team management in business plan

How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan + Examples

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the last 20+ years, we’ve written business plans for over 4,000 companies and hundreds of thousands of others have used our business plan template and other business planning materials.

From this vast experience, we’ve gained valuable insights on how to write a business plan effectively , specifically in the management section.

What is a Management Team Business Plan?

A management team business plan is a section in a comprehensive business plan that introduces and highlights the key members of the company’s management team. This part provides essential details about the individuals responsible for leading and running the business, including their backgrounds, skills, and experience.

It’s crucial for potential investors and stakeholders to evaluate the management team’s competence and qualifications, as a strong team can instill confidence in the company’s ability to succeed.

Why is the Management Team Section of a Business Plan Important?

Your management team plan has 3 goals:

• To prove to you that you have the right team to execute on the opportunity you have defined, and if not, to identify who you must hire to round out your current team
• To convince lenders and investors (e.g., angel investors, venture capitalists) to fund your company (if needed)
• To document how your Board (if applicable) can best help your team succeed

What to Include in Your Management Team Section

There are two key elements to include in your management team business plan as follows:

Management Team Members

For each key member of your team, document their name, title, and background.

Their backgrounds are most important in telling you and investors they are qualified to execute. Describe what positions each member has held in the past and what they accomplished in those positions. For example, if your VP of Sales was formerly the VP of Sales for another company in which they grew sales from zero to $10 million, that would be an important and compelling accomplishment to document.

Importantly, try to relate your team members’ past job experience with what you need them to accomplish at your company. For example, if a former high school principal was on your team, you could state that their vast experience working with both teenagers and their parents will help them succeed in their current position (particularly if the current position required them to work with both customer segments).

This is true for a management team for a small business, a medium-sized or large business.

Management Team Gaps

In this section, detail if your management team currently has any gaps or missing individuals. Not having a complete team at the time you develop your business plan. But, you must show your plan to complete your team.

As such, describe what positions are missing and who will fill the positions. For example, if you know you need to hire a VP of Marketing, state this. Further, state the job description of this person. For example, you might say that this hire will have 10 years of experience managing a marketing team, establishing new accounts, working with social media marketing, have startup experience, etc.

To give you a “checklist” of the employees you might want to include in your Management Team Members and/or Gaps sections, below are the most common management titles at a growing startup (note that many are specific to tech startups):

• Founder, CEO, and/or President
• Chief Operating Officer
• Chief Financial Officer
• VP of Sales
• VP of Marketing
• VP of Web Development and/or Engineering
• UX Designer/Manager
• Product Manager
• Digital Marketing Manager
• Business Development Manager
• Account Management/Customer Service Manager
• Sales Managers/Sales Staff
• Board Members

If you have a Board of Directors or Board of Advisors, you would include the bios of the members of your board in this section.

A Board of Directors is a paid group of individuals who help guide your company. Typically startups do not have such a board until they raise VC funding.

If your company is not at this stage, consider forming a Board of Advisors. Such a board is ideal particularly if your team is missing expertise and/or experience in certain areas. An advisory board includes 2 to 8 individuals who act as mentors to your business. Usually, you meet with them monthly or quarterly and they help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. You typically do not pay advisory board members with cash, but offering them options in your company is a best practice as it allows you to attract better board members and better motivate them.

Management Team Business Plan Example

Below are examples of how to include your management section in your business plan.

Key Team Members

Jim Smith, Founder & CEO

Jim has 15 years of experience in online software development, having co-founded two previous successful online businesses. His first company specialized in developing workflow automation software for government agencies and was sold to a public company in 2003. Jim’s second company developed a mobile app for parents to manage their children’s activities, which was sold to a large public company in 2014. Jim has a B.S. in computer science from MIT and an M.B.A from the University of Chicago

Bill Jones, COO

Bill has 20 years of sales and business development experience from working with several startups that he helped grow into large businesses. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where he also played Division I lacrosse for four years.

We currently have no gaps in our management team, but we plan to expand our team by hiring a Vice President of Marketing to be responsible for all digital marketing efforts.

Vance Williamson, Founder & CEO

Prior to founding GoDoIt, Vance was the CIO of a major corporation with more than 100 retail locations. He oversaw all IT initiatives including software development, sales technology, mobile apps for customers and employees, security systems, customer databases/CRM platforms, etc. He has a  B.S in computer science and an MBA in operations management from UCLA.

We currently have two gaps in our Management Team: 

A VP of Sales with 10 years of experience managing sales teams, overseeing sales processes, working with manufacturers, establishing new accounts, working with digital marketing/advertising agencies to build brand awareness, etc. 

In addition, we need to hire a VP of Marketing with experience creating online marketing campaigns that attract new customers to our site.

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Writing the Organization and Management Section of Your Business Plan

What is the organization and management section in a business plan.

• What to Put in the Organization and Management Section

Organization

The management team, helpful tips to write this section, frequently asked questions (faqs).

vm / E+ / Getty Images

Every business plan needs an organization and management section. This document will help you convey your vision for how your business will be structured. Here's how to write a good one.

Key Takeaways

• This section of your business plan details your corporate structure.
• It should explain the hierarchy of management, including details about the owners, the board of directors, and any professional partners.
• The point of this section is to clarify who will be in charge of each aspect of your business, as well as how those individuals will help the business succeed.

The organization and management section of your business plan should summarize information about your business structure and team. It usually comes after the market analysis section in a business plan . It's especially important to include this section if you have a partnership or a multi-member limited liability company (LLC). However, if you're starting a home business or are  writing  a business plan for one that's already operating, and you're the only person involved, then you don't need to include this section.

What To Put in the Organization and Management Section

You can separate the two terms to better understand how to write this section of the business plan.

The "organization" in this section refers to how your business is structured and the people involved. "Management" refers to the responsibilities different managers have and what those individuals bring to the company.

In the opening of the section, you want to give a summary of your management team, including size, composition, and a bit about each member's experience.

For example, you might write something like "Our management team of five has more than 20 years of experience in the industry."

The organization section sets up the hierarchy of the people involved in your business. It's often set up in a chart form. If you have a partnership or multi-member LLC, this is where you indicate who is president or CEO, the CFO, director of marketing, and any other roles you have in your business. If you're a single-person home business, this becomes easy as you're the only one on the chart.

Technically, this part of the plan is about owner members, but if you plan to outsource work or hire a virtual assistant, you can include them here, as well. For example, you might have a freelance webmaster, marketing assistant, and copywriter. You might even have a virtual assistant whose job it is to work with your other freelancers. These people aren't owners but have significant duties in your business.

Some common types of business structures include sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations.

Sole Proprietorship

This type of business isn't a separate entity. Instead, business assets and liabilities are entwined with your personal finances. You're the sole person in charge, and you won't be allowed to sell stock or bring in new owners. If you don't register as any other kind of business, you'll automatically be considered a sole proprietorship.

Partnership

Partnerships can be either limited (LP) or limited liability (LLP). LPs have one general partner who takes on the bulk of the liability for the company, while all other partner owners have limited liability (and limited control over the business). LLPs are like an LP without a general partner; all partners have limited liability from debts as well as the actions of other partners.

Limited Liability Company

A limited liability company (LLC) combines elements of partnership and corporate structures. Your personal liability is limited, and profits are passed through to your personal returns.

Corporation

There are many variations of corporate structure that an organization might choose. These include C corps, which allow companies to issue stock shares, pay corporate taxes (rather than passing profits through to personal returns), and offer the highest level of personal protection from business activities. There are also nonprofit corporations, which are similar to C corps, but they don't seek profits and don't pay state or federal income taxes.

This section highlights what you and the others involved in the running of your business bring to the table. This not only includes owners and managers but also your board of directors (if you have one) and support professionals. Start by indicating your business structure, and then list the team members.

Owner/Manager/Members

Provide the following information on each owner/manager/member:

• Percentage of ownership (LLC, corporation, etc.)
• Extent of involvement (active or silent partner)
• Type of ownership (stock options, general partner, etc.)
• Position in the business (CEO, CFO, etc.)
• Duties and responsibilities
• Educational background
• Experience or skills that are relevant to the business and the duties
• Past employment
• Skills will benefit the business
• Awards and recognition
• Compensation (how paid)
• How each person's skills and experience will complement you and each other

Board of Directors

A board of directors is another part of your management team. If you don't have a board of directors, you don't need this information. This section provides much of the same information as in the ownership and management team sub-section. 

• Position (if there are positions)
• Involvement with the company

Even a one-person business could benefit from a small group of other business owners providing feedback, support, and accountability as an advisory board. 

Support Professionals

Especially if you're seeking funding, let potential investors know you're on the ball with a lawyer, accountant, and other professionals that are involved in your business. This is the place to list any freelancers or contractors you're using. Like the other sections, you'll want to include:

• Background information such as education or certificates
• Services provided to your business
• Relationship information (retainer, as-needed, regular, etc.)
• Skills and experience making them ideal for the work you need
• Anything else that makes them stand out as quality professionals (awards, etc.)

Writing a business plan seems like an overwhelming activity, especially if you're starting a small, one-person business. But writing a business plan can be fairly simple.

Like other parts of the business plan, this is a section you'll want to update if you have team member changes, or if you and your team members receive any additional training, awards, or other resume changes that benefit the business.

Because it highlights the skills and experience you and your team offer, it can be a great resource to refer to when seeking publicity and marketing opportunities. You can refer to it when creating your media kit or pitching for publicity.

Why are organization and management important to a business plan?

The point of this section is to clarify who's in charge of what. This document can clarify these roles for yourself, as well as investors and employees.

What should you cover in the organization and management section of a business plan?

The organization and management section should explain the chain of command , roles, and responsibilities. It should also explain a bit about what makes each person particularly well-suited to take charge of their area of the business.

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How to Write the Management Team Section to Your Business Plan Think you've got an all-star lineup? These are the key characteristics to showcase.

By Eric Butow • Oct 27, 2023

Key Takeaways

• Who to include in your org chart
• The key traits to highlight

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This is part 1 / 8 of Write Your Business Plan: Section 3: Selling Your Product and Team series.

One crucial aspect of any business plan is the management team slide, which outlines the key employees in the organization. Here are some things to keep in mind when putting together your all-star lineup.

Put Yourself First

Don't be modest. If you're the head of the business, you should feature yourself first. After all, you are the entrepreneur behind the business venture, and you will have to put your neck on the line, answer the hard questions, and take the criticism— as well as the praise and acclaim, should there be some.

If you want to impress people with your management team, it's essential to let your readers know who is at the helm and who is selecting the management team. Explain your background, including your vision, your credentials, and why you chose the management team you did.

A business follows the lead of the founder, and as such, you need to briefly explain what is expected of this management team and the role you see it, as a group, playing in the future of this business.

Related: Does Your Team Have the Right Stuff to Attract Venture Capital?

Highlight These Characteristics

Identifying your managers is about presenting what they bring to the table. You can provide this by describing them in terms of the following characteristics:

Education Impressive educational credentials among company managers provide strong reasons for an investor or other plan reader to feel good about your company. Use your judgment in deciding what educational background to include and how to emphasize it. If you're starting a fine restaurant, for example, and your chef graduated at the top of her class from the Culinary Institute of America, play that front and center. If you're starting a courier service and your partner has an anthropology degree from a little-known school, mention it, but don't make a big deal out of it.

Employment Prior work experience in a related field is something many investors look for. If you've spent ten years in management in the retail men's apparel business before opening a tuxedo outlet, an investor can feel confident that you know what you're doing. Likewise, you'll want to explain your team members' key, appropriate positions. Describe any relevant jobs in terms of job title, years of experience, names of employers, and so on. But remember, this isn't a resume. You can feel free to skim over or omit any irrelevant experience. You do not have to provide exact dates of employment.

Related: How to Craft a Business Plan That Will Turn Investors' Heads

Skills A title is one thing, but what you learn while holding it is another. In addition to pointing out that you were a district sales manager for a stereo equipment wholesaler, you should describe your responsibilities and the skills you honed while fulfilling them. Again, list your management team's skills that pertain to this business. A great cook may have incredible accounting skills, but that doesn't matter in the new restaurant's kitchen.

Each time you mention skills that you or a management team member has spent years acquiring at another company, it will be another reason for an investor to believe you can do it at your own company.

Accomplishments Dust off your plaques and trot out your calculator for this one. If you or one of your team members has been awarded patents, achieved record sales gains, or once opened an unbelievable number of new stores in the space of a year, now's the time to talk about it. Don't brag. Just be factual and remember to quantify. If, for example, you have twelve patents, your sales manager had five years of thirty percent annual sales gains, and you oversaw the grand openings of forty-two stores in eleven months, this is the stuff investors and others reading your business plan will want to see. Investors are looking to back impressive winners, and quantifiable results speak strongly to businesspeople of all stripes.

Personal information Investors want to know with whom they're dealing in terms of the personal side. Personal information on each member of your management team may include age, city of residence, notable charitable or community activities, and, last but not least, personal motivation for joining the company. Investors like to see vigorous, committed, and involved people in the companies they back. Mentioning one or two of the relevant personal details of your key managers may help investors feel they know what they're getting into, especially in today's increasingly transparent business climate.

Related: How to Evaluate Your Startup Like a VC

Who to Include in Your Plan

Should you mention everyone in your organization down to shop foremen or stop with the people on your executive committee? The answer is probably neither. Instead, think about your managers in terms of the crucial functions of your business.

In deciding the scope of the management section of your plan, consider the following business functions, and make sure you've explained who will handle those that are important to your enterprise:

• Advertising
• Distribution
• Human Resources
• Technical Operations

Related: How To Build a Team of Outside Experts for Your Business

What Does Each Person Do?

There's more to a job than a title. A director in one organization is a high and mighty individual, whereas a director is practically nobody in another company. Many industries have unique job titles, such as managing editor, creative director, and junior accountant level II, with no counterparts in other industries.

In a longer plan, when you give your management team's background and describe their titles, don't stop there. Go on and tell the reader exactly what each management team member will be expected to do in the company. This may be especially important in a startup, where not every position is filled. If the CFO will handle your marketing work until you get further down the road, let readers know this upfront. You certainly can't expect them to figure that out on their own.

In a shorter business plan, or mini-plan , choose those people most vital to your business. If you are opening a martial arts studio, the instructors, or lead instructors, are significant, as is the software developer in a new software company. While you have room to describe these people in more detail in a longer plan, in the shorter miniplans, use one defining sentence for your top five people.

Related: 6 Tips for Making a Winning Business Presentation

Future Hires

If you do have significant holes in your management team, you'll want to describe your plans for filling them. You may say, for example, "Marketing duties are being handled temporarily by the vice president for finance. Once sales have reached the $500,000 per month level, approximately six months after startup, a dedicated vice president of marketing will be retained to fulfill that function."

In some cases, particularly if you're in a really shaky startup and need solid talent, you may have to describe in some detail your plans for luring a hotshot industry expert to your fledgling enterprise. Then, briefly describe your ideal candidate. For a mini-plan, you may write, "We plan to hire a marketing VP who excels in reaching our 20–29 target market."

Related: Vusi Thembekwayo's 7 Rules of Pitching

More in Write Your Business Plan

Section 1: the foundation of a business plan, section 2: putting your business plan to work, section 3: selling your product and team, section 4: marketing your business plan, section 5: organizing operations and finances, section 6: getting your business plan to investors.

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Tips on Writing the Management Team Section of a Business Plan

Free Ultimate Guide On Writing A Business Plan

• December 21, 2023

10 Min Read

A business is as efficient as its team and its management. It, therefore, becomes important for business owners to build a structured management team that achieves the objectives and goals set by the organization. Thus, making the management section of a business plan the most essential component.

Andrew Carnegie , an American steel magnate, beautifully summarized it –

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

A business management plan helps build an efficient team and formalize business operations . This helps businesses streamline strategies to achieve their goals.

It, therefore, becomes imperative that business owners pay utmost importance while writing the management section of a business plan.

So, if you are a business owner who is looking to formalize their business structure and write the management team section in their business plan , this guide is for you.

Here’s a sneak peek into what you’ll learn:

Table of Contents

• What Is the Management Section?
• Importance of the Management Section
• What to Include in the Management Section?
• Example of a Management Section Plan
• Ensure That the Management Section Is Fool-proof?

Sounds good? Let’s dive in.

What Is The Management Section Of A Business Plan?

The management section of a business plan is an in-depth description of a business’s team, its structure, and the ownership of a business.

The section discusses in detail who is on the management team – internal and external- their skill sets, experiences, and how meaningfully they would contribute to an organization’s goals and outcomes.

Now that we have defined what is the management section of a business plan, let’s understand why it is so important.

The Importance Of The Management Section Of A Business Plan

The management section helps you to:

1. Convince your investors (banks and government agencies) to disburse loans and grants for your business idea

2. Prove that your management team can execute your idea and if not, help hire the right fit for a position

3. Share how your advisory board can help your team succeed

What To Include In the Management Section Of A Business Plan?

The management section of a business plan helps in formalizing and structuring the management team plan and is comprised of

• The Management Team
• The Management Team Gaps
• The Management Structure

Let’s understand them in detail.

1. The Management Team

An organization’s entire management team can be divided into parts – the internal team and the external team.

The Internal Management Team

A business team consists of several departments. The most common departments are – Marketing, Sales, IT, Customer Service, Operations, Finance, and HR.

These departments may or may not be required. It purely depends on the nature and functioning of your business. For example, a dental clinic may not require a sales department per se.

The entire management team is compartmentalized according to their responsibility. This helps the business owners and investors be aware of the roles, benefits, ESOPs (if applicable), profit sharing (for sales), work contracts, NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements), and Non-Competition Agreements of the entire team.

It is recommended that business owners collect and document the following information about their team:

• Educational Background
• Work Experience
• Accomplishments

For example, your present VP of Marketing helped their previous company grow its bottom line from $3 million to $10 million over 18 months.

The External Management Team

The external management team is usually composed of – Advisory Board Members and Professional Services.

Advisory board members help by :

• Establishing trust, showing results, and experiencing the table.
• Increasing the confidence of investors and consumers.

This helps attract talented employees to the team. Credible advisory board members show great commitment to a company’s growth. Therefore, it becomes important to document their experience and specialization in the business management plan. The advisory board members can help give valuable advice that internal team members need or lack.

If your business has not or will not have VC funding, you may not require board members on your team.

Usually, board members meet quarterly or monthly to provide strategic guidance in place of stock options in your company. This helps attract the best advisors and motivates them to invest in your business.

For example, founders and business owners coming to raise funds in Shark Tank , a business television series, are looking for advisory members who would invest money and provide guidance on necessary steps.

On the other hand, Professional Service helps by

• Offering highly specialized advice and sharing knowledge.
• Business owners make key strategic management decisions.

Such services help businesses leverage skills that would be difficult to build and acquire over a short period.

Examples of such professional services are

• IT Consultants
• Business coaches and consultants

After a brief overview of the Management Team of an organization, let’s dive into what to include in Management Team Gaps.

2. The Management Team Gaps

The management team gap is an important part of the management section. Primarily because it helps document if your management team currently has gaps or missing skills. Your team may lack a few required skills while starting. The management team gaps help you to be aware and make efforts to close this gap.

As a business owner, you must document what positions are missing and who ought to fill that positions or take responsibility.

For example, if you need a VP of Sales, clearly document this in the section.

Also, write down the job description and key responsibilities to be undertaken,

Example – You might mention that role required 10 years of experience in the sales domain. The applicant must have experience handling a sales team, closing new accounts, working in tandem with the marketing team, and having relevant startup experience.

Be as detailed as possible. This will help you build a checklist while interviewing the right candidate and also win investor confidence in your managerial skills.

Following are a few key positions you would want to include in your management team:

• Founder and/or, CEO
• Chief Technical Officer (CTO)
• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
• Chief Operating Officer (COO)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)
• Head of Product Management (PM)
• VP of Sales
• VP of Marketing
• UX Designer
• Digital Marketing Manager
• Business Development Manager
• Customer Service Manager
• Customer Success Manager
• Sales Managers/Sales Staff
• Advisory Board Members

Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of the management structure.

3. The Management Structure

The management structure defines how a business organizes its management hierarchy. A hierarchy helps determine the roles, positions, power, and responsibilities of all team members.

The management structure also depends upon the type of business ownership. Business ownership can be – a sole proprietorship, partnership, or simply an LLC.

Following is a sample management structure of an organization.

Now that we understand what details we need to document in the business management plan, let’s look at a few examples of the management plan.

Example Of A Management Section Plan

[management section of a hotel], [management team], internal team members.

Name: Charles Fargo Role: Owner Responsibility: Formulating key strategies, defining budgets, and building a business plan Experience: 35 years of owning multiple hotels in Las Vegas Educational Background: B.Sc in Hospitality Management from South Dakota State University.

Name: Michael Clark Role: General Manager Responsibility: Overall hotel operations – guest interactions, revenue management, brand ambassador of the hotel, customer satisfaction, and experience, leadership to all departments Experience: 25 years working with several technology hotels as the general manager. Educational Background: MBA from Wharton School

Name: George Trump Role: Department Manager Responsibility: Manage employees, smooth coordination amongst employees, plan daily affairs of the department, strategize, prepare reports, and deal with complaints and suggestions. Lead team members to function as a team Experience: 15 years working as a department manager Educational Background: BSc in Hotel Management from Texas University

Note: There can be multiple Department Managers depending on the nature of your business. In the case of hotels, departments can include – housekeeping, logistics, security, food, and banquets.

Name: Donald Clooney Role: Marketing and Sales Manager Responsibility: Increase occupancy and generate revenue. Position the hotel as an option for leisure activities, relaxation, and holidays. Experience: 11 years working as the marketing and sales manager for hotels Educational Background: MBA in Tourism and Hospitality from Midway University

External Team Members

Advisory Board Member

#1 Richard Branson Responsibility: Strategic advisory for sustainable growth and expansion Experience: Founder of Virgin Group

Professional Services

[management structure].

There is a gap in one key position in our startup.

#1 Chief Finance Officer (CFO) Responsibilities: Finance, Accounting, Tracking Profit and Loss, and overseeing FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis)

How To Ensure That The Management Section Of Your Business Plan Is Fool-Proof?

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

By building a fool-proof management plan and ensuring that all the intricate details are accounted for, we can ensure that your business has a greater chance of succeeding.

Business planning software like Upmetrics ensures that business owners, like you, get the management section planning correct on the first attempt itself.

You can also get started with a free demo today to discover how Upmetrics can help you plan your business in a breeze.

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Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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Popular Templates

Business Plan Management Team Section

An overview of your founders, key employees, and advisors, management team.

The purpose of including the management team in a business plan is that it provides an overview of your founders and key employees. Yet, in the beginning, that might be just one person. You can increase your plan’s credibility by establishing a supporting cast of key mentors and advisors and including them in this section.

This article provides information about how to present your management team, including examples and a management team template you can use for your business plan.

