The Dream Team Every CEO Needs

Kris Plachy: Hey, I'm Kris Plachy, host of the Lead Your Team podcast. Running a million-dollar business is not easy, and whether you are just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use. Right now today to improve how well you lead your team.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Hey, hey. Welcome, welcome. I'm Chris Plaquey, host of your podcast today. I'm so happy that you're here and are tuning in to this episode. As you probably know by now, I coach female entrepreneurs on all things related to team, team management, hiring, firing, holding people accountable, doing all the things.

And I was in an event recently and I was asked, you know, what's, what's the one thing that's really working in your business? And it was pretty cool because the one thing I really wanted to talk about was how amazing my team is. And it felt a little indulgent I guess considering that's what I do for a living.

But at the same time, it was the, it was the truth. I just have an amazing team and I feel so supported and cared for, and it got me really thinking about so many of the women I coach who have come to me and they have brilliant businesses, successful in terms of revenue and size and market share, profit.

You know, lots of things are going for them, but they come sort of looking like uhhuh. Help me. You know, they're depleted, they're overwhelmed, they're exhausted, frustrated. And it occurred to me that I've really never done an episode where we focus on really what are the core roles that every female c e o needs to be supported.

And so what I'm gonna share with you may seem very obvious to you or. You may think, huh? Didn't even occur to me. So I'm gonna share with you really what is, what are the roles that are key elements to your dream team? Not in your business, not just in your business. Everywhere in your life as a woman who is leading a business and running a life, and all the other things that I know that you're doing, I believe these are the key things that you need to have in place.

So without further ado, let's get started. The first one is you need someone to tell you the truth about money. So whether that's your C F O, whether that's a personal finance person, whether that's a money coach, I do think your business needs a truth teller when it comes to money, but no matter what, you need a truth teller when it comes to money.

Now all of all of you listening have different relationships with money. Some of you hoard it, some of you spend it before you've made it. Some of you count it every day and some of you ignore it. And the relationship we have with money is simply based on the relationship that we learned to have with money as people, little people growing up watching our family.

And we either adopted the habits of people in our family, or we watched the habits of people in our family, and we sort of went the other way. But nonetheless, money is really just a response to energy. Money is not good or bad. There isn't enough or not enough. Your relationship with money is. Purely based on the thoughts that you think about it.

And I appreciate if you've never heard anybody say that, that could sound very abstract. But listen, I just know this is true because there's a lot of people who make a ton of money who you wonder, how did you make a ton of money? You know why? Because even a relationship with money that really works.

So if you don't have someone in your corner who tells you the truth about money and really helps you build a relationship with your money, now is the time to really consider that. This doesn't have to be expensive. This isn't a huge investment on your part. You can start small no matter where you are in your business, but we need someone who will engage you, not just talk at you, not just talk to you like you don't know what you're doing.

Listen to me, right? You do know what you're doing, and if you are lost when it comes to your money, it's time to learn. There are not people who are smarter, better knowing more than you. You just have some work to do if you feel lost, but we need you to have someone in your corner. Okay? The second role of your dream team is someone to help take care of you.

Whatever that means to you. Okay? You, if you are like everyone else I know. As a woman leading a business, leading a life, you take care of everybody. Your calendar is filled with everybody else's life in addition to yours. If there's time, and there is such a gift in having people in your life who care for you in a way that's genuine, authentic, real.

Now, again, we can find this in a lot of ways. I have a personal assistant. I have somebody who comes to my house and she's amazing and she does things here that I don't have time to do that I don't like to do that I'm not good at. And. She likes to do it and she likes to earn her own money, and so we have a really beautiful symbiotic relationship.

I think a lot of women feel very guilty when they hire other people to do things around the house or in their lives that they don't normally wanna do. They feel guilt because, oh gosh, it's such a terrible job. I would never ask somebody to do that when there might be somebody else who loves to do that.

I used an example not long ago. That I had all these necklaces and they had been in a pouch. I'm sure you know this, right When you travel, you put everything in a pouch. They got all tangled, and I loved the necklaces, but there was no way I was gonna sit and, and untangle them. I just, I was not gonna, so they just sat in a heap on my dresser and one day my assistant said to me, Hey, would you like me to untangle those necklaces for you?

