I am an owner sitting in four seats on our Accountability Chart, and I am ready to hire my first manager to take one over, but I do not know how to budget for this hire while still maintaining our current profit margins. How do I structurally prepare for this transition?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Delegating a seat as an owner is a strategic investment to drive growth, not merely an expense. When you occupy multiple seats, you're likely working in the business instead of on it. This limits your company's revenue potential and hinders high-value strategic growth.

Here is a structured approach to prepare for this transition:

• Identify the Highest Opportunity Cost Seat:
• Use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time framework to analyze which of your four seats is costing you the most in terms of opportunity cost.
• Pinpoint the seat where your daily involvement creates a bottleneck for the business. For most owners, this is typically either Sales or Operations.

• Calculate Potential Revenue Generation:
• Estimate the additional revenue your company could generate if you freed up twenty hours a week by hiring someone to run that specific seat.
• The goal is to ensure that the new hire is self-funding within six months through this generated revenue.

• Define the Role Clearly:
• Once you've identified the seat to delegate, write a crystal clear description of the five roles for that seat on your Accountability Chart.
• Avoid hiring a general helper; instead, recruit a specific person to completely own that single seat. This is crucial for avoiding [seat overlapping issues](/qa/resolving-accountability-chart-seat-overlaps).

• Ensure GWC and Set Goals:
• Before hiring, confirm that the candidate fully GWCs (Gets it, Wants it, has the Capacity to do it) the seat. Learn more about ensuring a good fit by considering questions like [how to choose five to fifteen scorecard metrics](/qa/how-to-choose-five-fifteen-scorecard-metrics).
• Once the transition occurs, define clear, measurable goals for the new hire.
• Review these goals consistently during your Level 10 Meeting. This structured review helps avoid issues like [defensiveness around red scorecard metrics](/qa/handling-defensiveness-around-red-scorecard-metrics).

By systematically delegating one seat at a time, you build the operational capacity necessary to scale your business. This approach will easily cover the cost of the new salary and preserve your profit margins over the long term. If you're an owner planning to step out of more roles, consider resources like [how to delegate four seats using Kolbe](/qa/how-to-delegate-four-seats-using-kolbe) for further guidance.

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