Cameron Herold breaks down what separates great COOs from the rest: they fill the gaps where the CEO is weak, whether that's operations, culture, or sales. He explains the two doubles rule (managers can handle two company doublings before the role breaks), why COOs need basic financial literacy, and how trust and vulnerability between CEO and COO makes the difference.
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So let's say they join the company when you're at 2 million and then you go to 4 and now you're at 8. It's really hard for them to stay in that role at 16 unless they really grow their skill set and their confidence at the same level or same pace that the company is scaling. A COO has to be strong at all the areas the CEO sucks at. I didn't like finance. Finance never reported to me in the three companies that I was second command for, nor did it. I let all the functional requirements and build of our software but it didn't report to me. Our product development manager did. But operations, culture, sales, pr, marketing, the call center, franchise sales, those all reported to me. So I would say that 40% of our CEO alliance members finance reports to them. 60% it doesn't. I'd say that 60% of our members finance is a weakness, but their CEO happens to be strong in it. The key is to is to remember that as you scale you're going to have a head of finance. It could be a virtual CFO or a fractional cfo. It could be a Director of Finance or a VP of Finance. But your COO doesn't have to have finance report to them now. They have to have a basic understanding. So like going through the training you're giving them, going through the Khan Academy. There's some great stuff there just in the Khan Academy on learning the basics of finance that give a CEO enough of a working understanding but they don't have to be strong in it. So on the growing of people and can they handle the size of the business. I had dinner with Clayton Mask, who is one of the founders of Infusion or the founder of infusionsoft. And we both agreed that a manager can only stay in that role for the size of two doubles of the company before the third double starts to get too complicated for them. So let's say they join the company when you're at 2 million and then you go to 4 and now you're at 8. It's really hard for them to stay in that role at 16 unless they really grow their skill set and their confidence at the same level or same pace that the company is scaling. The reason I was able to go through six doubles at 1-800-got junk from 2 to 106 million was I'd already done it three times before. That was the fourth company that I'd built. Brian and I were in an EO forum together four years before I even joined him. He was best man at my wedding, three months before I started to work for him. So we had a huge amount of trust, huge amount of relationship. He knew all my skills. And this was company number four for me. 1-800-got junk. Didn't get big for me until we hit the 60 million mark from 60 to 106. I was probably starting to pull my hair out at 100 million. I was like, this is fucking huge. They brought in the former president of Starbucks USA to replace me. And she came in and said, what a cute little company. Now she was the wrong culture fit. She actually imploded after a year because she was too corporate, wasn't entrepreneurial, didn't embrace franchising. You're asking the right questions is how do I grow their skills? I would literally immerse them into the invest in your leaders course. Make sure they're learning all of that. I would make sure that they're showing up with vulnerability in the CEO alliance and whatever masterminds they're involved in saying, like, understanding that we as leaders always have stuff to work on. It's not a weakness, it's just where we're working today. And I think it's you constantly sharing that confidence that you shared with the group about how you believe in them. So that when they hear the things they have to work on, they know there's a huge foundational underpinning of trust and belief in them. It's kind of like we're raising our kids. We're always growing their confidence while they're trying to bicycle right? Like, they keep falling off the bike. Mommy and daddy have to show that we believe in them, we have confidence in them, and then they get back up and try again. But if they ever feel like we're scared, they freeze. So stay ahead of the curve as a coo. This next video is packed with great leadership lessons for you. It'll really help you as you continue in your growth.
