How to Hire a General Manager (or Why We Build a Bench of Directors Instead)

Before you hire a general manager, ask whether you need one. Our view: one person running everything is a single point of failure. Build a bench of directors, or hire a mid-level operations manager who has led people. Hire for culture fit and operations skill, not industry, and do not hire anyone to hold your people accountable for you.

That is the short answer for a trades owner. If you are still building the crew under that seat, start with our full system for hiring technicians, then come back here.

It is nine at night and you are still the answer to every question. A tech wants a ruling on a callback, a CSR wants to know who can approve a discount, and the dispatch board is waiting on you. So you tell yourself a general manager will fix it. Maybe. But before you hand one person the keys to the company, ask a harder question: what happens to this company if that one person leaves, or turns on you?

Do You Need a General Manager at All?

In one of our owner Q&A sessions, an owner asked Mike Agugliaro how to know whether he had the right general manager candidate and whether to hire one right away. Mike's answer to the first part was blunt: "my belief is never hire a general manager at all, but it could be my own trauma."

We want to be honest about that. It is our belief, not a law. It comes from getting burned, and Mike said so himself. But the reason underneath it holds up no matter who you are. If you plan to sell your company someday, Mike's point was that with one general manager you are facing, in his words, "the most critical wealth vehicle of your life and the greatest risk you have to bet." The biggest wealth event of your life should not depend on one person's goodwill.

One Person Is a Single Point of Failure

In a Legacy session, Mike put it in five words:

Anything of one is dangerous.

One big manager who manages everything is all your eggs in one basket, the same way one vehicle or one company feeding all your business is. If that one goes away, you are in big trouble.

Think about what that looks like in your shop. One general manager holds the dispatch board, the techs' trust, the customer relationships, and the numbers. When that person gets a better offer, gets sick, or gets angry, all four walk out the door together. Write down who owns what in a trades company before you hire, and the answer may turn out to be several seats, not one person.

The Bench: Directors Instead of One General Manager

When Mike sold his company, he had three directors. His reason, in his words: "if one goes away you still have two left." He added that some people think you are paying too much for that, but you are creating safety mechanisms. In a Legacy session he called the idea "a strong bench of managers."

We are not telling you to copy a number. Three directors is how Mike did it, not a rule for your shop, and what a bench looks like at your size depends on your company. The principle is the point: no single person should be able to take the company down with them.

You can also grow the bench from inside. In one Momentum Labs session Mike explained how, with a manager seat meaning ownership rather than doing everything. Once you have four or five electricians, one becomes a team leader. In his words, "Team leaders move into service managers. Service managers eventually can move up into director's level." That is a bench you built yourself, one promotion at a time.

The bench is also how an owner leaves the daily chaos without betting the company on one person. We cover the shift in our guide to getting the owner out of the field.

If You Need Someone to Run Operations, Hire an Operations Lead

Mike's answer to that owner did not stop at "no." He said, "hire an operation role if you feel it's that much of a problem." You do not have to call it a general manager. The role he described is mid-level operations: someone used to managing people.

He drew one line clearly. There is a difference between communicating and managing, and trying to be everybody's friend. In his words, "most people try to be everybody's friend and then that falls apart quickly." The person running your operations is there to communicate clearly and manage people. If they want to be liked by every tech and every CSR, the seat will not hold.

What to Look For: Culture Fit and Operations Skill, Not Industry

Before you interview anyone, get clear on the skills, the competencies, and the culture fit you want. Mike told that owner he did not care about the industry. "I don't care what industry they're from," he said. What he looks for:

• Operations experience.
• An understanding of roles, duties, processes, and systems.
• High-level communication.
• An understanding of human behavior, enough to help people.

A resume with HVAC, plumbing, or electrical on it does not guarantee any of that. Running a truck and running a team are different skills, and the second one is what this seat needs.

Culture fit is where we have been burned. Mike told the story in that session of hiring for toughness, a drill-sergeant style, because he thought it would hold people accountable. It did not fit, and it cost us people. Hire for the culture you actually run.

And watch for a culture that runs only on rewards. Mike described another manager who got people to act by feeding them a carrot. His warning: "the day you don't give the horse a carrot it wants to kick back." If people only act when they are rewarded, the day you stop feeding them they push back.

