Building a business that runs without you

Most founder-led businesses grow fast but fragile. Revenue climbs and the team expands, but everything still depends on you.

In this session, Kayleigh Atherton introduces the Performance by Design framework – a practical operating system for founders who want their business to scale without them becoming the bottleneck.

Topics covered in this session

• Why strong revenue can mask a fragile business, and how to spot the warning signs before they become expensive problems

• The five levers every founder-led business needs to build in order to deliver consistently as it grows: standards, capability, workflow, control and culture

• A practical first step for diagnosing where your own performance engine is weakest and what to fix first

About the speaker

Kayleigh is the founder of The Evolved Group, four specialist businesses spanning business performance, learning and development, automotive training and creative production.

As well as her role as MD, she's a coach and mentor for founders across all industries, using her proprietary framework Performance by Design to help them diagnose performance weaknesses and implement strategies to rectify them. She's currently writing a book on the same subject.

Watch more expert webinars

Access a growing collection of expert-led webinars covering marketing, sales, finance, growth and more – ready whenever you are.

Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity.

Beth: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Lunch and Learn. My name is Beth, and I'll be your host today.

For those of you attending a Lunch and Learn for the first time, Enterprise Nation is a vibrant community platform for start-ups and small businesses. I'm very pleased to introduce Kayleigh Atherton, who is the founder of the Evolved Group.

In this session, Kayleigh will discuss practical operating systems for founders who want their business to scale without them becoming the bottleneck. If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please post them in the chat and we'll do our best to answer them at the end.

Today's webinar will be recorded, and we'll send a follow-up email with the recording and further resources later today. Over to you, Kayleigh.

Kayleigh: Hello. I'm Kayleigh Atherton. First, I need to say that I'm having a bit of a technical issue. About two minutes before I joined, there was a power cut across the whole building, so I'm hooked up to my hotspot. If the connection is a little bumpy, let me know and I can turn my camera off or do things to help, but fingers crossed we'll get through.

We only have 30 minutes, so this will be a whistle-stop session. Please ask any questions in the chat and I can answer them at the end.

I'm the founder of the Evolved Group. I started Evolved Business Support back in 2021 and it grew very quickly, scaling to over seven figures in annual revenue by year three.

So the title "From chaos to control" is something I have been through myself, and it's now something I'm passionate about helping other founders with.

We're going to cover three topics today.

• The first is growth pains: why does it feel harder to run your business as it scales?

• The second is performance by design. This is a proprietary framework I have used across my business, across corporations and across founder-led businesses. It's a five-pillar operating system that helps you make sure you have the foundations in place to grow successfully and intentionally improve performance.

• Finally, we'll look at how to diagnose your own operating system, where you might have weak spots and what you could do to improve them.

I hear a lot of founders talk about revenue being high and things looking good on paper, but the business still feeling really hard to run.

Because of this, people start to feel frustrated and can't quite understand where the pain points are coming from.

So reflect on some of these points and see if you recognise them. If you do, there is probably work you can do to improve your own performance and be more intentional about how the business operates.

The first is that cash flow still feels like guesswork. Revenue and cash flow are two very separate things, and sometimes they can tell very different stories.

Even when revenue looks good on paper, you can still encounter a lot of cash flow issues. If that feels challenging, or you don't feel like you have a handle on it, there may be performance challenges in your business.

The other thing to think about is this: when you step away, do things slow down or stop entirely because the business needs you there to run? I see this a lot, especially with founder-led businesses.

Usually, they have grown because the founder has created something and been involved in everything. As the business scales, we need to step away more.

If things slow down or stop when you step out, that's a sign there may be challenges within the business and performance isn't quite where it needs to be.

Another point is that your team and delivery partners don't have clear standards or processes to follow. Sometimes people do a good job because they're dedicated and working things out. But if there aren't clear standards and processes to follow, there are definitely challenges that can appear as you scale.

Your client results may be good, but not reliably repeatable from one project to the next. If it feels like you're doing something for the first time every time, that's another indicator that there are challenges with the way performance is built.

I also constantly hear people say they know they need new clients, new staff or new hires, but all that happens is more complexity comes in.

When you get a new client, you have more processes to support and more output to deliver. When more people come into the business, if things aren't smooth and streamlined, they can bring even more stress instead of relieving it.

If any of those points resonate with you, there's probably a good chance you can be more intentional about how you build your business and create performance by design.

