fbpx

How Firing A Key Player Grew My Agency By 50 Percent

As with any business, we've had our ups and downs, but one of the most memorable moments of my career was when I had to fire my company's...

Prev2 of 2Next
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse

Over the next few weeks, I saw an increase in our delivery time, and project completion rate. The quality wasn’t 110%, as it was when he was the lead, but it was still up there. Best of all? I was finally able to sleep at night.

So, why did firing my best designer help grow boogie’s revenue by almost 50%? Because that personable, obsessive, dedicated, stubborn, perfectionist was me.

 

Hard Choices Can Pay Off

When I started boogie, I was your typical one-man-band. I had to learn and then take care of everything from business development, accounting, project management, design, and coding.

Over the years, I’ve been able to relieve myself of these and other responsibilities by hiring employees but it was most difficult for me to let go of being a designer. And our team suffered because of it.

While the hardest working, I was arguably the worst employee that my company has had. I was so busy being a designer that I forgot about the most important job—being the CEO. I needed to take a more strategic approach to oversee business development, nurturing client relationships, overseeing projects, etc. Firing myself as a designer allowed me to really focus on Boogie’s bottom-line and continue working towards our goals.

The outcome? We hired a few other people to take over the design role. Meanwhile, I’ve been able to focus on bringing our team exciting and high quality projects that we all play a major role in developing.

So, if you’re like me, think about letting go of the technician that’s inside you. He or she may be a great writer, web developer, video producer, or a designer, but that person won’t be able to balance the technical work while focusing on growing the business. Failing to hire someone to replace you may be the one thing hindering your growth and success.

Have you had to fire yourself before? Do you think you need to fire yourself? I’d love to hear all about it.

 

This article has been edited and condensed.

Jacques Bastien is a 24-year old entrepreneur and the CEO of boogie, a design-driven social media agency. He writes insider tips, tricks, and insights to help startups make it in business through his blog: jacquesbastien.com and in his upcoming book – Fake It Make It. Connect with @weareboogie on Twitter.

Prev2 of 2Next
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse
 

© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.

   

In this article