Ep 28 - CEOs, Build Your Business By Design, Not By Default

Are you tired of the hustle and grind to achieve success in your business? Is panic emergency mode becoming your default strategy? It's time to break free from the chaos and start running your business by design, not by default. Stay tuned as we unpack the secrets to building a business with purpose and intention. Don't forget to download the resource that goes hand in hand with today's episode, head on over to my website and grab the Get Paid Like A CEO calculator. It's a game changer for those ready to take their business to the next level. And as a quick reminder, if you're listening on the go, make sure you set aside some time to implement the insights from today's episode. Content consumption is great, but true transformation happens when you transition from listen only mode to implementation mode. Let's do this. Are you a successful business owner who has a laundry list of ideas and struggles to achieve your big goals? Welcome to the CEO Amplify podcast.

I'm your host, Donna Dube, and my goal is to empower you to drive meaningful change and amplify your profits without the overwhelm. Join us as we provide actionable solutions for Visionary CEOs like yourself to uplevel your CEO skills, streamline operations, and master strategic prioritization. Learn how to scale your business to new heights working smarter, not harder. If you're ready to reclaim your time and accelerate your growth, Let's dive in and start this exciting adventure together. Remember, the only limit to your business growth is the one you set for yourself. Hi there, entrepreneurs. Today, I've got an exclusive invitation just for you. Join me for a 3 day live event happening in March, the Sustainable Business Blueprint, where we'll be crafting your personalized 12 month profit plan.

No more generic solutions, just strategies tailored to your vision and goals. Ready to turn your dreams into a roadmap for success? Join me from March 6th-8th and let's make it happen. Time to learn and implement right on the call. Secure your spot today at ceoamplify.ca/sustainable. Don't miss out on this game changing opportunity. I can't wait to see you there. That's ceoamplify.ca/sustainable.

Welcome back, CEOs. I hope you've had a great week. We're in the middle of our series about CEOs and how to plan for a successful here. And today we really want to dive into having a business built by design, not by default. I want to get rid of the panic emergency mode, the hustle, and the grind and that we think we have to do in order to have a successful business. This is so not true. When we run our business by design, Not by default, we can have very different results. Again, I want to emphasize to go download the resource that goes along with this episode, ceoamplify.ca/getpaid.

Go grab that get paid like a CEO calculator. We're going to be using the 2nd part of that calculator in today's episode. If you haven't listened to the 2 previous episodes that we covered in these series, I highly suggest you go back and check those 2 out. Take the time to do your vision, to map out where you want to be and what upgrades you want a year from now and take the time to really ensure that you know what your numbers need to be in order to reach your goals. Alright. And then the 2nd part of this is to clear time in your calendar. If you're out listening now while you're going for a jog and shopping and picking up the kids from the school line and whatever you're doing, set aside time in your calendar to actually strategize and do the work. I love, love, love this quote by Brian Tracy. "Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in operations."

It's a reminder that clarity in our strategy can save us time, stress, and resources. So please ensure if you're out and about that you put time in your calendar this week to make sure you go back and do these things. Alright. So now we're gonna be moving on to designing our business. And for those of you who followed the previous 2 episodes, we did our painted picture exercise. We're putting on our CEO hats, and we're doing some strategic planning. This is the same process that I follow when I work 1 on 1 with clients and when I do the CEO 90 day sprint. And what it helps us do is have some follow through and start to get momentum in our business because we're actually designing what success is going to look like for us.

What is success gonna look like with our family? What is success gonna look like with our friends, our lifestyle, the hours we work, the time off, all of these things? What about our health and our wellness? Yes or not yesterday. In the previous episode last week, we spent some time going through what these upgrades would be in our life and our business, and then how we need to adjust our expenses to be able to cover for that. Right? And it's so so important that we get a clear picture of what we want to prioritize in the year ahead. It's not just about our revenue plan. Sure. We want to have a revenue goal. That's important. But when you go and actually look at that get paid like a CEO calculator? What do we start with? We start with our personal expenses.

