How I Became the Managing Director of A Company at 23

I'd just gotten out of the surf and opened the door of my van when I could hear the faint rhythmic buzzing of ringing phone in the glovebox. I leaned over the front seat and fished through its messy contents until I grabbed my phone and answered. 

It was my boss, with the most startling proposal I'd ever heard:

He was going overseas for 9 months and he wanted me to run his company…

A company with 50 employees and a million-dollar annual revenue stream.

To be very clear: this company wasn't a tech startup.

It wasn't a flashy venture capital backed firm fresh out of Silicon Valley. 

It was a grassroots outdoor tourism company that ran guided wilderness excursions for primary schools in Sydney, Australia. 

Of course, after a couple minutes of chatting over the details I eventually arrived at my final conclusion:

Hell yeah!

I would start my new role in a matter of months…

Here's what my new role entailed:

My daily job was to help grow the company by attaining new clients (convincing schools to choose us for their excursions), organise teams of staff at 10 different locations, and then go off to run my own excursion with the most high-ticket client of the day (private colleges). 

The excursions themselves were long days of capturing and the attention of young school kids, educating them on indigenous history, bushcraft and then crafting some witty small talk with their teachers.

I would return to our warehouse in the afternoon after finishing my excursion and help everyone pack away the enormous amount of gear they'd used on their trips. Then I would start packaging the videos we made of their adventures to send out to the schools as memorabilia (and brand reinforcement). It isn't what I'd rush to call glamorous work, but I found it deeply rewarding. 

It gave me the opportunity to overcome my fear of presenting in front of large groups of people, hone my public speaking (if you can keep kids entertained for a few hours then adults aren't anything to worry about) and vastly enhance my sales skills

To be very clear, I'm not a freak genius with an aptitude for gaming the system. I'm just a regular person, with a decent work ethic and a solid grasp on the basic principles of human psychology. 

I'm not going to spend any more time regaling you with flashy stories about any of my fleeting successes or the relatively inconsequential money I've made. 

Instead, here's a very short list of simple, actionable steps you can implement to greatly improve your performance in your current career, whether you work full time at Google or take night shifts at McDonalds.

1. Go beyond what your job asks of you

If you want to be the person that gets noticed by your employer and promoted accordingly, you have to start behaving like one. You can't just be an unassuming, dutiful employee and expect to be seen as highly promotable asset. You must go above and beyond. Step out of your expected domain and show your employer that you're capable of leadership and multi-faceted thinking. 

Actionable Tip #1

Start by asking if there's anything you can do to help around the place after the work day is finished and everyone else has gone home. Employer's love seeing initiative and good ones will be quick to reward it. 

If there's nothing that jumps out at you straight away, look around for the things that other people haven't even noticed. For me that was asking to clean the warehouse we stored our gear in, and to organise it so that it was more accessible and useable for staff when they were in a hurry (which was every single morning). Again, not exactly glamorous work, but it was something that made everyone's life a whole lot easier in the following months.

Actionable Tip #2

If you can see your workmates or boss struggling with a task or see that they are overwhelmed by their workload, offer them your assistance it if you can. Getting noticed and being someone promotable isn't just about elevating yourself above others, it's just as important to show everyone that you're a team player and that you know how best to help the people around you.

Actionable Tip #3

If your workplace is a soul crushing environment where initiative isn't rewarded. Get out of there. Fast. You need to be in an environment with strong leaders that recognise ambition and enthusiasm. 

2. Become indispensable by saying "yes" (almost) all of the time

In any occupation there's always more stuff to do. Personally, I was lucky enough to be involved in an early-stage company that was suffering from its fair share growing pains. My boss was constantly taking on new clients and had to hire new staff rapidly. Quite often he would end up in situations where he had bitten off a little more than he could chew, and he would be understaffed. I would regularly (once a fortnight) be asked to take on the most "finicky" high ticket schools at last minute. I said yes (almost) every time. This created a repeated sense of reliability that my boss grew to respect greatly, and eventually it led to me being an indispensable part of the team. 

Actionable Tip #1

If you can tell your boss or your teammates are desperate and need help, always say yes (within reason). Obviously don't cancel important dinner plans with your partner or tell your best friend you can no longer make it to their wedding. 

