Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs

When you need to grow your business, what do you do? Do you lock out the rest of the world and brainstorm new products, programs, or service ideas yourself, like so many entrepreneurs do? Big mistake!

When you try to expand your business this way, you’re cutting out 100% of one of your most crucial assets: your existing customers and clients. In this episode, my guest and CEO Collective member Layne Lyons tells us about how she’s on track to double her business by getting actual input from those already familiar with her business.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

5:17 - Layne describes her business before it underwent an amazing transformation and reveals her first business bottleneck.

9:39 - What did Layne do to resolve her first bottleneck? What was her experience like after she started putting some boundaries in place?

13:12 - Layne shares what it felt like to finally increase her price points and offers advice to those on the precipice of doing the same.

15:53 - A new offer has opened the door for Layne to double the revenue from her business. She reveals what it is and the journey she went on to get here.

21:31 - What happened when Layne launched her new offer? This demonstrates why asking your existing client base for new ideas is the easiest way to build your next offer.

25:21 - Layne describes how she and her business are different now thanks to the changes she’s implemented.

34:21 - How was Layne’s experience joining The CEO Collective? She offers an inside look.

37:09 - To wrap up, I highlight a few points Layne made about streamlining and simplifying her business to the point where she now works less and enjoys her life more.

Show Links

• Layne’s Legal Umbrella Checklist
• Book Trademark Consultation with Layne
• The CEO Collective
• Racheal on Instagram

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

As a business growth strategist for over 15 years, I’ve constantly heard and seen something that grates on my nerves. So many so-called experts always hype up the latest tools and tactics that grow your business by some measly amount every year. 

But why only settle for five or ten percent annual growth when you can double it instead? You don’t have to, which is why in this episode I reveal my three key strategies to help you rapidly grow your business (doubling or even tripling your revenue) with half the effort.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

4:35 - I dive into the first strategy right off the bat. You can do it quickly, without engaging in more marketing or attracting extra sales.

9:31 - What’s the most common concern I often hear when I advocate my first strategy? One of my clients recently went through this.

13:55 - I discuss one final key thing to think about when it comes to strategy #1. Women entrepreneurs especially need to pay attention to this!

18:00 - Key strategy #2 involves increasing this aspect of your business. It does come with a couple of caveats, though.

25:13 - What’s the correlation between consistent business growth and time spent on marketing and sales activity?

26:24 - I reveal the last strategy to double your revenue with half the effort. It involves something a lot of entrepreneurs forget.

30:58 - Retention is a huge thing that leads to results, and I talk about the myriad of ways in which that helps your business growth.

33:25 - What happens after your clients have achieved the big promise of your signature offer?

37:08 - To wrap up the episode, I quickly recap the strategies.

Show Links

• Get Paid calculator
• More Than Money with Jacquette Timmons
• Racheal on Instagram
• Leave a review on iTunes

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

We all got through those startup stages of our business where we knew it was going to take awhile to figure things out and to get people in the door.

Once you get a little bit further along on your journey and you’re ready to make this your full-time focus, you need your business to pay you a real paycheck.

No one loves to run a business that can’t support the entrepreneur running it.

This is why it’s so, so important to have a game plan for how you’re going to design that predictably profitable business.

But the statistics show us that most women do not have a predictably profitable business.

Over 75% of women entrepreneurs do not earn more than $50,000 a year. And most entrepreneurs shut the doors within the first couple of years.

If you are committed to making your business truly work for you and work for your family, you have to have a real profit plan to make it work before you get so burnt out that you throw in the towel.

https://rachealcook.com/profit-plan/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Not long ago, I was a guest coach for a business workshop where everyone was working on a poster-size post-it to map out our business for the next 12 months.

There were directions to map out your business goals, your offers, and your marketing strategy.

I started looking around the room to see where people needed help and I realized everybody in the room had a leaky business.

Their marketing plan was not working together.

Everyone’s marketing plan was a smattering of tactics… but there was no clear strategy to ensure that all that marketing effort was leading potential clients to their paid offers.