Important Considerations for Presenting Your Management Team

Venture capitalists will often say, “We don’t invest in ideas. We invest in people.” Their rationale is that, over time, the idea will have to evolve. The right team will develop the idea into a winner. But the wrong team can ruin even what was initially an outstanding idea. So the question to be answered by this section is, “What experience and achievements in this team’s past demonstrate that they will succeed in this new business?”

Business Plan Outline for your Management Team:

The structure for the management team section of your business plan is straightforward. For each bullet point item below, expand on the experience and value brought to your company by their participation. The following sections will recommend best practices for presenting your management team in a way that investors and lenders will appreciate.

• Key Employees

Hiring Plans

Board members.

• Professional Advisors

Founders and CEOs

Most startup businesses will be led by the founder as the Chief Executive Officer or CEO. For a startup, the title of President is equally suitable.

If Your Founder is also the CEO

Assuming your President or CEO is also the founder, begin your Management Team section with a description of the individual who will be the CEO or senior person in charge of running the company.

Under the heading of Founder and CEO, include a mini-bio relevant to the credibility of this person leading the firm to success. A lender or investor will go to LinkedIn to get the full bio, so stick to the essential elements.

The best thing you can say about the founder is that he or she has CEO-level experience running a similar business or one in a similar space. Realistically, you’re only sometimes going to be able to say that. What can you say?

First, present the most relevant experience that makes the CEO “investable.” That could be technical expertise, sales experience, or management skills from another company. By stating the most relevant experience to the new business right up front, you’ll help the reader see the transferable skills. If there is no CEO experience, don’t worry. In the following sections, we’ll show you how to build a bridge of confidence to cover that gap.

If Your Founder is not the CEO

If the founder is not the CEO, two questions must be answered in this lead-off sub-section of your business plan management team. First, why is the founder not leading the company as its CEO? Next, what role will the founder play in the business?

Hopefully, the first question answers itself by presenting the outstanding qualifications of the CEO, such that the reader would be impressed by the fact that you were able to get this person to come on board to grow your business. A simple example would be:

Robert Nelson has 20 years of experience in our industry, 10 of that as a CEO. Robert will lead MyCo as our CEO. Robert is known and respected in the field and will surely accelerate our growth.  

Dana Elders, our founder, worked under Robert as the head of sales, where he flourished. Dana will be MyCo’s President and will also be responsible for driving revenue. 

Whatever the circumstances are that led to your founder not being the CEO, one would expect that there is an advantage with an upside. Otherwise, why would the founder abdicate this role? Be sure to identify the upside in your business plan.

Key Management Team Members

Highlight the relevant experience and accomplishments your team brings to the table. You can include the resumes of your key management team members as appendices in your business plan and refer to them in this section.

Whom should you include?

Include as many of the following roles in your management team as you have filled. Adapt these to align more closely with the important roles in your industry.

• Any VP-level person
• Chief Operating Officer
• Chief Financial Officer
• Chief Product Officer
• Chief Technology Officer
• Head of Sales
• Head of Marketing
• Head of Operations
• Any outstanding contributor with experience that will obviously contribute to the success of your business.

What to Say about Each Person on Your Management Team

For each individual you list, include their relevant experience, transferable skills, and key accomplishments, emphasizing factors that will contribute to your business’ success. Avoid making readers “connect the dots” on their own. Rather, make the connection for them.

For example:

Jose Rodero, VP of Product and Marketing.  

In Jose’s previous role as Chief Product Officer of LikeMine Company, he expanded into new markets and tripled the size of the business in three years. This experience is ideal for MyCo as we move beyond a single market to expand into adjacent markets. 

Highlight Relevant Accomplishments

For each person you list in the key management section, it’s helpful to convey a pattern of accomplishments, such as, “At her last company, Ms. Johnson was named Employee of the Year for the past two years. During that time, she was twice promoted. First to VP of Sales and then to COO.

Leave out admirable but “sideline” accolades such as, “Ms. Johnson is a two-time winner of the La Jolla Triathlon.” Unless an accolade relates to the success of your business, you’re better off mentioning it in the biography (included as an appendix) or leaving it out altogether.

At the early stages of your company, you might be missing some key people on your management team—this is normal and acceptable. Usually, this has a lot to do with why you are seeking funding. If you haven’t yet hired all your key people, you can address this in your business plan in two ways.

First, if you have lined up some individuals who will come on board when you bring in your funding, you can identify them in your business plan. If this information is not ready to be disclosed, you can allude to it in generalized terms without divulging the person’s name or current company.

“We have identified an individual with ten years of experience in a similar company to fill the Director of Marketing role. Pending the timing of our funding, we expect this person to join our team.

Next, address any gaps in your management team that need to be filled. Identify key hires that remain and the order in which you expect to fill the positions. Doing so shows that you’re thinking ahead and shields you from any criticism about holes in your current team.

While you may think these gaps are a weakness in your plan, your potential investors or lenders become a source of free candidate referrals!

Board of Directors versus Board of Advisors

There are two types of boards: a board of directors and a board of advisors, sometimes called an advisory board. A board of directors can have specific legal responsibilities and authority. For that reason, some individuals would prefer to join a board of advisors.

A board of advisors generally has fewer or no formal responsibilities but can be just as beneficial to the company through the guidance they provide. It’s never too early, and your business is never too small to have a board of advisors.

Whether it’s a board of directors or a board of advisors, it is important to surround yourself with experienced advisors who will provide sound advice that you will be willing to follow. Anything less will waste your time and theirs.

One founder we met with had this to say about a particular board member:

“I selected him to be on the board of my first company because he was strongly recommended by two successful business people I knew. I found him to be someone who pushed back on many of my ideas, asked lots of tough questions, and always held me to task on everything I said we would accomplish. We were not friends outside of the business.

When I started my next business, and we needed to set up a board–he was the first person I called.” 

Your best board members may not be your best friends, and hopefully, they won’t be people who think just like you. A board brings a diversity of thought and critical thinking. They help you be a better version of yourself.

Having a board of directors or board of advisors tells lenders and investors that you value the input of outside thinking and have the skills to build relationships with people who can help your business succeed. That bodes well for the future success of your business!

Board of Directors

Your initial board of directors will almost certainly be led by the founder as its Chair. Typically, a co-founder, angel investor, or key employee with very senior executive experience might also be on the board. A small board of directors is fine, especially if you’ll be adding a board of advisors.

Depending on the state where you start your business and your corporate structure, a minimum number of board members may be prescribed.

Advisory Board

If you still need to get a board of directors beyond the minimum required roles, consider putting together a board of advisors. Chances are you have mentors and people with relevant experience who are giving you input on your business idea. Perhaps one of them is even a customer or potential customer.

Consider asking these people to agree to be on your board of advisors, a group that would meet quarterly to hear updates on your business and to provide input. With their consent, you can list members of your board of advisors in your business plan. You’ll find that accomplished people are often happy to join your board of advisors for little or no compensation.

What to Show in Your Business Plan for Board Members (Directors and Advisors)

For each board member in your board of directors and board of advisors, list their name, current or most recent position, and company. If members have special experience that pertains strongly to your business, naturally, you would also want to include that information. Include up to two or three sentences of narrative about each board member.

Using the format above, first list your Board of Directors and then your Board of Advisors.

Professional Services Advisors

If you have worked with an attorney to establish your business, an accountant to help prepare your financial forecasts, or an advertising or PR firm to help prepare some promotional materials—include these organizations in your business plan’s management section under the heading “Professional Advisors.”

Bankers and investors are often well-connected to area professional service providers. Knowing that you are working with recognized names in the business community can boost your credibility. It also tells the reader that you’re being advised by professionals.

Be sure to let your advisors know in advance that you’ve listed them in your business plan since oftentimes, they’ll get a phone call asking for their impressions of the business. Better still, seek and obtain their permission.

In this section, include the type of services provided, the name of the firm, and your primary contact.

Legal Advisors: Dewey and Howe. Jerry Mander, Partner.

Management Team Example Summary

Most startup businesses have a lean management team. A savvy founder will find a way to surround him or herself with individuals who will help the business get started, grow and thrive as non-executive contributors.

Use our provided information and management team examples to present a well-rounded management team section in your business plan.

If you still need to get some of the ancillary advisors we’ve recommended, now is the time to expand your influence circle. You’ll find that there are highly qualified individuals who are willing and even enthusiastic to be a part of your success.

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How to present the management team in your business plan?

Behind every successful business venture lies a dynamic and capable management team that serves as the driving force behind its growth and success. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, having a strong management team is a crucial element that investors and stakeholders closely examine before deciding to invest in or support a business. 

When crafting a compelling business plan, showcasing your management team effectively is vital. This section should include details regarding the members of your management team and explain how their respective skillsets compliment each other and will give your business the best chance of success.

So, let's delve into the essential strategies and best practices to effectively introduce your management team and leave a lasting impression on those who hold the keys to your business's success.

In this guide:

What is the objective of the management team subsection of your business plan?

What information should i include when presenting the management team in my business plan.

• How long should the management section of your business plan be?
• Example of management section in a business plan

What tools should I use to write my business plan?

The part presenting the management team aims to detail the qualifications and experience of the management team responsible for leading the company.

When writing this section, your goal should be to demonstrate to potential investors that the professionals hired by your business are qualified to hold leadership roles because they have the required expertise and exeperience.

It is crucial to address any skills or experience gaps within your management team. Explain your strategies for filling these gaps, and mention if involving a board member to provide additional support in those areas is a possibility.

Another pivotal aspect is emphasizing your management team's cohesiveness and successful collaboration. This is necessary as potential investors are not just interested in the product or service you offer, but they also invest in the people behind the business. 

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In professional business plans, the management team subsection is usually placed at the end of the company section, after the presentation of the business’ structure, ownership, and location. 

The management team subsection should aim to provide the investors with a comprehensive understanding of who's responsible for delivering the business plan. 

Let’s have a look at the different aspects that this section should cover:

Business structure and role

Start by giving an outline of how your business is or will be structured internally (i.e. the overall hierarchy and where each individual is positioned). 

You should keep this section focused in people in leadership position. The exact number of relevant people will vary based on the size of your business. For example, this could involve naming the CEO, CFO and CMO, or the managing director and his right hand in a smaller business.

You can provide an organisational chart in the appendices to make this easier for the reader to understand your exact organization.

Thorough profile

A detailed profile for each member of the management team is necessary and should include the following details:

• Background information including their gender and nationality
• Their educational background emphasizing any degrees or certifications that are relevant to their roles
• Qualifications or accreditations that hold team members distinct in their particular industries
• A rundown of all relevant job experience, both in the same sector/role or in other industries
• Both hard and soft skills that each team member possesses which makes them an asset to the business
• Details of how long they've been with the company

Visual assets

Incorporating visual aids, such as organizational charts and images of the management team members helps improve the readability of this section. 

These representations prove especially beneficial in situations like pitching sessions, where potential investors may have the opportunity to engage with the team face-to-face in the future.

Succession planning (if applicable)

Briefly describe your succession planning approach if your company has plans for future leadership transitions. 

Discuss how important individuals may leave their positions over time and how the business aims to replace them.

Startups only

If your business is a start-up, describe why the founders decided to start this business together, how long they've known each other, and what motivated them.

Some roles or positions may be vacant for startups or businesses that are still in the early stages of growth. It is crucial to discuss these positions and provide a staffing strategy in such situations.

How long should the management section of your business plan be? 

As a general rule of thumb, 2 to 3 paragraphs per individual can be considered a good starting point. This recommendation may need to be modified depending on the size of your management team and the specific characteristics of your industry:

• If your business has less than five people: each member of the management team is crucial. To showcase the team's trustworthiness in such situations, additional information about each member's background, credentials, and area of specialty is necessary.
• A more concise approach may be acceptable in larger companies with a larger management team. In this case, concentrate on key executives and give a general picture of the leadership structure rather than going into excessive detail on each individual.
• The nature of your industry can also define the level of detail required in the management section. In emerging industries or those with specialized technologies, the reader may not be familiar with all of the details and so it’s important to explain how each team member contributes to the business.
• In industries with strict rules and regulations - medical practice for example - your business plan's management section might need to focus more on the qualifications and experience of each team member. Mentioning their previous roles, especially if they were leaders in other organizations, can make your management section appear stronger and more effective.

Ensure a balance between providing enough detail and avoiding excessive elaboration (CVs can be included in appendix if necessary).

Need inspiration for your business plan?

The Business Plan Shop has dozens of business plan templates that you can use to get a clear idea of what a complete business plan looks like.

Example of management section in a business plan 

Below is an example of how the management section of your business plan might look like. As you can see, it precedes the products and services section.

The management section of a business plan outlines the organizational structure, key team members, their roles, responsibilities, and expertise, demonstrating the leadership and operational framework of the business.

This example was taken from one of  our business plan templates .

In this section, we will review three solutions for creating a business plan for your business: using Word and Excel, hiring a consultant to write the business plan, and utilizing an online business plan software.

Create your business plan using Word or Excel

This is the old-fashioned way of creating a business plan (1990s style) and using Word or Excel has both pros and cons.

On the one hand, using either of these two programs is cheap and they are widely available. 

However, creating an error-free financial forecast with Excel is only possible if you have expertise in accounting and financial modeling.

Because of that investors and lenders might not trust the accuracy of your forecast unless you have a degree in finance or accounting.

Also, writing a business plan using Word means starting from scratch and formatting the document yourself once written - a process that can be quite tedious - especially when the numbers change and you need to manually update all the tables and text.

Ultimately, it's up to the business owner to decide which program is right for them and whether they have the expertise or resources needed to make Excel work. 

Hire a consultant to write your business plan

Outsourcing your business plan to a consultant can be a viable option, but it also presents certain drawbacks. 

On the plus side, consultants are experienced in writing business plans and adept at creating financial forecasts without errors. Furthermore, hiring a consultant can save you time and allow you to focus on the day-to-day operations of your business.

However, hiring consultants is expensive: budget at least £1.5k ($2.0k) for a complete business plan, more if you need to make changes after the initial version (which happens frequently after the first meetings with lenders).

For these reasons, outsourcing the plan to a consultant or accountant should be considered carefully, weighing both the advantages and disadvantages of hiring outside help.

Ultimately, it may be the right decision for some businesses, while others may find it beneficial to write their own business plan using an online software.

Use an online business plan software for your business plan

Another alternative is to use online business plan software .

There are several advantages to using specialized software:

• You are guided through the writing process by detailed instructions and examples for each part of the plan
• You can be inspired by already written business plan templates
• You can easily make your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
• You get a professional document, formatted and ready to be sent to your bank
• The software will enable you to easily track your actual financial performance against your forecast and update your forecast as time goes by

If you're interested in using this type of solution, you can try our software for free by signing up here .

Whilst it’s true that all investors aim to maximise profit, it’s also important to remember that they probably won’t finance a business if they are uneasy about the individuals running it. 

A well-written management section of your business is, therefore, critical in ensuring that your business plan is able to obtain funding and grow.

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• 7 tips for writing an effective business plan
• Where to write the conclusion of your business plan?
• How to write the location section of your business plan
• How to write the products and services section of your business plan
• How to write the milestones section of your business plan

Know someone who needs help writing up the management section of their business plan? Share this article with them and help them out!

Founder & CEO at The Business Plan Shop Ltd

Guillaume Le Brouster is a seasoned entrepreneur and financier.

Guillaume has been an entrepreneur for more than a decade and has first-hand experience of starting, running, and growing a successful business.

Prior to being a business owner, Guillaume worked in investment banking and private equity, where he spent most of his time creating complex financial forecasts, writing business plans, and analysing financial statements to make financing and investment decisions.

Guillaume holds a Master's Degree in Finance from ESCP Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Business & Management from Paris Dauphine University.

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How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan

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How to Write a List of Key Company Principals

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Of course, they'll read the market analysis section – and you can expect them to linger over the financial projections section. But if there's one section of a business plan that may carry the greatest weight with lenders, investors and potential strategic partners, it's the management team section. This is where you provide details about the education, qualifications and experience that you and your management team bring to your small business. Written in a crisp and focused manner, the management team section should help those third parties recognize what sets your business apart from others. And it should give meaning to that oft-repeated business maxim: “I don't invest in ideas; I invest in people.”

Gather Key Information

Before you put pen to paper – or your fingers to the keyboard – gather the information you need on your management team. At the least, you should have their resumes handy – and include them in the appendix of your business plan.

Also, be prepared to speak with members of your management team to fill in any blanks. Structure the management team section to include:

• An organizational chart of your small business, including departments, department managers and employees. Biographical information about you, the owner, and any other owners. Specify your ownership percentage and exactly what your day-to-day responsibilities will be. Biographical information on your management team.* The credentials of any advisers who will be at your side providing expert advice, such as an accountant and a lawyer.

One Paragraph Poses One Big Challenge

Like many small-business owners, you may not think of yourself as a writer. So you may be relieved to know that you should devote only about one paragraph to each person you profile in the management section. But in the end, that should be one substantive paragraph, and it will require some finesse to pull it off.

As many writers will attest, being verbose isn't difficult; being concise yet enlightening can be a challenge. Put another way, you want to include only the most relevant and insightful information about your management team – and you want to be quick about it. So be prepared to edit your words ruthlessly as you structure the paragraph to include the team members' info:

• Name and title. Education and professional credentials and some personal information. Primary responsibilities at your small business.

Expand the Second Component

Providing names and titles should be the easy part. The most robust part of your paragraph should proceed with ease if you include:

• Education credentials, including college and major, and any relevant certifications. Employment highlights. Pick the last or last two titles and company affiliations unless there is something truly stellar in someone's past worth mentioning. Skills or specialties, meaning those things that someone truly excels at or is known for.* Notable accomplishments, which can serve as a subliminal message that they can be repeated at your small business.
• Personal insights, which may include anything from community involvement to someone's rationale for joining your company. You have a lot of latitude here, so try to think in terms of what conveys the mark of a can-do, energetic person. If you're impressed by it, chances are someone reading your business plan will be too.

Spell Out the Third Component

Because you opened the paragraph with the person's name and title, you want to close it with a summation of the contributions you expect the person to make. Discretion here is important; you want to demonstrate to people reading your business plan that you've hired accomplished people, but you don't want to stray into the realm of hyperbole, either.

This said, after spelling out so many numbers and analytics in your business plan, the management section is your chance to expose the human side of your business. A good balance can be found in this paragraph:

Thomas Cole, Director of Marketing A mass communication graduate of Illinois State University, Tom brings to us nearly 20 years of marketing experience and a proven ability to integrate best practices into emerging businesses. Websites, smartphones and digital marketing all came of age as the proud redbird worked as a district marketing manager for ABC Media and then marketing manager for XYZ Newspaper Group, both in Chicago. Tom helped these companies navigate sea changes in the newspaper industry and return to profitability by developing imaginative and synergistic marketing campaigns. We expect him to replicate these efforts at Write-On Marketing, at least when he's not busy critiquing the latest creations at his family's award-winning Illinois winery.

Assuming that you believe people are your greatest asset, write your management section like the proud small-business owner you are – your instincts should serve you well.

• NFIB: Parts of a Business Plan: 7 Essential Sections
• Inc.: How to Write a Great Business Plan: Management Team
• Entrepreneur: First Steps: Writing the Management Section of Your Business Plan
• BP Plans: Coffee Export Business Plan

Mary Wroblewski earned a master's degree with high honors in communications and has worked as a reporter and editor in two Chicago newsrooms. Then she launched her own small business, which specialized in assisting small business owners with “all things marketing” – from drafting a marketing plan and writing website copy to crafting media plans and developing email campaigns. Mary writes extensively about small business issues and especially “all things marketing.”

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Business Plan Organization and Management: How to Write Guide .

Sep 17, 2023 | Business Consulting , Business Plan , Organization and Management , Organizational Development , Strategy

Writing the Business Plan Organization and Management Section

It provides critical information for those looking for evidence that your staff has the necessary experience, skills, and pedigree to realize the objectives detailed in the rest of your business plan.

What Is the Organization and Management Section in a Business Plan?

The organization and management section of your business plan should provide details about your business structure and team. This section typically comes after the executive summary. However, some people have it further in the document after the market analysis section.

This section generally is separated into two parts. The first concerns the organization as a whole. It gives readers an overview of the company structure, which is an excellent opportunity for the reader to lift the roof off your office and peer into its inner workings. For your legal design, you may set up as a limited liability company (LLC) or nonprofit/ charity or form a partnership. It’s crucial to include this section. However, suppose you’re starting a home business or have an already operating business where you’re the only person involved. In that case, you can skip this section or show the company registration details from either the company’s house or the awarding .gov.

The second part focuses specifically on your management team and introduces readers to each member — your chance to impress them with the many accomplishments pinned to your organization’s management team.

This section may seem less important than some of the other parts of your business plan, but the truth is that your people are your business. If they’re highly competent and accomplished, the implication is that so is your business.

Of course, if you’re a sole proprietor with no management structure or any employees, this section is unnecessary other than to talk about yourself and your achievements.

The section on organization and management should outline the hierarchy, individual roles, and corresponding responsibilities. It should also highlight each person’s strengths and qualifications for their positions.

Business Plan Organization Section

The organizational section of your business plan outlines the hierarchy of individuals involved in your business, typically in a chart format. This section identifies the President or CEO, CFO, Director of Marketing, and other roles for partnerships or multi-member LLCs. If you’re a single-person home business, this section is straightforward as you are the only person on the chart.

Although this section primarily focuses on owner members, you can include outsourced workers or virtual assistants if you plan to hire them. For example, you may have a freelance web admin, marketing assistant, or copywriter. You may even have a virtual assistant who coordinates with your other freelancers. While these individuals are not owners, they hold significant responsibilities in your business.

There are various business structures, such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations.

Detail the Legal Structure within the Business Plan Organization and Management Section

Here is an indicative list of business structures. It would help if you talked to your accountant and legal advisors to determine which legal form is the best for your business proposition.

Sole Proprietorship

When embarking on a business venture, it’s essential to consider the various structures available. A sole proprietorship is a structure whereby the business is not regarded as separate from its owner’s finances. The owner retains complete control and responsibility for the company. However, they are unable to sell stocks or bring in new owners. The business becomes a sole proprietorship if not registered under any other structure.

Partnership

When forming a partnership, it can either be a limited partnership (LP) or a limited liability partnership (LLP). One partner assumes most liability in a limited partnership (LP). In contrast, the other partners have limited liability and control over the business. Alternatively, in a limited liability partnership (LLP), all partners have limited liability from debts and actions of other partners, and there is no general partner.

Limited Liability Company

A limited company (LTD) or limited liability company (LLC) is a mixture of business structures that mixes aspects of partnerships and corporations. It offers limited personal liability to the owner and passes profits through to their tax returns.

