The Most Overlooked Step Between Leading and Leaving

Well, hello.

Full disclosure. Welcome to Leadership Is Feminine. This is Chris Plachy, and it is the end of the day here where I am on the planet, and it is a Monday, and my dogs are fighting behind me as I'm recording this. There are large construction trucks outside of my house. Somebody's building a pool or a fortress. I have no idea. It's very noisy, and so I'm a little punchy. I'm a little punchy is what's going on. So I'm full disclosure. So last week we did the final episode for, you know, the series I've been doing on beyond the CEO. And I've been thinking about, you know, what do I want to talk to you about now that I've talked to you about all of that? And we actually have talked about maybe doing the podcast differently going forward, where it's just sort of a series of series and there might actually be some breaks in between. I'm not sure about that yet. I'm going to finish out the year and we'll see where we are. But what I did want to do is talk to you here about more of the tactical side of a lot of the content that I just covered with you and how I see what I will do with my clients and what I think you could do for yourself if you don't work with me to take this work and begin to apply it differently into your life and into your business. And so I like things to be simple. I don't like a lot of complexity. I think I tend to have really big ideas, and I see the vision really clearly. And then when I get into the weeds, I get really overwhelmed. But I do think there are some core buckets that this beyond the CEO, all of these different elements that we've talked about, these seven transitions, I think there are some core things that you can be doing practically to move through them. So, for example, the very first transition that we talked about, business readiness, right? There's the business readiness assessment that I put out there for you. It's at Visionary CEO, Business ready. You could go do that. And that gives you sort of a sense of like, okay, is the team ready? Am I ready? If not, what are some things I can be thinking about? But, you know, I'm currently coaching someone who I know she's listening to this series. So, hi, you'll know who I'm talking about. She's in the process of getting some really amazing offers for her business, and this business readiness element was vital for her to be going through, and she And I started working together, like, a little over two years ago, was it almost two years ago. And, you know, she had work to do to get her business ready. And it's not fun. This is not the fun part. Right? It's the. Do we have all of our SOPs? Do we have our job descriptions? Does everybody have clearly defined roles, goals, KPIs? Does the business have a dashboard where we can track our. Our progress, our vital factors? You know, are. Are the elements clear that help us know if the business is healthy? Are these, are these clear? Do we have clear measures? Have we established the values of the business? Have we established how we have performance conversations and hold people accountable? And then have you, as the leader, stepped into the leadership role and not, you know, you know, the big manager job, which is what most founders are. They're just managing everything all the freaking time, and you're not leading a team. And so even if, as you're listening to me, you have designs on selling your business, maybe five years from now, you don't even know if you want to sell your business. But you. You're going to need an exit if you've built a business and it's. You're going to need an exit. And I was talking to another client over the summer who decided to close her business. She just decided, I'm done. She's done. It's costing her money just to close her business.

So we've got to. We have to go through business readiness. I appreciate you.

It's like today I sat on the phone for an hour, just closing bank accounts that I don't use anymore, but I'm paying for you. I. There are so many other things I could do with my time than that, but we have to do these things right, love. And I know some of you are not. You don't think some of this stuff is as ew as I do. I think writing job descriptions might be the most painful thing in the world, but I actually have now learned how to cheat and get that done so much better by using AI. And so these are some of the things that I do with my clients. And that's fantastic. I'm very proud of myself. So we have to do that. You have to be willing to make clear assessments. The other thing that I walk my clients through is a team audit. Most of us, you know, it's just like your closet. I know this might be true for a lot of you. You have a lot of things in your closet that an old version of you bought.

And you look at that Thing. You look at the sweater, you look at the shoes, you look at that dress and you think, wow, that dress is really pretty. That sweater's super cute. I've spent a lot of money on it. Or not. Those shoes, God, they're so cute. But then you have these other thoughts, which are, but it doesn't really fit me well, but I don't know where I'm ever going to wear it. I already wore it once, and it's kind of a once in a lifetime thing. You don't wear it again. The shoes are so cute, but they're so uncomfortable. You have a whole closet of crap like that. I know you do.

You also have a utensil drawer that has lots of utensils in it, and you probably use a third of them.