The minute I shared with them a different way to approach their marketing strategy, all the light bulbs went off as people could see why all the work they had put into marketing their business wasn’t generating real results.

Most people when they sit down and write out a marketing plan, they make a list of marketing to-dos. They need to have a newsletter and they need to blog… they need to do a podcast and they need to be posting on social media.

But a marketing to-do list isn’t a strategy unless it all works together to turn your community into paid clients.

Ready to fix the LEAK in your predictable profit strategy?

https://rachealcook.com/predictable-profit-strategy/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Statistically, 80% of new businesses are going to fail within the first few years… so how do you make sure that you’re going to beat the odds and succeed?

How do you make sure your business is going to stick it out through the startup stages to get to the success stage where you’re finally making consistent revenue?

It comes down to FOCUS.

In this episode, I’m going to share how you can get more focused so you can achieve your business goals. It’s all about simplifying your business strategy.

https://rachealcook.com/predictably-profitable-business/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

In this episode, we're focusing on the #1 strategy to ensure that you get paid each and every month in your business… even when you need to take a break from your business.

Have you ever found yourself with a family emergency, something that needed your immediate attention, and suddenly, you had no choice but to completely rearrange your calendar?

Or maybe you just want to enjoy a fun vacation without worrying about your inbox or your clients.

You love the idea of being able to take a week or two off throughout the year in your business, but the same problem exists::?If you’re not working, you’re not getting paid.

I know that this is something that’s incredibly common, especially for those of you who are heart-centered service providers.

Maybe you’re a teacher or a coach or a trainer and you’re probably running your business by working one on one with clients offering services.

While that is a fantastic first step to get your business going, it can also create a bottleneck in your business where, again, if you’re not working, you’re not getting paid.

Today, I want to break down a really simple strategy that can start to free you from this dollar-for-hour trap that is not allowing you to take sick days or vacations… and start thinking more strategically about your business.

https://rachealcook.com/baseline-revenue-plan/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

In my conversations with women, I’ve discovered that we just don’t ask for or seek enough help. We feel like we have to do everything ourselves, and this leaves us feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and on the brink of burnout. In this episode, I talk about building your own support system. I take you behind the scenes and share how I’ve built teams to help me in various areas of my business and my life.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

4:03 - When building your own support system, you can focus on several areas. I start with discussing the different ways I receive support in my business.

8:29 - Doing this used to take up a HUGE amount of my time. I talk about it and how my Director of Operations, customer support team, and program coordinator are life savers!

14:42 - I have more people behind the scenes I’m in contact with to occasionally help me on the business side of things.

17:09 - My personal success team at home helps me manage my health. This area is one where a lot of women entrepreneurs still hold on to some old-fashioned norms.

23:21 - I discuss the final area of support I receive. It’s something I wasn’t even sure I’d talk about on the show.

28:18 - You’ve got a permission slip to ask yourself: Where do I need support?

Show Links

• Racheal on Instagram
• Leave a review on iTunes

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

A lot of us entrepreneurs have seen (and heard) from our parents and others that success requires a lot of hard work and long hours. I used to be frustrated with the whole “work smarter, not harder” concept because I saw my entrepreneurial parents embrace the hustle. I thought to gain success you had to do anything and everything and work 80-100 hour weeks.

But you eventually reach a point where you just can’t work any harder! So how do you get to that next level of success? Working harder for it clearly isn’t the answer. You need to shift the way you think about your relationship with work. So in today’s episode, I talk about six lessons that will have you working smarter instead.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

3:48 - When you do this, you get an exponentially higher return on your time and energy. So what’s lesson #1 and how have I practiced it in my business?

7:12 - What does the E in CEO not stand for? I learned this lesson the hard way!

11:46 - You’ve probably heard this phrase before, and there is some truth to it. I’ve had to follow this lesson whenever my business crossed another threshold.

17:03 - So many entrepreneurs, especially creative ones, find lesson #4 challenging to implement. But not doing so can eventually sabotage you.

20:41 - Don’t love the idea of going into debt to invest back into your business? Here’s what I did early on in my business for lesson #5.

25:32 - You can’t implement the final lesson through Google. You’ll face rites of passage in your business when you’ll want this in your corner instead.

