Trying to grow your business while everything still runs through you?

This is what the Messy Middle looks like when the business has grown, the team is bigger, and the owner is no longer doing everything themselves, but employees still depend on the owner for decisions, accountability, and direction. The business works, but too much still relies on the owner staying closely involved in the day-to-day to keep things moving.

In this episode of Self Made Is a Myth, Coach Tim Campsall sits down with Austin from Walls Furniture and Mattress. Austin shares what it looked like building and growing a family-owned furniture business while staying heavily involved in nearly every part of the operation.

Earlier in the business, Austin was handling inventory, ordering, payroll, accounting, sales management, warehouse operations, and customer issues all at once. Employees were constantly coming to him with questions because he kept everything close to the vest and they did not feel comfortable making decisions without him. Even though the business was growing, he had almost no life outside of work and missed vacations and family time because the business constantly needed his attention.

Over time, Austin realized the business had become too large to operate without better systems and more employee ownership. He implemented a point-of-sale and inventory system, gave employees more authority in customer decisions, and worked on trusting people to take ownership of their responsibilities instead of routing everything back through him.

Today, Austin is still wearing multiple hats across sales management, accounting, warehouse operations, customer service, and deliveries. He talks about spending four weeks personally working on the delivery truck while still trying to manage the rest of the business. The company no longer depends on him being physically in the store every minute, but he is still heavily involved in accountability, operational oversight, and decision-making while trying to create enough capacity to grow the business further.

This is what the Messy Middle looks like when the owner has delegated some of the work, but the business still depends heavily on them to keep operations moving and create the next stage of growth.


What You’ll Learn:
• Why employees keep coming to the owner for decisions
• How owner involvement limits team ownership
• Why systems become necessary as a business grows
• How trust affects delegation and accountability
• The opportunity cost of staying stuck in operations


Looking To Scale Your Business: Book a 2-Week Coaching Trail to see how our ActionCOACH Business Operating System (ABoS) and coaching help you get unstuck and move toward sustainable scaling so you can achieve your personal dreams and business goals. https://tbcactioncoach.com/business-strategy-session/

Timestamps:

00:00 Everything still ran through Austin
00:36 Wearing every hat in the business
01:41 Missing family time because of the business
02:36 Installing systems and giving employees ownership
07:42 Back on the delivery truck for four weeks
11:57 Too big to be small, too small to be big
13:36 Learning to trust employees with ownership
19:04 Why owners stay stuck doing $25/hour work


Austin is the owner of Walls Furniture and Mattress in Kokomo, Indiana. At Walls Furniture we believe that our neighbors are family we operate from that premise everyday. Come see the difference for yourself at 521 E Alto Rd in Kokomo or shop online at shopwallsfurniture.com. We would love to have you be a part of our family.

#MessyMiddle #ScalingBusiness #OwnerBottleneck