How do I hire my Second In Command?

As your business grows, there are certain ‘next big steps’ that you have to take on your business journey; your first office, recruiting your first staff members, upgrading your processes and systems, entering new markets, launching new products and many, many more. How do I hire my Second in Command (or 2iC) is one of the very important ‘next steps’ that SME Business Owners go through.

Why do you need to hire a Second in Command?

You as the Business Owner, can only do some much. Delegation is an important skill to master to ensure that you don’t end up doing ‘everything’. But once your business gets to a certain size, you HAVE TO take one of those big ‘next steps’ and that step is to recruit a Number Two, a Second in Command, 2iC, Chief Operating Officer. This not someone that will be a replacement for you, but someone who can focus on the operation of the business, whilst you as the business owner look at the bigger picture. In addition, if you have any plans to eventually exit the business, this recruitment is a must. In order to sell you need to make yourself redundant, and this hire will be a key component in that strategy.

In my situation, after more than a dozen years at the helm of my business, I had reached the point where I wanted to step back, spend more time on other projects and felt that the company, whilst financially very successful, had plateaued slightly and needed new impetus. I needed someone to really hone our operation, push the financials and drive the team forward.

One of the biggest benefits of hiring a Second in Command, or Number Two, for me was that it brought a new pair of eyes and a new perspective to things. My hire brought in an additional set of skills, a different background, a viewpoint that challenged me and our company’s norms and drove us forward both through updated systems & processes, the clean sweep of a ‘new broom’ and a step up in our levels of professionalism.

One of the key things that bringing in a Number Two changed for me was also my role. It gave me new challenges and between the two of us we created a role for me that challenged both of us, whilst giving him the freedom to manage the way he wanted to.

Many of my clients struggle with the same thing. How do I duplicate me? How do I step up our game to the next level? How do I hire a Second in Command? How do I make myself redundant? What are the steps to hiring the right 2iC?

So here is simple my guide to ‘How do I hire your first Second-in-Command’.

5 steps to recruiting the right person as your Number Two:

1. Clarify their roles and responsibilities (and in contrast to yours)

As with any other role you recruit for, the first thing you need to do is to establish what it is that your new Second in Command is going to actually do. What are their roles and responsibilities? How will they be measured? What even is their job title?

Now all of those are usual for any role. However, what falls out of this, in my experience, is that if you are doing this correctly, some of those roles that your new hire will be doing are things you are doing now as the business owner.

This leads to three issues; firstly, when you yourself perform those roles as the business owner the parameters might be a bit unclear, and they probably aren’t measured. So you need to clarify them and make them measurable. The second aspect is that now you are not doing those roles, what are you going to be doing? You’ll need to make sure you, as the business owner, you have clear roles & responsibilities, and specifically that you are not stepping on your new hire’s toes by either continuing to do them, or butting in when they are performing them. Clear demarcation of tasks will avoid a lot of stress. The third point is that you will now have new additional roles to perform in managing, motivating, developing and measuring your new hire.

In my situation, I gave my new hire the title of Commercial Director. Many larger companies will opt for Chief Operating Officer (COO), but the title, to a degree, doesn’t matter. My Commercial Director’s areas of responsibility were what we termed ‘The Three Ssses’; staff, sales and strategy. My role became one of ensuring I provided the tools and environment for him to deliver on his areas of responsibility, to be his mentor/manager and to assist in formulating the strategy that he was tasked with delivering.

2. Set up the recruitment process

Before we even got to the interview stage, I spent a lot of time working on and developing, the job sec alongside the role and responsibilities. I looked at lots of job ads for similar roles, to see the sort of things not only similar roles covered, and to see the terminology ads were using, but also the skillsets others were looking for. This ensured that once we started the process, I was clear in my mind what we were looking for, objectively.

However, this role was different to any other position that I’d recruited for in the past. This new person was someone who was to become the public face of our business, which, to date, had been me. It needed to be someone I could discuss the nuts & bolts and underbelly of our business with. Someone I could trust implicitly with the ‘keys to the kingdom’ as it were. But in addition, and probably most importantly, it had to be someone I could get on with, someone I could chat things through with and someone who I ‘clicked’ with.

