The CEO Factor™

Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part II)

Melanie Benson Strick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:32:36 +0000

Today we have Part II of the Success Compass – Finding Your Direction piece. If you missed last week’s edition please Click Here to read it first!

3) Environment

Environment dictates the level of success you can achieve. Think of your environment as a container that either lifts you up or drags you down.

A business environment can either be a balloon that allows you to soar above the competition or a weight that is constantly pulling you down in your pursuit of success.

The environment that you create as a CEO must be one that allows you to be the best that you can be. This often will look significantly different and have different pieces in it then the environment you might have held when you first started your business or first began to grow your business. The environment of a CEO, out of necessity, should be unique.

Exercise: Think about what environment you need to help you grow in your business and personally. What people lift you up and encourage you to be the best? And what personality types interfere with your ability to be proactive and succeed?

What sort of environment do you respond to favorably? What habits do you need to break to move onward and upward into a 7 figure business?

4) Skills and Knowledge

Jumping into a seven-figure business does require some different knowledge. Knowledge and skills are vastly different when you become a CEO as opposed to the days of entrepreneurship when you found yourself doing it all.

You should no longer see yourself as a jack-of-all-trades but should begin to hone and sharpen the skills necessary to run a successful company.

There are some changes in your knowledge, skills and education that need to adjust and grow for business success. Learn how to stop doing everything! Trust the individuals that are on your team to share the workload with you so that you can focus your time and energy on what you do best.

Exercise: Once you have determined your major role in the organization moving forward, you will be able to identify exactly which skills you need to hone in on and develop further. Find a mentor, get your hands on ebooks or courses that a tailored specifically to this skill set so you can become the best of the best at what you do.

Analyzing the “Success Compass” and implementing this new direction into your own business is your first step to a blossoming into a seven figure sensation.

To learn more about CEO development and leading your business to a whole new level grab your copy of The CEO Manifesto by Melanie Benson Strick. CLICK HERE to claim your free copy now!

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Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part II)

Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part I)

Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part I)

Melanie Benson Strick — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:20:29 +0000

Like the four cardinal directions on a compass, there are basically four central factors for success that move an Entrepreneur beyond five figures and into CEO of a high six figure and beyond business. The big leap lies in banishing the “what do I have to do” attitude in their business towards a “what would have to happen so that we can create this” mentality. One focuses inward, ultimately creating a bottleneck in business creativity, and the other paves the way for creative collaboration and ownership of the business.

Each part of the four essential elements to creating and sustaining huge success is necessary and vital. Like the four legs of a table, one without any of the others will still put you in a place of instability. You have to learn to see each element as critically important for the whole to function.

1) Mindset

The CEO is the gatekeeper of the company’s values. In order to be successful as a CEO and a 7 figure business owner specifically, you need to determine exactly what your vision is.

You need to examine what you really want to achieve with your business. How you want the business to serve others. What your central values and beliefs are with regards to your organization and how you want it to function.

You need to be clear within yourself first before others can take this vision on board and implement it throughout the different levels of the company.

Once you have a good concept of this vision you need to spread the word. Share your vision clearly with the other members on your team so that they too can start to live and breath that vision.

Begin to think out of the box and set yourself in a growth position. Begin to think beyond yourself and figure out how those around can help move your vision forward as well.

You can no longer look at your business as a solo entity, it is more than that now. A well-constructed vision should be able to move forward without your presence.

Exercise: You need to get to the root of your vision. What made you get into this business in the first place, what makes you tick, what drives you to succeed every day, what do you really want to achieve. Tapping into those deep desires will be key to constructing a clear vision for where you want to take your business, how you want to best serve your clients and how you want to change the world in your own way.

Take time to think about each of these motivators and how they can help you focus your efforts and mindset to produce greater results for your business.

2) Habits and Actions

The transition from entrepreneur to a successful CEO of a seven-figure company depends heavily on your habits and actions. The habits that got you to 6 figures need a major adjustment before they can hit the 7 range.

Your habits as CEO will will be the driving force behind the success or failure of the company.

The main impediment for many people is that they are running their companies like an entrepreneur and not a CEO. You must see yourself as a leader and not like a marketer or a person of their trade.

Begin to form habits and actions that characterizes someone who has a clear vision and is ready and willing to make the necessary changes in their own life to move it forward.

