[00:00:00] How are you running your business? Are you running it like you are a solopreneur, a practitioner, or are you running your business like you are the c e o of a major company? Let's talk about it today on success in Mind. You are listening to success in Mind with Teri Holland, the show for high performing entrepreneurs, leaders, and changemakers ready to take your life and your business to the next level.
If you're ready for whole life success, keep listening. This is all about your thinking. What is your mindset in your business? Are you thinking like a c e o or are you still thinking like an employee? And what is the difference? When you understand the difference, then we can begin to look at how are you going to grow your business?
You can't grow your business without having the right mindset and the right mindset for growth is thinking like you are a C E [00:01:00] O. Now, before we dive into this topic today, let's get one thing straight. I am not a fan of giving yourself fluffy titles in your business. In the female Entrepreneur circles, I hear a lot of talk about being a she e o.
We're not gonna do that here, or a mompreneur. Nope. A lady boss, a she boss, a boss lady, a boss bitch, a badass boss bitch. We're not doing that. When I say C E o, I want you to take it seriously and really embody what it means to be a c e o of a big company. Who would you be? How would you act? How would you think?
That's what we're talking about here, not fluffy titles, because let's keep it in perspective. If you are a solopreneur, which I know many of you are, Meaning that you are the only person in your business, you are the business. You don't have a team of people under you yet. Or if you do, it's a, it's a very small team right now, and that's fine.
But if you [00:02:00] are a solo entrepreneur or a solepreneur, If that is, you keep in mind if you embrace the CEO mindset, you are also still the janitor. You are still the data entry person. You're the receptionist, you're customer service, you're the sales team, you're the marketing team, you're the bookkeeping.
You do all the things. You're even working the cafeteria, right? Like we're, you are doing all the jobs, so. It's one thing to put a little sign on your desk and say, I'm the c e o of my business, but let's get real of what that means. And this is about your thinking. This is not about nice titles or putting a plaque on your door of your home office.
This is about really embodying. What does A C E O do every day? How do they think that's differently? I made this mistake in my first business. I was so excited to launch my business and to be self-employed and to be an entrepreneur and have my own company and do my [00:03:00] own thing, but I was still thinking like an employee.
Because if I didn't show up, I didn't make money. If I did not put in the time with clients, I was not getting paid. I was still trading my time for dollars. There was a dollar value on my hours, and the only thing I had to sell was time with me. That's not scalable. I was treating myself like an employee, so, That is the first thing I want you to ask yourself is, are you behaving like an employee?
If you didn't show up for one week, could you still make money? If you take a vacation, can you turn off your phone? Can you leave your laptop at home? Can you go on vacation and not check your emails? Can you do that? If you can't a and and can you do that and still make money? If you can't do that, you're an employee.
Hands [00:04:00] down, you're an employee. If you can't make money without trading your time, you're an employee. You might be a subcontractor. Um, you might be self-employed, but you are still an employee. So what does a CEO do? What are the mindsets? The characteristics of A C E O? That's what this episode is all about, because when I started thinking differently, my business started to perform differently and my bank account started to look differently.
So what is A C E O? What do they do? How do they think? That's what we care about today on this episode? So as an entrepreneur, you have a lot on your plate. You are wearing several different hats, right? Like all those jobs that I mentioned earlier, all the things you do in your business. You're the marketing team.
You're the sales team, you're the janitorial staff, you're customer service, your reception. You're this, you're, I think I said the sales team. You're the C F O, the c e O, the c o o. You are doing all [00:05:00] the things you need to come up with new ideas for your business. You need to be thinking about building a strong team.
You need to be watching your finances. You need to be doing everything. But if you really want to start thinking like a C E o, a CEO's mindset is all about. Taking strategic and a proactive approach to running your business, you need to have a clear vision, be growth oriented, and prioritize your time, your energy.
You need to start thinking about building a strong team and then being accountable for your actions and your decisions. So here are some tips for how you can begin to develop that c e o mindset. So first of all, you need to have a clear vision. When was the last time you sat down and really thought about where your business is going?
What is the vision for your company now? Not. What it is you want to get from it, although that is important. So I mean, think about what you want as a person. [00:06:00] Absolutely. The lifestyle you wanna create, how this is gonna help your family, your long-term financial goals, all of that. But, but think now what I'm asking you to think of right now is what is the vision for the company?
