taken off since Reeder
co-founded it with Graham Taylor in 2003,
reaching $22 million in revenue for 2006.
Smart Business spoke with Reeder, president of VoiceNation, about why it’s important for a growing company to have more
chiefs than Indians.
Q: How do you achieve and manage
growth?
In the early stages of explosive growth,
it’s key to go top-heavy with management.
There was a time in our company when
three-fourths of the people working here
were managers. They were empowered to
hire, fire, make decisions without repercussions.
In a lot of companies you have a problem
with having too many chiefs and not
enough Indians. But when you’ve got this
explosive growth, you need more chiefs
than Indians.
You need people who can make a decision
on the spot without calling a meeting and
stopping everything. The last thing I want is a
rigid management structure that gets in the
way of growth.
It is counterintuitive because when you’re a
start-up, you need to save money. It’s cheaper to get the workers than the managers.
But actually, you need thinkers who can
come in and make decisions if you’re going
to build a solid foundation.
Q: How did you learn to delegate and let
other people make decisions?
Nobody likes to fail, and when you’re
wearing all the hats and you’re making all
the decisions, it’s not hard at all to pass that
along. I knew I couldn’t do the job.
It’s like the old saying, ‘Jack of all trades,
master of none.’ As a CEO, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades, but the key is having
experts in each discipline.
Surround yourself with good people, and
good things happen. With these experts
around you, you can make decisions a little
bit quicker.
Q: How do you empower employees?
There’s just times when you’re going to
have an instinct or understanding of the
bigger picture that nobody else will, so you
always have to reserve that final say. But
the organization isn’t an organization of
one. You have to draw people in. Two
heads are better than one.
Everyone in this company is important.
Their lives are going to depend on the company, and the company is going to depend
upon their performance. We communicate
the vision from Day One and lay it out
there.
Q: How do you communicate that vision?
We have periodic meetings where we do
vision casts. Basically, we talk about where
we’re going, we paint the picture. A lot of
times when you’re in the trenches trying to
solve a problem — killing the alligators, so
to speak — it’s hard to grasp the bigger
vision of where we’re going and why certain decisions are being made.
So a vision cast is almost like a storytelling, we frame where we are in the life of
the company, and in the industry, against
where we are in industry against competitors.
Q: How involved should a CEO be in day-today operations?
It’s critical to understand the nuts and
bolts of your business. Without that understanding, you can’t translate business
reports into the necessary changes you
need to make. After those changes are
made, you can rely on people. You can
count on managers to handle the day-to-day
operations without hands-on involvement.
You really need that, so that you don’t
become the bottleneck. It frees you up to
focus on the bigger vision and strategy.
Because of the growth we’ve had I’ve had
to develop a distributive management style
— so we have microcompanies within our
company. That’s how we’ve been able to stay nimble and react and adjust to opportunities while growing at a fanatical pace.
Q: How do you deal with a difficult person
on staff?
First, take your time hiring. People are the
key and having the right people is even more
key. When you see a problem, don’t hesitate
to fire. Because it doesn’t get any better and
it’s not any easier if you prolong the agony. It
sounds harsh, but it’s not really one-sided.
If you have an employee and they are a
bad fit for the company, it’s not just a bad
fit for you as the company, it’s a bad fit for
them too. By firing them, you’re actually
helping because they can go find a better fit
for themselves sooner rather than later.
HOW TO REACH: VoiceNation, www.voicenation.com or (866)
766-5050.