The CEO Quarterly Review: A Business Diagnostic Tool
Taking Stock of Your Enterprise's Health
Amy, in her latest podcast episode, illuminates the necessity for business owners to take regular pauses—specifically through a CEO Quarterly Review. This review is much like a health check-up for your business, offering a chance to critically assess what initiatives are thriving, which ones are floundering, and what new opportunities lie on the horizon. Implementing such reviews allows you to move forward with intention and purpose, rather than being caught in a whirlwind of frenetic but fruitless activity.
Navigating the Business Landscape with Precision
The GPS analogy Amy uses speaks volumes about strategic business direction. Just as a GPS recalculates the route when you take a wrong turn, a Quarterly Review can redirect your business efforts, ensuring you’re on the most efficient path to your destination. This routine assessment calls for entrepreneurs to mute the ‘hustle noise’ and listen intently to the feedback and data that truly guide business growth.
Asking "Why" to Uncover Business Truths
We must probe the rationale behind our daily tasks, Amy urges. By inquiring 'Why am I doing this?', entrepreneurs can uncover layers of their business operations that are either serving their goals or requiring recalibration. This process of questioning and refining can lead to a more streamlined and effective approach to business, making every effort count toward your overarching objectives.
Leveraging Information to Forge Ahead
Emotion may drive ambition, but it is data that should steer the way forward. Evaluating performance metrics and customer engagement can be enlightening, revealing which business strategies should be scaled up and which need to be rethought. Data doesn't lie, and when your decisions are grounded in hard evidence, the route to business success becomes much clearer.
Maximizing Your Most Valuable Asset
In a profound call to action, Amy recommends conducting a 'time audit' to track where your hours are truly going. This awareness can uncover subconscious behaviors that drain your energy and divert you from productive work. By identifying these patterns, you can assert greater control over your time, ensuring that you invest it in areas that amplify your success.
Conclusion: The Sustainable Path to Business Growth
Building for the Future with Strategic Focus
Amy's guidance highlights a fundamental truth: sustainable success is built on repetition of basic, effective routines rather than constant pursuit of the novel and exciting. It's by mastering the fundamentals and applying a strategic focus that business owners can truly build enterprises that thrive over the long term.
And now, as we step into a new quarter, it's the perfect opportunity to enact Amy's advice. Start with her CEO Quarterly Review guide, link below, to methodically dissect your business practices. Remember, it is through intentional pauses and reflective practices that we glean the insights needed to not just run a business, but to lead it resiliently into the future.
Episode Links
Listen to Episode 248 CEO Quarterly Review here
Download your FREE CEO Quarterly Review Guide here
Grab Amy’s bestselling book, The CEO Method: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Success, for less than a dollar on Amazon!
I would love to hear your biggest takeaways! Connect with me in the DM’s over on Instagram @amytraugh
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Watch the "How to Intentionally Slow Down to Speed Up" video on our YouTube Channel here!
Transcript for Episode 304. How to Intentionally Slow Down to Speed Up
Amy [00:00:03]:
If you've been in my world for any length of time, you've probably heard me say, action creates momentum and momentum creates results. It's a fact. That's how it happens. You have to get into action in order to see some type of result. But there's a little caveat to this that I want to dive into and discuss in today's episode, and that's okay. You're a business owner, you're taking massive action. You're doing the things, you're hustling, you're working 24/7 but are you getting the results that you desire? Are you driving down the highway at 90 miles an hour in the wrong direction? And that's why it is so absolutely key as a business owner to pause. To pause and do what I call my CEO quarterly review.
Amy [00:01:07]:
I like to do this quarterly where I block out an entire, like, morning or afternoon, block out that time on my schedule to focus on growth, to focus on reviewing. This is working. This is not. This is feeling good, this is not. Here's an opportunity to automate outsource. Here's an opportunity for growth, for improvement. Because when we're stuck in the hustle, doing all of the things all of the time, it's very easy to trick our brain into thinking that we're being productive. But at the end of the day, what happens is we're busy being busy, we're busy doing the things, we're busy taking courses because we feel like we need to know more in order to achieve more.
Amy [00:02:04]:
We feel like we need to hustle more in order to achieve more. But really, the secret to getting more rapid results is slowing down and assessing. Where did you come from? Where are you now and where are you going? One of my favorite analogies that perfectly illustrates this point is your GPS. In order to calculate the best route for you to get from point a to point b, you have to put in your destination into your gps, and then based off of that destination, that's where you have the most efficient route calculated for you based off of where you're at. But what happens when that GPS is saying, recalculating, recalculating, recalculating, and you're just ignoring it? You're like, oh, this is annoying, I'm just going to mute that, that gps voice. No, the key is slowing down, pausing, gassing back up. Because if you're driving down the highway and you don't take the time to put more gas in your car, you're going to burn out. Right? Your car is going to stop working.