What is that big picture view? Have you developed a mission statement for your business that represents this vision, this long-term vision that you have? Can you communicate that mission statement clearly to your team, to people in your life? Can you tell your best friend what that mission statement is?
And then your team, if you have a team already, your team needs to be aligned with your vision. They need to have a shared understanding of what the company's goals are. Where are you going? It's like aligning all of your ducks in a row. All the baby ducks, they all follow. Mama Duck, you are Mama Duck. You need all the babies in a row following you.
The c e O sets the direction and you set the direction by having a clear vision and [00:07:00] being able to communicate that clearly through your mission statement. With that, have you looked at your values? So you have the clear vision, but have you assessed your values? Now? A lot of people talk about values these days are very trendy in business.
But most people also have no idea what values really are your business values. Determine what motivates you, what Dees you, what you're driving forces, what you're gonna put energy and resources into. And values are not something you pick off a list of words, I'm sorry, but they're not. And I've seen so many coaches, business consultants do this where they show a nice list of words to their client and they say, circle your values.
Well, of course you're gonna pick ones on the page, but that's not all the values that there are. Those aren't all of them. So you're gonna pick from what's in front of you. That doesn't mean they're actually, your values. The values of your business are going to be very closely related to your personal values as [00:08:00] c e o of the company.
So what are your values for the business? What is important to you, and this is a process that I do with my clients when I work with them one-on-one. I also do this in some of the group coaching programs I have, and I, I certainly teach this in my highest level coach training, but you need to get really clear on what your values are and not picking them off a list of words.
You see many people, when they do values work, they think about what they should be. So they think about their business and they think what their values should be, and they'll pick some really nice words like integrity, respect, honesty. Those are all great things. None of us can deny that, but are those actually your values or do they just sound good if you can't And, and here's a good, a good test for how well you know your values and your business.
If it's been a while since you've done them, I want you to. Just right now, [00:09:00] without doing anything else, I want you to, if you can, bring out a pen and paper, write them down, type them into your phone. Uh, say them out loud. If you're not able to write, if you're listening to this and you're driving, by all means do not write, but say them out loud.
What are your values in your business? Don't look them up. Don't think about it. What are they? If you can't immediately list them out for me, whether you're writing them or you're saying them, if you can't immediately communicate them without thinking, without trying to remember, then you don't know your values.
And I do this when I work with teams is I'll go into the team and I'll ask them, what are the values of this business? And I will tell you that 99% of the time, They have no clue. Your team also needs to be able to clearly communicate what those values are, because those are also driving their role within the business.
So having a clear vision, you need to have a mission statement. You need to know what your values are, and those need to be aligned, and your team needs to be on board with it. [00:10:00] So the next one, the next mindset of A C E O. The next thing you need to develop is to be growth oriented. This means that you're open to continually learning and you're always looking for ways to improve the business.
It means that you take risks, measured risks, you experiment with new ideas, and you're willing to pivot if necessary. So many people get stuck in this idea that this is what I do in my business, this is how I run my business, and they hang onto that because it worked for them at one point. But maybe it's not working for you anymore.
Maybe that's no longer the direction to go in. How willing are you to change direction? I've changed direction. I've pivoted several times in my business. First, from personal training and nutrition. I pivoted then into more mindset and life coaching. I pivoted again into N L P and hypnosis. I've pivoted again into mind performance coaching.
I have changed my offer several times. You need to be able to look at what's working, what's not [00:11:00] working, and what needs to change. But not only what needs to change, but looking at what's going on out there in the world and what is needed. If you can solve problems that are coming down the road, if you can begin to solve future problems that you see coming, well then you are going to have a very successful business.
Well, You have the opportunity to have a very successful business if you can begin looking long term and see the problems that are coming, that's, that's a good, a good strategy to have. So are you willing to pivot? Are you willing to drop some products and services because they're, they're underperforming?
Are you willing to change. Now, growth in business doesn't always mean revenue growth. It could also mean your personal growth. It could mean growing your team. So being growth oriented doesn't just mean that you're growing your bank Account growth could have several different measurements. It could be the number of clients that you're [00:12:00] able to work with.
