Schedule Your CEO Day For Next-Level Success
Why You Need A CEO Day
As a small business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind of your business. You have services to deliver, products to ship, and emails to answer! Doing all this work IN your business is critical and it’s likely you can’t delegate the majority of it. However, weeks or months can disappear while you are doing the daily work. And if you’re not careful, you might look up and wonder why you haven’t met certain goals. Even when you’ve been working hard as hell. This is exactly why you need to schedule time to focus ON your business. That time is your CEO Day.
What Is A CEO Day?
Your CEO Day is time you set aside to get out of the day-to-day of your business and instead focus on your vision. It’s a time to review and plan, making sure that your daily actions are in alignment with your big picture. It’s when you put on your CEO hat. Doing the work on projects and plans that will help you to move the needle forward in your business. It should also be a day that you look forward to!
If you are thinking this sounds like exactly what you need, but you are also wondering how you actually have a CEO Day, keep reading. Or take a behind the scenes look at Emily’s CEO Day for both of her businesses in these vlog style videos:
- Business Planning as Creative Business Owner, Part 1
- Business Planning as Creative Business Owner, Part 2
How To Prepare For Your CEO Day
Before we get too far along into the how and what of your CEO Day, remember that there is no one way to organize or execute your CEO Day. If you’ve never scheduled this type of time for yourself in your business, try starting with 2 times a year or quarterly. At the very least, you should be doing some sort of big picture planning and review at the beginning of each year.
Once you’ve decided how often you’ll have CEO days, the next step is to get them on your calendar. Make sure to block off the entire day and communicate your availability to your team, clients, or family. Consider changing your location for the day. You can treat yourself to a hotel or a nice physical coworking space.
On the morning of your CEO Day, take some time to get in the right mindset to do this big picture work. This might look different for you but here are some things you should consider:
- Take time to get put together, whatever that means for you, shower, do your hair, put on your most-boss outfit. You want to feel good!
- Eat your favorite breakfast and grab something to sip on.
- Do some meditation, breathwork or visualization exercises. The goal here is to find the right frame of mind.
- Gather all the items you may need. Think a notebook, pen, any spreadsheets or reports that are important to your business.
- Remove distractions like email and social media
- Know how you are going to celebrate at the end of your day!
3 Things To Do During Your CEO Day
Take A Look At Your Money
Before you start making plans for what you want or need to create in your business, you need to review your money. That means numbers and mindset. Of course, you’ll want to run your numbers including your income, expenses and profit. Taking a good look at your financial reports. Where is your revenue coming from? What revenue streams are performing well? Do you have room to invest in your business? If you made projections for the year, this would be a great time to analyze them against your current numbers. Take a minute to set or adjust your next money goal.
But you will also want to take some time to consider how you feel about money. What comes up for you when you think about the money you are making in your business. A big part of making money is knowing what you want to spend it on! Do you use your money to create the business and life you want?
Run Your Numbers
You’ve reviewed your money numbers! But you’ll have other important numbers in your business that you’ll need to look at. These will include any metrics you are tracking and your key performance indicators or KPIs. Not sure how to determine what else you should be tracking in your business? Check out the Mundane Metrics Keynote from our 2020 Gathering in the Clubhouse!
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These metrics could include a variety of stats from your marketing or sales. For example your website or email marketing statistics. You could also consider metrics around customer retention. Take note of the performance and indicate what is working or what isn’t. This information will help you adjust your day to day action items if needed.
For additional support, listen to Tracking Business Metrics for Success. Emily covers how to stay in touch with your business data. You’ll learn how to use it to make decisions and improvements.
Make Your Plan
Now that you have the data, it’s time to review your project milestones and progress. First, review what you’ve completed so far. List out any major accomplishments and any lessons you’ve learned along the way. Make note of any projects that you still have in progress or haven’t yet started. Consider if you need extra resources. Or if you should remove a project altogether.
Evaluate where time is getting spent in your business, especially your time. Are you pouring hours into a revenue stream that is not making a return? Did you identify a process improvement that you need to put in place ASAP?
Once you’ve identified what you’ll focus on next in your business, it is time to outline a plan. You’ll need to determine timelines and resources. It is important to identify your key results for any new or remaining projects.
How To Make The Most Of It
You’re passionate and dedicated to your business. You have big dreams and know how to do the creative part of your business. If you find the CEO part of your role to be a struggle, you aren’t alone.
GET CEO DAY KIT
CEO Day Kit can help you lay out a plan for building the business you desire. Get guidance through 7 modules. Covering the most important aspects of your business, with all the structure and tools you need for conducting your CEO Day. You’ll be able to focus, move forward, and show your business who’s boss.
