I am so so excited about our topic today. Who doesn’t love a good goal-setting chat? I know I do. Today we’re diving all into the one game changing thing that will help you reach your goals. Of course this is geared primarily for business, but as we know, our personal life impacts our business.
Therefore, the vast majority of these takeaways, tips, and tactics for this topic can be applied across the board. So they can be applied to your personal life, your relationships, your health goals, and of course, your business.
This takes more of a holistic approach because everything is all intertwined. What we don’t want is to just be going full steam ahead to build and scale our business and then everything else suffers, is put on the back burner, or we just burn out. So having a very well-rounded approach can be really supportive here.
Something I’ve found a lot of throughout the years is that there’s often a disconnect in the talking about, the planning, or the setting of goals with the followthrough to make them happen. And we really want to be able to move forward with our plan and take action so that these goals actually do happen.
So, without further ado, what is this one game changing thing that will help you reach your goals?
Introducing: CEO Days.
You may have heard the phrase “work on your business, not just in your business.” So what this phrase essentially means is make sure you’re not only working in your business like solely on the day-to-day. But you’re also working on your business, which is more along the lines of strategic direction, infrastructure, and long-term goals in the business.
As small business owners, even if you’re at that multi-six or close to seven figure mark, it’s obviously crucial for you to be working in the business. Answering questions, serving clients, sending invoices, all of these nitty gritty details are the things that keep a business running and a business generating revenue, right.
But if that’s all that you’re doing, and you’re so intertwined in the day-to-day that you’re not able to focus on longevity and where the business is going, if it hasn’t already, that’s going to become a huge problem sooner rather than later. And a CEO day can help you address it and course correct.
Now a couple of things here. If you’re a multi-six or seven-figure business owner, you may already have infrastructure, automations, delegation, client delivery, and operations already working smoothly. Great. A CEO day can still be useful.
If you’re working towards or at the six-figure mark and you feel like you can’t come up for air, a CEO day is going to be your new bff, and one that you should start getting acquainted with NOW, not next year.
No matter what level of business you’re at, taking time for yourself, getting clear on the direction of the company, and auditing what’s working and what can be improved, all of these things are going to benefit you and your business in the long run.
What is a CEO day.
A CEO day is a dedicated day to work on the business. It’s a day that you have set aside or blocked off in your calendar to set goals, make sure you’re on the path that supports where you want to be going (and again this coincides personally and professionally), audit what’s working (and what’s not), analyse some of your numbers and data, and get clarity.
It can be easy for us to get lost in the hum drum of just doing something because we get in a pattern or routine and before we know it we are going down a path we don’t even want. And ironically enough, sometimes we don’t even realise we’re going in a direction that we don’t want until we take a step back.
CEO days give you permission, time and freedom to block everything else off, zoom out and think big picture, and then zoom back in and prioritise, plan, and structure what you want to happen next.
These days can help you course correct, but even more importantly, they can help you become aware that you’re not on the right course. And sometimes just realising there is a problem is half the battle.
Now of course, if you are on the right path and you’re going in the right direction, amazing, these days allow you to dive in deeper to capitalise on what is working. They help you get clarity on what lights you up and help you identify areas that you can go do more of that.
So this is actually not a new concept, and there is a lot of advice floating around about how you should structure these days. Some advice is to take one full day per week. Other suggestions are to structure these days as a way that you specifically audit your business and focus on what’s going to help you grow.
That’s amazing. And if that feels good for you and is realistic for where you’re at right now, please feel free to run with that. But for me, I don’t take either of those approaches nor do I recommend them for my clients, and here’s why.
What we don’t want is to overpromise and then feel like one full day is too much and then we just don’t do it at all.
I know a few years ago when I was working 100+ hour weeks, it was hard for me to find time to pee, so setting aside an entire day per week or even per month to be quite honest, was bat shit crazy at that time. So what I don’t want is for you to hear this and think “ah man I’m too busy to do that, I don’t have time, maybe I can do it next quarter or next year.” And you push it off.