Do Not Hire Someone to Hold People Accountable for You

The owner asked for exactly that: someone other than himself to hold people accountable. Mike's answer was blunt: "you cannot hold people accountable, it doesn't last long term." He said whoever you hire to do it will struggle too, because that person will have less respect than you have.

What you can do is help people learn to be accountable to themselves. Mike said he had roles to manage, to coach, and to train, but none whose job was to hold people accountable. His definition: accountability is "everybody knowing how they affect the other person." That is self-accountability, and it is what makes a team run when you are not in the room.

You are not hiring a bouncer for your crew. You are building a team that owns its results.

How to Hire a General Manager (or Operations Lead), Step by Step

Here are the steps we are comfortable standing behind, because they are the ones Mike taught.

1. Ask whether you need one. What breaks if this one person walks out?
2. Decide between a bench of directors and one operations lead.
3. If you choose one operations lead, write the role as managing people and running operations. It is not the role of the owner's friend.
4. Get clear on skills, competencies, and culture fit before you interview.
5. Look for operations experience, an understanding of roles, duties, processes, and systems, and strong communication. Industry is secondary.
6. Do not hire someone to hold people accountable for you. Build self-accountability on the team.

We are not going to hand you a generic interview script, a pay range, or a 30-60-90 plan here. Those depend on your company, and we would rather work through them with you than guess.

Where This Fits in How We Coach Owners

We teach this thinking in our rooms, starting in Core and moving up through Ascension and Alliance. To see how our blue-collar business coaching works, start there. See the Alliance path for owners ready to scale if you are further along. Alliance is by invitation, through an evaluation.

Ready to Make the Right First Leadership Hire?

Want to learn how to grow and scale a home service business backed by $500 million worth of results?

Mike Agugliaro spent thirty-plus years in the trenches, scaled his own companies past $500 million in sales, and walked away with a successful exit. We built our rooms to hand owners that playbook, including how to build a team that does not depend on any one person. If you are weighing your first big leadership hire, let's talk business owner to business owner. Straight up, no pitch. Results are not guaranteed and depend on your execution.

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FAQ

How do I hire a general manager for my trades company?

Start by asking whether you need one. If you do, decide between a bench of directors and a single operations lead, write the role around managing people and running operations, and get clear on skills, competencies, and culture fit before you interview. Look for operations experience and strong communication. Industry is secondary. Do not hire someone to hold people accountable for you.

Do I need a general manager at all?

Maybe not. Mike Agugliaro's belief is to never hire a general manager at all, and he admits it could be his own trauma. Our view is that one person holding everything is a risk. If you feel the pressure is too much, a mid-level operations role or a bench of directors can carry the load without putting the whole company in one person's hands.

Why is one general manager a risk?

Because anything of one is dangerous. If one person runs dispatch, techs, customers, and the numbers, the day that person leaves, gets sick, or turns on you, you lose all of it at once. If you plan to sell someday, the sale can end up depending on one person's goodwill. A bench of directors means that if one goes away, you still have others.

What should I look for in an operations manager?

Look for operations experience, an understanding of roles, duties, processes, and systems, high-level communication, and an understanding of human behavior. Mike Agugliaro describes the ideal as mid-level operations, someone used to managing people. Get clear on culture fit before you interview, because a hire who does not fit your culture can cost you good people.

Does a general manager need to know my industry?

Not necessarily. Mike Agugliaro says he does not care what industry the person comes from, as long as they have operations experience, understand roles, duties, processes, and systems, communicate well, and understand human behavior. That does not make industry knowledge useless. It means the operations and people skills come first, and the industry comes second.

Can I hire someone to hold my people accountable?

We would not. Mike Agugliaro's view is that you cannot hold people accountable in a way that lasts, and whoever you hire to do it will struggle too. What works is helping people learn to be accountable to themselves, and making sure everyone knows how they affect the next person. Hire an operations lead to manage and coach, not to police.

FuDog Group helps home-service owners in boots build Life, Business, and Wealth By Design. Results depend on your market, execution, and follow-through. No guarantees, no fairy tales.