For years, trade shows were a huge part of how my consulting firm marketed and sold. One show in particular ran twice a year, and it was the single biggest source of sales for us, every year. A lot rode on it.
It was also a show with endless details. A massive booth, brought in and put together by an outside company. Giveaways, with tickets handed out on the floor. Big parties for our clients, which I'll admit I had a lot of opinions about.
Training a new marketing leader to run that show the way I wanted took a year or two. We went through every detail, together.
Thrown in blind
At the end of December 2014, my marketing director resigned. Suddenly. We were really good friends, which didn't make it any easier.
So I promoted my marketing manager to director and threw her into the January 2015 show blind. Between the two of us we pulled it off, with some hiccups.
By the next summer she'd learned more, and she did pretty well. I flew in from Maine to be there, partly because my director of sales had also resigned that previous December.
That fall I was filling the director of sales role myself. I was on the road a lot. And I had no time to sit with her before what would be her first solo run of the January show.
Panic, right in my chest
After Thanksgiving, in early December, it hit me.
She was going to be on her own. I hadn't checked in. I didn't know the giveaways. I didn't know the events. I didn't know the plans for the client party. The biggest sales week of our year was a month out, and I had no idea what it looked like.
I booked a meeting. She came into my office, and I said, "Well, how's everything going? Walk me through the entire show."
She looked at me with a giant smile and said, "Chris, I got you."
Then she unfolded what turned out to be the best trade show I had ever experienced.
Your first job is to duplicate yourself
I've believed for a long time that the first job of a founder, a CEO or any executive is to duplicate yourself. I practiced it, and I taught it to my own leaders.
People hear "duplicate" and picture copies. That's not it. I didn't need her to pick the same giveaways I would have, or throw the party exactly my way. I needed her to care about that show the way I did. To feel it was hers. To lose a little sleep over it before I ever had to.
Not your personality. Your ownership.
There's a name for what she had: psychological ownership. It's the feeling that something is yours. You can't order someone to have it, and you can't install it in a two-day workshop. It gets handed off, a piece at a time, until one day you notice it has landed. Usually you notice the way I did, when you walk in ready to rescue something that doesn't need rescuing.
Imagine six founders
Now picture that across a whole company.
Imagine six founders running your company instead of one. Six people who'd feel that same panic before the big week and then walk in with a plan. Six people who make the call you'd make, without waiting to check with you.
That's what changes the speed of a business. When ownership lives in one head, everything waits on one calendar. When it lives in six, the company stops waiting.
Most founders and CEOs I talk to aren't short on strategy. What they're short on is leaders who own the outcome. And the frustrating part is that ownership doesn't spread on its own. It has to be handed off on purpose.
How it gets handed off
The way I think about it is the ALT Method. Align. Lead. Thrive.
Align creates something worth owning. People don't take ownership of something they don't understand or don't care about. That show was easy to care about, because it mattered so much to the business. Most of what we ask people to own is a lot less obvious, and that's the leader's job to fix.
Lead makes it safe to own. Her first show was thrown at her with no warning, and there were hiccups. A first run like that has to be survivable. If the first stumble costs someone, they won't volunteer for a second try.
Thrive makes it last. One handoff doesn't do it. She had one show where I was right beside her, one where she did pretty well, and then one that was entirely hers. Ownership that lasts is built show after show, not in a single conversation.
The hard part is usually you
Here's what I didn't see at the time. The panic I felt that December wasn't really about her. She was fine. It was about me, and how hard it is to let go of something you built and care about.
So here's a question worth sitting with this week. What's the January show in your business? The thing that matters so much you've never fully let go of it.
And if you asked the person running it to walk you through the whole thing, would they smile and say, "I got you"?
If the answer is no, or if nobody's running it but you, that's where to start.
Handing off ownership like that, on purpose and a little every day, is what we built ALT Engine to help with.