Corporation

There are various types of corporate structures. A C-corporation enables the issuance of stock shares, pays corporate taxes instead of personal returns, and provides the highest level of personal protection from business activities. On the other hand, nonprofit corporations are similar to C corporations. However, they do not aim to make profits and are exempt from state or federal income taxes.

More information on company legal structures is available on UK.Gov and USA.SBA websites.

Describe Your Company’s Organizational Structure

This first step illustrates the positions in your organization’s employee hierarchy and how they all relate to each other.

This is usually done graphically as a guide, using an organizational chart, or “org chart” for short. People use a Microsoft tool, i.e., PowerPoint or Excel, to help.

Organization Charts typically follow a top-down hierarchy, starting with your CEO/ Managing Director in the top box at the top of the page. Lines extend down from that person’s name to boxes containing the terms of the CEO’s direct reports.

We have included an example organizational chart below for guidelines only.

Identify your business organization structure and list your team members’ strengths and skills.

Those managers then have lines extending to those who report to them, and so on, down to your lowest staff positions.

This section will give your readers a quick understanding of your management and governance structure, the size of your organization, and your lines of control and communication.

Describe your Team in your Business Plan Organization and Management Section

In your business plan’s Organization and Management section, please provide a detailed description of your team. Y ou will discuss the company’s management team, starting with the owners.

This section highlights who is involved in the running of your business and who are the support professionals. It also includes the roles and responsibilities of managers.

Suppose the company structure is a multi-owner arrangement or some other multi-owner arrangement. In that case, you’ll want to include information for every member and their percentage of ownership and ongoing involvement in the company.

It’s important to discuss how ownership interests are split, their responsibilities, what they did before securing their current position, and how they came to be involved with the company.

Here, it would help if you talked about some of your critical team members. These people are directly responsible for large portions of your business operations.

Owner/Manager/Members

Within your business o rganization and management section, y ou should introduce the team and talk about their experience, qualifications, previous companies and achievements, role in the company, and any special skills they bring with them. Please provide the following details for each owner, manager, or member of the business within your business plan:

• Percentage of ownership (if applicable)
• Level of involvement (active or silent partner)
• Type of ownership (e.g., stock options, general partner)
• Position in the company (CEO, CFO, etc.)
• Responsibilities and Duties
• Educational background
• Relevant experience and skills
• Previous employment history
• Skills that will benefit the business
• Awards or recognition received
• Compensation structure
• How each individual’s skills and experience will complement and contribute to the business’s success

Perhaps they’re an entrepreneur, business coach, exclusive advisor, or industry specialist to help you grow.

This is an ideal opportunity for companies with an Executive Board of Directors, Governance Structure, or Advisory Board to introduce them to your readers.

Executive Board

Having a board of directors is essential for your management team. Without one, you may be missing out on crucial information. This section includes details similar to those found in the ownership and management team sub-section, such as the names, areas of expertise, positions (if applicable), and involvement with the company of each board member.

Strategic Advisors

Suppose you’re looking for funding for your business or to fill a gap in your knowledge, or you may not have the funds to hire an executive board. In that case, you must inform potential partners and investors that you have a team of professionals assisting you. This includes lawyers, accountants, and any freelancers or contractors you may be working with. When listing these individuals, include their name, title, educational background, certifications, services they provide to your business, and their relationship with you (i.e., hourly rates, projects, retainer, as-needed, regular). Additionally, highlight their skills and experience that make them an asset to your team you need

Does anything else make them stand out as quality professionals (awards, past working with credible brands)?

Spotlight on the Wider Team Structure

Now, you’ve showcased the management team in its entirety. You can provide brief bios for hiring team needs or secondary members and talk at length about how the team’s combined skills complement each other and how they amplify the team’s effectiveness.

It’s also important to point out any gaps in the knowledge your team is currently suffering. Your readers will likely be savvy enough to pick up on existing holes.

Therefore, you’ll want to get ahead of these criticisms and demonstrate that you’re already aware of the positions and complementary skill sets your management team still requires and how you plan to address the knowledge gaps with future hires.

Do you need help writing your business plan o rganization and management section ? 

Every successful business plan should include the organization and management section, helping you communicate your legal structure and team.

Writing a business plan can seem overwhelming, especially when starting a small, one-person business. However, it can be a reasonably simple task. This section of the plan should be updated if there are any changes to the organization structure or team members, such as additional training, awards, or other resume changes that benefit the business.

Creating your comprehensive business plan takes planning, research, time, and a herculean effort. If, at any point, the work becomes too much to handle, we can step in to assist.

Do you want an expert “second opinion” before creating your business plan or financial forecasts? Let’s talk !

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Contact Noirwolf Consulting today using the website contact form or by emailing [email protected] or call us at +44 113 328 0868.

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How To Write a Management Team Business Plan (With an Example)

When creating a business plan, the management section outlines your management team, personnel, resources, and the ownership structure of your company. This section should not only list the members of your management team but also how their individual skill sets will affect your financial results. We’ll go into detail about how to put together and highlight your management team in this article. This section can be conveniently organized by dividing it into the following sections:

Writing the Management Team Section of Your Business Plan

How to write a management team business plan

Consider using these guidelines to produce a powerful team business plan:

1. Collect resumes from each manager

Typically, resumes outline a professional’s qualifications, including their training, prior employment, and technical and soft skills. You can use the resumes of your management team as a resource when writing content for your business plan. Ask each manager to send a fresh copy of their resume Asking them to modify their resume to reflect their specific position within your company could be useful and make it simpler for you to create their profiles. Include copies of their resumes as annexes to your proposal.

2. Organize your management team into categories

The next step is to depict the chain of command within your company. List the profiles, going from the company’s owners to the departmental supervisors in descending order. Your management team business plan can appear more organized by using categories, and your audience will understand how the teams’ qualifications correspond to their positions. If your company has multiple divisions, categories may also be useful.

3. Write the managers name and job title

Finding the manager on their individual profile is the third step. Include their role title and first and last names in your writing. Consider adding their department to distinguish between them if there are multiple managers with the same title. To be more specific, you could write “Assistant Manager, Marketing Department” for various employees with the title “assistant manager.”

4. Describe their employment history

The employment history details prior positions your managers held in the sector. Listing the candidates’ prior positions can support your decision to appoint them as managers if they have experience as organizational leaders. Summarize their responsibilities and projects theyve coordinated in the past. You can also highlight your managers’ achievements in this section, such as awards they have won or helpful things they have done for previous employers.

5. Explain their educational background

The manager profile’s education section covers the institutions your team attended and the degrees they obtained. It can further highlight the manager’s credentials by demonstrating that they have received the necessary training to oversee other team members in your organization. You can also write professional certifications your managers have. For instance, listing a certification in spreadsheet software may impress potential business partners if you run a technology company.

What is a management team business plan?

A management team business plan describes the qualifications and experience of a group of managers in a company. Its goal is to demonstrate to potential investors that the professionals your business has hired are qualified for leadership roles because they have training and experience. It includes details that distinguish your organization from competitors. A potential investor or business partner may be persuaded to provide funding or work with your company if your management team’s business plan impresses them.

Tips for writing a management team business plan

The following three rules will help you gather data and organize your management team business plan:

Incorporate relevant information

Include information that is relevant to their interests in your management profile as a way to attract potential investors. List the qualifications of your leaders in relation to your company and your sector. By including pertinent information, you can demonstrate to potential customers that your team has the managerial skills they need. Be selective when gathering information about your managers to avoid detracting the audience from your goal.

For instance, if you work for a ride-sharing company, you might be looking for partnerships to expand into major cities. You could note in your management team business plan that your executives have experience in customer service, technology, and transportation, three crucial areas that can help the ride-sharing business succeed. The strategy shows potential partners that your team has the expertise to work in the field, encouraging them to collaborate with your company.

Use straightforward wording

Simple language can keep your management team business plan clear and understandable. It’s crucial that customers can understand your company’s organizational structure and which employees are responsible for what tasks. The size of the business and the number of supervisors there are may have an impact on the length of the proposal. But even if your plan is more detailed, keeping your writing simple can help you keep the interest of potential stakeholders. It might be beneficial to reread your sentences and omit any pointless details so that you can convey the key ideas of your message in fewer words.

Clarify information with your team

It may be difficult to include every qualification of an employee on a resume because they are typically one page long. To learn more about your team members’ professional backgrounds, think about speaking with them directly. Find out if they have any additional pertinent information to include in their profile that will appeal to potential customers. Maybe you should mention a gap in their resume or point out that they have more work achievements you can list in their profile. Clarifying details with managers can help you plan the content more effectively and prevent repeating too many details from their resumes.

Example of a management team business plan

You can write a management team business plan that is successful by using the following example of a team member’s profile as a model:

Management Team Member Profile

Jane Stewart, Director of Marketing

The marketing division is headed by Jane Stewart, who is also the coordinator of marketing, social media manager, and graphic designer. Her duties include keeping an eye on social media engagement analytics and creating creative consumer engagement strategies. Stewart graduated from Pine Ridge University with a bachelor’s in marketing and a master’s in business administration. She is professionally certified in social media management and content marketing. Stewart’s previous position was assistant marketing director at full-service advertising agency Oak Wood, where she saw a 25% increase in email and video subscriber numbers.

How do you present a management team in a business plan?

An organizational chart of your small business, including departments, department managers, and employees, should be included in the management team section. Biographical information about you, the owner, and any other owners. Clearly state your ownership stake in the company and your day-to-day responsibilities.

How do you write a management plan for a business plan?

• Indicate the number of employees your business will require at each stage and their associated costs.
• Describe the specifics of how your company’s human resource needs can be satisfied.
• Describe your hiring needs, including a list of the particular skills that any employees you hire must possess.

How important is management team in a business plan?

A strong management team is especially important if you want the company to expand and grow as a whole. A management team is crucial for distributing leadership responsibilities as a business expands. If your business operates in multiple locations, it is essential.

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Home > Business Plan > Management Team in a Business Plan

Management Team in a Business Plan

…we have put a team together…

What do the Investors look for in the Management Team?

Investors will be particularly interested to obtain answers to the following questions about the management team:

• Does the team know its weaknesses?
• Does each team member have a defined role to play?
• Are there any previous working relationships within the team?
• Is there a common objective for all team members?
• Is there relevant experience relating to the business idea in the team?
• What are the business ownership arrangements?
• Is the team fully committed?

Business Plan Management Team Presentation

There is no set style for the presentation of the management team information in a business plan, but we suggest a simple format similar to that shown below. Full details and complete CV’s can be included in an appendix or submitted later if requested.

For each individual, the format shows details of their name, title and role in the business, and a brief biography of the person. The biography should have particular emphasis on the following characteristics and skills and show how they link back to the business idea discussed in elevator pitch section of the business plan contents article.

• Past successes and failures.
• Education and professional training.
• Management and work experience.
• Special skills related to the business idea.
• Business reputation.

This is part of the financial projections and Contents of a Business Plan Guide a series of posts on what each section of a simple business plan should include. The next post in this series is defining the customer problem .

About the Author

Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.

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How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan

Every business owner knows that starting a business requires a lot of planning. Coming up with a well-researched business plan is as important as coming up with the idea for the enterprise itself. In fact, this document covers everything one needs to know about the venture and more.

It is important to remember that this document has internal and external purposes, according to Deloitte & Touche LLP (2003). For internal purposes, a business plan serves as “an important management tool” such that “it enables management to plan company growth and to anticipate changes in a structured way” (p. 2). Meanwhile, the external use of this document can help the company secure funding, form alliances, establish mergers and acquisitions, and build relationships (pp. 1-2).

Given the vital role this document plays, entrepreneurs need to focus on the Management Team Section of a business plan. This article tackles the importance of this segment and how to proceed with writing it.

What is the Management Team Section of a Business Plan?

As mentioned, a business plan covers all kinds of information about the business. It is composed of an executive summary, company description, market analysis, and service or product line, just to name a few. All of these provide an insight into what the business will offer and how it will be able to reach its target market.

However, the Management Team section provides a view on how the organization will be managed. It aims to show the reader what the management team looks like, who will be running the business and its operations, and how these individuals can contribute to executing strategies and achieving goals.

According to Deloitte and Touche, “Your business plan should describe how the company is organized and what each individual’s duties and responsibilities are… It is also helpful to explain how the individual talents of the management team contribute to realizing the company’s strategy.”

These elements seek to show how competent and efficient the management team is or will be. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that it should also recognize shortcomings and gaps.

The Need for the Management Team Section

The importance of this section banks on the dual purpose of the business plan. Those who are planning to use it for external matters should keep in mind that potential investors and allies takes the strength of the management team into account as this can influence the success of the venture.

Similarly, the organization itself can use this to improve its operations. By identifying strengths and weaknesses, the company will know what aspects of the management team are performing optimally and what need improvement.

Tips for Writing the Management Team Section

Because the Management Team Section is an integral part of a business plan, it is essential to learn how to write it effectively. Here are some tips that can help entrepreneurs put together an excellent Management Team Section.

Determine the Business Structure

The first thing an entrepreneur needs to know about assembling a management team is that the need for certain roles depends on the business structure. There are different structures to choose from and all of them have an effect on the assets, liabilities, responsibilities, and operations.

According to the United States Small Business Administration (n.d.), some of the most common are sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), and corporation. Startups are commonly sole proprietorships or partnerships.

As a sole proprietor of a business, the entrepreneur can have complete control, responsibility, and liability. Meanwhile, a partnership, which is a business owned by two or more people, can come in two types, namely limited partnerships (LPs) and limited liability partnerships (LLPs). In LPs, only one owner is given unlimited liability, while others have limited. LLPs provide limited liability to all owners.

Identify Essential Management Positions

Startups are typically small businesses. Sole proprietorships are owned by one founder and are bound to have a small management team. It may only be composed of the owner or founder (who is also the boss), some managers, and a human resource manager.

In partnerships, the team would be bigger as most or all partners are bound to have management roles. Co-owners can be managing partners, and junior or senior partners, for example. Depending on the scale of the business, the organization will need team leads, a human resource manager, and others. Partnerships may also choose to establish a management committee.

Make sure to take note of these positions in relation to the organizational structure when writing the business plan.

Look for People Who Fit the Job

This section of the plan is not supposed to be written in general terms. It needs to include particulars including names of people, their positions, and their qualifications. If used for external purposes, potential funders and allies will see the strengths and weaknesses of the team based on the people in it.

It is important to find human resources who are qualified and competent to perform the job of managing a team, hiring new people, and such. For partnerships, it is important to assign roles to partners who have experience and skills to fill them.

Document Assignments

Finally, it is essential to document these assignments in detail. This does not only mean including names, positions, and synopses. A more informational description of the person and their position is required.

In fact, Deloitte and Touche advises entrepreneurs to include resumes of the management team in the appendix, complete with their employment info, schools, and educational degrees. Compensation for the role is also important, especially for business plans which will be presented to investors.

The compensation includes salary, profit sharing, stock ownership opportunities, bonuses, and benefits. Investors need to know these details to see if the current plan is in line with their own financial capacity and goals.

Final Thoughts

The Management Team section is vital to the business plan no matter what the purpose is. With these writing tips, entrepreneurs and their partners can put together a section that is solid and fully informational in order to help them achieve their strategic goals.

References:

• Deloitte & Touche. (2003). Writing an effective business plan. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/7094242/Fourth_Edition_Writing_an_Effective_Business_Plan .
• Small Business Administration. (n.d.) Choose a business structure. Retrieved from https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/launch-your-business/choose-business-structure

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Team Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Developing a Successful Plan

Teamwork is key to success – of the individual, the company, and any project they undertake. The thing is, it isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Like anything else in life, good team management takes practice, patience and most importantly, a plan. But what should that plan include?

Well, we’ve crafted a comprehensive guide to developing a successful plan for team management, covering everything from getting to know your colleagues to managing their runaway successes. Let’s dive in!

It’s Time to Understand Your Team

The first step towards a successful team management plan is understanding your team. They are both the sources and the solution to any hiccups you may encounter in your teamwork, so it pays to understand them on more than a superficial level.

First, get to grips with each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. A good way to start is simply asking – interviews have come a long way since the cliched “I just work too hard” was an acceptable answer. Of course, this direct approach doesn’t work for everyone, so it’s also worth getting feedback from co-workers, paying attention to their successes and mistakes, and looking for any themes that appear.

The same approach can be used to gauge the overall team dynamics and communication styles. Many people in the workforce have been there for a while and will have a good understanding of what communication style works for them. Similarly, observing your team in a work and non-work settings can help to build a clear picture of your team workflow and dynamics.

When understanding how your team currently operates, it’s important to identify their roles and responsibilities. We’re not talking about what’s on their job description (although that’s useful, of course); we’re talking about what they actually do on a day-to-day basis. It’s common for team members to pick up extra tasks that weren’t thought about before hiring, and understanding how these shape the individual and team dynamic is vital. This will also help establish a baseline for your team’s performance, which you can judge future success against.

Finally, try setting some goals and expectations for your team management. Treat it like you would any other project, and be clear about where you’re going and what you want to find there.

Creating a Plan for Team Management Success

With that out of the way, it’s time to get down to the proper plan. As well as creating team goals , ensure your team management plan includes clear individual objectives and KPIs. These help team members feel more comfortable in their roles – they know what they are supposed to be doing and why, which reduces friction and any “stepping on toes” that can happen in a group. Similarly, having a robust timeline with project milestones and deadlines lets team members know what’s going on in the big picture so they can focus on their individual parts while still feeling in the loop.

What’s more, having a well-established project timeline with milestones and deadlines for your team reduces the amount of micromanaging that’s needed, building a level of trust between them and you. This is invaluable when it comes to long-term team management. Additionally, a good plan also allows for the more efficient allocation of resources since your team knows who is doing what and when, with tools and time distributed accordingly.

Next, it’s important to identify any potential problems that might come up along the way. This doesn’t have to be a negative, fear-mongering activity. Instead, you and your team should use the potential roadblocks you’ve highlighted to develop contingency plans. This helps mitigate any problems in the future while building team cohesion in the present.

Additionally, if things aren’t working, don’t be afraid to change. The plan you lay out at the start isn’t necessarily going to be the best one going forward. Go back to the beginning (understanding your team) regularly and use that insight to review and adjust the plan as needed.

Finally, use the right tool for the job. There is so much new technology out there that can help you build and keep a successful team – use it! Get started with a unified communications platform in which all the productivity, communication, and collaboration tools you need are bundled into one application. When it comes to team management, you’ll need to look for features like:

Business chat (Instant messaging)

Video conferencing

Audio calls (VOIP)

Availability/presence indicators

Data sharing (online notes or interactive whiteboards)

Unified messaging (integrated voicemail, email, SMS, and fax)

Combining these tools into a single platform can help your team management plan just like the goals, objectives, KPIs, and deadline, with every individual empowered to work when and how they like, knowing they have support. Max Shcherbakov, for example, the co-founder and CEO of Hooligans, a creative agency in Tel Aviv, said he uses Spike as a unified communication tool to support his team . “Spike Groups improved workflow between our teams and across our clients since they now had a collaborative workspace that didn’t require logins. All that project history and all needed files in one place,” Shcherbakov says.

This allows his team to feel confident that they have what they need to communicate well, freeing them up to focus on getting stuff done.

Communication and Collaboration

With the right tools in hand, you can take steps to ensure your team’s communication and collaboration is as strong as they can be. This should start by simply encouraging open and effective communication between team members through direct reminders and setting up dedicated communication channels that your team members can use. It’s amazing how far a little encouragement can go in creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing in a productive way.

Similarly, you’ll need to foster an environment where collaboration is the norm. This will most likely begin with more formal collaborations, set up by you. But, provided with the right tools and a framework based on past collaborations, your team will be working together daily in no time.

A big part of good team communication and collaboration is feedback. It allows projects to use the best of everyone’s ideas and skills while the individuals involved have the opportunity to learn and grow. To ensure this happens, you need a solid knowledge-sharing program. This way, feedback can be followed by a clear path to learn from it.

Feedback is often seen in a negative light as it can be associated with things going wrong, but that is a misbelief, as feedback enables teams to improve their processes by helping them figure out how things can be done better based on previous results. When creating a culture of feedback, it is also important to place emphasis on recognizing team members’ successes  and encouraging others to do the same. This will help build a highly supportive environment where people feel valued.

Managing Performance

As you move forward, it’s important to manage the performance of your team. This is vital for your company, of course, but can also help each individual member improve and grow in their career. The first step to managing performance is measuring performance. You need to regularly evaluate each individual as well as your overall team. The goals, baselines, and KPIs that you set earlier in your team management journey are vital now since these are what you need to measure performance against.

After measurement comes feedback, which should be delivered using the channels mentioned above. Base the type and level of feedback you give on each individual since everybody responds differently. This should, as mentioned, include a learning opportunity through knowledge sharing , coaching, or even a mentorship program .

As you go through these steps, continuously look for areas where the team or individual performance could improve – there will always be something you could do better. Once you do identify opportunities, create an action plan and fold it into your broader team management.

Finally, in addition to looking for weaknesses to improve, highlight successes to reward! Just like with your feedback and recognition, you can help regulate and manage the performance of your team and the individuals in it by offering incentives and rewards . These can range from a scoreboard in the office (or online) to monetary bonuses for high performance. How exactly you approach these rewards will depend on your company, but more importantly, on your individual team members, who, by now, you should know very well!

Team Management: a Plan for Success

Good team management is an ongoing process that you need to address, adapt and improve upon over time. Remember that the first and most important step is getting to know your individual team members, from strengths and weaknesses to team dynamics. After that, it’s time to craft a solid plan:

• Set objectives, KPIs, and a clear timeline with milestones, so every team member knows what they’re doing when they’re doing it, and why it matters.
• Identify any potential problems and create contingency plans to be ready for the future while boosting team cohesion today.
• Continually reassess your plan, and don’t be afraid to change. Chances are that the first plan isn’t the one you’ll end up with, and that’s ok!
• Finally, use the right tools for the job. Good tech can make or break a team, especially when it comes to communication and collaboration , so ensure that this is a core part of your team management plan.

With these steps in mind, you’re ready to develop a successful team management plan at your company. All that’s left is to get started!

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Business Plan Section 3: Organization and Management

This section explains how your business runs and who’s on your team. Learn how to present the information in this section of your business plan.

This section of your business plan, Organization and Management, is where you’ll explain exactly how you’re set up to make your ideas happen, plus you’ll introduce the players on your team.

As always, remember your audience. If this is a plan for your internal use, you can be a little more general than if you’ll be presenting it to a potential lender or investor. No matter what its purpose, you’ll want to break the organization and management section into two segments: one describing the way you’ve set up the company to run (its organizational structure), and the other introducing the people involved (its management).

Business Organization

Having a solid plan for how your business will run is a key component of its smooth and successful operation. Of course, you need to surround yourself with good people, but you have to set things up to enable them to work well with each other and on their own.

