10 Rules For Adopting A CEO Mindset In Your Small Business - Scale Your Business Fast -PART1

Summary

This video script outlines the top 10 rules for CEOs and entrepreneurs to grow and manage their small businesses effectively. It emphasizes the importance of making timely strategic decisions, adopting a top-down approach to business growth, delegating authority to scale, and following a structured process of strategy, planning, and execution. The first five rules also cover the necessity of maintaining continuous cash flow, budgeting, and forecasting to ensure the business's financial health and strategic direction.

Takeaways

• 📌 Decision over Precision: Embrace the necessity of making timely strategic decisions without the need for perfection.
• 🔍 Consider Impact: Pause to consider the potential outcomes of decisions, including best, probable, and worst cases, and plan accordingly.
• 🚫 Avoid Perfectionism: Accept that in an imperfect world, decisions don't have to be perfect; focus on making them timely and strategic.
• 🔑 Top-Down Approach: Start with a holistic view of the business and zoom in on details, rather than getting lost in day-to-day tasks.
• 🎯 Set an End Game: Have a clear final destination in mind and work backward to set goals for the long term down to daily tasks.
• 🔄 Relinquish Control to Gain It: Delegate authority to grow the business beyond personal capacity and avoid becoming a bottleneck.
• 🤝 Potential Partnerships: Consider involving investors or others to take on more control, allowing for expansion and focus on strategic growth.
• 🛠 Strategy, Plan, Execute: Follow a structured approach starting with strategy, then planning, and finally executing in a coherent manner.
• 💰 Budget and Forecasting: As a CEO, ensure continuous cash flow by setting budgets and forecasting financial scenarios for the business.
• 📈 Cash Flow Management: Understand and manage the business's financial health by interpreting forecasts and setting budgets for various operational needs.
• 🔄 Continuous Adaptation: Be prepared to adapt and learn from wrong decisions or unexpected challenges, turning them into opportunities.

Q & A

What are the top 10 rules for running a small business according to the video?

The video outlines 10 rules for small business owners to follow, starting with making strategic and timely decisions, adopting a top-down approach, relinquishing control to gain more control, and ensuring a continuous cashflow through budgeting and forecasting.

Why is it important for a CEO to focus on strategic and timely decisions rather than precision?

Focusing on strategic and timely decisions is crucial because it allows the business to adapt and respond effectively to the growing number of questions and demands. It's about making the right choices to guide the business in the right direction rather than striving for perfection, which is unattainable in an imperfect world.

What does the video suggest as the best approach to decision-making when running a business?

The video suggests that business owners should consider the best case, probable case, and worst case scenarios for each decision. They should choose the option with the most acceptable worst-case scenario and have a contingency plan in place.

How does adopting a top-down approach help in running a business?

A top-down approach helps business owners to maintain a clear vision of their end goal and ensure that day-to-day tasks align with the overall strategy. It prevents getting lost in details and helps in growing value into the business.

What is the significance of relinquishing control in a business?

Relinquishing control allows entrepreneurs to overcome capacity issues and avoid becoming a bottleneck in their business. By delegating authority and tasks, they can focus on adding value to the business and growing it more effectively.

Why is it counterproductive to focus on day-to-day tasks without a clear end game in mind?

Focusing solely on day-to-day tasks without a clear end game can lead to getting lost in details and losing sight of the overall business strategy. It can result in inefficiencies and missed opportunities for growth.

How should a business owner approach strategy, planning, and execution?

A business owner should first develop a clear strategy, outlining the destination and the path to get there. Then, they should create a detailed plan, including goals and timelines. Finally, they should execute the plan in an orderly and coherent manner.

What is the role of budgeting, forecasting, and ensuring continuous cashflow in a business?

Budgeting, forecasting, and ensuring continuous cashflow are essential for a business to survive and grow. It helps the CEO to understand and manage the financial health of the business, make informed decisions, and plan for various scenarios.

What is the potential pitfall of not having a strategy before setting goals or making decisions?

Without a strategy, business owners may make ad hoc decisions based on trends or immediate ideas, which can lead to inefficiencies, resource wastage, and a lack of coherence in business operations.

How can a business owner avoid the 'shiny object syndrome' when running a business?