But in scenarios where the only thing you'll stand to lose is a few hours sleep or less time smashing through the Queen's Gambit on Netflix (absolutely unreal show by the way) then do it. People are extremely grateful when they can tell that you're sacrificing your "outside of work" hours to help them, and it will take you a long way in building a reputation as someone who is dependable in times of need. 

Caveat

You must pick the times that you say "yes" to things. If you are the "yes-man doormat" that your boss or teammates know will do anything they ask without question, you'll end up getting inundated with all the stuff they know that they can pile onto you. 

Actionable Tip #2

Try to say "yes" to requests where you can tell that you're where the buck stops. When you can recognise that you're the lynchpin in a situation, then saying "yes" at these moments you will allow you to craft a reputation as the person who will pick up the slack at the most crucial stages, and you will be remembered accordingly. 

3. Suggest (and make) immediately actionable improvements

People love to daydream about the things they'd improve if they were in a position of power, or all of the stuff they'd do if they had more money. Well, the truth is: your life is right now. And so is your career. Instead of coming up with grand plans about how your workplace might look if you came in and made some grandiose changes, look to the little things you could improve within the next few days. 

I was in the unique position of spending most of my work days alongside my boss at different excursions. We took long commutes together to the different national parks throughout in our area and had plenty of time to chat. I recognised that my boss was a serial entrepreneur. He loved the process of business building and wanted to talk about it all the time. I loved to talk about business development (I had a side hustle in a small-scale removals company that I ran as well) and how different models would or wouldn't work with the current business. So I'd use this time to making non-threatening, actionable suggestions about things we could improve at the company over the next few days.

Actionable Tip#1

Find 1 thing that you could improve in your workplace within the next 24 hours. This could be anything from organising the staff room so that work life is more convenient for your colleagues. 

It could be grabbing the next box of Nespresso pods, so they don't run out when everyone's sitting by the coffee machine at 8:30 rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

It could be finding a more cost-effective solution for something you buy regularly and getting into contact with a distributor. 

The lesson here is:

Every workplace has room for someone to improve something. 

Actionable Tip #2

If there's something that you think could be done better… Make a suggestion! It is crucial that the first suggestions you make are immediately actionable: meaning that you have to think out how you would implement your idea in the least disruptive way. By providing a set of realistic steps and solid evidence for your ideas you'll avoid being seen as the annoying employee that makes nice but ultimately impractical suggestions. 

Real Life Example:

At our company we would take professional photos and videos of the excursions and edit them into short 3-minute videos that we would send to the schools in the following weeks so that they could re-live the best parts of their day with us (which is an excellent branding strategy for serviced-based businesses). We would post them a handwritten card from our team with the photos and videos on a USB drive. 

One afternoon after chatting with my boss about how much it cost to send out the packages, I did a quick 'back of the envelope' cost breakdown (excluding the video editing labour costs):

USB: $4/each 

Photo printing: $5.50/ excursion photo set

Shipping: $6.60/package

We ran on average 6 excursions a day. So that quickly became an outflow of nearly $100 a day = $500 a week = $20,000 a school year solely for the antiquity of hardcopy media.

I did some research and found a digital delivery service called Digital Pigeon that cost $3000 per year that allowed us to send a high quality, personalised multimedia package to schools. I also suggested that we keep sending out the personalised card as an important physical touch so that they could still have something to pin on the wall in their classroom. 

He came around to my idea once I showed him the numbers ($17k in immediate savings) and the quality of the digital alternative, so that we weren't degrading the character of our product. 

P.S. Using diagrams is a fantastic way to back up your argument. Utilise the magic of Canva to make graphics that can help get your point across. 

Takeaway Thoughts

Lots of us assume that the rules of employment are static, and we unknowingly mould ourselves to our current role. But in reality, the best way to exceed in any domain is to bring your own personal flair and talents to the table at all times. 

Don't allow yourself to be defined by your role. Rise above it by showing your off best qualities and displaying to your employer and your peers that you're someone with a willingness to lead, to take on new opportunities and face the challenges outside of your given "job", wherever it is you work. 

By going above and beyond your role, building a reputation of reliability and making immediately actionable suggestions, you are undoubtedly on track to succeed. 

Let me know which strategy you're going to take to work tomorrow!

Tom Mitchelhill

Business Builder |Writer |Endurance Athlete | Existence Enthusiast

Get in touch with me on Linkedin

Send me an e-mail! [email protected]