What does being a CEO mean to you?

 

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Click on the gif above to watch this video on YouTube or click play below to listen to the Podcast version

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Being a CEO is more than just “being the boss”, but it doesn’t mean that you have to give up doing what you love in order to run the business. It’s a very specific role that involves delegation of a lot of responsibilities, but there are certain things that you’re always going to be responsible for. Let’s break down how you can remain the caretaker of your business while still spending most of your time doing the things that you love and got you into this business in the first place!

Here’s a glance at this episode…

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 00:25 – In general, what does a CEO do?
• 00:55 – Choosing your role as a CEO without giving up what you love
• 02:20 – The health of your company is in your hands
• 03:04 – What you need to be keeping track of and strategizing around
• 03:55 – Where you can delegate to make your CEO role easier

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The Transcript is listed below if you would prefer to read this yourself instead of watching the video!

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Hey there. I’m Sandra B, your Sidekick COO. I help overworked overwhelmed, multi-hatted entrepreneurs like you become CEOs of your very own sustainably scalable, and powerfully profitable business through proven business tips, practical processes, and a touch of tough love. Heavy on the love. Don’t forget to like and subscribe. Let’s go. So what does being a CEO mean to you?

Being a CEO, obviously like in the grand scheme of things, you are the leader. You are the one who is setting the tone for the company. You are leading the direction and the strategy.  You are making sure that you are leading by example, and you are following the processes and procedures that the company has laid out. You’re being the person responsible overall for the health and wellbeing of the company.

Being the CEO of your own business, to me means that you are deciding what your role is going to be and then you are setting the strategic plan for your company, and you are finding people and delegating work to them.  As the CEO of your business, you should not be the person doing all of the things. If you were a baker and you decided to open a bakery and all you want to do is bake.

That is fantastic. As the CEO for the company, you can be the baker. You can choose to do that thing, but that does mean you have to find somebody else to be your COO, your Chief of Operations.  Somebody else to come in and handle all of those other, you know, less sexy tasks, things that you don’t really wanna do. You wanna be baking. You wanna get your hands in that dough, but you don’t necessarily want to have your brain in all of the numbers or deal with the employees or be the one that’s like coming up with all of the plans and marketing and all of that stuff. And that is totally fine.

You do not have to do all that stuff. You might have to do it for a little while, until you have enough money to hire out. But in the grand scheme of things, as you move up, as you scale your business, you do not have to do anything in your business that you don’t wanna do. You can hire somebody to do all of the roles pretty much that you don’t wanna do, but you are the business owner. So as the CEO, you need to take responsibility for the health and wellbeing of your company. And that is not something that you can outsource. That is something that you have to take responsibility for. And it only falls on your shoulders. Which means that although, yes, you can hire somebody to do all of the things that need to be done in order to maintain the health and wellness of your company.

You can hire a bookkeeper and an accountant and a financial planner. You can hire an HR person. You can hire a supervisor or a manager or a COO or whatever you can hire to your heart’s content, but you always, always, always have to make decisions to the benefit of the company. Which means you have to be looking at your numbers. You have to know your profit margins. You have to understand where the revenue is coming in. What the trends are. You have to pay, pay attention to what is happening in the world at large, or at least have somebody in your company that’s paying attention to that stuff so that they can report it to you and tell you what it means so that you can plan for things. You have to plan for things.

So many business owners just go into work every day, and then they just do the work. You know, if they’re a baker, like I said, they just go in, they bake and they hope it sells. And they don’t take the time to actually make a plan. They don’t take the time to look at their numbers until it comes time to pay the bills and then they’re wondering where all their money went. So you need to know your numbers first and foremost and that again is not something that as a CEO, you should be delegating. You can delegate it to somebody to help you come up with the numbers. You can have somebody else find the numbers for you and, and, analyze them and report back to you. But you need to be aware of what those numbers are and you need to understand them as much as possible.

So to me, that’s what being a CEO is. It doesn’t really matter what you do day-to-day, what you choose to do day-to-day and what you choose to delegate. Those responsibilities doesn’t really matter. Overall, as a CEO, though, you are responsible for the health and wellbeing of your company. You’re fiscally responsible to your company to make sure that it turns a profit, or at least has a plan for turning a profit within X years, that you know, what’s going to happen and you need to be paying attention to those things and that’s what being a CEO is. There’s always something as a CEO that you can’t delegate and that is the biggest one.

Well, make sure to Like & Subscribe so that you don’t miss the next session and while you’re at it, why not share this video with another fellow entrepreneur that needs to hear it? If you have any struggles in your business, please tell me about them in the comments below.

And don’t forget that together we thrive. Take care.