As a solo consultant, you wear three hats: the Technician (who does the expert work), the CEO (who sets the vision), and the COO (who manages the day-to-day operations).

When you get busy, the COO work is the first thing to be abandoned. You stop improving your processes, you answer emails reactively, and you let client management slide because you’re too deep in the technical work. You’ve created a COO-shaped hole in your business, and you’re trying to fill it with your own burnout.

This is the invisible force capping your growth. Without a Chief Operating Officer to manage the flow of work, you can’t take on more clients, you can’t focus on high-level strategy, and you can’t escape the feeling of being a human notification system. The solution isn’t to hire a full-time person. It’s to build an automated COO—a set of systems that handles the operational burden for you.

Wondering how big the “COO-shaped hole” is in your business? Find out in 2 minutes with our free AI Automation Audit and get a personalized score on your operational health.