Adopting a CEO Mindset in Your Small Business
Even though I’ve been running Lemon and the Sea since 2015, I’ve never considered myself a CEO. A designer? Yep. A business owner? Sure. But a CEO? That was for huge companies with employees, window offices, and power suits.
Then I met Ashley Kang and my mindset started to shift. I realized that as the one making all the decisions in my business, I am the CEO. We even did a podcast interview where we chased a rabbit trail all about recognizing that even without a team or huge revenue numbers, we are all the CEOs of our businesses.
Recently I worked with Ashley to create a strategic plan to move my business forward (and leave behind the things that weren’t serving me). It was amazing to have someone else who knows my business come in and get to the heart of what I want to do and help me map out how to get there.
Some of those CEO decisions included:
Creating a repurposing plan for Process to Profitability to take advantage of the amazing content I’ve already created instead of getting stuck every time I try to write a newsletter.
Pressing pause of creating a course and instead focusing on launching a Sales Page Design VIP Day
Mapping out a plan for building my referral network and brining in consistent clients
It was so helpful for me to take this plan and then create time in my calendar to actually get the work done that I wanted Ashley to share a little more about how she helps business owners own the CEO role in their business.
Stepping into your CEO role
Well hello there!
I’m Ashley Kang, business strategist, coach, and CEO of AHK Business Management.
My goal is to equip coaches and online service providers to step into and own their role as CEO.
When it comes to managing and growing a successful business, there are 3 core things you need before anything else:
A solid foundation - aka aligned mission, vision, and values
Clearly articulated goals and priorities + action plan
A weekly CEO Day
The foundations of your business are just that - the foundations, the bedrock on which your business is built. Moving the needle in your business is more effective when you’re able to clearly identify your goals and priorities and align them with your foundations. The clearer your goals and priorities, the easier it is to break everything down into an action plan with tangible tasks. Your focus and direction are set, and you’re ready to dial in.
But just because you have an action plan doesn’t mean it implements itself overnight, right? This is where a weekly CEO Day comes - the intentional time you carve out each week to work on the business growth activities. During your CEO Day you could be checking progress on your goals, delegating out work and tasks related to the goals, and even executing some of the tasks and projects supporting your goals.
When it comes down to it, CEO Days provide the space to be the visionary decision-maker of your business and work on business-building activities so you can get after your goals and make your vision a reality. To learn more about CEO Days, join my email list to receive Becoming the CEO, the weekly email series that helps coaches and online service providers manage their time and create space to grow their businesses with simple systems and CEO Days.
