Practicing our own way of working
Fahren is going into its fourth year of business, which means we need to get real serious about creating scalable processes in all areas of our business in order to hit our 3, 5, and 10-year goals.
Scaling a business for high growth is hard work and requires focus and attention. In order for us to scale the Fahren business quicker, while still allowing us to do good work, we realized we needed to use the same thinking and strategies that Fahren’s clients benefit from. This is why we hired an interim business development leader. This key hire will work along-side us helping to shore up our internal business development role and roadmap to a permanent hire.
We originally started out looking for a full-time hire, we quickly realized we had a couple of different profiles for our business development leader, and we wanted to “road test” our way of thinking before we committed to the long hall. As we met with different business development leaders, it started to become clear that what we really needed was the same thing we offer to our clients; interim leadership. Today’s businesses are moving faster than ever, reacting to the changes and trying to ensure they have the right leaders that can help them today and tomorrow. By hiring an interim leader we are able to continue to execute upon existing strategies while testing and learning what we need from our future leader. So, it’s a win-win situation; we see immediate results while driving towards the longer-term strategy.
Hiring the right leader
As we met different people, we kept going back to one person that we felt was the right culture fit for Fahren and had the right type of thinking that could help build a framework around a scalable business development process. That led us to hire John Waller, as our business development consultant.
John brings a wealth of knowledge and experience both as an entrepreneur and business development leader. We are excited to join forces with John as we work together to build out the way we work as we continue to iterate for sustainable growth.
The realization for outside counsel
As I look back on my career and the leadership roles I’ve held, I came to realize that I was at my best when I sought outside counsel. That has been very hard for me to come to “truth” with, as I was raised to be independent, which has also been a fault of mine when I try to take on projects by myself. I ended up spinning my wheels, created my own anxiety, and then eventually realized that I don’t have to go at it alone!
We, as partners, need to work as a collective team and also realize when it’s time to bring in outside counsel.
Now is the time for Fahren to do just that! We are excited to take this journey together with John and add new thinking and ideas that will allow us to have more confidence in the way we work.
We will look to John to “play the role” as the business development leader and help us figure out what we need in the full-time role. By taking a step back to truly understand the role and what the business needs to be successful, we will avoid future pitfalls of a mis-hire, which can be costly for the business.
