Dashboard: Are You Still the Best Person to Run Your Business?

For a lot of business owners, there comes a point when the obvious choices seem to be: keep running the business or sell it. But Tighe Burke says there’s a third option that owners often overlook: keep the business, hire someone else to run it, and let that person take it places you may not be equipped—or inclined—to take it yourself. Burke, who runs the executive recruiting firm Srch, specializes in finding operators for founder-led businesses. He says one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to accept is that someone else may actually be better at running their company than they our conversation, he explains how owners can tell when it’s time to step aside, what it costs to hire a professional operator, why owners have to be prepared to give that operator real authority, and what tends to happen when they don’t. He also explains why, for an owner contemplating an exit, hiring the right CEO can sometimes be a better financial move than selling—allowing the owner to keep collecting profits, grow the company's value, and perhaps sell it later for considerably more. The episode is brought to you by Grasshopper Bank.