Business
Why Slowing Down Was the Boldest Move I Made as a New Leader
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Published 10/13/2026 12:00:00 PM
The Worst Thing a New Leader Can Do Is Show Up With a Plan
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Your playbook got you here, but it was written for a different company in a different year.
- The fastest way to earn trust in a new role is to admit what you don’t know and show how you plan to learn it.
- Slow down at the start so you can sprint later — speed for its own sake isn’t a strategy.u003cbru003e
The first question people ask when you take on a new leadership role is usually some version of “What’s your plan?”
It is a fair question. When you are new, there is a natural temptation to prove your value by showing up with quick answers, or a list of things you plan to fix. I have found that there is a better place to start.
I’m early on in my role at BILL. The questions I keep coming back to in these first three months are how do I want my first days, weeks and months to look. Where should I spend my time and why? How do I strip away noise and “get to signal” quickly? How do I create proximity to the customers and to teams without slowing down the organization’s work? These are things an entrepreneur is faced with every day, whether they are stepping into a new role, growing a team or navigating a changing market.
Every leader is tempted to bring their playbook. In my opinion, playbooks are a point-in-time representation of how things were done — perhaps in a different company, at a different time. 2026 is wildly different from even 2025, let alone 2020. We have to leverage the lessons from our past while building for the future, backed by modern technologies and customer expectations.
In a new role, credibility comes from being clear about what you want to accomplish and getting in the trenches. It comes from learning the business, understanding people’s day-to-day, and the customer pains that help inform a go-forward plan. Your job is to listen to the people closest to the customer and the work, identify the obstacles preventing them from moving faster, and empower them.
I believe it’s important to reconsider the possible, but change for the sake of change isn’t helpful. With AI evolving as quickly as it is, there’s more at stake. AI is reshaping what teams can accomplish, and markets and customer expectations can change quickly. The way I think about it is: How do we prioritize, sequence and bring the organization along on the journey?
Here are five principles I am using to learn before I lead:
1. Question old assumptions, and test your own.
Past decisions should inform but not determine present choices. The decisions that were right a year ago, or even six months ago, may not be right now. The mindset should be: What is working well today? Where are customers encountering friction? Where do teams duplicate work? Which assumptions about the way we operate are based on current reality and which ones are simply holdovers?
That doesn’t mean every decision made before you arrived is wrong, just don’t rely on the past to make go-forward decisions.
2. Diagnose before you decide.
As a practical operating discipline, observation before action is essential. Finding what’s worth keeping is just as important as finding out what’s missing or needs to evolve. A new process or organizational change may ultimately be necessary, but assess the need first. Ask: What problem are we trying to solve? What does the organization and the customer actually need? And could technology help us address it more effectively? This is one place where experience really can count. I recently instituted a forecasting process that didn’t exist before. Its absence puzzled me, and experience told me it was critical to the company’s future success.
3. Let experts be experts
Your role is to build, align and empower a team, not be the domain expert in every area. In the past, I have had jobs where I needed domain expertise, but the bigger and more complex a leadership role becomes, the more you have to let that go. A new leader earns trust by recognizing the expertise already inside the organization and making it clear that functional leaders have real ownership.
4. Be candid about what you don’t yet know.
Credibility does not require projecting total certainty. It requires being honest about where you need to learn and showing that you have a disciplined way to do so. In a role this broad, that means building and aligning the team while empowering the people closest to each domain to lead with their expertise.
My responsibility is to bring those perspectives together, help the team work toward its best and create the conditions for us to succeed collectively.
I use AI as a second brain. As I was starting at BILL, I received hundreds of documents, including board decks and internal materials. Leveraging them, I used our primary AI tool to build role-specific resources to help me operate. It wasn’t difficult, and I now use AI as a second voice that helps me sift through and recall large volumes of information. It’s something that you can use to strategize and validate alongside. There’s a lot to remember, and AI can really be a friend in that regard. I can use it to quickly revisit the history of an initiative, clarify an acronym or remind myself of the strategic rationale behind a decision.
Key takeaway
The first weeks in a new role are not about proving that you have every answer. They are about creating the conditions for better answers: getting close to the customer, learning from the people who know the work best, challenging assumptions and being deliberate about where to act.
You cannot wait forever to make decisions, but speed for speed’s sake is not prudent, so slow down a bit at the beginning before you start to sprint. In a market moving as quickly as this one, the leaders who will be most effective are the ones who learn fast, ask hard questions and give their teams the clarity and confidence to move forward together.
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Effective product pages help online shoppers decide whether an item fits their needs and what buying it involves. A beautiful photograph gets attention. Product details such as dimensions, available sizes, delivery details, and a clear price help turn that attention into a purchase.
Even established retailers miss these basics. In its benchmark of leading U.S. and European retailers, updated in March 2026, Baymard Institute rated 52% of desktop sites and 62% of mobile sites “mediocre or worse” for product-page usability1.
Product-page changes can affect revenue, too. In a 27-day test for Life Pro Fitness, agency Media Contour made product images, key details, and buying buttons visible without needing to scroll. Testing vendor Wingify reported that the revised page generated $0.67 more revenue per visitor than the original2.
If you are building a new store, follow the five tips below as you create your product pages. Have those pages ready before running ads that send shoppers to them.
If you already have an online store, choose one product page to improve. Reference these steps to check whether it answers shoppers’ questions and lets them add the right item to their cart.
1. Answer shoppers’ questions in the product description
Identify the main question a shopper needs answered before buying. Look for questions customers ask repeatedly or misunderstandings behind returns. For a new product, start with fit, compatibility, or what is included. Confirm the answer against your product specifications, then put it near the start of the description.