Next, we're going to look at the cost. I hear a lot of people say: "I am the business. I made the business. The business started because of me." There is often some resistance around whether they should step out of the business more.

For me, there are many reasons to do so, but these are the four key reasons that show there is a real cost to the founder being critical to every part of the business.

The first is your time and your zone of genius. Usually, a business starts because the founder had an innovation, an idea or something creative that made the business start in the first place.

If the founder is always in the business, bogged down in the day to day and the operations, they are no longer able to bring those ideas or be strategic. The business then gets stunted because it isn't getting the benefit of the things that made the founder great in the first place.

The second is your team. If you are leading everything, every decision needs to run through you and nobody is empowered to keep the business moving, your team will usually start to feel like they aren't valued.

They won't be able to do things independently because they're used to you picking things up for them. They start to get frustrated, and they also can't reach their full potential because somebody else is blocking them from taking accountability.

The third is your clients. If certain customers are being managed differently because you, as the founder, are leading that relationship or delivering some of the work, that isn't scalable. One person can't scale all client encounters. We need to think about how to make the client experience sustainable and consistent from customer to customer, rather than varying because of your involvement.

The fourth, and what I think is most important, is your intention for the business. Whether you want it to fund your life, sell it at some point or scale it to a certain level, if you are critical to that business, that's not appealing to others.

People are less likely to buy a business that is extremely founder-dependent. The most successful businesses are the ones that run independently.

A good question to ask yourself is: could somebody else come into this business, take it over and run it successfully? If the answer is no, you need to do some work there because you're losing some of the value your business could potentially have.

So how do we do that? We can see why it's important to be more intentional and to have performance by design, but how do we actually do it?

There are five key pillars: standards, capability, workflow, control and culture.

The idea is that if each of these pillars is under control, and you have intentionally planned and designed them, your business can scale and grow in a way that is sustainable and allows you to optimise its performance potential.

Let's start with standards. I always think of standards as: what does good look like? It's a simple way of explaining your expectations. For every role in the business, every offer, every client experience and every client journey, it should be clear what good looks like so your team can execute against that without having to ask.

Lots of people tackle this in different ways. Some people use tools, some document it and some run workshops. It doesn't really matter how you do it. The important thing is that everybody can answer the question: what does good look like against this task?

Next, we have capability. If you have those standards set, do you have the skills, tools and decision frameworks in place so your team can hit those standards without you in the room? The standards tell them what good looks like. Capability asks: can they do it? Can they reach that requirement?

Capability can mean people, but it can also mean tools, software and equipment. Many things fall under that category.

Next, we have workflow. I think of this as the flow of work. How easily does work flow through your business? Is everything documented? Do you have clear stages that things move through? Are there clear gates? Is it clear what needs to happen at each phase without relying on somebody's memory or chase-ups?

If your business feels clunky, or things move from phase to phase in a clunky way, that's a flag that some work needs to be done on your workflows.

Some people go to great lengths, with lots of process maps and workflow documents. Others keep it light and use tools or software to give prompts.

Again, it doesn't matter how you do it. It's about making sure the workflows are documented and it's easy for things to happen in a repeatable way.

Next, we have control. Once you have those things in place, you need to govern them, watch them and make sure everything is happening as it should.

That means things like data and dashboards, where information is rolled up and presented in a way that helps you make decisions.

It also means reviewing how long things are taking and making sure you can see potential risks and problems early, or before they even happen, so you can put mitigation in place.

If you only see a problem once it is already a problem, it can be very expensive. It can also affect credibility, timescales and revenue.

Control is about having good visibility and being able to make informed decisions based on the information coming in from your business.

Finally, and something I see missed a lot, is culture. This is about making sure that the way of working, ownership and accountability are so embedded in the business that everybody acts in the same way, even when they're not being watched.

Different businesses have different requirements for culture. People focus on different things and have different core values. But the key is making sure the culture is something everybody shares and is committed to.

Then you need to put things in place so people can check each other and call each other out if they aren't operating in a way that aligns with that culture.

The litmus test is whether someone acts the same way when they're being watched as they do when they aren't. That's always a good way to check.

So those are our five pillars. But what happens if one is weak?

If there are no standards in place, quality and customer experience become variable. Sometimes you hit the mark, other times you don't. Often, it's not even that black and white. You may still deliver, but the experience is very different and it takes too much time to get there.