I was like, what? You would do that? And she's yeah, I love doing that. I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes. So you can't make assumptions that people don't like just, just because you don't like to do something. You're not good at something that there isn't somebody else who thinks that's the bee's needs. You need someone who is looking out for you.

Now, that doesn't ever, that isn't always a personal assistant. I have a lot of clients and that's their spouse. Their partner really picks up a lot of the parts of their lives because they're the primary earner. That's okay. It doesn't matter who it is. What matters is that it works for you, that you have a relationship with this person that you feel cared for, and you also can delegate.

You can ask them to do things for you, to support you. Okay? The third role that you absolutely have to have is a solid team. No matter how big. Okay. Now, if you're one or two people, we're talking about one or two people. If you have a hundred employees, we're talking about your first team. Those people who report directly to you.

Now, I'm not just talking about having all of the positions filled. Okay. That, yes. That's great. That's nice. Assuming they're doing a good job. I'm talking about building a team, curating a team of people that when you work with them, you are stimulated, you are engaged, you are thriving. Through the dialogue, the relationships, the creativity, the collective wisdom that comes from the team.

We are social creatures. We need to leverage the energy and minds of other people to be our best selves. We know this. You are no different. But when we get kind of caught in the, in the rabbit? No, the rat the wheel. What's that? With hamster wheel of trying to find people to fit into a jobs. Cuz we need skill.

We need a marketing person, we need a finance person, we need a salesperson. We do this thing that I think is different. We start to look and we start to go through the hiring process, which means that we, we, it's very cold. Austere. It's very, you know, I'm stranger ish, right? We don't know people, and I think as a woman, you have to use one of your innate leadership as feminine skills, which is cultivating community, cultivating relationships.

We're the cultivators, if you go back thousands and thousands of years, right? We're the ones. Who were cultivating everything, building the villages, creating the relationships with people. The same thing is true with your team. Your business is your queen. This is your palace. We wanna invite people in who we've already sort of curated, who've we've already built relationships with.

So I want you to think about building that team, not from a hiring process, but really from a curation process. What is, what does this team feel like? How do we engage with each other? How do we interact with each other? What is the vibe of this team? You can cultivate that, but it takes you being honest with yourself, right?

This is part of what we do and how A C E O is. We get really clear about what are your values? What is your vision? What are you doing with this business, and who do you want in it with you? Because the ultimate of support of a female c e o is the team. Okay, so I'm, I'm making it an entity because it is a role, but it's all the different pieces and parts and this, if this feels obscure and challenging to you, this is where you need to come into the how to c e O program so we can really do this work together.

Okay? Okay. The next one, number four. You need a coach. If you don't have a coach, I don't know how you function. I know you've guys, if you've been listening to me, you know I've said this. I'm not just saying it cuz I'm a coach, I promise. Although I know a lot of great coaches, your brain is a mess. And if you don't have somewhere to go to clean that thing out in a objective, clean, meaningful way, I don't know how you function.

You have to have a coach. You have to have somewhere you can go to work out your worry that isn't your team. You have to go somewhere to think about what you wanna create. That isn't your team. A coach is sacred ground for the CEO's mind. So I, you cannot underestimate the value of having that space for yourself.

Don't underestimate that. Get yourself a coach. Please join us if you'd like. There's lots of others. Not everybody's everybody's jam, but if you've been listening to this podcast, why aren't you here? Let's see. We'll leave it with that. Two more. You need to have a really good organization system now everybody wants to sell you one.

Listen, get it. Try. I've tried 1200, I don't know, but I know now I have one and it's called a remarkable. I do not work for them. I do not get paid by them. I do not have an affiliate link. I wish I did. I could have retired by now. I love my remarkable. It is how I organize my life. I'm sitting here looking at it as I'm talking to you.

I have gone through more systems than I can count, and this is the one that works. The bottom line is it doesn't matter if it's a remarkable, if it's a day planner that you have on your, you know, a big desk calendar. It doesn't matter if it's your Franklin Covey organizer from that you got when you graduated from college.

Who cares? You need one. Okay. If you don't have one, that's part of your problem too. You're, you're a mess, right? You forget meetings, you get lost, you forget deadlines. You don't know what you're supposed to follow up on. You've got 14 pieces of paper everywhere. That's why I like the remarkable. I don't have journals anymore.

