#2: Stepping into Your CEO Shoes as a Small Business Owner
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We’re jumping into that elusive unicorn, the small business CEO.
What is it? Who has it? Why do you need it? And can a small business owner even be a CEO? Well, listen in, you’re about to find out.
Stepping into your CEO shoes as a small business owner is important as you build your small service-based business and here we give you clarity around exactly what it looks like to be the CEO of your small business and how to do it.
Are you ready to step into your CEO shoes?
Main Points:
Embracing a 'top-down' approach
Strong Strategies
Tangible results
The power of delegating
Lead with essential communication
Simplifying processes and cutting through the noise
Mastering the art of money management
Practicing patience.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is greatness. Embrace the journey, weather the storms, and emerge triumphant. Now is the time to seize the day and your full power as a CEO.
The world is waiting, and your destiny as a transformative leader beckons. It’s time to step into your CEO shoes!
Do you have BIG Dreams?
Download the
Brilliant Business Beautiful Life Playbook
and start designing the business and life you deserve today!
Show Notes
In the first episode, I started a conversation around stepping into your CEO shoes as a small business owner and how it’s important to transition into that headspace as soon as possible. It can be a completely foreign concept when you’re in a 9-5 situation but is crucial to master if you want a successful business. Some of you may still be in your 9-5 and doing your side hustle, or you may be a few years in to entrepreneurship, either way, you’re going to get lots of gold from this episode.
So as promised, today I’m going deep into what it means to put on your CEO shoes.
You’ve made the brave bold leap into being a business owner. You’ve followed your dreams and trusted your gut.
But it’s a big leap from making a choice to execute a dream to running a business.
While you have the skillset to provide the service you’re offering, and the lived experience of providing it, you’ve probably been doing that as an employee rather than a business owner.
That means you may not have experience in business, let alone as a CEO! So, can you even think of yourself in those terms? It’s a contentious topic! The CEOs of multinational corporations would say no, you’re not a CEO. You don’t answer to a board of directors, you’re not a publicly listed company, and you don’t have hundreds or even thousands of employees. Plus, you don’t have the luxury of a negotiated salary and bonus package with all the luscious add-ons.
But… Does that mean you’re NOT a CEO? Not at all.
In fact, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of a CEO is: ‘The executive with the chief decision-making authority in an organisation or business.’ The Encylopedia Britannica agrees, stating a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) is ‘the senior manager or leader of a business or other organisation…’
There’s a little bit of snobbishness coming from the typical C-Suite community when small business owners adopt the term CEO in their title, but that’s just corporate elitism, and we’re not up for that, are we?
Business is evolving. There’s a huge shift away from the idolisation of the corporate world as more and more people seek meaning over power and independent thought and creativity over towing the company line, and making a profit with conscience over greed.
Small business CEOs are part of that shift and evolution. We’re the new breed of mavericks, and it’s brilliant. We do the title, so we wear the title.
Now that we’ve got that cleared up, we can move on.
But before I shift into what’s needed to be the CEO of your business, I want to share the story of a very famous person to set the scene and inspire you that you CAN be the CEO of your business and life.
This person has achieved things we can only dream of – but that’s the beauty of dreams. Anyone can dream – so anyone can reach the same lofty heights. Who knows, it could be you!
I’m talking about Steve Jobs, the Founder of Apple. Steve died in October 2011, but to this day is inspiring people around the world with his humanity, his gratitude, and his joy for living, as well as his insane talent, creativity, and the world’s obvious obsession with all things Apple!
In his Commencement Speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve shared three stories from his life.
The first story was about ‘connecting the dots.’ Steve started at Reed College when he was 17 but he couldn't see the value in it. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, and no idea how college was going to help him figure it all out, plus college was taking all the life savings of his working-class parents. So he decided to drop out and trust that one day everything would all work out.