A business owner can avoid the 'shiny object syndrome' by maintaining a top-down focus, staying on course with their strategic plan, and not getting distracted by every new opportunity or trend that arises.

What is the next step for viewers interested in learning the remaining top 10 rules for running a small business?

Viewers interested in learning the remaining top 10 rules should stay tuned for the next video in the series, where the remaining rules will be discussed. They can also subscribe to the channel and like the video to show their interest.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Decision Making in Business Growth

The first paragraph emphasizes the importance of strategic and timely decision-making for business growth. It suggests that as a CEO or entrepreneur, one should focus on making decisions that are not necessarily perfect but are strategically sound and prompt. The speaker advises pausing to consider the best, probable, and worst-case scenarios before making a decision, and to have contingency plans. The goal is to guide the business in the right strategic direction without aiming for impossible perfection. If a decision doesn't align with the business's trajectory, it should be avoided. The speaker also encourages learning from wrong decisions and turning challenges into opportunities.

05:03

🔍 Top-Down Business Perspective

The second paragraph discusses the top-down approach to business management, urging entrepreneurs to start with a broad view and then zoom into specifics. It warns against getting lost in day-to-day tasks and instead suggests focusing on growing the business's value with a clear end goal in mind. The speaker explains the process of cascading down from long-term goals to shorter-term plans, ensuring that every task contributes to the overall strategy. The top-down approach is contrasted with the bottom-up method, which can lead to 'shiny object syndrome' and detract from the business's core objectives.

10:03

🔑 Relinquishing Control for Greater Control

The third paragraph explores the counterintuitive concept of relinquishing control to gain more control over the business. It acknowledges the common tendency for entrepreneurs to micromanage but points out that this can become a bottleneck to growth. By delegating authority, not just tasks, the speaker argues that entrepreneurs can focus on adding value to their business rather than being consumed by operational tasks. The paragraph also touches on the idea of bringing investors on board to share control and grow different aspects of the business, leading to a larger overall outcome.

🛠 Strategy, Plan, Execute: The Business Growth Sequence

The fourth paragraph outlines a structured approach to business growth, advocating for a strategy-first mindset. Entrepreneurs are advised to define their destination and the path to get there before setting goals. This includes considering potential challenges and how to navigate them. Once the strategy is in place, the next step is to create a detailed plan, which should include goals for different time frames such as three years, one year, and quarterly plans. The final step is execution, which must be done in a coherent manner to ensure the business grows effectively and doesn't become overwhelmed by ad hoc tasks.

💰 Ensuring Financial Stability Through Budgeting and Forecasting

The fifth paragraph highlights the CEO's responsibility to maintain financial stability within the business. It discusses the importance of not only ensuring sufficient cash flow but also looking at potential forecasts to understand how strategic decisions might impact the business's financial health. The speaker suggests considering best, probable, and worst-case scenarios and ensuring that there is enough cash to sustain the business through any downturn. Setting budgets for different time frames and understanding where money will be spent is crucial for continuous business growth.

Keywords

💡Decision Making

Decision Making refers to the process of selecting a course of action from among various alternatives. In the context of the video, it emphasizes the importance of making strategic decisions in a timely manner rather than striving for perfection. The script illustrates this by advising that decisions should consider best, probable, and worst-case scenarios, and that having a contingency plan is crucial for navigating unexpected outcomes.

💡Strategic

Strategic in this video script pertains to the planning and action designed to achieve long-term or overall aims of a business. The term is used to highlight that decisions should align with the overarching goals and direction of the business, ensuring that day-to-day choices contribute to the broader vision, as opposed to being reactive or disjointed.

💡CEO Mindset

CEO Mindset is the attitude and approach that prioritizes strategic thinking, leadership, and a long-term vision, akin to what a Chief Executive Officer would have. The video script encourages adopting this mindset for small business owners or entrepreneurs to guide their business effectively and make decisions that foster growth and sustainability.

💡Growth

Growth in the script represents the expansion and development of a business. It is a central theme of the video, as the rules discussed are aimed at facilitating business growth. The concept is exemplified by the need for strategic decision-making that propels the business forward and avoids stagnation.