For example, consider a pet-supply retailer selling a dog harness. Someone choosing their first harness needs measurements and adjustment details to judge the fit. Someone replacing a harness they already own needs to recognize the same model and size. The page should make both tasks straightforward.
Also, use consistent labels and units across similar products to make comparisons easier. Include limitations, such as incompatible models or items sold separately, so shoppers can rule out an unsuitable purchase.
In e-commerce platform BigCommerce, for instance, online sellers can use the product description and custom fields—additional facts such as material or compatibility—to present these details. Preview the product page to check that shoppers can find the information they need.
Then, use those same facts to help shoppers recognize the item in search results. In BigCommerce’s page title field, use the product name and a relevant detail, such as its model or material. Avoid repeating keywords or giving every product the same title.
2. Give every product image a question to answer
Plan your gallery around what someone needs to inspect. Show the whole product, a useful detail, and the product in use. For example, a lighting retailer could photograph a lamp beside a chair to show its scale and how it lights a reading space. A close-up of the switch shows how someone would operate it. Together, these images help shoppers picture using the lamp at home. Keep written dimensions available as well.
The same Baymard overview describes how shoppers use images to judge size and can struggle when photographs lack a familiar reference.
If you sell a bundle, make clear which pictured items are included. For products that need assembly or demonstration, you might even consider creating a short video. Add alt text: a short description of the useful information in an image. Screen-reader software can read that description aloud or present it in braille. Keep essential instructions available as text as well.
BigCommerce supports product images, images for variants such as different colors, and YouTube-hosted product videos. Check that your gallery presents the right item as shoppers change their selection.
3. Make choices, prices, and recurring charges clear
Keep size, color, quantity, and purchase options close to the buying button. Label them plainly, show the current selection, and make unavailable choices recognizable. If the size options fit on the screen, show them as labeled buttons, such as S, M, and L. This lets shoppers see which sizes are available without opening a menu, as the Baymard overview explains.
Place helpful links beside the choice it explains. For the dog harness, for example, consider putting a measurement guide beside the size selector so shoppers can check the fit before choosing. Keep it visible or provide a clearly labeled link that works by touch and keyboard.
In BigCommerce, online sellers can configure choices such as size and color through product variants and options. Then check that the displayed price and availability match the shopper’s selection. For multipacks, show both the pack total and the unit price. Make the full pack price easy to find so shoppers know what they will be charged.
If you offer subscriptions, let shoppers explicitly choose between a one-time purchase and a recurring order. Put the recurring charge, delivery frequency, and change or cancellation terms beside that choice so shoppers can compare the commitments before selecting. Confirm that these terms match how your subscription service works. Select a subscription yourself and verify that checkout shows the plan, price, and frequency you chose.
4. Make sure delivery, returns, and reviews are easy to find
A shopper who needs an item by a particular date wants to know whether it will arrive in time. Show a delivery estimate for their destination. Put a short explanation of shipping and returns near add to cart, with links to the full policies.
Show shipping fees or explain how they will be calculated. Clearly describe return windows, fees, and exclusions that matter for the item. If pickup is offered, distinguish stock at the selected location from stock elsewhere. Avoid presenting an estimate as a confirmed promise.
Also consider making reassurances that are specific to the purchase. Using the dog harness as an example again, you’d want to explain whether a shopper can exchange it if the fit is wrong and which conditions apply. That answers the practical concerns that a badge saying “Shop with Confidence” leaves unresolved. Use only promises your business can honor.
Customer reviews provide another way to assess the product. Show the review rating, text, reviewer’s display name, and date on the relevant product page. If reviews come from another service, name that service. These details help shoppers understand whose experience they are reading and how recent it is.
5. Test the path from product page to cart
Shoppers need to know that the page has registered their choices and whether adding an item succeeded. Open your chosen product page on your phone. If a required option starts unselected, try adding the item before choosing it. The page should tell you what to select or explain why “Add to cart” is unavailable.
If the product has options, choose them, then change one selection. Check that the price, availability, and any option-specific images match. Add the item. While the request is processing, the page should make that clear. Once it succeeds, a confirmation or the cart itself should show what was added. If an error occurs, it should explain how to continue without losing other selections.
From there, make sure to check the item’s quantity, options, and price in the cart. If you chose a size or color, return to the product page and check whether it still shows that selection. These checks help catch a wrong selection or an uncertain result before a shopper encounters it.
Shoppers who cannot use a mouse need to select options and add products using a keyboard. To check that they can, repeat the steps above on a computer without the mouse. Use Tab to move forward between controls and Shift+Tab to move back. A visible outline or other marker should show which control you are about to use. Press Enter to activate links and Enter or Space for buttons. In a drop-down list, such as a size selector, use the arrow keys to move through the options.
Shoppers who need larger text must still be able to read product details and reach Add to cart. Use the browser’s Zoom control to enlarge the page to 200% and try the same steps again. Check for overlapping text or controls that disappear. Across all these checks, record anything that prevents choosing the product, adding it, or correcting a mistake.
Keep improving one page at a time
Clear facts and images help shoppers judge the product; clear choices, terms, and working controls help them act on that decision. Choose one issue from your review to fix first. Give priority to a problem that prevents adding the correct item to the cart. If shoppers can add the correct item, address an unanswered question that could lead someone to buy the wrong product.
Record what you changed and when. If you have sales reports, compare purchases and revenue for the product over equal periods before and after the change. Note any promotions or changes in visitor numbers that could also explain the results. Customer questions, order corrections, and return reasons can help you check whether the same misunderstanding persists.
For more examples, explore BigCommerce’s product-page guide, then apply the same review to the next product page.
1 Product Page UX 2026: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices (Baymard Institute)
2 Media Contour uses split URL testing to improve the revenue from product pages (Wingify)