He says it was one of the best decisions he ever made. Why? Because as soon as he wasn’t obliged to take classes he didn’t care about, he was free to start going to ones he was interested in. One of those courses was a calligraphy course. He was mesmerised and completely in love with calligraphy! He couldn’t see a job coming out of it, but he found it fascinating. Fast forward Ten years, and he’s designing the first Macintosh computer. Steve knew that the one thing which would set his computer apart from any others in the marketplace was a selection of beautiful fonts. It was his knowledge and love of calligraphy that inspired him to include multiple typefaces and fonts in the first Mac computer. It was that decision that helped make Apple the leader in computer technology.
His second story focused on ‘love and loss.’ He and a friend started Apple in his parent’s garage when he was 20 years old. In just ten years, Apple transformed into a staggering $2 billion empire, employing over 4,000 people. Steve brought on someone to help him run Apple, and it all went beautifully initially. But then, he wanted to go in a direction that his partner didn’t. His partner got the board on side, and Steve was fired from Apple! He couldn’t believe that he could be sacked from the company he co-founded in his parent’s garage. He was devastated.
Despite the heartache, Steve refused to succumb to bitterness, instead he chose to channel his resilience. He embarked on a new journey, establishing NeXT and acquiring Pixar, which would go on to create groundbreaking technologies and produce the first full-length animated feature film, "Toy Story." In an incredible twist of fate, Apple later acquired NeXT, and Steve rejoined Apple in the role of CEO, steering the company towards its present-day glory.
I love this story and the synchronicity! It really highlights the importance of finding and pursuing what you love, even in the face of setbacks and failures. Steve called his being fired from Apple ‘awful tasting medicine’ but says that none of his future success would have happened if he hadn’t been dealt that blow.
Steve’s third story explores the impact of death on our life choices. He shares his personal experience of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and being told to ‘make arrangements’ because he wouldn’t be around much longer. Thankfully, his was a rare and curable form, and he was able to have life-saving surgery. It was his brush with death that reminded him to live each day to the fullest and to have the courage to follow his heart and intuition, as time is not guaranteed.
Every morning he asked himself, ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?’ When the answer had been a consistent no for a period of time, he then knew he needed to change something.
I am so inspired by Steve Jobs’ story! It really is a testament to the power of mindset influencing the decisions you make and the outcomes in your life.
So, the four takeaways I want you to embrace from his story that will make your business – and life – brilliant and beautiful are:
The significance of doing what you love and not settling for less
Using failures as learning tools so you can do things better
To embrace creativity!
To live each day to the full and not be trapped by the expectations and opinions of others
These are forward thinking practices.
They are fluid and accepting of change, challenge, and choice.
This is the beginning of stepping into your CEO shoes.
When you understand the importance of this thinking, you’ll more likely make the shift into CEO mode.
So, what’s next?
First, you need to understand what a CEO is. We’ve looked at the dictionary definition, and we’ve been motivated to follow our dreams and but we need to go deeper than that.
The CEO role is a ‘peerless’ role.
That means all the initiatives, successes and failures of a business come from the CEO.
The CEO is like the pilot of a plane. Not the co-pilot.
The pilot is in charge and ultimately responsible for the safe landing of the plane at its destination – on time, without incident.
There is no one more important on that plane than the pilot.
You are the pilot – the CEO.
As soon as you started your business, that’s what you became, and the buck stops with you.
That is a completely different ballgame to being the co-pilot or a flight attendant.
Most likely, up until this point, you’ve been the co-pilot or employee in your working life, and now, without any experience, you’re flying the plane.
That’s pretty scary stuff!
How you handle the transition will determine your success or failure.
So, it goes without saying that you’ll probably feel overwhelmed, confused about where to start and you’ll probably have many moments of doubting your ability.
That’s all normal.
But failure is not an option, is it! Now is the time for you to level up and step into your CEO shoes.
That’s quite a jump from going to work, doing your job, collecting your paycheck and going home, isn’t it.
This is what you need to do.
1. Have a Clear Vision
Before you do anything in your business, you need to know where you’re headed. It’s all about what you are trying to achieve now and in the future.
Craft a compelling picture of the future you want for your business and make sure it’s aligned with the goals and mission.
This will then be the focal point of every decision and action taken within the business. If you lose sight of the vision, you end up with the co-pilot flying the plane – no direction, no destination.
