Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

The Secret to 10X Business Growth | Joe Polish

20 Feb 2026 · 0 min

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In this interview excerpt, Speaker A emphasizes viewing every team member as an investment rather than a cost, acknowledging past hiring mistakes due to poor training or mis‑selection. The conversation shifts to the strategic use of a COO: instead of limiting the COO to operational tasks, the CEO should delegate enough responsibilities to free up two extra hours per day (or ten hours per week) for "rain‑making" activities—high‑impact, revenue‑generating work. Speaker A frames the CEO as the "Chief Energizing Officer," whose role is to bring energy to the organization and decide whether opportunities are energizing or draining. By offloading operational burdens, the CEO can maintain high energy, leading to a 5‑10× return on investment for the business.

I try to look at everyone on my team as an investment, not as an expense. And I have made bad investments. And some of the bad investments
have been because I've made wrong decisions, they weren't trained well, or I just picked the wrong person. Right. So there's all kinds of reasons. Is there a sort of way that you look at COOs is like they're going to do money making activities, they're not just going to do operations. But how do you self liquidate and finance
not just
COOs but
team in general? Because you help people build company. If you just hired a COO to take 80% of your schedule off your plate, to free you up to spend two more hours a day, 10 more hours a week on rain making activities, your business goes through the roof. Even if you only did two more hours a week on that stuff. But you showed up with the right energy because you're not drained working on all the areas that suck up your time and energy, you're going to actually show up and perform better. The CEO is the Chief Energizing Officer, right? We have to show up and infuse energy. And then at the opportunity, is it good energy or is it draining energy? So if you can remove it, that's one way that you'll actually get the 5-10x return.