The Most Important Transition for Scaling Businesses

Dustin Hogate

Table of Contents

The Hidden Growth Killer: When Sales and Operations Clash

Introduction

The last few months we have dug into the three pillars of business.

Boring for some, exciting for a few, and mostly just confusing to my dear wife, who has to listen to my rants. (I love you, Kayla.)

Nonetheless, writing about this is tricky but fun.

My goal with this project is to create a small, concise document that will act as a guide for exhausted solo-operators who want to transition to operationally sound businesses.

A daunting task, but I think it’s possible.

This project has led to some great conversations with other business operators—one of whom, Cam Roberts, agreed to write a piece for LTL on the transition stage of Sales and Operations.

I hope you like it.

PPS - If you're in the asphalt, striping, or seal coating world and want help scaling your business, Cam Roberts works 1-on-1 with operators like you.

Check out Cam Roberts here.

Separation of Sales and Operations - Cam Roberts

In early 2021, I was offered a chance to bid on a large project in a remote town nine hours away.

As I quickly surveyed the project scope and drawings, I realized two things:

  • This project was worth over $100,000 in revenue. (Great.)
  • With only four employees, we couldn’t possibly execute it without overextending ourselves. (Not great.)

In a perfect world, businesses scale to match sales demand seamlessly. Sales growth aligns with recruiting and training, ensuring no loss of quality, no production delays, and—most importantly—no overwhelmed business owners.

But reality doesn’t work that way.

When I declined to submit a bid, I knew there was no good option if I won that contract. It would push our company beyond its limits. Ironically, four months later, a desperate general contractor begged us to take the job—but that’s a story for another time.

The Push-and-Pull of Sales and Operations

Sales exists to generate revenue.
Operations exists to execute contracts profitably.

In small businesses, the owner often wears both hats. When work is slow, they push sales. When work piles up, they slow down sales to focus on production.

Over time, businesses begin hiring to fill these roles. The typical path looks like this:

  1. First hires are usually in operations—fieldworkers, crew leads, or project managers.
  2. Later, businesses add sales staff—an estimator, an inbound sales rep, and eventually an outbound salesperson.

Eventually, these departments must separate to function effectively.

The Growing Pains of Separation

In a small business, an owner can pump the brakes when work piles up.

But telling a full-time salesperson to slow down? That’s a different story.

Salespeople sell. It’s what they do. Telling them to stop selling is like telling a lion to ignore a gazelle standing 10 feet away. They won’t stick around in a company that limits their earning potential.

The same issue happens in operations. If sales floods the pipeline with too many contracts, operations has to scramble to deliver. The result? Missed deadlines, stressed employees, and a frustrated team.

Conversely, if sales slows down too much, operations staff get nervous. Downtime is useful for training, but too much of it leads to layoffs—something no operations manager wants to deal with.

The Challenge of Letting Go

One of the biggest roadblocks to business growth is not separating these departments early enough.

Many business owners struggle to let go of control. They fear:

  • Losing the balance between work sold and work produced
  • Hiring the wrong people
  • Building ineffective systems

But holding onto both roles limits growth and increases stress.

The Right Kind of Separation

Separation doesn’t mean sales and operations work in silos. They must communicate effectively.

  • Sales needs to know the production team’s capacity.
  • Operations needs insight into upcoming deals.

However, when business owners continue running both, they hinder growth. The old way of managing work—balancing sales when necessary—won’t work as the company scales past ten employees or seven figures in revenue.

Slowing one department down to accommodate the other causes tension rather than reducing it.

If you’re struggling with this transition, let’s talk. I work 1-on-1 with businesses to help them scale successfully. ➔ Check out Cam Roberts here.

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