I don't have pads of paper on my desk anymore. You know, most of my clients are slightly creative geniuses. So your brain is going 4 million miles an hour. You have to have a system. This is part of your dream team. Pick one. Stop searching, go with the one that you've got, but get yourself a system and follow it and just be consistent, whatever that looks like for you.

I know there's a lot of messaging out there that wants to tell you that you're never gonna figure it out unless you buy this one. I don't know. I think mostly it's just, you know, kind of how you'd like to organize your thoughts and your think and your plans and your schedule and your et cetera. Just sort of lean into that and find the one that supports you.

And then the last two are, I believe every female c e O entrepreneur needs a really good friend. Maybe just one that will listen to you. Cry with you. Laugh for sure. Laugh. Laugh. You guys listen to my LAUGHTER podcast. My friends have to laugh with me. We don't need a lot of friends. I know how you are. I know most of us don't have huge girlfriend tribes.

That's pretty common with my clients. Which is part of the reason they love my community, cuz we're all sort of different, but at least one good one. Yeah. That you can call. You can really just be her. You know, I have several, I have about, I have about four really close friends that, you know, one from high school that I could call, and she just remembers how I was when I was 12.

And she just will remind me of how silly and goofy I am am. And then I have some friends that are more local and other friends who are more colleagues and then became best besties because of our work. Have that. And if you don't have that, I understand. Especially after this, after this year. But there are women who are desperate to connect with other women like you.

You know, one of the reasons women come to my retreat consistently in Hawaii is because they're searching for heart space commonality. And so that's what's I love about what I do, is I create space for these, these, these unicorns to find each other. And the last thing is to have a colleague. Or two that is maybe not in your industry, but understands being an entrepreneur.

That you can call and just have a minute, because girlfriends oftentimes don't understand that. You know, my girlfriend from high school, she's a very accomplished professional, but she's not an entrepreneur. So there's certain things about what I do that she doesn't understand, and same is true for her.

So there are other ways. There are other places to go to really work through that. And I think you need a good friend, colleague. You need someone who will just not be in competition with you, who won't. You know, want business ideas from you. It's just a place to go to work it out. So those are my tips for your dream team.

I, you know, I know that we could add a lot more. I'm sure many of you would add one. I'm, I'm gonna guess a lot of you are wondering why I didn't say executive assistant. I think that you can be functional without one if you have a strong team. So I don't put it in my top list. I do think it's very critical, especially as your business gets bigger.

I think the personal assistant is more important. It is the personal life that I watch gets most people in trouble more so than the stuff that happens at work. But ultimately this is up to you. And the best way to really figure out how to build your dream team is to sit down and write about, just do a, a compare contrast, a T-chart, and write down like on the left hand side, these are all the areas I don't feel supported.

And then on the right hand side, we could write down what it would look like to be supported in those areas. So we write it in the positive. So instead of saying, I don't feel like anybody ever has my back, we might say on the right, I feel incredibly supported, always cared for and loved, right? And then we build the list of what we really wanna curate, and then we look at, okay, where is that?

And what can I do to make that happen? You're worth it, my love. I don't care how business, how big your business is. If you're an entrepreneur, you've already raised your hand to say, I am all in to do this thing. Which means you need help and support and love and grace and a community and connection. So I hope this has been helpful and I will share with you this month of June.

If you register for the Hadda C E O program, we're gonna be offering you the empathic c e o course. This is a course I did a few months ago to resounding success. It's really all about how. When you're in empath, you have unique challenges as a woman who leads, and I'm gonna be giving you this course when you register for how to c e O by June 14th.

So in order to learn more, just go to how to ceo register.com. All the information is there. We do wanna meet with most of our clients, so we'd love for you to schedule an appointment. Chat with my client engagement director Amy, and she will answer all your questions. But this is an incredible time to join us, to be a part of a really powerful, intimate connection of other female entrepreneurs.

So I'll look forward to seeing you, and thanks for tuning in. One more thing before you go. In a world of digital courses and online content, I like to work with my clients live because I know that when you have someone you can work with, ask questions of and meet with, you're so much more likely to get the success that you want.

So head on over to how to ceo live.com. To learn more about our very exciting, very exclusive program just for female entrepreneurs. We'll see you there.