CEO Stories 083: Balancing the CEO Role with Client Work

As a solopreneur, you wear many hats -- CEO is only one of them. So what does it really look like to have all those roles? Do you do them all at once? Or take them in turns? Samantha Mabe is sharing how she balances them all inside her business to fulfill her vision.   Samantha sees CEO as being the guide to the big picture and not getting caught up in the day to day.   When she first started working, she was freelancing and each client was the boss.  They gave direction and deadlines. Now she knows that she must be the boss, have the big picture vision, and not letting a client email that pops up change the direction of her day. She started an email folder for new client requests.  Samantha would file them, and then get to them on her time frame.   She started a podcast instead of just her blog that led her to realize she did not have to do things the way everyone else was doing things.  The blog was a “have to” and was not enjoyable for her. The podcast was a whole lot easier to just talk through her ideas and a better way for her to communicate. She started viewing the client work and the CEO work separately.  They both must be done, but she could serve her clients better if she managed her time instead of the clients trying to do this. When she chooses educational opportunities, she does keep her clients in mind as to what will serve them better and not just what she wants to learn. She starts and ends the week with administration.  She has days that she does not feel like designing a website, so she takes those days for CEO time to brainstorm, journal, walk, or just step away.  Every month she does look at the analytics. The first hard decision Samantha made was raising her hourly rates for her retainer clients.  She kept putting of sending the email for a long time, but then she got a great response. Another hard decision she makes regularly is putting boundaries around her time and being able to tell people no because the business comes first. She and her husband have a shared calendar so that even he knows when she is on a call or very busy. The vision for Lemon in the Sea is to support other businesses and help them grow. Samantha remembers that she has to say no to things that sound great, but she must do this to stay on track with the goals she sets. She limits the amount of time on social media so that it does not derail her ideas and thoughts to lead her to think that she has to do what others are doing.   We are seeing peoples highlight reels so everything may not be as perfect as it appears on social media. The focus for Lemon in the Sea is to continue to help the clients to get the results that they need to see.   You do not have to have what everyone else has.  She does not have any passive income projects and that is ok for her!