Growth could be adapting your programs that you're able to serve more people. At one time. So say from going from a one-on-one coaching model to developing group programs and trainings, that is growth taking on more team that is growth. So growth can have several meanings. What does growth mean to you?
How would you know if your business is growing? Number three is managing your time as a C E O. Your time is the most valuable resource you have, so you need to develop your time management skills, and that means that you're able to delegate tasks, you are able to avoid distractions that don't align with your goals or with your vision for the business, with your mission, with your values.
And as the c e O of your company, you need to be able to focus on the most important tasks that are going to drive the business forward. This why it's so important that you clearly know what your vision, your mission, your values are in the [00:13:00] business, so that you can weigh everything against that. And if it's not taking you in the direction that you are focused on going in, it is not the right thing.
There are so many things that are going to ask for your attention and your focus. We live in a world full of distractions and that's not gonna get any easier. Your ability to focus as a C E O is really a superpower to differentiate between what needs your attention and what doesn't, and then to be absolutely disciplined in how you're utilizing your time and what you're putting your energy and resources into, and you can't do everything alone.
And this brings me to number four, which is to build a strong team. You can't do it on your own. So you need to start thinking about building that team. Now, here's something I suggest doing is spend a week writing down everything you do in your business. Every task, every activity. You know, if you spend [00:14:00] an hour creating social media content a day or three hours, if you spend time scrolling on social media, that's, that's time in your business.
If you are spending time writing blogs, podcasting, what about the post-production work of that? So, if you have a podcast, what do you do after you record the podcast? Are you doing your own editing? Are you creating the social media post to go with it? All of those, write it down. Are you answering emails?
How many times a day are you checking your email? Write it down. Keep a log of every single thing you do, taking, you know, scanning your receipts to send them to your bookkeeper, doing your bookkeeping. If you're doing your own bookkeeping, keep a log of every single thing you do within your business. Get really specific, really detailed with it, because once you have it in front of you, you've written it down and you can see it.
And, and by the way, you cannot do this in your head. Because I've given this task to clients and they go, yeah, yeah, I know everything that I do, but have you looked at it? Have you laid it all out on [00:15:00] paper so that you can clearly see it? Because once you can see it, Now you can start to put labels on it.
So look at, for example, what are the activities that are sales activities? So are you making cold calls? Are you doing consultations? Um, anything related directly to sales. Put that under. What will be the sales team? And even if you can't hire team members right now, maybe you're not in a position yet to do that, but you need to start thinking long-term strategies.
CEOs have the big picture. They're looking way down the road. They are not thinking about. What do I need to do today? They're thinking about where am I going to 10 years from now? So with that in mind, once you have this all laid out and you know, okay, these are all sales activities, this is marketing activities, this is all related to networking.
This is administrative tasks. This is client experience. Once you have all of that [00:16:00] laid out, you can start putting those tasks under headings. So now you know where it is that you would need to start hiring people. Fill that out. Create yourself an organizational chart of your business with you at the top of it, c e o, and put yourself like as c, e of the company and build out those teams.
Right. Like envision the structural chart of what the business would look like and start putting placeholders there so that you know, okay, eventually I'm going to have a sales team in this bubble. Uh, I'm gonna have an admin team. I'm going to have a marketing team over here and start just putting those placeholders.
You might even wanna create this and put it somewhere where you see it every day, like above your desk on the wall, where you're seeing how you're gonna build out that team. You want to be able to delegate your tasks. So once you have this and you know what your team is going to eventually look like, you can start [00:17:00] thinking about what needs to be delegated first.
Look at all the things that you're doing, and what is it that you would like to delegate first. Maybe they're tasks that you don't enjoy doing or that are your weakness. Like for me, the first thing to be delegated is bookkeeping, because I hate it. I hate it. I can do it, but it's not my favorite thing.
It's my least favorite. So it's at the bottom of the list. So that is the first thing to be delegated because I'm not good at it. I hate it. Can I do it? Sure. Do I want to? No. Is it worth my time? No. So what are those tasks that you can first start to delegate? And this doesn't mean you have to hire an in-house bookkeeper or an accountant.