💡Focus

Focus, as used in the script, is the concentration on specific goals or objectives to the exclusion of others. It is vital for a CEO to stay focused on strategic priorities rather than getting distracted by day-to-day minutiae or 'shiny object syndrome,' which can divert attention from the path to business growth.

💡Delegation

Delegation is the act of entrusting tasks or authority to others. The video script discusses the importance of relinquishing control by delegating tasks and authority to empower a team and avoid becoming a bottleneck in the business's growth. It is a strategy to gain more control over the business by working on it rather than in it.

💡Capacity

Capacity in this context refers to the maximum amount that an individual or system can handle. The script mentions that entrepreneurs should be aware of their personal capacity to avoid limiting business growth. By delegating, a CEO can overcome individual capacity constraints and scale the business effectively.

💡Strategy

Strategy is a long-term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. The script stresses the importance of formulating a strategy before setting goals or making decisions. It outlines the need to define a destination and the path to reach it, considering potential challenges and how to navigate them.

💡Plan

A plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. In the video script, planning is the step that follows strategy formulation. It involves breaking down the strategic vision into actionable goals and milestones, such as annual, quarterly, and monthly objectives.

💡Execute

Execute refers to the act of carrying out or implementing a plan or strategy. The script advises that after strategic planning, the next step is execution, which is the process of putting the plan into action in a coherent and methodical manner to achieve the desired outcomes.

💡Cashflow

Cashflow represents the movement of cash into and out of a business. The video script underscores the CEO's responsibility to ensure continuous cashflow, which is essential for business survival and growth. It includes budgeting, forecasting, and planning for different financial scenarios to maintain financial stability.

Highlights

The importance of making timely strategic decisions rather than striving for perfect precision in every choice.

The necessity to pause and consider the impact of decisions, including best case, probable case, and worst case scenarios.

The concept of decision-making without the pressure of perfection, accepting that not every decision needs to be right.

The strategy of adopting a top-down approach to business operations for better oversight and direction.

The pitfalls of bottom-up business management, which can lead to getting lost in details and losing sight of the bigger picture.

The paradox of relinquishing control to gain more control over the business by delegating tasks and authority.

The benefits of focusing on business growth by working on the business rather than in it, to avoid becoming a bottleneck.

The sequence of strategy, planning, and execution as the correct order for business development.

The avoidance of ad hoc decisions and actions, emphasizing the need for a coherent and strategic approach.

The responsibility of a CEO to ensure continuous cash flow and budgeting for the business's future.

The importance of forecasting potential financial scenarios to prepare for various outcomes and maintain business stability.

The role of setting budgets for different aspects of the business to drive growth and optimize resources.

The upcoming continuation of the video series covering the remaining five rules for business success.

An offer for viewers to download a summary of the top 10 rules for easy reference and application.

The encouragement for viewers to like, subscribe, and stay tuned for the next part of the video series.

Transcripts

- In today's video,

we're going to be looking at the top 10 rules

you should be following when running your own business.

These 10 rules are going to help you know

how to grow your business

and stay focused on what you need to be doing

as the CEO of your own small business,

aka CEO entrepreneur.

So if you are not following these rules,

then maybe this is why you've actually hit a ceiling

and your business is not growing, so stick around.

And if you like this video,

please consider liking and subscribing,

and all of that good stuff.

Right, let's get on with the video, hit it.

(upbeat music)

Right, so let's get down to business,

if you are running a small business,

and you want to adopt a CEO mindset,

here are the 10 rules that you should be living by

starting with number one.

Number one is decision not precision.

Every single decision that you make,

it doesn't have to be perfectly right every single time.

It's not about getting things right all the time,

it's about actually making the right strategic decisions

in a timely manner.

Strategic and timely are really important here.

So when I mean timely manner,

I mean, as your business is growing

and continues to grow hopefully,

you're going to be bombarded by a barrage of questions

and people asking you for decisions to make,

whether it's going to be your clients,

whether it's going to be your contractors, employees,

whoever you are, awesome team,

you're going to be asked a whole bunch of questions.

And the thing to do here is to actually pause first,

just take a step back and pause, and consider the impact

of what your response might result in.

You're going to make a decision,

and that decision will potentially play out

in many different ways.

You should consider the best case,

the probable case, and the worst case.

