👇LISTEN HERE NOW👇

How often do you feel like you are chained or shackled to your business? Like it’s taking over every ounce of your life. 

When I started my business it was very obvious very quickly that the way I was running my business wasn’t sustainable.

The more my business grew, the more dependent it was on me. If I didn't show up then the business stopped. If I was away for a week, everything stood still for a week, unless I took work with me.

The more clients I got, the longer hours I worked and before I knew it, I was working all the time. I thought that this is just the price you pay for running your own business. That the hustle was just part of it. I was convinced that at some magical point in the future things would be better. That I would finally have the time freedom that I craved when I started my business. Three years in and the hustle was worse than ever. And this is because things don’t change unless we do. If we’re not aware, if we just continue doing the same thing but expecting things to change, they won’t change. You actually just get more intertwined. 

I could see that pushing for longer. Working into the night in an attempt to get ahead of the work that was piling up in front of me…was not working. I was exhausted and I actually started resenting my business and my clients because it felt like there was no space for my life.

It felt like I had to be everywhere all the time. And my brain could not do it anymore. I was tired of missing family gatherings because I had a client deadline. I wanted to take my kids to horse riding lessons, read them a story before bedtime, and have date nights with my husband. But my business was consuming all of me. It was the only thing I could think about or talk about.

My oldest daughter, Quinn, was in grade one (the year before we started homeschooling) and she came home with a school project that she worked on…and as I read through her answers on the sheet she filled in, it felt like someone punched me in the gut. The question was: What is one thing your mom is really good at? Her answer? Work. 

My perspective now has shifted a bit when I think about her answer but at the time…it felt like a sign that I needed to change. I needed to do things differently. I wanted her to remember me as more than just work. Or working all the time. I wanted to BE more than just this business. 

I will be the first to say that building a business is a beast of a different kind and it’s not for everyone. I knew that I wanted to be in business, to leave a mark on this world, and a legacy for my kids AND I also knew that I did not want to do that at the expense of my life. And all the other parts that also make me ME.

It was a time where I was desperately searching for an answer. For a different way because I knew that there was something I was not doing that kept me stuck. Most business programs out there teach you how to market your business. How to get more clients. And this is great. Your business needs a steady stream of clients. I was in marketing at the time so I understood that part and was getting clients. I was missing another crucial piece to the puzzle which I initially thought was about being more productive…but it was not. What I discovered was there were a few major gaps in how I was running my business:

The first gap was how Inwas working, more specifically the things that got my time. The type of work I was doing. I was spending all my time in the work of delivering to my clients and I wasn’t spending any time designing my business. 

The second major gap was the systems inside my business. The third was the mindset I had that kept me stuck in “no one can do this better than me”. I knew that serving more people would not happen at the level I wanted to serve them without the right structures and resources in place. I knew I had to work ON my business just as much and eventually more than I was working IN the business. 

You already know that business is always evolving. There are entire industries that thrived 15 years ago that are completely dead today. The market is constantly shifting and changing and staying on top of industry changes and shifts in the market is impossible if you’re already neck deep in the day to day of running your business.  Here’s the thing though, if you’re not thinking about the future of your business I assure you know one else is either. 

I worked on filling those four gaps and it not only grew my business it also gave me more of my time back. Time I could now use to work where my business needed me most and spend more time with my family. 

The more I spoke to other business owners, the more I realised they have the same gaps in their business. And that’s how The EffortLESS CEO was born. I wanted to make the roadmap I discovered accessible to my clients so they didn’t need to go through everything I had to go through in order to succeed. It’s the roadmap to designing a business that can run without you. That works for you and the life you want to live. 

Here’s a high level overview of the four major gaps we will work to fill in your business inside my program, the EffortLESS CEO:

1. Optimise how you spend your time. Everything starts and stops with you. The business owner. If we can’t get a grip on where our attention and energy is going, we will not have any energy left to give the business what it actually needs. You have to optimise how you spend your time. Before you optimise anything else inside your business. One of the hardest shifts I had to make as a business owner was that I cannot do it all at once. I had to shift from feeling productive (aka checking a bunch of tasks of my to-do list) to being effective and leveraging my time (aka achieving more with the same or less effort). I had to adjust the type of work I was doing. Inside the EffortLESS CEO I will teach you how to take control of your schedule, how to consistently enjoy productive weeks, and also the four types of work you should focus on so that your business not only serves your clients at the highest level but also prepares for the future. You have to start valuing your time more. 