You can contract out to a bookkeeper, look at your administrative tasks. What are the tasks that are really important to your business that you can first delegate? Maybe it's time that you find a virtual assistant and you begin delegating that out to someone else. But you only begin to know this stuff when you have it all written down and you know who's going to be in these [00:18:00] roles.
And then once you have someone in one of those roles, you put their name on the chart. So you put that you have, uh, Joanne is your virtual assistant and she's in charge of your administrative team. And then as you build out a bigger team, She becomes in charge of that team. Or maybe you need an online business manager to help you run the backend of your business and set up all your systems.
So you would have maybe that person in place, your O B M, and then maybe you start to fill in virtual assistants under them and delegate they the O B M within. Then delegate tasks to the virtual assistants. Maybe if you're podcasting, maybe you need to have a podcasting team. So maybe you need to start delegating that out.
And again, these are people that. You can contract out to. You don't need to put them on a salary. You can find people online who are doing this work and you know you can find someone who can work for a few hours a, a month, or a week, or whatever it is that fits your budget. So start thinking about who you're going to delegate to, who needs to [00:19:00] be on your team.
You also need to start thinking about how would you train this team? Do you have your SOPs in place, your standard operation procedures? Do you have that? Do you have a manual for everything? You know, I was just talking with my mastermind about this this morning. We were talking about SOPs and I shared with them that many, many, many years ago, way back.
I worked at Starbucks over Christmas one year, and I absolutely loved it. The greatest thing I learned from Starbucks was that everything had a manual. Every employee was set up to succeed because everything had a manual. You could not mop the floor at Starbucks without reading the manual on how to mop the floor.
I'm not exaggerating. There was a manual, and the manual told you how much water to put in the bucket. How to lift the bucket safely when it was full of water, how much soap goes in the bucket, how to ring out the mop, [00:20:00] where to start mopping the store from how to maneuver the mop so that you actually clean the floor instead of sloshing around dirty water.
How to wr out the mop. How to then empty the bucket. The bucket safely. How to rinse out the bucket, how to rinse out the mop so that it's. Not like JI or Gross or getting Mildewey, how to then store the mop and the bucket so that the mop doesn't get again, mildewey gross. So, You could not fail at mopping the floor at Starbucks.
When you learn how to fill the creamers and stuff at Starbucks, you learn how to do it, how to do it so that you're not breaking any food safe regulations, that you're doing it safely, efficiently. So you cannot fail. You cannot fail at the job because there is an s o p for every possible thing, every task you would do at Starbucks.
That's a well-oiled machine. And I'll tell you, I loved working there. I would've worked for Starbucks for the rest of my life if at the [00:21:00] time, if the pay was more and suited me. But it wasn't. I was, it was just a short-term thing over Christmas that I wanted. Um, I didn't wanna continue working there after Christmas, but if the pay was more at the time, if I could have left my other job.
I would've taken it, I would've been, I would still be working for Starbucks because I absolutely loved it for that reason. So what is it in your business that needs to get really organized? Because then before you hire your team, if you have your SOPs of everything you do and how it needs to be done in your company, it becomes really easy to train these people and to set them up for success.
The fifth c e o mindset is you need to be accountable. A C E O means taking ownership. You have to take ownership for your actions and your decisions. Admit when you make a mistake, show some vulnerability, learn from your mistakes, and then once you've learned from your mistakes, you can then take steps to avoid making the same [00:22:00] mistake in the future.
This also means being transparent with your team, your investors, and your clients, because once you have that team in place, you need to be transparent with them. Own your mistakes. They will respect you more for it. So accountability, you've gotta be accountable. Number six is stay adaptable. Business is always changing and you need to be able to adapt to new challenges and opportunities.
Look at what's happening right now with chat G P T. With ai, the workplace is changing very rapidly. We're seeing people in tech getting laid off on mass, and a lot of that is to do with their jobs being automated by AI technologies. So, You need to be aware of that. What's changing? What's happening, and how are you going to protect your business?
What are you going to do? What needs to change? And looking for where are the opportunities? With chat G P T right now, there's tremendous opportunity within your business. How can you use it as a tool successfully? And looking [00:23:00] at the long. You know, looking down the road, how can that impact your business?
