How You Know Have What It Takes To Be A Successful CEO
In working with CEOs over the past several years, I've observed what separates the great CEOs from the merely good or bad CEOs. It comes down to four key traits these CEOs have that the others don't.
Watch this short video to get my take on what the great CEOs do. Plus watch till the end for a bonus fifth trait.
Read The Video Transcript Below:
So how do you know if you are a capable founder? And here's the problem. If you're not a capable founder, obviously you're gonna fail. So you better figure this one out quickly. And it's a little bit of a challenge.
But let me give you four things that I look for in every founder. In fact, I'm going to give you five. I'm going to give you an extra bonus one at the end. Hopefully I'll remember it, but, I think I will. So here we go.
The first one is can you recruit? If you can't recruit a team, you're dead. Unless you're building a solo business, you have to be able to recruit good people or else there's no way you're going to be able to make it.
Number two, can you execute? You need to have a schedule and need to build whatever you're building be it a software product, a hardware product, a medical product, a financial product, whatever it is, you gotta be able to build it. You gotta be able to execute to your plan.
Number three, can you raise money? Every company needs money. Be it from yourself, your family, your friends, the bank or an investor. All of us need money to execute. So whatever it is, whatever that channel is, you have to be able to raise money. This will get to my final point in a minute, the fifth bonus point.
And number four, can you sell? You have to be able to sell. If you are a startup CEO, even if you are the geekiest engineer ever, you're going to have to sell this. Doesn't mean you can't do it. I have seen the geekiest engineers ever sell and be very, very successful selling.
It doesn't mean you have to be a natural salesperson. It does mean that you have to get in front of customers and it means you have to sell and it means you have to be successful in selling or else, guess what? You're not going to be able to win. You're not going to be able to build your business. So those are the fourth ones.
Now the fifth one takes all of these and puts it all together. This is the bonus one, and this is what I see really successful CEOs do, that our founders, they have all of these four points. They can hire, they can execute, they can raise money and they can sell. And you know why it's this point. This is the reason.
These CEOs have a very clear, a very concise, and a very compelling vision for their business. They're able to explain very quickly and very succinctly why their business is going to win. Be it to customers, be it to potential employees, be it to the bank, be it to investors, doesn't matter. They're able to explain it. They're able to get people excited about what they're doing, and that's why they win. I'm Brett, at www.brettjfox.com. Have a great, great day.