My CEO Life

This is a common question i am asked - here is the exact question “What job should I get to get start so i can try to move. Does it matter what school u get your MBA in.”

Firstly, the simplest way to be a CEO is to start your own business.  Take one of your ideas, register a company and away you go.  Of course there is lots of risk but the returns are greatest too!

If you don’t want to start your company then you are opening yourself up to the world of competition for the role of CEO.

Now most Boards will look for a CEO who has a number of characteristics …

1. Vision - where are we going and why it makes sense
2. Strategy - how we are going to get there
3. Leadership - the ability to make the impossible look possible and to convice others
4. Operational understanding - the ability to understand how to really make it all work
5. People selection skills - the ability to build a great team
6. Finance skills - the ability to make sure you are going to make $$$$$
7. Passion - the ability to go the extra mile when everyone else is against you

So how do you get these skills - well some are natural and some can be learned.  Most CEO’s will come from a sales / operational background.

From my view, lawyers, accountants and consultants make the worst CEO’s … they just are not in touch with the “factory floor”.

The bottom line — find an industry you love, get an operational job (sales / marketing / ops) and work like mad.  Business school helps but nothing is a quick replacement for experience.

Finally - you have to ask yourself - why does being a CEO matter?  For me it is not the title - it is the ability to build something special!!!

One issue we came across the other day was about how to set customer expectations.

As a rapid growth company, you are constantly developing new products and you have customers constantly wanting things tailored to their own requirements.  If we were selling one off items - no problems.  How ever, we sell high volume low value online products that cant be tailored.

Therefore the challenge with a 100+ person sales force is ensuring that the sales guys don’t commit the business to doing things that the business doesn’t plan to do.  This really comes down to their ability to say “no” and still get the order without a fear of losing the customer.

At the end of the day communication about the product set (and its future) and education are the keys to this.  I guess we just need to work more on those two areas.