Where do you need to protect your business from something like chat, G P T, or from ai, from taking your place? Is it possible to take your place, be flexible within it? In N L P, we say the person or the system with the most flexibility controls the system, the more flexibility you have, the greater control you have over your outcomes.
So you need to be flexible so you can pivot, so you can change direction as necessary. You need to have an agile mind. A C E O mindset means that you can embrace change and stay one step ahead of the competition, or even several steps ahead. And then finally, A C E O focuses on results. So number seven is you gotta focus on results.
At the end of the day, your job as a C E O is to deliver results. Now, at this point in your business, you're probably not gonna have to be accountable to [00:24:00] investors, but you need to be accountable to your business, and you do have to be accountable to your clients. And if you are in a relationship, if you're married, if you have a family to support, then you are also accountable to them.
They rely on your results for you to produce an income. So you need to be accountable and you need to deliver results. So set goals, set smart goals, make them specific, measurable, attainable, realistic time-based. Track your progress in achieving these goals, and then celebrate your wins. I, I think I've mentioned it before actually.
I know I've mentioned it before, but I'm a huge fan. Of the book and the System Profit First by Michael Mcal Itz. I highly recommend it because you need to celebrate your successes and built into his system is a way that you can celebrate your success every quarter by paying yourself out a bonus. That is a great way to get that reward that we all need.
Entrepreneurs need a [00:25:00] reward, and it's a very measured way to look at your results and to collect your reward at the end of every quarter. So definitely pick up that book. Get the book and then follow the book. Focus on delivering value to your clients, to your customers, and creating a sustainable business model.
A C E O mindset means that you are also always looking at the bottom line. How can you improve your profitability? Again, looking at all the products and services you offer, what's dead weight? What needs to go? Where can you have an opportunity to improve your revenue? Where do you have opportunity to increase your sales?
How can you, how can you improve that bottom line? And really you can do it two ways. You spend less, you sell more. You increase the money coming in, you decrease the money going out. So where can you do that? Where are those opportunities? Your job is to deliver results as a C E O. Now, when you think about [00:26:00] yourself as a C E O in your business, what does that feel like for you?
I. Do you feel excited by that? Do you feel apprehension or fear? Does it make you feel excited, proud, joyful? Do you feel neutral about it? What do you feel when you think about being the c e O in your business and when you think about being the c e O of your business, do you see that? I mean, are you listening to this and thinking, I'm already doing all this.
I'm already am the c e o, or have you realized that you have some work to do? That you're stuck in an employee mindset or thinking like a solopreneur or thinking like a practitioner and not really running a business, but just running your practice. This has made such a huge difference in how I run my business because now I'm looking long term.
I make my decisions differently. I plan strategically. I give myself a C E O retreat at [00:27:00] least once a year where I spend several days going over my vision, my mission, my values. Aligning my goals with those, making sure I'm on track, and I check on those throughout the year to make sure that I'm still moving in the right direction.
But I spend a few days every year just really focusing in on that of what are we doing? I. Have you taken time to do that? To set yourself time where you spend days just looking at what are your goals? What's your mission? What's your vision? What's your values? What are you doing? Where are you going? And could you articulate that, communicate that to a team of people in a way that would inspire them and motivate them to action even if you don't have the team.
Yet, how would you language that to them? How would you communicate it to them? If you had to stand in front of a a board and communicate, this is where we're going this year as a company, could you do it? If you had to communicate that to a room full of potential [00:28:00] investors to raise funds for your business, could you do it if you answered no to any of these, and this is where the work needs to happen.
If you need help at getting your vision, your mission, your values, all in alignment, setting your goals, and getting your team. If you have a team all aligned with your vision, mission, values, then book a consultation with me. I'm putting the link in the show notes. It's a 30 minute consultation. We'll talk about what your goals are, what you're missing in your business, and how we can work together to help you and you know, Oftentimes people are afraid to book a consultation like that because they feel like it's gonna be a hard sell.
I don't do hard selling. I'll tell you what it is I can do with you, and if that aligns with you and it feels right, we'll work together. And if it doesn't, that's fine too. So book that cult in the show notes. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode today. I hope you got a lot of value out of it. If you did, please as always, leave me a written five star review.
Your reviews really help other [00:29:00] people like you to find. This show. Thank you so much for listening today. Hope you have a fantastic day. Bye for now.