Amy [00:03:34]:
Business is the exact same way. Intentional strategic pauses are really, really important. And it's something that we don't often like to take the time to do because in our mind, we need to be doing. But I challenge you. What if you paused and really analyzed, okay, I know I'm doing, I know I'm going, I know I'm doing all of these things. I'm putting in all of this effort, all of this action. But what if you paused for a minute, for a couple hours to assess? Am I headed in the right direction in my business? And taking the time to do a quarterly review has been a game changer. It's all about intent, the intention as to why.
Amy [00:04:39]:
And this is a really powerful question as a business owner. When you go and look at how you're spending your time, what you can do is ask yourself, why am I doing this activity? Why am I going on social media? And when you really take the time to ask yourself why, you'll get more clarity. You'll get clarity in what you need to be doing in order to move the needle forward. You'll have clarity as to what is working and what is not working. A lot of times clients come to me and they're like, you know what I'm doing. All of this engagement on social media, I'm putting all of these posts up, but nothing's working. And that's where we can take the step back and really assess. Okay, will you feel like that's not working? Right.
Amy [00:05:37]:
Well, let's look at the data and see what is working. And how can we double down on what's already working versus wasting our two most valuable assets, time and energy, on things that aren't working? We're emotional beings. We're human beings. We're not human doings. But it's important to stop and assess, remove the emotion and use that data to drive your decisions. Because at the end of the day, when you use your data to drive your decisions, you'll get from point a to point b faster. Because now you're laser focused on what is working versus what isn't working in your business. And I get it, this seems overly simplistic.
Amy [00:06:38]:
But simple is what is sustainable. Simple helps you grow. Strategic focus is absolutely key. A super powerful exercise that you can do as a business owner. If you're struggling, if you're feeling like you're caught in the hustle, is to take the time to do a time audit. I want you to start tracking every single day. How are you spending your time? And this is very similar to like, say you wanted to lose some weight and they tell you, okay, I want you to write everything that you eat down all day. What happens that now brings that subconscious act of, okay, I'm just going to grab a snack when I'm walking to the kitchen to get some more water to now I'm consciously aware that I'm grabbing a snack every time I go into the kitchen to get some water.
Amy [00:07:39]:
So a time audit in your business is the exact same thing. Very quickly, you'll become aware of how many times you inadvertently pick up your phone to check your notifications, take those notifications off and regain that control over technology. Technology has gotten such a stronghold over us, it is time to take back control, take those notifications off and. And start becoming aware of how you're spending your precious time. Often it's in doing less that we achieve more. I've become very, very intentional about unplugging and actually scheduling time to unplug every single day. And that was really, really a challenge at first for me because I was stuck in the hustle mentality. I'm like, okay, if I just work harder, if I just do more, then I'll achieve more.
Amy [00:08:37]:
Society's conditioned us to think that that's the key, right? But it's not. It's in slowing down and taking the time to assess. That's where we get the clarity to propel us forward to achieve the results that we desire. Because at the end of the day, it's all about building a business that works for you. Because you did not quit your nine to five to work 24/7 nor should you. And if you think that building a business is supposed to be easy, I'm here to tell you that it's a challenge. It is the biggest mind game ever. Because so often you already know enough.
Amy [00:09:32]:
You just need to implement, and not only implement and take action, but take action in the right areas, because that's what's going to build the momentum, and the momentum will create the results. But building a business is a long game. 99.9% of people did not wake up one day just ready to go, and everybody knew who they were. Once in a while, it happens. Maybe if you're like the royal kid, but for the majority of us, nobody knows us, nobody likes us, nobody trusts us right off the bat, right? We all start at ground zero. So it is so, so crucial at ground zero to be strategic, to get that clarity, to get you into action. Running a business is doing those basic, non glamorous things over and over and over. And the reality is a lot of business owners get stuck because they want to be doing all of the fun things in business.
Amy [00:10:52]:
They want to be creating the social media content, they want to be going to all the events, they want to go on vacation and to all the different retreats. And yes, those things are amazing. Those things are awesome and fun. But building a sustainable business is about repeating the basics over and over and over. So I encourage you to go back and listen to the episode I did diving into how to do a CEO quarterly review. And now that we're into Q two, take the time, assess where you were, where you are and where you're going. And as a bonus, you can download a completely free guide, my CEO quarterly review guide. We will link it below in the show notes.
Amy [00:11:49]:
This will walk you through step by step questions to ask yourself, data to look at, and other actions to steps so that you can get strategic, so that you can build a business around your life. I'm cheering for you. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so that you can create the impact you desire.