Are You The Bottleneck? It's Time to Fire Yourself!

Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs

My entrepreneurial dad taught me that you have to fire yourself from every other position in your business. But when you first start your business, you have to wear so many hats: customer service, bookkeeper, tech person, assistant, and so on. So it can be quite challenging to let go of some of the roles as you grow your business and your team.

Today kicks off a new podcast series that discusses how you can become more productive and focuses as a CEO. And in this episode, I talk about how to redefine your role as CEO of your business so you don’t become the bottleneck that holds everything up.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

3:56 - Why is it so difficult to let go of the other roles and stay in your CEO lane as your business grows?

7:07 - Founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely, gave insight on how she had to learn to get out of her own way.

12:05 - You being the bottleneck in your business has this unintended consequence as well.

13:06 - How can you start redefining your role as CEO? I reveal the first thing I did and some red flags that signal you’re getting in the way.

17:29 - I discuss the role of the traditional CEO in defining their business’s vision. I also share my favorite exercise to get clarity on your business’s vision.

22:00 - CEOs also have a responsibility to set the culture for the company. I talk about one of the values I’ve had for my business since the beginning.

26:36 - What’s the difference between how corporate CEOs go about creating the strategic plan for their business vs. small business CEOs?

28:49 - I discuss how running a small business team contrasts with running a large company team and how that’s reflected in my business.

31:53 - This final role-playing piece for CEOs is one of the most difficult. It’s the one thing you can’t outsource.

38:35 - Where do you need to put your time, energy, and attention so that you can focus on generating business growth and results? To get clear on this, here are some questions to ask yourself.

48:44 - I share how the avenues where I focus my time, energy, and attention on show up in my business every week and month.

56:15 - How do I divide up my time between doing all the things I’m focused on in my business?

Mentioned In This Episode

• Fired Up & Focused Challenge
• Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less by Cameron Herald
• The CEO Retreat
• “How a CEO Date Keeps Me Focused Each Week”