We do the same thing in our business. And this is going to sound bad, but go with me. We do this with our team.

I mean, you know, he's been here a long time, so. But do you know what he does? Is he doing it well? Do we know what his job is? Has anyone given him a performance review? Has he. Has he gotten a rate? Like. Right. Audit. We all have to go through the process of auditing. I just got rid of six bags of clothes and two bags of shoes, and I. It felt amazing. And also, I still think I could get around. I think I've said this on my podcast before. I really do think I could. I really do think someone could contemp, come and take everything out of my closet, and I probably would not be mad about it. Like, I really don't love any of my clothes except for the clothes I have that are for my daughter's soccer team that have our name on the back and her number. Like, I love those. And my Bora Bora T shirt from when my husband and I went there for my honeymoon. But those. That's sentimental stuff, Don. Right. So I don't feel that way about my team. But my point being that the auditing process, it elicits a real discomfort for a lot of us because we have to really go through the process of thinking about things in a way that we haven't before. And that's not as much fun as you would want it to be. Right. But we do a team audit. It's a vital part of coaching, and it's a vital part of you building a business that's ready to let you go. Because we need the team to be the anchor, not you. Right. You can't be the bright, shining star. You have to build A team of people who are. Otherwise, you'll never be able to leave this business. And, you know, I know I have listeners at all spectrums here, right? So there might be some of you who are like, I don't have any interest in leaving my business. I'm, you know, I'm 40 years old. I want to do this another. That's fantastic. But you still don't need to be the one that everything is dependent on. And I would argue you'll have a much better exit if you would, like, do some of the things I talk about now.

Instead of waiting until two years before you really are done. Because then, trust me, I talk to those women and they're so burnout. And then when I start talking about, well, we need to probably, do they want to punch me in the face? We gotta become the advisor. But I think a lot of people don't naturally know how to do that. And the shortcut answer for me to give you with that is we have to stop telling and we have to start asking. So even if you don't ever work with me and you never listen to another podcast ever again, and you just hear me say that it will change your life. Stop telling people what to do. Start asking them what they think they should do very different. It. It will be uncomfortable for all of you. There's a lot more to say with that, but I'm going to keep it simple. But then we need to get into how do we capture you. And so I, I have built my own digital chris for my clients. I am working on building another one to capture my coaching skill. Not necessarily to like, give it or sell it or do anything with it, but to go through the process of teaching it how to think like me. So if I knew a coach or someone who wanted to sort of tap into what I do innately, that might even be hard for me to teach. I want to see if I can do that. I'm going to challenge myself to that. But I'm also going to be working with my clients intimately in a. What we're calling. It's a new. It's a newish program. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it that way. I've been running the SAGE program now for. It'll be four years, starting in January. It's had different iterations. It started very small. Now we're. We're upwards of 21ish women in there. There's basically two ways to engage with SAGE going forward. There's my sage visionary sage level, which is really the private level, which is working with me, having private calls with me. Plus we do really cool gatherings, masterminds, different locations. We go to Hawaii. I have one this fall where we're going to 21 Royal at Disneyland and we're doing a full day at the Blue Sky Suite, the Disney Blue Sky Suite at the Disneyland Hotel, and doing all sorts of imagineering which will be fun. We do different things throughout the year and other inclusions which I'm not here to really sell you that. The other way to work with me in Sage is where you have the opportunity to come to the lessons, the calls that I host, the drop in coaching calls that I host. And we're going to be launching Sage Coaching for Female Founders in early October and we're going to focus the latter quarter, so the last quarter of the of the year on the beyond the CEO umbrella, the content and the actual implementation of the tactics that I've been talking about. What is your checklist for busy business readiness? What are the tools? What are the approaches that we need to start learning to act as the advisor and consultant in your business as opposed to the boss in charge?

