VP vs. COO: The $450K Difference

You want to know the big difference between a COO and a Vice President of Operations? I'll tell you. It's actually how much money that they're getting paid. And the reason that you pay them differently is based on these 5 core things. Now, in today's day and age, a real COO of a real company is probably making in between $250,000 and $450,000 a year. That's a true COO. But here's what determines what the title should be. It's the amount of strategic insight that you bring into the company, the amount of P&L responsibility that you have where you can actually oversee the budgets and cash flow and finance. It's the amount of autonomy that you can have in your day-to-day where you can actually show up doing the work and you don't need someone to teach you how to do everything because you know how to actually do the work that's being put in front of you. It's also tied to the amount of people and partners and suppliers that you can often bring to the company with you because you're showing up with relationships that a more junior person doesn't tend to have.