And once you're actually looking at the best case,

probable case, and worst case,

you might have a few different responses in your head

where you're basically saying, right, do I do this?

If this happens, then this is the best case,

worst case, probable case.

If I do that, then that's the best case,

worst case, probable case.

Which one of those worst cases am I more accepting of,

and do I have a plan B or a contingency plan if it happens?

Remember, we're talking about decision not precision.

Pausing here also doesn't mean freezing.

You need to be able to make your decisions

pretty much on the spot sometimes,

but sometimes you don't need to,

you can take a step back and pause.

The important thing here

is that you're not trying to be perfect.

We do not live in a perfect world,

so why are we trying to put

these impossible standards on us,

where we are trying to say,

you need to make the right decision every single time,

it's not going to happen.

So the sooner we accept that,

the sooner we come up with decisions

that we need to make in a timely fashion,

because time counts, time is money as they say,

but also making sure that they're strategic

and you're guiding your business

in the right direction strategically.

If you haven't thought about strategy yet,

we're going to talk about that in a minute,

but for now let's focus on the fact

that you're guiding your business strategically.

If your response or decision

is going to veer you off that sort of track

of where you're going or where you're heading,

then don't do it.

If it's going to guide you approximately to that distance

in that destination, then do it.

And it's as simple as that.

So what you need to be doing is taking a pause,

considering different options, different responses,

playing out different scenarios,

best case, worst case, probable case,

and picking the one

that makes the most sense to you at the time

and going with it.

Now, if you end up making the wrong decision

or things go wrong,

hopefully, you've already thought of a plan B,

but even if something unexpected comes out of the blue,

then what you should be doing is saying to yourself,

what can I learn from this?

And can I actually turn this obstacle

or challenge that's actually happened

in front of my face at the moment,

can I turn that into an opportunity?

And that's how you should be operating

when you're looking at decisions inside your business.

That's number one, decision not precision.

Number two, top down, not bottom up.

Focus on your business from the top,

sort of bird's-eye view, and then zoom down.

Do not work the other way around.

And I see a lot of people doing this

where they just literally sit there

working inside their business,

and looking at the day-to-day tasks

that they need to be doing,

and not really having a connection

and a link to a path of where your end game is going to be.

If you do it that way, where you're working bottom up,

you're going to get lost in all the little details

and all the little sort of tasks

that you should not be worrying about.

What you really should be doing

is you should be trying to grow value into your business.

And by doing that,

you need to make sure that you've got an end game,

you've got your sort of final destination,

you've thought about it strategically,

and you're kind of cascading down.

You're literally basically saying,

if this is my end game in three years, five years,

this is what I do in two years, this is what I do in a year,

this is what I do in a quarter,

this is what I do in a month,

and this is what I do this week,

and this is what I do today.

Wow, right?

So stay with me, what I'm trying to say here

is that the way to go about your business

needs to be from the top down.

Any other way that you're going to be looking at it,

when you start looking at sort of the bottom up,

you're going to get lost in a lot of sort of tasks

that you're not going to understand,

do they connect or not?

Are they sort of coherent?

Are they focused?

Are they all going to lead me to my path?

And then what we do

is we end up getting tempted by the shiny object syndrome,

where we end up saying, "Oh, look, that's nice.

Oh, look that's nice."

And we don't want to do that

because what we want to do

is we want to make sure that we're staying on course,

that destination, that sort of way that we're going,

we've got obstacles in the way

that we need to find approaches to those challenging ways

to sort of navigate our way through that,

but we need to be focusing top down.

I think I've said enough about that,

let's move on to number three.

Number three, relinquish control to take control.

I know, it sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it?

And we as entrepreneurs, I know, we are control freaks,

we want to do everything ourselves,

and we want to be able to do it in a certain way,

and no one else can do it that way.

I am there, I've been there, and it's common.

However, if we do that, we end up being our own bottleneck,

we end up getting in our own way of growing the business

because we're going to have a capacity issue.

We do not want to have a capacity issue in the business.

We're only human after all,

and there's only so much that we can do

in a given day, or week, or month, or year.

And if everyone is relying on you

to make those decisions inside your business,

then there's going to be a capacity issue,

and you're going to hit a ceiling at one point.

