Alex Panosian, CEO of StartGuides
Alex Panosian is the CEO of StartGuides, a company that makes digital instruction manuals for complex military equipment. He shares how the Coaching Group has benefited him as a first-time CEO in building a stable, enduring business.
I joined the group because I was looking for a cohort of companies and fellow CEOs, as well as a guide in Victor to people that are thinking about growth and how to grow a company in an enduring and stable way that it’s going to be predictable year after year.
I’m a first-time CEO. So, talking to other people that have been in the seat for 10, 15, 20 years has been really helpful just to realize we all deal with kind of the same issues. And no matter what our businesses are doing, if they’re a little bit different, our problems are very similar. That’s reassuring for me to know, but also helpful because you hear different people’s takes on those challenges.
For us, a major focus this year was on the sales front, and we actually had a record sales year. We were in a place where our most experienced and really the company’s only salesperson was going to retire. And so we have stood up an entire sales org around that, a lot of which took a lot of the principles that Victor talked about in class to implement that in real life and in real time.
It’s nice to have an objective view on your business from someone who’s seen it a lot of times. It’s really nice to have that twice a month. Just pick your head up, think about the business more holistically, and then talk about it with someone who wants to see you succeed.
If a CEO were to ask me whether or not they should join the group, I would say, “Absolutely.” Because the value’s there… that’s the biggest thing, right? It’s worth your time and it’s worth the investment in it and it really is that. It’s an investment in learning and hearing and getting feedback on the things that are going to impact your business and actually allow you to build a stable, enduring business.