How do we build and how do we leverage AI to enhance not just the resources of your business, but the access that people who work for you have to how you might solve a problem without you having to constantly be present for that? I'm also inviting in an expert on exiting. She's incredible. She has a tremendous network of resources and people and ideas and experience. And I just met with her last week and already my head is spinning. So she's going to come and talk to my SAGE clients about, you know, what you need to really be knowing about this to, to exit. And, you know, it's an interesting thing, right, because I, I think partially because I'm older now. I've, you know, some people when they're a lot younger are all about their will and all these things, and I never really got behind that. We, my husband and I wrote a will and we got it notarized like it was pretty basic. A lot of us don't like to think about the end of something when we're in the beginning or the middle of it, right? But when it comes to a business, you know, one of the things that I've watched happen with a few of the women that I know is, is not only did they sell their business, they sold their business and created generational wealth through the sale. And when I heard that expression, it just gave me goosebumps everywhere on my body to have Built something out of your mind and built it to a point that it was so attractive and valuable to other people that you could sell it and create generational wealth for not just your immediate family, but their families. That's amazing. And if you're in the process right now of running a $1 million, $3 million business, this is something you really should be thinking about because why wouldn't you? But it's just like anything else. Like we have to start now if we want it later, right? And it's not going to be in the day to day tactics. It has to be, it has to be in belief and vision first. So, so excited to have her come and talk to my clients as well. So we're going to be workshopping a lot of this. I'm going to be hosting live calls, I'm going to be hosting lessons. There's going to be recordings for you to have access to. So this Sage coaching for female founders is going to open for registration in early October. So right now we're just gathering interest names if that sounds like something you'd like to do. The initial invitation will be to join us for three months and then my expectation is you'll, we'll set up another three month sort of plan what we're going to focus on. I already have a lot of those lessons built and then you'll be invited. If you'd like to continue, you can continue. So if you want to do that. Right now we're gathering names on the Be beyond the CEO interest list. So just go to the Visionary Search CEO forward slash BeyondThe CEO and add your name to the interest list. Super easy. I did the beyond the CEO content because I was compelled to talk about things that I don't think women are talking about.

I have noticed now that I've worked with a lot of my clients for a while. You know who've gone. I just got another write up yesterday from another client who when I first met her she was at 500k, now she's at 4 million. Another client, when she started with us four years ago she was 750k, now she's over 10 million. The woman that I was just talking about when I started working with her, I don't year, year and a half ago, ish, almost two years ago I think she was at about 2 or 3 million and now she's going to have possibly an eight figure exit. This is now when we want to be thinking about that. And so what I'm finding is that people get to these places in Their business, where their business has been lucrative. Their business has taken care of their. Their life. And they built a really beautiful thing because they were passionate about a topic, a subject, a service, a. A thing they wanted to create in the world. Right? It has a span, it has a season, it has a life span. And there are a lot of my clients who are. Who are really proud of what they built, but they're also kind of like, wow.

