Here’s a few thoughts on what to look for, in no particular order.

Probably, the single most important characteristic is someone who can work with you! That means lots of different things including: being willing to subjugate their own ideas to yours while also knowing when to challenge you and offer their own ideas, being robust and mature enough to handle it when you point out things that you’re not happy with, having the emotional intelligence to recognise that you will have great strengths (otherwise you wouldn’t be an owner manager) and probably correspondingly deep flaws!

There needs to be mutual trust between you. Easy to say/write – a lot harder to build up and to recognise.

They need to not be a “victim” who always blames you, or other circumstances, when things are going quite right.

They need to be passionate about the business and what it does for its customers.

Ideally, they will have worked with an owner manager before. Another option would be that one of their parents was an owner manager so they know the territory.

And you probably want them to be sufficiently experienced to be able to run your business, develop a strategy and take it to the next level!

Because of this need for experience, they’re probably not an entrepreneur – if they were, they would have already done their own thing by now! At the same time, they may be someone who is looking for a lower risk way of owning their own business.

The owner manager I was just speaking to had decided to look for a big-hitter externally. He had employed head hunters to find him an MD who could build his brand and grow his business very ambitiously over the next few years. The reward package was going to be very significant indeed. As we spoke, the more personal factors (trust, being able to work with him, etc) came more into his mind and he began to realise that the most likely place to find someone like that is someone who has worked with him in the business for a number of years already. He identified such a candidate who he trusts hugely, he knows her strengths and weaknesses, and who is already passionate about the business. Yes, she has some areas where he would need to supplement her with internal and external support. Even then, she might not have the wherewithal to achieve the type of explosive growth that he claims he wants.

He realised that, like so much in the life of an owner manager, the most appropriate approach comes down to risk and reward. Recruiting the external big hitter is higher risk and, if it works, would lead to greater reward. The internal appointment would be much lower risk and may lead to less growth and less reward.

Hope that helps.

So, I know that I can work with a number 2!

And now I’d like to find another who’s just as good at working with someone who, in her words, is “high passion and high expectation” and at making things happen.

Of course, that’s not to say that I don’t meddle!

By the way, who are you?