I often see that the customer is getting a great experience, but the effort and energy it takes backstage is far too high. It's also too risky. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. There's a lot of winging it.

If there is no capability, the team can't meet the standards even when they do exist. Even when it's clear what good looks like, the team aren't able to deliver against that.

This often happens when there are new people in the team or when people haven't grown with the business. Sometimes new skills or expertise are required. Sometimes tools are required if you need to do things more efficiently or effectively.

If there is no workflow, every task feels like the first time and the same mistakes get made by different people.

If an error happens, how quickly are you making sure something is put in place to improve the process? Are you always updating your processes, or are several different people encountering the same problem before anything gets fixed?

If there is no control, you don't see risks before they become issues. That is a real warning sign. If something turns into an issue before you're even aware of it, there's a problem. You should be able to manage risks and mitigate them. You should be aware that there's potential for something to happen, or see that something is starting to go slightly wrong, and act quickly.

That's what control is about. There should be enough data and information coming in to you as the business leader to make decisions and prevent problems.

If there is no culture, the team may cut corners when they're not being watched. They may not behave in the way you would want them to behave, or things may happen that you wouldn't approve of.

Culture is something you need to work at. If you're not checking that everyone is operating in the way you would like, there can be major consequences that usually affect the business significantly.

Here is your diagnostic. Ask yourself these questions.

• Are there parts of your business that only run because you are in them?

• Sometimes it's the finances. If you weren't available, would anybody else be able to manage the finances?

• If you weren't available, would anybody else be able to acquire new clients?

• If you weren't available, could anyone else make decisions?

Think about all the different parts of your business. If any part is critically dependent on you being there, that is a red flag.

Does your team know what good looks like without having to ask you? Is it clear from the beginning what they need to do, what they're aiming for and what good looks like?

Are your business processes clearly documented and maintained, or do they only exist in people's heads?

More often than not, people have some type of process documented, but it's very rare that I see it maintained. Things are moving fast now. In a world with more technology and more AI, there is more reason than ever to keep reviewing your processes, because there are often lots of opportunities for improvement and streamlining.

If an error happens, or something feels clunky, that should be an opportunity to go back to your processes and think about how you can improve them.

I've seen some good examples recently where companies have quarterly reviews. Everyone brings in their processes, even if they're not relevant to everybody in that department, and they put them up on the wall.

Then they ask: what can we do to improve this process? Where are the pain points? Is there any technology out there now? Are there things we can automate?

Staying close to your processes and making sure they are living, breathing documents that are maintained can have many benefits.

Do you have visibility of risks before anything goes wrong? Are you managing and controlling risks as they enter the business, or is it only ever a problem that has already happened and now needs fixing?

Would your team maintain standards if you disappeared for a month? A month is quite a scary amount of time. It makes me think: "A month is a long time." A day, they could probably get by. A week, they might just wait for things until you get back. But a month is significant.

So it's a good test. Would they be able to function if you weren't in the business? That should be what you're aiming for. If you can confidently say that a month could pass and standards would still be maintained, then you're doing a good job and things are in a good place.

Finally, there's a free diagnostic you can take that goes through each of the pillars. It gives you a detailed outcome and tells you where to focus.

I'm also always around if you want to message me and ask questions. We have some time now, so I'll open it up for questions.

Beth: Thanks for that, Kayleigh. The internet held up, so all good.

That was really informative. We have some time for questions, so please post them in the chat.

A few have come through the Q&A function. What are some quick wins a founder can implement in the next 30 days or so to reduce dependency on themselves?

Kayleigh: I would think about key processes at the highest level, then think about who else has some accountability there.

For example, if you're always responsible for finances but you have a bookkeeper, ask yourself which activities you could pass over to them. Instead of trying to hand over something huge that only you hold, which could take quite a long time, think about where somebody else is already part of that process and how you can start to nudge some of this over to them.

Start to upskill them and make them more knowledgeable. Another way to think about it is: can somebody else give you the information?

If you spend a lot of time pulling figures together, flip it so someone else collates the figures and you look at the dataset. That's where you use your time and effort.

It's about little nudges. It doesn't have to be big or grand. You don't need to take all control away at once, but you can make small changes that help other people feel more empowered and take some accountability off your plate.

Beth: That makes sense. In terms of common mistakes, are there any that come to mind when founders are trying to improve systems and processes?

Kayleigh: The biggest thing is not having a standard in the first place. Not being really clear on what good looks like.

