My 3 Step Process To Incorporate A CEO Day (& Stick To It!)
Today, we're talking about one of my favorite subjects in the world, CEO day.
What is the CEO day and why is it my favorite? Because it’s game-changing. Imagine if you were running a race that never had a finish line on it. Sounds exhausting, right? Well, that is what it's like running a business without a CEO day. I believe that wholeheartedly. I truly want every business owner to get to a place where they have a CEO day, it works for them, it feels good, and it’s productive.
So I’m breaking this all down and first talking about what the heck a CEO day is, why you should have one, and then, my favorite part –I'm going to teach you how to build one out in your business. This is exactly what I do with my clients and honestly, it’s priority numero uno. It’s the first question I ask when people talk business because I think a lot of people sleep on this. They forget how important it is to have intentional time to work on your business, not just inside of it. So let's jump on in.
What Is A CEO Day?
First things first, what is a CEO day? It is essentially a day where you dedicate to work on your business, not in it. If you're a small business, you wear a lot of hats. We know we're all wearing all the hats, we understand that. However, at a certain point, you also have to have the CEO hat. But it’s also the hat we pick up the least because it feels the least important.
But if you have big goals and dreams, if you want to grow your business, if you want to open a new location, if you want to grow your team, expand beyond a one woman or one man show, you need to embrace the CEO day. It’s so key and so important.
One of my very first jobs was in a coffee shop. The owner loved people and loved making coffee. I remember at one point asking her if she would ever get to a place where she would not be making coffee. She was like, Absolutely not, I love what I do, I'm gonna be here forever –and her business has been successful. Maybe down the road they might look at who can take it over and their contingency plan – but it can only grow so big if the CEO still has boots on the ground. But that's what she wanted. And that's okay.
However, if you do have big dreams and goals, and you do have aspirations of building something significant, you will eventually come to a place where the task or –depending on the industry you started in –the technical skill you had that started your business, maybe that's less and less of what you do.
That's why I think today's conversation is so important because we need to start the groundwork now to get you to a place where you can confidently make this full transition in the future. So a day focused on working on your business, not in it.
If you’re a hairstylist. This would be a day that you were working on your business, not cutting hair. If you're a photographer, it's not when you're taking photos. If you’re DJ, it's not when you're DJing weddings. It’s an admin day, an office day, a strategy day. It's a day where you were not doing the thing that makes you money in order to make more money in the future.
Again, a lot of people live in this mindset that it feels quote unquote, wasted time. But I would argue having this day is what will allow you to make sustainable growth beyond what you're doing right now: wearing all the hats and not doing a good job.
Why A CEO Is So Important For Business Owners
So let's dive in and talk about why a CEO day is so important. CEO Day is a great time to get intentional about setting your goals. It's also an awesome time to get clear on where you're going. If you've listened to past episodes, I've talked about launching and the need to get clear on why you're launching it. We also talked about courses and why you need to know if a course is for you.
The ‘why’ thing is very common in what I teach because it's important to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. There's a million ways to do business. So we got to know why you're doing it. But at the end of the day, a CEO day helps you know if you're on the right path or not.
I have fallen off the path –and I’ll tell you how I found this out. Every month I do like this big audit on my business. I looked at my costs, and my team's costs were high because I was outsourcing social media. I had a management team, which was amazing –and shout out to them. They are the best and amazing people. But it was not the right solution at that time in my business because I was paying them more than I was paying myself.
By outsourcing that activity, it was not bringing more money in the door. So it wasn't the right fit anymore. If I had never paused and looked at the numbers, I probably would have kept going, paying and writing that check month after month. I wasn't focusing on the areas I needed to because at that time, I still didn't know what those areas were. Now I know. But back then I didn't really know.
This pause is where you're essentially popping the hood of your business “car” and checking to make sure everything is still running smoothly. That is the point of having a CEO day each week.
It also means if you want balance in your life. Do you want a solid work-life balance? If you don't want to work on Saturday and Sunday and you're doing client work five days a week, when is that CEO day happening? If you have intentions of doing a CEO day, but it's not on the calendar, it probably isn't happening either.
