In this video, Jonathan describes the three main roles you take on in your job as CEO.
It’s January and this is the month you set the tone for the rest of your year. If you nail this month and you nail this year, it sets you up for the next 5 years. If you are running a larger company, something that I’ve struggled with and I’m still working on to this day, is to remind myself of what I’m about to tell you. I hope it’s valuable for you because it’s incredibly valuable for me when I actually live what I’m about to tell you. I try to do it every single day.
Your job as the owner, as the entrepreneur, as the individual running a larger company, one that does a few million and up gross revenue, is to recruit the very, very best people you can possibly recruit on to your team. You want to spend a lot of time in this area.
Your next job is to make sure you filter out and get rid of everybody that is a drain on the company and anyone that hurts the culture and the morale of the company. You are in the employee management business. You are recruiting the best. You’re getting rid of the under-performers that hurt the team.
Then, your job is to remove the bottlenecks for your team. You’re supposed to make life easier for them, help them stay efficient, help them work fast, help them progress in their area of expertise in whatever it is they provide and do for the company. You want to set the strategy for the company. You want to make sure that everybody in the company is working that plan.
You have the big vision. Where are you going in 5 years? You set the strategy. You make sure everybody’s working that plan and then you remove bottlenecks for your team. That means you might have to get contractors involved. It might mean you have to hire another employee. It might mean you need to fire an employee. It might mean that you need to help an employee get educated in a certain area but you’re there to remove their bottlenecks.
Your typical day looks more like coaching and critiquing, giving advice and feedback, and redirecting and assisting more than anything else. When you reach that point, you’re living the life of what a CEO should be doing. You’re not doing all the work. You’re more delegating and coaching and advising.
Your job is to think and lead. If you’re doing that then you’re achieving what you need to be doing to get your company to the 5 million, to the 10 million, to the 20 million dollar mark. None of it’s easy. I struggle with all of this. I did it better at CitiTurf than I’ve done it at Service Autopilot probably because I’m a little more passionate about Service Autopilot. I’ve stayed in the thick of everything longer than I should’ve and so I’m talking to myself just as much as I’m talking to you.
I hope this gives you some encouragement to really focus on that in January, February, March and the rest of this year. If you’re still a smaller company, work as fast as you can to get yourself into that position and that’s when everything really starts to accelerate inside your company.
