Applying the All Important 80/20 Rule to your Business: Filling the Shoes of a CEO

Learn how to free up your time so you can help your business experience exponential growth, get to the bottom of your core strengths and delegate the rest! In this post we’ll discuss the Pareto Principle and the importance of applying it to your business ASAP!

Learning where to get involved, and where to step back, in your business is one of the most crucial lessons you’ll learn on your entrepreneurial journey. It’s a major learning curve finding the right ratio of involvement, and distance, to ensure both the professional success and growth of your enterprise along with your own personal happiness (and sanity!)

The Pareto Principle (the 80/20 Rule) to be your best friend in business especially as you strive for substantial growth in the new year. In order to really grow you need to make the changes necessary for you to have the freedom to devote 80% of your time to being a CEO.

The dilemma of delegation is all part of a steep learning curve in the lives of entrepreneurs when moving from the stereotypical “sole trader” role into the shoes of a successful CEO. It’s a hard (and sizable) step to make, especially when, until now, the business has been your baby, your all-consuming passion project.

I love this quote from the best-selling book “4 Hour Work Week”…

“But what about the cost of [hiring a team?]
’This is a hurdle that is hard for most.
‘If I can do it better, why should I pay them?’
Because the goal is to free your time to focus on bigger and better things!”

You have to undergo a huge shift in mindset when moving into the CEO role, an adjustment that is not easy to do but is crucial for the advancement of your business, and your own personal growth.

One of the biggest elements entrepreneurs in struggle with is removing themselves from many of the “every day” activities of the business. Bringing the 80/20 rule into play again you should only be allowing 20% of your day/week/month involving yourself in non-CEO centered tasks.

Are you abiding by this all-important rule right now in your business?

Having your busy hands involved in every little function of the business will not only cripple your growth, it will have you working 50+ hours a weeks and moving further and further away from your dream lifestyle.

In order to devote your time and brain power to bigger and better things that will propel your enterprise into a new dimension you need to learn to step back, discover your core strengths and quite simply delegate the rest.

Your role, as a CEO, is to steer the ship and make the big decisions that will keep you on track. If you are managing every little activity that goes on in the day to day running of your enterprise you are depriving your team and your business of your true star quality, your CEO energy.

Here’s a useful exercise to begin the process of your move into CEO shoes and away from the every day tasks that are slowing you and your business’ growth down…

Step 1) Next time you’re in the office take note of each activity you do during the day (no matter how big or small) and detail how long it took you to perform each task.

Step 2) At the end of the day take time to read over the list and put a * next to every activity that doesn’t directly make you money or contribute to future revenue growth.

Step 3) Write a new list with only the * tasks and (keeping in mind your new CEO mindset) put a cross next to each and every activity that you could potentially delegate to a team member with the right training.

And there you have it – your new focus – to find the right team members to perform these tasks thus allowing you to spend 80% of your time with your CEO cap on devising new and unique ways to propel your business into a whole other level.

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right now so you can start your move into CEO shoes TODAY!