When the Producer Finally Steps Out
Daniel Wakefield is arguably the best in the world at what he does.
He started his photography business, Top-Tier Headshots, five years ago. And for years, he was the guy handling every shoot and every client.
In an expertise-led business, that isn't uncommon.
For those founders, it can be exactly where the trouble starts.
When your personal skill is the core asset, you are the ultimate bottleneck. The business can only grow as fast as your own two hands can move.
The craft keeps pulling you back in until you realize you’ve built a job, not a business.
A few weeks ago, Daniel and I had a coaching session.
He told me about an event his team had just finished.
It was the first time he wasn't the one holding the camera.
His team member handled the production solo.
Daniel was at the event - as an attendee(!)
Shaking hands. Building relationships. Having conversations that only the owner can have.
He was finally doing the rest of the work that was actually his to do.
How did it go?
When we talked about it in our next session, I could hear it in his voice.
He was on fire about it.
The first time a founder steps out of production and actually sees the business running without them, the view changes forever.
More specifically, it changes how you view the business and how you view yourself.
When you stop seeing the business as a series of tasks you have to "do," you finally start to see it as a machine that delivers outcomes.
You realize your worth isn't in the production anymore. And you view yourself as a leader, who has leadership responsibilities.
It all starts to make sense.
Here's what I want you to know about that night for Daniel, though.
It didn't happen by accident.
Daniel didn't get lucky with a hire and stumble into a breakthrough.
He’d been doing the heavy lifting of the Parallel Process for months.
Making hard people decisions.
Building scorecards and financial systems.
Saying no to opportunities that would have distracted him.
Focusing on leadership behaviors, not just production behaviors.
Those things didn't magically make everything perfect that night.
But they gave him the permission to let go.
The confidence to trust the machine while he occupied the owner's seat.
He wasn't just "stepping back" from the work.
He was stepping into a strategic role that the business had been missing.
When I looked at the full picture of his growth?
Damn.
This is what it looks like when somebody does the work. And I mean ALL the work.
The decisions, the discipline, the identity-level stuff that nobody sees from the outside. The commitment to grow into the leader the business is going to require.
Once you’ve felt that shift, you can’t unfeel it.
Think:
If you stepped out of your role in the business tomorrow, would the business still run?
Would you have a strategic seat to step into?