“The ability to acquire the skills to be an effective CEO is as difficult as an average singer becoming a great recording artist. Unfortunately many entrepreneurs as their companies become more and more successful fail to acquire the next level of skill sets…” Roy Cammarano, former leader of three INC. 500 companies and author of Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers and the award-winning book, Entrepreneurial Transitions.
The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche. In addition, we also interview those that provide services entrepreneurs and small businesses need in order to help them build their companies. This week we interview Roy Cammarano:
Interviewee: Roy Cammarano, former President of three INC. 500 companies, business consultant, public speaker and author of Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers and the award-winning book, Entrepreneurial Transitions.
Why Selected: Having had the pleasure of working with Roy at two different companies, I can attest to the fact that Roy’s perspectives and insights into helping entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial organizations and businesses of all sizes grow themselves and their companies is invaluable. I would encourage every entrepreneur to read Entrepreneurial Transitions, it is one of the very few books that can help you move from being an entrepreneur to a leader.
In the following interview, Roy discusses how starting and running a business is analogous to starting a family, helping it grow and some of the mistakes to avoid along the way. As you read the full interview, here are some points that stood out to me:
1. As a company grows, the founder and/or leader of the company must transition from being the “entrepreneurial genius” to visionary leader. One key to this relies on the leader of the company building a strong executive team and then enabling them to run their departments.
2. Entrepreneurs need to realize that at some point in order for their company to reach its full potential, they may need to bring in someone to run the business.
3. When times get tough, focus everyone on a common goal and use that to rally the troops by celebrating small wins and build positive momentum.
4. When hiring outside consultants, only hire those that provides the skills the company needs and does not already possess.
5. Companies that continually dominate their niche are always asking themselves, “how would I compete with me” and then building the barriers to keep them competition at bay.