So delegating out authority, not just tasks,

but delegating out authority

is really going to be important

as you grow and scale your business.

You don't need to do it from day one, but as you're growing,

be mindful of it that this is something

that you're going to have to do.

By relinquishing that control,

you're actually gaining more control over the business

because you're going to be starting to work

and focus on your business,

putting value into your business

rather than working inside it

and actually doing all those tasks

that can be easily delegated out to people.

But also another way of delegating sort of out control

or relinquishing control, I mean,

is by potentially getting other people

as investors into the business,

or other people taking more control over the business.

And in that area, in that capacity,

they can grow their own section,

and they can grow what they're really focused on.

I'm not telling you that you need to go

and sort of get investment

and get funding for your business,

that's one strategy that you potentially could take,

but there are a whole bunch of other ways

that you can actually relinquish control

to get a bigger slice of the pie,

which is what we all want to do at the end.

We want to have financial freedom,

we want to have time flexibility,

and if we're going to sit there

and be control freaks about our business,

we're never going to be able to take a break

or walk away for three weeks or four weeks

and then come back and hopefully decisions have been made

and the business is still ticking.

So relinquish control to take control, that's number three.

Number four, strategy, plan, execute, in that order.

So do not start setting goals,

do not start making decisions

because you've come up with an idea

or you've heard someone else say,

hey, that's a good thing to do,

or this is trending, or that is trending,

this is the thing that you need to be doing.

And then you see it like a shiny new object,

or a new toy, or a new tool, or a new this, or a new that.

Sorry, rubbish.

No, that's not going to grow your business.

That is a sure way to get you overwhelmed,

to get you working ad hoc,

and it's not really going to help you grow your business.

The first thing that you need to do is sit down

and think about strategy.

Where is your destination?

How are you going to get there?

What are the challenges in the way?

How are you going to approach those challenges,

and sort of how you're going to navigate your way through them.

Once you've got that, then you plan it out.

And then you say, right,

this is how my plan is going to look like,

here are my goals,

here is what my sort of three-year plan is,

here's my one-year plan, here's my quarterly plan,

and then you go about executing it in that order.

So make sure it's not just something

that you're running around doing ad hoc things.

Everything has to be done coherently.

So when you see what we've been talking about

in the previous points as well,

top down, strategy first, plan, execute,

everything needs to come in that particular mindset.

Otherwise, it's really going to cause you a lot of heartache

and a lot of headache, and I don't want that for you.

So please, strategy, plan, execute, that's number four.

Number five is budget, forecast,

and ensure continuous cashflow.

One of your responsibilities,

the main one of your job descriptions

as the CEO of your business is about making sure

that you've got enough cash in the bank.

I've got a video up here which talks about

how you should be working on your business,

not in your business.

But it's not just about ensuring there's enough cashflow,

what you should be also doing

is having a look at potential forecasts

in terms of like, in the future,

if we play out this strategic scenario,

you should have a strategy,

and you're saying, this is how I'm going to grow my business.

If we go this way, that way, or the other way,

do I have a best case, a probable case,

a worst case scenario?

And in the worst case scenario,

do we still have enough cash in the bank

so that we can actually survive as a business

and continue growing if things go wrong?

Once you've had a look at those forecasts,

now I'm not telling you that you need to go

and actually build those forecasting models,

you could hire out someone to do that for you,

but you should be able to interpret the results

and the numbers that are coming out of that,

and then set a budget aside for the coming quarter,

the year, the two years, three years,

whatever sort of distance you're looking out,

at least the next quarter,

and actually set aside a budget and say,

right, this is how much I'm going to spend on marketing,

this is how much I'm going to spend on building a team,

this is how much I'm going to spend

on developing my products and services,

this is how much I'm going to spend on optimising my systems

and processes in-house.

You need to be able to understand how much money you've got,

and how it's going to be spent in the right places

so that you can continuously grow your business

and keep it going.

Those are the first five,

in the next video, we're going to look at the next five,

so stay tuned, please make sure that you like and subscribe,

it's coming right up,

so please make sure that you watch it next.

And if you would like to download

a sort of a pinup of these top 10 rules,

there's a link below

where you can find a place to download it.

So check the link below and click on it,

and you'll be able to find out the top 10 rules,

and I'll see you in the next part.