So armed with all of the above, we engaged a local specialist recruitment agency, but rather than just send over the spec and wait, I spent a lot of time talking to them about all of the above. This was to ensure that we only spoke to potential candidates who matched our brief, both on skillset, but also on their character.

3. Hold pre-interview interviews

What is a ‘pre-interview interview’? Because the person, and how I clicked with them, was so important to the role I instigated a ‘pre-interview interview’ with all candidates. I explained to the recruitment agency that I wanted to meet each candidate for a coffee, no CVs, for an informal chat BEFORE we got to interview stage.

I can’t remember where I picked this idea up from but it worked fantastically – in fact, even better that I hoped! I wanted to meet the ‘real person’ first rather than the ‘interview’ person. Because there was no CV, because it was coffee in a neutral venue and because it was labelled as ‘just a chat’ every single candidate dropped their guard. They all KNEW it was a pre-interview interview, but for whatever psychological reason, it enabled me to meet the ‘real’ them’. It gave me the opportunity, irrelevant of how good or bad they might be for the role, to see if I could get on with them and whether we clicked or not.

I was amazed at how well this worked as a sift and would recommend it to anyone recruiting a senior role, particularly where ‘fit’ is important.

4. Run the formal interview process

For every one of the roles we ever recruited in our business, we always ran a two interview process. We did the same for this role, but with a difference.

The first interview was the usual formal ‘run through your CV’ type interview, talk through their experiences and to see if they could do the job. For this role we changed up our second interview and made the second interview a presentation to see ‘how’ the person would do the role if successful. We gave all second interview candidates some background to our business and asked them to deliver a) a strategy to continue to increase and expand our revenue streams and b) a ‘first 60 days’ plan – what would they do in their first 60 days in the new role? So interview one was ‘could they do they job?’ and interview two was ‘how would they do the job’?

Two very interesting things happened in the above recruitment process. After going through the above pre-interview and formal interview, our final candidate, who we were very positive about, did her presentation and we rejected her on the back of it. It just didn’t feel right. We had to go all the way back to pre-interview interviews and re-start the process again. Yes it was a pain in the arse, but this was such an important hire, we had to get it right. The second time round, the guy that finally got the job didn’t do a brilliant final presentation (he knows… I’ve told him since then….) but we gave him the job because he felt right. And it proved to be the right call too. So my tip would be ‘go with your gut’ on something like this

5. Ensure that you do the onboarding and integration correctly

More than any other hire that you make in your business, how you bring this person into the business and how you on-board them and integrate them is vitally important.

Yes of course, the person’s desk needs to be there, and you need to do your usual on-boarding process, but this one is very different. On one hand you are passing over the reins of the business and showing the team how important this person will be going forward, whilst on the other hand you have to ease them in to the business and the new role and hold their hand to a degree (sorry, too many ‘hands’ in this sentence!) The work that you did previously in speccing out their exact roles and responsibilities now comes into play. You should have clear parameters both for them and you, but also the team. Without doubt your team will all be sitting there thinking ‘who the f**k is this new guy?’ and sitting back waiting for him or her to prove themselves.

You as the business owner have to show the team that this new person has your 100% backing and support. A key moment will always be the first time one of your team come to you with a problem, in the way that they used to, and you tell them to go and speak to the new guy instead. This sends a huge message to everyone.

Where you might get stuck

Despite doing all of the above, and all of the preparations, bring your new Second in Command into the business will still be fraught with pitfalls and problems. The three keys ones to keep an eye out for, in my opinion, are the following;

1. Your team not buying into the new person/role

However you support and champion your new Number Two, you may well have some members of the team not buying into either the person, or indeed the role.

Bringing in a new person that the team now report into will inevitably put noses out of joint. The team may well resent the new guy who ‘doesn’t know anything about the business like we do’ or who has been brought in above them in a role perhaps they feel they should have got. And the fact that the team no longer have a ‘direct line into the boss’ may well upset them too.