Show Links

• The CEO Collective
• Racheal on Instagram
• Leave a review on iTunes

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

We've all heard that it costs money to make money, right?

Do you remember the first big investment you made into your business?

I do... and it was SCARY.

I remember being nervous, excited, and a little nauseous as I wrote the first check to join my first mastermind for $10,000.

At the time, I was coming off a nearly year-long maternity leave with my twins.

We'd made ends meet with Jameson's teaching salary and a couple of clients I was working with on the side... but reality was hitting us that I needed to dramatically ramp up my business to support my family.

Investing $10,000 into my business seemed like a huge stretch for us.

But as Jameson and I talked about the vision I had for this business - one that would allow me to support our family while working from home - we knew that it was time to commit 100% and go all in.

That decision to?commit?made all the difference.

It instantly shifted my mindset from?"How am I going to afford this mastermind? How can I handle this added expense to my business?" to?"How many clients do I need to make back this investment? How can I get a Return on Investment?"

I realized I just needed 2 new consulting clients.

Suddenly it didn't seem so scary to make that investment.

In this episode, I want to share with you the ROI of thinking like a CEO - how we can make smart decisions about when, where, and how we spend our money to grow our business::

5:30 The big question I always ask myself when it comes to spending money in my business - is this an expense? Or is this an investment?

6:26 The different types of return I'm looking for when I spend money in my business including ROI, ROT, and ROE

11:00 Why I see marketing, branding, and photography as an INVESTMENT into my business because it reflects the quality and value of my offers - and where I'm actually investing in these areas.

14:30 Just to be clear - not everyone needs to invest this much into their brand at the early stages of your business or when your brand isn't holding you back from getting more clients or growing your business. Be discerning and only invest when you have a clear reason why!

16:03 Entrepreneurs are resourceful and will Google all day to figure things out! But it's a huge waste of our time. Hiring support is one of the best ways to buy back your time.

19:00 How you can not only get buy back your time - but get a return on investing in a team member - when you use that saved time to serve clients or attract new clients.

23:45 No one really talks about this unless you are surrounded by other high-performing entrepreneurs and business owners - but the best investment is investing in yourself!

24:46 "Your income seldom exceeds personal development." - Jim Rohn

24:48 These stats SHOCK me - Did you know that 1/3 of high-school grads never read any other book for the rest of their lives. 80% of families haven't read a book in the last year!

25:35 The level of success we experience in our outer world is simply the mirror reflection of our self-identity and personal development of our inner world. We all have a set-point, an internal thermostat, for the level of development. The only way to increase your internal set-point? Personal development.

28:15 Why high-performers invest 10% of their income back into their personal development and the lesson I learned from Darren Hardy about how he approaches investing into his development with books, courses, conferences, and coaching.

29:50 In the early stages of our business, we invest into mastering our craft and learning the

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Are your mornings just the craziest time of the day? Between dealing with pets, coffee, and kids, you ultimately feel frazzled by the time you sit down at your desk. Or perhaps at the end of your day, you’re just exhausted and collapsing into bed. Well, high-performance CEOs and leaders know they need to manage their day well and conserve their energy and brain space for what really matters to get the results they desire in life, health, relationships, and business. So today, we’re going to talk about how you can run your day like a high-performance CEO.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

6:06 - A great day truly starts the night before. I’ve never been a great sleeper and even failed at it according to my FitBit app, so here’s how I fixed that.

15:48 - Morning routines all about personal preference. I discuss what the introvert in me thrives on.

19:58 - Pay attention to anything causing frustration in your day. What used to annoy me and how I solved it.

22:58 - Simplifying decision-making. I describe my simple capsule wardrobe choices and advance self-care scheduling.

25:41 - Having essentials for health and home shipped to me automatically. I do this for myself, my husband, and our kids.

26:43 - Manage whatever sucks away your time. The happy accident a couple of weeks ago that helped me truly relax that weekend.

Show Links

• The CEO Collective
• Racheal on Instagram
• Review Giveaway - Rate and Review on Apple Podcasts

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!