What are our current personal expenses that we are responsible for? Fill all of those in. And then we do our painted picture exercise, and we dream what life would be like 1 year from now. And we get a final figure for what our expenses are going to be 1 year from now. And then from there, we need to move into the next tab of the calculator and figure out what take home money we would need to be able to cover those expenses, to be able to cover our future expenses 1 year from now. And based on the money that we want to take home as leader of our business, we then develop what our revenue is going to be. You see it's not about picking a pie in the sky number and saying that's going to be our revenue goal. It's not about looking at what our numbers were last year increasing it a little bit and saying that's gonna be our revenue goal. Our revenue goal actually comes from the upgraded lifestyle in business and in life that we want to achieve.

So so important that we take those steps to figure out those numbers first, And then we have an accurate and attainable revenue goal. You'll notice that in the get paid like a CEO calculator. The calculations are based off of profit first. If you're not familiar with that, again, highly suggest that book by Mike Michalowicz. Growth, great way to look at the money and the profit in your business. But basically, what this formula is saying is that if your revenue is under $250,000 a year, then approximately, you're going to take the money that you need to be able to spend on your current expenses and double it for your revenue plan. So your revenue needs to be double the amount that you want to take home as CEO.

You. Alright? And then from there, we're gonna move into the sales calculator. We're gonna actually reverse engineer The numbers. We want to have a certain revenue goal based on the lifestyle and the business that we want. That revenue goal is gonna set so much to profit, so much to CEO. But how are we gonna reach that goal? What things are we going to sell? What's going to be the price point? And how many people are we going to have to get that in front of in order to sell that number? We want to evaluate this for each product, program, or service that we sell within our business. Right? We wanna look at what did we sell this year, and what do we wanna sell next year that might be a little bit different. You might be shifting directions.

You might be bringing on a new profit, or you might be retiring something or changing something that you already have. So so important to look at the price points because oftentimes, we can have a product that's selling, but we have to look at what the price point is and whether we're getting a return on investment on that. So look at the amount of time you as visionary leader are spending in that to deliver that profit? And look at the amount of time your team is spending to deliver that profit, and is it priced accordingly? I find usually when I work with clients in this area, that 80 20 rule usually plays out. So map it map it out for each of your specific products, programs, or services. Wanna know what the price point is and what the total revenue is that You wanna get out of that product this year. It helps you get clarity as to what you need to do for the next year. And now that you know that part, now we can look at your marketing strategy. How effective was your marketing strategy been? Well, to figure this out, I want you to look at, say, where your last 10 clients came from.

Did you have an intake form or an application form? Did they come from your email service provider? So you sent emails selling a service, and they responded and clicked. Or do you ask the question, how did you hear about me? So, so important to know where your last 10 clients came from. And then you're going to go through each of those and think about and evaluate the effectiveness of that strategy. The idea here is not to add more things to our plate. It's to find out what is working and what we're going to commit to for the next year. Is to find out what isn't working and make a decision. Are we stopping it? Are we adjusting it or tweaking it? It's not about adding more strategies on more strategies on more strategies without looking at the metrics and the data. You're just spinning your wheels.

Take the time to look at what the objective data is showing you. If that strategy isn't working for you, it needs to be adjusted or dropped altogether So so important to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of each of your marketing strategies. So you now you know where your last 10 clients came from, and you know which marketing strategies are working. You can now Side, how are you gonna double down on what is working? How are you going to sell those products, programs, or services in the next year based on the information that you have. This is how we create a business by design, not by default. We're actually reverse engineering what we need as a visionary leader to pay our personal expenses, what revenue we need, what products, programs, and services we need to sell at what price point and to how many people. When you have this objective day. It makes it so much easier to design your profit plan for the next 12 months.

Alright, that's it for today. So so important, I want you to go and download that resource, get paid like a CEO calculator, and work through it. If you have questions, please hop into the Facebook group. I'm more than happy to help you answer them. If you need to hop on a call, we can do that as well. But don't sit there stuck. Don't sit there wondering what the answers are. Grab that calculator, work through it for your business, and I can't I wait to hear your results.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of CEO Amplify. I appreciate you being part of our thriving community of ambitious business owners. If you enjoy today's episode, Kindly ask you to share this podcast with a friend and take a hot minute to rate and leave a review. It would mean the world to me. Your feedback helps you reach more people and continue providing valuable content. Thanks so much for your support. Keep shining, and we'll catch you on the next episode.