What we’ll cover:

1. Why a CEO Day is crucial to your business’s success
2. How to do a CEO Day
3. Set actionable priorities

First, Why A CEO Day Is Crucial to Your Business’s Success

A day out of the office, away from the daily grind, can help us to accomplish the critical items that CEOs do:

• Dreaming Up Possibilities: This mental “white space” helps us refine our vision for the business, dream up new ideas, and think about strategy with a clear direction in mind.
• Innovation: We can evaluate ideas we’ve collected from conferences, industry meetings, and colleagues. We can determine whether these solutions would serve our vision for the business or if they’re just shiny objects that sound good but won’t truly move the needle.
• Enhanced Decision Making: Analyzing data uninterrupted empowers us to see the big picture and evaluate scenarios more objectively, leading to more effective decision-making processes.

For example, you can look at your marketing funnel and review each layer. How many invitations did you send for your last workshop? How many RSVP’d? How many people attended? How many attendees booked an appointment? How many of them had a second appointment?

Analyzing this data to figure out how where a process excels and identify any gaps. If you had lots of prospects attend a workshop but they didn’t book a meeting, instead of scrapping the whole event, you can strategically address the gaps. You can look at your presentation or your call to action and make tweaks, instead of just saying the workshop “didn’t work.”

Personal Growth and Well-being: A CEO Day is not only beneficial for the organization but also for our personal growth and well-being. Taking time to recharge, reflect, and prioritize self-care allows us to lead with renewed energy and resilience.

Second, How to Do a CEO Day

I recommend taking a day out of the office quarterly. Going off-site allows us to truly disconnect from office distractions and focus on the five main areas a financial professional CEO needs to address annually.

1. Financials: This includes analyzing profit and loss statements, income streams, expenses, revenue per hour, marketing ROIs, and understanding the overall finances of the business.
2. People: Evaluate your org charts, role descriptions, delegation, professional development of team members, salaries, benefits, and look at the overall culture and the experience of being an employee within our business.
3. Processes: Look at all the existing business processes. Are they still effective, in alignment with your practice’s brand, and exceeding client expectations? Or do they need to be updated or adjusted?
4. Problem-Solving: What problems have been raised by team members, clients, or that you’ve identified? Think creatively about solutions.
5. Client Experience: The client experience is one of the top priorities for a financial professional. Are there ways you can enhance your client service models, meeting structures, follow-up, or onboarding to improve their experience during the next 12 months?

Each quarter you can focus on just a few items from each of these five key areas of your business. They’re not meant to be tackled all in one shot.

Third, Set Actionable Priorities

At the end of a CEO Day, establish clear priorities and action plans. Schedule time with your team within a week of your CEO Day to communicate your strategic vision and priorities. Break down larger goals into manageable tasks and assign responsibilities to appropriate team members. Develop a timeline and ensure accountability for execution.

I suggest selecting no more than three major goals to work on each quarter. By focusing on just three, you can avoid getting distracted by too many ideas and directions that dilute your efforts. This narrow focus allows you and your team to implement 12 specific goals during the year.

“Taking a Day Out of the Office Won’t Make a Difference”

I often hear financial professionals say that taking this time out of the office each quarter will put them behind on their to-do list and only create more stress. I’ve found that financial professionals who’ve adopted a consistent CEO Day routine have become significantly more productive, and the ROI on this time spent on the business is invaluable. CEO Days give you the time and space to create an elevated experience for your clients, develop a more organized business, and implement processes to work smarter and faster.

Another common concern I hear from financial professionals is not knowing exactly what to do on these CEO Days; some even think they should hire a consultant to do this work. Don’t overthink it. You must be actively involved and engaged in this process. It’s your business, so you need to determine how to run it, the experience you want for your clients, and the lifestyle you want for you and your family. I recommend you start by trying to answer a handful of simple questions:

1. Where could my team and I use better processes?
2. What mistakes do we make, and how could we prevent them in the future?
3. What can we do to really wow our clients in the next year?
4. How do I make my business a great place to work?
5. What do I wish I could do for my clients, myself, and my team that I don’t currently do? What would it take to make that happen?