You need to stop getting hung up on the every day tasks of your business and start to look at the bigger picture stuff. If there are tedious tasks taking up your time without generating a return then you need to seek help from other members on your team so you can move forward!

Exercise: Note down the actions or habits you have currently that may impede your ability to broach the 7 figure world. Think of the actions of successful CEO’s in your industry and determine how you can implement similar practices in your day to day life that will propel you forward.

Keep an eye out for Part II on Tuesday!

To learn more about CEO development and leading your business to a whole new level grab your copy of The CEO Manifesto by Melanie Benson Strick. CLICK HERE to claim your free copy now!

Online Connections: The CEO Factor FB Page · Facebook · Twitter

The CEO Factor Manifesto Grab Your FREE Copy Here!

Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part I)

Success Compass – Finding Your Direction (Part II)

5 Steps to Quick-Start Your New Virtual Team

Melanie Benson Strick — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:50:10 +0000

Once you realize you need a team you are probably going to want to get started quickly. That’s how we work as entrepreneurs, an idea gets in our head and we leap forward. I’m going to give you a few ideas here on getting started.

You may realize that this is a common problem when important steps are missed in the beginning. Typically we rush to bring a new team member on board because we need help now. How can you fix this? A few key elements can easily remedy about 85% of common hiring mistakes.

1. Create a vision statement. Make sure you have written out what you want your life and business to be like when you hire the person. Don’t skip this step – it really is crucial to attracting the right people to co-create the experience you want.

2. Develop a job description. Map out exactly what you want the person to accomplish for you. This will also help with estimating the number of hours to plan for.

3. Identify your standards, values and vision for your company. If you don’t communicate them up front, how will you know if they share your standards, values and vision? If your standard is to respond to phone calls within 24 hours and your

VA’s is to return calls within 5 days, you could have a problem.

4. Create a checklist of skills, work style preferences and resources team members must have. Do they need to have experience in your particular trade/ industry? Do you use Microsoft Outlook and need to be compatible? Do you prefer to work with self-starters who need little guidance or want to be intimately involved in the day to day operations with them?

5. Take time to interview and check references. Interview at least three to five candidates. Ask questions like, “Tell me about a time when you didn’t know how to complete a job, what did you do?” or “How did you learn how to perform your duties at your last job?”

Following this process when you create your Virtual team, you will find your business flying increasing your profits exponentially.

To find out more about how you can leverage your time and skills, build an amazing team and achieve amazing results you NEED to get your hands on a copy of my free report “101 Ways to Triple Your Income and Double Your Time Off”. Click Here to claim your copy now.

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The CEO Factor Manifesto Grab Your FREE Copy Here!

5 Steps to Quick-Start Your New Virtual Team

Why Running Your Business Alone Never Works

Melanie Benson Strick — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:25:53 +0000

I was coaching a client one day who was feeling rather overwhelmed. I invited her to start a process of writing down all of the responsibilities, projects, tasks and other “shoulds” that she had swimming around in her mind. When she called in for her next coaching session, I asked her how many things she had on her list. She had filled four pages of stuff that had to get done—right now!

As we went through her list the problem became crystal-clear, and it’s what I call the Multiple Train Syndrome.

This is why running your business alone doesn’t work.

Every role, project and task is a train that you must drive to the station (the end goal). If you insist on driving all the trains yourself, you will never get them all to the station. Multiple Trains Syndrome might be the reason why you aren’t accomplishing results fast enough.

So let’s put this into perspective: If you are the conductor of all of these trains…

AND they need YOU to put your attention on them in order to move forward…

AND you can truly only focus on one thing at a time…

THEN every time you get on one train… you HAVE TO get off the other one! Your trains will take forever to get into the station.

The solution to Multiple Train Syndrome?

Hire other people to drive the trains forward for you.

That’s where a virtual team comes in. To achieve an income and a lifestyle that you have admired in other successful entrepreneurs and wondered how to have for yourself, you must you must learn how to use leverage. This is accomplished in the three steps I have talked about before: money, systems and time.

Once you learn to leverage, your team will, in essence, replicate you (the “old” solo entrepreneur) in areas where you (the visionary) are “wasting” your time and talents in the day to day tasks that take care of your business—enabling YOU to become the SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS OWNER!

