Tea with the Queen

[00:00:00] EMMA: Have you ever caught yourself thinking, I'm too busy working in my business to actually work on it? That's the moment every business owner realizes they've outgrown being a freelancer.
[00:00:10] EMMA: Yay. but haven't quite stepped into being a CEO yet. And that's where everything starts to shift. Because the truth is, the skills that got you here won't get you there. If you wanna grow sustainably and don't we all without burning out, it's time to start leading like a CEO.
[00:00:30] EMMA: Not hustling like a freelancer. No offense to hustling. I love hustling. It has its place. Today we are talking about one of the biggest mindset shifts I see in my clients. And honestly, one, I had to learn myself moving from doing everything yourself to thinking and acting like a CEO. this isn't about having a massive team or wearing a power suit.
[00:00:53] EMMA: It's about ownership, boundaries, and clarity. It's about making decisions that serve your future [00:01:00] business, not just your to-do list today. So grab a cup and let's dive in. The freelancer trap. It starts with good intentions, right? You're great at what you do.
[00:01:11] EMMA: Clients start rolling in word spreads and before you know it, your diary's full. Yeah, you've made it. You're delivering work. Responding to emails, not my favorite. Updating social media, chasing invoices, and somehow it feels like you're doing everything except leading your business. Here's the thing, that's the freelancer trap.
[00:01:34] EMMA: You're so busy doing the doing. There's no time left for thinking, planning, or creating. I remember a client saying to me once, Emma, if I stopped for even a day, everything would grind to a halt. What that. And my response to her was, that's not a business. That's a job you've built for yourself. If that sounds familiar, it's [00:02:00] not a sign you failed.
[00:02:01] EMMA: Let me be really clear. It's a sign that you have grown and you have evolved and you've hit capacity, and that's the moment the shift begins.
[00:02:11] EMMA: The CEO shift. When you start thinking like a CEO, you stop asking, how do I get this all done? And instead, you ask yourself what actually moves the needle? It's a small question with massive impact. It might mean hiring, even if it's just a few hours a week. It might mean automating some of your systems or saying no to projects that drain you.
[00:02:38] EMMA: The CEO mindset is not about working harder, it's about working smarter. It's making decisions today that your future self will thank you for. One of my clients recently realized that she was spending three hours a week doing. Work that she could outsource for 50 bucks an [00:03:00] hour. Once she delegated it, she used that same time to plan her next launch and made $25,000. It's not bad. Not bad. Really, that's what stepping into the CEO role looks like. You stop being the bottleneck and you start being the leader.
[00:03:18] EMMA: I wanna talk about leading people, not tasks here, because this is the next layer. When you step into the CEO role, it's not about just about what you do, it's about who you lead. And in organizations, when I worked as a HR director, I saw this all the time, people who have been promoted into a team leader role or a director role, and all of a sudden.
[00:03:43] EMMA: They're not doing the work. They have to get the results through other people. And I can tell you now, you don't actually get rewarded for that. It's the people that do the work, that get the reward. So there's a small dopamine hit to get through your to-do list. Let's not be like that. Let's get results through other people.
[00:03:59] EMMA: It means we [00:04:00] can leverage all the things. Now, maybe that's your team. Maybe it's your clients, or maybe it's even your community that you are leading. It could be any of those things, but your job. Becomes empowering others, not doing everything yourself. Your job becomes helping your people get unstuck so they can get on and do the work. That means you need clear roles, regular check-ins, and a whole lot of trust. It also means you give up a bit of control. I'm not gonna lie, which for most of us is the hardest part. I'm sure you've whispered to yourself, it's easier if I do it myself.
[00:04:38] EMMA: No, no it's not. Well, it probably is easier to do it yourself, but it's not in the long term is it? So let's be honest, we have to give it up. Doesn't mean we can't quality control, it doesn't mean we can't check it, but we cannot do the tasks. If you wanna step into the CEO role. You stop being the only one holding everything together and your business starts to stand on its own two [00:05:00] feet.
[00:05:00] EMMA: That's what happens.
[00:05:01] EMMA: So if you're listening to this and thinking, this is exactly where I am, Emma, I have enough. Clients, I've got enough bookings. I know I need to do something different. And sometimes this happens around the 101 20 mark in your business where you're like, I'm great at delivery, but I don't have time to do any of the business development.
[00:05:21] EMMA: I don't have time to do any of the thinking. I don't have time to do any of the planning. We need to find the resource that's going to help you loosen that a little bit and allow you to step into the CEO role. This transition from freelancer to CEO. It's one of the most empowering and the most confronting steps in your business, but it's also the one that gives you your freedom back.
[00:05:46] EMMA: Because when you lead like a CEO, your business starts working for you, not the other way around. And let's face it, isn't that why we all went into business in the first place?
[00:05:56] EMMA: when you're ready to make the move. You won't ever feel [00:06:00] ready. We make the move anyway, you need to think about your very first hire. What does that actually look like? I'm gonna tell you what happened to me, but I'm going to give you it's step by step. So first of all, you wanna look back at all the work that you do, and you wanna craft a list of things that take up your time and energy that you could simply hand off to someone else.
[00:06:20] EMMA: Then we need to hire the person, probably the scariest bit. We have to make sure that for our very first hire, we are hiring for technical ability and attitude. There's nothing worse than hiring someone whose attitude sucks, so we wanna make sure that their attitude is on point and that they can do the tasks that you have very cleverly written into a position description.
[00:06:46] EMMA: Hint, hint, write a position description. The alternative to this is to outsource different pieces to different. Organizations or different sole traders or different freelancers. So that is what we did at Emma [00:07:00] McQueen. When I very first started, the first person I hired was an accountant. The second person was a bookkeeper.
[00:07:06] EMMA: Now they're outsourced. They knew exactly what to do and what I needed. The third person that I actually hired was Serena, my business manager and sister. It took a lot of convincing, by the way, but basically that was just to manage my calendar 'cause I hate that job so much. Once we had that sorted, we outsourced our socials and then we outsourced our website and basically I outsourced anything.
[00:07:30] EMMA: That wasn't me coaching. That wasn't me relationship building, and it wasn't me thinking because my job as the CEO is to build relationships and sell is to do the thinking, the strategic thinking of my business and the planning of my business and to deliver so well people never leave us. So if that gives you a bit of an indication as to how you start this thing off, your first hire is pretty important.
[00:07:57] EMMA: Position, description, super clear and [00:08:00] make sure you hire someone who's got a good attitude. If this episode resonated for you and you're ready to make that shift, that's exactly what I do with my one-on-one clients. We work out a plan, we work together to fill the calendar, and then we work out what the next steps are.