The CEO Manual: Grow Yourself, Your Company, Team At The Same Level

Daniel Marcos is the Co-founder & CEO at Growth Institute – the premier online training company for mid-market companies and their executives worldwide. Their ​ecosystem supports business growth through the alignment of Thought Leaders. A community of business leaders who are continuous learners, and a safe eLearning environment for business executives to debate, learn and implement the latest business methodologies.

Daniel Marcos is a keynote speaker with a mission to help 1 million entrepreneurs scale their impact and reduce drama in the process.

At Billo Summit 2021, Daniel shared helpful tips and tricks on how to grow yourself, your company, and your team at the same level.

How to be a CEO?

There are systems in all of the business to help us succeed except how to be a CEO. Why? There should be a system in place for CEOs so that they know what we expect from them. These skills are acquired.

CEOs have one thing in common, which is long-term thinking. Human beings overestimate what they can do in the short term and underestimate what they can do in the long term. If you look at things in the long term, limited time becomes an abundance of time.

For companies, there are 4 stages of scaling. They are:

1. Start-Up

This is the beginning stage, generally with about 1-5 employees. A company should focus on product development with the priority on business model validation. A key barrier at this stage is market dynamics. The company’s most prominent ability at this stage is – decide on marketing and strategy.

2. Grow-Up

This is the second stage, generally with about 6-15 employees. A company should be 100% focused on sales in this stage, CEO prioritizing hiring the right team. The most significant barrier in this stage is leadership. In this stage, leaders should have the ability to delegate, predict and repeat. A company’s decisions at this stage should be based on team and cash. 

3. Scale-Up

In the third stage, your company will consist of 16-250 employees. A company should focus on defining its industry with a priority focus on scale. The critical barrier is infrastructure. The key abilities at this stage should be alignment and simplification. The CEO decision’s emphasis should be focused on execution.  

4. Dominate

At this stage, a company will consist of over 250 employees. A company should focus on dominating the industry they are in. The biggest barrier at this stage is staying in your comfort zone, and the essential ability is adaptability. The ability to change is crucial as the company grows. In this stage, team, strategy execution, and cash should focus on the company’s decisions. You should rotate these every quarter. 

Each of these stages demands specific capabilities. For CEOs, there are particular capabilities at the 4 stages of scaling. These are:

1st Stage – Start-Up – A CEO must be entrepreneurial, technical, and managerial at this stage.

2nd Stage – Grow-Up – A CEO must define the direction of the company and delegate tasks accordingly.

3rd Stage – Scaling-Up – A CEO must be a great communicator. They must build the right team for their company, design an action plan and coach their team to success. 

4th Stage – Dominate – A CEO must be the chief of culture at their company, leader in strategic innovation, and a change catalyst at this stage.

To be a good CEO, focus on being the best version of yourself. To lead, you must be admirable to executives. It would be best to focus on you first, then a good team, and finally a good company. To do this, continually operate at a higher mindset, find and scale your tribe, honor your freedom and build your legacy.

Key Takeaway

Leadership requires many skills. To lead effectively, a leader needs to know how to inspire their team and keep them learning and have the skills to grow and scale their company effectively. A successful CEO must consistently work on themselves as well as their company.