Now, let’s begin building a virtual team so you can start planning for your “bigger lifestyle goals”—vacations, getting more done and blowing the ceiling off your revenue projections!

I am sure you are asking yourself, “But what about WHERE I find these people and WHERE do I start and HOW do I do it? I want to make more money AND I want a better lifestyle as well!”

A virtual team is a group of independent contractors who are integral to a team approach in creating a collaborative end result.

The golden rule of thumb for virtual team building is: Hire to your weaknesses not your strengths. Hire complementary skill sets to your expertise and you will find it a freeing experience.

As entrepreneurs we must remember that people who balance us out may think entirely opposite to us and constantly challenge our way of thinking and getting things done. That is actually a good thing. If you are good at sales and client fulfillment, hire people who love to do the bookkeeping, appointment scheduling or customer service so you know that these essential components are being taken care of with enthusiasm and pride.

I want to leave you with something Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.’

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Why Running Your Business Alone Never Works

The Undeniable Power of Leverage

Melanie Benson Strick — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:02:58 +0000

I was constantly feeling overwhelmed and scrambled from one crisis to another. I thought that there has to be a better way. There was, I learned how to LEVERAGE.

What is leverage; applying a little amount of pressure and getting a greater result, just like a lever, move the lever a little and it applies a greater amount of pressure getting a bigger result.

Entrepreneurs can use three types of leverage: money, systems, and time.

Money

The three easiest ways to leverage are to:

1. Charge more

Let’s say you are a coach and you currently make money by coaching clients one on one for $100 per hour. You are limited by time and energy – you can only make as much money as you can work – usually about 10 to 12 clients per week. If you were to double your rates to $200 you would double your income.

2. Widen your offer of service

If, however, you charged $200 per person to attend an event that 10 people attend for one hour, and then you have exponentially grown your revenue.

3. Package your service and automate its delivery.

Now, if you took your process and packaged it as an information product selling it on your website, you could sell your package for $200. With some really good marketing you might sell 20 a week – with no extra time on your behalf whatsoever.

Let’s see how this breaks down:

Give yourself a raise (CHARGE MORE)

$200 x 12 clients per week = $2400 per week

Offer a group experience (WIDEN YOUR OFFER OF SERVICE)

$200 x 12 clients in one hour x 4 hours per week = $9600 per week

Package your information (PACKAGE & AUTOMATE)

$200 x 20 = $4000 per week with ZERO TIME

Do all three and you will exponentially increase your revenue!

Systems

Systemizing a process means identifying and documenting each step involved so that anyone could follow the process.

There are two reasons why you would want to create systems so you can leverage your time.

Firstly, entrepreneurs often get in a trap of recreating the wheel each and every time they need to do something. A system lays out a plan so that every time you do that particular task, you don’t have to think, you simply follow the plan.

Systems become increasingly important when a team is involved because if you want it done your way, you will need to document the steps involved.

The second reason to systemize is that you can automate much of what you do. This is a necessary component of building your team effectively. When you are ready to add a person to your team, the system must be in place for that person to step in and do the work effectively and efficiently.

Here are a few examples of tasks can be automated:

Follow up emails and cards

Reminders for events, phone calls, etc.

Marketing materials on the web

Purchasing your services or products

Article submissions and press releases

I could go on forever but you get the picture. By developing and introducing systems to your business and virtual teams, you ensure that tasks are done consistently and as you want them done.

Time

The last leverage option, and my personal favorite, is time. You can leverage your own time by outsourcing. To outsource something is to assign a task that you own and delegate it to someone else to perform for you. Think of it as cloning yourself to get more done.

There are a few ways that outsourcing works. One is hiring people to accomplish tasks or projects that you don’t like to do, can’t do or is not the best use of your time. Another is hiring people to do what you do – but do it for less money so you make a profit by outsourcing it.

Successful entrepreneurs have learned to leverage the time and talents of other people to get things done.

I’ll leave you with this quote from the famous Archimedes, “Give me a lever long enough and I could move the world.”

To find out more about leveraging your time, skills and team to achieve amazing results you NEED to get your hands on a copy of my free report “101 Ways to Triple Your Income and Double Your Time Off”. Click Here to claim your copy now.

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The CEO Factor Manifesto Grab Your FREE Copy Here!

The Undeniable Power of Leverage