5 Tips To Help You Move From Founder To CEO

Let me introduce you to Megan Del Borrello. Megan is an entrepreneur at heart with a passion for empowering women. She is the Founder of Behind the Brands, an inclusive and diverse collective that wants to inspire more female founders, and better support them in building a successful and sustainable business.

Today she will share 5 hot tips to help you to move from Founder to CEO.

‘The road to success is paved with mistakes, losses, missteps and what can feel like a constant hustle. Afterall when you first start your business you are the accounts department, head of marketing, sales manager, customer service rep and are in charge of admin and operations. When your revenue is low, you’re generally structured way too thin and don’t have the resources and support you need you really push you to that next level. So, what do you do? You run your business like a CEO! This is an area we focus on at Behind the Brands to ensure that our members have sustained success in business and that they are getting out of the day to day running of the business. 

It doesn’t matter what stage of business you’re at, you can do the work to put the systems and structures in place to perform at a high level, which then helps you to become unstuck as it frees up time. Here are 5 things you can start doing to move from Founder to CEO.

1. Do what gets you the results

Just because everyone is on Instagram or Clubhouse or Facebook, it doesn’t automatically mean you need to be. It’s not about doing everything all the time, it’s about what’s going to get you the results you want. Change your mindset around feeling like you need to be hustling constantly and only do the things in your business that will make the highest impact. Be deliberate and conscious in your choices about where to spend your time and energy.

2. Make CEO Level work a priority!

Time is a finite resource… the goal is to spend your time in the most valuable area of business – revenue generating + areas that will get you in front of more and more people.

Do you actually know where you are spending your time? If you don’t, try creating a scorecard over the next week to identify where you are spending your time. I think you will be pretty surprised.

The scorecard assigns dollar-per-hour values to specific tasks. It’s kept simple by making all valuations factors of 10, from $10/hr all the way up to $10,000/hr. A quick overview is:

$10 p/hr – admin, operations, customer service.

$100 p/hr - more skilled work that requires someone with more specific experience and expertise than most VA’s. Think writing blogs, designing graphics and web development.

$1,000 – revenue generating work that is more strategic

$10,000 – visibility at scale that becomes revenue generating. This is any media, speaking at an event, hosting a webinar. When you get stuck it’s because you’re spending too much time in the lower value tasks.

3. Work in 90-minute blocks

Are you in the habit of working until you’ve reached the realisation that continuing is counterproductive?

Studies have shown that working in 90-minute blocks is best for maximum productivity. It limits fatigue, allows recovery during the rest time and keeps your mind sharp and stress levels lower.

4. Be aware of your most productive times of day

Take the time to identify your natural rhythm, when are your levels of energy the highest, what time of day are you inspired the most? Start planning your days and tasks according to this - matching each task to its most appropriate time of day.

For example, when your energy levels are lower this is a god time to do admin work.

5. Implement a weekly CEO Date!

This is a non-negotiable time you set aside in your calendar each week (no later than Monday lunchtime) that is going to keep you focused for the week ahead, helps you to stay on track and assists you in reaching your goals. It is where you hold yourself accountable. This is not time to clean your inbox, or catch up on admin. It’s about having oversight and making sure you are making progress on all the goals you set. Start by setting aside 30 minutes to do the following:

Review your metrics - the ones that matter. Shouldn’t be any more than 3.

Review your monthly revenue goals – are you on track?

Set your top 3 – these are the priorities for the week and tasks you must get done. Manage your calendar – have you got strategic time scheduled in? Do you need to move things around?

Selfcare check – have you got selfcare scheduled in for the week?

Assistance/help check – do you have enough help for the week, or do you need more? This could be getting a cleaner in for example.

You’ve heard of the saying “dress for the job you want, not for the job you have”, right? It applies to business as well. It doesn’t matter what stage of business you’re at, the earlier you start thinking like a CEO and implementing some of this framework, the smoother your business will run and the more on track you will be.