Yes, you read that title correctly! This blog post is all about the one person you need to fire this year! Any guesses on who it is? It’s yourself!! Don’t worry, you can rehire yourself but only with a new perspective.
Earlier this year, I read a great article from an accounting publication that I subscribe to and it was all about how accounting firm owners that act as the CEO can start to get stagnant after a while. As I read through it, I realized it definitely resonated with me but I realized that this concept is true for any business owner really, not just those in the accounting profession.
Think about it, have you ever worked for a company that hired a new CEO or other high-level executive and not long after they were hired you started to see changes coming down the pipe? Maybe you were initially a little reserved or hesitant about whatever new thing they were implementing but after a while, you started to realize that their ideas and direction were going to be really good for the company and you started to get excited about what was to come. Before you knew it, the office was buzzing about the new hire and things really started to look up. Can you relate? I know I can.
What happens when you are running a small business where you are the CEO though? Maybe you have a small team, or maybe you even have somewhat of a large team but you are still very much the boss and make daily decisions for the company, that’s when it gets tough to implement new things, try out those new ideas and get some buzz going around the office.
How can you see some big changes in your business this year without killing your budget by hiring a high-level executive position?
Fire yourself! Then, rehire yourself. When you rehire yourself as the new, exciting CEO that everyone will be buzzing about, make sure you start off your first day with new ideas, new energy and a new perspective of your business. As your business grows, the CEO needs to adapt and grow as well so here some ways I came up with to evaluate myself as CEO and start to think about what I could be doing better. I hope this will help you as well.
- Go back and look at your goals for the last year. Did you meet them? Did you make progress? Did you accomplish things that weren’t even on your goal list? Be sure to evaluate how you really spent your time looking at the big picture of your business. If you had a CEO working for you other than yourself, what things would you be holding them accountable for? Hold yourself accountable for the same things. If you set a goal and then you never did anything to make progress on that, dig in and figure out why, and then change that for this year.
- What are the things in your business that are being done the “old way” that could be done a lot more effectively / efficiently? This one is tough because as you know the old saying goes, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. Well, that sounds great but in reality, when you are running a business, there are some things that might not be totally broken, but there are most certainly things that can be done better. I had to look at ways we were communicating, ways we were working internally, ways we were performing our daily work, ways we were selling our services and more and really break it down to see if we could be doing things better. Guess what? There is definitely room for improvement and now I have some new goals to work on this year!
- What are some things you are doing that could be done by someone else? Yep, I said it. You are doing tasks day in and day out that someone else could easily do for you or instead of you. That’s a tough one for me and one that I’ve had to realize a little more each and every year as we grow. But once again, when I really thought about it and made a list, I realized there are things I am doing that are just time-consuming tasks that someone else could easily be doing. They aren’t big decision type tasks, they aren’t things that are going to make or break the business so why am I doing them? One day I’ll talk more about how to realize your value in your business and really nail down what your hourly rate is and that will be a big eye-opener in this area as well but for now, just think about the things that someone else could be doing so you can focus more time on being the new, awesome CEO of your business. In the past, it has helped me to write down everything I do and then write either “only me” or someone else” next to it to really see who could be doing the same things I am, possibly even better than I am.
- Make a list of all the things you are looking for in a new CEO. What type of responsibilities would you give them, what type of personality do you want them to have, what new things would you want them to implement? Use that list as your gameplan for the year and when you rehire yourself, make it known that those are your new responsibilities so you have some accountability, just like a newly hired CEO would.
If you are a solopreneur and you’re thinking this sounds great but how can you be the CEO when you are also the **fill in the blank with whatever service or product you create**? I’d challenge you to actually fire yourself as the **fill in the blank**, put on your CEO hat, do the exercises above and then rehire yourself as both the CEO and the **fill in the blank** if you need to. I bet you’ll have some new perspective when you rehire yourself into both positions.
If you have a team, I’d challenge you to make your team fire themselves as well and go through the same exercises above. Then, come back to you with their findings. I’m seriously considering having our team do this but shhh! Don’t tell them yet! I think it is great for everyone to step back at some point and really evaluate your everyday. If we don’t, we start to get stagnant just like the original article that I read said and stagnant is never good! There is always room to improve, there is always room to re-evaluate and I think that looks different for every business and business owner out there.