It’s important to define the positions in the company, which job is responsible for what, and to whom everyone will report. Over time, the structure may grow and change and you can certainly keep tweaking it as you go along, but you need to have an initial plan.

If you’re applying for funding to start a business or expand one, you may not even have employees to fit all the roles in the organization. However, you can still list them in your plan for how the company will ideally operate once you have the ability to do so.

Obviously, for small businesses, the organization will be far more streamlined and less complicated than it is for larger ones, but your business plan still needs to demonstrate an understanding of how you’ll handle the workflow. At the very least, you’ll need to touch on sales and marketing, administration, and the production and distribution of your product or the execution of your service.

For larger companies, an organizational plan with well-thought-out procedures is even more important. This is the best way to make sure you’re not wasting time duplicating efforts or dealing with internal confusion about responsibilities. A smooth-running operation runs far more efficiently and cost-effectively than one flying by the seat of its pants, and this section of your business plan will be another indication that you know what you’re doing. A large company is also likely to need additional operational categories such as human resources and possibly research and development.

One way to explain your organizational structure in the business plan is graphically. A simple diagram or flowchart can easily demonstrate levels of management and the positions within them, clearly illustrating who reports to whom, and how different divisions of the company (such as sales and marketing) relate to each other.

Here is where you can also talk about the other levels of employees in your company. Your lower-level staff will carry out the day-to-day work, so it’s important to recognize the types of people you’ll need, how many, what their qualifications should be, where you’ll find them, and what they’ll cost.

If the business will use outside consultants, freelancers, or independent contractors, mention it here as well. And talk about positions you’d want to add in the future if you’re successful enough to expand.

Business Management

Now that we understand the structure of your business, we need to meet the people who’ll be running it. Who does what, and why are they onboard? This section is important even for a single practitioner or sole proprietorship, as it will introduce you and your qualifications to the readers of your plan.

Start at the top with the legal structure and ownership of the business. If you are incorporated, say so, and detail whether you are a C or S corporation. If you haven’t yet incorporated, make sure to discuss this with your attorney and tax advisor to figure out which way to go. Whether you’re in a partnership or are a sole owner, this is where to mention it.

List the names of the owners of the business, what percent of the company each of them owns, the form of ownership (common or preferred stock, general or limited partner), and what kind of involvement they’ll have with day-to-day operations; for example, if they’re an active or silent partner.

Here’s where you’ll list the names and profiles of your management team, along with what their responsibilities are. Especially if you’re looking for funding, make sure to highlight the proven track record of these key employees. Lenders and investors will be keenly interested in their previous successes, particularly in how they relate to this current venture.

Include each person’s name and position, along with a short description of what the individual’s main duties will be. Detail his or her education, and any unique skills or experience, especially if they’re relevant to the job at hand. Mention previous employment and any industry awards or recognition related to it, along with involvement with charities or other non-profit organizations.

Think of this section as a resume-in-a-nutshell, recapping the highlights and achievements of the people you’ve chosen to surround yourself with. Actual detailed resumes for you and your management team should go in the plan’s appendix, and you can cross-reference them here. You want your readers to feel like your top staff complements you and supplements your own particular skill set. You also want readers to understand why these people are so qualified to help make your business a success.

This section will spell out the compensation for management team members, such as salary, benefits, and any profit-sharing you might be offering. If any of the team will be under contract or bound by non-compete agreements, you would mention that here, as well.

If your company will have a Board of Directors, its members also need to be listed in the business plan. Introduce each person by name and the position they’ll hold on the board. Talk about how each might be involved with the business (in addition to board meetings.

Similar to what you did for your management team, give each member’s background information, including education, experience, special skills, etc., along with any contributions they may already have had to the success of the business. Include the full resumes for your board members in the appendix.

Alternately, if you don’t have a Board of Directors, include information about an Advisory Board you’ve put together, or a panel of experts you’ve convened to help you along the way. Having either of these, by the way, is something your company might want to consider whether or not you’re putting together the organization and management section or your business plan.

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The Ultimate Guide to…

Team Management

Brought to you by projectmanager, the online team management tool used to plan over 2 million projects..

What Is Team Management?

Why team management is important, what is team management software, benefits of online team management software, must-have team management software features, how to manage a project team with online tools, how to manage a team, team management skills, team conflict resolution, team recognition.

• 5 Inspiring Teamwork Examples

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Team management resources.

Team management is all about working with your team to help them collaborate and be more productive. It also refers to the activities and tools that allow teams to work better together. That means managing assignments, schedules, workload and more.

To best manage teams, you need to set clear objectives, help facilitate teamwork, have clear communications and oversee performance, while adjusting workload as needed to get the most out of your resources. This also means seeing issues and resolving them before they become problems that sidetrack the project.

Therefore, team management is a day-to-day activity when running a project. It touches almost every phase and method of project management . For example, when you’re scheduling a project and prioritizing tasks, what you’re doing is fundamental to team management.

A team is the fuel that drives a project. They take tasks, and with expertise and experience, complete them according to your plan—on time and within budget. To do this requires thorough administering and coordinating.

That’s easier said than done. There are objectives to meet, communication channels to create, collaboration to foster and being able to appraise your team’s performance all while in the midst of running the larger project.

The main importance of team management, then, is that it helps to bring your project in successfully. But there are more benefits that might not be as evident.

Team Building

Teams work better when they work together. But not everyone on a team clicks immediately. You must promote the collaborative nature that bonds team members into an effective team. That means assembling the right team and giving each member responsibilities that fit their skillsets. You can also try team building activities to create a collaborative environment.

Productivity

We touched on this before, but it’s worth emphasizing. Team management serves the project by getting teams to work better. That doesn’t mean driving them until they burn out, which is counterproductive. Rather, it’s about balancing their workload , creating reasonable timelines , supporting them and removing obstacles that prevent them from succeeding at their tasks.

Teams are not static. You probably will use the same team for similar projects. The more experience they have, the better they’ll work. Having a team that is well managed means that, as you add new team members, they will have less of a learning curve and be helped to get up to speed by the more experienced members. As teams gain experience and skills they become a more valued asset.

Giving teams what they need to do their work is not only going to increase their productivity, but they’ll be happier. Happiness might seem insignificant in the larger business environment, but happy teams are not only more productive. They are easier to retain and mean less turnover, which saves money.

Performance

Similar to productivity, performance speaks to the larger subject of helping organizations meet their goals and objectives. Team management creates stronger teams that meet the targets of the larger organization while they work on the smaller tasks of individual projects.

Managers use team management software to connect and monitor their teams and enhance their ability to work better together. A quality team management tool improves collaboration by opening clear communication between team members, while also giving managers features that help balance resources and keep everyone working at their capacity.

Key features of team management software include team scheduling, resource management and deep reporting. In terms of communication tools, software sometimes features unlimited file sharing and notifications that alert managers to updates.

Managers and teams work differently, of course, and team management software will often give them various project views. For example, managers plan and schedule on Gantt Charts , while teams can manage their work with task lists and kanban boards. A calendar can also be helpful to capture important dates, such as task deadlines. Microsoft Project is one of the most commonly used project management software, but it has major drawbacks that make  ProjectManager a better choice for team management.

Having features that can view progress at a high-level and report in greater detail on tasks is going to help you stay on track. These are some of the key benefits of online team management software:

• Assign tasks and track progress
• Foster collaboration with your team
• Balance resources in workload feature
• See team availability and labor costs
• Automate timesheets to track hours and streamline payroll
• Get email alerts and in-app notifications to stay updated

Oversee Your Team’s Tasks

Making sure teams have the right amount of work keeps them productive. Too few tasks, or too many, and you’ll fall out of schedule and morale will take a hit. A workload feature will show who is doing what and allow you to balance a team’s task load from the same page.

Monitor and Track Progress

Getting the most from your team means managing their tasks. You need a tool that has features to assign, monitor and track progress. A team management software that can do this in real time and automatically calculate key project metrics is essential.

Flexible & Customizable Options

Keeping your data secure is important when working in a team management tool. Project security should be customizable, and the managers must have the authority to designate roles beyond the basic administrator, manager and team member.

Monitor Your Team’s Logged Hours

Knowing how much time is left in the project, and how much time your team is spending on tasks, will help you stay on schedule. Dashboards give you a high-level view of the project, and timesheets and reports capture the hours logged by your team when executing their tasks.

Know What You’re Spending on Labor

Having a handle of your costs keeps the project on budget. Manage your team to make sure they’re not spending more time and money executing the tasks than anticipated. You want a tool that can set labor costs, then use that baseline to track them later.

Get Teams Working Together

Connecting your teams and giving them the tools to facilitate working together leads to even greater productivity. Features that allow teams to comment at the task level and attach files to a task can provide clear direction for the project.

Team management software helps project managers control their teams, communicate effectively with them and set their schedules and workload to meet their capacity with the resources they need to get their jobs done.

ProjectManager is an award-winning tool that better organizes teams and projects to boost productivity through increasing efficiency. This is how we help you manage your project team .

Onboard Your Team

Getting the team onboard is the first step. Getting started is a quick and easy process, and once in the interface, users will find an intuitive interface that avoids a steep learning curve.

Invite the team to the software with an email. All they need to do is follow the link, and they’re in. You can adjust their profiles, including their skills and labor costs, to use for future projects and to track costs.

Assign Tasks

Tasks are how your team interacts with the project. They were assembled to complete them. Prioritize, describe and assign them, so they have clear direction.

Describe tasks and attach any related documentation or images. Set the priority, so they know what to work on. Add resource costs and you can track them later.

Use Multiple Views

Not everyone works the same, and therefore, they need different tools to meet their needs. Our team management software has the flexibility you need for effective cross-team collaboration .

Plan on a Gantt chart, with features to link task dependencies and set milestones. Then, visualize your workflows with kanban boards. See important dates on a calendar, and mark off tasks on the list view.

Get Transparency

Getting insights into your team’s work is the main reason to use team management software. You can get transparency, without getting in their way. It’s especially useful for managing distributed teams.

View the team management page to see your entire team, the tasks they’ve been assigned, their due dates and the task’s percentage complete. Know their progress anytime, anywhere.

Work Better Together

Team management software isn’t just about managing teams, it’s also giving them the tools they need to collaborate and work more efficiently to increase their productivity.

With ProjectManager, teams have a collaborative platform where they can communicate at the task level, get notified when the tasks they’re working on are commented on or updated, and can readily share pertinent files.

View Progress

More than just knowing the tasks your team is working on, team management software needs to give you a high-level view of the whole project, so you can make data-driven decisions.

See an overview of your project as it progresses across six metrics, measuring the overall health, costs, workload and more. All data is collected in real-time and automatically calculated for you.

Manage Resources

Resources are anything you need to complete the project, like teams, equipment, supplies and more. This includes your team’s tasks, and making sure everyone is well assigned.

View our color-coded workload page to instantly see who has too many tasks, and who is working on too few. Then, reallocate resources right from the page to balance workload.

Submit Timesheets

Timesheets are a tool to streamline the payroll process, but they are also another way to monitor the progress of your team as they log their hours over the week.

Use timesheets to keep track of your team as they log hours while working on their tasks. Timesheets are automatically updated when task statuses are filed, so you get real-time data.

Reports offer richer data, allowing you to get granular to measure aspects of the project not covered in the more general view of the dashboard. They also keep stakeholders in the loop.

Get reports with one click, and see details on project status , team availability, variance and more. Reports can be filtered and easily shared as a PDF for when you need to present to stakeholders.

Team management is a tool to help team leaders inspire, guide and help their teams achieve the goals of the project. While every team is different, and there is no one right way to manage a team, there is a basic roadmap to follow that can make sure you’re hitting all the proper marks.

Transparency

Being transparent opens up the workplace. It helps teams feel more a part of the overall project, which helps them be more accountable, happy and creative—all important to productivity. This will help teams feel more secure, which in turn means they’re more likely to contribute ideas. The more open discussions, the more creative solutions. Keep your team in the loop. Respect them and value their contributions.

Acknowledge Work

Acknowledging good work is good for morale. That doesn’t mean you ignore problems. It’s part of the feedback loop. Positive feedback boosts your team’s confidence and helps buy in for their tasks. Bringing them into criticism, without being hurtful, can not only help resolve issues, but also show that you respect your team’s experience. Remember, they’re on the front lines of any project and whether it goes right or wrong. They will have the greatest insight as to why.

Part of leading is delegating. You can’t do it all yourself, nor do you want to ride your team, micromanaging their every step. The team was hired because they have what’s needed to complete the project’s task; therefore, respect their skills and experience.

It’s not team management if you’re not giving your team work. To effectively delegate tasks , you’ll need to know who has the capacity, time and skills to do that work.

Manage Conflict

Conflict resolution is key to keeping your team working together. There can be personality issues, or people feeling that others are getting more responsibilities while they’re being overlooked. These issues come up in even the best teams, so you need to be on the lookout for them, and when a conflict arises, respond to it immediately. Conflict will erode the bonds that hold your team together, with disastrous results for both them and the project.

Be Decisive

Team management is about giving your team the tools they need to do their best work, but you are the team leader and must be decisive. Teams need leaders, even the self-directed kind. How involved you are depends on the team and the situation, but when it’s time to make a decision there’s no place for wishy-washiness. Just as your team is hired for their skills and experience, the team leader is also in place to do a job. They have the authority and need to use it, not abuse it.

Managing a team requires the proper mix of people skills and tools to keep schedules and workload balanced for optimum performance. The tools clear the path forward for teams, making sure that they’re never blocked or overallocated. The soft skills respond to the uniquely human relationships that make a team gel and perform.

Have a Vision

Team leaders need to have a vision for the project and project that to their team. That means uniting the team with a common goal and not getting bogged down in the day-to-day minutia. Without direction, teams can get confused or start filling the void at the top and moving off track. Therefore, vision— and communicating it well—are essential.

Be a Communicator

Communication is a key component to successful team management. Communication is based on being clearly understood, but it’s also about listening. You need to get feedback and respect other points of view that might be expressed. In terms of leading the team, you must make the priorities and long-term goals clear to the team, while acknowledging their successes and helping them resolve their failures.

Get Organized

Managing a team is complicated. Chances are you’re not only responsible for team management, but the whole project. That’s a lot of balls to juggle. To keep them all in the air, you must be well-organized . This means using the right tools to work more efficiently, being available for your team and letting them know when you can’t be disturbed.

Stay Firm But Fair

Confidence is bedrock. Teams respond well when they know someone is in control. But you’re not a dictator, and shouldn’t act as one. Never play favorites, always listen to any complaints and resolve conflicts. But the buck stops with you, and the team must know that you hold authority over any team management decisions. Do this right and you’ll earn their respect and team morale and retainment will be strong.

Remain Flexible

Remain flexible. It sounds like an oxymoron, but managing a team is a constant balancing act. You must always be willing to change. Projects are often thrown a curve, and if you’re rigid, you’ll never get back on track. Teams will develop conflicts, plans might have to change. Always be open to adapting.

Think Strategically

Teams want to work on tasks that are part of a larger strategy. They focus on the smaller stuff and they expect their team leader to have the big picture in mind, so when they’re in the trenches, the battle being waged is for a reason. The leader guides from this high-level view. It provides a sense of security that gives teams the confidence to focus on the work at hand.

Remember, You’re Part of the Team

The team comes first. You might have to act as an intermediary between the team and higher management if there have been issues with their work. You might need to stand up for a team member that is unjustly the target of other team members, or by management. Their wellbeing is more important than your label as their leader.

We mentioned conflict resolution as a foundational pillar of any good team management, and it’s a subject that deserves more clarity. It will come up a lot. People can be difficult, but groups of people are always going to cause problems.

When conflict arises, the first thing to do is acknowledge it without bias . Talk to the person or people involved. As you discuss the conflict, focus on behavior and actions, not on the personalities of those involved. Most importantly, listen. This is their time to talk.

After you’ve heard the complaint (without comment or judgement), it’s time to identify the points where the people involved agree and where they disagree. Summarize these points, and make sure you have agreement on that summary from those involved. Then, prioritize them and see what’s most important to resolve.

Now it’s time to come up with a plan to resolve the conflict, beginning with the most pressing issue. The plan should not focus on past issues, but look towards future solutions and how to get there. You should set up future meetings with the people in conflict to make sure that things are progressing positively.

These things can take time, so stay with the plan and keep discussions open. Point out progress, compliment the people when they’ve made progress, and in time, the conflict will resolve itself. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t, but no more drastic step should be taken until you’re thoughtfully and honestly worked at resolving the conflict.

To help avoid conflict, especially with the team leader, there’s something called team recognition. It’s a way to get the team to meet the goals and objectives of the project and keep them happy in the process.

Basically, team recognition is the bridge between management and the team leading to the success of the project. The team is supposed to fulfill their responsibilities and in turn be supported by management, who honors and respects their work. This is encouraged by reinforcement of behavior you’d like to see repeated.

Applying team recognition as part of your team management will help you retain employees and have less turnover, get better organizational results and help with goal setting, communication and accountability. But what about benefits for your team?

Team recognition is a two-way street. Teams will experience higher engagement, leading to more fulfillment on the job and generally feeling happier at work. Teams are more productive and have a higher morale. All of which leads to wins for management and workers.

Inspiring Teamwork Examples

There are many examples throughout history that illustrate the importance of teamwork. In this section we have selected some of our favorite inspirational examples of teamwork in a variety of circumstances. We hope that these examples inspire you and speak to the benefits of teamwork and collaboration!

1. Apollo 11 Moon Landing

One of the most historic examples of teamwork is the Apollo 11 1969 mission. While the world focused on the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the former two who walked on the moon, most remember only Armstrong and his famous line upon being the first human being to set foot on the satellite: “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

However, behind that momentous moment are years of research and teams of people working diligently to do what no one had done before. Mission planners worked for two years prior to launch, studying the moon’s surface using satellite photographs in order to discern the best site for a lunar landing.

According to NASA, there were an estimated 400,000 people involved in making the moon landing possible. This included teams of scientists, engineers and technicians, many who had not worked in aerospace before. To make for a more cohesive team, the astronauts worked with many of these groups, making the human connection that is the blood of any team.

2. Wikipedia

The digital age is defined by teamwork, and one new media company illustrates that more than any other. Wikipedia is everyone’s go-to when they need a quick answer. It’s library of the internet, a collaborative engine of knowledge that is constantly evolving.

There were once encyclopedias that collected the world’s knowledge, but these are static volumes that are only updated every number of years. Also, what is printed between their covers is not up for debate. If you have a problem with what’s listed, you could write to the editors and maybe even get a response.

But Wikipedia changed that whole paradigm by recruiting an army of volunteer writers and editors who put the facts into its website. This simple but effective and massive example of teamwork is almost incomprehensible in its scope and yet runs surprisingly well. There are mistakes, but the site is built in such as fashion that these anomalies are quickly discovered. Teamwork is essential for Wikipedia because in a sense, everyone who has ever landed on the site is part of the team.

3. The Constitution of the United States

The Constitution of the United States is a foundational document of US democracy. It is also a prime example of teamwork. The then 13 states, all of which would have to ratify the constitution to make it the law of the land, were not united. There was no central government and the risk of the new nation falling apart was even more of a concern than it is today!

Debates raged over such things that we today take for granted like how long a president’s term should last. For four months delegates debated, until on September 17, 1787, the 39 delegates signed the historic document. Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Now voters in each state had to approve. But the delegates did their job and the people ratified the Constitution in 1789.

Teamwork is not having one person force their way on the others: it’s about being open to compromise. All parties involved must find common ground and work together, because the end result is something all can benefit from. Just like the Constitution, which has been amended over the years as times and attitudes change, so teamwork must be a fluid process, not etched in stone, but always open and willing to improve.

4. The Beatles, Live in Hamburg

Everyone knows the Beatles. They defined the 1960s, moving from the Mersey Beat that made them a boy band that the girls loved to folk and psychedelic rock, inventing new genres seemingly with ease. Their music is the soundtrack of an era and continues to influence musicians to this day. But those are the flowers that grew from the dirt. That fertile soil that nourished and sustained them was far from their Liverpool home.

During the very early 1960s, before any radio play and Beatlemania wasn’t yet a word, they were the house band for a ruckus portside bar in Hamburg, Germany, called the Kaiserkeller. There they had to play for hours and hours, stretching three-minute pop songs into 20-minute jam sessions. It was in this crucible, that the four soon-to-be mop tops bonded musically. It was through live performances that they learned to put on a show, according to George Harrison on the Beatles Anthology DVD.

The magic of the Beatles is that four individuals learned through intense and extended live sessions to play as one, to anticipate each other and develop an almost intuitive communication. That set the stage which allowed their songwriting gifts to flourish. It was teamwork, plain and simple, that gave the Beatles the musical chops to develop their potential.

5. The Starbucks Expansion

It might be a joke now (how there’s a Starbucks on every block and soon occupying every storefront), but it wasn’t always like that. In fact, the dominance of Starbucks was never as sure a thing as it looks in retrospect or over its company timeline. Back in the early 1990s, Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz had opened a few hundred new stores across the United States, but the business was not successful.

The ambitious expansion was hitting problems concerning customer service and a lack of communication between various levels of the company. The company might have brewed a winning cup of joe but their customer service and employee engagement were staler than a pot of yesterdays coffee.

In 1995, Howard Behar became the president of Starbucks and with him came advancements in company culture. He cultivated a work environment that met the employees needs, which in turn inspired them to better serve their customers. It was through his belief that it was not the coffee they were selling but the customer experience, which gave Behar the mission statement to rally his teams to work together more effectively.

ProjectManager is a cloud-based software that helps project managers and their teams work more effectively. Its team management features give you visibility into your team’s tasks, while the teams themselves get collaborative tools and multiple project views to work how they want.

Team management software integrates seamlessly with timesheets, team task management, planning, scheduling, monitoring and reporting features to give you more control over your project.

See why over 10,000 teams in organizations such as the US Postal Service, NASA and Bank of American use our tool to work more productively. Take our free 30-day trial today .

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7 Skills You Need to Effectively Manage Teams

• 07 Jan 2020

To effectively manage a team, you need several key characteristics and skills. Without them, it can be difficult to rally your employees to work toward common goals and perform at their best—which can be disastrous for both your organization and career.

Whether you're an aspiring manager, newly appointed leader without a lot of experience, or seasoned executive who's had difficulty overseeing your team, developing these critical skills will prove crucial to your success.

Access your free e-book today.

Team Management Skills All Professionals Need

1. clear, effective communication.

As a manager, your goal is to help the members of your team complete tasks in a manner that is efficient, consistent, and aligns with the company’s overarching strategic goals. To accomplish this, you must clearly articulate what those strategic goals are—while also detailing the specific work and processes that will be required of your team to reach them.

By becoming a more effective communicator , you'll remove confusion among your team and ensure everyone is aligned and working toward the same goals.

2. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to manage their emotions, as well as those of others.