A lot of this can be alleviated by clear and early communication with the team about the new role, the parameters of that role and any new reporting lines that may be being introduced. Giving staff the opportunity to air any frustrations about the new role before the person starts, can make those discussions easier and less personal.

At the time that I brought my Number Two in, I had a team made up of quite a lot of long-serving staff. Whilst (I think) they were generally OK about ‘the new guy’ I know that there were some rumblings, but hey people don’t like change, and we had, IMHO, become a bit slack and too comfortable so some noses out of joint wasn’t such a bad thing.

2. Not letting go (and allowing this person to prove themselves and giving space to make mistakes)

One question my new guy asked me in the interview was “Are you ready to properly let go?” This was a very astute question. He needed to make sure that he wasn’t going to be there just to do my bidding, but that he would have the freedom and flexibility to do what he wanted to and needed to do, even if I didn’t agree. Psychologically, as the business owner, you do have to be ready to let go…. really let go. Yes, this is your baby and every decision (usually both major and minor) from start up to this point, has been your call. Now someone else, within boundaries, will now make those calls. And within that, you have to allow the new guy to make mistakes. We all make mistakes, it’s how we learn, but however much your inner body is screaming ‘noooooo… do it my way….’ You have to let them do it their way. You will undermine your new Number two if you don’t give them the freedom, along with the support, to do what they have been brought in to do.

3. Under-communicating the change to the clients

The other aspect of this new regime is not an internal one, but an external one. You have to communicate this ‘changing of guard’ to your clients too. In many businesses the external face of the company, to clients and the wider industry sector, is you the founder. You have to manage the handover of clients too. You have to reassure clients that there will be no change in the quality of service and no less TLC in how your business deals with them. They aren’t being ‘fobbed off’ and yes you will still be there, if needed, but now their first port of call will be the new guy.

In my situation I pretty much dropped my guy in at the deep end, introducing him at an industry conference within weeks of him starting and putting him on a conference panel, where I would normally have been. Perhaps a bit extreme, but over quite a short time client interaction went from me introducing my Number Two, to the two of us tag-teaming to him ending up introducing me to his clients/our new contacts.

My Commercial Director, my Second in Command, was Simon Jones.

I also recently discussed this topic with Tim Hughes of DLA Insights. See below.

Suggestions/Next steps

So, if you are in the situation where you are starting to think about duplicating yourself and getting a Second in Command on board, what should you do? So, ‘how do I hire my Second In Command’? In summary I’d suggest;

1. Get psychologically ready to let go
2. Start preparing the spec for the new role AND your new role
3. Research the marketplace and what others have done
4. Discuss the idea with your team
5. Discuss your proposed plan with a trusted recruitment consultant

I think only when you can tick all of those points are you ready to go. But there’s one more the one key step you can take to ensure that the whole thing, possibly your most important hire ever, isn’t a disaster….

The key step to ensure that the whole thing isn’t a disaster

One of the key lessons you will have learnt as you grow your business is that you can’t be, and aren’t, an expert in everything. This is one of those times where, to ensure you don’t get it wrong, and the consequences of getting it wrong could be catastrophic, that you must hold your hands up and get some experienced help in; someone who has been there and done that. You will need a second pair of eyes to ensure that you haven’t missed anything, that there aren’t any glaring holes in the plan, that how you see the plan going is sound. A trusted Sounding Board, or an outside adviser is a great investment at this point. I’m not saying that this person sits in on all the interviews, although that might be a help, but the benefits of a spare pair of ears to discuss this with are huge. Who else can you share your doubts or worries or fears or concerns with? Remember this hire is going to be your team’s new boss so you cant share any doubts or fears with them!

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How can I help you?

If you feel that, having read the above as to ‘how do I hire my Second In Command?‘, you need some support on this very important step, don’t worry you are not alone. Please feel free to reach out to me and we can have a no obligation chat and see how I can be of help to you, either on this issue or indeed any others. Often it is the big ‘next steps’ in the business journey that are the trigger for SME Business Owners to look for the external help, such that a Business Sounding Board, like myself, can offer.

What Next?

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