Scaling a remote team effectively is easier said than done. A startup founder I worked with had a serious problem: account growth was failing, and revenue was slipping.

He had started out handling customer relationships himself. But as the company grew, it became too much. He dropped balls, missed follow-ups, and lost deals. His solution? Handing the function over to his team.

First, he assigned it to a few key team members, but they burned out and quit without achieving anything. Then, he promoted two newer employees into the role and gave them a vague goal: “Do better than I did – you have the time.”

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

The team struggled. Calls were inconsistent, key details got lost, and customers weren’t seeing results. The founder was frustrated. He assumed the problem was his people.

But it wasn’t. The real issue was that he had thrown people at a problem without giving them the tools to succeed.