A highly developed level of emotional intelligence is a hallmark of strong managers and leaders. Someone with a keen sense of self-awareness, empathy, and other social skills is someone who can motivate and influence others —an important quality for managers to exhibit.

3. Organization

You may be responsible for overseeing budgets and project timelines in addition to the daily tasks that members of your team perform. Juggling so many moving pieces and making necessary adjustments along the way requires a high degree of organization.

4. Ability to Delegate

However tempting it might be for you to micromanage members of your team, doing so can be detrimental to progress.

A good manager knows how to delegate work to others. This involves understanding who's best suited to complete a particular task. It also requires ensuring an employee has the required resources to be successful and feels empowered to make their own decisions.

5. Openness

Openness goes hand in hand with both emotional intelligence and effective communication.

It’s important that the members of your team feel comfortable approaching you when they have questions or concerns, or when they need clarification on what's expected of them. If your employees don't believe they can reach out to you, there’s a risk that problems or concerns will go unaddressed before it's too late to correct them.

6. Problem-Solving

No matter how well prepared, organized, or established a project or process is, every manager runs into problems. This could be in the form of a missed deadline or milestone. It could be budgetary in nature. It could involve an unforeseen breakdown in the supply chain.

Whatever the case, managers must be skilled problem-solvers. The ability to evaluate a challenge, think critically about potential solutions, and formulate a response are essential to anyone who's tasked with leading a team.

7. Decision-Making

Over the course of a day, managers might be responsible for making a number of decisions that impact their team or the project they're overseeing. Prioritizing tasks, allocating resources, delegating duties—each of these is a decision that falls to the manager.

Sometimes, a manager will need to make an authoritative decision to resolve an issue. Other times, decision-making might involve consensus building, wherein members of the team are invited to participate in the discussion and help guide the process. Ultimately, the manager is responsible for the outcome of the decision and, as such, must be comfortable with ensuing results.

How You Can Develop Your Team Management Skills

If you want to take your team management skills to the next level, there are several steps you can take to improve them. These include:

• Taking stock of your current skills. To chart a path for your professional development, you first need to understand where your management skills currently stand . What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Where are your greatest opportunities to turn development into career success? These insights will help you create a plan that's right for you.
• Setting goals for improvement and development. Once you have a sense of your current skills, you need to set goals for your development efforts. Which skills do you need to improve? How will you measure success? What is your timeframe? By setting specific and attainable goals, you give yourself something to work toward and increase your chances of success.
• Inviting feedback from your team. If you're unsure about your current abilities or where you should prioritize growth, consider turning to co-workers for feedback. This can be invaluable in helping you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Practicing your skills. Practice your skills both in and out of the office. If you find that a project has suffered setbacks due to poor communication, for example, identify the point of confusion and make a mental note to avoid this in the future. Or, if a project has become bogged down due to micromanaging, find methods to help you manage from a perch instead of down in the trenches.
• Pursuing professional development. Professional development can be a valuable asset in helping you reach your managerial potential. Signing up for a management training course can help you quickly develop your management skills, while pursuing mentorship opportunities can aid you throughout the trajectory of your career.

In Management Essentials , students are given the tools and opportunities they will need to improve their management skills and become more effective managers within their organization. Is Management Essentials the right HBS Online leadership and management course for you? Download the free flowchart to find out.

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How to Write a Management Plan

Last Updated: September 18, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Madison Boehm . Madison Boehm is a Business Advisor and the Co-Founder of Jaxson Maximus, a men’s salon and custom clothiers based in southern Florida. She specializes in business development, operations, and finance. Additionally, she has experience in the salon, clothing, and retail sectors. Madison holds a BBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from The University of Houston. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 235,725 times.

A management plan describes how an organization or business is run. Writing a management plan allows you to formalize your management structure and operations. It also ensures that everyone is on the same page and that your goals will be accomplished. You can easily write your own management plan with a few simple steps.

Management Plan Outline and Example

Starting Your Management Plan

• Defining roles also creates accountability by making it clear who's fault it was that something did or did not happen. [3] X Trustworthy Source Kansas University Center for Community Health and Development Community-based research center focused on supporting public health development and education Go to source

• A section detailing management members and their responsibilities and authorities.
• A chart of section detailing interactions between and responsibilities of each level of the organization.
• A section explaining different aspects of your organization being managed and the policies and procedures of that management.
• A schedule for updating, enhancing, and growing management and the management plan. [6] X Research source

Describing Ownership and Management

• Include a copy of board policies, including election policies, term length, responsibility, authority, and conflict resolution. This information should already be stated in your operating agreement or other founding documents.

• List past positions and duties of each member that apply to their current management obligations. Explain how these obligations highlight applicable skills and strengthen the management positions.
• Highlight all relevant educational backgrounds for each of the managers. Explain how their training will benefit the company. Only include the education that is relevant to the positions that they currently hold.
• If you are the only employee in your business, be sure to include your own experience and strengths.

• Accountants.
• Insurance brokers.
• Consultants.

• For example, “Our team, with its diverse array of skills, have a combined forty years of experience in this field. With our coordinated democratic structure, they can work together effectively to produce results. With this team, we are confident that our business will become profitable in two years.”

Writing Out Policies and Procedures

• For example, a policy might be using and selling only green materials and products. The procedures to support that policy might be shopping from approved green vendors or checking the environmental impact of each material or product used.

Revising Your Plan

• When they approve, have all owners sign the plan before you submit it to your investors, bank, or fundraising bodies.

• Make sure there is a way for all management and employees to submit their feedback regarding the plan.
• Then, create a method by which changes to the plan can be approved and instituted. [20] X Trustworthy Source Kansas University Center for Community Health and Development Community-based research center focused on supporting public health development and education Go to source

Expert Q&A

• Many investors will read the management section of your business plan before any other section, including marketing and finances, so you want to make sure that you have the best proposal possible. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Do not neglect your management plan in favor of your financial plans. Both are equally important to a business plan. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ Madison Boehm. Business Advisor, Jaxson Maximus. Expert Interview. 24 August 2021.
• ↑ http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/effective-manager/management-plan/main
• ↑ https://www.brown.edu/research/conducting-research-brown/preparing-proposal/proposal-development-services/writing-management-plan
• ↑ https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-write-the-management-summary-2951561
• ↑ https://open.lib.umn.edu/humanresourcemanagement/chapter/4-1-the-recruitment-process/
• ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241072
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
• ↑ http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4533-business-plan-outline.html

About This Article

The best way to write a management report is to describe the company’s management structure in 10 to 20 pages. Name the board members and explain the company’s ownership policies. Introduce all management members and present the strengths of each team member. Then, write out workplace policies and procedures. Send the management report to the company’s bank, investors, or fundraising bodies. For more tips from our Financial Reviewer, like how to outline, format, and revise your plan, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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✅ 12 Best Team Management Templates for 2024

Attention all managers! Your organization’s success depends heavily on how well your teams are managed and your leadership skills .

Furthermore, team management templates can also serve as a valuable training tool for new employees and one-on-one meetings. They can quickly adapt to the team’s processes and expectations by providing them with a pre-established framework.

We’ve put together a list of the best team management templates to enhance project coordination, goal setting, and overall team productivity.

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Page Contents (Click To Jump)

How We Chose the Best Team Management Templates

First of all, why should you trust us? SnackNation has a team of experts and experienced managers who have carefully curated a collection of templates. These templates are based on our own experience, industry best practices, and customer feedback. They have been tried and tested in real-world scenarios, ensuring that they are effective and efficient.

Our team uses the following criteria to choose the best templates:

• Ease of use: Our team ensures that the templates are user-friendly and easy to understand. workload.
• Functionality: The templates should cover all aspects of team management, from goal setting and task delegation to performance evaluation and feedback.
• Adaptability: The templates should be adaptable to different team sizes, structures, and industries.
• Collaboration: The templates should promote collaboration among team members and facilitate effective communication.
• Accessibility: The templates should be easily accessible for all team members, regardless of their location or technical capabilities.

Pro-Tip: Use “Command + D” to bookmark this list – we update it often with the latest and most useful productivity templates!

Best Team Management Templates

1. 5w2h template by miro.

🏅 Best for: Goal setting and task delegation

❤️ Why we love this team management template: The 5W2H Template provides a clear structure for goal setting and task delegation. We recommend it for teams who want to improve their planning and organization skills.

• Promotes accountability and ownership of tasks
• Helps teams stay on track and prioritize tasks effectively
• Facilitates effective communication by clarifying expectations and responsibilities
• May not provide enough detail for complex projects

2. Team Management Plan by ClickUp

🏅 Best for: Team planning and project management

❤️ Why we love this team management template: Suitable for teams of all sizes and industries, the Team Management Plan allows for efficient team planning and project management from start to finish.

• Provides a centralized location for team communication and collaboration
• Offers various features to track progress, set deadlines, and assign tasks
• Integrates with popular tools like Google Calendar, Trello, and Slack
• May have a steeper learning curve for team members unfamiliar with project management tools

3. Team Manager OS by Notion

🏅 Best for: Team goal setting and performance evaluation

❤️ Why we love this team management template: With weekly updates, individual goal tracking, and feedback channels, this team management template is perfect for teams that prioritize clear information and communication, efficient goal-setting, and continuous performance evaluation.

• Promotes transparency and accountability within the team
• Encourages open communication and feedback between team members
• Can be used for ongoing performance evaluations and time tracking
• Some features may require a pricing list or a paid subscription

4. Business Process Management Template by Wrike

🏅 Best for: Streamlining and improving business processes

❤️ Why we love this team management template: We recommend this template for teams aiming to streamline workflows and improve organizational efficiency. It can also be used for performance reviews and goal setting.

• Simplifies complex processes by visualizing them in a clear and structured way
• Streamlines workflows through automation and task assignment
• Can be customized to fit the specific needs of each business process
• May require some training and familiarization for team members who are new to process management tools

5. Team Tasks by monday.com

🏅 Best for: Task management and team collaboration

❤️ Why we love this team management template: This template is designed for teams seeking a holistic approach to task management, organization, and enhancing teamwork and communication.

• Highly customizable to fit different team workflows and preferences
• Encourages collaboration through various communication tools
• Integrates with popular tools like Google Calendar, Slack, and Jira
• Some features may require a paid subscription to access

6. Staff Management by Smartsheet

🏅 Best for: Managing staff schedules and tasks

❤️ Why we love this team management template: Staff Management is particularly helpful for teams by helping them with everything from managing staff schedules and delegating tasks to ensuring efficient and effective operations. It suits various industries, including retail, healthcare, and hospitality.

• Simplifies the process of creating and updating staff schedules
• Streamlines task management by assigning responsibilities and tracking progress in one place
• Integrates with popular tools like Google Calendar and Outlook
• May require some training and familiarization for team members who are new to scheduling and task management tools.

7. Project Planning Template by Miro

🏅 Best for: Planning and visualizing projects

❤️ Why we love this team management template: With customizable templates, task assignments, and progress tracking, the Project Planning Template is suitable for teams looking to improve project planning and foster collaboration visually.

• Provides a visual representation of the project timeline, tasks, and team members involved
• Encourages collaboration and brainstorming with real-time updates and commenting features
• Offers customizable templates for different types of projects
• May have a steeper learning curve for team members who are not familiar with project management tools or visual planning methods

8. Project Management by Notion

🏅 Best for: Comprehensive project management

❤️ Why we love this team management template: After testing the Project Management template, our team recommends it with confidence because it’s a versatile solution that allows organizations to manage all aspects of a project in one place.

• Integrates various project management tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and calendars
• Encourages team collaboration through commenting and task assignment features
• Allows for real-time updates and progress tracking
• The free version has limitations on the number of collaborators and features available

9. Task Management by ClickUp

🏅 Best for: Task management and organization

❤️ Why we love this team management template: This template offers teams an intuitive way to organize tasks and boost efficiency.

• Offers a simple and intuitive interface for creating and organizing tasks
• Allows for due dates, priority levels, and assignment to team members
• Provides real-time updates and progress tracking
• May not have as many features as other project management templates

10. Work Requests by Wrike

🏅 Best for: Managing work requests and approvals

❤️ Why we love this team management template: This template is perfect for teams aiming to simplify how they receive and manage work requests from clients or fellow team members.

• Allows for assigning tasks to specific team members and setting deadlines
• Streamlines the approval process with customizable workflows
• Integrates with various communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zendesk
• It takes some time to tweak the template to make it work within the rules and cultural framework of your organization

11. Tools Management by monday.com

🏅 Best for: Tracking and managing company tools and equipment

❤️ Why we love this team management template: We suggest this template for its ability to enhance organization, accountability, and the distribution of resources.

• Streamlines inventory tracking and provides real-time updates on tool usage
• Allows for setting maintenance schedules and reminders to ensure timely upkeep
• Integrates with various communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom
• May require some time to set up and customize the template to fit the team’s specific needs.

12. Project Management by Smartsheet

🏅 Best for: Managing complex and long-term projects

With projects charters, Gantt charts, and resource planning, the Project Management template by Smartsheet is specially designed to help your team stay on top of complex, long-term projects.

❤️ Why we love this team management template: This template is suitable for teams handling large projects involving numerous stakeholders and for monitoring a wide range of tasks

• Allows for creating Gantt charts to visualize project timelines and dependencies
• Streamlines resource planning with features like task assignments and workload tracking
• Integrates with various communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace
• Some advanced features may require a paid subscription to access.

Benefits of Team Management Templates

🔹efficiency.

Templates provide a standardized structure for tasks and processes, reducing the time and effort required to manage a team.

By clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and processes, team management templates eliminate confusion and misunderstandings among team members.

🔹Consistency

Templates ensure that all team members follow the same procedures and guidelines, leading to consistent results.

🔹Productivity

With a clear structure in place, teams can focus on their tasks without wasting time on unnecessary meetings or discussions.

🔹Team Cohesion

Templates promote teamwork and collaboration, strengthening the bond between team members and improving overall team dynamics.

New employees can quickly learn about the team’s processes and expectations through templates, reducing the onboarding time and helping them become productive team members faster.

Tips on How to Use Team Management Templates

These templates may seem daunting initially, but they don’t have to be. Here are some steps to follow:

1️⃣ Identify your team’s needs

Understand the specific challenges and pain points that your team faces in order to choose the most appropriate templates.

2️⃣ Introduce the templates gradually

Don’t overwhelm your team with too many templates at once. Start with a few key ones, and gradually introduce more as your team becomes comfortable with them.

3️⃣ Train your team

Ensure that all team members are trained to use the templates effectively. This will help them understand their purpose and benefits.

4️⃣ Encourage feedback

Regularly seek feedback from your team on the effectiveness of the templates and make necessary adjustments to improve them.

With these steps, your team will soon be using templates seamlessly and experiencing the benefits of improved team management.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Team Management Templates

❌ not customizing the templates.

Each team is unique, and it’s essential to customize the templates according to your team’s specific needs.

🌟 Solution: Thoroughly understand your team’s requirements and customize the templates accordingly.

❌ Not regularly updating the templates

Processes and dynamics change over time, so reviewing and updating the templates regularly is crucial to ensure their effectiveness.

🌟 Solution: Set a schedule for reviewing and updating the templates, taking into account feedback from your team.

❌ Not seeking input from team members

Templates should not be imposed on the team but rather developed with their input and feedback.

🌟 Solution: Involve your team in the development process, seek their input and suggestions, and adjust accordingly.

❌ Not providing proper training

Team members may not use templates effectively if they are not properly trained on how to use them.

🌟 Solution: Conduct thorough training sessions for all team members and provide resources for ongoing support and guidance.

❌ Overcomplicating the templates

Templates are meant to simplify processes, so avoid making them too complex or detailed.

🌟 Solution: Keep the templates simple and easy to understand, ensuring they serve their purpose efficiently.

People Also Ask These Questions about Team Management Templates:

Q: what is a team management template.

• A: A team management template is a pre-made, customizable tool designed to help teams organize and manage their tasks, projects, or resources efficiently. These templates often include features such as task lists, due dates, progress tracking, and collaboration tools.

Q: What elements are typically included in a team management template?

• A: Some elements that may be included in a team management template are task lists, due dates, progress tracking, collaboration tools, resource allocation, and communication integrations. The specific elements may vary depending on the template’s purpose and the team’s needs.

Q: Can a team management template be customized?

• A: Yes, a team management template can be customized to fit a team’s specific needs and preferences. This allows for more efficient and personalized template use for different projects or teams within an organization.

Q: Are there different styles or layouts available for team management templates?

• A: Yes, team management templates can vary in style and layout. Some templates may have a more traditional to-do list style, while others may incorporate features like Kanban boards or Gantt charts. Teams can choose a template that best fits their preferred visual organization style.

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Managing Anger, Frustration, and Resentment on Your Team

• Nihar Chhaya

Four strategies to help managers respond with compassion.

Anger and resentment across your team can make an already stressful leadership job feel worse. But how you respond to your employees’ frustrations is critical to ensuring negative emotions don’t limit your effectiveness. The author offers four recommendations to try: 1) Balance your emotions first before reacting to your team’s frustration. 2) Lean into their anger with an intent to learn. 3) Redesign team goals together. 4) Build deeper trust by owning your part.

With so much instability in the workplace these days, you may feel untethered in your daily job responsibilities as well as your long-term career. And when insecurity leads to frustration, it can be hard to keep your temper. But when you are in a leadership role, you face an even more formidable challenge: managing your team’s moods without letting their episodes of anger impair your effectiveness.

• Nihar Chhaya  is an executive coach to senior leaders at global companies, including American Airlines, Coca-Cola, DraftKings and Wieden+Kennedy.    A former F500 corporate head of talent development, he is the President of  PartnerExec , helping leaders master influence for superior business and strategic outcomes. You can sign up for Enviable, his weekly newsletter .  

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How To Write a Management Team Business Plan (With an Example)

When creating a business plan, the management section outlines your management team, personnel, resources, and the ownership structure of your company. This section should not only list the members of your management team but also how their individual skill sets will affect your financial results. We’ll go into detail about how to put together and highlight your management team in this article. This section can be conveniently organized by dividing it into the following sections:

How to write a management team business plan

Consider using these guidelines to produce a powerful team business plan:

1. Collect resumes from each manager

Typically, resumes outline a professional’s qualifications, including their training, prior employment, and technical and soft skills. You can use the resumes of your management team as a resource when writing content for your business plan. Ask each manager to send a fresh copy of their resume Asking them to modify their resume to reflect their specific position within your company could be useful and make it simpler for you to create their profiles. Include copies of their resumes as annexes to your proposal.

2. Organize your management team into categories

The next step is to depict the chain of command within your company. List the profiles, going from the company’s owners to the departmental supervisors in descending order. Your management team business plan can appear more organized by using categories, and your audience will understand how the teams’ qualifications correspond to their positions. If your company has multiple divisions, categories may also be useful.

3. Write the managers name and job title

Finding the manager on their individual profile is the third step. Include their role title and first and last names in your writing. Consider adding their department to distinguish between them if there are multiple managers with the same title. To be more specific, you could write “Assistant Manager, Marketing Department” for various employees with the title “assistant manager.”

4. Describe their employment history

The employment history details prior positions your managers held in the sector. Listing the candidates’ prior positions can support your decision to appoint them as managers if they have experience as organizational leaders. Summarize their responsibilities and projects theyve coordinated in the past. You can also highlight your managers’ achievements in this section, such as awards they have won or helpful things they have done for previous employers.

5. Explain their educational background

The manager profile’s education section covers the institutions your team attended and the degrees they obtained. It can further highlight the manager’s credentials by demonstrating that they have received the necessary training to oversee other team members in your organization. You can also write professional certifications your managers have. For instance, listing a certification in spreadsheet software may impress potential business partners if you run a technology company.

What is a management team business plan?

A management team business plan describes the qualifications and experience of a group of managers in a company. Its goal is to demonstrate to potential investors that the professionals your business has hired are qualified for leadership roles because they have training and experience. It includes details that distinguish your organization from competitors. A potential investor or business partner may be persuaded to provide funding or work with your company if your management team’s business plan impresses them.

Tips for writing a management team business plan

The following three rules will help you gather data and organize your management team business plan:

Incorporate relevant information

Include information that is relevant to their interests in your management profile as a way to attract potential investors. List the qualifications of your leaders in relation to your company and your sector. By including pertinent information, you can demonstrate to potential customers that your team has the managerial skills they need. Be selective when gathering information about your managers to avoid detracting the audience from your goal.

For instance, if you work for a ride-sharing company, you might be looking for partnerships to expand into major cities. You could note in your management team business plan that your executives have experience in customer service, technology, and transportation, three crucial areas that can help the ride-sharing business succeed. The strategy shows potential partners that your team has the expertise to work in the field, encouraging them to collaborate with your company.

Use straightforward wording

Simple language can keep your management team business plan clear and understandable. It’s crucial that customers can understand your company’s organizational structure and which employees are responsible for what tasks. The size of the business and the number of supervisors there are may have an impact on the length of the proposal. But even if your plan is more detailed, keeping your writing simple can help you keep the interest of potential stakeholders. It might be beneficial to reread your sentences and omit any pointless details so that you can convey the key ideas of your message in fewer words.

Clarify information with your team

It may be difficult to include every qualification of an employee on a resume because they are typically one page long. To learn more about your team members’ professional backgrounds, think about speaking with them directly. Find out if they have any additional pertinent information to include in their profile that will appeal to potential customers. Maybe you should mention a gap in their resume or point out that they have more work achievements you can list in their profile. Clarifying details with managers can help you plan the content more effectively and prevent repeating too many details from their resumes.

Example of a management team business plan

You can write a management team business plan that is successful by using the following example of a team member’s profile as a model:

Management Team Member Profile

Jane Stewart, Director of Marketing

The marketing division is headed by Jane Stewart, who is also the coordinator of marketing, social media manager, and graphic designer. Her duties include keeping an eye on social media engagement analytics and creating creative consumer engagement strategies. Stewart graduated from Pine Ridge University with a bachelor’s in marketing and a master’s in business administration. She is professionally certified in social media management and content marketing. Stewart’s previous position was assistant marketing director at full-service advertising agency Oak Wood, where she saw a 25% increase in email and video subscriber numbers.

Writing the Management Team Section of Your Business Plan

How do you present a management team in a business plan?

An organizational chart of your small business, including departments, department managers, and employees, should be included in the management team section. Biographical information about you, the owner, and any other owners. Clearly state your ownership stake in the company and your day-to-day responsibilities.

How do you write a management plan for a business plan?

• Indicate the number of employees your business will require at each stage and their associated costs.
• Describe the specifics of how your company’s human resource needs can be satisfied.
• Describe your hiring needs, including a list of the particular skills that any employees you hire must possess.

How important is management team in a business plan?

A strong management team is especially important if you want the company to expand and grow as a whole. A management team is crucial for distributing leadership responsibilities as a business expands. If your business operates in multiple locations, it is essential.