Because we 100% want to be intentional, yes. And we do not want to be working 100+ hour weeks. With that said, the entire point of these days is to help you be intentional and to help you structure things and get strategic so that you aren’t working 24/7. And you know it doesn’t even have to be working “that much”. It can literally be you’re working 40 hour weeks and you don’t feel like you’re able to fit this into the schedule.
Whatever that looks like for you, it’s all relevant. If this does not feel feasible to you, what we want to mitigate is just throwing in the towel and deciding you don’t have time to do it. And there is a difference here between finding or making time for things that we believe to be a priority, but for the context of this episode and what I’ve seen my clients struggle with, we’re not going to dive into that right now, but I do want to acknowledge it.
So if you can relate to any of what I just said, my first recommendation to you would be to block off one hour at some point this month. It doesn’t have to be during the week, it doesn’t have to be during the day, it can be at 10pm on a Sunday night. Whatever that looks like to start to get the ball rolling for you to start incorporating these days. That’s what we’re going for initially.
And as time goes on you can start to build them into your schedule more strategically and more frequently. I do find these are incredibly helpful once per week, but again it’s totally okay if you’re not where you can incorporate these days that often right now. But as with most things, right now the goal is to just start.
Next, oftentimes when we’re hearing about CEO days there are a lot of recommendations to audit your business and focus on what’s going to help you grow. This also can be incredibly beneficial, but, if you go with that approach, just make sure you’re looking at the full picture, not just the numbers and what looks good on paper.
Because what can happen is you start focusing on these things that yes, may make financial sense and may help the business grow, but it’s not the direction that YOU want to go. It may be something that is no longer aligned, something you’ve outgrown, or something that just does not light you up anymore. And then eventually you’re going to get to this cross roads where you are unhappy or even miserable in this business that you’ve built, that by all intents and purposes is successful, but that you want to burn to the ground. We want to mitigate that from the start.
How can you structure a CEO day?
Upleveled environment (if possible)
In an ideal world, it is great to have a change of scenery, go somewhere nice, and focus on you and your business. Especially because normal day-to-day things pop up and then habits take over, especially when we’re in our normal environment, which makes it really difficult to focus.
With that said, I have clients who are single parents, caregivers, building their business alongside their corporate job, traveling the world full-time, homeschooling their kids, you name it, I’ve seen it. And in an ideal world it sounds phenomenal to take a day off every week and go to the spa and do this lovely CEO day.
In reality, that isn’t always practical.
So this is full permission for you to structure these days in whatever way best fits into your life. If that is a spa day, awesome, go schedule it. If that means locking yourself in your bathroom so you have the space and solitude to focus on this, great, do it. You can even run a nice bubble bath, grab a glass of wine, and have your CEO day or your CEO hour, or whatever it is. For me personally, I love going to my local coffee shop, leaving my phone at home, bringing my noise canceling headphones and putting on a nice playlist, and diving in. But I understand that may not be an option for everyone.
Full permission to do this in whatever way best serves you in this moment and in this season. Because the beautiful thing about doing these is, the more that you do them and the more that you implement the things coming out of them, the more space and clarity you’re going to allow yourself, which benefits you, your business, and your personal life.
Now if you are able to uplevel your environment, of course that is ideal and that’s going to help you embody where you’re going and who you’re becoming. But if that’s not an option, it’s okay, don’t throw in the towel on these just because the location isn’t ideal. You can still do something to change things up, like moving your desk a bit or doing the bubble bath.
Fulfillment audit
When we’re running a business, it’s so easy for things to blur together. Before you know it, days become weeks, weeks become months, and then half the year has passed. Next thing you know, we blink and we’re ushering in a new year. And the whole purpose of a fulfillment audit to make sure that when those days blur into years, that you’re actually creating a life by design, not one by default.
While the industry as a whole talks about strategy and growth and finances, all of which we’re going to dive into momentarily, something that I’ve found discussed or even acknowledged far less often is fulfillment.