2. Know what the single biggest problem in your business is right now and make it your priority to solve it. Most business owners are solving too many problems at once. As a result, they’re actually breaking things that were working perfectly fine. You have to know what the biggest problem in your business is right now so that you can channel resources towards it. We call this the bottleneck in the business. The way you know what your bottleneck is is by knowing your numbers. 

Knowing the numbers will tell you where you need to focus. It will tell you what area of your business needs your attention. The good news is, there is only ever one bottleneck you need to fix first. The bad news is, there is always a bottleneck. So every 90 days we determine what your current bottleneck is and we focus all our efforts on unblocking that bottleneck. This means you’re constantly focused on solving the one thing that is stopping the growth of your business. The result? More growth, faster, because you’re not keeping yourself busy with plugging holes that don’t really matter.

3. Systems for EVERYTHING. Anything that happens more than once inside your business needs to be captured as a process or system. So many business owners reinvent the wheel everytime they do something inside their business. Having the right systems and processes will save time, increase your operational efficiency and help you to deliver the highest quality service to your best customers consistently. I will help you capture and streamline the four types of systems your business needs so it can run like clockwork.

4. The right people in the right roles at the right time. You cannot do this by yourself forever. Nor should you want to. One of the most profound things a mentor said to me was that it is the job of the business owner to create jobs. I get that not every business owner wants to employ lots of people and build a big team. Many of my clients don’t hire or outsource in the beginning, sometimes automation is the answer but whether you’re using software to take things off your plate or hire one incredible person to help you with the admin in your business, the bottom line is…you cannot do it all yourself forever. Having the right support in your business is a gamechanger. 

Many business owners are afraid of hiring or outsourcing because they don’t think people will be able to do it as well as they can or take the same level of responsibility for the work as they do…but this is not true. There are people who can do what you do better than you do it. There are people who will get onto this wild ride with you because they believe just as much in the impact you want to make as you do. Your job is to find those people and put them in the right role at the right time so you can focus where your business needs YOU. To do the work only you can do. And this is exactly what I will help you with inside the program. We’ll make sure that you have the right support in place to reach your next level of growth.

The EffortLESS CEO is about running your business with less effort. It’s all about efficient business operations and it’s also about living life the way you intend to live it. To use your business as a platform for that life. It’s about the freedom to choose when you work, how you work, and what work you do. This is where you will learn and take action on simplifying and organising your business, up-levelling your mindset, and getting the right structure in place so your business has a strong foundation for growth and scale.

The program is designed for established business owners who provide services. Think Consultants, Coaches, Professional Service Providers. Anyone selling done-for-you services. When I say established businesses I mean businesses that aren’t new.. So, not new entrepreneurs who are still trying to figure out who their clients are and what they are going to sell to them.

This is a 12 month program that focuses on both your mindset as a business owner and the structure and strategy you need to grow.

You will have access to a proven step by step system that will guide you to designing a business that works for you AND you will have me in your pocket to support you the entire way. Which means you never have to wonder or try to figure things out on your own. We can do it together.

One thing I know for sure is that no one starts a business with the goal of being trapped by it. And yet, that is the reality many business owners find themselves in. And if you find yourself in a bit of denial…saying things like: ”I’m not trapped”, “I love what I do”. Let me ask you this…how long will your business survive if you cannot work in it? How long will you be able to stay away before the wheels fall off this bus completely? A day? A week? A month? If your business cannot run without you for at least four weeks, then you don’t own a business. Your business owns you. It’s time to work ON your business. To BE the visionary CEO your business needs to thrive.

THE EFFORTLESSCEO PODCAST

If you found value from the podcast, subscribe so you never miss out on a new episode!

Leave us a positive review here and help us reach and help more business owners.