What'S after this? And what I learned through the retreat I went to with Arthur Brooks is that we don't talk about it. I play pickleball, as I know many of you know. And I'm 55, so the majority of the people I play in the morning because it's cooler, and I like to play in the morning. Most of the people I play with are retired. I would say 90% are retired. And what I'm fascinated by is how many people are retired. And it's like they're just done. And I. I don't imagine feeling that way, but I think that I might want to expect that that could happen, that I'm just going to be done. Like, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm done. And I don't think a lot of us are prepared for that, because it's not just like, being done with the business. It's like, invites all of these really weird questions for yourself, like, well, who the hell am I if I'm not doing this? That. And does that mean it's like, end of life? And all of these, like, creepy, weird things, like when you're retiring, like, it's really fascinating, and there's no reason for you to ever want to stop. I mean, you could be like Warren Buffett to work till you're. I don't know. Has he a hundred? I have no idea. I don't know how old he is. Bless you, Warren Buffett. You're amazing. I think he's. I think he's probably in his 80s, but work till however long you want. But let's have purpose, let's have drive, let's have focus, let's have intrigue, let's be excited. Let's not do it because we're supposed to. Let's not do it because we don't know what else we would do. Like, if you have your help and you have your resources, let's go create the thing, do the thing, chase the thing, follow the thing, ideate the thing, make it happen, do the thing. That. That instills all the joy into your heart. It was so great. When I talked to this woman that I, I have mentioned is going to come talk to my clients because she doesn't, she doesn't make any money talking to people like me and my clients about what she does. That's not the reason that she does. What she does is she's already sold several businesses and she recognize that there are so many female founders who don't get this information. And so this is her give back, which I was so interesting because I met with her after I had recorded the podcast that I last posted on the seventh Transition. Right, which is the SAGE knows there's always more to know. And I know that I said in that podcast, like once you have this body of work, this wisdom, please share it, please give it back. Because we have catch up to do as women. We have work to do to support one another, to grow through these, these decisions, these milestone moments. Because the general community of women, at least the general community of women, I know, and I know this is true of my clients because we talk about it. We're not surrounded by other women who've had eight figure exits in our neighborhood, in our pickleball league, on the PTA board, in your bunko group. Those, those all serve purposes, but you're not meeting them there. Right? And there's a difference between having conversations with women, like authentic and real and just learning from one another and being at a huge conference and watching someone on a stage. We have to do what men have done. We gotta go play a little golf and talk about how we're going to all make $5 million this year. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, we're not doing that. I will dare to say we do do that. In Sage, there is authentic sharing, supporting, encouraging, brainstorming. When we're together in our gatherings, I, I just, I sit back and just watch. Like, well, did you know about this and did you know about this and what have you thought about this? And I love that for them and I love it for everyone. Okay, so this podcast is sort of to land the plane that I've just spent the last seven weeks talking to you about the seven transitions of beyond the CEO. If you have heard these podcasts and they have dropped in for you, then I think you have to ask yourself what you're going to do about it. Does it start? Are you just right at business? I don't even know if my business is ready. I don't even know if I'm ready. Then let's start there. Do the business readiness assessment. You can Send me your results. We can start a conversation. We can have an appointment, schedule a call with me. We'll, we'll talk for 45 minutes. I'm going to help you brainstorm. Anyway, I think a lot of the women who I've spent time with over the past two weeks, just through calls and what have you will tell you that that phone call was a game changer. Just one phone call. Do you need to really start to build your, your plan, become the advisor, start building a strategy for how you're going to exit. Even if you think it's three, five, eight years, I can promise you it takes at least two years from the time you begin a conversation. That's what I have seen a hundred percent with every single person I know who, who has sold their business. So don't be fooled. This doesn't happen fast. But if it's something that you're interested or other exits, maybe you want to leave it to your family, Maybe you want to have your employees buy it out. Maybe you do want to close it out. Maybe you just want to give it to your business partner. Whatever you want to do, right? Like what's your plan? Maybe you want to hire an apprentice. You need to build up your CEO. You need to get someone ready to lead it. So tactically, I know you need practices, you need ideas, but you also need to be in an environment where you are being gently nudged and reminded of how to go forward. And that's what we're going to do in this next season in what I'm now lovingly calling Sage Coaching for Female Founders, which is the opportunity to get some lessons, get some ideas, get some support through coaching, access to other women like you. It's a, it's a niche experience. These are for. This program is exclusively for women who are at least at a million in revenue. So your business model is dialed. A lot of people ask me about the revenue stuff. Why do you have to have it? It's not because I'm some sort of million dollar snob at all. It's because I don't help women figure out how to make money. If your business model isn't working, I, I am not your girl. I am your girl. Once you have the money coming and you're, you're a little over your skis because the business isn't dialed, the team structure, the way that the business operates is not strategically functioning to meet the demand of the revenue or the expansion that needs to happen. Right? So there's a different, that's a different place. And so when I'm having conversations with women about that, it doesn't make sense if there's someone in the room who's like, wait, but how do I get more clients? Right? Because they haven't put together more than $300,000 in revenue. That is a real challenge. And there are real people who help you with that, and you should get that. I get it. But that's why that. That's why we set it up that way. So I was just trying to make sure that's really clear. So go to the Visionary CEO, beyond the CEO, put your name on the interest list if you want to learn about joining me for the beyond the CEO segment in Sage Coaching for Female Founders, which is what we're going to launch starting in early October. So there's nothing to register for yet other than to get your name on the interest list, and I would love to see you there. So thank you for tuning in today, and I will talk to you next time.

We have so many great things coming up. Are you on the list? Go to the Visionary CEO Notes and add your name. I will send you some fun things, and you'll be first to know about some really fun and interesting things that are coming up, like saying the Hawaii Retreat. So Visionary CEO Notes and get your name on our list.