Okay so what do I mean by fulfillment?
By this, I’m referring to a feeling of happiness or satisfaction. And I’m specifically referencing it regarding areas of the business, but also how the business impacts your life.
Do you feel satisfied with how your business supports you personally? This is one of those dicey topics because our business can be a financial success or look great on paper or have a huge team or loads of raving success stories, etc, but if we’re working 24/7 or we’re doing something we no longer resonate with, it can turn into a burden instead of something that fulfills us.
So one way you can start your fulfillment audit on your CEO day is to sit down with a journal and reflect on these questions.
What do I love about my business?
How can I go and get more or do more of that?
How is my business supporting me personally?
Where are areas in my business that are roadblocks or causing friction personally?
What’s one thing I can do this month to shift that?
Growth analysis
In your CEO day, of course it’s good to gather data so you can see how the business is actually doing. This is going to help you know what’s working as well as what things can be improved or let go of altogether.
So a growth analysis can be a great opportunity to dive into the nitty gritty of metrics, analytics, and hard data.
Now a growth analysis is most useful when compared over time instead of just a random one-off audit. So this is where those consistent CEO days can help you get a solid picture of where the business is at.
Some things to look at in your growth analysis are:
-website traffic and analytics
-email list subscribers and open rates
-social media followers
But we also want to look a bit further into things like:
-where are leads coming from
-what’s your conversion rate
-what marketing activities are generating the most sales
When you are more educated on your numbers, you can make more strategic decisions and capitalize on what’s working and what can be improved (and you have the data to back it up).
Financial report
Although it’s not always the most fun of topics, we need solid cash flow to run a successful business. And we definitely need to be generating more than we are spending. So taking a look at your finances and your businesses financial situation can help with this.
Like everything else to do with a CEO day, the financial reporting aspect is going to be different for you than it is for someone else. And that’s okay. During this portion, you can take a look at some of the following.
-What was my revenue this month?
-What were my expenses this month?
-How much of that was monthly recurring revenue versus one-off sales?
-What helped me generate the most revenue this month?
-Is there something I need to let go of or somewhere I can get more streamlined?
-Is there an investment that will support me I should look into?
While I think your time can be better spent in other areas, if you’re able to do this for a full day, you can also take this time to update your expenses into your tax software, upload receipts to your accounting software, work on your budget, or send invoices. However, these are things that can be delegated, but if you have the time and want to build those into your CEO days, by all means, go for it.
Strategic direction
When you start thinking strategy, it’s crucial to make sure that your decisions are made with your values and long-term goals in mind. Because making random decisions without factoring these things in means that you may be taking action, but it may be moving you towards something you don’t even want.
So first and foremost, think about your core values and what your long-term goals are, and these can be in either 1, 3, 5 or 10 year stints. The point here is to keep these things front of mind.
So ask yourself:
-Is my business still aligned with my long-term goals?
If yes, great. If no, take some time and reassess and get clear on what those actual long-term goals even are.
Once you’re clear on those, you can then take the data that you gleaned and some of the answers from your fulfillment audit to determine your next steps.
-What was successful last month?
-What can be improved?
-What held me back?
-What’s one step I can take to work through that to support me move forward?
-What goals do I have for the upcoming quarter?
-What actions do I need to take in order to achieve that goal?
-What goals do I want to accomplish by the end of the year?
-What actions do I need to take in order to achieve those goals?
When you have information, clarity, and direction, you can map out your next steps and then take action.
If you are lost with no direction, take a step back. Carve out some time for a CEO day.
If you’re constantly reactive versus proactive, carve out some time for a CEO day.
CEO days give you the space to process what you love that’s working, and also what’s not (or what can be improved). They give you data so you can actually see what’s working instead of just guessing. And they give you some time away to figure out what it is you actually want to be doing and to make sure that your business is supporting your life and your goals. Because we want to be living a life by design, not one by default, and we want to ensure that we’re setting our business up to support us to do just that.