Sometimes you think everyone thinks the same way as you, but they don't. Your gold standard might be somebody else's bronze standard, and vice versa.

It's such a simple thing, but having an open conversation about what good looks like in a particular scenario means everybody is aiming towards the same thing. Often, there may be processes, but standards don't exist.

Beth: Absolutely. What is the biggest misconception founders have about scaling sustainably?

Kayleigh: I think people often think "more". More clients, more offers, more team.

Where I've seen people scale most successfully, they often do it in a modest way. They take something, maybe a certain way of doing things, some IP or something proprietary to them, and turn it into a tool or method other people can use.

Instead of needing more clients, they empower people to do something they're great at themselves, either through a course, a tool or another scalable format.

It's about changing your mindset from thinking you need to 10x everything, including clients, processes and people. Sometimes you can just become more efficient and effective at what you do, or be more innovative about how you take what you're good at and allow other people to access it.

Beth: That's really solid advice. We have a question in the chat. "Great presentation, Kayleigh. Are there any particular software tools that you can recommend to keep everything flowing and organised?"

Kayleigh: I get this question a lot. There is so much out there now, and so much of it is great, that it doesn't really matter what you use as long as you use it, use it fully and stick to it.

In our business, we use ClickUp. Every client journey and every process is documented in there. We use functionality like screen recordings and process maps, so it's all in one place.

For me, it's less about the software, because there's so much good stuff out there. It's more about your mindset and discipline. You need to say: "We're definitely going to use this for everything, and we're going to keep it maintained."

Often, people bring in a system and it goes out of date really quickly. Then it feels like a mountain to get it back up to date. If you can be disciplined in keeping it maintained, you'll definitely get the payoff.

Beth: Absolutely. I've just seen a comment from Simon. He says: "I employed an EA to act on my behalf and do lots of business strategy and operations planning." Is that something you would advise to other members?

Kayleigh: Executive assistants can be brilliant. The key is that they know how to operate like you.

If you've got standards in place, if you've got clarity on what good looks like and if you've got processes in place, an executive assistant can be brilliant.

Sometimes people are in chaos, bring in an executive assistant and then wonder why it feels more chaotic. It's because the EA has come in and is trying to deal with your chaos, and now you have to manage that person.

You know you've done well when you can clearly articulate: "If you can take this off my plate, this is what good looks like and this is how to do it." Suddenly, you're flying because you really have freed yourself up.

But if you bring them in when you're chaotic and don't have things documented, you're just adding more to it. That's usually when I see people really struggling.

Beth: Absolutely. You need to sort the chaos out a little before someone comes in.

One slightly longer question: if I spent a week documenting and improving only one thing in my business to reduce founder dependency, where would you recommend that I start and why?

Kayleigh: Definitely your client journey, because there are so many parts of your client journey that you may not even be aware of. It's the little details that make all the difference.

If someone submits a form to you, how long does it take? What is their first interaction with you? What does that look like?

I've seen examples where someone didn't know that when a person submitted something on the website, they got a default email that was really awful. That's their first interaction with you, and it feels clunky.

It might be that they get an automated email, but something else duplicates and goes out at the same time. Until you map it and really see it, you can't understand what they're feeling or going through.

When you look at the science of marketing and sales now, there are so many touchpoints someone needs to build trust and credibility. If you've wasted one of them by giving them a poor experience, that can be really detrimental.

So if you do nothing else, map that customer journey. Understand what is happening at every phase and think about how you can make sure everything they experience is of the highest quality.

Beth: That's a really good closing remark. Thank you, Kayleigh. That's all we've got time for today. Please connect with Kayleigh. I've left her LinkedIn and Enterprise Nation profile in the chat.

We've had some lovely messages coming in: "Very insightful, thank you," "Great session, thank you." Everyone really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for delivering, even with the power outage.

Kayleigh: It held out, thank goodness. I'm in the dark, but we got through it.

Beth: Exactly, we did, and it was absolutely fine. Catherine says: "Great presentation. You made something complex seem really simple." Lovely feedback.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today. We'll send the recording and further resources in a follow-up email this afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thanks very much for joining, and thanks, Kayleigh.

Kayleigh: Thank you. Take care. Bye.

Explore our webinar library

Unlock more on-demand sessions designed to help you sharpen your skills, grow your business and stay one step ahead. Find more Lunch and Learn webinars