Lessons Learned From Great CEOs
The position of the CEO is the most misconstrued in business organizations. It is generally conceived that the highly coveted position offers double convenience and allows total freedom to make easy decisions. But like the proverbial "shoe", you don't know where it pinches until you wear it.
Even though the CEOs can ride on the luxury of delegating their jobs to their subordinates, the most important aspect of their jobs can't be delegated.
Before I proceed in discussing the lessons all budding CEOs must learn it is necessary to have an understanding of who a CEO really is and to understand what their job description entails.
Who is a CEO?
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the most senior corporate officer of any company.
What are the job descriptions of a CEO?
There is no universal definition or categorization of the roles of a CEO in a company. However, there are some essential responsibilities that CEOs generally carry out in corporate organizations; these responsibilities are mostly set by the board of directors.
Here are some of the responsibilities of the CEOs
• Advising and informing the board of director of the company’s activities.
• Serving as a link between the board of directors, staffs, and clients.
• Overseeing the overall activities of the company and ensuring effective delivery.
• Ensuring that the brand name and values are protected.
From the above, it is clear that the position of a CEO is not an easy one, in fact, I will go as far as saying they live like a clock; working all the time. Creating a niche market gives you a special privilege of growing and becoming a trailblazer in your chosen field.
Here are Lessons Learned From Great CEOs
CREATE YOUR NICHE MARKET
Almost every Ceo I have listened to have emphasized the importance of creating and defining a niche market. Creating a specific niche gives you a peculiar opportunity of growing and becoming a leader in your chosen field. The growing numbers of internet users make the possibilities of growing a niche market more attractive and encouraging. The ability to identify a niche market that produces resonant effects on the target consumers is what set the greatest CEOs apart.
The CEOs of TREW Marketing, Rebecca Geier, and Wendy Covey, identified their niche when they founded the TREW marketing in 2008. The company limited its activities solely to working with scientific and engineering companies.
According to TREW Marketing, their passion for their niche has earned them "foundation of trust". The company records an average annual revenue growth of 48%.
TREW story is a testament to the importance of creating a niche in developing a strong business brand.
CREATE A CORPORATE PERSONALITY
Company culture or corporate personality can be defined as a set pattern that determines the activities of a company's workforce. According to Wikipedia; Organizational culture revolves around the values and behaviors that "contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization."
A well-structured company culture can be highly beneficial to the company in various ways, such as:
• Encouraging work ethic and increase in performances
• Improved customer relation
• Induction and involvement help to develop a sense of belonging to the workforce.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is a strong advocate of building company success on its culture and personality. According to Tony Hsieh “Our number one priority is company culture. Our whole belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own.”
Zappos, a shoe selling company did not build it success on merely selling shoe but on customer relation, Hsieh insists that “Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.”
Through it well developed company culture Zappos has built a large base of loyal customers, which explains the reason why almost 75% of Zappos orders are from returning customers.
Build a Team
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”– Henry Ford
One of the pillars on which most successful companies are built is building a team of successful people. With an effective team, you can set your company on the path to greatness.
Building a team is a huge task that requires a deep understanding of man management and great leadership quality.
Creating Contents
Content creation is a smart way of generating traffic to your site and establishing yourself as an ‘influencer’ in your niche. However, It’s important to establish a content strategy before you start creating content. Kristina Halvorson, CEO of Brain Traffic in an interview with Widen, said that “Your holistic marketing strategy always has to come first. Content marketing is a tactic. It needs to serve a larger strategy – one with meaningful goals. If you want to try it as a tactic, fine. But recognize that it has to map back to that strategy and be realistic about where the money to support it is going to come from budget-wise. “
“The biggest difference is that a strategy makes your efforts intentional and targeted, rather than “let’s create as much content as possible” … which can result in a big landfill of useless, irrelevant, undifferentiated content.” She continued
One important lesson to learn from Kristina’s interview is that, although, content creation is good when it is fashioned to satisfy the audience, but it’s bad when it fails to satisfy the need of the viewer, suffice to say that content creation losses it value when you begin to give more attention to quantity instead of quality.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing has practically displaced the old-fashioned marketing strategy. With inbound marketing, marketers no longer have to go out to get prospects. All the marketer has to do these days is to create quality content to attract views to their website. This style of marketing does not only attract wider customers it also allows the company to be found easily. Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, in an interview with Marcus Sheridan, said
“I knew the way people shop and buy had changed, and that businesses needed to change how they market and sold to match it” What we underestimated was the need for agencies to adapt their model to an inbound approach, which our agency partners have done(who said this).” He continued “Realistically, many of our agency partners went from being dependent on one retainer a year and praying and hoping the client wouldn’t churn to being SaaS-based businesses where recurring revenue and measurable results are the norm–it has truly transformed the agency world in a way we couldn’t have guessed”
What are you waiting for? Start taking the full advantages of inbound marketing.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LINKEDIN
Linkedin is a business-oriented social networking service, founded in 2002. It has over 100 million active users; the site has grown into an online social network. Linkedin helps you develop your business in different ways e.g. Building an online community; given the number of users that visit the site daily, LinkedIn gives business owners an opportunity to build a network of followers. Linkedin also gives you the opportunity to interact with your customers and recruit new workers. A research conducted by Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm, shows that 80% of the chief executive officers of top rated companies worldwide make use of social media.
Operate a Virtual Company
Wikipedia defines a virtual office as one that provides communication and address services without providing dedicated office space. It differs from "office business centers" or "executive suites", which provides office space. The site also highlights the services of virtual companies, these include Remote receptionist, Virtual assistant (mostly working from home), Answering services/call centers operate from a centralized location, Phone answering service, Professional address, Mailing address, Reception courtesies etc.
Setting up a virtual company is a good option if you are planning to start with a low budget, you don’t have to worry about leasing office space, buying equipment etc. Debby Carreau, CEO of Inspired HR, talked about how she moved her company to “the 21st-century way of doing business.”
She recounts that “Our first step toward evolution was research. Our findings reinforced our hypothesis: Clients today are no longer willing to pay for fancy offices, overeducated and under experienced MBAs, or large teams to solve relatively simple issues. They want authentic, long-term relationships; lean teams to work with them, not directing them; and, most importantly, they want value, not flash.”
Set Your Goals
Every CEO knows the importance of goal setting in business development. Setting your business goal gives a direction of where you want your business to go. Evin E. Lofton, CEO of Catholic Health Initiatives in an interview with Adam Bryant of The New York Times replied “"Take a blank sheet of paper and an envelope, write down a goal of something that they want to do over the coming year, then seal it. Nobody's ever going to see this except you, I tell them — it's not for your teachers; it's not for your parents; it's just for yourself." When asked "What kind of advice do you give to new college grads?"
If you want to be a great CEO you may want to start by setting a big goal.