Doug Smith, COO of America's Best Restaurants, joined the COO Alliance after feeling isolated as his company hit $10 million. He credits Cameron Herold's Vivid Vision framework and peer accountability groups with teaching him to delegate without ego, implement daily huddles, and reduce stress. The community gave him what he calls therapy and a safety net among COOs running 7-figure to 9-figure businesses.
Chapters
My name is Doug Smith. I'm COO for America's Best Restaurants. We are a marketing and media company that focuses on independent restaurants all across the country. The reason I joined the COO Alliance was I've been a fan of Cameron Herold for several years. My CEO and business partner introduced us to the book Vivid Vision as we were starting to grow the company. So we were about 7 employees. And he came to us with this book and this great idea of a vivid vision. I feel like I'm on my own island here. It's, it's not your island. My island's completely different. My stress level was going up. Oh my God, there's more people just like me. Our company's pushing $10 million. There are people who are COOs of 9-figure companies and they face the same daily issues I face, and they're running, you know, $100 million plus. Plus, that person's complaining about the same stuff I am. They're stressed about the same stuff I am. And being able to gain knowledge and talk to people at that level, it was really humbling to go, okay, I'm not alone. There are some really cool people that I can pick their brain. If you need help, they're just there to talk. Okay, you owe me type stuff. And that, that was huge. Then I went to the Vancouver event, and that was the game changer. What I've told folks is I found my tribe. No matter if it's male, female, 9-figure company, 7-figure company, it doesn't matter. They're all in the same boat. They all have the same stresses. They all have the same pressures. This group is my therapy, that if I have a problem and I'm driving home, I can call somebody, I can message somebody, they can do the same thing to me. So when I get home, I've like hit that decompression button. I'm not taking it home with me simply because of the people that I'm surrounded by. I recommend it to, to anybody, anyone who's a second in command, anyone who's part of a company. You just want to find your type of people. This is where they need to be. So learning to delegate, learning that it's okay to understand that they may screw up, they may not do it exactly the way you want it. That's okay. Learn to let them fail, let them learn, and let them grow. Because as Cameron always says, our job in leadership in this role is to help our employees grow. It's not to do all the damn work for them. It's to help them grow. That has been the biggest thing that I have learned. It's really taken, again, a lot of that stress off me to be able to delegate to other people, to trust other people that You know what? There's a really good chance they're actually going to do it better than what I could do it. So put the ego aside and delegate and trust your employees to do the job. I know the rules of delegation. I know how to do different things. It just came down that moving so fast as we've been growing, it's just easier to go, got it, it's done, it's off my plate, move on to the next thing. Not really Being mature enough to understand that, no, by doing that task, I'm actually holding myself back and holding the company back because I shouldn't be doing that crap. I should be doing higher level things and learning that from Cameron and the people in person, which are just, that's the best part of this whole thing. Being able to have conversations in our accountability groups. It's just repetition over time. That at some point the light bulb goes on and you realize, no, this is how successful people do it. Stop being an idiot. Listen to the experts and follow their lead. My favorite book, and I read it every January, is "Thinking Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. The biggest part of that I've taken from that book over the years is the part of mastermind where if you surround yourself with others, you don't have to know the answer to everything. You have your own little board of directors, so to speak. You have the ability to tap into resources. That has been the biggest takeaway. And the old saying that if you surround yourself with 5 idiots, you become an idiot. If you surround yourself with 5 people who are healthy, you become healthier. Surrounding myself with not only the masses in this group, but the people who continually show up at the events, it's really allowed me more peace of mind. Surrounding myself with people who know my daily struggles, who know my professional struggles, who are a springboard. Basically, they are my therapy on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis, personally as well as business. We've started the daily huddles. Back in July, I took over sales through the connections and what I'm learning to be able to implement mass successful sales strategies with our team. And being able to say it's not just me pulling things out of thin air. These are strategies that have been proven by countless companies that are much bigger than ours that I know will work. The first week in January this year, my wife on Sunday looked at me and said, this time last year you were a mess. You were stressed. I could see it on your face. You look like you're actually excited to go into the office. I'm a couple keystrokes away from being able to message numerous people who have a ton of knowledge, who are more than willing to jump on a call, jump on a video call, send an email back, and help offer support. Knowing that I've got a safety net under me is huge.
