Are you head honcho?

January 11th, 2007 by Cristina Favreau

Rima McDonald asked this interesting question on her MySpace bulletin board:

Do you call yourself the president/ CEO of your own company? If you do, are you still answering incoming business calls yourself or do you have someone in your office answering calls for your company?

The reason why I asked this is because I’d like to be certain if having someone to answer calls for your company instead of yourself doing it, is important to the business image that you are trying to project everyday or not…

This is a great question. I have quite a strong opinion about the matter, so please bear with me.

Personally, I don’t use a fancy title. When I start calling myself President and CEO, it’ll be because my office space will be in a building (other than my apartment building), I’ll have someone other than myself on payroll, and a secretary will be answering my multi-lined phone system. For now, my title is not as important as what I do and the benefits I have to offer, so I don’t put any emphasis on a title.

I see many small business owners and solopreneurs who put “President” and/or “CEO” as their title on their business cards, web sites and email signatures. Is it deceiving or pretentious to give themselves that title, even if it’s true? What’s the point? I’m being serious… WHY? It just bugs me… but that’s just me. I feel like asking them a bunch of questions about their corporation, until they cave in and admit they run their company from their basement office.

I’m interested to hear what others have to say on the subject. Do you market yourself as President/CEO of your company? What difference does it make when handing your business card? Do you get asked about how big your company is, how many employees you have, etc…? If you don’t use this title, why not? Are you tempted? Does your title really make a difference to others? If so, why?

Rima’s working on an article about this topic, so join in the conversation by posting your comments here or on Rima’s site.

Category Entrepreneurship | Comments

  • "less is more"

    Thanks for your candor, Erin.

    I have to admit that it's been a struggle for me to streamline all aspects of my business. I keep reminding myself that 'less is more.' When I do, things develop and grow naturally. No need to put on pretenses, since the truth will eventually come out.
  • I used to use President on my signature title and on different correspondence until I realized myself that it felt pretentious. I felt that, as you said, if I were doing the accounting, the secretarial work, the janitorial work (I have a home office) and everything involved with doing the work for my clients and running the business, I should not be calling myself President.

    A hot trend right now for virtual assistants is to call themselves "Online Business Manager." Personally, I go by Erin Lamarche-Blaskie, Business Services, ETC. No title - just a fancy blogging tool in my siggy that rotates my current posts. That's it, that's all.

    So I agree with you, less is more.
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