A CEO day really puts you in a position, where you have to question how you're setting up your business and your working hours in the first place. It's an important question to ask yourself.
If you’re someone who does eyelash extensions, and you work behind the chair six days a week, and you want to add a CEO day, okay, that's seven days of working with no break at all. Do you think your body is going to do well? Do you think your mind is going to do well? Are going to be in the right headspace on that day seven to really strategize and be creative and be efficient? Probably not.
How do we go from you being behind the chair six days a week to four days a week, so day five can be that CEO day? A lot of people put this off because they would rather get paid in the moment than get paid in the future. And that's really back to the question where you’re heading and why? That's a question you have to ask yourself.
Here's the deal. You need time to work on your business. At the bare minimum, you have taxes due. Maybe you have an inventory to do at a certain point, you have to buy stuff. So whether you acknowledge it or not, these activities are happening. It's just a matter of, are you prioritizing them and creating them? Are you plugging them into your schedule or not?
When you're running to Costco and getting more product for your brick-and-mortar business, when you are driving a bunch of products to the post office to ship to people, when you were driving to a meeting with a couple who's getting married in a couple of weeks to talk about their ceremony –all these things that you're doing take up time.
We, as business owners, are not honest with ourselves about how much time is going into business. So we get in this situation where all of a sudden, we're burnt out. I have been there multiple times. I talk about that often. But if you're not carving out that time to work on your business, that awareness is further and further away and harder to engage with.
That CEO day is precious because it gives you clarity on where you're going, it helps you be honest about whether you are actually going there. It helps you be creative. But it gives you pause to check yourself. Is this working? Is this employee great? Or am I tolerating them because I need them for right now? I don't have time to really think about it. Those are the tough questions to ask yourself on a CEO day.
Once you make this a rhythm in your business, and you honor it, and you stick to it, it can be totally game-changing.
Here's another tip I will give you: it needs to be thought of as a full day of business. Even if you make $0. A CEO day, it still is very important. So that means if you want to work a four-day work schedule, and one of those days is CEO day, that means you're working three days a week.
So how can you bring in money those three days a week to cover that fourth day? These are questions I don't think people ask themselves until they get in a situation they need out of. Or they try it for a week or two and then go back to their old ways because they quote unquote, need the money now. Then a year goes by, and they've grown maybe 5%.
So back to that question of why you're doing what you're doing. What are your long term goals and where do you want to go? If you have big goals, this is how you get there.
Shifting Into A CEO Mindset
Being in a CEO mindset doesn't have a price tag attached to it. I have met side hustlers (aka someone who works full time and just does some business on the side) who have more of a CEO mind mindset than multi-six figure, seven figure business owners. I've met very financially successful business people who still think of themselves as the photographer, as the lawyer, as the coffee shop barista, but they're running a business.
So this mindset shift doesn't have to happen at a certain price point in your business. I would argue just if you have big goals that you want to get to that are bigger than where you are today, that shift has to happen at some point.
How To Implement A CEO Day
We've talked about what a CEO day is, we talked about why it matters, now, let’s talk about how to do it, how to make it happen. How do you implement a CEO day into your schedule?
List out CEO activities to accomplish
The first thing I encourage you to do is list out what CEO activities mean to you. This can look different for everybody. For me, I think of the bread and butter. What I do is consulting –I help business owners. How do I make money? I literally have meetings with people. I also run some networking groups, which means my physical time. Anytime I am networking at an event that I host, or I'm meeting with a client, that is the core business activity. I, Kelsey, have to be the one to do it. That is currently the way my business is set up. So I have to protect those.
That being said, when I'm meeting with a client, I'm not working on my QuickBooks. I'm not working on my Instagram posts. I'm definitely not going Live in my Facebook group. So I have to carve out time to work on those activities. But that is still work, even though that work doesn’t directly lead to dollars. I would argue those activities lead to future money. The point is, I still have to prioritize it, even if it doesn't have a price tag associated with it.
List out what activities you would consider to be CEO activities. I'll read you my list. It isn't a full list, it’s just some of it to get ideas going for you, but there are some core CEO things I do that are important to me.