The purpose of your vision is to excite, inspire and motivate you and your team to achieve the goals of the business. It can change over time and as your business develops and grows, but you must lead with vision.
2. Have a ‘top-down’, not a ‘bottom-up’ approach.
You’ve been living in the ‘bottom-up’ world, so you need to switch perspectives. This means having a singular focal point for the business and ensuring that every activity is fully aligned to that focus, and actively working towards fulfilling the milestones that will achieve the focus.
By cascading your goals and objectives throughout the business, every activity will be in alignment with your vision and help pave the way to success.
3. Be the Decision Maker
No longer do you run your decisions past the team or ask the boss. You ARE the boss! As such, you need to make strong decisions quickly. The best leaders put a lot of thought into their decisions, but they don’t belabour them. They analyse the facts, consider the risks, make decisions quickly, and change them slowly, because there was a solid strategy behind the original decision.
You will save days, weeks, and even months if you practice making good decisions quickly. Strategy and timing are everything. You’re not going to get everything right. But you won’t get anything right if you don’t consider the situation analytically and make an informed choice.
If you do make the wrong decision, you can change it.
But as I say, change it slowly. Test it. It may not be the decision that was wrong, but the implementation.
The second part of CEO decision-making is taking responsibility for the decisions you make. They’re yours, even if you get advice from others. At the end of the day, whatever you decide is up to you. Remember, the buck stops with you.
4. Strategise
While you’ve been led to this point by your dreams, they’re not enough to bring you success. You need a solid plan and strategy so you can take the actions needed to achieve your dreams.
A strong strategy will keep you on track, focused, and will also remind you of what you need to block out. A strategy helps determine what activities will give the best results and will continuously move the business towards your end goal.
When putting a strategy in place for your business, consider these elements:
What is the final goal/big picture?
Why is this important?
What obstacles will you face?
How will you get there? and
How will you deal with the obstacles along the way?
You’ll need to analyse:
Market trends
Your competition
The capabilities of your business
What will drive sustainable growth and keep you competitive
Then you need to put a plan in place with actionable, measurable steps to achieve your strategy.
Identify each step
Create containers or groups for the related steps
Determine how long each step will take and which group it belongs to
Allocate the person responsible for each step and decide on due dates for each activity
Review each activity throughout the process and assess for gaps or possible improvements to ensure efficiency and effectiveness
Be quality focused – it’s not worth doing if it’s not done well
You can see now how essential having a strong strategy is and that instead of being an annoying, scary word that you hear in relation to your Instagram posts, it’s a helpful tool when used properly for your business.
5. Simplify Processes
CEOs encourage innovation and continuous improvement. They’re always seeking ways to simplify workflows and remove obstacles to success.
In your role as CEO of your business, start looking for areas where you can cut out the fluff, simplify and add value to your products, processes and service offerings.
Write SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for each area of the business. Review them regularly and assess if each step is necessary, if there’s a better way, the quality of the outcome and who is responsible.
By optimising your processes and keeping them as streamlined as possible, you position your business to grow and scale.
Greater efficiency also decreases costs and increases your profit margin – and we love that don’t we!
6. Focus on Results
Now that you’re a CEO, it’s important to focus on achieving measurable results.
Set ambitious goals, monitor their progress, and hold yourself and your team (if you have one) accountable for the outcomes.
You’re trying to keep moving forwards to your end goal, vision and dream. So, if something isn’t working, you need to know why it’s not working, if it still serves the business, and what you’re going to do about it.
Just because you’ve always done something or have had the same services for ages doesn’t mean you need to keep them. Sometimes things that once worked well will stop working.
This is where you need to be analytical and leave the emotion out.
Track your metrics. Have clear KPIs. Look at the data, analyse the figures and read the story they tell you. Then make fact-based decisions on whether to refine, revise, reinvigorate or phase out the project, activity, or service.
7. Money Management
CEOs understand the financial health of their business. They make informed decisions about allocating resources, managing costs, and investing in growth opportunities.
Now, while you may not be used to doing business finances, you do need to learn and understand all aspects of your finances including your cash flow, forecasts, money leaks, the profitability of each individual product and service, what your expenses are, and the ‘hidden costs’ like lost productivity.
