Tom Wood on Building a Founder-Independent Commercial Team

In a recent LinkedIn post, Tom Wood discusses the significant challenge business founders face when transitioning from personally driving sales to building a sustainable, independent commercial team. Wood, a prominent voice in business growth, highlights the common scenario where a company’s success is deeply intertwined with the founder’s personal relationships and market knowledge, and the difficulties in replicating this across a hired team.

Wood emphasizes that while hiring individuals with commercial potential might seem straightforward, cultivating a team that can operate autonomously is a far more complex endeavor. He points out that many founder-led businesses thrive due to the founder’s established network and ability to generate opportunities through personal connections.

“A lot of owner-led businesses grow because the founder is good at relationships. They know the market, have a strong black book and can pick up the phone and create an opportunity.”

The Challenge of Replication

According to Wood, the core difficulty lies in the time and process required for new team members to develop their own capabilities and client networks. He argues that simply hiring people does not automatically transfer the founder’s established rapport and market understanding.

As Tom Wood notes, “People need to build their own relationships, understand the clients and learn what good looks like. You need structure, data and accountability around it too.” This suggests that a robust framework, beyond individual talent, is essential for the team’s development.

The Founder’s Patience Problem

A critical hurdle, as identified by Wood, is the founder’s own impatience. The founder, accustomed to immediate results derived from years of relationship-building, may struggle to grant new team members the necessary time to achieve similar outcomes.

“You can’t expect somebody you’ve hired to recreate relationships you’ve spent 15 years building in six months.”

Wood contends that this impatience can undermine the very goal of building an independent commercial function. If the founder remains the central point of contact for all significant client interactions, the commercial team has not truly become self-sufficient.

Defining True Commercial Independence

Tom Wood clarifies that true success in building a commercial team is measured by its ability to operate and generate business without constant founder intervention. He posits that the ultimate indicator of a successful transition is when key clients no longer exclusively rely on the founder.

“But if every important client still ultimately comes back to the founder, you haven’t really built a commercial function.”

In Wood’s view, this requires a strategic shift from the founder, focusing on enabling and empowering the team rather than remaining the primary relationship holder. This involves establishing clear processes, performance metrics, and a supportive environment that allows the commercial team to grow its own expertise and client base, thereby achieving genuine independence and securing the long-term scalability of the business.