10 Things Every Top-Notch CEO/Owner Must Know

It occurred to me that there are at least 10 things every top-notch CEO or business owner must know and do.

Transcript

Greetings. It occurred to me that there are at least 10 things every top-notch CEO or business owner must know and do. Let’s go through them real quick. 

1. Define the purpose of the company. Why are we doing this? 
2. Define the culture and the core values of the company. 
3. Bring in the resources the company needs. That’s very important, or else it will always be difficult to get the job done.
4. Have financial literacy and embrace what I call the “happy dollar half hour.” If you do not like dealing with finances, then just give yourself a happy dollar half-hour, maybe once a week or once every other week, at least. That will help. 
5. You must understand at least the basics of marketing and sales. If you don’t, it’s okay, but you have to learn it. There’s no way around it. You can’t simply just delegate it. That is my experience; it does not work without it. 
6. You have to be able and willing to establish accountability. With yourself, of course, at first. Then with your team – that’s also vital. 
7. You also have to delegate and liberate yourself and others so that you can stay at the cutting edge and avoid burnout. You and other people in your organization need to be able to put their time to the highest use.
8. “Train to scale” is about training people. It allows you to scale up. You foster smooth growth instead of all this chaos that often happens when companies grow. This is especially a challenge when they grow explosively.
9.  “Protect to thrive” means to protect the knowledge, your brilliance, as I call it, in your company and make sure that you are not at risk of losing it when a key person leaves, especially when they leave unexpectedly. That person might even be you!
10. Last but not least is to “take steps to be sold,” meaning that you must make sure that your company can be passed on someday. This matters if it is important to you that you don’t want your company to just go away when you are no longer running it.

I often wonder if so many companies go away because they do not take those steps to sell. Then when the day comes, all they can do is shut down. What a shame, how much brilliance goes away. 

Those are my top 10 things every top-notch CEO and business owner needs to master.

I’m Curious