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Board – Use board view to see your tasks in a Kanban style board. Here you can group your tasks by bucket, progress, due date, priority, and labels.

Schedule – Use Schedule view to organize your tasks on calendar.  Learn more about schedule view.

Charts – Use Charts view to visually see the status of tasks. Here you can view you can view charts for:

Status – status of tasks.

Bucket – progress of tasks in each bucket.

Priority – progress of tasks by priority.

Members – availability of team members.

Premium plans

Timeline – Use timeline view to see a Gantt chart of your tasks and dependencies.

Charts – Use charts view to visually see the status of tasks. Here you can view you can view charts for:

People –Use people view to see the distribution of tasks among team members and quickly reallocate as needed.

Goals – Use the Goals view to set and track objectives.

Assignments  - Use assignments view to granularly manage resources’ efforts on tasks to accurately represent how and when work will be executed.

For full details on the advanced capabilities offered by premium plans, please check out Advanced Capabilities with Premium Plans.  

Note:  Please note that some views may require different premium licenses. Please reference  Microsoft Project for the web service description  for more information.

Assign tasks

When you're ready to decide who's doing what, there are several ways you can assign tasks to people in Planner.

You can assign someone when you create a task – Add a task name, and then select Assign to choose a plan member from the list. If the right person isn't listed, type a name or email address in the search box to add someone new.

You can assign a task to more than one person  –   When a task is being worked on by more than one team member, you can assign it to up to 11 people so that they can all see it in their Assigned to me list. When any team member marks the task complete, it's marked complete for all team members.

Change assignments

You can also change the Board to be grouped by Assigned to , and then drag tasks between the columns for each person on your team.

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Demystifying taxation and reporting procedures for client bond positions, presented by tim steffen, cpa/pfs, cfp®️, cpwa®️, director of advanced planning for baird.

Tuesday, April 16, 3-4:30 PM ET

#FA Success Ep 380: Expanding Capacity For $500M Of Organic AUM Growth In Just 4 Years By Increasing The Density Of Team Talent, With Andrew Leonard

April 9, 2024 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Executive Summary

My guest on today's podcast is Andrew Leonard. Andrew is the Managing Partner of Geometric Wealth Advisors, an RIA based in Washington, D.C., that oversees approximately $750 million in assets under management for about 200 client households.

What's unique about Andrew, though, is how his firm has been able to triple its AUM in the past 4 years while offering a high-touch client experience by adopting the approach of the management consulting clients he specializes in, first assessing how many new staff members they can hire and then train properly in order to, as Andrew says, increase the density talent on the team, and only then deciding how many new clients to bring on in a given year based on how quickly they've determined they can grow their team.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how lessons from Andrew's niche, partners at the "Big 3" management consulting firms, inform Geometric's deliberate hiring and training processes, why Andrew hired a Chief Operating Officer relatively early in the firm's growth cycle (before he even hit $5M in revenue) to handle the growing people-management challenges of the firm, and how Andrew's firm has been able to maintain a strong company culture despite operating in a fully virtual environment by still including ongoing in-person get-togethers with the whole team.

We also talk about the high-touch services Andrew's firm offers its high-income clients, including how Andrew and his team shop for the best mortgage rates for clients among a curated group of lenders (and the way the firm systematized its approach to finding refinance opportunities for its clients), why Andrew decided to offer in-house tax services (after initially outsourcing to a CPA they worked with closely) despite the expense of having CPAs on staff, and how Andrew's firm integrates unique private equity investment opportunities available to its clients into the firm's broader portfolio management philosophy.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Andrew shares how a growing staff count has helped his firm navigate the "Dangerous Middle" experienced by firms as they grow from $200 million of AUM to $2 billion in AUM (even if it means tighter profit margins in the short run), how Andrew's decision to serve a specific niche has led to a steady flow of prospective clients referrals (and when hiring, interest from former consulting firm employees looking for a career change into a financial planning firm like Andrew's), and how Andrew's growing boredom over the ongoing service of long-term existing clients inspired him to grow his practice into a full-fledged business to experience the fresh intellectual challenges of being an entrepreneur.

So, whether you're interested in learning about how to build "talent density" through a deliberate hiring and training process, how to maintain company culture when operating in a fully-remote environment, or how to navigate the "Dangerous Middle" experienced by growing mid-sized firms, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Andrew Leonard.

Author: Michael Kitces

Michael Kitces is Head of Planning Strategy at Buckingham Strategic Wealth , which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Buckingham Strategic Partners , a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth.

In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network , AdvicePay , fpPathfinder , and New Planner Recruiting , the former Practitioner Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com , dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.

Resources Featured In This Episode:

• Andrew Leonard
• Geometric Wealth Advisors
• #FASuccess Ep 173: Growing To $250M In 5 Years By Crafting A More Specialized Client Experience, with Andrew Leonard
• Geometric's Comprehensive Financial Planning For BCG MDPs – Download (PDF)
• Financial Planning For Partners Of Bain & Co – 7 Decisions to Make – Download (PDF)
• The Long Tail, The Big Head, and the Dangerous Middle Of Financial Advisory Firms
• Sora Finance
• Bain & Company
• Boston Consulting Group
• McKinsey & Company

Looking for sample client service calendars, marketing plans, and more? Check out our FAS resource page !

Are you a successful financial advisor, or do you know of one that would be a great fit for the Financial Advisor Success podcast? Fill out this form to be considered!

Full Transcript:

Michael:  Welcome, Andrew Leonard, to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Andrew:  Thanks, Michael. I am definitely honored to be back.

Michael:  I'm really excited to have you back on the podcast. And I guess really to talk about what's changed since you joined us last time. You were originally out on the podcast with us, I think, almost 4 years ago from when this is going live. So, for folks who were listening, Andrew's prior episode was 173. So you can go to kitces.com/173 if you want to hear the prior episode. So, I'm trying to put my mental frame back to where we were then. It was early 2020. I think the pandemic was literally just breaking out. In fact, we might've recorded right before the pandemic went mainstream and then the episode went live just after the pandemic was rolling through the world. You were $250 million of assets under management at the time with kind of a focus specialization that we'll talk about more that was going really well for you.

And now, fast forward 3 and a half, almost 4 years later, the firm is basically 3Xd in size, which is a lot of growth, particularly when you're already at a few hundred million. It's one thing because we 3Xd from $10 million to $30 million. I don't want to belittle that. But just I can do that with me just taking on more clients. When you go from $250 million to $700 million plus, you're hiring people on pretty much a continuous basis to just get all the people, and you need to do all the work you need to do for all the clients that you're growing with at that pace.

I feel like in a lot of the advisor world, it's kind of fun to talk about faster growth. We can all do the spreadsheet math of how much our revenue and profits, or enterprise value, grows if you start growing at higher percentage rates. But few I find have really lived what that actually feels like when you're going through a fast growth environment and barely trying to keep up with the hiring and the demands of clients. And they're coming in as quickly as you can manage to hire people, so capacity is often a pinch. And there's all sorts of pressures on the business owner of other things that the business needs besides the client stuff that starts cropping up when you've got 5, 10, 15, 20 plus team members. So I'm really just looking forward to talking about fast growth, interesting changes you've made through that, like hiring a COO, what would be I think fairly early by traditional advisory firms, but probably very necessary at fast growth rates. And just digging into what fast growth feels like.

What Geometric Looks Like Today [05:53]

Michael:  So I think to kick off, why don't you just bring us up to speed on the advisory firm as it exists today, maybe even for folks that haven't gone back to listen to the prior one yet. So, what do you do? Who do you serve and some metrics just to help us understand the size and scope of the firm as it exists today?

Andrew: Great. So, everything you said was correct. Geometric was founded in 2015, which means we are approaching 9 years old. We manage around $750 million for about 200 client families. In terms of clients, we are very focused on a pretty specific niche. We serve partners at Bain, BCG, and McKinsey, the top 3 strategy consulting firms if people are familiar with them. So, our average client is around 40 years old and you can assume from their profession, they are very bright and very analytical and very busy both professionally with hours worked and travel. And personally, many or most of them have young families. I would also just say they have high professional expectations, which we view as a good challenge. Oh, and I would say about 75% of our clients fit within that core niche. They are current or former Bain, BCG, and McKinsey consultants. So it is pretty focused.

In terms of our team, we're 23 people. We work fully remotely. We are spread across 18 different states in every time zone. I'm based in Washington, DC. So, our business address is here, but that's pretty meaningless. At this point, we don't have an office.

Michael:  I was going to say, do you even have a physical office in the DC area?

Andrew:  Nope, just a sort of virtual mail service with an address. And then our team is relatively young like our clients. I guess I am 43. I don't know if that still counts as young, but I'm the oldest person on the team. I guess another interesting element, a number of people on the team are former consultants ourselves, some of whom are from Bain, BCG, and McKinsey, several of our advisors and then our COO, are former consultants, maybe not coincidentally.

And happy to describe the full makeup of the team by department, but I guess one notable element is we do have 3 folks on our in-house tax team, and that's sort of not just tax planning but we're doing tax preparation and filing for essentially all of our clients. And then I guess in terms of sort of high-level metrics, run rate revenues are just over $6 million per year. There has been a ton of organic growth as you alluded to. I think sort of compound annual since the firm started was something like 45% per year, but that can be misleading when starting from essentially 0. Even over the past 3 years, it's right around 35% per year. And I think we're projecting 25% per year for the next 3, and that's essentially sort of the maximum growth rate we are comfortable with. And I'm sure we'll get more into what that means. And then as you suggested, I'd say we are firmly entrenched in, I guess, what you have coined, the dangerous middle of RIA firms or others call it the valley of doom. I generally just call it the painful middle and everything that comes with that. I'm happy to discuss any of it.

Michael:  I do like dangerous middle a little more than valley of doom. We can acknowledge the danger without literally getting doom in there. It gets a little gloomy at that point.

Andrew:  Yep.

Michael: All right. So you have lots of really cool stuff in there about what you're doing and building. So, let me start with understanding the whole team structure that's here. I'm thinking about relative to, I'll call it traditional industry metrics. 23 people on the team supporting 200 clients is a higher staff count relative to clients than I usually see, although I know you're much deeper touch into what you're doing, which is part of the point. From a revenue per employee perspective, $6 million of revenue, and 23 team members is about $260,000 of revenue per employee, which I find is actually pretty typical for advisory firms as they're kind of growing through this stage. I see a lot of firms somewhere between $250,000–$300,000 of revenue per employee. So, help us understand for your firm what these 23 people on the team are and do.

Andrew:  Yeah. And I think you're right. It is a lot of people relative to number of clients, and there are 2 reasons for that. One, I think we are more comprehensive than many. Don't tell me you are comprehensive. Tell me how many clients per team member you have and that tells us how comprehensive you are. Two, I think you just have to decide if you are staffing for profitability or staffing for growth and we attempt to walk a fine line there. But it's hard and that's part of the dangerous middle, I suppose.

So, the makeup of the team is it's 6 wealth advisors, it's 3 people on our in-house tax team. Like I said, we have 5 people on our financial planning team, which includes both internal paraplanners doing sort of internal analyses and client-facing financial planners who manage the planning-specific work streams. We have 1 person on our portfolio management team. We have 5 people in client operations and then 3 people in business operations, including our COO. And I guess of those 23, I should mention, 4 of us are partners and owners of the firm.

Michael:  And so are the 4 all amongst the 6 wealth advisors, or are there nonwealth advisor partners?

Andrew: It is 3 advisors and then our COO.

Michael:  Okay. Do you count yourself in the 6 wealth advisors?

Andrew:  Yes.

Michael:  Okay. Okay. So, again, I'm just kind of thinking about this from, I call it traditional industry metrics. So 200 clients across 6 wealth advisors is, it sort of implies a pretty high level of touch, 30-something clients per advisor, but not uncommon for firms that have multi-multi-million dollar clients as you do. You had $750 million of assets across 200 clients. So the average client is 3 and a half million in assets and pays about $30,000, it sounds like in advisory fees on average.

You got clients that are going to have some pretty high expectations about service touch and accessibility and how deep you go with them when you're charging tens of thousands of dollars per client. I certainly get it on that end. Help us understand further though what 5 people on the financial planning team do beyond, or in addition to 6 wealth advisors that "only"... I'm putting only in air quotes as though anybody can see me, only 30-something clients for wealth advisor. What do 5 people on the financial planning team do?

Andrew:  Yep. And I would just say I think our target client per advisor is more like 60 clients. I think that's sort of what our model supports. But one, many of the advisors on the team now wear multiple hats within the firm, including myself, and that limits the number of clients they can serve. And two, we do have sort of newer advisors in the process of building up their client load and that lowers the number. But I think if there were a fully staffed full-time advisor, I think our number would be 60. But even that I know is lower than industry norms and I think it comes down to comprehensiveness of services. And that also starts to answer what the financial planners do.

Geometric's High-Touch Debt Management Service Offering [15:17]

Andrew:  So, broadly speaking, what do we do for our clients? Externally facing, we categorize it into 3 buckets. We do financial planning, portfolio management, and tax services. But internally, and everyone listening to this podcast knows, each of those involves a lot of subservices, if you'd say. And even with financial planning, internally, we categorize it into 7 services. They are financial projections, cash flow planning, education planning, insurance and employee benefit planning, charitable planning, estate planning, and then debt sourcing and management. And I'd say that list probably sounds like most firms, or at least most comprehensive financial planning firms. It's just that for each of them, we try to do them, I guess, most importantly, as tailored to the needs of our niche as possible, but also just as comprehensively as possible, as proactively as possible, and taking as much work off the plate of the client as possible. And all of that adds up to a lot of hours per year.

We recently calculated, we spend something like 80 total team hours per year on every client and significantly more than that on first- and second-year clients where a lot of the upfront planning needs to be done. But if it would be helpful, I'd be happy to sort of double-click on any of those services and sort of give an example of what I mean. Maybe a good place to start would be that last one, debt sourcing and management. Sure. So I'll sort of describe that process. And it starts with hopefully, whatever financial planner is doing is if a client has a need to borrow, most frequently a mortgage for a new primary or vacation home, we're obviously working with the client to figure out how much to put down, what type of loan to take, what product to get. But then beyond that, we consider it our responsibility to shop that loan on their behalf to a handful of lenders that we work closely with who are willing to lend to our clients at discounted rates or more flexible terms. And in some cases, it's because the lenders have direct relationships with Bain, BCG, and McKinsey that they're willing to sort of offer better terms. In some cases, it's because we have informal relationships with the lenders ourselves, but regardless, we shop it amongst all of them and have no skin in the game about who's going to win.

And we negotiate on the client's behalf, just trying to get to the best rate and terms, and often that ends up with a rate that is significantly better than they would have sourced on their own. And then, once a winner has been selected, we usher the client through the underwriting process of completing the personal financial statement and providing all the documents that the lender needs and generally managing the process as much as we can. And then once the loan closes and the client has the mortgage, we built an internal tool that every week scans every client's mortgage, compares it to the best rates we have sourced elsewhere over the prior week or weeks, and proactively flags refi opportunities. And when those pop up, we immediately raise them to the client. And if it makes sense to pursue it, we start at step one of this process again.

And so hopefully that sort of speaks to the comprehensiveness of the approach and how much we're trying to take off the plates of our busy clients. I think it also starts to answer the question of why do we have a specific role called financial planner in addition to wealth advisor? The wealth advisor is overseeing all 3 elements that we provide, the financial planning, the portfolio management, and the tax services. But each of those and each of these sub-services are pretty deep and time-intensive and require someone to sort of manage those work streams themselves.

Michael:  If I'm visualizing this correctly, the wealth advisor might sit down with the client who said...and the client says, we've decided we really want to do the vacation home, but we're not sure how to proceed, right? Do we borrow, do we pay cash? How much do we borrow each, right? The client queues up some question like that, help me figure out vacation home purchasing decision terms. So the wealth advisor gets that in the client meeting. And then the wealth advisor would come back to the financial planner to say, run me the numbers and start calling the lenders to see what kind of terms we can get. And the financial planner runs with that stuff and then brings it back to the wealth advisor to deliver to the client?

Andrew:  Well, it depends on the client and the situation and the financial planner. But in general, financial planners are in those meetings having the conversations with us, with the client. I would just say the wealth advisors are the ones typically leading those meetings. But yes, all of our financial planners are client-facing, and that's the distinction for us between financial planners and paraplanners. But then the financial planners would be the ones sort of doing all the steps under the guidance of the wealth advisors that follow.

Michael:  Okay. So contact the lenders, get the rates, see if we can play A off of B to get the rate down. Okay. We've picked the lender, make sure the clients getting...make sure we're getting through the underwriting, make sure the clients get through the paperwork. The financial planner would be sort of process-managing that stage.

Andrew:  Yeah, that's right. Maybe, with the exception of if there is negotiation to be had, that's probably going to be the wealth advisor. But yes, certainly reaching out to the lenders, sharing the situation, gathering quotes, helping with every step of underwriting, and then monitoring that tool that we use to monitor for refis.

Michael:  And can you talk a little bit more about what the tool is? Is this an extension off your CRM or something entirely standalone?

Andrew:  Yeah, it's standalone. It's even simpler than that. It is a Google Doc that sort of lists every client's mortgage, current balance outstanding, current rate, and then a centralized place for all the best rates we have sourced elsewhere. And then it does a little NPV calculation for each situation and flags refis. And by the way, I know there is good tech coming out about that for other advisors to leverage Sora Finance and others. And I think that's great because it is very valuable to clients.

A paraplanner runs that process every week and then sends the results to all the wealth advisors and financial planners to decide which require action and which do not.

Michael:  So, who are the lenders? How do you find lenders that give you special rates for your clients? I get it in scenarios of, hey, there's a lender that's got a special arrangement with Bain. And so we'll show you how to take advantage of the deal that Bain cut for you. But how does this work for your firm?

Andrew:  Yeah. And I'd also note even just in terms of the lenders that have relationships with the consulting firms, many or most clients aren't always aware of that. So even just making sure they know that the relationship exists and that we'll be reaching out on their behalf and benefiting from that relationship and what the specifics of sort of the discounts for a given firm are, that can be valuable. But we do separately have relationships with lenders who are willing to lend to any Geometric client at discounted rates or more favorable terms.

Andrew:  It totally depends on the situation. And sometimes it is no different than what the client would get if they walked in off the street. I know there are instances when it's been upwards of a full percent.

Michael:  Are these relationships with mortgage brokers that facilitate across many, or are these relationships with banks themselves that are literally doing the lending off the balance sheet and evaluating risk?

Andrew:  It's some of both. Brokers obviously have more leeway on what they are quoting to clients, and there's more wiggle room there. Banks are all subject to fair lending laws. I'd say the big advantage we have with some banks is that many or all of the banks have private banking departments that require a certain banking relationship or loan size just to access. And in those instances, the banks have just agreed to waive those requirements for our clients in general. So even if it's a loan or client who wouldn't normally meet the private banking threshold, they're willing to include our clients as a result.

Michael:  And so how do you get a relationship open like that with a bank? Do you just say, hey, will you give my clients private bank rates without actually using your private bank services?

Andrew:  Yeah. It develops over time. And as with all sort of third-party experts that we refer to, it starts with if a client has a really good experience with a specific provider, we want to know about it. We keep it on a list internally and are more likely to refer to them down the road. And the more you do that, sort of the deeper the relationship gets. And hopefully, it goes without saying, these relationships are entirely one-way. We are not looking for or accepting sort of referrals or monetary compensation for this. This is all just done for the benefit of the client.

The Division Of Labor At Geometric [26:22]

Michael:  So with this structure, so I'm understanding kind of financial planners versus paraplanners a little more. The paraplanners are purely internal doing, I'm presuming kind of your classic build financial plans, crunch numbers, work. Your financial planners from the internal team live a little bit more of a split role. They're doing some internal work, but they're also sitting in client meetings with wealth advisors and are client-facing. So, for the financial planners, as I'm just trying to visualize, does every meeting have 2 Geometric people in the room, a wealth advisor or a financial planner? Is it more optional about when financial planners come in at the discretion of the wealth advisor? How do you set who's in which meetings?

Andrew:  Yeah, it's probably even more complicated than that. Most of our clients work with 2 of the wealth advisors on our team. One serves as the primary or lead advisor to the client, and the other is sort of a backup and/or sort of additional strategic guidance for the relationship. So, often, there are 2 wealth advisors in every meeting. Typically, there is a financial planner, and depending on the topic, there may also be a tax advisor in the meeting.

Michael:  Okay. So client meetings often will have 2,3, 4 people in the room.

Andrew:  Right.

Michael:  Okay. So, how do these get...? It's assigned. If I'm a financial planner in this, is there a certain wealth advisor where I help them with all of their clients? Is there an assigned client base, I support these 50 clients across multiple wealth advisors? How do you figure out who's in which meeting when you've got multiple financial planners and multiple wealth advisors?

Andrew:  Yep. Every client has an assigned financial planner. Financial planners are not dedicated to any one or more wealth advisors. Every client is mix and match between wealth advisors, financial planners, and tax advisors. Although the wealth advisors ourselves are starting to teamatize a little bit into sort of 2 teams of 3 instead of one giant group of 6, which would have started to get unwieldy.

Integrating Private Equity Opportunities Into Portfolio Management [28:52]

Michael:  So now talk to us a little...so I think we've got a sense of the depth of financial planning, and then you're doing this across multiple domains, because you've got, I think you said, cash flow education, charitable estate, employee benefits, because I'm sure that's complex by the time you're a partner at a major consulting firm. So I think we got a sense of the financial planning side. Talk to us a little bit about the portfolio management side, because I was a little struck as you were going down this list that I think I heard one person on portfolio management, you were doing all this work for clients, but there is one person literally managering $750 million.

Andrew: Yep, soon to be two. We're in the process of hiring a 2nd portfolio analyst. But.

Michael:  It's nice to have a backup if someone calls in sick.

Andrew:  Yeah, definitely. But your point is well taken, and I would say philosophically, we are big believers in evidence-based investing. I am a lifelong Boglehead, and our clients' portfolios are invested primarily in ETFs and index funds from Dimensional and, to a lesser extent, Vanguard and Avantis. And so that element of it is very straightforward and standardized. But the complexity comes in, I guess, specifically for our clients. One, we're sort of managing across all of a family's accounts like many firms are. Two, obviously, all of our clients are coming to us with some degree of legacy positions that sort of fit or don't fit in the model portfolio and need to be managed around. But I'd say three, and the more unique element to our niche is all 3 consulting firms have internal platforms that allow them to do private equity investing through their firms.

So for those who aren't aware, Bain, BCG, and McKinsey, a big part of their business is supporting private equity funds in the due diligencing of companies they are considering acquiring. And all 3 firms' platforms are slightly different. So, I don't want to paint too broad a brush, but the internal platforms essentially allow the partners of the consulting firms to co-invest at low or no fees alongside their private equity clients. Even the Boglehead in me, who has some deep-seated inherent biases against private equity investing, understands that that's a pretty unique opportunity. And whether or not...regardless, pretty much everybody at those firms is going to participate. And so we knew right from the start, we needed to integrate that into our investment process. I guess we do that a few ways.

