If you’re still worried about finding exclusive solar leads, then odds are your business still needs you working on surface level operations.

So when do you get to leave the front lines of your solar business and act like a real CEO?

Here are 5 ways to fast-forward your transition from keeping your business afloat to being able to fulfill the role of captain of the ship:

1- Accept that working in the trenches is part of running a new business

This is the most common mistake CEOs tend to make. They think they should be able to act in an executive capacity right from the get go. Then they get frustrated when they don’t have the time or resources, making them more likely to give up.

Unless you’ve got the support of an angel investor, this just isn’t a rational expectation.

Starting a new business takes work, and until you build a solid team most of that work is going to have to come from you.

You might be tempted to automate your operations right away. But if your team is too small, you’ll just be wasting time, energy, and resources on something your business doesn’t really need at the moment.

Areas that need work – like finding quality solar lead providers and increasing sales – will only get worse and your business will suffer as a whole.

So when should you start looking at automating your operations? Well, if you’re working with 5-10 people, you don’t need to worry about getting out of operations yet.

But if you’ve got 30, 40, 50 people or more, then the time is ripe for you to hand over your operations to other people.

Bear in mind – if you want to scale, automation is not optional.

It’s one of the most important things you can do to grow. Just like doing it too early, putting it off longer and longer will only hurt your business.

Not only will putting off this shift pull your focus away from the executive tasks needed to be taken care of in order to grow your business… but you also have to do the day-to-day stuff yourself.

Learn from experience and set up policy so others can do things how they’re supposed to. 

2- Build out your SOPs

If your goal is to get out of operations, then the best way to make it happen is to make sure you’re replaceable at your tasks.

The only way you can do this effectively is by establishing crystal clear SOPs.

When you’re ready for this step, start training the relevant people. From knocking doors, closing deals, booking appointments, running social media marketing – you should have an SOP for every aspect of your solar business.

You’ll want to get as granular as possible here. Don’t skip a single task.

For example, how many doors should a sales rep knock? How should they get onboarded? How quickly do they have to finish the sales manual?

Your entire business will operate on these SOPs.

So the more detail you put into them now, the less time you’ll have to spend on the operations they cover in the future.

Creating training courses and manuals can take a lot of time, but it’s a one time task that will save you countless hours in the future.

And the more SOPs you have, the better your business will run.

This lets you go from having to focus on taking calls with customers and closing deals to acquiring partners and working with solar lead gen sources and marketing companies.

In other words, instead of wasting your time on tasks others can do, you’ll have the bandwidth to move on to the next level of being a CEO and actually leading the company.

3- Replace yourself as a manager

This ties in with #2. You’ll need more SOPs to make this happen.

Always focus on being able to replace yourself with someone else.

Even at the executive level, you’ll eventually want to find someone to replace yourself.

Not having to focus on managerial tasks or juggling exclusive solar leads makes it much easier to scale.

Otherwise your business won’t be able to scale, it won’t be efficient, it won’t grow, you’ll get exhausted, it’ll get disorganized, and people will start to quit.

Some CEOs have trouble trusting their employees so they never find managers to replace themselves. I guarantee you, those businesses are either struggling or bankrupt.

4- Stick to a plan

Don’t wing this. You’re building out the nervous system of your solar business.

Make sure you know what you have to do next, and if possible make sure it’s already proven to work.

It may seem scary to delegate tasks to others.

What if they get something wrong? How badly could it damage the company? But as long as your SOPs are in place and being studied, reviewed and followed by your team, things should go exactly as planned.

You MUST have a plan to get out of the operational mindset.

Otherwise you’ll have to figure things out as you go.

And while you’re doing that, your business is burning through resources while you work out the next step.

Here’s the basic 12-step plan I used to take Better Earth from zero to $150 million in sales in 2 years:

1. Make a list of every task required for your business to function.
2. Break all of these tasks into categories… daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly annually.
3. Group all tasks into “departments” or groupings that make sense for your business. For example, everything related to knocking doors, sending prospect emails, following up on solar leads, closing deals, and so on would go into the “sales and marketing” group.
4. Pair each task with the name of the person currently doing them.
5. Label each task as “easily repeatable” or “not easily repeatable.”
6. Then label each task as “easily documented” or “not easily documented.”
7. Ask yourself who on your team is a potential leader for the departments you’ve listed. Make sure the person you have in mind can handle all the tasks listed. If not, you might need to reorganize or bring on a freelancer or part-time hire.
8. List yourself for any empty department leader slots.  There’s a good chance you’ll start to see you do way too much for your business on a day to day basis.
9. Document all “easily documented” tasks with as much detail as possible. Create a Google sheet for each of them and create a folder structure that matches your new groupings or organizational structure.
10. Start the process of delegating these tasks to your new department leaders. Hand off the tasks listed “not easily documented” to them and let them know they’ll take time to work through. Set a target of having them implemented by a certain calendar date. Also get into the habit of holding meetings with these leaders.
11. If any of the “not easily documented” tasks are extremely complex, work on figuring out how to make them less complex until they can be documented and handed off. Always ask yourself how something can be automated or made less complex. As these tasks become documented, keep delegating and training until they’re off your plate.
12. For departments where you are the lead, think about who could fill that role and when you can afford them, if it requires bringing someone new onto your team. This is an entirely different process, but by now you should be getting very clear on what your company needs to look like in order for you to get out of day-to-day operations.

5- Remember that this is a transition. 

Take it from me – you’re going to feel tempted to rush through this phase so you can start focusing on more executive tasks.

Don’t give in to that feeling. Instead do it as soon as the business is fully stabilized, or things will fall off because of a bad initial setup. Always transition when things are stable. NOT before.

A good way to ensure stability is to have managers watch over no more than 4-6 sales reps directly. Don’t promote people who aren’t manager material yet. It’s a great way to run your business into the ground.

So for example, for every 1 manager, there should be around 5 people they’re managing.

Each of those 5 people can have 5 people under them. This way there’s minimal confusion and lack of oversight.

Everyone knows who’s handling what solar leads, and everyone in a managerial position isn’t too overwhelmed to manage their teams effectively.
Zain Jan