DAVID VOLK, Esq.: ‘Killing The Hero’ Means Changing the Way You Look at Your Role in Your Business

If you kill the hero mentality, you can put more energy into evaluating and improving the business

A hero mentality causes an owner to think they must micromanage, they are the only person who can properly perform numerous functions, and they are putting more energy into doing the work instead of training others to do the work.

If you kill the hero mentality, you can put more energy into evaluating and improving the business. You know you have attained that higher state of ownership when you can say you are working on the business by evaluating and improving how it functions instead of working in the business as chief technician. You can and should coach and supervise, but your primary concern in a growing business is to keep improving how it functions.

Michael Gerber’s excellent book The E Myth Revisited is my favorite for simple advice on running a business without feeling overwhelmed. The E Myth helps people understand that feeling overwhelmed as an owner is not an unusual occurrence.

Most small business owners start out working for someone else. They were very good at what they did and believed that they could do it better than the business they worked for. They were a great technician, whether it was taking cases to court, drawing engineering plans, hanging drywall, or selling a product; our technician develops a heroic view of themselves because they are very good at what they do.

Gerber explains in very understandable terms that being a great technician is only one hat you wear when you run your own business. You must also be a great entrepreneur and manager. The simplest but most important part of being a great entrepreneur is that you have to get customers. Being a great technician does not mean you will get customers. You have to learn sales. You have to learn marketing. Think of sales as direct communication with potential customers and referral sources. Think of marketing as broadcasting through a wide range of media.

Being a great manager requires great skill across a large spectrum of disciplines. You have to know how to manage money. Managing money in a business has a number one rule: the owner gets paid last. Number two rule is having sufficient working capital.

The owner has to have invested or built up working capital in a sufficient amount to cover expenses for an appropriate length of time. This allows the owner to get through slow income periods at the outset and throughout the life of the business because every business is going to have times where income slows down.

A manager has to essentially be a magnificent psychologist because the manager will be selecting and developing good employees and trying to solve the problem of underperforming employees. The manager needs to keep good records. The manager has to develop procedures for managing the operations of the business.

This can be as simple as a procedure for how the telephone is answered or as complex as how to prepare a bid, how work is performed, what is needed for equipment and supplies, what professionals should be hired such as an accountant and lawyer, and disaster preparedness and recovery. Why a good lawyer? For example, you will inevitably have employee problems.

We have quite a few client survival tools at Volk Law Offices such as a great set of human resources forms that guide onboarding and managing difficult personnel events. One example is a Noncompete, Trade Secrets, and Confidentiality Agreement to avoid employee theft of valuable resources like customers and valuable internal data including financials and operating processes.

When you understand the three hats you have to wear in business, it becomes much easier to understand why it is so hard to be a successful entrepreneur. A smart, motivated person can likely do a great job with one or maybe two of the three hats but will not effectively do very well with all three.

So, what is this killing the hero business? It means realizing that you need help with the three hats, that you choose your help wisely, and that you train your help. Most important is that you trust your help so that you delegate often at a level higher than you were comfortable with and that you are fully knowledgeable about what is going on in the business.

A cornerstone of being fully knowledgeable is through defining your KPIs. KPIs are key performance indicators. The simplest are income and expenses in a set period of time. Objective reality is best evaluated by hard data points like profitability. You do not want to be the business owner that says, ‘we are losing money on each job, but I think we can make it up with volume.’ I wish I had more space. In future articles, I will come back with more Entrepreneurial Edge advice. As a business owner celebrating thirty years of surviving and thriving, it is enjoyable helping people grow their businesses with fewer growing pains.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David J. Volk, Esq., has conducted approximately 85 trials and more than 800 hearings as sole or lead counsel. Foundational principles such as faith, recognizing the need for mentors, humility, and never giving up is what has led Volk throughout his life and career as a lawyer and business owner.

He has a background of working in family-owned businesses, and this has been helpful in understanding how businesses are run. At the age of twelve, he went to work in his parents’ beverage warehouse with tasks such as sweeping floors, loading, unloading, and cleaning trucks, working in the icehouse, forklift operation, and checking in drivers receipts and money. He continued to stay active in the family business affairs up through graduating law school.

Other activities included helping with leasing, cleaning, and bookkeeping for commercial and residential rental properties; surface coal mining including operating and servicing trucks and machinery; the sale, delivery, installation, and servicing of manufactured homes; and construction of a mobile home park and commercial building.

Bar Admissions and Education

Florida Bar, West Virginia Bar, all Florida Federal District Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. Former partner in what was Brevard County’s largest firm Reinman, Harrell, Graham, Mitchell & Wattwood, P.A. and established Volk Law Offices, P.A. in December of 1994. West Virginia University Bachelor of Science degree in business administration (accounting major) 1983 and juris doctor degree from that school’s College of Law 1987. Member: Moot Court Board and Lugar Trial Association. Legal research and writing teaching assistant while in law school. 

For more information, visit VolkLawOffices.com or call 321-726-8338.

Similar Stories