CEO & Founder Syndrome

Congrats! You made it. You worked hard. You built the company to where it was to where it is now. Took it from nothing to BAM! Huge growth. You have been able to hire people, have more freedom in your day to day.

It's ok to celebrate this feat. It's an accomplishment that not many have the willingness to power through. The sleepless nights. The stress. The worry. The weight of the world................is now a thing of the past.

Stand tall. You've earned it.

Now that's all the pat on the back you get now, CEO & Founder.

This one's going to hurt. But I have witnessed this first hand time & time again. It's not imposter syndrome, it's CEO & Founder syndrome.

All of HOW you built your business, brought it back to life to where you are right now is a completely different way to continue and take it to the next level.

The hustle, the favors, the referrals, the discounts, the "do whatever it takes" attitude you did, to get to where you are, is now null & void.

WHY?

Because you cannot sustain the next level of growth and accomplishments, with real employees & actual departments until you let go of the hustle mentality!

This is where most CEOs and Founders cannot see or accept. And their pride is what will ultimately hurt them. They cannot shake the fact that THEY did this. THEY built this. THEY are the ones who made this happen. So THEY know what's best. And yes, THEY know HOW to market and sell.

And the biggest flaw is them saying "We are growing and things are running smooth."

Here's the hard truth: THEY ARE WRONG.

How do I know this? Because of the countless evaluations I have done. Speaking with employees. Looking at HOW things are done. HOW they are put together.

CEOs & FOUNDERS - This is not a dig on you or a jab at your accomplishments. But it is a transition in the mentality from hustle to real company. I know some of you think you have a real company - technically BUT - you are still thinking like a hustle. Fixing things as they come, putting on a band-aid here - doing "little" things as needed, stretching the team thin and having people do things they should NOT be doing.

You might have a "marketing" person or a "marketing department" but it is being ran by YOU, the CEO. It's not true marketing to do what needs to be done, they are doing what YOU say and want them to do.

Why? Because you cannot see the difference of where you are now to where you came from to get here. You cannot transition or let go of that mentality.

That mentality is going to ultimately hurt. You WILL lose great people for stretching them thin. You will end up "Googling" things for tasks and help you need, from companies that will ultimately OVER PROMISE and UNDER DELIVER and you will say "That didn't work" and then the game is back to old habits.

CEOs and FOUNDERs have this unbelievable hustle and are always on the go. Wanting to take things to the next level. Where can they go? How can things be better? Drive more revenue? Profits?

But their hustle mentality doesn't work forever. They cannot transition from hustle to real company. I know I have said this before but I have to repeat it because they cannot understand what I mean when I say this statement.

You didn't do everything when you started your company. You didn't truly do everything when you started your company. You hustled however you could to make it happen. Your network, your referrals, your book of business, your discounts, your favors are what you had to do to hustle to survive and make your company grow.

No matter if that took 1 year or 10 years - it was all a hustle.

You didn't organically do any true marketing. You slapped together your website. It was easy to contact people that already knew you. Emails were not built for cold emails, follow ups, lead gen, demand gen, nurtures.

Now you get a CRM, hire a marketing person to do tasks that YOU think are a good idea and needed. You might have done a rebrand and think - "We spent a lot of time on the website, it looks "good" but you don't actually know how much you are missing out on revenue and advertising money BECAUSE of your website.

"The marketing person did a good job on the site." Right they did. According to you and your stamp of approval. But do you know how it works on the backend? How it is perceived from someone who hasn't or doesn't know anything about your company?

It says everything you want. It looks pretty. Clean. But are you losing out on contact us forms? Sales? Because you don't know that the navigation isn't buyer and prospect friendly? That it's set up they way YOU understand it, so it makes sense to you?

So any advertising dollars you spend now, will ultimately be a waste as your website is hurting getting new sales and customers.

And that doesn't include if your website is mobile friendly, how easily it loads, quickly it loads, how it is viewed online via from a prospect and Google. Which in turn, can hurt how you rank and SEO. Ultimately helping your competition gain market and your prospects.

See how easily it all affects other areas and how it can continue to be an avalanche but you don't see it.

And that's just a few pieces that the CEO & Founders cannot take away - Because the next step is the BLAME GAME - " I hired them to do that job, they should know."

Yea you hired ONE person to do the tasks and jobs that 5 people should have been doing. Stretching them thin. It is one thing to "multi-task" but there is another to give more than they should be doing.

You haven't got out of the mindset of hustle. You might have created a "Marketing Department" but have no idea how to hire the right roles. You gave them a title. They interviewed well. They are even doing a good job and know what they are doing.

But are they really doing their job according to HOW the job is supposed to be done? Is the "department" actually running like the department is supposed to be running?

OR

Is it being ran according to what you think is needed to be done? And just barking orders to how YOU want things to happen? You can't see it but you haven't removed yourself from the hustle. Now, these people who are employed by you, are glorified tasks managers.

Want to know if you are out of the hustle mentality or still in it?

Then take the hustle challenge......................don't hurt your company being the roadblock.