Easiest Way to Define Job Titles in Small Businesses

Popular Questions About Small Business Job Titles

Whether you’ve run a small business for years or you’re just getting started, you may have a list of questions about positions and duties. Before diving into our organizational chart, let’s answer the following common questions!

1. What Are Some Small Business Job Titles?

• • CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
  • CFO (Chief Financial Officer)
  • Developers
  • Advisors 
  • Sales Manager
  • HR Manager or Coordinator
  • Product Manager
  • Head of Marketing or Creative Director 

And the list goes on! 

📝 Quick note: Small team members often assume multiple responsibilities that extend beyond their job title. For instance, our CEO, Layla, leads our team and records YouTube videos for the community!

2. What’s Your Job Title if You Own a Business?

The head honcho is typically the owner and/or founder. In some cases, the founder acts as the CEO or appoints another professional to assume the leadership role. 

3. How Do You Define Roles in a Small Business?

If you’re struggling to distinguish roles in your company, consider using our three-step roadmap:

✅ Step 1: Outline your business process.
✅ Step 2: Match the process to the role.
✅ Step 3: Maintain a Job Role and Job Title Org chart. 

You can learn more about this breakdown in this post!

A Simple Framework to Define Job Titles in Small Business (00:18)

Instead of getting lost in fancy schmancy job titles, revisit these three categories: 

👉 Coordinator: Responsible for their own actions.
👉 Manager: Responsible for themselves and overseeing team members.
👉 Lead: Has a broader level of responsibility, where they’re in charge of themselves, employees, and future stakeholders. 

You can use any variation of these roles. The key concept to take away is how each category pairs with these questions:

❓ When are projects done?
❓ How are projects done?
❓ What are we working on?
❓ Who is working on them?
❓ Why are we doing this?

Each category (coordinator, manager, and lead) coincides with a different level of responsibility. 

Let’s walk through each category and question, starting with when. 📅  

Organizational Chart Responsibilities: When (01:02)

The first column is when, aka when does the team execute tasks?

Coordinators stay in their own lane, focusing on their personal tasks and deadlines, while managers handle their timelines and guide other employees to accomplish projects by a designated date. 👐

Leads attend to overarching timelines and commitments for those on the team and future stakeholders. This level of leadership perceives the business from an expansive point of view beyond current projects and daily tasks. 

Next on the small business job titles framework is how. 👇 

Improve the Process: How (04:17)

How does your team complete tasks? As a small business, every employee plays a significant role in your process and systems. With this in mind, you’ll want to promote autonomy and ownership so your team can resolve work mistakes and improve various areas inside your company. 🧰

For example, a customer service coordinator is in charge of support tickets, so they should take ownership of this process and try to find ways to make it more efficient. 

Managers are responsible for themselves and the involved parties. For instance, a YouTube manager supervises the video creation and editing process. If any hiccups occur, they can help resolve the issue and modify the workflow with a prevention plan. 🗺️ 

At the lead level, they’re responsible for a much wider net, which includes themselves, the small team, and potential stakeholders. 

Area of Focus: What (05:12)

The third column highlights what you’re working on. Coordinators primarily concentrate on completing tasks rather than creating new processes or action items. 

📝 Brief note: Although coordinators typically focus on their responsibilities, you can still encourage them to make suggestions to improve your internal systems. That’s what we like to call a collaborative environment! 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧

In contrast, managers inform the team on what they should do. They may not have the final say on all changes, but they lead the team toward the finishing line. To continue the YouTube example, a manager can help shape and refine steps from brainstorming topics to publishing videos.  

Leads also carry this responsibility to broader areas of the small business. 

Small Business Titles Hierarchy: Who (06:11)

The following column is who. Who does what in your business? Coordinators are responsible for themselves, so there are no additional obligations beyond assigned tasks and projects. 🎯 

Managers guide their colleagues, so if they’re in charge of YouTube videos, they would likely oversee the video editor, thumbnail designer, and content creator. Managers can also influence crucial choices, like who should or shouldn’t be involved with a team. 

The lead controls this entire component–the process, branch, and staff. They make the executive decision on which employees will participate in projects. 

Acknowledge Your Action: Why (07:10)

The final piece to the puzzle is why. Why are we doing this? At ProcessDriven, we’ve recently welcomed a new core value: understanding our why and recognizing the importance of our actions. 🧩

If an employee doesn’t understand why they should do something, the next step is to ask for clarification or not pursue the action. 

Our motto? Stop wasting time on things that don’t matter. 🛑

It’s easy to distract ourselves with new systems, processes, and software. But ultimately, it comes down to being intentional. The more deliberate we are about our work, the more effective we are with our business goals!  

Leads carry the heaviest responsibility here because they remind their team of the broader mission, aka why their role and daily tasks matter.

💡 Pro tip: Communicating with your crew is the best way to get your vision across and inspire them to care about their contributions. 

Understand and Develop Small Business Job Titles

As you scour the internet to answer the who does what question, you’ll quickly discover endless ways to create job titles and descriptions for your business. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be a complicated process.

All you need to do is start with the basics and answer the questions above. 👆