Reading a personal development book. That's something that's very important to me. I am currently rereading Clockwork by Mike McCallawitz
Planning out launches
Picking networking opportunities, I try to go to other people's events at least once a month
Catching up on emails
Planning out content
Creating content
Working on templates and guides for my clients
KPIs
Self care
2. Pick A CEO Day That Works For You
CEO day for me happens on Mondays. I do Mondays because I like to look at the week that's coming up, make sure all my meeting locations are set. My assistant actually does that we also have our weekly calls on Monday, which I love because we can go over what's to come and make sure we're on the same page.
If I'm recording podcasts that week, on Monday I block out a couple of hours to record podcast episodes on Wednesday, which is my recording day. So you can see how it just gives you breathing room for getting off the hamster wheel of your business.
Just pick a day that makes sense for you. Maybe it's Friday because it just works better with your schedule. Great. It does not matter what day it is, I just want you to pick one.
3. Set Parameters That Make Sense For You And Your Business
Here's the caveat: I have one Monday a month where I break this rule. I actually do meet with clients on this Monday because of the way the schedule works and the way the CEO roundtable, which is the in-person mastermind that I run, is on a Monday. So I take the CEO day for that week and instead of Monday, I pick it up and I plug it into a different day of the week –only on that week. But I still honor it because it's that important to me.
If I get done early, awesome. Maybe I work on some other stuff. If a client who is extremely important cannot get in on another day, maybe I let them come in on a CEO day. I do that every once in a while.
Ultimately, when you have a day that’s carved out to work on your business, there's no excuse.
Here's how I know, people don't have CEO days. When they don’t have CEO days, that's when they don't pay their taxes. That is when they say things like I don't have time for social media. That is when they say things like I don't have time to create a system for onboarding. Those are all things that have to happen on that CEO day. If you are not protecting it and plugging it in, odds are it's probably not happening.
So how do we make it happen?
List out activities that would happen on that day.
Pick a day. Pick one that makes sense in your life
Set the parameters
I have that one week a month where I flip flop it around but I still honor that the day has to happen. Some days, it takes me the whole day to get through all my CEO activities. Other days, I'm more efficient and only work a half day. All of that's okay. Honoring this day, strategizing it, and plugging it into your calendar is crucial. Any client of mine that’s done this, I know it’s been game-changing for them because it gives them that breathing room to really be like, You know what? I actually do want to do a holiday launch. Wow, I need to start that process now.
A CEO day gets you in front of everything that tend to quote-unquote just happen to us as business owners.
The Importance Of Sticking To Your CEO Day
Once you know what activities you need to do, and you know what day of the week you're going to do it, you need to literally plug it in your calendar and stick to it. Once you set those rules, I want you to stick to them. I know that's not the coolest answer, and there's no hack or special solution.
One way I honor this is I don't offer meetings on other days of the week. I only meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays with clients and I schedule podcast guests on Wednesdays because I honor that CEO day, which is Monday. It's that important to me.
You can see how important it is to create the structure, stick to it, and then create boundaries around that. Another great way to do that would be using a calendar app so people have to use a link to book with you if you're in an industry where that makes sense. For product people, maybe it's plugging in your launches to kick off the day after your CEO day instead of it being on a Monday, if Monday is your CEO day.
There are ways we can be creative here. But I just think this day is important. I would argue you need a CEO day in your business if you don’t already have one. If you have one on the calendar, and it's not happening, maybe there's a reason. Maybe it's time to explore why and set it up in a different way that makes it more exciting.
I look forward to this day of the week, I enjoy it. So that is what I have for you. I hope you implement a CEO day into your work week. I hope it serves you as mine does and as it does for so many other business owners.
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Here’s an invitation for you! If you're in the Puyallup area in the south end of Washington State area, and you're a female, and you're a business owner, and you're in this six to seven-figure range of business, I highly encourage you to come check out my CEO Roundtable.
It's an in-person intimate mastermind that I run once a month with group chats. It's all about stepping into the role of CEO, this leadership that I mentioned to you. So if you're listening and that sounds like you and this feels like something you would like to explore further, please go check out the website at https://www.kelseymarieknutson.com/ceoroundtable and join us at our next meeting. It's a full application process. But I would love for you to join us.