One, the written investment plan, the investment policy statement written at the start of every client engagement helps a client set an allocation for that private investing because most are just guessing prior to that. And then once a client has a targeted allocation, that means each time an opportunity comes around, we can help...we do the modeling to help them figure out how much to commit to that opportunity in order to stick to that allocation. And that can be tricky business in that you have to understand how all the existing funds are going to be called and distributed and grow and how the overall portfolio, I guess the denominator of the equation is going to change over time.

But we have that model built for every client. And so we're helping clients figure out how much to commit to the funds. And then we essentially have real-time data on all of these funds because so many of our clients are invested in them that we're able to manage the diversified portfolio in contemplation of the private investing. Essentially, we're able to rebalance around the private investing so that the client's overall balance sheet risk remains appropriate.

Michael:  Meaning if the client has...if the client has 10% allocated to their private investing, your model and the rest of the diversified portfolio might be dialed back by 10% plus in equities to offset the fact that they've got this wing of high-risk PE investments over outside.

Andrew:  That's right. So, yeah. And if there is a big capital call for a client or for many clients, that might mean rebalancing slightly their diversified portfolio so that their dollars are appropriately allocated overall.

Michael:  And what kinds of allocations do you target for PE in this scenario?

Andrew:  Our typical recommendation is 10% of a client's growth allocation. So, if you broadly categorize assets into growth assets and conservative assets, not growth in the sense of high or low PE ratios, but things that grow versus things that are there for stability. We help the client set an overall allocation to growth assets. And then, typically, 10% of that is dedicated to these private investments.

Michael:  So if I'm a high-income 40-something-year-old with a good time horizon, maybe I'm willing to do a 70-30 stock bond-style portfolio in the first place, 70% is kind of my growth allocation. And so you might do 10% of the 70, which means 7% we put towards the PE side, and the other 63% of your growth equities are things we're going to do in the managed portfolio.

Andrew:  That's right.

Michael:  Okay. I am struck by this, that, yeah, I appreciate the irony. I've lived a version of this as well, that our advisory firm at Buckingham were also very tilted towards DFA and Avantis and Vanguard and beyond factor investing, not big fans of trying to actively trade or pick companies. And I am also a business owner who understands the wealth creation that does happen when you own and build a business, a privately held business that grows successfully. So, I appreciate the tension as well of investing publicly traded companies more passively and strategically, and then saying, but maybe there are some interesting opportunities in the PE realm. And I guess, practically speaking, if they get to co-invest into the funds without the fee structures attached, there are actually a lot of segments of active management that do have alpha before fees. They just don't have alpha after fees. So, if you get to do it without the fees, that probably does math okay if you're otherwise, A, working with strong PE firms overall, and B, they know exactly how good the deals are that they're investing in because they literally did the due diligence.

Andrew:  Yeah, although even with all of that said, and maybe this is the Boglehead in me coming out, but even with all of that said, the private equity markets are pretty efficient at this point as well. And even if you're co-investing at the price that the private equity fund is buying the company for, it's a competitive process, and a bunch of other private equity funds bid the price up. So, we actually... When we're talking to clients, we say we're not encouraging you to participate in this because of any expectation of outperformance. If there is any outperformance, it's the result of the illiquidity and added risks that you're taking in this investment. We're doing it for diversification purposes. We're saying private equity is beneficial because it is not public equity. It diversifies the overall portfolio. Normally, the fees ruin that diversification benefit, but if you can do it without fees, then it's worth it for diversification.

Why Geometric Charges Tiered AUM Fees [37:40]

Michael:  So, now I feel like I've take one brief step back though. So you'd said earlier 750 million of assets under management, about 6 million of revenue. What's the actual business model fee structure? Are you charging percentages of assets under management, or are you a flat-fee style firm into your niche?

Andrew:  Yeah, we are a traditional AUM-tiered model. And I would say I've spent many hours of my life fretting over the fact that AUM fees are not intellectually consistent in that they imply that the value of what we're providing comes from the portfolio management. When I and probably most people listening to this would agree, the value and certainly most of the time comes from the financial planning, and in our case, the tax services. But I guess I have come to appreciate that there's really only to me 3 things that matter when it comes to fees. One, what is the total dollar amount that the client is paying relative to the total value they are receiving? Two, is it transparent to the client and sort of simple for them to calculate? And three, is it relatively easy for us as a firm to administer operationally? And I think if all of those boxes are checked, then the actual sort of structure matters less.

And for us, the AUM fee still checks all of those boxes. And I guess we're not willing to uncheck any of those boxes for the sake of intellectual consistency. That said, I think there are many other models that can check all of those boxes and may do a better job of it for some firms. So, if other firms do it via flat fees or percentage of net worth or hourly or anything else, I think it's great as long as those dimensions are being met.

Michael:  I'm struck. Obviously, you are literally handling their assets and a steward for their money. So, obviously, that matters and a lot is a major piece. But then I just look overall, one-person portfolio management, 5 on the planning support, 3 on the tax support. Your staff structure or your staff support structure is 90% tax and financial planning, 10% portfolio management. And I'm going to assume the wealth advisors probably have more planning and tax conversations than portfolio conversations as well. So, I just find it fascinating of whether that gives you concerns around, do we have challenges being an AUM model when we've so decentralized...so de-emphasized the portfolio management component of the value prop. Not that it's nothing, but that you seem to very clearly have put your resources towards the non-financial planning things, and judging by the growth, your clients are really appreciating the amount of resources you put towards the financial planning and tax. I guess just my follow-up question would be, as an industry, we debate this a lot. Does it come up from your clients? You have really sharp savvy clients, given the work that they do. So, does this crop up from clients?

Andrew:  It doesn't, and I think it's because of those first 2 notes. I think they all know exactly what they're paying, and they all believe they are receiving value in excess of that. And two, it's sort of simple and transparent to them, which they appreciate. I don't know. I guess I can't see far enough out to know if the industry will entirely move away from an AUM fee or not. And if so, I don't think that concerns us because I think there are other fee models that would still meet the criteria and still meet our business needs. It would just be a different way of charging.

Michael:  At the purest level, you said you're just over $6 million of revenue. It's about 200 clients. So you're roughly $30,000 per client in revenue. You're spending as much as 80 hours of team time on each client each year. So $30,000 of fees and spending 80 hours with them. If I'm mathing it right, it's $375 an hour, which is not unreasonable at all for a specialized firm into a specialized high-income clientele. And I'm going to guess is, ironically, actually is well below the hourly rates that your clients are probably used to because I'm going to bet a lot of them bill higher than that for the strategy work that they do. So I bill $800, you guys are only $375, cool, good deal.

Andrew:  Yep. And like every firm, the averages are misleading. Probably the mean is higher than the median. But the math you are describing is right. There are just certain laws of physics here given how many hours we are spending per client and that we are hiring sort of talented people and compensating them accordingly. Our cost to provide services is high and sort of requires a high average fee per client in order for the business to exist.

Michael:  So, out of curiosity then, you had talked earlier that you think your capacity probably gets up to about 60 clients per wealth advisor as people come up to capacity as you expand the team. So some wealth advisors that wear multiple hats can just focus on their clients. It seems you come to a lot of this with a great deal of intentionality. So I'm just curious, where did 60 clients come from as a prospective target?

Andrew:  Yeah. I think that has been found via, I don't know, trial and error of the 1 or 2 advisors who are full-time advisors as they have approached those numbers, that's when they started to reach their own capacity. I think it's worth noting several of the advisors, including myself, spend a good chunk of our time on the portfolio management process. Also, I think so if we have one person fully dedicated to portfolio management, he is running the trading and the actual execution, but if we were adding up part-time equivalents in the portfolio management process, my guess is that it would be more 3 or 4 people. It is a bit oversimplified, but we think...

Michael:  You have an investment committee that does research due diligence on what's going in the models, that kind of structure.

Andrew:  Yep. And sort of every trade is discussed with the client's wealth advisor before it is made in case there are any client-specific reasons why something should hold off or not be done. So, yeah, the way it runs now, the advisors are still very much involved in the investment process, although over time, we know that may not be entirely scalable.

Why Geometric Chose To Offer In-House Tax Services [45:42]

Michael:  So you've talked about the financial planning side and portfolio management. And talk to us about the tax offering.

Andrew:  Yeah. Right from the start in launching Geometric, I knew I wanted to somehow integrate tax services. I just knew it was a consistent pain point for the people we wanted to serve to find someone good and manage that relationship separately and deal with all of their tax complexity. And so right from the start, we set up a relationship with a third-party CPA and she did all of the tax services for our clients. And we integrated it as best we could and even paid her fees on behalf of our clients and that was fine. But I think we eventually outgrew that relationship and just any time you are outsourcing any part of the client experience, you lose control over it. And the bigger we got, the more problematic that felt.

So, a couple years in, we started to explore the possibility of bringing tax services fully in-house and spoke to a bunch of firms that had either done it or evaluated it and decided not to do it. And the overwhelming advice I received was, don't do it. The phrase I kept hearing was, oh, it's 90% of the headaches for 10% of the revenues, or some variation of that. And I guess, to some degree, I know what they were saying. It is a hard business for a variety of reasons. One, it's just expensive to deliver. It requires talented, credentialed, in-demand people, and in our case, people who are capable of working with the clients we serve. It requires added technology that sort of doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the technology in the firm often. And the most expensive element, which I didn't sort of fully appreciate right away, was it does reduce the total number of clients each advisor can serve if the wealth advisor is involved in the tax processes, which we think they should be because they are the ones who know the clients the best. So if they're involved in those work streams, this is a bit oversimplified, but I would say it reduces the number of clients each advisor can serve from 70 to 60, let's say. And that is really expensive.

Michael: When your client revenue average is tens of thousands of dollars peeling off. 10 clients you can serve is like that's a few hundred thousand dollars of revenue per advisor that comes down.

Andrew:  That's right. And there are other reasons it's challenging business to run. One, there is a serious war for talent among CPAs. If people think there's a war for talent among...for CFPs, it is almost not comparable to what's going on in CPA world. There's just sort of a pretty well-documented global shortage of CPAs and the public accounting firms, especially the "Big 4", are willing to do pretty much anything to keep their stars because their whole business model depends on it. There's also, I would just say, clients feel differently about tax services than they do about the rest of the financial planning process. Maybe clients don't lovingly engage with the tax process the way they may with the financial planning process done well. And bringing it in-house to some degree sort of knowingly absorbs those vibes in a way that doesn't happen even with a sort of integrated third-party provider. And so those are all the reasons not to do it. They are real.

Michael:  So why again did you do it?

Andrew:  Right. I think for us, ultimately, there was just one reason to do it, but it was the only one that matters, which is if done well, if sort of delivered with excellence, it is undeniably better for the clients to have it under one roof than not. And it's definitely true for our clients, who have a lot of tax complexity that overlaps with their financial planning complexity. I think it's probably true for every client, but it's especially true for those with tax complexity.

Michael:  You got high-income partner distributions. They're doing PE investing, so all those K-1s. They probably have a nexus to multiple states. You have multiple state returns to file. There's a lot of stuff.

Andrew:  Yeah. And so there's the integration benefit of, I think, we are better wealth advisors and financial planners and portfolio managers because we have full and real-time visibility into the client's tax situation. And I think our tax advisors are better because they have real-time visibility into the client's life and anytime something tax-relevant happens in their life. And obviously, that integration benefit also, it's not just sort of better outcomes, it's also better experience for the client. They are starting tax season with a tax advisor who already knows everything that happened in their life...everything tax-relevant that happened in their life over the prior year and has most of the documents.

But it's not just the integration benefit, I'd also say there's a real expertise benefit in that I would have to assume our tax advisors are the world's experts in the tax nuances of Bain, BCG, and McKinsey partners. Our clients have a lot of tax complexity, but it's all the same tax complexity for all of them. For all the reasons that specialization is helpful in financial planning, it is also helpful with tax planning for complexity. Once we understood sort of all of that calculus, it stopped being a question of, should we bring it in-house? And more a question of can we find the right people to deliver it with excellence because, if we can, then we should. And so that was a process that took a couple of years, but once we did, we did bring it fully in-house 3 or 4 years ago. And I would say right from the start, clients loved it.

Internally, we knew it would take a couple of years to learn how to do this in a manner that was as well-oiled as the other services we were providing. But once we reached that point, it has become a beautiful thing, and I kind of can't imagine not doing it for our clients at this point. I would say even with all of that said, when others approach me about the topic, I do say it's a lot easier for us because all of our clients fit within this niche. If we were trying to do this for a generalist firm where everybody's tax needs and complexity was different, I think that would be really hard to do at a high level. So I understand why others don't. But I think for us, it just comes down to…it is a hairy business, but if we're willing to do the hairy problems in order to solve a real pain point for our client, that makes us better and we're willing to do it.

Michael:  So you said there was kind of a mental shift from, will we do it in-house, where we feel like we just need to because it will be meaningful for clients if we can do it well and deliver with excellence. And so you shifted from will we do it to how do we find the people who can do it with excellence at the quality level that we expect. So, how did you find the people?

Andrew:  Yeah. That was a long process of recruiting. We tried tax-specific recruiters, but ultimately, many of the best hires of every firm, it came about through sort of personal relationships that were built over time. And so now the person who leads our tax team is Jen Knight. She is a former PWC CPA and was working with a lot of their clients who were partners of professional services firms or private equity investors and sort of already came in with a lot of the expertise we needed and has done a great job of building and recruiting a team around herself.

Michael:  And so you said there are 3 people on that team now.

Michael:  Do you do tax returns for every client?

Andrew:  Yeah, probably 99% of them, they're a couple who we don't for one reason or another, but we are probably doing them for 195+ of our 200 clients.

Michael:  And do you charge for it?

Andrew:  No, it's sort of wrapped into the AUM fee. And again, it all sort of comes down to total dollars paid relative to total value provided and the equation still works for us.

Michael:  So how do you think about capacity of the tax team? Advisor world, we kind of have our standard numbers of this many clients per advisor to manage ongoing relationships. We've got to presume the tax world's got some of its own of how many preparers you need to handle a certain number of tax returns. So I guess I'm curious about, sort of twofold, capacity, and what do they do in the 8 months of the year that isn't tax season?

Andrew:  Yeah, yeah. And I should say that so the 3 people on our tax team, 2 of them are client-facing tax advisors. One of them is a tax associate helping with all of the behind-the-scenes work. And so it is not sort of 200 divided by 3 in terms of capacity. I think that structure could serve maybe another 50 clients or so at which point we need a 3rd client-facing tax advisor and maybe another tax associate. So, roughly speaking, I think...

Michael:  These people aren't just hanging out behind the scenes to grind on returns during tax season. They're in client meetings because you said earlier a client meeting could be 2 wealth advisors and a financial planner and a tax advisor.

Andrew:  That's right. And it's not just sort of the sprint to April 15th for us. There definitely is that. And we're in the middle of it right now. But almost all of our clients file on extension because of K-1s. And so there's a sprint to complete the return to see if a payment will be owed at extension. Then there's another sprint in September and October once K-1s have been produced and returns need to be finalized. And then many, or maybe even most of our clients end up needing to make quarterly estimated tax payments. And we are doing all of those calculations each quarter for them. And so I remember originally worrying that if we bring on a tax team, they're going to be twiddling their thumbs for some portion of the year. That has definitely not been the case. It is sort of they're working hard pretty much year-round.

How Andrew Is Handling The "Dangerous Middle" As His Firm Grows [58:10]

Michael:  So, I'm cognizant these are not inexpensive people. You're staffed up to have 2, 3, 4 people in a meeting, all of whom are relatively expensive folks. So on the one hand, that math's a little bit better at just your average client size and your average revenue per advisor. But I'm curious how you think about these profitability margins? Is there a target of where you try to be on margins as you go through this growth phase?

Andrew:  Yeah, and this gets into the dangerous middle that you have written and spoken about so much so that we knew it was coming. And I guess I can report from the front lines that the phenomenon definitely exists. And I guess to summarize, what the dangerous middle or painful middle is, it's that as advisory firms grow from, let's call it, $250 million in assets under management to maybe $1 or $2 or $5 billion, depending on who you ask, I tend to believe it's probably the higher numbers.

Michael:  I think you start coming out of it north of...you find your way through it somewhere between $2 and $3 billion is what I see these days.

Andrew:  All right. Well, I'll let you know. But as you sort of have to bridge that chasm, it requires a lot of investment into, especially people, but also just technology and platforms that allow you to make that leap. And for many years, there are increased work and decreased profit margin. There are years of diseconomies of scale before you realize any economies of scale. And we have definitely sort of knowingly felt that there have been years where our margins were in the mid to high teens at the low level. And I'd say now they're slightly more normalized to industry norms. Somewhere in the mid-20s is probably what it will be. This year, I don't know that we set a specific target, period. I do suspect that longer term, it will normalize around 30% the way many larger RIAs do and maybe a little higher in the sense that one of the benefits of specialization should be higher profitability in the long run. But we're still very much in the thick of the dangerous middle.

Michael:  Well, I think that's a powerful thing to reflect, right? Well, your revenue has been going through this cycle, but when you're talking about millions of dollars of revenue and 5%, 10%, 15% swings in margins from the low point that you were in the mid-teens to...I guess not the high point but the long-term normalized target of 30% or low 30s, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars of profitability that's curtailed in that growth phase for you. It's a lot of dollars of reinvestment for growing through this.

Andrew:  Yep. And maybe that gets into sort of a more philosophical discussion on growth and why a firm should grow or not. I would probably start that by saying, I don't think every advisor or firm should feel the pressure to grow. I believe that some of the best advisors with some of the happiest clients are those that choose not to grow and instead obsess over their 50 or 100 great clients. That's especially true if they choose to specialize. You sort of have to ask yourself why grow in the first place.

For us to build the firm that we want to build, we need to grow for a few reasons. One, and most importantly, we need firm-level growth to provide career growth to the people on our team. And I can say from experience, sort of the more talented the people, the faster the career growth they need and the more firm-level growth required to meet it. Two, I think size done correctly can benefit existing clients. So we are definitely providing clients more now than I was as a solo advisor in 2015, and even significantly more than we were 4 or 5 years ago. I think we have a roadmap of services and tools we would still like to be able to provide to clients entirely in-house that we don't yet have the size to do.

Michael:  What else is on your list that you still can't do?

Andrew:  I'd say the one that comes up the most frequently is in-house estate attorneys. We are still relying on outsourced providers. It's obviously harder for estate law because our clients are spread in many different states, but we do think there's a model where we have in-house estate attorneys and it benefits our clients. And there are other tools and proprietary technology that we think would benefit our niche that we don't have the size to even sort of attempt at this point. So, I think done well, it will benefit our existing clients. It's just much easier said than done.

And I think many firms in all professional service industries, this is where they go awry, which is the pressures to grow result in sort of diluted experience to existing clients. And I think we are only willing to grow at a rate where that's not the case. And we'll talk more about, I guess, how we limit the growth. So that's the second reason to grow.

I guess the third reason to grow is there are still many people within our niche who need or want our services that we don't have the capacity to serve and to the extent that. I'm a believer in the power of financial planning. I really do think it can enhance people's lives, done well. And there are many people in the niche who want what we do and we don't have the capacity to serve it, to say nothing of all of the partners at the 3 firms that are going to be promoted over the next 10 or 20 years. And so for all of those reasons, we need to grow and want to grow, but we're only willing to do it at the rate that 1, maintains or enhances our experience for existing clients and 2, does not overwhelm our team. And we throttle that by at the start of each year figuring out how many new clients we're willing to onboard in a given year.

And last year, that number was right around 35. I think we did a good job of maintaining standards for existing clients, but many people on the team felt overwhelmed last year. And it probably just speaks to the comprehensiveness of the planning that we do upfront. And so this year we've set that number at 25, and we'll see how that goes and how that feels, and maybe we'll ramp it back up next year or maybe we won't.

Why Geometric Assesses Its "Talent Density" First Before Deciding How Many Clients To Onboard [1:06:04]

Andrew: But I think all of this maybe speaks to a slightly nuanced but fundamentally different approach to growth, which is we're only willing to grow at the rate at which we feel like we can hire and train people who increase the density of talent on our team. And that's harder to do and needs to be done slowly.

And so we use that number to determine our capacity for new clients rather than the other way around, which is figure out how many new clients we can squeeze through the door in a given year and hire to meet that capacity. I guess we feel that is a recipe for the pressures of growth, lowering the bar on hiring standards. And once that starts, it sort of is very difficult to ever turn back around. Go ahead.

Michael:  So let me try to understand this. You don't just try to grow based on literally the capacity of the business in how many people can you squeeze through the proverbial funnel without breaking. I think you said you're growing at the pace that you can increase the density of talent on the team. So can you explain more what that means?

Andrew:  Yeah. I think if you look at any professional service industry, the firms that are the best of the best in those industries, it's a pretty straightforward formula. They are the ones that are the best at recruiting, developing, and retaining the most talented people in that industry. And I think that is much easier to say than to do. And by the way, I think potentially, the 3 best companies in the world at those capabilities are Bain, BCG, and McKinsey.

But to the extent that we sort of aspire to do the same, albeit at a much smaller scale, a microscale compared to that, we kind of know our limiting factor is our ability to recruit and train people to do the work that we do the way that we do it. And density of talent, I guess, is an expression that's common in other industries and maybe not of ours, but hopefully, it's relatively self-explanatory in that how talented to the extent that that can be measured, which of course you can't. The team as a whole, is that increasing or decreasing at any given time for a company, and our fear is having that decrease over time, and we're only willing to grow at the rate that it increases over time.

Michael:  So what is that rate? What are the parameters around that rate? I'm assuming there's a too-low number and a too-high number, maybe a Goldilocks-ish thing in between that's viable.

Andrew:  Yeah. This year, I think we're going to hire 4 people. Next year, I think it's another 4 or 5. And then we use that total team size and each individual person's capacity on that team to determine how many clients to onboard in a given year. And to put this in perspective, this year we are going to onboard 25 clients. Where it gets tricky is that we are likely to receive somewhere around 75 or 80 referrals from our core niche clients to other potential clients in the core niche. And that's where things get very hard.

Michael:  Because it's one thing to say we only want to grow so fast, it's another to actually turn down ideal clients that were referred by your ideal clients.

Michael:  So how do you handle?

Andrew:  We will receive 80 total client referrals this year. I shouldn't have said they'll all be in our core niche. A good chunk of them, no matter how clear you make your core niche to your clients, you will receive referrals to clients who are not...potential clients who are not in your core niche. When that happens, we consider it our responsibility to help them find an advisor who specializes in their situation, ideally, and we help them through that process of finding that advisor, even if it takes multiple meetings to do so. And we just consider that our obligation to our clients for having made the referral.

