Entrepreneur's Viewpoint: Mike Faith, Headsets.com

We just got off the phone with Mike Faith, President and CEO of Headsets.com, a San Francisco-based growth company that specializes in headset solutions. (Headsets.com was a 2004 and 2005 member of the Inc. 500.) In kicking off a regular feature of this Blog, Mike kindly gave us answers to three questions we asked about how he runs his company:

What issues keep you up at night regarding your growth company?

Faith: “I guess there were a lot of issues that used to keep me up at night in the early days. Now, for sure, I’m always excited to get out and start the day. One thing that keeps me up is wanting to maintain our company’s culture. I want to maintain our absolute Customer service. I also want to maintain our company’s positive atmosphere. Another challenge for me is learning to lead indirectly. That is, I always used to be able to go straight to a manager and we could talk about something that needed to be done. Now, I lead through layers of management, which is a challenge.”

As the leader in your company, what's hot on your “to do” list?

Faith: “What’s hot for me today is working on direction-setting for the company. I'm getting away from handling all the small details on a day-to-day basis. I'm also working on building relationships with like-minded companies. I'm also working on “star swaps” in which we exchange employees for one day with other companies. It’s a great program and a great way for employees to learn from each other. We just did a swap with 1-800-GOT-JUNK? in Vancouver.

What do you know today that you wish you knew two weeks ago?

Faith: “One thing is we recently reduced our marketing efforts for December and January, and sales have remained incredibly strong. I wish we could've foreseen this happening. Second, we had some recent worries about cash flows. These worries amounted to nothing, since we've been ok. I guess we were paranoid, but sometimes maybe it’s good to think that way.”