William Smith and Double Iron Consulting plan to empower leaders in uncertain times.
William Smith, founder of Double Iron Consulting, calls for increased focus on leadership development. 2023 appears to continue challenging family business owners who never quite recovered from the pandemic. Amid inflation and other economic concerns, he believes molding new leaders requires more elbow grease than ever.
Once the president and CEO of his family business, Royal Cup Coffee, Bill Smith knows firsthand the struggles of leadership. He has personally experienced the difficulties of growing a business amid a changing economy. Having stepped away from his role in 2020, he now uses those experiences to help others.
William Smith, Royal Cup Coffee and a Taste of Leadership
Before becoming the third-generation leader of a family business, Bill Smith spent his teenage years practicing the simple art of coffee roasting and the not-so-simple art of customer service at Royal Cup Coffee. His grandfather purchased the business in the 1950s. As Bill progressed through his early professional years, he took a more prominent role in helping to promote growth within the company.
Having started as a factory floor intern, Bill took on increasingly more significant leadership roles over the course of three decades. The journey from teenage coffee roaster to ambitious supply chain manager and to divisional leader prepared him to finally take the reins as CEO in 2014. He subsequently spent the next six years cementing the company with the scale and scope of a national platform.
In 2020, Bill Smith worked closely with the family and the board of directors to move Royal Cup Coffee to be led by non-family leadership and continue the growth initiatives in place. He then founded Double Iron Consulting to focus on helping other family businesses develop new leaders and grow their brands using his three decades’ worth of personally developed strategies within an even more desirable timeframe.
Double Iron Especially Wants to Help New Leaders
While not all family business leaders start as early as William Smith, Royal Cup Coffee is far from the only business that operates on a succession plan. As many small business owners retired during the pandemic, some not by choice, succession plans began moving up their timelines with unfavorable results.
The relative lack of experience possessed by many of today’s new leaders has had measurably negative consequences. Today, nearly 85% of business leaders remain uncertain of their abilities to help employees suffering from burnout. Meanwhile, roughly 73% demonstrate an inability to effectively manage hybrid or remote workspaces, a necessary skill set in the post-pandemic world.
Bill Smith and Double Iron Consulting can help address these deficiencies while also building trust between leaders and their teams. As a leader whose journey began on the front lines with employees and customers, William Smith knows that proper leadership development in 2023 means working with both leaders and their teams to establish trust and identify resistance to growth within the business.
Family business leaders wishing to develop their skills while working closely alongside their employees to build trust and camaraderie heading into 2023 may contact Bill at his website, where they’ll learn more about Double Iron Consulting’s structured approach to leadership development.