Michael:  You're pushing the upper limits of your growth capacity. It's a lot easier to say, nice opportunity, but I'm going to refer it out because you don't want to take too many at once. Because then you have to hire staff faster than you can train them. And then service quality goes down.

Andrew:  Yeah. And it also just wouldn't feel right. I don't think we are the best firm for pretty much anyone outside of those in our core niche. We have sort of optimized every square inch of the firm and the processes and the people and everything else around our niche. And we know we do that really well. And that has to come at the expense of pretty much everything else. And so if we don't think we're the best for our clients, it wouldn't be right for us to take them on. So I guess the number dwindles from 80 to something like 50 that way. And then it does get really hard. And we do have a bit of a queue and a waiting list that we're trying to manage and trying to build capacity to meet. But that is hard. And I think our clients and potential clients understand that ultimately, it's probably a good thing that this is the case. But yeah, that is what I personally spend a lot of my time thinking about and fretting over.

Michael:  How do you do this core, recruiting, developing, retaining cycle that you're focused on? I don't know if that's your natural gift that you're good at this or if you're building team around it.

Andrew:  Yep. On the advisor side, up to this point, most of our advisors have been career changers directly from consulting, from Bain, BCG, and McKinsey often. And that there is no sort of formal way to go about that. That is a lot of networking and meeting people in that world who express an interest in doing something like this. And to a large degree, that has been the limiting factor, right? We have really only been able to do that at a rate of about one person per year or even less. It's not just recruiting. It's also then, they are total career changers into financial planning, and it's all of the training necessary to get someone capable of serving our clients. That's been the real limiting factor.

I would say we just take recruiting seriously in general for all roles and are in recruiting mode at all times. And for every role, we do a lot on LinkedIn for that sort of proactively reaching out to people. And, yeah, I guess that's the... I wouldn't say we have a formal process around it, but that is something that our COO has largely taken over and is under her domain.

Why Geometric Hired A COO Relatively Early On [1:14:25]

Michael:  So can you talk more then about the COO role? When you look historically to advisory firms, that...well, for most of our history, that role basically didn't exist. Founders or multiple founders and partners would split executive-level duties on top of their client duties and the rest, and that was just kind of how it was done. I feel like maybe 5 to 10 years ago, you started seeing some COOs showing up at advisory firms, typically somewhere in the $1 to $2 billion AUM range, somewhere in the $10 to $20 million revenue range. Firms are like, this is getting a little crazy. I think we need someone just to manage this. You've hired a COO role much earlier than that. I think, as you said, you're crossing $6 million of run-rate revenue right now, and you already hired the person. So you hired them in an earlier stage in that. So help us understand I guess what triggered the COO hire, and what does that role actually do in your firm?

Andrew:  Yeah. The last part is a good question because I know the COO role is different at every RIA, and sometimes it's a technology-focused role or a client service-focused role. For us, it is definitely a people management-focused role. And it goes back to what I was saying about the belief that for professional services firms that do the best are the ones that are the best at recruiting, developing, and retaining the most talented people. Bain, BCG, and McKinsey being the best at this capability.

So, I think people in our industry would be shocked if they knew how much resources all 3 of those firms pour into those categories and especially the training side of things. I think there is a reason why every alumni of McKinsey puts in their LinkedIn tagline that they were ex-McKinsey. It's because it means something to have worked there and gone through that training. It's not just that it was difficult to get a job there in the first place. Although that's part of it. It's that they receive a pretty incredible level of training while there such that they quickly level themselves up professionally at a rate that just doesn't happen elsewhere. And I think that's one of the main reasons those 3 firms are at or near the top of every best places to work list that comes out nationally. And especially given that we had people career changing from consulting, realized our people were sort of craving more of that and especially the development part of it.

I think we were doing pretty well at recruiting and well at retaining, but the development part was lacking. And I knew I wasn't the person to build that. I have no experience in doing so. I have only worked for small companies and mostly for an RIA. So, we wanted to hire someone who could and who did have that experience. And so 2 years ago, we brought Julie Higgins onto the team as our COO. And Julie is a former Bain consultant who then transitioned into a practice management and people management role at a different consulting firm. And so she had done this at the highest level. She also happened to be a client of Geometric's and someone I had known personally for many years before that. So there was a lot of sort of trust and knowledge on both sides going in.

And Julie joined us essentially to level up our people management along with a bunch of other functions that she immediately took over, especially those that didn't require industry knowledge coming in, like finance. And her primary mandate is to build out all of the processes that would make us great at those things. And so that includes things like defined career paths for every role and every person at the firm with detailed skills, progressions of what's needed along the way, and formal training for each new role that someone comes into. It is sort of feedback mechanisms, both frequent informal feedback mechanisms and more formal mid-year and year-end 360-degree review processes. It's also annual goal setting for every employee and sort of accountability systems throughout the year to ensure that they're meeting those.

And to be clear, we don't have all of that built yet. Some of those we're a long way from building, but the goal is to get there. And I think we're moving in the right direction. I will say one lesson from bringing in a COO or really bringing in a person focused on people management that I wouldn't have known in advance or appreciated, but it helps a lot that Julie is a naturally good-hearted person. I think this role in the wrong hands could go very badly. All of those things I mentioned could be viewed as some sort of top-down, undesirable management technique instead of what we want them to be, which is systems that support each person's career development the way they want to develop. And I think the fact that Julie is naturally kind and caring and supportive goes a long way such that I think people on our team are willing to trust her with their career development, and that has been really important to us.

What Surprised Andrew During Geometric's Fast Growth Phase [1:21:04]

Michael:  So as you reflect back on this journey over the past couple of years, what surprised you the most about this fast growth phase of the business? You've basically added about a half a billion dollars in 3 or 4 years all organically from client growth. So what surprised you the most about navigating through that kind of fast growth phase?

Andrew:  Yeah. I guess it's just that problems never actually get solved, they just change along the way. I think I'm sort of naturally inclined to want to have things simplified and solved forever, and that's just not going to happen when you are growing fast. And so it requires sort of constant iterative changes to everything, sort of the org chart, advisory team structure, the offering, and everything else. And it requires getting comfortable with that.

And I sometimes have to remind myself, because I don't think I am naturally comfortable with that. I kind of have to remind myself why I wanted to grow a business in the first place. And I guess the real decision there was, when I reached the point where it could have just been a healthy lifestyle firm, and I already said how much I admire and respect those, I had to decide whether I was going to stop there or build a team and grow a business. And I think for me personally, at that point, I had already been an advisor for a number of years. And not that I had perfected it or anything, but it didn't feel...the role of the advisor didn't necessarily feel challenging on a day-to-day basis.

And I had never attempted to build a business, and I knew that would be very challenging for me. And for the desire to grow myself professionally in the 20-plus years I was hoping to continue to work is what led me to want to build a business in the first place. And I guess I'm saying this out loud as some form of self-therapy, because I have to remind myself that when those challenges come in, those are the things that I... Those are not a bug. Those are a feature. Those are what will grow us now as a team professionally. And that's why we did it in the first place.

The Low Point For Andrew During Geometric's Growth Phase [1:23:54]

Michael:  So what was the low point over the past few years in this growth phase?

Andrew:  Yeah. I think for me, it was the spring and summer of 2020, the first few months of the pandemic. Like you said, you and I recorded our first interview in February 2020, and it aired in April 2020, and between those 2 things, the whole world changed. And that was stressful for everybody, certainly financial advisors, certainly working parents. And at the time, our daughters were 5 and 2. Like everybody else, their school and childcare closed, they were at home. My job got very busy. My wife's job got very busy. She does tax policy here in DC. And we had the kids at home. I know I'm not alone in that situation. In fact, many people on our team were in the same situation.

And as everyone remembers, markets were in freefall. And not only that, our clients were very stressed about their own careers. There was question at the time whether the consulting business model would ever exist the same way again. And I remember listening to our first podcast. It was just 2 months later, and I remember thinking the things I was talking about felt so suddenly trivial, and it felt like all of it was kind of on the verge of slipping away. And, of course, that only lasted a few months, right? And thankfully, the world didn't end and schools reopened and markets recovered and consulting continues to exist and everything else, but that was a stressful stretch.

What Andrew Would Tell Himself From 4 Years Earlier [1:25:54]

Michael: So what do you know now you wish you could go back and tell you 4 years ago about this journey? I guess either pertaining to pandemic or even just more broadly over...as you've noted this constant pace of change over the past several years.

Andrew:  I think one big learning for me has been how many of the best lessons come from other industries, especially other professional service industries. I have been an RIA industry nerd for essentially my whole career. And even before that, my dad started an RIA when I was in high school. And so I have been heads-down in RIA world for most of my adult life, and I think that does provide a good grounding. But I have learned from especially others on the team who have come from other great professional services firms that ultimately, all professional service firms in every industry are more alike than they are different.

I think one benefit we have on all of this is the fact that we are fully remote, and we haven't sort of fully talked about that, but I would be happy to spend a few minutes on that if that would be helpful.

How Geometric Operates On A Fully Remote Model [1:27:21]

Michael:  Sure, I'm very curious to hear how that's played out for you, particularly with all of the fast-paced changes. It's one thing to manage a team virtually, because we work together in the office for years, and now we're mostly doing it from home. It's another when 50% or more of your team has joined in the past 2 years and may or may not have actually met anybody else that they work with in person ever. But there's supposed to be this high-functioning team working with high-power clients.

Andrew:  Yep. And this is probably the thing I get asked the most about by other people in the industry. It's interesting. Internally, we can go months at a time without it even coming up. We are, I guess, the fish swimming in water that don't realize they're in water. It doesn't seem like a thing to us. And maybe there's insight into that fact alone.

And I also just acknowledge sort of every firm is different, and we are fully remote and always have been. And that's a very different situation than a firm trying a hybrid model or a firm trying to convert from in-person to remote. I know those are challenging, and I haven't been through them and don't have great advice there. For us, the benefits of being fully remote have just dramatically outweighed the drawbacks, and I'm happy to discuss both the pros and the cons. But the benefits...

Michael:  What do you see as pros and cons?

Andrew:  Yeah. For us, the main benefit is the ability to cast a wider net when hiring. And to put that in perspective, when we post a job, we typically don't take down the listing until we have received 300 applications and 20 to 25 people we'd be excited to invite for a first-round interview. And I know that's a different experience than in-person firms have. And it's not just sort of a wider geographic net, it's also just different, it's opening up a different group of people, right?

There are people out there who need to move every few years. We have several people on our team who are military spouses, including leaders at Geometric who are military spouses who couldn't have continuity of their careers elsewhere. And there are just people who live in regions where working for an RIA isn't...an in-person RIA isn't even possible.

So the main benefit has always been the ability to cast a wider net when hiring. There are other benefits, right? We wouldn't get to work with the niche that we work with if we weren't providing these services fully virtually. It's already a pretty specific group of people. If we were limiting that to trying to start it in one city, we just wouldn't have a business.

Michael:  Okay. So the viability of the niche is tied to the fact that you can get anyone anywhere in the country who fits your big 3 consulting firm niche, not big 3 consulting firm people in the greater DC metropolitan area.

Andrew:  Right. And it also just matches their desired way of working. They are mostly in their 30s and early 40s. They're on the road. They have young kids. They would rather be served virtually, and they're happy to find a firm that is so specialized to their needs. I can't even remember the last time a client asked anything about an in-person meeting or anything like that.

Michael:  Probably just happy they don't have to get on a plane again.

Andrew:  Yeah. And so there is a benefit for both recruiting and clients. And I think a lot of what we have built has been thanks to that. There are sort of true drawbacks. They're often not what people ask about, but I'm happy to sort of tick through the list and say how we think about them. So, I sometimes get asked, how do you monitor people on the team to ensure they're working hard or working well or not slacking off? I'll just say that one has always struck me as a little bit silly. It has literally never come up in conversation in our 9-year history. I think it just comes down to hiring the right people. And if you do, you don't have to worry about that. And if you don't, you have to worry about that whether you're in person or not. So, that one's never felt like a true drawback.

I think there is what you were alluding to, which is, well, it's okay for experienced employees, but how do you train new people? I think the answer there is you just have to be far more planful and intentional about it. We have now onboarded 20-plus people to the team, all remotely, most of whom were career changers. So I know it's possible. It just requires being really prescriptive, starting in the weeks leading up to people's start date, to ensure they have everything they need for their home office to be productive and comfortable. And then, more importantly, really scripting out their first few weeks and who they will be spending every hour with and who will be training them on what. And then once you're through that sprint, I think training just becomes the same as at every other firm where you are looking over the shoulder or sitting side by side with the person training you. It's just that that happens over Zoom and screen share and not literally in person. So, that one is doable, it just requires more planfulness.

And I will say our last several employees have all made or some comment similar to this has been the most sort of structured and well-thought-out onboarding process. And, I guess one, that's just a testament to our business operations team. And two, it's because it has to be, we have to do it that way, or else we really would have people with nothing to do in their living rooms.

Another one is remote work might be good for individual workers, individual contributors, but it restricts teamwork or collaboration. I don't know, it's possible I don't know what I don't know here, and I just don't... I'm missing out on how everybody else does it, but I don't think so. We essentially work in teams on everything all the time. It's just that is all happening via Slack and Zoom instead of in a conference room. And it has worked well for us, although admittedly, maybe there is some leakage there that I'm not aware of, but it doesn't feel that way.

But then the last one, I'd say, is the big one, and you alluded to it right from the start. So how do you build culture when everybody is fully remote? And I guess to us, culture is a big all-encompassing word that factors in a lot of things, but broadly speaking, it is, one, all of the values and norms and behaviors that define how your team works together. And two, it's everything else that goes into the employee experience. On the first part, I think if your firm has very clearly stated and core values, and they are honest and not aspirational, and everyone on the team sort of inherently shares those values because they are the primary filter you are using when hiring, and that you use sort of those same filters for evaluations and promotions and compensation and everything else, then I think you can have a very sort of strong and clear and positive way of working, whether you're in person or not. People sometimes say the Geometric way of working, I don't think we've ever fully defined that term, but people know what it means because we're all sort of working the same way. So I think that part of it doesn't require in-person work.

I think the hardest part, and where the real dangers lie, is in the employee experience element of it. I think remote work risks people feeling lonely or isolated, or I think it's more likely that people burn out or just get sort of daily Zoom fatigue, right? I just think people need human interaction for their own well-being. I know that I do. And that is the hardest part to support in a remote environment. I guess we go about it a few different ways.

First, and I don't think this is the true solution, but we do foster in-person get-togethers as much as possible. The big one is we do an annual offsite each year where we fly everyone from where they are to just have a few days together hanging out with no work on the agenda. Last year, we did it at a lodge in the mountains of Colorado. And that helps, and we do smaller informal versions of that regionally and locally and by department. But that can't be the total answer. At best, that is still less than 10 days a year, and I think people need more connection than that.

And so for us, the real answer has been you need to offer people maximum flexibility to live their lives in a way that they can get that connection and well-being and flexibility in their own life and from the people they live in physical proximity with who are the most important to them. And that can be done a lot of different ways, both sort of formally and informally. And we spend a lot of time on that. That starts with unlimited time off for any reason, sort of not only with no questions asked, but met with a lot of supportiveness from everyone on the team. And those are sort of everything from big multi-week vacations that people take to unplanned, it's a snow day, my kids are home from school, and I want to go sledding with them. I'm going to miss the next 2 meetings. All of those are met with a high degree of supportiveness.

We also have something called Wellness Wednesday, where there's a two-hour block on everyone's calendar every Wednesday afternoon where there are no meetings and, ideally, no work allowed, and people are expected to spend that time pursuing whatever they need for their own well-being. It might be a workout, it might be gardening, it might be an app. There's sort of no judgments on Wellness Wednesday. And then there are sort of more typical policies. There's a generous parental leave policy that applies to both moms and dads equally. We are considering a sabbatical policy. During COVID, we instituted something where for those whose kids were home for school closures, we paid for their at-home child care, which only seemed fair because we were asking them to continue working. And I guess all of this... You can do all of that and it still doesn't mean you don't have people on the team who aren't sort of burnt out and overwhelmed at any given time. You almost by definition do. It's just... I guess we say that's not an acceptable permanent state of the world, and when that happens, we redeploy as necessary and change things so that it doesn't last. And I guess if you do all of that, you can create a great employee experience, especially for a group of people who have self-selected into that way of working in the first place, and that's how we approach it.

Andrew's Advice For Advisors Entering A Faster Growth Phase [1:40:11]

Michael:  So any other advice you'd have to advisors that are gearing up for a faster growth phase, I guess, like remote or otherwise? Doesn't have to be specific to the remote world, but just these lessons learned over adding a half a billion dollars in 3 or 4 years.

Andrew:  Yeah. I think my advice for advisors at any stage, new or growing or about to embark on a growth stage, would be work your way towards a specialization and, ideally, find the group of people for whom you want to be the expert and ideally, the world's foremost expert. And if that feels daunting or intimidating, it just means the niche is...you have defined the niche too broadly because anybody can do it as long as they define the niche narrowly enough. And then once you have found that, you are positioned for whatever you want. It could be a highly profitable lifestyle practice. It could be a fast-growing sort of business turning to an enterprise, but either way, the fact that you have very narrowly defined your target audience makes all of it easier and in my opinion, better.

Michael:  I like how you framed that, find a group of people you want to be the expert...ideally the foremost expert. And if that seems intimidating, then just narrow the niche more. Because anyone can do it if the niche is narrow enough. True enough people, you will literally get to a point where no one else does what you do for those people and you are immediately the leading experts.

Andrew:  And that doesn't mean that every narrow niche is going to work. And, of course, take some experimentation. And it's okay if you start too broad and narrow or want to pivot entirely. But once you find, let's call it product market fit with a given niche, you can feel it and they can feel it. And that's when, if you want to grow, you can sort of go all in on that niche and build everything around them. And I think it sort of sets up better for growth and scalability for sure.

What Success Means To Andrew [1:42:31]

Michael:  So as we come to the end of the podcast, one of our themes always is just this word success means different things to different people. Sometimes it changes for us as we go through evolution of our careers, growth stages of our own businesses. And so the business is now on this amazing fast growth trajectory. How do you define success for yourself at this point?

Andrew:  I think for me it's just feeling proud about what we are building. It's feeling pride in the team we are assembling and the work we're doing for clients and how we are going about it. And I think, I guess allowing success to be determined by pride could be coming from different places. I hope it's coming from a healthy place inside and not sort of a place of ego or comparison. I think it's coming from wanting to build something that is great for our team and our clients. And when I get to the core of it, I guess I just feel that we all just get one life and one career, and it is precious. And if I'm going to make helping to build this for my life's work, then I just want to feel proud of what I do with it. And I think that's what is driving it for me.

Michael:  I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much, Andrew, for rejoining us with this update on the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Andrew:  Thank you, Michael.

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Pavement Management Plan Provides Key Data on City of San Diego Road Conditions

April 9, 2024 | City News Team

Following a comprehensive condition assessment of every paved street segment in the City of San Diego, a long-awaited Pavement Management Plan outlines a data-driven strategy for pavement management across the City and identifies the need for long-term investment to maintain and improve San Diego’s vast network of roads.

Today, staff from the City’s Transportation Department will present the Pavement Management Plan to the City Council including a five-year plan that identifies specific streets and road repair that will be conducted citywide if funding is identified. The five-year plan is incorporated into  StreetsSD , an interactive webpage that allows San Diegans to see ongoing and future paving projects in their neighborhoods, and to search information about individual streets.

"This crucial data gives us what we need to make informed strategic investments in our roads and the long-term plan on how to do that," said Mayor Todd Gloria. "What the Pavement Management Plan reveals is the need for major funding to reverse decades of neglect that allowed our street network to fall into serious disrepair. That’s the work that lies ahead." 

The City  first unveiled  the Pavement Management Plan in January along with the results of the condition assessment, known as a Pavement Condition Index (PCI), in which the City scored 63 points, putting San Diego’s overall road network in the “Fair” category. PCI scores range from zero to 100 with a target network average of 70 being the industry standard.

During the data-gathering process, every mile of San Diego’s paved roadways was analyzed by lasers and other tools to measure pavement surface distress, such as cracks and potholes. Prior to this, the City performed its last road condition assessment in 2016, resulting in a PCI score of 71.

With a network of paved roads, alleyways and unimproved streets, the City of San Diego maintains more than 6,600 lane miles of roadway and has the second largest street network in California.

In the FY24 budget, Mayor Gloria dedicated a record $140 million investment to repair City streets by focusing on repairing San Diego’s high-volume roadways. In 2023, 254 miles of roadway were repaired or resurfaced, and more than 61,300 potholes were filled, a 94% increase over the prior year.

“Having this condition assessment data is crucial for our operations so that our team can be more strategic and cost-effective in allocating limited resources for road repair and maintenance , ” said Bethany Bezak, Transportation Department Director. “What the Pavement Management Plan shows is that a significant investment is needed over the long term in order to prevent further deterioration of our roads and to bring San Diego’s PCI score closer to the industry standard where our residents expect us to be as the 8 th  largest city in the United States.”   

The Pavement Management Plan points out that funding for road repair in the City has been inconsistent over the past 10 years and has been dependent on impacts to the City’s General Fund budget. Dedicated funding for road repair from state and county funding sources such as the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account (RMRA) and TransNet are insufficient to keep up with necessary repairs. The City expects to receive approximately $52.1 million for road repair from these sources in fiscal year 2025. However, this is far less than the projected $227.8 million needed in fiscal year 2025 to ensure the City’s road network is maintained in good condition, meaning it would require an investment of $175.7 million from the General Fund.

Each year, road repair must compete with a multitude of other priorities for limited General Fund resources to close the remaining funding gap. The Pavement Management Plan points to the need for additional resources to provide a consistent, substantial investment in road repair on an annual basis.

A  report released last week  from the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) confirmed the Pavement Management Plan takes a fiscally responsible approach to planning for future road repair and maintenance. When it comes to expanding the City’s current levels of road repair activity, the IBA report also analyzed the cost effectiveness of adding in-house repair crews to conduct some of the work currently done by contracted paving crews.

Due to space constraints identified at the Chollas Operations Yard, which currently houses crews from the Transportation, Stormwater and General Services departments, the IBA report recommends the City explore a potential new location to house Transportation crews in the future, along with a cost-benefit analysis on potential sites to ensure the efficient use of City resources.

The Transportation Department comprises nearly 500 employees including engineers, planners, equipment operators, electricians, technicians, field crews and management staff to service the City’s extensive public right of way. Of those, 110 staff are dedicated to maintaining and improving the City’s pavement condition, including nine in-house teams that conduct pothole repair, mill and pave work, trench restoration and engineering.

To view the complete Pavement Management Plan and to learn more about road repair in San Diego, visit the  Pavement Management Plan page  on the City’s website.

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