Case Study: Developing a CEO mindset

*All names on the case studies have been altered for privacy of my clients. Results vary from people to people and are not guaranteed

"I'm a burnout baby." - I said this in a networking event, and immediately Carly* wanted to learn more about me and my business. Carly had been in business for over a decade, with double of that experience in the corporate world. She also had left the corporate world due to burnout.

In our first chat together, we talk about business, money, and decision making. Carly shared that she felt that she was always chasing money - that the moment she took time off, it was the moment her revenue dipped. She said, "Gigi, it feels like I left my 9-5 to start a 6-midnight. It's tiresome, I don't have time or energy for anything other than my business. But I just can't go back to the office. I like the freedom that I have with my business."

How I saw it, Carly didn't have any freedom. She felt she couldn't take time off, she felt that she needed to do everything for her business. A few months later, Carly connected with a friend of mine that suggested that she worked with me.

When we started working together, I could sense that Carly built a business with an employee mindset. Which, don't get me wrong, it's great for so many people - except for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must develop a CEO mindset.

To me, an employee mindset is very task-oriented and short term goals - it plays it safe. A CEO mindset is visionary, it takes risks, it is very strategic and intuitive.

Carly was not happy when she noticed that she brought the same burnout cycle to her business [and I told her, I had done the same!]. Developing a CEO mindset requires a vision, and an unwavering belief that that will happen. You must be curious: you need to look at data for what it is - a metric that gives you feedback, and you must also trust your intuition and be brave enough to pave your own path.

Quickly, I learned that Carly business was very profitable, but she was so afraid of spending money! She said "Gigi, I know I need support, but no one can do this better than me." or "If I spend this money, it'll never come back to me/I'm not sure if I can make it back."

As a busy mom and entrepreneur, all meditation were designed so she could listen to it while doing chores and just living life - the goal is to make the transformation easier, and not another thing that you feel you have to do.

A lot of work as geared towards money mindset, so we could develop a money management system that would allow her to make m ore investments without de-regulating her nervous system. We also defined her energetic minimum when it comes to her money: what is the lowest amount she feel comfortable having in her bank account. This allow us to plan for investments in a more strategic way.

We moved then to separating all the things that she does for her business [she tracked her time for 30 days] and categorized them into: LOVE, LIKE, NEUTRAL, DISLIKE.

With that, we were able to define which positions she would like to hire and the priority order for the hire. Her first hire would be a content creator - she loved creating newsletter and connecting with her community this way, but she was spending too much time doing all the social media and blog. She hired someone that would repurpose her newsletter and that saved her ~10 hours per week.

Carly learned how to make strategic investments: who to hire for a project that would increase her bottom line, what kind of support she needs in a daily basis. She was able to take risks that allowed her business to grow.

Carly was also able to let go of the need to "do all the things" - anything that was not in her LOVE list, were things that are to be outsourced - by someone that can do those things better than her.

By being more strategic, Carly was able to outline plans, using her vision as her north start. She was able to make decisions based on data, she was able to not take personally if a launch flopped - everything became datapoint. She also became less afraid of saying no and releasing the need to control all aspects of her business. She understood the data she needed, and as long as her team was able to provide her with that, she could focus on her zone of genius and really get into the flow zone daily.

By the end of our time working together, Carly had increased her profit margin from 10% to 20%, tripled her revenue, hired 4 full-time employees, and reduced in 50% the amount of time she spend working on her business. And yes, she was even able to take a vacation with her family!

If you're interested in learning how I can support you grow your business, you can apply to work with me.