How to create calm in your business with a monthly CEO Day.
If you’ve ever started a week feeling motivated with a long to do list, big ambitious goals, and tons of excitement, only to get to Friday feeling like you’ve been drinking out a firehose reacting to the world, and not accomplishing your goals, this post is for you.
Starting in late 2022, I began scheduling a CEO day for myself every month, and have been thrilled at the immediate sense of calm and clarity this provides me. Hosting a CEO day for your business can be a useful way to make sure you are staying focused on your goals and making progress towards them.
I can’t take credit for this idea, FYI, I have several very smart friends who do this, and I took my cue from them! Emily Aborn, friend and podcaster, even has a great episode on this, if you’re interested.
To put it simply, a CEO day is a whole day where you work on your business, but not in it. No client emails, no meetings, no creating the product… just big picture strategy, reviewing what’s working, what’s not, and what the next stop on the figurative map is for you. It’s when you take off your employee hat, and put on your CEO hat.
Why do you need a CEO day? Because it creates space for you to grow. Grow as a leader of your business, and to identify what your business needs to grow. It’s a time to pause and think, “what can we do differently?” and “what if we did it this way?”, as you take a clear eyed look at how your business is really doing.
Some specific benefits of hosting a CEO day on a monthly basis include:
Clarity on goals: By setting aside dedicated time to review your goals, you can ensure that you and your team are all working towards the same objectives.
Reviewing KPIs : a CEO day is a good opportunity to review key performance indicators (KPIs) and assess whether you are on track to meet your targets. For my personal business this looks like reviewing newsletter subscribers, engagement rates on social media, and digital downloads. For CoHo, this can be looking at tours booked, conference room hour reservations, and engagement rates.
Creating action items: CEO day is a chance to identify any issues or challenges that need to be addressed and create specific action items to address them. This can help you move the needle forward in your business and make progress towards your goals. This is also where I break down my big goals into smaller steps that I can add to my weekly to do list.
Improved clarity: CEO day can also be a useful time to review what you want to create in business, is your business supporting the life you want, and is there anything that you can share or shift to move towards your goals?
To prepare for your CEO day I suggest blocking the entire day in your calendar, don’t let anyone book time with you and book space that is not in your home office. Grab time at a local coworking space, make use of those giant white boards, and be ready to plan big! The change in location is so important for that energy shift that needs to happen here.
So what do I actually DO during my CEO days? Let’s get into that.
Review the books. Where are we in revenue, compared to goals? What has changed, up or down? Do we need to make adjustments in our marketing or sales processes in response? Where are we in costs? Are there specific outstanding invoices that need attention? I use Quickbooks for accounting, and an in-depth excel tracker for our personal finances, so both can be updated here. I sleep much better having a clear idea of what the business finances are, as I’m sure you do too!
Review the annual goals. How are we tracking on those? I like to break my big goals into quarterly ones, so that I can take each quarter's goals, and break into weekly and monthly action items. Am I on track? Behind? This is a great time to determine if I need to adjust my action items, get caught up, or shift things on my calendar to get these done.
Marketing Map Out. I don’t create my marketing content during this time, but I do use it to look ahead at any events, holidays, or other things and map out what marketing needs to happen. This Marketing Map Out allows me to feel prepared and keep my pipelines full, never being caught with the ‘I don’t know what to post’ syndrome. For example, in Q1, I will map out marketing for Q2, including Mother’s Day, April vacation day passes for CoHo, and such.
Housekeeping. Are there software issues I’ve been putting off? I’ll schedule a time to take care of that. Bigger projects that need time blocked for? I’ll schedule that. Annual reports with the state that need to be filed? Yes, let’s schedule that. Basically, I think about all the one-off housekeeping tasks that don’t fall into my weekly routines and address those.
Overall, hosting a CEO day on a monthly basis can help you stay focused, organized, and on track in your business - aka calm. Your CEO day can look very similar, or totally different, depending on your business’s age, your industry, and your own preferences. Use it how you wish!
Is this something you’re going to try in 2023? I’d love to hear how it works for you!