You’re in business not just for the impact you make on the world by helping your clients but also to live the life you love and make a profit. So, you need to keep money management front and centre of your CEO activities to ensure you are paying yourself the salary you want, keeping expenses as low as possible and putting money aside to reinvest back into the business, plus money for taxes and upcoming projects.
Strategic financial planning and management ensure the stability and long-term viability of your business. If you haven’t read the book ‘Profit First’ make that a priority. It will give you brilliant advice for running a profitable business and paying yourself first.
8. Delegate
It’s not the role of the CEO to do everything within the business. That is not your function as a business owner. Your role is to look at the big picture and direction of the business.
It can be tricky at first if it’s just you. Because you are the CEO, plus the CFO, Creative Director, Admin Manager, Marketing and Sales Team, Bookkeeper and Data Analyst. That’s when your time management skills and SOPs will be crucial! So you’ll need to first step into your CEO shoes, get all your ducks in a row, then jump in and out of the other roles as needed while you’re building the business.
When you do have a team, it’s your role to direct and support them in taking responsibility for the activities in their areas of specialty that support the objectives of the business.
Now this may sound very far ahead if you’re a business of one person, but you need to get into this mindset. Think about what you do every day and if it’s moving the business forwards or if it’s a task that keeps the wheels turning.
CEOs should be focusing on high-level strategic initiatives that move the business forward while delegating the tasks that keep the wheels turning.
Introduce some project management tools early in your business to help act as an extra team member and free up your time, plus, they’ll be invaluable when you do bring team members on board or start outsourcing.
9. Communication
Effective communication is the cornerstone of being a great CEO. Remember back to your days as an employee and the negative effects of bad communication in the workplace. It leads to disgruntled staff, unhappy customers, decreased productivity and general disharmony. It’s likely one of the reasons you left corporate to start your own business.
Good communicators command respect. People love to listen to them and know they’ll be heard in return. Communication validates people, their ideas, and emotions and creates a feeling of safety and trust.
This is crucial in your role as a CEO.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have employees, because you do have clients, and you must be able to communicate with them in a way that makes them comfortable and want to keep coming back to you.
Communication is not just how you talk on the phone, it’s every aspect of the business. It’s in your marketing, branding, emails, and social media. You set the messaging and overall tone of communication throughout your business.
Always use active listening and open communication whether you’re a business of one or 1,000.
10. Practice Patience
Building a successful business takes time, and CEOs recognise the importance of patience.
Not all goals can be achieved overnight, so you must be willing to persist through challenges and setbacks and maintain a long-term perspective.
Building your business is a marathon. It takes time to build visibility so that people know you exist, it takes more time to develop your business persona so that it authentically represents you and creates a relationship with potential clients. It takes even more time to build your client base and consistently attract new leads and clients.
Plus, you’re also subject to factors outside your control, like the economy, pandemics, politics and even the weather and school terms. They will all affect your cash flow and bottom line.
If you focus on the big picture, set up solid systems and processes, develop outstanding services and deliver them beautifully to your clients, all while marketing strategically and caring for your money, health and mindset – you are doing all the right things.
It takes time. It takes patience.
Remember, apart from some rare cases, all those ‘overnight’ success stories were actually working for 5 years in their business to become overnight successes.
Great success is the result of dedicated and persistent effort.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is greatness. Embrace the journey, weather the storms, and emerge triumphant. Now is the time to seize the day and your full power as a CEO.
The world is waiting, and your destiny as a transformative leader beckons. It’s time to step into your CEO shoes!
Links and Resources
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of your dreams!
PS. Download the Brilliant Business Beautiful Life Playbook and start designing the business and life you deserve today!
LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS + SPOTIFY
Hi, I’m Samantha Bell
I’m all about helping you build the business – and life – you’ve always wanted.
Listen in for the simple, actionable strategies, mindset shifts, and practices you need to make your business thrive. Plus, a healthy dose of self-care, health, and wellness so you can live the life you absolutely adore while building your beautiful business.